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LiveCD Lets You Try Out Project Looking Glass

remember_beos writes "Sun created Project Looking Glass (LG3D) as a 'proof of concept' not long ago. It is an environment for Linux, like KDE or Gnome, but with some really great 3D functionality. More than just eye-candy, LG3D provides functional use of an extra spatial dimension on your desktop. Now there is a LiveCD for us all to try it out."

397 comments

  1. Video link by Virtual+Karma · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Re:Video link by mattspammail · · Score: 0

      I refuse to play RealMedia files. I'm out. (yes, I saw the QuickTime link)

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      Now accepting PayPal donations!
    2. Re:Video link by Psykus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Real Alternative is your friend.

      :)

    3. Re:Video link by mattspammail · · Score: 1

      kewl. downloading as we speak. gracias!

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      Now accepting PayPal donations!
    4. Re:Video link by Psykus · · Score: 0

      No problem. I love Real Alternative as well. All the functionality of the actual Real Player without the bloat/spyware/other crap. :D

    5. Re:Video link by Ilgaz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      "Real Alternative is your friend. "

      If his first post is about unexplained his hate to real, his only friend will be real alternative.

      BTW, who the heck encoded that movie should pay the bandwidth cost of that poor Helix server. Realmedia is NOT about shrinking mpeg, its at version 10 lol

      The über encoder at Sun, hear this:

      Real got codec for PRESENTATIONS which can serve SAME content in 32kbps or less (not counting audio). For examples, http://www.google.com/search?q=realmedia+presentat ion&hl=tr&lr=&start=10&sa=N

      Real (Helix) server can carry 4-5 alternative bandwidths. No need to have stone age (like wmedia) links for each bandwidth. Let the spyware (!) decide what to get.

      I have a better idea. It is the real question for Realmedia/Quicktime haters must ask. Did you know Sun has a product named Java, is installed on every machine (especially geek machines) and forget simple tasks like presentation, it can render VRML same time and show live? :))

      That is a very very small detail. Of course those huge Sun servers and E class lines can carry 450kbit but its a very big example why the great inventions of Sun doesn't work as promised.

      I can encode that 450kbit file as a home user from the source DV on my OS X using free realmedia creator. Doesn't it sound strange to you?

    6. Re:Video link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Grammar or spelling hell, how about you just use some damn english?

    7. Re:Video link by PatrickThomson · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nice going, you managed to slashdot the sun, I guess we'll have to implode Saturn now.

      --
      I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
    8. Re:Video link by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 2, Funny

      Doesn't it sound strange to you?

      You sure got that right, what the heck did you just say?

    9. Re:Video link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could you please try to read your own post once and then re-post it in some language understandable by human beings, at least fill in missing words? I have now read it twice and am still lost on about each and every of your "points".

    10. Re:Video link by Queer+Boy · · Score: 1, Funny
      I guess we'll have to implode Saturn now.

      You leave my file server out of this! Seriously it's named Saturn, I'm smart enough to put it on an exanet, has no connection to the internet and I lose my internet connection when I switch to that network.

      Kidneys man, kidneys.

      --
      Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
    11. Re:Video link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah.

      How did you get modded +3, what are you saying? Your post is incomprehensible.

    12. Re:Video link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hellooooo!!! Real Networks is the company behind Real Video and Real Audio. Real Media is an internet advertising company!

    13. Re:Video link by lowrydr310 · · Score: 1
      http://www.sun.com/software/products/projectlookin gglass/ss4.jpg

      "You can take notes on the backside of window"

      Yes, and all your base are belong to us.

    14. Re:Video link by Koyaanisqatsi · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you were thinking the same I am, it's Jupiter that needs imploding. And all these base belong to you, except Europa, attempt no landing there :)

    15. Re:Video link by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      "Hellooooo!!! Real Networks is the company behind Real Video and Real Audio. Real Media is an internet advertising company!"
      and various
      "your post can't be understood" AC comments:

      For me, the poor end user on internet , .rm file is a realmedia file. I also installed realplayer since its 1.0 on every platform I used.

      Also I love my .sig , its like a magnet for grammar nazis *g*

      Replying to all super grammar guys, I am a foreigner working in my countries media since start of 90's and it really makes me mad when a guy getting paid by Sun, a company I really respect posts 450kbit plain CRAP (waste of data) because he was lazy to make 3 layer realmedia package file. 3 layers like:

      1)The presentation imported from the original (powerpoint, staroffice, whatever) (over http)
      2)The video layer which was timecoded in realvideo 10
      3)The audio stuff encoded via speech optimised variant of realaudio g2 (not music!).

      All this package? 128kbit would be enough for all that data. Speaking about the equvalent of 450+ kbit.

      If you don't do it, there is NO NEED to offer people pro package based advanced stuff like realmedia or quicktime. Offer plain mpeg.

      Those 3 steps above would take like... 1 hour? Could save thousands of dollars of bandwidth and more importantly people could actually view the demo without having 768kbit+ lines.

    16. Re:Video link by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      Just warn me when Uranus is about to explode. I have some vacation time coming up.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    17. Re:Video link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Video, schmideo! Where're the frickin' screenshots???

    18. Re:Video link by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 1

      Also I love my .sig , its like a magnet for grammar nazis *g*

      There is a difference between a few simple spelling or grammar errors and writing that is so incomprehensible that nobody can understand your point. People who complain about the former are indeed "nazis" but the people who complain about the later are telling you something valuable - that your point is not getting across, that you just wasted your time posting and the time of hundreds of people who read what you wrote but could not understand it.

    19. Re:Video link by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Which comment you speak about? The first -1 or the other -1?

      My fault trying to give information. Kudos to the "video encoder" guy at Sun earning 4 intern salaries.

  2. Finally... the wait is over by L1nux_L0ser83 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have been licking the same screenshots on suns site for the last few months. Now I get to play with it! I cant wait to download it tonight!

    --
    Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
    1. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 1

      And how does your monitor taste?

    2. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Soko · · Score: 1

      I have been licking the same screenshots on suns site for the last few months. Now I get to play with it! I cant wait to download it tonight!

      o_0

      Dude, two things:

      1 - It's not a Mac, it has no 'lickable' interface on it
      2 - Does your screen have a few nasty looking smudges on it or anything? *shiver* Ewww...

      Soko

      --
      "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
    3. Re:Finally... the wait is over by L1nux_L0ser83 · · Score: 1

      like pocky and mountain dew...i really need to stop touching my screen with dirty fingers... = )

      --
      Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
    4. Re:Finally... the wait is over by evanfrey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I installed this about a month ago on gentoo. Its little more then a crappy demo. The one I really want to see, is a linux port of sphereXP http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/, OR i would like to see the metisse project http://insitu.lri.fr/~chapuis/metisse/ see the light of day.

      --
      :(){ :|:& };:
    5. Re:Finally... the wait is over by jericho4.0 · · Score: 1, Offtopic
      En anglais, c'est "Socrates". En Francais, "Socrate" Tu et anglophone, non?

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    6. Re:Finally... the wait is over by kwerle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      En anglais, c'est "Socrates". En Francais, "Socrate" Tu et anglophone, non?

      Guess so. But if you're going to put the quote in English, you may as well put the spelling in English, too.

    7. Re:Finally... the wait is over by L1nux_L0ser83 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      this is so off topic its not even funny... you guys need to do some research its right either way .. get back on topic

      --
      Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
    8. Re:Finally... the wait is over by kwerle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      How about just changing it to

      "J'ai bu CE QUI" - Socrate

      (appologies from Google's translation)

      Thanks to jericho4.0 for a lesson in French.

      As for on topicness:
      like pocky and mountain dew...i really need to stop touching my screen with dirty fingers... = )

    9. Re:Finally... the wait is over by L1nux_L0ser83 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      your correcting my english but you use the word topicness?

      topicness...riiiight, that showing a great command of the english language. Keep up the good work!

      --
      Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
    10. Re:Finally... the wait is over by jericho4.0 · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      Ah, but Socrate(s) spoke Latin.

      "Ebibo QUA!?" (or something like that)

      Of course, Socrate(s) knew what he was drinking....

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    11. Re:Finally... the wait is over by jericho4.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Seeing as there is a lot of interest in this thing, and you're the only one who's seen it, can you either post a torrent or expound on what was lacking ?

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    12. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Morgon · · Score: 2, Funny

      2 - Does your screen have a few nasty looking smudges on it or anything? *shiver* Ewww...

      Probably not anymore.... double-eww.

      --
      [DISCLAIMER: This post is a work of satire and should not be misconstrued as a holy text upon which to base a religion.]
    13. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      On-topickness? :)

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    14. Re:Finally... the wait is over by AlfredoLambda · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      He was greek, you insensitive clod!

    15. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tu et anglophone, non?

      "Tu es", isn't it? "Je suis, tu es, il est..." /so far off-topic it hurts.

    16. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Lillesvin · · Score: 1

      Well, it's called creativity... Look it up in a dictionary...

      One of the privileges of being a natural language (l)user is that you have the right to be creative. If no one was so you'd have a pretty damn small and pretty useless language.

      I bet that no one with just the slightest bit of competence in English was unable to derive the intended meaning of the word(s)/clause "on topicness".

      --
      "Live free or don't."
    17. Re:Finally... the wait is over by kwerle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      your correcting my english but you use the word topicness?

      topicness...riiiight, that showing a great command of the english language. Keep up the good work!


      I feel like I have karma to burn, today:

      You're correcting my English, but you use the word topicness?

      topicness...riiiight, that's showing a great command of the English language. Keep up the good work!


      In closing, I wouldn't rate the correcting of the spelling of a proper noun (somewhat incorrect, as I was) as being "correcting your English."

    18. Re:Finally... the wait is over by evanfrey · · Score: 5, Informative

      It was kind of a pain to find all of the packages, ( alot of googling =/ ). The following packages were needed and DONT expect to find all of them on sun. Just google the following: jdk-1_5_0_01-linux-i586.bin jai-1_1_2_01-lib-linux-i586.tar.gz java3d-1_3_2-build4-linux-i586.tar.gz java-config-1.2.11.tar.bz2 lg3d-0.5.tar.gz It took a long time to find the packages, but once I did I just used portages emerge to build it. If you want to find the ebuild (build script) google for: lookingglass-bin-0.5.ebuild hopefully this helps out. If I knew there would be all this interest, I would have documented the procedure.

      --
      :(){ :|:& };:
    19. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried sphere XP once just to see... You couldn't force me to use a OS with a desktop like that. Total waste of time.

    20. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      You do realize that 0.5 was out in June of 2004?

      The most recent version is 0.6: https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/

    21. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      here's at least one torrent
      http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/sof tware/ind ex.php

    22. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      URL:http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/software /index.php> Torrent is here

    23. Re:Finally... the wait is over by 6th+time+lucky · · Score: 1

      Macs have 'lickable' interfaces? I feel the need to go get a mac mini...

    24. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but they suck.

    25. Re:Finally... the wait is over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, everyone knows that a Socrete never travels alone, so they should be called "Socretes".

      OR

      Q: What do you call a girl who promises to let you touch her socre, but then changes her mind at the last minute?
      A: A socretes.

      BTW, back in the 1970s, Steve Martin played Socretes in a mildly amusing SNL skit, which went someing along the lines of Socretes willingly drinking the Hemlock, but not knowing that it was poisonous until after he drank it.

    26. Re:Finally... the wait is over by evanfrey · · Score: 1

      Im using gentoo and as I was just checking it out, i didnt care if I had the latest and greatest, I just used the default portage ebuild which was for 0.5 but thanks for the heads up :)

      --
      :(){ :|:& };:
    27. Re:Finally... the wait is over by MikeDX · · Score: 1

      I have been licking the same screenshots on suns site for the last few months.

      What.. printouts, or actually licking the screen...

    28. Re:Finally... the wait is over by L1nux_L0ser83 · · Score: 0

      the screen....lol just kidding.. does ne1 know where to get a copy of the iso for this... all the links + the torrent on the page are not working

      --
      Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
  3. Acknowledgements in TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    This project owns much to Chevol Davis who contributed unvaluable serverspace and bandwidth.
    Nice to know that they appreciate all the crappy things they are given :) (at least according to current usage)
    1. Re:Acknowledgements in TFA by geniusj · · Score: 2, Funny

      And are they saying that they own much of Chevol Davis? Isn't that illegal?

  4. but will it run all my sweet windows apps!?! by FusionJunky · · Score: 1, Funny

    will it?

    1. Re:but will it run all my sweet windows apps!?! by thryllkill · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes. And your OSX apps as well. They're twice as lickable in 3D!!! Even better you can use this over E17 for a thrice lickable win32/linux/osx environment tour de force. K apps have a little trouble sometimes though. Sorry.

      --

      Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.

    2. Re:but will it run all my sweet windows apps!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep your windows XP box for all those wonderful applications. Just don't let XP on the internet. I use Kerio firewall, and can "stop all traffic". Now, what do I go on the Internet with? My live cd, a remaster of Knoppix Linux 3.4. Since I use a box with a GB of ram, I just "toram" when booting up, and like all Knoppix, can "myconfig=scan" for all my personal settings, such as Kmail, mouse cursor, etc.
      I have four different cursors to choose from as you can see from the documentation. If the Project Looking Glass livecd works for enough of us, then I am sure we will be hearing a lot about it soon.
      Be an interesting project to remaster that, to add what might be missing, etc.
      I am not yet offering my remaster as a download, only a few beta testers have it (what an unruly bunch) right now.

    3. Re:but will it run all my sweet windows apps!?! by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      Not on the CD, but checking up on how the development was going I was somewhat surprised to find out people have gotten looking glass running on windows. Weird.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    4. Re:but will it run all my sweet windows apps!?! by iwan-nl · · Score: 1
      I was somewhat surprised to find out people have gotten looking glass running on windows. Weird.

      Why is that weird? It's java after all. "Write once run anywhere" is it's main philosophy, although I think it required some hacking to get it running on windows in this case.

      --
      I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
    5. Re:but will it run all my sweet windows apps!?! by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      With Suns working to create a brand image with their Java desktop, I'd have thought if anything they'd be putting an effort into keeping this as close to Suns OS as possible. Wouldn't seem that hard to intentionally tie down a lot of features to unix with direct system calls. At least on linux it still had a bit of mystique as running on some "weird thing that's not windows!". But, then again, it seems to not have wound up being hyped as much as a lure, or even related to, Java desktop as I'd have thought it was going to be. So in that context I suppose it is logical.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
  5. Worth it? by Kimos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To me this says all show and no productivity. I'll get a live CD and play with it, but I doubt it'll be worth using to actually get something accomplished.

    Isn't it rough on the video card to have it 3D rendering at any point the the OS is loaded?

    1. Re:Worth it? by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Isn't it rough on the video card to have it 3D rendering at any point the the OS is loaded?

      Isn't this what video cards or for? You might as well ask if it's rough on the CPU.

    2. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I dunno, man. I've seen screenshots but no demos yet so I can't really give a yay or nay at the time. There were space-saving things such as multiple desktops and tabbed browsing that I was reluctant to adapt to a while back, but now can't seem to live without.

      I use Windows at work and always end up looking for the desktop switching thingy just so I can tidy up. Maybe this whole 3d desktop thing will be the next incarnation of a space-saving paradigm.

    3. Re:Worth it? by DavidLeblond · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know, ask Apple. Their UI uses the GPU and it has for awhile now.

    4. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Quite the opposite. It takes the load of the GUI functions off the CPU and lets the GPU do the work.

    5. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A video card is an exact opposite of a car engine.

    6. Re:Worth it? by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 5, Funny

      You bet. These video cards can handle marathon 12 hour gaming sessions, but they're gonna break like matchsticks under the burden of running a WINDOWING system.

    7. Re:Worth it? by Kimos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe I'm remembering back in the day of my first "good" video card. I was running rendered screen savers (cause it was uber-cool at that point) and the card was having heat issues. Guess things have changed eh?

    8. Re:Worth it? by Kimos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's my point though is that not all cards can support a 12 hour gaming session. Not to mention that if you're talking OS, you need to be able to run for days/weeks/months, not just a mad Quake sesh...

    9. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well considering a modern "good" graphics card can render something like this at over 3 megapixels and 60 frames per second, I would certainly say they have!

    10. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      exhaust goes in and gasoline comes out?

    11. Re:Worth it? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      you stupid or what? or you really believe that it's normal for a rig to fail under a 12 hour gaming session? it is NOT normal. if your computer doesn't handle a 12 hour gaming session then your computer is unstable and defective in some way.

      besides, some accelration is already used during the normal usage, and on macs it's used quite a bit for fancy effects too.

      you should be able to leave a windowed 3d app running for any amount of time without the computer crapping out if the computer isn't broken.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    12. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It's been my personal experience that I'm usually the one failing after a 12 hour gaming marathon, not my desktop.

    13. Re:Worth it? by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Especially given that a 3D windowing system will totally under-utilize even the cheapest of modern video cards. If my roommate's $30 bargain bin video card can run UT2004's million polygons per second for six hours with a smooth framerate, I think it can handle rendering five or six window polygons per second on behalf of the windowing system.

    14. Re:Worth it? by barry_williams · · Score: 1

      I think you underestimate the number of polygons it would take to render a window.

      Depending on the implementation - if the window contents are generated as a texture beforehand (utilising CPU time) and passed to graphics card then yes - a few triangles will do it.

      On the other hand if the windows are drawn using OpenGL - every single bit of text on a window must be triangulated and depending on the size of the characters this can be a large number even for 1 or 2 characters - let alone a full webpage!!

      Implentation is the key here - to gain total advantage of the OpenGL - everything must be drawn in it requiring a very good card. This would keep the system responsive fast and allow the CPU to get on with some real work.

      using the texture method the CPU must render textures for each window - lot's of texture RAM needed here - think of movie playback here - a very high speed bus needed to push 30 frames per second rendered at about 3M Pixels (okay with GL Scaling, 1M pixels)...

      Your $30 card GeForce MX with 16MB RAM isn't going to cut the mustard here.

    15. Re:Worth it? by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      but what about back buffers and clipping regions?

      UI's aren't about how many polygons you can blast out, but how well you can handle vectors/fonts and buffers.

      You'd need a 64MB+ card for a 'moderate' UI, but modern 256MB+ cards should be able to cope with most UI tasks in a single pass.

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    16. Re:Worth it? by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 1
      You really think that a 3D windowing system will push more polygons and pixels than, say, Unreal Tournament? For reference, I used to run UT at 1024x768 resolution with 32bit color and a 24 bit zbuffer (so 3.1MB per frame) on my old Geforce2 MX. And it ran smoothly -- usually about 30 to 50 fps. That card has been obsolete for five years already. It's successor's successor, the Geforce4 MX series, costs about $30, and can play Unreal Tournament's successor's successor almost as well.

      I don't think you have any idea how 3D rendering really works, or what graphics cards are actually capable of. 3D windowing is just about as easy it gets.

    17. Re:Worth it? by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 1
      Clipping regions are trivial in 3D -- you just use the zbuffer. Back buffers are trivial too -- all 3D games have been using double or triple buffering for over a decade now.

      A hardcore UI with nonstop animation and dozens of windows opening and closing every second wouldn't even come close to matching the rendering complexity of Quake2, which renders hundreds of moving animated objects at a time, many with complex models and dynamic lighting, some with alpha-channels, all cleanly zbuffered, clipped, and double-buffered. And Quake2 was able to do its 3d rendering in software on a Pentium 200.

      This is becoming like a joke thread. The whole point of getting the video card to handle windowing is that it's an appallingly trivial task for any video card manufactured in the last decade. You go try playing GTA Vice City on a bargain bin video card, and then try to tell me that managing a few windows and some charcter glyphs is harder.

    18. Re:Worth it? by InvalidError · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's where nVidia's new SLI and ATI's AMR come in handy!

      For games, frame rendering usually begins by clearing the frame buffer since the whole screen usually needs redrawing but for regular apps, updating only active windows when changes occur should be far less expensive in rendering time - these would consist mainly of mapping 2D surfaces on some polygons, something even the oldest 3D cards should be able to do decently fast.

    19. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5 or 6?

      what about when you hit 9 or 10? or 15 or 16?

      would it be acceptable for the computer to crap out then? Your room-mates crappy video card runs UT2004 so well because UT2004 is designed to work around weaknesses in graphics hardware and play on it's strengths.

      In a way, you're being tricked. The game engine is making you think it could spin anything on the end of it's knob when in reality it is severly limited in places. Of course, it doesn't make a point of showing you its severe limitations, does it? Just because it does an okay job of trotting around a 3d maze doesn't necessarily mean it can handle a dozen 1024x768, 24 bit window textures, a shitload of widgets, font maps, video and a nice background pic.

      If this were the case, we'd all be doing it already.

    20. Re:Worth it? by Gulthek · · Score: 1

      You should have bought that nifty pci fan from 3dfxcool.com. :-)

    21. Re:Worth it? by assassinator42 · · Score: 0

      I'd sure hope video cards would be able to run Marathon for 12 hours. I mean, it was made in 1992.

    22. Re:Worth it? by Absentminded-Artist · · Score: 1
      You bet. These video cards can handle marathon 12 hour gaming sessions, but they're gonna break like matchsticks under the burden of running a WINDOWING system.

      Right. That would be Longhorn that does that...

      --
      The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
    23. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I don't know, ask Apple. Their UI uses the GPU and it has for awhile now.

      *sigh* This must be the commonest myth on Slashdot.

      Like all myths, it has a grain of truth at its core: Quartz Extreme does indeed make use of the graphics hardware. But ONLY FOR COMPOSITING. That's right, the only thing it uses the GPU for is mixing pixel colors in those neat transparency effects. It does not use it for anything else. It doesn't even use it for rendering fonts, even though they're exactly the sort of thing that could usefully be accelerated by GPU rendering.

      This is not at all the same thing as next-generation UIs - like Avalon, Looking Glass, and Apple's next technology - which actually use the GPU for rendering as well.

    24. Re:Worth it? by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      For one windows at 1600x1200 with 32 bits resolution you'll need 7Meg, so you'll get less than 10 full windows on a 64 Meg card (Ignoring AGP for now). Then there are all the icons, either vector graphics or bitmaps lets say 128x128 with 8 mipmap levels... (about 1mb a piece) and then there's the text all vectors.

      So, in terms of optimum, memory were looking for a 128MB+ graphics card, 512MB should be fine.

      Then there's all those vectors modern cards with on GPU vector processing should be fine, older cards will just give you back buffer, clipping, scaling and transparency benefits until they run out of ram.

      UI's are not games, in some ways (vectors) they are far more complex.

      The current batch of GUI's cheat a lot, which is one reason why you don't get scaling Icons, window borders etc...

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    25. Re:Worth it? by DavidLeblond · · Score: 1

      That's right, the only thing it uses the GPU for is mixing pixel colors in those neat transparency effects. It does not use it for anything else.

      "Quartz [Extreme] uses the integrated OpenGL technology to convert each window into a texture, then sends it to the graphics card to render on screen. The graphics processor focuses on what it does best -- graphics -- freeing the Power PC chip to do more operations in the same amount of time."

      mm hmm, yeah that sounds like what you said.

    26. Re:Worth it? by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 3, Insightful
      You're making the totally unreasonable assumption that the video card would keep everything in its own memory, all the time. Video games don't do this and neither would a 3D windowing system.

      UIs are fantastically simple compared to games. They rarely contain more than a few thousand screen elements, only a small fraction of which are active at any time.

      Have you noticed that XWindows (as it stands now) can easily handle dozens of windows without depleting main memory? I have 18 maximized windows running right now at 1280x1024x32 resolution. Guess how much main memory X is using? 27MB -- rather than the 90MB your naive calculations would suggest. And I can activate any one of those windows so quickly that I don't perceive the time it takes to drag the windows contents up from the swap space.

      You don't seem to really understand how graphics systems work. The only things that need to take up video card memory are the pixels visible on screen. ANYTHING else in video memory is there simply to speed things up a little and take the burden off of the system bus. UI elements rarely change, most of them aren't visible, most of them aren't animated, and most of them are so ridiculously simple that the video cards texture compression algorithms (available on EVERY video card manufactured since 1998) can squeeze them down to practically nothing. UIs can afford much higher latencies than the 60fps necessary to convincingly render a video game.

      I could go on and on. The point is, UIs are painfully, appallingly simple from a 3D standpoint. That's why people want to windowing to the video card in the first place. Any video card that can handle Quake2 can eat the most complex GUI imaginable for breakfast.

    27. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is your video card doing if it's not rendering 3D? That's right, you paid $400 for a component that does nothing 90% of the time (depening how productive you are). It's not like it will burn down from displaying a few 3D windows.

    28. Re:Worth it? by gumpish · · Score: 1

      And it's still better than Halo.

    29. Re:Worth it? by Trejkaz · · Score: 1

      Actually, it does. He said it was only used for compositing, which is exactly what that sentence you quoted describes.

      --
      Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
    30. Re:Worth it? by MoneyT · · Score: 1

      Sounds to me like it does more than that:

      "Quartz delivers device-independent and resolution-independent rendering of anti-aliased text, bitmap images and vector graphics. "

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    31. Re:Worth it? by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      'You're making the totally unreasonable assumption that the video card would keep everything in its own memory, all the time.'
      No I'm not.

      'UIs are fantastically simple compared to games. They rarely contain more than a few thousand screen elements, only a small fraction of which are active at any time.'
      No there not.

      'Have you noticed that XWindows (as it stands now) can easily handle dozens of windows without depleting main memory'

      Yes, and it's slow as a dog, what's the point of using the GPU if's your going to have a slow windowing system. What was it they say about history and repeating it?

      Try turning back buffers on in X (if you driver supports it which I doubt it does) man startx.
      then see how much memory it uses.

      I should have known better than to be concise in my post, but it looks like I'm going to have to explain how on GPU windowing is different to the comparatively crappy system X uses.

      1: Really what is the point of saying 'the graphics card can handle the windowing system' when your still hogging the system bus and system memory. You may as well stick with X.

      For each visible fully visible window you need a pixel map, so when showing those windows in 3d, or scaled down you potentially need a full screen pixel map,the MAC cheats and uses small pixel maps for it's scaling.

      2: Unless we do all the clipping calculations on the CPU (see what's the point in 1) then were going to have to store unclipped regions on the GPU. You may not think you notice the performance lag, but I didn't notice the lack of colours on a black and white TV, you will notice it once you've seen it rendered at 50fsp.

      3: . UI elements rarely change, most of them aren't visible, most of them aren't animated, Yes, I like your thinking, lets use the same crappy UI designs that we have today, build in a world when the GPU could manage the windowing system.

      Look at Internet pages, they are becoming more animated especially with flash web sites, stop holding the UI in your slow, paged out, poorly clipped world and get into the 22nd century.

      UI's are simple from a 3D standpoint (but then so is Quake2), but UI's aren't all about 3D, lets play what if!

      What if the GPU could render all you fonts for you, like that idea?

      What if the GPU rendered all you Widgets for you, with full per-pixel lighting, and tactile effects, like that Idea?

      What if a myriad of 3D effects could be applied to the windows, much more than project looking glass.

      Go on, render my per-pixel lit purple fury GUI, where the fur moves as the mouse moves over it on your Quake2 rendering graphics card.

      You could also try the complex GUI where the graphical components of the application are rendered on with the GPU, my application is Doom3, make my GUI work on your Quake2 graphics card.

      Why should I even bother porting a crap windowing system to the GPU? Gnome are moving to a vector based windowing system, so is Microsoft, so are Apple, just wait until tomorrows GPUs arrive with truetype and SVG rendering on chip.

      Like I said 'UI's aren't about how many polygons you can blast out, but how well you can handle vectors/fonts and buffers.' and 'UI's are not games, in some ways (vectors) they are far more complex.', but maybe it was a little too concise for you to IO.

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    32. Re:Worth it? by oliverthered · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes. I don't think you have any idea how 3D rendering works, or if you do it's completely screwed up.
      I can write windowing systems, WYSYWIG editors, and 3D graphics engines that will run on a 268 with a few MB of ram.

      If you want to know how to write a WYSYWIG editor in a few Mb than I'll tell you, I'll also tell you why as soon as you get a little more complex you use tens of MB and even more complex and you start hitting hundreds.

      Here's a simple walk through or a rendering system.

      1: all your textures are pixel maps,
      pixel MyTexture[usize][vsize].
      (not no mip-mapping, volume textures or cube, just simple textures)

      2: You then create a number polygons to render on screen, this is for something simple like Unreal Tournament or X,

      3: at the vertex of each polygon you put a offset into a texture.

      4: The GPU then rasterises the polygons using a linear interpolate of the co-ordinates given for each vertex of the polygon.

      Something like Unreal or Quake will use concave polygons and clip them prior to rendering, this reduces the work required in 4: mipmaps will also be generated to allow for better scaling this increases the memory requirements, multi-texturing will be used to increase the apparent detail level of the textures, and for things like deciles alpha-blending will be uses to generate effects such as light from a blast from a weapon, and cubic or trilinear interpolating will be used instead of linear to create shading effects on the textures.

      Now, for more modern games you can use 'vertex shaders', they allow programmable effects to be applied along a polygon edge, an can crate effects such as underwater.

      Then there are pixel shaders, they are similar to vertex shaders but are calculated per-pixel, they allow things like toon-shading, bump mapping, per-pixel lighting, true phong, and procedural textures, the GPU will all sever on card only 'virtual' textures to be used as a scratch pad for per-pixel shading.

      Got that?

      Now, how do windowing systems work.

      1: Each windows is given a square clipping region on the screen, the window boundaries.
      Each window has a pixel map

      2: The application updates it's pixel map, and notifies the windowing system.

      3: the pixel maps are then composed and displayed.

      Now, because giving each window it's own pixel map requires a lot of memory most windowing system cheat and use a shared pixel map and clip based on the windows clipping region, this requires the windowing system to inform a 'hidden' window to redraw it's self when a windows above it moves.

      Each window is build up from a number of elements, icons (pixel maps), fonts (often vectors) and widgets (line drawn or pixel maps).

      On today's systems all the elements are rendered by the application and presented as pixel maps. Fonts are turned into pixel maps and cached for speed, because processing vectors is hard.

      On tomorrow's system the fonts will be sent to the graphics card, the widgets will be rendered using vectors on the graphics card.

      Yes, it's easy for today's graphics card to deal with our current systems, which are low quality and optimised for the current windowing systems rendered on the CPU, but Apple, Microsoft, and Gnome are already moving away from separating the application functionality from the visual display allowing more and more work to be performed on the GPU instead of the CPU, requiring a GPU with more memory capable of manipulating the windows without having to hog the system bus, CPU and main memory.

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    33. Re:Worth it? by DaChesserCat · · Score: 1

      Go get a copy of VirtuaWin. I've got it giving me a 3x3 grid of virtual displays on my Win2K machine at work. That way, I've got the same capabilities (screen-wise) as my Linux box at home.

      Once you get used to it, you don't want do without it, regardless of which platform you're using. My boss saw me using it, and originally thought it was annoying. Then, he decided to grab it and start playing with it. Now, he's hooked, too (and he's got dual monitors to begin with; it's good to be the boss).

      --
      ... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
    34. Re:Worth it? by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 1
      Yes, and it's slow as a dog, what's the point of using the GPU if's your going to have a slow windowing system. What was it they say about history and repeating it?
      This is one of those things that people keep repeating as if that makes it true. X isn't slow. I've used Microsoft Windows 2000 extensively, and I've used XFree and X.org extensively, and never found any difference in performance. Maybe X used to be slow, but that's simply not true anymore.
      Yes, I like your thinking, lets use the same crappy UI designs that we have today, build in a world when the GPU could manage the windowing system...
      If you start adding tons of animation and complex effects to the GUI, it's going to start requiring scads of memory and processing time even if it's all done in 2D. You think vector graphics are fast on a CPU? You think font glyphs don't take up space in main memory now?
      Go on, render my per-pixel lit purple fury GUI, where the fur moves as the mouse moves over it on your Quake2 rendering graphics card.
      Lets see your PIII try to render it in 2D on the CPU. I'll bet my six year old Geforce2 MX handles it a lot better. And while your CPU is choking under the burden, my GPU will be happily using its antialiasing hardware to make the whole thing look great, text and all.
    35. Re:Worth it? by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      'This is one of those things that people keep repeating as if that makes it true. X isn't slow,'
      Did I say X? no.
      anyhow for the sake of your argument windows slow, X slower why do you think they wrote the xDamage and xComposite extensions?

      'If you start adding tons of animation and complex effects to the GUI, it's going to start requiring scads of memory and processing time even if it's all done in 2D.'
      Yes, Mr I want a chroma colour green screen monitor for xmas.

      ' You think vector graphics are fast on a CPU? You think font glyphs don't take up space in main memory now?'
      What are you going on about, I think that vectors should be real-time, not static pre-rendered pixelmaps.

      'Lets see your PIII try to render it in 2D on the CPU. I'll bet my six year old Geforce2 MX handles it a lot better. And while your CPU is choking under the burden, my GPU will be happily using its antialiasing hardware to make the whole thing look great, text and all.'

      my PIII has a green screen and it runs 1990's software. If you want to be stuck in the 90's with you FSAA then feel free, the rest of us can move with the times. I can have all the effects in the world and still run at 50fps with a low CPU overhead while your left with 6-8 updates a second taking 5% of your CPU. Hmm.. I wonder what they'll be showing off at expo this year.

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    36. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      opps.
      Using vetors and procedural effects decreases the memory overhead, but requires a more powerfull graphics processor. I have a ATI9600, and that could easily cope with a most effects,
      with a modern card you could have a twinkley, fury, plasma no button that wobbles when you move the mouse over it, all at 80fps with no extra memory overhead (less memory required than the Plastic widgets in KDE).

      To begin with you could just adding bump mapping to widgets with the mouse pointer as the light source.

  6. Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by moofdaddy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From what I understand of this project it is very cool. With that extra spatial dimmension you will take what is already a cluttered desktop and make it mess in 3D. Now my computer can look more like my apartnemt.

    In all seriousness though this is really a neat concept. I use a lot of space for my video editing programs. They require a title program, an animator, a sound mixer, a couple of editors, etc. Now this will take my ordinary 15 inch screen and give it dimenssion which will make my life a lot more producitve and a lot oless facinating.

    --
    Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
    1. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by dextr0us · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      with what video editor? If i could find a motion graphics program (not shake, but more like after effects) that would work in linux, a video editor that was professional grade (ie final cut pro, or even premiere pro) and run effectievly in linux, you could sign me up.

      until then, i'm going to stick with osx/xp. (osx for work, xp for home)

      --
      "Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
    2. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Storlek · · Score: 1

      a video editor that was professional grade

      Have you looked at Cinelerra? It looks fairly hardcore... alas, my computer's not fast enough for it by a long shot. :(

      --
      Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
    3. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope your apartment can spell better than you...

    4. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Queer+Boy · · Score: 1
      With that extra spatial dimmension you will take what is already a cluttered desktop and make it mess in 3D. Now my computer can look more like my apartnemt.

      This is exactly where things need to go.
      I like the idea of being able to flip windows over and interact with the metadata in the file. In Tiger, Apple is debuting the ability to do this (it was actually in a Mac OS 8.5 beta but was removed) I just hope that it will be implemented at the Window Manager level and not require application updates.

      --
      Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
    5. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Sebastian+Jansson · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Damn I'm annyed by those "3d-desktops" why doesn't people realize that:
      1. Humans have 2-dimensional vision.
      2. We already have "3D".
      Windows can already be placed before another, that is as much 3D you get on a 2D screen.

      None of the good features a "3D-desktop" gives you really need the 3D-part, you could implement it in any normal window-manager already.

      Probably the biggest reason they aren't is that there's no demand, people don't really want the feature of making the windows distorted by "perspective" or the extra work it creates.

      What exactly is the feature you miss in your current windowmanager? If it's a good one you probably can get them to implement it, maybe it already is?

    6. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I, his apartment, most definately can!

      B-E-T-T-E-R T-H-A-N Y-O-U

      Thank you kindly.

    7. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of Mac user are you? XP at home?!

    8. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      Wrong. We have binocular vision, which is one of the reasons we can perceive depth. If you only had 2 D vision, as some people who have lost an eye, you'd have more trouble perceiving depth and might be bumping into things all the time. Fortunately (for the one eyed), there are other visual cues that aid in depth perception, such as the focus depth of the eye.

      Maybe the reason isn't that there's no demand, but that the area of 3 D GUIs hasn't been fully explored, other than in science fiction or in extreme cutting edge research. If we stopped developing an idea because "that's not how people currently work, " we wouldn't have PCs, let alone GUIs.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    9. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Sebastian+Jansson · · Score: 1

      Binocular vision - right.
      3D vision - false.

      The depth we see is not more that just one extra channel. Instead of Red, Green and Blue, we have Red Green, Blue and Depth. Think of it a while and you'll see. Or just notice that to make those stereoscopical pattern images you need only a greyscale depth image to create something that looks "3D" for us mere humans with four channels 2D vision.

      Yeah sure, the 3D-desktop maybe can bring out some new GUI ideas, but no good one that isn't possible in a 2D gui, what difference does it make that the computer seas the desktop as a 3D space, rather than a layered 2D space? That's the difference we are talking about, not that we suddenly will see our desktops in 3D.

      They aren't even planning to bring a depth channel into it for what I know. (that'd demand either special screens r special glasses)

      So, in conclusion: The development of 3D-desktops may prove to be good, in that it gives ideas that isn't as obvious with the 2D-desktop mindset. But there's no reason for an end user to want a 3D-desktop over a similary featured 2D-desktop.

    10. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      Binocular vision - right.
      3D vision - false.

      The depth we see is not more that just one extra channel. Instead of Red, Green and Blue, we have Red Green, Blue and Depth. Think of it a while and you'll see. Or just notice that to make those stereoscopical pattern images you need only a greyscale depth image to create something that looks "3D" for us mere humans with four channels 2D vision.

      You almost have a point based on the physiological aspects, but you're missing a very important component of the human visual/perceptual system. The brain. It is the brain that interprets the visual data, including but not limited to paralax, that allows us to visually perceive the world in three dimensions. Other visual cues that give us the perception of depth include focus, contrast, modeling (the way a light source falls on an object or scene), and scale (perspective).

      There is a tradition in painting going back 700 years at the beginnings of the Italian Renaissance (cf Giotto) that exploits various visual cues to create the illusion of three dimensions in two dimensions. The canvas becomes a window looking outwards to some scene.

      Now, you might seize on the word illusion above, and say, aha! See! The perception of depth is all an illusion! The mistake in this thinking is that it would lead us to conclude that all information we gather from any of our senses is an illusion. So you'd be making a metaphysical argument about the nature of reality, which would be fine on it's own, but is totally extracurricular to the current argument. The point of the above was that the painters of the Renaissance were attempting to portray their subjects in more naturalistic and realistic ways, i.e., in ways that take advantage of our perception of three dimensions. You cannot take advantage of something which doesn't exist.

      Yeah sure, the 3D-desktop maybe can bring out some new GUI ideas, but no good one that isn't possible in a 2D gui, what difference does it make that the computer seas the desktop as a 3D space, rather than a layered 2D space? That's the difference we are talking about, not that we suddenly will see our desktops in 3D.

      I fear that you are falling victim to the imprecision of your own words, and that this makes it difficult to understand what is happening. The computer doesn't see (or sea =)) anything. The computer models data and presents that model. It is the computer user that sees what is presented on the computer display. A computer can potentially create the illusion of a third dimension that will allow us to view and manipulate our data in new ways. I say potentially, but we all know this has already been done for quite some time with FPS games. In a modern FPS game, your character (avatar, sprite, whatever you want to call it, but ultimately it's your Point of View, POV) is able to move around through a three dimensional model. When you move behind an object, you see it's back side, not merely the reverse of it's front side, which would be the case if you were in a layered 2 D model (I've heard such models called 2.5 D).

      Now imagine a similar UI environment. Are there any interesting and useful ways that we can examine and manipulate our data in such an environment? I suspect you can think of a few if you try. These might not be unique to a 3 D model, but perhaps they are more intuitive or easier to use.

      So, in conclusion: The development of 3D-desktops may prove to be good, in that it gives ideas that isn't as obvious with the 2D-desktop mindset. But there's no reason for an end user to want a 3D-desktop over a similary featured 2D-desktop.

      Right. And no reason for an end user to ever use more than 640K of RAM. Whether or not all this will make for a better UI has not been decided. Currently, certain tasks are better suited for using a command line o

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    11. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Sebastian+Jansson · · Score: 1

      Interesting reply.
      I guess you got me there on the last note... :)

      But I still feel that you mix up depth and 3D it's two whole different things.

      To illustrate what I mean I'm going to ask you to think of an apple, how do you see it? I'd guess that many people would just think of an 2D projection of the apple, some people would think of it as a half one, thereby also visulising the flesh and core of the apple. But very few would think of it in real 3D - every part of the apple at the same time, both the complete outside, the flesh and the core without a cut. That's what'd be required to call it real 3D IMHO.

      But when I think of it, that probably doesn't have much to do with 3D interfaces, so I guess I should just shut it... :)

    12. Re:Now My Desktop can be like my apartment by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      You're actually getting into pretty deep waters that might be beyond the scope of a discussion on 3 D UIs. Unfortunately, it's also beyond the scope of my current mental capacity and emotional state. (Tired, hungry, and probably slightly cranky.)

      Still, what you are writing suggest to me that you are thinking along some very interesting lines about symbols and how the mind uses them. I really like the example of the Apple (and not because I'm a Steve Jobs worshipping Mac Zealot).

      If you haven't already, you might be interested to read Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure, a very influential Swiss thinker in the field of linguistics. It's not a very long book, but it has been extremely influential on Modern and Post-Modern ideas.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  7. Maintenance Notice by fembots · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maintenance notice: Saturday, 3/5 noon - 1 pm PST, maintenance to our hosting center could cause interruptions in site access during this period.

    What speed are you guys getting at the moment? Looks like the "maintenance" has come early.

    1. Re:Maintenance Notice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is there a torrent started yet?

    2. Re:Maintenance Notice by prjames · · Score: 1

      13KB/s and falling - bit like the air pressure on my Karamba weather report. Should finish in time for lunch tomorrow....or maybe the day after.

  8. I got your screen shots right here by moofdaddy · · Score: 4, Informative
    --
    Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
    1. Re:I got your screen shots right here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I think sun knows that it is nothing but marketing gimmick.

  9. I dunno.... by Psykus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I tried something similar for Windows XP some time ago, I didn't really see any advantages over using a normal, 2D interface. Perhaps this 3D interface is different, but the whole thing seems pretty gimicky to me. Kind of like having a 3D interface, just to say you have a 3D interface, not because of any inherent benefits of using it.

    Also, is this a window manager akin to Gnome or KDE, or does it run on top of either one? The window decorations and stuff look pretty fugly IMHO.

    1. Re:I dunno.... by pHZero · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You may be missing out on the point that this opens up a completely new area of UI development.. UI developers don't have to be constrained to the standard 'Two dimensional box' we are accustomed to. A properly designed three dimensional UI could turn out to be more intuitive and productive if designed properly. For an example see the CD jukebox Sun includes with Looking Glass.

    2. Re:I dunno.... by Psykus · · Score: 0

      Yes, I seemed to miss out on that fact. I now realize that this particular 3D interface isn't just 3D movable 2D windows on a 3D plane. That does seem like a neat idea. But, of course, applications would have to be developed with this interface in mind.

    3. Re:I dunno.... by KingPrad · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I just thought of a way this might be made useful. It depends on sensing the location of the user's head. It would work so that a user could tilt his head like he's trying to see 'around' to the other side of the spherical interface and the window manager would rotate in the windows/information from that side. So if you are looking at a text editor and need to check out a document momentarily you could crane your neck (I'm talking a slight gesture, not really craning, but the same motion) and the web browser that is pushed off to the side would slide back in. You could read what you need to, then go back the other way to see the editor.

      Perhaps a head position sensor would provide intelligent focusing for the extra dimensions? I can see something like this being useful in any window manager. You could do it with a camera and some custom recognition software perhaps, so no extra sensor would be required.

      I personally would really like it if I could scroll a document or switch desktops (or the view of a very large desktop) with slight head gestures.

      --
      Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
    4. Re:I dunno.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure you would. Until every "slight head gesture" caused you to lose your place.

    5. Re:I dunno.... by angedinoir · · Score: 1

      Pretty much, it comes down to needing 3d peripherals. Unless you can interact in a 3d environment, anything you might have gained by having a 3d environment is lost by not being able to effectively navigate it.

    6. Re:I dunno.... by suckmysav · · Score: 3, Insightful

      " I just thought of a way this might be made useful. It depends on sensing the location of the user's head. It would work so that a user could tilt his head like he's trying to see 'around' to the other side of the spherical interface and the window manager would rotate in the windows/information from that side. So if you are looking at a text editor and need to check out a document momentarily you could crane your neck (I'm talking a slight gesture, not really craning, but the same motion) and the web browser that is pushed off to the side would slide back in. "

      And the first thing a new user would do would be to get on the internet to find out how they can turn that goddamn crap off.

      Sheesh. The last thing I want to do when using a PC is to have to ensure that I remain absolutely motionless lest my GUI start flipping windows all over the place.

      I suggest you pitch that idea to the folks at Redmond ASAP. It might be just what we need to start turning people away from their Windows boxen in droves.

      --
      "You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
    7. Re:I dunno.... by wpmegee · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall Bill Gates making a claim that Windows would be using a gesture based interface by now, i.e. pointing at program icons to launch them.

      There's only *one* gesture I've ever wanted to make at Windows. Care to guess which finger I was using?

      Also, this would wreak some serious havoc if you got distracted, like if someone came in the room and you were having a conversation with them. I make all kinds of odd head movements while using my computer.

      Perhaps finger movements, e.g. pointing would be less error-prone? Eh. I bet we're using a combination of keyboard, mouse and voice recognition 10 years from now.

    8. Re:I dunno.... by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      I wonder if the dry cleaner can get these semen encrustations off of my old data glove.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    9. Re:I dunno.... by KingPrad · · Score: 1

      Is it just impossible to imagine this system would have some slight brains? Enough to tell if a gesture was meant or not? That it might even possibly be configurable? Mice and keyboards are adjustable in several ways to suit a person's specific wishes. Is it just impossible to imagine a configurable system for this?

      --
      Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
    10. Re:I dunno.... by DoctorMO · · Score: 1

      These sorts of systems are feedback and the brain would get used to it, as long as the window returned to the same 'space' when the head was in the same area and it had motion stabalisers to stop the window wobbeling it should be ok.

      The parents parent is just unimagenative view point who's getting to middle to late age.

    11. Re:I dunno.... by slthytove · · Score: 1

      Several other replyers to this post seem to be complaining about this feature being too intrusive. I think that this sort of user interface mechanism would actually be quite useful, given an activation key/button. The various voice-command software packages I've tried have had "click and hold" activation buttons, as well as "lockable" activation options. With those in place, there's no reason to complain about this.

  10. MOD PARENTS UP -- NOT REDUNDANT by moofdaddy · · Score: 0

    parents post is different then the first post, first post was video, parent is screenshots.

    --
    Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
    1. Re:MOD PARENTS UP -- NOT REDUNDANT by hobbesx · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      MOD PARENTS UP -- NOT REDUNDANT

      I like that the moderators, in their infinite wisdom, have moderated your post up rather than the grandparent.

      --
      This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
      Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
  11. Torrent by p0rnking · · Score: 0, Redundant

    They really should have posted a torrent of this file, especially since they're not making you register/log in to download the iso.

    When I first clicked on the link (with 0 posts on here), I was getting over 100kb/s, soon after it dropped to 4.67kb/s

    1. Re:Torrent by Anubis350 · · Score: 1

      here's to hoping somebody on /. publishes a torrent of this soon, I can't d/l from sun's link at all

      --
      "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
    2. Re:Torrent by pashdown · · Score: 1

      I don't understand why Sun doesn't have a clue about Bittorrent yet. I went to download Solaris 10 and gave up after the first CD took all day over an OC3 connection.

    3. Re:Torrent by p0rnking · · Score: 1

      Is a post considered redundant when it's the first post to mention the redundant material?

  12. How does it work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The site is already slashdotted, so I can't RTFA, but does anyone know how this works? Does it have drivers ready to go from nVidia, ATi, or the DRI project? Is it a full Knoppix like system, or can I just load the 3D environment on top of an already running Linux installation? Will it also work with Solaris for x86? I simply must have answers.

    The site just loaded and I'm am too lazy to use my backspace key, so I'll share what I can see before it is completely slashdotted. It uses GamesKnoppix and let's you pick between KDE and lg3d, the looking glass 3d environmnet. Also, the ATi drivers are crap, but that's to be expected.

  13. Longhorn by Virtual+Karma · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is what Microsoft is trying to achieve in Longhorn. I'm sorry Bill, somebody just beat you at that...

    1. Re:Longhorn by DavidLeblond · · Score: 1

      I'm confused, what exactly are you talking about? How (other than being a windowing system) is Looking Glass like Longhorn?

    2. Re:Longhorn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The screenshots of Longhorn I've seen posted somewheres did look curiosly similar - just not quite as "nice"...

    3. Re:Longhorn by Reignking · · Score: 1

      Maybe he's talking about Microsoft Bob :)

      --
      One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
    4. Re:Longhorn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a mighty big conclusion to reach based on looking at a couple of screen shoits. You must have ESP or something.

  14. every time... by to_kallon · · Score: 2, Funny

    every time sun convinces me to never go back they do something that sounds cool and i have to give it a try.
    a plague upon your servers, sun!

    --


    The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
    -Oscar Wilde
    1. Re:every time... by Swift+Kick · · Score: 1

      ...a plague upon your servers, sun!

      Looks like your curse worked.

      --
      "We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
  15. ISO link by scottied · · Score: 5, Informative

    It looks like looking glass is gonna be slashdotted... heres the ISO link.

    http://66.194.210.2/lg3d.iso

    Not going very fast... torrent anyone??

    1. Re:ISO link by ViaD · · Score: 1

      He, Main link: 500 Internal Server Error http://66.194.210.2/lg3d.iso no good either. Running on Solaris servers? And really, no torrent?

    2. Re:ISO link by swab79 · · Score: 1
  16. torrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Please, someone introduct them to torrent before it's too...er, nevermind...

  17. Torrent needed by SomeGuyTyping · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Anyone have a torrent?

    --
    My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
  18. Forget the LiveCD by J.+T.+MacLeod · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I want to install it on my computer.

    Can I do that? I can't find any information about doing just that.

    A LiveCD is good, because it shows people what a properly set-up environment can do, but why not let us set it up, ourselves?

    Licensing issues perhaps? Whatever the reason, a note on the page would be nice.

    1. Re:Forget the LiveCD by sorrodos · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here are some instructions on how to install it on a Gentoo system.

      Even if you aren't running Gentoo, I'd imagine it would point you in the right direction to install it on other distros.

    2. Re:Forget the LiveCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, no... once you get used to the livecd concept, you won't go back to hard drive installs again. Just takes a little getting used to. Here's a tip: With any full Knoppix, use the "toram" boot option, and if you have a GB of ram, then the entire cd will load into ram, and you can then run the system with no hard drive use at all. The machine runs very quiet this way. Once loaded into ram, you may remove the cd, and put it away, then use the cdrom drive to play audio cd's, or to burn downloaded .iso's with KB3. Hard drives are expensive, and come with your XP installed, which you don't want to harm in any way, it is hard to reinstall. (unless of course you are within shouting distance of Microsoft's headquarters)
      All kidding aside, the Live CD is the way of the future, it's secure, saves nothing. After you turn off the machine, unless you saved your personal settings to a usb stick, hard drive partition, or floppy, nothing remains, no trace at all of websites visited, cookies, history, etc.

    3. Re:Forget the LiveCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dd if=cdrom of=partition

      enjoy!

    4. Re:Forget the LiveCD by Bent+Mind · · Score: 1

      If you're running Gentoo, it's been available in Portage for a while now. Gentoo-Wiki has a howto for installing it.

      --
      Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
    5. Re:Forget the LiveCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that puts it on the hard drive. If it is Windows XP, and you don't want to partition, or add another 7500 rpm soon to be toast hard drive, then you are back to the live cd. You can put the .iso on a hard drive, and use bootfrom=/dev/hda2/mylivecd.iso, then once booted, remove the livecd used to get you booted into the .iso on /dev/hda2 from the cdrom drive. I run several different live cd's on one box, with XP installed.
      Favorite is SuSE 9.2, but I do run. my own remaster of Knoppix, as I am doing now.
      You cannot, however, place the .iso on a Windows XP partition, you need a fat 16 or 32, or a linux ext2 or 3 partition to do that. If you don't want to mess with your Windows XP hard drive, you can add a second drive. PClinuxOS and SuSE 9.2 are the best of the livecd bunch, however. They are so good, they are worth the effort to install to the hard drive. I run a GB of ram, so I run my livecd's with the toram option (knoppix), and they are as fast as can be, with no hard drive involvement, only the fans can be heard while the PC is running my knoppix remaster. In contrast, XP is quite noisy, running off the hard drive. There are other problems with dd that need to be looked into, such as copying a 700 mb cd to a 20 GB partition. I don't recommend it.

  19. why no torrent by elliott666 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    They must love the traffic, why no torrent for this thing?

    1. Re:why no torrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Gee, and you'd think SUN would actually be able to handle the load!

      As for "Why no torrent?" You obviously do not know how Bit Torrent works. A single person or company cannot just plop something on torrent and expect it to propigate in a timly fasion unless there are THOUSANDS of people DLing it in a short period of time.

      This usually requires that the USERS of torrent want it bad enough and in effect distribute it themselves.

    2. Re:why no torrent by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      You're talking nonsense. What's stopping the project from seeding a torrent? You think maybe it will not work if only 10 people are downloading it? If a torrent was up, we wouldn't have to wait for somwone to complete a download.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    3. Re:why no torrent by R3D · · Score: 1

      But what's to stop them from providing a standard FTP/HTTP link as well as a .torrent on the download page, in this case anyway.

      If you commit to using .torrent's to distribute your wares, the setup of such links could be configured autmagically.

    4. Re:why no torrent by the_gh0st · · Score: 0

      Here is what happened. We were releasing the iso to the development team for help and unfortunitally it got slashdotted, we were not expecting this. We were only sharing it with about 10 others. It is still highly in development and was not supposed to be released yet.

      --
      "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
  20. I am lost, will you help me by Shamanin · · Score: 1

    The iso directory is empty!

    https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/servlets/Projec tD ocumentList?folderID=2794&expandFolder=2794&folder ID=0

    --
    come on fhqwhgads
    1. Re:I am lost, will you help me by kinnell · · Score: 5, Funny
      The iso directory is empty!

      You're too late - somebody's already downloaded it

      --
      If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
  21. But now..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Awwww, before I was able to put off those projects like building a 5 panel 1600x1200 64bit TFT Immersion Helmet with built in 10.1 sound and my 12,000,000 sensor VR suit complete with fleshlight plugin...

  22. Sounds great, but... by plasticsquirrel · · Score: 1

    the "strap-on" logo kinda creeps me out.

    --
    Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
  23. This is offtopic... by bogaboga · · Score: 1
    ...but I was just curious and queried http://www.netcraft.co.uk/ to fine out what the site https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/ was running. You see, I wanted to ascertain whether Solaris that I thought SUN would be using, could withstand the [Slashdot] effect.

    It seems that Netcraft cannot find the site! How can a curions Slashdotter know with certainity, what a particular site is running?

    1. Re:This is offtopic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Initiating server query ...
      Looking up IP address for domain: lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net
      The IP address for the domain is: 64.125.133.206
      Connecting to the server on standard HTTP port: 80
      [Connected] Requesting the server's default page.
      The server returned the following response headers:
      HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
      Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 21:56:50 GMT
      Server: Apache/2.0.50 (Unix) mod_auth_svn/0.1 SVN/1.0.1-dev mod_jk/1.2.0 mod_auth_mda/2.0 DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.0.50 OpenSSL/0.9.7b
      Location: https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/
      Content-Length: 428
      Connection: close
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
      Query complete.

    2. Re:This is offtopic... by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Insightful

      http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=lg3d-live cd.dev.java.net

      http://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net was running Apache on Solaris 9 when last queried at 2-Mar-2005 21:56:28 GMT - refresh now Site Report
      Try out the Netcraft Toolbar! FAQ
      OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
      Solaris 9 Apache/2.0.50 (Unix) mod_auth_svn/0.1 SVN/1.0.1-dev mod_jk/1.2.0 mod_auth_mda/2.0 DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.0.50 OpenSSL/0.9.7b 2-Mar-2005 64.125.133.206 COLLABNET

      however.. i think there might be a problem with the bandwith given to the server with the .iso.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:This is offtopic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why did you change https://[...] to http://[...]? will that lead to the same server under all circumstances? I doubt.

    4. Re:This is offtopic... by barcodez · · Score: 2, Informative

      wget -S https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/

      would do the trick.

      --

      ----
    5. Re:This is offtopic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Netcraft confirms it: Project Looking Glass is dying

  24. I'm already Karam: Excellent... by moofdaddy · · Score: 1

    Not karma whore, my karma is already excellent, I don't need any better then that. I just like the screen shots and think its a neat program. It is a genuinly informative post.

    --
    Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
  25. Torrent please by lightknight · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Somebody please post a torrent!

    Thanks.

    --
    I am John Hurt.
  26. I'll mirror it by ToadMan8 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If someone can get their hands on it I will mirror it. The University has a 200 megabit pipe to lay to waste, but we're on I2 so edu connections will fly. (I've done this in the past for /.ed things)

    --
    I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
    1. Re:I'll mirror it by to_kallon · · Score: 1

      way to wait until a break this time. this is shaking my faith in the its dpt.... they didn't arrest me yet, but maybe they don't actually have the students' best interests at heart....

      --


      The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
      -Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:I'll mirror it by biryokumaru · · Score: 1

      actually, you should probably publish a torrent, just in case.

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
  27. Apple v. Sun by revscat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone get the impression that there is some subtle but real competition going on between Sun and Apple? Apple seems to be moving in on the server/blade market, and Sun is attempting to do cool GUI tricks. I wouldn't mention this but Sun has made so much of Project Looking Glass that it's kind of hard to not wonder if one of their primary targets here is not Apple and the users who are using it as their preferred UNIX OS.

    1. Re:Apple v. Sun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "to do cool GUI tricks."

      Yes, Apple is that company that does 'cool GUI tricks"

      I don't know whether to laugh or cry at Slashdot posters like you.

    2. Re:Apple v. Sun by saleenS281 · · Score: 1

      The fact that Solaris runs on x86 hardware already gives them a jump start. If they could make anything close to OSX for x86 I do believe they'd be kicking some major A$$.

    3. Re:Apple v. Sun by Queer+Boy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I wouldn't mention this but Sun has made so much of Project Looking Glass that it's kind of hard to not wonder if one of their primary targets here is not Apple and the users who are using it as their preferred UNIX OS.

      Workstations are one of the few pieces of Unix kit that you can be assured will be replaced as quickly as you can get new tech out the door. In typical graphic and video shops they upgrade their kit every year if there is a speed boost. I have a friend that owns a local design firm and if he can shave 2 seconds off of a Photoshop filter or render video a few seconds faster that's enough reason to upgrade. When you are doing hundreds of image edits a day, it's a compelling reason.

      Sun and SGI are beginning to lose workstation sales to Apple. With the advent of the G5 all of the hardware advantages of a Unix workstation over a desktop have basically disappeared. They have to do something to look or actually be competitive with Apple. A look at a recent Slashdot discussion reveals how many Unix/Linux users are finding Mac OS X an elegant sidegrade/upgrade.

      --
      Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
    4. Re:Apple v. Sun by MosesJones · · Score: 1


      I'd say, given that Looking Glass, which I've had the pleasure of trying out on and off for over six months, was created by someone who just wanted to show that Java wasn't slow that the target wasn't really Apple...

      But Slashdot readers who claim that Java is slow.

      --
      An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
    5. Re:Apple v. Sun by Game+Genie · · Score: 1

      To feed the rumor mill:

      SUNW is trading at $4.22 with a volume of 41,569,401, for a total stock value of $175,422,872. Not even a quarter billoin. Ripe for buyout (Just like TiVo, Apple Records, Universal Music, etc.)

    6. Re:Apple v. Sun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check again, SUNW has a volume of over 3 BILLION, with a market cap of almost 18 BILLION.

    7. Re:Apple v. Sun by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      It actually worked on me. I'd always found myself in the "java is slow" camp. Despite that, I put some work into getting looking glass set up shortly after they released the source. And even if I wasn't blown away by the features of the, admittingly fairly young, project - I was surprised at how fast it ran. My computers not the top of the line by any means, and I'd assumed anything with both Java and 3D in it would be far too slow to be usable. While I'm still not too fond of swing, my opinioin of Java has improved quite a bit since seeing looking glass.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    8. Re:Apple v. Sun by jcr · · Score: 1
      Sun is attempting to do cool GUI tricks.

      ..and that's why this project is such a disappointment. OS X isn't about tricks, it's about overall ease of use, visual appeal, consistency in operation... In short, it's about quality of the user experience, and quality depends on far more than checking off the boxes on a feature list.

      Look at the windows on those 3D surfaces: they still look like Motif. Turn the windows around the y axis, and what do you have? Just the same clutter that the Mac used to have with Windowshades.

      Sun's never shipped a decent UI in their history, and this is no exception. Pity.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    9. Re:Apple v. Sun by Game+Genie · · Score: 1

      Well that shows why you shouldn't listen to rumor mongers, doesn't it? (In the future I will learn how to read stock quote pages properly, thanks.)

    10. Re:Apple v. Sun by SteeldrivingJon · · Score: 1

      Does anyone get the impression that there is some subtle but real competition going on between Sun and Apple? Apple seems to be moving in on the server/blade market, and Sun is attempting to do cool GUI tricks.

      If this is all Sun's got, then I'd say this is a great opportunity to short their stock.

      --
      September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
  28. Slashdorked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdorked already, whores!

  29. Is Looking Glass open-source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is SUN really releasing Looking Glass as a serious open-source software package and under what license?

    I am glad to see that the days of mediocre and patched proprietory code are finally over.

  30. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN! by ShieldWolf · · Score: 1

    moofdaddy is correct. The grandparent post WAS informative especically since the video is slashdotted. At close glance they appeared to be the same link, but that is not so and I am glad that was pointed out (and modded up). Would you prefer to NOT have seen the screenshots???

    --
    just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
  31. Conflict of interest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sun sells servers. Hosting a torrent would set an example which in the long run could lead to fewer servers sold.

    1. Re:Conflict of interest by UWC · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Sun sells servers. Hosting a torrent would set an example which in the long run could lead to fewer servers sold.

      And having their own servers Slashdotted sets a better example?

    2. Re:Conflict of interest by Mazzella! · · Score: 1

      I don't see the connection between offering a torrent and decrease in server sales.

      Internally, Sun is more of a software company than an hardware company, even though everyone outside of Sun sees them as a hardware company with a little software.

      In the long run, sun sells software to sell hardware. So if they did offer a torrent, it could lead to more hardware being sold (even though SUn doesn't sell many desktop workstations these days)

      --
      1.3L, 3 moving parts, 280 HP, no Turbos, wanna Race? RotaryNe
  32. Re:This is offtopic...But by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...what command did you issue? The earlier Slashdotter wanted to know.

  33. System Shock 3? A True Sequel to Thief?! NO! by Alzheimers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oooh, shame on you! I had my hopes lifted for a moment, before being ripped to shreds by cruel reality.

    Damn. RIP, Looking Glass Studios.

  34. Slashdotted! by Storlek · · Score: 1

    "Internal Server Error"...
    that is kinda creepy, come to think of it.

    --
    Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
  35. Value not yet realized? by Eric+Savage · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I couldn't get the video, but from the screenshots and other stuff I've seen I don't see anyone making a compelling case for this. I admit it has promise, but I don't see any examples of actual utility that cannot also be found in just having two or three monitors. Right now it just seems like eye candy and an interesting concept the developers are waiting for someone else to capitalize on, not a viable alternative to the current 3D (e.g. stacked windows) desktop paradigm.

    --

    This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
    1. Re:Value not yet realized? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As someone mentioned before, this will become usefull only when we become able to see screen in 3D. Otherwise, it just seems to be taking precious screen estate with all the effects.

    2. Re:Value not yet realized? by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      I'm still waiting for the 1st person Office system.
      Sending an email in this system requires you to walk through to the recipients desk.
      If you get fragged along the way, the mail doesn't get delivered.
      Shooting your boss is fun, but unfortunately leads to being ejected from the server.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  36. Slashdotted by the_gh0st · · Score: 0

    I am the CTO of X1 Communications we are hosting the iso. WE HAVE OFFICIALLY BEEN SLASHDOTTED!!! We are trying to keep the iso up please slashdot be gentle with our servers.

    --
    "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
    1. Re:Slashdotted by schon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sweet jebus, put up a torrent tracker and post the link!

    2. Re:Slashdotted by yoyhed · · Score: 1
      Sweet jebus...

      +3 Insightful? Well allow me to whore myself: simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote simpsons quote

      --
      WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
  37. Honest /. recommendation by miketang16 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After reading about 15 requests for a torrent, I got to thinking about the /. effect and bittorrent.

    Wouldn't it be a decent idea to set up a torrents.slashdot.org and if possible, before releasing a story with a large 'attachment', set up a torrent for it?

    Then again, I don't know how hard this would be logistically, considering that one must obtain a copy of the file ahead of time. However, IMHO I think it's worth a shot.

    --
    -------
    "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
    -- George Orwell
    1. Re:Honest /. recommendation by 0racle · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that just slashdot Slashdot?

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    2. Re:Honest /. recommendation by arcdx · · Score: 1

      This is pretty similar to the "Why don't you cache sites before you link to them?" question from the FAQ, and I imagine the answer for this is going to be largely the same.

    3. Re:Honest /. recommendation by condour75 · · Score: 1

      No, because it's a torrent. The bandwidth cost to slashdot would be minimal.

    4. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      woah! Now that's just wacked! No need for drugs today!

    5. Re:Honest /. recommendation by miketang16 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As for the faq question about creating a site cache, this would be quite different since it's not taking away from any adspace revenue based on the site because you would only be sharing a file that that site is distributing. People would still visit the site to read the information, but the bandwidth needs for a large file hosted on the site would be distributed.

      An argument might be that if you give readers a direct link to the file, then they won't visit the site. However, /. already posts direct HTTP/FTP links in its stories. Also, people that only want the file are just going to read the replies anyway to look for a direct link or torrent.

      --
      -------
      "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
      -- George Orwell
    6. Re:Honest /. recommendation by dicepackage · · Score: 1

      From the FAQ on Slashdot:

      Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.

      Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!

      I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?

      So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.

    7. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Torg · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually the amount of traffic a tracker gets is substantial. It is directly related to how many users there are in the cloud. The way the tracker works is to track the meta-data from the clients (what parts they have) so it can broadcast it back out.

      It is not nearly as large as the amount of bandwidth needed to distribute your data but it is still quite significant. Don't take my word for it, set one up and try it yourself.

    8. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      If I had a fast line and reside at same place with server I'd make torrent.

      The question is (end user here) why the heck they offer it on httpS server?

      Looks like the same people using https for that iso wouldn't be happy about p2p guys downloading their stuff, let their server crash or something. Why would we care?

      I am not speaking about the amazing stupidity of EVERY COMPANY, developer who still serves 600mb+ stuff via http protocol which was designed to serve small files of everykind. :)

      If bittorrent was used in legit ways, like... Microsoft, Apple served those huge files via secure torrent link... Well.. Of course, forgot about Holywood and RIAA :)

    9. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Lu+Xun · · Score: 2, Funny

      The first rule of slashdot is: you do not talk about solutions to the slashdot effect.

      Any guesses as to the second rule?

      --
      That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
    10. Re:Honest /. recommendation by kaustik · · Score: 1

      People would still visit the site to read the information

      Actually, with something like this link, the majority of people would not. A lot of us have already read up on this project and would go straight to the download link.

    11. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Anonymous+Custard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People have proposed having slashdot itself host large files (or torrents) from stories or copies of the articles to stave off slashdotting, but there are always these arguments against it:

      1. Slashdot cannot assume it has the right to distribute potentially copyrighted material

      2. Slashdot must respect the target site's right to control their content - whether that means registering users, displaying ads before or alongside the content, or charging a fee to view content.

      For example, if someone posts a review of a book, they are free to include excerpts - they post them right into the slashdot story. But they cannot assume that they can attach an E-Book version of the book to the slashdot story, even if that E-Book is free on the author's site.

      The content would need a license that allows distribution, and much of the content we link to here does not authorize free distribution.

      Getting approval from content owners would require tedious effort, and seeing as how the slashdot editors don't even bother to make sure they're not posting a dupe, there's no way they'd bother getting approval from content owners.

    12. Re:Honest /. recommendation by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      The second rule of slashdot is: you do not talk about solutions to the slashdot effect.

      Oh, sorry thats a dupe isn't it ;)

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    13. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      two reasons this hasn't already happened.
      1) editors are lazy?
      2) editors enjoy the power trip of summoning the "slashdot effect".

    14. Re:Honest /. recommendation by Cyno · · Score: 1

      They won't.

      Because they suck.

    15. Re:Honest /. recommendation by terranlune · · Score: 1

      And aren't those people already viewing the page on slashdot? Hosting it here at the source of the traffic makes a lot of sense.

    16. Re:Honest /. recommendation by shish · · Score: 1
      Don't take my word for it, set one up and try it yourself.

      I have; not any major fileserving, but I can serve a 200MB file to 20 people quite easily over a home DSL connection -- cpu time seems to run out faster than bandwidth, especially when running a permanant seed on the same host as the tracker.

      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
    17. Re:Honest /. recommendation by ozbird · · Score: 1

      You can't talk about the second rule - it's already slashdotted?

    18. Re:Honest /. recommendation by entrager · · Score: 1

      I would recommend that you read the protocol and watch some BT traffic using Ethereal or something, because it doesn't work like this at all.

      The tracker pretty much only tells the client the ip and port for other clients. In fact, a client really should only contact the tracker a few times, when launching the download, when completed, and when shutting down. The client can also make periodic requests for more clients should it lose some connections. Although that should be fairly rare since other clients will be constantly making incoming connections when the tracker informs them about you.

      The track does NOT tell the client which clients have which pieces, it doesn't even know (with the exception of which clients have all the pieces). The clients share that information with each other.

      So, ultimately, the amount of traffic a tracker gets is very low. Much, much lower than a single Slashdot age load per client.

  38. Re:MOD PARENTS DOWN -- IS REDUNDANT by chamblah · · Score: 2, Informative
    The page that has the movie also contains the link to the screenshots as well.

    So the post is redundant because the first link contains info about the demo movie and the screenshot link.

  39. Desktop by phorm · · Score: 1

    I've seen screencaps from longhorn which show your desktop as basically a 3d view from the inside of a cube. You can rotate the cube and the icons held on it, etc.

    1. Re:Desktop by EddWo · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you get the latest public build, WinHec 2004 4071, and enable the DWM (Desktop Window Manager) and then use Atl-Tab, all your windows stack on top of one another and tilt away from you.
      http://www.stardock.com/video/june2004/longhorn/lh 4074_6.jpg

      Thats about the only 3D effect thats in Longhorn, you must be thinking of the Task Gallery research project or SphereXP.

      Longhorn uses the 3D accelerator to render everything, Avalon the new presentation system is built on Direct3D, but so far theres not much actual 3D in the interface.

      --
      "Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
    2. Re:Desktop by DCMonkey · · Score: 1

      Maybe you are thinking of the Task Gallery

      --
      DCMonkey
    3. Re:Desktop by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1

      Longhorn uses the 3D accelerator to render everything, Avalon the new presentation system is built on Direct3D, but so far theres not much actual 3D in the interface.

      Which is true, but MS has only said that the 3d UI innovations will not be presented until early beta or later. They are keeping the 3D UI improvements under wraps to keep what they have innovated in this regard from being stolen or attempted to be copied.

      The tools and developement they have made in regard to Avalon, kind of sets a stage for what is possible and leaves a lot of imagination up to the developers already to create quite impressive 3D UI elements in their applications.

  40. Humane Interface by shrapnull · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Probably the strongest point in the development of Project Looking Glass is that it shows GUI developer's that we are far from achieving any sort of happy medium or standard in the graphical experience.

    Coincidentally, with the passing of Jef Raskin recently, there is fear that the concepts of his Humane Interface will go largely ignored and unnoticed, despite there being a desperate need to simplify the user experience while being intuitive without being intrusive, and still allocating the option of low-level interaction demanded by hackers.

    While drawing the connection between Raskin and Project Looking Glass may seem distant, it is surely a nice example to see such a major organization funding open revolts against the norm and doing so in a public arena.

    --
    If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
  41. Interesting lg3d site by Protocron · · Score: 1

    Saw this and thought it might be helpful. It appears to be a forum for configuring Looking Glass among other things.
    http://www.gcclinux.com

    --
    CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
  42. Java? by Byzandula · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yuck, I'm out!

    1. Re:Java? by EddWo · · Score: 1

      Yes it's written in Java, and uses the Java3D API.

      --
      "Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
  43. Email by sapped · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Hey, could somebody email me the ISO please? I would have used P2P, but that will obviously be illegal soon and I don't want to tarnish my reputation by using stuff like that.

    1. Re:Email by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      Only old Koreans use email.
      I'm just finishing printing it out using a 12 point font for you :)
      Hopefully the fed-ex guy won't have a hernia delivering it.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    2. Re:Email by carpe_noctem · · Score: 1

      You know, the president the US admitted to abusing both cocaine and pot, and look where he is now. Where exactly are you going that would "tarnish your reputation" from lifting a file from a P2P network?

      --
      "Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
  44. 3D Applications? by Jack+Johnson · · Score: 1

    Does this LiveCD include any applications which take advantage of the third dimension natively? Rotating browser windows is a cute diversion while an intelligently designed, three-dimensional file/query manager or development environment would actually be useful.

  45. Re:Bittorrent by ToadMan8 · · Score: 1

    They blocked BT around here because they got too many MPAA, RIAA, BSA letters. They got so many they were facing the need to hire a new employee just to manage the letters and responses. Things like these may be good argements to get it back ;)

    --
    I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
  46. 500 Error replyfrom site admin by sho222 · · Score: 1

    So, I emailed the address presented on the 500 error page, and actually received a quick reply from the site manager.
    Contents of the emails with names/addresses removed:

    From: removed
    Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:11:04 -0800
    Subject: FW: https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/ 500 Error
    To: removed

    Thanks for the heads-up. We're working on the issue.

    name removed java.net Site Manager

    -----Original Message-----
    From: removed
    Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 5:07 PM
    To: webmaster@dev.java.net
    Subject: https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/ 500 Error

    C'mon guys - you're supposed to be the best hw/sw in the world... why the 500 error? Can't handle a simple slashdot effect?

    For years I've recommended Sun/Solaris to support high volume sites. This is shaking my confidence.


    At least it's good to see such a quick response!
    I'm in GMT -0700.

    1. Re:500 Error replyfrom site admin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wells its running java duh. If it was using compiled php it wouldn't have broke under stress.

    2. Re:500 Error replyfrom site admin by sho222 · · Score: 1

      correction, I'm in GMT -0600. The point is that they replied in 5 minutes. Now, if they had only sent the iso as an attachment....

    3. Re:500 Error replyfrom site admin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That seems like an auto-response einstein !

  47. Managing the location and size of Windows by Peaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is counter-productive.

    Managing their rotation axis and depth is more waste of time.

    Windows should either be auto-maximized or auto-tiled by the windowing system, with the user and application cooperating to define which parts in the visible output of the application are important to the user at every given moment so that those are automatically displayed to the user. Simple example: Newly created messages about errors or events should not be placed on top of some text I am reading, but on some of the all-gray or all-white area that the screen almost always contains. For this to happen, it must know that text is more important than "dead" areas that contain nothing.

    This silliness of attributing physical traits to non-physical entities is counter-productive, even if it is very visually appealing.

    Lets let go of the overlapping windows crap and solve the division of screen-space problem in a more intelligent way.

    1. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by vettemph · · Score: 1

      >>This silliness of attributing physical traits to non-physical entities is counter-productive, even if it is very visually appealing.

      I'll bet you didn't like MS-Bob either. There is just no pleasing some people. :D

      --
      The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
    2. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Sure there is, give them options, and guys who feel this way can use window managers like ION. =)

    3. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by Queer+Boy · · Score: 0
      Lets let go of the overlapping windows crap and solve the division of screen-space problem in a more intelligent way.

      It's already been done.

      --
      Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
    4. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by Christopheles · · Score: 1

      That's not quite the same thing.

    5. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by Queer+Boy · · Score: 1
      Interesting that they choose to show screenshots without many windows within each application. What happens when you have so many windows open that you can't read the text or that it is condensed to nonsense? Ah, the same problem the Exploer taskbar has and the same issue all tabbed interface come to.

      It doesn't scale. You're right, it's completely different. You should read more about the technology behind Exposé. It's an amazing algorithm and such an elegant and simple solution to window management. Window placement is completely up to the user in Macintosh and always has been.

      There is a definite difference in theory behind Mac OS that has created such rabid supporters of it. The user always knows best.

      --
      Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
    6. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by jwdb · · Score: 1

      You can have my overlapping windows when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.

      Honestly, I can't tell you how often I've had two or three windows open, needing info from all three but not neccessarily from the whole window of each. To be restricted to an arbitrary tiling mechanism of the windows manager would be only slightly better than no tiling at all, but it still means I have to look at the whole window when all I needed was a little chunk.

      Attributing physical traits to non-physical entities is useful in that it gives us a degree of familiarity and allows us to interact more intuitively with said objects.

      Jw

    7. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by Peaker · · Score: 1

      Honestly, I can't tell you how often I've had two or three windows open, needing info from all three but not neccessarily from the whole window of each.

      Notice what I said : "with the user and application cooperating to define which parts in the visible output of the application are important to the user at every given moment so that those are automatically displayed to the user.".

      My idea is that you will be able to somehow define what is important for you to see, not necessarily at the window level, but possibly at the widget level, such that the specific info from _those_ widgets is displayed.

      Hell, maybe the hierarchy of widgets should become a new primitive instead of windows, allowing the window manager to reorganize that hierarchy to place items defined with similar importance together.

    8. Re:Managing the location and size of Windows by jwdb · · Score: 1

      But what happens to the rest of the window. Is it made invisible? Then you may as well use the 'behind' metaphore. Is it moved elsewhere? Then you're detaching the widget from its window and breaking the 'sheet of paper' metaphore. Either way it is no longer a 'desktop', but a new concept that people would have to learn to relate to.

      Anyone with a messy desk is quite familliar with the concept of documents on top of others and the current environment becomes quite familliar. I'd say ideally you'd use the computer desktop as a clean desk - any document you're not working with is 'put away' in the task bar (or nearest equivalent) and your current working documents are laid nicely next to eachother. Problem is, the resolution of computers today is insufficient to nicely tile two documents, much less more, without becoming excessively cluttered. This is, in my opinion, the reason we still use the messy desk metaphore.

      Jw

  48. It is rough on video cards by MatthewNewberg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There is a big issue with cheaper systems in relation to video cards with 3d. At a school I once attended they had a bunch of really fast, but really cheap desktops. They all intergrate video cards. Once after playing counter-strike for about an hour artfacts would appear. This would be even scarier with your windowing system. I would predict most PC sold today would have this issue. There is a big problem with being "too hard" (aka not enough cooling) on the video of cheaper systems. I would say the issue isn't with the normal slashdot user since most of them would likely have atleast cheap gaming video cards that have atleast some sort of cooling. I attest almost all of the video cards I have bought would be able to handle playing long hours even overclocked.

  49. Got my vote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I second this, this would really help alleviate the 'slashdot effect' when we try to grab isos and other large files :D

  50. without live cd by spyder-implee · · Score: 1

    anyone able to rip looking glass from the livecd, so i can use it on my gentoo box?

    --
    Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
    1. Re:without live cd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      UGUI (Use Google you idiot)

      google: gentoo lg3d wiki

    2. Re:without live cd by sorrodos · · Score: 1

      Do a search on Google, or for the love of all that is holy, run a search in Portage.

      root@sauron forrest # emerge search lookingglass
      Searching...
      [ Results for search key : lookingglass ]
      [ Applications found : 1 ]

      * x11-misc/lookingglass-bin [ Masked ]
      Latest version available: 0.5
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Size of downloaded files: 7,775 kB
      Homepage: https://lg3d.dev.java.net/
      Description: Looking Glass - 3D window manager written in Java
      License: GPL-2

    3. Re:without live cd by spyder-implee · · Score: 1

      sweet, I had no idea to even look, cheers mate ;)

      --
      Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
  51. Reminds me of something by Mad+Ogre · · Score: 1

    When I looked at the screen shots, I am seeing something that reminds me of some of the new Longhorn gadgets... or things that have been said to become new Longhorn features.
    Transparency, 3D positioning of windows.
    10 bucks says that Sun offering will have about 1/2 the system requirements that Longhorn will have when it finally comes out.

    I like the looks of this. Very clean. Very fresh. This will make potential Longhorn customers take a 2nd look.

    --
    MadOgre.com
    1. Re:Reminds me of something by jericho4.0 · · Score: 1
      It does run on Java, ya know.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    2. Re:Reminds me of something by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      That was my thinking as well, but so far it seems to be chugging along pretty well. My video card's three years old, my processor only 850mhz, and just 320mb ram. The thing still worked fine, even though I seem below what's listed as the minimum requirements.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
  52. Try BBC Edition by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Informative

    What's wrong with RealOne BBC edition? No spyware there. Also the Linux and Mac OS X version of the standard non-BBC edition seems to lack the advertising you find in the Windows version.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  53. LG3D on Windows XP HOWTO by kikawala · · Score: 1


    http://www.gcclinux.com/linux/viewtopic.php?t=92

    This thread shows you how to get Looking Glass running on XP.

  54. Will no one post a torrent? by Trogre · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is getting silly.

    Seriously, if anyone here has downloaded the iso, torrent it pronto.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    1. Re:Will no one post a torrent? by ebob · · Score: 2, Informative
      --
      To avoid seeing this message again, always shut down your computer properly by selecting Shut Down from the Start Menu.
  55. LTFV (listen to the video) by kebes · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Many posters are already bashing the concept of a 3D desktop. But if you listen to Jonathan Schwartz's description you will see that looking glass is not trying to be the definitive 'next-generation' desktop. Rather, it is an experiment, that is leveraging a collaborative, open-source development model in order to discover the next-generation desktop. I applaud their vision: they are generating an open, cute toy in the hopes of encouraging programmers to get involved, and help develop future GUIs. This project will help us figure out what features are useful innovations, and what features are just eye-candy that is wasting the CPU/GPU's energy.

  56. Strange... by Alias777 · · Score: 1

    Site is now up, but download ISO is still slashdotted. Strange message under the download link, "Please note that this "release" is probably not functional." Why even release something that the people who created it don't think it's going to work in the slightest?

  57. Too Bad by TupperTrenine · · Score: 1

    Too bad they couldn't make use of that extra spatial dimension for more bandwidth.

  58. Re:Think big by antikristian · · Score: 1

    still offtopic though: Why not create a hybrid of html/bittorrent? Let everybody host the page they are currently on:)

    --
    A computer is a tool, but I am not. I use Linux
  59. Another ISO Link by richarddcrowley · · Score: 1

    I can't host a torrent tracker because Washington University in St. Louis isn't friendly to torrent traffic, but as soon as my download finishes, I'll post another link to the ISO.

  60. Managed to connect, but this is a worry: by TekPolitik · · Score: 1
    Connecting to 66.194.210.2:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 611,616,768 [<b>text/plain</b>]

    0% 622,640 1.28K/s ETA 30:42:43

    Do I really want to spend 40 hours downloading a 600MB file only to risk finding out it got munged because its MIME type is given as "text/plain". I do not think so.

  61. Java? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this thing even remotely related to Java, besides of course coming from the same manufacturer?
    This is a serious question. I'm not going to waste precious cpu/gpu cycles for something that carries both the 'Java' and '3D' terms in its name/url.

  62. Bottom of page... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Acknowledgements

    This project owns much to Chevol Davis who contributed unvaluable serverspace and bandwidth.


    Unvaluable? Give the dude a break. :)

  63. Re:Maintenance Notice - update by prjames · · Score: 2, Funny

    No we're down to a ? KB/s and an estimate of 80 days so I'm off for a world cruise. I'll send you guys a postcard:)

  64. who ever Dled it use my site for torrents by gamepro · · Score: 1

    http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/software/upl oadfile.php Just do what the instructions say and there will be a torrent in less then 10 minutes

  65. Perhaps you meant by peragrin · · Score: 1

    I tried something similar called Windows some time ago, I didn't really see any advantages to it over using a normal commandline . Perhaps this 2D windowing interface is different, but the whole thing seems pretty gimicky to me. Kind of like having a 2D windowing interface, just to say you have a 2D windowing interface, not because of any inherent benefits of using it. And the mouse can you imagine having to take your hands off the keyboard. think of how the typing speeds will suffer.

    How you interact With your computer tomrrow is decided Today.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  66. project lame glass by mudfly · · Score: 1

    I guess I'm the only person who thinks this looks really fucking stupid.

    I guess if this ever became mainstream I could always shove hot pokers in my eyes.

    Wait a second, what will this do for Pr0n?

  67. Regarding live versions 'for us all' by tod_miller · · Score: 1

    As a linux user (that is user, not developer) I am pained when I find it very hard to google up why my keyboard input it pausing every 1 second for a split second, eating a key. It i enogh t rendr m txt unradble.

    I am psyched about trying the 3d desktop, I am downloading it, I am happy that they did it. I am just sad they had to!

    I went into a couple #linux places and I got some great advice, but the overwhelming advice was, have you tried slack? debian? red hat? do you get this problem in puppy linux? slax? vector? dsl? ubuntu? Wait, I am writing a script for you now... you need ruby installed though... (ruby to basically do rename S* K*... GNU people, please write a rn command! (or 'rename')) ;-) mv just doesn't do it for me!

    Or the great: run GentOo!!11 reply, as if magically architecture optimised builds are going to magically fix whatever mod conflict is causing this.

    Anyway, I realise that this is great, but also that even programmers like me have an issue where the redundancy of thier machines and time isn't always enough to stretch to trying new things on linux, and when something breaks a new distro isn't always the answer.

    Enough about that, give me my 3d desktop!!!! :-)

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  68. Sure I wanna play... by mpcooke3 · · Score: 1

    but in the longer term i'm not convinced many people are going to want to watch movies back to front.

    Might be better if we had something other than a mouse for navigation.

  69. Looking Glass is nausea inducing by NeedleSurfer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    this is not a flame but a real comment, all videos I watched of this gave me nausea, the idea that the background move when my mouse does is very disturbing and not a good idea to locate items on the screen since everything moves not just the foreground or background. Each graphical element is way too big and actually nulify the idea, if you wanted more space out of this realize you don't because every object on the screen is now bigger, turning them aside doesn't provide much more space than windowshading does (the ability on the mac to collapse a window into its title bar), actually it provide less space because of the drop shadow and extra thickness, plus, now, you have too read from up to down instead of left to right, basically it is less usefull and more clunky than windowshade, but since it is a feature of a software that runs on Linux people will go nuts over it and call it usefull 3D even if its nothing but glitz and wizzbang...

    Actually, Looking glass is like when you give Windows a resolution the display can't handle, it just shows you part of your desktop and now you have to scroll the desktop to go to each corner, imagine this concept in 3D, you have Looking Glass...

    1. Re:Looking Glass is nausea inducing by wse7k · · Score: 1

      (the ability on the mac to collapse a window into its title bar)

      Thats a feature the 'minimal' window managers for X have had since just after time began.

      but since it is a feature of a software that runs on Linux people will go nuts over it and call it usefull 3D even if its nothing but glitz and wizzbang

      All the real linux nerds will scoff and say its a waste of resources. then they will hit 'ctrl-A n' and make fun of you on irc.

      --
      foon!
    2. Re:Looking Glass is nausea inducing by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

      In some ways actually the desktop (especially the dock at the bottom) reminded me of the mac.

  70. The funny thing is... by Chordonblue · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    If this was a movie or the latest Britney Spears album the warez gods would be falling all over themselves to post this first for points...

    --
    "...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
  71. I cannot wait to download this.... by tod_miller · · Score: 1

    and then take a screenshot of a bittorrent client in 3d, and then post it to the java.net guys and say 'thanks for saving my upstream, and the upstream of 100,000 others, PS: I hope your network cables cool down soon.'

    TORRENT IT NEXT TIME!! :-)

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  72. Well I downloaded it by PerfectMark · · Score: 1

    And it just seems to crash just before it loads the desktop. I have tried it on a 2100XP and Geforce 3, I will try it on my A64 and X800XT later to see if it works any better on that (but considering they say the ATI drivers suck, I am not holding out much hope).

  73. Shutter Glasses? by X86Daddy · · Score: 1

    I have shutter glasses that are great with flight sims, racing games, and some FPSs, but AFAIK it's a Windows-only thing, as it relies on nVidia's supplemental drivers for it... Does anyone know if they'd work with this for a *real* 3D experience?

    (Shutter glasses are the 3D tech IMAX uses, vs. the polarization method from Captain EO, T2 3D, etc...)

  74. 3d OS + /. effect == by tod_miller · · Score: 1

    LAAAAG! laaaaag! The great thing is - bringing users to linux... pause a game... switch to X... and have the characters jump out and blast each other...

    spawn-kill processes...

    My idea of a computer is an optical device that projects a virtual desktop any chape and size... projects it into your mind as if it is on the side of a building, the newspaper you are looking at... a particularly sexy ass on the subway...

    also a virtual keyboard you can type on... just don't type when chekcing out a lasses chest... the funny finger movements aimed her way might be misinterpreted... the next thing you know our slapd.

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  75. Thumbnails on the taskbar by Stagemonkey · · Score: 1

    After watching the demonstration video, I have to say that this looks pretty cool. However, I did notice one thing in particular bugged me about the interface. It seems that every time you open a new window, a thumbnailed version of that window also opened along the bottom of the screen. These thumbnails were contantly sitting on top of the bottom edge of the windows that were open on the desktop. From an aesthetic point of view, that would annoy the hell out of me if I were dealing with this windowing system on a regular basis. Has anyone here played with Looking Glass enough to know whether or not that feature can be turned off, hidden, resized, or otherwise made less annoying?

  76. ATI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anybody succesfully run this with an ATI card, can't be arsed to download the file if it won't work with my card :/

  77. Gentoo and ATI users: by XST1 · · Score: 1

    I haven't had the opportunity to try looking glass, but being a Gentoo user, it is available in the portage tree. The only downside to installing it in Gentoo is that it requires the sun jdk 1.5.0 which is a masked package, and according to documentation behind installing it: "1.5 defaults to -target 1.5 making downgrading to a 1.4(/1.3) impossible" meaning that once you install 1.5.0, you can't go back to a more stable 1.4, which is something you wouldn't want to lose only because it works almost flawlessly in Gentoo.

    If anyone actually read the download page for looking glass it notes the following bugs:

    # Bad ATI-drivers
    # The 3D configuration scripts of GamesKnoppix will have to be completely rewritten, as at least on ATI cards they have no effect.

    In other words, us ATI people (once again) will have difficulty getting 3d hardware support with the live cd running. I haven't been able to try the livecd out yet (still waiting for a tracker) but ill keep my fingers crossed.

  78. I did a double-take upon reading that article by wcrowe · · Score: 1

    Considering what I knew to be project Looking Glass

    --
    Proverbs 21:19
  79. The Sun is Out by fm6 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Actually, a lot of Sun sites are rather flaky today. Not very impressive, coming from the company whose motto is "The Network is the Computer."

    They're claiming this is "Java-based". Never heard of this kind of stuff running any way except as native code. A breakthrough in VM technology, or more abuse of the Java "brand"?

    The Schwartz demo provoked lots of applause, but I was pretty underwhelmed. There are a few cool-looking visual effects, like turning a window over so you can write on the back. But no case is made for this making anybody's job easier. Just a lot of noise about "community computing" and other warm and fuzzy concepts that don't particularly relate. Oh yeah, and of course Microsoft doesn't have this and doesn't want you to have this! Please.

    1. Re:The Sun is Out by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      They claim everything Java based and miraculously Java isn't dead, even growing while Sun exists.

      There are advanced java powerhouses who make embedded jvm 1.1 (yes 1!) applets to stream video. Look at the streams they offer. Quicktime and Realmedia. Also very badly used quicktime and realmedia. (check my possibly -1 comment here :))

      Its better to paste a URL rather than typing:
      http://www.clipstream.com/

      So, inventor of Java, claiming Java based 3d desktop not using Clipstream or other java based solutions on its own site.

      This is the reason why it makes me wonder how the heck Java is still in good shape.

    2. Re:The Sun is Out by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 1

      the company whose motto is "The Network is the Computer."

      What happened to the "dot in dot com"? Well, besides the whole "dot com" thing becoming terribly unfashionable..

    3. Re:The Sun is Out by WebMink · · Score: 3, Informative
      They're claiming this is "Java-based". Never heard of this kind of stuff running any way except as native code. A breakthrough in VM technology, or more abuse of the Java "brand"?

      Take a look at the actual project. You'll find it's all Java code, and that it uses Java 3D as an generalisation layer to control the video card. So actually a vindication of the virtualisation concept, yes.

    4. Re:The Sun is Out by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      They're claiming this is "Java-based". Never heard of this kind of stuff running any way except as native code. A breakthrough in VM technology, or more abuse of the Java "brand"?

      I set this up a while back, and yep, it's all java as far as I could tell. I think Java gets a lot of bad press for speed simply due to swing. Once that's taken out of the equasion I usually expect pretty good performance out of it. Or at least with Suns VM.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    5. Re:The Sun is Out by fm6 · · Score: 1
      Swing is a big culprit, but Sun's worst blunder was shipping early versions of Java with compilers hastily adapted from C++ and VMs that were simple-minded bytecode interpreters. Which thorough established Java's reputation as a poor performer.

      Now I have to run the live cd, just to see how this performs. (Unfortunately, the server is thoroughly Slashdotted.) But it's unlikely to convince me that 3D GUIs are more than a lame gimmick.

  80. I'm sure it has been mentioned already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But does Sun hire FUCKING RETARDED APEMONKEYS?

    I mean, resources isn't a difficult word, but on that page:

    "Ressources:
    Ressources:"

    nevermind the "unvaluable" rather than "invaluable" a couple of lines beneath.

    Now you might not think that being able to spell is important, but duh, it is if you want to look half-professional!

  81. rename command by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Either you learn shell programming (see: advanced bash scripting guide) or install "mmv" (which does what you want; but you still have to read the manpage;-)

    Oh, and DON'T TRUST ANYONE in ANY #linux channel (w/o reading yourself).

  82. Efficiency anyone? by Sliptwixt · · Score: 1

    The screenshots are 1mb bitmaps.
    No torrent available.
    Java.

    All 3 terrible inefficiencies.

  83. It isn't illegal to ignore your mail by tod_miller · · Score: 1

    Kramer did it [watch out for the suites]. Just return to sender all thier mail, but smear it with shit first.

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
    1. Re:It isn't illegal to ignore your mail by ToadMan8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They'd, I do believe, attempt legal action against the University. We're trying to keep our students from being sued (which would be fish-in-a-barrel easy - they're not all like you and I are with computers) and the University from being forced to give up the names of the students. Or be taken to court about it. We decided the nicest thing to do was to read the letter, write / call the student and say hey, don't share things like that on the I-net, then tell the organization that we told them to stop, please leave now. Worked just fine, just happened all the time so we blocked things, sadly enough.

      --
      I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
  84. Link by zbeeble · · Score: 1

    Has anyone got a link, torrent or anyway of seeing this ?

  85. wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    its http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/ sphereXP for linux

    SUN fails for stealing somebody elses copyrighted work

  86. I can't believe that no one has said this yet... by isny · · Score: 1

    This is a UNIX system! I know this!!

  87. Oh, its from Sun, it must suck, right? by cpuh0g · · Score: 1

    I guarantee if this had been released for Linux or had originated from an OSS project, the messages on this board would be decidedly more favorable.

  88. Big Gulp-pissing editors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    500 lb. sitting-in-their-computer-chair-while-pissing-in-a -Big Gulp "nerds" enjoy the feeling of being able to bring down huge corporations with the twitch of a fat finger.

    shit. that was meaner that i meant it to sound.

  89. How to install without livecd by scottied · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.gcclinux.com/

    Installation instructions for linux and windows xp in their forums.

  90. Direct link to the ISO by 604badder · · Score: 0, Redundant
    1. Re:Direct link to the ISO by posidian · · Score: 1

      that's not a mirror, it's just the IP address to the same server. try again.

  91. Re:I can't believe that no one has said this yet.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't believe someone finally did. Just when you thought it was safe to read at 1...

  92. Sorry for the profanity... by ericdfields · · Score: 1

    but do we REALLY need something like this piece of shit right now in the linux world?

    first, no linux distro widely supports even 2-d graphical effects that, beside being pretty, would be the logical first steps in enhancing productivity through gpu-based graphical effects (expose, for example, speeds up my daily routine extremely well now that i've gotten the hang of it (i just use the F-buttons, not those all-too-sensative screen corners)).

    my second criticism i can sum up in three words: drivers, drivers, drivers.

    we all should know that one of the biggest problems in acheiving a useable, friendly linux desktop environment right now is the overabundance of perfectly fine apps devoted to the same task out there, and getting them to ALL work together seamlessly.

    IMHO, our path should be toward getting the basics of slickness down first (see xorg, freedesktop.org), figuring out original ways of using those technologies to better the linux desktop experience (as oppsed to copying expose, which could definitely be improved upon), and THEN work on candy-coating everything with the third dimension.

  93. Quick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Download and play with it before Sun abandons it the way they abandon everything else that shows promise!

  94. personally I like the idea of this better by chocotof · · Score: 0

    3d is more than look there should also be added functional benefit. Checkout http://croquetproject.org/

  95. Mirror Offer by richarddcrowley · · Score: 1

    Someone who has this, contact me over AIM[RichardDCrowley] or email [rcrowley@danville.k12.ky.us] and you can discreetly ftp this to me so I can host it. I can't get a connection to the IP above, and I'm sure a lot of you are in the same boat.

  96. Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Researchers at Sun and elsewhere have been toying with the idea of a 3-D GUI for at least the last 15 years. And they've never found anything terribly useful to do with it.

    It shouldn't be so surprising - humans have sought 2-D surfaces for doing thought-work (desks, tables, bulletin boards, chalkboards, whiteboards) for thousands of years.

  97. Torrent Here by the_gh0st · · Score: 1, Informative

    Here is the torrent so you can take some load off my servers. http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/software/ind ex.php hurry and get it!!!

    --
    "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
  98. I BRING LOVE AND TORRENTS by gamepro · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/software/ind ex.php Your welcome slashdot and thanks to http://www.x1communications.com/ for giving me the file.

    1. Re:I BRING LOVE AND TORRENTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lots of peers, but need a new seed for a few minutes! Only 69% of the file is spread amongst the peers.

    2. Re:I BRING LOVE AND TORRENTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One seed? Great. That's just great.

    3. Re:I BRING LOVE AND TORRENTS by gamepro · · Score: 1

      Sorry, i didn't have to the chance to share the file with the other staff of titaniumforums. Normally we would never have 1 seed for a file of such popularity. People are getting decent speeds though (somewhere along the area of 60-70 K/sec on average).

    4. Re:I BRING LOVE AND TORRENTS by LocalH · · Score: 1

      I'm currently at 88%, getting 42KB/s down and upping 20KB/s. I will be leaving the torrent running at least until tomorrow night, possibly longer, so I will definitely be a seeder before too long.

      --
      FC Closer
    5. Re:I BRING LOVE AND TORRENTS by SiliconEntity · · Score: 1

      I thought BitTorrent would speed things up but this download is barely crawling. In two hours I've downloaded only 20 MB (and uploaded over 90 MB!). I don't have the fastest connection in the world but I get 90 kB/sec downloads on a good day.

      Well, just in the last couple of minutes it's gone from 1 seed to 8 as a bunch of other people have finished their downloads. So I guess it's working for some people anyway. Maybe my download will start going faster as other people finish.

  99. OT: Get a second monitor by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

    This is really a must have if you're serious about your editing. You'll become a lot more productive. I've done some editing on my PB, but for that sort of work I rely prefer to stretch out on my desktop machine. I was happily using two 17 inch monitors for a while, but I eventually coughed up the cash for a refurbed 22" flat panel with 16:9 aspect. It's great to work on; I can have the timeline stretched out along the entire bottom of the screen.

    OK, that might be overkill for you, or more than you want to spend. But seriously, even if all you can manage is another 15" monitor, do it. It will make your work so much easier and quicker.

    And when this Looking Glass stuff is finally ripe, just think. Instead of having just one virtual room to fill with junk, you'll have two!

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  100. Re:Torrent Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm on it. I'll set upload to 8KB/s and will probably leave it the torrent going until at least tomorrow night.

  101. Re:Torrent Here by the_gh0st · · Score: 1, Informative

    http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/software/ind ex.php

    All day you have been asking so here it is Thank X1 Communications for hosting the only server with the iso we survived getting slashdotted!!!

    --
    "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
  102. GPL violation? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    Where is the source code? Is it on the ISO? If not, we have the right to demand source code NOW, according to the GPL, and not whenever they decide to "fully release it to the community".

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:GPL violation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DUDE ...

      calm down. I'm pretty sure sun opened up looking glass a while back. anyways something tells me you will be okay if you don't get the source code in the next 15 min.

    2. Re:GPL violation? by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      Do a search for lg3d and the source should be one of the first that comes up.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    3. Re:GPL violation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they wrote the code, they can't violate the license, cockmunch.

  103. Torrent Now up... by BrianHursey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some one please mirror this file. Im sure this site will go down fast.

    Here is the site that i found serching through the sun forms..

    Get it while its up. lg3d.iso.torrent

    --
    Linux is like a teepee. It has no windows, no gates, and there's an Apache inside.
    1. Re:Torrent Now up... by Hellasboy · · Score: 1

      I downloaded and burned this. It is not a valid iso file. it's trash.

      --

      "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
  104. Re:Torrent Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think you'll get that space out. Better to make it an HREF.

  105. Re:Torrent Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scratch that, I stopped and restarted it, I'm dedicating 20KB/s to it.

  106. TORRENT by quinkin · · Score: 1
    Torrent is up - here

    Q. (The karma whore)

    --
    Insert Signature Here
  107. Torrent Available by msmalley · · Score: 3, Informative

    Found a torrent link on the java desktop forums. its pretty fresh yet, so get this thing cookin'!
    http://www.titaniumforums.com/torrent/software/btd ownload.php?type=torrent&file=lg3d.iso.torrent

    --
    What's your footprint?
    1. Re:Torrent Available by trawg · · Score: 1

      That torrent certainly works, but there's no MD5 on the lg3d site, and its slashdotted so I can't see if they kindly left an MD5SUM file in the same directory. Anyone know?

    2. Re:Torrent Available by SiliconEntity · · Score: 1

      That torrent certainly works, but there's no MD5 on the lg3d site...

      You don't need an md5sum with bittorrent. The .torrent file contains SHA-1 hashes of every piece of the file (usually pieces are 256K bytes, for big files). These hashes are checked as the pieces download. So if the download completes, you know you got a good file.

    3. Re:Torrent Available by swab79 · · Score: 1

      That may be true, but it seems like the original file for the torrent was bad. I just downloaded and got an invalid ISO message, and I'm not the only one!

    4. Re:Torrent Available by dave+sanderman · · Score: 1

      The reason to want an MD5 of the original file is so that you can verify that the file you downloaded via the torrent is the same file and not a trojan.

    5. Re:Torrent Available by trawg · · Score: 1

      That is correct, if you can assume the file you're downloading from BitTorrent is actually the file you want.

      The BitTorrent hashing only guarantees the file you're download is the same as the file that was used to generate the .torrent file. If the file used to create the .torrent file is not the file you actually want (ie, a corrupt version of the ISO), then without having an MD5 of what the ISO is going to be, you're not going to know if the file you've downloaded is actually the same file being distributed off the official site.

      And, according to this comment, this is (unfortuantely) exactly what happened :(

  108. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    no--looking glass is essentially abandonware.

  109. The Waiting Game... by penguin_strut · · Score: 1

    waits patiently for Sun's servers to recover

    I say we change it to SlashDDoS.

  110. The reason for no torrent by the_gh0st · · Score: 0

    Here is what happened. We were releasing the iso to the development team for help and unfortunitally it got slashdotted, we were not expecting this. We were only going to share it with about 10 others. It is still highly in development and was not supposed to be released yet. This is why we didn't have any mirrors or torrents in place, there are currently only 2 developers involved in the creation of a live cd. Hopefully now there will be more!

    --
    "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
    1. Re:The reason for no torrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about doing one of the minimums necessary when using ISO image files: create an MD5 checksum for the image file.....Sheesh!

      I ran into a problem when using the image obtained via torrent. I recognize that you probably had no hand in the torrent nor in its creation, but in any case, NO user of the image file on your site would have means to to validate the image file, whether downloaded directly from your site, or downloaded via a torrent.

      This certainly does not inspire confidence in your site, your efforts, etc. I do appreciate your work, and would certainly care to see it presented in a much more favorable light!

  111. Mirror of torrent file by boingyzain · · Score: 0

    I've mirrored the torrent file mentioned in earlier posts, just in case that website gets slashdotted. Here it is: http://www.losthamster.com/lg3d.iso.torrent

    Currently seeding it as well.

    1. Re:Mirror of torrent file by gamepro · · Score: 1

      If the site gets slashdotted then so does the tracker,since we host that too, but thanks for helping host the .torrent file

  112. defective ISO from posted torrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Unfortunately, after having used the posted torrent to obtain the ISO image file, K3B doesn't recognize the obtained ISO image as a valid image file.....such a nasty waste of time!

    If anyone else has this problem as well, please post here and confirm this issue. I has just remembered to check to see if there was a checksum provided on the original java.net site, but I was unable to find one..

    1. Re:defective ISO from posted torrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FUCKING A. (pardon my french).

      That shitty tracker took forever to download a measly ~520mb ISO and the archive is damaged/unreadable. Thanks for the effort guys, but you suck at life.

    2. Re:defective ISO from posted torrent by LocalH · · Score: 1

      I was able to burn it with cdrecord - I'm getting ready to test it on my other machine.

      --
      FC Closer
    3. Re:defective ISO from posted torrent by LocalH · · Score: 1

      Didn't work. I'm off the torrent.

      --
      FC Closer
  113. Re: TORRENT ISO IS BROKEN - DONT WASTE YOUR TIME by jgaynor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The title pretty much says it all - even if the above link works you're going to spend the next 4 hours downloading a shiny new drink coaster.

  114. Need testers they say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let me quote from the page: "
    We have a huge need of testers"


    I think they just got it ;p

    Cheers,
    . Knut

  115. Re: TORRENT ISO IS BROKEN - DONT WASTE YOUR TIME by jensen404 · · Score: 1

    I got 2 coasters out of it.

  116. Finally... the wait is over-JNLP. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like it would have been better if Sun had packaged it as a "Java Start".

  117. MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    everyone's been waiting for a torrent, and here it is, finally! I don't think anyone cares if he's a KW or not, WE WANT OUR TORRENT!

  118. Bad idea by danila · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Despite coming from Sun, the project is almost completely useless and goes in the wrong direction.

    What they claim is efficient way to organise the workspace in 3D is a big fat lie. It's just an ugly and useless hack that doesn't even have the "wow" factor.

    There are proven GUI technologies that work. These are
    1) Expose
    2) Virtual desktops, which you can switch between
    3) Smoothly scrollable desktop, preferably with a zoom feature.

    If someone implemented these (rather simple) ideas in one window manager, that would be almost a perfect environment, without any need for 3D (other than to use the 3D card acceleration and for cool visual effects). It doesn't make sense to rotate windows or workspaces, when you can zoom and scroll.

    --
    Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
  119. Remind me not to buy a server from Sun... by David+Horn · · Score: 1

    If they can't handle a Slashdotting (this was announced yesterday, they've had 12 hours to get additional backup in) then it's not a brilliant advert for them.

    --
    PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
  120. mmmm im gonna be sick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had the pleasure/misfortune to witness looking glass at linux world. Let me tell you this, DO NOT USE IF YOU HAVE A HANGOVER. Sitting through a 15min demo and I was feeling so dizzy and sick from all the screen spinning that I had to leave the area. IMO this is definatly not good for the early morning been out on the piss last night kinda situations...

  121. A mini review (after seeing the video!) by master_p · · Score: 1

    What Sun has tried is to give more room to the desktop by making use of the extra dimension. There are several points, bad and good, that are worth mentioning:

    • being able to rotate windows slightly gives you a little more room on the screen, allowing for certain actions to be faster; for example, when one's viewing his favorite movie scene for Nth time, the movie window can be placed at an angle, giving more room for doing some work at the same time.
    • having to completely rotate windows 180 degrees is impractical; after a few times, it is boring to watch windows rotate again and again and again. It takes off valuable time, especially with lots of open windows.
    • It is also totally impractical to have to rotate a window so I can see extra information. A simple button that displays a popup is more than enough; especially when flipping a window to see its 'dark side' completely hides the important window information. If a popup is used, then not all of the window gets hidden.
    • Using extra dimensions without the proper lighting will soon create viewing problems. After viewing the cd thing (with the cds rotating etc), what if the cd colors blend nicely with the background? for example, if one of the cds had a mountain image, it would be really hard to distinguish it from the mountain in background. Imagine viewing last summer's pictures...A proper 3d desktop would have to have shadows: each screen element should properly cast a shadow onto others, so the scene looks natural and there is easy recognition of depth.
    • Lots of people are not good at managing 3d on the screen. Their spatial-handling capabilities are limited. Computers shall be available to a wide range of people, from old folks to little kids.

    Overall, I don't see this type of 3d desktop as very important. If I want lots of information on the screen, I'd rather get a good 21 LCD monitor (or a 16 to 9 like the Apple Cinema screen): it's much faster to have all windows open at the same time, than having to click for windows to come into view/rotate them.

  122. Sphere XP by connor_macleod · · Score: 1

    Everyone seen sphereXP and entbloess?

    http://www.entbloess.com/
    http://www.hamar.sk/s phere/

  123. It's corrupt. by vidnet · · Score: 1

    Mod parent down. It's randomly generated data.

  124. Lickable by willCode4Beer.com · · Score: 1

    Why would I want to lick my monitor?

    I think this might shed light into whats wrong with mac fanatics.

    --
    ----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
  125. Where I got the file by gamepro · · Score: 1

    I took down the torrent as soon as I found out about this. Here is a picture of the e-mail exchanges we had. http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeejvh7/sitebuildercont ent/sitebuilderpictures/assmonger.jpg

  126. Not only that! by trezor · · Score: 1
    • Unfortunately, the server is thoroughly Slashdotted

    Seems like we slashdotted the tracker as well, as the torrent is now banned! At least thats the message Im getting.

    From the tracker: "ERROR: rejected by tracker - This torrent is not authorized on this tracker."

    First time for everything I guess.

    --
    Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
  127. Nice, but.. by airship · · Score: 1

    Sun has a couple of nice things worked into Looking Glass, but where are the cyberpunk-style 3D interfaces? You know the ones, where corporate web sites are displayed as virtual 3D buildings and you can fly between them. Where data is continually streaming by in various windows. Where you can instantly slide semi-transparent windows out and back into intuitively organized banks of thousands of data windows. It seems strange to me that Hollywood can constantly come up with cooler concepts for 3D computer interfaces than programmers can. Even though those same programmers have watched all of Hollywood's stuff!

    --
    Serving your airship needs since 1995.
  128. "official" statement by christian.ost · · Score: 1

    Hi, here the official statement: Please do not expect too much from the LiveCD. It is at a VERY early dev stage There were some problems concerning the torrent images. I apologise for this and hope you did not waste too much bandwidth on downloading useless stuff. We need MIRRORS. Write me an email if you can offer one Thanks Christian Ost LG3D-LiveCD project founder

  129. BROKEN HERE TOO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ditto here. K3B says it's not usable image.

  130. New Mirror up (WORKING) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://javadesktop.org/lg3d/livecd-isos/lg3d-3-mar -05.iso.gz

    the proper iso, renamed so users can keep track of the version

    1. Re:New Mirror up (WORKING) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank You....so much, buddy!

      I'm in the process of d/l right now. Not nitpicking, but a "clickable" link would have been nice...how's that for laziness? And once again, thanks also to Christian, who is quite responsive. I know I speak for all when I give sincere thanks to all who are contributing time, resources, expertise, etc.

      Good day, all.

      vg

  131. New Mirror by the_gh0st · · Score: 0

    Here is the new Mirror enjoy.

    --
    "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
    1. Re:New Mirror by Mitchua · · Score: 0

      This version is 591,809KB. The broken torrent from before is ~528MB. Could it simply be an incomplete file? If so, we could restart a torrent with the complete file.

    2. Re:New Mirror by Mitchua · · Score: 0

      This is a valid ISO! I was able to download and run it! It's dying when it detects my ATI drivers...but Knoppix is definitely running :D

  132. Posted Torrent Is Wrong by lcnxw · · Score: 1

    The posted torrent contains a faulty file check this forum for ISO links, MD5 hashes, and a new torrent.

    1. Re:Posted Torrent Is Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The torrent which was posted last night at Titaniumforums.com yielded a defective ISO image file. It seems that the torrent is no longer active, or at least a couple of hours ago (1300 hrs mountain time) the torrent was dead.

      A bit more information can be had here:
      http://www.javadesktop.org/forums/thread.js pa?thre adID=8742&start=15&tstart=0

      Most importantly, at least for me, is the hash:
      The MD5 is 5b6eeed5909b8b66cfbd28f98456e852

      I'm 2/3 of the way through the download available at Javadesktop.org. Will post further info once it is done, if need be.

      vg

  133. OT? Really? by Chordonblue · · Score: 1

    How is this OT? You can't download the damn file because the FTP site is crammed full (or down). My observation is on the worthiness of a download - why is THAT OT?

    Or is this about my politics?

    --
    "...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
  134. New Mirror by andjost · · Score: 2, Informative
    Now there is another mirror of the iso here:

    http://javadesktop.org/lg3d/livecd-isos/lg3d-3-mar -05.iso.gz

    Andrew

  135. Well it's all over now. by Trogre · · Score: 1

    2 days later, the original link isn't responding and all the torrents have been taken down.

    How do you get this iso now?

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    1. Re:Well it's all over now. by Mitchua · · Score: 0

      http://javadesktop.org/lg3d/livecd-isos/lg3d-3-mar -05.iso.gz is working for me :D

    2. Re:Well it's all over now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      same here.. dl'ing at 400KB/s

    3. Re:Well it's all over now. by mikeyrb · · Score: 1

      The link definitely works, but whether or not it's me, I couldn't get looking glass running. It always froze at the default X screen. I have an AMD Athlon64 3500, Geforce 6800, and a gig of ram, so I assumed it would be fine. I also tried running it in virtual pc (hey, maybe it coulda worked!), but that had the same problem. If anyone has suggestions on what could be wrong, that'd be awesome. Or even specs on what machines it may have worked on.

    4. Re:Well it's all over now. by christian.ost · · Score: 1

      This is a development release: It is not ready. I released it to find out WHY it is not working. The /. article was a bit early. Try desktop=kde and it should work totally normal.

    5. Re:Well it's all over now. by jeffmurphy · · Score: 1

      http://foobar.cit.buffalo.edu/misc/lg3d.iso

    6. Re:Well it's all over now. by jeffmurphy · · Score: 1

      btw. after a very long wait, this just finished. i have not tried booting it, but wget said it successfully downloaded all of it from the URL specified in this /. article.

    7. Re:Well it's all over now. by jeffmurphy · · Score: 1

      i burned this and it boots all the way into X and then the machine (i tried it in 3 different PCs) seems to hang. mouse, etc, unresponsive.

    8. Re:Well it's all over now. by andywhitt · · Score: 1

      Same here am afraid :(

    9. Re:Well it's all over now. by egerlach · · Score: 1

      I think it's a lack of RAM (I'm having the same trouble) How much RAM do you have?

      --

      "Free beer tends to lead to free speech"
    10. Re:Well it's all over now. by egerlach · · Score: 1

      I think it's a RAM problem. How much RAM do you have? (I'm having the same trouble)

      --

      "Free beer tends to lead to free speech"
    11. Re:Well it's all over now. by andywhitt · · Score: 1

      I have a gig of ram, but i did try it in a machine that only had 512. :)

  136. MOD PARENT UP! GREAT D/L LINK! BLAZING FAST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I pulled 40MB in the time it took to write thisd post.

    1. Re:MOD PARENT UP! GREAT D/L LINK! BLAZING FAST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I pulled 40Mb by the time I read this post. :-P

  137. New Mirror Location by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The previously mentioned www.titaniumforums.com does indeed have the looking glass file. It has been updated and this one is a valid iso. you can get it here, however you do have to register on the site. Good news is that it only takes like a minute (username, pass, email)

    1. Re:New Mirror Location by andywhitt · · Score: 1

      Does this version not hang when X is starting ?

  138. Latest torrent release by adwb · · Score: 1

    I downloaded the file from the official site, varified it with the following md5 hash, created a torrent and posted it on demonoid's tracker.

    Torrent detail:
    http://www.demonoid.com/torrents/details/77469/

    Torrent file:
    http://www.demonoid.com/torrents/download/HTTP/774 69/lg3dlivecd.www.Demonoid.com.torrent

    MD5 hash:
    5b6eeed5909b8b66cfbd28f98456e852