Of course the real reason this is happening is that the Trojan Room is no more - the computer lab is moving to a new building. Guess what it's called.... yep you got it " The William Gates Building " Selling the coffee-pot, accepting money from Microsoft.. they must be really desperate!
1 TV output support is currently limited to G400 board level products only. Please consult the Matrox website for details www.matrox.com/mga
Does anyone know why there's no G450 TV out? I can't seem to find any links to any work being done to resolve this. Is it that Matrox won't give out the specs or just that noone is willing to write the drivers? What other options now are there for TV out under linux? G400 aren't really available new anymore, Geforce2MX drivers for TV out appear to support only a small subset of MX cards and look very beta (but promising:). Anyone know better??
Check out this site for some more info on other problems mir had in it's lifetime:-)
Bandwidth not the only problem
on
Low-Bandwidth X
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· Score: 1
The ability to work on lower bandwidth links is not the only thing that needs to be addressed with X to make it feasible for the sorts of applications mentioned above. What we also need is some way of disconnecting and later reconnecting to a previous session. Just like screen does for terminal sessions.
I don't imagine that this would be *that* a feature to add to X, with a caveats - like the screen size, bitrate etc not changing. Since low bandwidth links also tend to be less reliable (going out of range with mobile phones etc) this would be really useful and is a good reason why people often use VNC between linux systems even though they could be using X.
As computers start to do more and more things in our homes (streamed audio replacing radio, video capture replacing your vcr, mp3 collection replacing your cd collection [perhaps] etc) silent computers will be a requirement. This sort of technology is a great step forward towards this.
As for noisy hard-drives this probably won't be a problem as you'd probably not want data to be stored away from devices that you physically interact with and accessible from several of them. Each home could have a server built in in the loft with fast networking around the home. All data is stored on the server, then lower performance systems could be installed next to your tv/hifi etc.
Great! Now what's left for next year.....
on
A Year of Linux
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· Score: 1
Ouch... LOADS of stuff happens in a year eh?!
Well... 'nuff of that... lets ask the important question, where's next years TODO list?
HUGE card.... 4 fans... external power supply... sure the pictures look nice but this is a joke right? Presumably it costs an absolute fortune and yet in a Dual PII-800 it still can't get Quake III up to the refresh rate you'd run your monitor at. Ok so Quake III is probably not the intended use for this card but sloooowwww.....
This is where I'd put my sig if I could be bothered to write one
But this doesn't solve any of the real problems!
on
An RPM Port Of APT
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· Score: 3
This editorial doesn't really address the issues and problems with packaging and distribution of software with current linux distributions.
Lets look at some of these problems... lets say I want to have an mpeg player installed, one that's based on SMPEG. SMPEG uses SDL to render to the screen, so that will need to be included. Now in turn SDL has the *option* (when compiling from source) to include OpenGL support. Now we've got a problem - as a distribution maker do we have our SDL package include OpenGL support (and require Mesa) or not? For someone who just wants to be able to play mpegs and is never going to do any 3D work the idea of being forced to have Mesa installed and taking up space is insane.
The problem is that RPM just has a list of package requirements for each package. A list of other packages that are needed - what it needs is a list of things each package PROVIDES as well, so that several versions of the same package can be produced, with different options etc
At least with intel limiting themselves to the top ten screw ups won't have been that hard. Just imagine what it would be like if we tried to choose the top ten Microsoft screwups!!
It strikes me that all the stuff you list above as things you like are to do with the FreeBSD distribution as opposed to it's kernel. The above could all be achieved with a linux distribution.
Which distribution were you using for the past three years which compared so poorly to BSD? I've not tried it personally but I believe Debian shares a good number of the examples you give, and has the advantage of using the linux kernel with more hardware support (and commercial support - look at the plugin debate). (Yes I know there are lots of other differences, pros and cons between the two kernels but none of those are what f5426 is talking about in his post).
My own systems run a very minimal (ie libc, gcc, a shell and as little as possible else) install of the latest Slackware, with all my applications installed from source and managed using the Encap Package Manager, which I'd recommend to anyone. This leaves me with an exceedingly easy to manage system, over which I have full control, and free from the coarse dependancies in modern distributions that leave them so bloody bloated (SuSE, Mandrake, Redhat.... probably FreeBSD too). What seems to be needed (both for linux, bsd etc) is a packaging system with much finer grained package dependancies - several versions of each package with different options compiled in depending upon what other libraries etc are available.
Come on! If you added the option to have this sort of thing filter your search results (perhaps with some means for a this option to be fixed for certain clients) then I'm sure that it would be embraced by schools and businesses around the globe.
As I understand it search engines will do almost anything to compete with one another - surely adding this as an option is only going to increase their customer base?
I'm no artist... but someone really needs to draw an advert to respond to this. How about starting with a Microsoft logo at Richmond, then one in the desert somewhere (all shrivled up because it couldn't adapt to the environment).
Then maybe one in the cold.... and one in space?? (Microsoft logo just expolded!).
Draw Tux along side having found a sunhat, built and igloo & made a space suit!
In the past the price of games consoles has been heavily subsidised by the revenues from selling the games that run on the hardware (havn't they?). Do you think that with Indrema you'll be able to price the hardware competitively without people buying your hardware as a cheap-PC and not buying your games and software? Or perhaps will the Indrema hardware be more expensive (compared to PS2, DC etc) but benefit from having more cheap (or free!) games available?
If you want a quick easy solution then there have been lots of good ideas; webTV, iMacs, BeOS (?) etc..
However if you happen to be after a little project to keep you busy then you could make a better system tailored for his needs using Linux. It would however be a LOT of work.
I'd suggest that you hack WindowMaker so that it's Dock can only be modified by editing the config file - and set it up as grandad needs it. Turn off all the root window menu's etc.
If you wanted to address the problem of it all going pear shaped after the next power-cut - put as much as possible on a bootable CD; then setup the harddrives so that automatic backups are made onto other partitions - if the CD detects a problem on bootup it can revert to a previous state.
If it's basically just webbrowsing and mail that you set up then after a LOT of effort you'll end up with something not unlike a WebTV. Hmmm....
Perhaps only a project for those with far too much spare time; or grandads with more complex requirements.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course the real reason this is happening is that the Trojan Room is no more - the computer lab is moving to a new building. Guess what it's called.... yep you got it " The William Gates Building " Selling the coffee-pot, accepting money from Microsoft.. they must be really desperate!
:)
Thank god I've graduated
1 TV output support is currently limited to G400 board level products only. Please consult the Matrox website for details www.matrox.com/mga
Does anyone know why there's no G450 TV out? I can't seem to find any links to any work being done to resolve this. Is it that Matrox won't give out the specs or just that noone is willing to write the drivers? What other options now are there for TV out under linux? G400 aren't really available new anymore, Geforce2MX drivers for TV out appear to support only a small subset of MX cards and look very beta (but promising :). Anyone know better??
Right someone get on with it and port this to Psion! Pocket Sketch Quake :-)))
Someones port-scanning us! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Check out this site for some more info on other problems mir had in it's lifetime :-)
The ability to work on lower bandwidth links is not the only thing that needs to be addressed with X to make it feasible for the sorts of applications mentioned above. What we also need is some way of disconnecting and later reconnecting to a previous session. Just like screen does for terminal sessions.
I don't imagine that this would be *that* a feature to add to X, with a caveats - like the screen size, bitrate etc not changing. Since low bandwidth links also tend to be less reliable (going out of range with mobile phones etc) this would be really useful and is a good reason why people often use VNC between linux systems even though they could be using X.
As for noisy hard-drives this probably won't be a problem as you'd probably not want data to be stored away from devices that you physically interact with and accessible from several of them. Each home could have a server built in in the loft with fast networking around the home. All data is stored on the server, then lower performance systems could be installed next to your tv/hifi etc.
Well... 'nuff of that... lets ask the important question, where's next years TODO list?
--
Here's where I'd put a funny sig
This is where I'd put my sig if I could be bothered to write one
Lets look at some of these problems... lets say I want to have an mpeg player installed, one that's based on SMPEG. SMPEG uses SDL to render to the screen, so that will need to be included. Now in turn SDL has the *option* (when compiling from source) to include OpenGL support. Now we've got a problem - as a distribution maker do we have our SDL package include OpenGL support (and require Mesa) or not? For someone who just wants to be able to play mpegs and is never going to do any 3D work the idea of being forced to have Mesa installed and taking up space is insane.
The problem is that RPM just has a list of package requirements for each package. A list of other packages that are needed - what it needs is a list of things each package PROVIDES as well, so that several versions of the same package can be produced, with different options etc
At least with intel limiting themselves to the top ten screw ups won't have been that hard. Just imagine what it would be like if we tried to choose the top ten Microsoft screwups!!
Which distribution were you using for the past three years which compared so poorly to BSD? I've not tried it personally but I believe Debian shares a good number of the examples you give, and has the advantage of using the linux kernel with more hardware support (and commercial support - look at the plugin debate). (Yes I know there are lots of other differences, pros and cons between the two kernels but none of those are what f5426 is talking about in his post).
My own systems run a very minimal (ie libc, gcc, a shell and as little as possible else) install of the latest Slackware, with all my applications installed from source and managed using the Encap Package Manager, which I'd recommend to anyone. This leaves me with an exceedingly easy to manage system, over which I have full control, and free from the coarse dependancies in modern distributions that leave them so bloody bloated (SuSE, Mandrake, Redhat.... probably FreeBSD too). What seems to be needed (both for linux, bsd etc) is a packaging system with much finer grained package dependancies - several versions of each package with different options compiled in depending upon what other libraries etc are available.
As I understand it search engines will do almost anything to compete with one another - surely adding this as an option is only going to increase their customer base?
I thought Google only cached text and html files but didn't bother with things like images, sounds, movies, mp3's etc
I'm no artist... but someone really needs to draw an advert to respond to this. How about starting with a Microsoft logo at Richmond, then one in the desert somewhere (all shrivled up because it couldn't adapt to the environment).
Then maybe one in the cold.... and one in space?? (Microsoft logo just expolded!).
Draw Tux along side having found a sunhat, built and igloo & made a space suit!
In the past the price of games consoles has been heavily subsidised by the revenues from selling the games that run on the hardware (havn't they?). Do you think that with Indrema you'll be able to price the hardware competitively without people buying your hardware as a cheap-PC and not buying your games and software? Or perhaps will the Indrema hardware be more expensive (compared to PS2, DC etc) but benefit from having more cheap (or free!) games available?
> it looks a bit too user friendly for me!
Hmm.. looks like you've still got to click "Start" to turn it off.
--
Jakdaw
If you want a quick easy solution then there have been lots of good ideas; webTV, iMacs, BeOS (?) etc..
However if you happen to be after a little project to keep you busy then you could make a better system tailored for his needs using Linux. It would however be a LOT of work.
I'd suggest that you hack WindowMaker so that it's Dock can only be modified by editing the config file - and set it up as grandad needs it. Turn off all the root window menu's etc.
If you wanted to address the problem of it all going pear shaped after the next power-cut - put as much as possible on a bootable CD; then setup the harddrives so that automatic backups are made onto other partitions - if the CD detects a problem on bootup it can revert to a previous state.
If it's basically just webbrowsing and mail that you set up then after a LOT of effort you'll end up with something not unlike a WebTV. Hmmm....
Perhaps only a project for those with far too much spare time; or grandads with more complex requirements.