I've pushed Firefox past 100 tabs in the past. I believe the 1.0.x versions got really glitchy (i.e. parts of the last page persisted when I switched tabs) when pushed that hard, but the 1.5.0.x versions seemed to hold out much better. I've never tried anything quite so extreme with the 2.0.0.x versions.
Don't just give us this vague crap. You're not the only person on the planet
that might be looking at some box or card with this GPU.
I use a similar crappy bargain bin PC for my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop machine
and it does rather well (embedded nv graphics and all).
I can't really give you a lot because I don't know a lot. The motherboard is an ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA, the graphics are 'GeForce6-class' (I have no further details) and can use up to 256MB of my 512MB RAM, and I found after much effort that my sound chip is a RealTek ALC861-VD. As far as I can tell, this stuff should work, but it doesn't for some reason.
The situation now is actually a major improvement. With 6.10, ALSA completely refused to see the sound chip, so I got nothing. With 7.04, it saw the sound chip, but still gave no sound. A manual upgrade to ALSA 1.0.14 got me sound, but with weird glitches (if I paused Amarok, the sound stopped working until I rebooted the whole PC). It's only with 7.10 that the sound finally started working consistently, and it still took manual configuration to convince the PC that 85Hz at 1024x768 was possible (a trick that only works with the nv drivers). On top of that, the nv drivers seem to be conflicting with Firefox 3, making it so that many transparent images turn entirely white (don't say it, there's a bug report already)!
To be honest, I've all but given up on it. I'm planning for a new PC later this year, with components more similar to my last PC, which worked fine before the 'accident'. I'll try Hardy Heron with this PC, but I really don't hold out a whole lot of hope that it'll work better than now.
There's no reason you need to buy a "Linux PC". It's not like there's some logo organization that is in charge of approving "Linux-capable" PCs like there is for Vista.
Just go get the cheapest Windows PC you can find (they have a sticker that says "Vista Capable" or "Vista Ready") and install Linux. It's cheaper than buying a dedicated Linux machine.
I would advise caution on that plan.
I'm using a 'Vista Capable' PC here (Sempron 2800+, integrated graphics, integrated sound) with Kubuntu Linux 7.10 installed on it. Sounds great, right? Wrong.
The binary nvidia drivers won't work properly with the integrated graphics and/or my monitor for some reason (the monitor is forced to a ridiculously low, interlaced refresh rate for some reason, and all efforts to make it go higher have failed) forcing me to use the open-source nv drivers, which are painfully slow on a system with shared RAM and a weak GPU. As for sound, it'll only work with ALSA in OSS-compatibility mode for some reason, so I can only hear one application at once! Having Amarok skip nine tracks because an error sound had to wait for the current track to finish, or having an application saying the sound card is busy because another one won't let go of it isn't a very nice experience to be having every day.
I'm sure there are plenty of cheap PCs that work just fine with Linux, but for Pete's sake, don't forget to check first!
1) DRM is introduced, many bold claims are made about it, manufacturers are very excited about it, cracking efforts begin.
2) The DRM starts to get cracked, new schemes are introduced with equally bold claims, many legal threats are made, but it starts to become clear that this isn't working.
3) Investigations are done into how beneficial DRM is, and the results aren't favourable to DRM. The DRM is deemed to be costly and useless, and is promptly abandoned.
e-books seem to be moving towards stage 3 right now. Of course, there is the possible stage 4 to be concerned about.
4) Stage 3 is somehow forgotten, DRM is re-introduced, many bold claims are made about it...
I really loved that show. I can remember watching the first season (which was presented by Jeremy Clarkson back then) on BBC2. It was a bit of a pity to see the gauntlet scrapped after the second season, but there were a lot of fantastic fights. Chaos 2, Hypnodisc, Bigger Brother, Tornado, Razer, some really memorable ones.
Ah memories...
Microsoft dropped the ball on this one. It is not a Bob, or ME situation, with a strong alternative sitting in the wings. This time, they bet the farm, and now have a lot of crow to eat. I've thought exactly the same thing. Bob failed, but that was just a frontend, Windows itself was fine. Windows Me failed, but Windows 98SE was still there, and Windows XP picked up the slack in no time. But Windows Vista is Microsoft's new flagship OS, there's no alternative waiting in the wings this time.
More and more I don't see people upgrading their PC's. I used to pick up used machines easily that were just 2-3 years old. Now, this Sempron 2800 is the last one I got this way, and I've had it for years. People just aren't upgrading. Bodes poorly for Vista. I've noticed this as well. My current PC is Chihiro (another Sempron 2800), which is really a very similar PC to San (my last PC, an Athlon XP 2100), and isn't really doing all that badly. Considering that San would be six years old now, that's really quite remarkable. I'm quite convinced that if it weren't for the graphics and sound driver problems (this thing really is cursed), I'd be able to live with Chihiro for another year or more. As things stand I plan to get a new PC this year, and who knows how long it'll be before I need to upgrade again?
I once saw a topic on Gaia Online where a suggestion on the cause of BSODs while playing some PC games was an IRQ conflict between the video card and something else. What... the... fuck? On a modern PC? Using an AGP video card? With Windows XP? I suddenly felt like I'd stumbled into some technological version of House where the likelihood of a given problem being true is based on how astronomically unlikely it is to actually happen.
I haven't had to even think about IRQs for the last decade or so, and I can't really say I miss the days when they were still a problem.
Ogg Theora uses patented technology. We don't want to enter into a Rambus-type situation where once something becomes popular a company can come back and start dinging people for money.
If you're thinking about On2 with regards to this, they won't. While VP3 (which Vorbis is based on) may be patented by On2, they have given an irrevocable free licence for anyone to use those patents for any purpose. Even if On2 suddenly turned nasty, they couldn't do anything.
Of course there is still the possibility of submarine patents that, despite their best efforts, neither Xiph.org no On2 have spotted, but what format doesn't come with that risk?
XHTML 1.0 is a watered down version of what XHTML was meant to be. XHTML 2 will be it's true calling. HTML 5 is apparently meant to be a stepping stone between HTML and XHTML. XHTML 2 is meant to be the next big thing.
You're almost right. XHTML 1.0 was meant to be the stepping stone between HTML and XHTML (hence the 'HTML compatibility guidelines' found in the XHTML 1.0 spec and the fact that it come in Strict, Transitional, and Frameset flavours, just like HTML 4.01). XHTML 1.1 was effectively 'XHTML 1.0 Ultrastrict' in that it depreciated even more stuff from XHTML 1.0 Strict and killed the HTML compatibility guidelines, and XHTML 2.0 was meant to be the big thing.
But some browser manufacturers (namely Apple, Mozilla, and Opera) weren't happy with XHTML, and so formed the WHATWG to develop HTML 5 for submission to the W3C. Now it's been accepted, XHTML 2.0 and HTML 5 are both the 'next big thing'. I personally like XHTML more (note that my site is XHTML 1.1) and think HTML 5 is a bad idea, it's a step in the wrong direction and will just breed more confusion, but maybe that's just me.
It would be much better if xiph declared that only.ogg files containing audio should be called.ogg and came up with a new file ending and name for files with video (or audio & video) in them, perhaps.ogv or something.
Which is pretty much exactly what they've done. Official registration of the new MIME types and extensions may take longer though.
Here is a question that I am not entirely sure about. Suppose Microsoft's open XML format does not get passed by the ISO as it very obviously should not. What effect with this have?
Seeing as Microsoft have been pushing hard for ISO to make OOXML an official standard, even going so far as to outright bribe people, I'd say they have a reason. I think that reason is because people are starting to wake up to the fact that open standards are very good for them, and are wanting to switch. Microsoft now desperately want ISO approval so they can point to OOXML and say "You want a open standard? There it is! Now you don't need to switch!". Of course they don't actually want it to be open, but they want ISO approval so they use it to convince other people that it is.
How many people will actually use ODF if the majority have software that cannot read odf files out of the box? Who will use odf? Who does now?
MP3 is not a broken format. There is no good reason to replace it. Yes there is. Better formats (AAC, Vorbis, etc) have been made since MP3 became an ISO/IEC standard in 1991 (yes, that long ago, I was five at the time). What good is the march of technology if we're not actually going to use the fruits of those efforts?
Why not have it the other way around? More people speak Chinese than English you know, and everyone keeps talking about the growth of China as a world power. Maybe we should be using UTF-16 as the default instead.
Has anyone noticed that MS has completely stop any semblance of innovation or improvement upon products, and is now instead chasing every single idea in Tech simultaneously?
I don't think Microsoft ever really innovated all that much. It's just that in this new world of broadband internet, web feeds, and popularity sites, all of the ideas that Microsoft plagiarize are widely-known by the time they actually implement them.
The new thing is Microsoft's new strategy of frantically diversifying into every single niche they can find at once. Microsoft clearly aren't stupid. They know their current money-makers (primarily Windows and Office) are screwed in the long-run, so they're throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately for Microsoft, nothing really seems to have worked so far.
If it lets a few more people not have to dual-boot into Windows to play games, then they are doing something right. If EVE Online works under Cedega, then there was no need to dual-boot in the first place. This changes nothing.
These days the only time you'd ever need to mess with these settings is to
a) record something using either USB or built in mic's. Record something in windows without messing with a control panel.
b) use it with an app installed through wine, and even then not so often.
Or when your sound card won't work because it's not supported by the version of ALSA shipped with Ubuntu, so you need to update it, then set it in OSS compatibility mode because it won't work in native mode for some reason, then try to figure out why Flash won't work, puzzle over why it cuts out when you pause music in Amarok, then tear some hair out as it stops working altogether for no apparent reason!
We'll see. People keep saying that KDE4 and all of its related applications will be ported to Windows, but the reality is that very few developers in the KDE community care about making a Windows port.
Seems the Amarok developers are one of those that do though, as a Windows port has already been announced, and all the way back in April at that.
Betamax was technically superior to VHS. How much good did that do the people who bought Betamax VCRs? Your analogy fails at the point where you mention people who 'bought' Betamax VCRs. You don't pay for a Vorbis codec, therefore it's a zero-risk thing, making it more likely to succeed.
Amarok. There's nothing like it on any other platform. Well not exactly, you can run it on Mac OS X via the X11 layer, and it'll be available for Windows starting with version 2.0.
Ubuntu 7.10 is the release that has replaced Windows for me.
Kubuntu 5.10 was the release that did it for me, and I've been consistently impressed with the improvement each release gives. I'm using Kubuntu 7.04 right now, and I've never managed to crash it. Couldn't say that about any version of Windows, even XP.
On the GNOME front, I am not impressed by its inability to do basic file operations in the file dialog.
100% agree! I'm glad I finally found someone else who sees this. I use KDE partly because I like the Qt file dialog far more than the GTK+ file dialog.
Ironically, when I thought about which GTK+ app is least suited to that file dialog, I thought of the GIMP. I'd find the app much easier to use with the Qt file dialog, which lets me see thumbnails of image files without needing to select them first. In fact, I frequently open up my folders in Konqueror, find the image I want to edit, then use the right-click menu to open it in GIMP. How fucked up is that?
Doesn't the GPL state that once rights are granted, you may never take away rights? Isn't the GPLv3 more restrictive than GPLv2? Aren't projects that switch from GPLv2 to v3 like Samba now removing rights previously granted under the old license, and thusly violating that license?
I believe how it legally works is like this:
Software starts out GPLv2 only. Agreements are gotten from all developers to re-license all code under both the GPLv2 and the GPLv3 (or code from developers that don't agree is rewritten under the GPLv3). Extra code is then added under the GPLv3 only.
All code that was under the GPLv2 is still under the GPLv2 and can be used as such, but is also licensed under the GPLv3 and the whole program can only be distributed under the GPLv3 because some code is GPLv3 only. So no violation since no extra restrictions have been added to any GPLv2 code.
I came to this conclusion after a long and very unproductive debate on whether all versions of MAME are under the GPLv2 because they're derivative works of MAME 0.10 (which was under the GPLv2).
I myself despise flash over substance, and think Flash is named very appropriately. However, that doesn't change the reality that many websites choose to use it. My own point of weakness is Comedy Central.
Then you'll find the inclusion of Gnash in Ubuntu Gutsy quite welcome. It already supports quite a few websites and far more platforms than Flash Player does.
With Java now GPLed, my own problem plugin is Adobe Shockwave. I still occasionally run into things that require it, and there's still no native Linux plugin! Adobe haven't even bothered with an Intel Mac version.
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I've pushed Firefox past 100 tabs in the past. I believe the 1.0.x versions got really glitchy (i.e. parts of the last page persisted when I switched tabs) when pushed that hard, but the 1.5.0.x versions seemed to hold out much better. I've never tried anything quite so extreme with the 2.0.0.x versions.
Specifically, which GPU is causing the problem?
Don't just give us this vague crap. You're not the only person on the planet that might be looking at some box or card with this GPU.
I use a similar crappy bargain bin PC for my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop machine and it does rather well (embedded nv graphics and all).
I can't really give you a lot because I don't know a lot. The motherboard is an ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA, the graphics are 'GeForce6-class' (I have no further details) and can use up to 256MB of my 512MB RAM, and I found after much effort that my sound chip is a RealTek ALC861-VD. As far as I can tell, this stuff should work, but it doesn't for some reason.
The situation now is actually a major improvement. With 6.10, ALSA completely refused to see the sound chip, so I got nothing. With 7.04, it saw the sound chip, but still gave no sound. A manual upgrade to ALSA 1.0.14 got me sound, but with weird glitches (if I paused Amarok, the sound stopped working until I rebooted the whole PC). It's only with 7.10 that the sound finally started working consistently, and it still took manual configuration to convince the PC that 85Hz at 1024x768 was possible (a trick that only works with the nv drivers). On top of that, the nv drivers seem to be conflicting with Firefox 3, making it so that many transparent images turn entirely white (don't say it, there's a bug report already)!
To be honest, I've all but given up on it. I'm planning for a new PC later this year, with components more similar to my last PC, which worked fine before the 'accident'. I'll try Hardy Heron with this PC, but I really don't hold out a whole lot of hope that it'll work better than now.
There's no reason you need to buy a "Linux PC". It's not like there's some logo organization that is in charge of approving "Linux-capable" PCs like there is for Vista.
Just go get the cheapest Windows PC you can find (they have a sticker that says "Vista Capable" or "Vista Ready") and install Linux. It's cheaper than buying a dedicated Linux machine.
I would advise caution on that plan.
I'm using a 'Vista Capable' PC here (Sempron 2800+, integrated graphics, integrated sound) with Kubuntu Linux 7.10 installed on it. Sounds great, right? Wrong.
The binary nvidia drivers won't work properly with the integrated graphics and/or my monitor for some reason (the monitor is forced to a ridiculously low, interlaced refresh rate for some reason, and all efforts to make it go higher have failed) forcing me to use the open-source nv drivers, which are painfully slow on a system with shared RAM and a weak GPU. As for sound, it'll only work with ALSA in OSS-compatibility mode for some reason, so I can only hear one application at once! Having Amarok skip nine tracks because an error sound had to wait for the current track to finish, or having an application saying the sound card is busy because another one won't let go of it isn't a very nice experience to be having every day.
I'm sure there are plenty of cheap PCs that work just fine with Linux, but for Pete's sake, don't forget to check first!
I've made a three-stage theory on DRM:
1) DRM is introduced, many bold claims are made about it, manufacturers are very excited about it, cracking efforts begin.
2) The DRM starts to get cracked, new schemes are introduced with equally bold claims, many legal threats are made, but it starts to become clear that this isn't working.
3) Investigations are done into how beneficial DRM is, and the results aren't favourable to DRM. The DRM is deemed to be costly and useless, and is promptly abandoned.
e-books seem to be moving towards stage 3 right now. Of course, there is the possible stage 4 to be concerned about.
4) Stage 3 is somehow forgotten, DRM is re-introduced, many bold claims are made about it...
I really loved that show. I can remember watching the first season (which was presented by Jeremy Clarkson back then) on BBC2. It was a bit of a pity to see the gauntlet scrapped after the second season, but there were a lot of fantastic fights. Chaos 2, Hypnodisc, Bigger Brother, Tornado, Razer, some really memorable ones. Ah memories...
Yeah, like when Vincent Van Gogh failed to sell any paintings, so he said "screw it" and gave up. Oh wait, that's not how it went...
Aren't we already in "The Future" right now? We should already have fusion power and cool robots doing stuff for us! What happened?
I once saw a topic on Gaia Online where a suggestion on the cause of BSODs while playing some PC games was an IRQ conflict between the video card and something else. What... the... fuck? On a modern PC? Using an AGP video card? With Windows XP? I suddenly felt like I'd stumbled into some technological version of House where the likelihood of a given problem being true is based on how astronomically unlikely it is to actually happen.
I haven't had to even think about IRQs for the last decade or so, and I can't really say I miss the days when they were still a problem.
If you're thinking about On2 with regards to this, they won't. While VP3 (which Vorbis is based on) may be patented by On2, they have given an irrevocable free licence for anyone to use those patents for any purpose. Even if On2 suddenly turned nasty, they couldn't do anything.
Of course there is still the possibility of submarine patents that, despite their best efforts, neither Xiph.org no On2 have spotted, but what format doesn't come with that risk?
You're almost right. XHTML 1.0 was meant to be the stepping stone between HTML and XHTML (hence the 'HTML compatibility guidelines' found in the XHTML 1.0 spec and the fact that it come in Strict, Transitional, and Frameset flavours, just like HTML 4.01). XHTML 1.1 was effectively 'XHTML 1.0 Ultrastrict' in that it depreciated even more stuff from XHTML 1.0 Strict and killed the HTML compatibility guidelines, and XHTML 2.0 was meant to be the big thing.
But some browser manufacturers (namely Apple, Mozilla, and Opera) weren't happy with XHTML, and so formed the WHATWG to develop HTML 5 for submission to the W3C. Now it's been accepted, XHTML 2.0 and HTML 5 are both the 'next big thing'. I personally like XHTML more (note that my site is XHTML 1.1) and think HTML 5 is a bad idea, it's a step in the wrong direction and will just breed more confusion, but maybe that's just me.
Which is pretty much exactly what they've done. Official registration of the new MIME types and extensions may take longer though.
Seeing as Microsoft have been pushing hard for ISO to make OOXML an official standard, even going so far as to outright bribe people, I'd say they have a reason. I think that reason is because people are starting to wake up to the fact that open standards are very good for them, and are wanting to switch. Microsoft now desperately want ISO approval so they can point to OOXML and say "You want a open standard? There it is! Now you don't need to switch!". Of course they don't actually want it to be open, but they want ISO approval so they use it to convince other people that it is.
How many people will actually use ODF if the majority have software that cannot read odf files out of the box? Who will use odf? Who does now?A few people.
Why not have it the other way around? More people speak Chinese than English you know, and everyone keeps talking about the growth of China as a world power. Maybe we should be using UTF-16 as the default instead.
I don't think Microsoft ever really innovated all that much. It's just that in this new world of broadband internet, web feeds, and popularity sites, all of the ideas that Microsoft plagiarize are widely-known by the time they actually implement them.
The new thing is Microsoft's new strategy of frantically diversifying into every single niche they can find at once. Microsoft clearly aren't stupid. They know their current money-makers (primarily Windows and Office) are screwed in the long-run, so they're throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately for Microsoft, nothing really seems to have worked so far.
These days the only time you'd ever need to mess with these settings is to
a) record something using either USB or built in mic's. Record something in windows without messing with a control panel.
b) use it with an app installed through wine, and even then not so often.
Or when your sound card won't work because it's not supported by the version of ALSA shipped with Ubuntu, so you need to update it, then set it in OSS compatibility mode because it won't work in native mode for some reason, then try to figure out why Flash won't work, puzzle over why it cuts out when you pause music in Amarok, then tear some hair out as it stops working altogether for no apparent reason!
It's been a bad year for me and Linux.
Seems the Amarok developers are one of those that do though, as a Windows port has already been announced, and all the way back in April at that.
Kubuntu 5.10 was the release that did it for me, and I've been consistently impressed with the improvement each release gives. I'm using Kubuntu 7.04 right now, and I've never managed to crash it. Couldn't say that about any version of Windows, even XP.
100% agree! I'm glad I finally found someone else who sees this. I use KDE partly because I like the Qt file dialog far more than the GTK+ file dialog.
Ironically, when I thought about which GTK+ app is least suited to that file dialog, I thought of the GIMP. I'd find the app much easier to use with the Qt file dialog, which lets me see thumbnails of image files without needing to select them first. In fact, I frequently open up my folders in Konqueror, find the image I want to edit, then use the right-click menu to open it in GIMP. How fucked up is that?
I believe how it legally works is like this:
Software starts out GPLv2 only. Agreements are gotten from all developers to re-license all code under both the GPLv2 and the GPLv3 (or code from developers that don't agree is rewritten under the GPLv3). Extra code is then added under the GPLv3 only.
All code that was under the GPLv2 is still under the GPLv2 and can be used as such, but is also licensed under the GPLv3 and the whole program can only be distributed under the GPLv3 because some code is GPLv3 only. So no violation since no extra restrictions have been added to any GPLv2 code.
I came to this conclusion after a long and very unproductive debate on whether all versions of MAME are under the GPLv2 because they're derivative works of MAME 0.10 (which was under the GPLv2).
Then you'll find the inclusion of Gnash in Ubuntu Gutsy quite welcome. It already supports quite a few websites and far more platforms than Flash Player does.
With Java now GPLed, my own problem plugin is Adobe Shockwave. I still occasionally run into things that require it, and there's still no native Linux plugin! Adobe haven't even bothered with an Intel Mac version.