I use SSH on my Nexus One every so often. I am not a sysadmin, just a linux enthusiast, but in my experience the lack of modifier and function keys makes tasks difficult, especially not having TAB for auto completion. But being able to have remote access from anyway is incredibly useful. I'd wager that a smart phone with a near full hardware keyboard would work just fine. Also I think something like the Galaxy Tab or iPad could have a full software keyboard and work because now you have the screen resolution to fit in a terminal and the keyboard.
For when I need to do some more serious stuff on SSH I switch my phone into a WiFi access point to get my netbook on the net.
The Linpack complaining has been going on for years. I remember this coming up with the NEC earth simulator, and other ASIC based systems.
Here are some interesting numbers:
AMD Radeon HD 4870X2 ~2.4 teraFLOPS
Intel Core i7 980 XE ~107.55 gigaFLOPS
According to this the AMD is 20x faster then the Intel; and this is true, but only in some cases.
If what is need is graphic processing the AMD will crush the Intel. But if you need anything else (I am ignoring GPGPU for simplification) the AMD doesn't just lose, it doesn't run. This is a problem for all ASIC based systems, GPU ones are just the newest to come out.
So this new Chinese supercomputer (and other ASIC based supercomputers) score very high in Linpack because the ASICs are designed to be good at this type of task. This makes for a non-general purpose, but very cost effective solution.
But this then means that a supercomputer that cannot use GPUs for its intended task, score very low because they are general purpose machines. Because the Top500 is based on one benchmark (Linpack) you end up with a car to pickup-truck comparison; sure the car is faster, but what about towing capacity?
The end result is the supercomputer analog of the megahertz-myth, people like bigger numbers. A high score proves that is it faster at somethings, but not that it is faster in general.
I have been using KVM on my home workstation for a few months now and I can highly recommend it. I typically use it for testing different linux distros, files systems, server configurations, etc.
If your system supports VT-x or the AMD equivalent the performance is very impressive, almost no noticeable difference. The virt-manager produced by Red Hat makes creating and configuring virtual machines a snap with its friendly user interface.
It supports many useful things like, headless VNC mode (defaut), start on boot, cloning, virtual networks, and so on. However if you are using it for graphics you may want to use the virtualbox style display for faster mouse response, just select it from the list.
It's opensource so it costs you nothing to try it and the current Ubuntu kernels have support for it built in. For me it was a simple apt-get to get started.
My lab is on the 4th floor of an old building downtown Toronto and I definitely felt it. I have lived in this area my whole life and have never felt an earthquake before. At first I didn't know what it was, once I figured it out I started moving to the stairs.
I know lots of people get more and bigger earth quakes then this, but for a first timer like me it's pretty freaky. Ancient 400lb spectrum analyzers don't normally move.
This is interesting and I hope that it helps bring in new people to the embedded field. Having easy tools to introduce people to a system can make a big difference in the learning curve. Once they get hooked they can start to learn how to do things manually.
For things like the ARM, Blackfin, etc. having multitasking is a huge benefit. But on lower end systems like PIC, AVR, etc. it's really just for show and tell.
I have a fair bit of experience programing these low end devices and the golden rule is ISRs (Interrupt Service Routines) for everything. Everything should be done via ISRs, and when not running an ISR the chip should be in low power mode. A lot of embedded systems are battery powered and they simply don't have the power to waste on things like polling. If you have no choice but to poll (and there are very, very few cases for this) then use a timer ISR. Additionally ISRs give you interrupt priority and hard-realtime responses, something that many applications (especially safety) require.
Putting occam on Arduinos should help people get started on these devices, but I seriously doubt it will see any use in the professional world.
While more GHz is nice because if offers more processing power what people really care about is what it can do. Having more power for the sake of more power is just dick measuring, features are what sell products.
Personally I would love to get my hands on an android phone that can play any multimedia I throw at it. I want to be able to download 1080p-720p video like I usually watch on the desktop, and be able to watch it on my smartphone without this transcoding nonsense (come on Dell put the Streak's 5" screen to work).
I know that the Archos 5 can do it, but it seems they dropped the ball on the rest of the system.
Packing the GPU into the CPU makes a lot of sense but also raises some questions.
Does this mean that in the future we can have chips that contain not only a multi-core CPU but also a multi-core GPU? For example could AMD pump out a frag-tastic 6 CPU + 4 GPU chip for hardcore gamers and scientists?
How is this going to effect the cooling for the chip? If I fire up Crisis will my computer melt? (Assuming a GPU is packed in with enough power to play crisis.)
Also how is this going to effect memory bandwidth? Most graphics cards come with some pretty high throughput memory to make everything work. Once everyone is on 64bit having the extra RAM for the GPU is not a problem, but what about the bandwidth?
With all of this multicore processor stuff, I get the feeling that we are going to hit upon another memory bandwidth limit very soon.
Then something is seriously wrong with your setup. Check to see if you are getting updates from the beta repos, that could be the cause you to get a lot of updates.
I have ubuntu netbook remix on my eeepc. Uptime? 40 days. I never power off, just use suspend and keep it charged.
It only ever has to reboot to switch the kernel, everything else can be done by cycling one service or another (video drivers? Cycle X windows).
I am running an older version so perhaps your is different, but mine never asks to be restarted, it just sets the new kernel to the default for the next boot up.
The CPU choice comes down to this, do you want price/performance or just performance?
If you plot the price/performance for CPUs the results is non-linear. The more you pay the lower your price/performance.
Currently AMD dominates the lower end of the market. For this reason their CPUs will give you better price/performance. The last release of Windows is much faster then vista, so for most people there is no need to get a high performance CPU to compensate for bloat. For this reason AMD is the best choice for most people.
However if you need high performance because you do video games (although really CPU has little effect compared to the GPU), do video encoding, etc. Then it may be worth it to spend the extra bucks to get more power.
Decide what you are going to use the computer for. Make a budget. Then look at benchmarks for the apps you are going to run.
Trying to compare CPU performance based on the names on the box is a waste of time. The days of GHz vs GHz are over. It's all just marketing games now.
I also have Teksavvy and I agree their service is fantastic. But here in Ontario we have suffer through what Bell claims is "service".
For example. My torrent programs are throttled, which makes downloading distro's to play with a pain in the ass. Of course you think it's the ISP right? Wrong. For about a month Teksavvy kept sending me email updates about their fight to get Bell to stop throttling the lines of their customers. The CRTC of course did nothing. So in as a work around they now offer a dual line setup to get though Bell, but it costs more money because of the need to split the packets to get around bell.
Also Teksavvy only offers 5Mbit service. I would like to get more but according to the CRTC Bell only has to offer Teksavvy the same service they offer their own customers. Except Bell offers more then 5Mbit, so the whole thing is just a big joke.
In the end, after dealing with Rogers for 3 years, and hearing horror stories from my friends about Bell I decided to stick with the slower Teksavvy account and filtering. They are super cheap and have a plan with no cap.
Better to have good men (Teksavvy) in bad ships (Bell), then bad men (Bell/Rogers) on bad ships (Bell/Rogers).
I have never been part of the US education system but here is what I have learned from being part of the Canadian (Ontario) education system.
1) The most important part of a kids education is the PARENTS. Parents who felt that education was important had kids that did well in school. Parent who treated school like a daycare so they could avoid having to actually raise their kids had children who did poorly. The school has no real power over the students. Detention, being sent to "the office" means nothing. If the parents don't teach discipline to their kids, it won't happen, the school cannot do it.
2) Reading. Kids who read and are encouraged to read do much better then those who do not. What they read doesn't matter. It could be sci-fi, romance, or comic books. The more they read the more they become accustomed to it. I had a friend in high school who never read a novel before. When it came time to read books for English class he struggled. Not because he was bad student, but because reading in volume was just not something he was acclimated to.
3) Money. It may be politically incorrect but it's true, rich kids do better. I don't know if it is because they get better meals, more opportunities, or something else. But on average, rich kids have a much better chance of doing well then poor ones.
4) Culture. I don't know when it started, but today's culture is very anti-intellectual. You hear about kids wanting to be astronauts, doctors, lawyers, and scientists in the media. Perhaps it was that way during the space race, but it most certainly is not now. Many of my peers (I am in my early 20s) wanted to be athletes, media personalities, rock stars (for the money not the music), and movie stars. There seems to be almost no interest educated professions any more. No one dreams of a career where they will need an education.
You can spend all the money you want to pay for the best teacher and class rooms money can buy. But if the kids are not willing to learn, if they were not raised in an environment that encourages learning, they will not get anything from it.
I often hear on slashdot that tapes are much better for long term storage. However I have never used one myself.
What kind of experiences do slashdot readers have with tapes? How long do they last in storage? At what size of storage do they become cost effective? I know some manufacture somewhere will have data sheets that could answer all my questions, but I would prefer to hear first hand accounts rather then marketing ads.
I have been using it for about 2 years now, the only problem was syncing with my iPhone, but someone must have figured that out and put it in an update because when I last rebooted it just started working with rhythmbox. Other then that, no problems.
I also got it installed and working on my sister's laptop for over a year, zero complaints. She only uses firefox, rhythmbox, and openoffice so the conversion is easy for her.
This Christmas I installed it on my brothers laptop. Originally the sound setup had to be manually fixed, but I found out a couple of weeks ago some update fixed it for him.
I have to say that of the linux distro's that I have tried, Linux Mint is the best for a home user. Everything works out of the box, it's reasonably stable, it includes MintMenu which is nice for windows users, and finally all of the codecs are installed by default. Also having Debian & Ubuntu compatibility is nice for experienced Linux users who know exactly what they want.
If you have an inexperienced computer user you want to have a go with Linux, I highly recommend Linux Mint.
If you are really worried about having an insecure link you could try creating a tunnel or VPN between the two machines. These can be long term connections setup indefinitely and have provide their own layer of security. Then just make sure you SSH through the VPN/Tunnel to get back to the server. This will protect your hand shaking between the two systems.
Also be sure to have you private/public keys setup. For ease of use they do not need to have a password (although they can), which is handy for using scp.
However this seems like overkill to me. I am in a similar situation where I SSH home, but because I am a small time home user I find the security provided by SSH and private/public key encryption good enough for me.
It never ceases to amaze me how people can compare the actions of two countries so out of context.
Countries like Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc torture people all the time. It is so pervasive that it just accepted there as the way it is. Now these countries do get some flak for it, but honestly not much.
Now the US tortured (and yes it was torture) 3-4 guys 8 years ago and people act like it proves the US is on the same level as the worst of the worst.
There is a big difference between common accepted practice and a panicked mistake. But I guess some people just aren't willing to acknowledge the difference.
As a Canadian I will never understand why the US is so eager about its boarder security with Canada.
Take a look at a map of North America, we share a huge boarder. If some one wanted to get across undetected, they would go to Calgary, Edmonton, etc. Buy/Rent a off-road vehicle and just drive in across some open fields. It's not hard to figure out.
Boarder security at major ports of entry just pisses everyone off and hurts trade. The most they are going to catch are some teenagers buying pot and Canadian beer. The only real threat at the CAN/US boarder is people bringing handguns into Canada (where they are illegal) and selling them to Toronto street gangs.
Now they are giving a middle aged white guy a hard time? Please, this security theatre has gone too far.
Just have a few navy ships dressed up like cargo ships. When the pirates get close enough for positive identification, the navy personal blow their asses out of the water. It was pretty effective against u-boats.
The Q ships would be cheap, and could be reused so long as the pirates did not get away, dead men tell no tales.
An pirate with an RPG woundn't stand much of a chance against a navy person with a TOW launcher. Also because these are navy ships, when it comes time to port, they can just ID themselves as such, and remove the camo.
Actually I think you have hit upon an interesting idea.
The lawsuits are based on the idea that the people at those IP address were downloading copyrighted content. And for this reason their private information is being released.
But what if you could muddy the waters? Make it so that there are lots of IP addresses from people who are not involved in piracy? If 10% of the IP addresses resolved to people who were not involved in piracy, then releasing the private information would not go through because it is known that 10% of these people are innocent. In the same way, once it gets to court, you could simply claim to be the innocent 10%.
I have no idea how this could be implemented. But I think decoupling people from their IP is the best way to prevent these lawsuits.
I had intended it to be a joke about grad students having to do the grunt work. But I guess my post wasn't very clear because I got modded down as a troll:(
Slashdot Mirror
You are my hero!
I use SSH on my Nexus One every so often. I am not a sysadmin, just a linux enthusiast, but in my experience the lack of modifier and function keys makes tasks difficult, especially not having TAB for auto completion. But being able to have remote access from anyway is incredibly useful. I'd wager that a smart phone with a near full hardware keyboard would work just fine. Also I think something like the Galaxy Tab or iPad could have a full software keyboard and work because now you have the screen resolution to fit in a terminal and the keyboard. For when I need to do some more serious stuff on SSH I switch my phone into a WiFi access point to get my netbook on the net.
The Linpack complaining has been going on for years. I remember this coming up with the NEC earth simulator, and other ASIC based systems.
Here are some interesting numbers:
AMD Radeon HD 4870X2 ~2.4 teraFLOPS
Intel Core i7 980 XE ~107.55 gigaFLOPS
According to this the AMD is 20x faster then the Intel; and this is true, but only in some cases. If what is need is graphic processing the AMD will crush the Intel. But if you need anything else (I am ignoring GPGPU for simplification) the AMD doesn't just lose, it doesn't run. This is a problem for all ASIC based systems, GPU ones are just the newest to come out.
So this new Chinese supercomputer (and other ASIC based supercomputers) score very high in Linpack because the ASICs are designed to be good at this type of task. This makes for a non-general purpose, but very cost effective solution.
But this then means that a supercomputer that cannot use GPUs for its intended task, score very low because they are general purpose machines. Because the Top500 is based on one benchmark (Linpack) you end up with a car to pickup-truck comparison; sure the car is faster, but what about towing capacity?
The end result is the supercomputer analog of the megahertz-myth, people like bigger numbers. A high score proves that is it faster at somethings, but not that it is faster in general.
You just described my exact setup, minus the good bandwidth.
I have been using KVM on my home workstation for a few months now and I can highly recommend it. I typically use it for testing different linux distros, files systems, server configurations, etc.
If your system supports VT-x or the AMD equivalent the performance is very impressive, almost no noticeable difference. The virt-manager produced by Red Hat makes creating and configuring virtual machines a snap with its friendly user interface.
It supports many useful things like, headless VNC mode (defaut), start on boot, cloning, virtual networks, and so on. However if you are using it for graphics you may want to use the virtualbox style display for faster mouse response, just select it from the list.
It's opensource so it costs you nothing to try it and the current Ubuntu kernels have support for it built in. For me it was a simple apt-get to get started.
My lab is on the 4th floor of an old building downtown Toronto and I definitely felt it. I have lived in this area my whole life and have never felt an earthquake before. At first I didn't know what it was, once I figured it out I started moving to the stairs.
I know lots of people get more and bigger earth quakes then this, but for a first timer like me it's pretty freaky. Ancient 400lb spectrum analyzers don't normally move.
lat=43.660153
lon=-79.376972
This is interesting and I hope that it helps bring in new people to the embedded field. Having easy tools to introduce people to a system can make a big difference in the learning curve. Once they get hooked they can start to learn how to do things manually.
For things like the ARM, Blackfin, etc. having multitasking is a huge benefit. But on lower end systems like PIC, AVR, etc. it's really just for show and tell.
I have a fair bit of experience programing these low end devices and the golden rule is ISRs (Interrupt Service Routines) for everything. Everything should be done via ISRs, and when not running an ISR the chip should be in low power mode. A lot of embedded systems are battery powered and they simply don't have the power to waste on things like polling. If you have no choice but to poll (and there are very, very few cases for this) then use a timer ISR. Additionally ISRs give you interrupt priority and hard-realtime responses, something that many applications (especially safety) require.
Putting occam on Arduinos should help people get started on these devices, but I seriously doubt it will see any use in the professional world.
While more GHz is nice because if offers more processing power what people really care about is what it can do. Having more power for the sake of more power is just dick measuring, features are what sell products.
Personally I would love to get my hands on an android phone that can play any multimedia I throw at it. I want to be able to download 1080p-720p video like I usually watch on the desktop, and be able to watch it on my smartphone without this transcoding nonsense (come on Dell put the Streak's 5" screen to work).
I know that the Archos 5 can do it, but it seems they dropped the ball on the rest of the system.
Packing the GPU into the CPU makes a lot of sense but also raises some questions.
Does this mean that in the future we can have chips that contain not only a multi-core CPU but also a multi-core GPU? For example could AMD pump out a frag-tastic 6 CPU + 4 GPU chip for hardcore gamers and scientists?
How is this going to effect the cooling for the chip? If I fire up Crisis will my computer melt? (Assuming a GPU is packed in with enough power to play crisis.)
Also how is this going to effect memory bandwidth? Most graphics cards come with some pretty high throughput memory to make everything work. Once everyone is on 64bit having the extra RAM for the GPU is not a problem, but what about the bandwidth?
With all of this multicore processor stuff, I get the feeling that we are going to hit upon another memory bandwidth limit very soon.
Yes but when it multitasks is it a fork or a pthread?
Then something is seriously wrong with your setup. Check to see if you are getting updates from the beta repos, that could be the cause you to get a lot of updates.
I have ubuntu netbook remix on my eeepc. Uptime? 40 days. I never power off, just use suspend and keep it charged.
It only ever has to reboot to switch the kernel, everything else can be done by cycling one service or another (video drivers? Cycle X windows).
I am running an older version so perhaps your is different, but mine never asks to be restarted, it just sets the new kernel to the default for the next boot up.
Someone give this person some mod points.
The CPU choice comes down to this, do you want price/performance or just performance?
If you plot the price/performance for CPUs the results is non-linear. The more you pay the lower your price/performance.
Currently AMD dominates the lower end of the market. For this reason their CPUs will give you better price/performance. The last release of Windows is much faster then vista, so for most people there is no need to get a high performance CPU to compensate for bloat. For this reason AMD is the best choice for most people.
However if you need high performance because you do video games (although really CPU has little effect compared to the GPU), do video encoding, etc. Then it may be worth it to spend the extra bucks to get more power.
Decide what you are going to use the computer for. Make a budget. Then look at benchmarks for the apps you are going to run.
Trying to compare CPU performance based on the names on the box is a waste of time. The days of GHz vs GHz are over. It's all just marketing games now.
Hey thanks (to you and the parent) for the info. I guess I am a little out of date. I will have to look into this.
I also have Teksavvy and I agree their service is fantastic. But here in Ontario we have suffer through what Bell claims is "service".
For example. My torrent programs are throttled, which makes downloading distro's to play with a pain in the ass. Of course you think it's the ISP right? Wrong. For about a month Teksavvy kept sending me email updates about their fight to get Bell to stop throttling the lines of their customers. The CRTC of course did nothing. So in as a work around they now offer a dual line setup to get though Bell, but it costs more money because of the need to split the packets to get around bell.
Also Teksavvy only offers 5Mbit service. I would like to get more but according to the CRTC Bell only has to offer Teksavvy the same service they offer their own customers. Except Bell offers more then 5Mbit, so the whole thing is just a big joke.
In the end, after dealing with Rogers for 3 years, and hearing horror stories from my friends about Bell I decided to stick with the slower Teksavvy account and filtering. They are super cheap and have a plan with no cap.
Better to have good men (Teksavvy) in bad ships (Bell), then bad men (Bell/Rogers) on bad ships (Bell/Rogers).
I have never been part of the US education system but here is what I have learned from being part of the Canadian (Ontario) education system.
1) The most important part of a kids education is the PARENTS. Parents who felt that education was important had kids that did well in school. Parent who treated school like a daycare so they could avoid having to actually raise their kids had children who did poorly. The school has no real power over the students. Detention, being sent to "the office" means nothing. If the parents don't teach discipline to their kids, it won't happen, the school cannot do it.
2) Reading. Kids who read and are encouraged to read do much better then those who do not. What they read doesn't matter. It could be sci-fi, romance, or comic books. The more they read the more they become accustomed to it. I had a friend in high school who never read a novel before. When it came time to read books for English class he struggled. Not because he was bad student, but because reading in volume was just not something he was acclimated to.
3) Money. It may be politically incorrect but it's true, rich kids do better. I don't know if it is because they get better meals, more opportunities, or something else. But on average, rich kids have a much better chance of doing well then poor ones.
4) Culture. I don't know when it started, but today's culture is very anti-intellectual. You hear about kids wanting to be astronauts, doctors, lawyers, and scientists in the media. Perhaps it was that way during the space race, but it most certainly is not now. Many of my peers (I am in my early 20s) wanted to be athletes, media personalities, rock stars (for the money not the music), and movie stars. There seems to be almost no interest educated professions any more. No one dreams of a career where they will need an education.
You can spend all the money you want to pay for the best teacher and class rooms money can buy. But if the kids are not willing to learn, if they were not raised in an environment that encourages learning, they will not get anything from it.
I often hear on slashdot that tapes are much better for long term storage. However I have never used one myself.
What kind of experiences do slashdot readers have with tapes? How long do they last in storage? At what size of storage do they become cost effective?
I know some manufacture somewhere will have data sheets that could answer all my questions, but I would prefer to hear first hand accounts rather then marketing ads.
I second Mint.
I have been using it for about 2 years now, the only problem was syncing with my iPhone, but someone must have figured that out and put it in an update because when I last rebooted it just started working with rhythmbox. Other then that, no problems.
I also got it installed and working on my sister's laptop for over a year, zero complaints. She only uses firefox, rhythmbox, and openoffice so the conversion is easy for her.
This Christmas I installed it on my brothers laptop. Originally the sound setup had to be manually fixed, but I found out a couple of weeks ago some update fixed it for him.
I have to say that of the linux distro's that I have tried, Linux Mint is the best for a home user. Everything works out of the box, it's reasonably stable, it includes MintMenu which is nice for windows users, and finally all of the codecs are installed by default. Also having Debian & Ubuntu compatibility is nice for experienced Linux users who know exactly what they want.
If you have an inexperienced computer user you want to have a go with Linux, I highly recommend Linux Mint.
If you are really worried about having an insecure link you could try creating a tunnel or VPN between the two machines. These can be long term connections setup indefinitely and have provide their own layer of security. Then just make sure you SSH through the VPN/Tunnel to get back to the server. This will protect your hand shaking between the two systems.
Also be sure to have you private/public keys setup. For ease of use they do not need to have a password (although they can), which is handy for using scp.
However this seems like overkill to me. I am in a similar situation where I SSH home, but because I am a small time home user I find the security provided by SSH and private/public key encryption good enough for me.
Indeed it was a very good movie.
Man I wish I had mod points for you.
It never ceases to amaze me how people can compare the actions of two countries so out of context.
Countries like Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc torture people all the time. It is so pervasive that it just accepted there as the way it is. Now these countries do get some flak for it, but honestly not much.
Now the US tortured (and yes it was torture) 3-4 guys 8 years ago and people act like it proves the US is on the same level as the worst of the worst.
There is a big difference between common accepted practice and a panicked mistake. But I guess some people just aren't willing to acknowledge the difference.
As a Canadian I will never understand why the US is so eager about its boarder security with Canada.
Take a look at a map of North America, we share a huge boarder. If some one wanted to get across undetected, they would go to Calgary, Edmonton, etc. Buy/Rent a off-road vehicle and just drive in across some open fields. It's not hard to figure out.
Boarder security at major ports of entry just pisses everyone off and hurts trade. The most they are going to catch are some teenagers buying pot and Canadian beer. The only real threat at the CAN/US boarder is people bringing handguns into Canada (where they are illegal) and selling them to Toronto street gangs.
Now they are giving a middle aged white guy a hard time? Please, this security theatre has gone too far.
How about we bring back the Q Ships ?
Just have a few navy ships dressed up like cargo ships. When the pirates get close enough for positive identification, the navy personal blow their asses out of the water. It was pretty effective against u-boats.
The Q ships would be cheap, and could be reused so long as the pirates did not get away, dead men tell no tales.
An pirate with an RPG woundn't stand much of a chance against a navy person with a TOW launcher. Also because these are navy ships, when it comes time to port, they can just ID themselves as such, and remove the camo.
Actually I think you have hit upon an interesting idea.
The lawsuits are based on the idea that the people at those IP address were downloading copyrighted content. And for this reason their private information is being released.
But what if you could muddy the waters? Make it so that there are lots of IP addresses from people who are not involved in piracy? If 10% of the IP addresses resolved to people who were not involved in piracy, then releasing the private information would not go through because it is known that 10% of these people are innocent. In the same way, once it gets to court, you could simply claim to be the innocent 10%.
I have no idea how this could be implemented. But I think decoupling people from their IP is the best way to prevent these lawsuits.
I had intended it to be a joke about grad students having to do the grunt work. But I guess my post wasn't very clear because I got modded down as a troll :(
That or I have been reading too much PhD comics.