No reasonable person should really ask for "linux support". The fact is that there is no such thing as "support for OS(s)". Why does the MoBo even bother about OS? There is the ACPI specification and it should just implement it. Then all OSs - including Windows, Linux and any other OS that's ACPI-compliant will be automatically compatible. This is much more easier for the manufacturer rather than offering separate DSDT tables in the BIOS for each OS.
The real problem is that M$ not only does a bad job, but also proactively drives people away from standards. Examples include MSXML vs XML, OOXML vs ISO-26300:2006(popularly called ODF), Windows File-Share vs NFS, MSRPC vs RPC... and the list's length will be in astronomical units.
People who are born in the age of winmodems assume unquestioningly and "intuitively" that hardware can only be made for an OS and supporting OSs is a cost. In reality, infinite OSs' support can be simply achieved by manufacturing in way that's compatible with open standards. If they can't do that, which is quite normal because sometimes the standards are very feature-less, they should at-least put out technical specifications regarding how an OS can interface with the hardware.
From the comments above, it seems that most of the above people would be very happy if the MoBo just supports Linux. Forcing customers to use Windows is wrong and forcing customers to use either Windows or Linux becomes correct? Why would a MoBo manufacturer really need to care about people's OS? Any manufacturer who is forcing customers to not use FreeBSD or OpenBSD is equally bad. I would even go so far as to say that any manufacturer who gives a _finite_ list of OSs (it doesn't matter whether Linux is in the list or not) is doing evil.
Let's say I've created an OS. My customers are shouting at me: "Windows users can move music to iPhone using Windows-version of iTunes. ThisOS users can move music to iPhone using ThisOS-version of iTunes. ThatOS users can move music to iPhone using ThatOS-version of iTunes. However, I'm unable to do so. You are a technically incompetent programmer. Your OS is so crappy that it doesn't support moving music into iPhone. Your OS is not able to do something that's done by more popular OSs. I'm gonna switch to AnotherOS."
I really don't know how many OSs are supported by iTunes. But the whole damn point is that the list is _finite_ and _apple-dictated_. Why the hell should a phone manufacturer force PC users to choose their PC's OS from a finite list of OSs dictated by the manufacturer. Is there anything so inherent in technology that the manufacturer has to do so?
if iTunes didn't exist, you'd still have to install some Apple-written piece of software on your system to synch it with the iPhone
The anti-competitive practice of forcing customer's choices even when not needed has become so common that people have got used to it. There's actually no reason why the software has to be Apple-written. Apple can just publish technical specification of the interface between PC and iPhone. Competent programmers or OS-writers will do the rest.
you're complaining because the piece of Apple software that you have to install does more than the bare minimum?
No. I'm just complaining that Apple is tinkering with my freedom in more ways than are actually needed.
1. There are multiple versions of ARM CPUs. We don't know any official details. There might also be Nokia-specifc additions to the ARM instruction set.
2. There are many undocumented components in the phone besides CPU. The knowledge that the CPU is ARM is insufficient.
3. Even if I magically created a fully-compatible OS (which I doubt I ever will, given the huge number of undocumented components), there's no way I can get that phone to boot it. This is in sharp contrast to the OpenMoko, in which booting my custom kernel is as easy as editing a line in the config file of the boot-loader.
I believe that the title "Open phone" should not be given to any phone which offers less freedom than the OpenMoko.
I couldn't find _any_ links on the site to the phone's instruction set. How could they claim it's an open phone when they don't completely specify how to program it? It's as closed as an iphone.
Every anti-competitive trick used by M$ is also used by Apple. However, M$ has a monopoly and Apple doesn't. For some people, this is reason enough to abstain from hating Apple. Unfortunately, such people don't realize that they are just becoming silent promoters of such tricks.
All this is utter BS.
The last time I've read about Venus, I was told that its atmospheric pressure is about 90 times heavier than that of Earth.
A quick verification on the Internet will tell you that the atmospheric pressure on Earth is about 101 kPa (also called as 1 atm) whereas that on Venus is about 9.3 MPa (about 90 atm).
When nVidia advertises their GPUs, they call the hardware as "GPUs" and not "GPUs that work only with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and solaris". When it is advertised in such way, the GPU has to work as a GPU with all OSs on earth, and that's possible if and only if complete programming documentation is provided. So, nVidia should either
1. Provide all programming documentation, or
2. Mention explicitly in the advertisement that their hardware is not for people who want complete freedom of choice of OS.
Just imagine how the world would have been if Intel just released x86 processors without specifying its instruction set and without providing any wrapping layer that does the accessing for you, like the nVidia binary drivers do. Getting my point?
There, fixed that for you. nVidia not releasing specs means you have to use their drivers. Intel not releasing specs for x86 would mean you can't do anything with it, fullstop. Yes, some OSes end up in a similar situation, but I don't see the Amiga OS crew complaining.
More on topic, it sounds promising. If only I didn't have a Radeon X800. Maybe when I make my Myth TV box I'll get an nVidia.
I'm just trying to convey that the wrapping layer is OS-specific. You can't use nVidia's Linux drivers on OpenBSD or NetBSD. I should have a little bit more clearer:
Just imagine how the world would have been if Intel just released x86 processors without specifying its instruction set but providing wrappers for only Windows. Then there would have been no other x86 OSs on earth since it would have been impossible for other OS-writers to create x86 OSs, no matter how competent programmers they are.
VGA was probably the most open video standard for hardware programming. Once you know what all the different registers were for, you could do all sorts of fun things, like having paged framebuffers, one super big 256-color framebuffer larger than the actual screen size, or reprogram the hardware video font.
Standards are a totally different issue. Today, the GPUs are not even documented, let alone standardization of the programming.
That's probably what they fear - having lots of people trying out different ideas, rather than having one company (Microsoft) deciding their future for them.
Exactly!! But isn't that punishable? Isn't that anti-competitive to dictate people's choice of OS even when the GPU's behaviour has nothing to do with which OS it is running on??
If they release programming specifications for the hardware, their customers will be able to use the hardware with any OS they want (either by writing their own drivers or by pointing the creator of their OS to the programming specifications).
If they don't provide programming specifications, their customers will be able to use only those OSs for which the manufacturer has provided drivers. For example, nVidia doesn't specify any programming specifications but just provides drivers for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. What about the users of OpenBSD. Don't the OpenBSD developers have the right to know how to work with the hardware?
After all, the hardware doesn't need to know which OS is being used on the computer. Its job is to execute instructions from OS and applications. Isn't it a fundamental duty of the hardware manufacturer to specify how to program their hardware. Just imagine how the world would have been if Intel just released x86 processors without specifying its instruction set. Getting my point?
Steam, Half-life and Counter-Strike are running excellently in wine 1.0, with higher stability and performance in wine than in windows!!! Just remember to use the openGL mode, not DirectX mode.
All the delay is because of manufacturers like nVidia who keep secret the hardware programming documentation.
Any hardware vendor who doesn't release hardware programming documentation should be punished for anti-competitiveness because they are forcing customers to choose from a small finite set of OSs.
Slashdot Mirror
No reasonable person should really ask for "linux support". The fact is that there is no such thing as "support for OS(s)". Why does the MoBo even bother about OS? There is the ACPI specification and it should just implement it. Then all OSs - including Windows, Linux and any other OS that's ACPI-compliant will be automatically compatible. This is much more easier for the manufacturer rather than offering separate DSDT tables in the BIOS for each OS.
The real problem is that M$ not only does a bad job, but also proactively drives people away from standards. Examples include MSXML vs XML, OOXML vs ISO-26300:2006(popularly called ODF), Windows File-Share vs NFS, MSRPC vs RPC... and the list's length will be in astronomical units.
People who are born in the age of winmodems assume unquestioningly and "intuitively" that hardware can only be made for an OS and supporting OSs is a cost. In reality, infinite OSs' support can be simply achieved by manufacturing in way that's compatible with open standards. If they can't do that, which is quite normal because sometimes the standards are very feature-less, they should at-least put out technical specifications regarding how an OS can interface with the hardware.
From the comments above, it seems that most of the above people would be very happy if the MoBo just supports Linux. Forcing customers to use Windows is wrong and forcing customers to use either Windows or Linux becomes correct? Why would a MoBo manufacturer really need to care about people's OS? Any manufacturer who is forcing customers to not use FreeBSD or OpenBSD is equally bad. I would even go so far as to say that any manufacturer who gives a _finite_ list of OSs (it doesn't matter whether Linux is in the list or not) is doing evil.
The relevant authorities should also be careful, from today itself, to avoid patent-mines in the new protocol suite.
iTunes is free.
Let's say I've created an OS. My customers are shouting at me: "Windows users can move music to iPhone using Windows-version of iTunes. ThisOS users can move music to iPhone using ThisOS-version of iTunes. ThatOS users can move music to iPhone using ThatOS-version of iTunes. However, I'm unable to do so. You are a technically incompetent programmer. Your OS is so crappy that it doesn't support moving music into iPhone. Your OS is not able to do something that's done by more popular OSs. I'm gonna switch to AnotherOS."
I really don't know how many OSs are supported by iTunes. But the whole damn point is that the list is _finite_ and _apple-dictated_. Why the hell should a phone manufacturer force PC users to choose their PC's OS from a finite list of OSs dictated by the manufacturer. Is there anything so inherent in technology that the manufacturer has to do so?
if iTunes didn't exist, you'd still have to install some Apple-written piece of software on your system to synch it with the iPhone
The anti-competitive practice of forcing customer's choices even when not needed has become so common that people have got used to it. There's actually no reason why the software has to be Apple-written. Apple can just publish technical specification of the interface between PC and iPhone. Competent programmers or OS-writers will do the rest.
you're complaining because the piece of Apple software that you have to install does more than the bare minimum?
No. I'm just complaining that Apple is tinkering with my freedom in more ways than are actually needed.
1. There are multiple versions of ARM CPUs. We don't know any official details. There might also be Nokia-specifc additions to the ARM instruction set.
2. There are many undocumented components in the phone besides CPU. The knowledge that the CPU is ARM is insufficient.
3. Even if I magically created a fully-compatible OS (which I doubt I ever will, given the huge number of undocumented components), there's no way I can get that phone to boot it. This is in sharp contrast to the OpenMoko, in which booting my custom kernel is as easy as editing a line in the config file of the boot-loader.
I believe that the title "Open phone" should not be given to any phone which offers less freedom than the OpenMoko.
I couldn't find _any_ links on the site to the phone's instruction set. How could they claim it's an open phone when they don't completely specify how to program it? It's as closed as an iphone.
Every anti-competitive trick used by M$ is also used by Apple. However, M$ has a monopoly and Apple doesn't. For some people, this is reason enough to abstain from hating Apple. Unfortunately, such people don't realize that they are just becoming silent promoters of such tricks.
Yes. I admit my mistake.
All this is utter BS. The last time I've read about Venus, I was told that its atmospheric pressure is about 90 times heavier than that of Earth. A quick verification on the Internet will tell you that the atmospheric pressure on Earth is about 101 kPa (also called as 1 atm) whereas that on Venus is about 9.3 MPa (about 90 atm).
You could just call it "Programmable Hardware" or "Documented Hardware".
IMHO, "Open Source Hardware" is just a clever phrase used by many hardware people to leverage advantage of the well-marketed "Open Source" phrase.
In his quest to create an open source video camera...
What the hell is an open source video camera? I've heard of open source software, but what the hell is open source hardware??
When nVidia advertises their GPUs, they call the hardware as "GPUs" and not "GPUs that work only with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and solaris". When it is advertised in such way, the GPU has to work as a GPU with all OSs on earth, and that's possible if and only if complete programming documentation is provided. So, nVidia should either 1. Provide all programming documentation, or 2. Mention explicitly in the advertisement that their hardware is not for people who want complete freedom of choice of OS.
There, fixed that for you. nVidia not releasing specs means you have to use their drivers. Intel not releasing specs for x86 would mean you can't do anything with it, fullstop. Yes, some OSes end up in a similar situation, but I don't see the Amiga OS crew complaining.
More on topic, it sounds promising. If only I didn't have a Radeon X800. Maybe when I make my Myth TV box I'll get an nVidia.
I'm just trying to convey that the wrapping layer is OS-specific. You can't use nVidia's Linux drivers on OpenBSD or NetBSD. I should have a little bit more clearer: Just imagine how the world would have been if Intel just released x86 processors without specifying its instruction set but providing wrappers for only Windows. Then there would have been no other x86 OSs on earth since it would have been impossible for other OS-writers to create x86 OSs, no matter how competent programmers they are.
VGA was probably the most open video standard for hardware programming. Once you know what all the different registers were for, you could do all sorts of fun things, like having paged framebuffers, one super big 256-color framebuffer larger than the actual screen size, or reprogram the hardware video font.
Standards are a totally different issue. Today, the GPUs are not even documented, let alone standardization of the programming.
That's probably what they fear - having lots of people trying out different ideas, rather than having one company (Microsoft) deciding their future for them.
Exactly!! But isn't that punishable? Isn't that anti-competitive to dictate people's choice of OS even when the GPU's behaviour has nothing to do with which OS it is running on??
If they release programming specifications for the hardware, their customers will be able to use the hardware with any OS they want (either by writing their own drivers or by pointing the creator of their OS to the programming specifications). If they don't provide programming specifications, their customers will be able to use only those OSs for which the manufacturer has provided drivers. For example, nVidia doesn't specify any programming specifications but just provides drivers for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. What about the users of OpenBSD. Don't the OpenBSD developers have the right to know how to work with the hardware? After all, the hardware doesn't need to know which OS is being used on the computer. Its job is to execute instructions from OS and applications. Isn't it a fundamental duty of the hardware manufacturer to specify how to program their hardware. Just imagine how the world would have been if Intel just released x86 processors without specifying its instruction set. Getting my point?
Steam, Half-life and Counter-Strike are running excellently in wine 1.0, with higher stability and performance in wine than in windows!!! Just remember to use the openGL mode, not DirectX mode.
All the delay is because of manufacturers like nVidia who keep secret the hardware programming documentation. Any hardware vendor who doesn't release hardware programming documentation should be punished for anti-competitiveness because they are forcing customers to choose from a small finite set of OSs.
You brain-dead slashdot users, are you still unable to understand? Timothy is just a Microsoft shill.