I realized that might be what you meant later on. As other posters have pointed out, nVidia does a MUCH better job of supporting Linux than ATI (I didn't realize it was still so bad, but based on that smoking gun link, I guess).
As for processors and such, I like AMD better simply because I think they are currently superior (in price, heat, technology (x86-64), etc). I don't think there is any reason to support one over the other becuase as far as I know they both make about the same effort towards making Linux work. You might also want to "boycott" Intel because of the wireless problems happening (they won't let people use Centrino wireless due to patents or something).
For the rest of the stuff, most of it just works. Chipsets, sound cards, etc. I don't think that there is any real reason to support one company over another due to support issues that I know of. Network cards are all based on one of a few chipset that tend to work great. Soundcards I'd look into for support, but nothing big. IDE and such are the same as network cards, they're all the same.
I guess this post is ending up like my last one. There aren't any major issues out there that I'm aware of (other than the difference between nVidia and ATI). But if you find a piece of hardware and go looking for driveres and such before you buy it, you'll probably turn up those kind of things and find them out in time. That ATI petition is the 6th hit on Google for "ati linux drivers". Just look around, and you should find that kind of info.
My laptop is getting long in the tooth (it's about 3.5 yrs now). I'm going to replace it with a PowerBook as soon as I get out of school (which seems to go out of their way to require Windows). I know I could use VirtualPC, but this is just easier (and cheaper for now). But I'll be going back to Mac (after 10 years of Wintel). Better OS, nice hardware designs. A real shell (BASH). It's perfect.
On a side note, I agree that that iMac wannabe is ugly. But yesterday I saw a new iMac in person for the first time. I think it was the smallest model. While it's thin (and amazing in that way), the size of the bezel at the bottom of the screen is HUGE at first. I'm sure I'd get used to it, but it just seemed so much smaller in the pictures. I'd imagine it wouldn't seem so bad with a large model. But I thought I'd post that observation. I'd still take it over that monstrosity you linked to. I've seen some nice all-in-ones, but whoever designed that needs to be stoned and sent back to design school.
Processor - Largely irrelevant. Linux has had support for x86-64 from AMD since before the chip was available. Everything on the Intel side is supported.
Video Card - Both ATI and nVidia cards work. If you use the unofficial open source drivers, things will work, but you don't get 3D (I don't think). Both ATI and nVidia have binary drives, but my understanding is that nVidia's are better (more stable, etc) but they have been out longer so that's to be expected (plus ATI has a bit of a reputation when it comes to drivers, but they've been doing much better in the last few years). I'd go with nVidia because the drivers are supposed to be better. When it comes to things like VIVO or All-In-Wonder cards I don't know, I'm not up to speed. If you don't need 3D, Matrox is supposed to work great (don't know if the drivers are open source, open source from the company, or closed source). I say "don't need 3D" because they really aren't a 3D contender.
Motherboard/souncard/etc - It's all in the chipset. By and large most everything on motherboards works because the chipsets are pretty well supported (except WiFi, see below). Soundcards I don't know, but the ones built in to chipsets usually work well enough, or I think the Soundblaster Live! series is well supported (if you can get an old SB16 for $10 or something, it's perfect). Network cards aren't usually a problem. Printers work well. The only category of hardware that has been a major problem lately (to the best of my knowledge) is WiFi which is still full of quicksand and boobytraps (in regards to what cards are supported).
Most major hardware is well supported, but check before you buy.
OOh. Excelent point. They are G5s (fast, should be good for what he's doing), contain the monitor already (which a SFF PC wouldn't), and are relativly small (since they are only 2" thick). That would probably be about ideal for him. Greap point!
Dear Judy,
Hi! Guess what, I'm dead. But then again that's what you wanted isn't it. That's right. I know you tried to kill me before. I guess you might have succeded this time. Or maybe I tripped and got hit by a bus. If that's true, sorry and please sue the bus company.
But I think you did it. I know all about your affair with Jim. I know about your little trysts in bathroom by the auto department in Walmart. I know you wanted to marry him so you've been trying to knock me off. I know about the insurance policies and that you want to take a trip to go llama-ranglin' in the Andes mountains as some kind of weird romantic vacation.
But don't worry. Things will be fine. All you need to know is I made a giant fertalizer bomb in the basement, and there is some C4 in your car (thanks paramilitary-supplies-4less.com!). They are both on time-bombs and will explode if I haven't checked in within the last 24 hours. But because I'm a nice guy, the code to disarm them is "83vj2985ah". Just enter that and you'll be fine. You can save the bombs to kill Jim when you get tired of him and want to marry Paul (yeah, I know about him too).
I have something to add that another post reminded me of. If memory latency is important to you (I know know much about numerical simulations so I don't know), then you want an x86-64 chip by AMD. Becuase of the on-die memory controller, the memory latency is substantially lower than on P4s (especially the high end P4s with the huge clock speeds).
The last thing I have to say is that as another poster pointed out, are you stuck in the Wintel world? Because the G4 and G5s (the later especially) are supposed to be VERY good at this kind of thing. So you could use a XServe G5 (pretty small) or just a normal G5 (not as small). They aren't that cheap (probably couldn't get one in your budget, but maybe used) but they should preform great. They are also true 64-bit. Also, IBM sells G5 computers, so you're not stuck buying an Apple (you might be able to get a cheaper one that way too). Not sure about the sizes of those though.
OK, here is my impression from years of reading hardware sites.
The P4 has amazing floating point performance, but you have to use packed SSE2/3 to get it. For general (non-packed SSE or x86) floating point performance, the Athlon lines are strong.
If you can get a low end Athlon 64 (like one of the single channel versions) that might be great for you. They are the "budget" versions but have great FPUs, more registers if your software can use it, and are true 64-bit.
As for the Athlon (non-64), I wouldn't personally. I would think you could get a low end Athlon 64 (like I said above) for a reasonable price that would smoke it.
Last of all, the Intel compiler is designed for Intel chips (duh), but the code can be run by Athlons and Opterons and even on the AMD chips it's code is often better performing than GCC code. That said, if you get a P4, using that compiler is probably a must because it is sooooo good at seting up floating point stuff and gets much better performance (but then again, what do you expect?). So give it a try no matter what you buy, it will probably help your performance.
So those are my theories/impressions. You can get SFF PC that will hold just about any processor. Too bad money is an object because that dual-cpu Iwill Opteron SFF that will come out later this year would kill anything else in a SFF (assuming you can take advantage of the 2nd CPU with whatever you're doing, which I assume you can).
Mine is over 3 years old now. It's been a nice warhorse. It was the first laptop with a GF2go.
I've looked into getting a new laptop but I think I'll just use this one (for what I do it still works quite well) untill I'm out of school and can buy a Mac (my school (a college) requires PCs and to use a Mac would be me doing everything, not worth it for now).
OK, you found a flaw. Great point. Still, that gives them HL2 and WC3. Those are already on PC (or will be in the HL 2 case) so why should I buy a console that requires a monthly fee to play it?
That's exactly the resolution on my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. I've really come to love it. I can display WAY more text that other laptops all with a fine (and extremely readable) font size. And when I make the fonts bigger (for example, "fit to page" zoom level in MS Word) things can look beautiful. It will be nice when the average DPI moves up.
That's true. But OS X and Longhorn (ha) are trying to be device and DPI independant. But this screen is for a cellphone where I would guess the majority of the software is rewritten anyways (because of constant differences in hardware, screen resolution, etc). This little screen isn't for applications where you are likely to see "legacy" content. And even if it was (like a PDA), you could easily make it simple double the size of all software that thinks the screen is only QVGA. Then it would look exactly as it would on a QVGA screen, while software that is aware of the resolution would look better. I don't think it would be that big of a problem.
I agree. Chronic Logic made Gish, Pontifix I & II, and some puzzle game. They're a nice company (I own two of their games), but they are hardly a big name console launch partner unless they have something big up their sleeve. Interplay? What have they done big in the last few years? Nothing stands out for me. They also have Vivendi. Same kind of things.
This list is all small publishers and left-overs. Where is EA, Sega, Rockstar, Activision, etc? Where are the companies with recent, big games? Where are the companies that have had "must-have" games in the past? None of those companies look like they'll be supplying a "killer app". They all look like little companies that are jumping on a console that they might be able to ride up if it becomes the next big thing. If not, no big loss (unlike EA trying to push a major game on the console).
I want to see a list of GAMES. When (if) the phantom gets here, it's going to need some good games. Show me the games, I'll believe you.
And please, NOT PORTS. I won't buy a console for ports, because I can buy the port that's already on the PC, X-Box, PS2, or GC that I already own. You need something UNIQUE.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Phantom is an interesting property, and if it takes off it could be quite a story. But for now, it's barely above the "scam/sham" level on my "hype-o-meter".
But you just crank that up. So instead of tiny little fonts that look nice, you get normal sized (or large sized) fonts that look FANTASTIC. As size goes up (and you use appropriate graphics, or vector graphics) everything looks smooth and nice. You can't see the aliasing on curves and such.
I mean, you don't think people who run 1600x1200 on 17" monitors use standard fonts do you? You'd never be able to see anything. My laptop has about 100 DPI (as opposed to a more normal 72 or so), so it has "larger" fonts than a normal computer. But the text on it looks VERY good. Even teeny-tiny text is ledgeable because there are enough pixles to render it well (even if you have to squit to read it;).
Having a higher resolution is good. It means cleaner fonts and better looking icons and such which should improve usability. If used right, this is great.
But if you just try to put Windows 95 or something like that on default settings on that screen, usability would be a joke.
This is almost an expirament. New users are offered a choice between two operating systems: Linux and Windows. Both are free (from their point of view). Both let you surf the internet.
Why? Well, what keeps so many people on MS software? It's that they have old programs that they have to use. They have to access old data. They have to interface with their office that uses MS software. People are "tied down" so it's harder to move. But very few people over there are tied down the way many people here are.
Second is security. People know Linux is relativly secure. People know about all the viruses, spyware, security holes, and other stuff on Windows. If you had no predisposition (like previous expiriance with Windows or software that needed Windows), then which would you choose?
And of course, there is the political. As the article mentions, some people run Linux because it's not MS, which comes from the US. Some people run it out of anti-US sentiment. And they are probably some that run Linux because not because of anti-US sentiment (in the death to all Amercians sense) but because of non-US sentiment (doesn't come from the US, might be a Iranian distro which would keep money/jobs there). Same reason some EU countries are looking a SuSe or other distros, or China is trying to make their own OS (or was it Linux distrobution).
This (and especially Iraq) will be interesting to watch, to see how new users with no/few predispositions (how many people in the US think ALL computers just run Windows, and there is nothing else?) will buy and use computers. Will they go for the standard (MS, Adobe, Macromedia, whoever), or go for underdogs that they like better or have better features (OSS, smaller companies, etc.).
Both of those are BASH (OSX used to use csh or maybe tsh but they switched it). Personally I LOVE BASH. After messing with Linux for a few years, the Windows shell drives me nuts. It's just so primitive feeling.
This is one of those situations where I think MS is doing a serious NIH (Not Invented Here) for no good reason. I can understand the reason to make Direct X instead of use OpenGL (for controll) and other such decisions. But I don't think having their own shell (instead of an implementaion of BASH) does them any good. I don't think it helps them sell more software. I don't think it helps them controll the market more. They should have taken BASH, and extended it with their.NET stuff.
I can use BASH on Linux, BSD, BeOS, OSX, and many many others. Why should I have to learn a new shell for Windows? Why can't they just accept it for once. It doens't cost them anything. If anything it would make porting apps over to Windows from other platforms EASIER.
At least make it so I can replace my shell easily (like you can change your default shell on other platforms)? That would be enough for me.
It's not exactly MS's fault that their current shell isn't very good. They've been going pure GUI and trying to keep people there. They've said DOS is dead and no one should ever have to use a CLI. So they've had no reason (based on that) to improve the shell since it's last incarnation, DOS 6.22. Of course now they are making a new CLI and making a big deal over it. Everything old is new again, eh?
As another reply to your comment pointed out, you're and idiot and should not have been moderated up. In fact, you score dropped from the time I saw your comment to clicking reply (not long).
So let's clear it. What you pointed out was a billboard with a question on it to recruit for google.
The GLAT was a little "book" that was a 4 sides of paper (not standard size, smaller). It looked like a school aptitude test in almost every way. It had all sorts of interesting questions in it like "The space below was intentionally left blank. Please improve upon this." and "In an infinate two-dimentional lattice of 1 ohm resistors, what is the resistance between any two points a knight's move away?" and other such things. It's full of that kind of stuff and more.
So in conclusion, this is not a dupe. Why not try LOOKING at things (or even reading the submission) before trying to get karma by yelling DUPE.
My printer has a JetDirect ethernet card in it. It's got it's own webserver and can handle the Internet Printing Protocall. You could print to it from across the globe if you knew the IP and it was outside a firewall (or you use a VPN or something).
So what would happen if I just "set it free"? Would anyone notice? Would people start printing spam out of it? Would they try to print Goats.ex stuff?
Anyone ever done this (either on purpose or accidentily)? Anything happen? Just curious. I mean I can understand the appeal of files, but does anyone care about "open" printers?
As for whether MS will do this or not, I fear that they won't untill a 3rd party (like the, admitidly dubious, company in the article) does it first (or tries). It's too bad because I think backwards comp. would be a great thing.
True. But my point was that they aren't NEEDED. MS already has everything that they need to provide backwards compatibility. And even if they didn't provide it, because they have the source to all the libraries and such they could produce an version that was far more optomised and ran faster than a 3rd party company working blind could.
On a side note, this is like the 3rd thread in the last week or two where you have tried to rip a hole in my comments. Are you following me around or am I just "lucky":)
True. But an X-Box runs at 700 (or maybe 733) mhz. It's a Pentium III core (basically). The X-Box 2 is rumored to run 2 or 3 PPC cores at 2-2.5 ghz. I would expect that even a single 2+ ghz PPC core could emulate at least a 700 mhz x86 without a problem. And don't forget that the graphics on the X-Box 2 will be MUCH faster, so to retain the same frame rate, you have more time (per frame) to prepare the graphics data because the rendering is so fast. That would also help things.
Let's not forget the fact that Microsoft bought Connectix (possibly for) Virtual PC. That means Microsoft has all the software neccessary to allow x86 programs to run on PPC processors, plus the have the source to the X-Box and its libraries. They could do a better job than some third party (assuming that that software mentioned actually exists and does what it claims, which I doubt).
If there is backwards compatibility (and I SERIOUSLY HOPE THERE IS), MS can do it in house, and better than any third party. If MS doesn't make it backwards compatible and this company released a program to let you, MS could appear in almost no time with a perfectly working program to do the same thing.
Exactly. While plugging it into a keyboard or something might not work, I could always unplug a printer or something and I'd be set. Not only that, but many computers these days (at least on the PC) come with like 6 USB ports on the back of the computer alone. There is almost always a powered port.
Also, to the grandpart of this post, did the USB drive work plugged into the keyboard? It may have been an unpowered port, but I wouldn't be suprised if there was enough power to run the USB key.
I wasn't after the firewire port, it was just included. And it is a laptop, which is probably why it's the 4 pin and not a 6 pin (although there is plenty of room for the 6 pin version). But my point was that I can take my USB key drive up to any computer and it will work in the port. Not only do many computers not have FireWire ports, but some that do have the 4 pin version and the drive won't work there.
For a little drive you can take anywhere and use on any computer, USB is simply superior to FireWire. The product is filling a demand that I doubt was ever really there. It doens't offer anything over a USB flash driver other than the firewire interface, which as I pointed out could be a problem.
That's nice and all (I prefer FireWire over USB myself), but it would be useless to me. The problem is powering the thing. Sure, 6 pin firewire ports are powered. But what about me? My computer has a 4 pin port (which I'm not happy about). So how do I use it? There is no power from the port. There is no plug on the device for a way to plug it into a USB or PS/2 port to get power. The only way I can think of is a firewire Y cable sort of thing I have. You plug the device needing power in one end, the computer in another, and then you plug the third end into a wallwart (not unlike the iPod's one). So much for portable.
So as nice as this is, it's not for everyone. USB really is superior for this task because of this (IMHO). I have never seen or heard of an unpowered USB port. And if such a thing exists, I don't think it is up to spec because (unlike FW) I think that all USB ports are require to be able to power something (not pass-though ports though).
Still, neat to see. Now if we could just lose the 4 pin FW ports. The connectors are bad enough on their own. Redesign it, and and power to it.
Slashdot Mirror
As for processors and such, I like AMD better simply because I think they are currently superior (in price, heat, technology (x86-64), etc). I don't think there is any reason to support one over the other becuase as far as I know they both make about the same effort towards making Linux work. You might also want to "boycott" Intel because of the wireless problems happening (they won't let people use Centrino wireless due to patents or something).
For the rest of the stuff, most of it just works. Chipsets, sound cards, etc. I don't think that there is any real reason to support one company over another due to support issues that I know of. Network cards are all based on one of a few chipset that tend to work great. Soundcards I'd look into for support, but nothing big. IDE and such are the same as network cards, they're all the same.
I guess this post is ending up like my last one. There aren't any major issues out there that I'm aware of (other than the difference between nVidia and ATI). But if you find a piece of hardware and go looking for driveres and such before you buy it, you'll probably turn up those kind of things and find them out in time. That ATI petition is the 6th hit on Google for "ati linux drivers". Just look around, and you should find that kind of info.
On a side note, I agree that that iMac wannabe is ugly. But yesterday I saw a new iMac in person for the first time. I think it was the smallest model. While it's thin (and amazing in that way), the size of the bezel at the bottom of the screen is HUGE at first. I'm sure I'd get used to it, but it just seemed so much smaller in the pictures. I'd imagine it wouldn't seem so bad with a large model. But I thought I'd post that observation. I'd still take it over that monstrosity you linked to. I've seen some nice all-in-ones, but whoever designed that needs to be stoned and sent back to design school.
Most major hardware is well supported, but check before you buy.
OOh. Excelent point. They are G5s (fast, should be good for what he's doing), contain the monitor already (which a SFF PC wouldn't), and are relativly small (since they are only 2" thick). That would probably be about ideal for him. Greap point!
But I think you did it. I know all about your affair with Jim. I know about your little trysts in bathroom by the auto department in Walmart. I know you wanted to marry him so you've been trying to knock me off. I know about the insurance policies and that you want to take a trip to go llama-ranglin' in the Andes mountains as some kind of weird romantic vacation.
But don't worry. Things will be fine. All you need to know is I made a giant fertalizer bomb in the basement, and there is some C4 in your car (thanks paramilitary-supplies-4less.com!). They are both on time-bombs and will explode if I haven't checked in within the last 24 hours. But because I'm a nice guy, the code to disarm them is "83vj2985ah". Just enter that and you'll be fine. You can save the bombs to kill Jim when you get tired of him and want to marry Paul (yeah, I know about him too).
It was "nice" knowing you.
--Bob
PS: too bad you never checked your e-mail ;)
The last thing I have to say is that as another poster pointed out, are you stuck in the Wintel world? Because the G4 and G5s (the later especially) are supposed to be VERY good at this kind of thing. So you could use a XServe G5 (pretty small) or just a normal G5 (not as small). They aren't that cheap (probably couldn't get one in your budget, but maybe used) but they should preform great. They are also true 64-bit. Also, IBM sells G5 computers, so you're not stuck buying an Apple (you might be able to get a cheaper one that way too). Not sure about the sizes of those though.
Just more stuff to think about.
The P4 has amazing floating point performance, but you have to use packed SSE2/3 to get it. For general (non-packed SSE or x86) floating point performance, the Athlon lines are strong.
If you can get a low end Athlon 64 (like one of the single channel versions) that might be great for you. They are the "budget" versions but have great FPUs, more registers if your software can use it, and are true 64-bit.
As for the Athlon (non-64), I wouldn't personally. I would think you could get a low end Athlon 64 (like I said above) for a reasonable price that would smoke it.
Last of all, the Intel compiler is designed for Intel chips (duh), but the code can be run by Athlons and Opterons and even on the AMD chips it's code is often better performing than GCC code. That said, if you get a P4, using that compiler is probably a must because it is sooooo good at seting up floating point stuff and gets much better performance (but then again, what do you expect?). So give it a try no matter what you buy, it will probably help your performance.
So those are my theories/impressions. You can get SFF PC that will hold just about any processor. Too bad money is an object because that dual-cpu Iwill Opteron SFF that will come out later this year would kill anything else in a SFF (assuming you can take advantage of the 2nd CPU with whatever you're doing, which I assume you can).
You got part of it wrong.
;)
The part where you have "...5...", that should be "...7..."
Have a nice day
(he he he)
I've looked into getting a new laptop but I think I'll just use this one (for what I do it still works quite well) untill I'm out of school and can buy a Mac (my school (a college) requires PCs and to use a Mac would be me doing everything, not worth it for now).
Best laptop I've ever owned though.
OK, you found a flaw. Great point. Still, that gives them HL2 and WC3. Those are already on PC (or will be in the HL 2 case) so why should I buy a console that requires a monthly fee to play it?
That's exactly the resolution on my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. I've really come to love it. I can display WAY more text that other laptops all with a fine (and extremely readable) font size. And when I make the fonts bigger (for example, "fit to page" zoom level in MS Word) things can look beautiful. It will be nice when the average DPI moves up.
That's true. But OS X and Longhorn (ha) are trying to be device and DPI independant. But this screen is for a cellphone where I would guess the majority of the software is rewritten anyways (because of constant differences in hardware, screen resolution, etc). This little screen isn't for applications where you are likely to see "legacy" content. And even if it was (like a PDA), you could easily make it simple double the size of all software that thinks the screen is only QVGA. Then it would look exactly as it would on a QVGA screen, while software that is aware of the resolution would look better. I don't think it would be that big of a problem.
This list is all small publishers and left-overs. Where is EA, Sega, Rockstar, Activision, etc? Where are the companies with recent, big games? Where are the companies that have had "must-have" games in the past? None of those companies look like they'll be supplying a "killer app". They all look like little companies that are jumping on a console that they might be able to ride up if it becomes the next big thing. If not, no big loss (unlike EA trying to push a major game on the console).
I want to see a list of GAMES. When (if) the phantom gets here, it's going to need some good games. Show me the games, I'll believe you.
And please, NOT PORTS. I won't buy a console for ports, because I can buy the port that's already on the PC, X-Box, PS2, or GC that I already own. You need something UNIQUE.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Phantom is an interesting property, and if it takes off it could be quite a story. But for now, it's barely above the "scam/sham" level on my "hype-o-meter".
But you just crank that up. So instead of tiny little fonts that look nice, you get normal sized (or large sized) fonts that look FANTASTIC. As size goes up (and you use appropriate graphics, or vector graphics) everything looks smooth and nice. You can't see the aliasing on curves and such.
I mean, you don't think people who run 1600x1200 on 17" monitors use standard fonts do you? You'd never be able to see anything. My laptop has about 100 DPI (as opposed to a more normal 72 or so), so it has "larger" fonts than a normal computer. But the text on it looks VERY good. Even teeny-tiny text is ledgeable because there are enough pixles to render it well (even if you have to squit to read it ;).
Having a higher resolution is good. It means cleaner fonts and better looking icons and such which should improve usability. If used right, this is great.
But if you just try to put Windows 95 or something like that on default settings on that screen, usability would be a joke.
Why? Well, what keeps so many people on MS software? It's that they have old programs that they have to use. They have to access old data. They have to interface with their office that uses MS software. People are "tied down" so it's harder to move. But very few people over there are tied down the way many people here are.
Second is security. People know Linux is relativly secure. People know about all the viruses, spyware, security holes, and other stuff on Windows. If you had no predisposition (like previous expiriance with Windows or software that needed Windows), then which would you choose?
And of course, there is the political. As the article mentions, some people run Linux because it's not MS, which comes from the US. Some people run it out of anti-US sentiment. And they are probably some that run Linux because not because of anti-US sentiment (in the death to all Amercians sense) but because of non-US sentiment (doesn't come from the US, might be a Iranian distro which would keep money/jobs there). Same reason some EU countries are looking a SuSe or other distros, or China is trying to make their own OS (or was it Linux distrobution).
This (and especially Iraq) will be interesting to watch, to see how new users with no/few predispositions (how many people in the US think ALL computers just run Windows, and there is nothing else?) will buy and use computers. Will they go for the standard (MS, Adobe, Macromedia, whoever), or go for underdogs that they like better or have better features (OSS, smaller companies, etc.).
This is one of those situations where I think MS is doing a serious NIH (Not Invented Here) for no good reason. I can understand the reason to make Direct X instead of use OpenGL (for controll) and other such decisions. But I don't think having their own shell (instead of an implementaion of BASH) does them any good. I don't think it helps them sell more software. I don't think it helps them controll the market more. They should have taken BASH, and extended it with their .NET stuff.
I can use BASH on Linux, BSD, BeOS, OSX, and many many others. Why should I have to learn a new shell for Windows? Why can't they just accept it for once. It doens't cost them anything. If anything it would make porting apps over to Windows from other platforms EASIER.
At least make it so I can replace my shell easily (like you can change your default shell on other platforms)? That would be enough for me.
It's not exactly MS's fault that their current shell isn't very good. They've been going pure GUI and trying to keep people there. They've said DOS is dead and no one should ever have to use a CLI. So they've had no reason (based on that) to improve the shell since it's last incarnation, DOS 6.22. Of course now they are making a new CLI and making a big deal over it. Everything old is new again, eh?
As another reply to your comment pointed out, you're and idiot and should not have been moderated up. In fact, you score dropped from the time I saw your comment to clicking reply (not long).
So let's clear it. What you pointed out was a billboard with a question on it to recruit for google.
The GLAT was a little "book" that was a 4 sides of paper (not standard size, smaller). It looked like a school aptitude test in almost every way. It had all sorts of interesting questions in it like "The space below was intentionally left blank. Please improve upon this." and "In an infinate two-dimentional lattice of 1 ohm resistors, what is the resistance between any two points a knight's move away?" and other such things. It's full of that kind of stuff and more.
So in conclusion, this is not a dupe. Why not try LOOKING at things (or even reading the submission) before trying to get karma by yelling DUPE.
My printer has a JetDirect ethernet card in it. It's got it's own webserver and can handle the Internet Printing Protocall. You could print to it from across the globe if you knew the IP and it was outside a firewall (or you use a VPN or something).
So what would happen if I just "set it free"? Would anyone notice? Would people start printing spam out of it? Would they try to print Goats.ex stuff?
Anyone ever done this (either on purpose or accidentily)? Anything happen? Just curious. I mean I can understand the appeal of files, but does anyone care about "open" printers?
As for whether MS will do this or not, I fear that they won't untill a 3rd party (like the, admitidly dubious, company in the article) does it first (or tries). It's too bad because I think backwards comp. would be a great thing.
On a side note, this is like the 3rd thread in the last week or two where you have tried to rip a hole in my comments. Are you following me around or am I just "lucky" :)
True. But an X-Box runs at 700 (or maybe 733) mhz. It's a Pentium III core (basically). The X-Box 2 is rumored to run 2 or 3 PPC cores at 2-2.5 ghz. I would expect that even a single 2+ ghz PPC core could emulate at least a 700 mhz x86 without a problem. And don't forget that the graphics on the X-Box 2 will be MUCH faster, so to retain the same frame rate, you have more time (per frame) to prepare the graphics data because the rendering is so fast. That would also help things.
If there is backwards compatibility (and I SERIOUSLY HOPE THERE IS), MS can do it in house, and better than any third party. If MS doesn't make it backwards compatible and this company released a program to let you, MS could appear in almost no time with a perfectly working program to do the same thing.
Also, to the grandpart of this post, did the USB drive work plugged into the keyboard? It may have been an unpowered port, but I wouldn't be suprised if there was enough power to run the USB key.
For a little drive you can take anywhere and use on any computer, USB is simply superior to FireWire. The product is filling a demand that I doubt was ever really there. It doens't offer anything over a USB flash driver other than the firewire interface, which as I pointed out could be a problem.
So as nice as this is, it's not for everyone. USB really is superior for this task because of this (IMHO). I have never seen or heard of an unpowered USB port. And if such a thing exists, I don't think it is up to spec because (unlike FW) I think that all USB ports are require to be able to power something (not pass-though ports though).
Still, neat to see. Now if we could just lose the 4 pin FW ports. The connectors are bad enough on their own. Redesign it, and and power to it.