What about putting it under something else than the GPL? What about puttting it under a license that makes it free for non-commercial and educational use but requires payment if used in a commercial setting or sold? That would probably keep the suits happy.
I think the most important things for you are precision, FPU speed, and clockspeed. Here is what I think (but I'm just a hobbiest, this is not official end all opinion).
Pentium 4 - Wicked clockspeed, decent FPU, same precision as all x86 processors
Athlon - Fast clockspeed, great FPU, same precision as all x86s
Hammer - Fast clockspeed, great FPU, higher precision than x86s
PPC - Decent clockspeed, good FPU, don't know about percision
That's all I know. If you can afford it I'd get a dual x86-64 box, put Linux on it, and use that. Cache shouldn't effect you because for math things like you've mentioned, I doubt that you'd run out of cache even on something small like a celeron. P4s might be a cost problem for you, and I'm not sure on what kind of deals you'll be able to find on x86-64 stuff now that it's out/when more comes out. PPCs will be too expensive because you more or less have to buy an Apple which costs much more than a build-it-your-self rig (as with any company).
Well, first off I'll say that I agree that we need units on the memory latency. If they are in a unit of time (microseconds or something) then they really show what can be done with an onboard memory controller. But onto more "important" things.
The processor doesn't take to many benchmarks, but you can't fault it too much. It's nice to see some numbers are the CPU in 32 bit mode, but let's not forget that EVERYTHING here is 32 bit (OS, programs, etc). I'd LOVE to see a comparison between 32 bit programs running under and identicle OS versions that do and don't support 64 bits (Win XP vs Win XP for x86-64 for example). I'd suspect that the performance would go up with a 64 bit OS (especially on the games, where drivers and such play such a big part). Considering it's clockspeed, it holds up very well. The fact that it's almost never far behind a current athlon with an identicle performance rating (which is actually like 400 mhz faster) shows that it can definatly run things well. This isn't the horridly crippled performance that we've all heard about with the Itanic.
So what's my take on all of this? I think that this shows that the x86-64 can really become a success. I know some of you out there are thinking "Why would I buy one? I've got a 2.4 ghz Octium 7 and my PC is faster than that thing." That may be true, but many people aren't like you. My fastest computer is a PIII 933, so even at 1.6 ghz that Athlon64 can run circles around my best PC. If you are using a PC that's even a year or so old, you can probably benefit alot if you were to move up to an Athlon64 when it comes out.
My notes on some specific benchmarks:
3DMark 2k3 - The chip is only 4% behind the P4 despite the fact it's clocked at only about 60% of the P4. Impressive.
3DMark 2k1 - The A64 is nearly identicle to the P4, despite the massive clock difference. And this is 32 bit code. Compiling a game for the x86-64 is supposed to increase performance up to 30%. Drooling yet?
UT2003 - The A64 is nearly 10% FASTER than the P4, despite the clock difference. "Office" benchmarks may not look impressive, but games are what counts;)
Now my objections to the benchmarking
Where is the 1.6 ghz P4 in this? They could underclock the P4, or just get a TRUE 1.6 ghz P4 so we can see how they compare clock for clock.
No 64 bit OS. I'd have liked to see them run Linux so they could do some tests to see how it performed with 32 bit code (UT2k3, Q3, etc) under a 64 bit OS. I understand that Windows isn't out yet so they couldn't use it.
My final thoughts are this: it looks quite promising, and I can't wait to see more. More and more people with comeout with benchmarks as time goes on, and with the Opteron released now, we'll soon see benchmarks of it in SMP mode against other chips in both 32 and 64 bit OSes with 32 and 64 bit code. Either way, it looks like it's more successful than the Itanic.
I know this is a joke, but here is a question for you/.ers. I know that whatever the President is on is usually called "whatever-one". So if he's on a plane (the airforce's territory) it's "Airforce 1". If he's on a ship, it's "Navy 1", etc. But if it's not a military craft, it's "Civilian 1" or something like that, right? So my question is this: what's it called if he were to be abord a space craft? Would it be "NASA 1"? Or since NASA isn't a military organisation, would it be "Civilian 1"? Since it's above the ground, would it be "Airforce 1"? Just wondering.
Well I'll say one thing for the box, they seem to have the tuners correct. The "technical details" box on the main page says that it contains 2 digitial tuners and an analog tuner. I think this is a step in the right direction.
I don't have Time Warner (I have Com-crap) and their digitial cable is a joke, so I wouldn't be able to buy one no matter what. That said, I've been looking into TiVos (DirecTiVos to be specific). I really like the dual tuner option (I've got PIP on my TV now (it has two tuners) and it's great. I'd love to be able to do the same thing with a TiVo) but one of the things that worries me about buying a DirecTiVo is that it doesn't have an analog tuner. This means that if I bought one and something happened to DirecTV, I'd be out of luck. If the box had an analog tuner (like the TW one) then you'd still be able to use it (TW wouldn't let you use it without their service, I'm sure but you get the idea). I'd love to see standard TiVos contain multiple tuners.
Now we can test serial ATA to see how good it REALLY is. Before now it's always been an add-in, either a card or built onto the motherboard. Now that it's built into the chipset it's not at the mercy of the PCI bus, where it has to deal with your soundcard, your tv tuner, that firewire card you bought, and everything else. This will also bring about more SATA drives now that it's going to be on so many motherboards (I know many have them now, but this is an Intel chipset. This will push everyone to do it if they're not already).
That said, I'm disapointed that you only get 2 SATA channels. Remember, with SATA it's only one device per channel, unlike parallel ATA.
"But for many applications, Solaris is overkill, and Linux, a less capable flavour of Unix, is good enough."
I don't know much about Solaris, so I'd like to ask you guys out there. What makes Linux less capable? What does Solaris do that Linux can't do (at least well enough)? Just wondering.
Why is this Slackware specific. These instructions would work on most distros (with one or two small changes of where the boot kernel is kept). A better title would have been:
Building ATA RAID and SMP Support into Your Kernel
Those complaints asside, the guy knows what he's doing, so if you want to run RAID or SMP on your kernel, give it a read.
Well, either the frequency reporting is wrong (possible) or the runs he showed are under an emulator (bochs type thing). He said it runs on real hardware, so it's most likely the first option. I agree though, I would really like to see some benchmarks. We'll have to wait untill the 22nd to see 'em though.
Both the BSA and Software Choice (how's that for an oxymoron. Like the "center for reproductive freedom" or "tolerance", but that's another rant) do make one good point. This bill won't have software chosen based solely on it's merrits, because it requires OSS software to be looked at first. They have a good point that doing so it's open competition.
Or they would, if it wasn't for the fact that OSS can't promote it's self in the way that commercial software can. OSS can't invite you to your weekend in Tahiti to learn about your "options". OSS can't send you muffin baskets. OSS can't even give you your own suit who has nothing better to do than answer your every questions and seek out you and other customers.
There is a simple coralarry (sp?) here. This seems just like political elections to me. Many candidates can't afford to drop $1,000,000 to buy the mayor's office, or a senate seat, or whatever. So the government gives a small ammount to help them out doesn't it? There are laws demanding equal air time so that the candidates without that large bankroll have a chance right? What's the difference? How is this any different. There are laws to help small businesses get government contractors instead of it always going to the biggest company with the most money to blow on getting the contract. What's the difference between that and this? There are just laws to make sure that those who can't always speak out for themselves (often for financial reasons) still have a chance.
That said, does anyone else find it interesting how hard they're fighting this? They remind me of that Iraqi propaganda guy, the one who still says Saddam is winning. If their software is so superior, why do they need to fight this? OSS will just be found to be insufficant and the govt. will go for their stuff. I think it's clear who's on the run here. They're affraid that they can't win stictly on the merrits of their software; they're affraid the govt. might realize that their software is vastly overpriced for it's small benefits (in many cases), and not worth the extra money.
If their software is clearly superior for the task, despite the fact it's not free, they will win, and they don't need to worry. If it's just not worth the money for the extra features, or it's way overpriced, they should be scared and should fight this. Which one are they doing? Why not spend their money on making their product better? Why not not spend it and pass the savings on to customers (including the govt.)?
Why not accept that this might not be 1990 anymore, and that better things might exist that aren't commercial software. Why not adapt or die?
They can get around this easily too. Build a package AROUND OSS. If they do this, then they ARE OSS (arguable, at least for the bill's purpose) so they get considered first. But because they built AROUND the OSS product (and didn't modify it) then they aren't required to release all their stuff for free under the GPL. It's just like if a CD ripping program used MPG123 (or some other OSS if that isn't) to encode things. If it just calls the external program (which is shipped with the program) then they can still sell it but not open their thing. Make a userfriendly FRONT-END. That would be adapting. Still get money, get to use the law in their favor to get ahead of the competition, and it's better software. Plus they can charge less because they don't have to make the underlying parts. Everyone wins, right?
Read around on John's website. The best machine to make PCBs (according to him) is the one called "the brute". You can get all the software that you need for free. You can use TurboCAD to design the boards, and other free software to etch them. The software that I mention isn't opensource, but I'm sure such software exists. All you really need to design somehting is a CAD program that can output things in DXF format. Or you could be a REAL geek and write the raw GCODE in vi or something.
You can make a very nice machine for not that much money that has a very nice accuracy. You could do surface mount stuff with it. That said, how many hobbiests base their projects mostly on 88 pin TQFPs? And once you build your machine, all it costs you is a little time and the blank PCBs. That's alot less than $30 a board, especially if you are going to make 10 of 'em.
Good try, but not quite. If all you want to do is mill simple things and etch circuit boards with it, it's not that hard. There are a few little bits, but you can build a good one for under $100 (plus steppers, etc). It would cost less if you already have some of the stuff around.
As for CNC not being easy, it's not easy, but it's not impossible. Especially if all you're doing is PCBs. How expensive is the software? Dirt cheap. You can use the free version of TurboCAD to make your parts. You export them as DXF files. Then the program that controlls your motors can convert that to gcode for you (or you can use another piece of software). You can get free DXF->GCODE converters that work quite well. You can also get free software to run your motors, or nice commercial programs for $20.
It's true that a "real" CNC machines start in the 10s of Ks, but you can make one that will do just about everything a hobbiest will ever need for just a little. For more information see my other posts to this discussion, or see John's website.
note: the site is down, so I'm going off a mirror of the front page of the site, sorry if I get things wrong
If you want to build a machine to mill circuit boards, do it right. Build a machine designed by John C Kleinbauer. The Brute is designed to make PCBs cheaply. I recently bought some of John's plans (well worth it) and they are quite nice. They are very well done, easy to understand, don't need things that are exotic and hard to get (if your in the US). He includes a booklet on how to mill PCBs with The Brute, or you can order it seperatly. He even maintains and activly participates on his forum, Hardware Store CNC.
I've started to build a brute, and things are going pretty well considering I'm doing this in my spare time with only some time to work on it. If you guys are like me (I really like to build things with my hands) this is a ton of fun. I can't wait to get it running so that I can make PCBs, robot parts, a wooden clock and more.
I wish things were like that were some common in the US, but there is a simple reason why they're not: geography. The US is about 26 times the size of Japan. Japan is about 350 people per square km, while the US is only about 30. There is simply less area to cover to give 3G/xDSL/whatever to almost everone than here in the US. Oh well.
That would be true if you still got full cartridges when you bought a new ink jet. But the last time that I bought one (and when others I know have gotten them) they now come with either 1/2 or 1/4 full ink cartridges, so you have to go out and buy new ones almost immediatly.
This really is true, ink jets are just problems waiting to happen. I always hated how if I left my printer alone for a month unused, I'd have to buy new ink cartriges because the old ones couldn't be cleaned. Epsons seem to fall apart in a year or two and just start having problem after problem (quite nice untill then though). HPs start to streak horridly within a month, at least in my expirence. The only ink jet that I have that I like is my old HP DeskWriter C that I bought when I bought my old Apple LC II. It still runs perfectly. There is alot to that old saying, "they don't make 'em like they used to". Ink is WAY overpriced (I know thats how they make their money but still). Why the hell should I pay $30 for black ink, and $40 for color. It doesn't even last that long. What's the alternative?
My HP LaserJet 2100. It wasn't $100 like most ink jets are today, but it wasn't that bad. I put in a jet direct card that I also got used. I put it on my network and other than feeding it paper (I've been meaning to buy a second paper tray to cut down on this) it's been fine. I don't have to go download some odd driver for some USB thing that's hard to install. It works on ALL OSes using standard drivers because PCL and JetDirect have become standards. When I wanted to plug in a Mac, I got a postscript DIMM and plugged it in. Now my mac works great, PDF files print FAST (because the printer can do all the rendering), and my *nix boxen have never had an easier time printing. It's sat on my network without my intervention for hundreds of days. I've printed nearly 8,000 pages (7945 by its internal count) and replaced the toner ONCE. Sure toner costs me $100 a pop, but I get so many pages out of a single toner cartridge I could probably buy a color laser printer for the ammount I've saved by now in ink.
I'm glad to see Dell selling printers. I think this might push up the quality of ink jet printers that you can buy. But I think that it won't be long before companies go back to selling ink for $20 and making most of their profit on the printer. It might not be too long before a standard ink cartridge format develops, and the days of $40 prices disapear faster than big-mouth-billy-bass ads did.
If they leave their access point unsecure, it's their fault. If they don't want people using it, they should secure it. The WAP's owner has to more right to complain about you using his bandwidth than someone who leaves their computer unsecured on the internet has to complain that it keeps getting hacked. I understand this sounds mean, but frankly people should take responsibility for some things and not depend on others not to take advantage of a situation.
I'm not sure how it works, but my guess would be that rental places (Blockbuster, Holywood, etc) pay a large fee to the video game makers (buy the games for $1000 each or something) and the maker gives them the right to rent it out. Going and buying a game at Toys 'R' Us and renting it out is illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
What about putting it under something else than the GPL? What about puttting it under a license that makes it free for non-commercial and educational use but requires payment if used in a commercial setting or sold? That would probably keep the suits happy.
I'm guessing it's an iPod that comes with wireless bluetooth headphones. Bring it on Apple!
That's all I know. If you can afford it I'd get a dual x86-64 box, put Linux on it, and use that. Cache shouldn't effect you because for math things like you've mentioned, I doubt that you'd run out of cache even on something small like a celeron. P4s might be a cost problem for you, and I'm not sure on what kind of deals you'll be able to find on x86-64 stuff now that it's out/when more comes out. PPCs will be too expensive because you more or less have to buy an Apple which costs much more than a build-it-your-self rig (as with any company).
The processor doesn't take to many benchmarks, but you can't fault it too much. It's nice to see some numbers are the CPU in 32 bit mode, but let's not forget that EVERYTHING here is 32 bit (OS, programs, etc). I'd LOVE to see a comparison between 32 bit programs running under and identicle OS versions that do and don't support 64 bits (Win XP vs Win XP for x86-64 for example). I'd suspect that the performance would go up with a 64 bit OS (especially on the games, where drivers and such play such a big part). Considering it's clockspeed, it holds up very well. The fact that it's almost never far behind a current athlon with an identicle performance rating (which is actually like 400 mhz faster) shows that it can definatly run things well. This isn't the horridly crippled performance that we've all heard about with the Itanic.
So what's my take on all of this? I think that this shows that the x86-64 can really become a success. I know some of you out there are thinking "Why would I buy one? I've got a 2.4 ghz Octium 7 and my PC is faster than that thing." That may be true, but many people aren't like you. My fastest computer is a PIII 933, so even at 1.6 ghz that Athlon64 can run circles around my best PC. If you are using a PC that's even a year or so old, you can probably benefit alot if you were to move up to an Athlon64 when it comes out.
My notes on some specific benchmarks:
Now my objections to the benchmarking
My final thoughts are this: it looks quite promising, and I can't wait to see more. More and more people with comeout with benchmarks as time goes on, and with the Opteron released now, we'll soon see benchmarks of it in SMP mode against other chips in both 32 and 64 bit OSes with 32 and 64 bit code. Either way, it looks like it's more successful than the Itanic.
I know this is a joke, but here is a question for you /.ers. I know that whatever the President is on is usually called "whatever-one". So if he's on a plane (the airforce's territory) it's "Airforce 1". If he's on a ship, it's "Navy 1", etc. But if it's not a military craft, it's "Civilian 1" or something like that, right? So my question is this: what's it called if he were to be abord a space craft? Would it be "NASA 1"? Or since NASA isn't a military organisation, would it be "Civilian 1"? Since it's above the ground, would it be "Airforce 1"? Just wondering.
"...and the punishment of vice, often in an especially appropriate or ironic manner. "
So you see, this is poetic justice, not irony. That said, I'm not mad about this happening to him, is anyone else?
I don't have Time Warner (I have Com-crap) and their digitial cable is a joke, so I wouldn't be able to buy one no matter what. That said, I've been looking into TiVos (DirecTiVos to be specific). I really like the dual tuner option (I've got PIP on my TV now (it has two tuners) and it's great. I'd love to be able to do the same thing with a TiVo) but one of the things that worries me about buying a DirecTiVo is that it doesn't have an analog tuner. This means that if I bought one and something happened to DirecTV, I'd be out of luck. If the box had an analog tuner (like the TW one) then you'd still be able to use it (TW wouldn't let you use it without their service, I'm sure but you get the idea). I'd love to see standard TiVos contain multiple tuners.
That said, I'm disapointed that you only get 2 SATA channels. Remember, with SATA it's only one device per channel, unlike parallel ATA.
I don't know much about Solaris, so I'd like to ask you guys out there. What makes Linux less capable? What does Solaris do that Linux can't do (at least well enough)? Just wondering.
Building ATA RAID and SMP Support into Your Kernel
Those complaints asside, the guy knows what he's doing, so if you want to run RAID or SMP on your kernel, give it a read.
Well, either the frequency reporting is wrong (possible) or the runs he showed are under an emulator (bochs type thing). He said it runs on real hardware, so it's most likely the first option. I agree though, I would really like to see some benchmarks. We'll have to wait untill the 22nd to see 'em though.
I agree with you totally, that's just how the law is now (as I understand it) so that's the parallel that I drew.
Or they would, if it wasn't for the fact that OSS can't promote it's self in the way that commercial software can. OSS can't invite you to your weekend in Tahiti to learn about your "options". OSS can't send you muffin baskets. OSS can't even give you your own suit who has nothing better to do than answer your every questions and seek out you and other customers.
There is a simple coralarry (sp?) here. This seems just like political elections to me. Many candidates can't afford to drop $1,000,000 to buy the mayor's office, or a senate seat, or whatever. So the government gives a small ammount to help them out doesn't it? There are laws demanding equal air time so that the candidates without that large bankroll have a chance right? What's the difference? How is this any different. There are laws to help small businesses get government contractors instead of it always going to the biggest company with the most money to blow on getting the contract. What's the difference between that and this? There are just laws to make sure that those who can't always speak out for themselves (often for financial reasons) still have a chance.
That said, does anyone else find it interesting how hard they're fighting this? They remind me of that Iraqi propaganda guy, the one who still says Saddam is winning. If their software is so superior, why do they need to fight this? OSS will just be found to be insufficant and the govt. will go for their stuff. I think it's clear who's on the run here. They're affraid that they can't win stictly on the merrits of their software; they're affraid the govt. might realize that their software is vastly overpriced for it's small benefits (in many cases), and not worth the extra money.
If their software is clearly superior for the task, despite the fact it's not free, they will win, and they don't need to worry. If it's just not worth the money for the extra features, or it's way overpriced, they should be scared and should fight this. Which one are they doing? Why not spend their money on making their product better? Why not not spend it and pass the savings on to customers (including the govt.)?
Why not accept that this might not be 1990 anymore, and that better things might exist that aren't commercial software. Why not adapt or die?
They can get around this easily too. Build a package AROUND OSS. If they do this, then they ARE OSS (arguable, at least for the bill's purpose) so they get considered first. But because they built AROUND the OSS product (and didn't modify it) then they aren't required to release all their stuff for free under the GPL. It's just like if a CD ripping program used MPG123 (or some other OSS if that isn't) to encode things. If it just calls the external program (which is shipped with the program) then they can still sell it but not open their thing. Make a userfriendly FRONT-END. That would be adapting. Still get money, get to use the law in their favor to get ahead of the competition, and it's better software. Plus they can charge less because they don't have to make the underlying parts. Everyone wins, right?
Read around on John's website. The best machine to make PCBs (according to him) is the one called "the brute". You can get all the software that you need for free. You can use TurboCAD to design the boards, and other free software to etch them. The software that I mention isn't opensource, but I'm sure such software exists. All you really need to design somehting is a CAD program that can output things in DXF format. Or you could be a REAL geek and write the raw GCODE in vi or something.
You can make a very nice machine for not that much money that has a very nice accuracy. You could do surface mount stuff with it. That said, how many hobbiests base their projects mostly on 88 pin TQFPs? And once you build your machine, all it costs you is a little time and the blank PCBs. That's alot less than $30 a board, especially if you are going to make 10 of 'em.
As for CNC not being easy, it's not easy, but it's not impossible. Especially if all you're doing is PCBs. How expensive is the software? Dirt cheap. You can use the free version of TurboCAD to make your parts. You export them as DXF files. Then the program that controlls your motors can convert that to gcode for you (or you can use another piece of software). You can get free DXF->GCODE converters that work quite well. You can also get free software to run your motors, or nice commercial programs for $20.
It's true that a "real" CNC machines start in the 10s of Ks, but you can make one that will do just about everything a hobbiest will ever need for just a little. For more information see my other posts to this discussion, or see John's website.
If you want to build a machine to mill circuit boards, do it right. Build a machine designed by John C Kleinbauer. The Brute is designed to make PCBs cheaply. I recently bought some of John's plans (well worth it) and they are quite nice. They are very well done, easy to understand, don't need things that are exotic and hard to get (if your in the US). He includes a booklet on how to mill PCBs with The Brute, or you can order it seperatly. He even maintains and activly participates on his forum, Hardware Store CNC.
I've started to build a brute, and things are going pretty well considering I'm doing this in my spare time with only some time to work on it. If you guys are like me (I really like to build things with my hands) this is a ton of fun. I can't wait to get it running so that I can make PCBs, robot parts, a wooden clock and more.
PS: Facts from the CIA world factbook
How are those? I figured we should stay with acronyms.
And thus we have proof: not all DRM is used for evil purposes. Sometimes it's used for the common good ;)
That would be true if you still got full cartridges when you bought a new ink jet. But the last time that I bought one (and when others I know have gotten them) they now come with either 1/2 or 1/4 full ink cartridges, so you have to go out and buy new ones almost immediatly.
My HP LaserJet 2100. It wasn't $100 like most ink jets are today, but it wasn't that bad. I put in a jet direct card that I also got used. I put it on my network and other than feeding it paper (I've been meaning to buy a second paper tray to cut down on this) it's been fine. I don't have to go download some odd driver for some USB thing that's hard to install. It works on ALL OSes using standard drivers because PCL and JetDirect have become standards. When I wanted to plug in a Mac, I got a postscript DIMM and plugged it in. Now my mac works great, PDF files print FAST (because the printer can do all the rendering), and my *nix boxen have never had an easier time printing. It's sat on my network without my intervention for hundreds of days. I've printed nearly 8,000 pages (7945 by its internal count) and replaced the toner ONCE. Sure toner costs me $100 a pop, but I get so many pages out of a single toner cartridge I could probably buy a color laser printer for the ammount I've saved by now in ink.
I'm glad to see Dell selling printers. I think this might push up the quality of ink jet printers that you can buy. But I think that it won't be long before companies go back to selling ink for $20 and making most of their profit on the printer. It might not be too long before a standard ink cartridge format develops, and the days of $40 prices disapear faster than big-mouth-billy-bass ads did.
If they leave their access point unsecure, it's their fault. If they don't want people using it, they should secure it. The WAP's owner has to more right to complain about you using his bandwidth than someone who leaves their computer unsecured on the internet has to complain that it keeps getting hacked. I understand this sounds mean, but frankly people should take responsibility for some things and not depend on others not to take advantage of a situation.
Rust-proof undercoating! How can I lose!
</homersimpson>
I'm not sure how it works, but my guess would be that rental places (Blockbuster, Holywood, etc) pay a large fee to the video game makers (buy the games for $1000 each or something) and the maker gives them the right to rent it out. Going and buying a game at Toys 'R' Us and renting it out is illegal.