Exactly for what stupid reason the CPU core instruction set are "proprietary and confidential"? The point that VortexCortex is making is that it is for the wrong reasons. The reality is that the vendor is ok to have you locked-in with whatever type of usage they feel happy with. The confidentiality is just bullshit. As for the additional sales for Linux users, well, fuck that! Let's don't use that hardware maker then.
Now, I don't think anyone asked for the source code of the FPGA. That one is more to be seen as the electronic, and doesn't need to be loaded when the OS boot. But something like Broadcom NICs is a real pain: you need to load it each time you initialize the card, but you don't have the source code. Oh, and by the way, what's the issue with DSPs? Why are they different from any other CPUs? (FYI: I know how to do programming in DSP 56001 from Motorola...)
At Debian, we do care about binary blob firmware without source. We put them in "non-free", and we don't consider it's part of the OS (it wont go in the released CD, etc.).
Not on every machines. On the router, this is enough. I just bought a D-Link DIR-825, and re-flashed it with OpenWRT. Using a 2GB key as root filesystem, it's working very well, and it has all the facilities needed (eg: ip6tables) to block any bad incoming connection. It also has all the software you need to get yourself connected to the ipv6 network, even if your ISP doesn't provide it: you can connect to an ipv6 capable host using OpenVPN, or setup an ipv6 in ipv4 tunnel if you like (for example, from SixxS, or others). I know it may sound like top-advanced, but frankly, it's not that hard to setup. Sure, many people wont do it. But for us, IT people reading slashdot, it's really possible and easy.
As for the firewall, people are badly mistaking NAT with a firewall. Don't do that, it's dangerous. Soon, you'll get your laptop connected to the net directly (maybe using 3G?), and you'll regret your wrong thinking! The fact that masquerading acts as a firewall is pure luck.
If you didn't know, ISPs are paying a fee every year to be a member of RIPE/APNIC/ARIN. It's not because you use more IPs that you will pay more. So, BT is just monetizing on something it should not.
The backbone of ChinaNet and China Unicom are already IPv6 ready, but they aren't rolling it out to customer because... the great firewall doesn't understand v6 yet!!! At least, that's what I've been told (it may be a silly rumor).
Even if there was no content, having IPv6 routed to your home is simply cool, because you don't have to deal with silly port forwarding on your router anymore. It just routes to your device.
First of all, dual stack IS ALREADY a requirement for some customers, and not doing it is already hurting some hosts. While you are right, dual stack isn't very complicated, it isn't easy to find providers that wont have silly answers like "yeah, we're working on it, it's going to be available soon". Out of 12 data centers we are in, only ONE has it ready, and asking them about router announce and auto configuration was too much for their support. In all other places, we had to find IPv6 brokers and do the routing ourselves, using v6 in v4 tunnels. In some places it's ok (when brokers are close to the servers), but in other places (like Asia) it isn't satisfying at all, because it's adding latencies. But all together, IPv6 is a lot of fun, and seeing that routing is totally different is funny too. It's like having 2 versions of internet at the same time. Sometimes, going by the IPv6 is faster than IPv4 !:)
Your $1 tax is ridiculous, because only large organization have big pools, and THEY don't care paying. If you have a/16 of IPv4, that's about 800 000 USD per year, which is nothing for a company doing billions. Now, take a small provider with a/21, the 2048 USD per month cost might kill it, while almost probably he is using it fully.
What's really bad is that everyone is using at least 256 IPs per announcement, because otherwise, many ISP just ignore the route announce, to save on the precious memory of their antediluvian routers. And I know what I'm talking about here. If you want to kill a waste, this is were to have a look into.
Let's say you live in between Boston and New York, that in Boston it's -1 deg C, and in New York it's +1 deg C, does it help you to know the average temperature? Does it means that, as you live in the middle, it's going to be zero? Or, maybe it will freeze, maybe not, and the average means nothing?
Now, take 2 rooms. One is -3 deg C, one is +1 deg C. If room 1 is twice bigger than room 2, what happens if you mix both ambient air? Freezing, or not? Are both rooms at the same pressure? Hard to tell if you don't put ENERGY into the balance.
"Xen inside Xen" is in fact called "nested virtualization", and it's been a long time that Xen is capable of doing that. Even better, now it's possible to run HVM inside HVM, since few patches have reached the xen-devel list. The drawback? Well, there isn't any, because in fact, the nested part is only an illusion (or, let's say, an administrative view), as Xen "sees" the VMs as all being equal.
But in fact, no, it's not about nested virtualization. It's about Linux from kernel.org not having to be patched anymore to be able to run as a dom0 under Xen, as the remaining drivers have been upstreamed during the last merge window. You can already download Linux 3.0-rc1, and you'll see it has all the options, including CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_BACKEND, which was missing one release ago (due to not enough people having reviewed the code).
The part that you are missing is that at the hart of Citrix desktop virtualization (they call it VDI), there's Xen running. That's the reason why they bought Xen, and why they are pushing its development. So yes, there's a synergy, and it's also for their Windows stuff...
This kind of post lead to a full re-write of the local APIC code in Xen, and many other sub-systems. What you see happening today is the result of the work due to the critics above (and not only this critics, there was others).
You could have full GPU support in Windows, using the PCI passthrough system (if your hardware is VT-d capable). But, to my knowledge, swapping between a Linux desktop using the GPU and windows using the GPU as well isn't possible. However, you can run in full screen both windows and linux, if you use the SDL driver.
For all this, it might be more easy to use Virtualbox though. Virtualbox is more adapted to the desktop environment, and when you have a Direct-X / OpenGL call in windows, it is translated into an Open-GL in your Linux (I'm not sure if it would also do that if you were running Windows as host, you'd have to check by yourself if you are interested in doing so). For that reason, Virtualbox is damned fast when it comes to read films, or play games, in a virtualized Windows. It doesn't work perfectly with all video boards though, as much as I could see.
This why Xen PDF might explain it well. Under Xen, guests are running inside the host operating system. In Xen, the hypervisor starts a special Linux kernel (the dom0) that will only take care of drivers for the guests. The design is really different, and has different features. For example, in Xen, you can have your dom0 to run on 2 cores, leaving the rest for the guests (I'm not sure that is possible in KVM), and if you want to avoid any possible CPU starvation, you can even have the guests to not use the cores that the dom0 is using. The CPU scheduler is also very different (and there's not only one available...).
Well, the issue is that I couldn't see the submit buttons at the bottom when doing my submission. They were display too much at the bottom of the screen, and I could see only the few top pixels of them. I wanted to click on "Continue editing", but unlucky for me, it was posted without giving me a chance to rectify. So I don't think it's really my fault here... Maybe someone at/. wants to test the submission display so that it's better on Firef ^W Iceweasel 4.0.1 (my own backport running on Squeeze)...
WAKE UP, PEOPLE. It's the 4th time this week that I see a "news" about countries in Asia having plans to destroy the Nation with so called "cyber warriors". There's no such thing as a war only by moving bits on the internet. A war that kills people by thousands is what the Obama administration is doing in Afganistan, Irak, Lybia. This has nothing to do with what these "articles" are mentioning, and which goal is to let you believe that the government must do something about it. There's no "act of war" threat, appart from the one of your own government.
Surprisingly, it's the opposite effect that would happen. For a simple reason: when it's hotter, then more clouds are forming. So, hotter doesn't necessarily means more desert. That's a common mistaking, just link thinking that melted ice floating would increase sea level (it doesn't, do the experiment with an ice cube in a glass at home!).
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This was a bug that was present in the installer BEFORE the release of Squeeze. It's long gone...
Exactly for what stupid reason the CPU core instruction set are "proprietary and confidential"? The point that VortexCortex is making is that it is for the wrong reasons. The reality is that the vendor is ok to have you locked-in with whatever type of usage they feel happy with. The confidentiality is just bullshit. As for the additional sales for Linux users, well, fuck that! Let's don't use that hardware maker then.
Now, I don't think anyone asked for the source code of the FPGA. That one is more to be seen as the electronic, and doesn't need to be loaded when the OS boot. But something like Broadcom NICs is a real pain: you need to load it each time you initialize the card, but you don't have the source code. Oh, and by the way, what's the issue with DSPs? Why are they different from any other CPUs? (FYI: I know how to do programming in DSP 56001 from Motorola...)
And how exactly do you think they provide drivers for Broadcom NICs?
At Debian, we do care about binary blob firmware without source. We put them in "non-free", and we don't consider it's part of the OS (it wont go in the released CD, etc.).
Not on every machines. On the router, this is enough. I just bought a D-Link DIR-825, and re-flashed it with OpenWRT. Using a 2GB key as root filesystem, it's working very well, and it has all the facilities needed (eg: ip6tables) to block any bad incoming connection. It also has all the software you need to get yourself connected to the ipv6 network, even if your ISP doesn't provide it: you can connect to an ipv6 capable host using OpenVPN, or setup an ipv6 in ipv4 tunnel if you like (for example, from SixxS, or others). I know it may sound like top-advanced, but frankly, it's not that hard to setup. Sure, many people wont do it. But for us, IT people reading slashdot, it's really possible and easy.
As for the firewall, people are badly mistaking NAT with a firewall. Don't do that, it's dangerous. Soon, you'll get your laptop connected to the net directly (maybe using 3G?), and you'll regret your wrong thinking! The fact that masquerading acts as a firewall is pure luck.
If you didn't know, ISPs are paying a fee every year to be a member of RIPE/APNIC/ARIN. It's not because you use more IPs that you will pay more. So, BT is just monetizing on something it should not.
You might want to reconsider the host part. Many times, we had customers that wanted IPv6. After loosing 2 or 3 bids, we implemented it!
The backbone of ChinaNet and China Unicom are already IPv6 ready, but they aren't rolling it out to customer because ... the great firewall doesn't understand v6 yet!!! At least, that's what I've been told (it may be a silly rumor).
Even if there was no content, having IPv6 routed to your home is simply cool, because you don't have to deal with silly port forwarding on your router anymore. It just routes to your device.
First of all, dual stack IS ALREADY a requirement for some customers, and not doing it is already hurting some hosts. While you are right, dual stack isn't very complicated, it isn't easy to find providers that wont have silly answers like "yeah, we're working on it, it's going to be available soon". Out of 12 data centers we are in, only ONE has it ready, and asking them about router announce and auto configuration was too much for their support. In all other places, we had to find IPv6 brokers and do the routing ourselves, using v6 in v4 tunnels. In some places it's ok (when brokers are close to the servers), but in other places (like Asia) it isn't satisfying at all, because it's adding latencies. But all together, IPv6 is a lot of fun, and seeing that routing is totally different is funny too. It's like having 2 versions of internet at the same time. Sometimes, going by the IPv6 is faster than IPv4 ! :)
Your $1 tax is ridiculous, because only large organization have big pools, and THEY don't care paying. If you have a /16 of IPv4, that's about 800 000 USD per year, which is nothing for a company doing billions. Now, take a small provider with a /21, the 2048 USD per month cost might kill it, while almost probably he is using it fully.
What's really bad is that everyone is using at least 256 IPs per announcement, because otherwise, many ISP just ignore the route announce, to save on the precious memory of their antediluvian routers. And I know what I'm talking about here. If you want to kill a waste, this is were to have a look into.
Let's say you live in between Boston and New York, that in Boston it's -1 deg C, and in New York it's +1 deg C, does it help you to know the average temperature? Does it means that, as you live in the middle, it's going to be zero? Or, maybe it will freeze, maybe not, and the average means nothing?
Now, take 2 rooms. One is -3 deg C, one is +1 deg C. If room 1 is twice bigger than room 2, what happens if you mix both ambient air? Freezing, or not? Are both rooms at the same pressure? Hard to tell if you don't put ENERGY into the balance.
"Xen inside Xen" is in fact called "nested virtualization", and it's been a long time that Xen is capable of doing that. Even better, now it's possible to run HVM inside HVM, since few patches have reached the xen-devel list. The drawback? Well, there isn't any, because in fact, the nested part is only an illusion (or, let's say, an administrative view), as Xen "sees" the VMs as all being equal.
But in fact, no, it's not about nested virtualization. It's about Linux from kernel.org not having to be patched anymore to be able to run as a dom0 under Xen, as the remaining drivers have been upstreamed during the last merge window. You can already download Linux 3.0-rc1, and you'll see it has all the options, including CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_BACKEND, which was missing one release ago (due to not enough people having reviewed the code).
And have you noticed that Hyper-v has the exact same structure like Xen, eg an hypervisor running first, then the controler-driver-os running 2nd? :)
The part that you are missing is that at the hart of Citrix desktop virtualization (they call it VDI), there's Xen running. That's the reason why they bought Xen, and why they are pushing its development. So yes, there's a synergy, and it's also for their Windows stuff...
This kind of post lead to a full re-write of the local APIC code in Xen, and many other sub-systems. What you see happening today is the result of the work due to the critics above (and not only this critics, there was others).
You could have full GPU support in Windows, using the PCI passthrough system (if your hardware is VT-d capable). But, to my knowledge, swapping between a Linux desktop using the GPU and windows using the GPU as well isn't possible. However, you can run in full screen both windows and linux, if you use the SDL driver.
For all this, it might be more easy to use Virtualbox though. Virtualbox is more adapted to the desktop environment, and when you have a Direct-X / OpenGL call in windows, it is translated into an Open-GL in your Linux (I'm not sure if it would also do that if you were running Windows as host, you'd have to check by yourself if you are interested in doing so). For that reason, Virtualbox is damned fast when it comes to read films, or play games, in a virtualized Windows. It doesn't work perfectly with all video boards though, as much as I could see.
Maybe it would help to read TFAs?
This why Xen PDF might explain it well. Under Xen, guests are running inside the host operating system. In Xen, the hypervisor starts a special Linux kernel (the dom0) that will only take care of drivers for the guests. The design is really different, and has different features. For example, in Xen, you can have your dom0 to run on 2 cores, leaving the rest for the guests (I'm not sure that is possible in KVM), and if you want to avoid any possible CPU starvation, you can even have the guests to not use the cores that the dom0 is using. The CPU scheduler is also very different (and there's not only one available...).
Well, the issue is that I couldn't see the submit buttons at the bottom when doing my submission. They were display too much at the bottom of the screen, and I could see only the few top pixels of them. I wanted to click on "Continue editing", but unlucky for me, it was posted without giving me a chance to rectify. So I don't think it's really my fault here... Maybe someone at /. wants to test the submission display so that it's better on Firef ^W Iceweasel 4.0.1 (my own backport running on Squeeze)...
Correct, it's a typo, sorry. It is NOW included.
Oh, I meant to write it is NOW included, sorry for the typo, maybe someone can change it???
WAKE UP, PEOPLE. It's the 4th time this week that I see a "news" about countries in Asia having plans to destroy the Nation with so called "cyber warriors". There's no such thing as a war only by moving bits on the internet. A war that kills people by thousands is what the Obama administration is doing in Afganistan, Irak, Lybia. This has nothing to do with what these "articles" are mentioning, and which goal is to let you believe that the government must do something about it. There's no "act of war" threat, appart from the one of your own government.
It's also very hard to convince people that average has no meaning in thermodynamics...
Surprisingly, it's the opposite effect that would happen. For a simple reason: when it's hotter, then more clouds are forming. So, hotter doesn't necessarily means more desert. That's a common mistaking, just link thinking that melted ice floating would increase sea level (it doesn't, do the experiment with an ice cube in a glass at home!).