actually, arse-clowns keep fucking with time zones with regards to daylight saving. so whether or not you're in the same geographical time zone, the laws in your area may differ.
How many people, with none, or next to no experience with installing Windows, that are able to successfully install all of the right deveice drivers for their machine?
I'm not sure if you realise... but on newish (as in, 2008 spec) hardware - a Dell E6400, all i had to do with Vista RTM is pop the DVD in, boot from it, select to use the whole disk, enter my username/pc name and thats it.
I was on the network, and had a usable computer. Now, the following drivers were not automatically installed: bluetooth, 3d acceleration, fingerprint swiper.
Windows 7 was smart enough to show these in "Printers and devices" and enable me to right click, select troubleshoot, and Windows gave the download link for the driver to install from.
15 minutes after install and I had a fully functional machine.
Now, I like Linux and have used it for many years (still do - correct tool for the job and all), but when you compare ease of install/use (only - forget security/openness or whatever for the moment, they're different issues) with Windows 7, as a desktop OS, its light years behind. Fuck, even Vista/XP are light years behind 7.
Because all the drivers on your windows install have been written by developers who have had full access to the hardware spec, and quite likely assistance form the hardware manufacturer.
Hence, they're fully aware of any power saving tricks the hardware may provide.
The linux developer(s) may or may not have had that level of support, and many of the drivers have been written without it, some even reverse engineered. Getting the driver to work reliably *at all* was quite likely more relevant than saving power in many cases.
It could simply be one driver in particular chewing the shit out of your battery life, could be all of them...
The problem stems from the fact that telcos/ISPs have in the past assumed that access would have been mostly web/email traffic and not streaming/torrents. The whole flat-rate pricing model simply does not work when you add in customers who run their connection flat out 24/7 - and as more users discover torrents, this is happening more and more now.
To the ISP, you, running your connection flat out, are indeed a less valuable customer. In fact, if you are more than say 1 std deviation from the mean, you are probably COSTING THEM MONEY. In other words, if they were to lose you as a customer, their profit would increase.
"Traffic shaping" enables interactive applications to actually work in a typical over-subscribed ISPs network.
"Why are they over subscribed?" you ask? Because customers expect broadband internet at dial-up price, and the pipes simply cost more than the average end user realizes.
Enforce "net neutrality" and eliminate packet shaping, and a few things will happen:
Tier 2 and tier 3 ISPs will eventually go out of business - the only way they're price competitive is to over subscribe their tier 1-2 provider's connection
Internet access speed for interactive traffic will slow down
Prices will go up
Flat rate pricing is broken, and "enforcing net neutrality" is not going to do anything to fix it. Bandwidth is like any other finite resource - it needs to be charged by consumption, or you will end up with many people being overcharged, and the people at the top of the usage getting a free ride - yet are those most likely to bitch and moan about it...
True, but thats no reason to not install linux which will at least have software available for it in future, whereas 10.3 and 10.4 os/x are being phased out due to support for objective-c 2.0 being non-existent, and many people wanting to make use of said runtime's garbage collection when doing os/x development.
Vista, even SP1 was perfectly usable. I've been running it since pre-SP1 even and had no showstopper problems with it. SP2 has only been out for a few months, and to be honest I noticed absolutely no difference in reliability, usability or performance between SP2 and SP1 (though I had kept automatic updates turned on, so possibly had most of the SP2 fixes already at time of SP2 application).
Vista is not a viable platform because it has no future, only a brief past, and a lot of baggage. From all indications, Win7 will wipe Vista from the Earth like WinXP did with WinME
Its only "not viable" because Windows 7 is out. If windows 7 wasn't out, then vista would still be my PC o/s of choice for general day to day use. Its been viable for years - I have no idea why people insist that XP is the greatest thing since sliced bread; compared to Windows 2000 (which will run pretty much anything XP will run), its a dog. Maybe because most of them are noobs who forget the previous peaks in windows quality with NT4 sp6a and Windows 2000 SP whatever it got up to. 95, 98, ME, XP are all dogs.
That said, Windows 7 should, and hopefully will wipe the floor with Vista, even though the code is largely the same, just slightly tweaked (but the slight tweaks appear to have made a big difference). Personally I can't wait until all my desktops at work have powershell, a half decent firewall, a non-brain damaged tcp/ip stack, previous versions, UAC and applocker.
Linux just isn't there yet in terms of 3d application/game support, logging into the corporate LAN, device support, etc.
I can and do run it as a desktop OS (more often FreeBSD though), and I much prefer the unix way of doing things, but its too much hard work when used as a desktop and actually trying to run things i want to run.
Given apple's target market, i have to agree with them. Maybe for an X-serve SAN or something, but all the reports I've seen from FreeBSD's mailing list regarding ZFS support are that its a complete and utter memory hog (as in, gigs of ram required simply for the FS), and the code simply isn't production ready yet.
Sounds like a perfect filesystem for desktop productivity... not. The benefits for a typical Mac/Mac User are simply *not there*.
Its as stable as Vista for me so far, which was more stable than XP by far. In the 3 yrs I had vista (march 06-June 09), i had a total of 5 crashes - whilst using on 3 different PCs at home.
4 of those were due to faulty RAM, and the fifth was due to hard drive failure.
I had a total of 1 reinstall, to move from 32 bit to 64 bit.
Buy decent hardware with decent drivers (important!) and Windows these days is stable.
Despite the bullshit, i've been a happy vista user since 2007. I actually stopped bothering to dual boot linux on this box (for the first time since 1996).
If Vista is "not viable", fucked if i know where that puts linux... Don't be a fucking tight-arse with RAM, and vista is fine. Much better than XP, imho - if i had to go back, it would be to Windows 2000, thankyouverymuch.
Yes, it is. The codebase is much, much larger, and the graphics
technology pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized. It
probably wouldn't be all that bad to get it running on the nvidia binary
drivers, but the chance of it working correctly and acceptably anywhere
else would be small. If you are restricted to it only working on the
closed source drivers, you might as well boot into windows and get the
fully tested and tuned experience...
John Carmack
Hand has been forced by the fact that NVidia/AMD don't have decent open source drivers.
I guess what he's saying is that ID do not want/can not allocate resources to deal with the flood of tech support calls they anticipate from people who are trying to run it and getting graphical anomolies, etc on Linux.
Which, given the size of the Linux gaming market, is probably a sensible business decision.
Damn shame though, I still hope that down the track they open-source/release this engine like they did with previous versions so that the Linux driver/kernel people can have a crack at making it work, and thus people can run ID tech5 games, albeit "unsupported" officially by ID.
Try running it on some javascript heavy sites. It is blisteringly fast, compared to just about any other browser (safari 4.x comes close, but is less stable).
In the post-feminist revolution 2000s, we shouldn't care, and give females the equality they have been demanding. get rid of male/female events and the whole checking thing isn't a problem.
True, they're hard to memorize/read out, but if you set your network up properly its pretty rare you need the user to read it out. Remote assistance works over IM/email, package deployment can be automated etc. If you're doing user support via VNC (we are, phasing it out though) then sure, its a pain in the arse, but the benefits of being able to automate stuff outweigh it.
Thats not a very common occurrence. Rare enough in fact that its not worth considering. out of 500 odd machines here in the past 5 years, the number of motherboard replacements we have done is ZERO.
The windows install process can be tweaked to retrieve teh service tag from the BIOS during install and use it for the PC name. Automatically.
So, you can create an automated install, where the steps are basically:
Plug PC into LAN
Select boot from network
enter domain username/password for access to the RIS server
walk away, and come back when its done, 20-40 minutes later
Package addition, adding to the domain, setting pc name, etc can all be automated - pc name setting is done by retrieving the service tag from the bios using WMI+script. The domain credentials to add the pc to the domain can be embedded in the installation source.
If you're smart about it, PC rebuilds can even be kicked off from remote over the network, user files backed up, os and drivers reinstalled etc without even having to get up from your desk.
Doing that when you're manually thinking up PC names is just not possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Not having - yet.
actually, arse-clowns keep fucking with time zones with regards to daylight saving. so whether or not you're in the same geographical time zone, the laws in your area may differ.
Argh,..... brain fart. by VISTA RTM, i meant WINDOWS 7 RTM.
I'm not sure if you realise... but on newish (as in, 2008 spec) hardware - a Dell E6400, all i had to do with Vista RTM is pop the DVD in, boot from it, select to use the whole disk, enter my username/pc name and thats it.
I was on the network, and had a usable computer. Now, the following drivers were not automatically installed: bluetooth, 3d acceleration, fingerprint swiper.
Windows 7 was smart enough to show these in "Printers and devices" and enable me to right click, select troubleshoot, and Windows gave the download link for the driver to install from.
15 minutes after install and I had a fully functional machine.
Now, I like Linux and have used it for many years (still do - correct tool for the job and all), but when you compare ease of install/use (only - forget security/openness or whatever for the moment, they're different issues) with Windows 7, as a desktop OS, its light years behind. Fuck, even Vista/XP are light years behind 7.
Hence, they're fully aware of any power saving tricks the hardware may provide.
The linux developer(s) may or may not have had that level of support, and many of the drivers have been written without it, some even reverse engineered. Getting the driver to work reliably *at all* was quite likely more relevant than saving power in many cases.
It could simply be one driver in particular chewing the shit out of your battery life, could be all of them...
Oh btw... your bandwidth costs are about 9 times cheaper than here in australia.
Also, despite your assumption that their network is free and runs itself once the cable is laid, it isn't.
To the ISP, you, running your connection flat out, are indeed a less valuable customer. In fact, if you are more than say 1 std deviation from the mean, you are probably COSTING THEM MONEY. In other words, if they were to lose you as a customer, their profit would increase.
"Traffic shaping" enables interactive applications to actually work in a typical over-subscribed ISPs network.
"Why are they over subscribed?" you ask? Because customers expect broadband internet at dial-up price, and the pipes simply cost more than the average end user realizes.
Enforce "net neutrality" and eliminate packet shaping, and a few things will happen:
Flat rate pricing is broken, and "enforcing net neutrality" is not going to do anything to fix it. Bandwidth is like any other finite resource - it needs to be charged by consumption, or you will end up with many people being overcharged, and the people at the top of the usage getting a free ride - yet are those most likely to bitch and moan about it...
I worked in an ISP for 5 years...
Lol. A likely story. I'm SURE that companies like this store all of their top secret source code in the same directory as random open source stuff.
True, but thats no reason to not install linux which will at least have software available for it in future, whereas 10.3 and 10.4 os/x are being phased out due to support for objective-c 2.0 being non-existent, and many people wanting to make use of said runtime's garbage collection when doing os/x development.
Vista, even SP1 was perfectly usable. I've been running it since pre-SP1 even and had no showstopper problems with it. SP2 has only been out for a few months, and to be honest I noticed absolutely no difference in reliability, usability or performance between SP2 and SP1 (though I had kept automatic updates turned on, so possibly had most of the SP2 fixes already at time of SP2 application).
Its only "not viable" because Windows 7 is out. If windows 7 wasn't out, then vista would still be my PC o/s of choice for general day to day use. Its been viable for years - I have no idea why people insist that XP is the greatest thing since sliced bread; compared to Windows 2000 (which will run pretty much anything XP will run), its a dog. Maybe because most of them are noobs who forget the previous peaks in windows quality with NT4 sp6a and Windows 2000 SP whatever it got up to. 95, 98, ME, XP are all dogs.
That said, Windows 7 should, and hopefully will wipe the floor with Vista, even though the code is largely the same, just slightly tweaked (but the slight tweaks appear to have made a big difference). Personally I can't wait until all my desktops at work have powershell, a half decent firewall, a non-brain damaged tcp/ip stack, previous versions, UAC and applocker.
Linux just isn't there yet in terms of 3d application/game support, logging into the corporate LAN, device support, etc.
I can and do run it as a desktop OS (more often FreeBSD though), and I much prefer the unix way of doing things, but its too much hard work when used as a desktop and actually trying to run things i want to run.
Sounds like a perfect filesystem for desktop productivity... not. The benefits for a typical Mac/Mac User are simply *not there*.
4 of those were due to faulty RAM, and the fifth was due to hard drive failure.
I had a total of 1 reinstall, to move from 32 bit to 64 bit.
Buy decent hardware with decent drivers (important!) and Windows these days is stable.
Unless you've used it, go test before you mindlessly assume its the same old shit.
Why? Because 10.6 does not support PPC??
If Vista is "not viable", fucked if i know where that puts linux... Don't be a fucking tight-arse with RAM, and vista is fine. Much better than XP, imho - if i had to go back, it would be to Windows 2000, thankyouverymuch.
ID software are hardly a "little fish" when it comes to FPSes. Fuck, they're not even a little fish when it comes to the entire gaming industry, even.
Hand has been forced by the fact that NVidia/AMD don't have decent open source drivers.
I guess what he's saying is that ID do not want/can not allocate resources to deal with the flood of tech support calls they anticipate from people who are trying to run it and getting graphical anomolies, etc on Linux.
Which, given the size of the Linux gaming market, is probably a sensible business decision.
Damn shame though, I still hope that down the track they open-source/release this engine like they did with previous versions so that the Linux driver/kernel people can have a crack at making it work, and thus people can run ID tech5 games, albeit "unsupported" officially by ID.
Try running it on some javascript heavy sites. It is blisteringly fast, compared to just about any other browser (safari 4.x comes close, but is less stable).
Because most of the cross platform toolkits available look like arse, thats why. And not the good kind of arse, either.
In the post-feminist revolution 2000s, we shouldn't care, and give females the equality they have been demanding. get rid of male/female events and the whole checking thing isn't a problem.
True, they're hard to memorize/read out, but if you set your network up properly its pretty rare you need the user to read it out. Remote assistance works over IM/email, package deployment can be automated etc. If you're doing user support via VNC (we are, phasing it out though) then sure, its a pain in the arse, but the benefits of being able to automate stuff outweigh it.
Thats not a very common occurrence. Rare enough in fact that its not worth considering. out of 500 odd machines here in the past 5 years, the number of motherboard replacements we have done is ZERO.
So, you can create an automated install, where the steps are basically:
Package addition, adding to the domain, setting pc name, etc can all be automated - pc name setting is done by retrieving the service tag from the bios using WMI+script. The domain credentials to add the pc to the domain can be embedded in the installation source.
If you're smart about it, PC rebuilds can even be kicked off from remote over the network, user files backed up, os and drivers reinstalled etc without even having to get up from your desk.
Doing that when you're manually thinking up PC names is just not possible.