UEFI can assume some level of graphics support, so no more MDA text mode
No it can't. Servers will still be restricted to text mode, because out-of-band management is commonly through IPMIv2, which supports text only, not graphics.
It's ironic that Microsoft is getting on-board with text-mode OS for their servers, while at the same time, Linux distros are going the wrong way and forcing GUI installers, using a pointless graphical splash screen for the bootloader, and other nonsense that helps no-one, but screws up serial and IPMI consoles.
and extends functionality (booting off 2TB+ drives).
Nope, I've been booting 2TB+ drive arrays for many years, with plain 16-bit BIOSes.
UEFI, itself, is a big step forward
Compared to the legacy BIOS, yes (though it comes with plenty of steps backwards, as well), but it's a big step backwards compared to every other firmware out there: LinuxBIOS/coreboot, OpenFirmware/OpenBoot, SRM firmware, etc. Just about ANYTHING out there would have been better than Intel's bloated UEFI.
Next time you're thinking of whether to license YOUR code using GPL or using something that allows MS to use your stuff and give nothing back in return... remember this.
Kerberos and LDAP had BSD/MIT licensed implementations, so Microsoft used them, and now Windows systems are far more secure, and authentication is fully interoperable between Windows and Linux/BSD, which wasn't the case before.
Microsoft using the BSD TCP/IP stack was a GOOD THING. If it was GPL licensed, they would have written their own, probably with bugs and other oddities, and people would have spent years and untold man-hours trying to figure them out, and get the various OSes back to compatibility with each other.
Maybe if KSH93 was BSD-licensed, Microsoft would have used that, too, instead of developing PowerShell and becoming even more insular, and isolating Windows admins from Unix systems.
If not for OpenSSH being BSD licensed, we'd all still be using TELNET everywhere, with untold numbers of companies refusing to tie themselves to GPL'd software, and each specific case not being worth the effort to rewrite it in-house, yet the network effects of having a free version that got used everywhere has improved things for everyone who uses the internet. Come to think of it, I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't started including SSH and SFTP with the base system. I suppose that'll come years after it should have, like a defragmenting tool, zip support, jpeg support, MP3 support, etc. etc.
There is nothing unethical about allowing others to use your code for free.
The GPL is no more or less ethical than any proprietary license. It allows people to use your code, ONLY if they meet your terms, and pay you back in the method of your choosing.
And like proprietary licenses, it's good at keeping companies away from your code, and non-interoperable with the protocols you've come up with to make your life easier.
The GPL and similar licenses help protect code from it's creator.
No it doesn't. An author can change the license at any time, or can simultaneously allow dual-licensing under the GPL and something else. Copyright allows them to do this, and the GPL does nothing to prevent it.
What makes you think you have the right to control the fate of code you've written? Why?
Because that's generally the ONLY motivation for me to write any code. If I don't get to chose to sell it, free it, or keep it private as needed, I would never write any non-trivial code. And works for hire would probably almost entirely stop, too, since they can A) Just use the code someone else developed and B) Wouldn't have any way to keep their code secret, or charge a fee to cover development costs.
These days, for most tasks [1], the question is why not a rack/blade solution. A half-rack with a blade enclosure and a drive array oftentimes can do more than 2-3 racks of 1U machines.
This is complete nonsense. Blade servers are more expensive, and CAN'T outperform simple 1U servers. 1U servers are packed to the gills with the hottest components that can be kept cool given the amount of space they have to work with. Blade servers, or any other design, can't possibly pack things more densely than 1U servers have been.
And Blades can't compete with virtualization either. It's just not remotely as flexible. You can't oversubscribe the memory of a Blade server, since that memory is physically dedicated to the single OS running on it. You can't oversubscribe CPU, nor boost the CPU when you need more performance.
You get more expense, with less performance, and less flexibility. Blades need to die off already...
I have wondered why 'desktop' components waste so much power compared to 'mobile' counterparts
Performance and price...
Laptops stay a few generations behind desktops, in terms of memory and bus speeds, memory and cache sizes, CPU speeds, etc.
In addition, looking at AMD, they actually made their "mobile" CPUs by testing their cores after manufacturing, to see which ones could handle low voltage operating without errors. They got rerouted to the mobile CPU line, while the rest were directed to the desktop line. In short, tighter tolerances are needed for lower voltage, mobile operation. Without the desktop or server markets, where power consumption is far less expensive, prices for mobile components would be ASTRONOMICAL. And on desktops, the CPU is often the most expensive component in the system, so the huge price would be felt very, very directly.
Efficiency has trade-offs... As long as grid power stays reasonably inexpensive, the extra power consumption and cooling cost is a small drop in the bucket, compared to the far higher component manufacturing costs.
you can save power by using a lower end gear. E.g. laptop chips and slower memory vs full blown "Enterprise" hardware.
"Enterprise" hardware doesn't mean the fastest... Infact it's the opposite, as enterprise hardware has longer development cycles.
Enterprise gear means things like ECC memory, BMCs monitoring server health, HDDs that won't freeze up for several minutes retrying a single unreadable block error, etc. And if you feel like skimping on it, you'll end up paying much more in the long run, as a single flipped bit in your database can cost a company obscene amounts of money, RAID arrays will report disk failures far more often, you'll be paying for remote hands, and waiting for on-site access far more often, and you'll have no notification nor insight into your servers, as hardware keeps silently failing, rather than alerting and halting to protect your data.
It's an old myth that AC-DC-AC conversion is a big loss. The % losses are in the single-digits. And the hassle of running a DC powered datacenter is a HUGE hassle.
The idea started way the hell back before "80plus" power supplies, when most PSUs were 60% efficient, but DC power supplies were more commonly 80%+ efficient. Now that common AC PSUs are much better, the DC advantages are long gone. There were also another class of losses from intermediate power distribution, but they can be cleaned-up as well without converting to DC.
And there are options to eliminate some of that DC-AC conversion inefficiency as well. Google went with on-board batteries, so the PSU is the only AC-DC conversion step, and it stays DC the rest of the way. Facebook and several others that follow the OpenCompute model, instead went with having a bank of batteries for every two server racks, and power supplies with both AC and DC inputs, so AC power isn't UPS-backed, but instead will start drawing DC power from the battery banks when needed, eliminating the DC-AC conversion.
And cheaper UPSes (eg. SmartUPS) are actually more efficient, since they don't do continuous double-conversion, but instead pass-through utility power normally, and switch over to DC inversion from the battery only in the event of power failure.
The most interesting thing about ganeti, IMHO, is the basically unlimited read speeds on inexpensive hardware, thanks to the way it operates with DRBD.
With a SAN based solution (like almost all others virtualization solutions use) your disk I/O is limited to network speed, while even a single 7200RPM 1TB+ SATA drive can saturate a gigabit network. A SAN with just a few hard drives should saturate a fairly expensive 10GbE port. Bonding several is possible, but gets expensive very fast.
Assuming a low-end server configuration with 4x cheap 7200RPM SATA HDDs, with just 4 VM servers connected to it, you'd only need 4 such servers to surpass the I/O of a 10GbE SAN. Double that if you've got dual bonded 10GbE NICs in your SAN controller.
1). I love the desert. Skinny people handle the heat just fine, and the constant fluid intake displaces most solid food, so there's a lot of motivation to lose weight. Ladies walk around in tank tops, spaghetti straps, swimsuits, or even less. People that haven't lived in it long don't know how to dress, but humans evolved as one of the most heat-tolerant warm blooded animals around. You'll still feel like walking some more, long after your dog is ready to pass out. Just take plenty of water along with you... And there's no reason to get sun burned. Walking upright, only your nose/ears/shoulders are exposed, so wear a hat and you won't even tan, unless you lay down by the pool, or similar. Shade like trees or awnings makes like infintely more comfortable.
6) Texas Republicans are losing out to demographics. They've done a 180 on immigration because they'll disappear over the next decade if they don't expand their base somehow, and it hasn't worked yet. Whatever their reasons for moving down there, as long as newcomers vote against the republicans, it's a positive, and will speed the conversion from red to blue state.
one has to expect them to trend towards releasing MORE information than the majority of the public would be comfortable with.
Yes, and turnabout is fair play... With that attitude, they would be hypocritical to complain about their own private documents being funneled to the FBI, or anyone else.
In the USA, when we actually follow the 1st Amendment, the press is unrestricted
There must be a free press, but it certainly doesn't have to be unrestricted. The wording doesn't say that, and the founders weren't extremist who intended or believed that. Just like the right to bear arms doesn't mean everyone has the right to own absolutely any weapons they can get their hands on.
So they take US Astronauts to the ISS on what exactly?
The Russian equivalent of a 1970s Pinto...
And Russia only HAS a space program because the US is shoveling obscene amounts of money to them. The space program became the international welfare program, because we don't want all those Russian scientists out of work, looking to unfriendly nations for a paycheck.
If Wikileaks only exposed government malfesance, I'd be on their side, but that's not what they did. Look at all the tons of cases where they exposed completely benign private information stolen from private companies. I'm surprised they never published the secret formula for Coca Cola... Wikileaks released info like that only because they could, not because there was any good reason to do so.
The FBI is sure to be far more sensible and restrained than Wikileaks would be if the tables were turned. They're not likely to publish the medical records of everyone that worked/volunteered there just for the hell of it.
I happen to support legitimate whistleblowers, like Snowden, that is assuming the espionage allegations aren't true. Manning may have started off okay, but his subsequent actions are hard to justify. But Wikileaks has proven to be a very, very bad actor in all of this, and they don't deserve tohave their history white-washed.
Wikileaks was only too happy to reveal internal documents of private organizations the world over, of no prohibitive value to the public, just damaging the companies involved. So they should be HAPPY about the same being done to them, and for the same reasons they did it. After all, if they weren't doing anything illegal, then there's no harm in the FBI having copies of their internal documents, right? Right?
I admit, going through the FBI is a rather roundabout way to get that info to the public, but it should work out in the long-term.
The justification for H1-Bs always sounds like lying with statistics... No, you're not having a harder time finding a job, the wages are just stuck where they were a decade ago, and despite the huge industry growth, there aren't any more jobs available than before.
most of the young internet users means they find all kinds of information on the net, but they are too lazy to get off their rear end and research and discover just how notable subjects were in past decades. They only take the view of their own culture in the "reality" created on the net and mass media.
Speaking on behalf of the lazy, with so much data online, there's very little bang for the buck in visiting a library (you're likely to find 90% of the same info you already got online). In addition, my local library is tiny run-down junk, which has to do inter-library requests to get anything I've ever want, and these days has replaced row after row of books, with rows of computers in their place.
Besides that, while being "too lazy to get off [my] rear end and research", I've successfully written several massive and complex Wikipedia articles, with dozens to hundreds of citations, on topics that predate the internet. What, exactly, about this do you find objectionable? Does it not count if you don't do it the hard way?
It's a war of attrition and it seems like the bad guys mostly win. A lot of good editors have given up. I gave up, tried it again a few years later and gave up again. Many previously good articles are now full of industry shill references and obviously biased rubbish. The quality of Wikipedia is degrading steadily over time.
As one of my favorite ongoing examples, check out Fractal Antennas:
See the Talk page for all the back and forth about the corporate involvement, meat puppets being used, links to competitors being removed (fractus.com), and all other manner of wonderful stuff. There's a history temporary protection when the occasional admin wanders by, but then that expires, and the paid shills come back, and continue.
It's a very important subject, and yet there's not a bunch of editors willing to sit on the article and continue to revert the info for years and years, as Nathan Cohen continues to corrupt it into fluffy advertising for his (and ONLY his) company.
Slashdot Mirror
No it can't. Servers will still be restricted to text mode, because out-of-band management is commonly through IPMIv2, which supports text only, not graphics.
It's ironic that Microsoft is getting on-board with text-mode OS for their servers, while at the same time, Linux distros are going the wrong way and forcing GUI installers, using a pointless graphical splash screen for the bootloader, and other nonsense that helps no-one, but screws up serial and IPMI consoles.
Nope, I've been booting 2TB+ drive arrays for many years, with plain 16-bit BIOSes.
Compared to the legacy BIOS, yes (though it comes with plenty of steps backwards, as well), but it's a big step backwards compared to every other firmware out there: LinuxBIOS/coreboot, OpenFirmware/OpenBoot, SRM firmware, etc. Just about ANYTHING out there would have been better than Intel's bloated UEFI.
Kerberos and LDAP had BSD/MIT licensed implementations, so Microsoft used them, and now Windows systems are far more secure, and authentication is fully interoperable between Windows and Linux/BSD, which wasn't the case before.
Microsoft using the BSD TCP/IP stack was a GOOD THING. If it was GPL licensed, they would have written their own, probably with bugs and other oddities, and people would have spent years and untold man-hours trying to figure them out, and get the various OSes back to compatibility with each other.
Maybe if KSH93 was BSD-licensed, Microsoft would have used that, too, instead of developing PowerShell and becoming even more insular, and isolating Windows admins from Unix systems.
If not for OpenSSH being BSD licensed, we'd all still be using TELNET everywhere, with untold numbers of companies refusing to tie themselves to GPL'd software, and each specific case not being worth the effort to rewrite it in-house, yet the network effects of having a free version that got used everywhere has improved things for everyone who uses the internet. Come to think of it, I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't started including SSH and SFTP with the base system. I suppose that'll come years after it should have, like a defragmenting tool, zip support, jpeg support, MP3 support, etc. etc.
There is nothing unethical about allowing others to use your code for free.
The GPL is no more or less ethical than any proprietary license. It allows people to use your code, ONLY if they meet your terms, and pay you back in the method of your choosing.
And like proprietary licenses, it's good at keeping companies away from your code, and non-interoperable with the protocols you've come up with to make your life easier.
No it doesn't. An author can change the license at any time, or can simultaneously allow dual-licensing under the GPL and something else. Copyright allows them to do this, and the GPL does nothing to prevent it.
Because that's generally the ONLY motivation for me to write any code. If I don't get to chose to sell it, free it, or keep it private as needed, I would never write any non-trivial code. And works for hire would probably almost entirely stop, too, since they can A) Just use the code someone else developed and B) Wouldn't have any way to keep their code secret, or charge a fee to cover development costs.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3917891&cid=44143381
This is complete nonsense. Blade servers are more expensive, and CAN'T outperform simple 1U servers. 1U servers are packed to the gills with the hottest components that can be kept cool given the amount of space they have to work with. Blade servers, or any other design, can't possibly pack things more densely than 1U servers have been.
And Blades can't compete with virtualization either. It's just not remotely as flexible. You can't oversubscribe the memory of a Blade server, since that memory is physically dedicated to the single OS running on it. You can't oversubscribe CPU, nor boost the CPU when you need more performance.
You get more expense, with less performance, and less flexibility. Blades need to die off already...
Performance and price...
Laptops stay a few generations behind desktops, in terms of memory and bus speeds, memory and cache sizes, CPU speeds, etc.
In addition, looking at AMD, they actually made their "mobile" CPUs by testing their cores after manufacturing, to see which ones could handle low voltage operating without errors. They got rerouted to the mobile CPU line, while the rest were directed to the desktop line. In short, tighter tolerances are needed for lower voltage, mobile operation. Without the desktop or server markets, where power consumption is far less expensive, prices for mobile components would be ASTRONOMICAL. And on desktops, the CPU is often the most expensive component in the system, so the huge price would be felt very, very directly.
Efficiency has trade-offs... As long as grid power stays reasonably inexpensive, the extra power consumption and cooling cost is a small drop in the bucket, compared to the far higher component manufacturing costs.
"Enterprise" hardware doesn't mean the fastest... Infact it's the opposite, as enterprise hardware has longer development cycles.
Enterprise gear means things like ECC memory, BMCs monitoring server health, HDDs that won't freeze up for several minutes retrying a single unreadable block error, etc. And if you feel like skimping on it, you'll end up paying much more in the long run, as a single flipped bit in your database can cost a company obscene amounts of money, RAID arrays will report disk failures far more often, you'll be paying for remote hands, and waiting for on-site access far more often, and you'll have no notification nor insight into your servers, as hardware keeps silently failing, rather than alerting and halting to protect your data.
It's an old myth that AC-DC-AC conversion is a big loss. The % losses are in the single-digits. And the hassle of running a DC powered datacenter is a HUGE hassle.
The idea started way the hell back before "80plus" power supplies, when most PSUs were 60% efficient, but DC power supplies were more commonly 80%+ efficient. Now that common AC PSUs are much better, the DC advantages are long gone. There were also another class of losses from intermediate power distribution, but they can be cleaned-up as well without converting to DC.
And there are options to eliminate some of that DC-AC conversion inefficiency as well. Google went with on-board batteries, so the PSU is the only AC-DC conversion step, and it stays DC the rest of the way. Facebook and several others that follow the OpenCompute model, instead went with having a bank of batteries for every two server racks, and power supplies with both AC and DC inputs, so AC power isn't UPS-backed, but instead will start drawing DC power from the battery banks when needed, eliminating the DC-AC conversion.
And cheaper UPSes (eg. SmartUPS) are actually more efficient, since they don't do continuous double-conversion, but instead pass-through utility power normally, and switch over to DC inversion from the battery only in the event of power failure.
The most interesting thing about ganeti, IMHO, is the basically unlimited read speeds on inexpensive hardware, thanks to the way it operates with DRBD.
With a SAN based solution (like almost all others virtualization solutions use) your disk I/O is limited to network speed, while even a single 7200RPM 1TB+ SATA drive can saturate a gigabit network. A SAN with just a few hard drives should saturate a fairly expensive 10GbE port. Bonding several is possible, but gets expensive very fast.
Assuming a low-end server configuration with 4x cheap 7200RPM SATA HDDs, with just 4 VM servers connected to it, you'd only need 4 such servers to surpass the I/O of a 10GbE SAN. Double that if you've got dual bonded 10GbE NICs in your SAN controller.
1). I love the desert. Skinny people handle the heat just fine, and the constant fluid intake displaces most solid food, so there's a lot of motivation to lose weight. Ladies walk around in tank tops, spaghetti straps, swimsuits, or even less. People that haven't lived in it long don't know how to dress, but humans evolved as one of the most heat-tolerant warm blooded animals around. You'll still feel like walking some more, long after your dog is ready to pass out. Just take plenty of water along with you... And there's no reason to get sun burned. Walking upright, only your nose/ears/shoulders are exposed, so wear a hat and you won't even tan, unless you lay down by the pool, or similar. Shade like trees or awnings makes like infintely more comfortable.
6) Texas Republicans are losing out to demographics. They've done a 180 on immigration because they'll disappear over the next decade if they don't expand their base somehow, and it hasn't worked yet. Whatever their reasons for moving down there, as long as newcomers vote against the republicans, it's a positive, and will speed the conversion from red to blue state.
Not true. If there is a case against Wikileaks, those documents will become evidence, and published in the court records.
The FBI isn't the CIA.
Yes, and turnabout is fair play... With that attitude, they would be hypocritical to complain about their own private documents being funneled to the FBI, or anyone else.
There must be a free press, but it certainly doesn't have to be unrestricted. The wording doesn't say that, and the founders weren't extremist who intended or believed that. Just like the right to bear arms doesn't mean everyone has the right to own absolutely any weapons they can get their hands on.
The Russian equivalent of a 1970s Pinto...
And Russia only HAS a space program because the US is shoveling obscene amounts of money to them. The space program became the international welfare program, because we don't want all those Russian scientists out of work, looking to unfriendly nations for a paycheck.
Only because Russia doesn't have the money for those kinds of toys, anymore...
If Wikileaks only exposed government malfesance, I'd be on their side, but that's not what they did. Look at all the tons of cases where they exposed completely benign private information stolen from private companies. I'm surprised they never published the secret formula for Coca Cola... Wikileaks released info like that only because they could, not because there was any good reason to do so.
The FBI is sure to be far more sensible and restrained than Wikileaks would be if the tables were turned. They're not likely to publish the medical records of everyone that worked/volunteered there just for the hell of it.
I happen to support legitimate whistleblowers, like Snowden, that is assuming the espionage allegations aren't true. Manning may have started off okay, but his subsequent actions are hard to justify. But Wikileaks has proven to be a very, very bad actor in all of this, and they don't deserve tohave their history white-washed.
Wikileaks was only too happy to reveal internal documents of private organizations the world over, of no prohibitive value to the public, just damaging the companies involved. So they should be HAPPY about the same being done to them, and for the same reasons they did it. After all, if they weren't doing anything illegal, then there's no harm in the FBI having copies of their internal documents, right? Right?
I admit, going through the FBI is a rather roundabout way to get that info to the public, but it should work out in the long-term.
What risk? Are you confusing Julian Assange for Vladamir Putin, now?
The justification for H1-Bs always sounds like lying with statistics... No, you're not having a harder time finding a job, the wages are just stuck where they were a decade ago, and despite the huge industry growth, there aren't any more jobs available than before.
And though slightly different than H1-Bs:
Pretty sad that your post got modded up to +5.
See Solar Wind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
And also Cosmic Rays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray
And Particle Radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_radiation
If you've got a "cheap alternative", we'd all like to hear about it.
It's not the closest of relationships, but you might want to note that little arrow going from MeeGo 1.2 to TizenIVI Preview.
The only thing your copy/pasted explanation says, is that it's an open source OS, which seems like it should be obvious from the context.
A much better explanation is that Tizen is the bastard offspring of MeeGo (Intel/Nokia) and LiMo/SLP/Bada (Samsung).
If you'd really like to punish yourself, you can see the family tree, here:
https://github.com/kumadasu/tizen-history/blob/master/tizen-history.pdf
You specifically said "Vorbis" which is audio.
I'll assume, now, that was a typo.
Speaking on behalf of the lazy, with so much data online, there's very little bang for the buck in visiting a library (you're likely to find 90% of the same info you already got online). In addition, my local library is tiny run-down junk, which has to do inter-library requests to get anything I've ever want, and these days has replaced row after row of books, with rows of computers in their place.
Besides that, while being "too lazy to get off [my] rear end and research", I've successfully written several massive and complex Wikipedia articles, with dozens to hundreds of citations, on topics that predate the internet. What, exactly, about this do you find objectionable? Does it not count if you don't do it the hard way?
As one of my favorite ongoing examples, check out Fractal Antennas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_antenna
See the Talk page for all the back and forth about the corporate involvement, meat puppets being used, links to competitors being removed (fractus.com), and all other manner of wonderful stuff. There's a history temporary protection when the occasional admin wanders by, but then that expires, and the paid shills come back, and continue.
It's a very important subject, and yet there's not a bunch of editors willing to sit on the article and continue to revert the info for years and years, as Nathan Cohen continues to corrupt it into fluffy advertising for his (and ONLY his) company.