Well, as far as that's concerned, that's just one more step that would be necessary for a Solaris machine to be usable. HP-UX is about the same; that's why whenever I log into one of those machines I end up cursing at the fact that the command completion doesn't work right, all too often the backspace key doesn't work properly without more setup, the only editors installed are either the bloated emacs or a version of vi that seems to be from the 1970s, etc.
CMD is not a command line interface to Explorer. It doesn't rely on Explorer for process control or file system access at all, those are Win32 functions, the same as Explorer or any other Win32 app calls.
I think if one were so inclined, you could change the Windows shell from explorer.exe to cmd.exe and just give yourself a command prompt when you logged into the machine, with no explorer.exe running at all.
Samsung-drive XBOX machines are reported to be able to read DVD+R, IF the disc was burned on a drive capable of setting the DVD book type to DVD-ROM (instead of DVD+R), and the disc was burned with that setting.
I doubt there is much or any inherent difference in longevity or durability; that's more a function of the disc materials and manufacturing quality, which can vary with either.
Technically, the DVD+R/RW standards seem as good or better than -R/RW in every way which I'm aware - for example, DVD+RW has better integrated defect management than DVD-RW, which sort of has it tacked on..
Most likely, either your Sony player is very picky about its discs, or you need to use some better media. There is a lot of crap DVD media available out there..
Here's a detailed article describing a number of ways in which DVD+R/RW is technically superior:
"During my study of rewritable DVD formats it seemed very clear to me that DVD-R(W) standard was not as well designed as DVD+R(W) (or even DVD-RAM). And although some serious efforts have been put in the latest revisions of the - format to fix some of the original problems (at the cost of a much increased complexity), it still remains technically inferior to +, due to some intrinsic weaknesses (e.g. pre-pits). This is not very surprising, as Sony and Philips have a much longer experience at defining standards than Pioneer (and several key patents), and they also had the advantage to publish their standards after their competitors."
I don't imagine DVD-RAM dying too easily, as it has much better random-access and random-rewrite capability than DVD+RW or DVD-RW, which makes it useful for devices such as standalone DVD recorders..
The only significant difference in DVD-Video compatibility between DVD+R and DVD-R is that some DVD players will refuse to play discs where the book type field is not set to DVD-ROM, as with DVD+R discs by default in most burners. However, many burners now have the capability of changing the book type setting to DVD-ROM - there should be no significant difference in player compatibility with DVD+R discs burned this way.
As many have mentioned, cards based on the the Brooktree/Conexant BT848/BT878 chips seem to be well supported both in Linux (with BTTV) and with free software/drivers in Windows (like DScaler).
The newer replacement for the old Brooktree chips is the Conexant CX2388x series, used in cards like some of the Hauppage cards, the Asus TV Tuner and MSI TV@nywhere. These chips have a number of improvements - for example, better support for high-res capture (up to 754x480), and it also has a real comb filter in it (BT8x8 has just a crappy notch filter like a 15-year-old TV, apparently) which makes a difference in image quality from RF or composite sources. DScaler includes support for these chips now, and there is a Linux driver available, though it seems to be a very early version.
I believe one big reason for YPbPr (which I believe is not actually quite the same as YUV) being used instead of RGB is that Macrovision copy protection can't really be used on RGB, and the movie studios wouldn't want high-quality DVD player outputs with no Macrovision on them, as worthless as it is..
It may be possible to bring such weapons on board an airplane, but now that people have seen what happened on 9/11, I don't think it's too likely that the passengers will allow one guy or even a few guys with knives to smash the plane into something..
Personally I would like to see laptops that I can plug a molex power connector into
That would mean putting that connector on something that didn't already use it, however, which I think would be a bad thing. I think the guy that decided to use those things for PC peripherals should be shot, given their propensity to become stuck so tight they require pliers to remove..
I can't see either of those being a problem. Devices of this type aren't entirely new to electronics - lots of devices like TVs have types of delay lines or SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) filters which work on a somewhat similar principle.
It's certainly possible to have an SMPS where the output is not isolated from the AC line. However, that would most likely not be considered safe (i.e. for regulatory purposes) for a device that is has external connectors on it, because of the potential shock hazard. So such a design is really not applicable for a device such as a laptop.
One thing I haven't really seen pointed out is that the O(1) scheduler is not strictly present just in the 2.6 kernel - a number of distributions have had backported versions in 2.4-based systems; I believe Red Hat has had it integrated into their kernels since Red Hat 8, for example..
This is more of a virtual memory or disk scheduling issue than process scheduling. Even if a process has full access to the CPU, it still can't run if either it has code or data it needs that are not paged into RAM, or need to be loaded in initially from disk.
Especially in Windows, it seems like if a process is hammering the disk in the background, other processes can be starved from accessing the disk. Windows seems especially braindead at times when multiple processes fight over the disk, and the disk is wildly seeking all over the place and not accomplishing much - it would be much more efficient if it would just devote the disk for a longer time to each request.
I don't know what Windows has in it for disk I/O scheduling, but it's probably safe to say that Linux is a bit more intelligent in this regard..
I believe they also took code for some of the command-line network apps like ftp - if you look at the executable files, you will find a "Copyright The Regents of the University of California" in there..
Back in the days of Red Hat 7.2 or so, they used to put out updates with up2date that actually were an updated upstream version or had significant improvements, but of late the only updates available have been for security flaws or major bugs, which leaves things pretty stagnant between releases. Which is fine for corporate users or others that don't want to risk breaking things, but for those that prefer to stay closer to the "bleeding edge", I think Fedora's approach is better. There's choices there too - by default only "released" updates will show up in up2date, but you can edit the config file and turn on update notification for "testing" updates as well..
As well, Red Hat has a good motivation to keep Fedora's development vibrant because it's what RHEL is ultimately going to be based on for future versions..
You can get away with just unplugging the USB device in Windows, as long as the device didn't have anything open on it. I think in the event it did have open files, Windows becomes rather annoyed with you: "The volume that was removed had open files on it. Next time please click Safely Remove Hardware before removing the device." or something like that.
If you have a mass-storage device mounted under Linux, it's not going to be happy with you if you pull it out without unmounting first, either. The file system model isn't really designed to handle surprise removal of the device..
HP's cameras can be configured to operate as either a digital camera device or as a USB mass storage device. I was not able to get my PhotoSmart 620 to work in Linux in digital camera mode, but I was able to mount it as a mass storage device..
Cat 3 is twisted-pair like Cat 5, just not twisted as tightly. Good for 10Mbps max (or 100 Mbps using 100Base4 instead of 100BaseT, but that seems rarely used).
Indeed, I believe the LG CRD-84xx CD-ROM drives mentioned as suffering from this bug are already on the "DMA blacklist" in the kernel because of some DMA-related problems with the drives - Linux will run them only in PIO mode.
Current monitors do indeed detect that the sync frequencies are out of range and refuse to display them. However, even older monitors should not have been damaged if they were properly designed. The display image would simply have broken up or showed garbage if they were unable to sync to the signal.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, as far as that's concerned, that's just one more step that would be necessary for a Solaris machine to be usable. HP-UX is about the same; that's why whenever I log into one of those machines I end up cursing at the fact that the command completion doesn't work right, all too often the backspace key doesn't work properly without more setup, the only editors installed are either the bloated emacs or a version of vi that seems to be from the 1970s, etc.
CMD is not a command line interface to Explorer. It doesn't rely on Explorer for process control or file system access at all, those are Win32 functions, the same as Explorer or any other Win32 app calls.
I think if one were so inclined, you could change the Windows shell from explorer.exe to cmd.exe and just give yourself a command prompt when you logged into the machine, with no explorer.exe running at all.
Samsung-drive XBOX machines are reported to be able to read DVD+R, IF the disc was burned on a drive capable of setting the DVD book type to DVD-ROM (instead of DVD+R), and the disc was burned with that setting.
I doubt there is much or any inherent difference in longevity or durability; that's more a function of the disc materials and manufacturing quality, which can vary with either.
Technically, the DVD+R/RW standards seem as good or better than -R/RW in every way which I'm aware - for example, DVD+RW has better integrated defect management than DVD-RW, which sort of has it tacked on..
Most likely, either your Sony player is very picky about its discs, or you need to use some better media. There is a lot of crap DVD media available out there..
Though related, the Betamax format used in professional TV cameras is not the same at all as the home Beta system..
I don't imagine DVD-RAM dying too easily, as it has much better random-access and random-rewrite capability than DVD+RW or DVD-RW, which makes it useful for devices such as standalone DVD recorders..
The only significant difference in DVD-Video compatibility between DVD+R and DVD-R is that some DVD players will refuse to play discs where the book type field is not set to DVD-ROM, as with DVD+R discs by default in most burners. However, many burners now have the capability of changing the book type setting to DVD-ROM - there should be no significant difference in player compatibility with DVD+R discs burned this way.
The newer replacement for the old Brooktree chips is the Conexant CX2388x series, used in cards like some of the Hauppage cards, the Asus TV Tuner and MSI TV@nywhere. These chips have a number of improvements - for example, better support for high-res capture (up to 754x480), and it also has a real comb filter in it (BT8x8 has just a crappy notch filter like a 15-year-old TV, apparently) which makes a difference in image quality from RF or composite sources. DScaler includes support for these chips now, and there is a Linux driver available, though it seems to be a very early version.
I believe one big reason for YPbPr (which I believe is not actually quite the same as YUV) being used instead of RGB is that Macrovision copy protection can't really be used on RGB, and the movie studios wouldn't want high-quality DVD player outputs with no Macrovision on them, as worthless as it is..
It may be possible to bring such weapons on board an airplane, but now that people have seen what happened on 9/11, I don't think it's too likely that the passengers will allow one guy or even a few guys with knives to smash the plane into something..
Personally I would like to see laptops that I can plug a molex power connector into That would mean putting that connector on something that didn't already use it, however, which I think would be a bad thing. I think the guy that decided to use those things for PC peripherals should be shot, given their propensity to become stuck so tight they require pliers to remove..
I can't see either of those being a problem. Devices of this type aren't entirely new to electronics - lots of devices like TVs have types of delay lines or SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) filters which work on a somewhat similar principle.
It's certainly possible to have an SMPS where the output is not isolated from the AC line. However, that would most likely not be considered safe (i.e. for regulatory purposes) for a device that is has external connectors on it, because of the potential shock hazard. So such a design is really not applicable for a device such as a laptop.
One thing I haven't really seen pointed out is that the O(1) scheduler is not strictly present just in the 2.6 kernel - a number of distributions have had backported versions in 2.4-based systems; I believe Red Hat has had it integrated into their kernels since Red Hat 8, for example..
This is more of a virtual memory or disk scheduling issue than process scheduling. Even if a process has full access to the CPU, it still can't run if either it has code or data it needs that are not paged into RAM, or need to be loaded in initially from disk.
Especially in Windows, it seems like if a process is hammering the disk in the background, other processes can be starved from accessing the disk. Windows seems especially braindead at times when multiple processes fight over the disk, and the disk is wildly seeking all over the place and not accomplishing much - it would be much more efficient if it would just devote the disk for a longer time to each request.
I don't know what Windows has in it for disk I/O scheduling, but it's probably safe to say that Linux is a bit more intelligent in this regard..
I believe they also took code for some of the command-line network apps like ftp - if you look at the executable files, you will find a "Copyright The Regents of the University of California" in there..
Back in the days of Red Hat 7.2 or so, they used to put out updates with up2date that actually were an updated upstream version or had significant improvements, but of late the only updates available have been for security flaws or major bugs, which leaves things pretty stagnant between releases. Which is fine for corporate users or others that don't want to risk breaking things, but for those that prefer to stay closer to the "bleeding edge", I think Fedora's approach is better. There's choices there too - by default only "released" updates will show up in up2date, but you can edit the config file and turn on update notification for "testing" updates as well..
As well, Red Hat has a good motivation to keep Fedora's development vibrant because it's what RHEL is ultimately going to be based on for future versions..
You can get away with just unplugging the USB device in Windows, as long as the device didn't have anything open on it. I think in the event it did have open files, Windows becomes rather annoyed with you: "The volume that was removed had open files on it. Next time please click Safely Remove Hardware before removing the device." or something like that.
If you have a mass-storage device mounted under Linux, it's not going to be happy with you if you pull it out without unmounting first, either. The file system model isn't really designed to handle surprise removal of the device..
HP's cameras can be configured to operate as either a digital camera device or as a USB mass storage device. I was not able to get my PhotoSmart 620 to work in Linux in digital camera mode, but I was able to mount it as a mass storage device..
Cat 3 is twisted-pair like Cat 5, just not twisted as tightly. Good for 10Mbps max (or 100 Mbps using 100Base4 instead of 100BaseT, but that seems rarely used).
Indeed, I believe the LG CRD-84xx CD-ROM drives mentioned as suffering from this bug are already on the "DMA blacklist" in the kernel because of some DMA-related problems with the drives - Linux will run them only in PIO mode.
Unless your hard drive is decades old, you cannot tell it to move its heads off the platter (and have it do it, anyway..)
Current monitors do indeed detect that the sync frequencies are out of range and refuse to display them. However, even older monitors should not have been damaged if they were properly designed. The display image would simply have broken up or showed garbage if they were unable to sync to the signal.