has probably been stated at least once or twice but alot of people are still confused. The big difference between the internet 1 and 2 is that the internet 2 is circuit switched rather than being packet switched. Sure packet switching may be a bit more modular but it's also much slower and requires enormous routers to send the packets on their merry way. This leads to much faster speeds and less latency between two nodes on the network. The ATM networking scheme is what let them get a 40 Mb connection between Wisconsin and Japan for good quality uncompressed video. I bet it looked damn cool.
The Voodoo 5 also need to be plugged into an electrical outlet because the motherboard can't supply enough power for its processors. Doesn't that seem like a serious design flat to you?
personally, having a mouse that could access my hard drive would really piss me off. I'm not sure what to think about replacing parallel buses with serial. Having a bow that was a giant serial network might be cheap and speedy but what happens when people figure out how to circumvent software privacy controls and read all your keystrokes or control devices directly? I think if you were going to move to a serial system that each component set should have a private serial connection ie. processor to RAM, and also have a connection to the rest of the system. That way all private connections remain isolated. Right now my DMA devices can communicate directly with the RAM and likewise the RAM to the DMA device but the DMA device can't sit back and watch what is going on between my CPU and RAM because there is a memory controller between the two. You COULD have like firewall chips in front of certain system resources but wouldnt those add as much cost to the system as the elimination of parallel controllers deducted? I like serial connections for hardware devices like hard disks and the like, because the commands/information and whatnot have termination I can connect them while they are in the middle of an operation and not have the system wonder where the hell it went. Firewire and USB are two great examples of this in effect. I'm not so sure I'd like my internal devices like the CPU and RAM on the same serial link with the mouse and keyboard though.
for you people to remember the difference between Win2k and Millennium? Windows 2000 will run off an improved version of the NT kernel, hence making it technically NT 5. Windows Millennium will be the last version of Windows running off the NX kernel, hence making it the successor to Windows 98. I'd really like to see the OSes numbered after what kernel their working on and for people to make the distinction between operating system and operating environment. The operating system is enough to get the sumputer running, most likely a kernel and a shell. The environment is all the extra programs that allow you to get stuff done with that kernel and shell. If you ever see the packaging for Solaris it says it's the Solaris Operating Environment (which is correct) since it in an environment of tools and apps. The naming convention for Windows is mostly for marketing purposes as so many other people have said. If Joe Average is sitting looking at the Windows 95 boot up screen and sees a commercial for Windows 2000 he is most likely going to realize his system is MUCH older than the current ones. If Joe Average sees Slackware 4.0 and Redhat 6.1 he is going to think Redhat is SO much newer and more up to date than Slackware, when in reality they are basically running off the same kernel. Major releases (in my opinion) are probably going to be following the yearly naming scheme with "Release 2" or some such for minor improvements. Look at the way Win 98 works if you use the web updating, my Win 98 box has basically all the same bug fixes and components that a Win 98 SE box would have. When Redhat really goes balls out against MS you'll probably see "Redhat 2001" or something like that. It looks alot cleaner on store shelves.
I'm underground right now in the Graymalkompound. Topside it's raining and cold and the power has been poopie all day long. Luckily for those of us here underground our supply of Sweet Tarts and pepsi is going strong. I was kinda hoping I'd be one of the few people left to repopulate the planet. At least I get to be one of the last people to find out if I'm Y2K compliant. We love you Boris!!
I'm practicing for the higher WPM morse tests, the writtens are easy to study for. Oh well, time to get my General license:)
Re:Laptops should REPLACE desktops...with Linux?
on
Laptop Pentium IIIs
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· Score: 2
Someone will probably spill their jolt on themselves for me saying this, but take a look at the Powerbook G3. I'm really happy with mine, it's close to a portable equivilent for my P3 500 I'm on right now, the best part is the high power with low power consumption. If I turn the power saving stuff on it's still usable but will get me about 4 hours on a full battery. The screen is big and bright and comes with plenty of RAM, it also has 8 megs of video memory which is great for when I have it hooked up to my 19" monitor. MacOS probably wouldn't be an OS of your choice but I'm pretty sure you could get Yellow Dog or LinuxPPC working on one pretty easily. The 98 G3 300 is pretty nice from what I hear too (I have the 99 333). If you have the cash you can also get a Virtual PC card which works REALLY well in my experience.
GNU Linux is really nice but it isn't for the masses and probably won't be. People are intimidated by the prospect of editing source code, most would rather pay a few bucks if they can just have a program with buttons and a File menu. I personally think after this year the home machine Unix will probably come in the form as a commercial unix for the PC. Linux will be more for IT managers and people that really want to go hardcore with their computers. The other story here about documentation for Linux is one of the reasons Linux will probably always continue to be daunting, even with companies like Redhat providing oodles of support. People go into Best Buy asking if they can buy a few megahertz for their systems or if the internet comes on their computer, an open sourced operating system isn't going to appeal much to them.
who would have thought anyone would ever use BeOS for a server. The comparison between Linux and FreeBSd is really interesting, considering how much publicity Linux has been getting lately as being "ultra stable". Statistically FBSD is more than twice as stable as Linux. Realistically this probably has more to do with the huge number of different Linux kernels used in the tests and the comparitively few different FBSD kernels used. It is interesting to think about though, are the half dozen different Linux distros more or less stable than others? I personally think that FBSD's development (Open and Net also) makes for a bit more stable of an OS.
I would say is this entire year. The so-called revolutions in e-commerce and communication have only lead to breakdowns in our social contacts with one another. I'm not necessarily a Luddite but I think before everyone jumps on the bandwagon of "oh how technology enriches our lives" they ought to take a logical look at how that technology affects them. E-commerce is nice and for the most part quick, but it has many inherent problems. If I'm sitting on my ass ordering WidgetPluses from ewidget.com I may be saving a dollar or two on gas but the ass I'm sitting on is also getting fatter because I never walk anywhere. Woe is to me if I dared think about returned my e-purchase not to mention woe is to me when I get my credit card statement. I'd really rather go to a discount store, outlet mall, or swap meat to find the big deal. I'm exercising, haggling on the price, and paying cash. Another biggie of this year which didn't make Dvorak's list were the mass media website outlet superstore commercial clusterfucks. The Go network is a great example, people are enticed to surf these huge mego-sites because they offer a ton of content, a ton of commercials and a big brand name. It's a matter of choice I suppose but it adds way too much of a commercial presence in a place that a handful of years ago was just for fun. Another point that made this year a giant flop was blatant journalistic sensationalism (big words, wow). Every tiny story was blown way out of preportion, especially when it had to do with schools and any kind of violence. Here in California it's been so bad I can't watch the news anymore. Everything seems to be a tool of the devil in the eyes of the media, they go around acting like evangelical patriots rooting the evil out of every story. No one tells you what happened anymore, no it's all commentary on how good or bad you ought to feel about a particular event. KCAL news I don't think I need to be told when something is "indeed a tragedy". Look at the hubub surrounding Y2K if you're skeptical of this. Back to the point of social contacts breaking down, it seems every business in the world wants to turn everyone into an overweight couch potato. You're sposed to start an e-business, buy everything through e-commerce, enjoy e-entertainment, and when that all gets boring plan an e-vacation by looking at some e-tropical island photos on someone's e-vacation website. Being able to communicate with the rest of the world is great, I get to rant on/. and e-mail my friends I don't get to see every day. But when I start staying home to do some low down e-living please jumpkick me in the face. This year was a flop because everyone seems to be caught up in the digital revolution the same way the Frenchies got caught up in their revolution in the 18th century, they ran around screaming things no one could understand and cut off anyone's heads who got in the way.
time Apple has gone the multi-processor route. Way back a while ago they came out with the 9600/200MP, running of dual 604e processors at 200mhz. It was a decent system from what I understand, except MacOS 7 was a bit of a pill to keep running on it. That was back in 97 though. I think dual G4s would be nice but a bit of overkill unless you had some software that could use the AltiVec stuff in multiple threads to really speed things up. Lets just hope the Mystic sells a bit more than the 9600/200MP did.
You're insulting him for being correct? Doesn't that make you an "utter complete moron". Ebay's backend uses Solaris with an Oracle database, their front end servers use NT. The frontend does a tenth of the work the backend does.
right. I'd like to see some production models of this new "amazingly infinite energy source". But it probably works about as well as the perpetual motion machine on my desk. He bashes quantum theory while saying he has a grand unification theory, that makes me more skeptical than before. A REAL grand unifying theory could do alot more than make better plastics. I'm an engineering student with a penchant for quantum theory, I know a bit about this subject and I think this guy is completely full of it. Or so it goes.
trademarked the words: sex, mp3, christmas, Michaelangelo, porn, xxx, and cabbage. Anyone who even breathes these words will come under the wrath of my legal department. Since these words have been used millions of times in the past month I'm going to have to insist on suing everyone who uses them for several million dollars. These expenses will cover the surgery I need to remove my head from within my asshole. Thank You, Graymalkincorporated.
it's a good thing that Be is partnering with Compaq on this. Why? Mainly because Be's architecture is more suited fo an appliance market than Linux is. Linux's kernel is great but would have some problems in the web appliance arena. The Linux kernel is a single monolithic kernel and for any component to be patched or changed you need the source of the kernel and the patch and then you need to recompile it. This may be fine for me sitting on my PC with my 10gb hard drive but it's not practical for a web appliance with 16mb of flash memory. Be like WinCE uses a microkernel which makes all the different parts modular. If there is a patch it can be downloaded and installed in the time it takes to download the patch and reload the kernel. Besides the kernel, who would want a multi-user web pad. I highly doubt I would buy a portable web pad to log into it through telnet. The multi-user sense of a web appliance should be just difference Ui preferences.
Who needs momentum to make a good OS? You have to put some thought into things, Be uses a microkernel so the whole thing doesn't need to be recompiled on an upgrade or a preference change. I would argue on a stability standpoint that Be is at the very least as stable as Linux. Being deisnged for a task and just sort of being able to do it are two different things. Be makes old PPC boxes fly and can also do some ass kicking on an x86 for even high powered graphics. X is getting a bit dated and probably isn't the best GUI for content creation, not as good as Be's in my opinion. All Be needs is some support from the big graphics guys like Adobe and Metacreations.
The next step up in speed is great since it makes the lower end processors cheaper but why the hell are most of you whning? AMD is better, no Intel is better. Blah blah blah. I'd like to see either company come out with a system architecture that was wholly faster than the previous one. A few frames in Quake or a minute faster on a scene rendering in 3DS isn't going to impress me much. If I saw a doubling of the framerate for Quake I would be much impressed. I read somewhere AMD might be planning a 64bit x86 processor, doing the AltiVec thang and running 32bit code on a 128bit core. Four 32bit instructions get run on a single clock which speeds things up a good deal. AMD just needs to givure out how to speed up the rest of the system, DDRRAM is one step. So is a 133mhz PCI bus. Maybe x86 will stick around a little bit longer...
the designers of the Aibo and the R100 are anything like me they'd program in special commands that would make the robot do silly stuff like kill the neighbors or spit acid. Who would want a non-lethal robot? They have the sensors, all they need now are the weaponry.
damn so and sos, I submitted this story last week. Anyways, the REASON I submitted it last week was I think Ebert hit the nail on the head. Digital projection is NOT all it's cracked up to be. It's got pretty crappy resolution and is limited by the 24fps framerate which is a POS. Anyone who plays any game knows that the higher the framerate the smoother the motion looks. 24fps was originally used because it was the LOWEST framerate that could fool the brain into perceiving motion to save money on film prints. People have just stuck with it. One of the biggest problems with digital is the cost. I mean how many of your local 4 screen theaters are going to fork over 150k for a new digital projector when their old film one works fine. Digital movie projectors are just glorified presentation projectors whose resolutiopn isn't the greatest in the world. Or so it goes.
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has probably been stated at least once or twice but alot of people are still confused. The big difference between the internet 1 and 2 is that the internet 2 is circuit switched rather than being packet switched. Sure packet switching may be a bit more modular but it's also much slower and requires enormous routers to send the packets on their merry way. This leads to much faster speeds and less latency between two nodes on the network. The ATM networking scheme is what let them get a 40 Mb connection between Wisconsin and Japan for good quality uncompressed video. I bet it looked damn cool.
The Voodoo 5 also need to be plugged into an electrical outlet because the motherboard can't supply enough power for its processors. Doesn't that seem like a serious design flat to you?
personally, having a mouse that could access my hard drive would really piss me off. I'm not sure what to think about replacing parallel buses with serial. Having a bow that was a giant serial network might be cheap and speedy but what happens when people figure out how to circumvent software privacy controls and read all your keystrokes or control devices directly? I think if you were going to move to a serial system that each component set should have a private serial connection ie. processor to RAM, and also have a connection to the rest of the system. That way all private connections remain isolated. Right now my DMA devices can communicate directly with the RAM and likewise the RAM to the DMA device but the DMA device can't sit back and watch what is going on between my CPU and RAM because there is a memory controller between the two. You COULD have like firewall chips in front of certain system resources but wouldnt those add as much cost to the system as the elimination of parallel controllers deducted? I like serial connections for hardware devices like hard disks and the like, because the commands/information and whatnot have termination I can connect them while they are in the middle of an operation and not have the system wonder where the hell it went. Firewire and USB are two great examples of this in effect. I'm not so sure I'd like my internal devices like the CPU and RAM on the same serial link with the mouse and keyboard though.
Someone doing a quick code hack in Linux doesn't always fix the problem for everyone else either.
for you people to remember the difference between Win2k and Millennium? Windows 2000 will run off an improved version of the NT kernel, hence making it technically NT 5. Windows Millennium will be the last version of Windows running off the NX kernel, hence making it the successor to Windows 98. I'd really like to see the OSes numbered after what kernel their working on and for people to make the distinction between operating system and operating environment. The operating system is enough to get the sumputer running, most likely a kernel and a shell. The environment is all the extra programs that allow you to get stuff done with that kernel and shell. If you ever see the packaging for Solaris it says it's the Solaris Operating Environment (which is correct) since it in an environment of tools and apps. The naming convention for Windows is mostly for marketing purposes as so many other people have said. If Joe Average is sitting looking at the Windows 95 boot up screen and sees a commercial for Windows 2000 he is most likely going to realize his system is MUCH older than the current ones. If Joe Average sees Slackware 4.0 and Redhat 6.1 he is going to think Redhat is SO much newer and more up to date than Slackware, when in reality they are basically running off the same kernel. Major releases (in my opinion) are probably going to be following the yearly naming scheme with "Release 2" or some such for minor improvements. Look at the way Win 98 works if you use the web updating, my Win 98 box has basically all the same bug fixes and components that a Win 98 SE box would have. When Redhat really goes balls out against MS you'll probably see "Redhat 2001" or something like that. It looks alot cleaner on store shelves.
I'm underground right now in the Graymalkompound. Topside it's raining and cold and the power has been poopie all day long. Luckily for those of us here underground our supply of Sweet Tarts and pepsi is going strong. I was kinda hoping I'd be one of the few people left to repopulate the planet. At least I get to be one of the last people to find out if I'm Y2K compliant. We love you Boris!!
I'm practicing for the higher WPM morse tests, the writtens are easy to study for. Oh well, time to get my General license :)
Someone will probably spill their jolt on themselves for me saying this, but take a look at the Powerbook G3. I'm really happy with mine, it's close to a portable equivilent for my P3 500 I'm on right now, the best part is the high power with low power consumption. If I turn the power saving stuff on it's still usable but will get me about 4 hours on a full battery. The screen is big and bright and comes with plenty of RAM, it also has 8 megs of video memory which is great for when I have it hooked up to my 19" monitor. MacOS probably wouldn't be an OS of your choice but I'm pretty sure you could get Yellow Dog or LinuxPPC working on one pretty easily. The 98 G3 300 is pretty nice from what I hear too (I have the 99 333). If you have the cash you can also get a Virtual PC card which works REALLY well in my experience.
GNU Linux is really nice but it isn't for the masses and probably won't be. People are intimidated by the prospect of editing source code, most would rather pay a few bucks if they can just have a program with buttons and a File menu. I personally think after this year the home machine Unix will probably come in the form as a commercial unix for the PC. Linux will be more for IT managers and people that really want to go hardcore with their computers. The other story here about documentation for Linux is one of the reasons Linux will probably always continue to be daunting, even with companies like Redhat providing oodles of support. People go into Best Buy asking if they can buy a few megahertz for their systems or if the internet comes on their computer, an open sourced operating system isn't going to appeal much to them.
who would have thought anyone would ever use BeOS for a server. The comparison between Linux and FreeBSd is really interesting, considering how much publicity Linux has been getting lately as being "ultra stable". Statistically FBSD is more than twice as stable as Linux. Realistically this probably has more to do with the huge number of different Linux kernels used in the tests and the comparitively few different FBSD kernels used. It is interesting to think about though, are the half dozen different Linux distros more or less stable than others? I personally think that FBSD's development (Open and Net also) makes for a bit more stable of an OS.
Dingleberry, they were all registered website hosts.
I would say is this entire year. The so-called revolutions in e-commerce and communication have only lead to breakdowns in our social contacts with one another. I'm not necessarily a Luddite but I think before everyone jumps on the bandwagon of "oh how technology enriches our lives" they ought to take a logical look at how that technology affects them. E-commerce is nice and for the most part quick, but it has many inherent problems. If I'm sitting on my ass ordering WidgetPluses from ewidget.com I may be saving a dollar or two on gas but the ass I'm sitting on is also getting fatter because I never walk anywhere. Woe is to me if I dared think about returned my e-purchase not to mention woe is to me when I get my credit card statement. I'd really rather go to a discount store, outlet mall, or swap meat to find the big deal. I'm exercising, haggling on the price, and paying cash. Another biggie of this year which didn't make Dvorak's list were the mass media website outlet superstore commercial clusterfucks. The Go network is a great example, people are enticed to surf these huge mego-sites because they offer a ton of content, a ton of commercials and a big brand name. It's a matter of choice I suppose but it adds way too much of a commercial presence in a place that a handful of years ago was just for fun. Another point that made this year a giant flop was blatant journalistic sensationalism (big words, wow). Every tiny story was blown way out of preportion, especially when it had to do with schools and any kind of violence. Here in California it's been so bad I can't watch the news anymore. Everything seems to be a tool of the devil in the eyes of the media, they go around acting like evangelical patriots rooting the evil out of every story. No one tells you what happened anymore, no it's all commentary on how good or bad you ought to feel about a particular event. KCAL news I don't think I need to be told when something is "indeed a tragedy". Look at the hubub surrounding Y2K if you're skeptical of this. Back to the point of social contacts breaking down, it seems every business in the world wants to turn everyone into an overweight couch potato. You're sposed to start an e-business, buy everything through e-commerce, enjoy e-entertainment, and when that all gets boring plan an e-vacation by looking at some e-tropical island photos on someone's e-vacation website. Being able to communicate with the rest of the world is great, I get to rant on /. and e-mail my friends I don't get to see every day. But when I start staying home to do some low down e-living please jumpkick me in the face. This year was a flop because everyone seems to be caught up in the digital revolution the same way the Frenchies got caught up in their revolution in the 18th century, they ran around screaming things no one could understand and cut off anyone's heads who got in the way.
time Apple has gone the multi-processor route. Way back a while ago they came out with the 9600/200MP, running of dual 604e processors at 200mhz. It was a decent system from what I understand, except MacOS 7 was a bit of a pill to keep running on it. That was back in 97 though. I think dual G4s would be nice but a bit of overkill unless you had some software that could use the AltiVec stuff in multiple threads to really speed things up. Lets just hope the Mystic sells a bit more than the 9600/200MP did.
That is just bullshit, who decides not to use BSD because they have to add a comment about the original authors.
I hope someone moderates this post up.
You have to remember though that M$'s site runs on a cluster on 96 Compaq Proliants running NT. Hotmail uses about as many as that.
You're insulting him for being correct? Doesn't that make you an "utter complete moron". Ebay's backend uses Solaris with an Oracle database, their front end servers use NT. The frontend does a tenth of the work the backend does.
For some reason I thought it had always been spelled admission.
right. I'd like to see some production models of this new "amazingly infinite energy source". But it probably works about as well as the perpetual motion machine on my desk. He bashes quantum theory while saying he has a grand unification theory, that makes me more skeptical than before. A REAL grand unifying theory could do alot more than make better plastics. I'm an engineering student with a penchant for quantum theory, I know a bit about this subject and I think this guy is completely full of it. Or so it goes.
trademarked the words: sex, mp3, christmas, Michaelangelo, porn, xxx, and cabbage. Anyone who even breathes these words will come under the wrath of my legal department. Since these words have been used millions of times in the past month I'm going to have to insist on suing everyone who uses them for several million dollars. These expenses will cover the surgery I need to remove my head from within my asshole. Thank You, Graymalkincorporated.
it's a good thing that Be is partnering with Compaq on this. Why? Mainly because Be's architecture is more suited fo an appliance market than Linux is. Linux's kernel is great but would have some problems in the web appliance arena. The Linux kernel is a single monolithic kernel and for any component to be patched or changed you need the source of the kernel and the patch and then you need to recompile it. This may be fine for me sitting on my PC with my 10gb hard drive but it's not practical for a web appliance with 16mb of flash memory. Be like WinCE uses a microkernel which makes all the different parts modular. If there is a patch it can be downloaded and installed in the time it takes to download the patch and reload the kernel. Besides the kernel, who would want a multi-user web pad. I highly doubt I would buy a portable web pad to log into it through telnet. The multi-user sense of a web appliance should be just difference Ui preferences.
Who needs momentum to make a good OS? You have to put some thought into things, Be uses a microkernel so the whole thing doesn't need to be recompiled on an upgrade or a preference change. I would argue on a stability standpoint that Be is at the very least as stable as Linux. Being deisnged for a task and just sort of being able to do it are two different things. Be makes old PPC boxes fly and can also do some ass kicking on an x86 for even high powered graphics. X is getting a bit dated and probably isn't the best GUI for content creation, not as good as Be's in my opinion. All Be needs is some support from the big graphics guys like Adobe and Metacreations.
The next step up in speed is great since it makes the lower end processors cheaper but why the hell are most of you whning? AMD is better, no Intel is better. Blah blah blah. I'd like to see either company come out with a system architecture that was wholly faster than the previous one. A few frames in Quake or a minute faster on a scene rendering in 3DS isn't going to impress me much. If I saw a doubling of the framerate for Quake I would be much impressed. I read somewhere AMD might be planning a 64bit x86 processor, doing the AltiVec thang and running 32bit code on a 128bit core. Four 32bit instructions get run on a single clock which speeds things up a good deal. AMD just needs to givure out how to speed up the rest of the system, DDRRAM is one step. So is a 133mhz PCI bus. Maybe x86 will stick around a little bit longer...
the designers of the Aibo and the R100 are anything like me they'd program in special commands that would make the robot do silly stuff like kill the neighbors or spit acid. Who would want a non-lethal robot? They have the sensors, all they need now are the weaponry.
damn so and sos, I submitted this story last week. Anyways, the REASON I submitted it last week was I think Ebert hit the nail on the head. Digital projection is NOT all it's cracked up to be. It's got pretty crappy resolution and is limited by the 24fps framerate which is a POS. Anyone who plays any game knows that the higher the framerate the smoother the motion looks. 24fps was originally used because it was the LOWEST framerate that could fool the brain into perceiving motion to save money on film prints. People have just stuck with it. One of the biggest problems with digital is the cost. I mean how many of your local 4 screen theaters are going to fork over 150k for a new digital projector when their old film one works fine. Digital movie projectors are just glorified presentation projectors whose resolutiopn isn't the greatest in the world. Or so it goes.