They are one of the many players trying to take public airwaves and make proprietary data applications that run on top of them.
So, what you would have is some shady broadcaster who got a license for our public airwaves, and they carry a crappy standard definition broadcast of their home shopping network. On the remaining bandwidth in that ~20Mbps ATSC broadcast pipe, they would carry encrypted data that could only be used by subscribers to this Disney service.
Screw that. If they want to broadcast, they should pick up the tab for the service, not use our "free" spectrum.
And, the broadcasters trying to do this should also be smacked down. If they don't plan on using the bandwidth for HD broadcast, which takes the full pipe, they should be forced to share the bandwidth with other broadcasters who only want to do SD.
There sure are a lot of people missing the point here, on both points - the AMD64 support and the LiveCD concept.
- AMD64 support: At this stage in it's lifecycle, the main challenge for the Opteron and Athlon64 cpu's is to get applications created for their artchitecture. This is a flashy, high-profile application. If the game is noticeably better than the x86-32 version, it gives an obvious tangible example of truth behind the AMD marketing.
- LiveCD support: No, it's not the perfect solution for exeryone.. But, it's necessary today for the intended purpose: demonstrating 64bit operation. If someone is running Win32 or Linux x86-32, they cannot run 64 bit applications. They can only run in 32 bit mode. So, they need a complete OS image to run x86-64 apps. The LiveCD allows this, without messing with the installed OS on the box. Even if they are running Linux x86-64, they might want a LiveCD, because it's unlikely they want to install all the gaming crap on an opteron server machine.
Even in the common x86-32 case, LiveCD's are still valuable as a Linux demo. Since most gamers are running Windows, this gives a way to show Linux on their system. It's a bit more exciting to most people than showing them that cool xterm window, and all the cool stuff I can do with sed & awk.
I looked at all the standard sites, and I don't see an AMD64 version available for download anywhere. It also didn't give any download site in the article.
Where can we download this little marvel??
Re:If it's raw ethernet, then it's not "IP based"
on
HyperSCSI Examined
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Until now, when only the Opteron was available for AMD64 support, there was very little effort for free OS support. There were efforts by RH and Suse for expensive enterprise server OS's..
Now that the low end 64 bit chip is out, what is the best Linux Distro that is freely available, or at least cheap??
I'm happy the american navy is moving towards MS. I just hope the entirety of the US militiary is that stupid. Means that when the EU (by then including Russia, which is, after all, in Europe) have to go to war in 2012 to liberate the american people, europe will be able to win easily...
Not if you take action... Wesley Clark in 2004! Get out and vote, the best way for non-violent regieme change.
Wow, that seems like a LOT of work to archive video.
And, once you've modified the video off the Tivo, how do you view it? The Tivo is not gonna handle your ultimate compression scheme. Do you just view it on a PC?
The government represantitives in the wealthy U.S./E.U. countries have all bought into the theory that all the manufacturing jobs are moving to third world countries, to be replaced by these new software/media/"IP" businesses. So, they are all behind these patents, DMCA-like legislation, and other restrictive laws.
But, it seems like most of them just don't "get it" yet. Of course, this is with a lot of help from big companies who stand to benefit from this stuff.
From the picture in the pcworld.com article, it looks like a standard system that has been around for quite a while, a Falcon CR51.
The standard box, which they sell at Fry's, includes a VIA mini-ITX motherboard, with a VIA C3 processor.
It's a decent system, but the fan on the power supply is VERY loud. Hopefully they've addressed that.
I like the concept. A simple file server that I could even stick at my Parent's home to save digital pictures, documents, etc. But, it should be a small/silent device; maybe the form factor of a 5.25" firewire enclosure. Or, make it a bit bigger, and put two drives in a RAID configuration for file server reliability..
Thin clients may be useful in some limited business applications. But, it does not seem to be a very big niche.
There is growing demand for small linux server boxes. Either for network use, as a T1/DSL router/firewall/VPN box. Or, as a small LAN server, doing things like DNS/DHCP in a corporate environment. Or, as an everything server for Home/DSL use, WWW/SMTP+spam-asassin/Proxy/DNS/DHCP/etc.
If someone could package the TM5800 in a small form factor case, with no fans, and a drive bay for either a 2.5" or 3.5" HDD, it could be an excellent gateway/server platform. It has extremely low power consumption specs, and can even reduce the clock rate when not in heavy use. It runs cool enough to run without a cooling fan, and be completely silent - other than the hard drive.
The judge is basically saying "the user agreed to this behavior by clicking on the 'I agree' option for the license"
This is further evidence of the need for some responsibilities in licensing. They give people a huge legalese document, and require agreement before continuing. As if you could call your lawyer and have her come over and read through the document and approve it. What a joke..
If companies are going to be allowed to have these huge rights based on shrink wrap or click through licenses, they should be required to provide more information to offset the confusion.
There should be a group that establishes a licensing baseline for software and web services. The group would need to have representation from legitimate industry and a citizen's advocate group. They could establish the licensing norms, or averages that everyone could know, and compare other licenses against.
Then, when companies want to have a legal agreement based on these flimsy implicit actions (open a software box, click on an installer), they would be required to hire a legal analyst to interpret the license into simple language, and rate it on a number of aspects like restrictions of usage, ability to re-sell, reverse engineering, etc. And carry those ratings prominently on the outside of the box, or before the web click through.
If they are going to benefit from these legal rights, it's about time that we require them to take some responsibility! Damn, where's Ralph Nader. We should pitch this idea to him.
The information on TV reception mentions Analog and Digital reception. For Digital, they talk about DVB digital Satellite TV, which is used in Europe. In the US, we use a terrestrial broadcast mechanism (ATSC).
The spec's say that there are dual LVDS outputs for Dual Head LCD displays.
This seems odd, since the industry has gone to DVI for digital LCD connections. I wonder if LVDS is used in laptops (since the Centrino technology is intended for laptops).
So, the questions are: - Will the LVDS output work with the few LVDS capable monitors, such as the amazing widescreen LCD from SGI, the 1600SW? - Are there converters available to go to DVI? The only one I could find is intended for the 1600SW, and it's very expensive and hard to find.
The Pentium-M will be a nice boost over the performance of the VIA C3 based EPIA boards.
The other great things about this board:
- Two ethernet ports on board - for Gateway usage. Internal port is the Gigabit port, for fast file serving. The external 100Mbps port is plenty of bandwidth for any reasonable Internet connection. - It appears to have a CompactFlash interface on the bottom. For the ultra quiet system, a 512MB or 1GB CF card provides a lot of space. - Pentium-M based - Low power consumption.. My server sits idle most of the time, and it lightly loaded for a good portion of its actual usage. The Pentium-M can be downshifted to a lower clock speed when not under load, to save even more power. - Wireless LAN on board - nice for the all-in-one Linux server.
I could even see using one of these for a quiet workstation.. It supports dual head displays ( which I can't live without now).
The only questions are Availability and Price.. The product announcement says it's intended for OEM's producing gaming, entertainment, and other high performance embedded applications. That does not sound promising for end-user availability.
Communications potential of space probes?
on
Goodbye, Galileo
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
In other similar stories, they always mention the small trickle of data that these crafts can return. I always wonder if this represents some physical limitations, or just the state of technology at the time of the probe. If they had more communications potential, they could return all kinds of data, images, even video. Anyone know of background info on space communications?
How do the new probes compare to these old ones in terms of communications capabilties? What sort of xfer rates can new ones support?
What are the limiting factors in space communications? Is it the power of the transmission, under the power limitations of the craft?
This is great stuff.. I hope their DRM is rock solid, and is completely integrated into Windows XP++. Throw in ties to the MS activation server for all your software, and this would be perfect.
Keep cranking down the thumbscrews Microsoft. Treat those customers like criminals to be suspected of wrongdoing at every opportunity. Those bastards cannot be trusted with your software!
A monopoly only goes so far. Once you pass that pain threshold, in terms of cost or difficulty to use, people will go running for something else.
Being Linux based is cool and all, but what are the limits of the platform? How far can it be extended?
Based on the circuit board, I assume storage is pretty limited (single flash chip), and RAM is probably small.
Can the hardware be modified at all?? There is a header on one end of the board, what is that intended for? If it could handle CompactFlash, storage could be easily expanded.
Reading through the spec's for the Conexant "Network Processor", it seems the ARM core includes a USB controller. External USB storage could also be very nice (even USB1.0, if we're dealing with dial-up or DSL speeds).
- A simple reverse proxy / tcp forwarder could allow flexible inbound access. - If storage is added, it could make a good smallscale personal mail server. - Run snort on it for Intrusion Detection - IPSec VPN termination?
Hmm.. that list looks kinda challenging for such a small device.. But, at low speeds none of those really need a lot of horsepower, just enough RAM to hold it, and storage to handle logs/spooling.
The software and service licensing has become ridiculous over the last few years. They create these huge legalese documents, and imply agreement to them by opening a package or using a service. And, try returning a piece of software if you don't agree to the license, good luck.
While these agreements become more complex and onerous, the people creating them have taken on no responsibilities to clarify the licenses, explain the reqstrictions, etc.
If the companies are allowed to use these licenses, they should be required to have an independent citizens rights group translate/rate the license to compare it to accepted norms of how restrictive the licenses are. Rather than expecting each person to read the complete license, or have their lawyer interpret it for them; it should be analyzed by a professional and summarized in simple language. It should also carry ratings on a few key points, like how much it tries to limit product usage, resale, reverse engineering.. and, related areas like privacy protection by the company.
Yes, all the drivers and applications from this company are 100% open source. They provide the drivers only in source form, with easy instructions on how to build them. All the software is a available for download on their web site with no form of registration, purchase, etc. (it's all GPL'd code).
As for the Nvidia cards, that's a different issue.. Those cards are recommended because Nvidia has provided Linux drivers that implement the XvMC API for MPEG2 acceleration. This makes it feasible to do Hi-Def video on a reasonable processor.
ATI also has this capability in their Radeon hardware. But, they will not provide Linux drivers that enable this capability.
Also, on the other project listed there, to reverse engineer the Teralogic cards, ATI has refused to give ANY help/specs/API's/drivers for the NXT2000 ATSC demodulator on some of those cards. So, they are not exactly Linux-friendly either.
He mentioned in the article that he disabled the Bayesian capabilities in SpamAssassin because there were already five other Bayesian based tools in the comparison.
I think he should have at least included a "full powered" spam assassin into the testing.. Which technology is best is an interesting test to perform. But, I'm really only interested in which application to install to kill spam.
I have been using Spam Assassin for a few months now, and find it to be excellent.
For my corporate mail, where I can't install tools on the server, Mozilla's spam filtering has also been excellent.
Hopefully this iteration will be more readily available than the previous chips.
The transmeta chips have some great power/heat characteristics, and the ability to speed up / slow down based on load. These would be great for a small home linux server / gateway type device.. If there was someone making/selling this type of small/quiet/cool device.
He really didn't address any steps that were taken to improve the server's performance under load. Many servers can do effective caching of static HTML pages, so a load of 42,000 hits/day is simple to serve. I'm surprised that the load was this low..
Of course, the hits are not distributed evenly throughout the day.. they peak shortly after the story was posted (a graph of 24hr activity would have been very informative).
Even if you assumed all 42K hits happened in a four hour window, that would still only be ~30 hits per second.. Which almost any server today can handle for static content. Also, stats showing the system load levels would be very interesting.
In general, I think that most 'slashdottings' are the result of insufficient internet access bandwidth, or bandwidth caps on the web hosting provider. I think his plentiful bandwidth saved his machines. The server load balancing and HA are good ideas, and cool projects. But, they were probably not relevant to the server's performance.
Isn't it obvious that SCOX is trying to whip up as much controversy as possible? They take their irrelevant little failed company, and thrust it into center stage based on all of their wild claims.
This drives up their stock price, increases the FUD in the business community, and makes their claims seem more legitimage than they are.
Whenever someone pushes back, they either make even wilder claims, or reverse the allegation back on the claimant.. SCOX: "Your claims that our case is unsubstatiated FUD is a blatantly unsubstantiated claim."
The only effective measure for the Linux community is to IGNORE THESE MORONS.
Slashdot Mirror
You see, in LA they have this cool thing called "The Pacific Ocean". It produces lots of big waves, on which cordless surfboards can operate.
These will have a little bigger effect in Minnesota, with all those waveless lakes.
Nice site... I've never seen so many sponsor logos on a corporate site.
Goes nicely with all the sponsor mentions in the article.
They are one of the many players trying to take public airwaves and make proprietary data applications that run on top of them.
So, what you would have is some shady broadcaster who got a license for our public airwaves, and they carry a crappy standard definition broadcast of their home shopping network. On the remaining bandwidth in that ~20Mbps ATSC broadcast pipe, they would carry encrypted data that could only be used by subscribers to this Disney service.
Screw that. If they want to broadcast, they should pick up the tab for the service, not use our "free" spectrum.
And, the broadcasters trying to do this should also be smacked down. If they don't plan on using the bandwidth for HD broadcast, which takes the full pipe, they should be forced to share the bandwidth with other broadcasters who only want to do SD.
There sure are a lot of people missing the point here, on both points - the AMD64 support and the LiveCD concept.
- AMD64 support: At this stage in it's lifecycle, the main challenge for the Opteron and Athlon64 cpu's is to get applications created for their artchitecture. This is a flashy, high-profile application. If the game is noticeably better than the x86-32 version, it gives an obvious tangible example of truth behind the AMD marketing.
- LiveCD support: No, it's not the perfect solution for exeryone.. But, it's necessary today for the intended purpose: demonstrating 64bit operation. If someone is running Win32 or Linux x86-32, they cannot run 64 bit applications. They can only run in 32 bit mode. So, they need a complete OS image to run x86-64 apps. The LiveCD allows this, without messing with the installed OS on the box. Even if they are running Linux x86-64, they might want a LiveCD, because it's unlikely they want to install all the gaming crap on an opteron server machine.
Even in the common x86-32 case, LiveCD's are still valuable as a Linux demo. Since most gamers are running Windows, this gives a way to show Linux on their system. It's a bit more exciting to most people than showing them that cool xterm window, and all the cool stuff I can do with sed & awk.
I looked at all the standard sites, and I don't see an AMD64 version available for download anywhere. It also didn't give any download site in the article.
Where can we download this little marvel??
Same thing.. UDP rides on top of IP.
Until now, when only the Opteron was available for AMD64 support, there was very little effort for free OS support. There were efforts by RH and Suse for expensive enterprise server OS's..
Now that the low end 64 bit chip is out, what is the best Linux Distro that is freely available, or at least cheap??
I'm happy the american navy is moving towards MS. I just hope the entirety of the US militiary is that stupid. Means that when the EU (by then including Russia, which is, after all, in Europe) have to go to war in 2012 to liberate the american people, europe will be able to win easily...
Not if you take action... Wesley Clark in 2004! Get out and vote, the best way for non-violent regieme change.
Wow, that seems like a LOT of work to archive video.
And, once you've modified the video off the Tivo, how do you view it? The Tivo is not gonna handle your ultimate compression scheme. Do you just view it on a PC?
The government represantitives in the wealthy U.S./E.U. countries have all bought into the theory that all the manufacturing jobs are moving to third world countries, to be replaced by these new software/media/"IP" businesses. So, they are all behind these patents, DMCA-like legislation, and other restrictive laws.
But, it seems like most of them just don't "get it" yet. Of course, this is with a lot of help from big companies who stand to benefit from this stuff.
From the picture in the pcworld.com article, it looks like a standard system that has been around for quite a while, a Falcon CR51.
The standard box, which they sell at Fry's, includes a VIA mini-ITX motherboard, with a VIA C3 processor.
It's a decent system, but the fan on the power supply is VERY loud. Hopefully they've addressed that.
I like the concept. A simple file server that I could even stick at my Parent's home to save digital pictures, documents, etc. But, it should be a small/silent device; maybe the form factor of a 5.25" firewire enclosure. Or, make it a bit bigger, and put two drives in a RAID configuration for file server reliability..
Thin clients may be useful in some limited business applications. But, it does not seem to be a very big niche.
There is growing demand for small linux server boxes. Either for network use, as a T1/DSL router/firewall/VPN box. Or, as a small LAN server, doing things like DNS/DHCP in a corporate environment. Or, as an everything server for Home/DSL use, WWW/SMTP+spam-asassin/Proxy/DNS/DHCP/etc.
If someone could package the TM5800 in a small form factor case, with no fans, and a drive bay for either a 2.5" or 3.5" HDD, it could be an excellent gateway/server platform. It has extremely low power consumption specs, and can even reduce the clock rate when not in heavy use. It runs cool enough to run without a cooling fan, and be completely silent - other than the hard drive.
The judge is basically saying "the user agreed to this behavior by clicking on the 'I agree' option for the license"
This is further evidence of the need for some responsibilities in licensing. They give people a huge legalese document, and require agreement before continuing. As if you could call your lawyer and have her come over and read through the document and approve it. What a joke..
If companies are going to be allowed to have these huge rights based on shrink wrap or click through licenses, they should be required to provide more information to offset the confusion.
There should be a group that establishes a licensing baseline for software and web services. The group would need to have representation from legitimate industry and a citizen's advocate group. They could establish the licensing norms, or averages that everyone could know, and compare other licenses against.
Then, when companies want to have a legal agreement based on these flimsy implicit actions (open a software box, click on an installer), they would be required to hire a legal analyst to interpret the license into simple language, and rate it on a number of aspects like restrictions of usage, ability to re-sell, reverse engineering, etc. And carry those ratings prominently on the outside of the box, or before the web click through.
If they are going to benefit from these legal rights, it's about time that we require them to take some responsibility! Damn, where's Ralph Nader. We should pitch this idea to him.
The information on TV reception mentions Analog and Digital reception. For Digital, they talk about DVB digital Satellite TV, which is used in Europe. In the US, we use a terrestrial broadcast mechanism (ATSC).
Zenith/LG has an . But it doesn't do satellite..
Tivo has been rumored to have an HD/ATSC DirecTivo for forever. Who knows if it will ever come out.
The spec's say that there are dual LVDS outputs for Dual Head LCD displays.
This seems odd, since the industry has gone to DVI for digital LCD connections. I wonder if LVDS is used in laptops (since the Centrino technology is intended for laptops).
So, the questions are:
- Will the LVDS output work with the few LVDS capable monitors, such as the amazing widescreen LCD from SGI, the 1600SW?
- Are there converters available to go to DVI? The only one I could find is intended for the 1600SW, and it's very expensive and hard to find.
The Pentium-M will be a nice boost over the performance of the VIA C3 based EPIA boards.
The other great things about this board:
- Two ethernet ports on board - for Gateway usage. Internal port is the Gigabit port, for fast file serving. The external 100Mbps port is plenty of bandwidth for any reasonable Internet connection.
- It appears to have a CompactFlash interface on the bottom. For the ultra quiet system, a 512MB or 1GB CF card provides a lot of space.
- Pentium-M based - Low power consumption.. My server sits idle most of the time, and it lightly loaded for a good portion of its actual usage. The Pentium-M can be downshifted to a lower clock speed when not under load, to save even more power.
- Wireless LAN on board - nice for the all-in-one Linux server.
I could even see using one of these for a quiet workstation.. It supports dual head displays ( which I can't live without now).
The only questions are Availability and Price.. The product announcement says it's intended for OEM's producing gaming, entertainment, and other high performance embedded applications. That does not sound promising for end-user availability.
In other similar stories, they always mention the small trickle of data that these crafts can return. I always wonder if this represents some physical limitations, or just the state of technology at the time of the probe. If they had more communications potential, they could return all kinds of data, images, even video. Anyone know of background info on space communications?
How do the new probes compare to these old ones in terms of communications capabilties? What sort of xfer rates can new ones support?
What are the limiting factors in space communications? Is it the power of the transmission, under the power limitations of the craft?
This is great stuff.. I hope their DRM is rock solid, and is completely integrated into Windows XP++. Throw in ties to the MS activation server for all your software, and this would be perfect.
Keep cranking down the thumbscrews Microsoft. Treat those customers like criminals to be suspected of wrongdoing at every opportunity. Those bastards cannot be trusted with your software!
A monopoly only goes so far. Once you pass that pain threshold, in terms of cost or difficulty to use, people will go running for something else.
Being Linux based is cool and all, but what are the limits of the platform? How far can it be extended?
Based on the circuit board, I assume storage is pretty limited (single flash chip), and RAM is probably small.
Can the hardware be modified at all?? There is a header on one end of the board, what is that intended for? If it could handle CompactFlash, storage could be easily expanded.
Reading through the spec's for the Conexant "Network Processor", it seems the ARM core includes a USB controller. External USB storage could also be very nice (even USB1.0, if we're dealing with dial-up or DSL speeds).
- A simple reverse proxy / tcp forwarder could allow flexible inbound access.
- If storage is added, it could make a good smallscale personal mail server.
- Run snort on it for Intrusion Detection
- IPSec VPN termination?
Hmm.. that list looks kinda challenging for such a small device.. But, at low speeds none of those really need a lot of horsepower, just enough RAM to hold it, and storage to handle logs/spooling.
The software and service licensing has become ridiculous over the last few years. They create these huge legalese documents, and imply agreement to them by opening a package or using a service. And, try returning a piece of software if you don't agree to the license, good luck.
While these agreements become more complex and onerous, the people creating them have taken on no responsibilities to clarify the licenses, explain the reqstrictions, etc.
If the companies are allowed to use these licenses, they should be required to have an independent citizens rights group translate/rate the license to compare it to accepted norms of how restrictive the licenses are. Rather than expecting each person to read the complete license, or have their lawyer interpret it for them; it should be analyzed by a professional and summarized in simple language. It should also carry ratings on a few key points, like how much it tries to limit product usage, resale, reverse engineering.. and, related areas like privacy protection by the company.
Yes, all the drivers and applications from this company are 100% open source. They provide the drivers only in source form, with easy instructions on how to build them. All the software is a available for download on their web site with no form of registration, purchase, etc. (it's all GPL'd code).
As for the Nvidia cards, that's a different issue.. Those cards are recommended because Nvidia has provided Linux drivers that implement the XvMC API for MPEG2 acceleration. This makes it feasible to do Hi-Def video on a reasonable processor.
ATI also has this capability in their Radeon hardware. But, they will not provide Linux drivers that enable this capability.
Also, on the other project listed there, to reverse engineer the Teralogic cards, ATI has refused to give ANY help/specs/API's/drivers for the NXT2000 ATSC demodulator on some of those cards. So, they are not exactly Linux-friendly either.
He mentioned in the article that he disabled the Bayesian capabilities in SpamAssassin because there were already five other Bayesian based tools in the comparison.
I think he should have at least included a "full powered" spam assassin into the testing.. Which technology is best is an interesting test to perform. But, I'm really only interested in which application to install to kill spam.
I have been using Spam Assassin for a few months now, and find it to be excellent.
For my corporate mail, where I can't install tools on the server, Mozilla's spam filtering has also been excellent.
Hopefully this iteration will be more readily available than the previous chips.
The transmeta chips have some great power/heat characteristics, and the ability to speed up / slow down based on load. These would be great for a small home linux server / gateway type device.. If there was someone making/selling this type of small/quiet/cool device.
He really didn't address any steps that were taken to improve the server's performance under load. Many servers can do effective caching of static HTML pages, so a load of 42,000 hits/day is simple to serve. I'm surprised that the load was this low..
42,000 hits/day == 1,750 hits/hour == ~30 hits/minute
Of course, the hits are not distributed evenly throughout the day.. they peak shortly after the story was posted (a graph of 24hr activity would have been very informative).
Even if you assumed all 42K hits happened in a four hour window, that would still only be ~30 hits per second.. Which almost any server today can handle for static content. Also, stats showing the system load levels would be very interesting.
In general, I think that most 'slashdottings' are the result of insufficient internet access bandwidth, or bandwidth caps on the web hosting provider. I think his plentiful bandwidth saved his machines. The server load balancing and HA are good ideas, and cool projects. But, they were probably not relevant to the server's performance.
Isn't it obvious that SCOX is trying to whip up as much controversy as possible? They take their irrelevant little failed company, and thrust it into center stage based on all of their wild claims.
This drives up their stock price, increases the FUD in the business community, and makes their claims seem more legitimage than they are.
Whenever someone pushes back, they either make even wilder claims, or reverse the allegation back on the claimant.. SCOX: "Your claims that our case is unsubstatiated FUD is a blatantly unsubstantiated claim."
The only effective measure for the Linux community is to IGNORE THESE MORONS.