approximatly 108 person-years worth of productivity. (Which at US federal minimum wage is about 1.6 million dollars). That's a low figure as those who need google to work probably don't earn minimum wage.
But it put them all in a good mood, which enhanced their productivity!
Debian is a possibility, but Ubuntu won't work. Ubuntu has been updated to a newer arm instruction set than the one used in a lot of these netbooks.
The problem with these things is, unlike x86, ARM has no BIOS. Your kernel/image has to be customized to work with all the chips that particular netbook has. This would be easier if they all had the same CPUs/SoCs, but they all vary quite a bit.
I've seen vt8500 netbooks, wm8505's, Samsung SC2410's, 7802's, cheap x86-i386 knockoffs, and MIPS based netbooks. None use the same boot loaders (!), and few have the same instruction sets. (!) Those that do do not have the same LCD controllers or other components, and usually all drivers are closed source. (if available at all)
There are some attempts to get linux on them... here's a few:
If you've got one and want to chat, join the IRC on freenode.net, channel #easypc
Most of the hackers and developers there have different kinds of netbooks, and only one each, but pooling knowledge has been handy. Apparently vt8500/wm8505 netbooks usually have a read-only card reader that needs to be soldered to be fixed. My Anyka 7802 netbook ($58 shipped!) doesn't have this problem, but it has no drivers available. Not even Android runs on it.
There's a dozen or so people in the channel, so if you've got questions (or maybe answers), join in. Note: We're all in different timezones. Responses can take hours, or if you're lucky minutes.
It's the best network next to Jabber.*1 It doesn't strip out or alter the formatting, so you can send code fragments through it, and copy them directly into an IDE.
*1 I have very little knowledge on Jabber, but know enough about the MSN and Yahoo networks to proclaim AIM is superior.*2 *2 I'm not talking about the clients.
Hey!... Ogg, Theora, Vorbis, and MKV are all fine names.
GIMP, Thusnelda, and Matroska aren't really. GIMP is word that may have a negative association, and the other two are too long.
Look at what commercial software is doing... it's all short names, or short letter combos. VP3, VP6, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7... Sorenson Spark... x264...
Keep it short. Some of these FOSS projects have names with twice the amount of letters, and are harder to pronounce.
The thing that was disturbing to me is that the consumer lost out here and the government is pulling in $400 million. When will the actual victim (people who made DRAM purchases) receive restitution? Never.
This slap on the wrist is supposed to discourage them from doing it again.
Keep in mind if this was a class action lawsuit, you'd have a chance at winning... $0.10?:P
For one, they flipped away from an efficient binary format to an XML based format, which takes longer to parse and write. And then they compress (zip) it.
Actually, I just had to deal with a notebook where the exact opposite was true - Toshiba Satellite A40.
It's an old Celeron laptop. ACPI in Windows XP is broken for it - no fan speed control, and the system takes the temperature from the wrong sensor, so it thinks it's overheating when in reality it's running at 40C.
What's it do when it overheats? Throttles back to about 10% speed. Slower than a 266mhz PII.:P
The irony is of course... it works great with Linux!
And what's even more scary is, even if he never made such a comment, everyone talking about it will put thousands of links on our search engines. It'll come back to haunt him decade after decade, because nobody verifies things are facts before passing them on.
We all have said things we regret later. So we're ALL disqualified for the job, if you hold to that standard.
And even if someone isn't an ass, everyone makes mistakes. Things as little as using the wrong name when talking about someone or something could come back to haunt you.
My own subjective tests for H.264 match that comparison. With tons of quality settings enabled, 256kbit H.264 seems to roughly match 640kbit theora for perceived quality.
But with all those settings turned on, I just barely get 30fps encoding on a 3.5ghz Phenom II X4.
Some of those 800-1200RPM fans have no audible motor noise, so all you hear is a bit of moving air. In the 800RPM range, it's pushing so little air, that you wouldn't be able to hear it if it was at the center of a case. Despite that, it adds some cooling power to a heatsink like a Ninja.
Is an Atom really up to the task of a (high performance) NAS?
Yes and no. My 1.2ghz VIA C7 can push 30MB/sec (read), with about 70% CPU usage over Samba, so a dual-core 1.66ghz Atom could potentially push up to ~100MB/sec, assuming no major driver or SATA controller issues.
To get 100MB/sec speeds would require a faster SATA card (perhaps the Promise one), and if you do any RAID stuff you obviously need a powerful CPU. An Atom would still be "fast enough" for most home users, but the AM3 path certainly has more headroom for a high performance setup, and at barely $100 extra. (+20-30 watts/hr)
What the Atom *really* delivers is silence. No sound except that of moving air. If your NAS is in a common room, that might be worth more than doubling the transfer speeds. Saving $25/yr on power is also a nice perk.
When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.
What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.
For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.
*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports. *2 Case still requires fans/airflow. *3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB. *4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once. *5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom) *6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility) *7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early) *8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.
Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu
Nintendo's problem isn't Apple. It's Nintendo. Apple is making tons of mistakes that could cost them their throne, if any other company could fill their place.
But of course, other companies are worse. Nintendo has a long history of ostracizing indy devs and ruthlessly protecting their IP. They have major issues like the license transfers to new hardware, and the areas where they specialize (simple/intuitive UIs) are also Apple's specialty.
Of course, Apple has no first-party fun games.
So if you want a phone that plays games, you go iPhone, and if you want a handheld that also phones, you go dsPhone?:P
Once the major issues are resolved(transfers, Nintendo's indy stance, etc.), there's nothing to stop Nintendo from becoming the #1 game company in the world - if they want that position.
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approximatly 108 person-years worth of productivity. (Which at US federal minimum wage is about 1.6 million dollars). That's a low figure as those who need google to work probably don't earn minimum wage.
But it put them all in a good mood, which enhanced their productivity!
Or maybe I'm just an optimist. ;)
One of the easiest ways to manage Wine versions and installing games: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/
Debian is a possibility, but Ubuntu won't work. Ubuntu has been updated to a newer arm instruction set than the one used in a lot of these netbooks.
The problem with these things is, unlike x86, ARM has no BIOS. Your kernel/image has to be customized to work with all the chips that particular netbook has. This would be easier if they all had the same CPUs/SoCs, but they all vary quite a bit.
I've seen vt8500 netbooks, wm8505's, Samsung SC2410's, 7802's, cheap x86-i386 knockoffs, and MIPS based netbooks. None use the same boot loaders (!), and few have the same instruction sets. (!) Those that do do not have the same LCD controllers or other components, and usually all drivers are closed source. (if available at all)
There are some attempts to get linux on them... here's a few:
http://s0.blackmage.co.uk/~nextvolume/via_arm/index.php (some luck, using android kernels mostly)
http://3mx.taita.co.uk/ (some luck)
http://mininetbooks.your-board.com/ (no luck yet)
If you've got one and want to chat, join the IRC on freenode.net, channel #easypc
Most of the hackers and developers there have different kinds of netbooks, and only one each, but pooling knowledge has been handy. Apparently vt8500/wm8505 netbooks usually have a read-only card reader that needs to be soldered to be fixed. My Anyka 7802 netbook ($58 shipped!) doesn't have this problem, but it has no drivers available. Not even Android runs on it.
There's a dozen or so people in the channel, so if you've got questions (or maybe answers), join in. Note: We're all in different timezones. Responses can take hours, or if you're lucky minutes.
I've lost respect for MIT's admissions process.
It's the best network next to Jabber.*1 It doesn't strip out or alter the formatting, so you can send code fragments through it, and copy them directly into an IDE.
*1 I have very little knowledge on Jabber, but know enough about the MSN and Yahoo networks to proclaim AIM is superior.*2
*2 I'm not talking about the clients.
On Linux you need something like TiMidity. On Windows, you have the MS software synth (I forget its name).
Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth?
I have an old nForce II board with a built-in synthesizer.
Hey!... Ogg, Theora, Vorbis, and MKV are all fine names.
GIMP, Thusnelda, and Matroska aren't really. GIMP is word that may have a negative association, and the other two are too long.
Look at what commercial software is doing... it's all short names, or short letter combos. VP3, VP6, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7... Sorenson Spark... x264...
Keep it short. Some of these FOSS projects have names with twice the amount of letters, and are harder to pronounce.
(largely due to blatantly ripping off various parts of H.264).
Don't you mean developed in parallel?
If VP8 could even match Youtube's H.264 quality, that'd be a win, and increases the odds of the MPEG-LA keeping licensing as it is.
The thing that was disturbing to me is that the consumer lost out here and the government is pulling in $400 million. When will the actual victim (people who made DRAM purchases) receive restitution? Never.
This slap on the wrist is supposed to discourage them from doing it again.
Keep in mind if this was a class action lawsuit, you'd have a chance at winning... $0.10? :P
Nintendo already has that position, genius.
#1 game console company.
Just look at who they're going up against. It'll be interesting to see how they fare.
For one, they flipped away from an efficient binary format to an XML based format, which takes longer to parse and write. And then they compress (zip) it.
Opera runs well on a 600mhz PIII running Win98.
"Feels light" may be purely subjective, but you sure do notice it on weak old hardware.
Kinda like how Gnome feels heavy on my old Athlon XP. :P
If that were true, then lighter browswers like Chrome should not be gaining in marketshare.
Chrome is full featured, for some people. It's got a lot more perks than IE.
It's also great on netbooks, without any effort customizing things.
Actually, I just had to deal with a notebook where the exact opposite was true - Toshiba Satellite A40.
It's an old Celeron laptop. ACPI in Windows XP is broken for it - no fan speed control, and the system takes the temperature from the wrong sensor, so it thinks it's overheating when in reality it's running at 40C.
What's it do when it overheats? Throttles back to about 10% speed. Slower than a 266mhz PII. :P
The irony is of course... it works great with Linux!
Well, tricking the OS into thinking multiple displays are actually one? NEW!
Old, actually. The Matrox TripleHead2Go has been out since... 2007, I believe?
But now it's integrated into affordable videocards, so that's something.
That's absolutely correct.
And what's even more scary is, even if he never made such a comment, everyone talking about it will put thousands of links on our search engines. It'll come back to haunt him decade after decade, because nobody verifies things are facts before passing them on.
We all have said things we regret later. So we're ALL disqualified for the job, if you hold to that standard.
And even if someone isn't an ass, everyone makes mistakes. Things as little as using the wrong name when talking about someone or something could come back to haunt you.
My own subjective tests for H.264 match that comparison. With tons of quality settings enabled, 256kbit H.264 seems to roughly match 640kbit theora for perceived quality.
But with all those settings turned on, I just barely get 30fps encoding on a 3.5ghz Phenom II X4.
Theora? Even in a window it is a jerky mess.
I believe this is a Firefox issue more than a Theora issue.
Try Chrome. It should play back acceptably well.
And I agree. Currently H.264 is the best codec, by a very wide margin.
Oh, certainly. Or at least a very low RPM fan.
Some of those 800-1200RPM fans have no audible motor noise, so all you hear is a bit of moving air. In the 800RPM range, it's pushing so little air, that you wouldn't be able to hear it if it was at the center of a case. Despite that, it adds some cooling power to a heatsink like a Ninja.
Lower power consumption, making AMD chips more competitive in notebooks - perhaps even netbooks.
Is an Atom really up to the task of a (high performance) NAS?
Yes and no. My 1.2ghz VIA C7 can push 30MB/sec (read), with about 70% CPU usage over Samba, so a dual-core 1.66ghz Atom could potentially push up to ~100MB/sec, assuming no major driver or SATA controller issues.
To get 100MB/sec speeds would require a faster SATA card (perhaps the Promise one), and if you do any RAID stuff you obviously need a powerful CPU. An Atom would still be "fast enough" for most home users, but the AM3 path certainly has more headroom for a high performance setup, and at barely $100 extra. (+20-30 watts/hr)
What the Atom *really* delivers is silence. No sound except that of moving air. If your NAS is in a common room, that might be worth more than doubling the transfer speeds. Saving $25/yr on power is also a nice perk.
Good recommendation. I only mentioned Windows 7 to point out I hadn't looked into which components have driver support.
As mentioned, I used Ubuntu in my build.
eBay + Luck.
I bid on twenty and won one for $80 shipped.
But it was an AK7802 rather than WM8505, which means no linux or android currently available.
The seller gave me a partial refund because of the mistake. Now I'm just waiting patiently for someone to figure out how to get another OS running.
Anyka AK7802 forums: http://mininetbooks.your-board.com/
When I hear a question like this, I usually recommend heading over to the NCIX forums. There's some crazy guy over there - death_hawk - building a 100TB array.
What I did was a bit less ambitious. A regular old NAS running off a cheap non-RAID SATA card in a case with lots of HDD bays.
For interest, I'll throw up a build that easily scales to 12TB. Since you mentioned noise, I'll prioritize that instead of capacity. I'll use a case geared for silence, a fanless mobo/cpu, a quiet PSU, WD Green HDDs, and a ridiculously cheap SATA card.
Case - 8 bays: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=51277&vpn=6900654&manufacture=Fractal%20Design *1
Motherboard/CPU - Silent: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=50891&vpn=AT5NM10-I&manufacture=ASUS *2
DDR2 - 1GB: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18584&vpn=VS1GB667D2&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *3
PSU: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33357&vpn=CMPSU-400CX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1114 *4
SATA Card: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=19892&vpn=SY-SA3114-4R&manufacture=Syba *5
HDD - 2TB 4KB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *6
HDD - 2TB 512b: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36130&vpn=WD20EADS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1114 *7
OS: FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Win7, Other *8
*1 Only six will be filled. 6 SATA ports.
*2 Case still requires fans/airflow.
*3 A NAS probably only needs 512MB, but 1GB is cheap. A Win7 NAS may benefit from 2GB.
*4 Must be capable of spinning up 6-8 HDDs at once.
*5 Must be flashed with new non-RAID BIOS to avoid silent data corruption for > 1.0TB HDDs; disk read/write speeds around 30MB/sec, in my experience, on ext2. (but running with a VIA CPU - not dual-core Atom)
*6 Must be specially formatted under Windows and Linux. (Most distros only support 4KB sectors when the drive reports 4KB - these report 512b to maintain XP compatibility)
*7 May have longevity issues. (too early to say right now - lots of complainers, which reminds me of the 7200.10 days. A heck of a lot of those chirping barracudas perished early)
*8 Please verify SATA card support first. Ubuntu and FreeNAS work fine with this card, but I've never checked if Win7 has drivers. Do note that you'll have to flash it. *9 If that's a problem, buy a more expensive card. (which may give better performance, and SATA2 support) Promise makes nice non-RAID SATA cards.
*9 Flashing the PCI SATA card requires making a DOS boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootablecd
Please note: A solution like this will take 12+ hours to set up. It's highly likely you'll blow a whole weekend, even if you know what you're doing. You may have to try multiple distros to get proper Atom D510 support, unless you go with Windows. When I put mine together, atoms weren't available affordably, so I went with a cheap VIA board. Ironically, Ubu
Nintendo's problem isn't Apple. It's Nintendo. Apple is making tons of mistakes that could cost them their throne, if any other company could fill their place.
But of course, other companies are worse. Nintendo has a long history of ostracizing indy devs and ruthlessly protecting their IP. They have major issues like the license transfers to new hardware, and the areas where they specialize (simple/intuitive UIs) are also Apple's specialty.
Of course, Apple has no first-party fun games.
So if you want a phone that plays games, you go iPhone, and if you want a handheld that also phones, you go dsPhone? :P
Once the major issues are resolved(transfers, Nintendo's indy stance, etc.), there's nothing to stop Nintendo from becoming the #1 game company in the world - if they want that position.