BTW: I posted a fairly long response to your topic above. I've described how I transffered my 8 man office to Linux. (mostly-- one guy refuses to use Linux, and sticks with Windows. I've told him that means he is on his 'own' IT wise---we no longer support Windows. He's fine with that, and I've warned him that if his desktop starts spamming out viruses I'll filter his IP.)
1. Pick your distribution. The answer here is 'SuSE'. Enough Windows metaphors hold in the default SuSE environment that it will be easy to get used to.
Plus, YaST makes most sorts of basic configuration tasks really, really easy.
Also, make *sure* you buy SuSE. SuSE comes with excellent manuals in the box set. Any sort of user task that you can think of is covered in the user manual (burning a CD, hooking up a digital camera, SMB shares, NFS shares, printing sharing, the various web browser, OpenOffice.org usage, Gimp usage, scanner usage, etc. ..). Most administrator/install issues are covered in the admin guide, but the scope is limited. Advanced tasks (like setting up a tomcat application server) general refer you to project documentation online.
If this is your first look at linux, read the introduction! It explains things like the file system hierarchy (where did my drive letters go!), CUPS (beautiful, automatic, end-to-end postscript printing!), and other linux need-to-knows.
2. Find two test system. These should be yours and someone else similiarly dedicated, or yours alone. The purpose of these two systems is for you to get used to handling Windows operations on Linux. This makes the transition easier.
3. Determine the hardware compatibility of your two test system. What video cards? What sound cards? What network cards?
Odds are, most of this stuff will work out of box, but its a good idea to check. I've not heard of wired network cards that do not work with SuSE out of box, but they might exist. Most any video card will work in 2D mode: 3D, however, could be more difficult. Sound cards are pretty easy, too, unless its cutting edge stuff, or ancient stuff that was discontinued a long time ago.
4. Make sure you have a minimum of 256 MBs of ram. No, really. If you don't have a minimum of 256 MBs of ram, Windows will feel subjectively faster than SuSE. You'll need another distribution. Not saying that SuSE won't work, or work well: Just that you'll some harddisk thrashing when running OpenOffice.org, KDE, Firefox, and Thunderbird at the same time. SuSE is slightly more memory hungry than other distributions, and more so if you use prelinking.
The requirement is for 128 MBs of ram, but, subjectively, you won't have a wonderful experience without 256, except for basic tasks. I've got two laptop users, both with 128 MBs of ram, and they are the ones first slated for system upgrades, because their systems run pretty slow.
5. Install SuSE on these two test systems. This part is easy, especially if you've done the above homework. Odds are, all your hardware will be supported out of box, no drivers or configuration needed. Most necessary software will be in the box, too.
6. Optional. If you have needed of that 'one last windows app', purchase Crossover Office from www.codeweavers.com. This will let you run most Windows apps on Linux.
7. Migrate ALL your network share needs to one of these two SuSE testbeds. This means printer, file-sharing, and document backup. Every printer on your network should be on one of these systems. Introduce a NEW documents folder for all your users on their desktops. This folder will link to an SMB share on one of the testbeds. Instruct them to save everything there, and duplicate their existing 'My Documents' to there. Either that, or convert you existing network store infrastructure to a similar linux framework.
This is easier than it sounds. You can easily piece through the process of establishing network shares from the SuSE Admin manual. It's all GUI stuff-- don't listen to these guys telling you to poke around through the conf files-- that's stuff you can learn latter. Right now, the SuSE admin tools are pretty good, and the SuSE server admin tools (costs lots of money:( ) are awesome.
If you want, *after* you've configured it via gui, open up the man page for smb.conf (in konqueror! man:smb.conf), and go take a look at your
You haven't noticed that AOL already closed all these divisions down?
Fired all the netscape/mozilla developers in 2003. Now all the netscape work is done by the AOL in-house developers, and its a 'dual-engine' browser. They use pure Gecko, and pure IE. Expect the Gecko part to go away (what difference does it make, they already gutted netscape?).
Fired all the Nullsoft developers last year. Put an intern in charge of patching security bugs. No new development on that front.
Just about every 'little' project that AOL purchased has already been shutdown as a financial failure. Really, everything AOL touches turns to shit--- As a result, none of their 'little' divisions actually exists anymore.
Not that this would be why MS is purchasing them, but if there are still Mozilla developers working for AOL, my guess is that they'll be out of a job, soon.
Also, the next edition of Netscape will be based solely upon IE, and won't be released for anything but Windows.
Either way, though, its a nice way to see all the 'Evil' group up. Fine by me, and I'm sure Mozilla will find another home (Novell, possibly? Or IBM? Who knows, maybe Sun, or even a coalition)
They do the opposite. They market via word of mouth, and by having solid, simple, well-designed products. At google, the baseline is elegant, practical, high-performance engineering. If a product isn't *really* good, it never leaves the lab. If a product isn't *near-perfect*, it never leaves beta. Contrast that with MS. Most often, version 1.0 and 2.0 of an MS product is terrible, or even non-functioning. I'm not taking about beta versions, or lab versions; I'm taking about the crap they sell to people. Even these 1.0 versions, however, are introduced with all kinds of pomp and circumstance.
Enter Google. When was the last time you 'bought' a Google product without *knowing* that it was awesome? The products that they do 'sell' (ads, google earth, and google appliances) they sell unobtrusively, and I've never met someone who purchased one that didn't already *know* that the product was have extremely high quality. They do most of their development in-house, and they pursue paths of research almost as radical as the MIT media lab, but with a healthy dose of practicality.
The search engine was not innovative.
A clear, concise search engine, using page rank, a *very new* way of relating millions of search results WAS innovative. They continue this trend even now, its just not as well publicized, because they have to keep up with the Search Engine Optimization firms.
Maps and driving directions are NOT innovative.
Clear, easy to use, visually attractive maps, with a natural language interface, a well-documented API, an excellent ties to the aforementioned search engine?
That's innovative.
Not all innovation is flashy user interfaces and silicon gadgets. There is such a thing as innovative database design, and brilliant code.
Google is not out-Microsofting anyone. Microsoft's business strategy is well-known: Entering an existing market, form an alliance with the 2nd strongest player, gut that players efforts with your own product, and outspend the top player on marketing dollars. That's it.
I've *never* seen an intrusive ad for Google. I've *never* heard of Google screwing another business. I've *never* heard of Google participating in dishonest negotiation.
While fanboys may choose to deny it, MS's tendancy towards these underhanded tactics is well-documented, both in terms of court cases (where they tend to PAY the settlement for being guilty, and move on (Novell (DR-DOS), Stacker, etc. ..)) and leaked documents (halloween memos, anyone?)
Google's had a bit of luck, but they've also put a lot of hardwork and intelligence into their business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has built its empire on marketing, dollars, manipulation, and outright fraud. They've even been found guilty, and forced to pay settlements; but to MS, that's the cost of doing business.
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't!
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There are other upgrade paths than a new UI.
1. XML doc formats. They are doing their MS XML crap. That's something new, and supposedly will replace doc. They should add in OASIS OpenDocument, as well.
2. Same features, less filling. Often times, in the non-MS ecosystem of software, you'll get newer version of software that do NOT implement significant numbers of new features. Rather, you'll get much better performance and fewer resource requirements.
3. Interoperability. Often time, other vendors advertise newer versions as having better interoperability. Purchase MS Office 12, full compatibility with the following 90 formats!
4. Rewrites of some existing features? Maybe a revamp of OLE?:) I dunno, but there are most likely possibilities here. I don't use MS Office, so I have no idea.
Not all vendors push bloatware as the N+1 version of their software. Sometimes, its not damned if they do, damned if they don't-- its MS refusing to embark on certain paths that "Open Source Advocates" might approve of.
There are MANY ways to improve a product without a UI redesign or additional features.
MS: Please fix the Office antipiracy!
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Make the antipiracy 'features' much, much stronger.
What happened to all the 'clean lines' of the windows interface?
This is like someone mixed Mac OS X Aqua with LSD!
My bet? This is an optional interface. This is not the standard interface. There are people in my office who *refuse* to use OpenOffice.org. Not because it isn't an MS product, but because it doesn't work *exactly* like Office 2000.
There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that they'll use *that* nastiness.
Doesn't MS realize that the majority of business users will be using the same old Windows 2000 interface? Doesn't MS realize that if they cut that out, the *natural* upgrade path will be something linux XFce w/OpenOffice.org?
Hmm... you're right, and I can't find much information about it.
Here's what Gentoo says about it, but there really isn't much detail: Are 32bit applications supported? Is it through emulation or native?
Yes, 32bit applications are fully supported by the CPU, and are executed natively. A standard x86 OS can be installed on an amd64 processor, and can execute 32bit applications from a 64bit operating system if it is capable of mapping the 32bit syscalls to the kernel's 64bit interfaces (such as Linux is capable of doing if you enable it in the kernel). Please see the below section on 32bit support for further information. Please also note there is no performance penalty for running 32bit apps on an amd64 class processor, and will always be faster than the athlonxp line of processors running 32bit code (please note this is different than ia64 itanium processors!)
That's what they wanted you to believe. However, shared system processes would often lockup, freezing the system.
Now, 32-bit applications can trip up on bugs in the WoW64 implementation, and since that is intimately tied to the kernel there's *another* thing to break;-)
Select Quote: The WOW64 emulator runs in user mode, provides an interface between the 32-bit version of Ntdll.dll and the kernel of the processor, and it intercepts kernel calls. The emulator consists of the following DLLs: Wow64.dll provides the core emulation infrastructure and the thunks for the Ntoskrnl.exe entry-point functions. Wow64Win.dll provides thunks for the Win32k.sys entry-point functions. Wow64Cpu.dll provides x86 instruction emulation on Itanium processors. It executes mode-switch instructions on the processor. This DLL is not necessary for x64 processors because they execute x86-32 instructions at full clock speed. Along with the 64-bit version of Ntdll.dll, these are the only 64-bit binaries that can be loaded into a 32-bit process. At startup, Wow64.dll loads the x86 version of Ntdll.dll and runs its initialization code, which loads all necessary 32-bit DLLs. Almost all 32-bit DLLs are unmodified copies of 32-bit Windows binaries. However, some of these DLLs are written to behave differently on WOW64 than they do on 32-bit Windows, usually because they share memory with 64-bit system components. All user mode address space above the 32-bit limits (2 GB for most applications, 4 GB for applications marked with the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag in the image header) is reserved by the system.
It's a different methodolgy, but most likely one that works as well. I appreciate the Linux one better-- the "normal" 32-bit stuff lives in the "normal" places-- that way, you don't *need* an emulation layer for the 64-bit unaware apps. Rather, 64-bit aware apps know to look in the correct location for the libraries (well, they are told by the OS, anyways). The Linux Way (TM) is slightly more backward compatible, me thinks. You'll *never* experience a problem with a 32-bit app on a 64-bit linux system, while there are some bugs in WoW64 which will probably never be fixed, rather, they'll be 'phased out', in the usual MS fashion (ignored until irrelevant).
Information on the Linux approach is here: http://www.hp.com/workstations/pws/linux/faq.html Mainly, when recompiling your apps to be native 64-bit, you need to observe the following: Simple. Just rebuild from scratch and the compiler will build 64-bit by default. This is true for most apps. However, some apps must be made 64-bit clean which means that the developers must review the code to get rid of any assumptions about 32-bitness, such pointer arithmetic issues. Some makefiles that explicitly declare paths such as/lib,/usr/lib and/usr/X11R6/lib might need to be changed to append "64".
The Do-Not-Call list does not apply to 'businesses', whatever that means. Presumably, the phone company has some way of designating your lines as either business or residential.
Vonage lines (and Packet8) all qualify as residential. Put on a Vonage line on the DNC list, and you won't get a single telemarketing call.
The list has substantially (~90%) reduced the number of telemarketing calls I get at home.
The source will always be avaliable from Redhat. Period. It's a free product.
Don't expect someone to wrap the package up for you and present it in a usable form, with free updates, though. They aren't under any license requirement, and they've already given you the full source. Don't you think its a little ungrateful to ask for more?
About the pre-built systems:
Wow. I wasn't aware of that. I just saw that on Dell's small business site. And you even save ~$75 per system, which is great. That's definitely a good thing. A caveats, however: you can't get a laptop like that. And you won't get proper hardware support (like dell's non-standard compliant ACPI implementations). Still, that's really just a small quibble.
I don't remember seeing that option before, but I guess its been awhile since I've shopped at Dell.
I have happily paraded HP's Linux laptop to people, however. Perhaps competition will reign in the future.
Everything you listed but encrypted DVD's works out of box.
1. Palm sync. Check. (Tested myself, on this system) 2. SD cards. Check. (Tested myself, on this system) 3. Camera. Check. (Tested myself, on this system).
For that, you need a licensed DVD player. Just like on Windows!
Many of them are auxiliary MS employees. This means they work in an MS shop, and have been trained on MS tools. They are blind to anything else, and simply see problems with MS products as 'The Way things Work'.
They ignore problems with MS products, or equate them with Marketshare problems of Linux/Mac. To them, although Windows may have its problems, Linux/Mac must obviously have more serious problems, or the software/hardware selection on those platforms wouldn't be so bad.
To these people, marketshare=success. Few experience true joy in their workplaces, and many do not have a good understanding of the various layers of abstraction in the computing world. They consider themselves power-users, but rarely understand what actually goes on in the system.
These people are usually in the middle bracket of computing knowledge. I find that 'noobs' are easy to convert to Linux or Mac; they don't know how to do it in Windows, so its simply for them to learn the Linux/Mac way. I find that true experts are also easy to convert. Help them solve a last problem or two, or given them a brief introduction, and a few weeks later they'll be showing you things you haven't figured out yourself later.
It's the people in the middle that carry the MS banner.
I just realized this will start the mother of all flamewars, but oh well;-)
1. Yes, those Linux distributions are free. I don't know what you are talking about.
Yes, those companies charge for distribution to you. But if I had a copy of them, I could distribute it to you for free.
2. MS has a monopoly on system preloads. Preloaded system count for 95% of PC marketshare. You cannot buy a pre-built system without paying the MS tax. If any manufacture starts to sell pre-built systems without a Windows license, their OEM Windows price goes up. That's illegal use of monopoly power.
It's not there users don't have a choice in what they can install on their systems. They don't have a choice in whether or not they pay the MS tax on a prebuilt system, even though there may be market demand for such systems.
And they can't exactly forsake the OEM MS market, either--- its the chicken and the egg--> MS are a necessary part of sales, and will be, until a substantial number of manufactures sell non-MS systems. You can't look at OS avaliablity in stores; it simply doesn't matter. 95% of the PC market is preloads, and that is simply dominated by MS.
They were found guilty of being a monopoly by a U.S. court. Get over it.
And the other point: Linux's different distributions are usually architectural or selection issues. You've got minimal distros. You've got user-friendly distros. You've got complex distros. You've got compile from source distros; Gnome and KDE distros, Live distros, flash, etc. . .
Windows 'distributions' are usually differentiated by a registry key and one or two different software packages. Everything else is the same, and I'd guess that although the various editions might be missing front-ends to different packages, the back-end libraries are all there.
LOL. It would be absolutely hilarious if MS introduced its own version of RPM hell on Windows. "This product is not compatible with Professional Corporate edition of Vista. Please purchase Standard Ultimate edition, or Media Plus Edition. May require the following packages X, Y, and Z in order to function correctly on Media Standard edition, and recommend Professional Ultimate for full functionality."
Slashdot Mirror
Buy SuSE.
h tml
Read the manuals. They are *remarkably* good.
Step-by-step instructions for most *ANY* task you can imagine.
You can get the PDFs here http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse93/index.
But its nice to get the things and hold them in your hand.
BTW: I posted a fairly long response to your topic above. I've described how I transffered my 8 man office to Linux. (mostly-- one guy refuses to use Linux, and sticks with Windows. I've told him that means he is on his 'own' IT wise---we no longer support Windows. He's fine with that, and I've warned him that if his desktop starts spamming out viruses I'll filter his IP.)
like kylegordon says, Poptop is directly compatible with Microsoft VPN.
:)
It's of moderate difficult to setup, but once its done it just works.
It's actually remarkably easy to setup a PPP server on Linux, if you know where to look
This might help you start:
http://poptop.sourceforge.net/dox/howto1.html
Here you go:
.). Most administrator/install issues are covered in the admin guide, but the scope is limited. Advanced tasks (like setting up a tomcat application server) general refer you to project documentation online.
:( ) are awesome.
1. Pick your distribution. The answer here is 'SuSE'. Enough Windows metaphors hold in the default SuSE environment that it will be easy to get used to.
Plus, YaST makes most sorts of basic configuration tasks really, really easy.
Also, make *sure* you buy SuSE. SuSE comes with excellent manuals in the box set. Any sort of user task that you can think of is covered in the user manual (burning a CD, hooking up a digital camera, SMB shares, NFS shares, printing sharing, the various web browser, OpenOffice.org usage, Gimp usage, scanner usage, etc. .
If this is your first look at linux, read the introduction! It explains things like the file system hierarchy (where did my drive letters go!), CUPS (beautiful, automatic, end-to-end postscript printing!), and other linux need-to-knows.
2. Find two test system. These should be yours and someone else similiarly dedicated, or yours alone. The purpose of these two systems is for you to get used to handling Windows operations on Linux. This makes the transition easier.
3. Determine the hardware compatibility of your two test system. What video cards? What sound cards? What network cards?
Odds are, most of this stuff will work out of box, but its a good idea to check. I've not heard of wired network cards that do not work with SuSE out of box, but they might exist. Most any video card will work in 2D mode: 3D, however, could be more difficult. Sound cards are pretty easy, too, unless its cutting edge stuff, or ancient stuff that was discontinued a long time ago.
4. Make sure you have a minimum of 256 MBs of ram. No, really. If you don't have a minimum of 256 MBs of ram, Windows will feel subjectively faster than SuSE. You'll need another distribution. Not saying that SuSE won't work, or work well: Just that you'll some harddisk thrashing when running OpenOffice.org, KDE, Firefox, and Thunderbird at the same time. SuSE is slightly more memory hungry than other distributions, and more so if you use prelinking.
The requirement is for 128 MBs of ram, but, subjectively, you won't have a wonderful experience without 256, except for basic tasks. I've got two laptop users, both with 128 MBs of ram, and they are the ones first slated for system upgrades, because their systems run pretty slow.
5. Install SuSE on these two test systems. This part is easy, especially if you've done the above homework. Odds are, all your hardware will be supported out of box, no drivers or configuration needed. Most necessary software will be in the box, too.
6. Optional. If you have needed of that 'one last windows app', purchase Crossover Office from www.codeweavers.com. This will let you run most Windows apps on Linux.
7. Migrate ALL your network share needs to one of these two SuSE testbeds. This means printer, file-sharing, and document backup. Every printer on your network should be on one of these systems. Introduce a NEW documents folder for all your users on their desktops. This folder will link to an SMB share on one of the testbeds. Instruct them to save everything there, and duplicate their existing 'My Documents' to there. Either that, or convert you existing network store infrastructure to a similar linux framework.
This is easier than it sounds. You can easily piece through the process of establishing network shares from the SuSE Admin manual. It's all GUI stuff-- don't listen to these guys telling you to poke around through the conf files-- that's stuff you can learn latter. Right now, the SuSE admin tools are pretty good, and the SuSE server admin tools (costs lots of money
If you want, *after* you've configured it via gui, open up the man page for smb.conf (in konqueror! man:smb.conf), and go take a look at your
I just checked on that. AOL 'funded' the Mozilla Foundation by hiring the developers.
They fired them all in 2003.
This is the only thing I was concerned about, and AOL made it a non-issue.
You haven't noticed that AOL already closed all these divisions down?
Fired all the netscape/mozilla developers in 2003. Now all the netscape work is done by the AOL in-house developers, and its a 'dual-engine' browser. They use pure Gecko, and pure IE. Expect the Gecko part to go away (what difference does it make, they already gutted netscape?).
Fired all the Nullsoft developers last year. Put an intern in charge of patching security bugs. No new development on that front.
Just about every 'little' project that AOL purchased has already been shutdown as a financial failure. Really, everything AOL touches turns to shit--- As a result, none of their 'little' divisions actually exists anymore.
AOL fired them all in 2003.
Good. This might be the end of AOL. We'll see it rebranded as MSN, and it will continue to founder, until nothing is left.
Let the continunously destructive mergers go forth!
Not that this would be why MS is purchasing them, but if there are still Mozilla developers working for AOL, my guess is that they'll be out of a job, soon.
Also, the next edition of Netscape will be based solely upon IE, and won't be released for anything but Windows.
Either way, though, its a nice way to see all the 'Evil' group up. Fine by me, and I'm sure Mozilla will find another home (Novell, possibly? Or IBM? Who knows, maybe Sun, or even a coalition)
My opinion?
.)) and leaked documents (halloween memos, anyone?)
Google is the anti-MS.
They do the opposite. They market via word of mouth, and by having solid, simple, well-designed products. At google, the baseline is elegant, practical, high-performance engineering. If a product isn't *really* good, it never leaves the lab. If a product isn't *near-perfect*, it never leaves beta. Contrast that with MS. Most often, version 1.0 and 2.0 of an MS product is terrible, or even non-functioning. I'm not taking about beta versions, or lab versions; I'm taking about the crap they sell to people. Even these 1.0 versions, however, are introduced with all kinds of pomp and circumstance.
Enter Google. When was the last time you 'bought' a Google product without *knowing* that it was awesome? The products that they do 'sell' (ads, google earth, and google appliances) they sell unobtrusively, and I've never met someone who purchased one that didn't already *know* that the product was have extremely high quality. They do most of their development in-house, and they pursue paths of research almost as radical as the MIT media lab, but with a healthy dose of practicality.
The search engine was not innovative.
A clear, concise search engine, using page rank, a *very new* way of relating millions of search results WAS innovative. They continue this trend even now, its just not as well publicized, because they have to keep up with the Search Engine Optimization firms.
Maps and driving directions are NOT innovative.
Clear, easy to use, visually attractive maps, with a natural language interface, a well-documented API, an excellent ties to the aforementioned search engine?
That's innovative.
Not all innovation is flashy user interfaces and silicon gadgets. There is such a thing as innovative database design, and brilliant code.
Google is not out-Microsofting anyone. Microsoft's business strategy is well-known: Entering an existing market, form an alliance with the 2nd strongest player, gut that players efforts with your own product, and outspend the top player on marketing dollars. That's it.
I've *never* seen an intrusive ad for Google. I've *never* heard of Google screwing another business.
I've *never* heard of Google participating in dishonest negotiation.
While fanboys may choose to deny it, MS's tendancy towards these underhanded tactics is well-documented, both in terms of court cases (where they tend to PAY the settlement for being guilty, and move on (Novell (DR-DOS), Stacker, etc. .
Google's had a bit of luck, but they've also put a lot of hardwork and intelligence into their business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has built its empire on marketing, dollars, manipulation, and outright fraud. They've even been found guilty, and forced to pay settlements; but to MS, that's the cost of doing business.
There are other upgrade paths than a new UI.
:) I dunno, but there are most likely possibilities here. I don't use MS Office, so I have no idea.
1. XML doc formats. They are doing their MS XML crap. That's something new, and supposedly will replace doc. They should add in OASIS OpenDocument, as well.
2. Same features, less filling. Often times, in the non-MS ecosystem of software, you'll get newer version of software that do NOT implement significant numbers of new features. Rather, you'll get much better performance and fewer resource requirements.
3. Interoperability. Often time, other vendors advertise newer versions as having better interoperability. Purchase MS Office 12, full compatibility with the following 90 formats!
4. Rewrites of some existing features? Maybe a revamp of OLE?
Not all vendors push bloatware as the N+1 version of their software. Sometimes, its not damned if they do, damned if they don't-- its MS refusing to embark on certain paths that "Open Source Advocates" might approve of.
There are MANY ways to improve a product without a UI redesign or additional features.
Make the antipiracy 'features' much, much stronger.
And sue people who pirate the software.
Please?
Err... I meant XPde
Well, ok, other than 'The Dark Lord will force them to bow at His Feet' factor, they won't ;-)
IIRC its something like 1.6 gigs of space required.
:) our future is openoffice.org.
Not sure, haven't (and won't) install that beast again.
People at the office have been notified
Surprisngly, we only have 1 hold over still on Office.
What happened to all the 'clean lines' of the windows interface?
This is like someone mixed Mac OS X Aqua with LSD!
My bet? This is an optional interface. This is not the standard interface. There are people in my office who *refuse* to use OpenOffice.org. Not because it isn't an MS product, but because it doesn't work *exactly* like Office 2000.
There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that they'll use *that* nastiness.
Doesn't MS realize that the majority of business users will be using the same old Windows 2000 interface? Doesn't MS realize that if they cut that out, the *natural* upgrade path will be something linux XFce w/OpenOffice.org?
Hmm... you're right, and I can't find much information about it.
s /index.xml?part=1&chap=2
;-)
Here's what Gentoo says about it, but there really isn't much detail:
Are 32bit applications supported? Is it through emulation or native?
Yes, 32bit applications are fully supported by the CPU, and are executed natively. A standard x86 OS can be installed on an amd64 processor, and can execute 32bit applications from a 64bit operating system if it is capable of mapping the 32bit syscalls to the kernel's 64bit interfaces (such as Linux is capable of doing if you enable it in the kernel). Please see the below section on 32bit support for further information. Please also note there is no performance penalty for running 32bit apps on an amd64 class processor, and will always be faster than the athlonxp line of processors running 32bit code (please note this is different than ia64 itanium processors!)
That's from here http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/technote
I think if we want to know more about it we have to go stare at the kernel source, and I know that'll confuse me
I'm wondering how it compares in complexity to WoW64
I believe its called register renaming, but I probably know less on the topic than you.
: www.answers.com/topic/register-renaming+limitation s+of+register+renaming&hl=en&client=safarit mll e_id=53
The limitations of this are described in more depth here http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:5mZte35ICdQJ
And here http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/x86-64/x86-64-3.h
And here
http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?artic
One significant problem is that this process is not transparent to the coder; it's done on the fly, by the processor, with hints from the compiler.
That's what they wanted you to believe. However, shared system processes would often lockup, freezing the system.
;-)
Now, 32-bit applications can trip up on bugs in the WoW64 implementation, and since that is intimately tied to the kernel there's *another* thing to break
Windows has the same 32-bit cruft.
= /library/en-us/win64/win64/wow64_implementation_de tails.asp
/lib, /usr/lib and /usr/X11R6/lib might need to be changed to append "64".
With 32-bit apps, you need a 32-bit userland. That's the WoW64 bit; it's the 32-bit Windows on Windows cruft.
The main difference is that the linux stuff is organized differently. lib is your 32-bit libraries, while lib64 is your 64-bit stuff.
On Windows, the 'normal' location is where you would find the 64-bit libraries, and the WoW64 stuff is loaded from a separate directory.
Implementation details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url
Select Quote:
The WOW64 emulator runs in user mode, provides an interface between the 32-bit version of Ntdll.dll and the kernel of the processor, and it intercepts kernel calls. The emulator consists of the following DLLs:
Wow64.dll provides the core emulation infrastructure and the thunks for the Ntoskrnl.exe entry-point functions.
Wow64Win.dll provides thunks for the Win32k.sys entry-point functions.
Wow64Cpu.dll provides x86 instruction emulation on Itanium processors. It executes mode-switch instructions on the processor. This DLL is not necessary for x64 processors because they execute x86-32 instructions at full clock speed.
Along with the 64-bit version of Ntdll.dll, these are the only 64-bit binaries that can be loaded into a 32-bit process.
At startup, Wow64.dll loads the x86 version of Ntdll.dll and runs its initialization code, which loads all necessary 32-bit DLLs. Almost all 32-bit DLLs are unmodified copies of 32-bit Windows binaries. However, some of these DLLs are written to behave differently on WOW64 than they do on 32-bit Windows, usually because they share memory with 64-bit system components. All user mode address space above the 32-bit limits (2 GB for most applications, 4 GB for applications marked with the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag in the image header) is reserved by the system.
It's a different methodolgy, but most likely one that works as well. I appreciate the Linux one better-- the "normal" 32-bit stuff lives in the "normal" places-- that way, you don't *need* an emulation layer for the 64-bit unaware apps. Rather, 64-bit aware apps know to look in the correct location for the libraries (well, they are told by the OS, anyways). The Linux Way (TM) is slightly more backward compatible, me thinks. You'll *never* experience a problem with a 32-bit app on a 64-bit linux system, while there are some bugs in WoW64 which will probably never be fixed, rather, they'll be 'phased out', in the usual MS fashion (ignored until irrelevant).
Information on the Linux approach is here: http://www.hp.com/workstations/pws/linux/faq.html
Mainly, when recompiling your apps to be native 64-bit, you need to observe the following:
Simple. Just rebuild from scratch and the compiler will build 64-bit by default. This is true for most apps. However, some apps must be made 64-bit clean which means that the developers must review the code to get rid of any assumptions about 32-bitness, such pointer arithmetic issues. Some makefiles that explicitly declare paths such as
Do you have residential lines, or business lines?
The Do-Not-Call list does not apply to 'businesses', whatever that means. Presumably, the phone company has some way of designating your lines as either business or residential.
Vonage lines (and Packet8) all qualify as residential. Put on a Vonage line on the DNC list, and you won't get a single telemarketing call.
The list has substantially (~90%) reduced the number of telemarketing calls I get at home.
RHEL is, indeed, free.
l ist/2003-November/msg00025.html
The *only* thing you pay for is support.
Link here:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/eval/
You sign up for the 'evaluation'. You get the full install, and a one month subscription.
You do not get updates after one month.
With RHEL, you aren't paying for the software, you are paying for the support. Period.
More information:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/redhat-migration-
The source will always be avaliable from Redhat. Period. It's a free product.
Don't expect someone to wrap the package up for you and present it in a usable form, with free updates, though. They aren't under any license requirement, and they've already given you the full source. Don't you think its a little ungrateful to ask for more?
About the pre-built systems:
Wow. I wasn't aware of that. I just saw that on Dell's small business site. And you even save ~$75 per system, which is great. That's definitely a good thing. A caveats, however: you can't get a laptop like that. And you won't get proper hardware support (like dell's non-standard compliant ACPI implementations). Still, that's really just a small quibble.
I don't remember seeing that option before, but I guess its been awhile since I've shopped at Dell.
I have happily paraded HP's Linux laptop to people, however. Perhaps competition will reign in the future.
That's the point, though.
You need to do-it-yourself. DIY install.
Not so with Linux.
No.
Try SuSE 9.3
Everything you listed but encrypted DVD's works out of box.
1. Palm sync. Check. (Tested myself, on this system)
2. SD cards. Check. (Tested myself, on this system)
3. Camera. Check. (Tested myself, on this system).
For that, you need a licensed DVD player. Just like on Windows!
You think DVD's play out of box on Windows???
Intervideo makes LinDVD. Cyberlink makes PowerDVD for Linux. Or you can install Ogle, from RPM, from http://unix.freshmeat.net/projects/ogle/.
Either way, you need DVD playback software licensed by the CCA.
Everything, and I mean *everything*, works the same way on Windows.
No, I've met several of these Fanbois.
;-)
Many of them are auxiliary MS employees. This means they work in an MS shop, and have been trained on MS tools. They are blind to anything else, and simply see problems with MS products as 'The Way things Work'.
They ignore problems with MS products, or equate them with Marketshare problems of Linux/Mac. To them, although Windows may have its problems, Linux/Mac must obviously have more serious problems, or the software/hardware selection on those platforms wouldn't be so bad.
To these people, marketshare=success. Few experience true joy in their workplaces, and many do not have a good understanding of the various layers of abstraction in the computing world. They consider themselves power-users, but rarely understand what actually goes on in the system.
These people are usually in the middle bracket of computing knowledge. I find that 'noobs' are easy to convert to Linux or Mac; they don't know how to do it in Windows, so its simply for them to learn the Linux/Mac way. I find that true experts are also easy to convert. Help them solve a last problem or two, or given them a brief introduction, and a few weeks later they'll be showing you things you haven't figured out yourself later.
It's the people in the middle that carry the MS banner.
I just realized this will start the mother of all flamewars, but oh well
1. Yes, those Linux distributions are free. I don't know what you are talking about.
Yes, those companies charge for distribution to you. But if I had a copy of them, I could distribute it to you for free.
2. MS has a monopoly on system preloads. Preloaded system count for 95% of PC marketshare. You cannot buy a pre-built system without paying the MS tax. If any manufacture starts to sell pre-built systems without a Windows license, their OEM Windows price goes up. That's illegal use of monopoly power.
It's not there users don't have a choice in what they can install on their systems. They don't have a choice in whether or not they pay the MS tax on a prebuilt system, even though there may be market demand for such systems.
And they can't exactly forsake the OEM MS market, either--- its the chicken and the egg--> MS are a necessary part of sales, and will be, until a substantial number of manufactures sell non-MS systems. You can't look at OS avaliablity in stores; it simply doesn't matter. 95% of the PC market is preloads, and that is simply dominated by MS.
They were found guilty of being a monopoly by a U.S. court. Get over it.
Hear Hear!
And the other point:
Linux's different distributions are usually architectural or selection issues. You've got minimal distros. You've got user-friendly distros. You've got complex distros. You've got compile from source distros; Gnome and KDE distros, Live distros, flash, etc. . .
Windows 'distributions' are usually differentiated by a registry key and one or two different software packages. Everything else is the same, and I'd guess that although the various editions might be missing front-ends to different packages, the back-end libraries are all there.
LOL. It would be absolutely hilarious if MS introduced its own version of RPM hell on Windows. "This product is not compatible with Professional Corporate edition of Vista. Please purchase Standard Ultimate edition, or Media Plus Edition. May require the following packages X, Y, and Z in order to function correctly on Media Standard edition, and recommend Professional Ultimate for full functionality."
hehe. That'll be *great*.