>>$24 is a lot cheaper than 300 feet of CAT5. Need I say more? The students did it because they COULDN'T pay for it...
>What? That makes absolutely no sense!
Ok. English isn't your language... Try this:
$24 Are you saying they couldn't afford to pay the $24 a semester surcharge for a port with a room, so instead, they buy 300 feet of Cat5, which is, as you admit, a lot more expensive that $24?
My God man... read what I said, don't read INTO what I said. I said they couldn't pay for it. What is confusing in that? They COULDN'T PAY FOR IT because the University wouldn't offer them it.
>Why would I want to pay $24 to the school when I could pay X amount of dollars more for the same service...
>Question : Does every single student at your university live in a residence room, have a computer, and have an ethernet connection?
No. They all do have computers though. The computer labs at my collge have PII-300's with 64 Mb RAM and therefore are usable. They include ZIP Drives on the computers so internet stuff can be taken home. The lab at this University was a POS (in the article). They COULDN'T spend hours waiting for web browsers to open, etc... or they would never get their work done.
>You *don't* need an ethernet connection in your room/apartment/house/whatever and you don't have a constitutional right to have one.
You do if the school's computers are not up to the job, but yours is. Denying you one IS denying you your education, which you PAID for. If you are denied something you have paid for, someone is breaking the law (the University). Not a constitutional right, but the right of a customer to what they have paid for.
>Yeah well then you pay for the server where all the university transcripts are kept.
These are copyrighted/personal/private material. They are not public record (although in some states they can be). That is different from university resources. I can walk into a public university and sit on the furniture, because that isn't private student equipment. I cannot read other people's mail because that is private. Transcripts == private, computer == public.
>Better still, maybe you can enter your own marks?
Uhhh... I don't think I would find a teacher to sign my new marks. Sure I could enter them... but they would be worth nothing. There is nothing illegal with me using marking software, just that I cannot pretend I am a professor (that would be illegal).
>Maybe you can run a d.net client on this server since it's a public resource?
That would require ILLEGAL hacking into the server. That is like B&E. Try harder...
I could not use the computers if they required a key to get into the lab door because that would be B&E (If I could not get the key). See the difference? Front doors unlocked, public resource (no this doesn't count for private homes/business). Inside locked up, private resource...
>Ok you say public money pays for it? Does that give the public the right to tap in and host a mp3/warez/pr0n site?
I have the right, RIGHT NOW, to walk into my local public university. I might have trouble using the network, being that it needs passwords/user ids. If I had a password/user id, there is nothing stopping me from using the computers, just as there is nothing stopping me from sitting on the University furniture. Of course, a lock on the door would prevent me from using the computers...
>I can split MY cable all I want for MY personal use
But you cannot own something you are leasing. If you look at the Cable TV cable, you will clearly see "Property of CableCo" written on it. You are leasing that connection, and would be giving service to someone not paying.
All the students who were accessing this illegal network hookup were already paying for it (school fees). This is like cabling yourself to someone else's house because the CableCo is too lazy to put a cable to your house. They would also be sending checks to the cable company for the cost of the service. Is that stealing?
Ok. You are breaking the law. You didn't pay for the access.
>I am using a stolen acct right now. It is not my faulth that the school board (N.O.) here is stupid enough to have the user id the same as the passwd. If they didn't want them to use it so bad they would have protected that port or passwd better.
Did you pay for that access (no you didn't, in fact you said you didn't)? The students at that University did... Your argument is sh*t.
>There's lots of benifits to ethernet, but it's not really neccecery to study (no really, just ask anyone else in the country who doesn't go to college)
Want to bet? I get assigments all the time in College that require me to access websites and read what is on them. I then have to write assigments based on this information... Seems required to me.
>Isn't this pretty straightforward? You have to pay a nominal fee to have access to the Ethernet in the dorms. Rather than pay the nominal fee these folks simply took it upon themselves to install their own connection to their rooms.
Uhhh... Well... how can they get it again? By paying for it? If you had read the article and used your cognitive reasoning you would have known that they COULDN'T pay for it, and that 300 ft. of CAT5 costs WAY more than $24.
>Seems like the university's case is pretty straightforward.
Sure it is. They just have to admit in court that they are lazy bastards and didn't want to put the cable in themselves.
They already pay for the access (they could get it in a lab). They just wanted to access their stuff elsewhere. Should my ISP also put me in jail because I telnet into their shell server from and internet connection that ISN'T over a phone line?
>Apparently/. and its supporters generally believe that anytime geeks are inconvenienced they're warranted in breaking rules and laws. I work at a university which has some really stupid rules re: Internet access, but the solution is not just to say "F--- you and the rules" which seems to be the/. approved methodology.
What is the solution? Most schools have IDIOTS for Sysadmins... they aren't likely to say "Ok... Here is a solution that would work". They will instead say "Here are the rules. No, you can't do it. No we have no suggestions.". That is the diplomatic way of saying F--- You. So the students said it back to them (diplomatically).
'Scuse me... SINCE WHEN DID PUBLIC MONEY (MY TAXES) PAY FOR A PRIVATE NETWORK? (I decided to write that in caps BECAUSE you LIKE them SO MUCH!).
>it's not a public right, you know..
And you know what... it certainly isn't my public right to inspect the local planning office (not). If I PAY FOR IT I CAN USE IT. I PAY TAXES. I CAN USE WHATEVER PUBLIC SERVICE I WANT. A STATE UNIVERSITY IS A PUBLIC SERVICE. AND WILL WILL NOW stop typing in caps.
>That's the real question tho - if they could have legally taken a laptop downstairs and plugged into the same backbone, the theft of service charge probably won't stick.
What if they used the laptop as a router... the laptop would be plugged into the cable in the computer lab, and THEIR cable would go from THEIR laptop to THEIR room. IIRC, you CANNOT stop someone from using THEIR OWN PERSONAL equipment...:-)
>Can you imagine the mess if everyone got a spool of bulk cat5 utp and a box of rj45 connectors and a crimer and just had at it?
Sure, the University would start physically stopping students from getting at the HUBS/Switches. Isn't that what people usually do with a valuable resource? Lock it up? Would there be ANY computers left in the University if they weren't locked up? Well... time for sysadminds to buy a clue.
>>These guys went out and bought the cable and hooked it up. Now tell me again, what was it they were stealing?
>The right to access the network
They already have that right or else they wouldn't be allowed in the computer lab.
>What if all the students decided not to pay, but rather to steal access?
They pay for their NETWORK (they got internet as a SIDE BONUS) access via school fees and taxes. This is a REQUIREMENT, not an option (the network access). That makes it something the University MUST support. No options. They (the University) decided to violate that. So the students took it into their own hands.
>What if instead of paying for classes, they just went and sat in without paying? According to you, they aren't stealing. But if everyone did it, no one would get paid. Do you want that?
They are paying for classes. What if teachers started charging for telling students about assigments? Would you say it is illegal for other students to question each other as to what is due to avoid paying for assignments? Well.. the students CLEARLY needed the network connection, just as they CLEARLY need to know what assigments are due.
>According to you, they aren't stealing. But if everyone did it, no one would get paid.
Taxes and student fees are for that. And are you saying that $24 is going to break the University? Huh?
>Do you want that?
No. I don't want students to be unable to finish assigments simply due to the slackoffs in computer services either. I say the students win, they ARE the customer!
>They avoid paying the $24/mo fee, but on the other hand, if the university can't provide it, it's only to be expected.
Very right.
If you can't buy it because the people selling it are idiots, and there is a lot of it, and you take some, is it illegal?
If the oil companies decided to stockpile gas, and simply decided they would no longer sell any... would you be mad at someone who stole it?
If the paper companies decided to stockpile paper, and refused to sell any of it, would you feel it illegal for a university student to steal a little of it for themselves, and their freinds, so they could get their work done?
The article clearly states they took the network connection because they had to get their work done. The other options were quite obviously unacceptable... Equivalent to writing assigments with a wood burning tool, or to writing assigments with a $1000 pen-to-fake-paper adapter, that has a rental cost of $20 a month.
I don't think they should be going to jail. And I think the University is DAMN sorry they got all this bad press.
Yeah, I think people should have to pay for things. But I _ALSO_ think it should be illegal for companies not to offer products to consumers out of lazyness. And I feel NO sympathy for a company when someone steals something from them that the company wouldn't sell to them (that they WOULD sell to others).
>If you reprogram your digital watch to store answers to a Calculus test, that's a very ingenius hack. But it's still cheating, and when you get tossed out of university for cheating, I won't have much sympathy for you.
Read the article.
That isn't ANYTHING like what they did. They did NOT use the network to steal answers to tests and assignments. They did it so they could _complete_ assignments. They did NOTHING illegal with the network, EXCEPT connecting to it. If they brought a university pen (that they borrowed from a teacher and never gave back) into a test and wrote it with that, I'm sure you would feel very differently.
You are VERY right. If I rent a car with the stipulation that it will ONLY be driven in this city, and drive it outside of the city, it is NOT labelled "theft". It is labelled "breach of contract".
A) How did you get X to fit in 8 meg? Mine hogs damn near 24 meg normally.
Some X-Servers don't suck:-)
I was once using an ATI MACH 32, it uses about 16 MB for the X server. With my ACCELTERATED Permedia 2 (probably the BEST value out there for a X-Box [pun intendex]), just 8 MB. Here's my ps:
mybox:~% ps ux | grep X
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 16848 0.0 4.1 8696 2584 ? S 02:03 0:00/usr/X11R6/bin/X
I have a feeling that the slackware distro (what I use) is lighter that most though.
>Second, it probably won't use something like vtwm. If they wan't compatibility with normal Linux apps like Mozilla, they'll use something like GNOME or KDE. I doubt something like vtwm would fly with the general public.
Netscape works fine in VTWM [still need to try Mozilla] (so do KDE or GNOME apps, but they look like crap). So yeah, something else would be in order. And KDE and GNOME both eat WAAAY too much memory.
I guess it depends on how much functionality you want in your Console - do you want funky KDE apps with a webbrowser, or just enough functionality to "get your foot in the graphics door". VTWM just gets your foot in the door, so it could be a choice for a lean, mean, console machine.
>Don't know about you, but I have the 2nd gen model. My claims about stability stand. Maybe some of the first gen models had heat problems, but thats only if you put it on a carpet and not a hard surface. Second and third gen models didn't have heat troubles that I have ever encountered.
Yeah, only the first generation models were bad. And it really shouldn't matter if they are placed on a carpet or not if the machine is well designed (although carpet is an insulator, heat rises...:-) The PS was badly designed. And it still sucks to return stuff, especially if you bought it from some crappy store that sez "Return to manufacturer. You have had it for 2 hours, that is longer than our store permits for store returns.".
I stay WELL away from companies that twice in a row release new products that need mass returns. That is like Ford, twice in a row, releasing versions of cars that were rolling flamebombs (ok, so they still do this... >:-) If you want to RUIN any chances of your product having good first sales (which are usually what is used for ROI), continue the trend of releasing garbage for starters, then fixing it. For the PS3, people will remember both of these problems. It WILL have difficulty selling for the first month or two (at least to anyone who knows the PS track record). But this is just conjecture.
>Console games in general have far far fewer bugs than PC games do. Mario 64 has crashed on me once. Thats it. Even Blizzard games, which are extremely well polished, have crashed more often on my PC.
Yeah, I'll agree again - but why does that stop the games developed for this machine from being of high quality? If they compete in the console market, then console market quality will be expected. In the windows market (most games), windows quality is expected (ie - If it doesn't set on fire, get it out the door!). Just MHO.
>You call having to update an app that should have been coded properly in the first place a paradigm shift? Sorry, but I like our paradigm better. People bitch all day about game companies releasing unready software then patching it and you think it is a paradigm shift?!
No way man!:) I like the idea of the ability to get fixed software right away without returning a cartridge. Like I say above, this could be a bonus if it is used properly (ie. Not to boot stuff out the door, but to fix genunie mistakes).
>The tivo doesn't try to do anything NEAR what this console is. It streams video to a TV and uses Linux as data manager. No interface to speak of, no X, no nothing. Certainly no web-browser and gaming services.
I was simply trying to draw a parallel to something else that exists in the home use market, and is Linux based [unfortunately, while I think the TiVo is close, it is still stretching it, as you point out]. The TiVo is easy to use, and works well, so if it can happen there, it can happen with the Console box. It might just take longer. (Again, this is just an opinion, not proven fact. Until this box, or another similar one, is made there won't be any facts.).
And, yeah, OK, so there is a bunch of "crap" in the Linux kernel that isn't needed. But other than the (relatively small) slowdowns, it doesn't matter. Like I say, Linux takes up 3 MB on my machine. And that is with a monolithic kernel with a lot of stuff compiled in (although I bet you can get it up to 6 or 7 MB if you try). A stripped kernel will fit in about 1 MB of memory. Not a big deal. As far as the multitasking goes, well, just run the game as root at -20 priority... Instant multitasking death!:-)
Swap space doesn't suck too bad, IMHO. Good programming would allow things to be swapped in and out as necessary (such as the next level being "precached", etc...) without hitting the swap during real gameplay.
Security really doesn't matter for this box. And it is a waste. But it really won't make much of a speed hit at all once your game is loaded. It probably won't make much while it is loading either. And your Linux Console won't die each time you play a multiplayer internet game (if security is decent)...
>There is nothing so great in Linux that they put it on the TiVo for. They just did it for the hype and for the fact that it was free and off the shelf.
Well, I would differ somewhat. Sure the hype was nice (but they wouldn't care about that - the end user doesn't). And the freeness was interesting (but not a big deal). The fact is they had the source. And they needed source for a system like that, so they could hack it up to whatever they liked. That meant they could get the thing out there real fast, and it would still work as well as their competitors (the parts they didn't mess with should still work just like they were origianlly coded).
>It is not as good an OS as the PS2 libraries for a console
Common man, the OS and the libraries are separate (at least on Linux). I don't know about the PS2, but they should be separate, or PS2 users are quickly going to get bored of the same effects, same old, same old, because the libraries can't be updated on the next CD if they are part of the core OS (well... I could be wrong. It would suck VERY badly if the CD could destroy the OS, though).
I suppose there are other "choice" OSes out there for a console, but at what price? $100 for windows licences is going to KILL Microsoft, and to redevelop a totally new system is going to be hard. We'll just have to see.
>Wait a minute, who exactly is Microsoft buying their OS from? Themselves?
They'd better be - unless they want the US Gov't to get nasty on their ass. To use it for free on their X-box would mean they have to give it to another competing company in that field for free or risk looking even more like a monopoly, and risk price fixing/dumping.
Of course, if MS is smart (and I bet they will be), they will develop a special "castrated" windows for the X-Box, so that it won't appeal to anybody.
>In fact, I just use hibernate mode every night before I go to sleep and it saves the memory state to disk and shuts my computer off.
You shut your computer off? Why? It will last longer if you leave it on (not that 10 or 20 years isn't long enough), and the cost of leaving it on is minimal. You know that each time the heads land on a Hard Drive you risk a head crash...
X - 8 MB vtwm - 1.5 MB Linux - 3 MB (And that's a FAT kernel) Various bits of "glue" - 1 MB.
Total used: 13.5 MB. Total free: 50.5 MB.
That's a HELL of a lot more than 16 MB.
The other bone I have to pick: You don't need to shutdown Linux if it runs from a Read-Only partition.
>but console users would be up in arms if their console crashed three times a year!
How about once every two hours? That's how long the original Playstation went without crashing for a lot of people... 3 times a year would sound DAMN good.
>Second, I can't see people accepting the fact that their kernel needs to be updated.
I can't see the fact that people are willing to be WITHOUT their console for WEEKS when they have to send it back for repair (which, as we have seen with the PS/2 and original PS, is OFTEN).
>And the hardrive. The guy who decided to put in a harddrive ought to be shot. I say this because console software is released as good as it will ever get. It has to be, it can never be patched.
Time for a Paradigm shift...
>People aren't going to accept, "please wait... Downloading latest patches for Mario 64."
Well, turn off that feature then. Let the game be as buggy as released. You think that console games have no bugs? Hahahahahahahaha...
>It can't be difficult, it can't be unstable (reletivly), it can't take energy to maintain. It has to be transparent to use, and be easy to use as your toaster. Literraly.
The TiVo matches these features well. It runs Linux. Why can't this box do it?
>Linux is too fat for a console. A console has no need of many things that are in the kernel that can't be taken out. There is no need for all the security and multi-userness inherent in UNIX, no need for console support, no need for any process management (or memory protection for that matter) no need for a VM, no need swap management, etc. Again, these could probably be coded out, but that would be an assload of work, and most Linux progs wouldn't work afterwords.
[sarcasm] Yeah, I mean, like TiVo NEVER released their patches and stuff. And the TiVo crashes daily. And the TiVo has 64 MB RAM. And the TiVo has swapping capabilities. And the TiVo has multiuser capabilities. [/sarcasm]
What I will agree with, though, is that perhaps they chose the wrong processor. That's it.
You know, after looking at that and saying it out loud I realized the problem a few people might have with Open Source: It is almost a homonym (sp?;-) for Open Sores.
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>>$24 is a lot cheaper than 300 feet of CAT5. Need I say more? The students did it because they COULDN'T pay for it...
:-)
>What? That makes absolutely no sense!
Ok. English isn't your language... Try this:
$24 Are you saying they couldn't afford to pay the $24 a semester surcharge for a port with a room, so instead, they buy 300 feet of Cat5, which is, as you admit, a lot more expensive that $24?
My God man... read what I said, don't read INTO what I said. I said they couldn't pay for it. What is confusing in that? They COULDN'T PAY FOR IT because the University wouldn't offer them it.
>Why would I want to pay $24 to the school when I could pay X amount of dollars more for the same service...
Because you didn't read the article...
>Question : Does every single student at your university live in a residence room, have a computer, and have an ethernet connection?
No. They all do have computers though. The computer labs at my collge have PII-300's with 64 Mb RAM and therefore are usable. They include ZIP Drives on the computers so internet stuff can be taken home. The lab at this University was a POS (in the article). They COULDN'T spend hours waiting for web browsers to open, etc... or they would never get their work done.
>You *don't* need an ethernet connection in your room/apartment/house/whatever and you don't have a constitutional right to have one.
You do if the school's computers are not up to the job, but yours is. Denying you one IS denying you your education, which you PAID for. If you are denied something you have paid for, someone is breaking the law (the University). Not a constitutional right, but the right of a customer to what they have paid for.
>Yeah well then you pay for the server where all the university transcripts are kept.
These are copyrighted/personal/private material. They are not public record (although in some states they can be). That is different from university resources. I can walk into a public university and sit on the furniture, because that isn't private student equipment. I cannot read other people's mail because that is private. Transcripts == private, computer == public.
>Better still, maybe you can enter your own marks?
Uhhh... I don't think I would find a teacher to sign my new marks. Sure I could enter them... but they would be worth nothing. There is nothing illegal with me using marking software, just that I cannot pretend I am a professor (that would be illegal).
>Maybe you can run a d.net client on this server since it's a public resource?
That would require ILLEGAL hacking into the server. That is like B&E. Try harder...
I could not use the computers if they required a key to get into the lab door because that would be B&E (If I could not get the key). See the difference? Front doors unlocked, public resource (no this doesn't count for private homes/business). Inside locked up, private resource...
>Ok you say public money pays for it? Does that give the public the right to tap in and host a mp3/warez/pr0n site?
I have the right, RIGHT NOW, to walk into my local public university. I might have trouble using the network, being that it needs passwords/user ids. If I had a password/user id, there is nothing stopping me from using the computers, just as there is nothing stopping me from sitting on the University furniture. Of course, a lock on the door would prevent me from using the computers...
>I can split MY cable all I want for MY personal use
But you cannot own something you are leasing. If you look at the Cable TV cable, you will clearly see "Property of CableCo" written on it. You are leasing that connection, and would be giving service to someone not paying.
All the students who were accessing this illegal network hookup were already paying for it (school fees). This is like cabling yourself to someone else's house because the CableCo is too lazy to put a cable to your house. They would also be sending checks to the cable company for the cost of the service. Is that stealing?
>Take me to jail.
Ok. You are breaking the law. You didn't pay for the access.
>I am using a stolen acct right now. It is not my faulth that the school board (N.O.) here is stupid enough to have the user id the same as the passwd. If they didn't want them to use it so bad they would have protected that port or passwd better.
Did you pay for that access (no you didn't, in fact you said you didn't)? The students at that University did... Your argument is sh*t.
>If these people wanted a port in their rooms, he could have paid the extra $24/semester.
$24 is a lot cheaper than 300 feet of CAT5. Need I say more? The students did it because they COULDN'T pay for it...
>There's lots of benifits to ethernet, but it's not really neccecery to study (no really, just ask anyone else in the country who doesn't go to college)
Want to bet? I get assigments all the time in College that require me to access websites and read what is on them. I then have to write assigments based on this information... Seems required to me.
>Isn't this pretty straightforward? You have to pay a nominal fee to have access to the Ethernet in the dorms. Rather than pay the nominal fee these folks simply took it upon themselves to install their own connection to their rooms.
/. and its supporters generally believe that anytime geeks are inconvenienced they're warranted in breaking rules and laws. I work at a university which has some really stupid rules re: Internet access, but the solution is not just to say "F--- you and the rules" which seems to be the /. approved methodology.
Uhhh... Well... how can they get it again? By paying for it? If you had read the article and used your cognitive reasoning you would have known that they COULDN'T pay for it, and that 300 ft. of CAT5 costs WAY more than $24.
>Seems like the university's case is pretty straightforward.
Sure it is. They just have to admit in court that they are lazy bastards and didn't want to put the cable in themselves.
They already pay for the access (they could get it in a lab). They just wanted to access their stuff elsewhere. Should my ISP also put me in jail because I telnet into their shell server from and internet connection that ISN'T over a phone line?
>Apparently
What is the solution? Most schools have IDIOTS for Sysadmins... they aren't likely to say "Ok... Here is a solution that would work". They will instead say "Here are the rules. No, you can't do it. No we have no suggestions.". That is the diplomatic way of saying F--- You. So the students said it back to them (diplomatically).
>No one has a sense of humor anymore, or a sense of proportionality. What has happened to us?
:-)
One word: Lawyers.
I agree with Shakespeare on that issue...
>Not physical evidence, but virtual evidence: a quick look at the dhcp server logs will reveal any unauthorized usage.
:-)
Yeah... and I'm sure the students will have their Ethernet Addresses pasted on their door...
"Look sheriff... some evidence. The criminals left some car paint on the pole they smashed into. Now all we have to do is look for BLACK cars!"
>the universities PRIVATELY owned network
'Scuse me... SINCE WHEN DID PUBLIC MONEY (MY TAXES) PAY FOR A PRIVATE NETWORK? (I decided to write that in caps BECAUSE you LIKE them SO MUCH!).
>it's not a public right, you know..
And you know what... it certainly isn't my public right to inspect the local planning office (not). If I PAY FOR IT I CAN USE IT. I PAY TAXES. I CAN USE WHATEVER PUBLIC SERVICE I WANT. A STATE UNIVERSITY IS A PUBLIC SERVICE. AND WILL WILL NOW stop typing in caps.
Yeah, you can run that cable, just don't violate any laws doing it...
Like: Building codes, etc...
If you used a wireless ethernet adapter I will bet you wouldn't violate any laws.
Of course, you didn't mean what you said, right?
>That's the real question tho - if they could have legally taken a laptop downstairs and plugged into the same backbone, the theft of service charge probably won't stick.
:-)
What if they used the laptop as a router... the laptop would be plugged into the cable in the computer lab, and THEIR cable would go from THEIR laptop to THEIR room. IIRC, you CANNOT stop someone from using THEIR OWN PERSONAL equipment...
You think they CHOSE to live in a dorm to save $24? (which, IIRC, is MUCH LESS than the cost of 300 feet of CAT 5).
Doesn't compute. Even if the cable was free, it is still only $24. Cheaper than a textbook for sure.
>Can you imagine the mess if everyone got a spool of bulk cat5 utp and a box of rj45 connectors and a crimer and just had at it?
Sure, the University would start physically stopping students from getting at the HUBS/Switches. Isn't that what people usually do with a valuable resource? Lock it up? Would there be ANY computers left in the University if they weren't locked up? Well... time for sysadminds to buy a clue.
>>These guys went out and bought the cable and hooked it up. Now tell me again, what was it they were stealing?
>The right to access the network
They already have that right or else they wouldn't be allowed in the computer lab.
>What if all the students decided not to pay, but rather to steal access?
They pay for their NETWORK (they got internet as a SIDE BONUS) access via school fees and taxes. This is a REQUIREMENT, not an option (the network access). That makes it something the University MUST support. No options. They (the University) decided to violate that. So the students took it into their own hands.
>What if instead of paying for classes, they just went and sat in without paying? According to you, they aren't stealing. But if everyone did it, no one would get paid. Do you want that?
They are paying for classes. What if teachers started charging for telling students about assigments? Would you say it is illegal for other students to question each other as to what is due to avoid paying for assignments? Well.. the students CLEARLY needed the network connection, just as they CLEARLY need to know what assigments are due.
>According to you, they aren't stealing. But if everyone did it, no one would get paid.
Taxes and student fees are for that. And are you saying that $24 is going to break the University? Huh?
>Do you want that?
No. I don't want students to be unable to finish assigments simply due to the slackoffs in computer services either. I say the students win, they ARE the customer!
>They avoid paying the $24/mo fee, but on the other hand, if the university can't provide it, it's only to be expected.
Very right.
If you can't buy it because the people selling it are idiots, and there is a lot of it, and you take some, is it illegal?
If the oil companies decided to stockpile gas, and simply decided they would no longer sell any... would you be mad at someone who stole it?
If the paper companies decided to stockpile paper, and refused to sell any of it, would you feel it illegal for a university student to steal a little of it for themselves, and their freinds, so they could get their work done?
The article clearly states they took the network connection because they had to get their work done. The other options were quite obviously unacceptable... Equivalent to writing assigments with a wood burning tool, or to writing assigments with a $1000 pen-to-fake-paper adapter, that has a rental cost of $20 a month.
I don't think they should be going to jail. And I think the University is DAMN sorry they got all this bad press.
Yeah, I think people should have to pay for things. But I _ALSO_ think it should be illegal for companies not to offer products to consumers out of lazyness. And I feel NO sympathy for a company when someone steals something from them that the company wouldn't sell to them (that they WOULD sell to others).
>If you reprogram your digital watch to store answers to a Calculus test, that's a very ingenius hack. But it's still cheating, and when you get tossed out of university for cheating, I won't have much sympathy for you.
Read the article.
That isn't ANYTHING like what they did. They did NOT use the network to steal answers to tests and assignments. They did it so they could _complete_ assignments. They did NOTHING illegal with the network, EXCEPT connecting to it. If they brought a university pen (that they borrowed from a teacher and never gave back) into a test and wrote it with that, I'm sure you would feel very differently.
You are VERY right. If I rent a car with the stipulation that it will ONLY be driven in this city, and drive it outside of the city, it is NOT labelled "theft". It is labelled "breach of contract".
A) How did you get X to fit in 8 meg? Mine hogs damn near 24 meg normally.
:-)
/usr/X11R6/bin/X
:-) The PS was badly designed. And it still sucks to return stuff, especially if you bought it from some crappy store that sez "Return to manufacturer. You have had it for 2 hours, that is longer than our store permits for store returns.".
:) I like the idea of the ability to get fixed software right away without returning a cartridge. Like I say above, this could be a bonus if it is used properly (ie. Not to boot stuff out the door, but to fix genunie mistakes).
:-)
Some X-Servers don't suck
I was once using an ATI MACH 32, it uses about 16 MB for the X server. With my ACCELTERATED Permedia 2 (probably the BEST value out there for a X-Box [pun intendex]), just 8 MB. Here's my ps:
mybox:~% ps ux | grep X
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 16848 0.0 4.1 8696 2584 ? S 02:03 0:00
I have a feeling that the slackware distro (what I use) is lighter that most though.
>Second, it probably won't use something like vtwm. If they wan't compatibility with normal Linux apps like Mozilla, they'll use something like GNOME or KDE. I doubt something like vtwm would fly with the general public.
Netscape works fine in VTWM [still need to try Mozilla] (so do KDE or GNOME apps, but they look like crap). So yeah, something else would be in order. And KDE and GNOME both eat WAAAY too much memory.
I guess it depends on how much functionality you want in your Console - do you want funky KDE apps with a webbrowser, or just enough functionality to "get your foot in the graphics door". VTWM just gets your foot in the door, so it could be a choice for a lean, mean, console machine.
>Don't know about you, but I have the 2nd gen model. My claims about stability stand. Maybe some of the first gen models had heat problems, but thats only if you put it on a carpet and not a hard surface. Second and third gen models didn't have heat troubles that I have ever encountered.
Yeah, only the first generation models were bad. And it really shouldn't matter if they are placed on a carpet or not if the machine is well designed (although carpet is an insulator, heat rises...
I stay WELL away from companies that twice in a row release new products that need mass returns. That is like Ford, twice in a row, releasing versions of cars that were rolling flamebombs (ok, so they still do this... >:-) If you want to RUIN any chances of your product having good first sales (which are usually what is used for ROI), continue the trend of releasing garbage for starters, then fixing it. For the PS3, people will remember both of these problems. It WILL have difficulty selling for the first month or two (at least to anyone who knows the PS track record). But this is just conjecture.
>Console games in general have far far fewer bugs than PC games do. Mario 64 has crashed on me once. Thats it. Even Blizzard games, which are extremely well polished, have crashed more often on my PC.
Yeah, I'll agree again - but why does that stop the games developed for this machine from being of high quality? If they compete in the console market, then console market quality will be expected. In the windows market (most games), windows quality is expected (ie - If it doesn't set on fire, get it out the door!). Just MHO.
>You call having to update an app that should have been coded properly in the first place a paradigm shift? Sorry, but I like our paradigm better. People bitch all day about game companies releasing unready software then patching it and you think it is a paradigm shift?!
No way man!
>The tivo doesn't try to do anything NEAR what this console is. It streams video to a TV and uses Linux as data manager. No interface to speak of, no X, no nothing. Certainly no web-browser and gaming services.
I was simply trying to draw a parallel to something else that exists in the home use market, and is Linux based [unfortunately, while I think the TiVo is close, it is still stretching it, as you point out]. The TiVo is easy to use, and works well, so if it can happen there, it can happen with the Console box. It might just take longer. (Again, this is just an opinion, not proven fact. Until this box, or another similar one, is made there won't be any facts.).
And, yeah, OK, so there is a bunch of "crap" in the Linux kernel that isn't needed. But other than the (relatively small) slowdowns, it doesn't matter. Like I say, Linux takes up 3 MB on my machine. And that is with a monolithic kernel with a lot of stuff compiled in (although I bet you can get it up to 6 or 7 MB if you try). A stripped kernel will fit in about 1 MB of memory. Not a big deal. As far as the multitasking goes, well, just run the game as root at -20 priority... Instant multitasking death!
Swap space doesn't suck too bad, IMHO. Good programming would allow things to be swapped in and out as necessary (such as the next level being "precached", etc...) without hitting the swap during real gameplay.
Security really doesn't matter for this box. And it is a waste. But it really won't make much of a speed hit at all once your game is loaded. It probably won't make much while it is loading either. And your Linux Console won't die each time you play a multiplayer internet game (if security is decent)...
>There is nothing so great in Linux that they put it on the TiVo for. They just did it for the hype and for the fact that it was free and off the shelf.
Well, I would differ somewhat. Sure the hype was nice (but they wouldn't care about that - the end user doesn't). And the freeness was interesting (but not a big deal). The fact is they had the source. And they needed source for a system like that, so they could hack it up to whatever they liked. That meant they could get the thing out there real fast, and it would still work as well as their competitors (the parts they didn't mess with should still work just like they were origianlly coded).
>It is not as good an OS as the PS2 libraries for a console
Common man, the OS and the libraries are separate (at least on Linux). I don't know about the PS2, but they should be separate, or PS2 users are quickly going to get bored of the same effects, same old, same old, because the libraries can't be updated on the next CD if they are part of the core OS (well... I could be wrong. It would suck VERY badly if the CD could destroy the OS, though).
I suppose there are other "choice" OSes out there for a console, but at what price? $100 for windows licences is going to KILL Microsoft, and to redevelop a totally new system is going to be hard. We'll just have to see.
>Wait a minute, who exactly is Microsoft buying their OS from? Themselves?
They'd better be - unless they want the US Gov't to get nasty on their ass. To use it for free on their X-box would mean they have to give it to another competing company in that field for free or risk looking even more like a monopoly, and risk price fixing/dumping.
Of course, if MS is smart (and I bet they will be), they will develop a special "castrated" windows for the X-Box, so that it won't appeal to anybody.
>In fact, I just use hibernate mode every night before I go to sleep and it saves the memory state to disk and shuts my computer off.
You shut your computer off? Why? It will last longer if you leave it on (not that 10 or 20 years isn't long enough), and the cost of leaving it on is minimal. You know that each time the heads land on a Hard Drive you risk a head crash...
Ahem, here's my findings:
X - 8 MB
vtwm - 1.5 MB
Linux - 3 MB (And that's a FAT kernel)
Various bits of "glue" - 1 MB.
Total used: 13.5 MB. Total free: 50.5 MB.
That's a HELL of a lot more than 16 MB.
The other bone I have to pick: You don't need to shutdown Linux if it runs from a Read-Only partition.
>but console users would be up in arms if their console crashed three times a year!
How about once every two hours? That's how long the original Playstation went without crashing for a lot of people... 3 times a year would sound DAMN good.
>Second, I can't see people accepting the fact that their kernel needs to be updated.
I can't see the fact that people are willing to be WITHOUT their console for WEEKS when they have to send it back for repair (which, as we have seen with the PS/2 and original PS, is OFTEN).
>And the hardrive. The guy who decided to put in a harddrive ought to be shot. I say this because console software is released as good as it will ever get. It has to be, it can never be patched.
Time for a Paradigm shift...
>People aren't going to accept, "please wait... Downloading latest patches for Mario 64."
Well, turn off that feature then. Let the game be as buggy as released. You think that console games have no bugs? Hahahahahahahaha...
>It can't be difficult, it can't be unstable (reletivly), it can't take energy to maintain. It has to be transparent to use, and be easy to use as your toaster. Literraly.
The TiVo matches these features well. It runs Linux. Why can't this box do it?
>Linux is too fat for a console. A console has no need of many things that are in the kernel that can't be taken out. There is no need for all the security and multi-userness inherent in UNIX, no need for console support, no need for any process management (or memory protection for that matter) no need for a VM, no need swap management, etc. Again, these could probably be coded out, but that would be an assload of work, and most Linux progs wouldn't work afterwords.
[sarcasm] Yeah, I mean, like TiVo NEVER released their patches and stuff. And the TiVo crashes daily. And the TiVo has 64 MB RAM. And the TiVo has swapping capabilities. And the TiVo has multiuser capabilities. [/sarcasm]
What I will agree with, though, is that perhaps they chose the wrong processor. That's it.
>http://www.opensirs.org
;-)
;-) for Open Sores.
>(Say it out loud)
You know, after looking at that and saying it out loud I realized the problem a few people might have with Open Source: It is almost a homonym (sp?
Oh well, GPL isn't confusable, at least.