Actually, Linux is a DOS App. I know, because Loadlin is a protected-mode program that runs Linux from DOS! DOS lets the
program do whatever it wants. I mean, it's the running program, right?
Yeah, but you're expected to be able to return to DOS after playing the game. Which causes no end of annoyances... Saving the pointer to the INT9 handler, hmph.
Now there's a challenge for you: making LOADLIN return to DOS after you shut down Linux. It shouldn't be nearly as hard as something like Plex86, since you don't need to virtualize or anything, just save a bit of data for when you're finished.
Case in point: after removing my TV Card, my SB Live! card doesn't work at all. Under Windows, the card gets detected, and
then the system locks. Hard. Under Linux, the drivers try to load, and then fail, but the system keeps going.
Ugh. I had a Hauppauge WinTV board, which you'd think would be pretty much guaranteed to work under Windows, right? Ha. It worked fine in Linux on the first try, but under a fresh Win98 with no other extraneous hardware, it would reboot 1 second after starting the TV display.
Incidentally, I don't use Windows at all now. Luckily, I'm not really a gamer, so I don't have the normal conflict of interest thing.
I like the design of RT-Linux,
myself; I think a lot more could be done with a model like that.
Heh, lots of people are gushing over the possibilities of user-mode Linux. Linux -- it's a Web server, an ORB, an embedded system, and a mainframe, all in one!
Yes, but Linux wasn't intended to be a microkernel, or even a production-quality OS, or really as anything more than Linus and his buddies to hack on. It serves its purpose well. Linux is my favorite OS to play with, because it's so mix-and-match and it seems to get drivers for new toys the quickest (except for USB...bah).
However, what makes Linux so great for this also makes it worse for other applications. FreeBSD, for example, is IMHO much better at being a server due to various technical features of its implementation, as well as the general feel of the OS. It's also probably better for non-hacker users who don't want to go pick out the best fingerd and ftp and whatnot for themselves.
I don't understand why people don't appreciate heterogenity. We had a DB guy at work complaining that Linux was "broken" because he was used to Solaris's memory allocation, and he thought that was the One True Way. Yes, Linux's memory allocation can cause kernel panics and OOM errors in a few extreme cases, but the vast majority of time it's more efficient.
If you don't like the way a system works and the situation isn't conducive to patches, fork it or choose another system. If you're looking for a microkernel, the Hurd would probably be a better choice than Linux. And it'll be available for production use RSN!
The beauty of an open environment is that you can choose the system that best fits your needs, rather than being locked into one system.
This is a cool attempt.. for one thing it shows how flexible the linux kernel is.
Um... Not really. It's almost trivial to put something inside of something else, as long as you write good interfaces. And the more 3rd party code you accomodate, the more risk there is of unstable code crashing the system, or of security breaches.
but it would be funky having device drivers
loaded from anywhere using this technology!
Like Jini? I hope you're not suggesting we embed the JRE into the kernel! That would be grotesque, despite the niftiness... No! No niftiness! Don't tempt me! Back!
Except that DOS provided a very minimal set of services. It was actually quite nice, because with the appropriate software (DOS extenders, anyone?) you could get the OS to load files and then get out of your way. Very little overhead, very little that you had to worry about walking over.
In this case, things are getting built into the kernel. Of course, DOS has no concept of userland/kernel space, but I'm sure there's a difference in principle somewhere.:-) In a protected-mode operating system, though, there are differences. The kernel runs in ring 0 (user programs are in ring 3 on Intel and ring 1 pretty much everywhere else), and so anything in kernel space can break everything. This is why NT has so many problems -- random third party binary drivers in ring 0.
I'm really quite eager for the Hurd. It will allow different portions of software to access certain pieces of hardware or software with kernel priveleges, without compromising the entire system.
And yes, I know you were joking and going for a first post, but I love talking about systems in the more abstract sense...
Nace takes exception to being called a spammer, a term he associates with pornographers.
"A farmer fixed a net in his field to catch the Cranes who came to feed on his corn. When he went to examine the net,
he found a Stork among the Cranes. 'Spare Me.' cried the Stork, 'I have eaten none of your corn. I am no Crane but a Stork, a
bird of excellent character, and I honor and slave for my mother and father.' The Farmer laughed and said, 'Say what you
will, but I have caught you with those who are destroying my crops, and you must suffer what they will suffer.'"
MORAL: Bad company proves more than fair professions. Birds of a feather flock together.
The only IM Clients I would Even touch right now is Yahoo Messanger and MSN Messanger. and since MSN Messanger
currently has exactly what ICQ had before it became a bloat monster, Thats the one I Use
Okay, now that my First Post! is out of the way...
Quite honestly, I've recently decided that NCSA Mosaic is still the best browser out there. I've got an x86 box at work, so I downloaded the (statically linked, thank goodness) binary and messed around with it.
Whoa. Nostalgia trip.
Thing is, though, it's got so many things that newer browsers don't even bother with. Like making clicked links dashed instead of solid underlined. (Kinda relevant for those color-blind users mentioned a while back.) And allowing you to select fonts for each heading level (don't think it's in that version, but I remember doing that in Mosaic on Solaris). And letting you quickly flip between a fontset for the whole document.
Oh yeah, and Mosaic is fast. Maybe that's because it focuses all its resources toward actually displaying HTML, and not trying to turn itself into some kind of sick Turing machine/security hole.
A few updates would be nice... Cookies, SSL, maybe style sheets. But overall, I just wish people would bother to consider all the "accessability features" and "performance enhancements" that always existed, but were simply forgotten.
Well, first, this study doesn't seem to be the main focus of the story; it isn't even mentioned until a number of paragraphs in. The story seems to be discussing clueless "users", and that would, of course, put the major-media spin on things, especially since this is obviously a Major Paper with literally half of the page taken up by ads and navigation.
Now, is this yellow journalism? Possibly:
"This is just a national scandal, this problem with software complexity and unreliability," says Leon Kappelman, director of the Information Systems Research Center at the University of North Texas in Denton. "No one should have to put up with computers being so unreliable or so difficult. We don't put up with this with any other product we use."
It's not necessarily an invalid opinion, but I'd venture to guess that it's there for pure sensationalism.
As far as the main point of the story goes, I think its truthfulness is limited to organizations without clue. Notice that they are complaining about "obscure checkboxes" (on a Mac, no less!), "technical support", "unfamiliar features", and "comfort level". These are the complaints of a person who fears computers and has not yet mastered them.
Now, this epidemic may indeed apply to most organizations. Sadly enough, it seems to apply to most I've seen. Schools, especially, seem to be bereft of clueful people. (Is there any way to volunteer to be a part-time sysadmin at a local school?) Even one person who knows how things work can make the system run smoothly, if others are willing to listen to that person. Too often they aren't.
As far as programming, I have an important note to make. This "study" (it'd be nice if I could find out some more information on how it was conducted) seems to imply that days of work and productivity are directly related. They're not. I, and most coders I know, work in bursts. Inspiration strikes, and you make a leap forward in an hour. Other times you sit for days. I have to suspect that Brooks would agree that making productivity measurements directly on time is baaaaad.
It is true, though. Bug-fixing and meta-tasks take up way too much of our time. Sometimes it's our fault for not writing correct code, but sometimes (and often!) it's the result of pressure to get it into production now! Customers need this feature! Quick quick quick!
Finally, they neglected the most important influence: morale. At work, there's some stupid stuff going on, and the project I'm on is one of those "we know it's a bad approach... you were right about that... we'll fix it later, though..." things. There are times when I feel completely ready to code, I'm sitting at the keyboard, and yet nothing comes out because things are so depressing.
...but what about FreeBSD? AFAIK, StarOffice is only available (natively) for Linux, and according to Sun's FAQ:
27. Does StarOffice run on Linux PPC/PowerMac/Alpha computers?
StarOffice needs a Computer with SPARC or Intel processor, but does not run on a Mac or Alpha PC.
ApplixWare has always been fairly popular among the FreeBSD crowd (and others, I'm sure, but that's where I've heard the most about it), simply because it bothered to support other {U,Li}n[iu]xen than Linux/x86. It's also significantly less bloated than, say, StarOffice.
It'd be nice if they let their current version float out there for free (Free is probably too much to hope for), but I guess that's unlikely as that would compete with Anyware Office.
I'm pretty sure I've seen Anyware Office, actually, a while ago. With some significant feature addition, it would be usable, and as long as they don't fall victim to creeping featuritis, it should run fairly quickly on newer JVMs. I have to wonder about how successful it'll be, especially since it's hard to even remember *snicker* Corel's offering...
I'm sick of this. "Gnutella's going to collapse! We need new innovation! It doesn't scale!"
It doesn't have to cover the entire Internet. The fact that you can simply specify a server to contact makes the solution so obvious that I can't believe people are still whining.
Let Gnutella split into multiple networks. It worked for IRC, it will work here, and it will work for similar problems in the future. Any problem that doesn't lend itself well to subdivision is probably badly specified. Don't forget that the Internet is a network of networks, and it works well for a reason.
Isn't that reporter's analogy way off? IIRC, Doom uses ray-casting instead of "true" 3d rendering, which is why walls have to be upright, etc. (I may be (probably am) completely off here; I've never played it, but still...)
Hmm. How do we know you're real, and not just collecting addresses to sell to spammers or something? Most professors are listed on the WWW somewhere, but a Google search on your name didn't turn anything up. Curious.
If this isn't a troll, though, I would certainly be interested...
Namely, GPL the source so any and all improvements, random variations are held up for public scrutiny for suitability, then
assign a benevolent dictator (Gosling?) without a vested financial interest to retain the trademark.
Slashdot Mirror
Like what? I'm curious.
--
Yeah, but you're expected to be able to return to DOS after playing the game. Which causes no end of annoyances... Saving the pointer to the INT9 handler, hmph.
Now there's a challenge for you: making LOADLIN return to DOS after you shut down Linux. It shouldn't be nearly as hard as something like Plex86, since you don't need to virtualize or anything, just save a bit of data for when you're finished.
Ugh. I had a Hauppauge WinTV board, which you'd think would be pretty much guaranteed to work under Windows, right? Ha. It worked fine in Linux on the first try, but under a fresh Win98 with no other extraneous hardware, it would reboot 1 second after starting the TV display.
Incidentally, I don't use Windows at all now. Luckily, I'm not really a gamer, so I don't have the normal conflict of interest thing.
Heh, lots of people are gushing over the possibilities of user-mode Linux. Linux -- it's a Web server, an ORB, an embedded system, and a mainframe, all in one!
--
However, what makes Linux so great for this also makes it worse for other applications. FreeBSD, for example, is IMHO much better at being a server due to various technical features of its implementation, as well as the general feel of the OS. It's also probably better for non-hacker users who don't want to go pick out the best fingerd and ftp and whatnot for themselves.
I don't understand why people don't appreciate heterogenity. We had a DB guy at work complaining that Linux was "broken" because he was used to Solaris's memory allocation, and he thought that was the One True Way. Yes, Linux's memory allocation can cause kernel panics and OOM errors in a few extreme cases, but the vast majority of time it's more efficient.
If you don't like the way a system works and the situation isn't conducive to patches, fork it or choose another system. If you're looking for a microkernel, the Hurd would probably be a better choice than Linux. And it'll be available for production use RSN!
The beauty of an open environment is that you can choose the system that best fits your needs, rather than being locked into one system.
--
Um... Not really. It's almost trivial to put something inside of something else, as long as you write good interfaces. And the more 3rd party code you accomodate, the more risk there is of unstable code crashing the system, or of security breaches.
If necessary, kernel interfaces to userland programs are probably the best way to go, but even then you're not necessarily safe. Remember: try to run code as an unpriveleged user at first, then as root if necessary, but only in kernel space as a last resort.
Like Jini? I hope you're not suggesting we embed the JRE into the kernel! That would be grotesque, despite the niftiness... No! No niftiness! Don't tempt me! Back!
--
In this case, things are getting built into the kernel. Of course, DOS has no concept of userland/kernel space, but I'm sure there's a difference in principle somewhere. :-) In a protected-mode operating system, though, there are differences. The kernel runs in ring 0 (user programs are in ring 3 on Intel and ring 1 pretty much everywhere else), and so anything in kernel space can break everything. This is why NT has so many problems -- random third party binary drivers in ring 0.
I'm really quite eager for the Hurd. It will allow different portions of software to access certain pieces of hardware or software with kernel priveleges, without compromising the entire system.
And yes, I know you were joking and going for a first post, but I love talking about systems in the more abstract sense...
--
--
"A farmer fixed a net in his field to catch the Cranes who came to feed on his corn. When he went to examine the net, he found a Stork among the Cranes. 'Spare Me.' cried the Stork, 'I have eaten none of your corn. I am no Crane but a Stork, a bird of excellent character, and I honor and slave for my mother and father.' The Farmer laughed and said, 'Say what you will, but I have caught you with those who are destroying my crops, and you must suffer what they will suffer.'"
MORAL: Bad company proves more than fair professions. Birds of a feather flock together.
--
I think you mistakenly filed this under "LaTeX CONs".
Heh. I'm only barely productive on Caltrain right now because I have no Internet access. Must...fight...temptation...
Use TiK. It's l33t.
Quite honestly, I've recently decided that NCSA Mosaic is still the best browser out there. I've got an x86 box at work, so I downloaded the (statically linked, thank goodness) binary and messed around with it.
Whoa. Nostalgia trip.
Thing is, though, it's got so many things that newer browsers don't even bother with. Like making clicked links dashed instead of solid underlined. (Kinda relevant for those color-blind users mentioned a while back.) And allowing you to select fonts for each heading level (don't think it's in that version, but I remember doing that in Mosaic on Solaris). And letting you quickly flip between a fontset for the whole document.
Oh yeah, and Mosaic is fast. Maybe that's because it focuses all its resources toward actually displaying HTML, and not trying to turn itself into some kind of sick Turing machine/security hole.
A few updates would be nice... Cookies, SSL, maybe style sheets. But overall, I just wish people would bother to consider all the "accessability features" and "performance enhancements" that always existed, but were simply forgotten.
Now, is this yellow journalism? Possibly:
It's not necessarily an invalid opinion, but I'd venture to guess that it's there for pure sensationalism.
As far as the main point of the story goes, I think its truthfulness is limited to organizations without clue. Notice that they are complaining about "obscure checkboxes" (on a Mac, no less!), "technical support", "unfamiliar features", and "comfort level". These are the complaints of a person who fears computers and has not yet mastered them.
Now, this epidemic may indeed apply to most organizations. Sadly enough, it seems to apply to most I've seen. Schools, especially, seem to be bereft of clueful people. (Is there any way to volunteer to be a part-time sysadmin at a local school?) Even one person who knows how things work can make the system run smoothly, if others are willing to listen to that person. Too often they aren't.
As far as programming, I have an important note to make. This "study" (it'd be nice if I could find out some more information on how it was conducted) seems to imply that days of work and productivity are directly related. They're not. I, and most coders I know, work in bursts. Inspiration strikes, and you make a leap forward in an hour. Other times you sit for days. I have to suspect that Brooks would agree that making productivity measurements directly on time is baaaaad.
It is true, though. Bug-fixing and meta-tasks take up way too much of our time. Sometimes it's our fault for not writing correct code, but sometimes (and often!) it's the result of pressure to get it into production now! Customers need this feature! Quick quick quick!
Finally, they neglected the most important influence: morale. At work, there's some stupid stuff going on, and the project I'm on is one of those "we know it's a bad approach... you were right about that... we'll fix it later, though..." things. There are times when I feel completely ready to code, I'm sitting at the keyboard, and yet nothing comes out because things are so depressing.
Of course, so many things are done through HTTP when they shouldn't be, really...
ApplixWare has always been fairly popular among the FreeBSD crowd (and others, I'm sure, but that's where I've heard the most about it), simply because it bothered to support other {U,Li}n[iu]xen than Linux/x86. It's also significantly less bloated than, say, StarOffice.
It'd be nice if they let their current version float out there for free (Free is probably too much to hope for), but I guess that's unlikely as that would compete with Anyware Office.
I'm pretty sure I've seen Anyware Office, actually, a while ago. With some significant feature addition, it would be usable, and as long as they don't fall victim to creeping featuritis, it should run fairly quickly on newer JVMs. I have to wonder about how successful it'll be, especially since it's hard to even remember *snicker* Corel's offering...
Perhaps you should reread the parent post... Very slowly...
It doesn't have to cover the entire Internet. The fact that you can simply specify a server to contact makes the solution so obvious that I can't believe people are still whining.
Let Gnutella split into multiple networks. It worked for IRC, it will work here, and it will work for similar problems in the future. Any problem that doesn't lend itself well to subdivision is probably badly specified. Don't forget that the Internet is a network of networks, and it works well for a reason.
Yes, but do they also block this CNN site?
--
vsync@quadium.net, hopeless jwz fanboy
"Crimson".
The UK.
No, we live in a republic.
Isn't that reporter's analogy way off? IIRC, Doom uses ray-casting instead of "true" 3d rendering, which is why walls have to be upright, etc. (I may be (probably am) completely off here; I've never played it, but still...)
Too weird. I made an incredibly similar poster and put it up in my school.
If this isn't a troll, though, I would certainly be interested...
Benevolent?/p&g t;