It's not like GCC forces the GPL onto compiled software yet There, fixed it for you. Even if you don't like all of the FSF's politics... this one is quite a stretch.
Richard Stallman has said that he doesn't believe copyright is *allowed* to place USAGE restrictions on software (as opposed to REDISTRIBUTION restrictions). And, accordingly, no GPL programs place any restrictions on their output... even when that output is a new program.
Hehehe, that's a really good point:-) How much faster does PCC run when built with the (optimizing!) GCC compiler, as opposed to itself... which barely does any optimization.
My favorite non-bloated apps are Gnumeric (spreadsheet), orpie (awesome RPN calculator), and Liferea (feed reader). Also GAIM/Pidgin, which in my opinion has done an amazing job of maintaining and improving a simple interface while becoming very versatile in terms of the protocols that it supports.
On an aside... anyone remember how Firefox was originally supposed to be a NON-bloated browser? Maybe it still is, in comparison to IE, but I load it down with so many extensions and plugins and gizmos that it doesn't seem that way anymore:-)
Actually, Linux from 2000 onward is taking more of Solaris' thunder in the development arena. License costs are cheaper, hardware is more prolific (and cheaper). But no one does development on AIX and ports to Solaris.
When I worked at Parametric (CAD software), development was mostly done on SGI and Solaris, and then ported everywhere else. No one wanted to touch the IBM or HP hardware.
Interesting. I've been in grad school and out of the industry loop since 2003 (hope to get back into it though...). I guess it's no surprise that Linux has taken over.
I can understand why Sun hardware was preferred to AIX stuff, which I've loathed in my brief contact.
I far preferred the SGI keyboards myself.:-) Hmmm, I've never seen an SGI keyboard. All the ones I find on Google Image Search look like standard PC 104-key keyboards. The Sun Type 5 keyboards have a block of 10 or so extra keys on the left, like this. Sometimes I *still* find myself reflexively reaching to the left for my Emacs shortcuts. I have a salvaged Type 5 board lying around somewhere, but sadly there's no easy way to hook it up to a normal USB/PS2 connector:'(
I can't access their website with Firefox at all. The little spinny thing just keeps spinning and then it says "Problem loading page." Wow, that's amazing, these guys are *GOOD*.
I guess I better reinstall Windows and switch back to Internet Explorer.
Political solutions to technical problems... as pathetic and ineffectual as ever:-) What a complete non-starter.
If this "grassroots" Firefox-blocking effort takes off, we'll soon have a Firefox extension to spoof the IE UserAgent on any of the sites that blocks Firefox. Oh wait!!! It already exists, and I'll bet with a little work it could be automated to spoof based on a database of anti-Firefox sites. Of course, all the savvy Firefox users will use this to avoid the block, and only our hapless grandmothers--who don't use Adblock anyway--will be stuck wondering why the Internet doesn't work. And absolutely NOTHING will have been accomplished.
Our interconnected world is increasingly resistant to petty, arbitrary restrictions. Just witness the rise of region-free DVD players, modchips, and third-party ink cartridges... and the ridiculous, heavy-handed responses of the **AA, the game companies, and the printer manufacturers.
Solaris : Applications are written here, and ported elsewhere. It appears to be the defacto king of VAR/OEM software for Unix. Zones: Great, though BSD had 'em first. ZFS: New, but a good start. Interesting. I worked in 2001-2002 for a small software company (which had just been bought by a larger company, but that is mostly irrelevant). Our company had developed its products for and under Solaris, exclusively, starting in the early 90s... when I guess Sun offered cheap and good options for developer-friendly workstations. I was in diapers coding in QuickBasic at the time:-)
The company was switching largely from Solaris to Linux and Windows, and there were some bumps (such as the fact that our software's audio drivers hadn't been ported to Linux yet). But basically, Linux was way better for development work than Solaris, even in 2001. It could run much faster on a cheapo cobbled-together x86 box than Solaris on our aging hardware. The Solaris boxes all used bulky, expensive external SCSI drives and nobody in our office was able to do RAM upgrades. The CDE GUI was pretty crummy. The one thing I *did* love about the Sun workstations was the keyboards. I set up all those extra keys on the Type 5 keyboard to do nifty shortcuts in Emacs.
So, is the use of Solaris for product development based on inertia? Or is there some actual reason to prefer it even today? I can see it being decent on x86 hardware, where upgrades aren't so monstrously expensive and cumbersome, although I've heard driver support is spotty.
AIX: LVM. That's about it. Best disk management tools in the world, and has been since I started using it in 97.
HP-UX: Dogshit. Nuff said. Heh... I'd been wondering about HP-UX. Never used it. AIX I used briefly in a university Unix Lab, on some gawdawful PC-like workstation thingies. I was already using Linux heavily at the time and I wasn't much impressed by AIX's horrible default shell, and craptastic X server.
Linux: The bastard Frankenstein of the Unix world. Runs everywhere, runs reliably (I haven't had a non-hardware based panic since 1999. The driver binary issue can be a PITA sometimes. Pretty much how I feel. There is almost nothing that I might want to do with my computer that Linux doesn't do BEST. But I haven't had to manage it in any large installations.
IBM just wants a unix for its systems without having to pay to maintain AIX. That's why they sell systems with linux, and that's why the are going to sell systems with solaris. Its better for them to offer both, so they can get linux business from the idiots who are dumb enough to think IBM cares about open source, and get solaris business from the idiots who think solaris has magical enterprise fairy dust that makes it better. So... um, what should smart, well-informed people actually choose? I'm actually serious. Is there some other option that people see as superior to Linux OR Solaris for enterprise Unix stuff? I've heard great things about OpenBSD, including its painstakingly good hardware support in some areas, though I have only used it for a couple of months myself, and not in an administrative role.
Seriously probability question here. Given the size of the universe what do you think is the likelihood that the conditions required for this form of life exist somewhere at sometime? You got it. As I see it, that's the million dollar question here. Just HOW probable or HOW improbable is this form of life? TFA doesn't really give me any clue. Sure, it's POSSIBLE in the sense that it's consistent with the laws of the universe. I wish they'd give more information on how likely these dust structures/life forms really are.
Those darn theorists! I'm in grad school right now doing experimental physics research, and sometimes I'm driven to distraction by the fascinating but untestable things that theorists come up with.
Your premise is correct in that the possibility of something doesn't make it real but given the vastness of space I'd say the likelihood is pretty good that something like this at least both has occurred and is still occurring somewhere out there. That sounds dangerously close to the infinite monkey theorem:-) Which says that given an infinite amount of time and an infinite number of random events, you'll get any interesting pattern you care to wait around for. But of course, the observable universe isn't infinite... so sufficiently improbable things just don't happen.
I don't think that's really important. There's a deep problem with the origin of life, since the current DNA and protein based life is far to sophisticated to be the original. So there's a fair chance that it's not the first generation and it has simpler precursors....
And any research that discovers/invents alternative architectures for life may tell how they could possibly work. Indeed. But what I am pointing out is that the research in question only provides a possible architecture for life (one of an infinite number), and doesn't in my mind present a clear vision for how we'd actually find out if such life exists or has existed. It's similar to what's called a non-constructive proof in math.
They are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve.
... But do they exist?
After all, this is just a computer model of some possible arrangements of particles. Even if the model is perfectly correct, it doesn't mean these living dust particles are actually out there in the universe.
Computer-simulated life is very exciting and cool, and can help scientists understand the evolution of living things (such as with the Avida system). But it can't PROVE that a particular kind of life actually exists in the natural world.
Maybe it would be easier to request Sun to make the T2 compatible with the AM2 socket. I know Sun is very familiar with Hypertransport, they could design this lowend proc to work in AMD compatible mobos with a compatible EFI BIOS. Maybe allow us to stick a T2 in a terranza socket for giggles. Why not? You know, I hadn't thought of that, but it's a great point! The Hypertransport bus (AMD's design) was intended to be a *standardized* front-side bus, allowing different types of processors and coprocessors to work together. And Sun already builds systems around Opterons. If they made HyperTransport-enabled SPARC processors to fit Socket 940/Socket AM2, that'd be awesome... I could drop one in PC and not even change the RAM or motherboard, though the retarded PC BIOS would have to be replaced with some SPARC-aware firmware.
On the other hand, I have heard that the non-x86 processor families (SPARC, PPC, MIPS, etc.) use some innovative chipsets, so it might be advantageous to be able to use a SPARC processor on a motherboard with a completely different chipset as well.
What I was getting at, basically, is that there's no reason why the PC platform has to be x86-only! The only thing that WAS holding it back is the closed-source nature of the Windows operating system and most applications... case in point: 5 years after x86-64 was introduced, nearly all PCs use 64-bit processors, and yet 64-bit Windows is hopelessly lacking in native applications and drivers. On the other hand, Linux and FreeBSD both had x86-64 ports available before the processors were even available for purchase. I run Ubuntu 64-bit and it works great.
If I could buy a SPARC or MIPS or PPC board that could be physically and electrically integrated into my current PC, I'd definitely give it a try! There's actually not a lot to it... produce a motherboard that conforms to the ATX physical specifications with the right power connector, and include some of the on-board peripherals that PC users have come to expect: ethernet, audio, IDE and SATA controllers.
Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, there were similar things, though unfortunately never popular: PowerPC-based PC platforms and Alpha-based PC platforms. I believe that with the increased prevalence of open-source, this is an idea whose time has come!
I wish I could use water in my gas tank! Exxon would be fucked! Putting a Niagara on an ATX board is nothing like using water in your gas tank:-P
It would just require making a Niagara board of the appropriate size with the right power connectors, and the PCI/PCIe slots in the positions that PC users expect. When the PowerPC first came out, IBM envisioned that people would build computers with PC-type peripherals but PowerPC processors, so they developed the PowerPC Reference Platform! It never took off commercially, unfortunately, but there's no technical reason why something similar couldn't be done with SPARC/MIPS/PPC/ARM-based boards today.
Indeed! I'm saying it'd be nice if I could take that chip and slap it in my commodity PC, using my existing drives, PSU, wireless card, etc. Because right now, you can only get a Niagara system by buying it complete from Sun, which means paying a lotta markup on all the other components.
It'd be great if you could buy drop-in ATX boards with SPARC/MIPS/PowerPC/whatever processors. That might lead to the rapid demise of x86 if they performed well!
...If they put THESE under the GPL, along with the T1, they'd be getting more press than they could imagine. If they used these a bit more aggressively - such as using them as a graphics processor on a PC - they'd be getting some amazing press. If they keep them locked in a server closet, it's only then that nobody will care. I for one wish that they'd slap the UltraSPARC Niagara and its chipset on a standard ATX motherboard with PCI and PCI-Express support.
There'd be a Linux port in practically no time, and I know a bunch of us Linux power users would adopt that setup in no time... cheap commodity hardware coupled with a high-throughput RISC processor would be great for desktop multitasking, software development, file serving, etc.
In our house, we have one 4 year old dual processor G4 (my desktop), a 6 year old PIII Dell (Mostly Ubuntu, but dualboots into XP from time to time) and an early Intel Mac Mini that was an insurance replacement for an iBook that got trashed by the kids.
My G4 is getting to the stage where I'm feeling I could probably do with a replacement, but generally it's no hardship to use (everything up to and including a little light Adobe Creative Suite) - if push came to shove, it would just keep motoring on. The Dell is just fine for webbrowsing/email/OO.o plus the odd Windows game. The Mac Mini's performance *spanks* everything else in the house by about an order of magnitude, most oviously measurable in terms of BOINC unit throughput. Well... you're comparing a Core Duo to a G4 and a PIII:-P No wonder the Mac Mini wins!!!
So, underpowered, compared to what the vast majority of people need? No. Only when either viewed in high-end professional environments, or those involving high-end egos. Okay, I can certainly accept that many people don't need more performance than what the Mac Mini provides. If that's the case, though, it still gets crushed on price. How about this significantly more powerful Athlon 64 X2 with 1gb RAM (twice what the Mini has) and a 19" LCD monitor for $500 from Dell: http://edealinfo.com/dell/#DH531sa... that's $100 less than the Mini with monitor included! Or if you prefer to stick with Intel-to-Intel comparison, this system is $600 and very similar to the previous one, but with an Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz: http://edealinfo.com/dell/#DH530sb... again, same price as the Mini, but *much* faster processor, more RAM, much bigger HD, monitor included, etc.
I personally do a lot of scientific number compilation and software development, and the faster processor is important to me for reasons that I like to think are unrelated to ego. For example, I typically go for one of the lowest speed grades of processors, since I think they offer better value with only slightly less performance.
I'm a long-standing tower user, but my G4 tower replacement will be an iMac. It's not as if the iMac will need a processor upgrade ever (note how long I've had my G4), or much of a RAM upgrade, and I have enough external storage that a 250 gig drive will do me for ever. Dual monitors? Sure - iMacs have had external video ports for a while.
So you need a tower because..? I like having a tower because it's easy to replace components. I've added a hard drive, added a wireless card and then switched to a different one. Added a PCI-express graphics card. Swapped out a bad RAM stick. Will probably add another 1gb of RAM since I can get it for about $50 now. I also like the tower because of the more convenient access to the front ports, optical drive, and card reader. I'm often plugging USB peripherals and headphones and memory cards in and out, and I can pretty much do it out of the corner of my eye with the tower.
Hahaha. Yeah, that's just what I'm talking about! A pretty funny quote... with a bit of googling I found out what episode it was from: The Frying Game. I gotta watch that!
I want a computer with a fast processor, big hard disk, and lots of RAM. I don't care about 3D video, case styling, or anything else that isn't standard on all computers. I don't give a flip about service or support, I know much more about hardware than any tech I've talked to. I want it to be a snap to upgrade, so I can bump up the RAM or add a 3D video card or a wireless card or another NIC if I need one.
I got a nice Athlon 64 box from Acer for about $600, with 19" LCD monitor, printer, and a decent kbd and mouse. The attention to details was amazing good: the case had a nice screwless design making it a snap to upgrade. There was onboard Firewire, optical SPD/IF, and Gigabit LAN (not 10/100). There were two spare RAM slots. Linux supported the built in memory-card reader.
Apple just doesn't cater to me... at all. I couldn't get anything like that from them... the closest thing is the pathetic Mac Mini which costs about $600 with no monitor/keyboard/mouse/printer, and is seriously underpowered and limited in upgradability. The *only* tower-case system they sell is the hugely powerful and hugely expensive Mac Pro.
Apple may be (somewhat) competitive in the very limited range of systems they offer. But it *is* limited. And even in that range I'd say they're overpriced. For my recent laptop purchase, I seriously considered Apple vs. Dell Core 2 Duo systems. The retail prices were competitive. Except nobody pays the full price for the Dells, they go to Edealinfo.com or something and find significant (20-50%) discounts. And, in the end, I chose an AMD system since I've seen credible benchmarks which suggest they provide significantly better performance/$, especially under 64-bit Linux, which I use exclusively.
There are something like 7 total models from Apple (somewhat customizable). There must be 100 different models commonly available from big-name PC vendors, and thousands more from lesser-known vendors. By keeping Mac to themselves, they're killing the potential market for their products by pigeonholing themselves in a few niches (some of which I find questionable, like the Mac Mini).
If you want a Rollsroyce for a Car you are not going to find many off the shelf parts at your local garage. and you are going to pay more for such a car. But that doesn't mean I have to hate Rollsroyce. And say my Toyota is far superior to that Rollsroyce just because I can get parts for my Toyota easier. Gosh, there's nothing like a car analogy to suck the intelligence out of any Slashdot discussion.
So far I've seen Windows compared to everything from a Pinto to a hulking SUV, and everything from fuel economy to FWD/RWD used to rationalize the analogy. Wheee, what fun!:-)
Correction, the open source Realtek driver (r818x) is broken. I cannot get my Realtek to work with it. Nor does it work with the latest version of the Windows driver and multiple versions of ndiswrapper. The r818x driver is on Ubuntu's blacklist (/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist) because of its sad state. Seams that the open source driver is not supported anymore. I strongly recommend people not to purchase Realtek based cards. That is true, the r818x driver is most certainly broken. Though it is *NOT* for lack of specs and information from Realtek, which actually provided a lot of support. It is mainly that the maintainer of the Realtek drivers stopped working on them and nobody picked it up again until very recently. There is now active development ongoing at: http://rtl-wifi.sf.net/
That graph is entertaining. All studio art majors were not virgins... That cracked me up too! Those dirty, dirty art sluts... and in college we always wondered what they really did in all those late nights they supposedly had to work in the studios.
That being said, an article with graph captions like "Odds of ever had intercourse" does not give me great confidence in its results:-)
If you care about having high-quality open-source drivers for your wireless card, it's a no-brainer... go with Ralink or Realtek-based cards, since those companies have gone out of their way to provide specs and help write drivers. Or even Atheros or Intel, which have also worked hard to satisfy the open-source communities, though both have kept a proprietary core out of regulatory compliance worries (that's what OpenHAL is about, replacing the proprietary core of the Atheros drivers).
But *definitely* don't choose Broadcom if you want open-source drivers. They haven't lifted a finger or provided a single spec to help the open-source community. The imperfect state of bcm43xx drivers is thanks to the arduous and time-consuming task of reverse engineering. That it works well for a lot of people is a testament to the incredible talent and hard work of the bcm43xx developers, and I for one am very thankful to them.
By the way, this site is a really useful database of wireless support under Linux. You can look up a specific brand and model of wireless card and find out what chipset it uses and how well it's supported.
Slashdot Mirror
Richard Stallman has said that he doesn't believe copyright is *allowed* to place USAGE restrictions on software (as opposed to REDISTRIBUTION restrictions). And, accordingly, no GPL programs place any restrictions on their output... even when that output is a new program.
s/[i][/i]/
Hehehe, that's a really good point :-) How much faster does PCC run when built with the (optimizing!) GCC compiler, as opposed to itself... which barely does any optimization.
My favorite non-bloated apps are Gnumeric (spreadsheet), orpie (awesome RPN calculator), and Liferea (feed reader). Also GAIM/Pidgin, which in my opinion has done an amazing job of maintaining and improving a simple interface while becoming very versatile in terms of the protocols that it supports.
:-)
On an aside... anyone remember how Firefox was originally supposed to be a NON-bloated browser? Maybe it still is, in comparison to IE, but I load it down with so many extensions and plugins and gizmos that it doesn't seem that way anymore
When I worked at Parametric (CAD software), development was mostly done on SGI and Solaris, and then ported everywhere else. No one wanted to touch the IBM or HP hardware. Interesting. I've been in grad school and out of the industry loop since 2003 (hope to get back into it though...). I guess it's no surprise that Linux has taken over.
I can understand why Sun hardware was preferred to AIX stuff, which I've loathed in my brief contact. I far preferred the SGI keyboards myself.
I can't access their website with Firefox at all. The little spinny thing just keeps spinning and then it says "Problem loading page." Wow, that's amazing, these guys are *GOOD*.
I guess I better reinstall Windows and switch back to Internet Explorer.
Political solutions to technical problems... as pathetic and ineffectual as ever :-) What a complete non-starter.
If this "grassroots" Firefox-blocking effort takes off, we'll soon have a Firefox extension to spoof the IE UserAgent on any of the sites that blocks Firefox. Oh wait!!! It already exists, and I'll bet with a little work it could be automated to spoof based on a database of anti-Firefox sites. Of course, all the savvy Firefox users will use this to avoid the block, and only our hapless grandmothers--who don't use Adblock anyway--will be stuck wondering why the Internet doesn't work. And absolutely NOTHING will have been accomplished.
Our interconnected world is increasingly resistant to petty, arbitrary restrictions. Just witness the rise of region-free DVD players, modchips, and third-party ink cartridges... and the ridiculous, heavy-handed responses of the **AA, the game companies, and the printer manufacturers.
Solaris : Applications are written here, and ported elsewhere. It appears to be the defacto king of VAR/OEM software for Unix. Zones: Great, though BSD had 'em first. ZFS: New, but a good start. Interesting. I worked in 2001-2002 for a small software company (which had just been bought by a larger company, but that is mostly irrelevant). Our company had developed its products for and under Solaris, exclusively, starting in the early 90s... when I guess Sun offered cheap and good options for developer-friendly workstations. I was in diapers coding in QuickBasic at the time
The company was switching largely from Solaris to Linux and Windows, and there were some bumps (such as the fact that our software's audio drivers hadn't been ported to Linux yet). But basically, Linux was way better for development work than Solaris, even in 2001. It could run much faster on a cheapo cobbled-together x86 box than Solaris on our aging hardware. The Solaris boxes all used bulky, expensive external SCSI drives and nobody in our office was able to do RAM upgrades. The CDE GUI was pretty crummy. The one thing I *did* love about the Sun workstations was the keyboards. I set up all those extra keys on the Type 5 keyboard to do nifty shortcuts in Emacs.
So, is the use of Solaris for product development based on inertia? Or is there some actual reason to prefer it even today? I can see it being decent on x86 hardware, where upgrades aren't so monstrously expensive and cumbersome, although I've heard driver support is spotty. AIX: LVM. That's about it. Best disk management tools in the world, and has been since I started using it in 97.
HP-UX: Dogshit. Nuff said. Heh... I'd been wondering about HP-UX. Never used it. AIX I used briefly in a university Unix Lab, on some gawdawful PC-like workstation thingies. I was already using Linux heavily at the time and I wasn't much impressed by AIX's horrible default shell, and craptastic X server. Linux: The bastard Frankenstein of the Unix world. Runs everywhere, runs reliably (I haven't had a non-hardware based panic since 1999. The driver binary issue can be a PITA sometimes. Pretty much how I feel. There is almost nothing that I might want to do with my computer that Linux doesn't do BEST. But I haven't had to manage it in any large installations.
Those darn theorists! I'm in grad school right now doing experimental physics research, and sometimes I'm driven to distraction by the fascinating but untestable things that theorists come up with. Your premise is correct in that the possibility of something doesn't make it real but given the vastness of space I'd say the likelihood is pretty good that something like this at least both has occurred and is still occurring somewhere out there. That sounds dangerously close to the infinite monkey theorem
And any research that discovers/invents alternative architectures for life may tell how they could possibly work. Indeed. But what I am pointing out is that the research in question only provides a possible architecture for life (one of an infinite number), and doesn't in my mind present a clear vision for how we'd actually find out if such life exists or has existed. It's similar to what's called a non-constructive proof in math.
After all, this is just a computer model of some possible arrangements of particles. Even if the model is perfectly correct, it doesn't mean these living dust particles are actually out there in the universe.
For example, a computer model could tell you that a 12-foot tall flightless bird would thrive in New Zealand, and it would be right... except that they don't exist (having been hunted to extinction a few centuries ago).
Computer-simulated life is very exciting and cool, and can help scientists understand the evolution of living things (such as with the Avida system). But it can't PROVE that a particular kind of life actually exists in the natural world.
On the other hand, I have heard that the non-x86 processor families (SPARC, PPC, MIPS, etc.) use some innovative chipsets, so it might be advantageous to be able to use a SPARC processor on a motherboard with a completely different chipset as well.
What I was getting at, basically, is that there's no reason why the PC platform has to be x86-only! The only thing that WAS holding it back is the closed-source nature of the Windows operating system and most applications... case in point: 5 years after x86-64 was introduced, nearly all PCs use 64-bit processors, and yet 64-bit Windows is hopelessly lacking in native applications and drivers. On the other hand, Linux and FreeBSD both had x86-64 ports available before the processors were even available for purchase. I run Ubuntu 64-bit and it works great.
If I could buy a SPARC or MIPS or PPC board that could be physically and electrically integrated into my current PC, I'd definitely give it a try! There's actually not a lot to it... produce a motherboard that conforms to the ATX physical specifications with the right power connector, and include some of the on-board peripherals that PC users have come to expect: ethernet, audio, IDE and SATA controllers.
Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, there were similar things, though unfortunately never popular: PowerPC-based PC platforms and Alpha-based PC platforms. I believe that with the increased prevalence of open-source, this is an idea whose time has come!
Exxon would be fucked! Putting a Niagara on an ATX board is nothing like using water in your gas tank
It would just require making a Niagara board of the appropriate size with the right power connectors, and the PCI/PCIe slots in the positions that PC users expect. When the PowerPC first came out, IBM envisioned that people would build computers with PC-type peripherals but PowerPC processors, so they developed the PowerPC Reference Platform! It never took off commercially, unfortunately, but there's no technical reason why something similar couldn't be done with SPARC/MIPS/PPC/ARM-based boards today.
Indeed! I'm saying it'd be nice if I could take that chip and slap it in my commodity PC, using my existing drives, PSU, wireless card, etc. Because right now, you can only get a Niagara system by buying it complete from Sun, which means paying a lotta markup on all the other components.
It'd be great if you could buy drop-in ATX boards with SPARC/MIPS/PowerPC/whatever processors. That might lead to the rapid demise of x86 if they performed well!
...If they put THESE under the GPL, along with the T1, they'd be getting more press than they could imagine. If they used these a bit more aggressively - such as using them as a graphics processor on a PC - they'd be getting some amazing press. If they keep them locked in a server closet, it's only then that nobody will care. I for one wish that they'd slap the UltraSPARC Niagara and its chipset on a standard ATX motherboard with PCI and PCI-Express support.There'd be a Linux port in practically no time, and I know a bunch of us Linux power users would adopt that setup in no time... cheap commodity hardware coupled with a high-throughput RISC processor would be great for desktop multitasking, software development, file serving, etc.
My G4 is getting to the stage where I'm feeling I could probably do with a replacement, but generally it's no hardship to use (everything up to and including a little light Adobe Creative Suite) - if push came to shove, it would just keep motoring on. The Dell is just fine for webbrowsing/email/OO.o plus the odd Windows game. The Mac Mini's performance *spanks* everything else in the house by about an order of magnitude, most oviously measurable in terms of BOINC unit throughput. Well... you're comparing a Core Duo to a G4 and a PIII
I personally do a lot of scientific number compilation and software development, and the faster processor is important to me for reasons that I like to think are unrelated to ego. For example, I typically go for one of the lowest speed grades of processors, since I think they offer better value with only slightly less performance.
Hahaha. Yeah, that's just what I'm talking about! A pretty funny quote... with a bit of googling I found out what episode it was from: The Frying Game. I gotta watch that!
I want a computer with a fast processor, big hard disk, and lots of RAM. I don't care about 3D video, case styling, or anything else that isn't standard on all computers. I don't give a flip about service or support, I know much more about hardware than any tech I've talked to. I want it to be a snap to upgrade, so I can bump up the RAM or add a 3D video card or a wireless card or another NIC if I need one.
I got a nice Athlon 64 box from Acer for about $600, with 19" LCD monitor, printer, and a decent kbd and mouse. The attention to details was amazing good: the case had a nice screwless design making it a snap to upgrade. There was onboard Firewire, optical SPD/IF, and Gigabit LAN (not 10/100). There were two spare RAM slots. Linux supported the built in memory-card reader.
Apple just doesn't cater to me... at all. I couldn't get anything like that from them... the closest thing is the pathetic Mac Mini which costs about $600 with no monitor/keyboard/mouse/printer, and is seriously underpowered and limited in upgradability. The *only* tower-case system they sell is the hugely powerful and hugely expensive Mac Pro.
Apple may be (somewhat) competitive in the very limited range of systems they offer. But it *is* limited. And even in that range I'd say they're overpriced. For my recent laptop purchase, I seriously considered Apple vs. Dell Core 2 Duo systems. The retail prices were competitive. Except nobody pays the full price for the Dells, they go to Edealinfo.com or something and find significant (20-50%) discounts. And, in the end, I chose an AMD system since I've seen credible benchmarks which suggest they provide significantly better performance/$, especially under 64-bit Linux, which I use exclusively.
There are something like 7 total models from Apple (somewhat customizable). There must be 100 different models commonly available from big-name PC vendors, and thousands more from lesser-known vendors. By keeping Mac to themselves, they're killing the potential market for their products by pigeonholing themselves in a few niches (some of which I find questionable, like the Mac Mini).
So far I've seen Windows compared to everything from a Pinto to a hulking SUV, and everything from fuel economy to FWD/RWD used to rationalize the analogy. Wheee, what fun!
I'm afraid you all have it completely wrong...
Windows is like a mid-size luxury SUV. Apple is like a Fox Terrier. And Ubuntu is like a Pomegranate. Except, not in the *same* analogy, of course.
Don't you get it now?
See their History page for more info on the drivers: http://rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net/wiki/History
That being said, an article with graph captions like "Odds of ever had intercourse" does not give me great confidence in its results
If you care about having high-quality open-source drivers for your wireless card, it's a no-brainer... go with Ralink or Realtek-based cards, since those companies have gone out of their way to provide specs and help write drivers. Or even Atheros or Intel, which have also worked hard to satisfy the open-source communities, though both have kept a proprietary core out of regulatory compliance worries (that's what OpenHAL is about, replacing the proprietary core of the Atheros drivers).
But *definitely* don't choose Broadcom if you want open-source drivers. They haven't lifted a finger or provided a single spec to help the open-source community. The imperfect state of bcm43xx drivers is thanks to the arduous and time-consuming task of reverse engineering. That it works well for a lot of people is a testament to the incredible talent and hard work of the bcm43xx developers, and I for one am very thankful to them.
By the way, this site is a really useful database of wireless support under Linux. You can look up a specific brand and model of wireless card and find out what chipset it uses and how well it's supported.
Yeah, what isn't decent about bcm43xx? Works great for me... and is very near to becoming feature-complete with respect to the Windoze drivers.