I've also got the impression that WINE is a LAME joke. Unfortunately, are people who insist on the literal meaning, which is why I like to keep up the discussion.
An emulator, otoh, lets a piece of software think (if you'll excuse the anthropomorphism)that it is running on windows while it is using a different API.
Finally, for the semantically pedantic: yes, recent versions of Dosbox also have a "dynamic" execution mode which tries to do the same that wine does. Naturally, it only works when running Dosbox on x86-compatible hardware.
QEMU does this too, as does any decent virtualization system. So emulation means translation between different kinds of hardware?
Heck, you could say that Dosemu, QEMU, MAME etc. are not emulators. They are merely providing a compatibility layer, so that you can run non-native software. I guess the Winos are arguing that their layer is particularly thin, and decide to draw the line there.
Having worked with a couple of patents, I must say I prefer them over copyrights, and I'd like to see a new copyright system modeled after them. For a few examples, patents
only limit commercial use
must specify what aspects of the work are covered, instead of the whole hog
have a limited lifespan of about 20 years
cost money and time to get (not necessarily a good thing for small businesses and individuals)
are intended to encourage the publishing of ideas, so the "source code" of the work must be published along with the patent
IMHO, the biggest reason is to give a clear message that you don't want Windows. People are scrapping their default Windows installs for Linux all the time, but this won't change the huge market share of Windows, which in turn affects hardware and software makers.
I've already said this about a dozen times on/., but here goes anyway;)
In 2001 I worked at CERN, writing simulation and analysis software on a dual P3 machine. The language was Fortran 90, and the compiler made use of SIMD (MMX/SSE) on both processors to parallelize matrix algebra.
The parallelism was abstracted away quite nicely, just as the article suggested. There was probably some thread/process creation under the hood to make use of both CPUs, but the calculations were basically SIMD in nature. F90 handles matrix math natively, so there's no guesswork involved with the "parallelizing" compiler. (I put that in quotes, because the code is already parallel, unlike loops in C.)
There's a lot of processing that has this SIMD-like parallelism, for example sound and video work, and with the correct tools it's easy to expand SIMD from one CPU to many.
The article is about Fresnel zone plates, which are quite different from lenses. You can use any opaque material to make a FZP, whereas a lens must be made of transparent material.
Say what you want about the command line and editing the config file, and how users shouldn't have to do it, but at least the option is available. Any idea if the same can be done under windows? It's the same reason why so many forums are filled with directions on how to accomplish stuff over the command line.
Also, it's a lot easier to give a commandline answer in a forum post, on IRC, etc. than explain the same thing with a GUI.
I'd also like to nitpick about the general notation of fractions. I've learned that 1/50 is pronounced "one fiftieth", or perhaps "one over fifty".
Thus, 1/50th means "one over fiftieth" or 1/(1/50) = 50, not quite what was intended.
Maybe this is one of those things I'll never understand as a non-native English speaker, like the cases where a double negative means single negative. Writing "1/50th of a cent" is likewise redundant, if you mean "1/50 of a cent".
All in all, I think that outside of embedded disks, the CPU time we spend on our storage isn't really relevant. At this point, doing some simple lzo compression may actually improve performance, as you're still going to be faster than the disk is, and reading less raw data from the disk takes less time.
I've been thinking about such compression lately, since TuxOnIce (Linux's alternative hibernation system) uses LZF for faster saving and restoring of memory contents. LZO is even faster than that, probably unnoticeable in normal use.
However, having used such compression schemes back in my DOS days (SuperStor et al), I recall one inherent problem. The compression ratios aren't easily predicted, so the effective free space is unknown, and depends on the kind of data. This is exaggerated now that a lot of music/film data is already compressed, and we also have XML and similar types that compress easily.
Then again, this is not a problem for read-only filesystems. Also, decompression is usually much faster than compression. Linux's zisofs is a nice example I've used, though with modern tools like LZMA you could probably improve the compression ratio further.
Back in my day, we used the arrow and PgUp/Dn keys for scrolling. Oh, wait, you can still do that.
Since this whole article is one huge flamebait, I'd like to point out that scrollwheels are redundant at best, and annoying at worst. Middle clicking for X11-style paste is no longer your usual mouse click; it's a carefully balanced act of agility, trying to click it without scrolling.
The redundant aspect of the mouse wheel is probably due to the Windows mindset of trying to do everything with the mouse. Since it's pretty limited to begin with, more buttons and widgets have to be incorporated into the once humble three-buttoner. I'm sure there will be a mouse with 100 buttons some day, so that Windows users can ditch the keyboard altogether, because everything is obviously easier when you just use the mouse.
The Core Duo is not based on the Core microarchitecture, the Core Duo is just 2 Pentium-Ms fused together and does not include 64-bit support. The Core 2 Duo is the first CPU to use the Core microarchitecture and includes 64-bit support.
Where do you draw the line between incremental upgrades and new architectures? The Core 2 is not completely new, it's an updated and extended (as in "64-bit extensions") version of the Core, which is almost but not quite the same as Pentium M. Which in turn is basically a Pentium III with the frontend taken from Pentium 4.
Adding a DVI port would probably raise the cost by $5-$10, a real no-no on a extremely low cost product. Also many projectors only have VGA. (Which BTW is about the only reason you see an external monitor connector on a laptop anymore.)
Well, of course DVI connectors are expensive if nobody uses them. They should be everywhere now, preferably the kind that also carries VGA signals, for those analog projectors.
I've used laptops as my main workstations since about 1997, and I've found that they are generally higher quality than desktop hardware. I think it's because you can't easily add or replace parts, so they have to be good quality. Also the choice of connectors is crucial, to get maximum use out of a limited selection.
This is obviously a problem for these new low-cost laptops. Also, my "small business" laptop bought in 2005 has a VGA output, though otherwise it's great quality.
I've compared CPU clock frequency to the RPM in engines. Both of them measure the number of basic operation cycles per unit time. However, what exactly happens in a cycle is left open. When other things are equal, more RPM/GHz means higher performance. In practice, it's rare to find such accurate comparisons, due to the multitude of those other factors.
Box - boxen makes sense as a Germanic plural, so there is some geek humour value. Similarly, you could use fake Latin inflexion to note that singular -us is often pluralized as -i. So virus would be pluralized as viri. Not "virii", as many people keep suggesting for reasons I can never understand.
Unfortunately, "virus - viri" is not technically correct, since virus is not really singular. IIRC, viri is the plurar of vir, meaning man.
Slashdot Mirror
I've also got the impression that WINE is a LAME joke. Unfortunately, are people who insist on the literal meaning, which is why I like to keep up the discussion.
Which is exactly what Wine does.
QEMU does this too, as does any decent virtualization system. So emulation means translation between different kinds of hardware?
Heck, you could say that Dosemu, QEMU, MAME etc. are not emulators. They are merely providing a compatibility layer, so that you can run non-native software. I guess the Winos are arguing that their layer is particularly thin, and decide to draw the line there.
Having worked with a couple of patents, I must say I prefer them over copyrights, and I'd like to see a new copyright system modeled after them. For a few examples, patents
IMHO, the biggest reason is to give a clear message that you don't want Windows. People are scrapping their default Windows installs for Linux all the time, but this won't change the huge market share of Windows, which in turn affects hardware and software makers.
If you like reveal codes, you'll probably love LaTeX.
No. I was also thinking of supermodels after the headline.
I've already said this about a dozen times on /., but here goes anyway ;)
In 2001 I worked at CERN, writing simulation and analysis software on a dual P3 machine. The language was Fortran 90, and the compiler made use of SIMD (MMX/SSE) on both processors to parallelize matrix algebra.
The parallelism was abstracted away quite nicely, just as the article suggested. There was probably some thread/process creation under the hood to make use of both CPUs, but the calculations were basically SIMD in nature. F90 handles matrix math natively, so there's no guesswork involved with the "parallelizing" compiler. (I put that in quotes, because the code is already parallel, unlike loops in C.)
There's a lot of processing that has this SIMD-like parallelism, for example sound and video work, and with the correct tools it's easy to expand SIMD from one CPU to many.
The article is about Fresnel zone plates, which are quite different from lenses. You can use any opaque material to make a FZP, whereas a lens must be made of transparent material.
He also invented a key idea of data processing while playing some music, namely the Al Gore Rhythm.
Also, it's a lot easier to give a commandline answer in a forum post, on IRC, etc. than explain the same thing with a GUI.
I'm a Hairy Hippie using the Horny Hardon, and I'm pissed off because neither of these codenames were accepted for the current release.
I'd also like to nitpick about the general notation of fractions. I've learned that 1/50 is pronounced "one fiftieth", or perhaps "one over fifty".
Thus, 1/50th means "one over fiftieth" or 1/(1/50) = 50, not quite what was intended.
Maybe this is one of those things I'll never understand as a non-native English speaker, like the cases where a double negative means single negative. Writing "1/50th of a cent" is likewise redundant, if you mean "1/50 of a cent".
It seems your 'R' key is a little wonky, though you managed to type 'for' correctly.
All in all, I think that outside of embedded disks, the CPU time we spend on our storage isn't really relevant. At this point, doing some simple lzo compression may actually improve performance, as you're still going to be faster than the disk is, and reading less raw data from the disk takes less time.
I've been thinking about such compression lately, since TuxOnIce (Linux's alternative hibernation system) uses LZF for faster saving and restoring of memory contents. LZO is even faster than that, probably unnoticeable in normal use.
However, having used such compression schemes back in my DOS days (SuperStor et al), I recall one inherent problem. The compression ratios aren't easily predicted, so the effective free space is unknown, and depends on the kind of data. This is exaggerated now that a lot of music/film data is already compressed, and we also have XML and similar types that compress easily.
Then again, this is not a problem for read-only filesystems. Also, decompression is usually much faster than compression. Linux's zisofs is a nice example I've used, though with modern tools like LZMA you could probably improve the compression ratio further.
Back in my day, we used the arrow and PgUp/Dn keys for scrolling. Oh, wait, you can still do that.
Since this whole article is one huge flamebait, I'd like to point out that scrollwheels are redundant at best, and annoying at worst. Middle clicking for X11-style paste is no longer your usual mouse click; it's a carefully balanced act of agility, trying to click it without scrolling.
The redundant aspect of the mouse wheel is probably due to the Windows mindset of trying to do everything with the mouse. Since it's pretty limited to begin with, more buttons and widgets have to be incorporated into the once humble three-buttoner. I'm sure there will be a mouse with 100 buttons some day, so that Windows users can ditch the keyboard altogether, because everything is obviously easier when you just use the mouse.
Where do you draw the line between incremental upgrades and new architectures? The Core 2 is not completely new, it's an updated and extended (as in "64-bit extensions") version of the Core, which is almost but not quite the same as Pentium M. Which in turn is basically a Pentium III with the frontend taken from Pentium 4.
Well, of course DVI connectors are expensive if nobody uses them. They should be everywhere now, preferably the kind that also carries VGA signals, for those analog projectors.
I've used laptops as my main workstations since about 1997, and I've found that they are generally higher quality than desktop hardware. I think it's because you can't easily add or replace parts, so they have to be good quality. Also the choice of connectors is crucial, to get maximum use out of a limited selection.
This is obviously a problem for these new low-cost laptops. Also, my "small business" laptop bought in 2005 has a VGA output, though otherwise it's great quality.
I presume the frequency of these oscillations is measured as "pogomips".
I've compared CPU clock frequency to the RPM in engines. Both of them measure the number of basic operation cycles per unit time. However, what exactly happens in a cycle is left open. When other things are equal, more RPM/GHz means higher performance. In practice, it's rare to find such accurate comparisons, due to the multitude of those other factors.
Huh.. I don't know that! Aaarrggh! *falls into the chasm*
But then I suppose some math genius is going to come along and claim we should be counting bogipigips because bogogips is just a marketing term.
Yeah, when bogopigs fly.
Box - boxen makes sense as a Germanic plural, so there is some geek humour value. Similarly, you could use fake Latin inflexion to note that singular -us is often pluralized as -i. So virus would be pluralized as viri. Not "virii", as many people keep suggesting for reasons I can never understand.
Unfortunately, "virus - viri" is not technically correct, since virus is not really singular. IIRC, viri is the plurar of vir, meaning man.
Meanwhile, here in Finland people still make a disgusting brewed drink from juniper berries.
Actually, sahti is made of barley quite like beer. Juniper berries are used as a flavouring/preservative instead of hops.