If I remember correctly, one of the major features of OpenGL 2.0 was going to be a high level language and compiler that would compile down to low level pixel and vertex shader assembly. And, if I'm not mistaken, nVidia was one of the biggest contributers to this language. Has nVidia decided to just screw OpenGL altogether? Or is this a temporary equivalent for the time being while we're still using OpenGl 1.2?
I agree that UNIX needs ACLs. However several of the major commercial UNIXs have supported ACLs out of the box for a while (most noteably Solaris and AIX). No none of the Linux distros use ACLs, but there is a kernel patch out there, and even if you don't feel like monkeying around with your kernel, version 2.6 (and distributions based on it) will use ACLs as the primary security model (from what I've read rwx security will actually be implemented on top of ACLs). And as for LDAP, if you have the right tools LDAP is a beautiful thing. And if you don't have nice tools....its very scriptable.
The problem with defining a standard for how 3d hardware works is that we haven't really decided how much 3d hardware is supposed to do. Even with opengl as a standard interface, cards implemented drastically different amounts of it. Even rediculously complex cards like the Geforce 4 implement large portions in software. The key is to just implement the parts that will enhance speed in hardware. And with opengl extensions and new directX versions, they're implementing new features that existing apis didn't even have, instead of implementing more of the api, because these new features help games more. If you remember, 2d cards weren't always VESA compliant. You used to have to configure every game for each individual card, and each game implememted its own drivers. But at some point people realized that there wasn't too much more that 2d cards could do, so they standardized them. You'll have to wait awhile before 3d matures to that point.
On a similar note, I've always wanted one of these things just to act as a handheld Xterminal for my desktop machine. I think for this purpose processors like the crusoe are ideal.
The directX on linux isn't what's being announced here. That's been out for months (though its still being worked on), and for the games it works on it's great. In particular I run counterstrike on linux at almost the same speed it runs in windows. It doesn't work with all games yet, but once you're a subscriber you get access to monthly updates and you get to vote on what game they get working next. I'm a subscriber (its really cheap, just $5 a month at the basic level), and I really want more people to support this company. So if you want to support games on Linux, join up!
The issue with the platform specific apis like directX is where transgaming comes in. They have specifically extended wine to include a reimplementation of the directX apis. They've also done it in a completely clean room manner. So if you take winex and compile it for your target platform, then run your game through transitive's converter and link to winex, you have a new effectively native game.
Actually mplayer plays windows media with purely open source code now. Windows media is close enough to mpeg4 (its actually a bastardized version of it) that openly available mpeg4 codecs can handle it fine. mplayer can still use the win32 codecs as a backup however.
On the other hand at this point it's almost impossible to get fired in a federal job. I know this from experience (I worked a couple summers at the Library of Congress IT department). No one did anything there. Half of the people there weren't even qualified for their jobs. But there is so much pressure on the managers not to cause a lawsuit that no one ever gets fired. And this pressure is real. One guy that was in my department hadn't done ANYTHING for the past 15 years. I'm not exagerating with the anything remark. He just sat around, every single day. Came in to work on time. Left on time. Went to every meeting. Never did a damn thing for work though. They tried to fire him many years back and he sued for discrimination against the elderly (he was in his 60s). They tried it a few more times, even tried to force him to retire with full pension. He just kept suing. So to this day he still works there.
It all depends on what kind of machine you want to host the passwords on, and how much functionality you want on the clients. If you're okay with using a UNIX machine for the server, then the most optimal solution is to put either an LDAP or NIS server on there (personally I'd suggest LDAP but that's a matter of preference) and have UNIX machines authenticate off of that. Then you also put Samba on the server an use it to create an NT domain. Then with a clever stacking of PAM modules on the server side you can make it so that any password change requests for either LDAP or Samba propagate to the other. This does require you to create each account twice (once in the LDAP directory and once in the smbpasswd file), but its a one time hassle. On the other hand, if you're forced to use Windows on the server (maybe Samba doesn't quite do the domain tricks you want it to), then there is a PAM module distributed with the samba project called pam_smb. It should work on any PAM enabled UNIX and should allow you to log into UNIX machines using domain usernames (as long as samba is installed on the unix machine and configured to be part of the domain).
Quake3 doesn't use java, it uses a bytecompiled version of strait C called quakeC. And that's only for game logic. Engine code is written, not in assembler but strait C as well. If they wrote it in assembler then they'd never have the ports to all the systems that they have.
That was kind of what I meant. Sorry for being vague. And the Power4 is only 2 cpu's on one die, with four of those chips being used on one NUMA module in IBMs biggest machines. The individual chips aren't THAT expensive. Even so, most likely they'd just have IBM make a scaled down version (like they did with the first powerpcs which were a scaled down version of the POWER architechture). Still, the apple using power4s for the G5 was just a rumor, nothing's come of it yet.
Actually the PowerPC is a processor designed by IBM for their RS/6000 class of machines. When apple decided to base macs off of them IBM gave motorola a licence to manufacture them for apple. Until the G4 the mac/motorola versions were direct copies of the IBMs (603 and 604 were models of RS/6000 and the G3 was actually a direct copy of the IBM Power 750). The G4 however was the first branch that motorola made (altivec was completely their creation). At the same time IBM was developing the Power4 which is completely different. The whole infamous screwup didn't lead ibm to make the g4s, it prompted apple to consider the Power4 to be the G5 (nothing has come of it yet).
Sed is a UNIX command that's mostly used for automated search and replace like editing of text files (to other unix heads who are screaming now, I know its more than that but I'm trying to simplify). It has a programming language built into it but its really cryptic and not nearly as usefull as the regexp search replace feature and so the vast majority of people don't use it, and writing a game out of it is just masochistic (somewhat like the guy that wrote a webserver in postscript). He didn't describe what it was because to anyone who's used unix its almost second nature. Too often people forget that a windows user or whatnot wouldn't have any exposure to such things.
No, but the R&D that went into developing those hacks needs a return on investment. Because most people don't use MP systems it isn't fair to pass that return onto the normal customers. So the multi-processor customers pay a bit extra to finance multi-processor research at AMD.
Bluetooth is *not* 802.11b. 802.11b is the equivalent of wireless ethernet, very high speed, very low latency, and collisions. That collisions thing is an important part. The more people you have on an 802.11b network, the slower it gets. In fact, it gets slower at an exponential rate thanks to the ethernet collision back off algorithm.
Bluetooth on the other hand isn't near as fast as 802.11b, and is a completely different protocal designed with the sole purpose of being easy to manufacture chips for (so that a bluetooth chip can realisticly be in every device in your home). They do both however use frequencies in the 2.4ghz range, though I believe separate parts of that range.
Speaking as a software tester that's done compiler work, one of the first tests for any compiler is to compile itself, and then use the newly compiled compiler to compile itself again. Then you look at the two binaries. If they're exactly the same the compiler passes the test.
I just escaped DC last year. I grew up in that pit of a city and last year successfully escaped to a job in Seattle (a really great place to live if anyone is interested). Well, two months ago I got laid off and now I'm watching all the jobs here slowly dissapear and companies are moving away one by one. And where are they moving to? ARGH! I really don't want to go back to DC......
Actually that's a rip off of a Gnome theme that was meant to test the Vector capabilities of nautilus.
Not necessarily a rip off though....its named the same. I guess just a port.
Slashdot Mirror
If I remember correctly, one of the major features of OpenGL 2.0 was going to be a high level language and compiler that would compile down to low level pixel and vertex shader assembly. And, if I'm not mistaken, nVidia was one of the biggest contributers to this language. Has nVidia decided to just screw OpenGL altogether? Or is this a temporary equivalent for the time being while we're still using OpenGl 1.2?
I agree that UNIX needs ACLs. However several of the major commercial UNIXs have supported ACLs out of the box for a while (most noteably Solaris and AIX). No none of the Linux distros use ACLs, but there is a kernel patch out there, and even if you don't feel like monkeying around with your kernel, version 2.6 (and distributions based on it) will use ACLs as the primary security model (from what I've read rwx security will actually be implemented on top of ACLs). And as for LDAP, if you have the right tools LDAP is a beautiful thing. And if you don't have nice tools....its very scriptable.
The problem with defining a standard for how 3d hardware works is that we haven't really decided how much 3d hardware is supposed to do. Even with opengl as a standard interface, cards implemented drastically different amounts of it. Even rediculously complex cards like the Geforce 4 implement large portions in software. The key is to just implement the parts that will enhance speed in hardware. And with opengl extensions and new directX versions, they're implementing new features that existing apis didn't even have, instead of implementing more of the api, because these new features help games more.
If you remember, 2d cards weren't always VESA compliant. You used to have to configure every game for each individual card, and each game implememted its own drivers. But at some point people realized that there wasn't too much more that 2d cards could do, so they standardized them.
You'll have to wait awhile before 3d matures to that point.
On a similar note, I've always wanted one of these things just to act as a handheld Xterminal for my desktop machine. I think for this purpose processors like the crusoe are ideal.
The directX on linux isn't what's being announced here. That's been out for months (though its still being worked on), and for the games it works on it's great. In particular I run counterstrike on linux at almost the same speed it runs in windows. It doesn't work with all games yet, but once you're a subscriber you get access to monthly updates and you get to vote on what game they get working next. I'm a subscriber (its really cheap, just $5 a month at the basic level), and I really want more people to support this company. So if you want to support games on Linux, join up!
The issue with the platform specific apis like directX is where transgaming comes in. They have specifically extended wine to include a reimplementation of the directX apis. They've also done it in a completely clean room manner. So if you take winex and compile it for your target platform, then run your game through transitive's converter and link to winex, you have a new effectively native game.
Galeon supports it. In fact galeon will use your gnome default mail handler (if its set). Which nicely pops up an Evolution send window for me.
Actually using Evolution with and Exchange server if you install Ximian Connector works great. Haven't noticed a feature missing yet.
Actually mplayer plays windows media with purely open source code now. Windows media is close enough to mpeg4 (its actually a bastardized version of it) that openly available mpeg4 codecs can handle it fine. mplayer can still use the win32 codecs as a backup however.
On the other hand at this point it's almost impossible to get fired in a federal job. I know this from experience (I worked a couple summers at the Library of Congress IT department). No one did anything there. Half of the people there weren't even qualified for their jobs. But there is so much pressure on the managers not to cause a lawsuit that no one ever gets fired. And this pressure is real. One guy that was in my department hadn't done ANYTHING for the past 15 years. I'm not exagerating with the anything remark. He just sat around, every single day. Came in to work on time. Left on time. Went to every meeting. Never did a damn thing for work though. They tried to fire him many years back and he sued for discrimination against the elderly (he was in his 60s). They tried it a few more times, even tried to force him to retire with full pension. He just kept suing. So to this day he still works there.
The fastest pci gets is 66mhz 64bit. Thats 64 bits per clock cycle, 66M clocks per second....4.224 Gigabits. I'd say thats a little higher than 1 Gb.
It all depends on what kind of machine you want to host the passwords on, and how much functionality you want on the clients. If you're okay with using a UNIX machine for the server, then the most optimal solution is to put either an LDAP or NIS server on there (personally I'd suggest LDAP but that's a matter of preference) and have UNIX machines authenticate off of that. Then you also put Samba on the server an use it to create an NT domain. Then with a clever stacking of PAM modules on the server side you can make it so that any password change requests for either LDAP or Samba propagate to the other. This does require you to create each account twice (once in the LDAP directory and once in the smbpasswd file), but its a one time hassle.
On the other hand, if you're forced to use Windows on the server (maybe Samba doesn't quite do the domain tricks you want it to), then there is a PAM module distributed with the samba project called pam_smb. It should work on any PAM enabled UNIX and should allow you to log into UNIX machines using domain usernames (as long as samba is installed on the unix machine and configured to be part of the domain).
Yes you can use the TV but only after its been booted up the first time through VGA. After installation you can configure it to use the TV.
Still....point was the lack of java
Quake3 doesn't use java, it uses a bytecompiled version of strait C called quakeC. And that's only for game logic. Engine code is written, not in assembler but strait C as well. If they wrote it in assembler then they'd never have the ports to all the systems that they have.
That was kind of what I meant. Sorry for being vague. And the Power4 is only 2 cpu's on one die, with four of those chips being used on one NUMA module in IBMs biggest machines. The individual chips aren't THAT expensive. Even so, most likely they'd just have IBM make a scaled down version (like they did with the first powerpcs which were a scaled down version of the POWER architechture). Still, the apple using power4s for the G5 was just a rumor, nothing's come of it yet.
Actually the PowerPC is a processor designed by IBM for their RS/6000 class of machines. When apple decided to base macs off of them IBM gave motorola a licence to manufacture them for apple. Until the G4 the mac/motorola versions were direct copies of the IBMs (603 and 604 were models of RS/6000 and the G3 was actually a direct copy of the IBM Power 750). The G4 however was the first branch that motorola made (altivec was completely their creation). At the same time IBM was developing the Power4 which is completely different. The whole infamous screwup didn't lead ibm to make the g4s, it prompted apple to consider the Power4 to be the G5 (nothing has come of it yet).
Sed is a UNIX command that's mostly used for automated search and replace like editing of text files (to other unix heads who are screaming now, I know its more than that but I'm trying to simplify). It has a programming language built into it but its really cryptic and not nearly as usefull as the regexp search replace feature and so the vast majority of people don't use it, and writing a game out of it is just masochistic (somewhat like the guy that wrote a webserver in postscript). He didn't describe what it was because to anyone who's used unix its almost second nature. Too often people forget that a windows user or whatnot wouldn't have any exposure to such things.
No, but the R&D that went into developing those hacks needs a return on investment. Because most people don't use MP systems it isn't fair to pass that return onto the normal customers. So the multi-processor customers pay a bit extra to finance multi-processor research at AMD.
Bluetooth is *not* 802.11b. 802.11b is the equivalent of wireless ethernet, very high speed, very low latency, and collisions. That collisions thing is an important part. The more people you have on an 802.11b network, the slower it gets. In fact, it gets slower at an exponential rate thanks to the ethernet collision back off algorithm.
Bluetooth on the other hand isn't near as fast as 802.11b, and is a completely different protocal designed with the sole purpose of being easy to manufacture chips for (so that a bluetooth chip can realisticly be in every device in your home).
They do both however use frequencies in the 2.4ghz range, though I believe separate parts of that range.
I've tested compilers. It's not really that complex.
Speaking as a software tester that's done compiler work, one of the first tests for any compiler is to compile itself, and then use the newly compiled compiler to compile itself again. Then you look at the two binaries. If they're exactly the same the compiler passes the test.
What about former DC residents that were raised to make fun of Baltimorons?
I just escaped DC last year. I grew up in that pit of a city and last year successfully escaped to a job in Seattle (a really great place to live if anyone is interested). Well, two months ago I got laid off and now I'm watching all the jobs here slowly dissapear and companies are moving away one by one. And where are they moving to? ARGH! I really don't want to go back to DC......
Actually that's a rip off of a Gnome theme that was meant to test the Vector capabilities of nautilus.
Not necessarily a rip off though....its named the same. I guess just a port.