Ignore what I said about mwm, as the pager doesn't work that way after all, but as a virtual desktop.
DOH!
Not that difficult to code a 4-d WM
on
3D Window Manager
·
· Score: 2
Actually, you can in fact write a sort of 4-dimensional window manager. Here's how:
Most regular window managers have the concept of multiple 2-dimensional "workspaces" (which, being 2-dimensional, might better be called workplanes). Now, and in fact Enlightenment actually does this, you can think of these workspaces as stacked on top of each other, with z = n for workspace n. Changing workspaces would then mean setting the viewport so you view the plane z = n.
I might add that this system can in fact be thought of as 3-dimensional because it takes 3 numbers to specify completely a window's position in the environment.
Now, if you have a 3-dimensional workspace, and you have multiple workspaces you can select, then it will in fact take _four_ numbers to completely specify the window's location (workspace, x, y, z). Therefore, this is a FOUR-dimensional window manager!
Depending on how you number the workspaces in the (Mo/Less)tif window manager, it could also be a four-dimensional window manager. Numbering them as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
makes it three-dimensional. If, however, you take advantage of the fact that the pager is itself two-dimensional, you can number them as:
Then you need 4 numbers to specify the position of a window again, making the workspace 4-dimensional.
One last thing: depending on the workspace structure, windows that are presistent over all workspaces could be thought of as 3 or 4 dimensional themselves...
As far as visualizing 4-dimensional objects... the standard procedure is to show many 3-dimensional slices of it over time.
Note by this definition, space is 4-dimensional because you need the time, as well as X, Y, and Z coordinates, to locate things.
Rudy Rucker is probably the best at writing books about dimensions greater than 3. The two I know of are "Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality", which is out of print, and "The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes" which you can still get from Fatbrain.com.
I suggest you read his "The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes", which is in part about exactly what you claim is impossible, and also contains sections on curved space.
Also, Geomview's NDview does something of the sort. To be precise, it draws 2-dimensional projections of 3-dimensional projections of 4-dimensional strucures, and I believe you can even use more dimensions than 4.
It certainly seems to me at least that a LOT of Linux users want to see Linux invade the Windows market. That being said, I think it's clear that those users don't _want_ to read through more documentation, but want to be able to just turn on the system and point and click their way through their work.
Of course, to make Linux appeal to those people, it almost _has_ to be over-simplified. YOur average Windows user isn't going to want to edit every file in/etc/* by hand; they're going to want a graphical interface for everything.
I do agree with you though. I prefer to have more control and would think that a better "help" system would also be helpful. I'm kind of partial to something along the lines of Sun's AnswerBooks (a searchable HTML interface to most of the system documentation), but it has to be faster.
What I don't agree with is that the easier interface really removes power in the case of Linux, since if you want to you could always su and edit the configuration files manually.
In conclusion, I think the two approaches are not mutually exclusive: we should go ahead with the easier installation and configuration techniques for the novices, but also develop the documentation so that the novice can become an expert more easily.
1. My comment preferences "-1, nested, highest scored first" don't stick. But more important:
2. When I moderate, my total remains at 5! That means I could theoretically run through this entire thread, 5 at a time, and moderate everything either to +5 or -1.
What does X11 need root access for besides changing video modes?
As I understand it, on EROS you would just give X11 the capability to write the video hardware and use the network.
Assuming the kernel can grant that capability, of course...
As for wanting X11, EROS may actually have its own GUI, as the release notes mention that it does not _yet_ have a bitmapped interface and support is planned for Mach64 cards, along with some others.
In that case, X would probably work somewhat like the fbcon driver currently does: just make calls to the kernel driver.
2.Is it possible to run binaries from Linux or other UNIX systems under EROS?
Short Answer: Not yet, but it will be.
Longer Answer:
It's possible to build a UNIX environment that runs on top of EROS, and we intend to do so. That environment will run both conventional UNIX binaries and will also be able to access EROS-based services.
In fact, it will be possible to run multiple UNIX environments at once. If desired, each user can be given a UNIX system that they fully control and adminster, without compromising the security of the other UNIX environments on the machine.
So they're actually planning on doing this themselves. Actually, the interesting part is the last bit where you can give each user "root" without danger of them wrecking other people's work.
1. I think you got the two Oses reversed here, as Solaris scales to 64 processors I believe. Anyway, show me where Alan Cox says this.
2. Say it with me, folks:
THE OS IS AS SECURE AS THE ADMINISTRATOR IS COMPETENT!
NO sane administrator would use anything (except perhaps OpenBSD) out of the box. At the very minimum most of/etc/inetd.conf gets commented out. And not starting daemons you don't need helps too.
3. The focus shouldn't be "is it Open Source?", but rather "is it the best program that I can use now to fit my needs?"
Linux is a nice system for the "average" PC. But the BSDs are probably best for Web servers, and Solaris is probably best if you need a huge file server or database machine.
Solaris is definitely the wrong choice for home PCs, which have no SCSI and 1 processor, but it's not intended for that. Linux is.
4. The actual situation is more like this: Once the server machine gets big enough to warrant using Solaris on it, the price of the OS is a small fraction of the price of the entire system. And yes, for those machines (4 processors or more) Solaris may perform better (gasp!) than Linux.
5. I must be part of a different revolution than you. My revolution is against Microsoft. My revolution does not say, "Use GNU/Linux OR DIE!!!" My revolution says, "There is more to life than Microsoft products. There are better ways to compute. It's up to you to use the best product for you. It's just that we think you can do better than Microsoft products and would encourage you to research the alternatives."
Open Source is nice, but you have to figure a lot of people just won't _care_ whether they get source code or not, as long as the program works properly.
The SCSL to me seems to want to _enforce_ what tends to happen naturally in most Open Source projects: There is a "core" group of developers who approve or reject any changes the rest of the world make to the code.
Dunno what else they allow or disallow, because the SCSL is longer than most "normal" EULAs and I don't have the patience to read it.
I'm guessing on length alone, it's way more restrictive than the GPL.
Plus, unless Sun plans to pay people who submit patches, Bill Joy is flat-out lying when he says the SCSL allows people to profit from their code.
Wake up and realize linux is a collective piece of betaware
If it is betaware, it's the most stable beta I've ever seen.
#define SARCASM
Besides, I wonder when the first release will come out? Version number 3, perhaps?
#undef SARCASM
built on 30 year old tech
That's about the best compliment I can think of. NOTHING in the computer world lasts 30 years! Yet Unix has managed to do it.
I guess that means that in 30 years, no one has been able to do what Unix does better than Unix does it, or we wouldn't be using Unix now, would we?
that is not suitable for most desktops.
That's only because 99% of the people are used to either the Windows or Macintosh GUIs. I don't think the average user knows the look-and-feel of Gnome or KDE, simply because they aren't on display at Best Buy. (actually I prefer Window Maker or (gasp!) CDE myself, but that's a whole other story)
Yes, the millions (and millions!) of configuration files might confuse the average user, but configuration utilities WILL appear to ease the process.
A final word: Documentation is the key. Hint: WE need a "help" utility that searches the HowTOs, FAQs, and/or man pages (at the user's option, of course) for relevant data.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on your standard.
For me, "substandard" means "doesn't work." Therefore, Linux (2.2.13 anyway) is not substandard.
How come NOBODY uses cpio? YOu would think that at least one distro would use it simply because "it's there", but no...........
Ignore what I said about mwm, as the pager doesn't work that way after all, but as a virtual desktop.
DOH!
Actually, you can in fact write a sort of 4-dimensional window manager. Here's how:
Most regular window managers have the concept of multiple 2-dimensional "workspaces" (which, being 2-dimensional, might better be called workplanes). Now, and in fact Enlightenment actually does this, you can think of these workspaces as stacked on top of each other, with z = n for workspace n. Changing workspaces would then mean setting the viewport so you view the plane z = n.
I might add that this system can in fact be thought of as 3-dimensional because it takes 3 numbers to specify completely a window's position in the environment.
Now, if you have a 3-dimensional workspace, and you have multiple workspaces you can select, then it will in fact take _four_ numbers to completely specify the window's location (workspace, x, y, z). Therefore, this is a FOUR-dimensional window manager!
Depending on how you number the workspaces in the (Mo/Less)tif window manager, it could also be a four-dimensional window manager. Numbering them as:
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
makes it three-dimensional. If, however, you take advantage of the fact that the pager is itself two-dimensional, you can number them as:
(1,1) (1,2) (1,3)
(2,1) (2,2) (2,3)
(3,1) (3,2) (3,3)
Then you need 4 numbers to specify the position of a window again, making the workspace 4-dimensional.
One last thing: depending on the workspace structure, windows that are presistent over all workspaces could be thought of as 3 or 4 dimensional themselves...
As far as visualizing 4-dimensional objects... the standard procedure is to show many 3-dimensional slices of it over time.
Note by this definition, space is 4-dimensional because you need the time, as well as X, Y, and Z coordinates, to locate things.
Rudy Rucker is probably the best at writing books about dimensions greater than 3. The two I know of are "Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality", which is out of print, and "The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes" which you can still get from Fatbrain.com.
No 3 dimensional being... except Rudy Rucker!
I suggest you read his "The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes", which is in part about exactly what you claim is impossible, and also contains sections on curved space.
Also, Geomview's NDview does something of the sort. To be precise, it draws 2-dimensional projections of 3-dimensional projections of 4-dimensional strucures, and I believe you can even use more dimensions than 4.
It certainly seems to me at least that a LOT of Linux users want to see Linux invade the Windows market. That being said, I think it's clear that those users don't _want_ to read through more documentation, but want to be able to just turn on the system and point and click their way through their work.
/etc/* by hand; they're going to want a graphical interface for everything.
Of course, to make Linux appeal to those people, it almost _has_ to be over-simplified. YOur average Windows user isn't going to want to edit every file in
I do agree with you though. I prefer to have more control and would think that a better "help" system would also be helpful. I'm kind of partial to something along the lines of Sun's AnswerBooks (a searchable HTML interface to most of the system documentation), but it has to be faster.
What I don't agree with is that the easier interface really removes power in the case of Linux, since if you want to you could always su and edit the configuration files manually.
In conclusion, I think the two approaches are not mutually exclusive: we should go ahead with the easier installation and configuration techniques for the novices, but also develop the documentation so that the novice can become an expert more easily.
What do we need to go back in time for?
If he's right, all we would really need to do is to dig a hole 10 to 300 kilometers deep, into the mantle, and see if it has organisms in it.
This is probably almost as impossible as time travel though, and I wonder what kind of organism could possibly survive the temperature there...
FUD.
PNGs can be transparent. GIFs can't.
And an animated PNG is an MNG (although no browsers support it yet...)
I would recommend just removing animated crap though.
1. My comment preferences "-1, nested, highest scored first" don't stick. But more important:
2. When I moderate, my total remains at 5! That means I could theoretically run through this entire thread, 5 at a time, and moderate everything either to +5 or -1.
This needs to be fixed IMMEDIATELY!
Bah.
What does X11 need root access for besides changing video modes?
As I understand it, on EROS you would just give X11 the capability to write the video hardware and use the network.
Assuming the kernel can grant that capability, of course...
As for wanting X11, EROS may actually have its own GUI, as the release notes mention that it does not _yet_ have a bitmapped interface and support is planned for Mach64 cards, along with some others.
In that case, X would probably work somewhat like the fbcon driver currently does: just make calls to the kernel driver.
From the FAQ:
2.Is it possible to run binaries from Linux or other UNIX systems under EROS?
Short Answer: Not yet, but it will be.
Longer Answer:
It's possible to build a UNIX environment that runs on top of EROS, and we intend to do so. That
environment will run both conventional UNIX binaries and will also be able to access EROS-based services.
In fact, it will be possible to run multiple UNIX environments at once. If desired, each user can be given a
UNIX system that they fully control and adminster, without compromising the security of the other UNIX
environments on the machine.
So they're actually planning on doing this themselves. Actually, the interesting part is the last bit where you can give each user "root" without danger of them wrecking other people's work.
Proof that not only MS creates FUD...
/etc/inetd.conf gets commented out. And not starting daemons you don't need helps too.
1. I think you got the two Oses reversed here, as Solaris scales to 64 processors I believe. Anyway, show me where Alan Cox says this.
2. Say it with me, folks:
THE OS IS AS SECURE AS THE ADMINISTRATOR IS COMPETENT!
NO sane administrator would use anything (except perhaps OpenBSD) out of the box. At the very minimum most of
3. The focus shouldn't be "is it Open Source?", but rather "is it the best program that I can use now to fit my needs?"
Linux is a nice system for the "average" PC. But the BSDs are probably best for Web servers, and Solaris is probably best if you need a huge file server or database machine.
Solaris is definitely the wrong choice for home PCs, which have no SCSI and 1 processor, but it's not intended for that. Linux is.
4. The actual situation is more like this: Once the server machine gets big enough to warrant using Solaris on it, the price of the OS is a small fraction of the price of the entire system. And yes, for those machines (4 processors or more) Solaris may perform better (gasp!) than Linux.
5. I must be part of a different revolution than you. My revolution is against Microsoft. My revolution does not say, "Use GNU/Linux OR DIE!!!" My revolution says, "There is more to life than Microsoft products. There are better ways to compute. It's up to you to use the best product for you. It's just that we think you can do better than Microsoft products and would encourage you to research the alternatives."
Open Source is nice, but you have to figure a lot of people just won't _care_ whether they get source code or not, as long as the program works properly.
Why?
1. d none of the above
2. c
3. American or rest-of-the-world football?
4. d all of the above
There is no link. I assume it's like the Crate guitar amplifier that literally is (was?) a wooden crate.
Pretty cool, I guess.
The SCSL to me seems to want to _enforce_ what tends to happen naturally in most Open Source projects: There is a "core" group of developers who approve or reject any changes the rest of the world make to the code.
Dunno what else they allow or disallow, because the SCSL is longer than most "normal" EULAs and I don't have the patience to read it.
I'm guessing on length alone, it's way more restrictive than the GPL.
Plus, unless Sun plans to pay people who submit patches, Bill Joy is flat-out lying when he says the SCSL allows people to profit from their code.
I won't bother making the obvious snide remark here... surprising no one has yet.
Even the Savages?
Or is it just their obsolete Virge chips?
I'm having a hard enough time deciding whether to get a Millennium G400 or a Riva TNT2 for when I upgrade my system!
Now we're going to make ATI an option too?
I may NEVER get this old PPro with a Voodoo 1 and a Virge/DX (biggest mistake ever, NO improvement over the straight Virge) upgraded.
But you _do_ need to buy seven Dragon Balls before they do anything.
Wake up and realize linux is a collective piece of betaware
If it is betaware, it's the most stable beta I've ever seen.
#define SARCASM
Besides, I wonder when the first release will come out? Version number 3, perhaps?
#undef SARCASM
built on 30 year old tech
That's about the best compliment I can think of. NOTHING in the computer world lasts 30 years! Yet Unix has managed to do it.
I guess that means that in 30 years, no one has been able to do what Unix does better than Unix does it, or we wouldn't be using Unix now, would we?
that is not suitable for most desktops.
That's only because 99% of the people are used to either the Windows or Macintosh GUIs. I don't think the average user knows the look-and-feel of Gnome or KDE, simply because they aren't on display at Best Buy. (actually I prefer Window Maker or (gasp!) CDE myself, but that's a whole other story)
Yes, the millions (and millions!) of configuration files might confuse the average user, but configuration utilities WILL appear to ease the process.
A final word: Documentation is the key. Hint: WE need a "help" utility that searches the HowTOs, FAQs, and/or man pages (at the user's option, of course) for relevant data.
Perhaps if somebody made DRAM somewhere other than Taiwan, this wouldn't be such a big deal.
:-(
This is really holding me back from upgrading my system...
But can I still use the black pointer with white outline?
Wow, the last one didn't work at all. This is how it should look:
Here, just follow the links on the bottom.
No information on the VZ yet though.
Here, just follow the links on the bottom.
No information on the VZ yet though.