Hey, just out of curiosity, does OpenBSD have the same Linux compatibility engine that Free and NetBSD do?
Yes (for the i386 arch anyway). You just install the proper package ("pkg_add redhat_base-6.2.tgz") and you're done. As you probably guessed, the Linux compatibility is based on Red Hat 6.2, which is admitedly a little old, but a great deal of binary-only linux software is statically linked anyway. I have had a great deal of success with it myself.
Because it is not Open Source, it is highly unportable (just try running Java on OpenBSD sometime!)
Ok. On a just-installed machine (complete with generic kernel, yes I know):
(rob@denali:~)$ uname -a
OpenBSD denali.CENSORED.com 2.9 GENERIC#653 i386
(rob@denali:~)$ java -version
java version "1.4.0-beta"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.0-beta-b65)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.0-beta-b65, mixed mode)
That's OpenBSD 2.9 running the latest JDK 1.4 beta. What were you saying again?
You also seem to be confusing Java (the platform) with Sun's version of Java. Open Source editions (eg Kaffe can run on just about anything. Not to mention that you can get the sources to Sun's JDK.
Fortran is a compiler, which turns commands into machine code once, rather than an interpreter like early BASIC, which has to interpret commands into machine code every time the program is run. These days BASIC (such as the dreaded M$ Visual Basic) can be compiled as well.
The first BASIC system, the one written by Kemeny and Kurtz at Dartmouth, was a compiler. It was felt (rightfully so) that this was needed in order to make the system fast enough to be usable. For whatever reason, this is often overlooked nowadays, and many people assume that BASIC compilers started with VB 5.
If you read the original story, you'll see several posts from Ambrosia employees stating that the idea came from the Marketing guy himself.
As for the marketing stunt, what else could a marketing director do about bugs? The programmers can fix them, but marketing can only apologize for them. I guess this is a strange way of doing just that.
Re:A shocking event in the ongoing saga of OOG
on
Helicopter In Space
·
· Score: 2
Harvard, eh?
I think I see what you're getting at "pal", and I'm not so sure I like it. Just leave her out of it, ok?
They did not say that it was more stable than any other Unix variant. They said it was more stable than Windows
Actually, they said "proprietary operating systems", and depending on which definition of the word "proprietary" you are using (ie, "closed-source, open API" vs "closed source, closed API"), most Unix variants could be classified as proprietary.
Sure, I'll grant them portability, but what about everything else? We always hear that FreeBSD is the "fast" BSD, OpenBSD is the "secure" BSD, and NetBSD is the "portable" BSD. What I'd like to know is how much of a difference there are in aspects that aren't as easily quantified as counting the number of hardware platforms listed on a web site.
It is more reliable than proprietary operating systems such as Windows, and is more powerful and portable than open source systems such as Linux, FreeBSD and BSD/OS
While I'm well aware that marketing is marketing, has anyone done a real, as-empirical-as-possible reliablity/scalability/[random buzzword] testing of the major free Unix variants? Sure, I've heard all the zealotry, but I'd like to see any sorts of facts. I know that as a user, I can't see a huge speed difference between Linux and OpenBSD on the same PC, but I don't run any high-load servers or anything.
Maybe I should have said that ISI doesn't charge anything for registrations. I know that I got mine for free (the contact in my city worked at the local university), but I don't have any experience outside that area.
But when I was looking over the list of delegated subdomains, I noticed that many of them were delegated out to random companies in different states. It's ridiculous. Many of the places given subdomains aren't real towns. I guess some people at those companies looked through a map and wrote down the names of some places and asked ISI to make them the contact so they could charge your something that costs them nothing.
Has the tld.us got entries for organisation type in it? I know the 2 letter state codes are all present & accounted for (apparently, they are fairly difficult to get hold of tho'....)
The.us domains are, unlike almost everything else, based on geography. They in the form of organization.city.state.us So, for example, Slashdot would be slashdot.holland.mi.us There is *no*.com.us,.org.us, or anything like that. The city and state are supposed to be based on the location of the organization (or person)'s headquarters, so you'd be stuck with things like "dupont.wilmington.de.us", even though they have facilites all over the country.
As you can see, there are some problems with the system. Add that to the length of the names, and there's not much reason to migrate from.com
The big benefit, though, is that they are free. Despite this, they still aren't used much, which I think says a lot about the whole system.
I'm sure that these great enemies of the Slashdot Empire have found this to be a convenient time to strike. We must systematically seek and destroy all those suspected of having sympathies with the MPAA, RIAA, or Microsoft for security reasons.
Therefore, all
Windows users
CD listeners
Movie watchers
Metallica fans
are asked to please leave now or face prosecution.
Check out the Midnight Machine, which is running Wildcat! 5. The doors area features 2 TW2002 games, LORD, SRE, BRE, and many more.
Best of all, people still use it, so the games are still active:)
Re:But is it because Linux is superior?
on
Linux Appliances
·
· Score: 3
Or merely cheap? If the latter, why not use Free/Net/OpenBSD?
It's all about infrastructure. Given that there are millions more Linux users than any of the others (or at least the last I knew; if someone else has figures it would be nice), it makes sense to use Linux. There are thousands of developers who are already familiar with writing code in and for Linux. Granted, you might not be able to port your favorite apps to an MP3 player, but more is definately better in this case.
Any Linux-based system gets free advertising in web sites frequented by people who would likely buy them (this article is proof of that).
It's kind of hard to argue against that:)
And companies know that having a Linux product, no matter how proprietary the hardware, API, etc might be, means a chance at a huge IPO.
Well, the fact that they use Linux means that it will be 'open', even if only in a small way. And that might very well be considered a benefit (to users and programmers) over BSD (which would not guarantee open source).
Maybe if the Yoppy has a successful launch things will change. I know it would change my impressions.
It certainly looks cool, but the there are enough palmtops out there already. It's hard to judge how well it will do with people who don't already use Linux.
Go buy one. Putting up a flashy desktop theme and a few games isnt going to give you the same experience as a real Mac will. Cheaper yes, but hardly the real thing. Fvwm95 gives you a start menu and task bar, but no one will tell you that by using it you will get the same results as running win95. Themes only go so far. I think that overselling the free unicies abilities to mimic other interfaces wont help them much.
Of course, whether Linux is better than the real thing or not is another question which should be left to the individual.
how will it be before such draconian views extend to any powerful computing technology
You mean "powerful computing technology" such as the Playstation 2? If the U.S. govt can restrict it in any way, they probably will.
Not that it is likely to make much of a difference by now. Just as anyone who wants DeCSS can get it, anyone who wants Beowulf would probably be able to get it. There are no border checks on the Internet.
On the other hand, register.com charges $35 a year, which is the high end of prices now.
But, I will agree that register.com does make it easy to manage DNS settings. And I also reccomend managing that yourself, if you're up to it. They also will "park" your domain, meaning that attempts to visit http://www.yourdomain.com will result in getting a "we're moving in soon" message (covered in register.com ads, to be sure).
Just because of prices, I'm not sure if I'd go with them again, but if you can afford it, the services that they offer are worth it.
Try doing everything else I mentioned. Or try passing a switch statement into a function call:
(format t "the-var is ~a" (cond ((atom the-var) "an atom") ((null the-var) "null") ((numberp the-var) "a number")))
C++ doesn't have the expressiveness of Lisp. Or the flexibility, which is why people don't like the way C++ restrains them. BS talks about how C++ can be used in many different programming paradigms, and he certainly lives up to his name. Try using something other than imperative OOP in C++. In Lisp, you can easily extend the syntax to support any style of programming: imperative, OOP, functional, logical, any more you care to think of.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, just out of curiosity, does OpenBSD have the same Linux compatibility engine that Free and NetBSD do?
Yes (for the i386 arch anyway). You just install the proper package ("pkg_add redhat_base-6.2.tgz") and you're done. As you probably guessed, the Linux compatibility is based on Red Hat 6.2, which is admitedly a little old, but a great deal of binary-only linux software is statically linked anyway. I have had a great deal of success with it myself.
The G'Caml web site is http://pauillac.inria.fr/~furuse/generics/
Because it is not Open Source, it is highly unportable (just try running Java on OpenBSD sometime!)
Ok. On a just-installed machine (complete with generic kernel, yes I know):
(rob@denali:~)$ uname -a
OpenBSD denali.CENSORED.com 2.9 GENERIC#653 i386
(rob@denali:~)$ java -version
java version "1.4.0-beta"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.0-beta-b65)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.0-beta-b65, mixed mode)
That's OpenBSD 2.9 running the latest JDK 1.4 beta. What were you saying again?
You also seem to be confusing Java (the platform) with Sun's version of Java. Open Source editions (eg Kaffe can run on just about anything. Not to mention that you can get the sources to Sun's JDK.
as I strongly support the GPL and don't want to use KDE for that very reason.
I'm confused. KDE is GPL. Qt is also GPL. What is there to stop a "strong supporter" of the GPL from using KDE?
The first BASIC system, the one written by Kemeny and Kurtz at Dartmouth, was a compiler. It was felt (rightfully so) that this was needed in order to make the system fast enough to be usable. For whatever reason, this is often overlooked nowadays, and many people assume that BASIC compilers started with VB 5.
References:
A History of BASIC (Jones Telecommunication & Multimedia Encycolpedia)
BASIC (Wikipedia)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? (comp.compilers article by David Wright)
If you read the original story, you'll see several posts from Ambrosia employees stating that the idea came from the Marketing guy himself.
As for the marketing stunt, what else could a marketing director do about bugs? The programmers can fix them, but marketing can only apologize for them. I guess this is a strange way of doing just that.
Harvard, eh?
I think I see what you're getting at "pal", and I'm not so sure I like it. Just leave her out of it, ok?
They did not say that it was more stable than any other Unix variant. They said it was more stable than Windows
Actually, they said "proprietary operating systems", and depending on which definition of the word "proprietary" you are using (ie, "closed-source, open API" vs "closed source, closed API"), most Unix variants could be classified as proprietary.
Sure, I'll grant them portability, but what about everything else? We always hear that FreeBSD is the "fast" BSD, OpenBSD is the "secure" BSD, and NetBSD is the "portable" BSD. What I'd like to know is how much of a difference there are in aspects that aren't as easily quantified as counting the number of hardware platforms listed on a web site.
From their "Why NetBSD" page:
It is more reliable than proprietary operating
systems such as Windows, and is more powerful and portable than open source systems such as Linux,
FreeBSD and BSD/OS
While I'm well aware that marketing is marketing, has anyone done a real, as-empirical-as-possible reliablity/scalability/[random buzzword] testing of the major free Unix variants? Sure, I've heard all the zealotry, but I'd like to see any sorts of facts. I know that as a user, I can't see a huge speed difference between Linux and OpenBSD on the same PC, but I don't run any high-load servers or anything.
Maybe I should have said that ISI doesn't charge anything for registrations. I know that I got mine for free (the contact in my city worked at the local university), but I don't have any experience outside that area.
But when I was looking over the list of delegated subdomains, I noticed that many of them were delegated out to random companies in different states. It's ridiculous. Many of the places given subdomains aren't real towns. I guess some people at those companies looked through a map and wrote down the names of some places and asked ISI to make them the contact so they could charge your something that costs them nothing.
Has the tld .us got entries for organisation type in it? I know the 2 letter state codes are all present & accounted for (apparently, they are fairly difficult to get hold of tho'....)
.us domains are, unlike almost everything else, based on geography. They in the form of organization.city.state.us So, for example, Slashdot would be slashdot.holland.mi.us There is *no* .com.us, .org.us, or anything like that. The city and state are supposed to be based on the location of the organization (or person)'s headquarters, so you'd be stuck with things like "dupont.wilmington.de.us", even though they have facilites all over the country.
.com
The
As you can see, there are some problems with the system. Add that to the length of the names, and there's not much reason to migrate from
The big benefit, though, is that they are free. Despite this, they still aren't used much, which I think says a lot about the whole system.
For more info, check out http://www.nic.us/.
Will atheist DNS admins accept it?
I'm sure that these great enemies of the Slashdot Empire have found this to be a convenient time to strike. We must systematically seek and destroy all those suspected of having sympathies with the MPAA, RIAA, or Microsoft for security reasons.
Therefore, all
Windows users
CD listeners
Movie watchers
Metallica fans
are asked to please leave now or face prosecution.
thank you.
The book has been put online. You can read it at http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/ cos/rmiller/index.html.
If more out-of-print books could be available on the web...
Check out the Midnight Machine, which is running Wildcat! 5. The doors area features 2 TW2002 games, LORD, SRE, BRE, and many more.
Best of all, people still use it, so the games are still active
Or merely cheap? If the latter, why not use Free/Net/OpenBSD?
It's all about infrastructure. Given that there are millions more Linux users than any of the others (or at least the last I knew; if someone else has figures it would be nice), it makes sense to use Linux. There are thousands of developers who are already familiar with writing code in and for Linux. Granted, you might not be able to port your favorite apps to an MP3 player, but more is definately better in this case.
Any Linux-based system gets free advertising in web sites frequented by people who would likely buy them (this article is proof of that).
It's kind of hard to argue against that
And companies know that having a Linux product, no matter how proprietary the hardware, API, etc might be, means a chance at a huge IPO.
Well, the fact that they use Linux means that it will be 'open', even if only in a small way. And that might very well be considered a benefit (to users and programmers) over BSD (which would not guarantee open source).
Maybe if the Yoppy has a successful launch things will change. I know it would change my impressions.
It certainly looks cool, but the there are enough palmtops out there already. It's hard to judge how well it will do with people who don't already use Linux.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Go buy one. Putting up a flashy desktop theme and a few games isnt going to give you the same experience as a real Mac will. Cheaper yes, but hardly the real thing. Fvwm95 gives you a start menu and task bar, but no one will tell you that by using it you will get the same results as running win95. Themes only go so far. I think that overselling the free unicies abilities to mimic other interfaces wont help them much.
Of course, whether Linux is better than the real thing or not is another question which should be left to the individual.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Boy, those innovations sure take a long time.
I hope they patent this exciting new discovery. Maybe we'll get a Linux version
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Assuming you have the bournse shell installed on your Windows box, of course
But good point, anyway.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Beowulf is a linux clustering system which allows you to use stock PCs in parallel to get power equivilent to a supercomputer.
Check out http://www.beowulf.org/
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
how will it be before such draconian views extend to any powerful computing technology
You mean "powerful computing technology" such as the Playstation 2? If the U.S. govt can restrict it in any way, they probably will.
Not that it is likely to make much of a difference by now. Just as anyone who wants DeCSS can get it, anyone who wants Beowulf would probably be able to get it. There are no border checks on the Internet.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
On the other hand, register.com charges $35 a year, which is the high end of prices now.
But, I will agree that register.com does make it easy to manage DNS settings. And I also reccomend managing that yourself, if you're up to it. They also will "park" your domain, meaning that attempts to visit http://www.yourdomain.com will result in getting a "we're moving in soon" message (covered in register.com ads, to be sure).
Just because of prices, I'm not sure if I'd go with them again, but if you can afford it, the services that they offer are worth it.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Now, on the poster in this picture, it mentions voice recording as a feature. Silly me.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
According to this picture, it plays mp3s and has support for wireless email. No voice recording, though.
It does look pretty nifty. Beats WinCE any day. *And* it plays Ricky Martin songs, so you know it's good!
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Next question?
Try doing everything else I mentioned. Or try passing a switch statement into a function call:
(format t "the-var is ~a"
(cond ((atom the-var) "an atom")
((null the-var) "null")
((numberp the-var) "a number")))
C++ doesn't have the expressiveness of Lisp. Or the flexibility, which is why people don't like the way C++ restrains them. BS talks about how C++ can be used in many different programming paradigms, and he certainly lives up to his name. Try using something other than imperative OOP in C++. In Lisp, you can easily extend the syntax to support any style of programming: imperative, OOP, functional, logical, any more you care to think of.
Why do you suppose it's been around for 40 years?
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd