Look, you are viewing this backward I think. Maybe I'm the one viewing it backward. The point is this, however.
Wal-Mart does not care about the people who are usually shopping at Wal-Mart when they are selling them these computers. This, in my humble opinion, was never about the typical Wal-Mart shopper.
Someone in Wal-Mart management was only just savvy enough to recognize that there was a computer community in full force that did not want to have Windows on their computer. It goes back to the basics of supply and demand.
There is a community of people demanding that computers be available without Microsoft anything.
There is now a supplier of computers without Microsoft anything.
Now, with news sites like Slashdot running stories on it. More people are going to be saying to themselves. "I could hit walmart.com, pick up a new clone and drop linux on it." Some of them might even be saying "I could drop my existing copy of Windows on it."
Even if the machine isn't a major name brand, Wal-Mart has more people than ever looking their way now because of this. With the whole Microsoft trial, and the all the anti-Microsoft sentiment right now, this is probably just the thing for Wal-Mart to do.
Even if they can't pull in the "build it yourself" crowd. Joe Sixpack has heard from all his buddies who are in the crowd how bad the "Microsoft Tax" really is. Even if they end up installing Windows anyway, these machines still get a quick look.
The only thing I can say is that it appears to be a win/win situation for Wal-Mart.
LotR was released on DVD before it was released in the theaters. I know someone who's owned video rental stores for about forever and a day (can we say Video Disc? Note: not Laser disc, Video disc) Ah, those were the days.
Anyway, he has dealings with studios to rent their product, yadda, yadda, yadda, and had a special "screener" copy of LotR shipped to him on DVD before the official theatrical release.
So this two disc set is probably pretty similar to the data they already had that was DVD mastered.
This is a valid question. Why *should* I pay for something I already own. Unfortunately with respect to theoretical properties it's hard to think of them in a concrete fashion. So I have decided to respond by answering in a different way.
Why should I pay for the car I already own? Why should I pay a mechanic, who is trained, licensed and certified to work on my brakes for me?
When my car makes a noise that I do not recognize what is the first thing I do? I seek to get assistance with the problem. I do not know how to repair a modern vehicle, but I figure I might be able to take the wheel assembly apart and fudge my way through it. Right? Maybe, but I'd probably be wrong. I'd forget an important nut or bolt or something.
The best thing I can do is to take the vehicle to a professional. Someone who makes it their life's work to make sure my car operates in the proper manner. They have tools specifically designed for one purpose and many boxes in which to hold them.
If I did do the work on my car myself, and if we all did the work ourselves, we all may become decent at keeping *our* car running. All of the professionals would be put out of business because we can keep one car running, we wouldn't need them anymore, right? So what happens when GM releases the new 2006 Chevy Youknowuwanit that everyone has to have? We all run out, get our new cars, and suddenly realize we don't know how to work on it. It's different than the old one, but now we also don't have any mechanics trained to work on it, we've put them all out of business. When the 2006 Youknowuwanit breaks down, we are S.O.L.
The exact same is true of any community. Especially Linux. I can muddle my way through some code, and probably even figure out how to fix it well enough to keep *my* box running correctly. By not helping the community in any way we are going to drive off all of our mechanics. And when the Linux SuperCool 7.9.0.1 kernel is released in 2044, we're all screwed because no one knows how to work it. No one has mastered it.
Why pay for something you already own, indeed. Nothing, no where, no how, no matter what is ever *ever* "free" my friend. Everything comes with a price, everything comes with a decision to be made. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
Does this mean we're now going to have the saying "One/. to rule them all, One/. to find them. One/. to bring them all and on the internet bind them." etched into all of our monitors?
That's no moon .... it's a Space ....
on
New iMac Announced
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Is it just me, or does the bottom of this new iMac look like the top of the Death Star? Although, I have to admit, I've been trying since the Keynote ended to get Apple to take my MasterCard information. Steve's Sphere of Unreality strikes again, and I had just told myself that I'd probably never use a mac again.
Yet, there is something about this new machine that just speaks to me. It's probably the voices in my head, but I am intrigued by this new iMac. I've been saying for a long time now that they need to include a flat panel display into them, and here is the fruit of that labor.
The most interesting thing to me, though, is that they are using the G4 processor in their new "consumer" line. This just helps to enforce the fact that at the next Apple event they are set to introduce what ever is going to be termed as the G5 processor for the Pro line. They did it with the first iMacs. Remember the Blue and Whites?
There have been plenty of people point out the fact that the mac line as a whole doesn't have the Ghz numbers it needs to dominate the field. I have to ask, though, what does anyone really and truly need with a 2 Ghz machine? Let me qualify this question.
My current main workstation is a dual Pentium II 300 Mhz machine with 128 MB of RAM and Windows 2000. I have two SUN SparcStations (a 2 and a 10) one of which (the 2) has a black and white framebuffer. I have five Socket 7 based Pentium machines at varied Mhz's and a Power Macintosh 8500/120. Oh, and my 486 33Mhz Linux router.
I do everything I need to do all these machines. Run services, send and receive email, run some websites, encode digital video, both MPEG1 and MPEG2, encode digital audio, watch streaming applications and DVD's, etc, etc, etc, ad nausium.
Then again, I'm a professional UNIX / Cisco user, not a professional game player. Though Diablo II runs just fine on my main workstation. What *are* you people running?!
Now I sit here ranting away on Slashdot, because I can't get the Apple store to accept my order for a new iMac that I have no actual good use for in my home. Sure, being able to burn DVD's will be fun for a while. Playing with the UNIX'esque kernel of Mac OS X will be a real hoot. Wonder how much Linux software still needs to be ported.
Come on, I don't care who you are, you have to admit that it does look kind of cool. Yes, it is a laptop on a stick, I guess. But so is the Gateway version of the same style of unit. LCD screen with an integrated CPU all in one type of deal.
So why didn't I rush out to buy the Gateway when it came out months ago? Hmmm.... *snaps fingers*.... Oh yeah! I don't ever expect to upgrade a mac. Those always sit as they come, regardless of what people tell me. An x86 machine *has* to be in an ATX case, because there is always something new and fun to put in them.
Oh well, guess I will go see if the Apple store has decided to play friendly yet, and leave you nice people alone.
Ok, label me as naive here, but how does the inclusion of MPEG-4 video have anything to do with Quicktime being available for Linux? (Which it already is by the way, in a manner of speaking.)
It isn't like the Sorenson codec couldn't run under Linux. It runs just find under BSD/Darwin with Quartz (read as OS X). Apple just has absolutely no interest in making a streaming video client for Linux.
The standard and original Quicktime libraries have been available on Linux for a while, check out http://www.heroinewarrior.com/quicktime.php3 but all of the "cool movie trailers" available on Apple's website are in Sorenson, and it's Sorenson that isn't available under Linux. Chances are, if they *do* embrace MPEG-4 it will probably be an Apple / Quicktime specific version so that we still won't see it under Linux.
However, I've read that their streaming video server runs just fine.
Well, that all depends on what you consider to be "native." I have not yet noticed Odin mentioned here, so I'm going to mention it now.
Does WinAmp count as native? RealPlayer? What about WinZip? Oh here's one, what about Microsoft Word 97, does that one count? Then there is also Starcraft and Quake 3. All of these run natively under OS/2. Though I admit, the games don't yet know how to take over the full screen under OS/2, they stay in a maximized window.
Odin is not an emulator. Odin is a binary converter. The people behind the project have been working very hard to bring the Win32 API set into the OS/2 environment. Think ala WINE, I guess. But unlike WINE, since OS/2 was the basis for the NT kernel, if memory serves, and it still is 100% DOS Compatible, and it already has a built in Windows 3.1 run time environment, once you convert Windows 32bit apps with Odin, they become OS/2 native. No need to load Odin each time.
Although, the website, and the developers will be the first to tell you that it's best to load the Odin run time converter each time, so those of you that dual boot into Windows proper will be able to use your binaries afterwards. If you go full conversion to OS/2 native route, they will not run under Windows any longer.
The only reason I even know about any of this, however, is that my company has a large amount of OS/2 driven server systems in production and everyday use. So everyonce in awhile I go hunt out nifty things to do with non-production machines before they go back to full time use.
*shrugs* Anyway, that's just my 2 cents worth of nothing.
I purchased my GameCube after the midnight mark at a local 24 hour retailer. I was at my cousin's and playing the system, regretably only with Luigi's Mansion, by 01:00. They hadn't received their shipment of Rogue Leader. Luigi's Mansion, however, is a very good cute little game and I played that until about 04:00 before packing up to go home. Once home, I plugged everything back in and was back at it. It got turned off again around 09:00 so I could go to another retailer and purchase Rogue Leader. I then sat on my behind and played until roughly 20:00 when I went to get some dinner. Didn't notice any crashes or system problems. I unfortunately haven't had a chance to play since, but starting tomorrow it probably will not get turned off. Going to parents for the holiday and will be there with much family. So it's going to get a lot of use. I will let you know if it does start crashing.
Ok, if a lot of pro-MS groups have been writing letters to their congress-people. If the amount of people who read slashdot and go to hit a site from an article can effectively lock down that site due to bandwidth requirements, what can we as a group do if we were to each write a handwritten letter, in either direction of the Microsoft issue, and mail them to our congress-person? Could we effectively kill the US Postal service? Would we be able to bring our government crashing to a halt? Wouldn't it be fun to find out? Who is with me?! Let's all write a letter to Congress!
In my humble opinion, Apple would release OSX on x86 hardware on only one condition. That it was *Apple* x86 hardware and not everything under the sun that is currently available for an x86 based platform.
Meaning that the issues that people have mentioned about Legacy problems with the x86 hardware would not exist. The situation would go something like this. Not that I ever see this happening, but it is the only way I can think of to make it work.
Steve would decide that Apple needs a good, powerful sub $500 system to compete with the likes of Dell, Compaq, Gateway and eMachines. The Apple Design Department would start working on an Apple standard platform mainboard (meaning that this would not be an ATX/AT box, it would be a G4/iMac box) that uses only *one* of the current x86 processor technologies. They would choose between either Intel or AMD and stay there.
Let's assume the choice would be AMD, because of cost per processor and the fact that in my scenerio they want to beat out the $499 eMachine AMD based box. The mainboard would be designed to be PCI *only* with USB as the same keyboard / mouse input we see on current PowerMacs. (Don't worry about issues with ISA slots, Apple would not write drivers for anything in them anyway.) This means the mainboard would be similar to the "legacy-free" Compaq system, the iPaq. No serial, no parallel, no PS/2 ports. Just USB and some PCI slots. Oh, and don't forget the single AGP port for graphics.
This indicates, that even though in theory Apple is porting OSX to x86, they are really porting OSX to AMD. Though Intel is also an x86 chip, they do have different command sets than the AMD chips have and vice versa. OSX (in my scenerio) is optimized for the AMD processor, so most likely a good number of the options of the OS would not work, or simply break entirely, if run on an Intel processor.
Also, there would not be drivers for everything under the sun, including the breadboard PCI card your Grandmother built to keep her recipe system organized. Apple would choose a small amount of cards to build drivers for itself. (The cards that ship with the system) Then it would be fully up to the hardware manufacturers themselves to write drivers for their hardware. If it isn't "Apple Certified" you can bet that Apple won't even give you a deaf ear to voice complaints upon.
Also, software that runs on OSX will need to be rewritten for most apps. Apps that are specifically coded in... Cocoa?... will be the easiest to port. As I understand it Cocoa is a subsystem API that talks to the Mach microkernel, not to the hardware. So Apple would port the Cocoa API to x86 with the rest of the OS and the apps that use it would port easily with a few changes, just like OpenGL games do now. The "hardware" apps would obviously be the hardest, and would cause the most harm to Apple's partner alliance. Take Adobe for instance. They have worked very hard to get their Photoshop for the Mac to take direct advantage of the AltaVec Velocity Engine instruction core in the new G4 chips. There will be no Velocity in an AMD chip, so that entire section of their code would have to be thrown out, or rewritten. Being that they already have a Winport and a RISC Macport, doing a specific x86 Macport might be just enough to cause those companies using Velocity specific code to jump ship entirely.
Basically it looks like Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot to port to x86 at this stage in the game. The only reason to do it would be to have a sub $500 price point system. They would have to retool entire manufacture specs on a board specific to x86. They would have to port the OS, and all of their specific drivers to a platform that would *still* only work in the Apple way. (They aren't going to give me technical support on OSX if it is installed on a Gateway PC.) Then they would have to train technical support to field questions on the new x86 based box.
Kind of like SGI and their current market position. I never thought I would see the day when I could purchase an x86 box running NT Workstation / Linux with an SGI logo on the front of it. But I can, and I still have to ask myself "Why?" As far as I know, SGI still has some MIPS based hardware running IRIX for sale. Yet they also have these x86 boxes that they have to develop, troubleshoot, support and market. These SGI boxes are no more or less special than an IBM or a Dell system with the same specs. Apple is not about to let *anyone* say that about them.
No, I don't think OSX will have be fully available on an x86 box until long after Apple is dead and gone as a company and someone has bought all of the intellectual rights just for the purpose of porting OSX to x86 hardware. It isn't that it is impossible. The core of the system is already running on x86 (Darwin) and could probably even get as crazy as NetBSD or whatever and be running on Dreamcast, and Amiga, and VAX, and Commodore, and my toaster oven. The kernel is portable, it's just not going to be ported. It just doesn't make a good business sense looking at the current Apple business model.
"Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond
movie." - Dennis Miller
Have you seen Tomorrow Never Dies? The villain in this bond is Elliot Carver, and I simply can not watch the movie without counting the number of times he reminds me of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (you know, of Pixar) rolled into one.
Ed Booher
Network Engineer
One Call Internet
http://www.onecall.net/
"If Linux is an 18-wheeler semi, capable of pulling multi-ton
loads cross-country, BeOS is a slick Porsche 911 Turbo."
- Franco Vitaliano / OPEN Magazine -
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, outlooks, philosophies, words of
wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles outlined in this post are the
belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous
with the views of his employer or religion.]
You don't even want to get me started on M.A.S.K., and why do you say the toys were cheaply made? They were quite simply the coolest toys I ever had as a kid. Never broke a single one. The decals didn't stay on worth crap, but they worked all the way up to the day I sold them.
(sighs) I can even remember all the names of the vehicles, their drivers, and most of their masks' special powers. (sobs crocodile tears) What a total fan boy I am!!
Man how I'd love to get ahold of the distributions rights to this one. MMmmmm..... DVD is just screaming for M.A.S.K. to be released on it... Ok, I'm screaming for it to be released on DVD. Is it just me or does anyone else think that the Thunderhawk should have been a DeLorean DMC-12 and *not* a Chevrolet Camaro? I know, I know, I'm just picky.
Raises an interesting question about copy right infringement, though. Since M.A.S.K. was out before Back to the Future, a flying DeLorean... hmmm haven't seen one of those in... 30 years?
Anyone happen to have any contacts in Cartoon Network that we can talk to about acquiring transmission rights for M.A.S.K.? After all these years they have to have reverted to Kenner/Hasbro, right? Hmmmmm......
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, out looks, philosophies, words of
wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles out lined in this post are the
belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous
with the views of his employer or religion.]
Well, they have *a* shell under Windows 2000, with an add on product that they actually purchased from another company. The company was Interix, so now the product is Microsoft Interix 2.2.
Here are the product features directly from the Microsoft website. While I'll admit it feels kind of dirty to use this product, for those of us in a "closed Microsoft community" type of shop who have no choice but to run a Microsoft Workstation product on our desktop, it means we can still do *some* of the things we're used to doing at home.
Product Features
KornShell, C Shell and Bourne Shell with full job control
Over 300 utilities, including scripting tools such as awk, sed, perl, Tcl/Tk
Berkeley Software Design (BSD) sockets mapped to Winsock
Memory-mapped files
Subsystem vendor ID (SVID) interprocess communication (IPC) mechanisms: semaphores, message queues and shared memory
Pseudo-terminal support
Color curses support
Ability to execute Win32 applications from Interix
Full tty semantics mapped to console windows
Pseudo-terminal support
File-link support and true case-sensitive file names
Full integration with Windows NT security model, administration, file systems, networking and printers
Support for POSIX.1 (system services) and POSIX.2 (shell and utilities)
X11R5 runtime, including X clients such as xterm, twm, xrdb, and xlsclients
Support for running X Windows applications on remote displays
Support for daemons running as Windows NT services
telnetd & rlogind services (multiuser login support)
Berkeley r-utilities (servers and clients)
cron, syslogd & other daemon/service support
Internet clients: ftp, telnet, ping, rsh
Integrated tape device support
Interix Software Development Kit
Development tools, including make, RCS, lex, yacc, cc, c89, nm, ar, strip
ANSI C, POSIX.1 and POSIX.2 interfaces
Color curses library
BSD-style sockets library support
X11R5 libraries and header files
gcc (GNU C) compiler
g++ (GNU C++) compiler
g77 (GNU FORTRAN77) compiler
Support for Microsoft Visual C/C++ versions 4.0 and 5.0
System Requirements
Intel x86, Pentium, Pentium Pro and compatible systems
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation or Server version 3.51 or higher, Windows 2000 Professional, Server or Advanced Server
15-100 megabytes (MB) of available hard-disk space
Windows-supported CD-ROM drive and mouse
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, out looks, philosophies, words of
wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles out lined in this post are the
belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous
with the views of his employer or religion.]
I don't know how this will be accepted by the community, but I can tell you where a rough version of QT3, or maybe QT2 is located. A pretty savvy linux geek has ported all of the *Apple open* code to Linux and created his version of "Quicktime for Linux" What this means is that *NO* you still can not play the really cool streaming Sorenson codec based QT files, like your Star Wars trailer videos. But you *CAN* write your own QT movies that can not only be played under QT for Linux, but QT for Mac and QT for Windows as well. Also, if you happen to run across any of the pre-sorenson QT files on the Internet, you can play those as well. The URL is http://heroine.linuxave.net/ then click on the Penguin with the QT logo on his chest. While you're there, check out the other video software for linux while you're there.
Slashdot Mirror
Look, you are viewing this backward I think. Maybe I'm the one viewing it backward. The point is this, however.
Wal-Mart does not care about the people who are usually shopping at Wal-Mart when they are selling them these computers. This, in my humble opinion, was never about the typical Wal-Mart shopper.
Someone in Wal-Mart management was only just savvy enough to recognize that there was a computer community in full force that did not want to have Windows on their computer. It goes back to the basics of supply and demand.
There is a community of people demanding that computers be available without Microsoft anything.
There is now a supplier of computers without Microsoft anything.
Now, with news sites like Slashdot running stories on it. More people are going to be saying to themselves. "I could hit walmart.com, pick up a new clone and drop linux on it." Some of them might even be saying "I could drop my existing copy of Windows on it."
Even if the machine isn't a major name brand, Wal-Mart has more people than ever looking their way now because of this. With the whole Microsoft trial, and the all the anti-Microsoft sentiment right now, this is probably just the thing for Wal-Mart to do.
Even if they can't pull in the "build it yourself" crowd. Joe Sixpack has heard from all his buddies who are in the crowd how bad the "Microsoft Tax" really is. Even if they end up installing Windows anyway, these machines still get a quick look.
The only thing I can say is that it appears to be a win/win situation for Wal-Mart.
Actually,
LotR was released on DVD before it was released in the theaters. I know someone who's owned video rental stores for about forever and a day (can we say Video Disc? Note: not Laser disc, Video disc) Ah, those were the days.
Anyway, he has dealings with studios to rent their product, yadda, yadda, yadda, and had a special "screener" copy of LotR shipped to him on DVD before the official theatrical release.
So this two disc set is probably pretty similar to the data they already had that was DVD mastered.
Just my two cents.
This is a valid question. Why *should* I pay for something I already own. Unfortunately with respect to theoretical properties it's hard to think of them in a concrete fashion. So I have decided to respond by answering in a different way.
Why should I pay for the car I already own? Why should I pay a mechanic, who is trained, licensed and certified to work on my brakes for me?
When my car makes a noise that I do not recognize what is the first thing I do? I seek to get assistance with the problem. I do not know how to repair a modern vehicle, but I figure I might be able to take the wheel assembly apart and fudge my way through it. Right? Maybe, but I'd probably be wrong. I'd forget an important nut or bolt or something.
The best thing I can do is to take the vehicle to a professional. Someone who makes it their life's work to make sure my car operates in the proper manner. They have tools specifically designed for one purpose and many boxes in which to hold them.
If I did do the work on my car myself, and if we all did the work ourselves, we all may become decent at keeping *our* car running. All of the professionals would be put out of business because we can keep one car running, we wouldn't need them anymore, right? So what happens when GM releases the new 2006 Chevy Youknowuwanit that everyone has to have? We all run out, get our new cars, and suddenly realize we don't know how to work on it. It's different than the old one, but now we also don't have any mechanics trained to work on it, we've put them all out of business. When the 2006 Youknowuwanit breaks down, we are S.O.L.
The exact same is true of any community. Especially Linux. I can muddle my way through some code, and probably even figure out how to fix it well enough to keep *my* box running correctly. By not helping the community in any way we are going to drive off all of our mechanics. And when the Linux SuperCool 7.9.0.1 kernel is released in 2044, we're all screwed because no one knows how to work it. No one has mastered it.
Why pay for something you already own, indeed. Nothing, no where, no how, no matter what is ever *ever* "free" my friend. Everything comes with a price, everything comes with a decision to be made. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
Cheers.
Oh Lord,
/. to rule them all, One /. to find them. One /. to bring them all and on the internet bind them." etched into all of our monitors?
Does this mean we're now going to have the saying "One
Is it just me, or does the bottom of this new iMac look like the top of the Death Star? Although, I have to admit, I've been trying since the Keynote ended to get Apple to take my MasterCard information. Steve's Sphere of Unreality strikes again, and I had just told myself that I'd probably never use a mac again.
.... *snaps fingers* .... Oh yeah! I don't ever expect to upgrade a mac. Those always sit as they come, regardless of what people tell me. An x86 machine *has* to be in an ATX case, because there is always something new and fun to put in them.
Yet, there is something about this new machine that just speaks to me. It's probably the voices in my head, but I am intrigued by this new iMac. I've been saying for a long time now that they need to include a flat panel display into them, and here is the fruit of that labor.
The most interesting thing to me, though, is that they are using the G4 processor in their new "consumer" line. This just helps to enforce the fact that at the next Apple event they are set to introduce what ever is going to be termed as the G5 processor for the Pro line. They did it with the first iMacs. Remember the Blue and Whites?
There have been plenty of people point out the fact that the mac line as a whole doesn't have the Ghz numbers it needs to dominate the field. I have to ask, though, what does anyone really and truly need with a 2 Ghz machine? Let me qualify this question.
My current main workstation is a dual Pentium II 300 Mhz machine with 128 MB of RAM and Windows 2000. I have two SUN SparcStations (a 2 and a 10) one of which (the 2) has a black and white framebuffer. I have five Socket 7 based Pentium machines at varied Mhz's and a Power Macintosh 8500/120. Oh, and my 486 33Mhz Linux router.
I do everything I need to do all these machines. Run services, send and receive email, run some websites, encode digital video, both MPEG1 and MPEG2, encode digital audio, watch streaming applications and DVD's, etc, etc, etc, ad nausium.
Then again, I'm a professional UNIX / Cisco user, not a professional game player. Though Diablo II runs just fine on my main workstation. What *are* you people running?!
Now I sit here ranting away on Slashdot, because I can't get the Apple store to accept my order for a new iMac that I have no actual good use for in my home. Sure, being able to burn DVD's will be fun for a while. Playing with the UNIX'esque kernel of Mac OS X will be a real hoot. Wonder how much Linux software still needs to be ported.
Come on, I don't care who you are, you have to admit that it does look kind of cool. Yes, it is a laptop on a stick, I guess. But so is the Gateway version of the same style of unit. LCD screen with an integrated CPU all in one type of deal.
So why didn't I rush out to buy the Gateway when it came out months ago? Hmmm
Oh well, guess I will go see if the Apple store has decided to play friendly yet, and leave you nice people alone.
Ok, label me as naive here, but how does the inclusion of MPEG-4 video have anything to do with Quicktime being available for Linux? (Which it already is by the way, in a manner of speaking.)
It isn't like the Sorenson codec couldn't run under Linux. It runs just find under BSD/Darwin with Quartz (read as OS X). Apple just has absolutely no interest in making a streaming video client for Linux.
The standard and original Quicktime libraries have been available on Linux for a while, check out http://www.heroinewarrior.com/quicktime.php3 but all of the "cool movie trailers" available on Apple's website are in Sorenson, and it's Sorenson that isn't available under Linux. Chances are, if they *do* embrace MPEG-4 it will probably be an Apple / Quicktime specific version so that we still won't see it under Linux.
However, I've read that their streaming video server runs just fine.
Just my 2 cents worth of nothing
Well, that all depends on what you consider to be "native." I have not yet noticed Odin mentioned here, so I'm going to mention it now.
Does WinAmp count as native? RealPlayer? What about WinZip? Oh here's one, what about Microsoft Word 97, does that one count? Then there is also Starcraft and Quake 3. All of these run natively under OS/2. Though I admit, the games don't yet know how to take over the full screen under OS/2, they stay in a maximized window.
Odin is not an emulator. Odin is a binary converter. The people behind the project have been working very hard to bring the Win32 API set into the OS/2 environment. Think ala WINE, I guess. But unlike WINE, since OS/2 was the basis for the NT kernel, if memory serves, and it still is 100% DOS Compatible, and it already has a built in Windows 3.1 run time environment, once you convert Windows 32bit apps with Odin, they become OS/2 native. No need to load Odin each time.
Although, the website, and the developers will be the first to tell you that it's best to load the Odin run time converter each time, so those of you that dual boot into Windows proper will be able to use your binaries afterwards. If you go full conversion to OS/2 native route, they will not run under Windows any longer.
The only reason I even know about any of this, however, is that my company has a large amount of OS/2 driven server systems in production and everyday use. So everyonce in awhile I go hunt out nifty things to do with non-production machines before they go back to full time use.
*shrugs* Anyway, that's just my 2 cents worth of nothing.
I purchased my GameCube after the midnight mark at a local 24 hour retailer. I was at my cousin's and playing the system, regretably only with Luigi's Mansion, by 01:00. They hadn't received their shipment of Rogue Leader. Luigi's Mansion, however, is a very good cute little game and I played that until about 04:00 before packing up to go home. Once home, I plugged everything back in and was back at it. It got turned off again around 09:00 so I could go to another retailer and purchase Rogue Leader. I then sat on my behind and played until roughly 20:00 when I went to get some dinner. Didn't notice any crashes or system problems. I unfortunately haven't had a chance to play since, but starting tomorrow it probably will not get turned off. Going to parents for the holiday and will be there with much family. So it's going to get a lot of use. I will let you know if it does start crashing.
Ok, if a lot of pro-MS groups have been writing letters to their congress-people. If the amount of people who read slashdot and go to hit a site from an article can effectively lock down that site due to bandwidth requirements, what can we as a group do if we were to each write a handwritten letter, in either direction of the Microsoft issue, and mail them to our congress-person? Could we effectively kill the US Postal service? Would we be able to bring our government crashing to a halt? Wouldn't it be fun to find out? Who is with me?! Let's all write a letter to Congress!
In my humble opinion, Apple would release OSX on x86 hardware on only one condition. That it was *Apple* x86 hardware and not everything under the sun that is currently available for an x86 based platform.
... Cocoa? ... will be the easiest to port. As I understand it Cocoa is a subsystem API that talks to the Mach microkernel, not to the hardware. So Apple would port the Cocoa API to x86 with the rest of the OS and the apps that use it would port easily with a few changes, just like OpenGL games do now. The "hardware" apps would obviously be the hardest, and would cause the most harm to Apple's partner alliance. Take Adobe for instance. They have worked very hard to get their Photoshop for the Mac to take direct advantage of the AltaVec Velocity Engine instruction core in the new G4 chips. There will be no Velocity in an AMD chip, so that entire section of their code would have to be thrown out, or rewritten. Being that they already have a Winport and a RISC Macport, doing a specific x86 Macport might be just enough to cause those companies using Velocity specific code to jump ship entirely.
Meaning that the issues that people have mentioned about Legacy problems with the x86 hardware would not exist. The situation would go something like this. Not that I ever see this happening, but it is the only way I can think of to make it work.
Steve would decide that Apple needs a good, powerful sub $500 system to compete with the likes of Dell, Compaq, Gateway and eMachines. The Apple Design Department would start working on an Apple standard platform mainboard (meaning that this would not be an ATX/AT box, it would be a G4/iMac box) that uses only *one* of the current x86 processor technologies. They would choose between either Intel or AMD and stay there.
Let's assume the choice would be AMD, because of cost per processor and the fact that in my scenerio they want to beat out the $499 eMachine AMD based box. The mainboard would be designed to be PCI *only* with USB as the same keyboard / mouse input we see on current PowerMacs. (Don't worry about issues with ISA slots, Apple would not write drivers for anything in them anyway.) This means the mainboard would be similar to the "legacy-free" Compaq system, the iPaq. No serial, no parallel, no PS/2 ports. Just USB and some PCI slots. Oh, and don't forget the single AGP port for graphics.
This indicates, that even though in theory Apple is porting OSX to x86, they are really porting OSX to AMD. Though Intel is also an x86 chip, they do have different command sets than the AMD chips have and vice versa. OSX (in my scenerio) is optimized for the AMD processor, so most likely a good number of the options of the OS would not work, or simply break entirely, if run on an Intel processor.
Also, there would not be drivers for everything under the sun, including the breadboard PCI card your Grandmother built to keep her recipe system organized. Apple would choose a small amount of cards to build drivers for itself. (The cards that ship with the system) Then it would be fully up to the hardware manufacturers themselves to write drivers for their hardware. If it isn't "Apple Certified" you can bet that Apple won't even give you a deaf ear to voice complaints upon.
Also, software that runs on OSX will need to be rewritten for most apps. Apps that are specifically coded in
Basically it looks like Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot to port to x86 at this stage in the game. The only reason to do it would be to have a sub $500 price point system. They would have to retool entire manufacture specs on a board specific to x86. They would have to port the OS, and all of their specific drivers to a platform that would *still* only work in the Apple way. (They aren't going to give me technical support on OSX if it is installed on a Gateway PC.) Then they would have to train technical support to field questions on the new x86 based box.
Kind of like SGI and their current market position. I never thought I would see the day when I could purchase an x86 box running NT Workstation / Linux with an SGI logo on the front of it. But I can, and I still have to ask myself "Why?" As far as I know, SGI still has some MIPS based hardware running IRIX for sale. Yet they also have these x86 boxes that they have to develop, troubleshoot, support and market. These SGI boxes are no more or less special than an IBM or a Dell system with the same specs. Apple is not about to let *anyone* say that about them.
No, I don't think OSX will have be fully available on an x86 box until long after Apple is dead and gone as a company and someone has bought all of the intellectual rights just for the purpose of porting OSX to x86 hardware. It isn't that it is impossible. The core of the system is already running on x86 (Darwin) and could probably even get as crazy as NetBSD or whatever and be running on Dreamcast, and Amiga, and VAX, and Commodore, and my toaster oven. The kernel is portable, it's just not going to be ported. It just doesn't make a good business sense looking at the current Apple business model.
"Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond movie." - Dennis Miller
Have you seen Tomorrow Never Dies? The villain in this bond is Elliot Carver, and I simply can not watch the movie without counting the number of times he reminds me of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (you know, of Pixar) rolled into one.
Ed Booher
Network Engineer
One Call Internet
http://www.onecall.net/
"If Linux is an 18-wheeler semi, capable of pulling multi-ton loads cross-country, BeOS is a slick Porsche 911 Turbo."
- Franco Vitaliano / OPEN Magazine -
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, outlooks, philosophies, words of wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles outlined in this post are the belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous with the views of his employer or religion.]
Oh boy,
You don't even want to get me started on M.A.S.K., and why do you say the toys were cheaply made? They were quite simply the coolest toys I ever had as a kid. Never broke a single one. The decals didn't stay on worth crap, but they worked all the way up to the day I sold them.
(sighs) I can even remember all the names of the vehicles, their drivers, and most of their masks' special powers. (sobs crocodile tears) What a total fan boy I am!!
Man how I'd love to get ahold of the distributions rights to this one. MMmmmm ..... DVD is just screaming for M.A.S.K. to be released on it ... Ok, I'm screaming for it to be released on DVD. Is it just me or does anyone else think that the Thunderhawk should have been a DeLorean DMC-12 and *not* a Chevrolet Camaro? I know, I know, I'm just picky.
Raises an interesting question about copy right infringement, though. Since M.A.S.K. was out before Back to the Future, a flying DeLorean ... hmmm haven't seen one of those in ... 30 years?
Anyone happen to have any contacts in Cartoon Network that we can talk to about acquiring transmission rights for M.A.S.K.? After all these years they have to have reverted to Kenner/Hasbro, right? Hmmmmm ......
Ed Booher
Network Engineer
One Call Internet
http://www.onecall.net/
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, out looks, philosophies, words of wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles out lined in this post are the belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous with the views of his employer or religion.]
Well, they have *a* shell under Windows 2000, with an add on product that they actually purchased from another company. The company was Interix, so now the product is Microsoft Interix 2.2.
Here are the product features directly from the Microsoft website. While I'll admit it feels kind of dirty to use this product, for those of us in a "closed Microsoft community" type of shop who have no choice but to run a Microsoft Workstation product on our desktop, it means we can still do *some* of the things we're used to doing at home.
Product Features
KornShell, C Shell and Bourne Shell with full job control
Over 300 utilities, including scripting tools such as awk, sed, perl, Tcl/Tk
Berkeley Software Design (BSD) sockets mapped to Winsock
Memory-mapped files
Subsystem vendor ID (SVID) interprocess communication (IPC) mechanisms: semaphores, message queues and shared memory
Pseudo-terminal support
Color curses support
Ability to execute Win32 applications from Interix
Full tty semantics mapped to console windows
Pseudo-terminal support
File-link support and true case-sensitive file names
Full integration with Windows NT security model, administration, file systems, networking and printers
Support for POSIX.1 (system services) and POSIX.2 (shell and utilities)
X11R5 runtime, including X clients such as xterm, twm, xrdb, and xlsclients
Support for running X Windows applications on remote displays
Support for daemons running as Windows NT services
telnetd & rlogind services (multiuser login support)
Berkeley r-utilities (servers and clients)
cron, syslogd & other daemon/service support
Internet clients: ftp, telnet, ping, rsh
Integrated tape device support
Interix Software Development Kit
Development tools, including make, RCS, lex, yacc, cc, c89, nm, ar, strip
ANSI C, POSIX.1 and POSIX.2 interfaces
Color curses library
BSD-style sockets library support
X11R5 libraries and header files
gcc (GNU C) compiler
g++ (GNU C++) compiler
g77 (GNU FORTRAN77) compiler
Support for Microsoft Visual C/C++ versions 4.0 and 5.0
System Requirements
Intel x86, Pentium, Pentium Pro and compatible systems
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation or Server version 3.51 or higher, Windows 2000 Professional, Server or Advanced Server
15-100 megabytes (MB) of available hard-disk space
Windows-supported CD-ROM drive and mouse
Check out www.microsoft.com/unix/interop/default.asp for information on UNIX interoperability on Windows 2000 platforms.
Ed Booher
Network Engineer
One Call Internet
www.onecall.net
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, out looks, philosophies, words of wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles out lined in this post are the belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous with the views of his employer or religion.]
I don't know how this will be accepted by the community, but I can tell you where a rough version of QT3, or maybe QT2 is located. A pretty savvy linux geek has ported all of the *Apple open* code to Linux and created his version of "Quicktime for Linux" What this means is that *NO* you still can not play the really cool streaming Sorenson codec based QT files, like your Star Wars trailer videos. But you *CAN* write your own QT movies that can not only be played under QT for Linux, but QT for Mac and QT for Windows as well. Also, if you happen to run across any of the pre-sorenson QT files on the Internet, you can play those as well. The URL is http://heroine.linuxave.net/ then click on the Penguin with the QT logo on his chest. While you're there, check out the other video software for linux while you're there.