#include int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { printf("hi, i'm portable\n");
return(0);
}
The above code segment is extremely portable. If I wrote the above in assembly, and then ported it to 50 different chips, that wouldn't make it more portable than the C version simply because I had only actually compiled the C version on 1 chip. NetBSD contains less platform-dependant code than any other OS. Just because no one wants to run it on an S/390 doesn't mean that it would be difficult to do so. Also, NetBSD has portable device driver code. Let's say I take the FDDI adaptor out of my i386 and dump it in my alpha. If I'm running NetBSD, this isn't a problem, because even the device drivers are as system independant as it gets. If I was running Linux, I'd better hope that someone had written a driver for the FDDI card under the alpha as well as the i386, because simply dropping in the i386 driver on the alpha won't work in Linux like it did in NetBSD. Want justification for my claims? Neither Linux or NetBSD currently runs on an IBM RS/6000. Go get one, and try porting Linux to it. Then try porting NetBSD to it. Then you will understand.
I also menitoned OpenBSD to him as an example of a secure system that was open source. I argued that it was exactly because of the OpenBSD/FreeBSD development model (i.e. closely controlled with a top down hierarchy) that it was able to be more secure. Dr. Spafford still felt that OpenBSD did not fit the criteria of a well-trusted system
What exactly does "Dr. Spafford" have a doctorate in? Whatever it is, it certainly hasn't got a thing to do with computer science. Maybe marketing. Maybe he has Ph.D in F.U.D.
This is great news, but I couldn't help but think that more and more each day, Linux is starting to take to the role of Irix. As in, a desktop unix designed for productivity, instead of a massive server platform. Not that I'm complaining.
That's great, except for the fact that it's bad for the environment, and fails in the long run. It's a personalized and temporary solution to a global problem.
As far as I'm concerned, Windows CE is too much for a PDA. What makes PDA-GNOME any different? Just my opinion, but due to PalmOS products outselling WinCE products, I'd have to assume that the market agrees with me.
I for one think that Debian needs to rethink their organization structure. I don't think that 4500 packages is something to brag about, it's more of a management nightmare than anything else. I for one don't care whether I have byacc 1.32 or byacc 1.42 or bison 1.02, just pick one that works, toss it in with the compiler package and I'll use it!
Just what we needed, another variation of C. C, C++, Objective C, and I'm sure there's many more. We just can't get enough of these things now can we. This one probably even comes with MS proprietary extensions, how usefull!
As a Slackware lover, I'd have to say that you probably wouldn't like Debian very much. I run (ran) it on my alpha, since Slackware doesn't run on the alpha, and I simply do not like the way things are laid out at all. It is far too unnecessarily complex and twisted. Too many packages, and too many package maintainers with conflicting philosophies. And circular dependancies are nothing but trouble. Slackware is actually very BSD like in nature, so I'd have to say that you would probably appreciate FreeBSD more than Debian if you like Slackware. Yes, I realize that it isn't Linux anymore, but give it a try.
Why oh why must jon katz post such long, meaningless articles all the time? I don't even bother reading anything with his name on it any more. Why do slashdotters complain about trolls and assholes when there's a guy like jon posting to the main page?
Yes, it was there, but it was disabled, and marked along the lines of "do not use unless you want to debug". When I set up an OpenBSD machine to be secure and solid, I don't install _any_ external pieces of code. If softdeps is there by default, then that means that softdeps has been checked out and approved by the OpenBSD squad. (running NetBSD-current is an entirely different issue however, that box is a test bed and I do whatever I want with it)
I just got finished with McKusick's kernel internals class, and I must say, softdeps is conceptually one of the most interesting pieces of code I have ever seen. It's great that it will get to show up in {Open,Net,Free}BSD.
2) Development tools: GCC is one of the best implementations of ANSI C++ available. Possibly the best.
Perhaps on the x86, but certainly not on the alpha or powerpc! As much as I love gcc, it's certainly not the all-singing all-dancing compiler that some make it out to be.
That sounds more like an arguement for my analagy than against it. My point is that the "upper" or "power" segment of the market is small, but that the manufacturers should support our needs as well.
To me, the ultimate goal is to ship systems with no OS. Blank disk. No hassles, no royalties, just options. If you buy a high end bicycle, it comes without peddles and the seat. Why? Because the power users have their own preferences, and are going to replace the personal components anyway.
Compared to the time it takes to load a typical modern game, power-cycling a machine and loading a minimal kernel takes no time at all. Consider the potential benefits: custom filesystem optimized for gaming, custom tcp stack optimized for gaming, the possibilities are numerous. It's no big secret that current tcp implementations are not optimized for sending a large number of relativly small udp packets to a single host.
You don't know what those machines are doing. They could be idle for weeks or months. The only way to judge and OS is to run one and know exactly what it is doing.
I don't suppose the 0% idle was enough to clue you in. Read the posted information before saying something about it.
Yeah, idiots with tremendous uptime. Last I checked the number one machine was upfor over 1400 days, running NetBSD of course. Then again, you may prefer 3D acceleration performence to stability.
Because of the BSD licence, game companies can embed NetBSD into their games to produce a bootable gaming disc. Put the disc in, reboot, and you're playing the game!
That is a damn fine idea. NetBSD doesn't get 1/10th of the respect it deserves.
Slackware is sooo pimp. Partially because he hangs onto the stable software, partially because it doesn't depend on X, and partially because it's the most BSD-like distro. You have to appreciate a distro that doesn't die when you don't want to install X.
Yeah, gotta moderate it down if it's dogging linux. Seriosly, when will the linux zealots grow up and realize that linux isn't the all-singing all-dancing OS to solve every problem on the planet they currently think it is?
Slashdot Mirror
Consider this:
#include
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf("hi, i'm portable\n");
return(0);
}
The above code segment is extremely portable. If I wrote the above in assembly, and then ported it to 50 different chips, that wouldn't make it more portable than the C version simply because I had only actually compiled the C version on 1 chip. NetBSD contains less platform-dependant code than any other OS. Just because no one wants to run it on an S/390 doesn't mean that it would be difficult to do so. Also, NetBSD has portable device driver code. Let's say I take the FDDI adaptor out of my i386 and dump it in my alpha. If I'm running NetBSD, this isn't a problem, because even the device drivers are as system independant as it gets. If I was running Linux, I'd better hope that someone had written a driver for the FDDI card under the alpha as well as the i386, because simply dropping in the i386 driver on the alpha won't work in Linux like it did in NetBSD. Want justification for my claims? Neither Linux or NetBSD currently runs on an IBM RS/6000. Go get one, and try porting Linux to it. Then try porting NetBSD to it. Then you will understand.
I also menitoned OpenBSD to him as an example of a secure system that was open source. I argued that it was exactly because of the OpenBSD/FreeBSD development model (i.e. closely controlled with a top down hierarchy) that it was able to be more secure. Dr. Spafford still felt that OpenBSD did not fit the criteria of a well-trusted system
What exactly does "Dr. Spafford" have a doctorate in? Whatever it is, it certainly hasn't got a thing to do with computer science. Maybe marketing. Maybe he has Ph.D in F.U.D.
This is great news, but I couldn't help but think that more and more each day, Linux is starting to take to the role of Irix. As in, a desktop unix designed for productivity, instead of a massive server platform. Not that I'm complaining.
That's great, except for the fact that it's bad for the environment, and fails in the long run. It's a personalized and temporary solution to a global problem.
As far as I'm concerned, Windows CE is too much for a PDA. What makes PDA-GNOME any different? Just my opinion, but due to PalmOS products outselling WinCE products, I'd have to assume that the market agrees with me.
I for one think that Debian needs to rethink their organization structure. I don't think that 4500 packages is something to brag about, it's more of a management nightmare than anything else. I for one don't care whether I have byacc 1.32 or byacc 1.42 or bison 1.02, just pick one that works, toss it in with the compiler package and I'll use it!
Just what we needed, another variation of C. C, C++, Objective C, and I'm sure there's many more. We just can't get enough of these things now can we. This one probably even comes with MS proprietary extensions, how usefull!
As a Slackware lover, I'd have to say that you probably wouldn't like Debian very much. I run (ran) it on my alpha, since Slackware doesn't run on the alpha, and I simply do not like the way things are laid out at all. It is far too unnecessarily complex and twisted. Too many packages, and too many package maintainers with conflicting philosophies. And circular dependancies are nothing but trouble. Slackware is actually very BSD like in nature, so I'd have to say that you would probably appreciate FreeBSD more than Debian if you like Slackware. Yes, I realize that it isn't Linux anymore, but give it a try.
Why oh why must jon katz post such long, meaningless articles all the time? I don't even bother reading anything with his name on it any more. Why do slashdotters complain about trolls and assholes when there's a guy like jon posting to the main page?
Yes, it was there, but it was disabled, and marked along the lines of "do not use unless you want to debug". When I set up an OpenBSD machine to be secure and solid, I don't install _any_ external pieces of code. If softdeps is there by default, then that means that softdeps has been checked out and approved by the OpenBSD squad. (running NetBSD-current is an entirely different issue however, that box is a test bed and I do whatever I want with it)
I just got finished with McKusick's kernel internals class, and I must say, softdeps is conceptually one of the most interesting pieces of code I have ever seen. It's great that it will get to show up in {Open,Net,Free}BSD.
2) Development tools: GCC is one of the best implementations of ANSI C++ available. Possibly the best.
Perhaps on the x86, but certainly not on the alpha or powerpc! As much as I love gcc, it's certainly not the all-singing all-dancing compiler that some make it out to be.
Hey, I never said how it got to 0% idle ;)
That sounds more like an arguement for my analagy than against it. My point is that the "upper" or "power" segment of the market is small, but that the manufacturers should support our needs as well.
Oh gee, maybe IRIX? But then again, all those professional animators and artists don't know shit about a usefull working environment, now do they?
To me, the ultimate goal is to ship systems with no OS. Blank disk. No hassles, no royalties, just options. If you buy a high end bicycle, it comes without peddles and the seat. Why? Because the power users have their own preferences, and are going to replace the personal components anyway.
I don't suppose NASA, NTT Labs, and KAME are actually _doing work_ with their boxen, are they?
http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/research.html
Who's talking smack again?
Compared to the time it takes to load a typical modern game, power-cycling a machine and loading a minimal kernel takes no time at all. Consider the potential benefits: custom filesystem optimized for gaming, custom tcp stack optimized for gaming, the possibilities are numerous. It's no big secret that current tcp implementations are not optimized for sending a large number of relativly small udp packets to a single host.
You don't know what those machines are doing. They could be idle for weeks or months. The only way to judge and OS is to run one and know exactly what it is doing.
I don't suppose the 0% idle was enough to clue you in. Read the posted information before saying something about it.
Sorry, my url didn't come out right. It is right here.
Yeah, idiots with tremendous uptime. Last I checked the number one machine was upfor over 1400 days, running NetBSD of course. Then again, you may prefer 3D acceleration performence to stability.
Because of the BSD licence, game companies can embed NetBSD into their games to produce a bootable gaming disc. Put the disc in, reboot, and you're playing the game!
That is a damn fine idea. NetBSD doesn't get 1/10th of the respect it deserves.
Uh, you could grab the full distro tree with ftp, and then burn the cd with an "El Torito" pointer to the boot image. Not at all difficult.
Slackware is sooo pimp. Partially because he hangs onto the stable software, partially because it doesn't depend on X, and partially because it's the most BSD-like distro. You have to appreciate a distro that doesn't die when you don't want to install X.
Yeah, gotta moderate it down if it's dogging linux. Seriosly, when will the linux zealots grow up and realize that linux isn't the all-singing all-dancing OS to solve every problem on the planet they currently think it is?