It can be like that, certainly. But there are Chromebooks with more storage. They typically have 4-core, 4GB RAM, USB ports, SD-card slot. It is obviously low end but it is far from useless on its own.
More and more Chromebooks run Android apps. In dev-mode you can run most everything (using croution, for example). I hear linux-apps-in-a-sandbox (kind of) is in the making.
I used to make that argument too (against the Mac Pro Mini): most people would get it instead of the MacMini and MacPro.
But neither the MacMini nor the MacPro has been upgraded in 4 years. They are essentially abandoned. Perhaps the margins are descent, but even for Apple, volume must matter too.
If Apple cared about the sales of MaxMini and MacPro they would keep those products relevant.
My gaming PC cost me $1000 years ago and it works just fine. Steam has plenty of games for macOS. But there is simply no reasonable Mac to buy.
We have a MacBook Pro from 2012. It is upgraded to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hybrid/fusion drive. Total money spent is not much more than $1500. Can't get anything (Apple) close to 16GB/1TB for $1500 in 2018.
I completely agree. I can use affordable Apple computers for most of my uses today (except playing occational games). But it is getting seriously hard to find anything I want.
The MacBook Air 13 I think is the most attractive offer they have.
A would love a MacMini (or similar) that was powerful enough for some gaming. The current MacMini is worse than the one it replaced 4 years ago. And I would want a laptop where i can replace the hard drive, and that comes with MagSafe thank you very much.
The car industry release annual models of their cars.
It is often no major changes, but it is a revised version, a few changes, perhaps a new pricetag.
If nothing else it keeps the enthusiasts... enthusiastic.
And... memory and storage is rather cheap in 2018. Apple, however, charge a lot for quite little. Just a little RAM/storage bump would suffice for a new model.
When will the hardware stop supporting 32-bit (and 16-bit) modes? I talk about AMD and Intel CPUs. I mean, there could always be one model that does (support 16/32 natively). But most models could be pure 64 bit. It would be easier for everyone, wouldnt it?
I agree. Especially since x64 is a much improved/changed instruction set compared to x86. It is probably not that much more expensive for Intel or AMD to deliver both 32/64 in the same chip, but it must come at some cost. I think Xeon processors, and ultra low end (made for Chromebooks), could benefit from 64-bit only.
For instruction sets like PPC where 32/64-bit were essentially the same its a different story.
How about dropping everything except 64 bit mode. Boot straight to 64 bit, no turning back, no legacy, no compability? How many CPUs actually ever run anything than 64 bit today? (I do understand many windows desktops do, but apart from that: servers, linux computers, chromebooks should never need anything less than 64 bit mode)
I have been using Xubuntu since many years, and on a few occations Lubuntu (when hardware has been limited).
Windows is not getting more advanced as a "Window Manager" or a "Desktop". Neither is Mac OS X. Xubuntu used to come with the "Dock" activated by default, now it is not.
Isn't it quite clear that simplicity is the way to go? Some kind of "start menu" for launching applications. Some way to switch between open applications. Some place to display clock and wifi status. And for those who want, drives/folders/files. And search.
Basically Windows NT4 and Mac OS 6 looked like this, and for good reasons.
More advanced Gnome, KDE or anything else seem to have very little purpose and audience.
Intels plan was to deliver high-mhz-average-performance-pentium-4 for the broad market. Remember how the first Pentium 4 at 1.3-1.4GHz barely managed to keep up with a 1GHz Pentium 3 (or the Athlon)? The very long pipeline of Pentium 4 was meant to work well for "multimedia", and for other purposes Intel considered the CPU fast enought.
The Itanium was supposed to be superior with its 64-bit memory and good general performance, and this would make it the only viable option for servers and high performance workstations. And at a much higher price than the 32-bit P4.
Only problem was that AMD had another plan that left both Itanium and P4 in a very bad place.
Well, "kill off the Alpha [...] with the Itanium"... Intel bought the rights for Alpha and discontinued it. That killed it. Itanium would never have been able to compete with Alpha and replace it otherwise.
Alpha was great but when Pentium Pro came out and delivered good performance at a much lower price... that was the beginning of the end for Alpha.
And, the life time of Apple products tend to be superior.
I was looking at a ChromeBook a while ago. I dont think I would have used it more than 2 years, and ended up with a MacBook Air instead, that I think will last for 5-6 years, at least.
The ergonomics of Apple laptops are great (to me). The display is good, and the touchpad is centered at the computer - not aligned with the space bar. It seems System76 also has a touch pad aligned to the left. I dont get it.
I would really consider to get non Apple-laptops, if I was confident about - build quality - ergonomics (display, keyboard and trackpad quality) - runs Ubuntu or Debian with no hazzle - "Windows tax" situation
Getting into a store with consumer laptops usually makes me want none of them, even if I got them for free.
I suppose neither RAM nor SSD can be upgraded or replaced.
I know I am miserable, but it gets expensive to buy maximum RAM from the beginning. And it sucks to have too little RAM down the road. But with a non repairable/replacable SSD, who wants to spend too much money on a laptop?
For some reason ubuntu installed 4.4.0-45 but insisted on still booting 4.4.0.43. So after a full upgrade and a reboot it was still vulnerable. After I I discovered the problem and booted 4.4.0-45 I confirmed that fixed the problem.
Raspbian seems not to be fixed (please correct me if I am wrong).
I found one of these "exploits in the wild": https://github.com/dirtycow/dirtycow.github.io/blob/master/dirtyc0w.c
It works on the three Linux machines I first tested it on. $ dirtyc0w/etc/secretfile.txt abcde simply (over)writes abcde to the beginning of the file.
Fix seems to be available for none of the systems right now.
At least it requires a local account.... I mean, after all, it must be considered a security problem to allow web users to upload binaries or run arbitrary commands via a web server anyway. But if I was responsible for a students lab with hundreds of Linux computers I would be a little nervous.
I have always upgraded Ubuntu to the latest version. But 16.04 is LTS and the rate of change is not very high (it was long since I needed to upgrade to get something I did not have access to in the earlier version). So I think about remaining on LTS, for the first time ever. Thoughts on that?
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It can be like that, certainly. But there are Chromebooks with more storage. They typically have 4-core, 4GB RAM, USB ports, SD-card slot. It is obviously low end but it is far from useless on its own.
More and more Chromebooks run Android apps.
In dev-mode you can run most everything (using croution, for example).
I hear linux-apps-in-a-sandbox (kind of) is in the making.
I used to make that argument too (against the Mac Pro Mini): most people would get it instead of the MacMini and MacPro.
But neither the MacMini nor the MacPro has been upgraded in 4 years. They are essentially abandoned. Perhaps the margins are descent, but even for Apple, volume must matter too.
If Apple cared about the sales of MaxMini and MacPro they would keep those products relevant.
My gaming PC cost me $1000 years ago and it works just fine.
Steam has plenty of games for macOS.
But there is simply no reasonable Mac to buy.
We have a MacBook Pro from 2012. It is upgraded to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hybrid/fusion drive. Total money spent is not much more than $1500. Can't get anything (Apple) close to 16GB/1TB for $1500 in 2018.
I completely agree. I can use affordable Apple computers for most of my uses today (except playing occational games). But it is getting seriously hard to find anything I want.
The MacBook Air 13 I think is the most attractive offer they have.
A would love a MacMini (or similar) that was powerful enough for some gaming. The current MacMini is worse than the one it replaced 4 years ago. And I would want a laptop where i can replace the hard drive, and that comes with MagSafe thank you very much.
The car industry release annual models of their cars.
It is often no major changes, but it is a revised version, a few changes, perhaps a new pricetag.
If nothing else it keeps the enthusiasts... enthusiastic.
And... memory and storage is rather cheap in 2018. Apple, however, charge a lot for quite little. Just a little RAM/storage bump would suffice for a new model.
Apple are just terrible 2018.
How about Apple producing a new Mac Mini. Or a Mac Pro. Or any reasonable computer for those who already have a display?
I would imagine it could save a few 1-3% silicon and reduce design complexity a bit more than that.
If not so, then obviously you are right.
Yes, well, obviously a being able to start an 64-bit mode is kind of a prerequisite for even thinking about dropping older modes.
When will the hardware stop supporting 32-bit (and 16-bit) modes?
I talk about AMD and Intel CPUs.
I mean, there could always be one model that does (support 16/32 natively). But most models could be pure 64 bit. It would be easier for everyone, wouldnt it?
I agree. Especially since x64 is a much improved/changed instruction set compared to x86. It is probably not that much more expensive for Intel or AMD to deliver both 32/64 in the same chip, but it must come at some cost. I think Xeon processors, and ultra low end (made for Chromebooks), could benefit from 64-bit only.
For instruction sets like PPC where 32/64-bit were essentially the same its a different story.
How about dropping everything except 64 bit mode. Boot straight to 64 bit, no turning back, no legacy, no compability?
How many CPUs actually ever run anything than 64 bit today?
(I do understand many windows desktops do, but apart from that: servers, linux computers, chromebooks should never need anything less than 64 bit mode)
I have been using Xubuntu since many years, and on a few occations Lubuntu (when hardware has been limited).
Windows is not getting more advanced as a "Window Manager" or a "Desktop". Neither is Mac OS X.
Xubuntu used to come with the "Dock" activated by default, now it is not.
Isn't it quite clear that simplicity is the way to go? Some kind of "start menu" for launching applications. Some way to switch between open applications. Some place to display clock and wifi status. And for those who want, drives/folders/files. And search.
Basically Windows NT4 and Mac OS 6 looked like this, and for good reasons.
More advanced Gnome, KDE or anything else seem to have very little purpose and audience.
Yes,
Either you understand what you are doing and you know how to do it right.
Or you dont understand. Or you are not capable of doing it right.
That said, some tools are better for some jobs. And it makes no sense to complicate things for yourself.
C++, or even Objective C... but mixing C and C++ is usually worse than either of them.
Intels plan was to deliver high-mhz-average-performance-pentium-4 for the broad market. Remember how the first Pentium 4 at 1.3-1.4GHz barely managed to keep up with a 1GHz Pentium 3 (or the Athlon)? The very long pipeline of Pentium 4 was meant to work well for "multimedia", and for other purposes Intel considered the CPU fast enought.
The Itanium was supposed to be superior with its 64-bit memory and good general performance, and this would make it the only viable option for servers and high performance workstations. And at a much higher price than the 32-bit P4.
Only problem was that AMD had another plan that left both Itanium and P4 in a very bad place.
Well, "kill off the Alpha [...] with the Itanium"...
Intel bought the rights for Alpha and discontinued it. That killed it.
Itanium would never have been able to compete with Alpha and replace it otherwise.
Alpha was great but when Pentium Pro came out and delivered good performance at a much lower price... that was the beginning of the end for Alpha.
I understand this is stupid but I would like to know... have a look at:
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Luhn_test_of_credit_card_numbers
Look through the inititial text and get an idea. Then jump to the C code (not functional).
Then look at functional implementations: C++11, Python, Closure, Haskell, PicoLisp, Python, Scheme, Swift.
Look at Scala: 2 ways: functional (recommended) and procedural. Look at it.
What do you see?
What do you think?
For a few years HyperTalk (the programming language of HyperCard) and a single reference book was my only contact with programming.
And, the life time of Apple products tend to be superior.
I was looking at a ChromeBook a while ago. I dont think I would have used it more than 2 years, and ended up with a MacBook Air instead, that I think will last for 5-6 years, at least.
The ergonomics of Apple laptops are great (to me). The display is good, and the touchpad is centered at the computer - not aligned with the space bar. It seems System76 also has a touch pad aligned to the left. I dont get it.
I would really consider to get non Apple-laptops, if I was confident about
- build quality
- ergonomics (display, keyboard and trackpad quality)
- runs Ubuntu or Debian with no hazzle
- "Windows tax" situation
Getting into a store with consumer laptops usually makes me want none of them, even if I got them for free.
I suppose neither RAM nor SSD can be upgraded or replaced.
I know I am miserable, but it gets expensive to buy maximum RAM from the beginning. And it sucks to have too little RAM down the road.
But with a non repairable/replacable SSD, who wants to spend too much money on a laptop?
Or am I wrong?
For some reason ubuntu installed 4.4.0-45 but insisted on still booting 4.4.0.43. So after a full upgrade and a reboot it was still vulnerable. After I I discovered the problem and booted 4.4.0-45 I confirmed that fixed the problem.
Raspbian seems not to be fixed (please correct me if I am wrong).
On Ubuntu, 4.4.0-43-generic was clearly vulnerable.
I now have 4.4.0-45-generic which seems to safe.
I found one of these "exploits in the wild":
https://github.com/dirtycow/dirtycow.github.io/blob/master/dirtyc0w.c
It works on the three Linux machines I first tested it on. /etc/secretfile.txt abcde
$ dirtyc0w
simply (over)writes abcde to the beginning of the file.
Fix seems to be available for none of the systems right now.
At least it requires a local account.... I mean, after all, it must be considered a security problem to allow web users to upload binaries or run arbitrary commands via a web server anyway. But if I was responsible for a students lab with hundreds of Linux computers I would be a little nervous.
I have always upgraded Ubuntu to the latest version. But 16.04 is LTS and the rate of change is not very high (it was long since I needed to upgrade to get something I did not have access to in the earlier version). So I think about remaining on LTS, for the first time ever. Thoughts on that?
Probably true... however, the only cross-compiler I ever built was for OpenWRT, and I did it on a Mac OS X machine, and it was quite fine.