This may be a stupid question, but I wonder: what reference clock is used. It appears the values compared are obtained from simply reading the MHz-value in a Windows dialogue. What says 200MHz on one board is exactly the same as 200MHz on another board anyways? How accurate are the clock-cycle-generator on a MB? I can just tell that the clock of my PC is very inaccurate, compared to my waist-watch.
Can they make any significant CPU-upgrade at all? The iBooks are already close to the PowerBook, and if they dont upgrade the PowerBooks the difference will be insignificant.
I hope for more RAM and lower price. The current CPUs are fast enough, and I dont want any more heat/less battery time.
The iBook will have to wait another year for the Intel CPUs - they are probably the last ones (along with the eMac) to switch from G4.
On the other hand, if using for example debian with a hi-speed internet connection, most new software is installed in identical ways in a minute. The "Windows-way" is very heterogenous:
- different sites/vendors to download from
- commercial/shareware/freeware mixed with each other
- OS/SP-level issues and incompabilities
- unclear quality of downloaded products
- conflicting resources (dll-hell)
With debian chances are very high that what I need is already packaged, and installable from within the OS without the hazzle of patching/building/downloading/testing.
I dont know about composing software for x86-64 in debian of course. However, if you use Linux x86-64, you should be aware that you are living a little bit on the edge when it comes to most software out there being packaged and tested for your system.
I agree with you! Linux is "big" because it solves real problems for real people and organisations. Often it does it because it is customisable, and because you can choose the parts you need for your problem. The diversity reflects that Linux is more of a toolbox collection for OS/Development/Productivity/Server than a "product".
I think that is how BSD and Linux differs in the most significant way. Install OpenBSD, and you get the impression you bought something. It is not so with Linux (Slackware, Debian and Gentoo - are there others;)
I think most people can agree that there are cultural differences between BSD and Linux. Whats the problem? They attract different people and solves different problems. Why do I not run OpenBSD? I dont think it would have installed with all drivers on my laptop in 1998. Slackware did. However, if I was to set up a serious open source server, I would consider OpenBSD before linux, even if I have just installed it a few times and played very little with it.
People chose Linux BECAUSE they can hack on it, with other people, and get stuff working quickly.
People chose BSD because they know the system is developed in a structured and controlled way.
I run slackware on my current firewall. I first considered OpenBSD, then NetBSD, but ended up with Slack - why? Because I want a USB memory stick as disc, and I couldnt find a way to install BSD on such a "disc". However, a "cheap and dirty" kernel hack in Linux made it.
The important thing is that features, code and experiences in Linux can be contributed to BSD, and vice versa. I think authors of Linux code often are willing to let it go into BSD, despite the BSD/GPL-issues.
I believe Itanium will die! The line I wrote and you quoted: it was more a general statement, not particularly related to the article (-; This is Slashdot!
For servers I believe more in Power and Sparc (than Itanium)... at least for a few more years. I stopped believing in PowerPC for desktops last week - cant change my mind too Quickly!
First I'd like to say: I agree with you. But just a thought...
This "mass extinction" of competing hardware architectures is not good for innovation
Maybe instruction sets are not innovative enough on their own. And if they are not innovative enough to survive, maybe they dont benefit customers or the market very much either? Perhaps this is more a sign that CPUs are not so central and important to computing anymore. Companies rather spend their R&D on other things. For consumer computers, enough RAM and a decend GPU is more important than the CPU. To a server reliability, fast disks and enough RAM (with a proper cache/bus design) is more important than the CPU.
Sure, everything is left to Intel (and AMD) soon - but are they going to make much money? High profit margins from before is gone. For most cases, the CPU simply doesnt matter - consumers can happily go with the cheapest anyway.
New things are coming, like the CELL, solving problems with an entirely new design approach. But its ironic we end up with x86-64, instead of PPC, Mips or Alpha. x86-64 would have been most peoples last choice in a perfect world.
The existing Office document formats are all pretty well documented by 3rd parties.
If that was true, how comes OpenOffice cant properly render MS Word documents?
I just, for the fun of it, picked up to CDs that I bought a year ago that has copy protection. By then, I was not able to rip them to my Linux box or my Apple PowerBook.
Now when I put them in my PowerBook (with Tiger) they both play and rip perfectly! Obvioulsy Apple must have built software that circumvents the copy protection, cause I'm quite certain it didnt work with early version of OS X.
I was searching for an answer in the posts but found none...
The "copy" CD is obviously containing WMA, so THAT cant be a regular CD (cause then it woudnt contain WMA, and it could be ripped).
But the original "CD" is supposed to be compatible - what prevents me from ripping it if its compatible?
Must be like one of those "crippled" CDs you can buy with "plays on Windows 95 with PII 233Mhz", but this time you cant only PLAY it on such a computer, you can also produce a "copy" to a CD-R, but that copy can only be played on computers with special compatible programs on them.
I cant believe even the managers are buying this shit!
Anyone having a better idea of what they are up to? How its supposed to work?
Theres an open source program called SCILAB that much resembles MATLAB. If you are to solve a problem from scratch in MATLAB, chances are you can successfully use SCILAB instead. You'll be amazed how mature and flexible the product actually is.
On thing sucks... the syntax is different from MATLAB. You cant use MATLAB "scripts" without heavily modifying them first. Curly brackets, or braces around vectors? Spaces or commas between vector elements? You have to find out and reprogram your brain;)
SCILAB is available debian package. In gentoo just run "emerge scilab". I dont know about other distros, or BSD.
Dont read the fucking article. It just contains personal oppinions and trivial details. It oversimplifies things too. Its not insightful. I usually like AMD and likes them to beat Intel, but this story was simply to thin.
Isnt this "no retail"-strategy exactly what will make people warez Windows XP64 even more?
Lets face it, many people already have bought Athlon 64-systems, or want to build them themselves. Those people CANT get Windows XP64 on their machines legally, if I understand this correctly.
Of course people could get an MSDN-subscription...
Why force people into warez? Why justifying warez? Why not sell it when people want it?
Most people wont buy a Dell just to get XP64 for their home-built system.
Stupid Intel design... the power management just keeps the processor cooler when its not doing anything... doesnt help very much if you actually intend to USE all your power... Or maybe it reduces performance if it gets too hot, so you never actually get Max-performance for long?
I dont like this unelegent design... chip should be built to work nicely even when heavily loaded.
I dont agree with you. In this market the consoles themselves are heavily underpriced. The producors take that loss, expecting to make money from the games (or royalties for the games). You get the newest console for a very nice price - and the games are priced about the same as for your old (less powerful) console.
In the PC-world you pay full price for your newest graphics adapter.
I'd say the gaming console market is very upgrade-friendly for consumers, compared to most other consumer electronic markets!
Great! I have thought about doing the Menza test. I mean - of course it would feel great to belong to the smartest 2% of the population! On the other hand I could fail... But as a seeker of knowledge and truth - is it acceptable not to take a test because the result can be a disappointment? Thats quite cowardly!
And are those people in Menza smart at all? Does the damn test really measure anything meaningful? Will I find nice friends there, or will I just be even more the geek and the nerd I already am?
So this was great news for me! I dont like MS, I dont like MSN. Frankly, MS is for Amateurs! Thus, now Menza is for Amateurs and wannabies as well! Good news, made my day!
Why not go back to the good old days? When new version were released very often. Then: 1.3.5->1.3.6->1.3.7 were rapid (ok, maybe its a bad example, but you get the point).
Now instead its 2.6.11-r3->2.6.11.r4->2.6.11.r5.
This is just an inflations problem. Why not accept that development is faster now when so much more resources and so many more developers are involved?
Call it 2.7.1->2.7.2->2.7.3. Release 2.8 in a matter of weeks. When 2.8 is really good, call 2.8.XX final, and go on with 2.9. Its not like we're running out of numbers. Who will complain?
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This may be a stupid question, but I wonder: what reference clock is used. It appears the values compared are obtained from simply reading the MHz-value in a Windows dialogue. What says 200MHz on one board is exactly the same as 200MHz on another board anyways? How accurate are the clock-cycle-generator on a MB? I can just tell that the clock of my PC is very inaccurate, compared to my waist-watch.
Can they make any significant CPU-upgrade at all? The iBooks are already close to the PowerBook, and if they dont upgrade the PowerBooks the difference will be insignificant.
I hope for more RAM and lower price. The current CPUs are fast enough, and I dont want any more heat/less battery time.
The iBook will have to wait another year for the Intel CPUs - they are probably the last ones (along with the eMac) to switch from G4.
- different sites/vendors to download from
- commercial/shareware/freeware mixed with each other
- OS/SP-level issues and incompabilities
- unclear quality of downloaded products
- conflicting resources (dll-hell)
With debian chances are very high that what I need is already packaged, and installable from within the OS without the hazzle of patching/building/downloading/testing.
I dont know about composing software for x86-64 in debian of course. However, if you use Linux x86-64, you should be aware that you are living a little bit on the edge when it comes to most software out there being packaged and tested for your system.
Also, Apple started OSX x86-development before 2000, before the release of OSX 10.0. That is, long before Microsofts trustworthy computing initiative.
I agree with you! Linux is "big" because it solves real problems for real people and organisations. Often it does it because it is customisable, and because you can choose the parts you need for your problem. The diversity reflects that Linux is more of a toolbox collection for OS/Development/Productivity/Server than a "product".
;)
I think that is how BSD and Linux differs in the most significant way. Install OpenBSD, and you get the impression you bought something. It is not so with Linux (Slackware, Debian and Gentoo - are there others
MiB = 1024*1024 bytes MB = 1.000.000 bytes
However, everybody use MB when they mean MiB. The Mi-notation is not very widespread or successful.
iBooks and PowerBooks will come within a year. The G5:s will be substituted in two years. If you want a PowerMac isn't a bit tough to wait two years?
This is of course just me guessing, but naturally they will start switch the G4s to Intel.
I think most people can agree that there are cultural differences between BSD and Linux. Whats the problem? They attract different people and solves different problems. Why do I not run OpenBSD? I dont think it would have installed with all drivers on my laptop in 1998. Slackware did. However, if I was to set up a serious open source server, I would consider OpenBSD before linux, even if I have just installed it a few times and played very little with it.
People chose Linux BECAUSE they can hack on it, with other people, and get stuff working quickly.
People chose BSD because they know the system is developed in a structured and controlled way.
I run slackware on my current firewall. I first considered OpenBSD, then NetBSD, but ended up with Slack - why? Because I want a USB memory stick as disc, and I couldnt find a way to install BSD on such a "disc". However, a "cheap and dirty" kernel hack in Linux made it.
The important thing is that features, code and experiences in Linux can be contributed to BSD, and vice versa. I think authors of Linux code often are willing to let it go into BSD, despite the BSD/GPL-issues.
Haha! Of course.
I believe Itanium will die! The line I wrote and you quoted: it was more a general statement, not particularly related to the article (-; This is Slashdot!
For servers I believe more in Power and Sparc (than Itanium)... at least for a few more years. I stopped believing in PowerPC for desktops last week - cant change my mind too Quickly!
This "mass extinction" of competing hardware architectures is not good for innovation
Maybe instruction sets are not innovative enough on their own. And if they are not innovative enough to survive, maybe they dont benefit customers or the market very much either? Perhaps this is more a sign that CPUs are not so central and important to computing anymore. Companies rather spend their R&D on other things. For consumer computers, enough RAM and a decend GPU is more important than the CPU. To a server reliability, fast disks and enough RAM (with a proper cache/bus design) is more important than the CPU.
Sure, everything is left to Intel (and AMD) soon - but are they going to make much money? High profit margins from before is gone. For most cases, the CPU simply doesnt matter - consumers can happily go with the cheapest anyway.
New things are coming, like the CELL, solving problems with an entirely new design approach. But its ironic we end up with x86-64, instead of PPC, Mips or Alpha. x86-64 would have been most peoples last choice in a perfect world.
The existing Office document formats are all pretty well documented by 3rd parties.
If that was true, how comes OpenOffice cant properly render MS Word documents?
I just, for the fun of it, picked up to CDs that I bought a year ago that has copy protection. By then, I was not able to rip them to my Linux box or my Apple PowerBook.
Now when I put them in my PowerBook (with Tiger) they both play and rip perfectly! Obvioulsy Apple must have built software that circumvents the copy protection, cause I'm quite certain it didnt work with early version of OS X.
Can anyone else try/confirm this?
I was searching for an answer in the posts but found none...
The "copy" CD is obviously containing WMA, so THAT cant be a regular CD (cause then it woudnt contain WMA, and it could be ripped).
But the original "CD" is supposed to be compatible - what prevents me from ripping it if its compatible?
Must be like one of those "crippled" CDs you can buy with "plays on Windows 95 with PII 233Mhz", but this time you cant only PLAY it on such a computer, you can also produce a "copy" to a CD-R, but that copy can only be played on computers with special compatible programs on them.
I cant believe even the managers are buying this shit!
Anyone having a better idea of what they are up to? How its supposed to work?
Theres an open source program called SCILAB that much resembles MATLAB. If you are to solve a problem from scratch in MATLAB, chances are you can successfully use SCILAB instead. You'll be amazed how mature and flexible the product actually is.
;)
On thing sucks... the syntax is different from MATLAB. You cant use MATLAB "scripts" without heavily modifying them first. Curly brackets, or braces around vectors? Spaces or commas between vector elements? You have to find out and reprogram your brain
SCILAB is available debian package. In gentoo just run "emerge scilab". I dont know about other distros, or BSD.
Dont read the fucking article. It just contains personal oppinions and trivial details. It oversimplifies things too. Its not insightful. I usually like AMD and likes them to beat Intel, but this story was simply to thin.
Why not include both in the box?
I bet the installer starts in 8-bit mode anyways, like anything on x386, so the X64 cd could just say: "please insert X32 cd to install windows".
Isnt this "no retail"-strategy exactly what will make people warez Windows XP64 even more?
Lets face it, many people already have bought Athlon 64-systems, or want to build them themselves. Those people CANT get Windows XP64 on their machines legally, if I understand this correctly.
Of course people could get an MSDN-subscription...
Why force people into warez?
Why justifying warez?
Why not sell it when people want it?
Most people wont buy a Dell just to get XP64 for their home-built system.
I considered writing such a Tetris myself once, but I never got the time.
;)
./bastet , no configurations)
Its great. I never get frustrated with my computer, but this game really made me say bad words
8 lines, thats my record. You'll probably beat it (just make ;
The question is, is it making me a worse or a better tetris player?
Yeah! If we have long-distance low-ping connections as in The Matrix!
For editing media - maybe...
For playing games - NO
What other high-performance jobs are PCs supposed to perform? Hi-speed decompression of tar-balls?
Stupid Intel design... the power management just keeps the processor cooler when its not doing anything... doesnt help very much if you actually intend to USE all your power... Or maybe it reduces performance if it gets too hot, so you never actually get Max-performance for long?
I dont like this unelegent design... chip should be built to work nicely even when heavily loaded.
I dont agree with you. In this market the consoles themselves are heavily underpriced. The producors take that loss, expecting to make money from the games (or royalties for the games). You get the newest console for a very nice price - and the games are priced about the same as for your old (less powerful) console.
In the PC-world you pay full price for your newest graphics adapter.
I'd say the gaming console market is very upgrade-friendly for consumers, compared to most other consumer electronic markets!
Great! I have thought about doing the Menza test. I mean - of course it would feel great to belong to the smartest 2% of the population! On the other hand I could fail... But as a seeker of knowledge and truth - is it acceptable not to take a test because the result can be a disappointment? Thats quite cowardly!
And are those people in Menza smart at all? Does the damn test really measure anything meaningful? Will I find nice friends there, or will I just be even more the geek and the nerd I already am?
So this was great news for me! I dont like MS, I dont like MSN. Frankly, MS is for Amateurs! Thus, now Menza is for Amateurs and wannabies as well! Good news, made my day!
Thanx and have a nice day!
Why not go back to the good old days? When new version were released very often. Then: 1.3.5->1.3.6->1.3.7 were rapid (ok, maybe its a bad example, but you get the point).
Now instead its 2.6.11-r3->2.6.11.r4->2.6.11.r5.
This is just an inflations problem. Why not accept that development is faster now when so much more resources and so many more developers are involved?
Call it 2.7.1->2.7.2->2.7.3. Release 2.8 in a matter of weeks. When 2.8 is really good, call 2.8.XX final, and go on with 2.9. Its not like we're running out of numbers. Who will complain?
Ahh! So you cant take MS format, and embrace and extend it?
Cool!
Next day I start with mv project-0.0.1 project-0.0.2.
Of course, I work alone on my programming projects.
I could use CVS, but there are a number of "concerns" (I admit, I am ignorant):
- how do I backup my CVS-server?
- can I be certain different versions of CVS-clients on MacOSX, linux and cygwin will work nicely together?
- when do I need to patch my CVS server?
- will there be ANY benefits?
I very rarely go back to old versions of my code. I simply dont program that way...