First we have those that can't do without MS Office because it is "Oh so perfect" and "The standard"... Then we have those that complain about free subsitutes that have almost all (and then some) of the functionality at a price of $0.00., just because they aren't "innovative enough". If the price can't justify it, then what can? People aren't going to be able to pull new features and UI improvements out of their asses, guys. Come on. This is the same, sorry argument that we keep hearing by people who harp about how software designers "copy" the Windows and Mac features for Gnome and KDE.
I just don't get it. Sometimes, in order to make something usable for most people, there is no such thing as "innovating" to the extent of making it vastly different. Some people just want to have a similar, comfortable interface to work on their spreadsheets and reports.
It's happening. My university invested in a horribly expensive MS Exchange server, and paid per-seat for each Outlook user to access it. Then, they decided that in order to offer email to all of the students, they wouldn't be able to afford it, so they opted for a Linux-based webmail system instead.
My university is a big Microsoft place, but they are slowly beginning to learn that it is really costing them a lot of money. With recent budget cuts, they are going to have to start pinching pennies. In the past, they replaced PCs every two years. Now, it's looking like it's going to happen every 3-4 instead.
In the past, the Linux classes at the college were just something that was put together by a department head. He did it to have fun. Over the last few years it has really grown, and is actually starting to become a big part of the CIS program.
Michael - Perhaps you failed to read the article (as usual)? Maybe you missed the 70% remark? Sure, LGP isn't offering them salary, but the dev team will get 70% of the profits. They can do whatever they see fit with the 70%. The other 30% covers marketing, etc. Why did you fail to mention this?
This is a damn fine idea, if you ask me. And it seems very fair. If a small team of good, dedicated coders wants to work on this, then so be it. They do this all of the time anyways, coding GPL apps for the benefit of everyone who sees fit to use it.
MSimms of LGP even mentioned that they'd front the cost of tools (he used the Garage Games engine as an example) if they were needed, as long as it was a reasonable request. Either way, I see it as a good way for LGP to get noticed, assuming that they come up with a good game. What have the devs got to lose? If they volunteer, and have free time, the worst thing that they can get is 70% of the profits. You take a gamble. Make a crappy game, and don't make much money. Make a good game, and there may be very many benefits. I'd say that its not for everyone, but it is a reasonable offer, and a good (and unique) way to get in on commerical game development.
It'll work. I've installed Slackware 8.1 on a similar configuration recently, and ran into no problems. The XV support for the graphics chip even allows MPlayer to play movies back with minimal CPU load.
I'm wondering where you can get these things without *any* OS. I'm willing to bet that there is the Lindows tax in there somewhere. And that's OK, but I don't want Lindows. I'd wipe it and install Slackware.
$700 is a bit much, but $500 would be a great deal. Actually, AccessMicro had some C3s a few months back at $500 or so. I was thinking of buying one back then. They were a bit slower, but they had just the right price, and had a CD or DVD ROM drive.
I like the C3s because of how cool they run. They aren't the fastest CPUs by any means, but who really needs high speed for a portable PC? It's certainly fast enough to compile the average program in a reasonable amount of time. I've even been thinking of building a cheap-o C3 desktop system for around $200 to run as a server. Why? I don't need anything that is fast for a server connected to my cable modem.
I used Cyrix CPUs years ago, and loved them. They were reliable, stable, and fast (except for 3d gaming). These VIA CPUs are essentially what has spun off of the Cyrix chips. Despite people's opinions about their slower speeds, they do have their place in the market. They seem to fill the space in between PDA and notebook/desktop very well, offering benefits of the chips that you see in both.
Anyone that has played the pathetic UT2003 port to Linux will know that it is many times slower than the Windows version. The game was coded for DirectX. It uses a wrapper in Linux to convert Direct3D calls to OpenGL in real-time, and it *REALLY* puts a tax on the host CPU.
In my experience, properly ported OpenGL games on Linux (like RTCW) were faster than under Windows, but UT2003 is definately not the case. For that reason, these comparisons are way too early. I can't speak for the port to the Athlon64 architecture, but when it comes to the 32 bit version of UT2003 for Linux, it's very slow in comparison to the Windows release. This is what happens when you code a game for one platform, one API, and then try to port it to other operating systems.
I'm not so sure that Opera uses QT on every platform. I think that they just modify the Windows code to run on QT environments like KDE. Otherwise, I'd suspect that they'd have releases a bit more in sync with one another. But still, their Linux releases are way behind their Windows releases, and their Mac releases are even worse. Even then, they all seem to be missing specific features that are included in the Windows version. Email seems to ring a bell.
Oh, please. Screw the "just works" crap. KDE has a button that "just turns on" antialiasing. It's a non-issue, and has NOTHING to do with X, aside from the render extension that speeds things up. It isn't even a requirement.
And as far as Linux is concerned, XFree is not X. Maybe you've never heard of a company called Metrolink? Xi? They all work on Unix clones.
RandR is a new extension that supports this feature. I think that Gnome CVS even has code for it, but you need to have a newer version of XF86. Nobody ever anticipated the need to adjust resolution and resizing for the X11 protocol, which is why we still don't see it. But rest assured that it will happen soon.
What in the hell is wrong with X? It's fast, reliable, and has tons of features.
I can't quite figure out what the problem is. People harp on X all of the time because they are too stupid to stop running Enlightenment in framebuffer mode. It's not X!
Why don't you anit-X trolls start posting some legitimate remarks about X problems. We'll be waiting.
"Getting all those people going in the same direction, cranking out code, is an enormous task. Building the results of their work, compiling and linking it into the executable and other components that make up a Windows CD is a 12 to 13 hour process that is done every day of the week. It's the biggest software engineering task ever attempted. There are no other software projects like this." And Microsoft compiles the whole thing--all 50+ million lines of code, almost every single day, he said. "We're evolving the development environment all the time," Lucovsky noted."
I think that they were forgetting about that orher large-scale software engineering task, in which thousands (tens of thousands?) of people crunch out code and compile software every day.
I'm not sure about the newest versions of Konq, but previous version of 3.x were very unstable. Konq benefits though from having a single widget set in KDE/QT that lets you enable antialiasing in the control center.
In regards to Phoenix, it works just fine with subpixel rendering. You need to have a version of it compiled with XFT support. That's it. It really doesn't require tweaking. It's just that the binaries are usually compiled for the lowest common denominator. Distributions are including versions of Mozilla and Phoenix with XFT support.
If you do have a version of Phoenix with XFT support, it relies on your Freetype Libraries and Gnome 2 settings to determine the type of antialiasing that is used. If you have Freetype compiled with the bytecode interpretor, then it will use that. If not, it uses the autohinter. Gnome 2.2.0 now has a control center for fonts that let you tweak the smoothing, hinting, and subpixel order. It lets you enable subpixel rendering, which in-turn also effects other apps, like Mozilla. There is so much flexibility that almost everyone can get the results that they desire for antialiasing.
Speak for yourself. I'm saying that the CPU utilization is so low that it never impacted my gaming or anything else. The chips are hardware disk controllers. The only thing that is software controlled is the fact that the host CPU tells it to write to seperate channels.
If I was running a P200, then yeah. I could see some sense in your argument. But modern day 1GHz+ CPUs don't even dent under the minimal load on the CPU, when processing instructions for the ATA RAID controllers. It's no worse than say- software controlled DirectSound mixing, or Winmodems.
I stopped using my back button when I used to use Opera. Tabbed browsing eliminated my need for a back button (in most cases), and kept my browsing organized. Now, Mozilla and Phoenix support this. It's a great feature. Try using it and you will see that your back button gets only a small fraction of the use that it once had.
On a modern machine, software IDE RAID is still beneficial. For striped arrays, the performance penalty on the host CPU is very minimal compared to the device performance. Of course, hardware solutions are easier to set up. If you buy a 3Ware card, or something similar, kernel support is a non-issue. But for home users that just want software to load faster or wish to have backups, IDE RAID is a cheap solution that performs very well.
So, you say it sucks, I say it's fine. You say toe-mott-oh, I say toe-mate-oh. Hardware RAID is more than just a few $. It costs hundred(s) more than software RAID controllers. I've had software controllers that performed better than the current high-end SCSI drives at the time. I can attest to the fact that CPU load was a non-issue. Performance was excellent and was the most inexpensive way to gain speed. It's ideal for home users that aren't wanting to spend a fortune on limiting the swapfile chug.
So, please define "sucks". Enlighten us softRAID users on what the problem is. Or is the problem really that you've spent your fortune on some overpriced SCSI drives that get outperformed by a couple of ATA100s?
I started playing it again too. If you own Metroid Prime (GCN) and Fusion (GBA), then you can link them up and unlock them after you finish Fusion.
I was a bit surprised at how much I remembered from the original Metroid. I picked up a lot of the items in Brinstar, and within 15 mninutes or so I was in Norfair again. The nostalgia reminded me of when I played it 15 years ago. I'd always get up early to play it before catching the school bus.
I've still got an NES max. A year ago, I picked one up at FuncoLand, and it was in great shape. I pulled it apart and cleaned and rebuilt it. It is much more comfortable than the standard NES pads. Larger too.
I was quite fond of Track and Field II. The NES Max made the game a bit more enjoyable. It was easier to play games like swimming and the canoe race was more playable. Jamming on buttons for speed and power really takes the fun out of it.
Overall though, It was a great game, and it played surprisingly well. All of the matches were very well balanced and were tweaked nicely. I wouldn't have expected a game of that era to perfect so many "mini-games" and toss them into one package.
I laughed when I saw "1,000 watts of power". Speaker power ratings are horribly misleading, and should be taken worth a grain of salt. This is especially true for paper cone PC speaker sets.
The level of loudness or efficiency and bass response is very dependant on the amp's ability to drive the speakers, as well as output impedance. The amp/processor is going to dissipate a lot of power, and the speakers are never going to operate at the quoted efficiency.
"RMS". No, not Stallman. "Root Mean Squared". Peak power is a scam, and should not be used for buying sound equpiment.
I recall hearing a loud popping noise in my computer room, a few months back. I've not had any problems since the pop, but it might be a good idea for me to open it up and take a look at the caps.
Try contacting the guys at www.opensound.com. I had some latency problems, and it boiled down to samplerate conversion issues with libSDL. It is possible to fix it, but you need to mention it to them. Dev, of OSS, took care of the problem for me.
Otherwise, you may want to try routing audio to the real DSP device, and not the virtual mixer devices.
Once I got my hands on Gnome 2, through Dropline Systems (for Slackware), I was hooked. It is light-years beyond Gnome 1.4 in terms of usability. It's functional, and is fast (for a modern desktop environment).
Slashdot Mirror
How is the RandR working out? I've been eagerly awaiting that extension.
First we have those that can't do without MS Office because it is "Oh so perfect" and "The standard"... Then we have those that complain about free subsitutes that have almost all (and then some) of the functionality at a price of $0.00., just because they aren't "innovative enough". If the price can't justify it, then what can? People aren't going to be able to pull new features and UI improvements out of their asses, guys. Come on. This is the same, sorry argument that we keep hearing by people who harp about how software designers "copy" the Windows and Mac features for Gnome and KDE.
I just don't get it. Sometimes, in order to make something usable for most people, there is no such thing as "innovating" to the extent of making it vastly different. Some people just want to have a similar, comfortable interface to work on their spreadsheets and reports.
Who says we are rushing as a result of an article that most of us care nothing about?
It's happening. My university invested in a horribly expensive MS Exchange server, and paid per-seat for each Outlook user to access it. Then, they decided that in order to offer email to all of the students, they wouldn't be able to afford it, so they opted for a Linux-based webmail system instead.
My university is a big Microsoft place, but they are slowly beginning to learn that it is really costing them a lot of money. With recent budget cuts, they are going to have to start pinching pennies. In the past, they replaced PCs every two years. Now, it's looking like it's going to happen every 3-4 instead.
In the past, the Linux classes at the college were just something that was put together by a department head. He did it to have fun. Over the last few years it has really grown, and is actually starting to become a big part of the CIS program.
Michael - Perhaps you failed to read the article (as usual)? Maybe you missed the 70% remark? Sure, LGP isn't offering them salary, but the dev team will get 70% of the profits. They can do whatever they see fit with the 70%. The other 30% covers marketing, etc. Why did you fail to mention this?
This is a damn fine idea, if you ask me. And it seems very fair. If a small team of good, dedicated coders wants to work on this, then so be it. They do this all of the time anyways, coding GPL apps for the benefit of everyone who sees fit to use it.
MSimms of LGP even mentioned that they'd front the cost of tools (he used the Garage Games engine as an example) if they were needed, as long as it was a reasonable request. Either way, I see it as a good way for LGP to get noticed, assuming that they come up with a good game. What have the devs got to lose? If they volunteer, and have free time, the worst thing that they can get is 70% of the profits. You take a gamble. Make a crappy game, and don't make much money. Make a good game, and there may be very many benefits. I'd say that its not for everyone, but it is a reasonable offer, and a good (and unique) way to get in on commerical game development.
It'll work. I've installed Slackware 8.1 on a similar configuration recently, and ran into no problems. The XV support for the graphics chip even allows MPlayer to play movies back with minimal CPU load.
I'm wondering where you can get these things without *any* OS. I'm willing to bet that there is the Lindows tax in there somewhere. And that's OK, but I don't want Lindows. I'd wipe it and install Slackware.
$700 is a bit much, but $500 would be a great deal. Actually, AccessMicro had some C3s a few months back at $500 or so. I was thinking of buying one back then. They were a bit slower, but they had just the right price, and had a CD or DVD ROM drive.
I like the C3s because of how cool they run. They aren't the fastest CPUs by any means, but who really needs high speed for a portable PC? It's certainly fast enough to compile the average program in a reasonable amount of time. I've even been thinking of building a cheap-o C3 desktop system for around $200 to run as a server. Why? I don't need anything that is fast for a server connected to my cable modem.
I used Cyrix CPUs years ago, and loved them. They were reliable, stable, and fast (except for 3d gaming). These VIA CPUs are essentially what has spun off of the Cyrix chips. Despite people's opinions about their slower speeds, they do have their place in the market. They seem to fill the space in between PDA and notebook/desktop very well, offering benefits of the chips that you see in both.
Anyone that has played the pathetic UT2003 port to Linux will know that it is many times slower than the Windows version. The game was coded for DirectX. It uses a wrapper in Linux to convert Direct3D calls to OpenGL in real-time, and it *REALLY* puts a tax on the host CPU.
In my experience, properly ported OpenGL games on Linux (like RTCW) were faster than under Windows, but UT2003 is definately not the case. For that reason, these comparisons are way too early. I can't speak for the port to the Athlon64 architecture, but when it comes to the 32 bit version of UT2003 for Linux, it's very slow in comparison to the Windows release. This is what happens when you code a game for one platform, one API, and then try to port it to other operating systems.
I'm not so sure that Opera uses QT on every platform. I think that they just modify the Windows code to run on QT environments like KDE. Otherwise, I'd suspect that they'd have releases a bit more in sync with one another. But still, their Linux releases are way behind their Windows releases, and their Mac releases are even worse. Even then, they all seem to be missing specific features that are included in the Windows version. Email seems to ring a bell.
Oh, please. Screw the "just works" crap. KDE has a button that "just turns on" antialiasing. It's a non-issue, and has NOTHING to do with X, aside from the render extension that speeds things up. It isn't even a requirement.
And as far as Linux is concerned, XFree is not X. Maybe you've never heard of a company called Metrolink? Xi? They all work on Unix clones.
RandR is a new extension that supports this feature. I think that Gnome CVS even has code for it, but you need to have a newer version of XF86. Nobody ever anticipated the need to adjust resolution and resizing for the X11 protocol, which is why we still don't see it. But rest assured that it will happen soon.
r /
Take a look at this page for more info:
http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/talks/randr/rand
What in the hell is wrong with X? It's fast, reliable, and has tons of features.
I can't quite figure out what the problem is. People harp on X all of the time because they are too stupid to stop running Enlightenment in framebuffer mode. It's not X!
Why don't you anit-X trolls start posting some legitimate remarks about X problems. We'll be waiting.
I think that they were forgetting about that orher large-scale software engineering task, in which thousands (tens of thousands?) of people crunch out code and compile software every day.
What's that called?
Linux.
My girlfriend had a crush on Optimus Prime when she was young.
Seriously.
I'm not sure about the newest versions of Konq, but previous version of 3.x were very unstable. Konq benefits though from having a single widget set in KDE/QT that lets you enable antialiasing in the control center.
In regards to Phoenix, it works just fine with subpixel rendering. You need to have a version of it compiled with XFT support. That's it. It really doesn't require tweaking. It's just that the binaries are usually compiled for the lowest common denominator. Distributions are including versions of Mozilla and Phoenix with XFT support.
If you do have a version of Phoenix with XFT support, it relies on your Freetype Libraries and Gnome 2 settings to determine the type of antialiasing that is used. If you have Freetype compiled with the bytecode interpretor, then it will use that. If not, it uses the autohinter. Gnome 2.2.0 now has a control center for fonts that let you tweak the smoothing, hinting, and subpixel order. It lets you enable subpixel rendering, which in-turn also effects other apps, like Mozilla. There is so much flexibility that almost everyone can get the results that they desire for antialiasing.
Speak for yourself. I'm saying that the CPU utilization is so low that it never impacted my gaming or anything else. The chips are hardware disk controllers. The only thing that is software controlled is the fact that the host CPU tells it to write to seperate channels.
If I was running a P200, then yeah. I could see some sense in your argument. But modern day 1GHz+ CPUs don't even dent under the minimal load on the CPU, when processing instructions for the ATA RAID controllers. It's no worse than say- software controlled DirectSound mixing, or Winmodems.
I stopped using my back button when I used to use Opera. Tabbed browsing eliminated my need for a back button (in most cases), and kept my browsing organized. Now, Mozilla and Phoenix support this. It's a great feature. Try using it and you will see that your back button gets only a small fraction of the use that it once had.
On a modern machine, software IDE RAID is still beneficial. For striped arrays, the performance penalty on the host CPU is very minimal compared to the device performance. Of course, hardware solutions are easier to set up. If you buy a 3Ware card, or something similar, kernel support is a non-issue. But for home users that just want software to load faster or wish to have backups, IDE RAID is a cheap solution that performs very well.
So, you say it sucks, I say it's fine. You say toe-mott-oh, I say toe-mate-oh. Hardware RAID is more than just a few $. It costs hundred(s) more than software RAID controllers. I've had software controllers that performed better than the current high-end SCSI drives at the time. I can attest to the fact that CPU load was a non-issue. Performance was excellent and was the most inexpensive way to gain speed. It's ideal for home users that aren't wanting to spend a fortune on limiting the swapfile chug.
So, please define "sucks". Enlighten us softRAID users on what the problem is. Or is the problem really that you've spent your fortune on some overpriced SCSI drives that get outperformed by a couple of ATA100s?
I started playing it again too. If you own Metroid Prime (GCN) and Fusion (GBA), then you can link them up and unlock them after you finish Fusion.
I was a bit surprised at how much I remembered from the original Metroid. I picked up a lot of the items in Brinstar, and within 15 mninutes or so I was in Norfair again. The nostalgia reminded me of when I played it 15 years ago. I'd always get up early to play it before catching the school bus.
I've still got an NES max. A year ago, I picked one up at FuncoLand, and it was in great shape. I pulled it apart and cleaned and rebuilt it. It is much more comfortable than the standard NES pads. Larger too.
I was quite fond of Track and Field II. The NES Max made the game a bit more enjoyable. It was easier to play games like swimming and the canoe race was more playable. Jamming on buttons for speed and power really takes the fun out of it.
Overall though, It was a great game, and it played surprisingly well. All of the matches were very well balanced and were tweaked nicely. I wouldn't have expected a game of that era to perfect so many "mini-games" and toss them into one package.
You beat me to this post. ;)
I laughed when I saw "1,000 watts of power". Speaker power ratings are horribly misleading, and should be taken worth a grain of salt. This is especially true for paper cone PC speaker sets.
The level of loudness or efficiency and bass response is very dependant on the amp's ability to drive the speakers, as well as output impedance. The amp/processor is going to dissipate a lot of power, and the speakers are never going to operate at the quoted efficiency.
"RMS". No, not Stallman. "Root Mean Squared". Peak power is a scam, and should not be used for buying sound equpiment.
I recall hearing a loud popping noise in my computer room, a few months back. I've not had any problems since the pop, but it might be a good idea for me to open it up and take a look at the caps.
Try contacting the guys at www.opensound.com. I had some latency problems, and it boiled down to samplerate conversion issues with libSDL. It is possible to fix it, but you need to mention it to them. Dev, of OSS, took care of the problem for me.
Otherwise, you may want to try routing audio to the real DSP device, and not the virtual mixer devices.
Once I got my hands on Gnome 2, through Dropline Systems (for Slackware), I was hooked. It is light-years beyond Gnome 1.4 in terms of usability. It's functional, and is fast (for a modern desktop environment).