Greetings. I am a casual player of World of Warcraft. Casual means I get in about 6-8 hours average a week, if I'm lucky.
It's extremely difficult for the casual gamer to play World of Warcraft. For much of the game, the casual gamers are forced to play solo, or in ill-formed groups of people with various play styles. Joining a guild is impossible, as I'm not on long enough to get to know anybody. And PVP servers become impossible after about the 30th level, especialy while soloing. What can a casual gamer do?
If this makes windows Smaller and more stable, I'm all for it.
Heh. Okay, that's probably not it.
If Microsoft is trying to make Direct3D the prefered rendering technology on Windows platforms by making OpenGL slower, they will only find partial success.
This won't work, because most Graphics Card manufacturers are the ones which make the OpenGL drivers for their own cards. These drivers are fast and (usualy) stable. Open GL won't go away, especialy since every other platform (Linux, BSD, Mac, BeOS, Whatever) support OpenGL as their primary 3d rendering technology.
So, who's affected by this? Game Makers and Video Card Makers. (Oh, and us, the customers, but I'm ignoring that for the moment.)
Game makers have to decided if they're going to make their games OpenGL, D3D, or both. OpenGL is more universal, but D3D will, of corse, be prefered. On the other Hand, if they don't want to make their game cross platform, they can just go D3D, and have the Half-Speed OpenGL built in. The Serious game makers will either Make it work on all video cards or rendering technologies (like Epic does) or specificaly push one technology and work on getting good support from Video Card makers (Like id does with OpenGL).
Video Card Makers now have an easy way to "opt-out" of making a good OpenGL driver... It's already emulated by Windows D3D. Sad, but I see lower end cardmakers doing this, but probably not Ati or nVidia. They will want to keep every inch of their market, and will provide a fully functional OpenGL driver for the platform.
So.... Nice try Microsoft. Again, if the goal of this is to make windows Smaller and more stable, I'm all for it! My graphics card vendor won't let me down, unlike what Microsoft has done in the past.
Well, at least half of the comments I've read have given 'Fold n Drop' that kind of review: Who would use this if they can just use Control-C And Control-V?
Uh... Excuse me... but have you ever told an end user that you can copy and paste a file? I have... and they're often dumbfounded.
End users, and by that I mean the 'those who need all the help they can get' loser end users, will eat this up. Why? Because the first time they try to drag a file from one window to another, they'll see the window fold... and either freak out, or understand what it's for. No instructions. With 30 seconds of experimentation, they'll understand. It's intuitive. Remember when 'intuitive' was the goal of every GUI? Yeah, me too...
So, we have the windows users: "Drag to the taskbar, bring up the window you need!" Our 'loser' user doesn't know this one.
How about the Mac User: "Expose does this already! And Springloaded Folders too!" Yeah, it does... Springloaded folders are in the right direction, and so is Expose. But this is better and eaiser than Expose, and on par to Springloaded Folders.
Then you have your traditional Unix user: "Focus Follows Mouse! DUH!" Or even better yet: "Mouse?! Whatever happened to useing the keybaord? If you have to use a GUI, use Ratpoison or Ion!" These guys give me the giggles... First off, I'll say yes... keyboards are much more efficient. Give anybody an on screen keyboard to type an essay, and they'll agree. But focus following the mouse is more anoying than useful to most all of our 'loser' enduers. As for the mouseless window managers... You forget that the target audience doesn't like the keyboard for anything save typing. If more than one button needs to be pushed at the same time, the user will tend not to understand. The only major exception would be Ctrl-Alt-Del, which has Windows users on Macs very frustrated from time to time.
Then you have these guys: "What a waste of my CPU and GPU! Can't we get rid of the eyecandy?!" Quit your whining. Today, our 'loser' end user can purchase a system from Dell with 2.5 thousand times the processing power of the computer that the Apollo astronauts used to get to the moon, And our user will be doing things much less important. As for the GPU, I don't belive the Java script is 3D accellerated, and it seemed to run just fine... IN JAVA mind you... This in C++ or C would run much faster still. If a few wasted cycles make the system easier to use and understand, I'd call those cycles well used indeed.
So quit your moaning. Give this guy the credit which is due: It's a very facinating idea, and I hope to see it implemented in all the OS's as an option. From watching the Video, then trying the Java... I'm hoping to get it an option on all my computers, be them Windows, Mac or Linux.
Yeah, you read right... it's a good idea, from the Newspaper's point of view.
Why not have an eMagazine (which is basicaly what this is) instead of a webpage? Why not have a reader that can provide _just their content_ and not the compititions, plus allow them to provide special ads and multimedia content?
From the point of view of the newspapers, this is the best idea to come from the internet... and they were inspired by the sucess of RSS.
Now, what can those of us, like most slashdot readers, do about formats that are _closing_ such as this? Compete. That's all we're allowed to do.
Come to think of it, there is one other problem with this idea: Unlike the web, you can't go from newspage to newspage to get diffrent points of view... Which is one of the reasons I enjoy reading news on the Web.
So, when the "New York Times Online" reader comes out, I'm sure it'll be popular with those who read the NYT. I'm also sure it'll be an initial success... We'll see where it goes from there.
Aha! You caught me: I did _not_ read the article attached. But I have two good excuses: The site was a bit slashdoted at the time, and I had to get back to work. Reading in your coment that they have a prototype board is very encouraging!
Necessity or not, it will sell if it has a neeto* feature. It will sell well if it boosts performance of a major game.
Just like the Video cards of Old, there was a real question if a GPU could really make a diffrence in gameplay of a game. Games like Doom, Descent and others were playing fine with only the CPU rendered graphics. I mean, my Pentium 90 was more than enough horsepower for any of my needs... Why would we need a GPU? Fill rate was where it was at!
But, then again, we see now what kind of diffrence it can make to have a dedicated processor for a heavaly used application.
(* A Neeto feature is something which is considered 'cool', but is mostly fluff. My example is the Lense Flare.)
I read some nay-sayers, and some praise in the comments so far...
First off, as somebody mentioned earlier: This is a press release, not a released product. Thus, it's still vaporware. No real exitement until I see some demonstrations of it's power.
Second, This _is_ a good idea. What makes a game more fun is how physical objects interact in ways we can't duplicate in real life, like firing a rocket at a helicopter.
Next question: Will GPU Vendors embrase, or destroy this technology? nVidia or ATI could just buy the company and use the tech, or reproduce the functionality themselves in-house.
I'll be looking forward to see where this goes. But, unfortunetly, I'm reminded of Aureal's A3D products, and the way it dissapeared. I fear the same for this technology.
I don't know what other people think of this, but I think it's funny!
I'm not a coder. The cosest I get is some bash scripting, which I haven't had to do in a while. But hearing that even some of the greatest coders (who aren't bound to a company policy to keep mum) sometims screw up, makes me feel good... It just cracks me up that there are those moments in life where even Alan Cox and Linus Travolds say 'What the $#@%! was I thinking?'
And the best part? It's all visable to all the other developers. Thank goodness. I'd hate to know what kind of hairballs are in other complex, closed source software... that never get looked at by more than the core developers.
The File System. In particular, the permissions system.
While the file system and its permissions are quite well thought out, and has a huge amount of capabilities, it has one fatal flaw: It is not able to have the fine-grained control that other file systems can offer. This, and this alone has caused me great greif and dispair with making a file server for many a thousands of clients, and has, regretabley, forced me to use a Windows server I was hoping to replace.
The crux of the matter is the inability to control on a per-user level the permissions of any one file or directory for a multiple number of users. Being restricted to an Owner, Group and Everybody Else for permissions is sufficiant in most, but definatly not all surcomstances.
If I were to fix this, perhaps I would do this in two steps. First, the bandaid which would be backwards compatible with the existing system: Allow a group to be a member of another group. Doing this would allow much more flexability in assigning the permisinos I need.
As an overhaul, I would ask that the entire permisions system be scrapped for a well thought out solution. I am not one to dream up such a solution, but I'm sure the collective minds of the open source comunity can provide adequite brain power to enhance, or even revolutoinize the permisions system.
But, perhaps as it has been known to happen, the solution to my problem has already been found. In this case, I would ask that you please reply to this post and inform me of the permissions system I have been yearning for. You would make my day.
You make an excelent point: Computers are more complecated by design, and that makes them much more than simple appliances. Point taken, but you're preaching to the chior!
I've read Slashdot, and I know there tend to be two camps when it comes to non-technical computer users: The RTFM camp, which tends to belive that if you are to use a computer, you should know exactly how it works the the consequences you take using it. The other side, which we'll call "Idealistic Fools," witch I consider myself a card-carrying member, feel that that it should be possible for everybody to do whatever they want to without to much training.
So what can these two camps do? Compramise.
Currently, Linux (and other Open Source projects) are much more of the RTFM side. Not all, but...
I've seen the I-Opener, the WebTV... all go with various success... but I still think the idea of a cheap PC is viable, even inevitable... If the Cheap PC is going to happen, Windows XP won't be sold with it. Linux (or BSD, or another Open Source solution) would be an obvious choice...
We'll see where this goes. If this little PIC is able to make a full-fledged PC for under $200, I know of a school that would love to buy lots of them!
I love computers. I love to work on them, I love to play with them. I love to upgrade them... but not everybody is like me.
I once asked a guy who was especialy reluctant to get a computer the "why not" question. Why not get a computer?
His reply: "Eventualy, they'll be like toasters. All toasters do the same thing: Make Toast. Some do it better than others. And when my toaster breaks, I just throw it away and get another one. When Computers aren like Toasters, I'll get one."
While I was a bit discurraged about his disposal habits, he did make a few good points. A) Old Computers can do the same thing new computers can do: Surf the web, read email, write documents... It's just that some do it better than others. B) The Computer must be easy like a Toaster, at least for this kind of user. Read Email? Press a button. Bring up a website? Press another button. C) They must be inexpensive enough for the common man. I doubt computers will ever come down to the price of a Toaster, but I could see one hit $200, or even $100 some day.
But the most interesting thing about the Computer Toaster: They must be easy to operate. That's a Software Issue, not a hardware design.
Some day, it'll happen anyways. AMD has made it a bit closer to reality, but it's not here yet... not by a long shot.
When Debian Stable has it as an installable option. Reiser 3 is now an installable OS, but it hasn't been in there that long.
Seriously, though... I plan on giving it a shot when it appears in Debian Testing, and then after I prove it's working on a non-critical box, then I'll think about moving it over to production machines.
Could somebody explain this to me: Why does everybody HATE Real?
I know that Real's format has traditionally had the worst quality of all the other formats, and for that reason, most people dislike using them.
I know that they have had their players have had a tendancy to have "opt out" options which were very annoying, such as spamming your email and giving you advertisements.
I also know that Real is one of the only commercial media formats that has a player for most every platform, including Mac and Linux. They have open sourced their codecs, and made vast improvements on quality. Many of their "opt out" problems are now gone, while some of the nagging ones still remain... but they aren't any better or worse than Windows Media Player or iTunes.
So, would somebody explain to me what the big beef is with Real? I mean, Is there something I'm missing on why most people have such a scorn?
And last, this newest bit: Real is trying to create a music store, but they want the support of the No. 1 music player, the iPod. They begged Apple for a license to re-sell music which would be compatible with the iPod, and only after a complete refusal by Apple, they are reverse engineering the proccess. Do they expect to be sued? Of corse they do, because they think it's the only way they can challenge the legality of Apple's Fairplay DRM.
I think Apple should have licensed Fairplay, especially if their motive is to sell iPods, not sell music.
I remember when I was going through my old stuff, stubmled on a early 90's copy of Computer Shopper Magazine, and flipped to a vender who was selling an EGA monitor for $2995.
But, this is the case with competition: To make money, you must have either a better or cheaper product.
This is also true with other electronic devices as well: Video Game Consoles, Cell Phones, Toys, etc...
Eventualy, I see that we'll have throw away computers avalible to everybody. I just wonder how long away that really is... Sm:)e.
Note: I have not read the article, this is just my off-the-wall oppinion.
Sure, open source kills jobs! When you don't have to rewrite the code because somebody else has already done it for you, or if the API's are already avalible... You definatly don't need to hire another programer to do it!
But if what you need is something that hasn't been done before (read: "inovative") then open source could be a great way to go.
Well, I think it's important to note that it's not the MAC which is loosing ground to Linux, but rather that it's Microsoft's Windows users who are primaraly making the switch.
I just don't think that the Mac is going to disappear because of linux. The Apple zealots are worse than Linux'es own!
Please note: A) I have not read any of the other comments, so somebody may have already said something... and B) No, I'm not trying to force my oppinion on you, just offering a suggestion.
Have you considered Debian?
Why I ask: I have found that Debian, while not always suitable for the Desktop, is quite excelent for STABLE SERVERS.
If you use the Stable branch, you will know that your software is well tested and stable. Don't need extra software bogging down your system? Use Debian's 'dselect' and 'apt-get' programs to easily manage your installed packages.
One downside with using Debian stable is that your software is fairly old compared to what other distro's come with. But, Stable's running Kernel 2.4, and does your apache, php and Databases (mysql and pg) without problems. I run it on my site, and never have to worry about it.
When I first heard about this, I had to laugh out loud... "All targeting www.sco.com? Ha!"
Then, the phone rang, and I had my first 2 computers infected on my network. It was 3pm, and it was first discovered at about 1pm. (PST)
This is no laughing matter.
Who ever wrote this was quite the skilled assasin: Works on 95 thru XP machines? Transports by Mail with its own SNMP deamon? Spreads over Kazaa? This is very well planned.
The thought that a Pro-Linux activist did this discusts me. There is no way this can be good for linux's fight against SCO. Hopefully it can be proved to originate from somewhere, because if it comes from a linux user, the linux comunity will damn him. If it comes from anywhere else, then the extra leverage on the SCO vs. Linux suit will be lifted.
Then we have the consperancy therorists: SCO wrote it themselves! Now that's funny... unless it turns out to be true.
I've even heard a guy who claimed that the anti-virus companies' employees write the viruses... eather with the companies' knowledge or not. He claimed that they did this to "keep the demand up for AntiVirus software." Now that's scary.
If I have anybody in the world to blame for this, I'd like to blame the following, who made this possible: 1. Microsoft and their horribly easy to infect OS and mail client. and 2. Kazaa for helping the comunity spread filth.
And SCO: I dissagree with your suit against Linux and Co., but you do not deserve this attack. The rest of the world also does not deserve to help clean up this mess which you are the obvious target.
*Sigh*... I'll be up late getting ready for tomarrow's onslaugt of computers to disinfect.
Microsoft's biggest software threat gets a huge update, one of their own products gets a patch by a third party, Real Networks sues them for monopolistic activities, and Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (a movie made with cheap Linux boxes) is realeased. All this in a 48 hour period!
Slashdot Mirror
Greetings. I am a casual player of World of Warcraft. Casual means I get in about 6-8 hours average a week, if I'm lucky.
It's extremely difficult for the casual gamer to play World of Warcraft. For much of the game, the casual gamers are forced to play solo, or in ill-formed groups of people with various play styles. Joining a guild is impossible, as I'm not on long enough to get to know anybody. And PVP servers become impossible after about the 30th level, especialy while soloing. What can a casual gamer do?
--Pathway
You are quite right. The next Mac OS X is codenamed "Leopard".
I could have swarn that I heard Steve say "Puma" when he was talking about it breefly in the WWDC keynote. Oh well, my bad.
--Pathway
Little nitpick, but I think you mean "Puma", not "Jaguar". Jaguar was 10.2, and Puma is going to be 10.5.
Just FYI.
--Pathway
If this makes windows Smaller and more stable, I'm all for it.
Heh. Okay, that's probably not it.
If Microsoft is trying to make Direct3D the prefered rendering technology on Windows platforms by making OpenGL slower, they will only find partial success.
This won't work, because most Graphics Card manufacturers are the ones which make the OpenGL drivers for their own cards. These drivers are fast and (usualy) stable. Open GL won't go away, especialy since every other platform (Linux, BSD, Mac, BeOS, Whatever) support OpenGL as their primary 3d rendering technology.
So, who's affected by this? Game Makers and Video Card Makers. (Oh, and us, the customers, but I'm ignoring that for the moment.)
Game makers have to decided if they're going to make their games OpenGL, D3D, or both. OpenGL is more universal, but D3D will, of corse, be prefered. On the other Hand, if they don't want to make their game cross platform, they can just go D3D, and have the Half-Speed OpenGL built in. The Serious game makers will either Make it work on all video cards or rendering technologies (like Epic does) or specificaly push one technology and work on getting good support from Video Card makers (Like id does with OpenGL).
Video Card Makers now have an easy way to "opt-out" of making a good OpenGL driver... It's already emulated by Windows D3D. Sad, but I see lower end cardmakers doing this, but probably not Ati or nVidia. They will want to keep every inch of their market, and will provide a fully functional OpenGL driver for the platform.
So.... Nice try Microsoft. Again, if the goal of this is to make windows Smaller and more stable, I'm all for it! My graphics card vendor won't let me down, unlike what Microsoft has done in the past.
Well, at least half of the comments I've read have given 'Fold n Drop' that kind of review: Who would use this if they can just use Control-C And Control-V?
Uh... Excuse me... but have you ever told an end user that you can copy and paste a file? I have... and they're often dumbfounded.
End users, and by that I mean the 'those who need all the help they can get' loser end users, will eat this up. Why? Because the first time they try to drag a file from one window to another, they'll see the window fold... and either freak out, or understand what it's for. No instructions. With 30 seconds of experimentation, they'll understand. It's intuitive. Remember when 'intuitive' was the goal of every GUI? Yeah, me too...
So, we have the windows users: "Drag to the taskbar, bring up the window you need!" Our 'loser' user doesn't know this one.
How about the Mac User: "Expose does this already! And Springloaded Folders too!" Yeah, it does... Springloaded folders are in the right direction, and so is Expose. But this is better and eaiser than Expose, and on par to Springloaded Folders.
Then you have your traditional Unix user: "Focus Follows Mouse! DUH!" Or even better yet: "Mouse?! Whatever happened to useing the keybaord? If you have to use a GUI, use Ratpoison or Ion!" These guys give me the giggles... First off, I'll say yes... keyboards are much more efficient. Give anybody an on screen keyboard to type an essay, and they'll agree. But focus following the mouse is more anoying than useful to most all of our 'loser' enduers. As for the mouseless window managers... You forget that the target audience doesn't like the keyboard for anything save typing. If more than one button needs to be pushed at the same time, the user will tend not to understand. The only major exception would be Ctrl-Alt-Del, which has Windows users on Macs very frustrated from time to time.
Then you have these guys: "What a waste of my CPU and GPU! Can't we get rid of the eyecandy?!" Quit your whining. Today, our 'loser' end user can purchase a system from Dell with 2.5 thousand times the processing power of the computer that the Apollo astronauts used to get to the moon, And our user will be doing things much less important. As for the GPU, I don't belive the Java script is 3D accellerated, and it seemed to run just fine... IN JAVA mind you... This in C++ or C would run much faster still. If a few wasted cycles make the system easier to use and understand, I'd call those cycles well used indeed.
So quit your moaning. Give this guy the credit which is due: It's a very facinating idea, and I hope to see it implemented in all the OS's as an option. From watching the Video, then trying the Java... I'm hoping to get it an option on all my computers, be them Windows, Mac or Linux.
-Pathway
Yeah, you read right... it's a good idea, from the Newspaper's point of view.
Why not have an eMagazine (which is basicaly what this is) instead of a webpage? Why not have a reader that can provide _just their content_ and not the compititions, plus allow them to provide special ads and multimedia content?
From the point of view of the newspapers, this is the best idea to come from the internet... and they were inspired by the sucess of RSS.
Now, what can those of us, like most slashdot readers, do about formats that are _closing_ such as this? Compete. That's all we're allowed to do.
Come to think of it, there is one other problem with this idea: Unlike the web, you can't go from newspage to newspage to get diffrent points of view... Which is one of the reasons I enjoy reading news on the Web.
So, when the "New York Times Online" reader comes out, I'm sure it'll be popular with those who read the NYT. I'm also sure it'll be an initial success... We'll see where it goes from there.
Aha! You caught me: I did _not_ read the article attached. But I have two good excuses: The site was a bit slashdoted at the time, and I had to get back to work. Reading in your coment that they have a prototype board is very encouraging!
Necessity or not, it will sell if it has a neeto* feature. It will sell well if it boosts performance of a major game.
Just like the Video cards of Old, there was a real question if a GPU could really make a diffrence in gameplay of a game. Games like Doom, Descent and others were playing fine with only the CPU rendered graphics. I mean, my Pentium 90 was more than enough horsepower for any of my needs... Why would we need a GPU? Fill rate was where it was at!
But, then again, we see now what kind of diffrence it can make to have a dedicated processor for a heavaly used application.
(* A Neeto feature is something which is considered 'cool', but is mostly fluff. My example is the Lense Flare.)
I read some nay-sayers, and some praise in the comments so far...
First off, as somebody mentioned earlier: This is a press release, not a released product. Thus, it's still vaporware. No real exitement until I see some demonstrations of it's power.
Second, This _is_ a good idea. What makes a game more fun is how physical objects interact in ways we can't duplicate in real life, like firing a rocket at a helicopter.
Next question: Will GPU Vendors embrase, or destroy this technology? nVidia or ATI could just buy the company and use the tech, or reproduce the functionality themselves in-house.
I'll be looking forward to see where this goes. But, unfortunetly, I'm reminded of Aureal's A3D products, and the way it dissapeared. I fear the same for this technology.
I don't know what other people think of this, but I think it's funny!
I'm not a coder. The cosest I get is some bash scripting, which I haven't had to do in a while. But hearing that even some of the greatest coders (who aren't bound to a company policy to keep mum) sometims screw up, makes me feel good... It just cracks me up that there are those moments in life where even Alan Cox and Linus Travolds say 'What the $#@%! was I thinking?'
And the best part? It's all visable to all the other developers. Thank goodness. I'd hate to know what kind of hairballs are in other complex, closed source software... that never get looked at by more than the core developers.
The File System. In particular, the permissions system.
While the file system and its permissions are quite well thought out, and has a huge amount of capabilities, it has one fatal flaw: It is not able to have the fine-grained control that other file systems can offer. This, and this alone has caused me great greif and dispair with making a file server for many a thousands of clients, and has, regretabley, forced me to use a Windows server I was hoping to replace.
The crux of the matter is the inability to control on a per-user level the permissions of any one file or directory for a multiple number of users. Being restricted to an Owner, Group and Everybody Else for permissions is sufficiant in most, but definatly not all surcomstances.
If I were to fix this, perhaps I would do this in two steps. First, the bandaid which would be backwards compatible with the existing system: Allow a group to be a member of another group. Doing this would allow much more flexability in assigning the permisinos I need.
As an overhaul, I would ask that the entire permisions system be scrapped for a well thought out solution. I am not one to dream up such a solution, but I'm sure the collective minds of the open source comunity can provide adequite brain power to enhance, or even revolutoinize the permisions system.
But, perhaps as it has been known to happen, the solution to my problem has already been found. In this case, I would ask that you please reply to this post and inform me of the permissions system I have been yearning for. You would make my day.
You make an excelent point: Computers are more complecated by design, and that makes them much more than simple appliances. Point taken, but you're preaching to the chior!
I've read Slashdot, and I know there tend to be two camps when it comes to non-technical computer users: The RTFM camp, which tends to belive that if you are to use a computer, you should know exactly how it works the the consequences you take using it. The other side, which we'll call "Idealistic Fools," witch I consider myself a card-carrying member, feel that that it should be possible for everybody to do whatever they want to without to much training.
So what can these two camps do? Compramise.
Currently, Linux (and other Open Source projects) are much more of the RTFM side. Not all, but...
I've seen the I-Opener, the WebTV... all go with various success... but I still think the idea of a cheap PC is viable, even inevitable... If the Cheap PC is going to happen, Windows XP won't be sold with it. Linux (or BSD, or another Open Source solution) would be an obvious choice...
We'll see where this goes. If this little PIC is able to make a full-fledged PC for under $200, I know of a school that would love to buy lots of them!
--Pathway
I love computers. I love to work on them, I love to play with them. I love to upgrade them... but not everybody is like me.
I once asked a guy who was especialy reluctant to get a computer the "why not" question. Why not get a computer?
His reply: "Eventualy, they'll be like toasters. All toasters do the same thing: Make Toast. Some do it better than others. And when my toaster breaks, I just throw it away and get another one. When Computers aren like Toasters, I'll get one."
While I was a bit discurraged about his disposal habits, he did make a few good points. A) Old Computers can do the same thing new computers can do: Surf the web, read email, write documents... It's just that some do it better than others. B) The Computer must be easy like a Toaster, at least for this kind of user. Read Email? Press a button. Bring up a website? Press another button. C) They must be inexpensive enough for the common man. I doubt computers will ever come down to the price of a Toaster, but I could see one hit $200, or even $100 some day.
But the most interesting thing about the Computer Toaster: They must be easy to operate. That's a Software Issue, not a hardware design.
Some day, it'll happen anyways. AMD has made it a bit closer to reality, but it's not here yet... not by a long shot.
--Pathway
When is it stable?
When Debian Stable has it as an installable option. Reiser 3 is now an installable OS, but it hasn't been in there that long.
Seriously, though... I plan on giving it a shot when it appears in Debian Testing, and then after I prove it's working on a non-critical box, then I'll think about moving it over to production machines.
I only have one question (And I obviously have not researched an answer...):
Is there an easy and non-destructive way for me to migrate my ReiserFS version 3 to a version 4 Filesystem?
--Pathway
Could somebody explain this to me: Why does everybody HATE Real?
I know that Real's format has traditionally had the worst quality of all the other formats, and for that reason, most people dislike using them.
I know that they have had their players have had a tendancy to have "opt out" options which were very annoying, such as spamming your email and giving you advertisements.
I also know that Real is one of the only commercial media formats that has a player for most every platform, including Mac and Linux. They have open sourced their codecs, and made vast improvements on quality. Many of their "opt out" problems are now gone, while some of the nagging ones still remain... but they aren't any better or worse than Windows Media Player or iTunes.
So, would somebody explain to me what the big beef is with Real? I mean, Is there something I'm missing on why most people have such a scorn?
And last, this newest bit: Real is trying to create a music store, but they want the support of the No. 1 music player, the iPod. They begged Apple for a license to re-sell music which would be compatible with the iPod, and only after a complete refusal by Apple, they are reverse engineering the proccess. Do they expect to be sued? Of corse they do, because they think it's the only way they can challenge the legality of Apple's Fairplay DRM.
I think Apple should have licensed Fairplay, especially if their motive is to sell iPods, not sell music.
I remember when I was going through my old stuff, stubmled on a early 90's copy of Computer Shopper Magazine, and flipped to a vender who was selling an EGA monitor for $2995.
But, this is the case with competition: To make money, you must have either a better or cheaper product.
This is also true with other electronic devices as well: Video Game Consoles, Cell Phones, Toys, etc...
Eventualy, I see that we'll have throw away computers avalible to everybody. I just wonder how long away that really is... Sm:)e.
My school asked for me to create just a solution. Here's what I ended up with:
* 4U Enlight Case.
* 2 5-drive SuperMicro Hot Swap removable Drive cages. (SATA)
* 3Ware 12 port 8506.
* Supermicro Dual Xeon Motherboard.
* 2 Xeon 2.4Gig Hyperthreading Proccessors.
* 10 250 Gig SATA Harddrives.
The 3Ware card has a limitation of 2 Terabytes for a single volume, so we used a 9-Drive Raid 5 with 1 hot spare to make our large drive.
We used Debian Sarge, and BackupPC to backup our school's servers. We can backup EVERYTHIHNG now.
Oh, and this solution cost us less than half of the pre-designed solutions. The school has been very happy with it indeed.
Note: I have not read the article, this is just my off-the-wall oppinion.
Sure, open source kills jobs! When you don't have to rewrite the code because somebody else has already done it for you, or if the API's are already avalible... You definatly don't need to hire another programer to do it!
But if what you need is something that hasn't been done before (read: "inovative") then open source could be a great way to go.
Well, I think it's important to note that it's not the MAC which is loosing ground to Linux, but rather that it's Microsoft's Windows users who are primaraly making the switch.
I just don't think that the Mac is going to disappear because of linux. The Apple zealots are worse than Linux'es own!
Pathway
Doh!
Man, Now I feel stupid. Thanks for pointing that out.
I hope you find the distro that's right for you. That's probably the most important thing.
Pathway
Please note: A) I have not read any of the other comments, so somebody may have already said something... and B) No, I'm not trying to force my oppinion on you, just offering a suggestion.
Have you considered Debian?
Why I ask: I have found that Debian, while not always suitable for the Desktop, is quite excelent for STABLE SERVERS.
If you use the Stable branch, you will know that your software is well tested and stable. Don't need extra software bogging down your system? Use Debian's 'dselect' and 'apt-get' programs to easily manage your installed packages.
One downside with using Debian stable is that your software is fairly old compared to what other distro's come with. But, Stable's running Kernel 2.4, and does your apache, php and Databases (mysql and pg) without problems. I run it on my site, and never have to worry about it.
Don't count out Debian, especialy for servers.
--Pathway
Cool. This is as it should be, too.. As the rest of the world gets on the net, we'll se the US further down the list, I'm sure.
When I first heard about this, I had to laugh out loud... "All targeting www.sco.com? Ha!"
Then, the phone rang, and I had my first 2 computers infected on my network. It was 3pm, and it was first discovered at about 1pm. (PST)
This is no laughing matter.
Who ever wrote this was quite the skilled assasin: Works on 95 thru XP machines? Transports by Mail with its own SNMP deamon? Spreads over Kazaa? This is very well planned.
The thought that a Pro-Linux activist did this discusts me. There is no way this can be good for linux's fight against SCO. Hopefully it can be proved to originate from somewhere, because if it comes from a linux user, the linux comunity will damn him. If it comes from anywhere else, then the extra leverage on the SCO vs. Linux suit will be lifted.
Then we have the consperancy therorists: SCO wrote it themselves! Now that's funny... unless it turns out to be true.
I've even heard a guy who claimed that the anti-virus companies' employees write the viruses... eather with the companies' knowledge or not. He claimed that they did this to "keep the demand up for AntiVirus software." Now that's scary.
If I have anybody in the world to blame for this, I'd like to blame the following, who made this possible: 1. Microsoft and their horribly easy to infect OS and mail client. and 2. Kazaa for helping the comunity spread filth.
And SCO: I dissagree with your suit against Linux and Co., but you do not deserve this attack. The rest of the world also does not deserve to help clean up this mess which you are the obvious target.
*Sigh*... I'll be up late getting ready for tomarrow's onslaugt of computers to disinfect.
Pathway
Lol!
I was just about to say...
Thanks for the cookie. Sm:)e.
Pathway
Poor MicroSoft!
Microsoft's biggest software threat gets a huge update, one of their own products gets a patch by a third party, Real Networks sues them for monopolistic activities, and Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (a movie made with cheap Linux boxes) is realeased. All this in a 48 hour period!
Man, it's been a rough couple of days.
Sm:)e.