No, it's not debatable. They offer a huge performance increase in both laptops and desktops.
Not only do programs open much faster, files open instantly, hibernation faster etc, but there's no moving parts (in case the laptop is dropped, at least the data is safe), and also SSDs use much less power (improved battery life).
Yes, they are pricey. But it's the best investment to speed up a laptop.
This story has built out of Legos, and Raspberry Pis, so it's definitely worthy for the slashdot front page. But it could be better, like they called the order in from their Nokia phone and paid for it using Bitcoins.
Why on earth would a virus researcher use cloud storage instead of his/her own server?
I can see how the average person would find services like mediafire and dropbox useful, because they don't have the knowledge to setup their own server. But as soon as you are awarded (or awarded yourself) the researcher title in any field of computing, you should not hand your files over to someone else for storage. But if you do, and something happens, you should suffer the consequences and not make it onto the front page of slashdot, other than for public shaming.
Sure, you can make it into a headless media center. That's what the chip was originally designed for, it powers the Roku players.
It can also run emulators. I tried it. But the frame rate is terrible and the audio crackles.
However it's advertised as and educational computer for kids to be used in school. And it doesn't do that, first and foremost because you can't type on it because of the USB problems. (Then there's not enough memory, slow processor, overheating etc...)
If you are running it as a headless unit, I'm pretty sure you are well aware of all these issues.
I saw the announcement of the 2.0 board. However those revisions are not likely to fix the USB issues.
On the board that I had, I soldered wires from VIN to the USB connector's power pins and added the correct size capacitor. That way, my keyboard actually started to work, but sometimes keys didn't register or keys started repeating randomly (for example typing 'ls' resulted in 'lsssssss....'). This was not a once in a while issue, it happened on pretty much every line I tried to type.
Most likely this is because the processor is too slow, although I've also seen reports blaming the linux kernel.
Another huge issue, that has not, and according to the rpi people, will not be addressed is adding more memory, citing cost issues. The 256mb is not going to cut it if you want kids to use scratch on it, because after loading X you get a couple megs left of RAM. The most I could squeeze out was using xmonad, I got about 30megs.
I also have an MK802 II, that has 1gb RAM, 4gb internal storage, faster cpu, a case, wifi, HDMI cables, USB conversion adapter, and free shipping for $60. It's smaller than the rpi. It works. In fact it works with any USB device I hooked up to it, I can use chromium on it, even scratch runs at decent speed. That is what the rpi should've been. And if you add all that up, it's much cheaper than the rpi.
No, it doesn't. I had one. Tried about a dozen keyboards, even did the hardware modifications to jump the fuses, and added the missing capacitors to the USB hub (the capacitor is actually not missing, but it's in the wrong place, before the fuses instead of after, and is too small).
Other than the USB not working, the ethernet drops out all the time. The SOC overheats, making the ethernet problems even worse.
The processor is way under powered. There is not enough ram (like you get a couple megs after X loads?). Midori is painfully slow, scratch is also. Chromium is so slow, it's unusable. Can't even run game emulators, because the processor is so slow, and the audio doesn't work. The graphics hardware has no specs, so there's hardware acceleration, possibly never will be.
So after two weeks of messing with it, I sold it.
If you tell me it works great as a headless unit, I might buy that. But it doesn't work with X (or a keyboard). See the raspberry pi forums.
I used to have one, but it's riddled with hardware issues. For example, USB keyboards don't work (key repeats, keys not typing), because the USB port is underpowered, missing a capacitor etc. Ethernet drops out all the time.
The broadcom chip is super slow. Forget web browsing, or scratch. Well, that unless you are ok waiting a minute for page loads, or you are ok with running your simple scratch code at 1 frame per second.
Just go over to the raspberry pi forum, and read about it.
It's a shame that the raspberry pi people are even selling this broken hardware, with known to them hardware problems.
I bet you next year those $500 standing desks will be right next to the exercise balls and kneeling chairs. In the meantime, with all the money spent on the sitting/standing gadgets, unfortunately nor productivity, nor quality, nor ergonomics, nor comfort has improved.
There are several hardware design issues with USB. The USB port is not USB2.0 compatible, there's not enough power to devices. I couldn't even get a keyboard working on it without key repeats and disconnecting.
The ethernet also disconnects all the time.
Scratch runs super slow on it. So does X. Browser so slow, it's unusable (that's with midori, forget chromium).
The only way to use it is headless, over ehternet, in console mode. That if the ethernet doesn't disconnect.
If you want more info, please look at the raspberry pi forums.
So I sold my raspberry pi. While some issues might be from software drivers, the processor is way too slow and there's no way around the USB hardware issues, especially if you're not comfortabel with a bit of soldering.
I purchased an MK802 II. Works flawlessly with linaro, it's way faster than the rpi, has wifi, even chromium runs on it at a decent speed. While it's more expensive than the rpi, it has 4 (for) times as much ram, it has 4gb internal storage, it has a case, it's smaller, and it actually works.
I'm getting tired of all the rpi publicity, from people who have never used it. Because it doesn't work.
By default 10.8 only allows you to install programs either from the app store or if they are signed by a certificate from apple. You can change this setting in security, to allow anything to be installed.
So you either changed that setting, or vmware had a signed installer.
The program I was trying to install, was not signed.
We are having an honest conversation about pros and cons about various approaches. From my point of view, what apple did with 10.8, is an insult to users.
A little background: I had a working 10.6 setup, where I already spent a lot of time customizing to get the eye candy for novice users disabled, shortcuts setup etc. Then I upgrade to 10.8, and have to spend another day figuring out how to turn eye candy for novice users off. And then there is icloud and twitter everywhere, none of which I want.
But with icloud I have a bigger issue: it's a feature integrated into the os, that if I start using, eventually would have to start paying money for. That's not cool.
I could not turn the notification panel off, even after clicking all those check boxes you mentioned. Accidentally the notification panel opened now and then, taking a quarter of the screen, so eventually I just deleted the notification manager app.
I had to upgrade one of my purchased applications, that's when I got the message about only app store and signed applications allowed box. Maybe the developer didn't want to pay for apple's blessing. Maybe he didn't have the money. But wait, there's another feature that requires paying more to apple.
My mouse is not an apple mouse, so in the mouse settings there was no checkbox to turn off unnatural scrolling. So I had to dig in the terminal trough defaults to disable it. But I guess I could've gone to the apple store to buy an approved mouse, just to turn this ridiculousness off.
I forgot another good one: the library folder in my home directory was hidden. Seriously, wtf?
While you say that none of this is forced on me, they were not there two days ago. Like I had no launchpad or mission control or whatever icons on my dock. I had no icloud menu options. I had no app store buttons. Now I have to take time to get rid of them (well whatever I can that is). So it seems, that they are forced on me.
And yes, I do know that the single menu bar has been in osx for ever. It's been a failure, and it still is. Just like the single button mouse.
I couldn't agree more. I just installed Mountain Lion, which is a freaking insult to users. From the never stopping notifications, to the useless animations (some of it can't even be turned off, like switching workspaces, which gives me motion sickness), to useless mission control, to the one menu bar for all apps, to natural mouse scrolling, the list is endless.
Not only that, but now by default (I know it can be changed), it doesn't allow programs (called apps now) to be installed unless it comes from the app store. And icloud everywhere. No, I'm not going to pay A$$le to store my files, I can do it on my own server. If M$ did anything like this, there would be class action suits left and right.
Recently there's been lots of discussion around here how osx killed linux desktop and how everyone is switching to osx from linux. Well, if you do that, you are a moron. My xmonad desktop is more flexible and useful than osx. And how hooking up the credit card to Cupertino headquarters works for the FOSS people, is beyond me.
In fact 10.8 is so bad, I think M$ has a great chance with win8 metro or whatever they call it now. Still, win7 looks and works much better than this latest steaming pile from A$$le.
I run a very minimalist linux setup. Xmonad window manager, no applets, wireless managers, widgets,etc. I use it for coding. It's awesome.
But I can't see how the majority of users would be happy with it. Hell, my wife doesn't even know how to run a browser on it. Users want to have their phones auto mounted, printers working, scanners working, xbox controllers, nintendo controllers, games and whatever they buy at best buy and plug in, to just work.
So where do you stop? What's a minimalist distro?
Users expect a lot from an operating system. With Windows, it costs them under $100 built in to the purchase price, with OS X they get it for paying a bit extra for hardware.
So I'm not sure how a minimalist distribution would be able to compete.
You are being unfair. I actually met Miguel. At the time I had no idea who he was, what he did.
He is actually a really nice guy. Quite the opposite of "a Microsoft cheerleader, a corporate tool and a genuinely nasty human being".
I also disagree that Mono is a total failure. It powers probably the majority of ios and android games. It's fast, stable, so not sure how you can call that a failure.
Not necessarily true. I pulled overnighters, periods of crunch, worked with subcontractors with 12 hour time difference (aka 1am conference calls), and hung out with colleagues into the late night.
Got married, had my first kid. I was workin for a game studio at the time where they wanted me to do 60 hour weeks, and Saturdays. So I quit.
Now I stay home with my kids. People and situations do change.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's not debatable. They offer a huge performance increase in both laptops and desktops.
Not only do programs open much faster, files open instantly, hibernation faster etc, but there's no moving parts (in case the laptop is dropped, at least the data is safe), and also SSDs use much less power (improved battery life).
Yes, they are pricey. But it's the best investment to speed up a laptop.
This story has built out of Legos, and Raspberry Pis, so it's definitely worthy for the slashdot front page. But it could be better, like they called the order in from their Nokia phone and paid for it using Bitcoins.
...that most torque users jumped ship to unity a long time ago, because torque sucked. And there's no reason to go back.
Why on earth would a virus researcher use cloud storage instead of his/her own server?
I can see how the average person would find services like mediafire and dropbox useful, because they don't have the knowledge to setup their own server. But as soon as you are awarded (or awarded yourself) the researcher title in any field of computing, you should not hand your files over to someone else for storage. But if you do, and something happens, you should suffer the consequences and not make it onto the front page of slashdot, other than for public shaming.
Well, maybe you were lucky. I was not.
Sure, you can make it into a headless media center. That's what the chip was originally designed for, it powers the Roku players.
It can also run emulators. I tried it. But the frame rate is terrible and the audio crackles.
However it's advertised as and educational computer for kids to be used in school. And it doesn't do that, first and foremost because you can't type on it because of the USB problems. (Then there's not enough memory, slow processor, overheating etc...)
If you are running it as a headless unit, I'm pretty sure you are well aware of all these issues.
I saw the announcement of the 2.0 board. However those revisions are not likely to fix the USB issues.
On the board that I had, I soldered wires from VIN to the USB connector's power pins and added the correct size capacitor. That way, my keyboard actually started to work, but sometimes keys didn't register or keys started repeating randomly (for example typing 'ls' resulted in 'lsssssss....'). This was not a once in a while issue, it happened on pretty much every line I tried to type.
Most likely this is because the processor is too slow, although I've also seen reports blaming the linux kernel.
Another huge issue, that has not, and according to the rpi people, will not be addressed is adding more memory, citing cost issues. The 256mb is not going to cut it if you want kids to use scratch on it, because after loading X you get a couple megs left of RAM. The most I could squeeze out was using xmonad, I got about 30megs.
I also have an MK802 II, that has 1gb RAM, 4gb internal storage, faster cpu, a case, wifi, HDMI cables, USB conversion adapter, and free shipping for $60. It's smaller than the rpi. It works. In fact it works with any USB device I hooked up to it, I can use chromium on it, even scratch runs at decent speed. That is what the rpi should've been. And if you add all that up, it's much cheaper than the rpi.
No, it doesn't. I had one. Tried about a dozen keyboards, even did the hardware modifications to jump the fuses, and added the missing capacitors to the USB hub (the capacitor is actually not missing, but it's in the wrong place, before the fuses instead of after, and is too small).
Other than the USB not working, the ethernet drops out all the time. The SOC overheats, making the ethernet problems even worse.
The processor is way under powered. There is not enough ram (like you get a couple megs after X loads?). Midori is painfully slow, scratch is also. Chromium is so slow, it's unusable. Can't even run game emulators, because the processor is so slow, and the audio doesn't work. The graphics hardware has no specs, so there's hardware acceleration, possibly never will be.
So after two weeks of messing with it, I sold it.
If you tell me it works great as a headless unit, I might buy that. But it doesn't work with X (or a keyboard). See the raspberry pi forums.
The raspberry pi doesn't work. There are several hardware issues with it, for example you can't type without keys repeating or dropping out.
The processor is very slow and it doesn't have enough memory to run a web browser or scratch at decent speed.
You can read about all the problems on the raspberry pi forums.
No it's not.
I used to have one, but it's riddled with hardware issues. For example, USB keyboards don't work (key repeats, keys not typing), because the USB port is underpowered, missing a capacitor etc. Ethernet drops out all the time.
The broadcom chip is super slow. Forget web browsing, or scratch. Well, that unless you are ok waiting a minute for page loads, or you are ok with running your simple scratch code at 1 frame per second.
Just go over to the raspberry pi forum, and read about it.
It's a shame that the raspberry pi people are even selling this broken hardware, with known to them hardware problems.
Many years ago it was sitting on exercise balls.
Then it was kneeling chairs.
Now it's standing desks.
I bet you next year those $500 standing desks will be right next to the exercise balls and kneeling chairs. In the meantime, with all the money spent on the sitting/standing gadgets, unfortunately nor productivity, nor quality, nor ergonomics, nor comfort has improved.
In auto commercials, cars are 3d renders.
...the list goes on.
Apple's siri commercials are simulated experiences.
Cereal boxes and chocolate bars are made larger in those ads.
Screen images are simulated.
Can you hear me now is not actually talking on his cell phone.
Disclaimer: I've owned a raspberry pi.
There are several hardware design issues with USB. The USB port is not USB2.0 compatible, there's not enough power to devices. I couldn't even get a keyboard working on it without key repeats and disconnecting.
The ethernet also disconnects all the time.
Scratch runs super slow on it. So does X. Browser so slow, it's unusable (that's with midori, forget chromium).
The only way to use it is headless, over ehternet, in console mode. That if the ethernet doesn't disconnect.
If you want more info, please look at the raspberry pi forums.
So I sold my raspberry pi. While some issues might be from software drivers, the processor is way too slow and there's no way around the USB hardware issues, especially if you're not comfortabel with a bit of soldering.
I purchased an MK802 II. Works flawlessly with linaro, it's way faster than the rpi, has wifi, even chromium runs on it at a decent speed. While it's more expensive than the rpi, it has 4 (for) times as much ram, it has 4gb internal storage, it has a case, it's smaller, and it actually works.
I'm getting tired of all the rpi publicity, from people who have never used it. Because it doesn't work.
Yes, but it actually works as opposed to the raspberry pi.
By default 10.8 only allows you to install programs either from the app store or if they are signed by a certificate from apple. You can change this setting in security, to allow anything to be installed. So you either changed that setting, or vmware had a signed installer. The program I was trying to install, was not signed.
We are having an honest conversation about pros and cons about various approaches. From my point of view, what apple did with 10.8, is an insult to users.
A little background: I had a working 10.6 setup, where I already spent a lot of time customizing to get the eye candy for novice users disabled, shortcuts setup etc. Then I upgrade to 10.8, and have to spend another day figuring out how to turn eye candy for novice users off. And then there is icloud and twitter everywhere, none of which I want.
But with icloud I have a bigger issue: it's a feature integrated into the os, that if I start using, eventually would have to start paying money for. That's not cool.
I could not turn the notification panel off, even after clicking all those check boxes you mentioned. Accidentally the notification panel opened now and then, taking a quarter of the screen, so eventually I just deleted the notification manager app.
I had to upgrade one of my purchased applications, that's when I got the message about only app store and signed applications allowed box. Maybe the developer didn't want to pay for apple's blessing. Maybe he didn't have the money. But wait, there's another feature that requires paying more to apple.
My mouse is not an apple mouse, so in the mouse settings there was no checkbox to turn off unnatural scrolling. So I had to dig in the terminal trough defaults to disable it. But I guess I could've gone to the apple store to buy an approved mouse, just to turn this ridiculousness off.
I forgot another good one: the library folder in my home directory was hidden. Seriously, wtf?
While you say that none of this is forced on me, they were not there two days ago. Like I had no launchpad or mission control or whatever icons on my dock. I had no icloud menu options. I had no app store buttons. Now I have to take time to get rid of them (well whatever I can that is). So it seems, that they are forced on me.
And yes, I do know that the single menu bar has been in osx for ever. It's been a failure, and it still is. Just like the single button mouse.
I couldn't agree more. I just installed Mountain Lion, which is a freaking insult to users. From the never stopping notifications, to the useless animations (some of it can't even be turned off, like switching workspaces, which gives me motion sickness), to useless mission control, to the one menu bar for all apps, to natural mouse scrolling, the list is endless.
Not only that, but now by default (I know it can be changed), it doesn't allow programs (called apps now) to be installed unless it comes from the app store. And icloud everywhere. No, I'm not going to pay A$$le to store my files, I can do it on my own server. If M$ did anything like this, there would be class action suits left and right.
Recently there's been lots of discussion around here how osx killed linux desktop and how everyone is switching to osx from linux. Well, if you do that, you are a moron. My xmonad desktop is more flexible and useful than osx. And how hooking up the credit card to Cupertino headquarters works for the FOSS people, is beyond me.
In fact 10.8 is so bad, I think M$ has a great chance with win8 metro or whatever they call it now. Still, win7 looks and works much better than this latest steaming pile from A$$le.
Now bring on those downvotes.
I run a very minimalist linux setup. Xmonad window manager, no applets, wireless managers, widgets,etc. I use it for coding. It's awesome.
But I can't see how the majority of users would be happy with it. Hell, my wife doesn't even know how to run a browser on it. Users want to have their phones auto mounted, printers working, scanners working, xbox controllers, nintendo controllers, games and whatever they buy at best buy and plug in, to just work.
So where do you stop? What's a minimalist distro?
Users expect a lot from an operating system. With Windows, it costs them under $100 built in to the purchase price, with OS X they get it for paying a bit extra for hardware.
So I'm not sure how a minimalist distribution would be able to compete.
I actually talked to him about linux, gnome, apple, .net. He had great ideas and seemed to have the best of intentions.
I don't remember hand shaking though.
You are being unfair. I actually met Miguel. At the time I had no idea who he was, what he did.
He is actually a really nice guy. Quite the opposite of "a Microsoft cheerleader, a corporate tool and a genuinely nasty human being".
I also disagree that Mono is a total failure. It powers probably the majority of ios and android games. It's fast, stable, so not sure how you can call that a failure.
I thought my post sounded sarcastic. Next time I'll use the [sarc] [/sarc] tags.
I'm obviously for cleanliness (male and female) and against circumcision (male and female).
No, they don't
Teach how to wash it, or have some doctor chop it.
Yeah, I see how genital mutilation is a much easier solution.
I think they'll figure it out. For example, I married my boss.
Not necessarily true. I pulled overnighters, periods of crunch, worked with subcontractors with 12 hour time difference (aka 1am conference calls), and hung out with colleagues into the late night.
Got married, had my first kid. I was workin for a game studio at the time where they wanted me to do 60 hour weeks, and Saturdays. So I quit.
Now I stay home with my kids. People and situations do change.