2.5 is the development tree, don't run it unless you plan on debugging something.
The -AC trees tend to have more features than the base Linus tree, a lot of things get their testing there then if they work well and are unintrusive they get merged into 2.4 by Marcello.
I wouldn't doubt that IEEE1394 needs some core changes for it to work properly and that's why it's not fully in 2.4. Anything that makes big changes or changes to other systems in 2.4 has a much lower chance of getting included because it has a higher chance of breaking something else.
A lot more than you think. Most Open Source apps compile and run on 64-bit OSes like Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, Linux (when run on Alpha, PPC64, etc), etc.
There will be work that needs to be done to clean up some apps, there's no denying that. But a large chunk of the work is already done on the unix side. It's the Windows side that has a lot of catching up to do.
I guess what I'm asking is- aside from custom code, what are the reason for me to early adopt a 64bit architecture? Or should I just save my money for when things get cheaper?
If you can't think of a reason to get one, you probably won't need it any time soon. Most people won't get any benefit from a 64-bit (well, 40-bit it would seem at first release) address space.
Re:32 compatibility mode vs. true 64 bit apps...
on
AMD Opteron Due In April
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· Score: 4, Informative
Depends.
Linux has been running on 64-bit architectures for some time now, so 64-bit'ness isn't a new thing. And with distros like Debian that support everything from m68k up to Alpha a large portion of the issues have been taken care of already. Debian 'sarge' currently has 10058 packages, all of which compile and run (I'm not going to say all are 64-bit bug free, that would be stupid).
And also most Open Source apps are used on Solaris, Tru64, HP-UX, etc which are 64-bit. Windows may have a big transition ahead of it, but for the rest of us it'll be just like any other motherboard upgrade =)
If done properly this can be a really good thing. After using SRM on my Alphas and OpenBoot on my Suns I really wish there was a decent firmware for x86 boxes, now maybe there will be.
This is Intel catching up to things DEC and Sun have been doing for 10 or more years.
Exchange has a "Single Instance Storage" system so that when an email is sent to more than one person that email is only stored in the database once and everyone's mailbox gets a pointer to that message, same thing for attachments. Of course if you modify it, the server has to give you a unique copy but in the general case where they go unmodified it saves a lot of diskspace and work on the server end.
I wish someone would develop a mail server for unix that used a database as a backend, Cyrus seems to be the closest thing but it's a PITA to setup.
Sun's UltraSparcs aren't binary compatible with Itanium either so it's a moot point.
Re:Will This be Linux's first killer app?
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AMD's 64-bit Plot
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· Score: 2
But the point is moot if it's running in a 32-bit mode. Alpha's are 99% 'normal' hardware with PCI slots, EISA (some with ISA), SDRAM, IDE, etc. The last parts I bought for my Alpha PWS600au was memory from crucial and a PCI video card.
Re:Just to remind people why more bits is good..
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AMD's 64-bit Plot
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· Score: 2
But it's still a bad hack because:
A) Some programs need >2G of space (with some versions of NT you can boot with the/3G switch to get 3G of addressable space, but virtually no apps support it. B) Some devices, mostly ISA but some dumb PCI ones, can only DMA to addresses below the 4G line.
I'm not saying the breakage is acceptable, I just mean that nVidia has a much better reputation than VIA for stable hardware and drivers.
You are right about them lacking an easy way to report bugs, it would be nice if they had a web form or even email address available. I couldn't find anything on their site.
But they work find for the majority of the people that use them. I'm not saying their drivers are perfect, but I'd be willing to bet that the nearly all the people complaining of them crashing are having problems with something else.
I'm glad you could publish your drivers under the GPL, but not everyone is and I'd rather have closed drivers that work well for me than no drivers at all.
They emulate that look because it's what Windows users are used to, and that's the majory of computer users. They don't emulate it because it's intuitive, trust me I've seen people stare blankly at the Windows desktop not knowing what to do next.
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No, the 2G limit is per-process.
So can Windows, although the app has to be aware to take advantage of it.
nVidia supplies RPMs for atleast 3 different major distributions for most CPU types and in UP and SMP flavors, what more do you want?
Even so, doing the install 'manually' with the tar.gz files is about 5 steps and isn't terribly difficult.
2.5 is the development tree, don't run it unless you plan on debugging something.
The -AC trees tend to have more features than the base Linus tree, a lot of things get their testing there then if they work well and are unintrusive they get merged into 2.4 by Marcello.
I wouldn't doubt that IEEE1394 needs some core changes for it to work properly and that's why it's not fully in 2.4. Anything that makes big changes or changes to other systems in 2.4 has a much lower chance of getting included because it has a higher chance of breaking something else.
A lot more than you think. Most Open Source apps compile and run on 64-bit OSes like Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, Linux (when run on Alpha, PPC64, etc), etc.
There will be work that needs to be done to clean up some apps, there's no denying that. But a large chunk of the work is already done on the unix side. It's the Windows side that has a lot of catching up to do.
I guess what I'm asking is- aside from custom code, what are the reason for me to early adopt a 64bit architecture? Or should I just save my money for when things get cheaper?
If you can't think of a reason to get one, you probably won't need it any time soon. Most people won't get any benefit from a 64-bit (well, 40-bit it would seem at first release) address space.
Depends.
Linux has been running on 64-bit architectures for some time now, so 64-bit'ness isn't a new thing. And with distros like Debian that support everything from m68k up to Alpha a large portion of the issues have been taken care of already. Debian 'sarge' currently has 10058 packages, all of which compile and run (I'm not going to say all are 64-bit bug free, that would be stupid).
And also most Open Source apps are used on Solaris, Tru64, HP-UX, etc which are 64-bit. Windows may have a big transition ahead of it, but for the rest of us it'll be just like any other motherboard upgrade =)
If done properly this can be a really good thing. After using SRM on my Alphas and OpenBoot on my Suns I really wish there was a decent firmware for x86 boxes, now maybe there will be.
This is Intel catching up to things DEC and Sun have been doing for 10 or more years.
Depends on your sound card driver.
/dev/dsp allows multiple open()s and doesn't give me any crap.
I have a SBLive and my
Exchange has a "Single Instance Storage" system so that when an email is sent to more than one person that email is only stored in the database once and everyone's mailbox gets a pointer to that message, same thing for attachments. Of course if you modify it, the server has to give you a unique copy but in the general case where they go unmodified it saves a lot of diskspace and work on the server end.
I wish someone would develop a mail server for unix that used a database as a backend, Cyrus seems to be the closest thing but it's a PITA to setup.
The 2.2 kernel was chosen because 2.4 was considered too unstable for them.
But if you had read the docs you'd know that the 2.4 kernel is included as an option.
Funny, I've got 5 tabs with perfectly rendered pages in them right now.
Sun's UltraSparcs aren't binary compatible with Itanium either so it's a moot point.
But the point is moot if it's running in a 32-bit mode. Alpha's are 99% 'normal' hardware with PCI slots, EISA (some with ISA), SDRAM, IDE, etc. The last parts I bought for my Alpha PWS600au was memory from crucial and a PCI video card.
But it's still a bad hack because:
/3G switch to get 3G of addressable space, but virtually no apps support it.
A) Some programs need >2G of space (with some versions of NT you can boot with the
B) Some devices, mostly ISA but some dumb PCI ones, can only DMA to addresses below the 4G line.
Like Mac OS?
There's no "instead of" here, they have both.
OS X's userspace is from FreeBSD but the kernel is Mach, not FreeBSD.
I'm not saying the breakage is acceptable, I just mean that nVidia has a much better reputation than VIA for stable hardware and drivers.
You are right about them lacking an easy way to report bugs, it would be nice if they had a web form or even email address available. I couldn't find anything on their site.
Before I blamed nVidia for that I'd try the card in a different machine, it's much more likely a problem with the VIA chipset =)
But they work find for the majority of the people that use them. I'm not saying their drivers are perfect, but I'd be willing to bet that the nearly all the people complaining of them crashing are having problems with something else.
I'm glad you could publish your drivers under the GPL, but not everyone is and I'd rather have closed drivers that work well for me than no drivers at all.
They're binary-only because they don't own all the code used in them so it would break other licenses to publish it.
I use those binary-only drivers myself with a GF3 and have had no problems with X crashing.
I said 'as you'd need it', you can't expect it to be 100% perfect for everyone. Knoppix is more of a demo distro than something you'd use day to day.
Everything is modular so the kernel is already as tight and quick as you'd need it.
They emulate that look because it's what Windows users are used to, and that's the majory of computer users. They don't emulate it because it's intuitive, trust me I've seen people stare blankly at the Windows desktop not knowing what to do next.
If it was obvious, I wouldn't have posted. 'Address' is pretty vague, and has more than one meaning.
You can do up to 64G total with PAE, sure per process you're limited to 2/2 or 3/1 split of 4G, but you didn't specify which you meant.