"What about that? Will we be finaly able to switch kernels without a reboot?"
I did that back in the 2.2 days with monte. Later with 2.4 kernels I did a few changes, added a feature I was missing, fixed a bug and such stuff. In case you want to see it. But it was never completely stable and lacked SMP support.
kexec might be a better alternative. AFAIK it is being maintained and might even have made it into the 2.5 kernel.
It was only a couple of years ago that knowledgeable people were calling this idea ridiculous, and giving good reasons, however progress has marched on, and we're actually coming within sight of it. The basic challenges are much the same as for hotplug cpus, hotplug memory, process migration in a cluster, and yes, kexec, all of which are being worked on or already working. So I'll go out on a limb and predict that hot-kernel swapping will be demonstrated during the 2.7 timeframe. It won't be perfect, but such things never are in the first cut.
The thing that makes hot kernel swapping practical is the stable api between userland and the kernel. Big changes there are few and far between, and they can be special-cased.
It takes time for the OEMs to jump on board. You need to find a good distro, negotiate with the company, test it with your machines to make sure everything works properly, train your staff so they know what to do when some customer calls with problems about it, then finally decide how to market the thing! You also need to wait to make sure that MicroSoft is actually playing nice before you risk seriously screwing yourself by ticking off the supplier of the OS for every machine you sell. Remeber the story about the scorpion and the frog? If I were an OEM I would eb damm careful before messing with M$.
The problem is, the OEMS don't really believe that Microsoft won't retaliate, and to be honest I don't blame them. The words "completely ineffective remedy" come to mind, as do "as we all knew at the time". Em, and I can't help thinking the words "in the pocket of" as well.
Antitrust law is a good thing, but if it's not used quickly enough, a monopoly can get so big, rich, and powerful, that laws no longer apply to it. It can afford to buy its way out of any problems it may face. Microsoft is just such a monopoly. It should have been broken up around the time of Windows 3.1. But it was left alone for years after that, and now it can fart in the faces of the justice department and there's not a single thing they can do about it (other than whine to the press).
Your theory also requires that the judicial system and administration be corrupt.
"The department of justice is responsible for pressing the enforcement of the law. The judge decides between the two sides. The judges in these cases have been impartial..."
You really think so? I thought that Colleen Kollar-Kotelly acted the part of a paid-off lapdog rather well.
.. I would *strongly* recommend that the Slashdot Community who's been all over this 'Linux on the XBOX' bs start doing something interesting with it, and I mean fast. It would look plenty embarrasing for MS if they went after them for releasing the exploit and then people started making good (and legitimate) use of it. If everybody just wants to play MAME on it with questionably legal ROMs, that won't help Free-X.
Might I suggest a DivX based media server that can rip DVDs?
I'd suggest a cluster, as big, powerful and cheap as possible. It would be tough finding a cluster node with more power/buck than the X-box. Especially if the onboard NVidia GPU is used as a vector processor as opposed to just a graphics engine.
This just seems to me to be a cheap attempt to chisel money and personal advantage under the cover of pretending to be doing it for the benefit of Xbox Linux. "Assistance in the development of future security for the XBox by working with Microsoft" indeed!!!!
I don't like how it was handled either, but this phrase is probably the operative item: "requesting but not demanding".
Clearly Microsoft decided that the price was too high -- after all, they've got to pay that building full of lawyers whether they're actually suing people or not so why not just resort to legal action instead?
Not quite right. Microsoft decided that the opportunity to paint the Linux community as a bunch of blackmailers was what they really wanted. They adopted a course designed to get the Free X team to make themselves look as bad as possible, however, to Free X team's, I do not think they took the bait to the extent Microsoft hoped.
Like all of Microsoft's attempts to beat Linux in the court of public opinion, this one will also backfire, and just result in more widespread adoption of Linux.
The Free X team may not fare as well, it's hard to say. If Microsoft attempts to press their claims of blackmail, it's hard to see how they will be successful, given that you can characterize their own business practices as the same or worse. Essentially, they'd have to argue that their own business practices are illegal (which of course they are, as has been established, but that's not something Microsoft wants to draw attention to).
As well, Microsoft could be forced to argue that running Linux on the X-Box is illegal. That would most likely backfire horribly. They wouldn't like it at all if they ended up being compelled by the courts to support Linux on all their hardware. Not just allow it, but actively support it.
In the latter case, I suppose Microsoft could always accuse the judge of blackmail, but I doubt that argument would get very far:-)
This is not a step forward for the Linux community. It is an embarassing set back that could further strengthen arguments against using Linux and supporting the Linux community. It's just damn irresponsible of them.
Indeed. But let's not miss the irony of Microsoft complaining about what they perceive as an attempt to blackmail them, when it's a matter of record that Microsoft has regularly used similar tactics or worse in carrying out their own business. Three words: "knife the baby".
Better yet - buy it from Best Buy and get the service plan.
I bought a VAIO from Best Buy, and bought the extended warrantee to go along with it. A year or two later, the keyboard started to die, one key at a time. I got it replaced, after getting proper authorization. I was instructed to pay for the repair, and forward the bill. I did so. That was a more than year ago. Despite repeated phone calls and emails, I'm still trying to collect the payment. I'm out $175.
As far as I can see, they're running a scam. They are selling warrantees and not paying claims. Nice work if you can get it.
My advice: do not buy anything from Best Buy. Take your business to a reputable dealer.
Personally, I use Mozilla, and it's great as far as standards-compliance goes.
I do too, and while I keep trying to switch to other browsers that have certain advantages, i.e., faster startup, lower cpu, better user interface, etc, in the end I keep coming back to Mozilla. It's the one that gets the most browsing done with the least hassle, and fewest crashes.
But in many ways the Mozilla UI is still a disaster, for example, no saving of open tabs/windows on crash. Always gets the keyboard focus wrong. Pops up stupid warnings that grab focus from other applications, and the focus is left nowhere when the notification is closed. Can't close a notification with Escape, have to hit Enter. Often forgets how to do scrolling via the keyboard ater opening a tab, you have to switch to some other tab and back to get it to remember. And on and on.
errr....wasn't the mithril shirt made by the dwarfs? It was given to Bilbo by anelve (as much as I recall) but from what I understood the dwarfes made those shorts. So no Magic here. Just regular dwarfish smithing genius.
There is also Dwarvish magic. Remember, Dwarves made the rings and the magic door of Moria.
And then proceeded to realize his oversight, turn is company around on a dime, and now has a large slice of that internet pie.
Oh, thanks for setting the record straight, I thought it was what the courts found - that he decided to use whatever means available to crush Netscape, legal or not.
Server-wise, what does Linux do that the other flavors of UNIX can't?
Generally supports a lot more hardware and performs better. It's more stable than some Unixen, particulalry SCO. It's free. It develops quickly, and is nearly always the first to support new high-end hardware these days, Opteron being a case in point. Lots of Unixen will never be implemented on newer hardware.
Because Linux is implemented on such a wide variety of hardware, you don't have to bother with 6 different flavors of Unix, you just use Linux on all your boxes, which saves a great deal of administrative time and cost.
Whaddya call/. if not one big linux astroturfing society?
We're zealots here, not astroturfers;-)
The funny thing is, I've heard that a majority of Slashdot readers are still running Windows, what do you make of that? My theory is: running it isn't the same as liking it.
But until Linus starts bringing the GUI into the tree, then I would tend to agree that Linux will never make significant inroads to Windows.
Linus apparently uses KDE, and has stated on more than one occasion that his main interest in Linux is as a desktop operating system.
And it does indeed work well in that regard. I personally haven't booted any OS but Linux for five years now, and it's not because I don't do desktop/office kinds of things with my computers.
I work for Canada's biggest bank, and unfortunately, even though we are an all IBM shop (Mainframes, desktops, laptops, everything...) , NT4 is used on desktops and has been for the last few years... Will soon upgrade to 2000..
Yes, that's the Royal Bank, my wife worked there for 8 years or so, and she reported to me that when they made the changeover to Windows NT everything got a lot slower.
She also had a number of run-ins with the clueless admins there, the whole thing was depressing, both for her because she had to put up with their incompetence, and for me, because I had to listen to her complain about it.
Face it, Bill Gates didn't become a billionaire because his daddy was a lawyer or because his mommy knew somebody at IBM or because he didn't have to pay a $100 speeding ticket as a kid.
Correct. He became a billionaire by establishing and maintaining an illegal monopoly.
Animators might be moving to linux en masse; that's fine. But to claim that linux itself is able to do things graphically that other OSes can't is just ridiculous. Linux may be cheaper than the alternatives, but let's not pretend that the underlying technology is so much better than say SGI that you can do things graphically on linux that you are unable to do on SGI.
Linux is apparently much faster. As for whether you could or couldn't do this on some other OS platform, it likely hasn't gotten to that point yet, other than in practical terms of price.
What has linux got anything to do with anything here? it's an OS not a rendering suite!!!
Too bad nobody modded you down. Oh well, perhaps there are others who don't know that essentially the whole animation industry has gone to Linux, or is in the process of doing so. That includes writing open source tools specifically to run on, and enhance the usability of Linux as an animation platform. Ever heard of Film Gimp? There are some open source compositing tools as well, I've heard. There's also Sweep, a slick little sound editing program that was apparently supported by the animation company that did most of Lord of the Rings.
Get your facts straight, kiddo. It is not like Bill inherited a railroad empire from Dad, he build the godammed illegal monopoly from ground up, starting from a 3 man operation back in the seventies. You may question his business ethics, his excessive greed or whatever, but thinking he can't outsmart most of us with his hands tied and his eyes closed is dumb (and dangerous - underestimating the enemy is the fastest path to a unforgettable defeat).
But know your enemy. Bill Gates isn't smart, he's canny, just like Al Capone was canny. Al Capone was succesful and rich as well, but like Bill Gates, he had little respect for the law. Ultimately the world learned that Al Capone wasn't all that smart, as he neglected to pay his income taxes and got life in Alcatraz for that.
A more accurate way of looking at it: never underestimate how much it hurts to get bitten by a cornered weasel.
Bill Gates was more successful than his father ever was. Donald Trump came from a similar background. His dad was rich, but not super rich. He had the drive to succeed on levels far higher than his own father. Same with Ted Turner.
Well, looking at your posting record, you only ever have good things to say about Microsoft and Bill Gates, and perhaps not coincidently, only bad things to say about Linux and open source in general. I'm not sure I should trust your opinion of how well-connected Bill Gate's father was/is, or how little/how much he helped juniour get his start in life, let alone teaching him how to thumb his nose at the law.
Furthermore, I suspect you normally post from an IP on the Redmond campus.
Microsoft started in a college dorm room. Within twenty-five years, Bill Gates turned it into an empire. In the competitive market for software in the 80s and early 90s, Microsoft swept over the competition, thanks largely to Bill Gates's ability to move MS into the right place at the right time, signing the right contracts with the right companies.
It had more to do with his father being a wealthy and politically well-connected lawyer. That also helped considerably with his speeding tickets.
With Microsoft's desire to have complete market dominance, how long before they start offering schools free, or cut-rate discounts all under the guise of "charity"?
They've been doing that as long as they've owned the market. It's not working any more, i.e., it's getting hard for Microsoft even to give Windows away. For educators, Windows just isn't nearly as good a value proposition[1] as Linux.
[1] Yes, I know that's PHBspeak. It's also intensely ironic.
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"What about that? Will we be finaly able to switch kernels without a reboot?"
I did that back in the 2.2 days with monte. Later with 2.4 kernels I did a few changes, added a feature I was missing, fixed a bug and such stuff. In case you want to see it. But it was never completely stable and lacked SMP support.
kexec might be a better alternative. AFAIK it is being maintained and might even have made it into the 2.5 kernel.
It was only a couple of years ago that knowledgeable people were calling this idea ridiculous, and giving good reasons, however progress has marched on, and we're actually coming within sight of it. The basic challenges are much the same as for hotplug cpus, hotplug memory, process migration in a cluster, and yes, kexec, all of which are being worked on or already working. So I'll go out on a limb and predict that hot-kernel swapping will be demonstrated during the 2.7 timeframe. It won't be perfect, but such things never are in the first cut.
The thing that makes hot kernel swapping practical is the stable api between userland and the kernel. Big changes there are few and far between, and they can be special-cased.
It takes time for the OEMs to jump on board. You need to find a good distro, negotiate with the company, test it with your machines to make sure everything works properly, train your staff so they know what to do when some customer calls with problems about it, then finally decide how to market the thing! You also need to wait to make sure that MicroSoft is actually playing nice before you risk seriously screwing yourself by ticking off the supplier of the OS for every machine you sell. Remeber the story about the scorpion and the frog? If I were an OEM I would eb damm careful before messing with M$.
The problem is, the OEMS don't really believe that Microsoft won't retaliate, and to be honest I don't blame them. The words "completely ineffective remedy" come to mind, as do "as we all knew at the time". Em, and I can't help thinking the words "in the pocket of" as well.
Antitrust law is a good thing, but if it's not used quickly enough, a monopoly can get so big, rich, and powerful, that laws no longer apply to it. It can afford to buy its way out of any problems it may face. Microsoft is just such a monopoly. It should have been broken up around the time of Windows 3.1. But it was left alone for years after that, and now it can fart in the faces of the justice department and there's not a single thing they can do about it (other than whine to the press).
Your theory also requires that the judicial system and administration be corrupt.
"The department of justice is responsible for pressing the enforcement of the law. The judge decides between the two sides. The judges in these cases have been impartial..."
You really think so? I thought that Colleen Kollar-Kotelly acted the part of a paid-off lapdog rather well.
What is a second lawsuit going to produce? Another slap on the wrist? If so, I will begin to think that the judges were... easily persuaded.
You're the slow-to-anger type I guess.
Might I suggest a DivX based media server that can rip DVDs?
I'd suggest a cluster, as big, powerful and cheap as possible. It would be tough finding a cluster node with more power/buck than the X-box. Especially if the onboard NVidia GPU is used as a vector processor as opposed to just a graphics engine.
This just seems to me to be a cheap attempt to chisel money and personal advantage under the cover of pretending to be doing it for the benefit of Xbox Linux. "Assistance in the development of future security for the XBox by working with Microsoft" indeed!!!!
I don't like how it was handled either, but this phrase is probably the operative item: "requesting but not demanding".
Clearly Microsoft decided that the price was too high -- after all, they've got to pay that building full of lawyers whether they're actually suing people or not so why not just resort to legal action instead?
:-)
Not quite right. Microsoft decided that the opportunity to paint the Linux community as a bunch of blackmailers was what they really wanted. They adopted a course designed to get the Free X team to make themselves look as bad as possible, however, to Free X team's, I do not think they took the bait to the extent Microsoft hoped.
Like all of Microsoft's attempts to beat Linux in the court of public opinion, this one will also backfire, and just result in more widespread adoption of Linux.
The Free X team may not fare as well, it's hard to say. If Microsoft attempts to press their claims of blackmail, it's hard to see how they will be successful, given that you can characterize their own business practices as the same or worse. Essentially, they'd have to argue that their own business practices are illegal (which of course they are, as has been established, but that's not something Microsoft wants to draw attention to).
As well, Microsoft could be forced to argue that running Linux on the X-Box is illegal. That would most likely backfire horribly. They wouldn't like it at all if they ended up being compelled by the courts to support Linux on all their hardware. Not just allow it, but actively support it.
In the latter case, I suppose Microsoft could always accuse the judge of blackmail, but I doubt that argument would get very far
This is not a step forward for the Linux community. It is an embarassing set back that could further strengthen arguments against using Linux and supporting the Linux community. It's just damn irresponsible of them.
Indeed. But let's not miss the irony of Microsoft complaining about what they perceive as an attempt to blackmail them, when it's a matter of record that Microsoft has regularly used similar tactics or worse in carrying out their own business. Three words: "knife the baby".
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Better yet - buy it from Best Buy and get the service plan.
I bought a VAIO from Best Buy, and bought the extended warrantee to go along with it. A year or two later, the keyboard started to die, one key at a time. I got it replaced, after getting proper authorization. I was instructed to pay for the repair, and forward the bill. I did so. That was a more than year ago. Despite repeated phone calls and emails, I'm still trying to collect the payment. I'm out $175.
As far as I can see, they're running a scam. They are selling warrantees and not paying claims. Nice work if you can get it.
My advice: do not buy anything from Best Buy. Take your business to a reputable dealer.
Personally, I use Mozilla, and it's great as far as standards-compliance goes.
I do too, and while I keep trying to switch to other browsers that have certain advantages, i.e., faster startup, lower cpu, better user interface, etc, in the end I keep coming back to Mozilla. It's the one that gets the most browsing done with the least hassle, and fewest crashes.
But in many ways the Mozilla UI is still a disaster, for example, no saving of open tabs/windows on crash. Always gets the keyboard focus wrong. Pops up stupid warnings that grab focus from other applications, and the focus is left nowhere when the notification is closed. Can't close a notification with Escape, have to hit Enter. Often forgets how to do scrolling via the keyboard ater opening a tab, you have to switch to some other tab and back to get it to remember. And on and on.
It's decent, but it could be so much better.
errr....wasn't the mithril shirt made by the dwarfs? It was given to Bilbo by anelve (as much as I recall) but from what I understood the dwarfes made those shorts. So no Magic here. Just regular dwarfish smithing genius.
There is also Dwarvish magic. Remember, Dwarves made the rings and the magic door of Moria.
And then proceeded to realize his oversight, turn is company around on a dime, and now has a large slice of that internet pie.
Oh, thanks for setting the record straight, I thought it was what the courts found - that he decided to use whatever means available to crush Netscape, legal or not.
Server-wise, what does Linux do that the other flavors of UNIX can't?
Generally supports a lot more hardware and performs better. It's more stable than some Unixen, particulalry SCO. It's free. It develops quickly, and is nearly always the first to support new high-end hardware these days, Opteron being a case in point. Lots of Unixen will never be implemented on newer hardware.
Because Linux is implemented on such a wide variety of hardware, you don't have to bother with 6 different flavors of Unix, you just use Linux on all your boxes, which saves a great deal of administrative time and cost.
Whaddya call /. if not one big linux astroturfing society?
;-)
We're zealots here, not astroturfers
The funny thing is, I've heard that a majority of Slashdot readers are still running Windows, what do you make of that? My theory is: running it isn't the same as liking it.
But until Linus starts bringing the GUI into the tree, then I would tend to agree that Linux will never make significant inroads to Windows.
Linus apparently uses KDE, and has stated on more than one occasion that his main interest in Linux is as a desktop operating system.
And it does indeed work well in that regard. I personally haven't booted any OS but Linux for five years now, and it's not because I don't do desktop/office kinds of things with my computers.
I work for Canada's biggest bank, and unfortunately, even though we are an all IBM shop (Mainframes, desktops, laptops, everything...) , NT4 is used on desktops and has been for the last few years... Will soon upgrade to 2000..
Yes, that's the Royal Bank, my wife worked there for 8 years or so, and she reported to me that when they made the changeover to Windows NT everything got a lot slower.
She also had a number of run-ins with the clueless admins there, the whole thing was depressing, both for her because she had to put up with their incompetence, and for me, because I had to listen to her complain about it.
Let's not even talk about the poor customer.
Face it, Bill Gates didn't become a billionaire because his daddy was a lawyer or because his mommy knew somebody at IBM or because he didn't have to pay a $100 speeding ticket as a kid.
Correct. He became a billionaire by establishing and maintaining an illegal monopoly.
Animators might be moving to linux en masse; that's fine. But to claim that linux itself is able to do things graphically that other OSes can't is just ridiculous. Linux may be cheaper than the alternatives, but let's not pretend that the underlying technology is so much better than say SGI that you can do things graphically on linux that you are unable to do on SGI.
Linux is apparently much faster. As for whether you could or couldn't do this on some other OS platform, it likely hasn't gotten to that point yet, other than in practical terms of price.
What has linux got anything to do with anything here? it's an OS not a rendering suite!!!
Too bad nobody modded you down. Oh well, perhaps there are others who don't know that essentially the whole animation industry has gone to Linux, or is in the process of doing so. That includes writing open source tools specifically to run on, and enhance the usability of Linux as an animation platform. Ever heard of Film Gimp? There are some open source compositing tools as well, I've heard. There's also Sweep, a slick little sound editing program that was apparently supported by the animation company that did most of Lord of the Rings.
Get your facts straight, kiddo. It is not like Bill inherited a railroad empire from Dad, he build the godammed illegal monopoly from ground up, starting from a 3 man operation back in the seventies. You may question his business ethics, his excessive greed or whatever, but thinking he can't outsmart most of us with his hands tied and his eyes closed is dumb (and dangerous - underestimating the enemy is the fastest path to a unforgettable defeat).
But know your enemy. Bill Gates isn't smart, he's canny, just like Al Capone was canny. Al Capone was succesful and rich as well, but like Bill Gates, he had little respect for the law. Ultimately the world learned that Al Capone wasn't all that smart, as he neglected to pay his income taxes and got life in Alcatraz for that.
A more accurate way of looking at it: never underestimate how much it hurts to get bitten by a cornered weasel.
Bill Gates was more successful than his father ever was. Donald Trump came from a similar background. His dad was rich, but not super rich. He had the drive to succeed on levels far higher than his own father. Same with Ted Turner.
Well, looking at your posting record, you only ever have good things to say about Microsoft and Bill Gates, and perhaps not coincidently, only bad things to say about Linux and open source in general. I'm not sure I should trust your opinion of how well-connected Bill Gate's father was/is, or how little/how much he helped juniour get his start in life, let alone teaching him how to thumb his nose at the law.
Furthermore, I suspect you normally post from an IP on the Redmond campus.
Have a nice day.
Microsoft started in a college dorm room. Within twenty-five years, Bill Gates turned it into an empire. In the competitive market for software in the 80s and early 90s, Microsoft swept over the competition, thanks largely to Bill Gates's ability to move MS into the right place at the right time, signing the right contracts with the right companies.
It had more to do with his father being a wealthy and politically well-connected lawyer. That also helped considerably with his speeding tickets.
With Microsoft's desire to have complete market dominance, how long before they start offering schools free, or cut-rate discounts all under the guise of "charity"?
They've been doing that as long as they've owned the market. It's not working any more, i.e., it's getting hard for Microsoft even to give Windows away. For educators, Windows just isn't nearly as good a value proposition[1] as Linux.
[1] Yes, I know that's PHBspeak. It's also intensely ironic.
Is it just me, or does it seem a bit wierd the fact that we understand what this sentence means...
I'd like to know what "for" and "the" are supposed to mean, are they TLA's or something?