I recall reading something on www.linuxppc.com in which you guys indicated that you'd been talking/working with IBM about this prior to the public announcements, and that you guys were going to be supporting PPC systems based on these boards.
Soooo, what's up with that? When will I be able to pick up a reasonably cheap PPC motherboard, build up a nice system, and slap LinuxPPC on it?
I used to teach highschool computer science, and I always set up the tests and exams with a "practical" (on-computer) and a "theoretical" (paper-based) component. One year, one of the practical choices was to write a program to brute-force the password for the LANtastic server we had. Most students hadn't a clue how to do that so they picked a different practical question to work on, but I was glad that at least one was willing to try (Hi Cory!).
I vaguely recall that he was clueful enough at that point in his life to be able to set up the nested loops correctly (not a trivial concept for *most* students), but the hardware we were working on was so slooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww that it didn't have time to grind through and get the password.
As far as the class went, the administration really didn't have much interest in what we were up to, which was good. I had the students actually write simple video games as part of the coursework. Heck-- we even networked them using NetBIOS!
Ah, Turbo C, DOS 6.2, 640K, 16 MHZ 386SX CPU's.....
Greenspun is right on the money for most of what he says. I'm betting he's single and a major geek though, since he has no clue about families and generally having a life outside of work. Granted, there are some people who are great programmers and who have no life other than work, and if you built a company out of them, you'd probably make a ton of money. However, there are a lot of talented people who do grow up and who do realize that there is more to life than just code, and IMNSHO it's worth tapping the resource that these folks represent, too.
And yes, I do consider myself a good programmer, and I do have a wife and kidlets. And having kids has turned out to be cooler than I could have ever comprehended before it happened. Yeah, it's an intellectual thrill to write some kick-ass code and have people at work be impressed, but if I were hit by a bus, they'd hire someone else, and never miss me. But my kids-- to them, I'm irreplaceable, and as a parent, I'm doing something that truly touches their lives and changes the world (for the better, I hope).
So, try to stay focused on what really matters. Computers are a lot of fun, but it's the people in your life that really matter (or should). Again, IMNSHO, of course.
If you read the linked article, you'll realize that this is not really a port of XFree86 to MacOS X. This is a port of VNC, which is extremely cool, to MacOS X. For those of you who are unfamiliar with VNC, it is similar to Timbuktu or PCAnywhere in that it lets you access and control a GUI desktop on a remote machine pretty much as if you were sitting in front of the remote machine. VNC does this by implementing an X server to host the X apps on the remote machine, and then shooting the pixel data to the viewing "client" machine. Obviously key presses and mouse gestures are sent from the viewer client to the remote/host machine, too. The best part (or worst, depending on your point of view wrt security, etc.) is that the VNC session stays put even if you quit the client, so your desktop session is maintained as you move around in meatspace.
So, to run X apps on MacOS X using this hack requires you to run the X app on top of the VNC server, and then use the VNC viewer/client app to interact with the X app.
Sounds like it'll be pretty sluggish, to me. Still, it is kinda clever, and it does let you run an X app if you really need it now.
I agree with what a few other have said-- I prefer the original cut with the voiceovers (though yes, the happy ending bites).
Anyone have any idea where I can get a copy of the original on VHS or other format? I know a lot of people reading this would probably be interested in the answer....
This is a good article, in general (especially in contrast to, say, Lars Ulrich's semi-coherent ranting), but there's a fundamentally invalid assumption being made-- BDR and the big labels all seem to assume they have some absolute right to make money doing what they do.
Consider an analogy: I like to build stuff out of Lego. Heck, I think I'm pretty good at it, even. Now, is it valid for me to assume that the world owes me a truckfull of money because I can build cool Lego spaceships? NO! If I happen to come up with some creative way of selling my Lego creations (pay-per-view website, physical copies, lessons, etc.), then kudos to me. I should not, however, get upset when I can't find enough people to pay me for me Lego work. Nor should I expect the government to pass laws requiring people to subsidize my work. (Personally, I also don't think there should be ANYTHING stopping people from copying my work once I display it publicly, but that's another rant.)
So, in BDR's case, he seems to get upset because not enough people like his music to make it profitable for him to tour or support himself. Bummer, dude. At least you're enjoying your hobby ('cause that's what it is, in this case). It's a free market out there, and what you've got is not what people want. If you want to make money on a large scale, then cater to a wider audience. If you want to be true to yourself, then continue making your own music and keep the day job.
And as far as the big labels go, they are not owed guaranteed rivers of cash flowing in their doors either. Up until a few decades ago, the technology didn't exist to even make their business model feasible. Since the technology (audio reproduction, mass production, mass media, mass marketing) did come into place, the labels have slurped up their billions because they saw or created a market and tapped it (selling mostly crap, IMNSHO). Now, the technology is shifting and pulling the rug out from under the labels and they're bitching. Well, too bad there guys. It's a free market, so you're going to have to come up with something that people want too.
So, the bottom line is that the rules of the game have changed, and it's time to adapt. Darwinism applies to this game, so if you want to be successful (whatever that means!), you're going to have to come up with the fittest strategy.
I know that the PPC is big-endian and x86 is little endian (unless I got that backwards AGAIN). How much of a pain in the ass is this as far as porting code goes?
I seem to recall this being a problem for some drivers in particular, since they access hardware directly and therefore need to worry about byte ordering.
I suspect that most user code (for lack of a better term) should be endian-neutral, unless it's badly written. Any thoughts, people?
My personal favourite game titles are the LucasArts' Star Wars games, especially the space combat sims "Tie Fighter" and "X Wing vs Tie Fighter." I'd love to see them ported to Linux, which leads to my question: What can we, as Linux folk, do to positively influence publishers into porting titles to Linux? Do petitions and email campaigns actually do any good, in your experience or opinion? Any other suggestions?
I suppose buying every Linux title Loki ships and therefore making Loki an enviable financial success is one of the best ways to convince other publishers, huh?:-)
Theodore Sturgeon (another reasonably good science fiction writer, though his work seems kind of dated now) once wrote that 90% of everything is crap. This certainly applies to science fiction.
I would recommend the novels of Vernor Vinge though. Especially Marooned in Realtime, Fire Upon The Deep, and A Deepness In The Sky.
Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty good too (Heinlein, I think), as was the first one or two Anne McCaffrey Dragon books. Oh-- and Frank Herbert's first couple of Dune books were fantastic, too.
Other than that, most of the other science fiction I've read is a waste of paper.
I'd love to see X Wing vs Tie Fighter, and even the older Tie Fighter game ported to Linux.
C'mon-- all real geeks fantasize about living in the Star Wars universe (let's not get started on Phantom Menace though, and definitely no Jar Jar comments). The LucasArts games are as close as you can come to doing that, IMHO.
Anybody know who to pester at LucasArts about this anyway? The website doesn't seem to have a contacts page....
Just to address a small aspect of the whole argument.... It's been pointed out that it's simple to copy the encrypted data from a DVD, but since the region of the disk where the CSS keys are stored is pre-zeroed on blank DVD's, the resulting copy can't be played in a conventional DVD player. Well, what if someone hacks the device driver of a DVD drive in a PC so that attempted reads of the key data are intercepted, and valid key data is returned? And how difficult would it be to develop a mod-chip for a hardware DVD player? (Yeah, too many models) Or what if some evil manufacturer starts selling blank DVD's with key data pre-burned?
Not that any of these things help the DeCSS case. They just illustrate how unworkable copy protection really is....
I've been watching Steve Jobs' Reality-Distortion effect via QT4, and some people are missing a fine distinction. The lowest-level "Darwin" code is to be open-source, not Apple's proprietary higher-level OS (Carbon, Quartz, Cocoa, and all the other goofily-named bits).
Darwin is pretty much analagous to the Linux kernel, though it is Mach-based, rather than a monolithic kernel.
The BSD-based system interface that rides slightly above Darwin is also to be open-source, which is not surprising since it derives from the various *BSD's out there.
Judging from some discussion on various mailing lists, a lot of the developers are not too impressed with the slow speed at which Apple has been releasing source. This may be typical online whining though. Several Apple people have responded back in a very sincere-sounding manner, asking for patience. I'm inclined to agree with them, since Apple has really only jumped into this Open Source thing recently, and it takes a long time for things to change in a large company. As well, they have to make sure the code they post really belongs to them, that it's in decent enough shape to share, etc. Give 'em a little more time, I say.
Now, what I'd like to know is why they didn't just adopt Linux for the kernel and toss a MacOS API on top of that. Oh yeah-- and do something about making QuickTime available for Linux, too.
Yes, I know that XFce is based on GTK. It is much snappier than Gnome, though. Maybe this is more of an Enlightment issue? I dunno-- I just know XFce is more responsive on my (older, slower) box....
For a long time, I've soul searched over the dilemma fo whether to use Qt/KDE, GTK+/GTK--/Gnome for an app I'll be developing. In particular, I don't want to commit to what will be a dead-end technology and have to switch later. After sitting on the fence for a long time, I've finally decided that there probably won't ever be a dominant, winner-take-all GUI API for Linux, which seems to me to be okay, or even a Good Thing.
What's your take on the whole matter? Please feel free to babble a bit.....
I like Gnome/GTK+ a lot, but find it too slow to use for the most part. What do you think about XFce, which is a leaner, meaner "desktop" environment (assuming you've even heard of it, let alone played with it). -Roy
Slashdot Mirror
There was a little noise made last year about IBM giving away just about everything you need to start manufacturing PPC CHRP motherboards:
m l
h tml
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/24/1922212.sht
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/13/1658200_F.s
http://macweek.zdnet.com/1999/08/08/ibmppc.html
I recall reading something on www.linuxppc.com in which you guys indicated that you'd been talking/working with IBM about this prior to the public announcements, and that you guys were going to be supporting PPC systems based on these boards.
Soooo, what's up with that? When will I be able to pick up a reasonably cheap PPC motherboard, build up a nice system, and slap LinuxPPC on it?
-Roy
I used to teach highschool computer science, and I always set up the tests and exams with a "practical" (on-computer) and a "theoretical" (paper-based) component. One year, one of the practical choices was to write a program to brute-force the password for the LANtastic server we had. Most students hadn't a clue how to do that so they picked a different practical question to work on, but I was glad that at least one was willing to try (Hi Cory!).
I vaguely recall that he was clueful enough at that point in his life to be able to set up the nested loops correctly (not a trivial concept for *most* students), but the hardware we were working on was so slooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww that it didn't have time to grind through and get the password.
As far as the class went, the administration really didn't have much interest in what we were up to, which was good. I had the students actually write simple video games as part of the coursework. Heck-- we even networked them using NetBIOS!
Ah, Turbo C, DOS 6.2, 640K, 16 MHZ 386SX CPU's.....
-Roy
Greenspun is right on the money for most of what he says. I'm betting he's single and a major geek though, since he has no clue about families and generally having a life outside of work. Granted, there are some people who are great programmers and who have no life other than work, and if you built a company out of them, you'd probably make a ton of money. However, there are a lot of talented people who do grow up and who do realize that there is more to life than just code, and IMNSHO it's worth tapping the resource that these folks represent, too.
And yes, I do consider myself a good programmer, and I do have a wife and kidlets. And having kids has turned out to be cooler than I could have ever comprehended before it happened. Yeah, it's an intellectual thrill to write some kick-ass code and have people at work be impressed, but if I were hit by a bus, they'd hire someone else, and never miss me. But my kids-- to them, I'm irreplaceable, and as a parent, I'm doing something that truly touches their lives and changes the world (for the better, I hope).
So, try to stay focused on what really matters. Computers are a lot of fun, but it's the people in your life that really matter (or should). Again, IMNSHO, of course.
-Roy
If you read the linked article, you'll realize that this is not really a port of XFree86 to MacOS X. This is a port of VNC, which is extremely cool, to MacOS X. For those of you who are unfamiliar with VNC, it is similar to Timbuktu or PCAnywhere in that it lets you access and control a GUI desktop on a remote machine pretty much as if you were sitting in front of the remote machine. VNC does this by implementing an X server to host the X apps on the remote machine, and then shooting the pixel data to the viewing "client" machine. Obviously key presses and mouse gestures are sent from the viewer client to the remote/host machine, too. The best part (or worst, depending on your point of view wrt security, etc.) is that the VNC session stays put even if you quit the client, so your desktop session is maintained as you move around in meatspace.
Click here to visit the VNC homepage
So, to run X apps on MacOS X using this hack requires you to run the X app on top of the VNC server, and then use the VNC viewer/client app to interact with the X app.
Sounds like it'll be pretty sluggish, to me. Still, it is kinda clever, and it does let you run an X app if you really need it now.
I agree with what a few other have said-- I prefer the original cut with the voiceovers (though yes, the happy ending bites).
Anyone have any idea where I can get a copy of the original on VHS or other format? I know a lot of people reading this would probably be interested in the answer....
This is a good article, in general (especially in contrast to, say, Lars Ulrich's semi-coherent ranting), but there's a fundamentally invalid assumption being made-- BDR and the big labels all seem to assume they have some absolute right to make money doing what they do.
Consider an analogy: I like to build stuff out of Lego. Heck, I think I'm pretty good at it, even. Now, is it valid for me to assume that the world owes me a truckfull of money because I can build cool Lego spaceships? NO! If I happen to come up with some creative way of selling my Lego creations (pay-per-view website, physical copies, lessons, etc.), then kudos to me. I should not, however, get upset when I can't find enough people to pay me for me Lego work. Nor should I expect the government to pass laws requiring people to subsidize my work. (Personally, I also don't think there should be ANYTHING stopping people from copying my work once I display it publicly, but that's another rant.)
So, in BDR's case, he seems to get upset because not enough people like his music to make it profitable for him to tour or support himself. Bummer, dude. At least you're enjoying your hobby ('cause that's what it is, in this case). It's a free market out there, and what you've got is not what people want. If you want to make money on a large scale, then cater to a wider audience. If you want to be true to yourself, then continue making your own music and keep the day job.
And as far as the big labels go, they are not owed guaranteed rivers of cash flowing in their doors either. Up until a few decades ago, the technology didn't exist to even make their business model feasible. Since the technology (audio reproduction, mass production, mass media, mass marketing) did come into place, the labels have slurped up their billions because they saw or created a market and tapped it (selling mostly crap, IMNSHO). Now, the technology is shifting and pulling the rug out from under the labels and they're bitching. Well, too bad there guys. It's a free market, so you're going to have to come up with something that people want too.
So, the bottom line is that the rules of the game have changed, and it's time to adapt. Darwinism applies to this game, so if you want to be successful (whatever that means!), you're going to have to come up with the fittest strategy.
I know that the PPC is big-endian and x86 is little endian (unless I got that backwards AGAIN). How much of a pain in the ass is this as far as porting code goes?
I seem to recall this being a problem for some drivers in particular, since they access hardware directly and therefore need to worry about byte ordering.
I suspect that most user code (for lack of a better term) should be endian-neutral, unless it's badly written. Any thoughts, people?
-Roy
My personal favourite game titles are the LucasArts' Star Wars games, especially the space combat sims "Tie Fighter" and "X Wing vs Tie Fighter." I'd love to see them ported to Linux, which leads to my question: What can we, as Linux folk, do to positively influence publishers into porting titles to Linux? Do petitions and email campaigns actually do any good, in your experience or opinion? Any other suggestions?
:-)
I suppose buying every Linux title Loki ships and therefore making Loki an enviable financial success is one of the best ways to convince other publishers, huh?
Theodore Sturgeon (another reasonably good science fiction writer, though his work seems kind of dated now) once wrote that 90% of everything is crap. This certainly applies to science fiction.
I would recommend the novels of Vernor Vinge though. Especially Marooned in Realtime, Fire Upon The Deep, and A Deepness In The Sky.
Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty good too (Heinlein, I think), as was the first one or two Anne McCaffrey Dragon books. Oh-- and Frank Herbert's first couple of Dune books were fantastic, too.
Other than that, most of the other science fiction I've read is a waste of paper.
I'd love to see X Wing vs Tie Fighter, and even the older Tie Fighter game ported to Linux.
C'mon-- all real geeks fantasize about living in the Star Wars universe (let's not get started on Phantom Menace though, and definitely no Jar Jar comments). The LucasArts games are as close as you can come to doing that, IMHO.
Anybody know who to pester at LucasArts about this anyway? The website doesn't seem to have a contacts page....
Just to address a small aspect of the whole argument.... It's been pointed out that it's simple to copy the encrypted data from a DVD, but since the region of the disk where the CSS keys are stored is pre-zeroed on blank DVD's, the resulting copy can't be played in a conventional DVD player. Well, what if someone hacks the device driver of a DVD drive in a PC so that attempted reads of the key data are intercepted, and valid key data is returned? And how difficult would it be to develop a mod-chip for a hardware DVD player? (Yeah, too many models) Or what if some evil manufacturer starts selling blank DVD's with key data pre-burned?
Not that any of these things help the DeCSS case. They just illustrate how unworkable copy protection really is....
I've been watching Steve Jobs' Reality-Distortion effect via QT4, and some people are missing a fine distinction. The lowest-level "Darwin" code is to be open-source, not Apple's proprietary higher-level OS (Carbon, Quartz, Cocoa, and all the other goofily-named bits).
Darwin is pretty much analagous to the Linux kernel, though it is Mach-based, rather than a monolithic kernel.
The BSD-based system interface that rides slightly above Darwin is also to be open-source, which is not surprising since it derives from the various *BSD's out there.
Judging from some discussion on various mailing lists, a lot of the developers are not too impressed with the slow speed at which Apple has been releasing source. This may be typical online whining though. Several Apple people have responded back in a very sincere-sounding manner, asking for patience. I'm inclined to agree with them, since Apple has really only jumped into this Open Source thing recently, and it takes a long time for things to change in a large company. As well, they have to make sure the code they post really belongs to them, that it's in decent enough shape to share, etc. Give 'em a little more time, I say.
Now, what I'd like to know is why they didn't just adopt Linux for the kernel and toss a MacOS API on top of that. Oh yeah-- and do something about making QuickTime available for Linux, too.
Yes, I know that XFce is based on GTK. It is much snappier than Gnome, though. Maybe this is more of an Enlightment issue? I dunno-- I just know XFce is more responsive on my (older, slower) box....
Okay, another question:
For a long time, I've soul searched over the dilemma fo whether to use Qt/KDE, GTK+/GTK--/Gnome for an app I'll be developing. In particular, I don't want to commit to what will be a dead-end technology and have to switch later. After sitting on the fence for a long time, I've finally decided that there probably won't ever be a dominant, winner-take-all GUI API for Linux, which seems to me to be okay, or even a Good Thing.
What's your take on the whole matter? Please feel free to babble a bit.....
I like Gnome/GTK+ a lot, but find it too slow to use for the most part. What do you think about XFce, which is a leaner, meaner "desktop" environment (assuming you've even heard of it, let alone played with it). -Roy