Well I think that is a bit unfair. Minix and Linux where different proposes in mind from the start. I would consider them be both be highly successful. Minix was included with a text book. Minix was written to teach students how a Unix like OS worked so they could learn how write operating system code! Minix was very portable, clearly written, and would even run on an 8088 and 68000. It's technical limitations where just a logical trade off. Requiring people to own the book to have the OS was probably a mistake but My guess is that the author wanted to prevent people from reselling Minix. Plus he really wanted people to buy his book. Linux was some guy that wanted to write a free Unix Kernel for his 386 and he didn't care if it worked on anything but a 386 or frankly anything but his own computer. Frankly at that time I and everybody else was waiting for the real free UNIX that the GNU project was going to write. The future was going to be GNU Unix and it was going to be a state of the art micro kernel based UNIX like OS. Of course the future doesn't really feel obligated to follow our plans. Minix was a brilliant success. How many of the early Linux Kernel developers read Operating Systems: Design and Implementation by Andrew S. Tanenbaum? I would say that Minix it did it's job very well.
Now Minix3 is a very new project. Frankly I find it very interesting. It is micro kernel and it runs drivers in user space. The goal is to create self healing OS. AKA a driver crashing will not take out the OS. It uses BSD instead of the GPL which I am beginning to favor because of what I consider the bad spirited anti-Tivo clauses in GPLV3. I really hope that Minix3 does get the attention that it deserves. Just as I hope the OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, and Linux continue to grow and thrive.
Hate to tell you this but GCC wasn't the first free compiler. It wasn't even the first c compile. There was the Small c compiler that dates back all the way to 1980. There was also the DICE compiler for the Amiga written by Matt Dillon of FireflyBSD fame that was from around the same time frame. Now GCC is leaps and bounds ahead of those compilers today but without if RMS hadn't written GCC frankly I think Somebody would have like Matt Dillon maybe.
You are right I didn't know that POSIX was still available. I just knew they stopped shipping. I never found any use for it under Windows since I tend to use Linux for my Unix needs. Thanks for the info. I will have to see if I can find it to download.
Actually the latest version of Thunderbird is really nice. It has folders which I really do like but it also has tags for those that are into tagging. What is really brilliant is that it allows you to create "folders" that are based on the tags. Plugins work fine but you just don't need a lot of them for Email. I use GPGP for signing and encryption. The plugin manager could work better. I would say it isn't great for normal end users. I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league. To me that is the problem. FOSS need a server that will interface with Thunderbird and offer all the same features as Outlook plus exchange and with the same ease of use. As I Thunderbird user I can not say I am pleased.
"If they actually cared about getting more open source developers to port their applications to Windows, they'd harmonise their API with the other major operating systems (Linux, OS X, Solaris, *BSD)." Windows isn't Unix. NT did include a POSIX system but that bit-rotted from lack of use and was removed I believe. Kind of like damming VMS or the AS400 for not supporting all the Win32 calls.
The old parallel printer port works great for all sorts of interfacing projects as well as things like Pic programmers and such. A USB adapter and or Ethernet printer server will not work for that. I use my serial port every day for embedded development. USB devices for a lot of are coming on like but frankly they tend to be Windows centric. Then you have devices like Closed Captioning encoders. They tend to only come with an RS-232 interface and or a 1200 baud modem interface. As someone pointed out USB to serial adapters are not all that reliable. And I have yet to see a USB extender as cheap as a 100ft serial cable. You can run RS-232 I think 150ft according to specs. You could use RS-232->Ethernet adapters but then you are taking up a port on your hub and they are not as cheap as a good old serial cable.
That is the sad part. Yes there was a time when you had 3 TV news sources to choose from. But I get the feeling that the news services where a lot more responsible and unbiased then. Now with many many outlets to get your news from news providers have become tabloids. Controversy sells. Of course with all the news services available you can find one that EXACTLY fits your world view. So the news will reinforce everything you believe and challenge nothing. That also means that it will reinforce your fears. That great unbiased news service you have found on line isn't unbiased. It just shares your bias.
Yea I would say it is just like that BMW motorcycle I saw on Craig's list. When I email the owner about how many miles where on it since the price seemed so low I got an email about how he was out of the country and the bike was in a warehouse. He included information about how to wire him the money of course... But no info on the mileage. Mmmmm FISH!
Well there is an old saying. If it sounds too good to be true...
But running a scam like this out of Sweden seems like a big risk to me. But then I have no idea how good the Swedish legal system is. I thought they had some very strong consumer protection laws. It is probably safer to buy this if you live in Sweden than the US.
I would think that the transistor count drives power use more than the die shrink. A die shrink helps as do smart designs that turn off parts that are not needed. I think you will get some savings but not as much as you might think.
"Personally - if he said he wanted to break out his own distro, customize the kernel, optimize the whole experience for "responsive GUI" - I think he'd have a good thing going." Maybe but it would be just another distro. It would be a LOT of work and frankly a whole distro just for a patched kernel seems a bit much. He did matain kernel patches for a long time but just got tired of doing all that work. I think a Distro would be even more work. One person posted that a lot of the problems are with X. He said that it is single threaded and a reference design. IE it really isn't optimized for performance. Well single threaded in the land of many cores will become a worse problem over time. Then you have the problems with the Linux sound system our should I say Linux sound systems I always thought that IBM really missed a great opportunity when they didn't release OS/2 as open source back in the day. If they could have managed it I think it would have made a great desktop and a good companion to Linux on the server. I use Linux everyday. It makes a good desktop for me but I know it could be better.
Yes you have to have access to the Skype servers for it to work. It is just wrong that posting the source on the internet isn't good enough. I wonder if I could demand that Gentoo.org or any number of Mirrors that have Linux distros on them mail me the source code for the cost of the media? But wait if I don't have the Internet maybe I don't have a DVD or CDR so they must send it to me on Floppies... Wait my computer doesn't have a floppy... Yes a print out for the cost of the media. Or maybe punch cards. Yea this will encourage people to support GPL. Sue them and them make them not just post the source on the Internet but to have a way to get it by mail! Didn't Linus say, "Real men don't back up their code. They upload it to an FTP server!" Nope the court was wrong. Including a URL to the source in the package is more then good enough.
Yes but you are running it on their network. I am sure they will just shut you off. Not real hard to block all server ports as well. IE make so the IPhone can go out on port 80 but no one can get in on port 80.
"Not everyone has access to the internet. Had they included a written offer to send the source code by post for a reasonable shipping charge they'd probably have been fine." WHAT!!! again I will say WHAT!!! The source is for a Skype VOIP PHONE! It doesn't work if you don't have the Internet!
Funny but that is a great case of newspeak. GPL is permissive... But it prevents you from distributing something with out making the source available... I happen to like GPL V2 but this statement is just not as slanted as the term Digital Rights Management. You find it permissive because it gives you permission to do something you want while preventing someone else from doing what they want. What I don't get is why is putting the source on the internet not good enough?
Too bad batteries are not following Moore's Law. Of course they shouldn't be expected to. That is going to limit portable technology more than anything.
Yes and it isn't that much expensive to own say a C152 than say a boat. It is just a lot less common. Like I said it sounded good but those planes where made by well paid middle class people in the US. The tax in that case hurt many many many more people than it ever helped. If you tax luxury goods people don't buy as many and the people that make them suffer. If you tax addictive goods then you make money! Time for that WoW tax:)
Funny you should ask that since I am a Christian. I even teach Sunday school.
The problem is that he isn't saying Windows is better then Linux. He believes that both systems are not working hard enough to be good desktops. He was a Kernel developer that offered patches that he thinks helped Linux to be a better desktop.
I do use Linux and like it. I even develop under Linux. The problems the person that was interviewed where simply these. 1. Kernel development is driven more by Server needs than by Desktop needs. 2. It is hard to quantify responsiveness with benchmarks. 3. It is hard for normal desktop users to post bug reports to the Kernel developers list.
Well the person that was interviewed tried to get a scheduler plug in framework mainlined. The idea being that you could tune the kernel for your application. It was turned down.
What CPU are you using? How much Ram? I had an old PIII that I used as a server and backup desktop. Frankly It is SLOW. Yes it is an old box but the desktop was PAINFUL to use. It ran Windows2k just fine but Linux worked better as a server on it. Why shouldn't an old and slow machine make a good desktop? I tend to blame Gnome and KDE for the low speed and have yet to play with any of the light desktops but the person that was interviewed has some very interesting points.
What ticks me off is that the person in the interview was trying to take FOSS to the next level. He wasn't saying that Linux was a worse desktop than Windows. In fact the said that Windows had many of the same problems! He wants Linux to be the best that it can be. Not just good as Windows or not just better than Windows but the best that it could be.
Wow you really didn't bother to read the link did you. The author was speaking about how poorly Linux performed ON the desktop. Thinks like audio skipping and the desktop feeling slow. He was talking about how the Kernel was so slanted to big iron and the server market that it has ignored desktop performance. The was also talking about how hard it is to create benchmarks that show interactive responsiveness. He also talked about how hard it is for "normal" users to communicate problems to Kernel developers.
What he is talking about is how Linux has failed to perform as well as a desktop as it does a server.
What most people have failed to notice or care about is this is a person that actually tried to fix problems by writing code! He was a truly working under the FOSS ideal and has given up.
Too bad so many people are dismissing what he has to say.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I think that is a bit unfair.
Minix and Linux where different proposes in mind from the start. I would consider them be both be highly successful.
Minix was included with a text book. Minix was written to teach students how a Unix like OS worked so they could learn how write operating system code! Minix was very portable, clearly written, and would even run on an 8088 and 68000. It's technical limitations where just a logical trade off.
Requiring people to own the book to have the OS was probably a mistake but My guess is that the author wanted to prevent people from reselling Minix. Plus he really wanted people to buy his book.
Linux was some guy that wanted to write a free Unix Kernel for his 386 and he didn't care if it worked on anything but a 386 or frankly anything but his own computer.
Frankly at that time I and everybody else was waiting for the real free UNIX that the GNU project was going to write. The future was going to be GNU Unix and it was going to be a state of the art micro kernel based UNIX like OS. Of course the future doesn't really feel obligated to follow our plans.
Minix was a brilliant success. How many of the early Linux Kernel developers read Operating Systems: Design and Implementation by Andrew S. Tanenbaum?
I would say that Minix it did it's job very well.
Now Minix3 is a very new project. Frankly I find it very interesting. It is micro kernel and it runs drivers in user space. The goal is to create self healing OS. AKA a driver crashing will not take out the OS.
It uses BSD instead of the GPL which I am beginning to favor because of what I consider the bad spirited anti-Tivo clauses in GPLV3.
I really hope that Minix3 does get the attention that it deserves. Just as I hope the OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, and Linux continue to grow and thrive.
Hate to tell you this but GCC wasn't the first free compiler. It wasn't even the first c compile.
There was the Small c compiler that dates back all the way to 1980. There was also the DICE compiler for the Amiga written by Matt Dillon of FireflyBSD fame that was from around the same time frame.
Now GCC is leaps and bounds ahead of those compilers today but without if RMS hadn't written GCC frankly I think Somebody would have like Matt Dillon maybe.
You are right I didn't know that POSIX was still available. I just knew they stopped shipping. I never found any use for it under Windows since I tend to use Linux for my Unix needs. Thanks for the info. I will have to see if I can find it to download.
Actually the latest version of Thunderbird is really nice.
It has folders which I really do like but it also has tags for those that are into tagging. What is really brilliant is that it allows you to create "folders" that are based on the tags.
Plugins work fine but you just don't need a lot of them for Email. I use GPGP for signing and encryption. The plugin manager could work better. I would say it isn't great for normal end users.
I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league.
To me that is the problem. FOSS need a server that will interface with Thunderbird and offer all the same features as Outlook plus exchange and with the same ease of use.
As I Thunderbird user I can not say I am pleased.
"If they actually cared about getting more open source developers to port their applications to Windows, they'd harmonise their API with the other major operating systems (Linux, OS X, Solaris, *BSD)."
Windows isn't Unix. NT did include a POSIX system but that bit-rotted from lack of use and was removed I believe.
Kind of like damming VMS or the AS400 for not supporting all the Win32 calls.
The old parallel printer port works great for all sorts of interfacing projects as well as things like Pic programmers and such. A USB adapter and or Ethernet printer server will not work for that.
I use my serial port every day for embedded development.
USB devices for a lot of are coming on like but frankly they tend to be Windows centric.
Then you have devices like Closed Captioning encoders. They tend to only come with an RS-232 interface and or a 1200 baud modem interface.
As someone pointed out USB to serial adapters are not all that reliable. And I have yet to see a USB extender as cheap as a 100ft serial cable. You can run RS-232 I think 150ft according to specs. You could use RS-232->Ethernet adapters but then you are taking up a port on your hub and they are not as cheap as a good old serial cable.
That is the sad part. Yes there was a time when you had 3 TV news sources to choose from. But I get the feeling that the news services where a lot more responsible and unbiased then.
Now with many many outlets to get your news from news providers have become tabloids.
Controversy sells. Of course with all the news services available you can find one that EXACTLY fits your world view. So the news will reinforce everything you believe and challenge nothing. That also means that it will reinforce your fears.
That great unbiased news service you have found on line isn't unbiased. It just shares your bias.
Yea I would say it is just like that BMW motorcycle I saw on Craig's list.
When I email the owner about how many miles where on it since the price seemed so low I got an email about how he was out of the country and the bike was in a warehouse. He included information about how to wire him the money of course... But no info on the mileage.
Mmmmm FISH!
Well there is an old saying.
If it sounds too good to be true...
But running a scam like this out of Sweden seems like a big risk to me. But then I have no idea how good the Swedish legal system is. I thought they had some very strong consumer protection laws. It is probably safer to buy this if you live in Sweden than the US.
I would think that the transistor count drives power use more than the die shrink. A die shrink helps as do smart designs that turn off parts that are not needed. I think you will get some savings but not as much as you might think.
I have sprint phone as well so where did you find these nice little toys?
"Personally - if he said he wanted to break out his own distro, customize the kernel, optimize the whole experience for "responsive GUI" - I think he'd have a good thing going."
Maybe but it would be just another distro. It would be a LOT of work and frankly a whole distro just for a patched kernel seems a bit much. He did matain kernel patches for a long time but just got tired of doing all that work. I think a Distro would be even more work.
One person posted that a lot of the problems are with X. He said that it is single threaded and a reference design. IE it really isn't optimized for performance.
Well single threaded in the land of many cores will become a worse problem over time. Then you have the problems with the Linux sound system our should I say Linux sound systems
I always thought that IBM really missed a great opportunity when they didn't release OS/2 as open source back in the day. If they could have managed it I think it would have made a great desktop and a good companion to Linux on the server.
I use Linux everyday. It makes a good desktop for me but I know it could be better.
Yes you have to have access to the Skype servers for it to work. It is just wrong that posting the source on the internet isn't good enough. I wonder if I could demand that Gentoo.org or any number of Mirrors that have Linux distros on them mail me the source code for the cost of the media? But wait if I don't have the Internet maybe I don't have a DVD or CDR so they must send it to me on Floppies... Wait my computer doesn't have a floppy... Yes a print out for the cost of the media. Or maybe punch cards.
Yea this will encourage people to support GPL. Sue them and them make them not just post the source on the Internet but to have a way to get it by mail!
Didn't Linus say, "Real men don't back up their code. They upload it to an FTP server!"
Nope the court was wrong. Including a URL to the source in the package is more then good enough.
Yes but you are running it on their network. I am sure they will just shut you off. Not real hard to block all server ports as well. IE make so the IPhone can go out on port 80 but no one can get in on port 80.
"Not everyone has access to the internet. Had they included a written offer to send the source code by post for a reasonable shipping charge they'd probably have been fine."
WHAT!!! again I will say WHAT!!!
The source is for a Skype VOIP PHONE! It doesn't work if you don't have the Internet!
Guns that stop bullets good.
Hey I have no problem with defensive systems like this.
Funny but that is a great case of newspeak.
GPL is permissive... But it prevents you from distributing something with out making the source available...
I happen to like GPL V2 but this statement is just not as slanted as the term Digital Rights Management.
You find it permissive because it gives you permission to do something you want while preventing someone else from doing what they want.
What I don't get is why is putting the source on the internet not good enough?
Too bad batteries are not following Moore's Law. Of course they shouldn't be expected to. That is going to limit portable technology more than anything.
Yes and it isn't that much expensive to own say a C152 than say a boat. It is just a lot less common. Like I said it sounded good but those planes where made by well paid middle class people in the US. The tax in that case hurt many many many more people than it ever helped. :)
If you tax luxury goods people don't buy as many and the people that make them suffer.
If you tax addictive goods then you make money! Time for that WoW tax
Funny you should ask that since I am a Christian. I even teach Sunday school.
The problem is that he isn't saying Windows is better then Linux. He believes that both systems are not working hard enough to be good desktops. He was a Kernel developer that offered patches that he thinks helped Linux to be a better desktop.
I do use Linux and like it. I even develop under Linux.
The problems the person that was interviewed where simply these.
1. Kernel development is driven more by Server needs than by Desktop needs.
2. It is hard to quantify responsiveness with benchmarks.
3. It is hard for normal desktop users to post bug reports to the Kernel developers list.
Well the person that was interviewed tried to get a scheduler plug in framework mainlined. The idea being that you could tune the kernel for your application. It was turned down.
What CPU are you using?
How much Ram?
I had an old PIII that I used as a server and backup desktop. Frankly It is SLOW. Yes it is an old box but the desktop was PAINFUL to use. It ran Windows2k just fine but Linux worked better as a server on it.
Why shouldn't an old and slow machine make a good desktop?
I tend to blame Gnome and KDE for the low speed and have yet to play with any of the light desktops but the person that was interviewed has some very interesting points.
What ticks me off is that the person in the interview was trying to take FOSS to the next level.
He wasn't saying that Linux was a worse desktop than Windows. In fact the said that Windows had many of the same problems! He wants Linux to be the best that it can be. Not just good as Windows or not just better than Windows but the best that it could be.
Wow you really didn't bother to read the link did you.
The author was speaking about how poorly Linux performed ON the desktop. Thinks like audio skipping and the desktop feeling slow. He was talking about how the Kernel was so slanted to big iron and the server market that it has ignored desktop performance. The was also talking about how hard it is to create benchmarks that show interactive responsiveness.
He also talked about how hard it is for "normal" users to communicate problems to Kernel developers.
What he is talking about is how Linux has failed to perform as well as a desktop as it does a server.
What most people have failed to notice or care about is this is a person that actually tried to fix problems by writing code! He was a truly working under the FOSS ideal and has given up.
Too bad so many people are dismissing what he has to say.
"They moved the guy who did it"
No they didn't the moved the gal that did it.
She is a woman at least from the pictures I saw.