There are bigger problems as well - In some environments it is necessary to run as administrator because the software that is needed can only install as Administrator and can only run as the user it was installed as.
Don't the people in the houses along the route the right to record the sights and sounds which can be seen and heard from their own property?
Last week I was walking down Burrard St in Vancouver and the whole block was blocked off with about 16 american 'generic' police cars stopped in the middle of the road as a film crew was preparing to film a scene for Blade 3 with Wesley Snipes. I was stopped from walking too close by a nice security girl who chatted about a bunch of stuff. Including the fact that they would remove the film of any people's cameras if they caught any one photographing their film scene. 'copyright,' she said - we own the copyright to this scene.
'What about digital cameras?," I asked. She replied that they would make sure the images were erased.
'You know, you are going to have a big problem once everyone has those new cell phones with cameras in them.'
'Oh, we will make it clear that we will even destroy the camera if we have to'
'But... if they take the photos with the cell phone, the image is no longer in the phone! It is already sent to someone else and will be on the net everywhere!'
The internet's email is already an unreliable system. A friend on earthlink has an open-source project and a list of 500 people who want to know about new updates. He sent one email to all of them and earthlink suspended his account. Another email server blocked a real email, marking it as spam just because the subject line was similiar to a known worm's typical subject line - even without an attachment. Luckily the server was "mis-configured" and actually DID send the bounce - otherwise I would not have known that the email never got there. And it is just going to get worse unless smtp servers start making a real trust network.
On my system I am using DMA mode, and my whole linux system chugs when copying lots of data between IDE disks. (1gig ram/1.8ghz p4/etcetc).
Yes, SCSI drives are designed for servers... But the disk comparisons in this guy's tests don't make sense with respect to the results. In the first test the IDE drive has 2 megs cache, the SCSI drive has 4 megs cache. Is that the main cause of the 6 times slowdown on the IDE drive? Or does the 2.6 ms difference between avg seek times cause it? Or does the IDE bus itself cause it? Funny that the IDE hdparm -t measurement is 2.5 times faster than the scsi... Yet it is still so slow?
So what does it mean when a disk drive is designed for a 'Server' versus a 'Desktop'? What disk parameters are different?
Yes, so what is it that makes the IDE drives so much slower than they theoretically should be? Is it simply the poor design of the IDE chipsets and interrupt structure?
You totally missed my point! Why didn't the open source people design a killer mp3 player before? What was stopping them? What is stopping them now from making an even better mp3 player than iTunes without porting it? All the base tools are there, pre-installed on most Redhat 9 installations.
I use iTunes ALL the time, almost as much as I use gcc and pine.
Sorry, the original version of iTunes ran on Mac OS 9, which is NOT a BSD kernel. And the BSD kernel calls (open,read,write,ioctl,connect,etc) are a miniscule part of iTunes, it is not even relevant which kernel is was designed on. What is more important is the GUI API that it uses.
As I said in a previous message, there is a lot more to iTunes than the store. I can't even use the store because I am in Canada, and I love iTunes, and I want an app like it or better on Linux! What features would you put into a linux music player program to make it even better than iTunes? You are right. THAT is the hard part. The software is the easy part.
But no talks with record companies are necessary to make a better app.
As for the WM, it depends on what you are calling a window manager. Different widgets on the non-client areas of application windows? Virtual desktops? Different file browsing/exploring schemes? Windows and Mac have supported these for AGES. Hardly anyone uses them, though.
X Windows IS a no-brainer to install on OS X. Really. I surfed to apple's X11 page, clicked download, ran the installer, and now I have an X11 icon to click, and can run gimp, gnome, and koffice locally on the mac.
XFree86 on cygwin gives you all the capabilities that running XFree86 on Linux does, except that windows is slower on the same machine.
All I am saying is that configurable widgets on non-client areas of application windows and virtual desktops is not really an innovation.
The reason iTunes has done so well is because they got some good deals with record companies
I use iTunes ALL THE TIME and I can't use the iTunes music store because I am in Canada, and it is still the hands down most innovative music player/burner/ripper on ANY platform. Yes, ANY platform, I've used them all.
Basically, I am wondering WHY there aren't more people trying to write the Linux Killer App. We have more people working on and contributing to Linux/GPL'd software than any other platform.
iTunes is one good example of really simple concepts done right, and it is innovative... And there is no reason that I can tell for linux people to not have designed it first...
Apple Software Update updates all of my built-in software, including this iTunes update. Tell me, does apt update the nvidia driver automatically too? My redhat 8 box is a pain in the butt whenever I have to update the kernel, I have to manually (well, scripted) recompile alsa and nvidia in runlevel 3. If apt can do that for me, I'll install debian on that box instead.
As for X Windows and different WM's, that's not so special. Windows has alternative window managers too, and XFree86 runs on Windows AND Mac - I use them constantly.
I think GLADE qualifies as a decent linux innovation. I like designing GUI's with Glade much better than MFC/Borland Builder/Mac IB. What else?
Why does linux need iTunes when Linux already has mpg321, postgresql, cdparanoia, sox, LAME, cdrecord, samba, and php with apache? Just connect them up and you have an even MORE powerful system than iTunes! Amaze your computer-illiterate friends with your knowledge of arcane things!
Meanwhile, I run iTunes and now I have more time available to post to slashdot.
Please tell me - what experimental innovative software is there available for Linux? What does innovative software mean to you?
BTW, I've been running Linux since kernel version 0.99pl15, and am running servers with RedHat 7.3/8/9, debian, and embedded linux-ppc based on YellowDog linux.
All I see now are me-too web browsers, me-too developer IDE's, me-too office applications, me-too games, and me-too multimedia apps. Yes I know there is value in making a word processor that feels like Microsoft Word, but where are the experimental word processors that go beyond Word, GUI and functionality-wise? Word is not and never was a good GUI design. It makes me really want to write up my own...
The innovative software that I have I've seen running on Linux was not written with Linux in mind but was originally written for Unix/X11 before Linux existed.
Back to the iTunes topic, I installed iTunes on a WIn2000 machine. On my Mac, I ran iTunes and clicked 'Share Library'. On the Win2000 machine my Mac's music library automatically appeared in the left panel. No complex setup either. It is these little things and attention to detail that make iTunes more innovative than any music player on Linux.
I myself am guilty of promoting complexities. Since I know how to set up NFS and Samba and Apache and Shoutcast, I would just use one of these tools on my own Linux boxes to accomplish the same thing with XMMS or X11AMP or even mpg321 with a cgi php4 script front-end with apache and the mp3 meta-data extracted into a PostgreSQL table for faster searches. All the tools are there, and as a programmer, I find it fun to implement these kinds of things - and I HAVE spent time doing this for my own system.
Because I did it myself like this, I forget about the fact that there would be a much easier way for the end user who maybe does not have these tools or does not know how to use these tools, or does not care - he just wants his music on one computer to be played back on another computer without having to think about file sharing or audio streaming software or DNS issues or IP addresses or IP ports or protocols.
Click on 'Share Music' on computer A. Click on shared music on computer B. Press 'Play'
The original poster had a very good point. Why does the 'best' mp3 player on linux have to be a WinAMP clone? I would LOVE to have iTunes on my linux boxes - even without the Music Store. I can't, so I use iTunes on my Mac.
The Linux architecture and concepts should foster experimental and new designs for software. Why do people have to duplicate existing apps? Apple didn't when they created iTunes.
iTunes is DEAD simple to use, manages a database of your music easily, rips cd's asynchronously, burns audio and mp3 cd's super easily, and makes it easy to build playlists and browse your library, AND allows you to tweak each individual song. Did I mention it is DEAD simple to use?
The magic, is not actually in the code, the magic is in the usability features and concepts.
I know I would love to have this chip for digital audio processing. Currently the system I work on expands to up to 32 DSP's, but that is still not enough for some customers.
The individual throughput this chip has is good enough for each unit, and the more processing we can do on the audio, the better. We've already looked at this product, however, and determined that until it is available and selling well for 1 year we can't trust the company to not disappear.
Because of that, we usually end up with a design that has a slower DSP with a longer shelf life and from a company such as Motorola or Texas Instruments that documents errata's very well...
Slashdot Mirror
Then the logs are parsed via webalizer and the webalizer results are indexed by google as lots of links.
Jeff
There are bigger problems as well - In some environments it is necessary to run as administrator because the software that is needed can only install as Administrator and can only run as the user it was installed as.
--jeff++
Or... Why e-mail is rapidly becoming unreliable and useless.
--jeff++
Absolutely. Where did these lines come from? What computer was compromised? Was cvs pserver the security hole?
--jeff++
Last week I was walking down Burrard St in Vancouver and the whole block was blocked off with about 16 american 'generic' police cars stopped in the middle of the road as a film crew was preparing to film a scene for Blade 3 with Wesley Snipes. I was stopped from walking too close by a nice security girl who chatted about a bunch of stuff. Including the fact that they would remove the film of any people's cameras if they caught any one photographing their film scene. 'copyright,' she said - we own the copyright to this scene.
'What about digital cameras?," I asked. She replied that they would make sure the images were erased.
'You know, you are going to have a big problem once everyone has those new cell phones with cameras in them.'
'Oh, we will make it clear that we will even destroy the camera if we have to'
'But... if they take the photos with the cell phone, the image is no longer in the phone! It is already sent to someone else and will be on the net everywhere!'
Big, confused eyes looked back at me....
--jeff++
The internet's email is already an unreliable system. A friend on earthlink has an open-source project and a list of 500 people who want to know about new updates. He sent one email to all of them and earthlink suspended his account. Another email server blocked a real email, marking it as spam just because the subject line was similiar to a known worm's typical subject line - even without an attachment. Luckily the server was "mis-configured" and actually DID send the bounce - otherwise I would not have known that the email never got there. And it is just going to get worse unless smtp servers start making a real trust network.
--jeff++
Yes, either this feature breaks Windows Terminal Services, reducing the functionality of the whole system - or it is ineffectual.
--jeff++
On my system I am using DMA mode, and my whole linux system chugs when copying lots of data between IDE disks. (1gig ram/1.8ghz p4/etcetc).
Yes, SCSI drives are designed for servers... But the disk comparisons in this guy's tests don't make sense with respect to the results. In the first test the IDE drive has 2 megs cache, the SCSI drive has 4 megs cache. Is that the main cause of the 6 times slowdown on the IDE drive? Or does the 2.6 ms difference between avg seek times cause it? Or does the IDE bus itself cause it? Funny that the IDE hdparm -t measurement is 2.5 times faster than the scsi... Yet it is still so slow?
So what does it mean when a disk drive is designed for a 'Server' versus a 'Desktop'? What disk parameters are different?
--jeff++
Yes, so what is it that makes the IDE drives so much slower than they theoretically should be? Is it simply the poor design of the IDE chipsets and interrupt structure?
--jeff++
Why are you assuming what I would think?
I already posted that I believe Glade is innovative.
Haskell is not a 'linux' thing.
DDD is cool, I like it.
OGG is innovative.
XMMS and X11AMP and every other mp3/ogg player I tried on linux is NOT innovative.
My point is... Why? An easy to use music player should be easier to design than glade!
--jeff++
--jeff++
You totally missed my point! Why didn't the open source people design a killer mp3 player before? What was stopping them? What is stopping them now from making an even better mp3 player than iTunes without porting it? All the base tools are there, pre-installed on most Redhat 9 installations.
I use iTunes ALL the time, almost as much as I use gcc and pine.
Sorry, the original version of iTunes ran on Mac OS 9, which is NOT a BSD kernel. And the BSD kernel calls (open,read,write,ioctl,connect,etc) are a miniscule part of iTunes, it is not even relevant which kernel is was designed on. What is more important is the GUI API that it uses.
--jeff++
Good point.
NetBSD had a similiar system too, right?
--jeff++
As I said in a previous message, there is a lot more to iTunes than the store. I can't even use the store because I am in Canada, and I love iTunes, and I want an app like it or better on Linux! What features would you put into a linux music player program to make it even better than iTunes? You are right. THAT is the hard part. The software is the easy part.
But no talks with record companies are necessary to make a better app.
--jeff++
Thanks for the debian/nvidia info.
As for the WM, it depends on what you are calling a window manager. Different widgets on the non-client areas of application windows? Virtual desktops? Different file browsing/exploring schemes? Windows and Mac have supported these for AGES. Hardly anyone uses them, though.
X Windows IS a no-brainer to install on OS X. Really. I surfed to apple's X11 page, clicked download, ran the installer, and now I have an X11 icon to click, and can run gimp, gnome, and koffice locally on the mac.
XFree86 on cygwin gives you all the capabilities that running XFree86 on Linux does, except that windows is slower on the same machine.
All I am saying is that configurable widgets on non-client areas of application windows and virtual desktops is not really an innovation.
--jeff++
Apple has Visual C++ and IIS??? I don't think so.
Apple IS giving.... Konqueror on linux is better because of Apple's work on it.
--jeff++
I use iTunes ALL THE TIME and I can't use the iTunes music store because I am in Canada, and it is still the hands down most innovative music player/burner/ripper on ANY platform. Yes, ANY platform, I've used them all.
--jeff++
Good points.
Basically, I am wondering WHY there aren't more people trying to write the Linux Killer App. We have more people working on and contributing to Linux/GPL'd software than any other platform.
iTunes is one good example of really simple concepts done right, and it is innovative... And there is no reason that I can tell for linux people to not have designed it first...
--jeff++
That is the key, isn't it.
Apple is researching user habits and asking the users what they want to do, and then uses the appropriate technology to do it.
--jeff++
Those are not that unique.
Apple Software Update updates all of my built-in software, including this iTunes update. Tell me, does apt update the nvidia driver automatically too? My redhat 8 box is a pain in the butt whenever I have to update the kernel, I have to manually (well, scripted) recompile alsa and nvidia in runlevel 3. If apt can do that for me, I'll install debian on that box instead.
As for X Windows and different WM's, that's not so special. Windows has alternative window managers too, and XFree86 runs on Windows AND Mac - I use them constantly.
I think GLADE qualifies as a decent linux innovation. I like designing GUI's with Glade much better than MFC/Borland Builder/Mac IB. What else?
--jeff++
So then why doesn't any Linux music player programs support this??? And why does Apple's?
--jeff++
Unfortunately you are 100% correct.
Why does linux need iTunes when Linux already has mpg321, postgresql, cdparanoia, sox, LAME, cdrecord, samba, and php with apache? Just connect them up and you have an even MORE powerful system than iTunes! Amaze your computer-illiterate friends with your knowledge of arcane things!
Meanwhile, I run iTunes and now I have more time available to post to slashdot.
--jeff++
Please tell me - what experimental innovative software is there available for Linux? What does innovative software mean to you?
BTW, I've been running Linux since kernel version 0.99pl15, and am running servers with RedHat 7.3/8/9, debian, and embedded linux-ppc based on YellowDog linux.
All I see now are me-too web browsers, me-too developer IDE's, me-too office applications, me-too games, and me-too multimedia apps. Yes I know there is value in making a word processor that feels like Microsoft Word, but where are the experimental word processors that go beyond Word, GUI and functionality-wise? Word is not and never was a good GUI design. It makes me really want to write up my own...
The innovative software that I have I've seen running on Linux was not written with Linux in mind but was originally written for Unix/X11 before Linux existed.
Back to the iTunes topic, I installed iTunes on a WIn2000 machine. On my Mac, I ran iTunes and clicked 'Share Library'. On the Win2000 machine my Mac's music library automatically appeared in the left panel. No complex setup either. It is these little things and attention to detail that make iTunes more innovative than any music player on Linux.
I myself am guilty of promoting complexities. Since I know how to set up NFS and Samba and Apache and Shoutcast, I would just use one of these tools on my own Linux boxes to accomplish the same thing with XMMS or X11AMP or even mpg321 with a cgi php4 script front-end with apache and the mp3 meta-data extracted into a PostgreSQL table for faster searches. All the tools are there, and as a programmer, I find it fun to implement these kinds of things - and I HAVE spent time doing this for my own system.
Because I did it myself like this, I forget about the fact that there would be a much easier way for the end user who maybe does not have these tools or does not know how to use these tools, or does not care - he just wants his music on one computer to be played back on another computer without having to think about file sharing or audio streaming software or DNS issues or IP addresses or IP ports or protocols.
Click on 'Share Music' on computer A.
Click on shared music on computer B.
Press 'Play'
Brilliant Idea!
--jeff++
The original poster had a very good point. Why does the 'best' mp3 player on linux have to be a WinAMP clone? I would LOVE to have iTunes on my linux boxes - even without the Music Store. I can't, so I use iTunes on my Mac.
The Linux architecture and concepts should foster experimental and new designs for software. Why do people have to duplicate existing apps? Apple didn't when they created iTunes.
iTunes is DEAD simple to use, manages a database of your music easily, rips cd's asynchronously, burns audio and mp3 cd's super easily, and makes it easy to build playlists and browse your library, AND allows you to tweak each individual song. Did I mention it is DEAD simple to use?
The magic, is not actually in the code, the magic is in the usability features and concepts.
--jeff++
The individual throughput this chip has is good enough for each unit, and the more processing we can do on the audio, the better. We've already looked at this product, however, and determined that until it is available and selling well for 1 year we can't trust the company to not disappear.
Because of that, we usually end up with a design that has a slower DSP with a longer shelf life and from a company such as Motorola or Texas Instruments that documents errata's very well...
--jeff++