I keep seeing people dissing X as a horribly inefficient system that is long overdue for replacement, but the justification always seems to be a myth.
First off, the complaints are generally levelled against what they see in a particular implementation of the X protocol, not the protocol itself. There seems to be no acknowledgement that while X servers of the past may have had implementation problems, that we have moved on and produced much more efficient and well-featured implemntations, particularly XFree. Through X extensions, XFree has become an X server that keeps the good of X, and improves on the bad aspects of older X servers.
The main gripe I see is "X is slow!!". Well, with XAA, X gets the same sort of acceleration as Windows display drivers for ordinary stuff. This requires that good drivers exist for your chipset, which is a good bet nowadays, but not as likely as Windows. Not XFree's fault, and it's clear that any FB based solution won't help matters in this regard (driver support)
People also have complained about 3D performance. XFree4 has DRI which really works well to address the issue. For Video playback, there is XVideo which provides good access to hardware scalars and filters. There is work being done on an XMovie extension that could provide access to hardware video decoders, such as the MPEG-2 decoder on All-in-Wonder cards (though I haven't heard much about it lately). Another complaint I hear is that it is ugly, that it lacks the bells and whistles of 'modern' systems. Well, there is now the XRender extension which can be used to provide translucency (if anyone bothered to implement it) and in turn provide both anti-aliased text and sub-pixel sampled font rendering (ala Window XP's cleartext).
Those who complain about X and say it needs replacement need to be a bit more educated. If you look at the projects that have aimed to replace XFree in the past, you see a very interesting pattern. Berlin is a good example of this. They set out to provide things that at the time people said "X cannot accomodate these features", but by the time Berlin progresses to any usable state, XFree has most of these features in XFree4. Let's face it, XFree in particular is a good system that can continue for quite a long time, and has only improved with age, contrary to popular belief.
Yes, it is absurd, and no, he is in no real danger, just trying to make a point, preaching to the choir at the choir's expense. The point he is making is that in stating the security bug he fixed, that theoretically a malicious user could use that information on an unpatched system to defeat unix permissions protection, allowing reading/copying of things they should not access. After the owner of the protected information finds out, he, by the strict letter of the law of DMCA, could sue Alan Cox for documenting this bug exists and how it works, as it could be used as a 'circumvention' device. This is a highly unlikely and ridiculous set of circumstances, but frightening.
The act I'm more interested in is the UCITA, does anyone know how that is going? IIRC, it had some clauses basically saying that linux kernel developers could be liable for damages caused by this bug ever existing, which is a bit more frightening if you ask me, especially since it gives bigger companies with shrinkwrap licenses a way to opt out, but does not for things like the kernel...
I tried dfm, doesn't feel nearly as clean as rox to me... And it seems to only use gtk, not gnome stuff. GTK isn't that bad of a toolkit really. I meant that they were just writing a filemanager, not a whole system.
Is a crusoe based home server. Not because of the power consumption, but the idea of reducing the fan noise. A home file server/ipmasq system needs very little processor power. Crusoe could be an important step in making a modern silent system at a reasonable price. Right now I have a Pentium-60 without fan doing the job, but a little more speed would be nice.
His complaint is with Point 2, it seems strange to have to explicitly call a new, but then not have to worry about deleting either. From a functionality standpoint it's nice, but it does cause problems to those who expect to have to delete for everything they use new to make.
It is suprising that Sun hasn't done more with Java lately. For a while they have been rewriting and adding a lot of things based on Java (their system installer, media player..) A desktop environment would be a great demonstration of the power of Java, but it is easier to just move Gnome forward than start from scratch. Besides, while Java is a great language (particularly Swing), it still seems to me rougher around the edges than C/C++ as far as interaction with the system it runs on. It's possible, certianly, but not nearly as easy to do as C/C++..
As to the graphics issues, you are likely running Ultra 5s/10s with the builtin-video only. These are pretty old Mach64s if I remember correctly. Designed not for high-end graphics stuff. If you want good graphics hardware in a Sun, you have to go with at least a Creator3D, Elite3Ds are, of course preferable. But, as is the case with most Sun equipment, they are overpriced and still underperforming, but much better than the builtin. Though I admire Sun hardware as being rock-solid, they are way too expensive and too under-performing per-unit. For workstation and small server (i.e. anything below about 4-procs) I see no reason to go Sun anymore...
The problem is this is that the goal is not the best accuracy to original waveform, but how people perceive the output. While similarity to the original waveform can be analogous to a point, some encoding decisions may deviate more from the original waveform than the other algorithm at points in order to take advantage of some human perceptual trick to make it sound closer to the original.
In this case, a waveform that seems mathematically more similar to the original could theoretically sound much crappier. When testing perceptual encoding techniques, the only way to go is to have very nicely structured blind listening tests with a great variety of people, equipment, and music.
I don't know how this might manifest itself, but I could see how some existing, highly tuned programs could have problems with such a patch. If software is developed with the current mainstream kernel in mind, it may make certain internal assumptions about not being preempted during certain operations, and some timing getting messed up because of that. One poster mentioned a potential VMware problem, which could be an effect of something like this.
I would like to see this patch in there, but I could see some reasons to be hesitant about putting it in now. I would love to see latency on the level of QNX, that seems very responsev..
Organizations can begin accepting e-mail versions. Simple as that. If polaroid is going out, then I'd wager companies will start changing policies to adapt.
It's too slow, especially on opening new windows, makes explorer on Windows look good. The file manager that *really* shows how it should be done in terms of speed is rox (http://rox.sourceforge.net/). I also love the concept of AppDirs for programs, which would be neat if everyone used it, could solve a lot of problems that we need packages for. It may not translate as well to libraries, but even there it could have uses. And it's not ugly. I don't care if there is a web browser in my file manager, I just want something that looks and feels nice, while being efficient, unlike Konqueror and Nautilus. Though ROX development is less complex (no extensive toolkit stuff), it provides a good file manager and good AppDir philosophy that should be considered more...
If a distro could ship all that for $69 dollars that would be one hell of a loss somewhere, considering the price of Acrobat alone... I assume you don't mean the reader, but full application. If you mean the reader, I don't see the big deal... Throw in the Codeweavers commercial Windows-Plugin thing and you might have something... Or that commercial DVD player that ships with that IBM laptop...
I think it is quite fair and reasonable to complain about major changes and breakages regardless of whether there is a stable tree. An even kernel series is stated as a stable series, for use by mainstream users. When it hits stable, it's supposed to be a time for bugfixing, maybe some tuning, but not major subsystem changes/enhancements (VM change being the most notable) and every release should receive a significant amount of testing for every fix that is made. It doesn't put forth a good image to release things directed at the normal linux user that can really break their system.
Your argument seems to be "They have a change to make, there is no unstable tree, so naturally it must go there", but the better way is to not make the change at all if there is no unstable playground to work in, they don't *have* to go in as soon as people dream them up, wait for an odd series.
I know, in a few years 6 teraflops will be nothing, but just read the Slashdot post, we are talking about 6 tera floating operations per second per second, with that sort of acceleration, imagine the terapflops it can acheive in moments. And here I thought processing power would always have to move at a contstant speed, no wonder this thing is a big deal. It may be only second best to start with, but in just a few seconds, it will beat the pants off the most powerful system:)
I don't see how the Matrix lends itself at all to a sequel. It was a pretty intriguing movie with some interesting questions. Can the sequels hope to acheive anything close to the same level of intrigue and interest with the closure of the first movie in mind, or will it simply be a cheap grab for more boxoffice bucks?
It's cool to see this starting to come to fruition, but there are problems that we need to keep in mind.
Most things in linux have an incredibly short product cycle. While this means good things get to the public faster, it also discourages some developers. When you have a different libc, different toolkit API coming out every six months, it's hard to convince some people it is worth it to develop for. If you developed against Windows 95, for example, it still runs even without recompilation. Where were Linux systems back then? Everything about typical Linux systems has changed since then, from standard GUI toolkits (GTK and QT, don't think so..), desktop environments (Probably best you could do was CDE), to such fundamentals as the standard C library. Change is good, but in the world of Linux, the change is often done with little to no regard for running the programs of five minutes ago. Binary compatibility is flaky, and even the APIs have changed so drastically. These large projects need to give more thought to compatibility, rather than forcing people with GTK 1.2 apps to do rewrites for 2.0 rather than be left behind..
But people might not realize they are downloading something until it is too late. an onLoad directive to load a file, or an embed, or simply a disguised link that most people wouldn't bother checking..
I know I am in the minority of pepole they are concerned with, but if I cannot listen on my computer, I cannot listen, never bothered to buy a CD player. Besdies, CDs are horribly inconveient. Whenever I get one, first thing I do is rip the tracks I like, and then store the CD never to look at it again. Don't feel like spending tons on things like 200 disc CD changers, and then have to either put up with tracks I don't like, or spend a painful amount of time programming a dinky thing to let it know what not to play.
Actually, I meant to say it is possible that more people use Apache than IIS under windows, not as a definite fact. It would make sense to explain the Apache share and in light of the way things are, I would reason that a lot of up until recent IIS shops have been moving to Apache in frustration, but not wanting to install another OS which could mess up other services running on the Windows Boxes (i.e. Databses, etc...). So there is a rationalization of why more people would use Apache on Windows than IIS... And of course at home apache is much cheaper... In any event, I could be blowing smoke and there are more IIS on Windows than Apache on Windows, but I think the Apache on Windows segment is far more significant than Netcraft credits it. I think a Server Software/OS breakdown of some sort would be informative..
As much as many of us love Linux, a lot of people are so used to Windows, or even so fond of it that they may not do well in a Linux enviornment. Imagine if someone came up to you running a Linux desktop, not even doing very hard work, at least nothin beyond the capabilities of Windows, and told you you were moving to windows, and you would at least have to try it. You would make such a fuss, and even in cases when you *know* you could do something and how you would do it, you will tend to say that the task is as feasible under Windows, even when you know this fact may not be true. Same is true of Windows users. Most don't want to learn anything else. And technical users that prefer Windows can be as fanatical as most of the Slashdot community is about Unix. You have to make sure that the costs do not exceed the benefits..
Two things:
This logic is actually put forth by netcraft in their survey.
This logic is probably not the best description for what is happening.
Everyone, including netcraft seems to either not know or ignore the fact that Apache can run on Windows. I thought at first it was reader misinterpretation, but netcraft themselves states things like:
"Although Apache runs more sites than Windows.."Which implies a mutual exclusion that is completely inaccurate. For many users who cannot or will not move to a *nix system, Apache is both cheaper than IIS and not as prone to worms as IIS in their current incarnations. Windows users use Apache more than IIS, and that is what causes the results that seem contradictory to people who think "Windows=IIS, *nix=apache"..
Slashdot Mirror
I keep seeing people dissing X as a horribly inefficient system that is long overdue for replacement, but the justification always seems to be a myth.
First off, the complaints are generally levelled against what they see in a particular implementation of the X protocol, not the protocol itself. There seems to be no acknowledgement that while X servers of the past may have had implementation problems, that we have moved on and produced much more efficient and well-featured implemntations, particularly XFree. Through X extensions, XFree has become an X server that keeps the good of X, and improves on the bad aspects of older X servers.
The main gripe I see is "X is slow!!". Well, with XAA, X gets the same sort of acceleration as Windows display drivers for ordinary stuff. This requires that good drivers exist for your chipset, which is a good bet nowadays, but not as likely as Windows. Not XFree's fault, and it's clear that any FB based solution won't help matters in this regard (driver support)
People also have complained about 3D performance. XFree4 has DRI which really works well to address the issue. For Video playback, there is XVideo which provides good access to hardware scalars and filters. There is work being done on an XMovie extension that could provide access to hardware video decoders, such as the MPEG-2 decoder on All-in-Wonder cards (though I haven't heard much about it lately). Another complaint I hear is that it is ugly, that it lacks the bells and whistles of 'modern' systems. Well, there is now the XRender extension which can be used to provide translucency (if anyone bothered to implement it) and in turn provide both anti-aliased text and sub-pixel sampled font rendering (ala Window XP's cleartext).
Those who complain about X and say it needs replacement need to be a bit more educated. If you look at the projects that have aimed to replace XFree in the past, you see a very interesting pattern. Berlin is a good example of this. They set out to provide things that at the time people said "X cannot accomodate these features", but by the time Berlin progresses to any usable state, XFree has most of these features in XFree4. Let's face it, XFree in particular is a good system that can continue for quite a long time, and has only improved with age, contrary to popular belief.
Yes, it is absurd, and no, he is in no real danger, just trying to make a point, preaching to the choir at the choir's expense. The point he is making is that in stating the security bug he fixed, that theoretically a malicious user could use that information on an unpatched system to defeat unix permissions protection, allowing reading/copying of things they should not access. After the owner of the protected information finds out, he, by the strict letter of the law of DMCA, could sue Alan Cox for documenting this bug exists and how it works, as it could be used as a 'circumvention' device. This is a highly unlikely and ridiculous set of circumstances, but frightening.
The act I'm more interested in is the UCITA, does anyone know how that is going? IIRC, it had some clauses basically saying that linux kernel developers could be liable for damages caused by this bug ever existing, which is a bit more frightening if you ask me, especially since it gives bigger companies with shrinkwrap licenses a way to opt out, but does not for things like the kernel...
I tried dfm, doesn't feel nearly as clean as rox to me... And it seems to only use gtk, not gnome stuff. GTK isn't that bad of a toolkit really. I meant that they were just writing a filemanager, not a whole system.
Is a crusoe based home server. Not because of the power consumption, but the idea of reducing the fan noise. A home file server/ipmasq system needs very little processor power. Crusoe could be an important step in making a modern silent system at a reasonable price. Right now I have a Pentium-60 without fan doing the job, but a little more speed would be nice.
His complaint is with Point 2, it seems strange to have to explicitly call a new, but then not have to worry about deleting either. From a functionality standpoint it's nice, but it does cause problems to those who expect to have to delete for everything they use new to make.
It is suprising that Sun hasn't done more with Java lately. For a while they have been rewriting and adding a lot of things based on Java (their system installer, media player..) A desktop environment would be a great demonstration of the power of Java, but it is easier to just move Gnome forward than start from scratch. Besides, while Java is a great language (particularly Swing), it still seems to me rougher around the edges than C/C++ as far as interaction with the system it runs on. It's possible, certianly, but not nearly as easy to do as C/C++..
As to the graphics issues, you are likely running Ultra 5s/10s with the builtin-video only. These are pretty old Mach64s if I remember correctly. Designed not for high-end graphics stuff. If you want good graphics hardware in a Sun, you have to go with at least a Creator3D, Elite3Ds are, of course preferable. But, as is the case with most Sun equipment, they are overpriced and still underperforming, but much better than the builtin. Though I admire Sun hardware as being rock-solid, they are way too expensive and too under-performing per-unit. For workstation and small server (i.e. anything below about 4-procs) I see no reason to go Sun anymore...
The problem is this is that the goal is not the best accuracy to original waveform, but how people perceive the output. While similarity to the original waveform can be analogous to a point, some encoding decisions may deviate more from the original waveform than the other algorithm at points in order to take advantage of some human perceptual trick to make it sound closer to the original.
In this case, a waveform that seems mathematically more similar to the original could theoretically sound much crappier. When testing perceptual encoding techniques, the only way to go is to have very nicely structured blind listening tests with a great variety of people, equipment, and music.
I don't know how this might manifest itself, but I could see how some existing, highly tuned programs could have problems with such a patch. If software is developed with the current mainstream kernel in mind, it may make certain internal assumptions about not being preempted during certain operations, and some timing getting messed up because of that. One poster mentioned a potential VMware problem, which could be an effect of something like this.
I would like to see this patch in there, but I could see some reasons to be hesitant about putting it in now. I would love to see latency on the level of QNX, that seems very responsev..
Answer: E-Mail the digital versions
Organizations can begin accepting e-mail versions. Simple as that. If polaroid is going out, then I'd wager companies will start changing policies to adapt.
It's too slow, especially on opening new windows, makes explorer on Windows look good. The file manager that *really* shows how it should be done in terms of speed is rox (http://rox.sourceforge.net/). I also love the concept of AppDirs for programs, which would be neat if everyone used it, could solve a lot of problems that we need packages for. It may not translate as well to libraries, but even there it could have uses. And it's not ugly. I don't care if there is a web browser in my file manager, I just want something that looks and feels nice, while being efficient, unlike Konqueror and Nautilus. Though ROX development is less complex (no extensive toolkit stuff), it provides a good file manager and good AppDir philosophy that should be considered more...
Bump up your colordepth to 24 or 32... Stupid, but it makes it work, at least as close to "working" as this program gets... A Real resource hog...
If a distro could ship all that for $69 dollars that would be one hell of a loss somewhere, considering the price of Acrobat alone... I assume you don't mean the reader, but full application. If you mean the reader, I don't see the big deal... Throw in the Codeweavers commercial Windows-Plugin thing and you might have something... Or that commercial DVD player that ships with that IBM laptop...
Maybe it was a Freudian slip, but I meant to say "unstable tree" instead of "stable tree" near the beginning.
I think it is quite fair and reasonable to complain about major changes and breakages regardless of whether there is a stable tree. An even kernel series is stated as a stable series, for use by mainstream users. When it hits stable, it's supposed to be a time for bugfixing, maybe some tuning, but not major subsystem changes/enhancements (VM change being the most notable) and every release should receive a significant amount of testing for every fix that is made. It doesn't put forth a good image to release things directed at the normal linux user that can really break their system.
Your argument seems to be "They have a change to make, there is no unstable tree, so naturally it must go there", but the better way is to not make the change at all if there is no unstable playground to work in, they don't *have* to go in as soon as people dream them up, wait for an odd series.
You can read Win2k fine, but writing to 2k ntfs can be extremely dangerous and corrup the journalling..
I know, in a few years 6 teraflops will be nothing, but just read the Slashdot post, we are talking about 6 tera floating operations per second per second, with that sort of acceleration, imagine the terapflops it can acheive in moments. And here I thought processing power would always have to move at a contstant speed, no wonder this thing is a big deal. It may be only second best to start with, but in just a few seconds, it will beat the pants off the most powerful system :)
Half a T1 should be possible :)
I don't see how the Matrix lends itself at all to a sequel. It was a pretty intriguing movie with some interesting questions. Can the sequels hope to acheive anything close to the same level of intrigue and interest with the closure of the first movie in mind, or will it simply be a cheap grab for more boxoffice bucks?
It's cool to see this starting to come to fruition, but there are problems that we need to keep in mind.
Most things in linux have an incredibly short product cycle. While this means good things get to the public faster, it also discourages some developers. When you have a different libc, different toolkit API coming out every six months, it's hard to convince some people it is worth it to develop for. If you developed against Windows 95, for example, it still runs even without recompilation. Where were Linux systems back then? Everything about typical Linux systems has changed since then, from standard GUI toolkits (GTK and QT, don't think so..), desktop environments (Probably best you could do was CDE), to such fundamentals as the standard C library. Change is good, but in the world of Linux, the change is often done with little to no regard for running the programs of five minutes ago. Binary compatibility is flaky, and even the APIs have changed so drastically. These large projects need to give more thought to compatibility, rather than forcing people with GTK 1.2 apps to do rewrites for 2.0 rather than be left behind..
But people might not realize they are downloading something until it is too late. an onLoad directive to load a file, or an embed, or simply a disguised link that most people wouldn't bother checking..
I know I am in the minority of pepole they are concerned with, but if I cannot listen on my computer, I cannot listen, never bothered to buy a CD player. Besdies, CDs are horribly inconveient. Whenever I get one, first thing I do is rip the tracks I like, and then store the CD never to look at it again. Don't feel like spending tons on things like 200 disc CD changers, and then have to either put up with tracks I don't like, or spend a painful amount of time programming a dinky thing to let it know what not to play.
Actually, I meant to say it is possible that more people use Apache than IIS under windows, not as a definite fact. It would make sense to explain the Apache share and in light of the way things are, I would reason that a lot of up until recent IIS shops have been moving to Apache in frustration, but not wanting to install another OS which could mess up other services running on the Windows Boxes (i.e. Databses, etc...). So there is a rationalization of why more people would use Apache on Windows than IIS... And of course at home apache is much cheaper... In any event, I could be blowing smoke and there are more IIS on Windows than Apache on Windows, but I think the Apache on Windows segment is far more significant than Netcraft credits it. I think a Server Software/OS breakdown of some sort would be informative..
As much as many of us love Linux, a lot of people are so used to Windows, or even so fond of it that they may not do well in a Linux enviornment. Imagine if someone came up to you running a Linux desktop, not even doing very hard work, at least nothin beyond the capabilities of Windows, and told you you were moving to windows, and you would at least have to try it. You would make such a fuss, and even in cases when you *know* you could do something and how you would do it, you will tend to say that the task is as feasible under Windows, even when you know this fact may not be true. Same is true of Windows users. Most don't want to learn anything else. And technical users that prefer Windows can be as fanatical as most of the Slashdot community is about Unix. You have to make sure that the costs do not exceed the benefits..
Two things:
This logic is actually put forth by netcraft in their survey.
This logic is probably not the best description for what is happening.
Everyone, including netcraft seems to either not know or ignore the fact that Apache can run on Windows. I thought at first it was reader misinterpretation, but netcraft themselves states things like:
"Although Apache runs more sites than Windows.."Which implies a mutual exclusion that is completely inaccurate. For many users who cannot or will not move to a *nix system, Apache is both cheaper than IIS and not as prone to worms as IIS in their current incarnations. Windows users use Apache more than IIS, and that is what causes the results that seem contradictory to people who think "Windows=IIS, *nix=apache"..