OK. I went to both Apple's site and Dell's site to make a quick comparison. Here is what I came up with.
Power Mac G4 Dual 1.25GHz w/167MHz system bus 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM - 1 DIMM 120GB Ultra ATA drive Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW) NVIDIA GeForce4 Titanium dual-display w/128MB DDR Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English Mac OS - U.S. English
Subtotal $3,320.00
Dell Precision Workstation 530: Dual Intel Xeon Processor, 2.00GHz, 512K Cache 512MB PC800 ECC RDRAM (2 RIMMS) Entry Level Quietkey Keyboard, PS/2, (No Hot Keys) nVidia, Quadro4 700XGL, 64MB, VGA/DVI (dual monitor capable) 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive with DataBurst Cache 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive Microsoft Windows XP Professional Intel PRO/1000 XT, Gigabit PCI NIC 16X, DVD-ROM and 48X CDRW with Decode Solution 3Yr Parts + Onsite Labor (Next Business Day)
Subtotal $2974
Now, I could not find the speed of the CDRW/DVD on the Mac anywhere. I also could not find any information on support. The Intel Gigabit NIC was a promotion, so it was free (and couldn't be removed) in the Dell. The Quadro4 is also a workstation OpenGL card, which is much more powerful than the GeForce4 Ti (which I am assuming is a 4600) and is more for professional use. So basically, buying from Dell, who tends to be a bit more expensive than most of the others, I can get a machine comparable to the Mac (I would argue that, but I am trying to appease the Mac fanatics), but with a Gigabit NIC, and 3-Year ONSITE warranty to boot? Where do I sign up?...and for those of you that say "it just works" referring to the Mac, have you ever even opened a Dell machine? They are ready to go with no work from the IT staff other than plugging them in and setting up the Computer Name/Domain.
I personally want a G4 Tower. The price just doesn't justify buying one, though.
Note: This review is mostly focusing in the usability of the OS and its usage as desktop/workstation. If you are a sys-admin and you would like to review SuSE 8.1 PRO from the server point of view, we will be delighted to post your review.
She even admits that she is totally focusing on how it appears. She does it on all her articles.
Nvidia's drivers come from the exact same code base as their Windows drivers. This makes them just as fast and stable as their Windows counterparts. They aren't GPL, but the sure are damn good.
The problem is that it is hard enough to write code that is capable of multiple threads to even fill up the instruction units in today's single processor systems. Most code has way too much of a need to be run linearly, which is why it doesn't get much gain on SMP systems.
Actually... Lindows has some proprietary components that take care of all of your listed "problems". It only uses KDE, so there is no worry about KDE/Gnome compatability problems. Printing is done via CUPS and a proprietary printer setup to make it more like Windows. Fonts are TrueType (same as Windows). AOL is a supported application. MS Office works.
So what was your arguement? Maybe you should *try* Lindows before bashing it.
"which was done in an attempt to steal TransGaming's Direct3D code and force them to open up all their work (thus have no means to make money)."
......and all this time I was thinking it was to keep Lindows from leeching off Wine. Most of the Wine developers (as far as I have seen) like Transgaming.
OpenMosix is my best friend. I run several machines at home and I can tell you that openMosix rocks my world. I have a (gasp) Windows machine on my KVM switch that I use for playing games. When I am not using it, I run VMWare with a small Linux install and openMosix to take advantage of that machine's processor power. No point in letting it sit idle when I am working on my Linux machines.
It basically boils down to Michael Robertson trying to gain control of WINE. He wants to own it. He wants to be *THE* source for Windows interoperability in Linux. This *is* after all the same guy who gave us mp3.com, trying to cash in on the success of the format after it had already broken, then trying to take the credit for being the man behind it all.
But AOL *does* have a monopoly on IM users (AIM and ICQ combined are HUGE), so they're going to be stubborn and lock out the competition.
But you also don't see MS and Yahoo clients interoperating or even trying to, do you? MS only wants interoperability with AIM, because AIM has the most users. Why does MS or Yahoo not add support for ICQ? But of course, this is all AOL's fault... pffftt....
No nick/chanserv means people rely on their own bots to control their own channels. Once the botnet goes down thanks to some scriptkiddie's DoS, the channel is free to be occupied and the takeover is complete. Or you can hammer away at the irc server(s) the botnet sits on, causing a netsplit and once again allowing a takeover. There is usually some protection against this now, which means that during a netsplit nobody can gain OPs, but this can still lead to plenty of chaos.
When was the last time you were on EFnet? There is a new service called JUPES which automatically gives back ops to the "proper" ops given the case of the channel becoming opless. It uses an average of who is opped over time to know who are the "proper" ops. Combine this with the inability to gain ops on a split and you have a fairly good deterrent to takeover. EFnet is based on the idea of not having services.
One thing I would have to agree on in the usage of ext3 is the fact that the machine can be booted with a kernel that does not understand ext3 (only ext2) and the filesystem can still be read. This is a major strong-point in my book.
Ergo, we need drivers for PCs running Free operating systems.
...but didn't you say it was Playstation only? What about PCs running non-free operating systems? After all, Windows *is* the biggest gaming market.
This is the attitude that pisses me off most and makes me ashamed to be a Linux user. We expect everyone to cater to us and cry foul when a *company* whose purpose is to *make money* does not bow to our every demand.
To quote: In addition, the ACL utilities, getfacl and setfacl, have been updated to fully make use of the ACL editing library. They should compile on most ACL-enabled systems (tested on Linux + ACL patches) with little or no change.
Indeed, my computer doesn't crash now while playing Unreal Tournament using OpenGL with the Voodoo5 - why ? - because nVidia's drivers don't fully support SMP and freely admit in the driver README file that it can cause random lockups on SMP machines.
I guess somebody needs to take a look at the fact that there have been TWO releases of the NVidia drivers since then. SMP support has been greatly improved, as has performance and stability.
Its all very well having a 1600GHz Athlon on your desk, but what use it it if Windows crashes every five minutes because you are overheating ? Is it just me or does anyone else agree that we should really confine ourselves to running our CPUs at the speed they were
designed for rather than some arbitary speed we choose ?
Did you happen to read the article? Tom used a Vapochill to keep the system at temperatures way below normal. Heat is definitely not a problem for this system.
Slashdot Mirror
OK. I went to both Apple's site and Dell's site to make a quick comparison. Here is what I came up with.
...and for those of you that say "it just works" referring to the Mac, have you ever even opened a Dell machine? They are ready to go with no work from the IT staff other than plugging them in and setting up the Computer Name/Domain.
Power Mac G4 Dual 1.25GHz w/167MHz system bus
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM - 1 DIMM
120GB Ultra ATA drive
Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce4 Titanium dual-display w/128MB DDR
Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English
Mac OS - U.S. English
Subtotal $3,320.00
Dell Precision Workstation 530:
Dual Intel Xeon Processor, 2.00GHz, 512K Cache
512MB PC800 ECC RDRAM (2 RIMMS)
Entry Level Quietkey Keyboard, PS/2, (No Hot Keys)
nVidia, Quadro4 700XGL, 64MB, VGA/DVI (dual monitor capable)
120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive with DataBurst Cache
3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Intel PRO/1000 XT, Gigabit PCI NIC
16X, DVD-ROM and 48X CDRW with Decode Solution
3Yr Parts + Onsite Labor (Next Business Day)
Subtotal $2974
Now, I could not find the speed of the CDRW/DVD on the Mac anywhere. I also could not find any information on support. The Intel Gigabit NIC was a promotion, so it was free (and couldn't be removed) in the Dell. The Quadro4 is also a workstation OpenGL card, which is much more powerful than the GeForce4 Ti (which I am assuming is a 4600) and is more for professional use. So basically, buying from Dell, who tends to be a bit more expensive than most of the others, I can get a machine comparable to the Mac (I would argue that, but I am trying to appease the Mac fanatics), but with a Gigabit NIC, and 3-Year ONSITE warranty to boot? Where do I sign up?
I personally want a G4 Tower. The price just doesn't justify buying one, though.
You did read the very end of the article?
She even admits that she is totally focusing on how it appears. She does it on all her articles.
Nvidia's drivers come from the exact same code base as their Windows drivers. This makes them just as fast and stable as their Windows counterparts. They aren't GPL, but the sure are damn good.
Gnome has it too...
The problem is that it is hard enough to write code that is capable of multiple threads to even fill up the instruction units in today's single processor systems. Most code has way too much of a need to be run linearly, which is why it doesn't get much gain on SMP systems.
Actually... Lindows has some proprietary components that take care of all of your listed "problems". It only uses KDE, so there is no worry about KDE/Gnome compatability problems. Printing is done via CUPS and a proprietary printer setup to make it more like Windows. Fonts are TrueType (same as Windows). AOL is a supported application. MS Office works.
So what was your arguement? Maybe you should *try* Lindows before bashing it.
Yeah, it is called Lindows.
"which was done in an attempt to steal TransGaming's Direct3D code and force them to open up all their work (thus have no means to make money)."
......and all this time I was thinking it was to keep Lindows from leeching off Wine. Most of the Wine developers (as far as I have seen) like Transgaming.
OpenMosix is my best friend. I run several machines at home and I can tell you that openMosix rocks my world. I have a (gasp) Windows machine on my KVM switch that I use for playing games. When I am not using it, I run VMWare with a small Linux install and openMosix to take advantage of that machine's processor power. No point in letting it sit idle when I am working on my Linux machines.
Oh yes... Denmark. Isn't that where Hamlet is from? He was such a nice boy.
It basically boils down to Michael Robertson trying to gain control of WINE. He wants to own it. He wants to be *THE* source for Windows interoperability in Linux. This *is* after all the same guy who gave us mp3.com, trying to cash in on the success of the format after it had already broken, then trying to take the credit for being the man behind it all.
I know of one. id does... or have we forgotten the RtCW linux port? (Thanks TTimo)
But you also don't see MS and Yahoo clients interoperating or even trying to, do you? MS only wants interoperability with AIM, because AIM has the most users. Why does MS or Yahoo not add support for ICQ? But of course, this is all AOL's fault... pffftt....
Mandrake != Linux
Simple.
The German is *in* Finland, and is therefore bound by Finnish laws. The American would be bound by French law.
When you are in another country and do something that is illegal in that country, it is still illegal and you can still be prosecuted.
Luckily, with the demise of @Home, most of these machines are at the very least getting new IP addresses.
When was the last time you were on EFnet? There is a new service called JUPES which automatically gives back ops to the "proper" ops given the case of the channel becoming opless. It uses an average of who is opped over time to know who are the "proper" ops. Combine this with the inability to gain ops on a split and you have a fairly good deterrent to takeover. EFnet is based on the idea of not having services.
Actually... You don't even have to unmount to create the journal... just to actually *use* the journaling.
One thing I would have to agree on in the usage of ext3 is the fact that the machine can be booted with a kernel that does not understand ext3 (only ext2) and the filesystem can still be read. This is a major strong-point in my book.
...but didn't you say it was Playstation only? What about PCs running non-free operating systems? After all, Windows *is* the biggest gaming market.
This is the attitude that pisses me off most and makes me ashamed to be a Linux user. We expect everyone to cater to us and cry foul when a *company* whose purpose is to *make money* does not bow to our every demand.
To quote: In addition, the ACL utilities, getfacl and setfacl, have been updated to fully make use of the ACL editing library. They should compile on most ACL-enabled systems (tested on Linux + ACL patches) with little or no change.
Does anyone know where to rent a small submarine? I think we should get some people together and go down and get this puppy.
I guess somebody needs to take a look at the fact that there have been TWO releases of the NVidia drivers since then. SMP support has been greatly improved, as has performance and stability.
Did you happen to read the article? Tom used a Vapochill to keep the system at temperatures way below normal. Heat is definitely not a problem for this system.
Umm.... Also, IBM does not own the hardware here, MWave does. It is up to MWave to release the specs for these chips, not IBM.