First of all, my initial advice would be to do what the people above are saying about getting a -12 to -5 regulator and I would say to just solder wires from the regulator to the bottom pins of an ISA slot so all your slots have -5, assuming that the -5 pin is just a no connect on the mother board. And then just use some thermally conductive Lock-Tite or something like that to glue the regulator to some metal part to disipate heat.
My second idea is, and this is a long shot, I know that companies like az-com and catalyst make ISA active extenders which you can use for hot swapping cards, but you can also supply external power and I think regulated power, from which voltages I wasn't able to find out. I can't remember if the ISA ones did have regulators, I know the PCI ones had regulators for using 3.3v cards on 5v etc... The down-fall of these is first of all, the card will no longer fit in the case and secondly they cost around $200-$300...well at least they used to, maybe they're not in demand as much anymore.
As stated earlier, it seems that we go through this ebb and flow of "cpu power is better in the client" and then back to "cpu power on the server is where it should be". There are good arguements for both. But with the increasingly more powerful and smaller processors, what day to day app's wouldn't the cell phones/PDA's of the near future be able to handle? I'm not sure. Granted it would be really cool if I could securely connect to my X Server and take care of something I had forgotten to do before I left work.
And I have to say the VNC screenshots are pretty cool seeing different combinations of OS A running in a virtual console on OS B. And props to AT&T (for once) for making it free...
How hard can it be, it's not like you're launching rockets...Wait a second, 2 days to buy, quick access to cash, damn he probably is launching rockets!
Actually, if they didn't change the source, you should refer to Article 3. Article 1 refers to source code. I'm not completely sure, but from reading article 3 it sounds like if the source is available then you are fine, which the kernel, samba, etc. except you have to tell the people where the source is...That means I have to change my response, it does turn out I was wrong, after R'ingTFM, or the GPL for that matter, I didn't realize that you do need to tell how/where to get the source code even it is knowingly available, either by providing it with the software or a written offer for getting it.
From GPL: "Article 3...provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
"
I hope I didn't viloate the GPL by copying part of the GPL...:-P
First of all I think that Slashdot is being just a little bit one sided in their presentation of this article. From reading the title of the story and the little blurb with it you would think that there would be a lot more evidence of a violation.
I would venture to say that a device like this could be put together without changing one bit of GPL software. The kernel does support flash devices. And it sounds like all the other programs are pretty stock. I belive the writer said the interface was a web interface and some windows interface...well the code for the website does not have to be GPL'ed and the user app on the box that's listening to fulfill configuration requests does not have to be either. And if there is a flash file system module, it could easily be a binary only module, not compiled in with the kernel. Last time I checked you do not have to put a GPL inside sticker on your box if it's running Linux. This sounds more like a case of a company that is just not responding to anything, not just GPL code requests. I think we need more evidence before reaching any conclusions...
Alright enough of my stupid ranting...
Re:Upgrading...May have to wait though...
on
KDE 2.2.1 Up
·
· Score: 1
Although it looks like you may have to wait for the Mandrake binaries, they don't appear to be on the mirrors I checked at least...not sure about ftp.kde.org, couldn't get to it. But I'm sure they will be available very soon.
Re:Upgrading...
on
KDE 2.2.1 Up
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Last time I upgraded Mandrake 8.0 to KDE 2.2 and used urpmi as it says in the README and it worked perfectly. Its just kinda scary when you have to tell it to break all the dependancies.
I haven't read too much on the TLD's, but I was under the impression that one of the points of the new TLD's was so that if some company had a mangled domain name like the the'company_name'inc.com, they had another opportunity to get a real one 'company_name'.biz. So I'm glad to see that the companies that have a.com are not scooping up all the.biz's.
Although I guess if they do become popular, all the dot com's will pull the same legal crap that got them their domain name from those other places when they originally applied??
I think instead of saying "a simple 28.8kbps modem could deliver such fast and high quality images.."
they meant to say "a simple 288kbs DSL modem could deliver such fast and high quality images.."
Not really, the more stuff you put into a chip, the more complicated the layout and the more difficult it is to guarentee signal integrity at higher clock speeds. Remember there is propagation delay, cross talk, and power supply and ground concerns that must be addressed. Adding more landscape to the chip can help, like with caching, (Xeon's for example), but pretty soon you'll end up with the equivalent of a SMP machine, in one chip, which doesn't make sense financially.
Hardware...We didn't care much about plug n play in DOS because all we had was ISA and ISA PnP sucked anyways, (setting jumpers rules). We didn't care about USB support in Linux until we had USB devices. We couldn't have all those features in Excel 10 years ago because it would have taken up too much RAM/cpu time/disk space. There are many more limiting factors than just how long it takes to write and debug the code. In 5 more years we'll be saying, "Do you remember when we ran 2.4.6 with no support for [insert new peripheral bus here], wow we've come a long way, it really takes 15 years to write good software!"
I may be talking out my ass here, but given a one way hash function H(), input M, and hash h, H(M)=h. Given M it is easy to compute h; Given h, it is hard to compute M such that H(M) = h; Given M, it is hard to find another message, M', such that H(M)=H(M'). from Applied Crytography by Bruce Schneier
So with that, it should be hard to figure out the input from the hash. But if the input is limited, one can figure out what the input is because of the fact that there is only going to be one input producing that ouput. So what this really means, who the hell knows, but just because the hardware configuration is hashed doesn't mean M$ can't figure out what you got...
I think there's other variables in M$ equation, but I don't want to think about it anymore...
-Many of the casinos are not running anything that resembles Microsoft, more like IBM Mainframes with AS/400.
-Comps. are tax deductible. They fall under advertising. So don't think that the casino's are being nice when they comp. you. It's not really hurting them.
-For the most part, player tracking is unregulated. Electronic games (like slot machines) are regulated, in most states in the US (probably all that have gaming, but I'm not sure). And the casinos will gather ridiculous info. like how long you played and how much you won or lost so they can continue their facade of wanting you to have fun, and being on your side.
-And finally (although its been said early) it's their right. If you fill out the form to get the card you agree to let them track you. It's purely voluntary. In the industry, these systems are referred to as player tracking systems, so there is no false pretense of it being anything else.
And a couple of off topic notes:
-No, they do not pump extra oxygen into casinos, but yes they are designed so you can easily get on the floor but not off. The carpet has random patterns so you will wander. There are no clocks or windows. There are cash machines everywhere, and if you think you can make money playing slots, you're stupid. They are controlled by computers, and have pseudo-random number generators better than most programming libraries or operating systems, so if you win once, stop
-There are slot machines now running versions of DOS, windows, and UNIX varients...so much for the old mechanical wheels...
I don't think this has been said yet, but I'm pretty sure you have to enforce your trademarks in order
for them to hold up over time. If Adobe let this one go, then pretty soon MS Illustrator could be released...and so on...If part of your business is name recognition, then it's important to keep that name for yourself..
I don't have any far reaching comments or opinions on Usenet, I just wanted to say thanks and RIP to Jim Ellis for making it possible for me to learn so much from people all over the world about linux, computers, and life...
Who pays for this stuff. Yeah I got $99 to throw away on a Gameboy I'm going to destory and how about another $400-500 on an iPaq to take apart. I enjoy lessons learned from these experiences, but some people must have done much better than I during the dot-com boom..
Although, I must admit I broke my Gameboy's screen about 14 years ago taking it apart, so I guess I shouldn't be pointing any fingers...
Total access, ummm not quite..Interrupt handling does not exist at the user level, nor should it. Frame buffer flipping apps have performance problems due to piece-meal half user, half kernel graphics drivers. Also, I believe we're talking about two different points here. You are referring more to the interface between the running program and X. I'm talking about the interface to pass data to the graphics card quick and efficiently. And by the way, all the 3-D rendering and texturing in the world is not going to speed up 2-D frame based applications...i.e. live video etc...and it's a fact that X does not perform well in this area...
If you write a video (movie player, etc..) app in Windows and in X. The Direct Show interface to the graphics hardware will win hands down...sorry to say it, I love Linux, but Windows wins that one...
I just wanted to let Patrick know that he put together a pretty good article, and he should keep up the linux hacking and the article writing.
On a side note, it's nice that the *nix's have this graphical server, but if they, and most specifially Linux, are going to make it in the desktop world, X needs to go. It's nothing short of a mess how these graphics card drivers have to deal with communicating between user and kernel space. X is an app, and what we really need is something on the system level to compete in the desktop market. But besides that, the article shows one of the better sides of X....Oh well, enough ranting...
This might be a little off topic, but just as important to consider is power quality also, which includes proper grounding, as mentioned in an earlier post. An UPS can take care of a lot of these problems, but if you have poor power quality, it is very taxing on your UPS. There's a few easy checks you can do with a multi-meter and the outlet you plug your computer into. You can do these checks both with your computer on and off, just use one of the other sockets in the outlets or power strip.
(Sorry, only applies to US, if anyone else wants to add on for European and other international standards feel free)
1) check your hot to neutral voltage: set your multimeter to Voltage AC and make sure the probes are plugged in for voltage, not current, measurement, consult your meter's manual. Put the red probe in the smaller outlet slit (the hot) and the black in the larger slit (the neutral) (although it really doesn't matter which one, its AC) You should read some where around 120volts +/- up to 2%, any more or less and you might want to check with your electrician.
2)check ground connection: Although this doesn't help with checking the current capacity of your ground, it at least is a decent check to see if its connected. Keep the red probe where it is (in the hot) and move the black probe to the ground hole (semicircular shaped), You should get about the same reading you got for step one, usual a little higher especially if there is a lot of current on the neutral. If you don't, make sure you have the red probe in the hot, try the red probe in the larger slit just to make sure. (your hot and neutral may be reversed, although this is pretty rare)
3)check your neutral to ground voltage: which if you do the math from steps one and two you can figure out. Put the red probe in the larger slit and leave the black in the ground. This reading is usually in the tenths of volts if anything. If it is much higher, and your step one reading is not in range, then you may have an over-loaded, or poorly supplied circuit. (i.e. you have to much current current on the netural, or a highly resistive neutral, or a low volate on the hot)
I hope that helps, an even easier way to check that just your hot, neutral, and ground are connected properly is to get one of those outlet testers at your local hardware store. And as long as you don't touch the probes together, or to yourself, when they are in the outlet, you should be safe, but if you are
unsure read the multi-meter manual or use the outlet tester...Here's a decent intro to power quality issues, they mention stuff about switching power supplies, like those found in computers and other interesting topics on power quality...
You know, it just pisses me off...Because our community does not charge for software, we don't have a team of lawyers to put out these fires. If we wanted to have lawyers on retainer, we would have to charge for software. These companies that do have pay software/services, know they can use that fact against us. They try to bring us to their level, and since they've been competing at the level much longer they have a big advantage. Will they always win?...No, but it makes it a lot harder for us to... What can we do about it, I'm not sure...but its something to think about...
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, my initial advice would be to do what the people above are saying about getting a -12 to -5 regulator and I would say to just solder wires from the regulator to the bottom pins of an ISA slot so all your slots have -5, assuming that the -5 pin is just a no connect on the mother board. And then just use some thermally conductive Lock-Tite or something like that to glue the regulator to some metal part to disipate heat.
My second idea is, and this is a long shot, I know that companies like az-com and catalyst make ISA active extenders which you can use for hot swapping cards, but you can also supply external power and I think regulated power, from which voltages I wasn't able to find out. I can't remember if the ISA ones did have regulators, I know the PCI ones had regulators for using 3.3v cards on 5v etc... The down-fall of these is first of all, the card will no longer fit in the case and secondly they cost around $200-$300...well at least they used to, maybe they're not in demand as much anymore.
Hope that helps..
As stated earlier, it seems that we go through this ebb and flow of "cpu power is better in the client" and then back to "cpu power on the server is where it should be". There are good arguements for both. But with the increasingly more powerful and smaller processors, what day to day app's wouldn't the cell phones/PDA's of the near future be able to handle? I'm not sure. Granted it would be really cool if I could securely connect to my X Server and take care of something I had forgotten to do before I left work.
And I have to say the VNC screenshots are pretty cool seeing different combinations of OS A running in a virtual console on OS B. And props to AT&T (for once) for making it free...
First you could got here
And then here
How hard can it be, it's not like you're launching rockets...Wait a second, 2 days to buy, quick access to cash, damn he probably is launching rockets!
Actually, if they didn't change the source, you should refer to Article 3. Article 1 refers to source code. I'm not completely sure, but from reading article 3 it sounds like if the source is available then you are fine, which the kernel, samba, etc. except you have to tell the people where the source is...That means I have to change my response, it does turn out I was wrong, after R'ingTFM, or the GPL for that matter, I didn't realize that you do need to tell how/where to get the source code even it is knowingly available, either by providing it with the software or a written offer for getting it.
:-P
From GPL: "Article 3...provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
"
I hope I didn't viloate the GPL by copying part of the GPL...
First of all I think that Slashdot is being just a little bit one sided in their presentation of this article. From reading the title of the story and the little blurb with it you would think that there would be a lot more evidence of a violation.
I would venture to say that a device like this could be put together without changing one bit of GPL software. The kernel does support flash devices. And it sounds like all the other programs are pretty stock. I belive the writer said the interface was a web interface and some windows interface...well the code for the website does not have to be GPL'ed and the user app on the box that's listening to fulfill configuration requests does not have to be either. And if there is a flash file system module, it could easily be a binary only module, not compiled in with the kernel. Last time I checked you do not have to put a GPL inside sticker on your box if it's running Linux. This sounds more like a case of a company that is just not responding to anything, not just GPL code requests. I think we need more evidence before reaching any conclusions...
Alright enough of my stupid ranting...
Although it looks like you may have to wait for the Mandrake binaries, they don't appear to be on the mirrors I checked at least...not sure about ftp.kde.org, couldn't get to it. But I'm sure they will be available very soon.
Last time I upgraded Mandrake 8.0 to KDE 2.2 and used urpmi as it says in the README and it worked perfectly. Its just kinda scary when you have to tell it to break all the dependancies.
I haven't read too much on the TLD's, but I was under the impression that one of the points of the new TLD's was so that if some company had a mangled domain name like the the'company_name'inc.com, they had another opportunity to get a real one 'company_name'.biz. So I'm glad to see that the companies that have a .com are not scooping up all the .biz's.
Although I guess if they do become popular, all the dot com's will pull the same legal crap that got them their domain name from those other places when they originally applied??
Kid_A
Bruce Schneier also wrote about this in the current issue of Crypto-Gram, his online newletter. Also, worth a read, IMO.
Kid_A
It was the fax machine....
I think instead of saying "a simple 28.8kbps modem could deliver such fast and high quality images.."
they meant to say "a simple 288kbs DSL modem could deliver such fast and high quality images.."
but even that I would have trouble believing...
Not really, the more stuff you put into a chip, the more complicated the layout and the more difficult it is to guarentee signal integrity at higher clock speeds. Remember there is propagation delay, cross talk, and power supply and ground concerns that must be addressed. Adding more landscape to the chip can help, like with caching, (Xeon's for example), but pretty soon you'll end up with the equivalent of a SMP machine, in one chip, which doesn't make sense financially.
Hardware...We didn't care much about plug n play in DOS because all we had was ISA and ISA PnP sucked anyways, (setting jumpers rules). We didn't care about USB support in Linux until we had USB devices. We couldn't have all those features in Excel 10 years ago because it would have taken up too much RAM/cpu time/disk space. There are many more limiting factors than just how long it takes to write and debug the code. In 5 more years we'll be saying, "Do you remember when we ran 2.4.6 with no support for [insert new peripheral bus here], wow we've come a long way, it really takes 15 years to write good software!"
I may be talking out my ass here, but given a one way hash function H(), input M, and hash h, H(M)=h. Given M it is easy to compute h; Given h, it is hard to compute M such that H(M) = h; Given M, it is hard to find another message, M', such that H(M)=H(M'). from Applied Crytography by Bruce Schneier
So with that, it should be hard to figure out the input from the hash. But if the input is limited, one can figure out what the input is because of the fact that there is only going to be one input producing that ouput. So what this really means, who the hell knows, but just because the hardware configuration is hashed doesn't mean M$ can't figure out what you got...
I think there's other variables in M$ equation, but I don't want to think about it anymore...
-Many of the casinos are not running anything that resembles Microsoft, more like IBM Mainframes with AS/400.
-Comps. are tax deductible. They fall under advertising. So don't think that the casino's are being nice when they comp. you. It's not really hurting them.
-For the most part, player tracking is unregulated. Electronic games (like slot machines) are regulated, in most states in the US (probably all that have gaming, but I'm not sure). And the casinos will gather ridiculous info. like how long you played and how much you won or lost so they can continue their facade of wanting you to have fun, and being on your side.
-And finally (although its been said early) it's their right. If you fill out the form to get the card you agree to let them track you. It's purely voluntary. In the industry, these systems are referred to as player tracking systems, so there is no false pretense of it being anything else.
And a couple of off topic notes:
-No, they do not pump extra oxygen into casinos, but yes they are designed so you can easily get on the floor but not off. The carpet has random patterns so you will wander. There are no clocks or windows. There are cash machines everywhere, and if you think you can make money playing slots, you're stupid. They are controlled by computers, and have pseudo-random number generators better than most programming libraries or operating systems, so if you win once, stop
-There are slot machines now running versions of DOS, windows, and UNIX varients...so much for the old mechanical wheels...
I don't think this has been said yet, but I'm pretty sure you have to enforce your trademarks in order for them to hold up over time. If Adobe let this one go, then pretty soon MS Illustrator could be released...and so on...If part of your business is name recognition, then it's important to keep that name for yourself..
Here's a patent for what basically works out to be a toaster!
(thanks to steve for the link)
I don't have any far reaching comments or opinions on Usenet, I just wanted to say thanks and RIP to Jim Ellis for making it possible for me to learn so much from people all over the world about linux, computers, and life...
Who pays for this stuff. Yeah I got $99 to throw away on a Gameboy I'm going to destory and how about another $400-500 on an iPaq to take apart. I enjoy lessons learned from these experiences, but some people must have done much better than I during the dot-com boom..
Although, I must admit I broke my Gameboy's screen about 14 years ago taking it apart, so I guess I shouldn't be pointing any fingers...
Total access, ummm not quite..Interrupt handling does not exist at the user level, nor should it. Frame buffer flipping apps have performance problems due to piece-meal half user, half kernel graphics drivers. Also, I believe we're talking about two different points here. You are referring more to the interface between the running program and X. I'm talking about the interface to pass data to the graphics card quick and efficiently. And by the way, all the 3-D rendering and texturing in the world is not going to speed up 2-D frame based applications...i.e. live video etc...and it's a fact that X does not perform well in this area... If you write a video (movie player, etc..) app in Windows and in X. The Direct Show interface to the graphics hardware will win hands down...sorry to say it, I love Linux, but Windows wins that one...
Shame on /. for not proofing the post..
Shame^2 on me for not reading the article and looking outside like a moron..
The moral here is, RTFA
I just wanted to let Patrick know that he put together a pretty good article, and he should keep up the linux hacking and the article writing.
On a side note, it's nice that the *nix's have this graphical server, but if they, and most specifially Linux, are going to make it in the desktop world, X needs to go. It's nothing short of a mess how these graphics card drivers have to deal with communicating between user and kernel space. X is an app, and what we really need is something on the system level to compete in the desktop market. But besides that, the article shows one of the better sides of X....Oh well, enough ranting...
This might be a little off topic, but just as important to consider is power quality also, which includes proper grounding, as mentioned in an earlier post. An UPS can take care of a lot of these problems, but if you have poor power quality, it is very taxing on your UPS. There's a few easy checks you can do with a multi-meter and the outlet you plug your computer into. You can do these checks both with your computer on and off, just use one of the other sockets in the outlets or power strip.
(Sorry, only applies to US, if anyone else wants to add on for European and other international standards feel free) 1) check your hot to neutral voltage: set your multimeter to Voltage AC and make sure the probes are plugged in for voltage, not current, measurement, consult your meter's manual. Put the red probe in the smaller outlet slit (the hot) and the black in the larger slit (the neutral) (although it really doesn't matter which one, its AC) You should read some where around 120volts +/- up to 2%, any more or less and you might want to check with your electrician.
2)check ground connection: Although this doesn't help with checking the current capacity of your ground, it at least is a decent check to see if its connected. Keep the red probe where it is (in the hot) and move the black probe to the ground hole (semicircular shaped), You should get about the same reading you got for step one, usual a little higher especially if there is a lot of current on the neutral. If you don't, make sure you have the red probe in the hot, try the red probe in the larger slit just to make sure. (your hot and neutral may be reversed, although this is pretty rare)
3)check your neutral to ground voltage: which if you do the math from steps one and two you can figure out. Put the red probe in the larger slit and leave the black in the ground. This reading is usually in the tenths of volts if anything. If it is much higher, and your step one reading is not in range, then you may have an over-loaded, or poorly supplied circuit. (i.e. you have to much current current on the netural, or a highly resistive neutral, or a low volate on the hot)
I hope that helps, an even easier way to check that just your hot, neutral, and ground are connected properly is to get one of those outlet testers at your local hardware store. And as long as you don't touch the probes together, or to yourself, when they are in the outlet, you should be safe, but if you are unsure read the multi-meter manual or use the outlet tester...Here's a decent intro to power quality issues, they mention stuff about switching power supplies, like those found in computers and other interesting topics on power quality...
You know, it just pisses me off...Because our community does not charge for software, we don't have a team of lawyers to put out these fires. If we wanted to have lawyers on retainer, we would have to charge for software. These companies that do have pay software/services, know they can use that fact against us. They try to bring us to their level, and since they've been competing at the level much longer they have a big advantage. Will they always win?...No, but it makes it a lot harder for us to... What can we do about it, I'm not sure...but its something to think about...
The trick is to throw in some ridiculous RMS quotes...