Actually there is a central server for both Kazaa and Morpheus, but what separates it from Napster is that there isn't any file index on the server, only user authentification. Will the courts be able to get at that server? It's a harder case to argue, that's for sure...
Not to be a dick, but it's not unreadable, infact much the opposite...I know you've said you found FreeBSD easy to follow, I've never looked at it. The linux kernel is very approachable. I've written device drivers and there was nothing that 'grep', 'vi' and some time couldn't help me understand in the kernel. Reading kernel source is not like reading application C code. There isn't really an entry point like main() or "execution flow". Most things are event driven, either through system calls or interrupt handlers. And yes there are optimization hacks, like weird #define's but come on, I don't think the problem is that. Yeah if you want to get into writing VM code, you might have a very steep learning curve, due to the fact that it's a complex system, but device drivers are a great place to start and very approachable. And remember the Linux kernel handles many more architectures and devices then FreeBSD ever will.
Two points: you can turn all that stuff off that you are complaining about and usually that green line is pretty valid, its the user that doesn't understand the problem, like passive voice.
I know that there seems to be a lot of bashing of the Celeron and Intel's marketing, but in some ways I see it as a response to the market.
It used to be when you talked about a PC, you gave the specs of your hard drive, RAM, graphics adapter, whether or not it had a soundcard, and what number came before the 86 in the processor name 2,3, or 4.
Now having over 256 MB of RAM is not unreasonable. Hard drives size is mostly irrelevant, sound cards are standard, and except for the gamers, a graphics card is where you plug your monitor in and it works. So what's left to spec? MHz! It's a number, it sounds technical and the Wintel PC marketing machine has jumped right on it. So much to the point that AMD now puts 4 digit numbers in their processor model name that don't necessary represent the clock speed of the processor, but keep up with Intel's current MHz release.
Actually, Google didn't do much, if any of the magnetic tape work, it was Bruce Jones, a grad student who transferred 107 tapes in two weeks and then David Wiseman did the rest over the next ten years. Google just downloaded them from him...
No crap, but my point is it takes a lot more hardware (i.e. logic, i.e. gates) to differentiate between, interrupt, isocronous and bulk frames, and furthermore to tell which device it came from, instead just loging PS/2 data, which you know comes from the keyboard...
While I have not (yet) seen equivalent products for USB on the market, sniffing USB is even easier than PS/2.
I'm sorry, I just get annoyed when people say things about which they have no idea. What part of sniffing USB is easier? The hardware would be much more complex. You have to identify which frames belong to the keyboard and not the printer, scanner, mouse etc. if you are using a hub. There's a lot more information to process and if you want to process it later, then you have to store a lot more. I don't see how it's any easier, actually its harder. PS/2 on the other hand is a very simple protocol, very simple hardware can process it.
If you were perhaps talking about the software level, you still have to hook into the keyboard drivers, the USB or PS/2 stuff is abstracted to the keyboard driver, so on that level they are about the same degree of difficulty. And actually, sniffing linux is pretty easy too, I'm sure the FBI could do it, granted they would have to recompile the kernel since the keyboard stuff is usually not a module, but very do-able...
Well I guess on a larger scale it may be CmdrTaco's responsibility since he is the author, but the words that are annoying you are those of the poster, *ZiggyPop*, not Taco...
Well for USB, its not a problem, USB power is regulated and the host controller/USB driver will let you know if you are using too much power by not enabling the port. But with PS2, I have no idea what the max current rating is, but 100ma for the fan could be pushing it if you are also using a PS2 mouse and keyboard...
If you read the entire court comments, near the end they also state:
"All postings marked as troll, offtopic, or flaimbait will be ignored; postings rated Funny may or may not be, and only those rated >4 will even be considered as possible fact. Furthermore, a first post to a message board will neither be considered fact, opinion, or funny."
This might be more of a reason for software companies to sell their product as a service which is valid for a set amount of time then as a product which is good for use indefinetly.
I have to wonder about this question, IMHO either its a plug for the pr0n site or this person is not too smart. If you were about to take a job at a company, would you really want to advertise the fact that this company is looking for PHP programmers, on a site (/.) that has a lot of people that know PHP reading it. Furthermore, this could also be a clever scheme to try and find PHP programmers for the site, either way, its very suspicious to me that the URL is actually in the question..
64-bit datapath but that doesn't do any real difference since the PS2 will never address more than it's 32 megs of RAM
Huh? Umm, if you are correct about the 64 bit datapath, yes it does make a difference! That means you can move 64 bits of data at once out of/or into RAM. Doesn't matter if you have 640k or 64M, you can still move more data. If that's what you mean by datapath...
For sound cards no...Most sound cards are just sample rate converters. Some really bad, others better, the amount of code to do sample rate conversion is minimal. So DSP emulation for soundcards is not of much use, maybe if you wanted the effects you get with a few soundcards, like reverb, chorus, etc. The other problem is you can't just write one DSP emulator, DSP's are taylored for their specific mathematical needs..
There is the Cancer aspect. It's obvious that no one understands the issues that may arise from having a radio transmitter around you all the time (Cel phones) let alone multiple ones around you all the time at your computer.
Bluetooth is low power/short range, even less of a cancer risk (if there actually is a risk) and last time I checked I don't put my mouse and keyboard up to my head when I use it.
The FCC regulations for RF devices at these frequencies state that you have to accept whatever outside interference there is. Getting bad input on an RF mouse, display or keyboard would blow
It says that on every electronic device that falls under FCC regulation wired or wireless, like your monitor, computer, wired mouse and keyboard, sound card, etc... These protocols are designed to handle interference. One point I do worry about thought is having the batteries run out...now that sucks...
You are speaking of two separate things here. The first is that Alan Cox, among other things, is the maintainer of the 2.2.x series kernel. Maintainance entails fixing bugs, updating drivers, and possible backporting features from the next kernel series where determined to be appropriate. This is what Marcelo will be doing as maintainer.
In addition to maitaining the 2.2.x series, Alan also has his own, more experimental tree knows as the -ac tree. This is where a lot of developers submit their patches for initial testing for a few reasons: Alan can get them in his tree sooner because his tree is more experimental than the main kernel tree; Alan is a direct link to Linus so if Alan approves of your patch, he will eventually submit it to Linus (all those merging comments in the kernel change logs).
If you want to compare Marcelo's position to Alan's, your question would have to be, do you plan to start an -mt tree for the 2.6.x kernel series while maintaining the 2.4.x kernel?
I think I would be much less weary of forwarding my logs to someone if, first of all they were only for the traffic trying to get into my network, i.e. external not local traffic, and secondly, if the program that sends them off would change my IP address to something meaningless. But it still is scary revealing any info, especially, logs which reside on the 'safe' side of your network, its just another thing to worry about...
What kind of idiot makes their buying decision on which console comes out first?
Much of our consumer market is based on the "impulse buy." Products are priced and marketed in such a way to incourage this. Granted the price of the GameCube may bring it out of impulse buy range for some, but I've personally bought things more expensive than that in less than 2 days thought, even 2 hours...I may be an idiot, according to you, but who cares, sometimes you just have to get IT right now.
But remember, if you're going to be playing mostly MP3's your sound quality "bottle neck" is probably going to be the MP3's themselves. Personally, I think just getting a Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI 1371/1373 card for about $20, which is well supported by the Linux kernel, would suit your needs just fine, unless you wanted digital out.
I would be a little cautious about the Case Logic type solution, they have a tendancy to, for lack of a better word, dull the CD's (basically slowly rubbing off the coating) I think it's the combination of the plastic, the softbacking, and particles that collect in the slot, the nice thing about a CD jewel case is the CD is elevated, in these binders the sleeves are in full contact and rubbing against the CD's. I've seen this happen mostly in full binders. If you do decide to use them, I would recommend only filling them 75%. I think it also depends on how much you want to transport them, if the case moves around a lot, you may see this problem, for just storing them on a self, you should be fine.
Slashdot Mirror
that's hilarious, what was I thinking...sounds like some kind of shit-your-pants disorder...
US mirror of kernel.org
Actually there is a central server for both Kazaa and Morpheus, but what separates it from Napster is that there isn't any file index on the server, only user authentification. Will the courts be able to get at that server? It's a harder case to argue, that's for sure...
If the code is unreadable for most advanced users
Not to be a dick, but it's not unreadable, infact much the opposite...I know you've said you found FreeBSD easy to follow, I've never looked at it. The linux kernel is very approachable. I've written device drivers and there was nothing that 'grep', 'vi' and some time couldn't help me understand in the kernel. Reading kernel source is not like reading application C code. There isn't really an entry point like main() or "execution flow". Most things are event driven, either through system calls or interrupt handlers. And yes there are optimization hacks, like weird #define's but come on, I don't think the problem is that. Yeah if you want to get into writing VM code, you might have a very steep learning curve, due to the fact that it's a complex system, but device drivers are a great place to start and very approachable. And remember the Linux kernel handles many more architectures and devices then FreeBSD ever will.
Two points: you can turn all that stuff off that you are complaining about and usually that green line is pretty valid, its the user that doesn't understand the problem, like passive voice.
I know that there seems to be a lot of bashing of the Celeron and Intel's marketing, but in some ways I see it as a response to the market.
It used to be when you talked about a PC, you gave the specs of your hard drive, RAM, graphics adapter, whether or not it had a soundcard, and what number came before the 86 in the processor name 2,3, or 4.
Now having over 256 MB of RAM is not unreasonable. Hard drives size is mostly irrelevant, sound cards are standard, and except for the gamers, a graphics card is where you plug your monitor in and it works. So what's left to spec? MHz! It's a number, it sounds technical and the Wintel PC marketing machine has jumped right on it. So much to the point that AMD now puts 4 digit numbers in their processor model name that don't necessary represent the clock speed of the processor, but keep up with Intel's current MHz release.
How do we know whether the aliens use big or little endian??
Actually, Google didn't do much, if any of the magnetic tape work, it was Bruce Jones, a grad student who transferred 107 tapes in two weeks and then David Wiseman did the rest over the next ten years. Google just downloaded them from him...
No crap, but my point is it takes a lot more hardware (i.e. logic, i.e. gates) to differentiate between, interrupt, isocronous and bulk frames, and furthermore to tell which device it came from, instead just loging PS/2 data, which you know comes from the keyboard...
While I have not (yet) seen equivalent products for USB on the market, sniffing USB is even easier than PS/2.
I'm sorry, I just get annoyed when people say things about which they have no idea. What part of sniffing USB is easier? The hardware would be much more complex. You have to identify which frames belong to the keyboard and not the printer, scanner, mouse etc. if you are using a hub. There's a lot more information to process and if you want to process it later, then you have to store a lot more. I don't see how it's any easier, actually its harder. PS/2 on the other hand is a very simple protocol, very simple hardware can process it.
If you were perhaps talking about the software level, you still have to hook into the keyboard drivers, the USB or PS/2 stuff is abstracted to the keyboard driver, so on that level they are about the same degree of difficulty. And actually, sniffing linux is pretty easy too, I'm sure the FBI could do it, granted they would have to recompile the kernel since the keyboard stuff is usually not a module, but very do-able...
Well I guess on a larger scale it may be CmdrTaco's responsibility since he is the author, but the words that are annoying you are those of the poster, *ZiggyPop*, not Taco...
Well for USB, its not a problem, USB power is regulated and the host controller/USB driver will let you know if you are using too much power by not enabling the port. But with PS2, I have no idea what the max current rating is, but 100ma for the fan could be pushing it if you are also using a PS2 mouse and keyboard...
If you read the entire court comments, near the end they also state:
"All postings marked as troll, offtopic, or flaimbait will be ignored; postings rated Funny may or may not be, and only those rated >4 will even be considered as possible fact. Furthermore, a first post to a message board will neither be considered fact, opinion, or funny."
I thought that was rather interesting...
This might be more of a reason for software companies to sell their product as a service which is valid for a set amount of time then as a product which is good for use indefinetly.
I have to wonder about this question, IMHO either its a plug for the pr0n site or this person is not too smart. If you were about to take a job at a company, would you really want to advertise the fact that this company is looking for PHP programmers, on a site (/.) that has a lot of people that know PHP reading it. Furthermore, this could also be a clever scheme to try and find PHP programmers for the site, either way, its very suspicious to me that the URL is actually in the question..
64-bit datapath but that doesn't do any real difference since the PS2 will never address more than it's 32 megs of RAM
Huh? Umm, if you are correct about the 64 bit datapath, yes it does make a difference! That means you can move 64 bits of data at once out of/or into RAM. Doesn't matter if you have 640k or 64M, you can still move more data. If that's what you mean by datapath...
For sound cards no...Most sound cards are just sample rate converters. Some really bad, others better, the amount of code to do sample rate conversion is minimal. So DSP emulation for soundcards is not of much use, maybe if you wanted the effects you get with a few soundcards, like reverb, chorus, etc. The other problem is you can't just write one DSP emulator, DSP's are taylored for their specific mathematical needs..
There is the Cancer aspect. It's obvious that no one understands the issues that may arise from having a radio transmitter around you all the time (Cel phones) let alone multiple ones around you all the time at your computer.
Bluetooth is low power/short range, even less of a cancer risk (if there actually is a risk) and last time I checked I don't put my mouse and keyboard up to my head when I use it.
The FCC regulations for RF devices at these frequencies state that you have to accept whatever outside interference there is. Getting bad input on an RF mouse, display or keyboard would blow
It says that on every electronic device that falls under FCC regulation wired or wireless, like your monitor, computer, wired mouse and keyboard, sound card, etc... These protocols are designed to handle interference. One point I do worry about thought is having the batteries run out...now that sucks...
You are speaking of two separate things here. The first is that Alan Cox, among other things, is the maintainer of the 2.2.x series kernel. Maintainance entails fixing bugs, updating drivers, and possible backporting features from the next kernel series where determined to be appropriate. This is what Marcelo will be doing as maintainer.
In addition to maitaining the 2.2.x series, Alan also has his own, more experimental tree knows as the -ac tree. This is where a lot of developers submit their patches for initial testing for a few reasons: Alan can get them in his tree sooner because his tree is more experimental than the main kernel tree; Alan is a direct link to Linus so if Alan approves of your patch, he will eventually submit it to Linus (all those merging comments in the kernel change logs).
If you want to compare Marcelo's position to Alan's, your question would have to be, do you plan to start an -mt tree for the 2.6.x kernel series while maintaining the 2.4.x kernel?
I think I would be much less weary of forwarding my logs to someone if, first of all they were only for the traffic trying to get into my network, i.e. external not local traffic, and secondly, if the program that sends them off would change my IP address to something meaningless. But it still is scary revealing any info, especially, logs which reside on the 'safe' side of your network, its just another thing to worry about...
That was back when they said we only need 16 bytes of memory, who will need any more...
(yeah I realize.....it's a joke.)
What kind of idiot makes their buying decision on which console comes out first?
Much of our consumer market is based on the "impulse buy." Products are priced and marketed in such a way to incourage this. Granted the price of the GameCube may bring it out of impulse buy range for some, but I've personally bought things more expensive than that in less than 2 days thought, even 2 hours...I may be an idiot, according to you, but who cares, sometimes you just have to get IT right now.
But remember, if you're going to be playing mostly MP3's your sound quality "bottle neck" is probably going to be the MP3's themselves. Personally, I think just getting a Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI 1371/1373 card for about $20, which is well supported by the Linux kernel, would suit your needs just fine, unless you wanted digital out.
I would be a little cautious about the Case Logic type solution, they have a tendancy to, for lack of a better word, dull the CD's (basically slowly rubbing off the coating) I think it's the combination of the plastic, the softbacking, and particles that collect in the slot, the nice thing about a CD jewel case is the CD is elevated, in these binders the sleeves are in full contact and rubbing against the CD's. I've seen this happen mostly in full binders. If you do decide to use them, I would recommend only filling them 75%. I think it also depends on how much you want to transport them, if the case moves around a lot, you may see this problem, for just storing them on a self, you should be fine.
This is offtopic, but just to answer the question:
it is cool that the Linux Device Driver book was GPL'd - or does that just mean it wasn't selling?
No actually, it was announced either before the release or right after the release date for the book.