Well I'm now trying it out on my FreeBSD 5.2.1 machine... nasty pink GUI.
I copied standard-cvsup file and changed the *host= setting inside. I also had to configure in/etc/hosts my own machine's IP address and hostname - a hint that I should configure a nameserver at home at some point again.
I've done this before and it all went wrong. I followed instructions in the handbook (useless!) and given on comp.sys.bsd.freebsd.misc... bah. The handbook should have a section: "Upgrading the base system reliably and simply" with a set of instructions to do it. No referencing other parts of the handbook that no longer exist or are out of date.
I don't understand why I should have to rebuild the kernel and everything in order to upgrade a single component of the base FreeBSD distribution, in this case - OpenSSL.
Especially if you are getting a 50% compression ratio on a DivX/MPEG/MPEG2 movie - something is wrong with the encoder! There is no point in raring up this type of data, if you are lucky you'll get a 5% file size reduction.
When the day comes that the RIAA / MPAA try to kill off BitTorrent legally, all these valid commercial examples of use will provide a good counterargument.
Yeah, a gun can be used to kill, but it is the user of the gun to blame for the crime. If a gun is allowed to be owned by law (a device designed to kill!), then a mere device to enable efficient publish/subscribe file distribution... you get the idea.
Thanks. I was basing it more on an AmigaOS style of thinking, where you'd have the SYS: (System, or OS files) area, and extending it to be a bit multiuser and Linuxy.
Hell, want multiple kernels?/system can symlink on bootup to the version you want to run!/system_2.4.25/system_2.6.5 etc!
As regards shared libraries, AmigaOS did that correctly as well. The libraries would have a fixed API, which could be extended. So software would request "Please give me intuition.library of Version 40.5 or above" because version 50.2 will still implement version 40.5 API. Need a new API? Create intuition2.library, don't break the old one.
As far as I am aware, most of the package types are merely compressed tar files with files inside with standard names for dependencies, information, where files should go, etc. This is fine by me, of course, and a sensible way to do things. My concept of making everything simpler and compartmentalised would result in a non-compatible distribution, yes. However most distributions these days have their own package repositories anyway, so this is no biggie.
And yes, drivers need to be easier to install across any Linux variant. No more trying to install drivers for RedHat6 in Mandrake9 by hand...
I think all the low-level stuff like this needs a radical overhaul in Linux. The kernel is good. The software is good. The installer is good. The end result is average and confusing unless you are a linux geek.
and the general difficulty in either updating or adding new programs to the system once installed.
I agree, I now don't even bother upgrading software, especially system components like KDE, in an install now. I just wait for the next version of the OS and either upgrade, or use it as an excuse to make proper backups, wipe and reinstall. It's worse than Windowsm, at least that has a method of managing software that works, however badly designed. RPM is crap. apt-get is fine, but my mum isn't running debian for a reason.
I don't want to have to learn how to install software by hand using cryptic commands, and get a chance of getting a dead KDE upgrade as a result (oh, KDE is a real bitch to upgrade, or it used to be).
What I'd ideally like to see is a method of installing software like the following:
1) You have/software (or/usr/software,/applications,/usr/local/applications, whatever)
2) Software is packaged up in a tarball, e.g., mozilla_1.6.tar.gz
3) $ install mozilla_1.6.tar.gz
(this basically comprises of: cp mozilla.tar.gz/software ; tar xzf mozilla.tar.gz, and creates a chroot (optional, useful for some software though) environment in/software/mozilla containing/bin,/etc, etc. Oh, and it can update an installed software database, although this won't be necessary for the application to run, unlike the Windows Registry)
4) $ mozilla & (because path contains/software/*/bin this works)
Then when you tire of mozilla,...
5a) $ uninstall mozilla 5b) $ upgrade mozilla_1.7.tar.gz
My theoretical "install", "uninstall", "upgrade" commands (omg a user friendly name for a command!) can also have the option of running a script in the software tarball to perform configuration, etc.
Then a GUI software installer can be made that wraps a KDE or Gnome interface around those commands.
And for user-level (not root-level) application install? install will install into ~/software instead of/software!
I'm sure that there are holes-a-plenty with the above, but I prefer self-contained application install as described above, as opposed to "spray-the-files-around-the-filesystem" as per normal unix software - this is not user friendly at the consumer level.
Oh, and whilst you are at it, stick the OS files into/system (i.e.,/system/boot/system/bin/system/dev etc)... I like compartmentisation!
Yay! I've solved it all. Now Linux (or FreeBSD or whoever implements this idea (my version is under the GPL) can now pwn the desktop. Woo! Yay!
Wow, it does (to 2MB, and then it immediately doubles). It then increases memory consumption at a rate of around 200KB a second consistently.
When maximised (with 4 tabs open) it starts off using 16MB, which climbs to 31MB steadily, and then stops increasing (but I'm only editing this text box, let me mess around a bit).
It's never been a problem before, and I have 512MB! I also frequently use Photoshop, Firefox, Word, Openoffice, WinAmp and other stuff at the same time.
But Firefox has got memory holes (at least on Windows) - you can see it eating up memory slowly but surely as you use it. After a few hours the software slows down, and Windows starts to page out non-essential stuff like itself to swap. it must be after this that things go scarily wrong.
Maybe it is time to get another 512MB stick though, make use of dual channel memory...
It wouldn't be a quick and simple task but...... couldn't someone somehow port the rendering part of Mozilla/Firefox/Konqueror to Windows, in such a manner that they export the same interface as those DLLs, and hence simply replace the rendering component of IE with something decent?
Since using Firefox (And I've used Firebird before, and Mozilla since before it had version numbers) I've experienced total interface hangups when using it. Despite this I'm still using it because everything else is just crap, but it is annoying to have to reboot the computer because the display and keyboard is dead (but audio keeps on working) a couple of times a week.
Also it still can't render Slashdot and other sites correctly, as content spills over other content when it shouldn't.
Back in those days most games were synchronised to the vertical blank, not to the processor clock. Hence why this overclock works so well - the lag described by the author would have been because the amount of processing done per frame was so much that it went over the vertical blank, and then waited for a vblank to synchronise. By speeding it up, you get a smoother game.
Now if a game was designed to do stuff every two frames, and this overclock made it do stuff every single frame, then it would run twice as fast!
If it wasn't for SuprNova I wouldn't know about Icon of Coil, and then I wouldn't be seeing them play in London later this month with Swarf (excellent ebm industrial techno band) supporting.
So I support the bands by visiting their gigs, and buying merchandise there. I'll never see the CDs in the shops for these bands anywhere near where I live either. So... the music labels aren't missing out by me previewing the music, liking it, and then buying it when I finally see it somewhere.
What about Satellite radio / Digital radio (DAB) or Cable radio?
Yeah, they are compressed formats, so you lose there, but maybe there is a way to capture the stream directly (MP3 streams for Satellite and Cable digital radio) so no more conversion is necessary...?
of course, a fake secure page could fake the security padlocked image itself, hence the other two bits are nice to have in addition. Also why you'd want to be able to configure your own security image, or why you must at least be forced to choose from a small selection of images.
There are all good ideas (apart from the flashing page borders, hehe).
Please suggest them to the Mozilla / Firefox team, Konqueror, etc. Use this Slashdot story as motivation.
I'd go for by default a simple padlock image (128x128) at 30% transparency (with both white and black in the image so that it shows up regardless of the background) with text underneath stating the connection attributes. i.e., the browser merely has to injects some CSS+HTML onto every secure page in the display.
A mouse cursor with a padlock is also a neat idea., and turning the text red in the location bar, with a padlock next to the favicon as well. Precede the title with "SECURE: "...
and have a preference interface where you can disable these if you wish.
... where the state provides free music and media for a small tax on the sale of the storage media required to store it.
That is how I interpret these laws. In any other way they are clearly unfair laws against the consumer, and indicate that the consumer is guilty of a crime (copyright breach) without a trial, which is clearly illegal under most, if not all, western governments.
I didn't say it was reasonable! Would you light a smallish room with 56000 lumens of light?! One of my earlier posts said that 16 6"x6" squares would be enough to light a smallish room diffusely at 1200 lumens.
Anyway, lighting circuits in the UK are 5A, 230V. I suppose that provides a limitation of 1100W for each 5A lighting circuit (typically one per floor). That's enough to provide power for 2400 lumens / room for 6 rooms with a little to spare.
The article clearly states that it is 80W for a 24" by 24" panel, i.e., 20W a square foot.
Assuming you didn't need to light below 4ft in an 8ft high room, then an 8' by 8' room would have 64 ft^2 of ceiling and 128 ft^2 of lit wall (ignoring doors and windows), a total of 192 ft^2. That is 48 of these 80W panels, or 3.8kW and 58000 lumens.
So the new panels are competitive in a Lumens/Watt manner, with a longer lifespan I expect. However they can't compete with the compact flourescent bulbs yet, although these are more expensive and sometimes have more limitations.
Well, 16 6" x 6" OLED tiles right now on the ceiling is 80W / 1200 lumens, enough for an 8' x 8' room I'm sure, whilst also diffusing the light better (16 small lights instead of one large light).
That is as much lighting power as a 1220 lumen 81W GE Halogen bulb with a life of 4000 hours. I'm certain that is a lot! Lifespan will be similar or better. Dunno if 16 OLED ceiling tiles will only cost you $8.46 though, and then there is that issue of rewiring the lighting to light each tile.
A standard 75W store bulb emits around 1200 lumens and has a 750 hour average lifetime. So this OLED technology is competitive on power and light emission (albeit over a large square rather than a dangling bulb), and could last 10 times as long. Cost is the only issue. Also consider the low power bulbs as well which are getting quite cheap and do well on the lumens/watt.
I used http://members.misty.com/don/ltrouble.html for power figures.
BT in the UK had a no cross subsidisation requirement because of their monopoly status, so it can be made to work. Vaguely. I'm not sure of how it is made to work, I think that it is done to limit just how much you can pour into something.
Ah, but I was talking about the people that were modding them into servers and the like. Stuff for which integrated graphics are fine. For console games I'd buy a console of course!
I got an Asrock K7S8X for 20 in the UK, and a Duron 1400 for 20, and 256MB PC2700 (it was cheaper than PC2100) for about 20 as well. Mobo has 5.1 channel audio integrated, I had an old AGP graphics card I could use, and a spare DVD drive and case (containing a hard drive). Cheap heatsink. Processor overclocks a reasonable amount too, which is nice. Most true geeks have stuff lying around, why pay over the odds for a large black and green X emblazoned brick? It works just fine. Let's hope it doesn't use explosive capacitors. I now have a nice FreeBSD based development server that is cheaper than an XBox, a lot less hassle than modding one, and a lot more powerful.
PS: A DIMM is memory, either SDRAM or DDR SDRAM. Dual In-line Memory Module IIRC.
Of course what I would buy is a slimline silver XBox (or gamecube or PS2) that actually looked nice. There is a lot of hardware in the devices, you are right... but aesthetically the XBox lacks a lot, and hence will not get a place in my living room.
I was assuming the UK prices, which are a little different I suppose.
Price up an Asrock motherboard, 128MB DIMM, Duron 1400 w/heatsink, small HD (or one you have lying around), cheap case, DVD drive (or CDRW, lets splash out!)... shouldn't be much different and it is better specced (faster, more memory) and no DRM. The only thing will be that it doesn't play XBox games in its spare time.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I'm now trying it out on my FreeBSD 5.2.1 machine ... nasty pink GUI.
/etc/hosts my own machine's IP address and hostname - a hint that I should configure a nameserver at home at some point again.
... bah. The handbook should have a section: "Upgrading the base system reliably and simply" with a set of instructions to do it. No referencing other parts of the handbook that no longer exist or are out of date.
I copied standard-cvsup file and changed the *host= setting inside. I also had to configure in
I've done this before and it all went wrong. I followed instructions in the handbook (useless!) and given on comp.sys.bsd.freebsd.misc
I don't understand why I should have to rebuild the kernel and everything in order to upgrade a single component of the base FreeBSD distribution, in this case - OpenSSL.
Especially if you are getting a 50% compression ratio on a DivX/MPEG/MPEG2 movie - something is wrong with the encoder! There is no point in raring up this type of data, if you are lucky you'll get a 5% file size reduction.
When the day comes that the RIAA / MPAA try to kill off BitTorrent legally, all these valid commercial examples of use will provide a good counterargument.
... you get the idea.
Yeah, a gun can be used to kill, but it is the user of the gun to blame for the crime. If a gun is allowed to be owned by law (a device designed to kill!), then a mere device to enable efficient publish/subscribe file distribution
Thanks. I was basing it more on an AmigaOS style of thinking, where you'd have the SYS: (System, or OS files) area, and extending it to be a bit multiuser and Linuxy.
/system can symlink on bootup to the version you want to run! /system_2.4.25 /system_2.6.5 etc!
...
Hell, want multiple kernels?
As regards shared libraries, AmigaOS did that correctly as well. The libraries would have a fixed API, which could be extended. So software would request "Please give me intuition.library of Version 40.5 or above" because version 50.2 will still implement version 40.5 API. Need a new API? Create intuition2.library, don't break the old one.
As far as I am aware, most of the package types are merely compressed tar files with files inside with standard names for dependencies, information, where files should go, etc. This is fine by me, of course, and a sensible way to do things. My concept of making everything simpler and compartmentalised would result in a non-compatible distribution, yes. However most distributions these days have their own package repositories anyway, so this is no biggie.
And yes, drivers need to be easier to install across any Linux variant. No more trying to install drivers for RedHat6 in Mandrake9 by hand
I think all the low-level stuff like this needs a radical overhaul in Linux. The kernel is good. The software is good. The installer is good. The end result is average and confusing unless you are a linux geek.
I agree, I now don't even bother upgrading software, especially system components like KDE, in an install now. I just wait for the next version of the OS and either upgrade, or use it as an excuse to make proper backups, wipe and reinstall. It's worse than Windowsm, at least that has a method of managing software that works, however badly designed. RPM is crap. apt-get is fine, but my mum isn't running debian for a reason.
I don't want to have to learn how to install software by hand using cryptic commands, and get a chance of getting a dead KDE upgrade as a result (oh, KDE is a real bitch to upgrade, or it used to be).
What I'd ideally like to see is a method of installing software like the following:
1) You have
2) Software is packaged up in a tarball, e.g., mozilla_1.6.tar.gz
3) $ install mozilla_1.6.tar.gz
(this basically comprises of: cp mozilla.tar.gz
4) $ mozilla &
(because path contains
Then when you tire of mozilla,
5a) $ uninstall mozilla
5b) $ upgrade mozilla_1.7.tar.gz
My theoretical "install", "uninstall", "upgrade" commands (omg a user friendly name for a command!) can also have the option of running a script in the software tarball to perform configuration, etc.
Then a GUI software installer can be made that wraps a KDE or Gnome interface around those commands.
And for user-level (not root-level) application install? install will install into ~/software instead of
I'm sure that there are holes-a-plenty with the above, but I prefer self-contained application install as described above, as opposed to "spray-the-files-around-the-filesystem" as per normal unix software - this is not user friendly at the consumer level.
Oh, and whilst you are at it, stick the OS files into
Yay! I've solved it all. Now Linux (or FreeBSD or whoever implements this idea (my version is under the GPL) can now pwn the desktop. Woo! Yay!
Wow, it does (to 2MB, and then it immediately doubles). It then increases memory consumption at a rate of around 200KB a second consistently.
When maximised (with 4 tabs open) it starts off using 16MB, which climbs to 31MB steadily, and then stops increasing (but I'm only editing this text box, let me mess around a bit).
It's never been a problem before, and I have 512MB! I also frequently use Photoshop, Firefox, Word, Openoffice, WinAmp and other stuff at the same time.
But Firefox has got memory holes (at least on Windows) - you can see it eating up memory slowly but surely as you use it. After a few hours the software slows down, and Windows starts to page out non-essential stuff like itself to swap. it must be after this that things go scarily wrong.
Maybe it is time to get another 512MB stick though, make use of dual channel memory...
It wouldn't be a quick and simple task but ... ... couldn't someone somehow port the rendering part of Mozilla/Firefox/Konqueror to Windows, in such a manner that they export the same interface as those DLLs, and hence simply replace the rendering component of IE with something decent?
Since using Firefox (And I've used Firebird before, and Mozilla since before it had version numbers) I've experienced total interface hangups when using it. Despite this I'm still using it because everything else is just crap, but it is annoying to have to reboot the computer because the display and keyboard is dead (but audio keeps on working) a couple of times a week.
Also it still can't render Slashdot and other sites correctly, as content spills over other content when it shouldn't.
What/who is DARPA and why and I interested in them, and hence should I be interested in this story?
... oh wait, it's always been terrible.
Seriously, the standard of Slashdot editing
Back in those days most games were synchronised to the vertical blank, not to the processor clock. Hence why this overclock works so well - the lag described by the author would have been because the amount of processing done per frame was so much that it went over the vertical blank, and then waited for a vblank to synchronise. By speeding it up, you get a smoother game.
Now if a game was designed to do stuff every two frames, and this overclock made it do stuff every single frame, then it would run twice as fast!
If it wasn't for SuprNova I wouldn't know about Icon of Coil, and then I wouldn't be seeing them play in London later this month with Swarf (excellent ebm industrial techno band) supporting.
... the music labels aren't missing out by me previewing the music, liking it, and then buying it when I finally see it somewhere.
So I support the bands by visiting their gigs, and buying merchandise there. I'll never see the CDs in the shops for these bands anywhere near where I live either. So
What about Satellite radio / Digital radio (DAB) or Cable radio?
Yeah, they are compressed formats, so you lose there, but maybe there is a way to capture the stream directly (MP3 streams for Satellite and Cable digital radio) so no more conversion is necessary...?
of course, a fake secure page could fake the security padlocked image itself, hence the other two bits are nice to have in addition. Also why you'd want to be able to configure your own security image, or why you must at least be forced to choose from a small selection of images.
There are all good ideas (apart from the flashing page borders, hehe).
...
Please suggest them to the Mozilla / Firefox team, Konqueror, etc. Use this Slashdot story as motivation.
I'd go for by default a simple padlock image (128x128) at 30% transparency (with both white and black in the image so that it shows up regardless of the background) with text underneath stating the connection attributes. i.e., the browser merely has to injects some CSS+HTML onto every secure page in the display.
A mouse cursor with a padlock is also a neat idea., and turning the text red in the location bar, with a padlock next to the favicon as well. Precede the title with "SECURE: "
and have a preference interface where you can disable these if you wish.
... where the state provides free music and media for a small tax on the sale of the storage media required to store it.
That is how I interpret these laws. In any other way they are clearly unfair laws against the consumer, and indicate that the consumer is guilty of a crime (copyright breach) without a trial, which is clearly illegal under most, if not all, western governments.
I didn't say it was reasonable! Would you light a smallish room with 56000 lumens of light?! One of my earlier posts said that 16 6"x6" squares would be enough to light a smallish room diffusely at 1200 lumens.
Anyway, lighting circuits in the UK are 5A, 230V. I suppose that provides a limitation of 1100W for each 5A lighting circuit (typically one per floor). That's enough to provide power for 2400 lumens / room for 6 rooms with a little to spare.
The article clearly states that it is 80W for a 24" by 24" panel, i.e., 20W a square foot.
Assuming you didn't need to light below 4ft in an 8ft high room, then an 8' by 8' room would have 64 ft^2 of ceiling and 128 ft^2 of lit wall (ignoring doors and windows), a total of 192 ft^2. That is 48 of these 80W panels, or 3.8kW and 58000 lumens.
http://www.efi.org/articles/bulbs.html
has a list of lightbulbs, power, lifetime, etc
So the new panels are competitive in a Lumens/Watt manner, with a longer lifespan I expect. However they can't compete with the compact flourescent bulbs yet, although these are more expensive and sometimes have more limitations.
Bah, the next link on Google was much better, typical!
http://www.efi.org/articles/bulbs.html
Well, 16 6" x 6" OLED tiles right now on the ceiling is 80W / 1200 lumens, enough for an 8' x 8' room I'm sure, whilst also diffusing the light better (16 small lights instead of one large light).
That is as much lighting power as a 1220 lumen 81W GE Halogen bulb with a life of 4000 hours. I'm certain that is a lot! Lifespan will be similar or better. Dunno if 16 OLED ceiling tiles will only cost you $8.46 though, and then there is that issue of rewiring the lighting to light each tile.
A standard 75W store bulb emits around 1200 lumens and has a 750 hour average lifetime. So this OLED technology is competitive on power and light emission (albeit over a large square rather than a dangling bulb), and could last 10 times as long. Cost is the only issue. Also consider the low power bulbs as well which are getting quite cheap and do well on the lumens/watt.
I used http://members.misty.com/don/ltrouble.html for power figures.
This applies to DVD writing drives, which are at least 3 times as expensive, and commonly 5 times more expensive still than a CDRW drive.
A 6 increase to not have to worry about my bad handwriting, my CD pens running out of ink, and for a cool effect would be worth paying.
I'm sure the cost will drop to negligable within a year anyway.
BT in the UK had a no cross subsidisation requirement because of their monopoly status, so it can be made to work. Vaguely. I'm not sure of how it is made to work, I think that it is done to limit just how much you can pour into something.
Ah, but I was talking about the people that were modding them into servers and the like. Stuff for which integrated graphics are fine. For console games I'd buy a console of course!
... but aesthetically the XBox lacks a lot, and hence will not get a place in my living room.
I got an Asrock K7S8X for 20 in the UK, and a Duron 1400 for 20, and 256MB PC2700 (it was cheaper than PC2100) for about 20 as well. Mobo has 5.1 channel audio integrated, I had an old AGP graphics card I could use, and a spare DVD drive and case (containing a hard drive). Cheap heatsink. Processor overclocks a reasonable amount too, which is nice. Most true geeks have stuff lying around, why pay over the odds for a large black and green X emblazoned brick? It works just fine. Let's hope it doesn't use explosive capacitors. I now have a nice FreeBSD based development server that is cheaper than an XBox, a lot less hassle than modding one, and a lot more powerful.
PS: A DIMM is memory, either SDRAM or DDR SDRAM. Dual In-line Memory Module IIRC.
Of course what I would buy is a slimline silver XBox (or gamecube or PS2) that actually looked nice. There is a lot of hardware in the devices, you are right
I was assuming the UK prices, which are a little different I suppose.
... shouldn't be much different and it is better specced (faster, more memory) and no DRM. The only thing will be that it doesn't play XBox games in its spare time.
Price up an Asrock motherboard, 128MB DIMM, Duron 1400 w/heatsink, small HD (or one you have lying around), cheap case, DVD drive (or CDRW, lets splash out!)