Cubase SX is an amazing piece of software, extremely easy to use, and (at least on MacOSX 10.2.4) quite stable.
Hmmm... so perhaps it's Windows and classic MacOS that cause the instability of Cubase. I've given up upgrading my copy, so it would probably cost quite a bit to get upto date (plus I'd need to shell out for a Mac capable of running MacOSX). However, my brother's still using Cubase on his G3, so I'll keep badgering him as to whether it's improved.
My personal recommendation would be the Boss BR-8 digital multitrack (http://www.musicstop.com/update/200008/product.ht m). It has eight tracks, and you can mixdown as much as you want - with no degradation of course. There are two multi effects devices built in, and a decent set of other features. It records onto Zip disks, which are more convenient than a hard disk based system IMHO.
It looks like it retails for around $600 in the States (I picked up mine for £450 in the UK). In comparison, all the computer based digital recording systems I've used are unstable, unfriendly and overpriced. Why people still buy things like Steinbergs software is beyond me, they've not produced a stable release since Pro 16 on my humble Commodore 64.
Not exactly true. I can't find the link off hand, but I read an explanation of the background to this myth quite recently. If you Google around you should be able to find it.
Back when MicroSoft were keen to add TCP/IP support to Windows, they contracted another firm to to do the work. That firm took the BSD licensed stack (from 4.3BSD as I recall), and did tyhe necessary porting work. This they then delivered to MS, meeting the original deadline. Since then, NT has gained a new TCP/IP stack written from scratch by MS engineers.
As a result, the TCP/IP stack currently used in Windows owes little or nothing to the BSD implementation.
My current employer has started switching all interface work from C and curses to Java and Swing. Most of our developers have Windows machines, and run VNC sessions on the Linux server where they do all their work. One bright spark decided to install Jedit, and his team all used it on the server...
The result was that the main development server, a not inconsiderable machine, was brought to its knees. As a result the daft buggers have been ordered to use Nedit, unless they agree to replace Windows with Linux and run Jedit on their desktop machine.
None of them have elected to run Jedit locally, as Nedit is the dogs bollocks as a programming editor, regardless of the language.
Does anyone still actually argue that analog is superior to digital?
Yup. Ever heard digital distortion? It's downright disgusting and would only be considered useful by certain Industrial-Noise outfits. My valve bass amp (Ampeg SVT) compresses as it reaches distortion, creating a fantastic sound.
On the synth front, my Korg Mono/Poly sounds far superior to the MS2000 digital synth that sits above it. Fuller bass sounds, more cutting leads and pad sounds that exude far more character and are so fat they need compression to fit in the mix.
On the drum machine front, it's more a matter of taste, but for me a Korg KPR-77 with everything but the kick run through a Roland RE501 tape echo sounds great.
The 1.6.1 release will be out shortly, in a matter of a few weeks judging by credible reports. I would strongly suggest you go with that release for a first taste of NetBSD. The "stable" CVS branch is akin to Debian testing, and is the branch from which 1.6.1 will be cut. With the release so close it's not really worth rolling your own, although pre-compiled binaries are available on ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/.
The equivalent of Debian unstable is known as "current" in NetBSD land. It is the cutting edge CVS branch, and contains notable new features like scheduler activations (the cool threading support just merged from another branch), and major SMP changes. Given the scale of these changes, installing current is definitely not a good introduction to NetBSD. I'm running 1.6 on the machine that I'm typing this, and 1.6M (the official version of current as we speak) on another machine. The 1.6M machine has been very stable for me, but there are a few quirks with things like Mozilla.
I have to second this recommendation to try out NetBSD. I've used various Linux distros and all three of the free BSD's on a regular basis, but keep on coming back to NetBSD. It just exudes quality, and even a cretin like me can understand large chunks of the codebase.
The package system is brilliant, and has really come into its own now that broadband Internet is affordable. I can do a CVS update of my pkgsrc tree once in a while, and then just update the handfull of apps I need. In the process, any underlying libraries also get updated. Debian users get all smug about the apt* suite of tools, but frankly they leave me underwhelmed in comparison to NetBSD.
Finally, the mailing lists are well organised with a list for each port and others for key features of the system. The subscribers are friendly, informed and rarely descend into the sad bickering that's all too frequent in the Linux world.
It wasn't so long ago that the W3C couldn't keep up with the pace of change. Netscape and Microsoft were adding elements like the dreaded <BLINK> and features like tables, while the HTML DTD's languished in draft form. Now the W3C are the ones pulling ahead, while everyone else struggles to implement the last generation of their specifications.
I'll bet you anything that OSX apps under NetBSD will be significantly buggier and worse performing than under OSX
If, and that's a big "if" at the moment, this compatability layer gets completed then expect OSX aps to run faster and as stable under NetBSD. Why? Well unlike Wine or GNUStep, NetBSD compatability layers don't emulate an environment like Win32 or OpenStep, but a Unix-like kernel. Look at the Linux or Irix compatability layers in NetBSD as an example. By enabling Linux compatability in my kernel, and installing a few application level libraries from SuSE Linux, I can run most Linux binaries on the same architecture.
So to be frank, you may still need a copy of OSX lying around from which to get those application level libraries (although GNUStep is fast approaching a state where that wont be necessary). On the performance and stability front, look to the glowing reputation of existing compatability layers in all three of the *BSD's.
Running Gnustep on NetBSD? It has most of the NEXTStep/OS X libs already ported over to Linux (And therefore easily ported to NetBSD)...
GNUStep is already in the NetBSD packages collection, in several packages split across devel and x11. Install it along with WindowMaker and you've got a convincing NeXT clone...
to use this... You will still need to buy PowerPC based computers. And who is one of the largest and most noted for selling powerPC based PCs... Apple Computer; so why not just run MacOS X?
Buying an Apple computer complete with operating system means you're unlikely to want to install NetBSD if your already happy with MacOS X. However, have you seen the cost of MacOS X "upgrades"? £100+ in the UK for what is essentially bugfixes and performance improvements in the VM system. Then NetBSD in the long term starts to look very affordable, ignoring the fact that it outperforms MacOS X on the same hardware (quite remarkable until you consider how fundamentally poor Mach is as a desktop OS kernel).
When I read the article I expected Britain to be one of the two that implemented similar legislation. I was quite surprised to find that our IT illiterate politicians missed another chance to cock things up.
Chris
Re:Replace my kernel?, but I like my kernel
on
Systrace for Mac OS X
·
· Score: 5, Informative
My only qualm is where is this kernel coming from and why is there no other way to run this then with a specially built kernel
The patch is there for you to peruse, along with the Darwin kernel source. So if your feeling a little paranoid then go for it. As to why this couldn't be a module of some sort, does the Darwin version of the BSD kernel support lkm's? And even if it does, systrace operates at a much lower level than say a device driver (which is where kernel modules really come into their own).
Various armies have messed about with amphetamine sulphate and benzedrine before - but I guess speed psychosis wouldn't do much for the number of friendly fire incidents...
No matter how dead os/2 may seem to be I bet you in 10-20 years someone somewhere will still be using it for something.
Likewise with MacOS System 6 and 7. I just acquired a dirty old Mac LC, one of the one with a crippled PMMU that wont run NetBSD or Linux. As a result of this shortcoming I was forced to try System 6 or 7 of MacOS, and in the process discovered a large community of people using a ten year "out of date" OS.
OpenBSD may have been branched from NetBSD, but there is practically no resemblance left anymore. Both, in source code and userland, there have been so many changes that the differences between Net and Open are bigger than the difference between either of them and FreeBSD.
I applaud your attempt to counter the accusation that OpenBSD is "less active" than Net, but you've got it a little wrong. The userland between the three *BSDs is very similar, and the kernels have similar subsystem layouts. Without this similarity, things like softdeps, systrace and IPv6 wouldn't have percolated so quickly into all three. Finally, note that this new OpenBSD SMP work builds on Bill Studenmunds NetBSD code.
I'll second the recommendation to use glib. It is not only a useful, portable library, but a great resource for code snippets when you don't want to force a dependency on the whole thing. In short, it's the really useful bits that a C++ programmer would expect to find in the standard C library, but without C++ obfuscation (operator overloading, generics and multiple inheritance - yuck). The only complaint I've got is that I can't find decent examples of how to create my own gobjects.
Probably not, but I'm sure the open source community can come up with their own version given a few years and a copy of the original.
Check out valgrind. It gives far more useful information than purify and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It also took far less than a few years to write.
Acorn later made the Electron, and then the Archimedies, before going bankrupt
Acorn became ARM, who put their knowledge of processors to good effect with their recent designs. They don't manufacture hardware anymore, simply license the designs to third parties. They most certainly didn't go bust, as I know people with stock they've owned since the BBC Micro days, and they still get a healthy return off of it. As far as I can recall, BBC employees got offered Acorn stock back in the eighties - part of the Thatcherite attempts to get ordinary people interested in stocks and shares?
oooh! is speilberg going to start at the series beginning with the deeply racist, pro-nazi, occupation-era 'tintin in the congo'? heh.
Tintin in the Congo wasn't the first of the series, and it was also well before Belgiums occupation in World War II. The first Tintin story was Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, which despite its crudity was a very accurate satire of the Soviet Union.
As long as they don't pick a goofy voice for snowy. His thoughts were some of the funniest parts of the book, but he wasn't goofy.
I always wondered whether Herge intended Snowy to come across as bemused or condescending when he had some of his more insightful thoughts. I agree though, he's certainly more cerebral than Scooby Doo, except when Haddocks cat wound him up.
Slashdot Mirror
Cubase SX is an amazing piece of software, extremely easy to use, and (at least on MacOSX 10.2.4) quite stable.
Hmmm ... so perhaps it's Windows and classic MacOS that cause the instability of Cubase. I've given up upgrading my copy, so it would probably cost quite a bit to get upto date (plus I'd need to shell out for a Mac capable of running MacOSX). However, my brother's still using Cubase on his G3, so I'll keep badgering him as to whether it's improved.
Chris
My personal recommendation would be the Boss BR-8 digital multitrack (http://www.musicstop.com/update/200008/product.ht m). It has eight tracks, and you can mixdown as much as you want - with no degradation of course. There are two multi effects devices built in, and a decent set of other features. It records onto Zip disks, which are more convenient than a hard disk based system IMHO.
It looks like it retails for around $600 in the States (I picked up mine for £450 in the UK). In comparison, all the computer based digital recording systems I've used are unstable, unfriendly and overpriced. Why people still buy things like Steinbergs software is beyond me, they've not produced a stable release since Pro 16 on my humble Commodore 64.
Chris
Microsoft pinched their TCP/IP stack from *BSD
Not exactly true. I can't find the link off hand, but I read an explanation of the background to this myth quite recently. If you Google around you should be able to find it.
Back when MicroSoft were keen to add TCP/IP support to Windows, they contracted another firm to to do the work. That firm took the BSD licensed stack (from 4.3BSD as I recall), and did tyhe necessary porting work. This they then delivered to MS, meeting the original deadline. Since then, NT has gained a new TCP/IP stack written from scratch by MS engineers.
As a result, the TCP/IP stack currently used in Windows owes little or nothing to the BSD implementation.
Chris
It seems that your sysadmins need to get a clue
And how do our sysadmins stop them installing a JAR file in their home directory (which is exactly what they did)?
Chris
My current employer has started switching all interface work from C and curses to Java and Swing. Most of our developers have Windows machines, and run VNC sessions on the Linux server where they do all their work. One bright spark decided to install Jedit, and his team all used it on the server ...
The result was that the main development server, a not inconsiderable machine, was brought to its knees. As a result the daft buggers have been ordered to use Nedit, unless they agree to replace Windows with Linux and run Jedit on their desktop machine.
None of them have elected to run Jedit locally, as Nedit is the dogs bollocks as a programming editor, regardless of the language.
Chris
Q: Did you hear about the CompSci student who had a penis transplant?
A: His hand rejected it.
Does anyone still actually argue that analog is superior to digital?
Yup. Ever heard digital distortion? It's downright disgusting and would only be considered useful by certain Industrial-Noise outfits. My valve bass amp (Ampeg SVT) compresses as it reaches distortion, creating a fantastic sound.
On the synth front, my Korg Mono/Poly sounds far superior to the MS2000 digital synth that sits above it. Fuller bass sounds, more cutting leads and pad sounds that exude far more character and are so fat they need compression to fit in the mix.
On the drum machine front, it's more a matter of taste, but for me a Korg KPR-77 with everything but the kick run through a Roland RE501 tape echo sounds great.
Chris
The 1.6.1 release will be out shortly, in a matter of a few weeks judging by credible reports. I would strongly suggest you go with that release for a first taste of NetBSD. The "stable" CVS branch is akin to Debian testing, and is the branch from which 1.6.1 will be cut. With the release so close it's not really worth rolling your own, although pre-compiled binaries are available on ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/.
The equivalent of Debian unstable is known as "current" in NetBSD land. It is the cutting edge CVS branch, and contains notable new features like scheduler activations (the cool threading support just merged from another branch), and major SMP changes. Given the scale of these changes, installing current is definitely not a good introduction to NetBSD. I'm running 1.6 on the machine that I'm typing this, and 1.6M (the official version of current as we speak) on another machine. The 1.6M machine has been very stable for me, but there are a few quirks with things like Mozilla.
Chris
I have to second this recommendation to try out NetBSD. I've used various Linux distros and all three of the free BSD's on a regular basis, but keep on coming back to NetBSD. It just exudes quality, and even a cretin like me can understand large chunks of the codebase.
The package system is brilliant, and has really come into its own now that broadband Internet is affordable. I can do a CVS update of my pkgsrc tree once in a while, and then just update the handfull of apps I need. In the process, any underlying libraries also get updated. Debian users get all smug about the apt* suite of tools, but frankly they leave me underwhelmed in comparison to NetBSD.
Finally, the mailing lists are well organised with a list for each port and others for key features of the system. The subscribers are friendly, informed and rarely descend into the sad bickering that's all too frequent in the Linux world.
Chris
[chris@phuq]$ tail cat.m
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
id cat = [[Cat alloc] init];
[cat setLocation:vet];
return 0;
}
[chris@phuq]$ gcc -Wall -o cat cat.m -lobjc
gcc: 44: cannot find cat
It wasn't so long ago that the W3C couldn't keep up with the pace of change. Netscape and Microsoft were adding elements like the dreaded <BLINK> and features like tables, while the HTML DTD's languished in draft form. Now the W3C are the ones pulling ahead, while everyone else struggles to implement the last generation of their specifications.
Chris
Check your dictionary, "effect" and "affect" are both transitive verbs as well as nouns.
Chris
I'll bet you anything that OSX apps under NetBSD will be significantly buggier and worse performing than under OSX
If, and that's a big "if" at the moment, this compatability layer gets completed then expect OSX aps to run faster and as stable under NetBSD. Why? Well unlike Wine or GNUStep, NetBSD compatability layers don't emulate an environment like Win32 or OpenStep, but a Unix-like kernel. Look at the Linux or Irix compatability layers in NetBSD as an example. By enabling Linux compatability in my kernel, and installing a few application level libraries from SuSE Linux, I can run most Linux binaries on the same architecture.
So to be frank, you may still need a copy of OSX lying around from which to get those application level libraries (although GNUStep is fast approaching a state where that wont be necessary). On the performance and stability front, look to the glowing reputation of existing compatability layers in all three of the *BSD's.
Chris
Running Gnustep on NetBSD? It has most of the NEXTStep/OS X libs already ported over to Linux (And therefore easily ported to NetBSD)...
GNUStep is already in the NetBSD packages collection, in several packages split across devel and x11. Install it along with WindowMaker and you've got a convincing NeXT clone ...
Chris
to use this ... You will still need to buy PowerPC based computers. And who is one of the largest and most noted for selling powerPC based PCs... Apple Computer; so why not just run MacOS X?
Buying an Apple computer complete with operating system means you're unlikely to want to install NetBSD if your already happy with MacOS X. However, have you seen the cost of MacOS X "upgrades"? £100+ in the UK for what is essentially bugfixes and performance improvements in the VM system. Then NetBSD in the long term starts to look very affordable, ignoring the fact that it outperforms MacOS X on the same hardware (quite remarkable until you consider how fundamentally poor Mach is as a desktop OS kernel).
Chris
When I read the article I expected Britain to be one of the two that implemented similar legislation. I was quite surprised to find that our IT illiterate politicians missed another chance to cock things up.
Chris
My only qualm is where is this kernel coming from and why is there no other way to run this then with a specially built kernel
The patch is there for you to peruse, along with the Darwin kernel source. So if your feeling a little paranoid then go for it. As to why this couldn't be a module of some sort, does the Darwin version of the BSD kernel support lkm's? And even if it does, systrace operates at a much lower level than say a device driver (which is where kernel modules really come into their own).
Chris
Various armies have messed about with amphetamine sulphate and benzedrine before - but I guess speed psychosis wouldn't do much for the number of friendly fire incidents ...
Chris
No matter how dead os/2 may seem to be I bet you in 10-20 years someone somewhere will still be using it for something.
Likewise with MacOS System 6 and 7. I just acquired a dirty old Mac LC, one of the one with a crippled PMMU that wont run NetBSD or Linux. As a result of this shortcoming I was forced to try System 6 or 7 of MacOS, and in the process discovered a large community of people using a ten year "out of date" OS.
Chris
OpenBSD may have been branched from NetBSD, but there is practically no resemblance left anymore. Both, in source code and userland, there have been so many changes that the differences between Net and Open are bigger than the difference between either of them and FreeBSD.
I applaud your attempt to counter the accusation that OpenBSD is "less active" than Net, but you've got it a little wrong. The userland between the three *BSDs is very similar, and the kernels have similar subsystem layouts. Without this similarity, things like softdeps, systrace and IPv6 wouldn't have percolated so quickly into all three. Finally, note that this new OpenBSD SMP work builds on Bill Studenmunds NetBSD code.
Chris
I'll second the recommendation to use glib. It is not only a useful, portable library, but a great resource for code snippets when you don't want to force a dependency on the whole thing. In short, it's the really useful bits that a C++ programmer would expect to find in the standard C library, but without C++ obfuscation (operator overloading, generics and multiple inheritance - yuck). The only complaint I've got is that I can't find decent examples of how to create my own gobjects.
Chris
Is purify available for Linux?
Probably not, but I'm sure the open source community can come up with their own version given a few years and a copy of the original.
Check out valgrind. It gives far more useful information than purify and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It also took far less than a few years to write.
Chris
Acorn later made the Electron, and then the Archimedies, before going bankrupt
Acorn became ARM, who put their knowledge of processors to good effect with their recent designs. They don't manufacture hardware anymore, simply license the designs to third parties. They most certainly didn't go bust, as I know people with stock they've owned since the BBC Micro days, and they still get a healthy return off of it. As far as I can recall, BBC employees got offered Acorn stock back in the eighties - part of the Thatcherite attempts to get ordinary people interested in stocks and shares?
Chris
oooh! is speilberg going to start at the series beginning with the deeply racist, pro-nazi, occupation-era 'tintin in the congo'? heh.
Tintin in the Congo wasn't the first of the series, and it was also well before Belgiums occupation in World War II. The first Tintin story was Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, which despite its crudity was a very accurate satire of the Soviet Union.
Chris
As long as they don't pick a goofy voice for snowy. His thoughts were some of the funniest parts of the book, but he wasn't goofy.
I always wondered whether Herge intended Snowy to come across as bemused or condescending when he had some of his more insightful thoughts. I agree though, he's certainly more cerebral than Scooby Doo, except when Haddocks cat wound him up.
Chris