I think we have already seen the killer app, Napster and its sucessor Gnutella have provided broadband users the ability to really use their bandwidth. The majority of the content being provided on these kinds of services are from Cable and DSL subscribers, who are capable of uploading to multiple broadband and 56k subscribers at reasonable speeds. When it comes to browsing the web and checking your email, a 56k will do fine. But when you want to download full movies, albums or software from Gnutella, only broadband will do.
Kudos to OSnews.com for promoting FreeBSD as a serious alternative to Linux for users looking for an alternative OS. FreeBSD is fast, stable and has a great many experienced users willing to help out newbies. Sysinstall is easy to get going (just 2 floppies), supports FTP downloads of software packages, and resolves dependency issues quickly. However it is still no where near as easy as the GUI installer for current releases of Mandrake and Redhat. FreeBSD can run practically anything written for Linux after installing the Linux Binary Compatibility Pack.
With the licensing that TIVO is going to ram down every PVR makers throat, it is going to keep the prices of PVRs inflated for may years to come. The hardware and software (Linux) these machines hardly accounts for their current cost. Once I see a PVR cost a reasonable ammount for the hardware I am buying I might buy one. I will be cold and dead before I spend $400 for a 60gb hard drive, a RISC processor and a MPEG2 decoder.
With 269$ you can take that k6-II that everyone has just lying around, drop in a soundblaster live with SPIDF out, a 20$ Trident card with video out, and a wireless keyboard and have yourself a mp3 box. You can still run ethernet to a hub and listen to MP3s stored on other machines around the house. Plus, you can surf the web and watch DVDs on your TV if you like.
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I think we have already seen the killer app, Napster and its sucessor Gnutella have provided broadband users the ability to really use their bandwidth. The majority of the content being provided on these kinds of services are from Cable and DSL subscribers, who are capable of uploading to multiple broadband and 56k subscribers at reasonable speeds. When it comes to browsing the web and checking your email, a 56k will do fine. But when you want to download full movies, albums or software from Gnutella, only broadband will do.
Kudos to OSnews.com for promoting FreeBSD as a serious alternative to Linux for users looking for an alternative OS. FreeBSD is fast, stable and has a great many experienced users willing to help out newbies. Sysinstall is easy to get going (just 2 floppies), supports FTP downloads of software packages, and resolves dependency issues quickly. However it is still no where near as easy as the GUI installer for current releases of Mandrake and Redhat. FreeBSD can run practically anything written for Linux after installing the Linux Binary Compatibility Pack.
And I will be cold and dead before I pay $400 for a 60gb hd, a RISC processor, and MPEG2 decoder, and a copy of Linux.
With the licensing that TIVO is going to ram down every PVR makers throat, it is going to keep the prices of PVRs inflated for may years to come. The hardware and software (Linux) these machines hardly accounts for their current cost. Once I see a PVR cost a reasonable ammount for the hardware I am buying I might buy one. I will be cold and dead before I spend $400 for a 60gb hard drive, a RISC processor and a MPEG2 decoder.
With 269$ you can take that k6-II that everyone has just lying around, drop in a soundblaster live with SPIDF out, a 20$ Trident card with video out, and a wireless keyboard and have yourself a mp3 box. You can still run ethernet to a hub and listen to MP3s stored on other machines around the house. Plus, you can surf the web and watch DVDs on your TV if you like.