I've just had a chance to look through the RHAS paper on OTN (Oracle
Technology Network, http://otn.oracle.com)
The main three features of RHAS2.1 as far as Oracle are concerned are;
The I/O Subsystem has been improved, to include asynchronous I/O,
elimination of multiple copies to memory buffers while writing
to disk, reducing contention for kernel locks, and numerous IO driver
enhancements. This is for both ext2 and raw partitions.
Larger SGA for systems with up to 4GB of RAM. RHAS 2.1 comes
with two kernels; the default SMP kernel which supports up to 4GB RAM and uses
two-level page tables; and the enterprise kernel which supports up to 64GB
RAM and requires three-level page tables. This means you can increase the
database buffer cache up to a theoretical 62Gb.
Improvements to the process scheduler which eliminates some
locking problems.
As far as I remember, what was different about RHAS compared to normal Redhat is that the AS version supports Asynchronous I/O, which standard versions of Linux don't have.
Asynchronous I/O allows the Oracle server to hand off disk writes to the OS, without having to hang around to find out whether it wrote ok. If your OS doesn't support asynchronous I/O, you have to simulate it with I/O Slaves, which is much slower.
Re:What's in store for a moderm C64?
on
Tulip to Relaunch C64
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Back in the early 80's, when the BBC Micro used to be around, the BBC used to transmit a programme called "The Chip Shop" on Radio 4 which featured software for the Beeb that you could tape off the air and then load into the computer.
They also used to broadcast BBC Micro software using Ceefax, which you could download onto the machine using a teletext adapter.
Re:Linux won't take off whilst Windows is free.
on
SuSE 8.2 Announced
·
· Score: 1
There are variations on the practice of 'acceptable levels of piracy as well'
Sony with the PS2 (and even MS with the XBOX) by using normal CD-ROMs for media, but with the console being chippable, make it possible for technically-savvy users to pirate games whilst the majority of users go out and buy the software. These technically-savvy people are often the 'opinion-formers', are more into games, and therefore become advocates of a console where co-incidentally the games are free for them.
Sega got it wrong by making it too easy to pirate games for the Dreamcast (not needing a mod-chip) and consequently every joe in the street could get hold of and run pirated games. Therefore the Dreamcast quickly died as a going financial concern as the paid-for software market just collapsed.
Arguably, Nintendo have gone too far the other way, with both the N64 and the Gamecube, with non-standard media (cartridges and mini-cds) which killed the pirate market but meant that no opinion-formers/tech-savvy/pirates bothered buying the system.
The trick seems to be - allow people like us to get hold of the software for free, as if the technology is good and the software costs nothing we'll go for it, regardless of the open-source/proprietary arguments, but make it sufficiently difficult for the average person to pirate it as they'll buy it anyway, and will do so given the enthusiastic userbase of tech-savvy hardcore games who run it for free.
If Microsoft *really* want to cut out pirate copies, they can do - witness the activation procedures with MS Plus Digital Media Edition; there's plenty of warez copies floating around Kazaa, Edonkey/Overnet and so on, but they won't install without product activation. No exceptions, therefore no working pirated copies on the net.
Linux won't take off whilst Windows is free.
on
SuSE 8.2 Announced
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The best thing that could happen for all Linux distributions is for Microsoft to finally crack the activation process, so that you have no way of installing Windows without a license and a properly activated copy
The thing is, anyone with any technical skills and access to the internet can get hold of a copy of Windows XP and install it for nothing. Same goes for office. Witness the activation cracks, Devils-Own releases, and so on. Bottom line, Windows XP/Office XP is effectively free, and it's a better desktop/gaming/multimedia experience than any Linux distro. The day that you can no longer install Windows for free is the day the average slashdot person finally puts all of his/her effort into Linux.
Microsoft know this, and that's why they still make it possible for the average techy to install and run Windows XP/Office XP at no cost, therefore negating the major benefit of Linux. They prefer people to pirate Windows and Office because it stops them making an effort with Linux.
I would have thought that the real benefit for Nokia of this exercise was that it would build up a huge library of arcade-quality games, which it can then embed in future 'normal' colour-screen mobile phones.
A bit like with the 7650, where the phone is almost built around the camera, but in later models (the 6100?) the camera is just a small discrete part of the phone. No-one will actually buy the N-Gage, but the games that are developed for it (which will presumably be the subject of hype and marketing activity) will be built into all new Nokia phones, making Nokia the phone manufacturer for gamers.
Providing software as RPMs or.deb's is only half the issue. Installing a program on Linux should also put an entry in your 'start' menu, if you're using KDE or GNOME, so that you can also find the program after you've installed it.
This is such an obvious requirement for most normal users, who expect to find a new entry in their 'start' menu or at least a shortcut on the desktop. It should be possible for an installer to detect what distro you are using, and place entries in the relevant KDE or GNOME directories as a matter of course. The default behavour of installers now is to make you hunt around in/usr/bin or wherever and find the exact executable that's required to run the program.
For most people, this is confusing and makes installing new software a pain.
This is a technology that allows you to set up several commodity intel boxes
(or solaris, or whatever) as a cluster, with a shared storage device to hold the
data files. The clever bit is that it appears to all intents and purposes to be
a single instance of the database, meaning apps don't have to be rewritten to
take advantage of clustering.
The kicker though is trying to source a shared storage unit for less than
£50k. All quotes from Dell (our supplier) are for fibre-channel devices that
cost a fortune, but I know deep down that we can accomplish this with a SCSI
unit with simultanious connections to each server. The Oracle RAC software takes
care of the synchronisation between writes to the disks, so things shouldn't get
out of sync.
I'd be interested to hear if anybody has been able to source a shared storage
SCSI unit, and in particular which brand etc. I'm trying to set up a low cost
RAC cluster using Dell PCs, SuSE SLES-7 and the Oracle software, and I need the
storage solution to be cheap as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I've just had a chance to look through the RHAS paper on OTN (Oracle Technology Network, http://otn.oracle.com)
The main three features of RHAS2.1 as far as Oracle are concerned are;
Larger SGA for systems with up to 4GB of RAM. RHAS 2.1 comes with two kernels; the default SMP kernel which supports up to 4GB RAM and uses two-level page tables; and the enterprise kernel which supports up to 64GB RAM and requires three-level page tables. This means you can increase the database buffer cache up to a theoretical 62Gb.
Improvements to the process scheduler which eliminates some locking problems.
You can download the full document about RHAS and Oracle from OTN at http://otn.oracle.com/tech/linux/pdf/9iR2-on-Linux -Tech-WP-Final.PDF
As far as I remember, what was different about RHAS compared to normal Redhat is that the AS version supports Asynchronous I/O, which standard versions of Linux don't have.
Asynchronous I/O allows the Oracle server to hand off disk writes to the OS, without having to hang around to find out whether it wrote ok. If your OS doesn't support asynchronous I/O, you have to simulate it with I/O Slaves, which is much slower.Back in the early 80's, when the BBC Micro used to be around, the BBC used to transmit a programme called "The Chip Shop" on Radio 4 which featured software for the Beeb that you could tape off the air and then load into the computer.
They also used to broadcast BBC Micro software using Ceefax, which you could download onto the machine using a teletext adapter.There are variations on the practice of 'acceptable levels of piracy as well'
Sony with the PS2 (and even MS with the XBOX) by using normal CD-ROMs for media, but with the console being chippable, make it possible for technically-savvy users to pirate games whilst the majority of users go out and buy the software. These technically-savvy people are often the 'opinion-formers', are more into games, and therefore become advocates of a console where co-incidentally the games are free for them.
Sega got it wrong by making it too easy to pirate games for the Dreamcast (not needing a mod-chip) and consequently every joe in the street could get hold of and run pirated games. Therefore the Dreamcast quickly died as a going financial concern as the paid-for software market just collapsed.
Arguably, Nintendo have gone too far the other way, with both the N64 and the Gamecube, with non-standard media (cartridges and mini-cds) which killed the pirate market but meant that no opinion-formers/tech-savvy/pirates bothered buying the system.
The trick seems to be - allow people like us to get hold of the software for free, as if the technology is good and the software costs nothing we'll go for it, regardless of the open-source/proprietary arguments, but make it sufficiently difficult for the average person to pirate it as they'll buy it anyway, and will do so given the enthusiastic userbase of tech-savvy hardcore games who run it for free.
If Microsoft *really* want to cut out pirate copies, they can do - witness the activation procedures with MS Plus Digital Media Edition; there's plenty of warez copies floating around Kazaa, Edonkey/Overnet and so on, but they won't install without product activation. No exceptions, therefore no working pirated copies on the net.
The best thing that could happen for all Linux distributions is for Microsoft to finally crack the activation process, so that you have no way of installing Windows without a license and a properly activated copy
The thing is, anyone with any technical skills and access to the internet can get hold of a copy of Windows XP and install it for nothing. Same goes for office. Witness the activation cracks, Devils-Own releases, and so on. Bottom line, Windows XP/Office XP is effectively free, and it's a better desktop/gaming/multimedia experience than any Linux distro. The day that you can no longer install Windows for free is the day the average slashdot person finally puts all of his/her effort into Linux.
Microsoft know this, and that's why they still make it possible for the average techy to install and run Windows XP/Office XP at no cost, therefore negating the major benefit of Linux. They prefer people to pirate Windows and Office because it stops them making an effort with Linux.
I would have thought that the real benefit for Nokia of this exercise was that it would build up a huge library of arcade-quality games, which it can then embed in future 'normal' colour-screen mobile phones.
A bit like with the 7650, where the phone is almost built around the camera, but in later models (the 6100?) the camera is just a small discrete part of the phone. No-one will actually buy the N-Gage, but the games that are developed for it (which will presumably be the subject of hype and marketing activity) will be built into all new Nokia phones, making Nokia the phone manufacturer for gamers.
Providing software as RPMs or .deb's is only half the issue. Installing a program on Linux should also put an entry in your 'start' menu, if you're using KDE or GNOME, so that you can also find the program after you've installed it.
This is such an obvious requirement for most normal users, who expect to find a new entry in their 'start' menu or at least a shortcut on the desktop. It should be possible for an installer to detect what distro you are using, and place entries in the relevant KDE or GNOME directories as a matter of course. The default behavour of installers now is to make you hunt around in /usr/bin or wherever and find the exact executable that's required to run the program.
For most people, this is confusing and makes installing new software a pain.
This is a technology that allows you to set up several commodity intel boxes (or solaris, or whatever) as a cluster, with a shared storage device to hold the data files. The clever bit is that it appears to all intents and purposes to be a single instance of the database, meaning apps don't have to be rewritten to take advantage of clustering.
The kicker though is trying to source a shared storage unit for less than £50k. All quotes from Dell (our supplier) are for fibre-channel devices that cost a fortune, but I know deep down that we can accomplish this with a SCSI unit with simultanious connections to each server. The Oracle RAC software takes care of the synchronisation between writes to the disks, so things shouldn't get out of sync.
I'd be interested to hear if anybody has been able to source a shared storage SCSI unit, and in particular which brand etc. I'm trying to set up a low cost RAC cluster using Dell PCs, SuSE SLES-7 and the Oracle software, and I need the storage solution to be cheap as well.