I know that the way X handles messages and the way Win32 handles messages are completely different, but there could be similar problems with X too.
Currently the X server almost always runs as root because it needs direct hardware access for accelerated video. If there were a buffer overflow bug or something similar in XFree86, a malicious X client could run code as root. This needn't even be in XFree86, it could be in an extension that isn't tested as well. For all we know, the binary NVidia drivers may be exploitable.
This IMHO is a great argument to stop running X as root and just implement acceleration in the kernel framebuffer driver when necessary.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's interesting how people clamor for a new GUI "because X sucks" and try to get away from client/server and toward using the framebuffer directly... but then you end up like something like GTK/framebuffer or DirectFB that, while nifty, aren't usable as a real windowing system because they have no way to arbitrate between multiple applications.
If you look at some of the real next generation GUI projects out there like Fresco or PicoGUI client-server architecture is still important in the design, but other changes are happening: the applications communicate with the server at a higher level, the server handles rendering in more modern ways, etc.
But client/server is definitely a good thing, and itn't just for running remote apps.
IMHO it makes the most sense in situations like this to use a client/server GUI protocol. X would work, but it still requires the client to do a good bit of the work.
I've been working on an alternative GUI that might be better for cases like this, since the widget toolkit is implemented server-side, and client applications require hardly any memory.
Of course, what the Wine project proves is that there's enough unpublished or incorrect information that 100% compatibility is much more difficult than it seems.
I think I've gone through a milder version of what you described with my iBook. I got my iBook about a year ago, and I loved OS X. iTunes was nifty, it would run some games, it had a real OS underneath.
But then recently I realized...
OS X is terribly slow
Nobody at Apple gives a damn about the UNIX tools
Sure if you have a big spiffy G4 machine OS X seems fast enough. They have the developer GUI.. but all the command line development tools are substandard: the automake and libtool are broken, the gcc is slow and buggy, Apple hasn't wasted any time breaking UNIX conventions (like the universality of/dev) in order to quickly shove Mac OS on top of it. Apple touts its new OS as "UNIX Based", but that's all it is. It's not meant to be a real UNIX, since Apple can't understand why anyone would want to look past their candy coated iGUI.
So, now I run Linux. All the hardware is supported just fine with a recent kernel, and I can take advantage of Apple's nifty hardware without having to sell my soul into their vision of what my computing experience is supposed to be. I can choose what software I want to run. Sure, it doesn't run any commercial games, but most of the games I play (Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, WCIII) are way too slow on the iBook anyway.
Lately I've been running streamripper on Digitally Imported, then sorting the resulting MP3s by artist and listening randomly. When I find something I like, it's easy to find more of it, either on di.fm, or on CD.
There are several different ways to categorize electronic music. Everything2 has some interesting views on it. Some of my favorites:
Well, if you buy an Apple laptop you don't pay for a windows license:)
I've had the 500mHz iBook2 for over a year now, and it's been a great machine. OS X isn't quite my cup o' tea (too slow) and I don't find OS 9 useful for anything, but it runs Linux great. Not as much expansion as most laptops due to the lack of PCMCIA, but the hardware is built solid and IMHO the great battery life makes up for lack of expansion.
I was expecting to see something about IEEE1394/Firewire right away in the comments, but I haven't seen much yet...
Serial ATA always struck me as redundant, since we already have IEEE1394. Most 1394 cards already have an internal connector, and it couldn't be that hard to manufacture internal 1394 drives.
So what's the reason to use serial ATA instead of IEEE1394? Cost? Is it easier to implement in the drives?
Well, the annoying thing about PalmOS is that from the app's perspective the screen is always 160x160. To support other resolutions, it just scales the app's "pixels" to the device pixels.
As if switching the layout API would not cause infinitely more backwards incompatability...
If they provided two APIs, the 160x160 pixel-based API and a layout-based API, they would have as much backward compatibility as possible with old apps, and new apps could take advantage of the layout engine.
This is the critical limitation of PalmOS- no matter how much the OS is improved, if they want backward compatibility they have to deal with applications that assume the display is 160x160 pixels.
Other GUIs like GTK and PicoGUI solve this problem by specifying the relative layout of widgets instead of their position. If Palm really wants scalability, they need to switch to a layout-based system.
Part of the problem is that MIDI music generally sucks for gaming. Not everyone has a kick-ass wavetable synthesizer on their card, or a driver with software wavetable turned on.
Sure MP3/Ogg music is too big or too hard to produce.. but whatever happened to using good ol' Amiga-style MOD music in games? MODs are similar in theory to MIDIs, except that they contain wavetable information in the file, so they always sound about the same on any system. They've been popular in the demoscene for quite a while, and even games like Unreal Tournament use MODs for their soundtrack.
I'm a big fan of Blizzard games, so I've been keeping an eye on the Freecraft project for a while. However, while many people have already noted that the graphics need work, IMHO bad quality sound and music are an even bigger problem.
The first thing most players will notice upon starting the game is the IMHO pretty cheesy MIDI music in the background. If there's no good music, leave the background music out completely, or give the user an option to point the game at some MP3s..
That said, are there any musicians willing to help the open source cause? Musicians are far less common than good Gimp artists.
Its a pain for do-it-yourselfers that the new trend is to tiny devices...they're way harder to solder at home.
It's true that the new batch of small packages in use nowadays is harder to solder than DIPs, but with a steady hand and even an inexpensive temperature-regulated soldering iron, it's not hard to do SOIC or even TQFP/PQFP packages. The real killer is BGA packages, as I don't know of any way to solder them without expensive equipment.
Re:Slashdotted already?
on
Extreme Cooling
·
· Score: 3, Funny
It's probably an advertisement... In a few hours they'll come back online, and print something along the lines of "we wouldn't have gotten slashdotted if we were overclocking our Pentium 75 to 8gHz using this new cooler!"
Slashdot Mirror
Currently the X server almost always runs as root because it needs direct hardware access for accelerated video. If there were a buffer overflow bug or something similar in XFree86, a malicious X client could run code as root. This needn't even be in XFree86, it could be in an extension that isn't tested as well. For all we know, the binary NVidia drivers may be exploitable.
This IMHO is a great argument to stop running X as root and just implement acceleration in the kernel framebuffer driver when necessary.
If you look at some of the real next generation GUI projects out there like Fresco or PicoGUI client-server architecture is still important in the design, but other changes are happening: the applications communicate with the server at a higher level, the server handles rendering in more modern ways, etc.
But client/server is definitely a good thing, and itn't just for running remote apps.
I've been working on an alternative GUI that might be better for cases like this, since the widget toolkit is implemented server-side, and client applications require hardly any memory.
But then recently I realized...
OS X is terribly slow
Nobody at Apple gives a damn about the UNIX tools
Sure if you have a big spiffy G4 machine OS X seems fast enough. They have the developer GUI.. but all the command line development tools are substandard: the automake and libtool are broken, the gcc is slow and buggy, Apple hasn't wasted any time breaking UNIX conventions (like the universality of /dev) in order to quickly shove Mac OS on top of it. Apple touts its new OS as "UNIX Based", but that's all it is. It's not meant to be a real UNIX, since Apple can't understand why anyone would want to look past their candy coated iGUI.
So, now I run Linux. All the hardware is supported just fine with a recent kernel, and I can take advantage of Apple's nifty hardware without having to sell my soul into their vision of what my computing experience is supposed to be. I can choose what software I want to run. Sure, it doesn't run any commercial games, but most of the games I play (Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, WCIII) are way too slow on the iBook anyway.
Seriously though, how fast could this be? I know that there are some ARM processors with built in 3D acceleration.. maybe that's what it's targeting?
There are several different ways to categorize electronic music. Everything2 has some interesting views on it. Some of my favorites:
I've had the 500mHz iBook2 for over a year now, and it's been a great machine. OS X isn't quite my cup o' tea (too slow) and I don't find OS 9 useful for anything, but it runs Linux great. Not as much expansion as most laptops due to the lack of PCMCIA, but the hardware is built solid and IMHO the great battery life makes up for lack of expansion.
If you can hear your Model M, it just means your CPU fan isn't loud enough!
Serial ATA always struck me as redundant, since we already have IEEE1394. Most 1394 cards already have an internal connector, and it couldn't be that hard to manufacture internal 1394 drives.
So what's the reason to use serial ATA instead of IEEE1394? Cost? Is it easier to implement in the drives?
If they provided two APIs, the 160x160 pixel-based API and a layout-based API, they would have as much backward compatibility as possible with old apps, and new apps could take advantage of the layout engine.
Other GUIs like GTK and PicoGUI solve this problem by specifying the relative layout of widgets instead of their position. If Palm really wants scalability, they need to switch to a layout-based system.
Sure MP3/Ogg music is too big or too hard to produce.. but whatever happened to using good ol' Amiga-style MOD music in games? MODs are similar in theory to MIDIs, except that they contain wavetable information in the file, so they always sound about the same on any system. They've been popular in the demoscene for quite a while, and even games like Unreal Tournament use MODs for their soundtrack.
The first thing most players will notice upon starting the game is the IMHO pretty cheesy MIDI music in the background. If there's no good music, leave the background music out completely, or give the user an option to point the game at some MP3s..
That said, are there any musicians willing to help the open source cause? Musicians are far less common than good Gimp artists.
It's true that the new batch of small packages in use nowadays is harder to solder than DIPs, but with a steady hand and even an inexpensive temperature-regulated soldering iron, it's not hard to do SOIC or even TQFP/PQFP packages. The real killer is BGA packages, as I don't know of any way to solder them without expensive equipment.