I use the nVidia drivers and hope they become open source soon (so they will get less buggy) but why not include them? RedHat already has closed source software like Netscape so they aren't trying for a "pure" distro (yet).
I was Ok with setting up the nVidia drivers for my card, but I recently had a friend bring his computer to me so I could install the drivers for him. Even though they aren't perfect, it would be nice to have a way for the 'casual' linux users to play Quake 3 with ease:)
At times (like installing the new nVidia drivers) i think that the efforts to 'standardize' linux would be beneficial.
But, this is one area that linux really shines in... In windows, the DLL is guaranteed to be the same on all systems, so they all crash. Different linux distros and versions will have different binaries. A single buffer overflow exploit won't work on all of them.
I guess it's sort of like diversity in the gene pool preventing massive plagues.
(1) If they're really using X, all the decrypted video must go through the X server (or some shared memory it has access to) to reach the screen (2) This content could be captured with a hacked X server
So, if there really is to be no programmatic access to the decrypted data, the DVD must go directly to the video card, bypassing X. I'd love DVD under linux / XFree86, even if it has to be binary only. But linux is too powerful and modular to please the lawyers.
Lately I've been using MAILER-DAEMON@whatever.xxx (substituting with the domain the form originates from) It so happened that I needed to use AOL Instant Messenger. I hadn't used it in a long time, because I only know a couple people on AOL. So, when registering my new username (captburrito;-) I used MAILER-DAEMON@aol.com as the e-mail address.
Well, anyway, after I logged on using gAIM and chatted a bit, I started receiving connections from many (about 50 or so total) people. Most of them I closed, but I asked a few of them why they bothered to contact me.
Turns out, they got a mail from MAILER-DAEMON containing 'captburrito' somewhere in it. The curious ones sent me an instant message. Whatever this mail was, it got sent to many (if not all) AOL users. Could be that MAILER-DAEMON is a broadcast address on their dumb servers, or maybe the message bounced back to the program that handled the form, and something strange happened.
I wanted to see if it was repeatable, but it said the e-mail address was already taken. Anyone else experienced this??? (or got this mail?)
Sure, Quicktime is proprietary (but so is realplayer) but its not quicktime itself that gives linux people problems. I can play lots of quicktime movies (even good ones like TROOPS) at full speed using xanim. The problem comes with codecs (cough... Sorenson... cough...) that us linux developers can't even get under NDA. I suppose what's needed is an OSS codec and player that performs a bit better than current codecs, or offers better streaming features. These codec acceptance/compatibility issues for video is the same as audio. Look at the differences between windows media player, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis. WMP is all proprietary, we can't even play it in Linux. MP3 decompression is just fine in Linux, but the compression is covered by patents. Vorbis is getting there, but still doesn't offer any reason for suits to choose it over other codecs and formats.
I'm also skeptical about exactly what niche m$ is planning on filling with this console. However, I don't think that CPU power will be a problem. Take the N64 for example. It's CPU is less than 100mhz, but with its powerful (well, at the time it was first released) GPU it performs better than your average PII without a GPU.
Consoles have always relied on relatively slow CPUs and cutting-edge graphics hardware. On the NES, almost all of the graphics was performed in hardware, even to the point of the video chip fetching the graphics data directly from cartridge ROM with no chance for CPU intervention. I guess one of my favorite examples is the Game Boy. It has (almost) the same CPU as a TI graphing calculator, but while the calculator can do simple tile graphics at best, the Game Boy can handle smooth scrolling and many sprites with no CPU intervention.
This hardware-centric design has always been the difference between a console and a PC. On a console, games were written in assembler, and they always acessed registers directly. Michael Abrash is talking about programming the Xbox like a console, which should yield very fast, efficient, and nonportable games. Microsoft, on the other hand, is throwing in lots of libraries and OS layers (Directx, WinCE) in an attempt for portability. When the developers bring their games to the Xbox, they will bring the same inefficient CPU-hungry code.
Well, that's why I think consoles and PCs need to be seperate. PCs have always been nice for games, but I still think consoles are best. Now all they need is ethernet;-)
Not even that I'm afraid. Loading the software into RAM is copying and not fair use, and needs license. Or so the courts in the US want us to believe. You are right wrt the book though.
Is it fair use to load the book into your optic nerve?
I find it pretty easy to simply skip over the stories that don't interest me and click on the ones that do, but there's really a much better solution than a "this doesn't belong on slashdot" mega-thread for any story that isn't microsoft or linux related.
The slashdot crew just needs to make a few more topics (subdivide the news topic a bit, add an 'enviro' topic... heck, maybe just make all the topics hierarchial)
Then, people who only want linux/microsoft stories can use their user preferences to disable all others.
-- Sad thing is that so many people find it much easier to click 'reply' than 'user preferences' or 'page down'
though offtopic, does anyone else notice how every msft product cycle is touted as faster, yet the minimum requirements keep going up and up? shouldn't this be considered some sort of false advertising, or is there a legal loophole they are exploiting?
Nice and opaque. put it over the lights. No more blinding LEDs. Doesn't match the case color? Black spraypaint:) or get some of the colored electricians tape. Just as opaque.
And do away with das blinkenlights? That's the best part! Computers with big hard drive LEDs are OK, but network hubs and modems are the best. Especially with multiple network segments- you can see the pings routed from hub to hub to modem...
Just because the application developer knows about an internal API does not necessarily mean that they will or even can use it. In Linux, for example, anyone can find out whatever they want to know about the APIs. But because the APIs are all open, anything the app could possibly call must have sufficient enough error checking to not be dangerous. And even if a developer can use an API that might be gone in the next version, they probably won't. As another example, how many Linux developers are there that call kernel functions using inline assembly and hardcoded addresses? Developers usually want their code to work correctly whenever possible, and if things that could change are documented as such, developers probably won't use them if they hope for other people to run their app. And if it does break by the next version of the OS, it will be because of the app developer.
The operating system is only what's needed to access hardware: splitting up CPU time, allocating memory, talking to a network card, etc.
Anything else belongs in a shared library or an application. Yes, browsing the internet is a bit of functionality most people want on their computer. But does that make an internet browser any more part of the operating system than a word processor? Even functionality that many apps use, like possibly HTML rendering should be no more part of the operating system than ncurses or readline.
Microsoft's PR (it's _all_ part of the OS) not only misleads customers but leads to an OS in which you couldn't separate the libs, the kernel, and the apps with a crowbar.
It really depends on how you define "OS". IE is not part of the Kernel, but it is part of the shell. IE is an object in the same way that KDE has a browser object integrated into their shell (their file browser, for example).
I agree that IE is a part of the windoze shell, and the file browser is part of KDE. But KDE is not part of Linux. KDE is a desktop environment. Linux seperates the GUI and the Kernel so that they can work together but they are also completely modular. This is the difference. Windows merges the browser, GUI, kernel, and everything else into one monolithic lump. Users have no ability to interchange components.
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
It may not use up CPU, but it will use up memory. IE is a bit like a non-modular kernel driver, it sits around in memory (or swap?) any time the computer is running. Netscape may load a bit slower, but that's because it actually loads instead of just making itself visible.
So if there was to be a boycott of MP3, what would we use instead? (Sort of a PNG for audio - a perfectly clean patent-free algorithm and implementation)
Yes, that sounds about right. I was doing little graphics and sound programs in True BASIC in DOS at the age of 5 or so. At that age, graphics keeps a person's attention pretty well- my dad basically just handed me the manual for BASIC and I figured it out myself. I never really understood the 'essence of programming' (data structures and stuff) until 10 or so.
I only wish I didn't learn to program on DOS. Of course this transitioned into a Wintel environment:-( If I had started programming on a unix-ish environment or with a CLI instead of an IDE maybe I wouldn't have had to do so much catch-up work in the last few years. Rest assured though, now that I know the power of a good CLI I wouldn't touch Windoze or DOS for anything worth doing. Your average IDE in windows just isn't as flexible as emacs and a makefile.
I don't really mind an IDE-as-an-editor. After all, couldn't Emacs be considered an IDE? What bugs me with most commercial IDEs is that they lock you into their project definition format. How about an IDE that simply provides pretty widgets to edit Makefiles instead of making their own format?
If there was an open source IDE that worked with many different compilers and uses Makefiles, I'd use it. That's why I do the majority of my coding in Emacs.
I'm not saying the average commercial IDE is bad (they do increase productivity for some people) I just think they could be more flexible...
The DC-DC converter seems like it's the most important part of their project, but they don't give much mention to it.
I've experimented a bit with alternate power sources for PCs, and I've found the average 386 mobo with a few megs of memory and nothing else takes 1 to 2 amps at 5v! Maybe that converter's a lead-acid battery in disguise...;-)
I don't know what's so great about CD Creator. I have used a computer (not one of mine) with an HP CD-RW drive, a P200, and windoze95. The user interface is a bit odd, and it had frequent buffer underruns. However, it doesn't even let you know something's wrong until it's too late.
Then I took that same CD-RW and put it in my P75 with SuSE linux. mkisofs+cdrecord is powerful, and works on a text-only telnet connection. I've never had a buffer underrun because cdrecord lets you know the status of the fifo so you can kill other processes if the fifo starts emptying. And it has no trouble streaming data from an NFS server, through mkisofs, and into cdrecord.
I agree that the LGPL has its uses, but I wouldn't want to release all my code under it, of course! For example, in a project I am working on, the bulk of the code (> 5000 lines) is in a back-end. The application must be statically linked to a front-end library that contacts the back-end through TCP/IP. I want people to be able to write proprietary apps with it if they really must, but I don't want my back-end code incorporated into a proprietary project. So, I made the (< 500 lines) client library LGPL.
Ever heard of Napster? It is a tool that allows pirated MP3s to spread across the internet like wildfire. If there were some way of putting an mp3 header on a.tar.gz file that would be a great way of distributing it. Napster is basically a database of personal anonymous ftp servers.
I dont think that I have ever even looked at an ad in a search engine, or any other general-audience web site. However, web sites that target their ad banners to their specific audience will have much more effective banners.
I think a good example of this is slashdot. All the banners I have seen on slashdot have been geek or linux oriented. Some companies, like ThinkGeek, I clicked on because their banners looked neat (and who doesn't want a 'grepmaster' mug?) and I'll probably buy something from them. Other banners, like the one for AIBO, put the product name in my head, but I would never actually buy one. Then there are banners for stuff that you would buy, but you already have one, like computers from Penguin Computing. It would be much more effective if they could sell in computer stores alongside the windoze PCs, but that is a very exclusive market.
I had been running Seti@home on my 366/celery linux box for quite a while. However, with 64MB of ram, running seti, netscape, staroffice, xmms, emacs, gcc, gnome, or whatever else I happen to be running I end up having to swap a whole lot. I don't know how seti@home's algorithm works, but I would still be running it now if it wasn't such a memory hog. Anybody know of worthwhile distributed computing projects that use less memory?
Slashdot Mirror
I was Ok with setting up the nVidia drivers for my card, but I recently had a friend bring his computer to me so I could install the drivers for him. Even though they aren't perfect, it would be nice to have a way for the 'casual' linux users to play Quake 3 with ease :)
Downloading the ISO images as I type...
But, this is one area that linux really shines in... In windows, the DLL is guaranteed to be the same on all systems, so they all crash. Different linux distros and versions will have different binaries. A single buffer overflow exploit won't work on all of them.
I guess it's sort of like diversity in the gene pool preventing massive plagues.
(1) If they're really using X, all the decrypted video must go through the X server (or some shared memory it has access to) to reach the screen
(2) This content could be captured with a hacked X server
So, if there really is to be no programmatic access to the decrypted data, the DVD must go directly to the video card, bypassing X.
I'd love DVD under linux / XFree86, even if it has to be binary only. But linux is too powerful and modular to please the lawyers.
What about
dark-side-of-the.moon
Well, anyway, after I logged on using gAIM and chatted a bit, I started receiving connections from many (about 50 or so total) people. Most of them I closed, but I asked a few of them why they bothered to contact me.
Turns out, they got a mail from MAILER-DAEMON containing 'captburrito' somewhere in it. The curious ones sent me an instant message. Whatever this mail was, it got sent to many (if not all) AOL users. Could be that MAILER-DAEMON is a broadcast address on their dumb servers, or maybe the message bounced back to the program that handled the form, and something strange happened.
I wanted to see if it was repeatable, but it said the e-mail address was already taken.
Anyone else experienced this??? (or got this mail?)
Name: Bill Gates
Email: MAILER-DAEMON@real.com
Country: Switzerland
Sure, Quicktime is proprietary (but so is realplayer) but its not quicktime itself that gives linux people problems. I can play lots of quicktime movies (even good ones like TROOPS) at full speed using xanim. The problem comes with codecs (cough... Sorenson... cough...) that us linux developers can't even get under NDA. I suppose what's needed is an OSS codec and player that performs a bit better than current codecs, or offers better streaming features.
These codec acceptance/compatibility issues for video is the same as audio. Look at the differences between windows media player, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis. WMP is all proprietary, we can't even play it in Linux. MP3 decompression is just fine in Linux, but the compression is covered by patents. Vorbis is getting there, but still doesn't offer any reason for suits to choose it over other codecs and formats.
Consoles have always relied on relatively slow CPUs and cutting-edge graphics hardware. On the NES, almost all of the graphics was performed in hardware, even to the point of the video chip fetching the graphics data directly from cartridge ROM with no chance for CPU intervention.
I guess one of my favorite examples is the Game Boy. It has (almost) the same CPU as a TI graphing calculator, but while the calculator can do simple tile graphics at best, the Game Boy can handle smooth scrolling and many sprites with no CPU intervention.
This hardware-centric design has always been the difference between a console and a PC. On a console, games were written in assembler, and they always acessed registers directly. Michael Abrash is talking about programming the Xbox like a console, which should yield very fast, efficient, and nonportable games. Microsoft, on the other hand, is throwing in lots of libraries and OS layers (Directx, WinCE) in an attempt for portability. When the developers bring their games to the Xbox, they will bring the same inefficient CPU-hungry code.
Well, that's why I think consoles and PCs need to be seperate. PCs have always been nice for games, but I still think consoles are best. Now all they need is ethernet ;-)
Is it fair use to load the book into your optic nerve?
The slashdot crew just needs to make a few more topics (subdivide the news topic a bit, add an 'enviro' topic... heck, maybe just make all the topics hierarchial)
Then, people who only want linux/microsoft stories can use their user preferences to disable all others.
-- Sad thing is that so many people find it much easier to click 'reply' than 'user preferences' or 'page down'
Isn't that Gates' Law?
And do away with das blinkenlights?
That's the best part! Computers with big hard drive LEDs are OK, but network hubs and modems are the best. Especially with multiple network segments- you can see the pings routed from hub to hub to modem...
Just because the application developer knows about an internal API does not necessarily mean that they will or even can use it. In Linux, for example, anyone can find out whatever they want to know about the APIs. But because the APIs are all open, anything the app could possibly call must have sufficient enough error checking to not be dangerous. And even if a developer can use an API that might be gone in the next version, they probably won't. As another example, how many Linux developers are there that call kernel functions using inline assembly and hardcoded addresses? Developers usually want their code to work correctly whenever possible, and if things that could change are documented as such, developers probably won't use them if they hope for other people to run their app. And if it does break by the next version of the OS, it will be because of the app developer.
I wonder if they're looking for a small GUI for these handhelds?
The operating system is only what's needed to access hardware: splitting up CPU time, allocating memory, talking to a network card, etc.
Anything else belongs in a shared library or an application. Yes, browsing the internet is a bit of functionality most people want on their computer. But does that make an internet browser any more part of the operating system than a word processor? Even functionality that many apps use, like possibly HTML rendering should be no more part of the operating system than ncurses or readline.
Microsoft's PR (it's _all_ part of the OS) not only misleads customers but leads to an OS in which you couldn't separate the libs, the kernel, and the apps with a crowbar.
-- #include <.sig>
I agree that IE is a part of the windoze shell, and the file browser is part of KDE. But KDE is not part of Linux. KDE is a desktop environment. Linux seperates the GUI and the Kernel so that they can work together but they are also completely modular. This is the difference. Windows merges the browser, GUI, kernel, and everything else into one monolithic lump. Users have no ability to interchange components.
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
It may not use up CPU, but it will use up memory. IE is a bit like a non-modular kernel driver, it sits around in memory (or swap?) any time the computer is running. Netscape may load a bit slower, but that's because it actually loads instead of just making itself visible.
So if there was to be a boycott of MP3, what would we use instead? (Sort of a PNG for audio - a perfectly clean patent-free algorithm and implementation)
Yes, that sounds about right.
:-(
I was doing little graphics and sound programs in True BASIC in DOS at the age of 5 or so.
At that age, graphics keeps a person's attention pretty well- my dad basically just handed me the manual for BASIC and I figured it out myself.
I never really understood the 'essence of programming' (data structures and stuff) until 10 or so.
I only wish I didn't learn to program on DOS. Of course this transitioned into a Wintel environment
If I had started programming on a unix-ish environment or with a CLI instead of an IDE maybe I wouldn't have had to do so much catch-up work in the last few years.
Rest assured though, now that I know the power of a good CLI I wouldn't touch Windoze or DOS for anything worth doing. Your average IDE in windows just isn't as flexible as emacs and a makefile.
I don't really mind an IDE-as-an-editor. After all, couldn't Emacs be considered an IDE? What bugs me with most commercial IDEs is that they lock you into their project definition format. How about an IDE that simply provides pretty widgets to edit Makefiles instead of making their own format?
If there was an open source IDE that worked with many different compilers and uses Makefiles, I'd use it. That's why I do the majority of my coding in Emacs.
I'm not saying the average commercial IDE is bad (they do increase productivity for some people) I just think they could be more flexible...
The DC-DC converter seems like it's the most important part of their project, but they don't give much mention to it.
;-)
I've experimented a bit with alternate power sources for PCs, and I've found the average 386 mobo with a few megs of memory and nothing else takes 1 to 2 amps at 5v!
Maybe that converter's a lead-acid battery in disguise...
I don't know what's so great about CD Creator. I have used a computer (not one of mine) with an HP CD-RW drive, a P200, and windoze95. The user interface is a bit odd, and it had frequent buffer underruns. However, it doesn't even let you know something's wrong until it's too late.
;-)
Then I took that same CD-RW and put it in my P75 with SuSE linux. mkisofs+cdrecord is powerful, and works on a text-only telnet connection. I've never had a buffer underrun because cdrecord lets you know the status of the fifo so you can kill other processes if the fifo starts emptying. And it has no trouble streaming data from an NFS server, through mkisofs, and into cdrecord.
Games? Quake 2 works great in linux!
Just my $0.02 US.
I agree that the LGPL has its uses, but I wouldn't
want to release all my code under it, of course!
For example, in a project I am working on, the
bulk of the code (> 5000 lines) is in a back-end.
The application must be statically linked to a
front-end library that contacts the back-end
through TCP/IP. I want people to be able to write
proprietary apps with it if they really must, but
I don't want my back-end code incorporated into
a proprietary project. So, I made the (< 500 lines) client library LGPL.
Ever heard of Napster? It is a tool that allows pirated MP3s to spread across the internet like wildfire. If there were some way of putting an mp3 header on a .tar.gz file that would be a great way of distributing it.
Napster is basically a database of personal anonymous ftp servers.
I dont think that I have ever even looked at an ad in a search engine, or any other general-audience web site. However, web sites that target their ad banners to their specific audience will have much more effective banners.
I think a good example of this is slashdot. All the banners I have seen on slashdot have been geek or linux oriented.
Some companies, like ThinkGeek, I clicked on because their banners looked neat (and who doesn't want a 'grepmaster' mug?) and I'll probably buy something from them.
Other banners, like the one for AIBO, put the product name in my head, but I would never actually buy one.
Then there are banners for stuff that you would buy, but you already have one, like computers from Penguin Computing. It would be much more effective if they could sell in computer stores alongside the windoze PCs, but that is a very exclusive market.
I had been running Seti@home on my 366/celery linux box for quite a while. However, with 64MB of ram, running seti, netscape, staroffice, xmms, emacs, gcc, gnome, or whatever else I happen to be running I end up having to swap a whole lot.
I don't know how seti@home's algorithm works, but I would still be running it now if it wasn't such a memory hog.
Anybody know of worthwhile distributed computing projects that use less memory?