If Microsoft wants to demonstrate how fast managed code is, then why dont they write their drivers and their lower level os in managed code? But, as you'll notice, they don't. There are reasons for that - its just not fast enough, and garbage collection has too many problems (wasted memory, pauses, etc)
Note: I do have a dog in this fight.
One thing that isn't mentioned in the article is the amount of CPU power required to send out ethernet packets. The typical rule is 1 GHz of processing power is required to send 1 Gb of data on the wire. So, if you want to send 10 Gbs of data, you'd need 10 GHz of processor - pretty steep price. Some companies have managed to get this down to 1 GHz/3 Gbs of processing, and one startup(NetEffect) is now claiming roughly ~0.1 Ghz for ~8 Gbs on the wire, using iWarp. With this, your system can be processing information rather than creating packets.
The problem with Infiniband, Myranet, etc is that they require another card in your system (and associated heat problems, size issues, etc), special switches and equipment, and new training for your staff on how to get it up and going. However, IWarp, which is based on TCP/IP can use your standard DHCP, ping, tracert, ipconfig, etc and can allow a single card to be used for networking to the outside world (TCP/IP), clustering in the datacenter(IWarp), and storage (IScsi). 1 card, no special new software widgets, 10 Gb speeds.
However, you cant go and buy a iWarp card from Fry's today. Although, you cant buy an infiniband or myranet card there either
You forgot a few minor things:
strengths:
Freedom... enough said? Capitalism is freedom to do what you want, how you want and suffer or enjoy the consequences thereof. Anything short of this requires force and/or violence and ultimately leads to corruption of those who's responsibility it is to use that force.
Resource Allocation- Those who make wise decisions with their resources will make a profit and continue to purchase more resources. Those who make stupid decisions loose their money and cannot continue to waste resources.
Successful Track Record - Capitalism in practice has lend to nations having greater longetivity, better quality healthcare, lower instances of starvation, much better human rights, and a much better overall standard of living
As for the weaknesses that you listed,
"no guarentee of minimum level of success" - yup. If you sit on your butt and demand to be taken care of as though your some queen, you deserve to starve until you get up off your butt and work! As for people who are unable to take care of themselves, charities do a wonderful job of taking care of these people. And who gives the most money to these people? People in captitalist nations do overwhelmingly.
I'd be willing this shell out this much money (even more) iff they opened up the developement kit so I could write/distribute games for the PS3 without being a professional developer who pays royalties to Sony. A couple of reasons: 1. I want to play my DivX's from my PC on my PS3 which will be hooked up to my big screen TV. Without open dev kits, DivX developers wont make this happen. 2. I want to tinker with my PS3 and see what I can write as a quick and easy console game. Always wanted to do that 3. I want be be able to buy one and turn it into a web-server, file-server, email server, fire-wall and a bunch of other stuff. 4. I want to be able to plug in a keyboard and turn it into my word processor, web browser and email client - ok, not really, but a family who cant afford a PC for their kids might be able to save up enough money for a PS3 if it could do this as well as play DVDs and games, etc, etc.
Of course, this goes against their business model, but if SOMEONE was wise enough to do this, I think they'd do really well. If you think they couldn't make money doing this, consider that a Mac Mini sells for $500-$600 and comes with a free compiler and doesn't charge royalties. Although, they need to add a HD-Dvd drive upgrade, a tv tuner, TV out connections, controllers and some software. I wish Apple or a Linux company would do this - it wouldn't be very profitable immediately but would make game developers shift away from Windows.
I was looking forward to building a little hut in the middle of the forest in the boondocks and make AT&T pay the $30 million+ to wire it with ethernet so I can pay then $40 bucks a month for broadband.
I'm an electrial engineer, and I certainly dont think like this. Quite the opposite. I know that because of pipe-lines and other processor features, rearraging your code around can make a huge difference in performance. Compilers are written to optimize for the chip-set that your writting for to take advantage of such things as 'free' jump instructions, whereas it would be amazingly difficult for an assembly language writer to do so. For instance, by using the result of one operation in the next operation you can cause a pipeline stall. If you take 2 streams of operations and weave them together you can improve performance, but you would make the code very unreadable. Also, the compiler can keep track of which ALU's or other chip resources are being used by which instructions and can rearrage them accordingly to improve performance.
So what if I build a VCR that ignores the flag? Will that be illegal?
Yes and no. Such a device would be illegal to sell or distribute. You could create your own VCR from scratch though, as long as it never transfered ownership. So, if you made some for your friends you would be arrested and put in a cage like an animal for the "betterment of society". If you resisted the officers who wish to put you in that cage, then you may be shot dead. Lovely, ain't it?
The problem with the GPL is that hardware vendors that want to support Linux have to release their source code. There may be several reasons why they dont want to do this:
1. A competator can examine their code and find weaknesses in their product that they can show to potential customers
2. It gives your start-up competators all the code they need to get their software caught up to you overnight, and allows them to use your code in their products
3. It may reviel how you've implemented your part which gives your competators a chance to use that knowledge in the design of their part, saving them time and money
These are serious problems, especially for small startup hardware vendors like the company I work at. So, you'll notice that companies are creating 'shims' that link with the kernel that load in their real code which doesn't need to be open sourced because it doesn't link with the kernel. Thus, we get around the GPL, but our schedules take a hit for it.
The average person will have a 5000 sq ft home, a self-driven car thats nicer than our nicest limos today, a jucuzzi, televisions anywhere/everywhere, instant commication with everyone they love/know, and all the porn and violence they could ever want.
The poor will have 3500 sq ft homes, a nice self-driven car, televisions everywhere, instant commication with everyone they know/love and all the porn a violence that could ever want, but they're complain about how horrible their lives are and how sucky they are because they dont have what the average person has. And, as now, they wont be willing to put any effort, energy or risk into getting it.
In other words, not much will change.
What I'd like to see is them release the code and art for these games. After all, they're shutdown - they won't ever make another cent from the game. Might as well sell the code & art to tinkerers like myself for $100 a pop. I might be willing to even go to $200. Its better than just sitting on it.
Do you guys use TCP/IP throughout or do you have different (faster) protocal or Infiniband on the backend? How much of your system performance is dedicated to the various functions (collision detection, cheat detection, packet formation, etc)
My girlfriend wanted a giraffe pet but was they're all marked as untamable. This lead me to do a search of all the animals that were or were not tamable and made me wonder why the limits were there. Would the giraffe have too hard of a time with walking indoors/outdoors or is there a limit to the pets you want people to have to load into memory in crowded areas?
Websites have figured out how to defeat the popup blocker withing Firefox - try drudgereport.com or unitedmedia.com and you'll see. Not sure where to go now for popup-free browsing. May have to create my own damn proxy
Re:, Wars, Survival, Wealth - Anything But The Gri
on
The Ultimate MMORPG
·
· Score: 1
They should have posted this reply instead of the mindless drivel that was in the article - he posted complaints and a lot of SWG love, but nothing new and no alternatives. Your post is pretty well written.
From my perspective, what I'd like to see done:
1. I'd like to see an MMORPG framework created that would allow people to create servers themselves and would be able to set rules, download and install mods, maps, etc and charge what they want for people to connect. This way a lot of rules, etc can be tried, tested, changed to help create the perfect combination that players like best. This also seperates the developers from the artists who as skilled at making things 'fun'. The framework would have to be really flexible to allow for all the different kinds of modules that independant developers might want to create. 'Core' decisions about the game would be implemented using these modules. For instance, tradeskilling, the fighting system, loot, spells, terrain generation, etc. Several modules would be released with the framework that would already allow for a basic game to be set up from the get-go.
The framework would also allow for servers to 'juxtapose' other servers, allowing players to move their characters between servers if the server maintainers agree to this. This would not normally be allowed because someone could create a new server where everything drops tons of cash and loot and then transition to another server and ruin his economy.
An instance of the framework might have the following:
1. An auto-balancing feature that reduces the loot on over-farmed mobs, reduces the effects of over-used spells, and gives you bonuses of various types for using unusual tactics or hunting in lands farther from 'safe villages'.
2. When you gain enough experience you would gain a 'token'. These tokens can be used to improve your character slightly. For instance, increasing your mana pool, hps, dodge ability. Or by decreasing casting times, increasing spell effects, or gaining new spells. None of these new abilities would make you exponentially more powerful than others, but would instead provide an incremental benefit. For instance:
3 tokens to increase your Hps by 2%, then 6 more to increase by another 3%, then 20 to increase it 5% more, giving you 10% more hps than other players. 20 tokens would be a TON of exp, but might be worth it for people who like to tank. 5 tokens might allow someone to increase their odds of hitting with a bow, or allow them to shoot fire arrows.
3. A fighting that be based on twitch, but instead is based on tactics, and involves playing off of others in your group. If people are able to easily write an AI to play your character for you then you've failed. Puzzle pirates had an interesting system for sword-fighting, a good MMORPG should have even better.
4. You could follow the path of several classes, however could only act in the capacity of one class at a time. For instance, lighter armor helped with magic and heaver armor hindered it. So, you go to town to change into your robes to play the group healer or into plate to play the tank.
5. Tradeskills tend to just be 'tacked on' to MMORPGs, and usually this creates a problem. If the items produced are useful and easy to make then the market will be flooded with them. If they're tought to find ingredience for then it becomes too difficult to get your skill up. If the items created aren't useful then its a waste of time. So, the best fix would be to make a tradeskilling system where making the item was the game. If creating an item took as much time as, and was fun as performing a quest was, then you have a balanced system. A well done tradeskill system should allow someone to play the tradeskill game as much as someone else might play the hunting/questing part of the game and return similar, though different results. And there should be a mutually beneficial relationship between questers and tradeskillers - the questers collecting skills and other supplies through player-created collection quests, or provide protection for tradeskillers who are traveling between cities and tradeskillers paying the adventurers with equipment or cash.
I have to agree. My cell phone gets scratched up, and I have to make special concessions to protect my iPod. I dont want another screen that I have to really worry about. One nice advantage of the SP/DS is that flip-screen protection.
There always seems to be conflicting requirements between screen size and portability. Do you guys think that a 3-D glasses based interface would work as a solution?
I really like the idea of the ability to play movies on my portable device, but the PSP movies seem to be on a proprietary format, meaning the movies will never be as cheap as dvds. Maybe when the blue-ray disks are more popular someone can create a device that can play mini-blue-rays movies that will also play on regular for-tv players. Add to that a hard drive for mp3/pictures/tivo shows and I'd be sold. Add to that a open developement kit and I'd be in heaven.
This type of comment adds absolutely nothing to the conversation. I know what the original poster is going through because I've had VERY similar experiences myself. The jist of it is that she didn't have the right drivers that she needed. She couldn't get the right resolutions because she was using the default VGA drivers, and the capture-card thing was very similar.
As for the sound, I installed Linux on a cheapy-box that I intended to turn into a set-top-box and the sound was horribly choppy and.... well... crappy. I did a lot of searching and configuring and I was never able to fix that. Truth is that the manufacturer probably didn't give a damn about Linux and so I suffered for that.
But, what I really hope the Linux community comes away with from this persons testimony is that when you install Linux nowadays, you've really just began - even with Lindows or other 'simple' Linux varieties - your next step is to download and install the latest video card drivers, and this is not very easy. One little mistake like forgetting that your mouse is a ps2 and the mouse on your OTHER system is USB will result in NO VIDEO- just prompts. Then, add to that the fact that everyone who makes Linux software seems to want to distribute the source code for the latest beta version, which doesn't always build - just give us the freaking binaries! Which reminds me of another bad thing about Linux- its not an OS, its a religion. I just want a working system - Linux people boycott companies that try to sell software or even those companies that want to sell hardware and dont want to give away all their proprietary secrets to their competators via source-code drivers.
To be honest, BeOS seemed to have it right (amazingly easy to use, still Unixy, supports X). OSX seems to have it right (built on open source kernel, fancy easy to use UI and configuration, supports X). But Linux has it horribly wrong, and a lot of the stuff that needs to be done is boring, tedious, requires testing across a ton of systems, and therefore wont likely be done by anyone except a commercial venture. I just hope one or two show up and save Linux.
Sorry for the rant - I didn't intend it to get that way, but I'm frustrated because I want Linux to become better than it is. Of course, most Linux people will dismiss me, insult me, threaten me, or act in some other intolerant way.
I'd like to make a low-power consumption system and I've found it extremely difficult to find information on the heat generation of system components. Neither NVidia or ATI mention power consumption outside of mobile chips anywhere on their websites. Look on the boxes of the video cards? Nada. Review sites? Very slim info, and what little is out there conflicts. After spending a week off an on scouring the web I eventually got a 6600GT which in several articles was praised for being lower power. However, it still requires an supplemental power plug and generates a ton of heat.
I think your wrong here. Cant prove that your wrong, but I can prove that even if you didn't get Tiger with it, you would be able to buy it for $9.95. (http://www.apple.com/macmini/, on the right hand side).
Of course, from your demeanor I get the impression you wont let truth stand in the way of your unfocused anger.
I've been considering getting a mac mini for a while, but whats stopped me is 1- the small standard memory and 2- the older video card. If they beefed up the memory to 512 (I'd probably still pay to upgrade to a gig) and put in a 9600 mobile then I'd be there. The mobile is fairly lower power and they're already using it in their powerbooks. And I wouldn't mind paying $100 extra. $200 if they changed to a G5.
I dont think its slashdot. I wouldn't be surprised if someone got something nasty on your system. You might want to see if the spykiller programs can find anything.
It seems that all the discussion here is about patents. But what I think is significant here is that in a Linux-centric group here noone has thought to bring up the lack of TCP-offload architecture for Linux. What is the plans for Linux in the longrun? Are there plans for any "chimney" in Linux? Where will this start? This is one of those opportunities where Linux could lead instead of follow
Slashdot Mirror
"And in honor of our new peace, I offer you this giant wooden statue of a horse to adorn your town"
If Microsoft wants to demonstrate how fast managed code is, then why dont they write their drivers and their lower level os in managed code? But, as you'll notice, they don't. There are reasons for that - its just not fast enough, and garbage collection has too many problems (wasted memory, pauses, etc)
Note: I do have a dog in this fight.
One thing that isn't mentioned in the article is the amount of CPU power required to send out ethernet packets. The typical rule is 1 GHz of processing power is required to send 1 Gb of data on the wire. So, if you want to send 10 Gbs of data, you'd need 10 GHz of processor - pretty steep price. Some companies have managed to get this down to 1 GHz/3 Gbs of processing, and one startup(NetEffect) is now claiming roughly ~0.1 Ghz for ~8 Gbs on the wire, using iWarp. With this, your system can be processing information rather than creating packets.
The problem with Infiniband, Myranet, etc is that they require another card in your system (and associated heat problems, size issues, etc), special switches and equipment, and new training for your staff on how to get it up and going. However, IWarp, which is based on TCP/IP can use your standard DHCP, ping, tracert, ipconfig, etc and can allow a single card to be used for networking to the outside world (TCP/IP), clustering in the datacenter(IWarp), and storage (IScsi). 1 card, no special new software widgets, 10 Gb speeds.
However, you cant go and buy a iWarp card from Fry's today. Although, you cant buy an infiniband or myranet card there either
You forgot a few minor things: strengths: Freedom... enough said? Capitalism is freedom to do what you want, how you want and suffer or enjoy the consequences thereof. Anything short of this requires force and/or violence and ultimately leads to corruption of those who's responsibility it is to use that force. Resource Allocation- Those who make wise decisions with their resources will make a profit and continue to purchase more resources. Those who make stupid decisions loose their money and cannot continue to waste resources. Successful Track Record - Capitalism in practice has lend to nations having greater longetivity, better quality healthcare, lower instances of starvation, much better human rights, and a much better overall standard of living As for the weaknesses that you listed, "no guarentee of minimum level of success" - yup. If you sit on your butt and demand to be taken care of as though your some queen, you deserve to starve until you get up off your butt and work! As for people who are unable to take care of themselves, charities do a wonderful job of taking care of these people. And who gives the most money to these people? People in captitalist nations do overwhelmingly.
I'd be willing this shell out this much money (even more) iff they opened up the developement kit so I could write/distribute games for the PS3 without being a professional developer who pays royalties to Sony.
A couple of reasons:
1. I want to play my DivX's from my PC on my PS3 which will be hooked up to my big screen TV. Without open dev kits, DivX developers wont make this happen.
2. I want to tinker with my PS3 and see what I can write as a quick and easy console game. Always wanted to do that
3. I want be be able to buy one and turn it into a web-server, file-server, email server, fire-wall and a bunch of other stuff.
4. I want to be able to plug in a keyboard and turn it into my word processor, web browser and email client - ok, not really, but a family who cant afford a PC for their kids might be able to save up enough money for a PS3 if it could do this as well as play DVDs and games, etc, etc.
Of course, this goes against their business model, but if SOMEONE was wise enough to do this, I think they'd do really well. If you think they couldn't make money doing this, consider that a Mac Mini sells for $500-$600 and comes with a free compiler and doesn't charge royalties. Although, they need to add a HD-Dvd drive upgrade, a tv tuner, TV out connections, controllers and some software. I wish Apple or a Linux company would do this - it wouldn't be very profitable immediately but would make game developers shift away from Windows.
I was looking forward to building a little hut in the middle of the forest in the boondocks and make AT&T pay the $30 million+ to wire it with ethernet so I can pay then $40 bucks a month for broadband.
In Mother Amerirussia, ve have vays of dealing with people who don't pay ..... I mean do pay their bills
I'm an electrial engineer, and I certainly dont think like this. Quite the opposite. I know that because of pipe-lines and other processor features, rearraging your code around can make a huge difference in performance. Compilers are written to optimize for the chip-set that your writting for to take advantage of such things as 'free' jump instructions, whereas it would be amazingly difficult for an assembly language writer to do so. For instance, by using the result of one operation in the next operation you can cause a pipeline stall. If you take 2 streams of operations and weave them together you can improve performance, but you would make the code very unreadable. Also, the compiler can keep track of which ALU's or other chip resources are being used by which instructions and can rearrage them accordingly to improve performance.
The problem with the GPL is that hardware vendors that want to support Linux have to release their source code. There may be several reasons why they dont want to do this: 1. A competator can examine their code and find weaknesses in their product that they can show to potential customers 2. It gives your start-up competators all the code they need to get their software caught up to you overnight, and allows them to use your code in their products 3. It may reviel how you've implemented your part which gives your competators a chance to use that knowledge in the design of their part, saving them time and money These are serious problems, especially for small startup hardware vendors like the company I work at. So, you'll notice that companies are creating 'shims' that link with the kernel that load in their real code which doesn't need to be open sourced because it doesn't link with the kernel. Thus, we get around the GPL, but our schedules take a hit for it.
The average person will have a 5000 sq ft home, a self-driven car thats nicer than our nicest limos today, a jucuzzi, televisions anywhere/everywhere, instant commication with everyone they love/know, and all the porn and violence they could ever want. The poor will have 3500 sq ft homes, a nice self-driven car, televisions everywhere, instant commication with everyone they know/love and all the porn a violence that could ever want, but they're complain about how horrible their lives are and how sucky they are because they dont have what the average person has. And, as now, they wont be willing to put any effort, energy or risk into getting it. In other words, not much will change.
My girlfriend and I loved the original colonialization. Will there be a sequel? Or at least a update of some kind?
What I'd like to see is them release the code and art for these games. After all, they're shutdown - they won't ever make another cent from the game. Might as well sell the code & art to tinkerers like myself for $100 a pop. I might be willing to even go to $200. Its better than just sitting on it.
The issue for me is that this is a sony proprietary format. Didn't they learn from their betamax mistakes?
Do you guys use TCP/IP throughout or do you have different (faster) protocal or Infiniband on the backend? How much of your system performance is dedicated to the various functions (collision detection, cheat detection, packet formation, etc)
My girlfriend wanted a giraffe pet but was they're all marked as untamable. This lead me to do a search of all the animals that were or were not tamable and made me wonder why the limits were there. Would the giraffe have too hard of a time with walking indoors/outdoors or is there a limit to the pets you want people to have to load into memory in crowded areas?
Websites have figured out how to defeat the popup blocker withing Firefox - try drudgereport.com or unitedmedia.com and you'll see. Not sure where to go now for popup-free browsing. May have to create my own damn proxy
They should have posted this reply instead of the mindless drivel that was in the article - he posted complaints and a lot of SWG love, but nothing new and no alternatives. Your post is pretty well written. From my perspective, what I'd like to see done: 1. I'd like to see an MMORPG framework created that would allow people to create servers themselves and would be able to set rules, download and install mods, maps, etc and charge what they want for people to connect. This way a lot of rules, etc can be tried, tested, changed to help create the perfect combination that players like best. This also seperates the developers from the artists who as skilled at making things 'fun'. The framework would have to be really flexible to allow for all the different kinds of modules that independant developers might want to create. 'Core' decisions about the game would be implemented using these modules. For instance, tradeskilling, the fighting system, loot, spells, terrain generation, etc. Several modules would be released with the framework that would already allow for a basic game to be set up from the get-go. The framework would also allow for servers to 'juxtapose' other servers, allowing players to move their characters between servers if the server maintainers agree to this. This would not normally be allowed because someone could create a new server where everything drops tons of cash and loot and then transition to another server and ruin his economy. An instance of the framework might have the following: 1. An auto-balancing feature that reduces the loot on over-farmed mobs, reduces the effects of over-used spells, and gives you bonuses of various types for using unusual tactics or hunting in lands farther from 'safe villages'. 2. When you gain enough experience you would gain a 'token'. These tokens can be used to improve your character slightly. For instance, increasing your mana pool, hps, dodge ability. Or by decreasing casting times, increasing spell effects, or gaining new spells. None of these new abilities would make you exponentially more powerful than others, but would instead provide an incremental benefit. For instance: 3 tokens to increase your Hps by 2%, then 6 more to increase by another 3%, then 20 to increase it 5% more, giving you 10% more hps than other players. 20 tokens would be a TON of exp, but might be worth it for people who like to tank. 5 tokens might allow someone to increase their odds of hitting with a bow, or allow them to shoot fire arrows. 3. A fighting that be based on twitch, but instead is based on tactics, and involves playing off of others in your group. If people are able to easily write an AI to play your character for you then you've failed. Puzzle pirates had an interesting system for sword-fighting, a good MMORPG should have even better. 4. You could follow the path of several classes, however could only act in the capacity of one class at a time. For instance, lighter armor helped with magic and heaver armor hindered it. So, you go to town to change into your robes to play the group healer or into plate to play the tank. 5. Tradeskills tend to just be 'tacked on' to MMORPGs, and usually this creates a problem. If the items produced are useful and easy to make then the market will be flooded with them. If they're tought to find ingredience for then it becomes too difficult to get your skill up. If the items created aren't useful then its a waste of time. So, the best fix would be to make a tradeskilling system where making the item was the game. If creating an item took as much time as, and was fun as performing a quest was, then you have a balanced system. A well done tradeskill system should allow someone to play the tradeskill game as much as someone else might play the hunting/questing part of the game and return similar, though different results. And there should be a mutually beneficial relationship between questers and tradeskillers - the questers collecting skills and other supplies through player-created collection quests, or provide protection for tradeskillers who are traveling between cities and tradeskillers paying the adventurers with equipment or cash.
I have to agree. My cell phone gets scratched up, and I have to make special concessions to protect my iPod. I dont want another screen that I have to really worry about. One nice advantage of the SP/DS is that flip-screen protection. There always seems to be conflicting requirements between screen size and portability. Do you guys think that a 3-D glasses based interface would work as a solution? I really like the idea of the ability to play movies on my portable device, but the PSP movies seem to be on a proprietary format, meaning the movies will never be as cheap as dvds. Maybe when the blue-ray disks are more popular someone can create a device that can play mini-blue-rays movies that will also play on regular for-tv players. Add to that a hard drive for mp3/pictures/tivo shows and I'd be sold. Add to that a open developement kit and I'd be in heaven.
This type of comment adds absolutely nothing to the conversation. I know what the original poster is going through because I've had VERY similar experiences myself. The jist of it is that she didn't have the right drivers that she needed. She couldn't get the right resolutions because she was using the default VGA drivers, and the capture-card thing was very similar. As for the sound, I installed Linux on a cheapy-box that I intended to turn into a set-top-box and the sound was horribly choppy and .... well... crappy. I did a lot of searching and configuring and I was never able to fix that. Truth is that the manufacturer probably didn't give a damn about Linux and so I suffered for that.
But, what I really hope the Linux community comes away with from this persons testimony is that when you install Linux nowadays, you've really just began - even with Lindows or other 'simple' Linux varieties - your next step is to download and install the latest video card drivers, and this is not very easy. One little mistake like forgetting that your mouse is a ps2 and the mouse on your OTHER system is USB will result in NO VIDEO- just prompts. Then, add to that the fact that everyone who makes Linux software seems to want to distribute the source code for the latest beta version, which doesn't always build - just give us the freaking binaries! Which reminds me of another bad thing about Linux- its not an OS, its a religion. I just want a working system - Linux people boycott companies that try to sell software or even those companies that want to sell hardware and dont want to give away all their proprietary secrets to their competators via source-code drivers.
To be honest, BeOS seemed to have it right (amazingly easy to use, still Unixy, supports X). OSX seems to have it right (built on open source kernel, fancy easy to use UI and configuration, supports X). But Linux has it horribly wrong, and a lot of the stuff that needs to be done is boring, tedious, requires testing across a ton of systems, and therefore wont likely be done by anyone except a commercial venture. I just hope one or two show up and save Linux.
Sorry for the rant - I didn't intend it to get that way, but I'm frustrated because I want Linux to become better than it is. Of course, most Linux people will dismiss me, insult me, threaten me, or act in some other intolerant way.
I'd like to make a low-power consumption system and I've found it extremely difficult to find information on the heat generation of system components. Neither NVidia or ATI mention power consumption outside of mobile chips anywhere on their websites. Look on the boxes of the video cards? Nada. Review sites? Very slim info, and what little is out there conflicts. After spending a week off an on scouring the web I eventually got a 6600GT which in several articles was praised for being lower power. However, it still requires an supplemental power plug and generates a ton of heat.
I think your wrong here. Cant prove that your wrong, but I can prove that even if you didn't get Tiger with it, you would be able to buy it for $9.95. (http://www.apple.com/macmini/, on the right hand side). Of course, from your demeanor I get the impression you wont let truth stand in the way of your unfocused anger.
I've been considering getting a mac mini for a while, but whats stopped me is 1- the small standard memory and 2- the older video card. If they beefed up the memory to 512 (I'd probably still pay to upgrade to a gig) and put in a 9600 mobile then I'd be there. The mobile is fairly lower power and they're already using it in their powerbooks. And I wouldn't mind paying $100 extra. $200 if they changed to a G5.
I dont think its slashdot. I wouldn't be surprised if someone got something nasty on your system. You might want to see if the spykiller programs can find anything.
It seems that all the discussion here is about patents. But what I think is significant here is that in a Linux-centric group here noone has thought to bring up the lack of TCP-offload architecture for Linux. What is the plans for Linux in the longrun? Are there plans for any "chimney" in Linux? Where will this start? This is one of those opportunities where Linux could lead instead of follow