I've had my share of trouble with the FreeRunner ! I love the idea of being able to write extra programs, but I expected the basic stuff to work well, and not to spend so much time installing and making sense of the different distros etc...
The platform is promising, but right now my phone experience is not even as good as my old Motorola P280.
For most things, standard libraries are almost cross platform. You say you use C++, use the "standard" and you'll find everything that you are already used to.
Ah, but what about GUI ? Those are definitely not cross platform. Well, you can pick, there's GTK, there's GTK, etc... Or, go for a real cross platform toolkit such as wxWidgets. you apps will run on pretty much any platform after a recompile...
or if you use a cross platform language, say python (wxWidgets + python = wxPython), then you don't even need to recompile.
wxWidgets was originally created for C++ but it has binding to other languages, so what you learn with one language can be re-used with another language if you have a different need that dictates that.
I switched away from ext3 because of the long fsck on moderately large filesystems. I have used JFS on AIX for years, and I understand the Linux verison is not exactly the same, but decided to give a try. As everybody else said, JFS is rock solid. When the machine crashes, 99% of the time it is just a question of replaying the logs, which takes just seconds, and the few cases where it is not good enough, fsck -f takes a few minutes for say a 100 GiB filesystem.
Maybe people you know do use OpenOffice.Org, but they know that you use MS office, and convert their files before sending them to you.
People who don't know me, regularly send me PowerPoint and Word documents, and if you were to ask them, they'd probably tell you that I do use MS Office.
After unsuccessfully fighting suspend / resume with Linux, I am now considering a Mac laptop. You could argue that a laptop without a good suspend / resume that works well is not really a laptop.
I use VIA C7 based motherboards for my small low power (under 30 Watt including a disk), low cost(~250$), servers, and they are absolutely fine. I use them, at home (scale is everything:-), as NFS, ldap, backup and mail servers. No issue there, they only service that gives them a workout is spamassassin, but it's still very reasonable.
I have tried to use them as workstation, but they are not fast/powerful enough for X windows and Gnome.
I've tried other low power solutions (like the AMD Geode), but my conclusion is that the only people who can make a low power processor that has enough oompff to be a workstation is intel - The caveat: it won't be low cost.
And beyond the fact that you'll be able to listen to some top developers in the industry, this is your opportunity to get your hands on OpenBSD 3.9 CDs, T-shirts and posters !
I'd say that these days perl (or even ruby) is to UNIX what REXX was to CMS
and OS/2.
The integration of perl with the UNIX kernels (you can make calls to all the APIs from the C lib) is probably even tighter than the one from REXX to its OS. And the original OS was not OS/2, but CMS !
It is amazing that he got it right by one year !
More interresting, it's not proper ingineering like utilities (as predicted) who made the mistake, it is IT (DNS update error), as usual.
As other people have pointed out it is by invitation only (they will be spending their time coding), BUT, some of them will talk for the Calgary UNIX Users Group. Check our web site for more details.
Disclaimer: I am very involved with CUUG (current President)
When I read about.Net I was schocked to learn that it was a virtual machine. I could see why SUN created a virtual machine, so they could run on any kind of machine, not just the 2% or so running Solaris.
But, why would the company who's OS runs on 90% of desktop and, what 40, 50% of servers, would want to run a virtual machine ? What's the point, isn't native that much better ?
The only two options I could think of were
there were problems brewing between M$ and Intel, so they wanted to be able to switch to a new hardware platform easily.
they saw Linux taking over their OS market, and wanted to be ready: Just buy.Net for 99$, and you have all your M$ apps running on top of Linux !
Now with this annoucement makes #2 that much more plausible.
I don't want to take M$ defense here, what they did is bad. But for all of those who say "How could they have deleted emails ?", well there are two school of thoughts around these days:
keep all emails, so anything can be tracked back
file anything that you are legally obliged to keep, and delete everything else, making sure that it doesn't even get backed up.
The second strategy has started to be used after the ENRON fiasco. Most companies still use the first one, but you do start to see more and more (still a small number though) using the former.
I worked as tech support for a software company, and a customer called me saying "When I do this, this and this, I get a message saying `you shouldn't get here, if you do, call John at x 1234`".
So I said thanks, I'll log a bug report. I don't know why, but then I thought.. what the heck, and dialed the extension. The developers where on a different continent, but the phoen system would recognised the extension, and route to the proper building/country. The phone rang, and sure enough John answered. When I told him why I was calling, he went "Oh shit, I meant to fix that !".
Slashdot Mirror
The title is the sound I am making as I am literally eating my FreeRunner :-(
The platform is promising, but right now my phone experience is not even as good as my old Motorola P280.
For most things, standard libraries are almost cross platform. You say you use C++, use the "standard" and you'll find everything that you are already used to.
Ah, but what about GUI ? Those are definitely not cross platform. Well, you can pick, there's GTK, there's GTK, etc... Or, go for a real cross platform toolkit such as wxWidgets. you apps will run on pretty much any platform after a recompile...
or if you use a cross platform language, say python (wxWidgets + python = wxPython), then you don't even need to recompile.
wxWidgets was originally created for C++ but it has binding to other languages, so what you learn with one language can be re-used with another language if you have a different need that dictates that.
I switched away from ext3 because of the long fsck on moderately large filesystems. I have used JFS on AIX for years, and I understand the Linux verison is not exactly the same, but decided to give a try. As everybody else said, JFS is rock solid. When the machine crashes, 99% of the time it is just a question of replaying the logs, which takes just seconds, and the few cases where it is not good enough, fsck -f takes a few minutes for say a 100 GiB filesystem.
Gliders are near silent, and are aircrafts !
>Google frightens me sometimes. Almost every day now.
Nothing to be afraid, relas, as a matter of fact, you should take it easy in the next few days, because Google tells me you are getting the flu.
Maybe people you know do use OpenOffice.Org, but they know that you use MS office, and convert their files before sending them to you.
People who don't know me, regularly send me PowerPoint and Word documents, and if you were to ask them, they'd probably tell you that I do use MS Office.
After unsuccessfully fighting suspend / resume with Linux, I am now considering a Mac laptop. You could argue that a laptop without a good suspend / resume that works well is not really a laptop.
We have the exact reverse problem, some MPs get elected because people want to vote for the party they represent.
You did not ask about resume, so I won't go there, ok I'll say this, it works very well after hibernate.
I use VIA C7 based motherboards for my small low power (under 30 Watt including a disk), low cost(~250$), servers, and they are absolutely fine. I use them, at home (scale is everything :-), as NFS, ldap, backup and mail servers. No issue there, they only service that gives them a workout is spamassassin, but it's still very reasonable.
I have tried to use them as workstation, but they are not fast/powerful enough for X windows and Gnome.
I've tried other low power solutions (like the AMD Geode), but my conclusion is that the only people who can make a low power processor that has enough oompff to be a workstation is intel - The caveat: it won't be low cost.
There is a new version of the kernel, 2.6.24.2 at kernel.org.
So cell phones give us cancer because they heat our brain, but this helmet prevents alzheimer's because... it heats our brain ???
And beyond the fact that you'll be able to listen to some top developers in the industry, this is your opportunity to get your hands on OpenBSD 3.9 CDs, T-shirts and posters !
I'd say that these days perl (or even ruby) is to UNIX what REXX was to CMS and OS/2.
The integration of perl with the UNIX kernels (you can make calls to all the APIs from the C lib) is probably even tighter than the one from REXX to its OS. And the original OS was not OS/2, but CMS !
I bet you there is some SCO code in there :-)
"everyone knows that unless the Beatles continue to make money from recordings made fifty years ago"
Actually everyone knows that Michael Jackson owns the right to those songs...
There are even talks that he might loose all of those rights in order to pay for his debts.
It is amazing that he got it right by one year ! More interresting, it's not proper ingineering like utilities (as predicted) who made the mistake, it is IT (DNS update error), as usual.
Disclaimer: I am very involved with CUUG (current President)
The guy's on holiday, and not only does he read slashdot, but he takes the time to put a word in for CUUG.
Thanks Roy.
But if you fully control the OS, why would you need a virtual machine to improve security - you can put it right into the OS.
When I read about .Net I was schocked to learn that it was a virtual machine. I could see why SUN created a virtual machine, so they could run on any kind of machine, not just the 2% or so running Solaris.
But, why would the company who's OS runs on 90% of desktop and, what 40, 50% of servers, would want to run a virtual machine ? What's the point, isn't native that much better ?
The only two options I could think of were
Now with this annoucement makes #2 that much more plausible.
I don't want to take M$ defense here, what they did is bad. But for all of those who say "How could they have deleted emails ?", well there are two school of thoughts around these days:
- keep all emails, so anything can be tracked back
- file anything that you are legally obliged to keep, and delete everything else, making sure that it doesn't even get backed up.
The second strategy has started to be used after the ENRON fiasco. Most companies still use the first one, but you do start to see more and more (still a small number though) using the former.A bit off topic, but this happened to me once.
I worked as tech support for a software company, and a customer called me saying "When I do this, this and this, I get a message saying `you shouldn't get here, if you do, call John at x 1234`".
So I said thanks, I'll log a bug report. I don't know why, but then I thought.. what the heck, and dialed the extension. The developers where on a different continent, but the phoen system would recognised the extension, and route to the proper building/country. The phone rang, and sure enough John answered. When I told him why I was calling, he went "Oh shit, I meant to fix that !".