Gnome 2.10.1, which makes the desktop a lot faster than before
X.org
Simplified update- and package management
Much faster boot process
Better laptop support (ie suspending, hibernating, processor frequency scaling)
Kickstart support for automated largescale installations
Live CD and Install CD both use the new debian installer infrastructure
UTF-8 by default
A program for collecting information about what hardware works and what doesn't
Kubuntu - complete KDE 3.4 based version of Ubuntu
Stuff people are going to bitch about
No graphical installer. The current installer is extremely simple and has been streamlined even further in this release. A graphical installer is planned for the next version (Breezy Badger).
No menu editor installed. One can always edit the files by hand, or install kmenu or something similar for gnome. The official gnome menu editor just didn't finish in time.
No DivX or MP3 support. These are simple to add though and anyone coming from debian will probably already know of the Marillat repositories. Just look at the instructions in the wiki or use Hoary After-Install helper or another script to do the dirty work for you.
Oh and if you are interested to know if your laptop or other piece of hardware is supported, some info can be found in the wiki on the Hardware support-page
A-Link has released two new ADSL-modems RoadRunner 64 and RoadRunner 64AP. Both have many advanced features, but the one that cought my eye was that they are Linux based. I bought the RoadRunner64 (without WLAN) and I've gathered some data about it.
You can find out more about the product either by looking at the RR64 feature sheet or by checking out the guides and firmware page.
The platform
Both versions use LSI Logic's HomeBASE platform with the AR901 network processor. The only difference is that the AP version has a WLAN module manufactured by Zydas.
The platform consists of AR901 processor (ARM922), the AR8203 analog-to-digital adsl chip and the AR229 USB/Ethernet chip. Note that the value of these parts is a measly $21 while I paid 80 EUR for the complete modem;-)
Specs
Processor: ARM922 @ 200MHz integrated in the AR901 chip
Flash: 4MB
RAM: 16MB SDRAM
Ports: 4 RJ45, 1 RJ11, 1 power
Other: Zydas 802.11b WLAN (In RR64AP only)
One can simply ssh to the box. It has tftp support and you can mount nfs partitions, so setting it up to distribute kernels for a ltsp setup would be possible. Cool little gadget, I must say. Unfortunately the software isn't 100% yet, at least not the firmware I have (first release). I got the source by asking politely by e-mail, and after it suddenly borked on me, they changed it for a new one without any hassle.
You really should be able to conclude from the context that the "GPL is viral" is sarcasm. If you are unable to deduce even that little fact from what I wrote, you will probably be incapable of handling the amount of information that is in the Mozilla relicensing FAQ. But just a little quote from it:
The new standard licensing scheme is an MPL/GPL/LGPL triple license; it should be used for all new Mozilla source files distributed through mozilla.org, and existing files will be changed to it after obtaining the necessary permissions.
Well, they've actually used that argument already, but I think it's more of a case of not invented here syndrome. Oh, and they wouldn't want to bind themsleves to abiding to a standard since that would make lock-in more difficult.
Oh, also remember that GPL is viral and since some of the code already exists in Mozilla, I guess they see the whole thing as infected?
Read all about scripting plugins with mozilla. The article was released today to accompany the press release, and clarify how this all fits in to mozilla's existing structure.
What the hell does SLI mean? And why does anyone care? I.e., what are the real world (pc gaming) results of paying more money than I can afford to use this technology?
The Scalable Link Iinterface is according to the article what two Voodoo cards used to communicate with. nVidia calls their port MIO. I think the correct acronym is Scan-line Interleave mode, so the article might have gotten the acronym wrong. But I remember fow 3dfx used sli to connect two Voodoos together. It's also all there in the article for anyone to read....nevermind.
Actually someone predicted this when 3Dfx was bought by nVidia. The thread is here.
An interviewer with a clue asked nVidia about this in March 2002 but nVidia declined to comment. Hell the SLI possibility was even discussed on slashdot.
As to when this might be useful it is suggested in the article that you could buy two "regular" 6800GT cards and get way better performance than from a single 6800 Ultra Extreme card. I'm not saying it's cheap or even practical right now but it might be in the future when the cards are a bit cheaper and PCI-E-x16 is commonplace.
we would instatly switch to using firefox if they added support for proxy autoconfiguration via wpad.
The relevant bug is
28998
and as you can see the code is already mostly done. If it's important to you, put a dev or two on it. After all, isn't that what open source/free software is about?
For those of you who might not be familiar with what Wine actually is, let me clarify. Even though some of us enjoy a sip of wine every now and then, this is not what we are talking about today. We are referring to a package that allows Windows applications to run on Linux... outside of an emulator. Wine uses an open source Windows API (application programming interface) to allow modified Win32 binaries to run in a UNIX/Linux environment, completely free of Windows. Think of it not as an emulator, but more of a compatibility layer, or translator if you will. The status of the Wine project can be found here.
CodeWeavers is at the head of the pack in Wine development and deservedly so. They produce the most well packaged, capable distributions of Wine available. As Jeremy has stated, development is in the hands of their customer base and supporters. Whatever the customer wants the customer gets, and so it should rightfully be. Mr. White knows his business. You can see which applications are getting all of the attention at the CodeWeavers Top List page, and it's actually pretty interesting to see what apps are getting pushed to the top. Take a look.
Well, enough of the small talk, let's carry on with the interview. Enjoy!
Mad Penguin: First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today to answer a few questions. I guess the first thing I'd like to know is more personal than anything... why Linux? What was the motivational factor(s) behind developing software to run Windows applications on Linux?
Jeremy White: Well, it's a fairly long story. I've always been a geek. I've loved programming on computers since I was 11 and had to sneak into the Radio Shack to do it, and I've also always loved computer games. Early in my career, I grew quite proficient at communications and networking programming. I was working on a project for a customer that had a Solaris system. But, they were across town, and I had to drive over there to work on it, and I couldn't afford a Sun of my own. So, instead, I installed and starting developing against Linux (circa 94 I'd say), and then just migrating the code once it was done.
So that's when I fell in love with Linux, and when we started having at least one Linux box around all the time.
Now fast forward to about 1997. One day, at lunch, I'm talking to a few new hires (young kids) that had never played the original Combat cartridge in an Atari 2600. This struck me as horrible
cultural illiteracy on their part, and so I set off to find an Atari 2600 emulator to correct this horrible flaw in their education. Along the way, I stumbled across the Wine project, and thought that it was the most audacious project I'd seen in a long time. I thought then (as I think now) that if Linux could become a truly Windows compatible operating system, it would allow for an explosion in new computing choices, and I'd get to feel like that kid at Radio Shack again.
Further, in 1996, I had founded CodeWeavers so I could do work I considered meaningful, challenging, and fun, and although we did some fun projects, I was really looking for a mission. Of course, I had a day job (and a young kid), so I couldn't really do much with Wine then. But I kept dreaming, and then one day, it being the 90s and all, I decided to pursue a business built around Wine and helping people port Windows software to Linux. I successfully landed some venture capital, asked a bunch of the Wine developers to come on board, and that's really how we got started on this mission.
MP: I'm interested in learning how quickly CodeWeavers evolved into the full-blown business it is today. Ho
A comparison with my debian sarge desktop. My two recent distros were Suse 9.0 and Gentoo, both exclusively installed for over 3 months.
Beautiful boot screen and polished feel.
Well, I'd say that the default boot screen was ugly as can be, but that's not important to me since I rarely reboot.
The look of my kde 3.2 desktop is absolutely beautiful after I switched to the plastic theme. I cannot praise the beauty of it enough.
Easy installation from freely available CD-ROM imagesYES
Automatic hardware detection via kudzu, at install time and when adding new devices.
Well, this is something debian could be a bit better at, but the new installer beta did find my network card and everything was easy to set up, but I admit that Suse was an easier install.
Updates released regularly with the Fedora Legacy Project providing updates for older distributions.
Nothing can beat debian when it comes to updates. Argue with me on this point and you will lose;-)
Many pre-built RPM packages are available on-line from projects such as Samba and otherwise.
Debians packages are well tested, the configure scripts they have are in my opinion a bit better that Suse's or Gentoo's.Installing Apache for example was a breeze.
Many great console & X11-based applications included by default.
YES. A lot more than Suse or Redhat ever have had in their repositories. All checked to work together. All pre compiled for your downloading pleasure
Files and configurations are in logical places.
Configs are in logical places in/etc.
People coming from other distros often wonder at the odd places debian puts its files. An example is when installing Apache or CVS since they both have their "user files" in/var. The thing they don't see that every project has their own logic for where they want to put their files where as debian has its logic, but makes sure that every package and program adheres to this one logic. It is very handy, and making backups etc becomes easier.
Now why did I switch from Suse to Debian? Suse 9.0 was getting old, an old KDE desktop, Gaim wasn't working for long periods of time (MSN changed their protocol) and although Yast waas nice in the beginning,it managed to screw up my xmodmap reqularly, didn't have the programs I was looking for in it's repositories and then one day after deleted a few partitions it screwed up my whole partition table. I'm no newbie when it comes to computers so I know thistime it wasn't my own fault.
Why did I switch from Gentoo?
Basically I got tired of building and waiting. Although their packaging system works in practice very apt-get likely (yes I know there is many huge differences, but that's not what I'm talking about!) in the way that it "resolves" dependancies automatically and has a very large repository of software. The build scripts were however not very reliable and I can remember many occasions where I had to wait a few days before being able to build a package because it was busted (this acutually happened during install, andthat was really annoying). Also after 5 kernels (maybe a dozen compiles) and still not remembering every module that I need, I got annoyed.
Also when I installed debian I didn't notice *any* loss of speed. I had a default kernel for my arch and all the stuff I needed (glx, dri etc) installed and it worked beutifully.
My desktop with debian is gorgeous fast and has everything I want. After a few modprobes I even got my old Gravis GamePad working. Sound was no problem and both my nics were recognized (a7n8x deluxe).
The first distro I ever installed was RedHat 5.0 way, way back when. Then came debian 2.2, Mandrake 7, debian woody, windows 98-2000 - Gentoo - Windows XP - Debian WinXP- Suse 9.0 - Gentoo - Debian sarge.
Suse 9.0 was the first distro that I felt so comfortable with that I forgot about Win(XP). Gentoo was next, and now I'll stick with debian. If I have to recommend a newbie a distro I would first let them try out Knoppix, then install Suse or Debian, depending on how much I care for that person (Debian requires a bit more work, but it is nicer in the long run).
[PATCH] fixup for C1 Halt Disconnect problem on nForce2 chipsets
This is the notorious force2 bug that will lock the computer completely unless apic and lapic are disabled. NVidia sure was slow to release information about this but they finally did a week ago. Read all about it on lkml
Also note that this patch might lower the temperature of your cpu as experienced by many (really kewl).
Now NVidia should just step up and release the information needed to use the soundstorm apu so we can get real hardware mixing.
Look, this was quite a hot topic a couple of days ago on lkml.
There is a known fix!
Thanks t onvidia's developer Allen Martin who (finally) stepped up an released some hard facts about what is causing the problem and how to fix it, there is a patch that will cleanly apply to the 2.6.5 kernel.
You can read Allen Martins comment on the subject here and the patch is here.
Note that though the patch was untested at that point there were several posts to confirm that it worked.
Thanks nvidia
Now: Release the necessary information so we can get a driver for the soundstorm apu and finally have real hardware mixing!
There is also a very simple and possible explanation suggested by the article. The moon could be either behind or right in front of sedna.
The object is not there, though there is a very small chance it might have been behind Sedna or transiting in front of it, so that it could not be seen separately from Sedna itself in the Hubble images.
Granted the likelyhood of this isn't great, but I think it is a lot more probable than the explanations suggested in the parent posts.
I can see why the autorities would want (need?) to have information about who owns a domain, the whois database as it currently exists is a simple and fast way for spammers to get email addresses.
Some whois databases already put the e-mail address in an image so that spiders cant harvest them, most do not. This means that a first timer will quickly find his/her e-mail address useless becuase of the sheer amount of spam the address gets.
Then there is the question of privacy and personal safety. Let's say I believe that some cult exists only for the sole purpous of ripping people off, and I put up a web site warning other people and telling them of my personal experiences. The cult memebers that feel outraged by my blasphemy might look up who I am by the database, and I would be risking life and limb by putting opinions on the web.
Now someone is bound to ask "Hey, what about kiddy pr0n". Well, that's why I think the autorities should have access to that information, just as they have some other rights not bestowed upon us regular joes.
The next argument will then prolly be Those who would sacrifice a little freedom for temporal
safety deserve neither to be safe or free. - Benjamin Franklin
I think this is hypocrisy and not even quite realistic. It's easy to quote famous people from behind a keyboard, but I just wonder how many of the slashdot crowd would actually put the money where their mouth is. After all, living together is but a series of compromises. No one can live their lives as they whish. Chance and other people will prevent this. And as someone said
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
there is no easy answer to moving a 2.4-based box to 2.6 without a few modifications, regardless of distro.
This is simply not true. I have debian sarge installed and one command was ALL that was required.
apt-get install kernel-image-2.6
It installed the necessary init utils, added the new kernel to grub's menu and probably configured some other things I'm not aware of. It's working like a charm and without any problems.
I was really surprised myself. All I can say is that Debian rules.
Mozilla has a small marketshare, practically no one uses it, and finally Long Live IE!
Feeding the troll: You are right. Mozilla's marketshare isn't large. Most Windows users probably don't even know it exists. This doesn't mean they haven't used Mozilla or that Mozilla would be insignificant.
I've seen Mozilla based browsers used in several public web terminals. You will not be able to go to a fair of almost any kind without seeing mozilla used (I've been to quite a few that had little or nothing to do with computers and seen mozilla or a browser using the gecko engine used).
Mozilla will not gain a 95% marketshare today nor tomorrow, but it will gain marketshare. IE will live long, probably a time counted in decades, but Mozilla isn't going away.
I've been following Mozilla closely since milestone 16 and I started using it as my main browser arund version 0.96. Before that it was basically horrible. It was unstable, ate memory like crazy and was too slow for me to use.
Mozilla today is a different beast from the early days:
The most stable (modern) browser I've used (links is the most stable ever)
Best standards support
Getting faster by every release
Getting less resource hungry by every release
The most extendable browser around.
IE will live long but so will Mozilla. Mozilla's marketshare will grow, IE's will probably not. Mozilla is evolving fast, IE is not. Mozilla will always be free, IE might not be. Mozilla will be developed as long as anyone wants to do it or has the money to fund it, IE will not.
All I can say that I hope that the current version of IE lives long and that Microsoft keeps iproving it at the current pace. That will ensure that Mozilla will gain marketshare as it races past IE. Long Live (the current version of) IE
tldp has a lot of articles, but unfortunately very few people will have the energy to contact the maintainers to correct errors. A review takes days, weeks or months and is done all too rarely. Many will see updating a long document as a very daunting project to undertake.
A wiki would solve this problem, since it is so easy to add information.
I've read many howtos with information that has been slightly wrong, a path has changed, a new configuration option has been added. Usually it has been quite obvious to see how to adapt the howto to the current situation. I've never reported any of these slight mistakes to the maintainers (yeah, lazy me...) but with a wiki the threshold would be much lover.
It seems like wiki's would be the future of content creation on the web. It's becomeing increasingly popular, just look at the growth rate of wikipedia. Now volunteers are documenting tips and instructions for mozilla in a knowledgebase.
Wiki's seem to bring together the reasons why the web is seen as useful (disregarding the free pr0n). Easy content creation, accessibility and ease of use. With wiki's you get the added benefit of a central repository to look for the information you need.
As wiki's grow and become known the need for search engines might lessen. The first resort for information will change from google to the relevan wiki. Google will be seen as second in importance. After all, wiki has the structure of yahoo with the benefits of quality content.
Now that the FTC antitrust case against Rambus has been dropped, Rambus is gearing up to independently sue Infineon, Hynix and Micron whom it claims artificially lowered prices of DRAM to corner RDRAM out of the market.
When rambus hit the streets it was way too expensive, incompatible and a one man show. The price was only one factor, and allthough a major one, I think many regarded rambus like people regard intel itanium. An incompatible architecture that is way too expensive comparing to the competitors. Also while processors have always been controlled by a mighty few, this has not been the case with memory. One company trying to push *all* the others away in one strike is bound to have problems.
Linux might push Windows away one day, but only because it has aproven architecture and an unbeatable price, otherwise it wouldn't stand a chance.
It seems to me that this will only be useful for statical purpouses.
The legislation basically indemnifies the company from liability. Even if the company is asked to fix a problem, they refuse and are later attacked, no one can even point a finger at them if what the article says holds true.
A key provision of the law bars the government from using the vulnerability information in any enforcement action against the company, or from using it as the basis for proposing new legislation or regulations on industry.[snip]
Of course, the law wasn't intended as a shield for corporate negligence: information that comes to the government independently of the PCII reporting is still fair game.
So if a company doesn't want to put any money in to securing their computer infrastructure, they simply report that and the govt can't force them. When an attack occurs, the company will point at the govt and say that the govt new that they "lacked the funds" or something to secure their comps.
Incredible BS-law Protecting companies and enableing them to assign the blame on others. Is this really what the government wanted to achieve with the law, or was this simply the result of corporate lobbying?
Now we are going to hear a whole bunch of silly comments like "Just release it to public domain" and "why not gpl". If you would have RTFAs you'd know that nasa has some internal requirements for anything it releases such as NASA legal counsel requires that all NASA releases of software include indemnification of the U.S. Government from any third party liability arising from use or distribution of the software. See 4.B.
This is just an example, and the reason why they can't release as PD.
Whe shouldn't be complaining about the amount of energy (and money) being used on devising yet another license, but be glad that a large institution like NASA is willing to do everything it can to be OSI compatible when it releases its source code.
Even if this process will slow down the release, use tax payer money on lawyers etc, this is a one time cost, at least if done properly. Hopefully it will function as an example to other government instances and maybe those instances will be able to release their source code under that license once it's ready.
My personal hope is that we will gain a new accepted license to last beside the MIT, BSD, Apache, GPL and LGPL licenses that all government instances are free to use (government source license?) as it will be accepted by nasas lawyers.
The only thing I fear that people will see this GPL compatibility as a waste of time and money, and release it under some falf assed license that will only cause problems and incompatabilities (Sun's license, XFree's proposed license, old apache license etc etc).
Now quit whining about how they should just release it under public domain, and be grateful that they are wasting your money on something that may benefit you directly.
Actually, I understand the licese just fine. That's why I clarified that "ie if your brand new license v 1.0 has other restrictions besides the ones the gpl accepts" it won't be gpl compatible.
Anti-msikvwebasdoiju public license:
1. You may do anything you want with works distributed under this license, except for including them in a software project called "msikvwebasdoiju".
That is an addtional restriction. I cannot really think of a way to write a lisence that would stand true to the ideal of free software, but allow random people to add extra restrictions. Since you seem to be so well versed in (mis)quoting ppl, maybe you can find just such a license for me?
Next time you quote me, could you plaese read the whole of my comment before doing it.
"We are very happy with the cooperative manner of Allnet in which this issue was resolved and an amicable agreement reached", notes Harald Welte, the Chairman of the Netfilter Core Team.
It's really nice to get some good news instead of the average sco cr*p of the GPL being unconstitutional or viral.
All this talk about how gpl is a difficult license because it's incompatible with other licenses, and people don't seem to grasp that it's only incompatible with licenses that have more
RESTRICTIONS than the gpl, ie if your brand new license v 1.0 has other restrictions besides the ones the gpl accepts, it's quite natural that it will be incompatible. It's like saying, "hey this source is free for you to copy, reproduce but you may never show it to anyone", oh and gpl sucks becuase the fsf say's we're not compatible with their silly little license. Here we see the power of gpl and fsf. It's been said that the gpl is weak because it's never been tested in court. Well maybe there's a reason. Maybe becuase fsf and the open source movement is gaining momentum and companies are trying not to gain new enemies from potential customers.
There are still some that do not realize that alienating customers might be bad for business, and that the gpl is a license to adhere to, just as any other license. Take KISS as an example with their way of handling the mplayer debacle, I for one am not going to support kiss-technology.com as long as they maintain their arrogant position.
Vote with your wallets, support free software.
(Sorry for the repost, just hate bad formatting.)
"We are very happy with the cooperative manner of Allnet in which this issue
was resolved and an amicable agreement reached",
notes Harald Welte, the Chairman of the Netfilter Core Team.
It's really nice to get some good news instead of the average sco cr*p of the GPL being unconstitutional or viral.
All this talk about how gpl is a difficult license because it's incompatible with other licenses, and people don't seem to grasp that it's only incompatible with licenses that have more RESTRICTIONS than the gpl, ie if your brand new license v 1.0 has other restrictions besides the ones the gpl accepts, it's quite natural that it will be incompatible. It's like saying, "hey this source is free for you to copy, reproduce but you may never show it to anyone", oh and gpl sucks becuase the fsf say's we're not compatible with their silly little license.
Here we see the power of gpl and fsf. It's been said that the gpl is weak because it's never been tested in court. Well maybe there's a reason. Maybe becuase fsf and the open source movement is gaining momentum and companies are trying not to gain new enemies from potential customers.
There are still some that do not realize that alienating customers might be bad for business, and that the gpl is a license to adhere to, just as any other license. Take KISS as an example with their way of handling the mplayer debacle, I for one am not going to support kiss-technology.com as long as they maintain their arrogant position.
Vote with your wallets, support free software.
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Stuff people are going to bitch about
OSDir has published a lot of screenshots of Ubuntu.
Oh and if you are interested to know if your laptop or other piece of hardware is supported, some info can be found in the wiki on the Hardware support-page
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This will cause a "Start New Session" entry to appear in the "Screen Locked by user" dialog and also in the K-menu.
However I still find the Misubishi Pajero pretty funny.
A-Link has released two new ADSL-modems RoadRunner 64 and RoadRunner 64AP. Both have many advanced features, but the one that cought my eye was that they are Linux based. I bought the RoadRunner64 (without WLAN) and I've gathered some data about it.
You can find out more about the product either by looking at the RR64 feature sheet or by checking out the guides and firmware page.
The platformBoth versions use LSI Logic's HomeBASE platform with the AR901 network processor. The only difference is that the AP version has a WLAN module manufactured by Zydas.
The platform consists of AR901 processor (ARM922), the AR8203 analog-to-digital adsl chip and the AR229 USB/Ethernet chip. Note that the value of these parts is a measly $21 while I paid 80 EUR for the complete modem ;-)
SpecsProcessor: ARM922 @ 200MHz integrated in the AR901 chip
One can simply ssh to the box. It has tftp support and you can mount nfs partitions, so setting it up to distribute kernels for a ltsp setup would be possible. Cool little gadget, I must say. Unfortunately the software isn't 100% yet, at least not the firmware I have (first release). I got the source by asking politely by e-mail, and after it suddenly borked on me, they changed it for a new one without any hassle.Flash: 4MB
RAM: 16MB SDRAM
Ports: 4 RJ45, 1 RJ11, 1 power
Other: Zydas 802.11b WLAN (In RR64AP only)
The new standard licensing scheme is an MPL/GPL/LGPL triple license; it should be used for all new Mozilla source files distributed through mozilla.org, and existing files will be changed to it after obtaining the necessary permissions.
Oh, also remember that GPL is viral and since some of the code already exists in Mozilla, I guess they see the whole thing as infected?
Read all about scripting plugins with mozilla. The article was released today to accompany the press release, and clarify how this all fits in to mozilla's existing structure.
The Scalable Link Iinterface is according to the article what two Voodoo cards used to communicate with. nVidia calls their port MIO. I think the correct acronym is Scan-line Interleave mode, so the article might have gotten the acronym wrong. But I remember fow 3dfx used sli to connect two Voodoos together. It's also all there in the article for anyone to read....nevermind.
Actually someone predicted this when 3Dfx was bought by nVidia. The thread is here. An interviewer with a clue asked nVidia about this in March 2002 but nVidia declined to comment. Hell the SLI possibility was even discussed on slashdot.
As to when this might be useful it is suggested in the article that you could buy two "regular" 6800GT cards and get way better performance than from a single 6800 Ultra Extreme card. I'm not saying it's cheap or even practical right now but it might be in the future when the cards are a bit cheaper and PCI-E-x16 is commonplace.
The relevant bug is 28998 and as you can see the code is already mostly done. If it's important to you, put a dev or two on it. After all, isn't that what open source/free software is about?
For those of you who might not be familiar with what Wine actually is, let me clarify. Even though some of us enjoy a sip of wine every now and then, this is not what we are talking about today. We are referring to a package that allows Windows applications to run on Linux... outside of an emulator. Wine uses an open source Windows API (application programming interface) to allow modified Win32 binaries to run in a UNIX/Linux environment, completely free of Windows. Think of it not as an emulator, but more of a compatibility layer, or translator if you will. The status of the Wine project can be found here.
CodeWeavers is at the head of the pack in Wine development and deservedly so. They produce the most well packaged, capable distributions of Wine available. As Jeremy has stated, development is in the hands of their customer base and supporters. Whatever the customer wants the customer gets, and so it should rightfully be. Mr. White knows his business. You can see which applications are getting all of the attention at the CodeWeavers Top List page, and it's actually pretty interesting to see what apps are getting pushed to the top. Take a look.
Well, enough of the small talk, let's carry on with the interview. Enjoy!
Mad Penguin: First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today to answer a few questions. I guess the first thing I'd like to know is more personal than anything... why Linux? What was the motivational factor(s) behind developing software to run Windows applications on Linux?
Jeremy White: Well, it's a fairly long story. I've always been a geek. I've loved programming on computers since I was 11 and had to sneak into the Radio Shack to do it, and I've also always loved computer games. Early in my career, I grew quite proficient at communications and networking programming. I was working on a project for a customer that had a Solaris system. But, they were across town, and I had to drive over there to work on it, and I couldn't afford a Sun of my own. So, instead, I installed and starting developing against Linux (circa 94 I'd say), and then just migrating the code once it was done.
So that's when I fell in love with Linux, and when we started having at least one Linux box around all the time.
Now fast forward to about 1997. One day, at lunch, I'm talking to a few new hires (young kids) that had never played the original Combat cartridge in an Atari 2600. This struck me as horrible
cultural illiteracy on their part, and so I set off to find an Atari 2600 emulator to correct this horrible flaw in their education. Along the way, I stumbled across the Wine project, and thought that it was the most audacious project I'd seen in a long time. I thought then (as I think now) that if Linux could become a truly Windows compatible operating system, it would allow for an explosion in new computing choices, and I'd get to feel like that kid at Radio Shack again.
Further, in 1996, I had founded CodeWeavers so I could do work I considered meaningful, challenging, and fun, and although we did some fun projects, I was really looking for a mission. Of course, I had a day job (and a young kid), so I couldn't really do much with Wine then. But I kept dreaming, and then one day, it being the 90s and all, I decided to pursue a business built around Wine and helping people port Windows software to Linux. I successfully landed some venture capital, asked a bunch of the Wine developers to come on board, and that's really how we got started on this mission.
MP: I'm interested in learning how quickly CodeWeavers evolved into the full-blown business it is today. Ho
Beautiful boot screen and polished feel. Well, I'd say that the default boot screen was ugly as can be, but that's not important to me since I rarely reboot.
The look of my kde 3.2 desktop is absolutely beautiful after I switched to the plastic theme. I cannot praise the beauty of it enough.
Easy installation from freely available CD-ROM images YES
Automatic hardware detection via kudzu, at install time and when adding new devices.
Well, this is something debian could be a bit better at, but the new installer beta did find my network card and everything was easy to set up, but I admit that Suse was an easier install.
Updates released regularly with the Fedora Legacy Project providing updates for older distributions. Nothing can beat debian when it comes to updates. Argue with me on this point and you will lose ;-)
Many pre-built RPM packages are available on-line from projects such as Samba and otherwise. Debians packages are well tested, the configure scripts they have are in my opinion a bit better that Suse's or Gentoo's.Installing Apache for example was a breeze.
Many great console & X11-based applications included by default. YES. A lot more than Suse or Redhat ever have had in their repositories. All checked to work together. All pre compiled for your downloading pleasure
Files and configurations are in logical places. Configs are in logical places in /etc.
People coming from other distros often wonder at the odd places debian puts its files. An example is when installing Apache or CVS since they both have their "user files" in /var. The thing they don't see that every project has their own logic for where they want to put their files where as debian has its logic, but makes sure that every package and program adheres to this one logic. It is very handy, and making backups etc becomes easier.
Now why did I switch from Suse to Debian?
Suse 9.0 was getting old, an old KDE desktop, Gaim wasn't working for long periods of time (MSN changed their protocol) and although Yast waas nice in the beginning,it managed to screw up my xmodmap reqularly, didn't have the programs I was looking for in it's repositories and then one day after deleted a few partitions it screwed up my whole partition table. I'm no newbie when it comes to computers so I know thistime it wasn't my own fault.
Why did I switch from Gentoo?
Basically I got tired of building and waiting. Although their packaging system works in practice very apt-get likely (yes I know there is many huge differences, but that's not what I'm talking about!) in the way that it "resolves" dependancies automatically and has a very large repository of software. The build scripts were however not very reliable and I can remember many occasions where I had to wait a few days before being able to build a package because it was busted (this acutually happened during install, andthat was really annoying). Also after 5 kernels (maybe a dozen compiles) and still not remembering every module that I need, I got annoyed.
Also when I installed debian I didn't notice *any* loss of speed. I had a default kernel for my arch and all the stuff I needed (glx, dri etc) installed and it worked beutifully.
My desktop with debian is gorgeous fast and has everything I want. After a few modprobes I even got my old Gravis GamePad working. Sound was no problem and both my nics were recognized (a7n8x deluxe).
The first distro I ever installed was RedHat 5.0 way, way back when. Then came debian 2.2, Mandrake 7, debian woody, windows 98-2000 - Gentoo - Windows XP - Debian WinXP- Suse 9.0 - Gentoo - Debian sarge.
Suse 9.0 was the first distro that I felt so comfortable with that I forgot about Win(XP). Gentoo was next, and now I'll stick with debian. If I have to recommend a newbie a distro I would first let them try out Knoppix, then install Suse or Debian, depending on how much I care for that person (Debian requires a bit more work, but it is nicer in the long run).
This is the notorious force2 bug that will lock the computer completely unless apic and lapic are disabled. NVidia sure was slow to release information about this but they finally did a week ago. Read all about it on lkml
Also note that this patch might lower the temperature of your cpu as experienced by many (really kewl).
Now NVidia should just step up and release the information needed to use the soundstorm apu so we can get real hardware mixing.
There is a known fix!
Thanks t onvidia's developer Allen Martin who (finally) stepped up an released some hard facts about what is causing the problem and how to fix it, there is a patch that will cleanly apply to the 2.6.5 kernel.
You can read Allen Martins comment on the subject here and the patch is here.
Note that though the patch was untested at that point there were several posts to confirm that it worked.
Thanks nvidia
Now: Release the necessary information so we can get a driver for the soundstorm apu and finally have real hardware mixing!
The object is not there, though there is a very small chance it might have been behind Sedna or transiting in front of it, so that it could not be seen separately from Sedna itself in the Hubble images.
Granted the likelyhood of this isn't great, but I think it is a lot more probable than the explanations suggested in the parent posts.
Some whois databases already put the e-mail address in an image so that spiders cant harvest them, most do not. This means that a first timer will quickly find his/her e-mail address useless becuase of the sheer amount of spam the address gets.
Then there is the question of privacy and personal safety. Let's say I believe that some cult exists only for the sole purpous of ripping people off, and I put up a web site warning other people and telling them of my personal experiences. The cult memebers that feel outraged by my blasphemy might look up who I am by the database, and I would be risking life and limb by putting opinions on the web.
Now someone is bound to ask "Hey, what about kiddy pr0n". Well, that's why I think the autorities should have access to that information, just as they have some other rights not bestowed upon us regular joes.
The next argument will then prolly be
Those who would sacrifice a little freedom for temporal safety deserve neither to be safe or free.
- Benjamin Franklin
I think this is hypocrisy and not even quite realistic. It's easy to quote famous people from behind a keyboard, but I just wonder how many of the slashdot crowd would actually put the money where their mouth is. After all, living together is but a series of compromises. No one can live their lives as they whish. Chance and other people will prevent this.
And as someone said
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
But I digress...
This is simply not true. I have debian sarge installed and one command was ALL that was required.
It installed the necessary init utils, added the new kernel to grub's menu and probably configured some other things I'm not aware of. It's working like a charm and without any problems.
I was really surprised myself. All I can say is that Debian rules.
Feeding the troll:
You are right. Mozilla's marketshare isn't large. Most Windows users probably don't even know it exists. This doesn't mean they haven't used Mozilla or that Mozilla would be insignificant.
I've seen Mozilla based browsers used in several public web terminals. You will not be able to go to a fair of almost any kind without seeing mozilla used (I've been to quite a few that had little or nothing to do with computers and seen mozilla or a browser using the gecko engine used).
Mozilla will not gain a 95% marketshare today nor tomorrow, but it will gain marketshare. IE will live long, probably a time counted in decades, but Mozilla isn't going away.
I've been following Mozilla closely since milestone 16 and I started using it as my main browser arund version 0.96. Before that it was basically horrible. It was unstable, ate memory like crazy and was too slow for me to use.
Mozilla today is a different beast from the early days:
The most stable (modern) browser I've used (links is the most stable ever)
Best standards support
Getting faster by every release
Getting less resource hungry by every release
The most extendable browser around.
IE will live long but so will Mozilla. Mozilla's marketshare will grow, IE's will probably not. Mozilla is evolving fast, IE is not. Mozilla will always be free, IE might not be. Mozilla will be developed as long as anyone wants to do it or has the money to fund it, IE will not.
All I can say that I hope that the current version of IE lives long and that Microsoft keeps iproving it at the current pace. That will ensure that Mozilla will gain marketshare as it races past IE.
Long Live (the current version of) IE
A wiki would solve this problem, since it is so easy to add information.
I've read many howtos with information that has been slightly wrong, a path has changed, a new configuration option has been added. Usually it has been quite obvious to see how to adapt the howto to the current situation. I've never reported any of these slight mistakes to the maintainers (yeah, lazy me...) but with a wiki the threshold would be much lover.
I'll be sure to help with what little I know.
Wiki's seem to bring together the reasons why the web is seen as useful (disregarding the free pr0n). Easy content creation, accessibility and ease of use. With wiki's you get the added benefit of a central repository to look for the information you need.
As wiki's grow and become known the need for search engines might lessen. The first resort for information will change from google to the relevan wiki. Google will be seen as second in importance. After all, wiki has the structure of yahoo with the benefits of quality content.
When rambus hit the streets it was way too expensive, incompatible and a one man show. The price was only one factor, and allthough a major one, I think many regarded rambus like people regard intel itanium. An incompatible architecture that is way too expensive comparing to the competitors.
Also while processors have always been controlled by a mighty few, this has not been the case with memory. One company trying to push *all* the others away in one strike is bound to have problems.
Linux might push Windows away one day, but only because it has aproven architecture and an unbeatable price, otherwise it wouldn't stand a chance.
A key provision of the law bars the government from using the vulnerability information in any enforcement action against the company, or from using it as the basis for proposing new legislation or regulations on industry.[snip]
Of course, the law wasn't intended as a shield for corporate negligence: information that comes to the government independently of the PCII reporting is still fair game.
So if a company doesn't want to put any money in to securing their computer infrastructure, they simply report that and the govt can't force them. When an attack occurs, the company will point at the govt and say that the govt new that they "lacked the funds" or something to secure their comps.
Incredible BS-law Protecting companies and enableing them to assign the blame on others. Is this really what the government wanted to achieve with the law, or was this simply the result of corporate lobbying?
NASA legal counsel requires that all NASA releases of software include indemnification of the U.S. Government from any third party liability arising from use or distribution of the software. See 4.B.
This is just an example, and the reason why they can't release as PD.
Whe shouldn't be complaining about the amount of energy (and money) being used on devising yet another license, but be glad that a large institution like NASA is willing to do everything it can to be OSI compatible when it releases its source code.
Even if this process will slow down the release, use tax payer money on lawyers etc, this is a one time cost, at least if done properly. Hopefully it will function as an example to other government instances and maybe those instances will be able to release their source code under that license once it's ready.
My personal hope is that we will gain a new accepted license to last beside the MIT, BSD, Apache, GPL and LGPL licenses that all government instances are free to use (government source license?) as it will be accepted by nasas lawyers.
The only thing I fear that people will see this GPL compatibility as a waste of time and money, and release it under some falf assed license that will only cause problems and incompatabilities (Sun's license, XFree's proposed license, old apache license etc etc).
Now quit whining about how they should just release it under public domain, and be grateful that they are wasting your money on something that may benefit you directly.
Anti-msikvwebasdoiju public license:
1. You may do anything you want with works distributed under this license, except for including them in a software project called "msikvwebasdoiju". That is an addtional restriction. I cannot really think of a way to write a lisence that would stand true to the ideal of free software, but allow random people to add extra restrictions. Since you seem to be so well versed in (mis)quoting ppl, maybe you can find just such a license for me?
Next time you quote me, could you plaese read the whole of my comment before doing it.
It's really nice to get some good news instead of the average sco cr*p of the GPL being unconstitutional or viral.
All this talk about how gpl is a difficult license because it's incompatible with other licenses, and people don't seem to grasp that it's only incompatible with licenses that have more RESTRICTIONS than the gpl, ie if your brand new license v 1.0 has other restrictions besides the ones the gpl accepts, it's quite natural that it will be incompatible. It's like saying, "hey this source is free for you to copy, reproduce but you may never show it to anyone", oh and gpl sucks becuase the fsf say's we're not compatible with their silly little license. Here we see the power of gpl and fsf. It's been said that the gpl is weak because it's never been tested in court. Well maybe there's a reason. Maybe becuase fsf and the open source movement is gaining momentum and companies are trying not to gain new enemies from potential customers.
There are still some that do not realize that alienating customers might be bad for business, and that the gpl is a license to adhere to, just as any other license. Take KISS as an example with their way of handling the mplayer debacle, I for one am not going to support kiss-technology.com as long as they maintain their arrogant position.
Vote with your wallets, support free software. (Sorry for the repost, just hate bad formatting.)
"We are very happy with the cooperative manner of Allnet in which this issue was resolved and an amicable agreement reached", notes Harald Welte, the Chairman of the Netfilter Core Team. It's really nice to get some good news instead of the average sco cr*p of the GPL being unconstitutional or viral. All this talk about how gpl is a difficult license because it's incompatible with other licenses, and people don't seem to grasp that it's only incompatible with licenses that have more RESTRICTIONS than the gpl, ie if your brand new license v 1.0 has other restrictions besides the ones the gpl accepts, it's quite natural that it will be incompatible. It's like saying, "hey this source is free for you to copy, reproduce but you may never show it to anyone", oh and gpl sucks becuase the fsf say's we're not compatible with their silly little license. Here we see the power of gpl and fsf. It's been said that the gpl is weak because it's never been tested in court. Well maybe there's a reason. Maybe becuase fsf and the open source movement is gaining momentum and companies are trying not to gain new enemies from potential customers. There are still some that do not realize that alienating customers might be bad for business, and that the gpl is a license to adhere to, just as any other license. Take KISS as an example with their way of handling the mplayer debacle, I for one am not going to support kiss-technology.com as long as they maintain their arrogant position. Vote with your wallets, support free software.