The brightest LED light listed at Think Geek also has a light output of 120 Lumens, equivalent to the light output of an 8 Watt incandescent bulb or a 2 Watt CFL. That's not much light, and you certaintly woulnd't expect to light a living room with those light bulbs . . .
CFL's come in man wattages and in many colors. You shouldn't have a problem finding a 150 watt equivalent CFL unless it is the size/shape of the bulb that is preventing replacement. Some people have also been complaining about color but at my local Menards/Lowes/Home Depot they have several different bulbs ranging from red/blue/yellow to soft white to bright white. Near as I can tell, there aren't too many bulbs that can't be replaced, save for halogen and some of the odd candle shaped bulbs maybe.
SATA doesn't have slave and master so that won't be a bandwidth issue. The drives are also quite an expense and you are reusing yours. The 750 GB drives go for $330 a piece. There's also the quality of the power supplies and cases (which can inflate the cost). Lastly, you're paying for the integration and the configuration of the OS. Even if they're using a free implementation of open source software such as Fedora, it's not a trivial matter (for some) to set up the remote administration and any other non-advertised services that may come preconfigured (they aren't very descriptive on their website). Overall this is a fairly good price if you compare it to products from Aberdeen, Adaptec, Iomega, etc.
Since it's not mentioned on their webpage or in the article, I searched for a listing of the price points and found the following.
"The PetaBox nodes and racks are available now. Base pricing for the nodes (512K RAM, 10/100 interface, and no LCD) ranges from $1,595 (GB1000) to $3,395 (GB3000)." http://products.datamation.com/dms/sc/1156440622.h tml
The GB1000 is the 1TB node and the GB3000 is the 3TB node. I think they might mean 512MB of RAM base, but who knows. Sounds like it's a Fedora linux based product which makes me wonder what services it provides, they don't list. I would assume basic NFS/SMB/AFS services but there's no mention of backup / replication services, mirroring between twin nodes, etc that competitive products offer.
I'm confused why Microsoft would make a move like this. Their pricing scheme is not competitive with any other OS's on the market that I can think of. Retail boxes of most Linux distributions are between $50 and $100 USD. A new copy of OSX costs $129 (and people still complain about that!). But at least with OSX you can buy a 5-pack "family" license for $199. And yet, Microsoft comes out and expects people to pay $199 minimum to run Windows on their non-Dell/HP/SONY prebundled computer. I mean, if Microsoft is right about the number of pirated copies on computers then they can't count on "upgrade" customers cause there must be some check to prevent it from being upgraded on a pirated copy.
A good question to ask is what they consider an upgrade to be? Can you upgrade Win 3.1/95/ME? Cause I'm sure you can find a copy of one of those for less than the $100 difference between retail/upgrade. Does anyone else think this pricing scheme will fuel more people to switch over to Mac/Linux computers? Or will it have no impact and people will just buy their Dell/HP/ computer with it prebundled and not care?
There really are two genres of strategy guides which, as you point out, should be separated into "walk throughs" and "secrets/hints". I agree that the "walk-through" generation is not, contrary to what the author of the article writes, "increasing your return." A video game should be a source of entertainment and I find it hard to believe that someone's entertainment is increased by being told what button to push at what time for the entire game. I used to punch my brother if he said a word about what had to be done at any given point in a game.
The other branch are guides that provide "hints/cheats/secrets" and these are great for people looking to "spice-up" their second round through a game. Let's be honest, it was fun to tool around in Doom in god mode on the nightmare setting for a few minutes, or to turn on no-clipping and see where you might end up in quake. And some secrets I cannot believe coders take the time to put in a game with no hint as to how to find it. There was some cow level in Diablo 2 if I remember that I would never have found out about if not for the internet. Why spend the time coding (you are getting paid to do that and it is costing the customer in the end) a secret level that the majority will NEVER find? Anyway, these guides provide added entertainment to a game and DO increase your return.
In the end, products are made becasue products sell and apparently there are people who want to spend $50 on a game and $15 on a guide so that they can mindlessly blitz through the game in 2 hours and call it quits, it may not be for you or me, but it's floating someone's boat.
Since this has already turned into another "My OS is better than your OS" debate, let's keep in mind that Linux cannot support even regular DVD playback for most people (at least the US population) due to the CSS encryption. Whether you choose to break the law or not is your own business cause I'm not the one in charge of policing it.
But it seems silly at this point to jump on MS when the only way you can play it in another OS is by taking the law into your own hands. Sure, 64-bit is not required to watch any content as of yet, there's just no need from a technical standpoint. What's upsetting about this move is that it's yet another stumbling point keeping us away from true usability. Will it affect most people? Not when new 64-bit machines cost $400 from Dell and will come prebundled with Vista. Hell, that's worth it to most people so they don't have to spend a couple hours of their time trying to 'upgrade' their current PC. I also don't believe 64-bit drivers will be an issue when Vista ships, hell OSX is making the same transition and nobody is getting worried there (yes, i know they don't have to support as many devices).
What would be more interesting than Vista's requirements for HD is what the Apple camp is doing to prepare for supporting this kind of content. Their machines are preparing to become leaders in the media pc world now that they ship with remote controls and DVI outputs for modern HD TV's. All that is missing is an integrated TV tuner but that can't be too far into the future. What hurdles will they make you jump . ..? As for linux, good luck, don't get caught, and I'm sure you'll be able to watch encrypted HD content within a year of everyone else.
How about the Jack Bauer Bridge instead. Think about it, the bridge would get built right the first time, it would only take one person to do it, and it would only take 24 hours to complete.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how doubling up the number of processors/cores will help AMD to compete with the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Duo Extreme processor offerings. The benchmarks posted earlier today clearly show that Intel's latest offerings leave AMD's processors in the dust both in terms of cost, efficiency and performance. What possible "enthusiast" is going to see the benefit of running 4 cores vs. a dual core? I mean, gamers won't see a performance boost from that until games are truly multi-threaded, and even then they'd have to be optimized for more than 2 threads. Regular desktop apps don't challenge the CPU as it is. Not to mention that putting in 2 AMD 64's is going to generate twice the heat which is the area that AMD fanboys used to brag about the most. So somebody please explain to me in terms an "enthusiast" would understand how 2 slower, hotter, more expensive AMD 64's is worthy competition for a single Core 2 Duo, and then tell me that AMD has nothing to worry about . . .
You've almost hit the mark, but not quite. I don't believe that an Excel replacement is the issue. I've never had a major problem opening an Excel spreadsheet in OpenOffice or Gnumeric. Nearly every function has been implemented and cell formatting is rarely a huge issue when transitioning from one program to another. The major drawback to running Linux is the lack of a Word replacement. Yes, I know of ALL the word processors out there for Linux: Abiword, Kword, OpenOffice, the list goes on . . . but there is not a single one of them that will open a Microsoft Word document and get the formatting completely correct. Some of this surely is related to fonts that aren't readily available, I mean you could transfer them (probably illegally) from somewhere else to your machine and that "might" help. But in the professional world where documents are sent back and forth for editing between several people, you can really screw everything up by not having the same page breaks / fonts / exporters as everyone else. The advantage to OSX and Windows is that Microsoft's products run on those, and as long as that's the case Linux will be limited in its ability to penetrate the professional market. As an IT manager I've chosen to have our (albeit small, about 8 people) engineering firm switch entirely to OpenOffice. Mostly because I don't care if my employees can see flash web pages properly or want to play their iTunes music. But I still get the call everytime a client sends us a document in Word format and when we send it back we've changed "EVERYTHING" according to them.
I won't call you a liar;-) I just haven't had that experience since gnome 2.8 or earlier. Gnome 2.14 seems extremely fast to me and others, especially when it comes to Gnome Terminal (even though it still can't match the speed of Konsole). Maybe try wiping your.gnome directory and starting over with the latest version to see if there's just some archaic metafiles slowing you down or something. Otherwise, happy file navigating in your non-nautilus bliss:-)
For those still complaining that Nautilus is slow, you're probably the same people that hate Gnome and switched permanently to KDE about 5 years ago. Nautilus, especially in its latest incarnations is extremely fast at file browsing. And I don't know why more people don't mention it, but you can bypass the trash / recycle bin in almost every operating system by pressing "Shift-Delete" when you have a file selected. Works in windows, works in Gnome . . .
What's not ironic is that an anti Intel post was made without reading the FA. The AMD processors actually put out more heat than this processor when idle (which is most of the time for most computer users). Intel has made progress with their 65 nm design in reducing heat and power consumption.
That's not necessarily a benefit that should be bragged about. It's merely a difference in architecture design, and AMD does still have a data bus, called hyperlink, which connects it to the Southbridge. The flaw in their design involves multi-cpu systems accessing the southbridge. If both processors need access, one of them has to stop to allow the other one to get through. Intel's implementation shares the bus, so even though it could be a bottleneck, both processors can still continue to function regardless of what the other one is doing. This may not affect you if you process in memory only, but if both processors need disk access for example, then effectively both AMD processors function at half speed since only one can get to the PCI bus at a time.
What AMD really did was got rid of the northbridge connection by putting it on the silicone itself. The bus is still there, it just doesn't have to go as far.
Ah how I love shortsighted fanboys. What the hell has AMD ever been Intel to the market with? I can think of one thing, 64-bit extensions to an x86 processor, and Intel's implementation didn't have any bugs in it.
The pure size of Intel allows it to stay ahead in terms of manufacturing techniques and volume, much the same way that IBM stayed at the top for years in development. AMD does a remarkable job of making up for that by using more efficient processor designs though, but we'll see where both stand at the end of '06, cause the industry is sensing a change in the wind . . . even if slashdot can't smell it.
Re:Why IE and Outlook are considered harmful
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I understand the mental thinking that leads to that sort of speculation. But how about looking at it from the opposite side? Let's assume that everyone switched from Windows to Linux today. How would our security world change?
The complexity of Linux installs could lead to insufficient firewalling / disabling of services, besides, passwords are just as easy to guess on Linux as they are on Windows. Hijackers would begin focusing their efforts on an operating system whose source code is readily available. Kiss goodbye the days of packet sniffing and byte decoders to find holes in software, they can look through all of the source code and find their own holes. Or worse, put holes into software in the form of cleverly written patches. The larger distributions might be able to keep up with security updates assuming you're running the most recent releases and have figured out how to use their native "software update" programs. But then again, it may not be readily apparent that my friend Teddy should install the latest patch against OpenSSL, I mean, what the hell does he care if some package called OpenSSL is up to date or not. But that doesn't begin to tackle the hundreds of distributions that have no form of automated software updates, nor does it begin to address the instant loss in functionality that most users would experience in shifting from Windows to Linux.
You may think this is some flame from a Windows fanboy, but all that I run IS Linux. I'm just trying to point out that it is impossible to predict that the world would be a better place without the likes of Microsoft. Although that paperclip can kiss my . . .
Oh the whit, how I envy you. Tabbed browsing was actually added to Mozilla in 2003, a full 3 years after it was added to Opera and a full 9 years after it's original debut in 1994 by Brooklink, Inc. (http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wa_browser_mult.h tm).
Who's goal? Your goal? The goal of society is often argued to be "to better itself". And in that regard you have fully failed to prove why society should stop using Windows, Explorer, Outlook, etc. I'm not going to even bother awaiting the "windows sucks / linux rocks" response to that. But I will end by saying that the only way we better ourselves is through innovation, and innovation is fueled by competition.
Re:Yay, Slashdot!
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I think what you meant to write is "IE is widely known", which leads to it being an insecure browser. Who's going to work on an exploit for Firefox/Mozilla/Opera in hopes of attacking the sub 10% of the population actually using those. Just because exploits haven't been found / published doesn't mean that Firefox is any more secure than IE.
More so, no matter how many resources Microsoft has to throw at the problem, society is so messed up that there will always be more people out there trying to infect/corrupt/destroy grandma's computer. The real question you should be asking is, "Why do we need a secure browser?" Because the answer is terrifying.
Haha, well put. Yeah, us geeks always love our gadgets. But I do agree with you about speed and stability being king, and luckily in this day and age, there are a plethora of options which are all stable, and it's just a matter of finding out which is fastest for the stuff you gotta do. Happy rendering!
Well, it's definitely hard to compare windows and linux when running applications. They interact very differently on the kernel level so there's not always a direct performance comparison depending on what the code is doing. I can say that the AMD's definitely scream when they are asked to do a series of small tasks. For instance, bash scripts in Linux seem to execute infinitely faster on the AMD than the Intel platform (ok, infinitely is a bit of an exaggeration, but let's say at least twice as fast). Code seems to compile faster. Ray tracing, which is mostly an integer based operation is usually dominated by clock speed, however a 64-bit processor can perform two 32-bit operations per cycle (although the 6xx series pentium 4's do have 64 bit extensions).
I don't know ANYTHING about how games are written, I only know that you'd be hard pressed to find a benchmark on any website where an AMD Athlon lost to a Pentium, it just doesn't happen. I can't even describe exactly why our company's code runs so damn efficiently on the Intel platform, but it just does, and no amount of optimization and different compilers can seem to close the gap, which is really too bad since almost half of our computer farm are Opterons. All I ever really try to get across when I start on these stupid rants is to get fanboys/fangirls of either platform to realize that neither company is the perfect solution and neither one even has that much of an advantage. But you know the slashdot crowd, if it's got intel/microsoft/sco associated with it then it's a spawn of satan and if it's got apple/google/linux on its side then it can't lose.
As a side note, one of my buddies at work does a lot of work with Blender and he prefers his SPARC machines, which run at about 400 MHz and can clean up on a 2 GHz P4.
I'd like to agree with you but you've left a lot of details out of your "real life scenarios." You don't mention any attempts at optimizing for the Intel processor for one. I also work in a compute-intensive field where floating point operations dominate. We've got a bank of 10 AMD Opteron 250 machines as well as a slew of Intels (we were always Intel based since our early experience with AMD had left us with overheating / lockup prone boxes).
Performance-wise, our Intel 660 series chips (about $340) perform almost TWICE as well as the Opteron 250's (~$442, prices from pricewatch). The intel code optimized with Intel's compiler, the AMD code optimized with Portland Group. We've tried every optimization we can think of (we even wrote out own compiler). The AMD chips just cannot keep up with Intel for OUR application.
It amazes me that every time an INTEL/AMD story comes up, or a MAC/WIN/LINUX story comes up for that matter, everyone flies to the keyboard to rant about how great their choice is without any consideration for the niche that they're in.
For gaming there is no comparison, the AMD chip wins hands down (though Intel's dothan/yonah architecture is changing that, and let's see an Athlon64 produce only 26 watts of heat disspation). AMD's smaller cache size pays a penalty though when dealing with large data arrays where 3.6 GHz and a 2MB cache smoke AMD.
AMD used to be the king when it came to price, but that's not the story anymore. Call it whatever you want or claim I'm wrong, but check the prices on your favorite crawler. Bottom of the line prices were discussed in an earlier post, and top of the line is no different. In fact AMD's latest offering is more expensive than a P4 Extreme Edition ( Athlon64 FX60 @ $1163 vs 3.46 GHz P4EE 1066 bus @$1060 ). And the server market is no different, the Opterons are not cheap and never have been. Even in the dual core market Intel's lowest offering is cheaper ( Pentium-D 820 @ $244 vs Athlon 64 x2 3800 @ $310 ).
What does it all mean in the end, who's winning, what should you buy? There is no clear-cut answer. Either processor could be 2 or 3 times faster than their competitor and performing the task that you need it for. AMD has come along way in terms of reliability and compatibility since their K5 days, but so have their prices. Their architecture is terribly efficient at many things, more so than the aging P4 NetBurst. The end of 2006 should see those tables balance out again as the Dothan/Yonah architectures make it into mainstream desktop use. So keep your eyes peeled, and your ears open. But watch our for fanboys.
The slashdot crowd once again rears its ugly "i'm a linux zealot so I'll say anything against windows and for linux even if it's not true" head. I'm a regular user of both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. BOTH operating systems support killing and restarting MOST services without taking down the entire computer, as well as OSX. BOTH operating systems will let you dynamically load and unload hardware drivers without a reboot. BOTH operating systems will allow you to change your network configuration without requiring a reboot. BOTH operating systems require a reboot for kernel modifications. Windows requires a reboot for core DLL files since it doesn't have a runlevel 3 to drop back to like Linux does. But for all intensive purposes, if I have to shut down all services as well as X-windows, I'm not that close to being any better off.
As other users have pointed out, don't blame Microsoft for the software maker's innability to report when a reboot is actually required or not. Linux never tells you when you "should" reboot unless you've installed a new kernel, it just blindly assumes you're ok, when sometimes you are not. This was also pointed out for OSX, whose update manager usually suggests a reboot even though the OS is capable of surviving without it. I can also tell you from personal experience that you can offer to "reboot later" and continue using the newly installed software with no problem most of the time.
The difference in these approaches is that when grandma and grandpa install something and windows doesn't reboot for them and a conflict arises, they're left with a blue screen of death and can't understand what happened. When a linux user updates but doesn't restart X, and then applications start hanging, he/she knows, "oh, guess I just have to restart, that was my fault." When the general public isn't well educated and is using your software, you just do what's safest for them.
Right, there are bug-free and security-exploit free OS's in existence? Point me to one.
My company runs RedHat Enterprise and guess what, almost weekly there are security / bug fixes and guess what, you even have to pay a subscription service to get them. Not good enough, how about Ubunutu? To date over 40 bug/security fixes for an OS released less than 2 months ago, and that's only a part of the over 17,000 bugs listed in their bug database, granted some are duplicates or possibly even feature requests.
Or maybe you're referring to the coveted and obviously perfect OS X. Try again, 10.4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.3. Those weren't issued just to give the user a warm-fuzzy feeling of feature progress. They contained bug and security fixes, plenty of them.
It's sickening to see the otherwise intelligent IT community get up in arms about a new product release from Microsoft. Take it for what it is, a virus scanner for the most used operating system in the world. Are there viruses for other platforms? Yes. Are they as prevalent? No. But remember that not all viruses are a result of a security vulnerability in Windows, that's just ignorant. Trojans can be installed as an exploit to almost any application with internet access. Email viruses can be opened and executed by almost any email program if the user so wishes.
There are free and non-free virus scanning alternatives, but none of them is a catch all and none of them perfect. Symantec corporate is my flavor of choice, but only because it stays out of everyone else's way.
Slashdot Mirror
The brightest LED light listed at Think Geek also has a light output of 120 Lumens, equivalent to the light output of an 8 Watt incandescent bulb or a 2 Watt CFL. That's not much light, and you certaintly woulnd't expect to light a living room with those light bulbs . . .
CFL's come in man wattages and in many colors. You shouldn't have a problem finding a 150 watt equivalent CFL unless it is the size/shape of the bulb that is preventing replacement. Some people have also been complaining about color but at my local Menards/Lowes/Home Depot they have several different bulbs ranging from red/blue/yellow to soft white to bright white. Near as I can tell, there aren't too many bulbs that can't be replaced, save for halogen and some of the odd candle shaped bulbs maybe.
SATA doesn't have slave and master so that won't be a bandwidth issue. The drives are also quite an expense and you are reusing yours. The 750 GB drives go for $330 a piece. There's also the quality of the power supplies and cases (which can inflate the cost). Lastly, you're paying for the integration and the configuration of the OS. Even if they're using a free implementation of open source software such as Fedora, it's not a trivial matter (for some) to set up the remote administration and any other non-advertised services that may come preconfigured (they aren't very descriptive on their website). Overall this is a fairly good price if you compare it to products from Aberdeen, Adaptec, Iomega, etc.
Since it's not mentioned on their webpage or in the article, I searched for a listing of the price points and found the following.
h tml
"The PetaBox nodes and racks are available now. Base pricing for the nodes (512K RAM, 10/100 interface, and no LCD) ranges from $1,595 (GB1000) to $3,395 (GB3000)." http://products.datamation.com/dms/sc/1156440622.
The GB1000 is the 1TB node and the GB3000 is the 3TB node. I think they might mean 512MB of RAM base, but who knows. Sounds like it's a Fedora linux based product which makes me wonder what services it provides, they don't list. I would assume basic NFS/SMB/AFS services but there's no mention of backup / replication services, mirroring between twin nodes, etc that competitive products offer.
I'm confused why Microsoft would make a move like this. Their pricing scheme is not competitive with any other OS's on the market that I can think of. Retail boxes of most Linux distributions are between $50 and $100 USD. A new copy of OSX costs $129 (and people still complain about that!). But at least with OSX you can buy a 5-pack "family" license for $199. And yet, Microsoft comes out and expects people to pay $199 minimum to run Windows on their non-Dell/HP/SONY prebundled computer. I mean, if Microsoft is right about the number of pirated copies on computers then they can't count on "upgrade" customers cause there must be some check to prevent it from being upgraded on a pirated copy.
A good question to ask is what they consider an upgrade to be? Can you upgrade Win 3.1/95/ME? Cause I'm sure you can find a copy of one of those for less than the $100 difference between retail/upgrade. Does anyone else think this pricing scheme will fuel more people to switch over to Mac/Linux computers? Or will it have no impact and people will just buy their Dell/HP/ computer with it prebundled and not care?
There really are two genres of strategy guides which, as you point out, should be separated into "walk throughs" and "secrets/hints". I agree that the "walk-through" generation is not, contrary to what the author of the article writes, "increasing your return." A video game should be a source of entertainment and I find it hard to believe that someone's entertainment is increased by being told what button to push at what time for the entire game. I used to punch my brother if he said a word about what had to be done at any given point in a game.
The other branch are guides that provide "hints/cheats/secrets" and these are great for people looking to "spice-up" their second round through a game. Let's be honest, it was fun to tool around in Doom in god mode on the nightmare setting for a few minutes, or to turn on no-clipping and see where you might end up in quake. And some secrets I cannot believe coders take the time to put in a game with no hint as to how to find it. There was some cow level in Diablo 2 if I remember that I would never have found out about if not for the internet. Why spend the time coding (you are getting paid to do that and it is costing the customer in the end) a secret level that the majority will NEVER find? Anyway, these guides provide added entertainment to a game and DO increase your return.
In the end, products are made becasue products sell and apparently there are people who want to spend $50 on a game and $15 on a guide so that they can mindlessly blitz through the game in 2 hours and call it quits, it may not be for you or me, but it's floating someone's boat.
Since this has already turned into another "My OS is better than your OS" debate, let's keep in mind that Linux cannot support even regular DVD playback for most people (at least the US population) due to the CSS encryption. Whether you choose to break the law or not is your own business cause I'm not the one in charge of policing it.
.? As for linux, good luck, don't get caught, and I'm sure you'll be able to watch encrypted HD content within a year of everyone else.
But it seems silly at this point to jump on MS when the only way you can play it in another OS is by taking the law into your own hands. Sure, 64-bit is not required to watch any content as of yet, there's just no need from a technical standpoint. What's upsetting about this move is that it's yet another stumbling point keeping us away from true usability. Will it affect most people? Not when new 64-bit machines cost $400 from Dell and will come prebundled with Vista. Hell, that's worth it to most people so they don't have to spend a couple hours of their time trying to 'upgrade' their current PC. I also don't believe 64-bit drivers will be an issue when Vista ships, hell OSX is making the same transition and nobody is getting worried there (yes, i know they don't have to support as many devices).
What would be more interesting than Vista's requirements for HD is what the Apple camp is doing to prepare for supporting this kind of content. Their machines are preparing to become leaders in the media pc world now that they ship with remote controls and DVI outputs for modern HD TV's. All that is missing is an integrated TV tuner but that can't be too far into the future. What hurdles will they make you jump . .
How about the Jack Bauer Bridge instead. Think about it, the bridge would get built right the first time, it would only take one person to do it, and it would only take 24 hours to complete.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how doubling up the number of processors/cores will help AMD to compete with the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Duo Extreme processor offerings. The benchmarks posted earlier today clearly show that Intel's latest offerings leave AMD's processors in the dust both in terms of cost, efficiency and performance. What possible "enthusiast" is going to see the benefit of running 4 cores vs. a dual core? I mean, gamers won't see a performance boost from that until games are truly multi-threaded, and even then they'd have to be optimized for more than 2 threads. Regular desktop apps don't challenge the CPU as it is. Not to mention that putting in 2 AMD 64's is going to generate twice the heat which is the area that AMD fanboys used to brag about the most. So somebody please explain to me in terms an "enthusiast" would understand how 2 slower, hotter, more expensive AMD 64's is worthy competition for a single Core 2 Duo, and then tell me that AMD has nothing to worry about . . .
You've almost hit the mark, but not quite. I don't believe that an Excel replacement is the issue. I've never had a major problem opening an Excel spreadsheet in OpenOffice or Gnumeric. Nearly every function has been implemented and cell formatting is rarely a huge issue when transitioning from one program to another. The major drawback to running Linux is the lack of a Word replacement. Yes, I know of ALL the word processors out there for Linux: Abiword, Kword, OpenOffice, the list goes on . . . but there is not a single one of them that will open a Microsoft Word document and get the formatting completely correct. Some of this surely is related to fonts that aren't readily available, I mean you could transfer them (probably illegally) from somewhere else to your machine and that "might" help. But in the professional world where documents are sent back and forth for editing between several people, you can really screw everything up by not having the same page breaks / fonts / exporters as everyone else. The advantage to OSX and Windows is that Microsoft's products run on those, and as long as that's the case Linux will be limited in its ability to penetrate the professional market. As an IT manager I've chosen to have our (albeit small, about 8 people) engineering firm switch entirely to OpenOffice. Mostly because I don't care if my employees can see flash web pages properly or want to play their iTunes music. But I still get the call everytime a client sends us a document in Word format and when we send it back we've changed "EVERYTHING" according to them.
La la la la la la la la
;-) I just haven't had that experience since gnome 2.8 or earlier. Gnome 2.14 seems extremely fast to me and others, especially when it comes to Gnome Terminal (even though it still can't match the speed of Konsole). Maybe try wiping your .gnome directory and starting over with the latest version to see if there's just some archaic metafiles slowing you down or something. Otherwise, happy file navigating in your non-nautilus bliss :-)
I won't call you a liar
For those still complaining that Nautilus is slow, you're probably the same people that hate Gnome and switched permanently to KDE about 5 years ago. Nautilus, especially in its latest incarnations is extremely fast at file browsing. And I don't know why more people don't mention it, but you can bypass the trash / recycle bin in almost every operating system by pressing "Shift-Delete" when you have a file selected. Works in windows, works in Gnome . . .
What's not ironic is that an anti Intel post was made without reading the FA. The AMD processors actually put out more heat than this processor when idle (which is most of the time for most computer users). Intel has made progress with their 65 nm design in reducing heat and power consumption.
That's not necessarily a benefit that should be bragged about. It's merely a difference in architecture design, and AMD does still have a data bus, called hyperlink, which connects it to the Southbridge. The flaw in their design involves multi-cpu systems accessing the southbridge. If both processors need access, one of them has to stop to allow the other one to get through. Intel's implementation shares the bus, so even though it could be a bottleneck, both processors can still continue to function regardless of what the other one is doing. This may not affect you if you process in memory only, but if both processors need disk access for example, then effectively both AMD processors function at half speed since only one can get to the PCI bus at a time.
What AMD really did was got rid of the northbridge connection by putting it on the silicone itself. The bus is still there, it just doesn't have to go as far.
Well put, I look forward to the next year.
Ah how I love shortsighted fanboys. What the hell has AMD ever been Intel to the market with? I can think of one thing, 64-bit extensions to an x86 processor, and Intel's implementation didn't have any bugs in it.
The pure size of Intel allows it to stay ahead in terms of manufacturing techniques and volume, much the same way that IBM stayed at the top for years in development. AMD does a remarkable job of making up for that by using more efficient processor designs though, but we'll see where both stand at the end of '06, cause the industry is sensing a change in the wind . . . even if slashdot can't smell it.
I understand the mental thinking that leads to that sort of speculation. But how about looking at it from the opposite side? Let's assume that everyone switched from Windows to Linux today. How would our security world change?
The complexity of Linux installs could lead to insufficient firewalling / disabling of services, besides, passwords are just as easy to guess on Linux as they are on Windows. Hijackers would begin focusing their efforts on an operating system whose source code is readily available. Kiss goodbye the days of packet sniffing and byte decoders to find holes in software, they can look through all of the source code and find their own holes. Or worse, put holes into software in the form of cleverly written patches. The larger distributions might be able to keep up with security updates assuming you're running the most recent releases and have figured out how to use their native "software update" programs. But then again, it may not be readily apparent that my friend Teddy should install the latest patch against OpenSSL, I mean, what the hell does he care if some package called OpenSSL is up to date or not. But that doesn't begin to tackle the hundreds of distributions that have no form of automated software updates, nor does it begin to address the instant loss in functionality that most users would experience in shifting from Windows to Linux.
You may think this is some flame from a Windows fanboy, but all that I run IS Linux. I'm just trying to point out that it is impossible to predict that the world would be a better place without the likes of Microsoft. Although that paperclip can kiss my . . .
Oh the whit, how I envy you. Tabbed browsing was actually added to Mozilla in 2003, a full 3 years after it was added to Opera and a full 9 years after it's original debut in 1994 by Brooklink, Inc. (http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wa_browser_mult.h tm).
Who's goal? Your goal? The goal of society is often argued to be "to better itself". And in that regard you have fully failed to prove why society should stop using Windows, Explorer, Outlook, etc. I'm not going to even bother awaiting the "windows sucks / linux rocks" response to that. But I will end by saying that the only way we better ourselves is through innovation, and innovation is fueled by competition.
I think what you meant to write is "IE is widely known", which leads to it being an insecure browser. Who's going to work on an exploit for Firefox/Mozilla/Opera in hopes of attacking the sub 10% of the population actually using those. Just because exploits haven't been found / published doesn't mean that Firefox is any more secure than IE.
More so, no matter how many resources Microsoft has to throw at the problem, society is so messed up that there will always be more people out there trying to infect/corrupt/destroy grandma's computer. The real question you should be asking is, "Why do we need a secure browser?" Because the answer is terrifying.
Haha, well put. Yeah, us geeks always love our gadgets. But I do agree with you about speed and stability being king, and luckily in this day and age, there are a plethora of options which are all stable, and it's just a matter of finding out which is fastest for the stuff you gotta do. Happy rendering!
Well, it's definitely hard to compare windows and linux when running applications. They interact very differently on the kernel level so there's not always a direct performance comparison depending on what the code is doing. I can say that the AMD's definitely scream when they are asked to do a series of small tasks. For instance, bash scripts in Linux seem to execute infinitely faster on the AMD than the Intel platform (ok, infinitely is a bit of an exaggeration, but let's say at least twice as fast). Code seems to compile faster. Ray tracing, which is mostly an integer based operation is usually dominated by clock speed, however a 64-bit processor can perform two 32-bit operations per cycle (although the 6xx series pentium 4's do have 64 bit extensions).
I don't know ANYTHING about how games are written, I only know that you'd be hard pressed to find a benchmark on any website where an AMD Athlon lost to a Pentium, it just doesn't happen. I can't even describe exactly why our company's code runs so damn efficiently on the Intel platform, but it just does, and no amount of optimization and different compilers can seem to close the gap, which is really too bad since almost half of our computer farm are Opterons. All I ever really try to get across when I start on these stupid rants is to get fanboys/fangirls of either platform to realize that neither company is the perfect solution and neither one even has that much of an advantage. But you know the slashdot crowd, if it's got intel/microsoft/sco associated with it then it's a spawn of satan and if it's got apple/google/linux on its side then it can't lose.
As a side note, one of my buddies at work does a lot of work with Blender and he prefers his SPARC machines, which run at about 400 MHz and can clean up on a 2 GHz P4.
I'd like to agree with you but you've left a lot of details out of your "real life scenarios." You don't mention any attempts at optimizing for the Intel processor for one. I also work in a compute-intensive field where floating point operations dominate. We've got a bank of 10 AMD Opteron 250 machines as well as a slew of Intels (we were always Intel based since our early experience with AMD had left us with overheating / lockup prone boxes).
Performance-wise, our Intel 660 series chips (about $340) perform almost TWICE as well as the Opteron 250's (~$442, prices from pricewatch). The intel code optimized with Intel's compiler, the AMD code optimized with Portland Group. We've tried every optimization we can think of (we even wrote out own compiler). The AMD chips just cannot keep up with Intel for OUR application.
It amazes me that every time an INTEL/AMD story comes up, or a MAC/WIN/LINUX story comes up for that matter, everyone flies to the keyboard to rant about how great their choice is without any consideration for the niche that they're in.
For gaming there is no comparison, the AMD chip wins hands down (though Intel's dothan/yonah architecture is changing that, and let's see an Athlon64 produce only 26 watts of heat disspation). AMD's smaller cache size pays a penalty though when dealing with large data arrays where 3.6 GHz and a 2MB cache smoke AMD.
AMD used to be the king when it came to price, but that's not the story anymore. Call it whatever you want or claim I'm wrong, but check the prices on your favorite crawler. Bottom of the line prices were discussed in an earlier post, and top of the line is no different. In fact AMD's latest offering is more expensive than a P4 Extreme Edition ( Athlon64 FX60 @ $1163 vs 3.46 GHz P4EE 1066 bus @$1060 ). And the server market is no different, the Opterons are not cheap and never have been. Even in the dual core market Intel's lowest offering is cheaper ( Pentium-D 820 @ $244 vs Athlon 64 x2 3800 @ $310 ).
What does it all mean in the end, who's winning, what should you buy? There is no clear-cut answer. Either processor could be 2 or 3 times faster than their competitor and performing the task that you need it for. AMD has come along way in terms of reliability and compatibility since their K5 days, but so have their prices. Their architecture is terribly efficient at many things, more so than the aging P4 NetBurst. The end of 2006 should see those tables balance out again as the Dothan/Yonah architectures make it into mainstream desktop use. So keep your eyes peeled, and your ears open. But watch our for fanboys.
The slashdot crowd once again rears its ugly "i'm a linux zealot so I'll say anything against windows and for linux even if it's not true" head. I'm a regular user of both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. BOTH operating systems support killing and restarting MOST services without taking down the entire computer, as well as OSX. BOTH operating systems will let you dynamically load and unload hardware drivers without a reboot. BOTH operating systems will allow you to change your network configuration without requiring a reboot. BOTH operating systems require a reboot for kernel modifications. Windows requires a reboot for core DLL files since it doesn't have a runlevel 3 to drop back to like Linux does. But for all intensive purposes, if I have to shut down all services as well as X-windows, I'm not that close to being any better off. As other users have pointed out, don't blame Microsoft for the software maker's innability to report when a reboot is actually required or not. Linux never tells you when you "should" reboot unless you've installed a new kernel, it just blindly assumes you're ok, when sometimes you are not. This was also pointed out for OSX, whose update manager usually suggests a reboot even though the OS is capable of surviving without it. I can also tell you from personal experience that you can offer to "reboot later" and continue using the newly installed software with no problem most of the time. The difference in these approaches is that when grandma and grandpa install something and windows doesn't reboot for them and a conflict arises, they're left with a blue screen of death and can't understand what happened. When a linux user updates but doesn't restart X, and then applications start hanging, he/she knows, "oh, guess I just have to restart, that was my fault." When the general public isn't well educated and is using your software, you just do what's safest for them.
Right, there are bug-free and security-exploit free OS's in existence? Point me to one.
My company runs RedHat Enterprise and guess what, almost weekly there are security / bug fixes and guess what, you even have to pay a subscription service to get them. Not good enough, how about Ubunutu? To date over 40 bug/security fixes for an OS released less than 2 months ago, and that's only a part of the over 17,000 bugs listed in their bug database, granted some are duplicates or possibly even feature requests.
Or maybe you're referring to the coveted and obviously perfect OS X. Try again, 10.4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.3. Those weren't issued just to give the user a warm-fuzzy feeling of feature progress. They contained bug and security fixes, plenty of them.
It's sickening to see the otherwise intelligent IT community get up in arms about a new product release from Microsoft. Take it for what it is, a virus scanner for the most used operating system in the world. Are there viruses for other platforms? Yes. Are they as prevalent? No. But remember that not all viruses are a result of a security vulnerability in Windows, that's just ignorant. Trojans can be installed as an exploit to almost any application with internet access. Email viruses can be opened and executed by almost any email program if the user so wishes.
There are free and non-free virus scanning alternatives, but none of them is a catch all and none of them perfect. Symantec corporate is my flavor of choice, but only because it stays out of everyone else's way.