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  1. Re:Could this be it? on The XFree86 Fork() Saga Continues · · Score: 4, Insightful

    you put the graphics close to the metal and then abstract that instead. That's why DirectX is the darling of game developers.
    >>>>>>>>>
    That's hilarious. Graphics hardware has gotten so advanced, that direct access actually *hinders* performance because it prevents the graphics card from optimizing things as well (a developer for the BeOS Radeon driver once told me this). DirectDraw has been getting significantly more abstracted, to the point where it was put on top of Direct3D which, like OpenGL, is a quite high-level abstraction. Look at the way current graphics cards are designed to run:

    Making individual calls to the graphics hardware (over the AGP bus) to draw each element is hideously slow. Instead, graphics hardware is designed to take a pointer to a memory region containing a big batch of drawing commands. The CPU fills the command buffer, sets up a DMA on the graphics card, and waits for an interrupt for the GPU to finish processing. As a result of this, OpenGL implementations work the following way: the OpenGL library (in userspace) creates a command buffer from the OpenGL calls the application makes. When the command buffer is large enough (or the application does a flush), it makes a (expensive) call into the kernel driver, which sets up the DMA and drawing operation and returns control back to the app. Notice, that because of the batch-orientation, the performance bottleneck is not in the communication between the application and the hardware. Even if having a client server model makes the flush stage 10 times slower (it's more like 2x or 3x in reality) there won't be a significant performance difference. Given that OpenGL libraries live entirely in userspace, with a small kernel driver responsible for setting up DMA operations and responding to interrupts, there is no reason to believe that putting things "close to the metal" will make things appreciably faster.

  2. Re:XFree Obsolete? on The XFree86 Fork() Saga Continues · · Score: 2, Insightful

    and it has ugly ass fonts
    >>>>>>>>>
    Check out this and this. The letter shapes, even on the complex Kaufmann font, are incredible. They'll probably look color fringed on a CRT, because I took these with subpixel AA enabled.

    hardware through TCP ports
    >>>>>>>>>>
    Um, XFree86 uses UNIX domain sockets (very fast on Linux) for local connections, not TCP sockets!

  3. Re:STSF Looks Pretty Cool on The XFree86 Fork() Saga Continues · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My question: does stsf use it's own font renderer? I highly doubt they came up with something nicer than freetype without anybody really making a buzz about it.

  4. Re:^x is cut in Windows on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    Not in OpenOffice, it does underline. But t yping ^D in the Slashdot entry form does clear everything, though...

  5. Re:Inaccuracies on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    Ah, you we're talking about Win 3.1, not Win95. Never mind. Sorry 'bout that. I didn't quite read "version of Windows *prior* to" bit, and I thought your post was one of those standard Win95 bashers.

  6. Re:I have to wonder... on TiVo++ from India · · Score: 3, Interesting

    *Dreaded* consequence? For who? Compete or get out of the business, isn't that the American motto? Might have to deal with a lower standard of living to do it? Well tough. Other people have been doing it for a long time.

    If the US ideology had been isolationist and protectivist (and it hadn't tried so hard to "open up" markets in the rest of the world) I could sympathize with your position. But it wasn't, and I don't.

  7. Re:Inaccuracies on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    Score -5 misinformative!

    You're entirely off base in many places.

    1) Win95 did run in full 32-bit protected mode. However, it thunked calls to a 16-bit protected mode layer, which is entirely possible within the x86 architecture.
    2) Win95 ran all 32-bit apps in a preemptively multitasked environment (Win32 doesn't support cooperative multitasking). All 16-bit apps were run in a single cooperatively multitasked virtual machine.
    3) Win95 had 32-bit filesystems and IDE drivers from the beginning. FAT16 was 32-bit code. It referenced it's file allocation table with a 16-bit (as in 2 bytes) integer, which mean it could support only as many blocks as could be described using a short integer. FAT32 was also 32-bit code but used 22-bits of a 32-bit integer to reference it's file allocation table.

    I'm the last person to defend Win95. But the reason it sucked was because it had some gaping memory model flaws (a 1GB writable shared region, some bits of writable kernel memory), internally thunked to lots of 16-bit code, and was just plain buggy.

  8. Re:I feel old. on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    they were actually helpful and explained that this XT-286 had the PS/2 mouse port on a non standard IRQ and I'd need to get a serial mouse.
    >>>>>>>>>>>
    Wow. These days, I'd be impressed to find a tech who knows what the hell an IRQ is!

  9. Re:NonBloated on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    optional apps a bonus!
    >>>>>>>>
    Vi is not optional to a Vi user, Emacs is. Emacs is not optional to an Emacs user, Vi is. Konqueror is not optional to a KDE user, Galeon is. Galeon is not optional to a GNOME user, Konqueror is. Therein lies the problem. Multiple applications exist to do the same thing because the Linux user community has some very broad preferences.

  10. Re:NonBloated on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    OMG. I once tried to do a "minimal" install of XP, just to run one single program (AutoCAD) that I needed for coursework. I could not get the Windows install down to less than about a gig. Meanwhile, a 2gig install of Linux includes everything from office suite to development tools!

  11. Re:A crowd Pleaser on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    Dude. Just make life easy for yourself and version control your documents. I've got everything stored under SubVersion (yes it's alpha, but the storage layers solid :) in my basement back home (650 miles away). Not only do I have piece of mind (barring my little brother finding it an using it as an AirSoft target!) but I can access my data *anywhere*.

  12. Re:Burned-in pattern on Screenshot History of Windows · · Score: 1

    I've got a better one. I hit instinctivly hit Control-S when writing Slashdot posts! Anything with a text-box, basically!

  13. Thanks slack on Slackware 9 Unleashed to World · · Score: 1

    I'm a relative n00b to all of this. My first distro was Slack 3.4. One of the 5 CD sets. Cool stuff. Now, I'm a full time Linux user. Thanks a lot Slack devs!

  14. Re:X *does* need a change on XFree86 Politics · · Score: 1

    Actually, I've done benchmarks. X is about as fast as good DirectX code. It absolutely trashes the GDI for stuff like bit-blitting. Try opening a well-optimized application like Qt Designer and resizing that. See how smooth it is (it is on my 2Ghz P4 with NVIDIA drivers). The real bottleneck, according to what I've gleaned from various mailing lists, is not so much raw speed, as intelligent redraw. In that case, the onus is as much on the toolkit (to make intelligent redraw as easy as possible for individual application developers) as it is on X (to make intelligent redraw technically possible).

  15. Re:It's big, it's old, and we're stuck with it on XFree86 Politics · · Score: 1

    Um, on my system, the X11 binary is 1.5MB, and libX11 is 860kb. Not very large, is it? Hell, the NVIDIA drivers are bigger than that! And speaking of NVIDIA drivers, XFree86 4.x is very modular. Take a look at the driver API sometimes. The reason it's distributed in a 70MB package is the same reason Windows comes with hundreds of megs of drivers: flexibility on the packager's end. That way you don't have to maintain all sorts of seperate repositories for drivers (because by and large most drivers are released by the XFree86 project themselves anyway). There is no technical limitation stopping people from releasing independent drivers, which NVIDIA and ATI both have done.

  16. Re:The problem of rewriting/forking XFree on XFree86 Politics · · Score: 1

    It enforces a certain kind of Look and Feel (granted, that's because there's only one "ToolKit").
    >>>
    There are three. Classic, Carbon, and Cocoa.

    It can support way more features of modern graphics cards than X (OpenGL).
    >>>>>>>>>
    I assume you're talking OpenGL for the desktop, because X supports OpenGL for individual programs as well. In theory, yes OS X could use OpenGL to accelerate Quartz 2D. However, for whatever reason (technical or time) it doesn't. OpenGL is only used to accelerate stuff like window-transparency, window-shadows, and the genie effect. Actual drawing (in Quartz2D canvases) is done via software. This might have something to do with their close ties to PDF (which might make integration with OpenGL harder) I don't know. However, I do know that projects like EVAS on X11 are way ahead of OS X in that they can actually use OpenGL to accelerate all drawing.

    I do consider vector graphics a huge plus too. Decent fonthandling (which admittedly is improving in X), ...
    >>>>>>
    X11 has great font handling. FontConfig makes things totally simple (just drop fonts into a folder). The fact that some distros haven't caught up yet doesn't change the fact that on the distros that have (RedHat 8, Gentoo, others I think) the problem is solved. As for font rendering, thanks to recent improvements in FreeType (2.1.3+), it is now the hands-down best renderer I've ever seen for anti-aliased text.

  17. Re:On network transparency... on XFree86 Politics · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Network transparency doesn't add a whole lot of overhead. All the major GUIs today (even some of the fastest ones like BeOS's) used a client/server design. With more and more stuff moving towards the graphics card (which all employ a "batch commands and DMA in one go" programming method that is well-suited to client-server systems) the cost approaches zero.

  18. Re:Mike's diary entry on XFree86 Politics · · Score: 1

    Actually, XFree86 4.x is fully modular. That was one of the major focuses of the 4.x release. Both NVIDIA and ATI release binary drivers independently. IIRC, they're even XFree-version independent (4.2 versions work just fine with 4.3 even without an update from NVIDIA). So your guess is wrong.

  19. Re:Mike's diary entry on XFree86 Politics · · Score: 1

    Most stuff is modular these days. But some stuff like ACPI can't be. ACPI requires a bunch of kernel infrastructure. So if the battery module realizes there is only 10% power left, it has to send a messege to the other devices to cut power usage. The kernel has to parse the ACPI tables at bootup. In a kernel that has no knowledge of ACPI, you can't add that infrastructure with modules.

  20. Re:I don't get it. on Al Gore Joins Apple's Board Of Directors · · Score: 1

    1) The Iraqi people cannot be liberated. They *chose* Saddam Hussein. By and large, the still support him. Why? Because the oppression of his government is more palatable to them than the indignity of the US imposing a government upon them. Of course there are dissenters. Most people who would come to the US, and young people in general, like the type you've met, are disproportionately likely to be among them. However, the majority of the people support Saddam because he's an Iraqi. You've seen the power that nationalism can have in the US, just think of what power it can have in a place like Iraq. Further, I oppose the whole idea that any country can be "liberated." Democracy is not something that can be given. It can only be earned. I think we would have learned from all the fuckups we've had in Africa that a country has to go through the evolutionary process of building a government. They cannot understand and cannot fully utilize an alien, foreignly imposed government. If you look at the success stories in Africa (for example South Africa) you'll see that their government has come together through the struggle of the people. Right now, the Iraqis have no conception of democracy. If you gave them a choice, they'd want a conservative Muslim theocracy. At this point in time, that is what they're culture dictates. If we build a democratic government in Iraq, we will be imposing a democracy on them that they do not want. As nice as democracy is (hey, I'm a big fan of it) it's not applicable to everybody at this point in time. People are very culturally different, and it's silly to believe that the same style of government will work for them all. As an extremely liberal person, and a Muslim, I've always been bothered by the conservative-slant of my religion, especially in its treatment of women. I strongly believe that conservative countries like Iran should be pressured towards a more progressive stance. Over many generations, a country can be changed at an intellectual and cultural level. However, I'm not stupid enough to believe that a cowboy president with a lot of bombs can transform a thousand year old culture overnight.

  21. Re:What about laptops? on HP To Sell And Support Red Hat Linux · · Score: 1

    I use a 2GHz laptop to run SolidEdge (3D CAD), AutoCad, Mathematica, 3D modelers, and GCC (takes as long to compile HelloWorld in C++ as it does to do a simple render...). I use it because I work in a rather confined area and I sometimes need the mobility (doing engineering homework on a flight back home, for example). Don't assume that everyone has the same requirements as you. That's the primary reason the "Who needs faster computers" morons sound so stupid when they spout off.

  22. Re:Good! on Sun Sued Over H1-B Workers · · Score: 1

    Whether you buy it or not is irrelevent. MBA very well might be more objective and work with more quantative data than historians. That doesn't change the fact that they are not technical people in the same way an engineer or scientist, or the fact that Indian engineering colleges do not produce a whole lot of them.

  23. Re:I don't get it. on Al Gore Joins Apple's Board Of Directors · · Score: 1

    Iraq may be a mouse of a country, but its a mouse with rabies looking to bite.
    >>>>>>>>
    It's that kind of attitude that gets American foreign policy into trouble. You respect *everybody* even your enemies.

    The rise and fall of nations is a undulating tide. America today is a great, powerful, and on the whole good nation. Two thousand years ago, the ancestors of Americans were living in the forests of Europe, unable to read or write, poor, and fighting amongst themselves. Today, Iraq might be ruled by a dictator and in a bad economic situation, but two thousand years ago, it was a prosperous, literate, sophisticated civilization. When Americans look at the US, they see a country at the forefront of modern civilization. When Iraqies look at Iraq, they see one of the countries that *invented* civilization.

    Two thousand years from now, I doubt either country will still be around. It's all ephemeral. Thus, at this point in time, the best thing we can do is realize how insignificant we, our nation, and our civilization is in flow of time, and act accordingly. The minute that we as Americans come to the realization that every person on the planet has pride as powerful as our own, and learn to respect their dignity, is the day 99% of all our international problems will go away.

  24. Re:Because... on Al Gore Joins Apple's Board Of Directors · · Score: 1

    There are a number of countries in the world that can be considered significant powers. They are: US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, and thanks to their nuclear capability, Israel, India, and Pakistan. 4 of the 10 are in support of the war. On the other side, you've got the bulk of continental western Europe, the entire Islamic world (1.2 billion), China (>1.2 billion), and India (>1.0 billion). In terms of number of countries, sure, there might be lots of support. But in terms of number of people? You're deluding yourself. Even in countries that support the US (the UK for example) most of the people don't support the war, at least not without a UN resolution. Why do I bring population into the equation? Because 1 person = 1 voice. If the bulk of the people are against you, regardless of what individual governments (which are all self-serving in the end) think, you're probably doing something wrong.

  25. Re:Good! on Sun Sued Over H1-B Workers · · Score: 1

    An MBA is a liberal art in most universities. Liberal arts has nothing to do with art. Being a historian is also highly analytical, but is still considered a liberal art.

    As for MIT, it's a special case. It's highly technology oriented and has one of the best business schools in the world. However, most schools are not MIT, and no Indian schools are MIT.

    Culture plays a large role here: few Indian mothers think to themselves "I want my son to be an MBA when he grows up." Sure, it's a stereotype, but as someone who is an aerospace major because of such a mother (I love you mommy :) I can attest that there is a grain of truth to it.