Copyrights reflect something fundemental to human nature. The idea that what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours, and you can only have what's mine if I let you, and under my conditions.
Early Homo-sapian grunts to neighbor: "My walrus."
Other Homo-sapian grunts back: "Me give monkey?"
Early Homo-sapian grunts in reply: "Uggh (ok)"
In another example:
Early homo-sapian grunts to neightbor: "My walrus"
Other homo-sapian grunts back: "Infor... warluses want to be free!"
Early homo-sapian hits other homo-sapian on the head.
Ohh, VESA modes, I'm so impressed. X hardware detection is still gimpy. EX. I tried to set my monitor to 1152x864. Quite a nice, normal resolution. Yet X thinks that mode should only go up to 71Hz! (Yes, even though my XF86Config says 30-95 and 50-160).
Wow. I don't know whether to smack you, or make a religion around you? Do you actually believe any of that idealistic bullshit? It's nice to do grandiose talk about the flow os history and such, but give me something solid. Copyrights are *good* whe properaly used. They are fundemental to human nature. Even babies have concepts of "that mine, that yours" and the copyright is simply a modern manifestation of that. It is entirely up to the artist what they want to do with their work. If the artist wants to copyright it, and wants you to give them 4 cents for every 100 occilations of your speaker, than so be it, that's the price they are demanding. As the consumer, all you can do is "get over it" and pay that price. Second, I don't see why people are so against the record companies. True, they do make a lot of money, but since when is that a *bad* thing? Not to mention the fact that they take on the burden of recording studios/advertising/distribution/etc. While the recording industry is being a bit silly with their current reluctance to market online, I can understand what they're going through. There *are* no secure copy-prevention methods available on computers, and that fact has been all too easily proven. The fact that computer users are frothing at the mouth for free music and bringing communistic ideas into play (anti-big business, lack of respect for invidual work, yea, that's pretty much the definition of communism, be it good or bad) is probably making the situation worse by scaring the record companies into acting the way they are.
I think he means it more from the point of view as in "nerd" is someone intensely interested in a field and the technology itself. Nerds don't think about how they *can* build it, not whether they should or not. The phrasing isn't quite accurate, but I think that's the point he's trying to make, not to insult nerds in general.
5 seconds is too slow for me to apply a filter to a graphic, much less open a folder! I think the Alex St. John (DirectX Evangalist) said it very well. "How can they [Microsoft] manage to make IE visably refresh drawing some text and graphics when Carmack is spewing tons of AI-driven monsters on the screen at 30fps?... (some not-so-nice comments about MS programmers follow)" (BTW, this was before hardware acceleration was common!)
Last W95 driver is from February 1999 (It is W95 driver, not WDM driver!).
Last feature update for XFree was in 3.3.something, when NVidia switched to new architecture for their open drivers.
>>>>>>>>
Whoops, my mistake. Sorry, the BeOS Unified NVIDIA Drivers support the Riva128 through GeForce2 GTS. I just assumed Detonator 3 did as well. Still, the TNT-1 is an aweful old chip to still see driver updates...
Riva128 under X still can't calculate timings correctly - my GTF calculated Modeline for 1280x1024@85Hz doesn't work - it gives 80Hz. With some tweaking I was able to get 81Hz - still far from 85Hz. Riva128 driver does not support XVideo extension - altrough hardware is capable of doing so.
The glx module for 3.3.3/3.3.5 is a joke - I was not even able to run gl-screensaver with it - it crashed whole X (that's my whole need for 3D - screensavers and occasionaly games
like chromium).
>>>>>>>>>
Aren't any problems in 3.3.x technically the problem of the XFree guys and their drivers?
BTW., when I bought the card, nowhere on the box was written "You can use this card only until Feb, 1999, later you must buy new one". The card still works, the chip has functions I need, but I just can't use it.
>>>>>>>>
Yea, but you also have to remember that nowhere on the box did it say "Linux supported." You bought a card that dates back to before Linux was on CNN, and you shouldn't be surprised if it is not supported on Linux.
And finally, if the specs were available, you could still use your favourite OS in years to come(you are Be fan, right?).
>>>>>>>>>>
For BeOS, I'm switching to Radeon II. I'm pissed at NVIDIA for not giving Be the specs under NDA, but I can understand their reasons for doing so. I can get as mad as I want at Linus for not tuning Linux for media performance only, but he doesn't want to for his own reasons, I have to respect it and use something else.
So I can choose card that looks better, supports XV extension and performs decently in 3D (Matrox, ATI), or card that offers only 2D with open drivers without any extensions (GF2xx). Guess what will NOT be my next card.
>>>>>>>>>>
Huh? The Radeon looks richer in 2D. That's fine. HOwever, the Radeon is barely supported in XFree 4.0, and its 3D performance is limp compared to NVIDIAs. I see the option this way. I could be an OSS bigot (and for some things, it makes sense to be one) and use a slower, less fully featured card, or I can use a card with the best 3D acceleration (if performance counts at all, how is Matrox even an option?), double the 2D speed, and nice, stable (for the most part) drivers.
A) My guess is that NVIDIA will support the NV20 on OS X as well. (I think they've publically commited to it.)
B) AGP 8x? Please! There was a 3 year gap between the release of AGP 2X (the LX chipset) and AGP 4X (the 820 chipset) AGP 8X is still a few years away!
Re:But which? Re: Buy Matrox or ATI Instead
on
Ask NVIDIA Interview
·
· Score: 2
Actually, according to the recent Anandtech benchmark, NVIDIA's 2D is about double the speed of Matrox's (better drivers!) While the speed might have improved in the latest alpha-CVS-snapshot-8:00am build, I doubt it catches up. Also, the Radeon is only barely supported (if you can call it even that) in XFre86 4.0.2 It will give you great 2D quality in Windows though;)
What's missing from your post is any sense of reality.
1.) By relying on a binary-only driver that must run with root privledges, your system can no longer be trusted. You don't know what that driver contains. You don't know if it contains something that could compromise your entire system's security. You don't know if it contains an obscure bug that could bring down your whole system and might never be fixed because there aren't enough eyes probing the code.
>>>>>>>>
Good god, I'm not running an NSA server here, just my desktop machine! Second, I'm sure that all the "eyes probing the code" has made GNOME the paragon of stability that it is (tongue in cheek)
2.) Any company that refuses to open source their hardware drivers clearly does not understand and support the Open Source movement. Such companies, after this much time, are unlikely to change. To use their products is to be forever stuck with a proprietary solution. And what happens when the company phases out driver development for older products? You are now stuck with a binary driver that ONLY works with a specific, outdated Open Source version. Lets say, hypothetically, that tomorrow NVidia stopped developing the GeForce drivers for XF86. Would you be satisfied running XF 4.0.2 for the rest of your video card's useful life?
>>>>>>>>>>
That's funny, specifically when said in reference to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is still providing driver updates for the Riva128. The card is three years old. If you're stilling using hardware that old, you have no right to complain about lack of software support. Also, Win98 runs perfectly well with the 5 to 6 year old Rage II drivers, so if XFree86 5.0 isn't compatible, blame XFree, not NVIDIA. (Not to mention Linus and his driver API of the day games)
3.) To use an old saying, "Slow and steady wins the race.." Sure a closed source driver may offer an adequate solution *right now*, but an open source driver will inevitably surpass the closed one in quality in the near future.
>>>>>>>>>>
Which is exactly why GNOME totally whips NT4's ass in GUI speed. Not. Face it, OSS isn't nearly of the panacea of software development that its cracked up to be. Properly done, OSS can be a big boost for a software project. It just doesn't do miracles, that's all.
That is an overview for all hardware drivers. Now what about NVidia vs. ATI/Matrox? Consider that ATI and Matrox cards are generally accepted as having higher quality RAMDAC's which lead to better 2D image quality (cleaner analog signal). Furthermore, I believe the Radeon DDR bests the GeForce2 GTS in 32-bit at high resolutions by a significant margin.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Uh, no. Where do you get your info? While its true that both the Radeon and Matrox cards do *look* better, the GF2GTS is more than 10-15% faster than a Radeon 64DDR in most games (even at high res.) For a while there, the Radeon beat The GTS in Quake III at 16kx12k, but after the Detonator 3 drivers, NVIDIA came up big time.
That's one problem with Linux GUIs in general. There's no *synergy* Even though you have all these GUI tools, the CLI versions are just plain more powerful. There is no reason for this, it just happens to be that way, because people think CLI first, GUI on top. It shouldn't be the other way, either. They should co-exist peacefully. I want to be able to draw a picture in my graphics apps, then run a script from the command line to do my favorite transform. I want to be able to manage my contacts graphically, but script it so I can add a hundred contacts with a simple program. Oh, wait, I just described BeOS's scripting environment!
Actually, I'm just kidding. However, I thought the ending to your post was incredibly immature. I *like* pop-up focus. Usually, I open a program in order to use its window, so when it focuses automatically, it saves me a bit of clicking. The point is that its a personal preference, and just because *you* don't like it, doesn't mean it sucks
Second, your whole "CLI/GUI blend" is just a visual trick. That's the problem with many of the "new" technologies that are coming out of the OSS community. They are nothing more than show. You've got great desktop environments, but few compelling apps actually use them (in the interest of cross-desktop compatibility!) You have great object-technologies like gnorba and KOM, but they're simply check-mark items that few important programs use effectively. You've got nifty graphical tricks like EVAS and XRender, but you're merely using it to do eye candy instead of adding something to the environment. Of course, when a non-Linux user points out that Linux is missing one of these technologies, you can always point to these empty shells and say "oh, we've got it too!" However, you don't got it. Not to the point where its worth using anyway. UNIX was a good idea (most of it anyway;) When I see the incredible amount of talent in the OSS community, I think, "geez, these guys could come up with the next UNIX. Something that brings the UNIX idea, which is so great for a CLI-system, to the next level." Instead, what I see are cool technologies being used for either a check-mark item against Windows, or simply eye-candy. And that's just a shame.
Actually, I'd beg to differ. For AA algorithms that are *properly* implemented, AA gives a larger effective screen resolution, since the blending causes the view to see a perfectly smooth line in between the actual positions of the pixels of the screen. That makes small point sizes easier to read (for many people, anyway) because the blending enhances the real shape of the letter (parts of which are smaller than 1 pixel)
Anti-aliasing only uses shades of the same color. What Evolution is doing looks like my first AA line (got the shading wrong, ended up with lots of pretty colors;) Somebody said it had something to do with a ClearType-type technology, so maybe that's it.
What your really want is the UUWA (Unix Unified Widget API) It's really time to seperate the apps and the widget sets. Widget sets provide a standard API, apps use the standard API, and the user chooses whichever widget set they like best. Everyone ends up happy (except those programmers belonging to the XWSDC (X Widget Set of the Day Club)
As for speed, the anti-aliased text could probably be cached at some point (since 99% of text is drawn in white). Even if it wasn't, lots of OSs do full time anti-aliasing, and the performance hit is extremely minimal.
Still, as a graphics-oriented person, I find your comment "yet more processor and memory overhead just to draw the screen" very funny. From my POV, drawing the screen is the single most important task of the OS;)
Yup, we've now got anti-aliasing on the operating system for which I have never paid a dime.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Umm, both QNX RtP and BeOS 5 are free and had (better) AA support much longer than X has, so eat it;)
Good god, you grognards piss me off. What makes you think that functionality and beauty are inversely related? Try thinking outside the box for a change.
Actually, BeOS anti-aliases ALL point sizes, and it has the best text I've seen (aside from maybe QNX6, but that call is totally subjective) It probably uses a better TrueType renderer (both use BitStream's) but it just shows that anti-aliasing does not make text ineherently blurrier. Also, its a god send when you're trying to read 6-8 point type, since without anti-aliasing, they're nearly illegible.
Really. I use anti-aliased fonts everyday on BeOS, and these days, I can't stand to be near X (even with the good MS-made TrueType fonts.) Of course, some people are extremely sensetive to visual anomolies (I can see flicker at 85Hz, makes buying monitors an expensive;) Whatever your preference, do not discount it as a waster of CPU cycles. During your day to day desktop tasks, the alpha-blender on the GFX-card isn't doing anything, so one might as well put it to use. (Kinda like how "free memory is wasted memory")
I was spoofing the post of they guy I was replying to! He used apt-get as the only reason not to try FreeBSD and didn't want the learning curve of another OS. Sounds exactly like a Microsoft user. Also, I DO agree that Active Update is cool, in fact, BeOS has something that does this for Tracker (the desktop; hopefully it will be extended to other things) in that it downloads OpenTracker, compiles it, and installs it on your system while you're still browsing the Internet. Let's see ActiveUpdate do that;)
You/. junkies are sounding like MS monkeys. Can we get past the whole "Be isn't making any money" business. With deals from Sony, Intel, etc (just read BeNews for god's sake) Be isn't going anywhere soon. Besides, that is entirely irrelevant. BeOS is good technology. The company may not be doing well, but BeOS is good technology. Pointing out the status of the company in order to argue the quality of an OS is exactly something Microsoft would do. ("Would you rather use an OS built by a global corperation, or by a bunch of weekend-hackers?")
Slashdot Mirror
Copyrights reflect something fundemental to human nature. The idea that what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours, and you can only have what's mine if I let you, and under my conditions.
Early Homo-sapian grunts to neighbor: "My walrus."
Other Homo-sapian grunts back: "Me give monkey?"
Early Homo-sapian grunts in reply: "Uggh (ok)"
In another example:
Early homo-sapian grunts to neightbor: "My walrus"
Other homo-sapian grunts back: "Infor... warluses want to be free!"
Early homo-sapian hits other homo-sapian on the head.
Ohh, VESA modes, I'm so impressed. X hardware detection is still gimpy. EX. I tried to set my monitor to 1152x864. Quite a nice, normal resolution. Yet X thinks that mode should only go up to 71Hz! (Yes, even though my XF86Config says 30-95 and 50-160).
Wow. I don't know whether to smack you, or make a religion around you? Do you actually believe any of that idealistic bullshit? It's nice to do grandiose talk about the flow os history and such, but give me something solid. Copyrights are *good* whe properaly used. They are fundemental to human nature. Even babies have concepts of "that mine, that yours" and the copyright is simply a modern manifestation of that. It is entirely up to the artist what they want to do with their work. If the artist wants to copyright it, and wants you to give them 4 cents for every 100 occilations of your speaker, than so be it, that's the price they are demanding. As the consumer, all you can do is "get over it" and pay that price. Second, I don't see why people are so against the record companies. True, they do make a lot of money, but since when is that a *bad* thing? Not to mention the fact that they take on the burden of recording studios/advertising/distribution/etc. While the recording industry is being a bit silly with their current reluctance to market online, I can understand what they're going through. There *are* no secure copy-prevention methods available on computers, and that fact has been all too easily proven. The fact that computer users are frothing at the mouth for free music and bringing communistic ideas into play (anti-big business, lack of respect for invidual work, yea, that's pretty much the definition of communism, be it good or bad) is probably making the situation worse by scaring the record companies into acting the way they are.
I think he means it more from the point of view as in "nerd" is someone intensely interested in a field and the technology itself. Nerds don't think about how they *can* build it, not whether they should or not. The phrasing isn't quite accurate, but I think that's the point he's trying to make, not to insult nerds in general.
5 seconds is too slow for me to apply a filter to a graphic, much less open a folder! I think the Alex St. John (DirectX Evangalist) said it very well. "How can they [Microsoft] manage to make IE visably refresh drawing some text and graphics when Carmack is spewing tons of AI-driven monsters on the screen at 30fps?... (some not-so-nice comments about MS programmers follow)" (BTW, this was before hardware acceleration was common!)
What exactly is the XML snapshot used for, and why does it take so long to list the whole filesystem?
Last W95 driver is from February 1999 (It is W95 driver, not WDM driver!).
Last feature update for XFree was in 3.3.something, when NVidia switched to new architecture for their open drivers.
>>>>>>>>
Whoops, my mistake. Sorry, the BeOS Unified NVIDIA Drivers support the Riva128 through GeForce2 GTS. I just assumed Detonator 3 did as well. Still, the TNT-1 is an aweful old chip to still see driver updates...
Riva128 under X still can't calculate timings correctly - my GTF calculated Modeline for 1280x1024@85Hz doesn't work - it gives 80Hz. With some tweaking I was able to get 81Hz - still far from 85Hz. Riva128 driver does not support XVideo extension - altrough hardware is capable of doing so.
The glx module for 3.3.3/3.3.5 is a joke - I was not even able to run gl-screensaver with it - it crashed whole X (that's my whole need for 3D - screensavers and occasionaly games
like chromium).
>>>>>>>>>
Aren't any problems in 3.3.x technically the problem of the XFree guys and their drivers?
BTW., when I bought the card, nowhere on the box was written "You can use this card only until Feb, 1999, later you must buy new one". The card still works, the chip has functions I need, but I just can't use it.
>>>>>>>>
Yea, but you also have to remember that nowhere on the box did it say "Linux supported." You bought a card that dates back to before Linux was on CNN, and you shouldn't be surprised if it is not supported on Linux.
And finally, if the specs were available, you could still use your favourite OS in years to come(you are Be fan, right?).
>>>>>>>>>>
For BeOS, I'm switching to Radeon II. I'm pissed at NVIDIA for not giving Be the specs under NDA, but I can understand their reasons for doing so. I can get as mad as I want at Linus for not tuning Linux for media performance only, but he doesn't want to for his own reasons, I have to respect it and use something else.
So I can choose card that looks better, supports XV extension and performs decently in 3D (Matrox, ATI), or card that offers only 2D with open drivers without any extensions (GF2xx). Guess what will NOT be my next card.
>>>>>>>>>>
Huh? The Radeon looks richer in 2D. That's fine. HOwever, the Radeon is barely supported in XFree 4.0, and its 3D performance is limp compared to NVIDIAs. I see the option this way. I could be an OSS bigot (and for some things, it makes sense to be one) and use a slower, less fully featured card, or I can use a card with the best 3D acceleration (if performance counts at all, how is Matrox even an option?), double the 2D speed, and nice, stable (for the most part) drivers.
Umm, the 7.xx drivers blow (20% less performance) Avoid them until they stabilize a bit.
A) My guess is that NVIDIA will support the NV20 on OS X as well. (I think they've publically commited to it.)
B) AGP 8x? Please! There was a 3 year gap between the release of AGP 2X (the LX chipset) and AGP 4X (the 820 chipset) AGP 8X is still a few years away!
Actually, according to the recent Anandtech benchmark, NVIDIA's 2D is about double the speed of Matrox's (better drivers!) While the speed might have improved in the latest alpha-CVS-snapshot-8:00am build, I doubt it catches up. Also, the Radeon is only barely supported (if you can call it even that) in XFre86 4.0.2 It will give you great 2D quality in Windows though ;)
What's missing from your post is any sense of reality.
1.) By relying on a binary-only driver that must run with root privledges, your system can no longer be trusted. You don't know what that driver contains. You don't know if it contains something that could compromise your entire system's security. You don't know if it contains an obscure bug that could bring down your whole system and might never be fixed because there aren't enough eyes probing the code.
>>>>>>>>
Good god, I'm not running an NSA server here, just my desktop machine! Second, I'm sure that all the "eyes probing the code" has made GNOME the paragon of stability that it is (tongue in cheek)
2.) Any company that refuses to open source their hardware drivers clearly does not understand and support the Open Source movement. Such companies, after this much time, are unlikely to change. To use their products is to be forever stuck with a proprietary solution. And what happens when the company phases out driver development for older products? You are now stuck with a binary driver that ONLY works with a specific, outdated Open Source version. Lets say, hypothetically, that tomorrow NVidia stopped developing the GeForce drivers for XF86. Would you be satisfied running XF 4.0.2 for the rest of your video card's useful life?
>>>>>>>>>>
That's funny, specifically when said in reference to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is still providing driver updates for the Riva128. The card is three years old. If you're stilling using hardware that old, you have no right to complain about lack of software support. Also, Win98 runs perfectly well with the 5 to 6 year old Rage II drivers, so if XFree86 5.0 isn't compatible, blame XFree, not NVIDIA. (Not to mention Linus and his driver API of the day games)
3.) To use an old saying, "Slow and steady wins the race.." Sure a closed source driver may offer an adequate solution *right now*, but an open source driver will inevitably surpass the closed one in quality in the near future.
>>>>>>>>>>
Which is exactly why GNOME totally whips NT4's ass in GUI speed. Not. Face it, OSS isn't nearly of the panacea of software development that its cracked up to be. Properly done, OSS can be a big boost for a software project. It just doesn't do miracles, that's all.
That is an overview for all hardware drivers. Now what about NVidia vs. ATI/Matrox? Consider that ATI and Matrox cards are generally accepted as having higher quality RAMDAC's which lead to better 2D image quality (cleaner analog signal). Furthermore, I believe the Radeon DDR bests the GeForce2 GTS in 32-bit at high resolutions by a significant margin.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Uh, no. Where do you get your info? While its true that both the Radeon and Matrox cards do *look* better, the GF2GTS is more than 10-15% faster than a Radeon 64DDR in most games (even at high res.) For a while there, the Radeon beat The GTS in Quake III at 16kx12k, but after the Detonator 3 drivers, NVIDIA came up big time.
Actually, the MX is a piece of shit card. Save yourself some pain and get a Radeon 32 DDR ($87 on pricewatch!)
That's one problem with Linux GUIs in general. There's no *synergy* Even though you have all these GUI tools, the CLI versions are just plain more powerful. There is no reason for this, it just happens to be that way, because people think CLI first, GUI on top. It shouldn't be the other way, either. They should co-exist peacefully. I want to be able to draw a picture in my graphics apps, then run a script from the command line to do my favorite transform. I want to be able to manage my contacts graphically, but script it so I can add a hundred contacts with a simple program. Oh, wait, I just described BeOS's scripting environment!
You suck, bitch!
;) When I see the incredible amount of talent in the OSS community, I think, "geez, these guys could come up with the next UNIX. Something that brings the UNIX idea, which is so great for a CLI-system, to the next level." Instead, what I see are cool technologies being used for either a check-mark item against Windows, or simply eye-candy. And that's just a shame.
Actually, I'm just kidding. However, I thought the ending to your post was incredibly immature. I *like* pop-up focus. Usually, I open a program in order to use its window, so when it focuses automatically, it saves me a bit of clicking. The point is that its a personal preference, and just because *you* don't like it, doesn't mean it sucks
Second, your whole "CLI/GUI blend" is just a visual trick. That's the problem with many of the "new" technologies that are coming out of the OSS community. They are nothing more than show. You've got great desktop environments, but few compelling apps actually use them (in the interest of cross-desktop compatibility!) You have great object-technologies like gnorba and KOM, but they're simply check-mark items that few important programs use effectively. You've got nifty graphical tricks like EVAS and XRender, but you're merely using it to do eye candy instead of adding something to the environment. Of course, when a non-Linux user points out that Linux is missing one of these technologies, you can always point to these empty shells and say "oh, we've got it too!" However, you don't got it. Not to the point where its worth using anyway. UNIX was a good idea (most of it anyway
Oh, using POVray do draw the screen - what [an] excellent idea
>>>>>>>>>>>
If you're going to be anal, be careful about your *own* word usage!
Actually, I'd beg to differ. For AA algorithms that are *properly* implemented, AA gives a larger effective screen resolution, since the blending causes the view to see a perfectly smooth line in between the actual positions of the pixels of the screen. That makes small point sizes easier to read (for many people, anyway) because the blending enhances the real shape of the letter (parts of which are smaller than 1 pixel)
Anti-aliasing only uses shades of the same color. What Evolution is doing looks like my first AA line (got the shading wrong, ended up with lots of pretty colors ;) Somebody said it had something to do with a ClearType-type technology, so maybe that's it.
What your really want is the UUWA (Unix Unified Widget API) It's really time to seperate the apps and the widget sets. Widget sets provide a standard API, apps use the standard API, and the user chooses whichever widget set they like best. Everyone ends up happy (except those programmers belonging to the XWSDC (X Widget Set of the Day Club)
;)
As for speed, the anti-aliased text could probably be cached at some point (since 99% of text is drawn in white). Even if it wasn't, lots of OSs do full time anti-aliasing, and the performance hit is extremely minimal.
Still, as a graphics-oriented person, I find your comment "yet more processor and memory overhead just to draw the screen" very funny. From my POV, drawing the screen is the single most important task of the OS
Yup, we've now got anti-aliasing on the operating system for which I have never paid a dime. ;)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Umm, both QNX RtP and BeOS 5 are free and had (better) AA support much longer than X has, so eat it
Good god, you grognards piss me off. What makes you think that functionality and beauty are inversely related? Try thinking outside the box for a change.
Actually, BeOS anti-aliases ALL point sizes, and it has the best text I've seen (aside from maybe QNX6, but that call is totally subjective) It probably uses a better TrueType renderer (both use BitStream's) but it just shows that anti-aliasing does not make text ineherently blurrier. Also, its a god send when you're trying to read 6-8 point type, since without anti-aliasing, they're nearly illegible.
Really. I use anti-aliased fonts everyday on BeOS, and these days, I can't stand to be near X (even with the good MS-made TrueType fonts.) Of course, some people are extremely sensetive to visual anomolies (I can see flicker at 85Hz, makes buying monitors an expensive ;) Whatever your preference, do not discount it as a waster of CPU cycles. During your day to day desktop tasks, the alpha-blender on the GFX-card isn't doing anything, so one might as well put it to use. (Kinda like how "free memory is wasted memory")
I was spoofing the post of they guy I was replying to! He used apt-get as the only reason not to try FreeBSD and didn't want the learning curve of another OS. Sounds exactly like a Microsoft user. Also, I DO agree that Active Update is cool, in fact, BeOS has something that does this for Tracker (the desktop; hopefully it will be extended to other things) in that it downloads OpenTracker, compiles it, and installs it on your system while you're still browsing the Internet. Let's see ActiveUpdate do that ;)
You /. junkies are sounding like MS monkeys. Can we get past the whole "Be isn't making any money" business. With deals from Sony, Intel, etc (just read BeNews for god's sake) Be isn't going anywhere soon. Besides, that is entirely irrelevant. BeOS is good technology. The company may not be doing well, but BeOS is good technology. Pointing out the status of the company in order to argue the quality of an OS is exactly something Microsoft would do. ("Would you rather use an OS built by a global corperation, or by a bunch of weekend-hackers?")
This is one time I'll have to agree with the *NIX grognards in the audience.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!