No you can't. Lilo won't boot a ResierFS partition. You have to make your/boot partition an ext2, and another ReiserFS partition for/usr and everything else. I would guess the others are similar.
Actually, Linux isn't growing at all in the consumer desktop market. Windows will rule the roost for another 3 years minimum, and that is a best-case scenerio. Nobody wants to switch from one dictaing, overbearing, bloated system to another. Think hard about Linux. Who decides if you run GNOME or KDE? Not *YOU* but the programmers who write the programs you need to run. If your fave software is GNOME, than you have no choice but to have GNOME installed. Linux is just slavery under more masters.
Not true at all. The Linux kernel is quite sexy. Though I'm fundementally against the UNIX way of doing things, you have to give credit to the Linux kernel for the quality of the thing. What makes Linux bloated isn't the kernel (which weighs in just under 2 million lines, about 500,000 more lines than BeOS) but all the crap around it (XFree, Mozilla, GNOME, KDE, and the dozens of libraries)
A) Very true. The BeOS does have some limitations. I'll actually add another two
- The BeOS VM isn't a work of art (like the rest of the OS) it does have some "issues."
- Replicants are sorely under-powered.
B) You are terribly wrong about the 32MB limit. There is a 32 MB add-on limit. While it is true that add-ons were meant more for plug-ins rather than a component architecture (BeZilla and Mozilla in general uses a system called XPCom which allows major components to be dynamically replaced. Its essentially a cross-platform COM and requires dynamically loadable shared libraries) I think that COM is a pretty cool technology and that the 32MB limit isn't very helpful. HOWEVER, there is a work around, all you have to do is link your add-on to a shared library. The limit for that is around 256MB, so its not a big problem yet.
1) probably true, that Linux wouldn't need reinstalling in these case. However, I'm not going to take time to fix what fsck can't. It is easier for me to just copy over my CD-backup than to fix the fs. Seriously though, if fsck gives me a "lost superblocks error" and the system won't boot into multi-user mode, then what the hell am I supposed to do? I don't even know what a superblock IS.
4) Can you please explain WHY attributes break portability? How exactly does it lock you into the OS? You forget four things:
1) Dealing with attributes is required for anyone writing a BeOS fs driver. Thus, any attribute data can be extracted by the fs driver if they are reading a bfs disk from another system.
2) The system takes care of attributes when sending things outside the OS. If send a picture to a non-BeOS user, the attributes are stripped out. If you copy stuff to a non-bfs disk, then attributes are taken out. If you post something, the appropriate extensions can be added. Its not a big stupid system that automatically makes file prorpiatory. If you're using a GIF file laden with attributes, it will still be a gif file when you send it to a Linux user. They just won't get the benifets of the attributes.
3) Attributes kick ass! No stupid MP3 database programs, ID3 information is injected into attributes (which are stripped out when you send them to Napster!) and the FS serves as your database engine. Email can be indexed by user, sender, date, time, subject, whatever. You can set up custom searches to get all email from your boss written within the last 5 days. Best of all, there is no central database to take care of, since all this info is in attributes. Think of it as UNIX-style file data (creator, data, group-info, etc) taken to the next level.
4) Innovation should not be held captive to those who cannot innovate. Nobody if forcing you to take advantage of attributes. If your cross platform program needs to share the same file-types between OSs then DON'T STORE ANYTHING IN THE ATTRIBUTE DATA! Keep a central database or whatever you want. However, if you couldn't give a flying fuck if other OS can take full advantage of your files (as long as they are a standard type, other OSs will always be able to *READ* them) then by all means, take advantage of the technology.
And I couldn't care less what *YOU* think is an outmoded model. The minute you can get an economist or somebody with knowledge of the industry to tell me propriatory is dead, then I'll listen.
BTW> BFS is documented in a book, and an GPL'ed clone is part of AtheOS. Go have fun with it.
Tell that to all the BeOS people. Seriosly though. If I talk about the advantags of bfs during a discussion on file systems, does it automatically mean that I'm saying "Linux sux, BeOS rules?" I never said ANYTHING about BeOS. I'm talking about the filesystem!
That said, your arguement has some merit. A bunch of important software WAS canceled. However, you're not totally right that BeOS is dying. Software is coming to the OS at quite a good clip. We've already got a good video editor, and other media programs are being made. BeUnited is helping a lot by starting projects to address gaps in the software line. Tracker and deskbar has been OSSed (under something similar to the BSD license) so the GUI wil continue to evolve. The system is modular, so the system itself can be improved by users. BeOS is far from dead.
Your point about the focus shit is totally off base. Be never said that BeOS is dead. They focus shift-ed. Sure, it sounds like a cop-out, but consider this. BeIA and BeOS are more or less the same thing. Be's plan is to be able to pull out a BeIA release out of the BeOS source-tree anytime it wants. Meaning, that any cool stuff integrated into BeIA gets into BeOS too. And this is not bullshitting on the part of Be. OpenGL, Java, networking, and a good browser are all critical for BeIA. And they're important for BeOS too. So guess what, Be is bringing them to BeOS! And before you say, "oh, that's just vaporware" remember, a lot of these things are in late beta. www.betips.net is already running on the new BeOS networking architecture, a lot of people aready have the OpenGL beta, Java-personal has already been ported to BeIA, and Opera is already working on a web-browser for it. (The Opera browser hasn't been released yet, but already works and can pass standards complience tests.) And with Compaq making a BeIA-powered IA, you can bet that these technologies are going to get to the public.
Why is it such a problem? Unlike the Mac, BeOS attributes are not flaky. (For example, files aren't chained to the program that created them.) BeOS stores file-types as a MIME attribute. So if you want all your/text-html files to be opened by a particular problem, its just as easy as going to file-types and associated/text-html with StyledEdit. Its the exact same thing as going to the GNOME control panel and associating ".html" with GEdit, except you don't have any ugliness in the file-names, and the system automatically figures out what type files are. If you don't like attributes in general, then please explain why.
Oh really. That would explain my posting history now wouldn't it. The last time I mentioned BeOS was a week ago, when I enumerated the advantages QNX had over BeOS. The last time I brought up a point about the advantage of BeOS was when I mentioned something about MP3s. Seriosly though. Take a look at Slashdot. People sit there everyday extolling the greatness of Linux. Maybe once a week, I bring up an occasional point about a cool UI thingy, or sometimes bring it up during and unrelated discussion (I brought it up when I was defending client-server graphics systems a while ago). If you actually look at my post history, I only ocassionaly say something good about the OS. People look at the name, "be-fan" and think "oh, every post he puts up must somehow be connectected to BeOS." Even you fall into the trap with this post. I said nothing about BeOS, just the filesystem. Believe it or not, AtheOS uses a very similar file system to Be's, so its not exactly a BeOS-only message.
As for consantly bitching about Linux, I try to be the devils advocate. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Linux. I have used it a lot. The problem is that people are so blinded by their frevor (or their elitism) that they really can't see when Linux has a fault. The mindcraft thing is the perfect example. While Slashdotters spent the whole timing bitching about how mindcraft was evil, Linus and other sane people actually took it seriously, and improved the kernel as a result. Or take the whole NVIDIA debacle. Not once did people mention (in their frevor to say Linux was almost as fast as Windows) that the Linux drivers were had tweeks similar to the Windows Detonator 3 drivers. So the test was essentially Detonator3-Linux vs. Detonator2 Windows. After the Mindcraft thing you would have thought Slashdot would rip it to pieces. But they didn't. Instead, people started preaching about how Linux was going to own the desktop market in a year (I'm not exaggerating) That's the kind of stuff I have problem with. I have no desire to be one of those people who constantly extolls the virtues of something. I will bring up BeOS once in a while, but usually just to illustrate a weakness of Linux (or OSs in general.) I have similarly brought up NT to point out weaknesses in Linux as well, so that's nothing unusual. There are enough/.ers who go on about how great Linux is. There doesn't need to be one more.
Okay, today, I'm actually going to preach the benifets of a BeOS technology.
With all this talk of journeling file system, I'm surprised that bfs got ignored. BFS has several things going for it:
1) It's fast. While it is a journaling file system, on Bonnie, it is about 20% faster than my ReiserFS partition (which is closer to the outside of the disk too) on straight reads and writes. It is also a good bit faster on the per-char tests. Best of all, the CPU utilization is 30% lower than Linux in the sequential, and 50% lower in the per char (where Linux pegs the CPU). However, the rewrite tests, it is significantly slower. Something I think has more to do with the BeOS VM and disk cache than the file system.
2) It is ever so solid. I regularly (read: three times a week) shut down my BeOS machine with my power button. Not yet have I gotten a lost file, block, or data corruption. Linux regularly needs reinstalling if I turn it off in the middle of something important, and even NT bugs out on me for not shutting down. (I just hosed the system two days ago.)
3) It has had database capabilities for years, while ReiserFS still has them in planning. That might be a "gee-whiz" features, but nothing beats having your MP3s automatically entered in a database based on ID3 info. (Or emails, or pictures, or whatever.)
4) It has a flexible system of attributes. No more.stupid-extension because file-type is stored within attributes. The user and edit attributes all they want, and custom file info (like gamma-info for a GIF) can be imbeeded into a file. For example, if you've got a special program that can display a GIF with variable gamma settings, it can embed those gamma settings into an attribute. Those attributes are ignored by other programs, and stripped out when sent to another OS (unless you use.zip compression.) However, when displayed in a program that recognizes that attribute, it can be used.
A) Ah, but even if it is your hobby, you consume resources like pizza and electricity. The point is, that while your working on the software, your not actually being *productive* (from an economic point of view.)
B) Well, you can argue capitalism vs. everything else all you want. However, remember that capitalism is an imprefect model for an imprect species (humans) It encourages productivty and hard work in the quest of being super-rich. That's not idealistically correct, but its a good thing nonetheless. In the process of getting rich, a lot of jobs are created. Its not like MS is robbing from the poor. MS is taking money from middle to upper class people, so its okay. Without the software industry, hundreds of thousands of people would be out of jobs. That would be a BAD thing.
D) Fort Knox should not be here. Its a sick puppy and if a nuclear bomb can do damage to it this proves that it shouldn't be here in the first place. (Catch the faulty reasoning? Nothing is perfect. Human society has boundries and limitations. Its not like software. Live with it.)
A) Software has a cost too. Its called man-hours. If you hire a guy to dig a hole, are you going to tell him that you won't pay him, since digging a hole doesn't cost anything? By your reasoning, the book industry shouldn't exist either.
B) Nobody cares about the ethics or reason of being for the software industry. What people care about is that is brings billions of dollars into the economy, and makes the US the world power in computing. Best of all, software is very high-margin, which makes people rich. Rich people spend lots of money. Read up on the basics of capitalism.
C) In an economy, too much money can never be spent. Software is a great place to boost the total money-movement of the economy. Its mostly well-off people (people who can afford computers and software) paying money to other well-off people (programmers.) In the middle, you have tons of people who benifet, and a bunch of jobs created as a result. Software is a big push on the "New Economy."
D) I'm not talking about the fate of a free software projects, I'm talking about the economy. (BTW: Ever thought that having a hardware company support OSS software decreses the already small margins in the hardware industry?) Nobody has proven that OSS is a safe thing for the economy. You could argue that it should be legal for people to give away their software, but a lot of similar things aren't. You can't give away a lot of things. It's a very real possibility that free software could be dangerous for the economy (I'm not saying that it is, it could possibly be.) In that case, it would be regulated just like everything else.
This really isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Think about it. Does the government allow you to solicit stuff without a license? If you suddenly started making cars and giving them away, the government would be up your ass so fast you wouldn't know what hit you. Why should it be any different for software? No-one has yet proven that total OSS ISN'T harmful to the software economy, and even hardcore capitalists agree that SOME control is requried to keep the market from destroying itself. Quite frankly, since OSS people never did any research on the economic ramifications of the model, its a little irresponsible to develop OSS software to compete with the big boys. Of course, I'm not complaining, I like free stuff. But I do have resesrvations about the idea.
Good god. Why pile bloat on bloat for the sake of the "gee-whiz, I can run OS/2 apps" factor. What IBM really has the power to do, though, is OpenSource SOM (because it seems to me that these CORBA APIs are more about interapplication messaging that actual object services) and the GUI library. Then, ditch X, GNOME, KDE, ad-nauseum, and run the OS/2 GUI on the sexy Linux kernel.
Microsoft isn't a real word. However, you COULD say that it was commercial, proprietory, closed-source, or anything inbetween. For example, you can say it is object oriented. It doesn't actually have an object model, and it doesn't treat everything as an object (which is what object orientation technically means), but the OS is built on a set of objects, so the claim is still true.
Monolithic IS a real word. Something monolithic is anything that is one large, closely connected mass. Even if the kernel ran drivers as seprate processes, if there was a super-close connection between the two, then it would still be monolithic. I would consider something modular if it had a set of clearly defined, more or less invariant interfaces between components, even if the thing was one honking large binary.
You miss the central issue. The problem isn't the memory thing, but should developers at these companies fork the kernel to take advantage of their hardware. You can't decide this issue by issue, but should have a grand plan for it. Otherwise, the desicion processes slows down development of the kernel.
You're reading too much into what I said. My point is, that from a user standpoint, there is a lot of stuff that is closely tied to the kernel. Y
It is not real easy to use kernel drivers between different versions. Agree with that part? Okay, that means that there is a very close relation between the kernel and the driver. Agree with that part? That means that the kernel is monolithic. For example, my NVIDIA drivers required me to downgrade a kernel version and recompile in order to work properly. I can't reliably rip out a FS module and insert it into a new kernel.
Who said anything about ALSA? I was talking about OSS. And I can give you several examples of stuff being tied too closely the the kernel. For example, iptables often requires patches to the kernel. My aformentioned NVIDIA drivers are terribly closely tied to the kernel version. I can't take my sidwinder driver from one kernel and stick it into another.
You got to the heart of the problem. There is no stable driver API. That encourages a close connection between driver and kernel. That means it is a monolithic kernel. I don't care if I'm using the term wrong from a technical point of view (though I'm not, Linux IS monolithic technically) but I'm using from a "English" point of view.
Actually, BeOS is NOT more advanced that QNX. The messaging seems to be better, the net code is more advanced than even BONE (QNet is years ahead of anything else) Photon has a lot of neat features (X Windows compatibility, network transparency) the API has some nifty features (like the mmap BeOS is missing) and the interface API is a little more mature. However, Be does have OpenGL, a killer media kit, and somewhat better graphics-access going for it.
Would you like to point out how? If you look at my postings on the BeDev list and BeNews, you'll realize that I critisize BeOS too when the time is appropriate. I never said to anybody that YOU SHOULD USE BeOS. I merely point out when somone is spreading FUD about it, or when somone gives Linux undeserved credit.
Actually, my scripts already renice X. It still skips. And it's not Be's highly optimized codec, its the OS. (BTW Be's media player isn't exactly the most tweeked thing in the world. Especially with MPEG video.)
Not really. If you look at the BeOS distribution, it has GCC, Perl, most of the GNU tools (like sed, awk, bison) its own desktop environment, sample code, media files, etc. The Linux distro I'm talking about is bare-bones Slackware. GNOME, KDE (I need apps from each one), XFree86 4.0.1, Kernel 2.4, ALSA, and various important libraries. You have to look at it as functionality vs code size. BeOS and QNX fit a hell of a lot of functionality, into a very small code size.
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No you can't. Lilo won't boot a ResierFS partition. You have to make your /boot partition an ext2, and another ReiserFS partition for /usr and everything else. I would guess the others are similar.
Actually, Linux isn't growing at all in the consumer desktop market. Windows will rule the roost for another 3 years minimum, and that is a best-case scenerio. Nobody wants to switch from one dictaing, overbearing, bloated system to another. Think hard about Linux. Who decides if you run GNOME or KDE? Not *YOU* but the programmers who write the programs you need to run. If your fave software is GNOME, than you have no choice but to have GNOME installed. Linux is just slavery under more masters.
Not true at all. The Linux kernel is quite sexy. Though I'm fundementally against the UNIX way of doing things, you have to give credit to the Linux kernel for the quality of the thing. What makes Linux bloated isn't the kernel (which weighs in just under 2 million lines, about 500,000 more lines than BeOS) but all the crap around it (XFree, Mozilla, GNOME, KDE, and the dozens of libraries)
A) Very true. The BeOS does have some limitations. I'll actually add another two
- The BeOS VM isn't a work of art (like the rest of the OS) it does have some "issues."
- Replicants are sorely under-powered.
B) You are terribly wrong about the 32MB limit. There is a 32 MB add-on limit. While it is true that add-ons were meant more for plug-ins rather than a component architecture (BeZilla and Mozilla in general uses a system called XPCom which allows major components to be dynamically replaced. Its essentially a cross-platform COM and requires dynamically loadable shared libraries) I think that COM is a pretty cool technology and that the 32MB limit isn't very helpful. HOWEVER, there is a work around, all you have to do is link your add-on to a shared library. The limit for that is around 256MB, so its not a big problem yet.
Really, or are you being anal?
1) probably true, that Linux wouldn't need reinstalling in these case. However, I'm not going to take time to fix what fsck can't. It is easier for me to just copy over my CD-backup than to fix the fs. Seriously though, if fsck gives me a "lost superblocks error" and the system won't boot into multi-user mode, then what the hell am I supposed to do? I don't even know what a superblock IS.
4) Can you please explain WHY attributes break portability? How exactly does it lock you into the OS? You forget four things:
1) Dealing with attributes is required for anyone writing a BeOS fs driver. Thus, any attribute data can be extracted by the fs driver if they are reading a bfs disk from another system.
2) The system takes care of attributes when sending things outside the OS. If send a picture to a non-BeOS user, the attributes are stripped out. If you copy stuff to a non-bfs disk, then attributes are taken out. If you post something, the appropriate extensions can be added. Its not a big stupid system that automatically makes file prorpiatory. If you're using a GIF file laden with attributes, it will still be a gif file when you send it to a Linux user. They just won't get the benifets of the attributes.
3) Attributes kick ass! No stupid MP3 database programs, ID3 information is injected into attributes (which are stripped out when you send them to Napster!) and the FS serves as your database engine. Email can be indexed by user, sender, date, time, subject, whatever. You can set up custom searches to get all email from your boss written within the last 5 days. Best of all, there is no central database to take care of, since all this info is in attributes. Think of it as UNIX-style file data (creator, data, group-info, etc) taken to the next level.
4) Innovation should not be held captive to those who cannot innovate. Nobody if forcing you to take advantage of attributes. If your cross platform program needs to share the same file-types between OSs then DON'T STORE ANYTHING IN THE ATTRIBUTE DATA! Keep a central database or whatever you want. However, if you couldn't give a flying fuck if other OS can take full advantage of your files (as long as they are a standard type, other OSs will always be able to *READ* them) then by all means, take advantage of the technology.
And I couldn't care less what *YOU* think is an outmoded model. The minute you can get an economist or somebody with knowledge of the industry to tell me propriatory is dead, then I'll listen.
BTW> BFS is documented in a book, and an GPL'ed clone is part of AtheOS. Go have fun with it.
Tell that to all the BeOS people. Seriosly though. If I talk about the advantags of bfs during a discussion on file systems, does it automatically mean that I'm saying "Linux sux, BeOS rules?" I never said ANYTHING about BeOS. I'm talking about the filesystem!
That said, your arguement has some merit. A bunch of important software WAS canceled. However, you're not totally right that BeOS is dying. Software is coming to the OS at quite a good clip. We've already got a good video editor, and other media programs are being made. BeUnited is helping a lot by starting projects to address gaps in the software line. Tracker and deskbar has been OSSed (under something similar to the BSD license) so the GUI wil continue to evolve. The system is modular, so the system itself can be improved by users. BeOS is far from dead.
Your point about the focus shit is totally off base. Be never said that BeOS is dead. They focus shift-ed. Sure, it sounds like a cop-out, but consider this. BeIA and BeOS are more or less the same thing. Be's plan is to be able to pull out a BeIA release out of the BeOS source-tree anytime it wants. Meaning, that any cool stuff integrated into BeIA gets into BeOS too. And this is not bullshitting on the part of Be. OpenGL, Java, networking, and a good browser are all critical for BeIA. And they're important for BeOS too. So guess what, Be is bringing them to BeOS! And before you say, "oh, that's just vaporware" remember, a lot of these things are in late beta. www.betips.net is already running on the new BeOS networking architecture, a lot of people aready have the OpenGL beta, Java-personal has already been ported to BeIA, and Opera is already working on a web-browser for it. (The Opera browser hasn't been released yet, but already works and can pass standards complience tests.) And with Compaq making a BeIA-powered IA, you can bet that these technologies are going to get to the public.
Why is it such a problem? Unlike the Mac, BeOS attributes are not flaky. (For example, files aren't chained to the program that created them.) BeOS stores file-types as a MIME attribute. So if you want all your /text-html files to be opened by a particular problem, its just as easy as going to file-types and associated /text-html with StyledEdit. Its the exact same thing as going to the GNOME control panel and associating ".html" with GEdit, except you don't have any ugliness in the file-names, and the system automatically figures out what type files are. If you don't like attributes in general, then please explain why.
When did I say something about BeOS? I'm talking about bfs the file-system.
Oh really. That would explain my posting history now wouldn't it. The last time I mentioned BeOS was a week ago, when I enumerated the advantages QNX had over BeOS. The last time I brought up a point about the advantage of BeOS was when I mentioned something about MP3s. Seriosly though. Take a look at Slashdot. People sit there everyday extolling the greatness of Linux. Maybe once a week, I bring up an occasional point about a cool UI thingy, or sometimes bring it up during and unrelated discussion (I brought it up when I was defending client-server graphics systems a while ago). If you actually look at my post history, I only ocassionaly say something good about the OS. People look at the name, "be-fan" and think "oh, every post he puts up must somehow be connectected to BeOS." Even you fall into the trap with this post. I said nothing about BeOS, just the filesystem. Believe it or not, AtheOS uses a very similar file system to Be's, so its not exactly a BeOS-only message.
/.ers who go on about how great Linux is. There doesn't need to be one more.
As for consantly bitching about Linux, I try to be the devils advocate. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Linux. I have used it a lot. The problem is that people are so blinded by their frevor (or their elitism) that they really can't see when Linux has a fault. The mindcraft thing is the perfect example. While Slashdotters spent the whole timing bitching about how mindcraft was evil, Linus and other sane people actually took it seriously, and improved the kernel as a result. Or take the whole NVIDIA debacle. Not once did people mention (in their frevor to say Linux was almost as fast as Windows) that the Linux drivers were had tweeks similar to the Windows Detonator 3 drivers. So the test was essentially Detonator3-Linux vs. Detonator2 Windows. After the Mindcraft thing you would have thought Slashdot would rip it to pieces. But they didn't. Instead, people started preaching about how Linux was going to own the desktop market in a year (I'm not exaggerating) That's the kind of stuff I have problem with. I have no desire to be one of those people who constantly extolls the virtues of something. I will bring up BeOS once in a while, but usually just to illustrate a weakness of Linux (or OSs in general.) I have similarly brought up NT to point out weaknesses in Linux as well, so that's nothing unusual. There are enough
Okay, today, I'm actually going to preach the benifets of a BeOS technology.
.stupid-extension because file-type is stored within attributes. The user and edit attributes all they want, and custom file info (like gamma-info for a GIF) can be imbeeded into a file. For example, if you've got a special program that can display a GIF with variable gamma settings, it can embed those gamma settings into an attribute. Those attributes are ignored by other programs, and stripped out when sent to another OS (unless you use .zip compression.) However, when displayed in a program that recognizes that attribute, it can be used.
With all this talk of journeling file system, I'm surprised that bfs got ignored. BFS has several things going for it:
1) It's fast. While it is a journaling file system, on Bonnie, it is about 20% faster than my ReiserFS partition (which is closer to the outside of the disk too) on straight reads and writes. It is also a good bit faster on the per-char tests. Best of all, the CPU utilization is 30% lower than Linux in the sequential, and 50% lower in the per char (where Linux pegs the CPU). However, the rewrite tests, it is significantly slower. Something I think has more to do with the BeOS VM and disk cache than the file system.
2) It is ever so solid. I regularly (read: three times a week) shut down my BeOS machine with my power button. Not yet have I gotten a lost file, block, or data corruption. Linux regularly needs reinstalling if I turn it off in the middle of something important, and even NT bugs out on me for not shutting down. (I just hosed the system two days ago.)
3) It has had database capabilities for years, while ReiserFS still has them in planning. That might be a "gee-whiz" features, but nothing beats having your MP3s automatically entered in a database based on ID3 info. (Or emails, or pictures, or whatever.)
4) It has a flexible system of attributes. No more
A) Ah, but even if it is your hobby, you consume resources like pizza and electricity. The point is, that while your working on the software, your not actually being *productive* (from an economic point of view.)
B) Well, you can argue capitalism vs. everything else all you want. However, remember that capitalism is an imprefect model for an imprect species (humans) It encourages productivty and hard work in the quest of being super-rich. That's not idealistically correct, but its a good thing nonetheless. In the process of getting rich, a lot of jobs are created. Its not like MS is robbing from the poor. MS is taking money from middle to upper class people, so its okay. Without the software industry, hundreds of thousands of people would be out of jobs. That would be a BAD thing.
D) Fort Knox should not be here. Its a sick puppy and if a nuclear bomb can do damage to it this proves that it shouldn't be here in the first place. (Catch the faulty reasoning? Nothing is perfect. Human society has boundries and limitations. Its not like software. Live with it.)
You're missing the major concept: reality.
A) Software has a cost too. Its called man-hours. If you hire a guy to dig a hole, are you going to tell him that you won't pay him, since digging a hole doesn't cost anything? By your reasoning, the book industry shouldn't exist either.
B) Nobody cares about the ethics or reason of being for the software industry. What people care about is that is brings billions of dollars into the economy, and makes the US the world power in computing. Best of all, software is very high-margin, which makes people rich. Rich people spend lots of money. Read up on the basics of capitalism.
C) In an economy, too much money can never be spent. Software is a great place to boost the total money-movement of the economy. Its mostly well-off people (people who can afford computers and software) paying money to other well-off people (programmers.) In the middle, you have tons of people who benifet, and a bunch of jobs created as a result. Software is a big push on the "New Economy."
D) I'm not talking about the fate of a free software projects, I'm talking about the economy. (BTW: Ever thought that having a hardware company support OSS software decreses the already small margins in the hardware industry?) Nobody has proven that OSS is a safe thing for the economy. You could argue that it should be legal for people to give away their software, but a lot of similar things aren't. You can't give away a lot of things. It's a very real possibility that free software could be dangerous for the economy (I'm not saying that it is, it could possibly be.) In that case, it would be regulated just like everything else.
This really isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Think about it. Does the government allow you to solicit stuff without a license? If you suddenly started making cars and giving them away, the government would be up your ass so fast you wouldn't know what hit you. Why should it be any different for software? No-one has yet proven that total OSS ISN'T harmful to the software economy, and even hardcore capitalists agree that SOME control is requried to keep the market from destroying itself. Quite frankly, since OSS people never did any research on the economic ramifications of the model, its a little irresponsible to develop OSS software to compete with the big boys. Of course, I'm not complaining, I like free stuff. But I do have resesrvations about the idea.
Actually, SOM has been ported to Windows already, so it shouldn't be too terribly hard.
Good god. Why pile bloat on bloat for the sake of the "gee-whiz, I can run OS/2 apps" factor. What IBM really has the power to do, though, is OpenSource SOM (because it seems to me that these CORBA APIs are more about interapplication messaging that actual object services) and the GUI library. Then, ditch X, GNOME, KDE, ad-nauseum, and run the OS/2 GUI on the sexy Linux kernel.
Microsoft isn't a real word. However, you COULD say that it was commercial, proprietory, closed-source, or anything inbetween. For example, you can say it is object oriented. It doesn't actually have an object model, and it doesn't treat everything as an object (which is what object orientation technically means), but the OS is built on a set of objects, so the claim is still true.
Monolithic IS a real word. Something monolithic is anything that is one large, closely connected mass. Even if the kernel ran drivers as seprate processes, if there was a super-close connection between the two, then it would still be monolithic. I would consider something modular if it had a set of clearly defined, more or less invariant interfaces between components, even if the thing was one honking large binary.
As far as I can tell, a lid system is *easier* to break than a slot loader.
You miss the central issue. The problem isn't the memory thing, but should developers at these companies fork the kernel to take advantage of their hardware. You can't decide this issue by issue, but should have a grand plan for it. Otherwise, the desicion processes slows down development of the kernel.
You're reading too much into what I said. My point is, that from a user standpoint, there is a lot of stuff that is closely tied to the kernel. Y
It is not real easy to use kernel drivers between different versions. Agree with that part? Okay, that means that there is a very close relation between the kernel and the driver. Agree with that part? That means that the kernel is monolithic. For example, my NVIDIA drivers required me to downgrade a kernel version and recompile in order to work properly. I can't reliably rip out a FS module and insert it into a new kernel.
Who said anything about ALSA? I was talking about OSS. And I can give you several examples of stuff being tied too closely the the kernel. For example, iptables often requires patches to the kernel. My aformentioned NVIDIA drivers are terribly closely tied to the kernel version. I can't take my sidwinder driver from one kernel and stick it into another.
You got to the heart of the problem. There is no stable driver API. That encourages a close connection between driver and kernel. That means it is a monolithic kernel. I don't care if I'm using the term wrong from a technical point of view (though I'm not, Linux IS monolithic technically) but I'm using from a "English" point of view.
I only have one account. I have no friends modding me up. Apparently, the moderators don't share your same "Linux has NO problems" mentality.
Actually, BeOS is NOT more advanced that QNX. The messaging seems to be better, the net code is more advanced than even BONE (QNet is years ahead of anything else) Photon has a lot of neat features (X Windows compatibility, network transparency) the API has some nifty features (like the mmap BeOS is missing) and the interface API is a little more mature. However, Be does have OpenGL, a killer media kit, and somewhat better graphics-access going for it.
Would you like to point out how? If you look at my postings on the BeDev list and BeNews, you'll realize that I critisize BeOS too when the time is appropriate. I never said to anybody that YOU SHOULD USE BeOS. I merely point out when somone is spreading FUD about it, or when somone gives Linux undeserved credit.
Actually, my scripts already renice X. It still skips. And it's not Be's highly optimized codec, its the OS. (BTW Be's media player isn't exactly the most tweeked thing in the world. Especially with MPEG video.)
Not really. If you look at the BeOS distribution, it has GCC, Perl, most of the GNU tools (like sed, awk, bison) its own desktop environment, sample code, media files, etc. The Linux distro I'm talking about is bare-bones Slackware. GNOME, KDE (I need apps from each one), XFree86 4.0.1, Kernel 2.4, ALSA, and various important libraries. You have to look at it as functionality vs code size. BeOS and QNX fit a hell of a lot of functionality, into a very small code size.