My point is that you were talking about a de facto standard. RedHat IS that de facto standard. RedHat controls the layout of the Linux file system, and most major distros follow it to some degree. Certianly most commercial apps are tested first with RedHat. If Linux came up with a LSB-Compatible type seal, then distros could choose to follow that, and if it got sufficiant support (why not, the only one who has anything to lose is RedHat) then developers would use that as the standard. Thus, people are free to use whatever distro they like (for whatever reason they need something custom), but people can use only distros that have adhere to the standard.
The problem is that artifical benchmarks are dumb. The only thing that really matters is application performance. If the applications you use run faster on one CPU than another, voila, there you have your benchmark. Of course, good artifical benchmarks are possible if they emulate application code (like the 3D 2000 max or whatever benchmark that uses actual game engine pieces to test performance.) Cross platform testing is a bit hard. You'd have to test app that were equally optimized for both platforms. It shouldn't be too hard, however, with good optimizing compiles. Take GIMP and compile it using the Intel x86 compiler (even more optimizing than the Microsoft compiler) and test GIMP compiled with the Compaq Alpha compiler.
I am surprised at how much vehemence the people on/. have for MS. Some guy said that they should be forced to open all their apps to ensure competition. How about Linus being forced to BSD license all his code to allow other people to incorperate it into their programs without the restrictions of the GPL. Of course that's silly, and so it opening all microsoft apps. The governemnt, and the computing community have gotten the smell of blood, and proceded to try to rip MS to shreds. Case in point: The government is bandying about a proposal to break MS up. If that wasn't bad enough, the OS company would be allowed to keep internet explorer in the OS. Wasn't that the whole point of contention in the lawsuit? Sure MS has monopolistic practices, but no more than the baby bells or the cable companies. If you saw what kind of stronghold they have in the washington area, you'd think that MS was embittered in competition. The government is completly ignoring the practices that make MS a monopoly. Such as an OEM not being able to install another OS along with Windows, or MS charging different prices to different OEMs. You know what? None of these problems will be solved by breaking up MS. Then there is the thing with applications. People point to the success of Office and scream monopoly. However, the main reason Office is so succesful is MS basically gives it away to the OEMs. They are perfectly free to preinstall WordPerfect (in fact, some do) but Office is cheaper to bundle? Is that a monopolistic practice? When talk gets to IE and Netscape and Java, the arguement gets ridiculous. A) People use IE because Netscape sucks. It is bloated, slow, and a disk hog. Simple as that. Netscape didn't lose because MS strong armed them, they did a fine job losing on their own. If Netscape 6 is the sight of things to come, Netscape's going to keep on losing. There is the hairy fact that IE is only available on Windows, Mac, and Sun (kinda). Is that monopoly? Hell no! If it were, then the KDE people should be sued for not porting their browser to Windows! B) MS only made Java better. Before MS came along Java performance sucked ass. By extending Java to work better on windows, they took an Open system and enhanced it to make it more appealing to develop on Windows. Again not a monopoly! Making your OS the more appealing development platform is the whole point of a commercial OS! Should Linus be sued because Linux is an appealing platform for POSIX development? Second, in recent months, Sun has done more to kill Java than MS ever has, so what's the beef? C) People point to closed technologies like DirectX which keep people chained to the Windows platform. Know what? There is a reason that people use DirectX. It whips anything else out there! In recent days, even Direct3D has become more feature filled (if not faster and as easy to program) as OpenGL. Then there is the superlative capabilities of the rest of the DirectX suite. Now, people concerned with freedom would look at DirectX, see that it's not available on (Linux|BSD|BeOS), respect the companies wishes, and develop something that could compete with it! Nothing on Linux or even BeOS holds a candle to DirectX. In general, all of the application stuff points to a whinny bitchy attitude among the computing community. They are all running to the government for help because they don't have the skill to make something better. Even now, I am very proud of (most) of the OSS community because instead of whining and bitching, they went out and developed software that put MSs to shame.
Who, praytell, gives a hoot about integer performance? Almost any technical app you can think of that really needs massive CPU performance (web serving really is more about I/O and bandwidth and cache, contrary to what intel would have you belive) that doesn't rely mostly on integer ops?
The compiler situation presented by the article hilights a key advantage that Compaq has over Itanium. The compiler needed to take advantage of Alpha is already freely available, while (if intel keeps with it's current practice of charging for it's compiler) one would have to pony up quite a bit for Intel's compiler. The compiler is critical because Itanium (based on VLIW, which places all code ordering work on the compiler) is heavily dependant on a good compiler for any semblance of performance. Sure GCC compiles Itanium code, but if it can barely optimize x86, do you really think it has any hope of producing good Itanium code? This might not be important on Windows, but as OSs like Linux and BeOS, which depend on the freely available gcc to compile many of the applications, the availibilty of a good free compiler is very important.
I disagree with some people when they say that Alpha is a dying platform. In reality, it is far from dead. Aside from the hideously expensive POWER3 CPU, the Alpha is the fastest CPU out there. With the release of the EV6.7 and EV6.8, they may again capture the fastest proc known to man crown again. A 1 GHz Alpha is not that far off, Compaq demoed air cooled 1GHz Alphas a few months ago. In fact, Alpha may be the only competition left for Merced (I refuse to use that Power Ranger-esque name Itanium!) in the mid to upper range market. There was an article a while ago (on Tom's Hardware I think) cogigating on whether or not Alpha would still be faster than Merced. They cited various points about how plain RISC may beat out VLIW if implemented properly (like in the Alpha) and how the DEC guys have quite a leg up in clock speed (at least at that time.) Judging by when Merced will be out the 1GHz + Alphas should be out, and should provide quite a strong competition since A)Alphas could just be faster, and B) Alphas have much more market penetration and a larger support network built up. With Intel's power, that will change, but Alpha will have quite a head start on Intel. Then there is the fact that Alpha is aimed at a much broader spectrum, and Intel might just not be able to take the market with Itanium.
Really? In Windows, COM acts as a shared object interface, stuff like COBRA isn't even a part of it. (I don't even think COM is cobra complient, distributed objects are handled by DCOM and higher level stuff is done through OLE.) COM on windows is sort of like classes that can only be accessed by pointers. It does function as a glue-layer for OLE, but the whole embedding application thing never really made sense to me. For me it makes more sense to use straight COM and built many different applications with a smaller set of high funcitonality objects.
True, I have never worked for a commercial company. But take a look at many of the commercial products. MS apps have all kinds of cool credits, game developers talk with the community through plan files and other mediums, the BeOS developers are a colorful group of characters who put a great deal of pride into their work. The windows developers all have their names on it as do the DirectX developers, and the Truespace developers, ad nauseum. By not putting yourself into any project, you will not do your best work on that project. You can bet that the guys that developed QNX or whatever are proud of their work. Even the various Unicies have colorful characters behind them.
Actually, I think you have it wrong. True, OpenParts is being replaced with KParts, but I don't care because OpenParts was based on Cobra (which IMO sucks terribly.) DCOP is an IPC system replacing MIOC. As far as I can tell, KOM still provides the backbone for all this.
This guy's slightly off his rocker. Motif in no way compares to Qt and GTK. First of all, it's ugly as shit. That might not be technically important, but it can make or break software designed for mass consumption. Second, it is not nearly as feature filled as Qt and GTK. In addition to the base toolkit, KDE and GNOME have extended Qt and GTK to provide a great deal of application infrastructure. These are closely tied to the toolkit and for most intents and purposes, can be considered a part of them. Does Motif have COM? I didn't think so. Third, I find his attitude towards software appaling. I'm not a big fan of the Free Software community (I have nothing against it, but some of the people behind it like Stalin, err I mean Stallman piss me off) but I feel compelled to defend it. Free software can work great in the right environment, and is not against the grain of commercial (in his opinion "high quality") software. Lastly, what is this anonimity bullshit. I want to know who wrote this piece of junk so I can flame him! (Just kidding!) However, he explicitly says that they do not put their reputations and selves into the software. That is condusive to bad software. If you're going to write a program for a year, you damn better put yourself in there. By not staking their reputations, they wash their hands of the entire matter and show themselves as not caring about the quality of the software. Utter craziness.
I would like to enlighten all the people who are complaining that KDE is going the Microsoft way and trying to make Konqueror one huge app. A) In this case, the Microsoft way is the right way. B) Konqueror and to a slightly lesser extent, IE, are not one huge app. By integrating access to all sorts of data, the user experiance is greatly simplified and made much more efficient. Maybe it's just me, but browsing some files, typing in a URL to download a file, then going back to the file manager to unzip it and install is sheer coolness (or Koolness!)Normally, this efficiency would come at the expense of speed and bloat, but not in this case. Such is the magic of COM (or KOM, what KDE calls its clone if it) Because Konqueror and IE are implemented as a set of COM objects, these can be loaded at will. Unlike Bonobo (which is a damn ugly architecture, IMHO) large portions of applications with a significant amount of glue inbetween are not loaded. Instead, the system is built on a set of small reusable object. In some cases the overall bloat of the system can actually go down! Take, for example, MS Word. When IE browses over to a MS word file, the MS word editing object is loaded and inserted into IE. If you had wanted to see it, you would have had to open up word anyway, or a redundant version of the interface would have had to have been built into IE. In the case both word and IE browsing a word document are loaded, then only one copy of the editing object is loaded into memory. See, magic! This object-ness can become even more interesting. Imagine a system API implemented as a set of COM objects. (Kinda like DirectX without the hungarian notation.) Now the system is VERY cleanly extendible, with no dependencies on a specific version of the API and no ulgy _createWindowEx2ExtendedEnhancedAFX()-type function calls. In addition to all that, it's fast. Common COM local object calls are about has efficient was a C++ virtual function call (it's a deference through a v-table) Compare this to all the marshalling and dispatching inherent in Cobra, and you'll see why COM is so nifty. So it's fast, flexible, and can save memory. What's not to like?
However nice it may seem to have a simple elegant internet based language, it isn't going to happen. There are many things conspiring against it, such as... A) For the short term, English will be dominant. Think about it, most people who have enough money to get a computer speak english. It is taught in nearly every country in the world and has been for many decades. Thus, until computers get to the few dollers each necessary for mass world-wide acceptance (like the radio) english will dominate the internet. B) Even if computers get to that broad market, most people won't bother to learn a new language, and thus Lobjan or Esparanto won't profiliate. (Except in Indonesia where the main language is an artificial one.) C) Accurate, dynamic translaters will nullify the need for a common language. Already, stuff like bablefish does a decent job of translating languages using the english charecterset, and I don't think adding asian and other languages should be too hard in the future) , and stuff like WindowNT and BeOS have totally integrated internationalization support. I forsee browsers dynamically translating some form of unicode to a native language and character set, and displaying that to the user. So in the end, each country will have a body of nativly written web pages, and global content will be accessed through translation services built into the OS.
What are you talking about. The time it took me to bitch with another system (slackware in this case) was utterly wasted. Take the recent QTDIR thing that is needed to make KDE software compile on RedHat systems. Is there really a need for this difference? Does it teach anything to the user? Absolutly not. It is idiotic, but is allowed anyway because there is no standard. The consumer allows it because the know that no distro will be totally standard. However, if the LSB defines such a standard, then people can choose to buy only LSB complient distros. It's just like only choosing to buy POSIX complient systems. I don't know why people have the idea that stuff that is harder is automatically a learning experience. A) It presents a steep learning curve that prevents people from using the system and learning more about it. It might even be counter productive. Think, if the average user encounters the QTDIR problem, will they bother to search the READMEs down to the trouble shooting section to find the problem? Probably not, they'll give up compiling and switch to RPMS, or worse, abandon the system entirely after encountering many such problems. That is a Bad Thing. (TM) B) It is unnecessary. If a user wants to learn and tweek there system, then they will do it on their own. I learn nothing everytime I have to fuss with RedHat. I see the QTDIR thing, and I think, "oh great, Qt2 is installed under/lib/qt-2.0.1 while Qt 1.44 is under/lib/qt-1.44, wow, great, why can't the damn system figure it out itself?" However, I learned a great deal about BeOS and Windows. I tweeked Windows to the point where it doesn't feel like windows anymore (I crash maybe once every few weeks, and that is using 3D Studio, and Visual Studio, and AOL 5.0 - which, strangly, is probably the most demanding on the system!) Even though BeOS is ridiculously easy to use, I have it customized the way I like it, and actually bothered to go in and find out how all the servers work and how the attributes work and how messaging and app scripting work. If someone wants to learn the system, they will. However, many people don't give a damn about the system. They just want to get their work done. They shouldn't be forced to learn. Lastly, there is no complete lack of ability to choose. If there is an LSB, not all distros have to follow it. Take RPM, DEB, and TGZ for example. Even though RPMS is the defacto standard, there are still distros catering to different tastes. Where is the loss of freedom there? So, if at best it is a pain in the ass, and at worst it drives people away from the system, why keep this fragmentation?
Actually that's bad. If RedHat owns 99.9% of the market, that means everyone will ship products that conform to their standard. If you want to use another distro, you have to put up with a lot of pain. (That's why I use RedHat now, because I don't have the time to bitch with the system everytime I want to install software.) There is not real freedom in allowing RedHat to put stuff that belongs in/opt in/usr -actually, if Linux had a decent registry like Windows, (except text based and easily editable), silly dependencies like this wouldn't be necessary- they're just different. Making a "LSB seal of approval" would be a good idea, because if software followed it, then people wouldn't have to mess with software to get it to work. Finally, exactly what freedom is one losing to get a definate standard? You have to use different config files and directory structure, sure, but if you want that level of freedom, that's a little silly.
I speak from a users perspective. I can't edit the source to KDE to fix bugs, and only a few users can. Not programming skill entirely, but the few weeks that it would take to get up do date on the KDE source are not worth it for me. Similar thing with drivers. Most users cannot fix these bugs, and in the end wait of KDE or Utah GLX to release a fix rather than wait on nVidia or Microsoft. It has not clearly been shown that bugs are fixed faster in Open Source drivers. Sure, some execeptions exist, like the ATI drivers, but in general, OSS software (At least major stuff like Utah GLX or KDE or Mesa, etc) are just as bloated and buggy and take time to fix than it's closed source cousins. (The kernel is a notable exception mainly because it has an overwhelming amount of support.) OSS software just costs less, and if there really is a small showstopping glitch that you can fix, you can do it on OSS software. However, those cases are extremely rare to the end user.
True, but I didn't own a TNT then, so maybe I haven't seen the bad of it. However, nVidia hasn't shipped a bad driver since the early TNT days, and the GeForce 2 drivers are already rock solid, (and it isn't even out!) nVidia had some problems in the beginning, no doubt about that. The TNT was really its comeback architecture and was completely new, and as such, it was probably more prone to driver immaturity than other products based on older architectures. OSS stuff is like that too. I still can't trust any of the Utah GLX stuff even thought it has been in development for months. Even XFree 4.0 flakes out more often on me than my TNT driver. (Windows crashes, but rarely when doing something with graphics, mostly internet.)
I'm a BeOS user and am ecstatic when people choose to support Be. I do not, however, think that boycotting and forcing companies to open source drivers is the right way to go about it.
Damn I'm glad I have a benews slashbox. I saw this article yesterday and have already registered for my CD. Avoided a good deal of the/. rush (Geeks and free computer stuff, you get the picture!:)
No, it is not. It makes Linux a lower quality, less usable environment. Why? Well, if you buy nVidia's products, and use their binary-only drivers, you are sending the message that that level of support (ie practically none) is acceptable. If every hardware vendor offers drivers under the same license, your once-stable unix-like operating system has become the hell that is NT. Worse still, do you really want to get yourself in a situation wherein you can't upgrade your OS (let's say a major security hole was found and patched...) because you're tied to a binary-only driver? Bottom line: binary-only ANYTHING is BAD, BAD, BAD.
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You do realize that MS is lying when it says that drivers are at fault. Look at any other freaking closed source OS. The drivers rarely cause the problems in an OS. BeOS drivers are hacked up by Be engineers based on sketchy specs and still BeOS 5 hasn't crashed yet. Same for Sun, SGI, and QNX drivers. Take a look at the Windows 95 nVidia drivers. They are rock solid and fast as hell. That's more than I can say for most OSS projects. So what if it is closed source? Unless you're dealing with a crappy company like S3, drivers are rarely the problem.
No it's not, see above.
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Yes it is. It advances Linux in the home and workstation markets, and gives users an incentive to use linux. (The linux drivers run about as fast s the Windows ones yet they're still in beta!) For those who already use it, it makes they're experience much more enjoyable. If you don't like closed source, buy a Matrox card, but the percentage of users who care more about some privlage they likely will never need (or could) use, is small compared to the number of people doing actual 3D work (or play!) and needing great 3D performance in a stable environment on pc-level hardware.
How is this good? The purpose of Free software is not to gain a place in the proprietary software world as an equal to Microsoft's offerings!!! It's to be a fundamentally different, and better, way of using computers.
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You miss my point. I general, Linux has been treated as an afterthought OS. This has nothing to do with it's quality. If a company treats Linux equal to Microsoft it shows that they take Linux seriously, not that they think that the two OSs are of similar quality.
On this, at least, you are right. And, in exactly the same way, it is your choice whether to give them your business. Not me, man.
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Okay fine, not you. But my post really wasn't aimed at die hard OSS people. Outside/., you guys are a rare breed.
Your argument makes no sense. Voodoo5 is faster AND more open than nVidia's offerings...where's the beef? Besides, if I really cared about 3d graphics speed, I'd go with either Sun's new Expert3d or one of many fine offerings from SGI. >>>>>>>>>
Hello? Take a look at the preview of Voodoo 5. It shows that it is only moderatly faster than a SDR GeForce, (which is significantly slower than a DDR plus the SDR doesn't use texture compression), and is a generation ahead. This means that it will not be competitive with parts from its own generation, namely the GeForce 2 and the new ATI chip. Second, I'm a hacker at heart. Part of that is getting the most speed possible within one's means. All my programs are coded close to the hardware, all my hardware is overclocked, and I buy the fastest hardware for the price. If my price range was Expert 3D level, I'd buy that. However, my price range is GeForce level, and nVidia cards are the best available in that bracket.
Sun and SGI may not offer source either, but at least their stuff is FAST and HIGH QUALITY. If SGI ships me a binary IRIX driver for (let's say) an Infinite Reality Engine, I'm pretty damn sure that it'll work and not crash my system. Do you really place the same level of faith in nVidia? Coding for a system they most likely don't understand well? Sure, kid.
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Hello? Reverse engineering is just as bad as source code for a company that wants to keep their specs closed. I doubt they are trying to make an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, otherwise, they'd have left well enough alone and not originally came out with good OpenGL drivers for Windows. They support OpenGL greatly, and MS hates that. Not to mention that they are in alliance with SGI whom Microsoft also hates. An attempt at a conspiracy theory, but sorry, no dice. As for Open Source and freedom and ideals and all that, listen to yourself! You sound like you're trying to convert someone! Exactly what is "the truth" you speak of? Put yourself in the company's position. You have great hardware. You're on top of the consumer graphics world. A bunch of tree huggers want you to open your specs, potentially letting your competitors get valuable technology. They point to other companies that do it, but you know that they're just trying to get a leg up in an emerging market.
Do you
A) Open your specs to please 100 or so OSS fanatics, and in addition give up even 5% of your technological advantage to your competitors. OR
B) Keep the source closed. Piss off the fanatics, but ignore the 100 sales you lost due to your proposition. In addition, you get a growing new user base, many of which don't care about OSS and just want the hardware support, plus you get your toe in the door for midrange Linux based workstations which will be used by companies who also don't care about Open Source.
I don't have any ideals about software, but I know which one I would choose. As far as your boycott, I pointed out that nVidia is making baby steps into the linux world. If it is met with the mongol OSS hoardes, then it might turn around. As for the mainstreaming of Linux. If the ideals of free software are lost, I couldn't care less. Some do, but many don't. There is a point to it. The point is that Linux is better than Windows. This release just makes Linux better, and what's wrong with that? Don't think of nVidia spitting in the GNU/Linux communities face. Think of it as a wake up call that if you want all the cool stuff on Linux, then you're going to have to pony up some freedom. If the satisfaction of using a great environment like Linux outweighs the slight loss of freedom, then great. If it doesn't, console yourself in the fact that Linux can never lose the Open spirit. Too much of Linux is based on open code and standards. So what's a very measly drivers? Or even an OpenGL implementation for that matter? If this were, for example, a great new windowing system to replace X, I can see people being worried. But it's a graphics driver. It'll be replaced in a year anyway. Get over it.
PS: Have you actually ever written a graphics driver? Has that graphics driver ever outperformed on written by the card's company? Look at the windows world for an example. If you deal with high quality companies, you'll see that drivers are released timely, they're well optimized, and very stable. They rarely have any bugs for you to fix. (At least nVidia drivers.)
PS2: You can stick with matrox. I'm giving this thing a whirl. Eat my 32bpp 60fps 200 megapixel per second dust:)
I am ashamed at all the negativity on this board. There are almost not positive comments and most are flames directed at the closed-sourceness of the drivers. Even ACs who otherwise would have been ignored are being moderated up because they are against nVidia. People are posting "no source is bad" without even backing up their reasons. I for one would like to put in a positive comment.
A) This is good for Linux. The OSS die hards might not like it, and it is unfortunate that the Alpha people can't use it, but overall it is good. It furthers Linux in the home market and the desktop 3D workstation market. It make linux a higher quality, more usable environment.
B) It is good for Linux users. Now people with the fastest cards (GeForces) can lay the smack down on people puttering on with G400s and Voodoo 3s.
C) It shows that Linux is being treated equally among OSs. nVidia wouldn't release their source to Microsoft, and they aren't doing it for the OSS community.
I really don't care whether or not nVidia releases sources. Some people may, and if nVidia does, good for them. In the meantime, those people should congratulte nVidia on the release, and gently encourage them to release more source. (Hey I could benefit. BeOS needs GeForce specs!) Ultimately, however, it is their decision, and it is up to them what they want to do with their work. I do think, however, than an overly negitive response (as opposed to a positive, but gently encouraging response) could clam nVidia up from releasing sources. I doubt they'd be turned off to the Linux market, because SGI and nVidia have their own plans for Linux, but they may become even more closed and not port to other OSs (ahem, BeOS.)
PS: What is wrong with you people? Do any of you care about speed? Voodoo 5 has already shown to be only moderatly faster than a GeForce but you'd prefer an open Voodoo, rather than a closed GeForce 2? Doesn't anyone care about SPEEEED!??:)
This nVidia driver release is probably the most amazing thing that has happened to me this week. First I get DSL, now this. Okay, I'm getting to my point. I would first like to congratulate nVidia on a driver release that is fast (though not completly stable, but hey, it's beta.) and very usable. This is a major step in the right direction for the Linux movement, though it does have its faults. First, it is not Open Source. I personally don't care, but I know the OSS community in general does. They think it is a bad thing for binary-only things to be used on Linux. While they may believe it's true, I also think they care about the quality of the Linux environment. Face it. Very few people use Linux because of its apparent freedom. People mainly use Linux because it is a very high quality environment. In that end, most care more about the quality of the environment than the freeness of it all. The nVidia drivers immensly increase the quality of the Linux environment, and in that end, it is a Good Thing. True, it trades freedom for that quality, but in the end, few people hack their video card drivers, but many people need high quality 3D acceleration. It is part of a broader trend of getting Linux accepted into the mainstream market. True, some think that Linux should stay a hacker-only system, but in the end, that too is detrimental to the quality of the system. Without the mainstream acceptance of Linux, 3D acceleration would have been unthinkable. Even three years ago, did anyone even think that someday the top consumer 3D company would write drivers explicitly for Linux? I doubt it. In addition to drivers, Quake, Corel Office, all the apps that are being ported, and partially KDE and GNOME, are due to the increasing acceptance of Linux. Although I doubt nVidia cares about the few of you who will boycott the GeForce based soley on the fact that there are no OSS drivers, I do think that it is important to encourage them and congratulate them on this release. (IE: Lay off the flame mail.) If they want to do more in the future, than that is their decision. Encouragement is good, but "OSS DO OR DIE" is bad.
The feature did exist when the K6 was being designed. As I remember it, the Pentium Pro was out before the K6 (the K6 started a little after the Pentium MMX) and it had the same FPU as the PII chips. (and the PIII chips aside from the SIMD instructions.)
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My point is that you were talking about a de facto standard. RedHat IS that de facto standard. RedHat controls the layout of the Linux file system, and most major distros follow it to some degree. Certianly most commercial apps are tested first with RedHat. If Linux came up with a LSB-Compatible type seal, then distros could choose to follow that, and if it got sufficiant support (why not, the only one who has anything to lose is RedHat) then developers would use that as the standard. Thus, people are free to use whatever distro they like (for whatever reason they need something custom), but people can use only distros that have adhere to the standard.
The problem is that artifical benchmarks are dumb. The only thing that really matters is application performance. If the applications you use run faster on one CPU than another, voila, there you have your benchmark. Of course, good artifical benchmarks are possible if they emulate application code (like the 3D 2000 max or whatever benchmark that uses actual game engine pieces to test performance.) Cross platform testing is a bit hard. You'd have to test app that were equally optimized for both platforms. It shouldn't be too hard, however, with good optimizing compiles. Take GIMP and compile it using the Intel x86 compiler (even more optimizing than the Microsoft compiler) and test GIMP compiled with the Compaq Alpha compiler.
Hmm, so you're saying RedHat should decide the file layout? Where is the community control that Linux is famous for?
I am surprised at how much vehemence the people on /. have for MS. Some guy said that they should be forced to open all their apps to ensure competition. How about Linus being forced to BSD license all his code to allow other people to incorperate it into their programs without the restrictions of the GPL. Of course that's silly, and so it opening all microsoft apps. The governemnt, and the computing community have gotten the smell of blood, and proceded to try to rip MS to shreds. Case in point: The government is bandying about a proposal to break MS up. If that wasn't bad enough, the OS company would be allowed to keep internet explorer in the OS. Wasn't that the whole point of contention in the lawsuit? Sure MS has monopolistic practices, but no more than the baby bells or the cable companies. If you saw what kind of stronghold they have in the washington area, you'd think that MS was embittered in competition. The government is completly ignoring the practices that make MS a monopoly. Such as an OEM not being able to install another OS along with Windows, or MS charging different prices to different OEMs. You know what? None of these problems will be solved by breaking up MS. Then there is the thing with applications. People point to the success of Office and scream monopoly. However, the main reason Office is so succesful is MS basically gives it away to the OEMs. They are perfectly free to preinstall WordPerfect (in fact, some do) but Office is cheaper to bundle? Is that a monopolistic practice? When talk gets to IE and Netscape and Java, the arguement gets ridiculous.
A) People use IE because Netscape sucks. It is bloated, slow, and a disk hog. Simple as that. Netscape didn't lose because MS strong armed them, they did a fine job losing on their own. If Netscape 6 is the sight of things to come, Netscape's going to keep on losing. There is the hairy fact that IE is only available on Windows, Mac, and Sun (kinda). Is that monopoly? Hell no! If it were, then the KDE people should be sued for not porting their browser to Windows!
B) MS only made Java better. Before MS came along Java performance sucked ass. By extending Java to work better on windows, they took an Open system and enhanced it to make it more appealing to develop on Windows. Again not a monopoly! Making your OS the more appealing development platform is the whole point of a commercial OS! Should Linus be sued because Linux is an appealing platform for POSIX development? Second, in recent months, Sun has done more to kill Java than MS ever has, so what's the beef?
C) People point to closed technologies like DirectX which keep people chained to the Windows platform. Know what? There is a reason that people use DirectX. It whips anything else out there! In recent days, even Direct3D has become more feature filled (if not faster and as easy to program) as OpenGL. Then there is the superlative capabilities of the rest of the DirectX suite. Now, people concerned with freedom would look at DirectX, see that it's not available on (Linux|BSD|BeOS), respect the companies wishes, and develop something that could compete with it! Nothing on Linux or even BeOS holds a candle to DirectX.
In general, all of the application stuff points to a whinny bitchy attitude among the computing community. They are all running to the government for help because they don't have the skill to make something better. Even now, I am very proud of (most) of the OSS community because instead of whining and bitching, they went out and developed software that put MSs to shame.
Aheem, correction, I mean to say "doesn't rely mostly on floating point ops."
Who, praytell, gives a hoot about integer performance? Almost any technical app you can think of that really needs massive CPU performance (web serving really is more about I/O and bandwidth and cache, contrary to what intel would have you belive) that doesn't rely mostly on integer ops?
The compiler situation presented by the article hilights a key advantage that Compaq has over Itanium. The compiler needed to take advantage of Alpha is already freely available, while (if intel keeps with it's current practice of charging for it's compiler) one would have to pony up quite a bit for Intel's compiler. The compiler is critical because Itanium (based on VLIW, which places all code ordering work on the compiler) is heavily dependant on a good compiler for any semblance of performance. Sure GCC compiles Itanium code, but if it can barely optimize x86, do you really think it has any hope of producing good Itanium code? This might not be important on Windows, but as OSs like Linux and BeOS, which depend on the freely available gcc to compile many of the applications, the availibilty of a good free compiler is very important.
I disagree with some people when they say that Alpha is a dying platform. In reality, it is far from dead. Aside from the hideously expensive POWER3 CPU, the Alpha is the fastest CPU out there. With the release of the EV6.7 and EV6.8, they may again capture the fastest proc known to man crown again. A 1 GHz Alpha is not that far off, Compaq demoed air cooled 1GHz Alphas a few months ago. In fact, Alpha may be the only competition left for Merced (I refuse to use that Power Ranger-esque name Itanium!) in the mid to upper range market. There was an article a while ago (on Tom's Hardware I think) cogigating on whether or not Alpha would still be faster than Merced. They cited various points about how plain RISC may beat out VLIW if implemented properly (like in the Alpha) and how the DEC guys have quite a leg up in clock speed (at least at that time.) Judging by when Merced will be out the 1GHz + Alphas should be out, and should provide quite a strong competition since
A)Alphas could just be faster, and
B) Alphas have much more market penetration and a larger support network built up. With Intel's power, that will change, but Alpha will have quite a head start on Intel.
Then there is the fact that Alpha is aimed at a much broader spectrum, and Intel might just not be able to take the market with Itanium.
Really? In Windows, COM acts as a shared object interface, stuff like COBRA isn't even a part of it. (I don't even think COM is cobra complient, distributed objects are handled by DCOM and higher level stuff is done through OLE.) COM on windows is sort of like classes that can only be accessed by pointers. It does function as a glue-layer for OLE, but the whole embedding application thing never really made sense to me. For me it makes more sense to use straight COM and built many different applications with a smaller set of high funcitonality objects.
True, I have never worked for a commercial company. But take a look at many of the commercial products. MS apps have all kinds of cool credits, game developers talk with the community through plan files and other mediums, the BeOS developers are a colorful group of characters who put a great deal of pride into their work. The windows developers all have their names on it as do the DirectX developers, and the Truespace developers, ad nauseum. By not putting yourself into any project, you will not do your best work on that project. You can bet that the guys that developed QNX or whatever are proud of their work. Even the various Unicies have colorful characters behind them.
Actually, I think you have it wrong. True, OpenParts is being replaced with KParts, but I don't care because OpenParts was based on Cobra (which IMO sucks terribly.) DCOP is an IPC system replacing MIOC. As far as I can tell, KOM still provides the backbone for all this.
This guy's slightly off his rocker. Motif in no way compares to Qt and GTK. First of all, it's ugly as shit. That might not be technically important, but it can make or break software designed for mass consumption. Second, it is not nearly as feature filled as Qt and GTK. In addition to the base toolkit, KDE and GNOME have extended Qt and GTK to provide a great deal of application infrastructure. These are closely tied to the toolkit and for most intents and purposes, can be considered a part of them. Does Motif have COM? I didn't think so. Third, I find his attitude towards software appaling. I'm not a big fan of the Free Software community (I have nothing against it, but some of the people behind it like Stalin, err I mean Stallman piss me off) but I feel compelled to defend it. Free software can work great in the right environment, and is not against the grain of commercial (in his opinion "high quality") software. Lastly, what is this anonimity bullshit. I want to know who wrote this piece of junk so I can flame him! (Just kidding!) However, he explicitly says that they do not put their reputations and selves into the software. That is condusive to bad software. If you're going to write a program for a year, you damn better put yourself in there. By not staking their reputations, they wash their hands of the entire matter and show themselves as not caring about the quality of the software. Utter craziness.
I would like to enlighten all the people who are complaining that KDE is going the Microsoft way and trying to make Konqueror one huge app.
A) In this case, the Microsoft way is the right way.
B) Konqueror and to a slightly lesser extent, IE, are not one huge app.
By integrating access to all sorts of data, the user experiance is greatly simplified and made much more efficient. Maybe it's just me, but browsing some files, typing in a URL to download a file, then going back to the file manager to unzip it and install is sheer coolness (or Koolness!)Normally, this efficiency would come at the expense of speed and bloat, but not in this case. Such is the magic of COM (or KOM, what KDE calls its clone if it) Because Konqueror and IE are implemented as a set of COM objects, these can be loaded at will. Unlike Bonobo (which is a damn ugly architecture, IMHO) large portions of applications with a significant amount of glue inbetween are not loaded. Instead, the system is built on a set of small reusable object. In some cases the overall bloat of the system can actually go down! Take, for example, MS Word. When IE browses over to a MS word file, the MS word editing object is loaded and inserted into IE. If you had wanted to see it, you would have had to open up word anyway, or a redundant version of the interface would have had to have been built into IE. In the case both word and IE browsing a word document are loaded, then only one copy of the editing object is loaded into memory. See, magic! This object-ness can become even more interesting. Imagine a system API implemented as a set of COM objects. (Kinda like DirectX without the hungarian notation.) Now the system is VERY cleanly extendible, with no dependencies on a specific version of the API and no ulgy _createWindowEx2ExtendedEnhancedAFX()-type function calls. In addition to all that, it's fast. Common COM local object calls are about has efficient was a C++ virtual function call (it's a deference through a v-table) Compare this to all the marshalling and dispatching inherent in Cobra, and you'll see why COM is so nifty. So it's fast, flexible, and can save memory. What's not to like?
However nice it may seem to have a simple elegant internet based language, it isn't going to happen.
There are many things conspiring against it, such as...
A) For the short term, English will be dominant. Think about it, most people who have enough money to get a computer speak english. It is taught in nearly every country in the world and has been for many decades. Thus, until computers get to the few dollers each necessary for mass world-wide acceptance (like the radio) english will dominate the internet.
B) Even if computers get to that broad market, most people won't bother to learn a new language, and thus Lobjan or Esparanto won't profiliate. (Except in Indonesia where the main language is an artificial one.)
C) Accurate, dynamic translaters will nullify the need for a common language. Already, stuff like bablefish does a decent job of translating languages using the english charecterset, and I don't think adding asian and other languages should be too hard in the future) , and stuff like WindowNT and BeOS have totally integrated internationalization support. I forsee browsers dynamically translating some form of unicode to a native language and character set, and displaying that to the user.
So in the end, each country will have a body of nativly written web pages, and global content will be accessed through translation services built into the OS.
What are you talking about. The time it took me to bitch with another system (slackware in this case) was utterly wasted. Take the recent QTDIR thing that is needed to make KDE software compile on RedHat systems. Is there really a need for this difference? Does it teach anything to the user? Absolutly not. It is idiotic, but is allowed anyway because there is no standard. The consumer allows it because the know that no distro will be totally standard. However, if the LSB defines such a standard, then people can choose to buy only LSB complient distros. It's just like only choosing to buy POSIX complient systems. I don't know why people have the idea that stuff that is harder is automatically a learning experience. /lib/qt-2.0.1 while Qt 1.44 is under /lib/qt-1.44, wow, great, why can't the damn system figure it out itself?" However, I learned a great deal about BeOS and Windows. I tweeked Windows to the point where it doesn't feel like windows anymore (I crash maybe once every few weeks, and that is using 3D Studio, and Visual Studio, and AOL 5.0 - which, strangly, is probably the most demanding on the system!) Even though BeOS is ridiculously easy to use, I have it customized the way I like it, and actually bothered to go in and find out how all the servers work and how the attributes work and how messaging and app scripting work. If someone wants to learn the system, they will. However, many people don't give a damn about the system. They just want to get their work done. They shouldn't be forced to learn.
A) It presents a steep learning curve that prevents people from using the system and learning more about it. It might even be counter productive. Think, if the average user encounters the QTDIR problem, will they bother to search the READMEs down to the trouble shooting section to find the problem? Probably not, they'll give up compiling and switch to RPMS, or worse, abandon the system entirely after encountering many such problems. That is a Bad Thing. (TM)
B) It is unnecessary. If a user wants to learn and tweek there system, then they will do it on their own. I learn nothing everytime I have to fuss with RedHat. I see the QTDIR thing, and I think, "oh great, Qt2 is installed under
Lastly, there is no complete lack of ability to choose. If there is an LSB, not all distros have to follow it. Take RPM, DEB, and TGZ for example. Even though RPMS is the defacto standard, there are still distros catering to different tastes. Where is the loss of freedom there?
So, if at best it is a pain in the ass, and at worst it drives people away from the system, why keep this fragmentation?
Actually that's bad. If RedHat owns 99.9% of the market, that means everyone will ship products that conform to their standard. If you want to use another distro, you have to put up with a lot of pain. (That's why I use RedHat now, because I don't have the time to bitch with the system everytime I want to install software.) There is not real freedom in allowing RedHat to put stuff that belongs in /opt in /usr -actually, if Linux had a decent registry like Windows, (except text based and easily editable), silly dependencies like this wouldn't be necessary- they're just different. Making a "LSB seal of approval" would be a good idea, because if software followed it, then people wouldn't have to mess with software to get it to work. Finally, exactly what freedom is one losing to get a definate standard? You have to use different config files and directory structure, sure, but if you want that level of freedom, that's a little silly.
I speak from a users perspective. I can't edit the source to KDE to fix bugs, and only a few users can. Not programming skill entirely, but the few weeks that it would take to get up do date on the KDE source are not worth it for me. Similar thing with drivers. Most users cannot fix these bugs, and in the end wait of KDE or Utah GLX to release a fix rather than wait on nVidia or Microsoft. It has not clearly been shown that bugs are fixed faster in Open Source drivers. Sure, some execeptions exist, like the ATI drivers, but in general, OSS software (At least major stuff like Utah GLX or KDE or Mesa, etc) are just as bloated and buggy and take time to fix than it's closed source cousins. (The kernel is a notable exception mainly because it has an overwhelming amount of support.) OSS software just costs less, and if there really is a small showstopping glitch that you can fix, you can do it on OSS software. However, those cases are extremely rare to the end user.
True, but I didn't own a TNT then, so maybe I haven't seen the bad of it. However, nVidia hasn't shipped a bad driver since the early TNT days, and the GeForce 2 drivers are already rock solid, (and it isn't even out!) nVidia had some problems in the beginning, no doubt about that. The TNT was really its comeback architecture and was completely new, and as such, it was probably more prone to driver immaturity than other products based on older architectures. OSS stuff is like that too. I still can't trust any of the Utah GLX stuff even thought it has been in development for months. Even XFree 4.0 flakes out more often on me than my TNT driver. (Windows crashes, but rarely when doing something with graphics, mostly internet.)
I'm a BeOS user and am ecstatic when people choose to support Be. I do not, however, think that boycotting and forcing companies to open source drivers is the right way to go about it.
Damn I'm glad I have a benews slashbox. I saw this article yesterday and have already registered for my CD. Avoided a good deal of the /. rush (Geeks and free computer stuff, you get the picture! :)
No, it is not. It makes Linux a lower quality, less usable environment. Why? Well, if you buy nVidia's products, and use their binary-only drivers, you are sending the message that that level of support (ie practically none) is acceptable. If every hardware vendor offers drivers under the same license, your once-stable unix-like operating system has become the hell that is NT. Worse still, do you really want to get yourself in a situation wherein you can't upgrade your OS (let's say a major security hole was found and patched...) because you're tied to a binary-only driver? Bottom line: binary-only ANYTHING is BAD, BAD, BAD.
/., you guys are a rare breed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You do realize that MS is lying when it says that drivers are at fault. Look at any other freaking closed source OS. The drivers rarely cause the problems in an OS. BeOS drivers are hacked up by Be engineers based on sketchy specs and still BeOS 5 hasn't crashed yet. Same for Sun, SGI, and QNX drivers. Take a look at the Windows 95 nVidia drivers. They are rock solid and fast as hell. That's more than I can say for most OSS projects. So what if it is closed source? Unless you're dealing with a crappy company like S3, drivers are rarely the problem.
No it's not, see above.
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Yes it is. It advances Linux in the home and workstation markets, and gives users an incentive to use linux. (The linux drivers run about as fast s the Windows ones yet they're still in beta!) For those who already use it, it makes they're experience much more enjoyable. If you don't like closed source, buy a Matrox card, but the percentage of users who care more about some privlage they likely will never need (or could) use, is small compared to the number of people doing actual 3D work (or play!) and needing great 3D performance in a stable environment on pc-level hardware.
How is this good? The purpose of Free software is not to gain a place in the proprietary software world as an equal to Microsoft's offerings!!! It's to be a fundamentally different, and better, way of using computers.
>>>>>>>>>>
You miss my point. I general, Linux has been treated as an afterthought OS. This has nothing to do with it's quality. If a company treats Linux equal to Microsoft it shows that they take Linux seriously, not that they think that the two OSs are of similar quality.
On this, at least, you are right. And, in exactly the same way, it is your choice whether to give them your business. Not me, man.
>>>>>>>>
Okay fine, not you. But my post really wasn't aimed at die hard OSS people. Outside
Your argument makes no sense. Voodoo5 is faster AND more open than nVidia's offerings...where's the beef? Besides, if I really cared about 3d graphics speed, I'd go with either Sun's new Expert3d or one of many fine offerings from SGI. >>>>>>>>>
Hello? Take a look at the preview of Voodoo 5. It shows that it is only moderatly faster than a SDR GeForce, (which is significantly slower than a DDR plus the SDR doesn't use texture compression), and is a generation ahead. This means that it will not be competitive with parts from its own generation, namely the GeForce 2 and the new ATI chip. Second, I'm a hacker at heart. Part of that is getting the most speed possible within one's means. All my programs are coded close to the hardware, all my hardware is overclocked, and I buy the fastest hardware for the price. If my price range was Expert 3D level, I'd buy that. However, my price range is GeForce level, and nVidia cards are the best available in that bracket.
Sun and SGI may not offer source either, but at least their stuff is FAST and HIGH QUALITY. If SGI ships me a binary IRIX driver for (let's say) an Infinite Reality Engine, I'm pretty damn sure that it'll work and not crash my system. Do you really place the same level of faith in nVidia? Coding for a system they most likely don't understand well? Sure, kid.
))))))))))))))))))
Hello? Reverse engineering is just as bad as source code for a company that wants to keep their specs closed. I doubt they are trying to make an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, otherwise, they'd have left well enough alone and not originally came out with good OpenGL drivers for Windows. They support OpenGL greatly, and MS hates that. Not to mention that they are in alliance with SGI whom Microsoft also hates. An attempt at a conspiracy theory, but sorry, no dice. As for Open Source and freedom and ideals and all that, listen to yourself! You sound like you're trying to convert someone! Exactly what is "the truth" you speak of? Put yourself in the company's position. You have great hardware. You're on top of the consumer graphics world. A bunch of tree huggers want you to open your specs, potentially letting your competitors get valuable technology. They point to other companies that do it, but you know that they're just trying to get a leg up in an emerging market. :)
Do you
A) Open your specs to please 100 or so OSS fanatics, and in addition give up even 5% of your technological advantage to your competitors. OR
B) Keep the source closed. Piss off the fanatics, but ignore the 100 sales you lost due to your proposition. In addition, you get a growing new user base, many of which don't care about OSS and just want the hardware support, plus you get your toe in the door for midrange Linux based workstations which will be used by companies who also don't care about Open Source.
I don't have any ideals about software, but I know which one I would choose. As far as your boycott, I pointed out that nVidia is making baby steps into the linux world. If it is met with the mongol OSS hoardes, then it might turn around. As for the mainstreaming of Linux. If the ideals of free software are lost, I couldn't care less. Some do, but many don't. There is a point to it. The point is that Linux is better than Windows. This release just makes Linux better, and what's wrong with that? Don't think of nVidia spitting in the GNU/Linux communities face. Think of it as a wake up call that if you want all the cool stuff on Linux, then you're going to have to pony up some freedom. If the satisfaction of using a great environment like Linux outweighs the slight loss of freedom, then great. If it doesn't, console yourself in the fact that Linux can never lose the Open spirit. Too much of Linux is based on open code and standards. So what's a very measly drivers? Or even an OpenGL implementation for that matter? If this were, for example, a great new windowing system to replace X, I can see people being worried. But it's a graphics driver. It'll be replaced in a year anyway. Get over it.
PS: Have you actually ever written a graphics driver? Has that graphics driver ever outperformed on written by the card's company? Look at the windows world for an example. If you deal with high quality companies, you'll see that drivers are released timely, they're well optimized, and very stable. They rarely have any bugs for you to fix. (At least nVidia drivers.)
PS2: You can stick with matrox. I'm giving this thing a whirl. Eat my 32bpp 60fps 200 megapixel per second dust
I am ashamed at all the negativity on this board. There are almost not positive comments and most are flames directed at the closed-sourceness of the drivers. Even ACs who otherwise would have been ignored are being moderated up because they are against nVidia. People are posting "no source is bad" without even backing up their reasons. I for one would like to put in a positive comment.
:)
A) This is good for Linux. The OSS die hards might not like it, and it is unfortunate that the Alpha people can't use it, but overall it is good. It furthers Linux in the home market and the desktop 3D workstation market. It make linux a higher quality, more usable environment.
B) It is good for Linux users. Now people with the fastest cards (GeForces) can lay the smack down on people puttering on with G400s and Voodoo 3s.
C) It shows that Linux is being treated equally among OSs. nVidia wouldn't release their source to Microsoft, and they aren't doing it for the OSS community.
I really don't care whether or not nVidia releases sources. Some people may, and if nVidia does, good for them. In the meantime, those people should congratulte nVidia on the release, and gently encourage them to release more source. (Hey I could benefit. BeOS needs GeForce specs!) Ultimately, however, it is their decision, and it is up to them what they want to do with their work. I do think, however, than an overly negitive response (as opposed to a positive, but gently encouraging response) could clam nVidia up from releasing sources. I doubt they'd be turned off to the Linux market, because SGI and nVidia have their own plans for Linux, but they may become even more closed and not port to other OSs (ahem, BeOS.)
PS: What is wrong with you people? Do any of you care about speed? Voodoo 5 has already shown to be only moderatly faster than a GeForce but you'd prefer an open Voodoo, rather than a closed GeForce 2? Doesn't anyone care about SPEEEED!??
This nVidia driver release is probably the most amazing thing that has happened to me this week. First I get DSL, now this. Okay, I'm getting to my point. I would first like to congratulate nVidia on a driver release that is fast (though not completly stable, but hey, it's beta.) and very usable. This is a major step in the right direction for the Linux movement, though it does have its faults. First, it is not Open Source. I personally don't care, but I know the OSS community in general does. They think it is a bad thing for binary-only things to be used on Linux. While they may believe it's true, I also think they care about the quality of the Linux environment. Face it. Very few people use Linux because of its apparent freedom. People mainly use Linux because it is a very high quality environment. In that end, most care more about the quality of the environment than the freeness of it all. The nVidia drivers immensly increase the quality of the Linux environment, and in that end, it is a Good Thing. True, it trades freedom for that quality, but in the end, few people hack their video card drivers, but many people need high quality 3D acceleration. It is part of a broader trend of getting Linux accepted into the mainstream market. True, some think that Linux should stay a hacker-only system, but in the end, that too is detrimental to the quality of the system. Without the mainstream acceptance of Linux, 3D acceleration would have been unthinkable. Even three years ago, did anyone even think that someday the top consumer 3D company would write drivers explicitly for Linux? I doubt it. In addition to drivers, Quake, Corel Office, all the apps that are being ported, and partially KDE and GNOME, are due to the increasing acceptance of Linux. Although I doubt nVidia cares about the few of you who will boycott the GeForce based soley on the fact that there are no OSS drivers, I do think that it is important to encourage them and congratulate them on this release. (IE: Lay off the flame mail.) If they want to do more in the future, than that is their decision. Encouragement is good, but "OSS DO OR DIE" is bad.
The feature did exist when the K6 was being designed. As I remember it, the Pentium Pro was out before the K6 (the K6 started a little after the Pentium MMX) and it had the same FPU as the PII chips. (and the PIII chips aside from the SIMD instructions.)