After using it for a while, the speed became apparent that it's just a public proxy server for HTTP/FTP. Not a new idea by any means, but certainly a clever way of phrasing it. Unfortunately, it's extremely slooowwww.
Something that I consider very important was left out: ReiserFS. This year the filesystem really came into its own, and is shipping with both Linux Mandrake and SuSE Linux. It's by far the most mature of the journaling filesystems available, including XFS, JFS, and Tux2. It's also scheduled for inclusion in kernel 2.4.1. Surely this was accidentally left out? Just because it's commercially funded doesn't mean it's a bad product, and it is certainly GPLed.
The reason you're seeing such delays at startup is because Gnome and KDE are huge, versus the X4 server which starts very quickly. I run X 4.0.1 with the latest and great version of WindowMaker, and startup from the time I type 'startx' to the time it's finished loading is under 5 seconds on a PIII-550. Needless to say TWM and others less intensive (Blackbox is great) start up even faster. Try just running 'X' if you don't believe me, and you'll get the standard gray screen in about 2 seconds. A lot of time the X server might start up slowly if it can't reverse resolve itself for whatever reason, so make sure your own machine is in/etc/hosts.
This is similar to what the other OS classes have done in the past, but those all were coded on the big UNIX machines that everyone uses. The new projects included writing your own kernel scheduler, implementing kernel synchronization, and coding modules. It was truly impressive for an undergraduate CS course, to say the least.
My school, WPI, recently received a grant from the NSF to build a Linux lab, which includes about 30 PIII-600mhz machines run SuSE 6.4, each of which is assigned to a pair of people to do with as they wish for the term. Last term it was used by the OS I class, followed by Distributed Systems (OS II) this term. The experience of coding low-level operating system software and in the process modifying the kernel yourself was in invaluable experience.
Yes, the Creative open-source drivers for the SB Live!/512 are very different than the current ones included in the kernel sources, and use an extra ac97_codec module, in addition to the emu10k1 module. I've extensively tested both, and I'd say that both performance and quality _sound_ better. I've also found the ones included in the 2.2.18 kernel to be a bit buggy, in addition to being outdated. Starting and stopping a.wav file with the 2.2.18 drivers often causes a small burst of static, which is simply unacceptable.
Keep in mind before upgrading that if you're running ReiserFS (as you should be =) ), the latest 2.2.17 won't patch correctly, be it 2.2.18 + patch or 2.2.17 + patch + 2.2.18 patch. These should be out imminently, however, so keep an eye on their web site. Also, be sure to check out opensource.creative.com for the latest EMU10K1, as the drivers are far more recent than the ones included in 2.2.18, and a great bit better, I've found. This is definitely worth the upgrade, for no other reason than the USB backporting, as well as the AGPgart and DRI drivers.
Even if they don't have an official support team behind an operating system, there is no reason that the laptop, which is of a standard x86 architecture, won't boot. It wasn't made clear whether installations were intentionally blocked, though I imagine they weren't, or whether it's just broken hardware that won't let you boot FreeBSD. I have to wonder what sort of design went into a laptop to make it break in such a way that makes it incompatible from a standard x86 architecture in such a way. Really, this sort of thing isn't that difficult to support.
The idea is great, but the problem is that technology advances at too great of a speed. Most charts would start at a high point and then slowly level off at a lower price, before being replaced by newer hardware of a different type/speed. Think about it, how many components in your current system are the same type (i.e. memory goes from EDO -> PC100, etc) that were in your system 3 years ago? The same technologies just aren't in use for long enough for this to be too exciting of a pattern to chart. Again, I think it's a great idea, but you would probably see similar graphs for most items over the course of about 6 months, before they would drop off in favor of newer technologies (i.e. newer graphics chipsets, in the case of video cards).
Make sure to check out recent articles here and here. There's also a very imformative one right here as well. I think it will be interesting to see how the race pans out against AMD. There have been quite a few differing reports on the performance benchmarks versus the Athlon thus far. Stay tuned!!
I've done a lot of work with this, and it's not worth it at all. The only things pheasible is really a 4mbps link for about 50ft away, and often VERY unreliable. Stick with wired, even if it's only 10mbps, and run CAT5 within the building where necessary. What good would fiber to every room do for you if you're only getting minimal internet access speed from across your campus? I'd suggest that you concentrate on increasing the total throughput across the campus and then increase net connectivity as necessary. Internal networking in a wireless fashion is NOT the way to go.
You've already got the hard part taken care of. If you have SSH1 on the Palm working on a wireless connection, you've conquered all the major obstacles, and all that you really need to do is setup OpenSSH on the server in question (with OpenSSL as a dependency). Version 2.3.0p1 (not to be confused with SSH2 2.3.0) was released recently, and it has full compatability, including transparent X forwarding with both SSH versions 1.x and 2.x. Give it a try!
Seriously. Some of the RedHat-based distros are upgradeable from one to another, but don't even try it with the Debian derivatives. Your best bet is by far to back up anything you need and wipe the drive. The only success story I've ever heard of working correctly is going from a RedHat install to Mandrake, but you'd surely want to wipe the drive clean anyways to do an install on ReiserFS, which has been included in Mandrake for some time.
There are really too many problems associated with incompatible distributions to list them all here, and it would only take you an afternoon to set up a fresh install and restore your settings (I've done it 3 times in two weeks with Mandrake 7.2, which I'd highly recommend among any other, except maybe FreeBSD.) I'm also curious as to when upgrading any distribution became painless, I've had nothing but problems on any system ranging from the brute-force method to the nicest of package management. Even if you're going to use the same distribution version as previously, you're most likely to clean up a LOT of crap just by reinstalling from scratch. Go for it!!
While I certainly wouldn't knock the impressive nature of hacking an ISA NIC onto a proprietary bus, there have been a few articles recently on setting up a TiVo to connect to a Linux PPP server behind a cable modem or your broadband of choice, which isn't a difficult thing to accomplish. This was discussed recently discussed in a Slashdot article, and also make sure to check out the TiVo forum here. Lastly, be sure to check out LinuxToday, as there have been a few articles recently on this same topic.
As discussed recently on Mandrake Forum, this isn't actually the final release of Mandrake 7.2. Walmart required any products to be stocked for the Christmas season to be released at a certain time, and the final 7.2 release would not have made that, so instead they used the final Release Candidate of 7.2. It futures all the functionality of the final release, with only a few bug fixes implemented since then. I'm not sure it was the optimal choice, but if money's concerned, they really had to go with it.
I don't even remember the impetus for doing so, but the person who stole it was foolish enough to change the laptop's network settings and actually connect it up to the net again. When server logs start showing someone checking my mail from outside of the company as well as some other network monitoring tools I use kicking in, it doesn't take too long to track them down. The police had a field day with that one, to say the least. The laptop didn't have anything on it of too much importance and wasn't really worth encrypting, but it's a nice two grand to have dropped back into your lap. Needless to say, greater precautions were taken after that.
I've been using broadband DSL for quite a while, and some of the things that pass by my firewall are disgusting. I'm not even located on the usual 24.X.X.X range that is often associated with cable modem attacks, and every day I get no less than 10 or 20 attack attempts registered on PortSentry. As we all know, it's a dangerous web out there, and I'd really pity the foo' that doesn't use a dedicated firewall in cojunction with a broadband connection. Safe web surfing is one thing, but let's be serious, folks.
Anyone can register a.EDU domain on NETSOL's page. If registering a.EDU domain, there is a box to fill in one's reason for doing so, but there's no means to check whether this is a valid education system, and as long as you're a paying customer, no one seems to mind. I know this might sound a little off the wall, but I really can't imagine that using a.EDU domain for another purpose is something many people are interested in doing, nor would anyone else really care.
The article really only delves into what the techonology itself is, and doesn't even mention how well these devices work under Linux. There is a stunning article in the August issue of Linux Magazine that you can find here that demonstrates setting up wireless networking in your home and incorporating it into existing networks. Unfortunately, I don't think the article is featured online. If you'd like to see it and can't find a copy of the magazine, feel free to mail Linux Magazine and ask.
The last time I checked, the MPS 1.1 and 1.4 specifications were owned by Intel and that was one of the many things keeping AMD from producing dual systems. While there was an effort underway known as OpenSMP, it never really saw the light of day. Were they forced into a licensing agreement? I'm really curious about some of the underlying issues on this one.
I have 608/128kbps service with SpeakEasy in the Boston area. I ordered it in the beginning of May and was given an install date two weeks later. It's been running at the full 608kbps speed ever since, has never gone down, and the company is great in terms of catering to people who know what they want (i.e. multiple static IPs, encouraged domain and web serving, etc). I'd highly suggest them in any area, for that matter.
That's the problem with a decentralized service. It's basically held together by a large number of lines that can't be assumed to be much better than 28.8 kbps modems. Segmentation is inevitable and it's just plan slow as a result. That's what you get for not being able to be shut down, so don't complain.
Slashdot Mirror
After using it for a while, the speed became apparent that it's just a public proxy server for HTTP/FTP. Not a new idea by any means, but certainly a clever way of phrasing it. Unfortunately, it's extremely slooowwww.
Something that I consider very important was left out: ReiserFS. This year the filesystem really came into its own, and is shipping with both Linux Mandrake and SuSE Linux. It's by far the most mature of the journaling filesystems available, including XFS, JFS, and Tux2. It's also scheduled for inclusion in kernel 2.4.1. Surely this was accidentally left out? Just because it's commercially funded doesn't mean it's a bad product, and it is certainly GPLed.
The reason you're seeing such delays at startup is because Gnome and KDE are huge, versus the X4 server which starts very quickly. I run X 4.0.1 with the latest and great version of WindowMaker, and startup from the time I type 'startx' to the time it's finished loading is under 5 seconds on a PIII-550. Needless to say TWM and others less intensive (Blackbox is great) start up even faster. Try just running 'X' if you don't believe me, and you'll get the standard gray screen in about 2 seconds. A lot of time the X server might start up slowly if it can't reverse resolve itself for whatever reason, so make sure your own machine is in /etc/hosts.
This is similar to what the other OS classes have done in the past, but those all were coded on the big UNIX machines that everyone uses. The new projects included writing your own kernel scheduler, implementing kernel synchronization, and coding modules. It was truly impressive for an undergraduate CS course, to say the least.
My school, WPI, recently received a grant from the NSF to build a Linux lab, which includes about 30 PIII-600mhz machines run SuSE 6.4, each of which is assigned to a pair of people to do with as they wish for the term. Last term it was used by the OS I class, followed by Distributed Systems (OS II) this term. The experience of coding low-level operating system software and in the process modifying the kernel yourself was in invaluable experience.
Yes, the Creative open-source drivers for the SB Live!/512 are very different than the current ones included in the kernel sources, and use an extra ac97_codec module, in addition to the emu10k1 module. I've extensively tested both, and I'd say that both performance and quality _sound_ better. I've also found the ones included in the 2.2.18 kernel to be a bit buggy, in addition to being outdated. Starting and stopping a .wav file with the 2.2.18 drivers often causes a small burst of static, which is simply unacceptable.
Keep in mind before upgrading that if you're running ReiserFS (as you should be =) ), the latest 2.2.17 won't patch correctly, be it 2.2.18 + patch or 2.2.17 + patch + 2.2.18 patch. These should be out imminently, however, so keep an eye on their web site. Also, be sure to check out opensource.creative.com for the latest EMU10K1, as the drivers are far more recent than the ones included in 2.2.18, and a great bit better, I've found. This is definitely worth the upgrade, for no other reason than the USB backporting, as well as the AGPgart and DRI drivers.
So if both the Pentium 4 and Crusoe are being pulled off shelves for defective hardware recalls, do you realize what this could mean??
Athlon will be king!!!
Disclaimer: I make no claim that this isn't already the case.
Even if they don't have an official support team behind an operating system, there is no reason that the laptop, which is of a standard x86 architecture, won't boot. It wasn't made clear whether installations were intentionally blocked, though I imagine they weren't, or whether it's just broken hardware that won't let you boot FreeBSD. I have to wonder what sort of design went into a laptop to make it break in such a way that makes it incompatible from a standard x86 architecture in such a way. Really, this sort of thing isn't that difficult to support.
The idea is great, but the problem is that technology advances at too great of a speed. Most charts would start at a high point and then slowly level off at a lower price, before being replaced by newer hardware of a different type/speed. Think about it, how many components in your current system are the same type (i.e. memory goes from EDO -> PC100, etc) that were in your system 3 years ago? The same technologies just aren't in use for long enough for this to be too exciting of a pattern to chart. Again, I think it's a great idea, but you would probably see similar graphs for most items over the course of about 6 months, before they would drop off in favor of newer technologies (i.e. newer graphics chipsets, in the case of video cards).
Make sure to check out recent articles here and here. There's also a very imformative one right here as well. I think it will be interesting to see how the race pans out against AMD. There have been quite a few differing reports on the performance benchmarks versus the Athlon thus far. Stay tuned!!
I've done a lot of work with this, and it's not worth it at all. The only things pheasible is really a 4mbps link for about 50ft away, and often VERY unreliable. Stick with wired, even if it's only 10mbps, and run CAT5 within the building where necessary. What good would fiber to every room do for you if you're only getting minimal internet access speed from across your campus? I'd suggest that you concentrate on increasing the total throughput across the campus and then increase net connectivity as necessary. Internal networking in a wireless fashion is NOT the way to go.
You've already got the hard part taken care of. If you have SSH1 on the Palm working on a wireless connection, you've conquered all the major obstacles, and all that you really need to do is setup OpenSSH on the server in question (with OpenSSL as a dependency). Version 2.3.0p1 (not to be confused with SSH2 2.3.0) was released recently, and it has full compatability, including transparent X forwarding with both SSH versions 1.x and 2.x. Give it a try!
Seriously. Some of the RedHat-based distros are upgradeable from one to another, but don't even try it with the Debian derivatives. Your best bet is by far to back up anything you need and wipe the drive. The only success story I've ever heard of working correctly is going from a RedHat install to Mandrake, but you'd surely want to wipe the drive clean anyways to do an install on ReiserFS, which has been included in Mandrake for some time.
There are really too many problems associated with incompatible distributions to list them all here, and it would only take you an afternoon to set up a fresh install and restore your settings (I've done it 3 times in two weeks with Mandrake 7.2, which I'd highly recommend among any other, except maybe FreeBSD.) I'm also curious as to when upgrading any distribution became painless, I've had nothing but problems on any system ranging from the brute-force method to the nicest of package management. Even if you're going to use the same distribution version as previously, you're most likely to clean up a LOT of crap just by reinstalling from scratch. Go for it!!
While I certainly wouldn't knock the impressive nature of hacking an ISA NIC onto a proprietary bus, there have been a few articles recently on setting up a TiVo to connect to a Linux PPP server behind a cable modem or your broadband of choice, which isn't a difficult thing to accomplish. This was discussed recently discussed in a Slashdot article, and also make sure to check out the TiVo forum here. Lastly, be sure to check out LinuxToday, as there have been a few articles recently on this same topic.
That's a great song!! Props to Weird Al for sponsoring!!
As discussed recently on Mandrake Forum, this isn't actually the final release of Mandrake 7.2. Walmart required any products to be stocked for the Christmas season to be released at a certain time, and the final 7.2 release would not have made that, so instead they used the final Release Candidate of 7.2. It futures all the functionality of the final release, with only a few bug fixes implemented since then. I'm not sure it was the optimal choice, but if money's concerned, they really had to go with it.
I don't even remember the impetus for doing so, but the person who stole it was foolish enough to change the laptop's network settings and actually connect it up to the net again. When server logs start showing someone checking my mail from outside of the company as well as some other network monitoring tools I use kicking in, it doesn't take too long to track them down. The police had a field day with that one, to say the least. The laptop didn't have anything on it of too much importance and wasn't really worth encrypting, but it's a nice two grand to have dropped back into your lap. Needless to say, greater precautions were taken after that.
I've been using broadband DSL for quite a while, and some of the things that pass by my firewall are disgusting. I'm not even located on the usual 24.X.X.X range that is often associated with cable modem attacks, and every day I get no less than 10 or 20 attack attempts registered on PortSentry. As we all know, it's a dangerous web out there, and I'd really pity the foo' that doesn't use a dedicated firewall in cojunction with a broadband connection. Safe web surfing is one thing, but let's be serious, folks.
Anyone can register a .EDU domain on NETSOL's page. If registering a .EDU domain, there is a box to fill in one's reason for doing so, but there's no means to check whether this is a valid education system, and as long as you're a paying customer, no one seems to mind. I know this might sound a little off the wall, but I really can't imagine that using a .EDU domain for another purpose is something many people are interested in doing, nor would anyone else really care.
The article really only delves into what the techonology itself is, and doesn't even mention how well these devices work under Linux. There is a stunning article in the August issue of Linux Magazine that you can find here that demonstrates setting up wireless networking in your home and incorporating it into existing networks. Unfortunately, I don't think the article is featured online. If you'd like to see it and can't find a copy of the magazine, feel free to mail Linux Magazine and ask.
For those who missed it, here's the real link: http://www.richmond.edu/jolt/v7i1/no te2 .html
The last time I checked, the MPS 1.1 and 1.4 specifications were owned by Intel and that was one of the many things keeping AMD from producing dual systems. While there was an effort underway known as OpenSMP, it never really saw the light of day. Were they forced into a licensing agreement? I'm really curious about some of the underlying issues on this one.
I have 608/128kbps service with SpeakEasy in the Boston area. I ordered it in the beginning of May and was given an install date two weeks later. It's been running at the full 608kbps speed ever since, has never gone down, and the company is great in terms of catering to people who know what they want (i.e. multiple static IPs, encouraged domain and web serving, etc). I'd highly suggest them in any area, for that matter.
That's the problem with a decentralized service. It's basically held together by a large number of lines that can't be assumed to be much better than 28.8 kbps modems. Segmentation is inevitable and it's just plan slow as a result. That's what you get for not being able to be shut down, so don't complain.