Visual Workstations (wish I had one) are designed for graphically intensive operations. They are OpenGL enhanced and have high graphical throughput.
The Visual Workstation is a perfect example of a company focusing on their core strength! SGI's core strength is graphics.
If SGI wants Linux on their machines, you can just about bet that they will be the driver (pun intended) behind advanced graphics on Linux - especially their own hardware.
I think that the Linux bandwagon is only just beginning to roll and there is room for everybody!
I see all the major manufacturer's of hardware jockeying to provide the best support for Linux for their hardware. I see manufacturers as contributing to the advancement of Linux and Software at the speed of the current advancements in Hardware.
Just think of the possibilities! A totally modular kernel using free AND proprietary modules for hardware support. A standard module interface that includes flawless PnP support as well as hot-swappability. Advanced clustering and both SMP and AMP capabilities along with high availability.
The mind truly boggles at the prospect! P.S. Thanks SGI - I'm looking forward to a beautiful friendship.
of human interaction is true; to say that it is unnatural is false. Humans are a form of life on earth that is outcompeting many other forms.
While I think it's sad, I also think that bringing these creatures back would be doing them a disservice. They were naturally selected out.
You might think that dogs are stupid because they die in accidents; I can tell you that I've seen dogs looking both ways before crossing the street! The stupid dogs are dead. Who's to say that animals aren't adapting right now? They are gaining the ability to survive in a human dominated world!
I will say this though... if they are going to do any cloning, then the subject of the cloning should rightly be an animal that humans have caused to be extinct. If the animal were to escape captivity, multiply and survive then it has earned it's right to survive.
XF86-3.9 is the best news in months!
on
XFree86 News
·
· Score: 1
This is just what we needed! Soon, XF86-4.0 will be ours! The world is a better place and the birds are singing! Plug it in... plug it in.
>I too almost feel sorry for Microsoft, they are >like a little child who keeps trying to get it >right, but never totally does.
If they "got it right" the first time, there would be no need for upgrades! It is not profitable to make a perfect product.
They can make a product that purports to do the job. They sell it. They make an upgraded product that is only a *little* better than the previous one; they say it's vastly improved and offers better performance. True, but only a little. They sell it. They, then, make an upgraded product that is only a *little* better than the previous one; they say it's vastly improved and offers better performance. True, but only a little. They sell it. They, then, make another upgraded product that is only a *little* better than the previous one; they say it's vastly improved and offers better performance. True, but only a little. They sell it.
Get the picture? Their revenue stream *DEPENDS* on upgrades. They must convince folks to upgrade - that's why they try to put more junk into the OS - to convince folks to upgrade.
I think of Linux like this: A technician who is as easily at home at the keyboard as he is in the hardware. He has his well stocked toolbox ready to go. He can grab a pair of needlenose pliers, a hardened phillips or an allen wrench if he needs it - the right tool for the job. He's also affordabe.
I think of Windows like this: A guy who walks around with all kinds of tools protruding from his body - permanantly. Sometimes, he can't get his hands in the case because of all the junk attached to it. He has a pair of pliers welded to his hand that doubles as a hammer and a screwdriver. None of his tools is especially designed to do the job right but seems to be barely "good enough". He frequently looses his balance due to his overweight condition, falls over and leaves telltale impressions in the concrete wherever he goes. This guy is very expensive.
I read about how D. Becker and the folks at CESDIS used NIC binding to increase bandwidth (binding the NICs together into a virtual superNIC). Would it have a comparable effect to the binding of NICs to a processor in NT?
Yeah, I read somewhere that we were officially still under martial law because there was no limit on how long it could last. The Constitution is suspended but we are allowed the appearance of it's still being in effect.
I also heard that official martial law has been going on since the Civil War. Heck, the income tax was an emergency Civil War measure that was never lifted!
what hardware you use! The programs just compile and work. Linux holds much promise for this! Hardware manufacturer's can work on making the fastest hardware; Software manufacturer's can concentrate on making killer applications - the OS should just be some forgotten enabler that just works and works.
BeOS, QNX and all those other non-free OS's are promising cool stuff but moreso the lingering threat of proprietary lockdown. Not for me!
Amigas introduced us to alot of interesting and advanced concepts. Most of those things are already in today's COTS systems!
What we need is an OS that is not in the control of one proprietary vendor! The software could advance as fast as the hardware; not being reigned in by that proprietary vendor. My money is on Linux.
Linux is an example of free and open software. Our loyalties should lie with that which ensures a future where ideas can be exchanged, improved upon, and freely innovated without the fear of being absorbed or litigated to death by greedy corporations. To me, that means GPL'd software. I'm not against corporations making money - far from it! What I'm against is, one corporation controlling the platform. As for distributions, they are just a means to an end; the means of installing the OS; after that, they should be passed on to the next user.
Anyway, Microsoft's marketing strategy is to screw everybody - and everybody's seems to be getting pretty tired of it!
>> but if the main process dies then all child threads die.
>AHEM, HELLO, BULLSHIT. This exactly DOES NOT >happen under the windows process/threading model, >and IS what happens under most other models. I >personally consider it a FEATURE when the main >thread cleans up the suboordinate threads when it >dies. If the main thread dies, YOUR APPLICATION >HAS QUIT. There is no reason to keep the rest >of the threads around.
How does "cleaning up" differ from dying in the context of my statement? The child threads are still killed off right? All those users out there who were being served by the child processes still lose thier services... right?
>I defy you to show how EITHER model adversely >affects system stability.
Stability is a loosely defined metric. If stability is considered to be defined as the ability to continue doing it's appointed task then the forking process model has obvious benefits; however, if stability is defined as the ability to remain in operation after a server/daemon failure then then both models have benefits. NT's threaded model cleans up by killing all the child processes and then the server must be restarted - forked process models just spawn a fresh daemon automatically and continue as if nothing had happened.
If the server's purpose is to serve then it should do it's job without fail. If a model can be found that ensures and defines stability as the ability to do it's appointed task within it's operating parameters then... that is the model to choose.
At the present time, it has been pointed out that Linux on a single processor PII class machine equipped with 256MB RAM is capable of maxing out a T1 connection and is still stable enough to take a pounding while running multiple services. I'd call that a realistic expectation from a machine designed to do a specific job.
Communism is NOT a problem.
on
RMS Responds
·
· Score: 1
Who told you that communism was bad? Have you any real proof? What do you call a kibbutz if not a commune? Are they bad? No. What is bad is the perversion that occurs as a result of capitalistic tendencies of the the leaders! True communism is a worthwhile thing! Problem is... the world is populated by people. People are predisposed to looking out for number one (a fact that goes right along with capitalism). True communism (where everyone works for the common good) is or has been a pipe dream to date. So called Soviet Socialism was nothing more than a facade on top of underground capitalizm. Where people are concerned, capitalizm cannot be far behind.
The profit motive is alive and well within the framework of the Linux community too! Each member of the community is working for his/her own good! It just happens to be good for the community as well. What's good for me is good for you and vice versa.
I knew when I first got into Linux that I was into something good - something more than the intangible assets that computer programs represented - a community.
The community (a word descended from commune just like communism) consists of the whole. The programmers, the documentors, the theoreticians, the users, and the abusers. The community is only as effective as it's organization and it's constituency. You cannot separate the pieces and still have a whole community. As far as I'm concerned, the BSD folks are a VITAL part of the free community! RMS and the FSF are PILLARS of the free community. ESR is a tireless spokesman of the community (the tired part may be a little exaggerated:) We don't always agree - if we did, it would just prove we were brainless.
But why oh why did they choose to omit libcrypt from the distribution? WHY?????!
I'm using Caldera2.2 OpenLinux distro right now and it's got alot of nice features and installation is a breeze but... I can't compile or run BitchX and I've heard others have problems compiling Apache because of Caldera's omission of libcrypt. This being a needless complication.:((
The terrahertz internal speeds they are claiming are enough to alert me to a probable hoax.
I would dearly love to have such a technology available to man but... it's just TOO much to swallow on a Monday morning.
If such speeds WERE available, they'd use it for high-end machines first anyway. IBM would want it for their Mainframes, PPC Multiprocessor Servers and Server Arrays. SGI would want to use it for the CRAY line AT FULL INTERNAL SPEED - not at PCI speeds.
and see what happens! The single processor box in the test had 256MB!
What *I* would like to know is... How do both OS's perform at their minimum configurations, how do they perform over a range of configurations, did either operating system crash during the course of the tests? What is the overall price/performance ratio?
NT has put many services in kernelspace and has largely bypassed their HAL in favor of multimedia performance - especially video.
NT uses a multithreaded process model for IIS and SMB file-services that results in higher throughput but less stability. A single thread of the main process may die without completely destabilizing the server but if the main process dies then all child threads die.
Linux divorces the graphical user interface from the kernel thus ensuring stability (framebuffers are available for video enhancement though) and implements most services as userspace daemons.
Linux uses the forked process model to provide services to multiple users. This modem achieves stability in that if one process dies, the others continue as if nothing had happened. Both Apache and SAMBA operate in this way I believe.
NT has chosen performance over stability.
I believe that with kernel enhancements and profiling, any bottlenecks in the networking system can be eradicated causing Linux to perform much faster and possibly even beat NT in tests such as these.
Re:In a perfect world, BSD would be the perfect...
on
Feature:GPL vs BSD
·
· Score: 1
>What kind of reprecussions are we talking about >here?
-snippety-
>At best, you could force the company to release >the source code or recall the product, and at >worst the gpl would be declared invalid.
Declaring the infringing codebase as GPL would satisfy me. If the GPL were to be declared invalid then... well... (it is a subject that deserves to be explored further).
Slashdot Mirror
so what do you think is going to happen when the Japanese get up to speed on Linux?
Lot's of cool Linux compatible gadgets! Not to mention software and japanime and sushi etc...
Visual Workstations (wish I had one) are designed for graphically intensive operations. They are OpenGL enhanced and have high graphical throughput.
The Visual Workstation is a perfect example of a company focusing on their core strength! SGI's core strength is graphics.
If SGI wants Linux on their machines, you can just about bet that they will be the driver (pun intended) behind advanced graphics on Linux - especially their own hardware.
I say more power to 'em.
I think that the Linux bandwagon is only just beginning to roll and there is room for everybody!
I see all the major manufacturer's of hardware jockeying to provide the best support for Linux for their hardware. I see manufacturers as contributing to the advancement of Linux and Software at the speed of the current advancements in Hardware.
Just think of the possibilities! A totally modular kernel using free AND proprietary modules for hardware support. A standard module interface that includes flawless PnP support as well as hot-swappability. Advanced clustering and both SMP and AMP capabilities along with high availability.
The mind truly boggles at the prospect!
P.S. Thanks SGI - I'm looking forward to a beautiful friendship.
While reading the story, I couldn't get the image of Slim Pickens out of my mind!
Anyway, I'm from Texas and you only meet folks like this in Country and Western bars and steak restaurants. YeeHaw!
of human interaction is true; to say that it is unnatural is false. Humans are a form of life on earth that is outcompeting many other forms.
While I think it's sad, I also think that bringing these creatures back would be doing them a disservice. They were naturally selected out.
You might think that dogs are stupid because they die in accidents; I can tell you that I've seen dogs looking both ways before crossing the street! The stupid dogs are dead. Who's to say that animals aren't adapting right now? They are gaining the ability to survive in a human dominated world!
I will say this though... if they are going to do any cloning, then the subject of the cloning should rightly be an animal that humans have caused to be extinct. If the animal were to escape captivity, multiply and survive then it has earned it's right to survive.
This is just what we needed! Soon, XF86-4.0 will be ours! The world is a better place and the birds are singing! Plug it in... plug it in.
Do I sound excited? YOU BET!
Those guys'll mess you up.
This is way cool. Cutting edge games for Linux! Kingpin puts attitude back into games; attitude that has been missing since Duke Nukem.
Maybe this will also help bring those OTHER games to Linux too!
are free to provide feedback to the OpenSource programmers on what they would like to see in the program.
Woohoo! He told her to shut up? He was probably running away. Boy, wonder where this kid is going to be at 8?
Last Day... Logan 5.
There... is... no... sanctuary.
You guys just don't get it do you?
>I too almost feel sorry for Microsoft, they are
>like a little child who keeps trying to get it
>right, but never totally does.
If they "got it right" the first time, there would be no need for upgrades! It is not profitable to make a perfect product.
They can make a product that purports to do the job. They sell it. They make an upgraded product that is only a *little* better than the previous one; they say it's vastly improved and offers better performance. True, but only a little. They sell it. They, then, make an upgraded product that is only a *little* better than the previous one; they say it's vastly improved and offers better performance. True, but only a little. They sell it. They, then, make another upgraded product that is only a *little* better than the previous one; they say it's vastly improved and offers better performance. True, but only a little. They sell it.
Get the picture? Their revenue stream *DEPENDS* on upgrades. They must convince folks to upgrade - that's why they try to put more junk into the OS - to convince folks to upgrade.
I think of Linux like this: A technician who is as easily at home at the keyboard as he is in the hardware. He has his well stocked toolbox ready to go. He can grab a pair of needlenose pliers, a hardened phillips or an allen wrench if he needs it - the right tool for the job. He's also affordabe.
I think of Windows like this: A guy who walks around with all kinds of tools protruding from his body - permanantly. Sometimes, he can't get his hands in the case because of all the junk attached to it. He has a pair of pliers welded to his hand that doubles as a hammer and a screwdriver. None of his tools is especially designed to do the job right but seems to be barely "good enough". He frequently looses his balance due to his overweight condition, falls over and leaves telltale impressions in the concrete wherever he goes. This guy is very expensive.
They'd probably lose their jobs at Microsoft if they were found working on stuff not sanctioned by Bill.
It'd be real interesting to know though...
I read about how D. Becker and the folks at CESDIS used NIC binding to increase bandwidth (binding the NICs together into a virtual superNIC). Would it have a comparable effect to the binding of NICs to a processor in NT?
Just curious...
Yeah, I read somewhere that we were officially still under martial law because there was no limit on how long it could last. The Constitution is suspended but we are allowed the appearance of it's still being in effect.
I also heard that official martial law has been going on since the Civil War. Heck, the income tax was an emergency Civil War measure that was never lifted!
Kinda scary I'd say.
what hardware you use! The programs just compile and work. Linux holds much promise for this! Hardware manufacturer's can work on making the fastest hardware; Software manufacturer's can concentrate on making killer applications - the OS should just be some forgotten enabler that just works and works.
BeOS, QNX and all those other non-free OS's are promising cool stuff but moreso the lingering threat of proprietary lockdown. Not for me!
Amigas introduced us to alot of interesting and advanced concepts. Most of those things are already in today's COTS systems!
What we need is an OS that is not in the control of one proprietary vendor! The software could advance as fast as the hardware; not being reigned in by that proprietary vendor. My money is on Linux.
Linux is an example of free and open software. Our loyalties should lie with that which ensures a future where ideas can be exchanged, improved upon, and freely innovated without the fear of being absorbed or litigated to death by greedy corporations. To me, that means GPL'd software. I'm not against corporations making money - far from it! What I'm against is, one corporation controlling the platform. As for distributions, they are just a means to an end; the means of installing the OS; after that, they should be passed on to the next user.
Anyway, Microsoft's marketing strategy is to screw everybody - and everybody's seems to be getting pretty tired of it!
>> but if the main process dies then all child threads die.
>AHEM, HELLO, BULLSHIT. This exactly DOES NOT
>happen under the windows process/threading model,
>and IS what happens under most other models. I
>personally consider it a FEATURE when the main
>thread cleans up the suboordinate threads when it
>dies. If the main thread dies, YOUR APPLICATION
>HAS QUIT. There is no reason to keep the rest
>of the threads around.
How does "cleaning up" differ from dying in the context of my statement? The child threads are still killed off right? All those users out there who were being served by the child processes still lose thier services... right?
>I defy you to show how EITHER model adversely
>affects system stability.
Stability is a loosely defined metric. If stability is considered to be defined as the ability to continue doing it's appointed task then the forking process model has obvious benefits; however, if stability is defined as the ability to remain in operation after a server/daemon failure then then both models have benefits. NT's threaded model cleans up by killing all the child processes and then the server must be restarted - forked process models just spawn a fresh daemon automatically and continue as if nothing had happened.
If the server's purpose is to serve then it should do it's job without fail. If a model can be found that ensures and defines stability as the ability to do it's appointed task within it's operating parameters then... that is the model to choose.
At the present time, it has been pointed out that Linux on a single processor PII class machine equipped with 256MB RAM is capable of maxing out a T1 connection and is still stable enough to take a pounding while running multiple services. I'd call that a realistic expectation from a machine designed to do a specific job.
Who told you that communism was bad? Have you any real proof? What do you call a kibbutz if not a commune? Are they bad? No. What is bad is the perversion that occurs as a result of capitalistic tendencies of the the leaders! True communism is a worthwhile thing! Problem is... the world is populated by people. People are predisposed to looking out for number one (a fact that goes right along with capitalism). True communism (where everyone works for the common good) is or has been a pipe dream to date. So called Soviet Socialism was nothing more than a facade on top of underground capitalizm. Where people are concerned, capitalizm cannot be far behind.
:) We don't always agree - if we did, it would just prove we were brainless.
The profit motive is alive and well within the framework of the Linux community too! Each member of the community is working for his/her own good! It just happens to be good for the community as well. What's good for me is good for you and vice versa.
I knew when I first got into Linux that I was into something good - something more than the intangible assets that computer programs represented - a community.
The community (a word descended from commune just like communism) consists of the whole. The programmers, the documentors, the theoreticians, the users, and the abusers. The community is only as effective as it's organization and it's constituency. You cannot separate the pieces and still have a whole community. As far as I'm concerned, the BSD folks are a VITAL part of the free community! RMS and the FSF are PILLARS of the free community. ESR is a tireless spokesman of the community (the tired part may be a little exaggerated
Thank you Erik! Are you planning on submitting LIZARD for LSB? Enhancing it for additional flexibility?
Oh, and does Caldera have a fix for the libcrypt problem? It can be a showstopper under certain circumstances.
RANT MODE ON:
:((
But why oh why did they choose to omit libcrypt from the distribution? WHY?????!
I'm using Caldera2.2 OpenLinux distro right now and it's got alot of nice features and installation is a breeze but... I can't compile or run BitchX and I've heard others have problems compiling Apache because of Caldera's omission of libcrypt. This being a needless complication.
RANT MODE OFF:
If it ain't free then it can be bought; I expect this company to be bought by Microsoft!
The future of Linux, of which I doubt this 3D Operating Environment is, should not be based on a commercial product that can be usurped so easily.
I laud them on their apparent hard work but... unless they are extremely dedicated to Linux and BE they are targets for assimilation!
The terrahertz internal speeds they are claiming are enough to alert me to a probable hoax.
I would dearly love to have such a technology available to man but... it's just TOO much to swallow on a Monday morning.
If such speeds WERE available, they'd use it for high-end machines first anyway. IBM would want it for their Mainframes, PPC Multiprocessor Servers and Server Arrays. SGI would want to use it for the CRAY line AT FULL INTERNAL SPEED - not at PCI speeds.
Like I said, "It sounds like Cold Fusion to me!"
that I can find a configuration of machine that Linux can beat NT on if I want to.
Boss: What do the numbers say?
Accountant: What do you WANT them to say?
and see what happens! The single processor box in the test had 256MB!
What *I* would like to know is... How do both OS's perform at their minimum configurations, how do they perform over a range of configurations, did either operating system crash during the course of the tests? What is the overall price/performance ratio?
Let's have the whole story!
NT has put many services in kernelspace and has largely bypassed their HAL in favor of multimedia performance - especially video.
NT uses a multithreaded process model for IIS and SMB file-services that results in higher throughput but less stability. A single thread of the main process may die without completely destabilizing the server but if the main process dies then all child threads die.
Linux divorces the graphical user interface from the kernel thus ensuring stability (framebuffers are available for video enhancement though) and implements most services as userspace daemons.
Linux uses the forked process model to provide services to multiple users. This modem achieves stability in that if one process dies, the others continue as if nothing had happened. Both Apache and SAMBA operate in this way I believe.
NT has chosen performance over stability.
I believe that with kernel enhancements and profiling, any bottlenecks in the networking system can be eradicated causing Linux to perform much faster and possibly even beat NT in tests such as these.
>What kind of reprecussions are we talking about
>here?
-snippety-
>At best, you could force the company to release
>the source code or recall the product, and at
>worst the gpl would be declared invalid.
Declaring the infringing codebase as GPL would satisfy me. If the GPL were to be declared invalid then... well... (it is a subject that deserves to be explored further).
Personally, I feel that the GPL is sound.