Actually, if you read back a little bit, you will find that the contract was awarded to Apple because they gave the best bang for the buck and it turns out that Dell optioned clusters would have been more expensive.
And your point is what? If Apple had donated those machines, would the "bang for the buck" of G5's increase even further?
Again, what matters is what regular organizations can get these things for, not one-of-a-kind deals.
And, yes, Dell's are way, way overpriced for compute clusters--even if Apple beats them, that's not saying much.
Yes, and so far, any support for the "best price performance ratio" claim is still missing. Just because Apple may have given VT a promotional deal to get press coverage doesn't make those machines a good buy.
Look at the actual G5 prices you and I pay and compare them to the actual P4 or AMD prices you and I pay. All the remaining hardware (networking, etc.) is comparable or worse for the G5, so the price/performance comparison is pretty easy.
What makes you think that the same reasoning doesn't apply to those other machines as well? Almost all high-performance machines have multiply-add, and presumably all their theoretical peak performance is computed in the same way.
It still bests all other Intel hardware with only the Alpha hardware on top.
The Itanium cluster is faster with fewer processors.
The Linux based 2.4Ghz cluster has almost 200 more CPU's on board with a 217 Gflop/sec difference.
You are comparing a year old Intel CPU against a just-released G5; of course, the Intel CPUs are going to be a little slower. So what? If you want, you can get 3.2GHz CPUs, which would almost certainly bring the CPU count for an Intel-based cluster with the same performance to hundreds below the G5-based solution.
Besides, performance per CPU doesn't matter much in these benchmarks, what matters is total bang for total buck, at the prices at which regular folks can get these machines (no special "we need a showcase" kind of deals). I suspect the 2.4GHz-based clusters are still a better deal than either the G5 or a 3.2GHz cluster, more CPUs or not.
It does? As far as I can tell, VT hasn't actually built this cluster, they are simply extrapolating from a smaller cluster.
While these numbers will no doubt come as a disappointment for Mac zealots who wanted to blow away all the Intel machines, it should still be noted that this is the best price/performance ratio ever achieved on a supercomputer
I can find no evidence of that in what has been published so far. Maybe someone could actually support such claims with facts?
When I look at the actual prices I would end up paying for a dual G5 vs. a dual Opteron or dual Xeon machine (as opposed to some special deal Apple has made for PR purposes), the G5 comes in worse in terms of bang for the buck. And the fact that Apple hasn't managed to produce 1U dual G5 rack mounts (apparently because the chips run too hot) adds even further to the cost of deploying them as clusters.
I'm looking for cheap compute cluster hardware, so I'm all open for rational, careful calculations and analysis. But this kind of hype over the G5's is simply off-putting.
When people cheerlead for the Zaurus, and I made a reply pointing out that all of those things can be done on the Zaurus, the one thing that I couldn't come back that WinCE did as well with was a C compiler.
Yeah, but who cares? The Zaurus's Qtopia environment is almost as limiting as WinCE's environment.
With an X11-based handheld, you can really plug it in, log in remotely, and use it like a real machine. Neither the Zaurus nor WinCE machines come close.
From the brief article, it sounds like this lawsuit was about business practices and unfair competition, not patents. Does anybody have more information?
Linux is distributed under the GPL. The GPL does not permit redistribution if it requires a license (to discourage just the kind of sleazy behavior SCO is engaging in). So, if SCO's claim is valid, then there is no point in licensing Linux because they won't be able to get any updated versions anway, not from SCO, not from RedHat, not from anybody. And if SCO's claim is not valid, then there is no point in paying them any money. In short, you can't really buy a license for Linux: either it's free or you can't use it at all.
Today I'd be hard pressed to choose -- one big plus on the PB is the *digital* video out, which lets you attach a Studio display.
One of the main uses of a laptop is to give presentations, and that almost universally requires a VGA output. The fact that the PowerBooks now require a dongle to connect to VGA is a nuisance IMO. And DVI doesn't make enough of a difference in terms of quality to be worth it.
The bugs might be cheaper to fix, but they cost a lot more to find.
Not if you are a company like Microsoft or Sun and you let your customers do your bug hunting for you, for free.
Of course, that's also how bug hunting works for open source software, but with OSS, at least I don't pay anybody for the privilege of finding their bugs for them.
A few weeks ago, I tried downloading Knoppix through Bittorrent. Within minutes, my DSL connection was subject to a massive DoS attack that lasted probably about an hour (I turned off Bittorrent). Apparently, this kind of DoS attack on Bittorrent sites is quite common.
If we are going to refer to DoS attacks in response to things that annoy Linux users as "terrorism", then those DoS attacks on Bittorrent are "terrorism" as well. And just like Enderle draws inferences about Linux, we have to infer that these are related to Microsoft zealots trying to keep me from obtaining a copy of Linux.
Those attacks are persistent and on-going, and they keep me from exercising my right to share and distribute content that I have a right to share and distribute. Shouldn't corporate IT departments advocating the use of Microsoft software be afraid that they are going to be tainted by those kinds of terrorist actions as well?
And you think that this would get any better of products were made in the US by US citizens? I don't think so. The golden age of US engineering and design has long since passed. Americans want their children to become lawyers and businessmen.
Japan got into the market making low-cost, low-quality goods as well. Then, they used that as a starting point for becoming a high-quality technology powerhouse. India and China will likely to the same thing. Those nations can afford making quality products much more easily than the US precisely because they are low wage.
Another problem is that US consumers simply don't know any better: they accept any garbage companies ship them because they think that's the best they can get and they can save a few bucks.
That's my point, and possibly his. The OSS community didn't call for it, nobody thought it was a good idea, apart from the idiot that did it. Yet, it contributes to a general background idea of OSS people as lawless.
Well, it wouldn't contribute to that idea if people like Enderle, people with an ax to grind, didn't try to link it to OSS.
Whether this attack resulted from an Open Source advocate or not, the end result is that it reinforces the concerns that surround this movement and Linux in particular. IT managers are undoubtedly concerned that the person who originated this attack may be one of their employees. Since this type of behavior is branded as domestic terrorism and this hostile action has been taken against a company that uses litigation freely we can certainly see strong reasons for this concern.
This is a brilliant manipulative piece of writing: at the same time, he plants the idea that Linux and OSS advocates are probably responsible for the DoS attack while deflecting criticism that such a suggestion is unfair. And he also plants the idea that companies should be wary of Linux because of it.
I don't think I've ever read anything by this guy before today, I just took his statements at face value.
The guy is on a jihad against Linux and he is a master manipulator. In fact, his self-proclaimed specialty is to "counter negative reviews" (here):
Counterpoint is designed as insurance against this practice. It provides consulting services during the review process of a poorly founded negative piece on a vendor or its products and, should it be needed, will showcase the research errors, statistical mistakes, and unfounded conclusions that often define such a piece.
We don't know who pays him for what, since he also tells us that his specialty is to shield clients from such disclosures. But, unless there is evidence to the contrary, the conclusion is natural that Enderle gets paid by Microsoft or some Microsoft subsidiary to "counter negative statements about Windows" and that he abuses his position as a tech columnist to advance his company's agenda.
* Much (not all) Slashdot (and pro-OSS) discussion never actually references sources, preferring to stick to anecdotal second hand knowledge - "Windows always crashes" etc.
Just like Enderle's columns. Unlike Enderle's columns, however, Slashdot is a discussion forum. In discussion forums, people discuss their opinions, relate their experience, and exchange rumors. Enderle's columns are just poorly researched, opinionated garbage. But it is, perhaps, not suprising that Enderle fails to understand the difference between a participant in an informal discussion forum and a tech columnist, given that he treats the job of the latter like the former.
* 'Linux Priests' can be blinded to flaws in OSS by their love of OSS in general.
No, they aren't. Linux sucks. See, there, I said it. It just sucks less than Windows, and it costs a whole less than Windows while it sucks. But, you see, Linux does not funnel money into the pockets of Mr. Enderle, so he prefers to be a Microsoft zealot (or should I say "Microsoft terrorist") instead.
* His use of zealot is different from what a standard slashdotian would use it for. He means the real nutcases (check out arstechnica openforum battlefront for examples).
His use of terms like "server operating system", "computer", or "terrorist" seems to be different from the generally accepted norms as well.
* He doesn't call zealots terrorists. He says that the nutcases are dangerous to the OSS cause, just as islamic terrorists are dangerous to moderate Islam - the nutcases get the press coverage and we all get tarred with the same brush.
Oh, dear, Enderle is concerned about the well being of the OSS movement? I don't think so.
Take the DoS attack on SCO, for example. That didn't do anyone any good and gave the other side ammunition to use against the Linux community
What about the DoS attack on SCO? Did anybody who means anything in the OSS community call for it? Did anybody claim responsibility for it? Did anybody even say they did it because of SCO's actions on Linux? Did anybody in the OSS community endorse it? Did it kill people? Did anybody in the OSS community have power to stop it?
Most DoS attacks are carried out by Windows users. Why don't we call Windows users "Windows zealots" and declare Windows a breeding ground for terrorists. Maybe then there would be some teeth in the long-overdue anti-monopoly action by the Justice Department.
Even disregarding the fact that, by running Windows XP, you have to patch a lot in the first place, the problem is your OS: unless you need to patch the kernel, there should be no need to reboot. In fact, if the vulnerability is in a loadable module, you should still not have to reboot. Some OSs even let you replace the kernel on the fly.
If you are running an OS that was designed for desktop usage (and realistically, that's what Windows was designed for), you can't expect good uptimes or server-appropriate behavior.
that these enthusiasts are a retailer's nightmare; the constant flow of hardware back and forth puts a considerable amount of stress on the retailer and his service personnel.
The rate at which "enthusiasts" return stuff can't possibly compete with the rate at which regular, frustrated users return stuff for perfectly valid reasons. I suspect more than half of all new computer products don't work as advertised, have serious defects, are incompatible with systems they claim to be copatible with, or don't work at all. That's part of the business, but if companies put out so much defective stuff, the least they can do is take back the stuff that really doesn't work right without complaining. A lot of companies just seem to be outsourcing user testing to paying end users.
You really should try the tkc or Opie/OpenZaurus apps. They are a lot better than the default Sharp apps, though Sharp ROM 3.1x is better than the previous offerings.
I have. I think a Palm is still way better.
One can install X11 on the Zaurus, but why?
Installing X11 on the Zaurus is a major headache, if not for any other reason then because the Zaurus regularly loses all data and installed programs.
If you mean "why would I want to use X11 on the Zaurus", I think I gave the answer: there are two possible uses for a handheld like that: as a PDA, but for that the Zaurus is no good no matter what it runs, or as a special-purpose Linux handheld, and for that the Zaurus becomes a lot more useful if it can actually run a large fraction of tools. For example, I can program a handheld running X11 in Gtk+, PyGnome, or wxWindows, and I can plug it into the network and run those applications on a big screen. I can do none of those things with QPE or Opie or anything else.
I think this PDA makes a lot more sense for Linux users than the Zaurus.
I have the Zaurus. I thought I could live with QPE, but I can't. The built-in apps on the Zaurus are far worse than on the Palm and still somewhat worse than the PocketPC apps, so the Zaurus doesn't make a good PDA; its main use is for nerd-type apps: ssh, network analysis, etc. But for that, its use of QPE is a major problem: very few of the standard GUI apps can be ported over. Furthermore, when you plug the Zaurus into a network, you can only display its native GUI apps remotely in a tiny VNC window.
The Yopy, by being fully desktop compatible with Linux and X11, avoids these problems. Its PDA apps may still not measure up to Palm, but at least its fully a Linux PDA.
(Oh, and don't tell me that I can install handhelds.org on the Zaurus--I know I can, but it's a pain to install. And, besides, it's the same as with PocketPC--why would I want to pay for a device so that part of the money goes to licensing software that I didn't want in the first place?)
In my opinion, if you want the best PDA, get a Palm--the OS sucks but the apps are good. If you want a Linux-y PDA, the Yopy looks like the best choice.
Re:Keep tabs on where your address goes
on
Baffling the Spam Bots
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, lucky you. However, most people actually have some sort of public existence: they run a business and want clients to be able to contact them, they are teachers or professors and students need to be able to find out their address and contact them, etc. Hiding one's address simply isn't a solution.
Trademarks are there to identify goods and services uniquely, not to give some company a monopoly on the use of that word.
As long as they don't misrepresent goods as being identified by the trademark, it is the intent and the purpose of trademarks that anybody can use the trademark to refer to all aspects of a product, good and bad.
So, if I have had a bad experience with "Product X", I should be able to use the trademarked term "Product X" in public statements saying "I didn't like Product X, buy Product Y instead". Furthermore, as a competitor, I should very much be able to buy the "Product X" keyword and get people to come to my site, as long as my product is clearly not confusable with "Product X".
Being able to identify products uniquely is important for an efficient market, but that means being able to identify both good and bad products and to steer people at alternatives.
Windows drivers have a hard time working even between different releases of Windows. Furthermore, they usually come with complicated GUIs for setting parameters in driver-specific ways.
And why would you want to? I have generally found Windows drivers to be junk; they usually look like they are produced by minimum wage programmers. Most vendors probably don't produce open source drivers because they are too embarrassed to share their code and because they don't have the engineering documentation to share to let others write their own drivers. You are better off buying hardware only from those vendors that actually have the engineering documentation and insight to allow others to write open source drivers.
In different words, if you can't get open source drivers for a piece of hardware, the hardware is usually no good anyway (yes, and in that I include the closed-source-only graphics cards "for Linux").
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you read back a little bit, you will find that the contract was awarded to Apple because they gave the best bang for the buck and it turns out that Dell optioned clusters would have been more expensive.
And your point is what? If Apple had donated those machines, would the "bang for the buck" of G5's increase even further?
Again, what matters is what regular organizations can get these things for, not one-of-a-kind deals.
And, yes, Dell's are way, way overpriced for compute clusters--even if Apple beats them, that's not saying much.
Yes, and so far, any support for the "best price performance ratio" claim is still missing. Just because Apple may have given VT a promotional deal to get press coverage doesn't make those machines a good buy.
Look at the actual G5 prices you and I pay and compare them to the actual P4 or AMD prices you and I pay. All the remaining hardware (networking, etc.) is comparable or worse for the G5, so the price/performance comparison is pretty easy.
What makes you think that the same reasoning doesn't apply to those other machines as well? Almost all high-performance machines have multiply-add, and presumably all their theoretical peak performance is computed in the same way.
It still bests all other Intel hardware with only the Alpha hardware on top.
The Itanium cluster is faster with fewer processors.
The Linux based 2.4Ghz cluster has almost 200 more CPU's on board with a 217 Gflop/sec difference.
You are comparing a year old Intel CPU against a just-released G5; of course, the Intel CPUs are going to be a little slower. So what? If you want, you can get 3.2GHz CPUs, which would almost certainly bring the CPU count for an Intel-based cluster with the same performance to hundreds below the G5-based solution.
Besides, performance per CPU doesn't matter much in these benchmarks, what matters is total bang for total buck, at the prices at which regular folks can get these machines (no special "we need a showcase" kind of deals). I suspect the 2.4GHz-based clusters are still a better deal than either the G5 or a 3.2GHz cluster, more CPUs or not.
Thanks for the pointer. Now, about that "most cost effective" bit? Compared to what? At retail prices?
This puts it at number four on the Top 500 List.
It does? As far as I can tell, VT hasn't actually built this cluster, they are simply extrapolating from a smaller cluster.
While these numbers will no doubt come as a disappointment for Mac zealots who wanted to blow away all the Intel machines, it should still be noted that this is the best price/performance ratio ever achieved on a supercomputer
I can find no evidence of that in what has been published so far. Maybe someone could actually support such claims with facts?
When I look at the actual prices I would end up paying for a dual G5 vs. a dual Opteron or dual Xeon machine (as opposed to some special deal Apple has made for PR purposes), the G5 comes in worse in terms of bang for the buck. And the fact that Apple hasn't managed to produce 1U dual G5 rack mounts (apparently because the chips run too hot) adds even further to the cost of deploying them as clusters.
I'm looking for cheap compute cluster hardware, so I'm all open for rational, careful calculations and analysis. But this kind of hype over the G5's is simply off-putting.
You are imagining things. Check the specification page at apple.com. All the Ti Powerbooks with DVI require a dongle to connect to VGA.
When people cheerlead for the Zaurus, and I made a reply pointing out that all of those things can be done on the Zaurus, the one thing that I couldn't come back that WinCE did as well with was a C compiler.
Yeah, but who cares? The Zaurus's Qtopia environment is almost as limiting as WinCE's environment.
With an X11-based handheld, you can really plug it in, log in remotely, and use it like a real machine. Neither the Zaurus nor WinCE machines come close.
From the brief article, it sounds like this lawsuit was about business practices and unfair competition, not patents. Does anybody have more information?
Linux is distributed under the GPL. The GPL does not permit redistribution if it requires a license (to discourage just the kind of sleazy behavior SCO is engaging in). So, if SCO's claim is valid, then there is no point in licensing Linux because they won't be able to get any updated versions anway, not from SCO, not from RedHat, not from anybody. And if SCO's claim is not valid, then there is no point in paying them any money. In short, you can't really buy a license for Linux: either it's free or you can't use it at all.
Today I'd be hard pressed to choose -- one big plus on the PB is the *digital* video out, which lets you attach a Studio display.
One of the main uses of a laptop is to give presentations, and that almost universally requires a VGA output. The fact that the PowerBooks now require a dongle to connect to VGA is a nuisance IMO. And DVI doesn't make enough of a difference in terms of quality to be worth it.
It runs MS PocketPC 2003. Personally I think it blows
You can stop right there--no need to go on.
I think Symbian is a far better OS than PPC2003. And the difference between 1.1Mpixel and VGA is not enough to make up for that.
The bugs might be cheaper to fix, but they cost a lot more to find.
Not if you are a company like Microsoft or Sun and you let your customers do your bug hunting for you, for free.
Of course, that's also how bug hunting works for open source software, but with OSS, at least I don't pay anybody for the privilege of finding their bugs for them.
A few weeks ago, I tried downloading Knoppix through Bittorrent. Within minutes, my DSL connection was subject to a massive DoS attack that lasted probably about an hour (I turned off Bittorrent). Apparently, this kind of DoS attack on Bittorrent sites is quite common.
If we are going to refer to DoS attacks in response to things that annoy Linux users as "terrorism", then those DoS attacks on Bittorrent are "terrorism" as well. And just like Enderle draws inferences about Linux, we have to infer that these are related to Microsoft zealots trying to keep me from obtaining a copy of Linux.
Those attacks are persistent and on-going, and they keep me from exercising my right to share and distribute content that I have a right to share and distribute. Shouldn't corporate IT departments advocating the use of Microsoft software be afraid that they are going to be tainted by those kinds of terrorist actions as well?
People at MIT wired elevators and coke machines to the Internet in the 70's and 80's.
And you think that this would get any better of products were made in the US by US citizens? I don't think so. The golden age of US engineering and design has long since passed. Americans want their children to become lawyers and businessmen.
Japan got into the market making low-cost, low-quality goods as well. Then, they used that as a starting point for becoming a high-quality technology powerhouse. India and China will likely to the same thing. Those nations can afford making quality products much more easily than the US precisely because they are low wage.
Another problem is that US consumers simply don't know any better: they accept any garbage companies ship them because they think that's the best they can get and they can save a few bucks.
Well, it wouldn't contribute to that idea if people like Enderle, people with an ax to grind, didn't try to link it to OSS.
Here is what he wrote:
This is a brilliant manipulative piece of writing: at the same time, he plants the idea that Linux and OSS advocates are probably responsible for the DoS attack while deflecting criticism that such a suggestion is unfair. And he also plants the idea that companies should be wary of Linux because of it.
I don't think I've ever read anything by this guy before today, I just took his statements at face value.
The guy is on a jihad against Linux and he is a master manipulator. In fact, his self-proclaimed specialty is to "counter negative reviews" (here):
We don't know who pays him for what, since he also tells us that his specialty is to shield clients from such disclosures. But, unless there is evidence to the contrary, the conclusion is natural that Enderle gets paid by Microsoft or some Microsoft subsidiary to "counter negative statements about Windows" and that he abuses his position as a tech columnist to advance his company's agenda.
* Much (not all) Slashdot (and pro-OSS) discussion never actually references sources, preferring to stick to anecdotal second hand knowledge - "Windows always crashes" etc.
Just like Enderle's columns. Unlike Enderle's columns, however, Slashdot is a discussion forum. In discussion forums, people discuss their opinions, relate their experience, and exchange rumors. Enderle's columns are just poorly researched, opinionated garbage. But it is, perhaps, not suprising that Enderle fails to understand the difference between a participant in an informal discussion forum and a tech columnist, given that he treats the job of the latter like the former.
* 'Linux Priests' can be blinded to flaws in OSS by their love of OSS in general.
No, they aren't. Linux sucks. See, there, I said it. It just sucks less than Windows, and it costs a whole less than Windows while it sucks. But, you see, Linux does not funnel money into the pockets of Mr. Enderle, so he prefers to be a Microsoft zealot (or should I say "Microsoft terrorist") instead.
* His use of zealot is different from what a standard slashdotian would use it for. He means the real nutcases (check out arstechnica openforum battlefront for examples).
His use of terms like "server operating system", "computer", or "terrorist" seems to be different from the generally accepted norms as well.
* He doesn't call zealots terrorists. He says that the nutcases are dangerous to the OSS cause, just as islamic terrorists are dangerous to moderate Islam - the nutcases get the press coverage and we all get tarred with the same brush.
Oh, dear, Enderle is concerned about the well being of the OSS movement? I don't think so.
Take the DoS attack on SCO, for example. That didn't do anyone any good and gave the other side ammunition to use against the Linux community
What about the DoS attack on SCO? Did anybody who means anything in the OSS community call for it? Did anybody claim responsibility for it? Did anybody even say they did it because of SCO's actions on Linux? Did anybody in the OSS community endorse it? Did it kill people? Did anybody in the OSS community have power to stop it?
Most DoS attacks are carried out by Windows users. Why don't we call Windows users "Windows zealots" and declare Windows a breeding ground for terrorists. Maybe then there would be some teeth in the long-overdue anti-monopoly action by the Justice Department.
Even disregarding the fact that, by running Windows XP, you have to patch a lot in the first place, the problem is your OS: unless you need to patch the kernel, there should be no need to reboot. In fact, if the vulnerability is in a loadable module, you should still not have to reboot. Some OSs even let you replace the kernel on the fly.
If you are running an OS that was designed for desktop usage (and realistically, that's what Windows was designed for), you can't expect good uptimes or server-appropriate behavior.
that these enthusiasts are a retailer's nightmare; the constant flow of hardware back and forth puts a considerable amount of stress on the retailer and his service personnel.
The rate at which "enthusiasts" return stuff can't possibly compete with the rate at which regular, frustrated users return stuff for perfectly valid reasons. I suspect more than half of all new computer products don't work as advertised, have serious defects, are incompatible with systems they claim to be copatible with, or don't work at all. That's part of the business, but if companies put out so much defective stuff, the least they can do is take back the stuff that really doesn't work right without complaining. A lot of companies just seem to be outsourcing user testing to paying end users.
You really should try the tkc or Opie/OpenZaurus apps. They are a lot better than the default Sharp apps, though Sharp ROM 3.1x is better than the previous offerings.
I have. I think a Palm is still way better.
One can install X11 on the Zaurus, but why?
Installing X11 on the Zaurus is a major headache, if not for any other reason then because the Zaurus regularly loses all data and installed programs.
If you mean "why would I want to use X11 on the Zaurus", I think I gave the answer: there are two possible uses for a handheld like that: as a PDA, but for that the Zaurus is no good no matter what it runs, or as a special-purpose Linux handheld, and for that the Zaurus becomes a lot more useful if it can actually run a large fraction of tools. For example, I can program a handheld running X11 in Gtk+, PyGnome, or wxWindows, and I can plug it into the network and run those applications on a big screen. I can do none of those things with QPE or Opie or anything else.
I think this PDA makes a lot more sense for Linux users than the Zaurus.
I have the Zaurus. I thought I could live with QPE, but I can't. The built-in apps on the Zaurus are far worse than on the Palm and still somewhat worse than the PocketPC apps, so the Zaurus doesn't make a good PDA; its main use is for nerd-type apps: ssh, network analysis, etc. But for that, its use of QPE is a major problem: very few of the standard GUI apps can be ported over. Furthermore, when you plug the Zaurus into a network, you can only display its native GUI apps remotely in a tiny VNC window.
The Yopy, by being fully desktop compatible with Linux and X11, avoids these problems. Its PDA apps may still not measure up to Palm, but at least its fully a Linux PDA.
(Oh, and don't tell me that I can install handhelds.org on the Zaurus--I know I can, but it's a pain to install. And, besides, it's the same as with PocketPC--why would I want to pay for a device so that part of the money goes to licensing software that I didn't want in the first place?)
In my opinion, if you want the best PDA, get a Palm--the OS sucks but the apps are good. If you want a Linux-y PDA, the Yopy looks like the best choice.
Well, lucky you. However, most people actually have some sort of public existence: they run a business and want clients to be able to contact them, they are teachers or professors and students need to be able to find out their address and contact them, etc. Hiding one's address simply isn't a solution.
Trademarks are there to identify goods and services uniquely, not to give some company a monopoly on the use of that word.
As long as they don't misrepresent goods as being identified by the trademark, it is the intent and the purpose of trademarks that anybody can use the trademark to refer to all aspects of a product, good and bad.
So, if I have had a bad experience with "Product X", I should be able to use the trademarked term "Product X" in public statements saying "I didn't like Product X, buy Product Y instead". Furthermore, as a competitor, I should very much be able to buy the "Product X" keyword and get people to come to my site, as long as my product is clearly not confusable with "Product X".
Being able to identify products uniquely is important for an efficient market, but that means being able to identify both good and bad products and to steer people at alternatives.
Windows drivers have a hard time working even between different releases of Windows. Furthermore, they usually come with complicated GUIs for setting parameters in driver-specific ways.
And why would you want to? I have generally found Windows drivers to be junk; they usually look like they are produced by minimum wage programmers. Most vendors probably don't produce open source drivers because they are too embarrassed to share their code and because they don't have the engineering documentation to share to let others write their own drivers. You are better off buying hardware only from those vendors that actually have the engineering documentation and insight to allow others to write open source drivers.
In different words, if you can't get open source drivers for a piece of hardware, the hardware is usually no good anyway (yes, and in that I include the closed-source-only graphics cards "for Linux").