Makes one wonder how a departmen can rectify loosing 1.2B on a console and still try again a 3rd time.
I don't remember the numbers on the original XBox, but the 360 seems to be in the minus 1.2billion.
Sure Sony has a lot of money backing itself up too, but what company would stay competing loss after loss after loss. I guess someone REALLY wants to be a big player in the console market. I wonder how many chairs need to go flying about before they just give up...
Also, unattended can be burned on a DVD so you don't need a server to supply the data.
(Quick breakdown how this whole unattended thinger works with the whole server backend)
Firstly you setup unattended on a server that supports windows files haring (e.g. linux running samba)
Following the manual you put your original files on it (2k or XP), then you configure the unattend.txt file which tells windows setup how to install the system (e.g. reg keys and the like). It then installs updates (via scripts you can tweak) and software (also via scripts that are tweakable if needed to be). All of this can be done completly unattended without user interaction.
The real power comes from the SQL backend (or a simple file if you have only a few systems). The installer can then pull information of a database based on the several aspects of the system includeing the MAC. So basically you can bind registration keys, drivers and software sets based on the MAC (or user, or system name or...).
For more info just check out unattended.sourceforge.net, it's really quite a neat package!
On a side note, what it's also handy for, keeping a collection of all updates handy. the scripts you can update via cvs up, and then simply run the 'fetch' script to get all files needed for the script, which can be also handy when putting this whole 'system' on a DVD for networkless installs. Personally, i then use this collection of updates, sans.Net to slipstream those into the main CD image so the 'plain' driverless, softwareless install would allready be atleast patched up.
Disclaimer: I haven't used unattended, or windows for that matter, for months. My last windows install is many months old and was simply done by using nlite to create a slim neat tweaked install, that hardly never gets booted as cedega fills my wow need now : )
Since you posted this on sunday allready (atleast in this timezone) It can't be a joke anymore (your post). You do realize you are posting the same link as the post did right?... k.. just making sure.
The way I see it, what intel is trying to push, is basically a server + desktop idea (and hence dual core)
You have one core for all your normal desktop needs, and one core for your 'media server'. Some prefer it seperated, other combined. It's obviously a big marketing hype, Allthough those media 'extenders' sound interesting, allthough I doubt you could run mythtv on it, as that does kinda the same thing, only you need thinclients with enough umpf to decode the video. On a side note, I think they'll still should have dvd drives, as you obviously don't want to run upstairs to change a dvd when you have friends over.
As far as I can tell, this allready exists, and has for quite some time, if you knew how to set it up/follow some howtos. Hell, I run freevo on my secondary head (for now, still want a dedicated myth box) on my desktop without even noticing it's there (I either watch something, or use my PC so aren't using them simulatinously, maybe it's time for dual-core, erm ViiV : p. So yeah, marketing, nothing more, nothing less.
I guess all us geeks can only hope that this will be cracked for atleast software players. That way, you can have a nice HTPC setup, with MythTV or Freevo and not worry about silly things like that.
Yet enter DRM: Sony and pals are so scared of nerds ripping off their signal and trading it peer-to-peer they're going to screw those who spent $3000 on TVs and who can afford and do purchase large amounts of DVDs.
Didn't sony just say they weren't gonna downsample on the analog ports just because of this? I'm pretty sure someone just said they wheren't gonna do that, because a) not to bother users with older HDTV equiment, b) speed up acceptance of Blue-Ray.
Is it because it's cheaper to use those old winboxen you have laying around, for those few accounts that insist on windows, be used more efficiently and effectivly move some of the load of the linux servers?
I now just have to reply.
This is all just non-sense.
They will be using Windows the rest of their lives probably anyway. The learning curve for windows is quite low anyhow, and they'll pick up on it easly enough if needed anyway.
THe guy is on a budget. So money matters. 50 bux per PC is a LOT on donated boxen. It's old hardware, linux mostly even fares better on old hardware, linux is afterall used a lot on older PC's as servers. XP will be slugish on older hardware if there's even drivers. (Ex. try installing a Radeon 7000 on XP64)
Linux really isn't that much different from windows if you are new to the whole thing. It's pointing your mouse at something, and clicking on it. Other than that it's just using the programs, not the OS they have to worry about, nor should they.
The big advantage is that there's a lot more free software for linux, not just apps (True, many even run on windows, like the gimp, albeit with a speed penalty).
In the end it'll be about the programs they use, the webbrowser, office suite etc (xPaint!!) etc. and maybe in the end the world will be better for it. Don't add more windows users when it really isn't needed.
But is the 800MB Ram while idle requirement for even the lowest 'classic' version also?
I'm just thinking, that when Vista comes out, M$ will gladly tell you you only need 800MB for the 'fancy' pretty mode, but you can do with much less in 'classic' mode. That again then makes it where companies decide not to switch afterall, cash their discount for thinking of switching, and having to upgrade the memory next year anyway, because the classical mode still uses about 750MB, which M$ forgot to mention, "but hey, it's as we said, less".
Since you obviously dind't read the Article, it mentions:
Can you tell me more about the e-government project based on open-source software that Steamboat Springs is hosting and developing?
We're publishing the project online so it's freely available--anyone who wants to get involved right now only has to download the components from our Web site. We haven't yet developed a site on Sourceforge but will be doing this in the summer.
Now go read the article. It ain't half bad. And I do think the guy does 'get' it.
Or use the power button. I have acpid installed just for that, when it locks, i can atleast safley shut it down. If you can't use acpid then sshing won't give you much result either I suppose.
Back on topic, I had about 10days uptime, playing WoW with cedega for many hours (seriously, this is getting bad), but it did freeze on me. No keyboard response et al. Normally if the game crashes, i can always change virtual desktop. I do concider my PC to be pretty stable. But closed src ATi drivers, can make life... interesting to say the least.
Hmm, well, even so, I do think that even the plainest desktop can make use of the features a GPU has to offer, then again, most of it probably is allready 2d-accelerated.
I am sure however, that even with pure 3D based desktops (when 2d is fasing out on hardware) that there'll be some windowmanager will be made that is as light as possible and shift of some stuff to the GPU to improve performance even more.
What he obviously mean is Xbox Live service, with a whole bunch of vendor lock ins etc.
I also have been annoyed for years by broken CD's or worse, Keep CD's in cd drive to play game annoyances.
CD's gone as medium? Nah. CD's gone as 'protection' I sure hope so. Forget the CD's. CD's (with the game in question) should be purchasable for next to nothing and also available as downloadable ISO's. No more 'please insert disc to play' schemes. It's not about the CD anymore. All you have to do is purchase a key. True, you'd depend on the internet for short periods (verifying your key from time to time) but not only is that the only true way of banning out piracy, only valid keys are useable, but it would make life a lot easyer. Also you can lock a key to (email) address, and not your harddrive serial number or some lame bull. That if you loose your key, you can always re-get it. I think games like WoW actually, slowly are moving towards that direction. True you still have to pay the boxset for 35E to start with, which is somewhat of a downer still, but they don't have any cd copy protection bull, so install, and store.
So do I agree with the dude, since it's MS, i'm pretty sure I don't. They just wanna lock you in and glue you down.
I think the parent IS right, but you misunderstood him.
Yes, your ATi card has 2D acceleration. True, your it accelerates your X11 or Windows 'classic' interface just fine. However this is not what people refer to when they say a good written window manager should actually ease the load.
The thing he is refering to, can be seen at windows poor implementation of desktops when setting a JPEG as background. This becomes clearly visible on somewhat older systems. The system doesn't convert the JPEG to BMP, the background native, but re-renders it everytime, resulting in ugly, slow screen updates. I guess they figured to save those 2mb worth of diskspace would be worth it, or maybe that 'hey we have mshtml.dll, let's use it for really everything'.
Looking at XP it really comes obvious (allthough 2K's semi transparancy showed this too). XP in teletubbies mode does put quite some stress on the CPU, since the 'blue parts' are images stuck over the default items, making it look all pretty. However most of this is still done by the CPU, since that kind of acceleration a GPU doesn't have (for 2D i don't think anyway).
Now back on topic, what I belive the parent (and I) mean, is that if you have a GPU, your windowmanager can make use of these functions, making transparancy of windows not CPU based, but GPU based, freeing up the CPU to do other things. (Alpha transparancy is done with the CPU, so those fancy transparant windows you see, cost CPU cycles). That and there will be far more possibilites with OpenGL (or dx10 *barf*) based interfaces, I'm sure you've seen luminicity video's. You can do all sorts of things to your windows/desktop without really using the CPU.
So yes, scrolling a window is 2D accelerated, has been for a while, creation of windows are accelerated, also for years (came across a manual of a PCI videocard pre 3D, that was all about 2D acceleration for 'windows') but a lot of features have been put into interfaces that are not using the GPU, but still heavly depend on CPU (dragging windows around that always update for example or the afor mentioned alpha transparancy aswell as themeability). This things _could_ run better on GPU's because, that's exactly what they are made for. 2D has left the building if you ask me and as 3D can do 2D emulation of some sort (think bios/bootup, old games stuff) we don't need 2D at all anymore.
they are desperatly needing.Net programmers because there is obviously a shortage.
Lots of companies wanna go with the.Net hype..Net is all it's about, just like a few years ago it was all about Java.
Now why are there not enough.Net programmers? Because REAL programmers know what they are doing, they are good at what they do. And those are usually snatched by big companies early on, programming in C with vim or emacs of course : p
Now the last thing I wanna say about.Net developers (excluding those who are truely brilliant, but then again, those would be really good C/C++ programmers anyway) are writing the biggest pile of crap. Personally I don't have.Net on my windows partition. I refuse. I've run a few.Net applications however, like the ATi Control Center. Sure, it looks pretty, I suppose. But it's a pile of crap. And there is several other applications,.Net applications, that are big piles of crap. Seriously, where did these people learn to write code?
I think that is the problem nowadays anyway. You have to know less and less to write an application. Just drag something, drop something and it's pretty much a done deal. So now it's cheaper to develop Software I guess, I mean, we have all these easy tools that make it faster for us to write GUI's n such. Quality has dropped however, so I suppose if you concider support cost....
They used a dutch portal or what not. Recently, it was shown that the dutch are one of the lowest firefox users in Europe right now. (under 10% I belive it was) Compared to say, Finland (or was it a nother country in scandinavia) with 40%.
I belive that is because Gaim 1.5 for instance, which is the current stable version, doesn't support (lib)jingle. From what I understand Gaim 2.0 will, and that then will be reflected in that page? I certainly hope so.
I thought Google Talk was going to use SIP for VoIP? I don't know much or anything about all this, but from what I understood they where going to use SIP, an open protocol. Didn't they also develop the GPLed jingle library to be used in other clients (like Gaim 2.0 will be using for example)?
Eitherway, if anybody has a good link with some more background info VoIP, SIP etc that would be great! I know what VoIP is, but can't figure out why there's so many different SIP providers, can I talk with my SIP program to other SIP programs for free? Or does that only work with the same clients (Like you can only use skype with skype).
Also, strange that google would use an IP sound codec, they do tend to use open solutions, and I'd guess them using the speex codec.
So you basically want the Marty McFly's TV from Back to the Future, part II?
Ask him, I'm sure he'll be glad to share his info : )
(I am serious actually, they used something like that in the movie, so I'm sure it's possible. Doesn't look that hightech, maybe back int he 90's it was different...)
Exactly, it costs the same.
And for geeks who want a sleek fast gaming only OS, they most likley use Prof and then nLite to strip everything including IE and MediaPlayer. If it where cheaper, then things would surely be different.
OEMS would be more interested (saving 20 bux on the OS for example would allready be ok for them) especially since they can put mediaplayers back optionally. Since their versions usualyl come bundled with a whole bunch anyhow.
Now, with the same price, what really is the point?
Slashdot Mirror
Makes one wonder how a departmen can rectify loosing 1.2B on a console and still try again a 3rd time.
I don't remember the numbers on the original XBox, but the 360 seems to be in the minus 1.2billion.
Sure Sony has a lot of money backing itself up too, but what company would stay competing loss after loss after loss. I guess someone REALLY wants to be a big player in the console market. I wonder how many chairs need to go flying about before they just give up...
Also, unattended can be burned on a DVD so you don't need a server to supply the data.
...).
.Net to slipstream those into the main CD image so the 'plain' driverless, softwareless install would allready be atleast patched up.
(Quick breakdown how this whole unattended thinger works with the whole server backend)
Firstly you setup unattended on a server that supports windows files haring (e.g. linux running samba)
Following the manual you put your original files on it (2k or XP), then you configure the unattend.txt file which tells windows setup how to install the system (e.g. reg keys and the like). It then installs updates (via scripts you can tweak) and software (also via scripts that are tweakable if needed to be). All of this can be done completly unattended without user interaction.
The real power comes from the SQL backend (or a simple file if you have only a few systems). The installer can then pull information of a database based on the several aspects of the system includeing the MAC. So basically you can bind registration keys, drivers and software sets based on the MAC (or user, or system name or
For more info just check out unattended.sourceforge.net, it's really quite a neat package!
On a side note, what it's also handy for, keeping a collection of all updates handy. the scripts you can update via cvs up, and then simply run the 'fetch' script to get all files needed for the script, which can be also handy when putting this whole 'system' on a DVD for networkless installs. Personally, i then use this collection of updates, sans
Disclaimer: I haven't used unattended, or windows for that matter, for months. My last windows install is many months old and was simply done by using nlite to create a slim neat tweaked install, that hardly never gets booted as cedega fills my wow need now : )
Since you posted this on sunday allready (atleast in this timezone) It can't be a joke anymore (your post). You do realize you are posting the same link as the post did right? ... k .. just making sure.
The way I see it, what intel is trying to push, is basically a server + desktop idea (and hence dual core)
You have one core for all your normal desktop needs, and one core for your 'media server'. Some prefer it seperated, other combined. It's obviously a big marketing hype, Allthough those media 'extenders' sound interesting, allthough I doubt you could run mythtv on it, as that does kinda the same thing, only you need thinclients with enough umpf to decode the video. On a side note, I think they'll still should have dvd drives, as you obviously don't want to run upstairs to change a dvd when you have friends over.
As far as I can tell, this allready exists, and has for quite some time, if you knew how to set it up/follow some howtos. Hell, I run freevo on my secondary head (for now, still want a dedicated myth box) on my desktop without even noticing it's there (I either watch something, or use my PC so aren't using them simulatinously, maybe it's time for dual-core, erm ViiV : p. So yeah, marketing, nothing more, nothing less.
I guess all us geeks can only hope that this will be cracked for atleast software players. That way, you can have a nice HTPC setup, with MythTV or Freevo and not worry about silly things like that.
Yet enter DRM: Sony and pals are so scared of nerds ripping off their signal and trading it peer-to-peer they're going to screw those who spent $3000 on TVs and who can afford and do purchase large amounts of DVDs.
Didn't sony just say they weren't gonna downsample on the analog ports just because of this? I'm pretty sure someone just said they wheren't gonna do that, because a) not to bother users with older HDTV equiment, b) speed up acceptance of Blue-Ray.
Is it because it's cheaper to use those old winboxen you have laying around, for those few accounts that insist on windows, be used more efficiently and effectivly move some of the load of the linux servers?
Would sound sensible and reasonable.
You do realize I was merly giving an example, that is easy to relate to today, to demonstrate the lack of driver backwards compatibility.
I now just have to reply. This is all just non-sense. They will be using Windows the rest of their lives probably anyway. The learning curve for windows is quite low anyhow, and they'll pick up on it easly enough if needed anyway. THe guy is on a budget. So money matters. 50 bux per PC is a LOT on donated boxen. It's old hardware, linux mostly even fares better on old hardware, linux is afterall used a lot on older PC's as servers. XP will be slugish on older hardware if there's even drivers. (Ex. try installing a Radeon 7000 on XP64) Linux really isn't that much different from windows if you are new to the whole thing. It's pointing your mouse at something, and clicking on it. Other than that it's just using the programs, not the OS they have to worry about, nor should they. The big advantage is that there's a lot more free software for linux, not just apps (True, many even run on windows, like the gimp, albeit with a speed penalty). In the end it'll be about the programs they use, the webbrowser, office suite etc (xPaint!!) etc. and maybe in the end the world will be better for it. Don't add more windows users when it really isn't needed.
But is the 800MB Ram while idle requirement for even the lowest 'classic' version also?
I'm just thinking, that when Vista comes out, M$ will gladly tell you you only need 800MB for the 'fancy' pretty mode, but you can do with much less in 'classic' mode. That again then makes it where companies decide not to switch afterall, cash their discount for thinking of switching, and having to upgrade the memory next year anyway, because the classical mode still uses about 750MB, which M$ forgot to mention, "but hey, it's as we said, less".
Since you obviously dind't read the Article, it mentions:
Can you tell me more about the e-government project based on open-source software that Steamboat Springs is hosting and developing?
We're publishing the project online so it's freely available--anyone who wants to get involved right now only has to download the components from our Web site. We haven't yet developed a site on Sourceforge but will be doing this in the summer.
Now go read the article. It ain't half bad. And I do think the guy does 'get' it.
Or use the power button. I have acpid installed just for that, when it locks, i can atleast safley shut it down. If you can't use acpid then sshing won't give you much result either I suppose.
... interesting to say the least.
Back on topic,
I had about 10days uptime, playing WoW with cedega for many hours (seriously, this is getting bad), but it did freeze on me. No keyboard response et al. Normally if the game crashes, i can always change virtual desktop. I do concider my PC to be pretty stable. But closed src ATi drivers, can make life
Hmm, well, even so, I do think that even the plainest desktop can make use of the features a GPU has to offer, then again, most of it probably is allready 2d-accelerated. I am sure however, that even with pure 3D based desktops (when 2d is fasing out on hardware) that there'll be some windowmanager will be made that is as light as possible and shift of some stuff to the GPU to improve performance even more.
What he obviously mean is Xbox Live service, with a whole bunch of vendor lock ins etc.
I also have been annoyed for years by broken CD's or worse, Keep CD's in cd drive to play game annoyances.
CD's gone as medium? Nah. CD's gone as 'protection' I sure hope so. Forget the CD's. CD's (with the game in question) should be purchasable for next to nothing and also available as downloadable ISO's. No more 'please insert disc to play' schemes. It's not about the CD anymore. All you have to do is purchase a key. True, you'd depend on the internet for short periods (verifying your key from time to time) but not only is that the only true way of banning out piracy, only valid keys are useable, but it would make life a lot easyer. Also you can lock a key to (email) address, and not your harddrive serial number or some lame bull. That if you loose your key, you can always re-get it. I think games like WoW actually, slowly are moving towards that direction. True you still have to pay the boxset for 35E to start with, which is somewhat of a downer still, but they don't have any cd copy protection bull, so install, and store.
So do I agree with the dude, since it's MS, i'm pretty sure I don't. They just wanna lock you in and glue you down.
Right .... I don't think so.
I think the parent IS right, but you misunderstood him.
Yes, your ATi card has 2D acceleration. True, your it accelerates your X11 or Windows 'classic' interface just fine. However this is not what people refer to when they say a good written window manager should actually ease the load.
The thing he is refering to, can be seen at windows poor implementation of desktops when setting a JPEG as background. This becomes clearly visible on somewhat older systems. The system doesn't convert the JPEG to BMP, the background native, but re-renders it everytime, resulting in ugly, slow screen updates. I guess they figured to save those 2mb worth of diskspace would be worth it, or maybe that 'hey we have mshtml.dll, let's use it for really everything'.
Looking at XP it really comes obvious (allthough 2K's semi transparancy showed this too). XP in teletubbies mode does put quite some stress on the CPU, since the 'blue parts' are images stuck over the default items, making it look all pretty. However most of this is still done by the CPU, since that kind of acceleration a GPU doesn't have (for 2D i don't think anyway).
Now back on topic, what I belive the parent (and I) mean, is that if you have a GPU, your windowmanager can make use of these functions, making transparancy of windows not CPU based, but GPU based, freeing up the CPU to do other things. (Alpha transparancy is done with the CPU, so those fancy transparant windows you see, cost CPU cycles). That and there will be far more possibilites with OpenGL (or dx10 *barf*) based interfaces, I'm sure you've seen luminicity video's. You can do all sorts of things to your windows/desktop without really using the CPU.
So yes, scrolling a window is 2D accelerated, has been for a while, creation of windows are accelerated, also for years (came across a manual of a PCI videocard pre 3D, that was all about 2D acceleration for 'windows') but a lot of features have been put into interfaces that are not using the GPU, but still heavly depend on CPU (dragging windows around that always update for example or the afor mentioned alpha transparancy aswell as themeability). This things _could_ run better on GPU's because, that's exactly what they are made for. 2D has left the building if you ask me and as 3D can do 2D emulation of some sort (think bios/bootup, old games stuff) we don't need 2D at all anymore.
Exactly! But on a side note,
.Net programmers because there is obviously a shortage.
.Net hype. .Net is all it's about, just like a few years ago it was all about Java.
.Net programmers? Because REAL programmers know what they are doing, they are good at what they do. And those are usually snatched by big companies early on, programming in C with vim or emacs of course : p
.Net developers (excluding those who are truely brilliant, but then again, those would be really good C/C++ programmers anyway) are writing the biggest pile of crap. Personally I don't have .Net on my windows partition. I refuse. I've run a few .Net applications however, like the ATi Control Center. Sure, it looks pretty, I suppose. But it's a pile of crap. And there is several other applications, .Net applications, that are big piles of crap. Seriously, where did these people learn to write code?
....
they are desperatly needing
Lots of companies wanna go with the
Now why are there not enough
Now the last thing I wanna say about
I think that is the problem nowadays anyway. You have to know less and less to write an application. Just drag something, drop something and it's pretty much a done deal. So now it's cheaper to develop Software I guess, I mean, we have all these easy tools that make it faster for us to write GUI's n such. Quality has dropped however, so I suppose if you concider support cost
Keeping with statistics...
They used a dutch portal or what not. Recently, it was shown that the dutch are one of the lowest firefox users in Europe right now. (under 10% I belive it was) Compared to say, Finland (or was it a nother country in scandinavia) with 40%.
It all depends on the eye of the beholder right?
I belive that is because Gaim 1.5 for instance, which is the current stable version, doesn't support (lib)jingle. From what I understand Gaim 2.0 will, and that then will be reflected in that page? I certainly hope so.
I thought Google Talk was going to use SIP for VoIP? I don't know much or anything about all this, but from what I understood they where going to use SIP, an open protocol. Didn't they also develop the GPLed jingle library to be used in other clients (like Gaim 2.0 will be using for example)?
Eitherway, if anybody has a good link with some more background info VoIP, SIP etc that would be great! I know what VoIP is, but can't figure out why there's so many different SIP providers, can I talk with my SIP program to other SIP programs for free? Or does that only work with the same clients (Like you can only use skype with skype).
Also, strange that google would use an IP sound codec, they do tend to use open solutions, and I'd guess them using the speex codec.
I thought the intention was to use SIP as the underlaying protocol.
yeah, with 64bit they could put in more memory, delaying the memleaks a bit more : )
So you basically want the Marty McFly's TV from Back to the Future, part II?
...)
Ask him, I'm sure he'll be glad to share his info : )
(I am serious actually, they used something like that in the movie, so I'm sure it's possible. Doesn't look that hightech, maybe back int he 90's it was different
I agree, we really don't know much about girls. Takes a lifetime to figure out women, so girls ... forget it.
However I have noticed that there's a lot of female firefly fans. Yes. Women dig firefly, which is good.
So my advice, Firefly. After that, Serenity of course. : )
Gotta keep on flyin'
now THAT is a good question.
Since nobody really has a good answer, I'll stick with enterprise level drives, like the raptor with it's 5 (yes FIVE) year warranty.
Exactly, it costs the same. And for geeks who want a sleek fast gaming only OS, they most likley use Prof and then nLite to strip everything including IE and MediaPlayer. If it where cheaper, then things would surely be different. OEMS would be more interested (saving 20 bux on the OS for example would allready be ok for them) especially since they can put mediaplayers back optionally. Since their versions usualyl come bundled with a whole bunch anyhow. Now, with the same price, what really is the point?