See my other post about the nature of MS's monopoly. I believe it to be far more "stable" than you assume it is because once MS locked down the application market and got 90+% of all software getting written for their OS, that is now an advantage that any conventional competitor can't overcome by normal means (assuming MS doesn't fundamentally screw up somehow, which they haven't yet, except for PR gaffes). It isn't just an issue of providing a technically superior and cheaper alternative, unless your OS also includes the entire range of application software a person would need before they would even consider switching, a conventional company with a good OS would still go broke trying to break into MS's turf.
As for Linux, I certainly wasn't arguing against it, but I will say your argument is just a bit optimistic, since you ignore Linux's weaknesses. The 2 that I see are its Unix heritage which makes it fairly user-unfriendly, and the lack of focus on ease-of-use and user-interaction by those who create it (geeks obviously need a lot less handholding than normal users, and, among other differences, they aren't afraid of a command-line). Don't misunderstand where I'm coming from, I've been running Debian Linux as my *only* desktop OS for a good 3 years now, and have no intentions of switching to anything else, much less going back to Windows, but I can also be objective about Linux's chances and am not blind to its warts.
I do think a FOSS operating system, maybe Linux, maybe something yet to be created, is the only thing that has a real chance of breaking down MS's monopoly.
First, if I've never heard of those grocers, then they *didn't* have a monopoly. They obviously weren't the only big players in groceries.
Second, it was the desktop market that I was referring to, including their OS (and the kitchen sink they add to it) and their Office Suite.
Third, word-of-mouth nor marketing could help OS2 or BeOS. Once you have most application software being written for your OS, you have an enormous advantage, even if technically superior alternatives exist (and OS2 even existed before MS completely locked down the market). This is what makes MS's monopoly more difficult to break down by a competitor, and different from most other monopoly situations, MS has 90+% of the market locked in to their OS. A competitor can't simply compete on price and features, without the ability to allow users to use existing software (written for Windows) or somehow provide the entire range of application software people would need to switch, a competitor will have an extremely hard time making any headway against MS.
As for Linux, I think Linux or some other FOSS operating system has the only chance of breaking MS's monopoly in the desktop market, since FOSS doesn't play by the conventional rules of commercial software, and is impossible for MS to destroy by normal means.
HIG research shows that such interfaces do not work. People overestimate their capabilities and try to use the advanced mode when they shouldn't, or need to use it the minute they need even one thing not in the default interface.
It seems to me, people overestimating their own ability isn't the fault of the interface. I agree its a dilemma, but not as bad as not offering the advanced interface at all. If GNOME takes the KISS principle too far they are just going to drive the power users to another alternative. Perhaps that has already happened.
The KDE code and GNOME code are completely different.
Yes, but not in the same way as saying COBOL code and Lisp code are completely different. GNOME is C written in a OO style, while C++ is, of course, very similar to C but with OO features. You can port between C and C++ a lot easier than most other combinations, indeed, unlike COBOL/Lisp, C++ compilers today will compile most ANSI C code without complaint. While a lot of the GUI code on both sides is very different because they use different GUI libraries, a lot of the foundation code in both systems isn't GUI dependent and could migrate a lot easier I believe than you think.
Microsoft Office, Photoshop, etc, are very powerful, but have very complex interfaces. iMovie, iPhoto, etc, are very simple, but limited in power.
Ultimately that is always the tradeoff you are going to have. Complex apps with complex features require a complex interface *to* those features. I was speaking less in terms of applications, and more in terms of just the DE's interface. To solve this problem, you don't need different DE's, I think, you just need different apps ranging from the dead simple to the complex. The environment remains the same, but the complexity is moved to the applications, with the whole point being that we end up with a common basic DE, but with a wide variation of file managers, editors, and other apps to solve the needs of different users.
Does a DE really have to have just one official file manager for it? I don't think so, decisions have to made about what the defaults are, but beyond that choice is essential to satisfy a large user base, and the whole argument is about trying to come up with one DE that could satisfy most folks, and provide Linux with a GUI standard that it currently doesn't have. If the KDE and GNOME people could agree on a common core, they can still go their own ways on the apps and utilities to satisfy different users and different goals, while at least saving all of us from having to keep 2 completely different and massive library suites on our system to use the different apps.
I just don't buy the argument that you have to have an entirely different system, from the foundation libraries providing I/O and GUI widgets right up to the file manager and other utilities, just to satisfy the differing goals of KISS and customizability. The 2 groups *could* find a lot of common ground, *if* they really wanted to, and really *tried*.
MS will topple not from legislation, but from better software that is marketed well
A monopoly, once established, is unlikely to go away through market forces unless the underlying industry itself becomes obsolete. However, I don't see the PC desktop OS market becoming obsolete anytime soon, so to take significant market share from MS among "normal" users, not geeks who are willing to take more radical steps, you have to offer an easy transition, and most importantly, you *have* to allow people to use existing software, 95% of which is dependent on Windows. That means providing compatibility with MS's OS, which is something MS could easily prevent through legal means, if it actually seriously threatened them. So I don't see how better software with better marketing alone can defeat MS now, now that their monopoly is firmly entrenched, especially when you consider that "better software" doesn't guaranttee you anything (OS/2 and BeOS were both better than Windows) and "better marketing" costs money, and thats a game that MS with its monopoly-enhanced cash flow, and billions already in reserve, can always win.
While a small amount of free software is good. If the amount of free software increased to say, 50%, software, as a profession, would disappear.
This sounds like SCO's argument against FOSS. There will always be the need for programmers, and there will always be "commercial" software, even if its just repackaged FOSS with value add-ons like support & training. The only thing likely to disappear with the spread of FOSS is artificially high prices on shrink-wrapped software and MS's domination-by-monopoly.
Uber-customizability and uber-simplicity are two mutually exclusive things
You know, call me crazy, but I just don't believe this. Think of the apps out there that have an "advanced interface" button. With it turned off, the app adopts the KISS principle, with a streamlined interface with only basic options, but if the user selects the advanced mode, the interface expands or even alters itself to support the needs of the power user. So the problem with KDE is that they don't adopt a KISS interface as standard and hide the complex stuff by default, while GNOME doesn't have the complex stuff at all.
If the two camps really wanted to, they could work together, I don't buy the argument that a feature from KDE couldn't be ported to GNOME or vice versa, but the reason they still won't work together on a common interface is because of the problems that were present from the very beginning of both DEs:
Qt is not free on all platforms
GNOME=C but KDE=C++ Even though Qt is now free on *nix, that isn't enough for the diehard Free Software folks, while the latter reason is still the real fundamental stumbling block, because GNOME people refuse to work with anything other than C, and the KDE people refuse to use any language they feel is inferior to C++. Having "wrappers" for other languages is a smoke screen, the language issue for the core of the DE is still what separates the 2 groups.
Theoretically, if the 2 groups could agree on a common language for the core, the rest of the integration could happen with little technical difficulty. Having a default KISS interface that can morph into a power user's interface in the same DE is not some technically impossible challenge, its just a matter of agreeing on an underlying standard framework and then adopting a coherent policy on the cosmetic and asthetic issues. The real reasons they won't integrate their work actually goes back to the very old reasons that still separate them.
You know, most people at least manage to say a few on-topic things before they get to the business of personal insults, yet this is your very first sentence. So, you were just tired and wanted to cut to the chase?:)
Who says that the SkyOS team has to write drivers for their OS? Of course they have to to get the ball rolling,
I believe the second sentence answers the question of the first sentence in the affirmative. Indeed, "of course".:)
Wow, I didn't know you had taken a poll of thousands of people to get their opinion on this subject. Aren't you a busy beaver!
Does anyone really *need* a poll to tell them this? The existence of Linux and the absence of any serious closed-source alternative to Windows with a comparable user and developer base similar to Linux is the proof. Secondly, I don't need a poll to tell me that 99.9% of the OS developers IN THE WORLD won't work for a corporation without compensation. You have 3 choices: pay them for their work, go the open-source route and pay them "in-kind", by letting them use your code in exchange for you using theirs, or the SkyOS Way(TM), by convincing developers whose free time is precious to work for possibly a future proprietary company without compensation and even no guaranttee that they will receive any "in-kind" compensation in the future. We know the first 2 work, Windows being an example of the former, and Linux the poster child of the second example. The third? Please.
SkyOS is already relevant.
Not one single example you give actually shows SkyOS's relevence *compared* to Linux or the BSDs or even Syllable or the projects working on an open BeOS. SkyOS offers nothing new, nothing to make it more interesting or more valuable than the others, and even has some disadvantages the others I mentioned don't have (closed-source, x86-only). I explain my reasoning for considering closed-source a disadvantage below.
Articles on Slashdot?
Anything on/. is automatically relevent? LOL!
Apparently the SkyOS team sold so many spots on the beta team that they had to close the signups list
With Linux/BSD, no one can close the list on you.
If you look on their webpage, they are about to pass 2,000,000 hits
ROFL! Well no wonder, since you keep submitting stories on them which gets them/.'ed at least twice a month!
They've also had numerous requests to buy the source from them (which they have turned down)
Everyone has a price, they just didn't offer enough money apparently. Now with Linux, I know I don't have to worry about someone selling it to the highest bidder and taking it from me.
and hardware companies send hardware to them all the time to get it running on their OS
You become relevent when the hardware companies write the drivers for their hardware for your OS *themselves*. When NVIDIA ports their Geforce driver to SkyOS, get back to me.
"Does that sound like an OS that isn't relevant or interesting?"
You want me to be honest?:)
but you have to start somewhere.
Starting isn't the problem, getting somewhere after that, is.
OS/2 died because... The reason BeOS died...
If they had been open-source, they would be alive and well today. Which was my point. Its easy for closed-source software to fail, its parent company to go bankrupt, or be bought out and then discarded, but with OSS, once its out, you can't get it back in the bottle.
I don't have a problem with someone working on an alternative OS, but I still have to agree with the earlier poster that I seriously doubt this OS will get anywhere as long as its closed source. They can do whatever they want, my only "problem", is just why does this OS get more coverage than Syllable?:)
Its the open and decentralized nature of Linux that allows it to succeed so well. Linux's success so far relies on one thing really, *drivers*. Linux supports a lot of hardware because hundreds of people volunteer their time to write drivers for their hardware, and that is only possible because the source for the OS is available, *and* because these people feel they are getting something back by contributing, and because some/many of them feel their code won't be "stolen" and made closed-source again by some commercial interest.
I know the SkyOS people are talented, but I'm simply saying that for a modern OS to succeed today, it has to support a lot of hardware, and no small group working by themselves can write all the drivers that are needed. No matter how many people they bring in to the development team, they will never match the ability of the open source community to get an OS working on a wide range of hardware (including non-x86). Outside of multi-billion dollar corporations, only the open-source effort behind Linux (and to a lesser extent, the BSDs) has succeeded in that goal.
I don't see any closed-source alternative succeeding in gaining marketshare on MS's turf. IBM with its hundreds of developers and millions of dollars couldn't do it with OS/2. BeOS lives on only as a dream in the mind of some diehard open-source hackers (who I truly hope succeed), and both of those OSes were arguably superior to Windows. No, the only way an OS can emerge and actually take marketshare away from MS's monopoly, is for that OS not only to be free-as-in-beer, but free-as-in-freedom as well.
So until they open-source their project, I can't see SkyOS as ever being relevent or interesting, because as long as they remain closed-source they will *never* attract enough developers to make it a viable OS. Sorry, but thats really the bottom line for me and thousands of others, never mind that, after Windows, and the subsequent enlightenment by Linux, I and many others won't spend even 5 minutes on another closed-source OS.
The truth is, I'd rather read about an update on Syllable. I almost downloaded that some months ago but chickened out when I realized how big the download would be. What are the odds of CheapBytes or someone similar putting Syllable on a CD? Does CheapBytes take requests?:)
Anyone who has any background in either cognitive psychology or human computer interaction (two fields especially related to the science of making usable user interfaces) will tell you that the more things objects you put in front of the user, the longer it will take them to visually scan all those objects for the things they want.
Please read what the OP said. He was referring to a context menu pop-up which IS NOT VISIBLE, and therefore isn't a distraction to a normal user because (s)he never sees it.
Your post is correct as far as it goes but it misses the point the OP was saying about dumbing down the desktop FOR EVERYONE, versus leaving in the advanced features for the advanced users when those features are unobstrusive (like context menus which are only visible with a right-click).
As for the intelligence of the users, some end users are idiots, but that really isn't the issue, the issue is who do you aim your product for? The lowest common denominator (which ends up being those idiots), the middle ground, or the more demanding advanced users?
All of which just goes to show its impossible to design an interface that suits everyone. The one that appeals to the "majority" will be the dumbed-down, idiot-proofed version that irritates and annoys the advanced users. This just makes me glad I'm using an OS that lets me *choose* my interface, which BTW, is neither Gnome or KDE. I've tried both and prefer KDE because its so customizable, but unlike a lot of others apparently, I never found any of the KDE apps to be essential, or "killer", apps. So as long as I continue to use apps that are desktop agnostic (I didn't choose them because they were, but it turns out that all the apps I do use are generic X11, or just GTK/QT based), all the heavy plumbing that both these UIs bring to the table is just wasted on me.
Within reason, but sometimes being excessively virtuous can get you into trouble too.:)
A solid, reliable OS converges, instead of just forking all over the place.
What you call "forks", I just call "distributions". The Linux *kernel* isn't forking, it is in fact solid, reliable, *and* converging, as virtually every separate kernel development eventually makes it into Linus's tree, like SE Linux or the preemptible kernel patch or the patch for embedded systems to allow them to remove unessential features from the kernel. All these things and most others may start separately but eventually make their way into the mainstream kernel, as all of the above made it into 2.6.
The *core* of any GNU/Linux system is usually the same on all distributions (kernel+GNU+misc), but all those different approaches to how to put a GNU/Linux system together is a good thing in the long run, because since we're dealing with open-source software (for the most part) in all these distributions, good ideas that show up in one are very likely to show up in others (just as you pointed out BSD borrowing from Linux and vice versa).
Think genetics and evolution: a large, dynamic population with a lot of mutation and interaction going on within. The bad "traits" that are created tend to die off, while the good "traits" get spread around. All those different distributions are *competing* with each other, and I happen to believe that wherever there is real competition, the consumer usually wins.
Since GNU/Linux is a combination of separate parts that becomes a melange, the need to *really* fork GNU/Linux is virtually unnecessary (Linux distros to me are essentially the same parts but organized and pieced together differently), as the system is already relatively "fine-grained" and decentralized. This is unlike BSD where the whole system (kernel + base + important utils) is treated as one entity, resulting in *real* forks (Free,Net,Open,etc) that *don't* converge, and eventually diverge even in the kernels.
Chaos is not just a destroyer, its also a *creator*. Long live the bazaar!:)
Yep, basically GCC has "conservative" (-O1), "standard" (-O2), and "aggressive" (-O3) optimizing. -O2 does all the safe optimizations, while -O3 does all of them, even the potentially risky ones. Note that the words I just gave are my own, GCC docs don't actually give the optimization levels a name. IIRC, the docs (GCC info pages that I spent about an hour going through some months ago to figure out all the optimization options) never even mention future optimization levels, so I think we're going to have just 3 basic levels for some time to come.
I'm just saying that it would be nice if enough people could sit together (even if virtually on a mailing list) and work out a common set of guidelines.
To a certain degree this is happening, these folks, for example have become something of a nexus for the disparate groups to agree on some common infrastructure for desktop operations on unix-like OSes running X.
On the other hand, if you are saying "all widget libraries should look and act the same", then I would have to disagree with you. I moved to Linux not just because it was a *nix look-alike, and I was interested in that, but also because I didn't want one company/person/organization telling me how I should be able to use my computer, and I don't want that kind of thinking to start with Linux. I *want* there to be competing desktops, and multiple widget libraries, because in the *long* run we all win with variety and competition. For the people who don't want to have to make these decisions and actually think for themselves, they can have someone else make the decisions for them, like MS or Apple, or even the various consumer-oriented Linux distros (present and future), but I WANT THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE, thank-you-very-much. So, please repeat after me, "CHOICE IS GOOD", "CHOICE IS GOOD"...:)
P.S. I don't care for Gnome *or* KDE, they both feel too heavy to me, especially since none of the apps I currently use are specifically written for any desktop paradigm, thus I get no advantage out of all that massive internal plumbing that both systems have. For me the choice is Xfce. Light-weight, but easy to configure, themable, and functional. Not too little, not too much, its just right!:)
Not to put too fine a point on it... well, I guess thats exactly what I am doing:), but Qt is only under GPL on the Linux and Mac platforms, *not* Windows. In fact, TT's only non-commercial version for Windows is now out-dated, officially unsupported, and only available for MS's compiler, in addition to being only free-as-in-beer. If you want your apps to run on the Windows platform, then Qt is NOT free at all, whereas Gtk has been ported to all 3 platforms and is, of course, free-as-in-freedom on all 3.
TT has the right to do it that way (keep it non-free on Windows), its their code after all, and if you're only concerned with Linux, there is no problem, but Qt is not a real option for many cross-platform, open-source projects because of the absense of a free Qt, even just a free-as-in-beer one, on the Windows side.
AMD has to spend the big bucks too, although I imagine they are spending a little less.
Actually, they didn't spend very much, since x86-64 is just an extension of an existing, mature, proven, instruction set architecture (IA-32). Intel is the one that spent the big bucks because Itanium is a brand new architecture from the ground up. Extending x86 is really all AMD could do, because they *don't* have the R&D budget that Intel has.
the Opteron succeeds not because it is 64-bit, but because it has another FPU core, and twice as many FPU registers
Actually you're getting your register types mixed up.:) The Opteron/Athlon64 doubles the number of general purpose registers and doubles the number of 128 bit SIMD registers (used for MMX/SSE2/3DNOW), but does not increase the number of x86 legacy FP registers. Of course, much FP math is now being done with the SIMD registers using SSE2 which provides double precision floating point (64 bits precision), so the doubling of them helps greatly, but for those few who still need the high 80 bit precision of the x86 style FP core, they are still there, but their number hasn't increased.
Hmmm, under 2.6/proc/pci is now a legacy interface.
There is some info under/proc/bus/pci, but alsa's info (is that what you're using?) should be accessible via/proc/asound.
Also, everyone should take note of the new sysfs that 2.6 introduces which moves some of the info normally in/proc to a new location (wherever you choose to mount it, normally/sys). This will get more useful as software gets rewritten to use it.
However people generally want FAST (regardless of if they need it or not)
What will help the midrange/desktop market is the kind of tecnology MSI, for example, has put into their latest mobo's for the Athlon64 (K8T Neo). Dynamic overclocking allows the system to run really fast (up to 10% overclock in their implementation) only when its *needed* (when the system is under heavy load), otherwise the system will throttle *down* the CPU when its not being used (down to 800Mhz when idle, instead of always running at 2000+Mhz). With this kind of technology people could still get the speed they want, without shortening the life of their system by permanently overclocking it (when 85% of the time the extra speed is wasted anyway). Why its taking so long for this kind of idea (which originates from the mobile, battery-powered market of course) to reach the desktop is what amazes me, since it would solve a lot problems we have now (speed when its really needed, energy conservation and reduced heat dissipation otherwise).
> but there's 'one way' that things are done and it's the classic Unix way. You can pick up an O'Reilly book from 1993
This is because...
> and it doesn't change
Which is mainly because of...
> it has a smaller userbase
On the other hand...
>[Linux] is a big snarl of forks
mainly because it has a huge userbase and thus a lot of change is happening. Now this really comes down to what each individual wants and needs, but IMO, change is *not* a bad thing, which is why I prefer Linux over the others, simply because the level of development, and in the case of the kernel specifically, of hardware support, is higher. Frankly, I suspect that if BSD eventually succeeded as well as Linux has now, it would kill the very thing you admire it for. This is why I always get an odd feeling from people defending BSD, as if you admire it for *not* being popular, for its slow, top-down development, that you see its *lack* of change as a virtue. All of which makes me think the endless Linux-vs-BSD arguments are pointless, since it seems to me that both sides have fundamentally different goals in mind for their OS.
If you only have room for 16k of data in your L1 cache and all your size_t, pointers, and in most cases longs too take twice as much memory at worst it is like you have only 8k of cache now compared to the 32bit version!
Let me requote the original parent for clarity:
In fact, 64-bit architecture means a lot more than pointer size, and merely counting bits is no way to estimate performance.
From the context, the OP was speaking in general terms, and his only point was that the move to a 64 bit architecture from a 32bit one, almost always involves more than just the 32-to-64 switch.
For example, you're claim that the cache is effectively cut in half isn't true with the AMD64 architecture, which can run 32bit software natively (w/o emulation) and 64 bit apps can still work with 32 bit (or less) data if it wants, so only memory pointers in a 64 bit app double in size, but not necessarily the rest of your data. The effectiveness of the cache is still reduced, but not by half, and the other improvements, like the doubling of general purpose registers, and the slight extension of the CPU's pipeline, will offset the added bulk of 2x pointers.
Since AMD64 is an extension of the IA32 architecture, and is still compatible with it, not everything that was 32 bits automatically becomes 64 bits, which is why AMD64 looks so interesting, as you can basically have the best of both worlds, shifting to 64 bits only when it really benefits you (although odds are the extra registers of the AMD64 will probably result in a lot of 32 bit apps seeing better performance if recompiled).
How did this get the "Insightful" tag? If anything it probably deserves a "Troll" tag, since I'm falling for it.:)
First of all,
antiwar != antiamerican
since that trap of accusing those who disagree with the war of being "unamerican" eventually led to the Vietnam tragedy, and also,
antiwar != "the Left"
since there are plenty of conservatives who aren't sure Bush Jr. handled Iraq the best way either.
Maybe there are folks saying "Bush lied" because, well, he lied? It certainly appears so now. Maybe there are folks saying "its about the oil", because all of the other excuses Bush Jr. has given haven't panned out?
No one is arguing that deposing bad dictators is a bad thing, its simply never been the official foreign policy of the US, prior to Bush Jr, to do so as a matter of course, and a lot of patriotic Americans are questioning the wisdom of us proclaiming ourselves the world's arbiter of what is a "good" govenment versus a "bad" government, never mind how the rest of the world feels about us just going around and deposing anyone that has ticked us off that week.
If for no other reason, its simply because the lives of America's young are not seen as worth the price for ridding the world of one more 2 bit dictator. We've now lost ~500 kids in Iraq, and I still don't see justification for their loss and sacrifice. There are plenty other dictators like SH, and there will plenty more that follow him in the future, and they won't be worth the lives of our kids either.
I don't believe you can catagorize people so easily as you think. Even among US geeks there are obviously very diverse views on larger issues. This thread certainly proves that.
In certain places in America, individuals of a certain skin tone are not allowed to use a pay phone (Police harass them for loitering). In certain places in America they have police who murder individuals of a certain skin tone because...well because they are inidviduals of a certain skin tone. When you make the decesion that skin tone is more important than the lives of certain individuals you are a majorly fucked up society.
No one denies that racism exists in the US, but to suggest that institutionalized racism, condoned and carried out by the government , is a regular practice here is absurd. We only need to look at the Rodney King incident to see that there is a huge difference between the US government's treatment of blacks and SA's treatment of women. So different as to simply be incomparable with one another.
"Jan.8, 2004: The Saudi Arabian security forces yesterday detained a Saudi girl, after they opened fire at her while [she was] driving a car on Monday late night in Tabouk, to the north of the Kingdom, where females are forbidden from driving a car."
Also in the US, if police action leads to the death of someone, there is at the very least a public reporting and likely debate, usually there are charges or disciplinary actions brought against the police officers involved, even the federal government may, as in the Rodney King case, file civil rights charges on behalf of the victims if the state's actions are seen as deficient. And if the crime is caught on tape, as with Rodney King, you are almost guarantteed a national scandal played out on the evening news.
In Saudia Arabia by contrast, the murder of 15 teenage girls is referred to as simply "carelessness", and after an initial promise of action and investigation into the matter, the promise is later revoked, when most of the international media has gone away, and the domestic media is too scared to continue its questioning of the untouchable Mutaween (religious police).
Please don't try to equate the two, they aren't the same. Police in the US don't beat people for being improperly dressed, they don't beat up boys for publicly associating with girls, they certainly don't force people back into a burning building to their deaths simply because they aren't wearing a scarf, and they don't try to kill people just because the person doesn't have the government's permission to use a car.
Finally, lets not also forget that the same government that defended its religious police in this incident, is the same government that supports and funds violently anti-Western Islamic extremist schools in its own country, even today, years after 9/11. It would be like the US government subsidizing a national KKK organisation today, even after the civil rights movement and the public outcry from Martin Luther King's assassination.
There is no comparison here. For all of America's faults, and it has plenty (especially considering the current administration), it is not anywhere close to being in the same league as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and N. Korea.
AMD's latest CPU's are 64 bit...all are in the x86 family. The later CPU's have a few extra instructions, math copro's,....
AMD's AMD64 architecture (on Opteron and Athlon64 CPUs) also doubles the number of general purpose registers and doubles the number of 128 bit XMM registers (for SSE2 and FP) from 8 each to 16 each. For some apps, being recompiled with a compiler aware of those extra registers will make a big difference.
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See my other post about the nature of MS's monopoly. I believe it to be far more "stable" than you assume it is because once MS locked down the application market and got 90+% of all software getting written for their OS, that is now an advantage that any conventional competitor can't overcome by normal means (assuming MS doesn't fundamentally screw up somehow, which they haven't yet, except for PR gaffes). It isn't just an issue of providing a technically superior and cheaper alternative, unless your OS also includes the entire range of application software a person would need before they would even consider switching, a conventional company with a good OS would still go broke trying to break into MS's turf.
As for Linux, I certainly wasn't arguing against it, but I will say your argument is just a bit optimistic, since you ignore Linux's weaknesses. The 2 that I see are its Unix heritage which makes it fairly user-unfriendly, and the lack of focus on ease-of-use and user-interaction by those who create it (geeks obviously need a lot less handholding than normal users, and, among other differences, they aren't afraid of a command-line). Don't misunderstand where I'm coming from, I've been running Debian Linux as my *only* desktop OS for a good 3 years now, and have no intentions of switching to anything else, much less going back to Windows, but I can also be objective about Linux's chances and am not blind to its warts.
I do think a FOSS operating system, maybe Linux, maybe something yet to be created, is the only thing that has a real chance of breaking down MS's monopoly.
First, if I've never heard of those grocers, then they *didn't* have a monopoly. They obviously weren't the only big players in groceries.
Second, it was the desktop market that I was referring to, including their OS (and the kitchen sink they add to it) and their Office Suite.
Third, word-of-mouth nor marketing could help OS2 or BeOS. Once you have most application software being written for your OS, you have an enormous advantage, even if technically superior alternatives exist (and OS2 even existed before MS completely locked down the market). This is what makes MS's monopoly more difficult to break down by a competitor, and different from most other monopoly situations, MS has 90+% of the market locked in to their OS. A competitor can't simply compete on price and features, without the ability to allow users to use existing software (written for Windows) or somehow provide the entire range of application software people would need to switch, a competitor will have an extremely hard time making any headway against MS.
As for Linux, I think Linux or some other FOSS operating system has the only chance of breaking MS's monopoly in the desktop market, since FOSS doesn't play by the conventional rules of commercial software, and is impossible for MS to destroy by normal means.
It seems to me, people overestimating their own ability isn't the fault of the interface. I agree its a dilemma, but not as bad as not offering the advanced interface at all. If GNOME takes the KISS principle too far they are just going to drive the power users to another alternative. Perhaps that has already happened.
Yes, but not in the same way as saying COBOL code and Lisp code are completely different. GNOME is C written in a OO style, while C++ is, of course, very similar to C but with OO features. You can port between C and C++ a lot easier than most other combinations, indeed, unlike COBOL/Lisp, C++ compilers today will compile most ANSI C code without complaint. While a lot of the GUI code on both sides is very different because they use different GUI libraries, a lot of the foundation code in both systems isn't GUI dependent and could migrate a lot easier I believe than you think.
Ultimately that is always the tradeoff you are going to have. Complex apps with complex features require a complex interface *to* those features. I was speaking less in terms of applications, and more in terms of just the DE's interface. To solve this problem, you don't need different DE's, I think, you just need different apps ranging from the dead simple to the complex. The environment remains the same, but the complexity is moved to the applications, with the whole point being that we end up with a common basic DE, but with a wide variation of file managers, editors, and other apps to solve the needs of different users.
Does a DE really have to have just one official file manager for it? I don't think so, decisions have to made about what the defaults are, but beyond that choice is essential to satisfy a large user base, and the whole argument is about trying to come up with one DE that could satisfy most folks, and provide Linux with a GUI standard that it currently doesn't have. If the KDE and GNOME people could agree on a common core, they can still go their own ways on the apps and utilities to satisfy different users and different goals, while at least saving all of us from having to keep 2 completely different and massive library suites on our system to use the different apps.
I just don't buy the argument that you have to have an entirely different system, from the foundation libraries providing I/O and GUI widgets right up to the file manager and other utilities, just to satisfy the differing goals of KISS and customizability. The 2 groups *could* find a lot of common ground, *if* they really wanted to, and really *tried*.
A monopoly, once established, is unlikely to go away through market forces unless the underlying industry itself becomes obsolete. However, I don't see the PC desktop OS market becoming obsolete anytime soon, so to take significant market share from MS among "normal" users, not geeks who are willing to take more radical steps, you have to offer an easy transition, and most importantly, you *have* to allow people to use existing software, 95% of which is dependent on Windows. That means providing compatibility with MS's OS, which is something MS could easily prevent through legal means, if it actually seriously threatened them. So I don't see how better software with better marketing alone can defeat MS now, now that their monopoly is firmly entrenched, especially when you consider that "better software" doesn't guaranttee you anything (OS/2 and BeOS were both better than Windows) and "better marketing" costs money, and thats a game that MS with its monopoly-enhanced cash flow, and billions already in reserve, can always win.
This sounds like SCO's argument against FOSS. There will always be the need for programmers, and there will always be "commercial" software, even if its just repackaged FOSS with value add-ons like support & training. The only thing likely to disappear with the spread of FOSS is artificially high prices on shrink-wrapped software and MS's domination-by-monopoly.
You know, call me crazy, but I just don't believe this. Think of the apps out there that have an "advanced interface" button. With it turned off, the app adopts the KISS principle, with a streamlined interface with only basic options, but if the user selects the advanced mode, the interface expands or even alters itself to support the needs of the power user. So the problem with KDE is that they don't adopt a KISS interface as standard and hide the complex stuff by default, while GNOME doesn't have the complex stuff at all.
If the two camps really wanted to, they could work together, I don't buy the argument that a feature from KDE couldn't be ported to GNOME or vice versa, but the reason they still won't work together on a common interface is because of the problems that were present from the very beginning of both DEs:
Qt is not free on all platforms
GNOME=C but KDE=C++
Even though Qt is now free on *nix, that isn't enough for the diehard Free Software folks, while the latter reason is still the real fundamental stumbling block, because GNOME people refuse to work with anything other than C, and the KDE people refuse to use any language they feel is inferior to C++. Having "wrappers" for other languages is a smoke screen, the language issue for the core of the DE is still what separates the 2 groups.
Theoretically, if the 2 groups could agree on a common language for the core, the rest of the integration could happen with little technical difficulty. Having a default KISS interface that can morph into a power user's interface in the same DE is not some technically impossible challenge, its just a matter of agreeing on an underlying standard framework and then adopting a coherent policy on the cosmetic and asthetic issues. The real reasons they won't integrate their work actually goes back to the very old reasons that still separate them.
You know, most people at least manage to say a few on-topic things before they get to the business of personal insults, yet this is your very first sentence. So, you were just tired and wanted to cut to the chase? :)
I believe the second sentence answers the question of the first sentence in the affirmative. Indeed, "of course". :)
Does anyone really *need* a poll to tell them this? The existence of Linux and the absence of any serious closed-source alternative to Windows with a comparable user and developer base similar to Linux is the proof. Secondly, I don't need a poll to tell me that 99.9% of the OS developers IN THE WORLD won't work for a corporation without compensation. You have 3 choices: pay them for their work, go the open-source route and pay them "in-kind", by letting them use your code in exchange for you using theirs, or the SkyOS Way(TM), by convincing developers whose free time is precious to work for possibly a future proprietary company without compensation and even no guaranttee that they will receive any "in-kind" compensation in the future. We know the first 2 work, Windows being an example of the former, and Linux the poster child of the second example. The third? Please.
Not one single example you give actually shows SkyOS's relevence *compared* to Linux or the BSDs or even Syllable or the projects working on an open BeOS. SkyOS offers nothing new, nothing to make it more interesting or more valuable than the others, and even has some disadvantages the others I mentioned don't have (closed-source, x86-only). I explain my reasoning for considering closed-source a disadvantage below.
Anything on /. is automatically relevent? LOL!
With Linux/BSD, no one can close the list on you.
ROFL! Well no wonder, since you keep submitting stories on them which gets them /.'ed at least twice a month!
Everyone has a price, they just didn't offer enough money apparently. Now with Linux, I know I don't have to worry about someone selling it to the highest bidder and taking it from me.
You become relevent when the hardware companies write the drivers for their hardware for your OS *themselves*. When NVIDIA ports their Geforce driver to SkyOS, get back to me.
You want me to be honest? :)
Starting isn't the problem, getting somewhere after that, is.
If they had been open-source, they would be alive and well today. Which was my point. Its easy for closed-source software to fail, its parent company to go bankrupt, or be bought out and then discarded, but with OSS, once its out, you can't get it back in the bottle.
I don't have a problem with someone working on an alternative OS, but I still have to agree with the earlier poster that I seriously doubt this OS will get anywhere as long as its closed source. They can do whatever they want, my only "problem", is just why does this OS get more coverage than Syllable? :)
:)
Its the open and decentralized nature of Linux that allows it to succeed so well. Linux's success so far relies on one thing really, *drivers*. Linux supports a lot of hardware because hundreds of people volunteer their time to write drivers for their hardware, and that is only possible because the source for the OS is available, *and* because these people feel they are getting something back by contributing, and because some/many of them feel their code won't be "stolen" and made closed-source again by some commercial interest.
I know the SkyOS people are talented, but I'm simply saying that for a modern OS to succeed today, it has to support a lot of hardware, and no small group working by themselves can write all the drivers that are needed. No matter how many people they bring in to the development team, they will never match the ability of the open source community to get an OS working on a wide range of hardware (including non-x86). Outside of multi-billion dollar corporations, only the open-source effort behind Linux (and to a lesser extent, the BSDs) has succeeded in that goal.
I don't see any closed-source alternative succeeding in gaining marketshare on MS's turf. IBM with its hundreds of developers and millions of dollars couldn't do it with OS/2. BeOS lives on only as a dream in the mind of some diehard open-source hackers (who I truly hope succeed), and both of those OSes were arguably superior to Windows. No, the only way an OS can emerge and actually take marketshare away from MS's monopoly, is for that OS not only to be free-as-in-beer, but free-as-in-freedom as well.
So until they open-source their project, I can't see SkyOS as ever being relevent or interesting, because as long as they remain closed-source they will *never* attract enough developers to make it a viable OS. Sorry, but thats really the bottom line for me and thousands of others, never mind that, after Windows, and the subsequent enlightenment by Linux, I and many others won't spend even 5 minutes on another closed-source OS.
The truth is, I'd rather read about an update on Syllable. I almost downloaded that some months ago but chickened out when I realized how big the download would be. What are the odds of CheapBytes or someone similar putting Syllable on a CD? Does CheapBytes take requests?
Please read what the OP said. He was referring to a context menu pop-up which IS NOT VISIBLE, and therefore isn't a distraction to a normal user because (s)he never sees it.
Your post is correct as far as it goes but it misses the point the OP was saying about dumbing down the desktop FOR EVERYONE, versus leaving in the advanced features for the advanced users when those features are unobstrusive (like context menus which are only visible with a right-click).
As for the intelligence of the users, some end users are idiots, but that really isn't the issue, the issue is who do you aim your product for? The lowest common denominator (which ends up being those idiots), the middle ground, or the more demanding advanced users?
All of which just goes to show its impossible to design an interface that suits everyone. The one that appeals to the "majority" will be the dumbed-down, idiot-proofed version that irritates and annoys the advanced users. This just makes me glad I'm using an OS that lets me *choose* my interface, which BTW, is neither Gnome or KDE. I've tried both and prefer KDE because its so customizable, but unlike a lot of others apparently, I never found any of the KDE apps to be essential, or "killer", apps. So as long as I continue to use apps that are desktop agnostic (I didn't choose them because they were, but it turns out that all the apps I do use are generic X11, or just GTK/QT based), all the heavy plumbing that both these UIs bring to the table is just wasted on me.
Within reason, but sometimes being excessively virtuous can get you into trouble too.
What you call "forks", I just call "distributions". The Linux *kernel* isn't forking, it is in fact solid, reliable, *and* converging, as virtually every separate kernel development eventually makes it into Linus's tree, like SE Linux or the preemptible kernel patch or the patch for embedded systems to allow them to remove unessential features from the kernel. All these things and most others may start separately but eventually make their way into the mainstream kernel, as all of the above made it into 2.6.
The *core* of any GNU/Linux system is usually the same on all distributions (kernel+GNU+misc), but all those different approaches to how to put a GNU/Linux system together is a good thing in the long run, because since we're dealing with open-source software (for the most part) in all these distributions, good ideas that show up in one are very likely to show up in others (just as you pointed out BSD borrowing from Linux and vice versa).
Think genetics and evolution: a large, dynamic population with a lot of mutation and interaction going on within. The bad "traits" that are created tend to die off, while the good "traits" get spread around. All those different distributions are *competing* with each other, and I happen to believe that wherever there is real competition, the consumer usually wins.
Since GNU/Linux is a combination of separate parts that becomes a melange, the need to *really* fork GNU/Linux is virtually unnecessary (Linux distros to me are essentially the same parts but organized and pieced together differently), as the system is already relatively "fine-grained" and decentralized. This is unlike BSD where the whole system (kernel + base + important utils) is treated as one entity, resulting in *real* forks (Free,Net,Open,etc) that *don't* converge, and eventually diverge even in the kernels.
Chaos is not just a destroyer, its also a *creator*. Long live the bazaar!
Yep, basically GCC has "conservative" (-O1), "standard" (-O2), and "aggressive" (-O3) optimizing. -O2 does all the safe optimizations, while -O3 does all of them, even the potentially risky ones. Note that the words I just gave are my own, GCC docs don't actually give the optimization levels a name. IIRC, the docs (GCC info pages that I spent about an hour going through some months ago to figure out all the optimization options) never even mention future optimization levels, so I think we're going to have just 3 basic levels for some time to come.
To a certain degree this is happening, these folks, for example have become something of a nexus for the disparate groups to agree on some common infrastructure for desktop operations on unix-like OSes running X.
On the other hand, if you are saying "all widget libraries should look and act the same", then I would have to disagree with you. I moved to Linux not just because it was a *nix look-alike, and I was interested in that, but also because I didn't want one company/person/organization telling me how I should be able to use my computer, and I don't want that kind of thinking to start with Linux. I *want* there to be competing desktops, and multiple widget libraries, because in the *long* run we all win with variety and competition. For the people who don't want to have to make these decisions and actually think for themselves, they can have someone else make the decisions for them, like MS or Apple, or even the various consumer-oriented Linux distros (present and future), but I WANT THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE, thank-you-very-much. So, please repeat after me, "CHOICE IS GOOD", "CHOICE IS GOOD"...
P.S. I don't care for Gnome *or* KDE, they both feel too heavy to me, especially since none of the apps I currently use are specifically written for any desktop paradigm, thus I get no advantage out of all that massive internal plumbing that both systems have. For me the choice is Xfce. Light-weight, but easy to configure, themable, and functional. Not too little, not too much, its just right!
Not to put too fine a point on it... well, I guess thats exactly what I am doing
TT has the right to do it that way (keep it non-free on Windows), its their code after all, and if you're only concerned with Linux, there is no problem, but Qt is not a real option for many cross-platform, open-source projects because of the absense of a free Qt, even just a free-as-in-beer one, on the Windows side.
Actually, they didn't spend very much, since x86-64 is just an extension of an existing, mature, proven, instruction set architecture (IA-32). Intel is the one that spent the big bucks because Itanium is a brand new architecture from the ground up. Extending x86 is really all AMD could do, because they *don't* have the R&D budget that Intel has.
Actually you're getting your register types mixed up.
Hmmm, under 2.6 /proc/pci is now a legacy interface.
/proc/bus/pci, but alsa's info (is that what you're using?) should be accessible via /proc/asound.
/proc to a new location (wherever you choose to mount it, normally /sys). This will get more useful as software gets rewritten to use it.
There is some info under
Also, everyone should take note of the new sysfs that 2.6 introduces which moves some of the info normally in
What will help the midrange/desktop market is the kind of tecnology MSI, for example, has put into their latest mobo's for the Athlon64 (K8T Neo). Dynamic overclocking allows the system to run really fast (up to 10% overclock in their implementation) only when its *needed* (when the system is under heavy load), otherwise the system will throttle *down* the CPU when its not being used (down to 800Mhz when idle, instead of always running at 2000+Mhz). With this kind of technology people could still get the speed they want, without shortening the life of their system by permanently overclocking it (when 85% of the time the extra speed is wasted anyway). Why its taking so long for this kind of idea (which originates from the mobile, battery-powered market of course) to reach the desktop is what amazes me, since it would solve a lot problems we have now (speed when its really needed, energy conservation and reduced heat dissipation otherwise).
This is because...
Which is mainly because of...
On the other hand...
mainly because it has a huge userbase and thus a lot of change is happening. Now this really comes down to what each individual wants and needs, but IMO, change is *not* a bad thing, which is why I prefer Linux over the others, simply because the level of development, and in the case of the kernel specifically, of hardware support, is higher. Frankly, I suspect that if BSD eventually succeeded as well as Linux has now, it would kill the very thing you admire it for. This is why I always get an odd feeling from people defending BSD, as if you admire it for *not* being popular, for its slow, top-down development, that you see its *lack* of change as a virtue. All of which makes me think the endless Linux-vs-BSD arguments are pointless, since it seems to me that both sides have fundamentally different goals in mind for their OS.
FYI: as of GCC 3.3.3, there *IS* nothing higher than -O3...
If you only have room for 16k of data in your L1 cache and all your size_t, pointers, and in most cases longs too take twice as much memory at worst it is like you have only 8k of cache now compared to the 32bit version!
Let me requote the original parent for clarity:
In fact, 64-bit architecture means a lot more than pointer size, and merely counting bits is no way to estimate performance.
From the context, the OP was speaking in general terms, and his only point was that the move to a 64 bit architecture from a 32bit one, almost always involves more than just the 32-to-64 switch.
For example, you're claim that the cache is effectively cut in half isn't true with the AMD64 architecture, which can run 32bit software natively (w/o emulation) and 64 bit apps can still work with 32 bit (or less) data if it wants, so only memory pointers in a 64 bit app double in size, but not necessarily the rest of your data. The effectiveness of the cache is still reduced, but not by half, and the other improvements, like the doubling of general purpose registers, and the slight extension of the CPU's pipeline, will offset the added bulk of 2x pointers.
Since AMD64 is an extension of the IA32 architecture, and is still compatible with it, not everything that was 32 bits automatically becomes 64 bits, which is why AMD64 looks so interesting, as you can basically have the best of both worlds, shifting to 64 bits only when it really benefits you (although odds are the extra registers of the AMD64 will probably result in a lot of 32 bit apps seeing better performance if recompiled).
How did this get the "Insightful" tag? If anything it probably deserves a "Troll" tag, since I'm falling for it. :)
First of all,
antiwar != antiamerican
since that trap of accusing those who disagree with the war of being "unamerican" eventually led to the Vietnam tragedy, and also,
antiwar != "the Left"
since there are plenty of conservatives who aren't sure Bush Jr. handled Iraq the best way either.
Maybe there are folks saying "Bush lied" because, well, he lied? It certainly appears so now. Maybe there are folks saying "its about the oil", because all of the other excuses Bush Jr. has given haven't panned out?
No one is arguing that deposing bad dictators is a bad thing, its simply never been the official foreign policy of the US, prior to Bush Jr, to do so as a matter of course, and a lot of patriotic Americans are questioning the wisdom of us proclaiming ourselves the world's arbiter of what is a "good" govenment versus a "bad" government, never mind how the rest of the world feels about us just going around and deposing anyone that has ticked us off that week.
If for no other reason, its simply because the lives of America's young are not seen as worth the price for ridding the world of one more 2 bit dictator. We've now lost ~500 kids in Iraq, and I still don't see justification for their loss and sacrifice. There are plenty other dictators like SH, and there will plenty more that follow him in the future, and they won't be worth the lives of our kids either.
I don't believe you can catagorize people so easily as you think. Even among US geeks there are obviously very diverse views on larger issues. This thread certainly proves that.
No one denies that racism exists in the US, but to suggest that institutionalized racism, condoned and carried out by the government , is a regular practice here is absurd. We only need to look at the Rodney King incident to see that there is a huge difference between the US government's treatment of blacks and SA's treatment of women. So different as to simply be incomparable with one another.
In the US for example the police won't shoot at you if you don't have a license to drive a car, unlike in SA where women can't drive
Also in the US, if police action leads to the death of someone, there is at the very least a public reporting and likely debate, usually there are charges or disciplinary actions brought against the police officers involved, even the federal government may, as in the Rodney King case, file civil rights charges on behalf of the victims if the state's actions are seen as deficient. And if the crime is caught on tape, as with Rodney King, you are almost guarantteed a national scandal played out on the evening news.
In Saudia Arabia by contrast, the murder of 15 teenage girls is referred to as simply "carelessness", and after an initial promise of action and investigation into the matter, the promise is later revoked , when most of the international media has gone away, and the domestic media is too scared to continue its questioning of the untouchable Mutaween (religious police).
Please don't try to equate the two, they aren't the same. Police in the US don't beat people for being improperly dressed, they don't beat up boys for publicly associating with girls, they certainly don't force people back into a burning building to their deaths simply because they aren't wearing a scarf, and they don't try to kill people just because the person doesn't have the government's permission to use a car.
Finally, lets not also forget that the same government that defended its religious police in this incident, is the same government that supports and funds violently anti-Western Islamic extremist schools in its own country, even today, years after 9/11. It would be like the US government subsidizing a national KKK organisation today, even after the civil rights movement and the public outcry from Martin Luther King's assassination.
There is no comparison here. For all of America's faults, and it has plenty (especially considering the current administration), it is not anywhere close to being in the same league as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and N. Korea.