How long before we see a consumer product like this, supporting Linux from the beginning? I really need to replace my old and busted notebook, but is nearly impossible to find one, here at Brazil, that fully supports any flavor of Linux and even harder to find one that comes with Linux pre-installed!
I don't have any use for Windows... why should I be forced to buy it when I get a new notebook?
At first we had issues with the IMAP access, it was too slow, we thought that it was because of the authentication backend... but in the end was because we set a low limit on how many IMAP processes should be spawned by the cyrmaster. We removed the limit, and the IMAP became blazing fast.
But, we still had an occasional slowdown. It turns out that the HORDE groupware we're using to provide webmail was not designed with performance in mind, so when you throw lots of requests at it, the database backend is flooded with tousands of queries. It happens because when you do anything inside Horde it has to do some sort of query... So, MySQL was handling about 1000 queries/s!
Solution? Split the critical services among several servers...
Sometimes is just easier to pinpoint problems when you have an isolated environment, running one, or only related services.
For example, I had lot's of headaches tunning a mailserver running a PostFix+Cyrus+Ldap, plus Apache+PHP+MySQL+IMP webmail. We started with 3000+ users, and it was everything ok until we reached 8000... then all sorts of performance issues appeared, an we could only understand what was going bad when whe isolated the services on separated machines.
If Google's need for server is as big as it appears, it makes sense to design and build custom servers for themselves. But my gess is that they'll be following the Sun Niagara architeture, with multi-core/multi-processor designs.
My point, Google doesn't need raw performance, they need an architeture that scales well, supports lots of concurrent requests, and consumes very little power to make cluster mantaining costs less expensive. Well, thinking this way, at this point it looks like Google might buy Sun to get their Niagara processor;-)
In the end, I don't think such a processor would be seen on a desktop computer.
They'll make their API public, and them someone at the Gnumeric or OO.o Calc team can quickly devellop a plugin to publish and open the files directly from the web. The KDE team can devellop a KIOSlave for filesystem transparecy, and Gnome folks can do the same for GnomeFS!
I'm talking about "Grandma" here. I doubt that she is concerned about Radeon drivers, and development libraries!
By the way, I had problems with a Radeon 9200 too... it was unstable even under Windows. So I gave it to a friend and bought a nVidia card. Problem solved.
How many Windows users had actually installed it? Most of them bought their PCs with Windows pre-installed, and have no clue about how to do it themselves.
How many of the average users out there know how to do a simple thing, like install a printer? Or how to keep their Windows up to date? Or how to keep it free from virus, trojans, spywares, etc?
IMHO Ubunutu today is BETTER AND EASIER than WindowsXP for everyday usage, because it's safer, comes with more usefull software bundled, has better security and it's harder to break.
How can packaging be such an issue for the commercial vendors, when huge projects like KDE, GNOME, PostGres, MySQL, etc... manage to have packages for all major distros? I fail to see how hard is to mantain build scripts for RedHat, Suse and Debian boxes to automatically generate RPMs, DEBs and Tarballs.
I think that the scenario is pretty much defined, we have the RPMs for RedHat/Novell based distros, DEBs for Debian and it's offspring, and TGZs for everybody else.
You can build the environment as safe as it gets... but if you can't enforce a secure behavior to your user, you can't be 100% secure.
Also, management end doing poor decisions based on the average user skills, like using Windows desktops... or won't bother doing some sort of training to ensure that the users knows the security policy.
The average user must understand their role within the security plan, understand that good security has much more to do with good pratices and habits than with anti-virus software.
It tunnels VNC or RDP connections, adding it's own compression to these protocols, this way you connect to the NX/SGD server on an specific port, and then it redirects your connection to the VNC/RDP server machine.
But I guess you get better performance from X11 based applications, because X can do caching of bitmaps, drawing primitives, and a lot of other smart things that VNC and RDP can't.
I really don't know how your boss did it, but debian-based distros really make it easy to add new modules to the current kernel!
* There are source packages for these extra modules * The source packages point to their build dependencies (apt-get build-dep) * A minimum build system is an apt-get install build-essentials away from you * Nicely packaged kernel and kernel-header packages
AND, there is also module-assistant, a script that will make the whole process automatic to you! It checks if your system is ready to build modules, downloads and install the required packages, presents you an updated list of avaliable modules, downloads, compile, install and loads them for you!
I'll never touch a RPM based distro again! APT and DKPG really make my life easier =D
(4) "MySQL is free" * Only if your application which links against the client library is also GPL. Myth used to scare people away from opensource GPL code.
It also means that the only code on your application that needs to be GPLed is the one that talks to the database. I usualy never talk directly to the database anyways, so this is hardly an issue to me.
Look at the bright side, at least it will force you to decouple your application from the data storage. I know that this may not be possible for some applications, but nowdays I guess most applications that deppend on a database for data storage are Web-based... so deattaching them from the database can do only good =D
Did you ever saw an Java application running at the server-side? Tomcat/Struts/JSP is blazing fast, way faster than PHP for an example.
The real bottleneck for most web applications is the database access. And thanks to Hibernate, Java kicks the collective ass of every other web enabled language out there.
Right now I'm having a major trouble trying to migrate a mail server from RedHat7.x to Debian Sarge because the mailboxes are stored at Symetrics EMC Storage unit, and they offer support to RedHat and Suse. We tried to get an answer from the vendor, to see if they could support Debian also, but in the end it took soooooooo long that the old server went down, and in order to keep the mail service up we instaled Debian anyways, and used an open-source module for the fibre-channel card.
Also, if you want to use Oracle on Linux, and keep their full support, you must use RedHat or Suse. You can run Oracle with Debian or Gentoo, but if you do that Oracle won't give you support...
So, the bottom line is: if you want to buy, only RedHat and Novell are selling. But if you want everything for free, you can get from anyone.
Then you got the permissions set at filesystem level to watch your back.
I really think that if you have a common file, like a spreadsheet, shared among several users that modify it constantly, is much better to make it talk to a database backend... or replace it with a custom software.
IIRC, file locking is a feature implemented only by Windows, and it's a major PITA... It's what forces you to reboot on every OS update, because the OS won't let you write or replace files that are open or being executed.
On UNIX file locking is implemented by the use of lockfiles... and only where it really matters. If an application needs lock on a file, it writes a.lock file to a pre-determined location, and every other instance of the aplication checks if this file exist in order to know if they can open it.
UNIX behavior is nicer, because if some random process acessing a file locks-up, or enter on an infinite-loop, or anything else... you still be able to acess, modify and remove the files...
And, as a matter of fact, if a document needs to be acessed by more than one person at once, you should implement some kind of versioning system... or use a WIKI!!!
They can search for survivors on a collapsed building, after an earthquake, for example. On this kind of situation, the faster you find the survivors, better are the chances that theyre rescued alive.
I guess that's the difference, they really care about what they're doing, when Apple started it was not about making money... it was about making computers and changing the world!
Actually yes, you can... But you going to have a lot of trouble!
They can't force you to buy something only if you got other product along. It's like McDonalds saying that you can only have a BigMac if you buy a Coke and fries too!
I think that's called "coupled sell" in english, I'm brazilian so I might be wrong, here we call it "venda casada", and it's considered a crime against the consumer. Here, if you menace to sue, or to delate them to the justice, you may have your notebook without the OS pre-installed. But, as I said, you'll spend a LOT of time on the phone arguing with attendants until you manage to get you call transfered to someone that can sell you the notebook.
I really don't know if it's worth the trouble... The new MacBooks seem to me a better deal =D
The big phone companies should have IT departments warning them about this kind of thing, I mean, technology is always evolving and getting cheaper!
How long before the entire communications framework, wire and radio, become a public service just like water and electricity? Something that you're granted just for paying you taxes. How long before we can get full convergence of all services, data and voice, and voice traffic become so cheap that it will cost more to charge for the service than to actually provide it?
It's already happening, there is no reason to waste band with cellphone telephony when things like Wi-Max and 802.11n can be more efficient, and compatible with a broader range of equipament!
But, of course until that happens the telcos will try everything to get every cent from the customers.
Ps. Actually I don't know if wimax and 802.11n are more efficient, CDMA is a pretty amazing technology, but I made my point.
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Your question makes me wonder...
How long before we see a consumer product like this, supporting Linux from the beginning? I really need to replace my old and busted notebook, but is nearly impossible to find one, here at Brazil, that fully supports any flavor of Linux and even harder to find one that comes with Linux pre-installed!
I don't have any use for Windows... why should I be forced to buy it when I get a new notebook?
Well,
At first we had issues with the IMAP access, it was too slow, we thought that it was because of the authentication backend... but in the end was because we set a low limit on how many IMAP processes should be spawned by the cyrmaster. We removed the limit, and the IMAP became blazing fast.
But, we still had an occasional slowdown. It turns out that the HORDE groupware we're using to provide webmail was not designed with performance in mind, so when you throw lots of requests at it, the database backend is flooded with tousands of queries. It happens because when you do anything inside Horde it has to do some sort of query... So, MySQL was handling about 1000 queries/s!
Solution? Split the critical services among several servers...
Sometimes is just easier to pinpoint problems when you have an isolated environment, running one, or only related services.
For example, I had lot's of headaches tunning a mailserver running a PostFix+Cyrus+Ldap, plus Apache+PHP+MySQL+IMP webmail. We started with 3000+ users, and it was everything ok until we reached 8000... then all sorts of performance issues appeared, an we could only understand what was going bad when whe isolated the services on separated machines.
A virtual machine is a nice way to do this.
If Google's need for server is as big as it appears, it makes sense to design and build custom servers for themselves. But my gess is that they'll be following the Sun Niagara architeture, with multi-core/multi-processor designs.
;-)
My point, Google doesn't need raw performance, they need an architeture that scales well, supports lots of concurrent requests, and consumes very little power to make cluster mantaining costs less expensive. Well, thinking this way, at this point it looks like Google might buy Sun to get their Niagara processor
In the end, I don't think such a processor would be seen on a desktop computer.
They'll make their API public, and them someone at the Gnumeric or OO.o Calc team can quickly devellop a plugin to publish and open the files directly from the web. The KDE team can devellop a KIOSlave for filesystem transparecy, and Gnome folks can do the same for GnomeFS!
Hey,
I'm talking about "Grandma" here. I doubt that she is concerned about Radeon drivers, and development libraries!
By the way, I had problems with a Radeon 9200 too... it was unstable even under Windows. So I gave it to a friend and bought a nVidia card. Problem solved.
Agreed,
How many Windows users had actually installed it? Most of them bought their PCs with Windows pre-installed, and have no clue about how to do it themselves.
How many of the average users out there know how to do a simple thing, like install a printer? Or how to keep their Windows up to date? Or how to keep it free from virus, trojans, spywares, etc?
IMHO Ubunutu today is BETTER AND EASIER than WindowsXP for everyday usage, because it's safer, comes with more usefull software bundled, has better security and it's harder to break.
Ok, not Linux... but come on! How people can use any graphical interface without Virtual Desktops!?!
Agreed.
How can packaging be such an issue for the commercial vendors, when huge projects like KDE, GNOME, PostGres, MySQL, etc... manage to have packages for all major distros? I fail to see how hard is to mantain build scripts for RedHat, Suse and Debian boxes to automatically generate RPMs, DEBs and Tarballs.
I think that the scenario is pretty much defined, we have the RPMs for RedHat/Novell based distros, DEBs for Debian and it's offspring, and TGZs for everybody else.
I hope that someone at Google is reading this... So they finnaly add suport Konqueror with Gmail.
Hell, if they support Safari, why can't do the same for Konqueror?
I wish I could mod you up!!!
... or won't bother doing some sort of training to ensure that the users knows the security policy.
You can build the environment as safe as it gets... but if you can't enforce a secure behavior to your user, you can't be 100% secure.
Also, management end doing poor decisions based on the average user skills, like using Windows desktops
The average user must understand their role within the security plan, understand that good security has much more to do with good pratices and habits than with anti-virus software.
Probably the same way NX does.
It tunnels VNC or RDP connections, adding it's own compression to these protocols, this way you connect to the NX/SGD server on an specific port, and then it redirects your connection to the VNC/RDP server machine.
But I guess you get better performance from X11 based applications, because X can do caching of bitmaps, drawing primitives, and a lot of other smart things that VNC and RDP can't.
I really don't know how your boss did it, but debian-based distros really make it easy to add new modules to the current kernel!
* There are source packages for these extra modules
* The source packages point to their build dependencies (apt-get build-dep)
* A minimum build system is an apt-get install build-essentials away from you
* Nicely packaged kernel and kernel-header packages
AND, there is also module-assistant, a script that will make the whole process automatic to you! It checks if your system is ready to build modules, downloads and install the required packages, presents you an updated list of avaliable modules, downloads, compile, install and loads them for you!
I'll never touch a RPM based distro again! APT and DKPG really make my life easier =D
It also means that the only code on your application that needs to be GPLed is the one that talks to the database. I usualy never talk directly to the database anyways, so this is hardly an issue to me.
Look at the bright side, at least it will force you to decouple your application from the data storage. I know that this may not be possible for some applications, but nowdays I guess most applications that deppend on a database for data storage are Web-based... so deattaching them from the database can do only good =D
Are you kidding?
Did you ever saw an Java application running at the server-side? Tomcat/Struts/JSP is blazing fast, way faster than PHP for an example.
The real bottleneck for most web applications is the database access. And thanks to Hibernate, Java kicks the collective ass of every other web enabled language out there.
If you want to pay for it, yes.
Right now I'm having a major trouble trying to migrate a mail server from RedHat7.x to Debian Sarge because the mailboxes are stored at Symetrics EMC Storage unit, and they offer support to RedHat and Suse. We tried to get an answer from the vendor, to see if they could support Debian also, but in the end it took soooooooo long that the old server went down, and in order to keep the mail service up we instaled Debian anyways, and used an open-source module for the fibre-channel card.
Also, if you want to use Oracle on Linux, and keep their full support, you must use RedHat or Suse. You can run Oracle with Debian or Gentoo, but if you do that Oracle won't give you support...
So, the bottom line is: if you want to buy, only RedHat and Novell are selling. But if you want everything for free, you can get from anyone.
What did they do! Now we have to find four missing links to put between these they just found!
BTW, FP?
Then you got the permissions set at filesystem level to watch your back.
I really think that if you have a common file, like a spreadsheet, shared among several users that modify it constantly, is much better to make it talk to a database backend... or replace it with a custom software.
IIRC, file locking is a feature implemented only by Windows, and it's a major PITA... It's what forces you to reboot on every OS update, because the OS won't let you write or replace files that are open or being executed.
.lock file to a pre-determined location, and every other instance of the aplication checks if this file exist in order to know if they can open it.
On UNIX file locking is implemented by the use of lockfiles... and only where it really matters. If an application needs lock on a file, it writes a
UNIX behavior is nicer, because if some random process acessing a file locks-up, or enter on an infinite-loop, or anything else... you still be able to acess, modify and remove the files...
And, as a matter of fact, if a document needs to be acessed by more than one person at once, you should implement some kind of versioning system... or use a WIKI!!!
They can search for survivors on a collapsed building, after an earthquake, for example. On this kind of situation, the faster you find the survivors, better are the chances that theyre rescued alive.
He seems to have forgiven Steve Jobs for this one. Everybody does stupid selfish things when young, can you throw the first rock?
I must agree with you.
I guess that's the difference, they really care about what they're doing, when Apple started it was not about making money... it was about making computers and changing the world!
It's as near as you get from a geek-fairy-tale =D
Actually yes, you can... But you going to have a lot of trouble!
They can't force you to buy something only if you got other product along. It's like McDonalds saying that you can only have a BigMac if you buy a Coke and fries too!
I think that's called "coupled sell" in english, I'm brazilian so I might be wrong, here we call it "venda casada", and it's considered a crime against the consumer. Here, if you menace to sue, or to delate them to the justice, you may have your notebook without the OS pre-installed. But, as I said, you'll spend a LOT of time on the phone arguing with attendants until you manage to get you call transfered to someone that can sell you the notebook.
I really don't know if it's worth the trouble... The new MacBooks seem to me a better deal =D
You really got the point across on this one!
0 96646 ) that was attached to a previous non-related post!
You pasted a snippet from an earlier comment of mine ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182627&cid=15
=D
The big phone companies should have IT departments warning them about this kind of thing, I mean, technology is always evolving and getting cheaper!
How long before the entire communications framework, wire and radio, become a public service just like water and electricity? Something that you're granted just for paying you taxes. How long before we can get full convergence of all services, data and voice, and voice traffic become so cheap that it will cost more to charge for the service than to actually provide it?
It's already happening, there is no reason to waste band with cellphone telephony when things like Wi-Max and 802.11n can be more efficient, and compatible with a broader range of equipament!
But, of course until that happens the telcos will try everything to get every cent from the customers.
Ps. Actually I don't know if wimax and 802.11n are more efficient, CDMA is a pretty amazing technology, but I made my point.