There's actually a lot wrong with displays these days, and the trend towards shrinking resolutions, especially with the shortscreen (16:10) and shorterscreen (16:9) fads taking off is only one of the problems. The other problem is the overwhelming majority of panels produced now are TN, meaning they have outrageously bad viewing angles and only 6-bits of colour per channel instead of 8. It wouldn't be so bad if you could actually tell what type of panel an LCD used, but the manufacturers don't list it anywhere, so it's basically impossible to tell unless you can see one in person. Good luck finding any laptop nowadays that doesn't come with a TN panel, Thinkpads and Apples included.</rant>
Wait, is it legal to use/copy/share Red Hat (the real thing, not CentOS) without purchasing support?
Yes you can install as many RHEL systems as you want without registering them with RHN, however, you won't get any updates, and you'll need to already have the isos.
By application virtualization I assume you mean running a single application over the network as is possible with X11 (or many other solutions), instead of the whole desktop/machine. The problem with that is that it doesn't solve the problem outlined in TFS at all, as he wanted to eliminate having to deal with a grabbag of random hardware which Windows inevitably does not support (without special coaxing) every time a new machine comes through the door or some hardware explodes.
I second the GP's response, with the added caveat that graphical performance is by far the slowest part of current virtualization methods. To put it in perspective, your GPU (even if it's a bargain basement integrated piece of junk) has a lot more (albeit narrowly focused) horsepower than your CPU does. Virtualizing the CPU is pretty much a solved problem with vmx/svm, while there's still no performant solution for virtualizing the GPU.
How does it work for multiple copies of Apache to all be looking at port 80? I mean, from the outside world, there can only be one port 80 at that IP address, right?
Each VM normally gets its own IP, distinct from all other VMs and the host.
The problem is that the volatility is so high that kernel drivers need 24/7 maintenance, or else they're dropped and then it becomes even harder to re-integrate them. Ask Microsoft about their paravirtualization drivers. They've submitted two or three versions to the kernel, and each time you had to use the specific version of the kernel that they compiled them on, or it didn't work. That's the problem. Linux. Isn't. Free. Microsoft is however eventually going to have to come to a sad realization: it may cost them a salaried employee and benefits just to maintain these drivers. That's ridiculous. If it's difficult for Microsoft to justify targeting Linux, how is a small business going to justify putting 1/10 of its development staff on it? 1/20?
Bzzt! Wrong.
Once code is properly merged to the Linux kernel, it is maintained by the kernel community at large, which need not include the original author. When a kernel developer changes an API, they are required to simultaneously update all in kernel drivers that use the API in question. The only drivers that require 24/7 maintenance are those that are out of tree (regardless of the reason they're out of tree).
Android was never properly merged to the Linux kernel. Google did a big code dump for Android and it was merged as a set of staging drivers with the caveat that it needed a lot of cleanup before being moved into non-staging. Unfortunately, that cleanup never came and Google basically let the code rot. Thus, a few releases later, Android was removed.
Indeed, probably well over half of the code in the Linux kernel is now maintained by someone other than the original author (be it an individual or a corporation), particularly for non-core subsystems and drivers. As a hardware vendor or other similar party, if you want a) your widget to work out of the box on every Linux distro and b) to not worry about maintaining your driver, you should be getting your driver merged to the Linux kernel.
The type of system you're talking about is NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Architecture), and yes, any OS worth its salt has supported it automagically for years. I think even Windows advertises support for NUMA now, whether it works is another question.
Because that is in fact the case. Many large companies still have at least one system that requires IE6, thus they're relegated to XP and IE6. In that market, people are using about 60% IE6 and 30% IE7. The number of IE8 users may as well be zero.
On the other end of the spectrum, the majority of home users don't use IE anymore, preferring Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera.
Thus, the majority of IE users are in large companies, and the majority of large companies still mandate usage of IE6. Unless IE8 somehow manages to slime its way into 90%+ marketshare in large corporations and then Microsoft subsequently lets IE languish for another decade, we're extremely unlikely to have IE8 turn into another IE6. Furthermore, by the time IE8 is even a blip on the radar of big companies, XP will be long past its extended support, at which point said big companies will migrate away from XP, as security (or at least security theatre) is fairly important to them.
No, we're still going to have IE6 on our hands. Of those XP users still using IE, the vast majority will continue using IE6, not IE8. The only way we'll be rid of IE6 is when XP dies. When XP dies, we'll probably not have another IE6 until Microsoft abandons IE for another decade.
Hopefully this will not try to shove KB971033, the one that periodically phones home to verify that your copy is "genuine", onto unsuspecting users who thought they dodged it in the normal updates. However, if this is a lump collection of all previous "patches and hotfixes", I fear the worst.
Face it: If you use Windows, Microsoft is going to have their way with you. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not.
The whole point of the GP's post was that perhaps Opera's long term flirt with ads has permanently tarnished the name, meaning it doesn't even matter what they've done in the past 5 years.
Until the Linux community can get together and hash the installer problem out, you're not only locking out larger developers, but smaller ones as well. Pretending that this isn't a problem is not a solution.
We did, well over a decade ago. Package managers have been ubiquitous ever since.
Pretending that the utterly braindead methods used for installing and updating software on Windows approaches anything close to a good solution is laughable. Asking that Linux emulate Windows' deficiencies here is even more comical.
Trotting out the fact that Windows is the most common desktop OS out there says nothing about its quality. AOL is (or was) the largest ISP in North America, does that mean every other ISP should emulate AOL?
What I find more interesting, though, is that this would reveal the source code of your game to a much greater degree than, say, a Java applet does... allowing people to perhaps hook into or modify your code in order to cheat. An attempt to create anti-cheating measures would be interesting, to say the least.
Not really, you just leave the client as a glorified renderer and do all of the core game logic on the server side, like in Game!.
It seems like everyone is missing the elephant standing in the room — web based games like Game! are automagically cross-platform to anything with a browser.
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There's actually a lot wrong with displays these days, and the trend towards shrinking resolutions, especially with the shortscreen (16:10) and shorterscreen (16:9) fads taking off is only one of the problems. The other problem is the overwhelming majority of panels produced now are TN, meaning they have outrageously bad viewing angles and only 6-bits of colour per channel instead of 8. It wouldn't be so bad if you could actually tell what type of panel an LCD used, but the manufacturers don't list it anywhere, so it's basically impossible to tell unless you can see one in person. Good luck finding any laptop nowadays that doesn't come with a TN panel, Thinkpads and Apples included.</rant>
Wait, is it legal to use/copy/share Red Hat (the real thing, not CentOS) without purchasing support?
Yes you can install as many RHEL systems as you want without registering them with RHN, however, you won't get any updates, and you'll need to already have the isos.
By application virtualization I assume you mean running a single application over the network as is possible with X11 (or many other solutions), instead of the whole desktop/machine. The problem with that is that it doesn't solve the problem outlined in TFS at all, as he wanted to eliminate having to deal with a grabbag of random hardware which Windows inevitably does not support (without special coaxing) every time a new machine comes through the door or some hardware explodes.
I second the GP's response, with the added caveat that graphical performance is by far the slowest part of current virtualization methods. To put it in perspective, your GPU (even if it's a bargain basement integrated piece of junk) has a lot more (albeit narrowly focused) horsepower than your CPU does. Virtualizing the CPU is pretty much a solved problem with vmx/svm, while there's still no performant solution for virtualizing the GPU.
How does it work for multiple copies of Apache to all be looking at port 80? I mean, from the outside world, there can only be one port 80 at that IP address, right?
Each VM normally gets its own IP, distinct from all other VMs and the host.
Bzzt! Wrong.
Once code is properly merged to the Linux kernel, it is maintained by the kernel community at large, which need not include the original author. When a kernel developer changes an API, they are required to simultaneously update all in kernel drivers that use the API in question. The only drivers that require 24/7 maintenance are those that are out of tree (regardless of the reason they're out of tree).
Android was never properly merged to the Linux kernel. Google did a big code dump for Android and it was merged as a set of staging drivers with the caveat that it needed a lot of cleanup before being moved into non-staging. Unfortunately, that cleanup never came and Google basically let the code rot. Thus, a few releases later, Android was removed.
Indeed, probably well over half of the code in the Linux kernel is now maintained by someone other than the original author (be it an individual or a corporation), particularly for non-core subsystems and drivers. As a hardware vendor or other similar party, if you want a) your widget to work out of the box on every Linux distro and b) to not worry about maintaining your driver, you should be getting your driver merged to the Linux kernel.
Continuing the Java tradition, you mean?
It's a matter of taste. Personally I hate Qt's slot mechanism. And Moc. IMO the problem with GNOME is not GTK+, it's Mono.
I'd say it's Mono, to a lesser extent GTK+, and to a greater extent the fetish of removing any and all features.
The type of system you're talking about is NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Architecture), and yes, any OS worth its salt has supported it automagically for years. I think even Windows advertises support for NUMA now, whether it works is another question.
That said, you can surf the web right on the PS3 w/out linux at all.
The browser on the PS3 is pretty poor, it doesn't even render Game! anywhere close to correctly, or at least it didn't last I checked.
Sorry to burst your joke, but in 2000, CPUs had only just hit 1 GHz.
Because that is in fact the case. Many large companies still have at least one system that requires IE6, thus they're relegated to XP and IE6. In that market, people are using about 60% IE6 and 30% IE7. The number of IE8 users may as well be zero.
On the other end of the spectrum, the majority of home users don't use IE anymore, preferring Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera.
Thus, the majority of IE users are in large companies, and the majority of large companies still mandate usage of IE6. Unless IE8 somehow manages to slime its way into 90%+ marketshare in large corporations and then Microsoft subsequently lets IE languish for another decade, we're extremely unlikely to have IE8 turn into another IE6. Furthermore, by the time IE8 is even a blip on the radar of big companies, XP will be long past its extended support, at which point said big companies will migrate away from XP, as security (or at least security theatre) is fairly important to them.
No, we're still going to have IE6 on our hands. Of those XP users still using IE, the vast majority will continue using IE6, not IE8. The only way we'll be rid of IE6 is when XP dies. When XP dies, we'll probably not have another IE6 until Microsoft abandons IE for another decade.
Hopefully this will not try to shove KB971033, the one that periodically phones home to verify that your copy is "genuine", onto unsuspecting users who thought they dodged it in the normal updates. However, if this is a lump collection of all previous "patches and hotfixes", I fear the worst.
Face it: If you use Windows, Microsoft is going to have their way with you. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not.
I had to stare at the headline for like 5 seconds before it even parsed. It just didn't seem like a reasonable configuration of words.
Oh don't worry, I'm sure by the time they release IE9 that we'll find the JS is slower than IE6, SVG support broken and HTML 5 support nonexistent.
Just image how fast you could play Game! with that beast!
They're all sane.
No they're not, IE is included in the list.
The whole point of the GP's post was that perhaps Opera's long term flirt with ads has permanently tarnished the name, meaning it doesn't even matter what they've done in the past 5 years.
Wait, what was the depressing part again?
Until the Linux community can get together and hash the installer problem out, you're not only locking out larger developers, but smaller ones as well. Pretending that this isn't a problem is not a solution.
We did, well over a decade ago. Package managers have been ubiquitous ever since.
Pretending that the utterly braindead methods used for installing and updating software on Windows approaches anything close to a good solution is laughable. Asking that Linux emulate Windows' deficiencies here is even more comical.
Trotting out the fact that Windows is the most common desktop OS out there says nothing about its quality. AOL is (or was) the largest ISP in North America, does that mean every other ISP should emulate AOL?
Modern browser? IE is neither modern nor a browser, it is an abomination.
Not really, you just leave the client as a glorified renderer and do all of the core game logic on the server side, like in Game!.
Don't even think about using USB hard drives for this, the performance will be atrocious.
It seems like everyone is missing the elephant standing in the room — web based games like Game! are automagically cross-platform to anything with a browser.
I'd hope these days a big honking server mobo would at least support booting from USB key.
Most of them do--but you have to realize that it took Microsoft until 2008 to release a server OS that doesn't require floppies to load RAID drivers.
Then again, it's hard to take anyone seriously that uses Windows in a server role.