I'll tell you what else I need- support for Macromedia and Adobe's license authentication "features" present in Adobe Creative Suite and Macromedia Studio MX 2004. I have to resort to using VMWare in order to use these apps; I would love nothing more than to cut the tie with Windows completely. If CrossOver could do this, I'd buy a couple hundred copies for my company.
Do you hear me, Codeweavers? The instant you get this, people will be shouting praise from the rooftops. Bravo on getting Quickbooks to work, but now's the time to focus on Adobe and Macromedia's products as well.
This might very well be AMD's next big thing. The Athlon 64 garnered a lot of attention for them, but now they've entered a new market- competing with Via's Mini-ITX series. SFF's that need the power for MPEG-4 decoding so they can be a good home theater PC would do well to be equipped with one of these. In fact, they even mention:
"AMD Alchemy(TM) Au1200(TM) Processor - is a low-power, high-performance processor solution for Personal Media Player (PMP), automotive and Digital Media Adapter (DMA) applications.
The implications of a low-power, low-heat solution with a lot power go beyond the home theater. The idea of "ubiquitous computing" (IMHO an awful blanket term that gets thrown around far too often) might become possible with a small but still powerful processor.
The one last innovation that caught my eye was the on-processor AES encryption/decryption. Anyone have any ideas of practical applications for this?
The only things I could think of that would make a difference would be:
a) i686 optimized packages/distro (Yoper is a good example of this)
b) prelinking- some distros do this, Yoper and Gentoo do it with much success, and if I'm not mistaken Suse does as well
c) architecture-specific distros, such as using a 64-bit distro on an Athlon 64.
Beyond this, I believe it depends more on the hardware and audio/video support of the distro. But they're more or less the same- differences tend to be negligible. But if I had to choose the fastest it'd be either Yoper or Gentoo.
This article reminded me of an interesting interview with Jack Valenti I read a while back in MIT's student newspaper, The Tech. Here's a link to the interview for those interested in reading it.
This quote is the one that made me laugh out loud, and shows that we (meaning the Linux/Slashdot/techie crowd) just aren't getting through to the proper people so that changes can be made. [Note: TT is "The Tech" and JV is "Jack Valenti"]
TT: No, you said four years ago that people under Linux should use one of these licensed players that would be available soon. They're still not available -- it's been four years.
JV: Well why aren't they available? I don't know, because I don't make Linux machines.
Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, that's wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can't fuss at people, because you're one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know.
TT: Okay. Well, how can we have this dialogue?
JV: Well, we're having it right now. I want to try to find out the point you make on why are there no Linux licensed players. There must be a reason -- there has to be a reason. I don't know.
During all his time presiding over the MPAA, he didn't even realize the enormity of the problem. That sends the message that word justisn't getting out. This case, should Michael Malcolm be successful and gain some ground, may finally allow Linux users to legally play DVD's they bought with their own money.
While I still laughed, the reason he "screamed" is still largely misunderstood. While many think that it was due only to his overenthusiasm, this is in fact not the case.
As might be imagined, the roar of the crowd at the event must have been deafening. This is a definite problem for those who want to use a microphone to speak- a balance must be struck between sensitivity and volume. However, what is instead used is a noise-cancelling microphone that reinforces the speaker's voice and blocks out background noises. Listen to any newscast in an area with lots of ambient noise, and you'll notice that the background seems "blocked out" whenever the reporter starts speaking.
Apparently, Howard Dean was so overwhelmed with the noise of the crowd that he felt the need to raise his voice in order for them to hear him. What came out was that mangled cry that he is now famous for. That unearthly sound may very well have cost him the Democratic nomination- all becuase of a microphone.
For those unbelievers out there, a few people were standing right near the stage taping the event on camcorders. They claim that Dean was absolutely impossible to hear over the roar of the crowd, and that only later did they realize he had screamed- when they came home to trun on the news. They never would have known otherwise.
As another poster mentioned, the Centrino/Pentium M setup worked marvelously for Intel- and now with the release of Sonoma they might have antoher hit.
But the point is, while one can put together a very nice HTPC setup using a Mini-ATX (think: Shuttle) using MythTV or Sage, one still has to battle with the enclosed space, which could lead to cooling problems. The VIA C3 is very popular because it's based on the small Mini-ITX formn factor and it's nice and cool. But it still isn't very powerful.
If Intel could make a specialized chip that was optimized for video and audio processing and was capable of high speeds while remaining cool, they might very well have a hit on their hands. Combine this with some sort of media center software similar to MythTV that took advantage of these features (I'm thinking similar to AMD's Cool'n'Quiet or Intel's SpeedStep) and Intel might have another hit on their hands. It'd be just the thing they need right now, since AMD seems to be stealing the limelight.
Of course, it could also turn out to be a big flop. have you seen Sony's miserable media endeavours, such as their media software on the Vaio? Talk about bloat!
In any case, only if Intel manages to provide some tangible benefit such as a cooler processor or media optimization would the tech community or manufacturers embrace it.
Not to be rude, but I think that's an unqualified and offtopic response. Zen Linux has no real advantage for running Cedega over any other distribution. While I like the idea and design of the distro, I don't see why it should be better for gaming. Moreover, why "apt-get install wine"? Wine doesn't have a DirectX compatability layer- only Cedega does.
I'd appreciate fewer distribution zealots trying to peddle the latest and greatest. No offense, but it'd be nice to actually answer his question.
I've had luck with Ubuntu, Gentoo, and Suse, and Yoper. But really, as many others have pointed out, the true factor lies not in the distribution, but in Transgaming's support of games.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll tell you what else I need- support for Macromedia and Adobe's license authentication "features" present in Adobe Creative Suite and Macromedia Studio MX 2004. I have to resort to using VMWare in order to use these apps; I would love nothing more than to cut the tie with Windows completely. If CrossOver could do this, I'd buy a couple hundred copies for my company.
Do you hear me, Codeweavers? The instant you get this, people will be shouting praise from the rooftops. Bravo on getting Quickbooks to work, but now's the time to focus on Adobe and Macromedia's products as well.
The implications of a low-power, low-heat solution with a lot power go beyond the home theater. The idea of "ubiquitous computing" (IMHO an awful blanket term that gets thrown around far too often) might become possible with a small but still powerful processor.
The one last innovation that caught my eye was the on-processor AES encryption/decryption. Anyone have any ideas of practical applications for this?
a) i686 optimized packages/distro (Yoper is a good example of this)
b) prelinking- some distros do this, Yoper and Gentoo do it with much success, and if I'm not mistaken Suse does as well
c) architecture-specific distros, such as using a 64-bit distro on an Athlon 64.
Beyond this, I believe it depends more on the hardware and audio/video support of the distro. But they're more or less the same- differences tend to be negligible. But if I had to choose the fastest it'd be either Yoper or Gentoo.
This quote is the one that made me laugh out loud, and shows that we (meaning the Linux/Slashdot/techie crowd) just aren't getting through to the proper people so that changes can be made. [Note: TT is "The Tech" and JV is "Jack Valenti"]
During all his time presiding over the MPAA, he didn't even realize the enormity of the problem. That sends the message that word justisn't getting out. This case, should Michael Malcolm be successful and gain some ground, may finally allow Linux users to legally play DVD's they bought with their own money.
As might be imagined, the roar of the crowd at the event must have been deafening. This is a definite problem for those who want to use a microphone to speak- a balance must be struck between sensitivity and volume. However, what is instead used is a noise-cancelling microphone that reinforces the speaker's voice and blocks out background noises. Listen to any newscast in an area with lots of ambient noise, and you'll notice that the background seems "blocked out" whenever the reporter starts speaking.
Apparently, Howard Dean was so overwhelmed with the noise of the crowd that he felt the need to raise his voice in order for them to hear him. What came out was that mangled cry that he is now famous for. That unearthly sound may very well have cost him the Democratic nomination- all becuase of a microphone.
For those unbelievers out there, a few people were standing right near the stage taping the event on camcorders. They claim that Dean was absolutely impossible to hear over the roar of the crowd, and that only later did they realize he had screamed- when they came home to trun on the news. They never would have known otherwise.
But the point is, while one can put together a very nice HTPC setup using a Mini-ATX (think: Shuttle) using MythTV or Sage, one still has to battle with the enclosed space, which could lead to cooling problems. The VIA C3 is very popular because it's based on the small Mini-ITX formn factor and it's nice and cool. But it still isn't very powerful.
If Intel could make a specialized chip that was optimized for video and audio processing and was capable of high speeds while remaining cool, they might very well have a hit on their hands. Combine this with some sort of media center software similar to MythTV that took advantage of these features (I'm thinking similar to AMD's Cool'n'Quiet or Intel's SpeedStep) and Intel might have another hit on their hands. It'd be just the thing they need right now, since AMD seems to be stealing the limelight.
Of course, it could also turn out to be a big flop. have you seen Sony's miserable media endeavours, such as their media software on the Vaio? Talk about bloat!
In any case, only if Intel manages to provide some tangible benefit such as a cooler processor or media optimization would the tech community or manufacturers embrace it.
I'd appreciate fewer distribution zealots trying to peddle the latest and greatest. No offense, but it'd be nice to actually answer his question.
I've had luck with Ubuntu, Gentoo, and Suse, and Yoper. But really, as many others have pointed out, the true factor lies not in the distribution, but in Transgaming's support of games.