True VMWare will run aero. But it doesn't run it fast by any means at least in my experience on an E8400 Core2Duo running Ubuntu 9.10 as a host and Win7 guest
Performs fine for me using VMware Fusion and a Windows 7 guest.
Compare 1080p H.264 matroska playback in vlc to mplayer:
on my macbook pro (exactly a year old at this point) vlc plays it without a stutter, mplayer extended will drop frames like an epileptic. Im sure they both drop frames, but VLC does so much more gracefully, resulting in no noticeable distortion, while mplayer extended makes it obvious (and incredibly annoying) to the viewer. Nothing like watching blade runner final cut and being slowly infuriated by those epic scenes being subjected to massive chop and screen tears.
The best results I've seen for a sufficiently high bitrate H.264 1080p stream on OS X was by using Media Player Classic Home Cinema running in Windows inside VMware. ~20 fps with tearing and OK audio. Compare to VLC, which was able to play the video at ~24 fps during low motion screens and then just stop updating the picture for a while if decoding couldn't keep up. MPlayer would stop playing altogether if the CPU couldn't keep up. QuickTime + Perian took forever to load the video and then froze when I tried to play it.
In Windows with H.264 hardware decoding disabled the video plays fine. The video also plays fine in Windows (and with lower CPU usage) with hardware decoding enabled, of course. OS X doesn't support hardware H.264 decoding at all on this GPU (Radeon HD 2600). Even if it did, I don't know of any way to use OS X's H.264 hardware decoding support except on files natively supported by QuickTime X.
VirtualBox is at least $189 less than any other product. That makes it 189 times "BETTER" than anything else, especially when you start in with the feature comparisons.
VMware Player and VMware Server are available for free. Also, if you are going to judge VirtualBox as being X times better than some other product because of cost, VirtualBox would then be infinitely better than VMware Workstation. But it's clearly not infinitely better. Only the open source edition of VirtualBox is free for everyone; the non-open source (precompiled) version is only free for personal use and evaluation. VMware Player, Server, and ESXi are free for everyone.
VMware has better USB passthrough support, as I've discovered by trying both VMware Player and VirtualBox (the device worked only in VMware Player). VirtualBox's USB support isn't even included in the open source edition.
VMware has automatic printing support for guests, without the need to manually share the printer or install a driver on a guest.
For desktop products, VMware has Easy Install, which automatically performs an installation of supported guest operating systems and automatically installs the tools.
- OpenGL
VMware has Aero support in Windows VIsta/7, which VirtualBox does not. VMware's Direct3D and OpenGL support is more advanced.
Manageability/portability
VMware VMs are portable between ESX, ESXi, Player, Fusion, Workstation, Server. VMware Server is manageable via the web interface or the full VMware vSphere/Infrastructure client. VMware VMs can also be accessed via VNC, even with the free Player. (RDP support for VirtualBox is not in the open source version, either.)
Dead Simple Interface
VirtualBox's interface is rather confusing, especially compared to that of VMware Player or VMware Fusion.
VirtualBox is also great for network labs as you can bind physical NICs to seperate virtual machines. You can't do that with any others until you start getting into ESX territory afaik.
This has been a feature of every VMware desktop release I've used, since before VirtualBox was around...
If cost is an issue why do these reviews forget the free VMWare Server it does most everything most users would need at no cost vs workstation
VMware Player is also free, and as of version 3.0 includes the capability to create and edit virtual machines. It also has support for 3D, Unity (seamless mode), and Aero in Vista/7.
Think you or I could start a cell phone plan? Think again. The spectrum is auctioned off the highest bidder. For a few billion dollars the entrenched interests can just gobble it all up regardless of whether or not they need it or intend to deploy on it.
US cellular/PCS licenses do have buildout requirements.
And yes, you can start your own cell phone plan by buying wholesale voice/data usage from an existing carrier. Think of devices like the Amazon Kindle.
There's only so much innovation that can be done when most systems use a variation of the same chipset (for nearly four years, it's been 945[GP]M, [GP]M965, [GP]M45 for most Intel laptops, with the notable exception being recent Apple laptops with nVidia 9400M)
However major manufacturers certainly do have custom motherboards, although possibly not on the "consumer" models. Dell, HP, and Lenovo still sell systems with proprietary docking stations.
One thing I've wondered: could the Rosetta PowerPC translator in OS X Intel be used as the virtual CPU to emulate systems with PowerPC, assuming it's able to provide better performance than what's already out there?
Besides, exactly what available drugs can enhance your ability to operate heavy machinery? I'm pretty sure anything with alcohol is out, and narcotics too. I can't think of anything stronger than what's in an energy drink, even those can be trouble if you're not careful.
Stimulants or similar drugs; all the good ones are controlled substances. Specifically, the linked Discovery News article says the astronauts take modafinil, which is approved in the US for those with sleep disorders but useful for many other conditions as well. Modafinil can be used in many situations where ampetamine/methylphenidate and friends could be used instead, and typically with less side effects. Also, the Discovery News article mentions dexedrine. Any of these drugs are likely to improve mental performance when used properly; although I must say it's unfair that astronauts get to use modafinil off-label when people know it can be effective for other conditions.
Caffeine is rather weak compared to these (scheduled) drugs, and has side effects of its own. Energy drinks might just create more problems - I've only used them a few times - and most of the time I felt worse afterwards. If I need to consume caffeine, I stick with pills (around a hundred times cheaper than energy drinks!) or coffee.
When taken at the doses needed to be effective, caffeine has more side effects than any of the scheduled substances I've used. (I've been addicted to caffeine since high school.) Of course, caffeine is usually consumed in the form of beverages or cheap pills, not expensive pills with gradual release mechanisms that reduce the effects of a large initial dose and sharp drop-off.
The difference between high def and standard is pretty darn immediate and obvious for new content such as TV shows that were made using the right digital cameras. Film, not so much, because the darn camera and lenses in movies is often set to blur hard edges and details, and of course is a craptacular 24fps.
Are you unaware that many TV shows are recorded and produced at ~24 fps? Here are a few: Lost, Heroes, House, 30 Rock, The Office, Burn Notice, Star Trek TOS. My HTPC is set to output 24 Hz almost all the time.
So basically cloud computing is only useful as a verbose backup service?
It is useful to have access to the same data while using another computer.
Common, there are MUCH cheaper backup services out there that give you automated tools to do server backups when the computer is idle (or at night time while you sleep).
Gmail and Dropbox are free. Where can I find these backup services that pay you to use them?
I don't want to manually have to save everything locally as a backup, when I should just save locally and know it will be backed up automatically.
So use a program that automatically saves everything locally, like an IMAP client or Dropbox.
Besides, if there is a HD corruption on the sectors containing my data, usually it's only a few sectors and most of the data can be recovered with (free) toolkits.
Sounds like you've never had an entire drive or a significant portion of a drive's sectors fail. I have.
Mac OSX is proprietary, but it isn't DRMed. There is no license-key to enter when installing the OS, and it never "phones home" to check if it is a valid copy.
Mac OS X Server requires a license key and from what I've read sends the key to Apple over the Internet.
On my MSI Wind netbook running Windows 7, I once woke the system from sleep and got a black screen. The machine was still working, the mouse cursor was on screen and moved with the touchpad, there was disk activity, it connected to the wireless network, caps lock/num lock were still responsive, but nothing else appeared on the screen and nothing I did made it work. I had to manually power the system off. I was able to wake the system from sleep many times before and after without any problems.
I didn't notice any updates that the problem could have been correlated with.
She's reverted to her low-tech solution (keep on laptop, occasionally email self with document attachments as a backup). I can't blame her.
I'm not saying this WILL happen to anyone else, but it completely destroyed my faith in 'cloud' storage. I'm quite happy storing documents remotely, when I know where they are, but cloud storage by definition could be anywhere - or nowhere.
The best choice is to keep local copies and also store copies remotely. This is the only way I use hosted services; for example, my Gmail messages are synchronized via IMAP to my computer and then my computer is backed up. The documents I'm working on are stored on Dropbox, which automatically makes copies on every computer on which I've installed the client.
There are of course probably better solutions if you need to do a workgroup project, like lets say, Exchange Server just for one? The difference is that you maintain total control over your data and documents.
If you're going to suggest a Microsoft product, at least suggest the right one. SharePoint is more appropriate for group collaboration (beyond email, calendaring, etc.)
Interestingly, the next versions of SharePoint and Office (2010) should include a Windows client application that will synchronize SharePoint content to the local machine.
You're rich, so you should be able to pollute more? Interesting philosophy.
I didn't make any judgement or otherwise express a philosophy... Notice I said "produces". The US economy produces more per capita and uses more energy per capita to do it.
How many of those "counterfeit" iPhones are really counterfeit iPhones?
Devices like iPhones, BlackBerries, and WM or Android devices have similar hardware capabilities - it's the onboard software that differentiates them the most. When I think of a "counterfeit" iPhone, I'd expect something that runs a cracked/modified version of the iPhone software, not just something that has a similar case and similar home screen.
That's progress? Here's the dope: OS X is what FreeBSD might want to look like. FreeBSD is what OS X wants to be.
One of those operating systems is a certified UNIX operating system. The other is FreeBSD.
Re:Only copyleft is "commie", BSD isn't.
on
OpenSolaris Or FreeBSD?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In other words we'd like UNIX customers to move to Windows and abandon UNIX.
Of course they would. A company wants more customers. So Interix "was created solely for the reason of destroying UNIX" in the same way that any company tries to make their products better than competing products.
People who are neither working for the good of the "Open Source Community" nor Microsoft? Possibly, in part, Useful idiots? People who would be better to spend their time improving Debian or CentOS? Is Microsoft contributing or not? I know little of this and would be honestly interested to analyse it.
I suspect people contribute to these kinds of projects because they use them, not for the only benefit of helping "the community". People do use computers for useful work, from time to time.
That is what many people say. However the SCO probably lawsuit hasn't really had that much influence on Linux. I'm not convinced that it's true. Certainly this doesn't apply to Minix or many of the other BSD situations. It certainly doesn't explain the success of Mozilla (copyleft) over Mosaic (not).
After the BSD lawsuit, the open source BSD distributions were rewritten without infringing code. This took some time; the non infringing version of FreeBSD wasn't released until 1995.
The SCO lawsuit had no effect on Linux because it was immediately recognized as nonsense from the beginning.
Netscape was closed source and commercial for a long time. By the time the Mozilla project was started/Netscape was open sourced, IE (another closed source browser) had already gained significant market share and Mosaic had long been irrelevant.
The source they do provide means that any major feature they implement in Linux its self is available to others. That's key. That means that competitors who release features into Linux can do so with the knowledge that major improvements to their features will be available to copy back.
The source is always available, yes - and if the feature is useful to others, and someone else has an interest to put that feature in the mainline Linux kernel, they can. Otherwise, the code will just get stale.
I'm not really sure what "community" means in this case. If they provide back their changes then they are in a sense "in" the community. If they don't take advantage of community support and discussion that's their disadvantage.
Companies are hardly "in" the community if they do nothing other than honor the GPL obligation to release the source. The criteria I am using: Do they contribute their useful modifications as patches to the original project or participate in the communities of the projects they use?
We all get more stable, more cost-effective software and hardware.
Well, maybe. There's nothing about open source software that makes it inherently more stable or secure. As far as cost effectiveness, it depends. Open source software might be used because it's cheaper to buy more capable hardware than to license existing embedded software/develop custom software. If hardware becomes more expensive or other software becomes cheaper, there's less reason to stick with open source. As an example, some Linksys consumer routers started shipping with vxWorks and less memory when they had previously shipped with Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Performs fine for me using VMware Fusion and a Windows 7 guest.
The best results I've seen for a sufficiently high bitrate H.264 1080p stream on OS X was by using Media Player Classic Home Cinema running in Windows inside VMware. ~20 fps with tearing and OK audio. Compare to VLC, which was able to play the video at ~24 fps during low motion screens and then just stop updating the picture for a while if decoding couldn't keep up. MPlayer would stop playing altogether if the CPU couldn't keep up. QuickTime + Perian took forever to load the video and then froze when I tried to play it.
In Windows with H.264 hardware decoding disabled the video plays fine. The video also plays fine in Windows (and with lower CPU usage) with hardware decoding enabled, of course. OS X doesn't support hardware H.264 decoding at all on this GPU (Radeon HD 2600). Even if it did, I don't know of any way to use OS X's H.264 hardware decoding support except on files natively supported by QuickTime X.
VMware Player and VMware Server are available for free. Also, if you are going to judge VirtualBox as being X times better than some other product because of cost, VirtualBox would then be infinitely better than VMware Workstation. But it's clearly not infinitely better. Only the open source edition of VirtualBox is free for everyone; the non-open source (precompiled) version is only free for personal use and evaluation. VMware Player, Server, and ESXi are free for everyone.
VMware has better USB passthrough support, as I've discovered by trying both VMware Player and VirtualBox (the device worked only in VMware Player). VirtualBox's USB support isn't even included in the open source edition.
VMware has automatic printing support for guests, without the need to manually share the printer or install a driver on a guest.
For desktop products, VMware has Easy Install, which automatically performs an installation of supported guest operating systems and automatically installs the tools.
VMware has Aero support in Windows VIsta/7, which VirtualBox does not. VMware's Direct3D and OpenGL support is more advanced.
VMware VMs are portable between ESX, ESXi, Player, Fusion, Workstation, Server.
VMware Server is manageable via the web interface or the full VMware vSphere/Infrastructure client. VMware VMs can also be accessed via VNC, even with the free Player. (RDP support for VirtualBox is not in the open source version, either.)
VirtualBox's interface is rather confusing, especially compared to that of VMware Player or VMware Fusion.
This has been a feature of every VMware desktop release I've used, since before VirtualBox was around...
XenDesktop is a thin client system that uses virtualization on the server, not on a desktop PC like the other products reviewed.
It does have 3D support.
By the way, the release notes were very easy to find on Google - it was the second result when searching for VMware Player 3.
VMware Player is also free, and as of version 3.0 includes the capability to create and edit virtual machines. It also has support for 3D, Unity (seamless mode), and Aero in Vista/7.
US cellular/PCS licenses do have buildout requirements.
And yes, you can start your own cell phone plan by buying wholesale voice/data usage from an existing carrier. Think of devices like the Amazon Kindle.
There's only so much innovation that can be done when most systems use a variation of the same chipset (for nearly four years, it's been 945[GP]M, [GP]M965, [GP]M45 for most Intel laptops, with the notable exception being recent Apple laptops with nVidia 9400M)
However major manufacturers certainly do have custom motherboards, although possibly not on the "consumer" models. Dell, HP, and Lenovo still sell systems with proprietary docking stations.
This is correct; using MySQL despite the availability of a clearly superior open source competitor is definitely using the tool wrong.
One thing I've wondered: could the Rosetta PowerPC translator in OS X Intel be used as the virtual CPU to emulate systems with PowerPC, assuming it's able to provide better performance than what's already out there?
Stimulants or similar drugs; all the good ones are controlled substances. Specifically, the linked Discovery News article says the astronauts take modafinil, which is approved in the US for those with sleep disorders but useful for many other conditions as well. Modafinil can be used in many situations where ampetamine/methylphenidate and friends could be used instead, and typically with less side effects. Also, the Discovery News article mentions dexedrine. Any of these drugs are likely to improve mental performance when used properly; although I must say it's unfair that astronauts get to use modafinil off-label when people know it can be effective for other conditions.
Caffeine is rather weak compared to these (scheduled) drugs, and has side effects of its own. Energy drinks might just create more problems - I've only used them a few times - and most of the time I felt worse afterwards. If I need to consume caffeine, I stick with pills (around a hundred times cheaper than energy drinks!) or coffee.
When taken at the doses needed to be effective, caffeine has more side effects than any of the scheduled substances I've used. (I've been addicted to caffeine since high school.) Of course, caffeine is usually consumed in the form of beverages or cheap pills, not expensive pills with gradual release mechanisms that reduce the effects of a large initial dose and sharp drop-off.
Are you unaware that many TV shows are recorded and produced at ~24 fps?
Here are a few: Lost, Heroes, House, 30 Rock, The Office, Burn Notice, Star Trek TOS.
My HTPC is set to output 24 Hz almost all the time.
It is useful to have access to the same data while using another computer.
Gmail and Dropbox are free. Where can I find these backup services that pay you to use them?
So use a program that automatically saves everything locally, like an IMAP client or Dropbox.
Sounds like you've never had an entire drive or a significant portion of a drive's sectors fail. I have.
Mac OS X Server requires a license key and from what I've read sends the key to Apple over the Internet.
On my MSI Wind netbook running Windows 7, I once woke the system from sleep and got a black screen. The machine was still working, the mouse cursor was on screen and moved with the touchpad, there was disk activity, it connected to the wireless network, caps lock/num lock were still responsive, but nothing else appeared on the screen and nothing I did made it work. I had to manually power the system off. I was able to wake the system from sleep many times before and after without any problems.
I didn't notice any updates that the problem could have been correlated with.
The best choice is to keep local copies and also store copies remotely. This is the only way I use hosted services; for example, my Gmail messages are synchronized via IMAP to my computer and then my computer is backed up. The documents I'm working on are stored on Dropbox, which automatically makes copies on every computer on which I've installed the client.
If you're going to suggest a Microsoft product, at least suggest the right one. SharePoint is more appropriate for group collaboration (beyond email, calendaring, etc.)
Interestingly, the next versions of SharePoint and Office (2010) should include a Windows client application that will synchronize SharePoint content to the local machine.
GDP is a standard economic measure - the value of the goods & services produced.
Seems anecdotal, not to mention irrelevant. And yet Americans earn over four times as more per capita.
Do these people you see have jobs? Start and own companies? Provide goods or services in exchange for money?
I didn't make any judgement or otherwise express a philosophy...
Notice I said "produces". The US economy produces more per capita and uses more energy per capita to do it.
Each American produces over 4 times the CO2 emissions of each Chinese person.
Each American produces over 4 times as much as each Chinese person, in terms of gross domestic product...
How many of those "counterfeit" iPhones are really counterfeit iPhones?
Devices like iPhones, BlackBerries, and WM or Android devices have similar hardware capabilities - it's the onboard software that differentiates them the most. When I think of a "counterfeit" iPhone, I'd expect something that runs a cracked/modified version of the iPhone software, not just something that has a similar case and similar home screen.
One of those operating systems is a certified UNIX operating system. The other is FreeBSD.
Of course they would. A company wants more customers. So Interix "was created solely for the reason of destroying UNIX" in the same way that any company tries to make their products better than competing products.
I suspect people contribute to these kinds of projects because they use them, not for the only benefit of helping "the community". People do use computers for useful work, from time to time.
After the BSD lawsuit, the open source BSD distributions were rewritten without infringing code. This took some time; the non infringing version of FreeBSD wasn't released until 1995.
The SCO lawsuit had no effect on Linux because it was immediately recognized as nonsense from the beginning.
In the 90s, Minix couldn't even be freely distributed. As a useful operating system, Minix didn't compare to Linux or BSD back then.
Netscape was closed source and commercial for a long time. By the time the Mozilla project was started/Netscape was open sourced, IE (another closed source browser) had already gained significant market share and Mosaic had long been irrelevant.
The source is always available, yes - and if the feature is useful to others, and someone else has an interest to put that feature in the mainline Linux kernel, they can. Otherwise, the code will just get stale.
Companies are hardly "in" the community if they do nothing other than honor the GPL obligation to release the source. The criteria I am using: Do they contribute their useful modifications as patches to the original project or participate in the communities of the projects they use?
Well, maybe.
There's nothing about open source software that makes it inherently more stable or secure. As far as cost effectiveness, it depends. Open source software might be used because it's cheaper to buy more capable hardware than to license existing embedded software/develop custom software. If hardware becomes more expensive or other software becomes cheaper, there's less reason to stick with open source. As an example, some Linksys consumer routers started shipping with vxWorks and less memory when they had previously shipped with Linux.