Logo/name change doesn't mean the company...
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...has been bought, sold, stuffed, stamped, filed, briefed, debriefed, indexed, or numbered.
And if anyone here can make 5 Billion a year in business disappear in, say, a month, then, and only then, will I believe that large companies like SGI (or Sun or Apple) are dying.
Where do you people get these arrant flapdoodles of nonreality?
Dim: $99 does not an Octane make!
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I doubt you know what you're talking about. Most of us see nothing but rather focused, intense praise for the O2k servers, *primarily* for its I/O, and *then* for its CPU performance.
And I don't know what magical store *you* can go to to pick up a $99 card to match an Octane's gfx, but all the rest of us who must live in the Real World where DoomII can't really be used to model and animate recognise that that $99 card won't be worth butkis for real work.
The geometry performance in an Octane MXE still hasn't been surpassed by any PC/NT-based technology. For that matter, neither has Reality Engine2. Fast pixel fill rates are nothing. Fast pixel fill rates won't rotate 2 million polygons per second, shaded, textured, and antialiased.
It amazes me to think that you could possibly think so. Have you ever actually used an Octane?
The commodity 3D PC market is just that: a commodity, equivalent to toothpicks and toothpaste. An SGI is for professional, high-end work, when you need Hitachi earthmovers and concrete instead of said toothpicks.
The commodities have their place. But their place is nowhere near an SGI.
The remainder of your post is unqualified commentary, unfortunately. I instead suggest more research into what constitutes 3D development on NT and IRIX, respectively.
--------- In case my password doesn't quite work: Scott Elyard. http://www.stonebug.net/
Love of him or hate him, Kubrick at least had the integrity to put his name on what he believed him.
But then, it's obviously microencephaloid drool, so why bother to respond?
I have my own answer.
The World is a little worse off today, because a director who dared to make us think for ourselves a little is gone. He was the antithesis of what Hollywood has become, although the filmic-illiterate would have you think otherwise.
Kubrick made films that matter. Even if the anonymous poster above *had* posted a name, it would be fogotten sooner than this morning's coffee.
Kubrick lives on in his films.
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here--this is a War Room!"
Ah, yet another zero-content post by an anonymous coward.
But, honestly, I think that you're failing to grasp the bigger picture. What it means is yet to be revealed, and I doubt SGI is merely paying us lip service. Microsoft doens't have the stranglehold on SGI that, say, it has on Dell.
This isn't satisfactory. If Linux runs SMP just fine, can you provide an appropriate technical article that contradicts the testimony I keep hearing regarding the inefficiency of Linux's SMP implementation?
And just how close to being 100% user transparent is it? Can a user install Linux from a standard distribution without needing to do anything else?
What about adding processors to the hardware? Is that, too, transparent, or should I expect to be required to recompile the kernel for further support?
BeOS is a little different from Windows, sure, but I've been following the GNOME list (among others) for a while and still don't get the "why don't we port * to platform *?" argument.
The BeOS has nothing in common with MS Windows--not merely "a little different." Since you seem to know little about the BeOS, go to www.be.com and examine it for a bit. If you're still nonplussed, you may have to just accept it that some of us still don't really like UNIX, and prefer simpler solutions.
Usually, the platform to which people want to port linux apps is somehow not up to the standard of quality that linux has established, so I always have to wonder, why not just run linux?
Because Linux doesn't have as efficient SMP scalability as the BeOS.
Because Linux is not for computer novices, and the BeOS is.
Because the "standard of quality" you mention as belonging to Linux has nothing to do with running the sort of apps the BeOS already has available for it--apps which are not available for Linux (like Cinema 4D XL: c.f. http://www.maxon.de/)
GIMP already runs on some of the best os's out there, including commercial and free unices alike. I understand BeOS is new and different and is aimed at the creative market more than the technical market, as most Unices are, but as it seems to have (thus far) failed to attract this market, the point of this port still utterly escapes me. From the article, all I pick up is that there are too many cons, no clear pro's for all the effort going into this project.
If there are no apps, there are no users, a plight Linux users should be more than aquainted with. As a graphics professional, I don't believe using GIMP is a reason to break with, say, the Mac OS, no matter how 'superior' Linux is for networking purposes.
Clear Pros: Be gains an app a lot of people seem to like, possibly gaining a few more users, and more firmly establishing it as a media OS.
But as you (obviously) aren't a user of the BeOS, I can't really expect you to understand that.
Ergo, there are no benefits for you. Just us users.
I sure would like to see Mr. Hess working on bringing some of the user-friendliness of the Mac OS, BeOS, or NeXTStep to the more featureful Linux or BSD, rather than porting _down_ to platforms lacking major features like networking robustness or true multi-user capability.
It's really a pity professionals like yourself have such malformed opinions of our actual needs. Perhaps you should consider spending more time talking with those of us who have no use for another platform, or a multi-user platform, or those of us who just don't want to deal with the hassles and inconsistencies Linux presents to those of us who are used to dealing with a different UNIX (IRIX in my case) or simpler, more task-oriented OSs.
Carrerra Alpha Workstations were only used for rendering. The lion's share of the actual content was developed on SGIs, and a small amount on Alpha machines running Lightwave for NT.
One of the herd? Sure. But at least they're out in front.
Give SGI a chance to see the light.
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Perhaps *you* can get your work done on leetle PCs running MesaGL and Linux, but I need to get real work done, and this is one SGI user who won't be buying standard PCs to run his applications on.
If MesaGL, Linux, and a standard PC were up to the task, why would Lucasfilm, PIXAR, Rhythm & Hues, PDI, Digital Domain, Disney, ILM &c, &c, &c, use SGIs in the first place?
The question's rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway: because no PC provides adequate performance, and so long as SGI exists, ever will.
A $12,000 Octane WILL be incalcuably superior to a $1299 Dell or Compaq. And quite honestly, if you'd rather not prefer an Octane for the work you're doing, you really *don't* know what you're doing.
(Good enough is one thing, but who in their right mind would actually rather have a PC instead of an Octane?)
Slashdot Mirror
...has been bought, sold, stuffed, stamped, filed, briefed, debriefed, indexed, or numbered.
And if anyone here can make 5 Billion a year in business disappear in, say, a month, then, and only then, will I believe that large companies like SGI (or Sun or Apple) are dying.
Where do you people get these arrant flapdoodles of nonreality?
I doubt you know what you're talking about. Most of us see nothing but rather focused, intense praise for the O2k servers, *primarily* for its I/O, and *then* for its CPU performance.
And I don't know what magical store *you* can go to to pick up a $99 card to match an Octane's gfx, but all the rest of us who must live in the Real World where DoomII can't really be used to model and animate recognise that that $99 card won't be worth butkis for real work.
The geometry performance in an Octane MXE still hasn't been surpassed by any PC/NT-based technology. For that matter, neither has Reality Engine2. Fast pixel fill rates are nothing. Fast pixel fill rates won't rotate 2 million polygons per second, shaded, textured, and antialiased.
It amazes me to think that you could possibly think so. Have you ever actually used an Octane?
The commodity 3D PC market is just that: a commodity, equivalent to toothpicks and toothpaste. An SGI is for professional, high-end work, when you need Hitachi earthmovers and concrete instead of said toothpicks.
The commodities have their place. But their place is nowhere near an SGI.
The remainder of your post is unqualified commentary, unfortunately. I instead suggest more research into what constitutes 3D development on NT and IRIX, respectively.
---------
In case my password doesn't quite work:
Scott Elyard. http://www.stonebug.net/
Ironic such should be posted.
Love of him or hate him, Kubrick at least had the integrity to put his name on what he believed him.
But then, it's obviously microencephaloid drool, so why bother to respond?
I have my own answer.
The World is a little worse off today, because a director who dared to make us think for ourselves a little is gone. He was the antithesis of what Hollywood has become, although the filmic-illiterate would have you think otherwise.
Kubrick made films that matter. Even if the anonymous poster above *had* posted a name, it would be fogotten sooner than this morning's coffee.
Kubrick lives on in his films.
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here--this is a War Room!"
Ah, yet another zero-content post by an anonymous coward.
But, honestly, I think that you're failing to grasp the bigger picture. What it means is yet to be revealed, and I doubt SGI is merely paying us lip service. Microsoft doens't have the stranglehold on SGI that, say, it has on Dell.
I have more musical talent in my pinky than these hosers have in their whole pathetic little band.
Of course you do. You're the next Tom Lehrer, in fact.
Of course, it's a might difficult to make that Judgement ourselves, since you're Anonymous.
But then, maybe that's the point, eh?
This isn't satisfactory. If Linux runs SMP just fine, can you provide an appropriate technical article that contradicts the testimony I keep hearing regarding the inefficiency of Linux's SMP implementation?
And just how close to being 100% user transparent is it? Can a user install Linux from a standard distribution without needing to do anything else?
What about adding processors to the hardware? Is that, too, transparent, or should I expect to be required to recompile the kernel for further support?
BeOS is a little different from Windows, sure, but I've been following the GNOME list (among others) for a while and still don't get the "why don't we port * to platform *?" argument.
The BeOS has nothing in common with MS Windows--not merely "a little different." Since you seem to know little about the BeOS, go to www.be.com and examine it for a bit. If you're still nonplussed, you may have to just accept it that some of us still don't really like UNIX, and prefer simpler solutions.
Usually, the platform to which people want to port linux apps is somehow not up to the standard of quality that linux has established, so I always have to wonder, why not just run linux?
Because Linux doesn't have as efficient SMP scalability as the BeOS.
Because Linux is not for computer novices, and the BeOS is.
Because the "standard of quality" you mention as belonging to Linux has nothing to do with running the sort of apps the BeOS already has available for it--apps which are not available for Linux (like Cinema 4D XL: c.f. http://www.maxon.de/)
GIMP already runs on some of the best os's out there, including commercial and free unices alike. I understand BeOS is new and different and is aimed at the creative market more than the technical market, as most Unices are, but as it seems to have (thus far) failed to attract this market, the point of this port still utterly escapes me. From the article, all I pick up is that there are too many cons, no clear pro's for all the effort going into this project.
If there are no apps, there are no users, a plight Linux users should be more than aquainted with. As a graphics professional, I don't believe using GIMP is a reason to break with, say, the Mac OS, no matter how 'superior' Linux is for networking purposes.
Clear Pros: Be gains an app a lot of people seem to like, possibly gaining a few more users, and more firmly establishing it as a media OS.
But as you (obviously) aren't a user of the BeOS, I can't really expect you to understand that.
Ergo, there are no benefits for you. Just us users.
I sure would like to see Mr. Hess working on bringing some of the user-friendliness of the Mac OS, BeOS, or NeXTStep to the more featureful Linux or BSD, rather than porting _down_ to platforms lacking major features like networking robustness or true multi-user capability.
It's really a pity professionals like yourself have such malformed opinions of our actual needs. Perhaps you should consider spending more time talking with those of us who have no use for another platform, or a multi-user platform, or those of us who just don't want to deal with the hassles and inconsistencies Linux presents to those of us who are used to dealing with a different UNIX (IRIX in my case) or simpler, more task-oriented OSs.
Realism is not achieved exclusively by the tool. The artist must participate the most.
If you have 10 million programmers, but no artists, it's rather like expecting 10 million monkeys to reproduce *Watership Down.*
Sigh.
Carrerra Alpha Workstations were only used for rendering. The lion's share of the actual content was developed on SGIs, and a small amount on Alpha machines running Lightwave for NT.
Spaciba!
I'll try to check it out tonight...
Does anyone have the IDO for IRIX 5.3 or 6.2 who might be willing to compile this puppy for those of use who don't have it?
Looks cool.
One of the herd? Sure. But at least they're out in front.
Perhaps *you* can get your work done on leetle PCs running MesaGL and Linux, but I need to get real work done, and this is one SGI user who won't be buying standard PCs to run his applications on.
If MesaGL, Linux, and a standard PC were up to the task, why would Lucasfilm, PIXAR, Rhythm & Hues, PDI, Digital Domain, Disney, ILM &c, &c, &c, use SGIs in the first place?
The question's rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway: because no PC provides adequate performance, and so long as SGI exists, ever will.
A $12,000 Octane WILL be incalcuably superior to a $1299 Dell or Compaq. And quite honestly, if you'd rather not prefer an Octane for the work you're doing, you really *don't* know what you're doing.
(Good enough is one thing, but who in their right mind would actually rather have a PC instead of an Octane?)