Windows 8 can boot just fine without UEFI secure mode, it's the UEFI secure mode itself that prevents stuff from booting, not the OS (Although it may also have its own internal checks for the "chain of trust" for various reasons).
I would say there's plenty of great reasons for wanting to watch this - witnessing a fairly major event in history (possibly even more major depending on what it finds on the planet), seeing science hard at work, watching how millions of dollars and collaboration between thousands of people can pay off.
However, ultimately, the reason many people will be watching is purely to be there if something goes wrong. There'll be fireworks, or at least some sort of graph that suddenly dips.
I know this is going to sound like trolling, but I promise you it's not.
Anyway, the "not having to go to the command line" is, frankly, the biggest reason Linux fails on the consumer Desktop. Quote productivity all you want, but the second you have to type a command to do something that Windows has a button for, you've lost 95% of customers (if not more).
I've yet to see a single Linux Distro that accomplishes this. Even Ubuntu has its flaws.
Run aground by the HD 3000? I'm sorry good, sir, I genuinely wonder if you're trolling here or just.....for lack of a better word, ignorant?
If you're talking about watching videos or something then yeah, the HD 3000 is more than enough but for any kind of graphical processing then things are much, much different.
The intel HD 3000 gets a passmark score of 422. The HD 4000 gets a bit better at 583, a nice 20% increase. Of course, if you compare that to say, a Geforce 560 (a mainstream card from the previous generation), it pales as that GPU gets 2,716. The Ti verison gets 2,992. That's nearly 5x faster for a card that can be had in single-slot, passively-cooled variants.
Really, Intel doesn't cut it for current, modern games.
Now, for games with their own custom DirectX-only engines without even an OpenGL backend: yup for them it's going to be more difficult,
This is precicely what I was referring to and, sadly, it accounts for at least (at a guess) 75% of games on Steam. Probably more and the number rises as you count more and more recent games.
Regarding point 1, even though Intel has made great strides lately, it's still pretty much a given that "Intel" and "Gaming" don't fit in the same sentence unless you includes words like "social" as well. Still, it does give hope that AMD/Nvidia will see the light and put some serious effort into the Linux driver game. If anyone can cause that to happen, it's Valve and the promise of a new era in PC gaming.
As for point 2, I should clarify that I'm not just talking about Valve's own games, I'm talking about all the other games on steam. Valve makes pretty excellent games but it'll take more than the valve catalogue to get things moving. If Valve can find a way to ensure that the majority of my steam catalogue will run on Linux, I am in there. If they can make them run with less than a 10% hit in performance, I think many other people will be game as well.
I don't think it's possible to understate how much of a monumental task this is. Not just for Valve, but for everyone with an interest in the Linux world. If Valve wants this to succeed, they'll need to do more than just port their games and Steam to the platform. They'll need to really get the likes of AMD and nVidia on board to get better driver support, they'll need to convince the big publishers that it's worth taking the time to port their games and find some way to make WINE and its equivalents run at nearly native speed for the ones that can't be easily ported for whatever reason. Then you have to deal with all the old DRM schemes that still exist and throw a fit even on newer versions of Windows, never mind a completely different OS. SecuROM rootkits? Yeah, good luck with that.
Still, for all the issues, all the potential pitfalls I really do wish Valve the best of luck with this as it can only be a good thing for everyone. Well, everyone except Microsoft maybe.
Oh Gosh, "Open" is broken as a money-making platform model!
This isn't an attack on Android, it's an attack on anything open-source, anything that gives the user the slightest bit of control or freedom. Yes, we are much better off in a completely locked down ecosystem where we can't even change the default browser, where you had best hope the owners of said ecosystem don't decide to compete with their own app that does a similar thing, or you'll get wiped off the one-and-only app store without a care or an explanation from them.
Yes, I'm blatantly talking about Apple here. However, I don't mean to sound like I'm ragging on iOS, or Apple in general, I'm merely pointing out that the opposite end of the spectrum has its own set of issues as well.
Android does have a piracy problem, but it stems mostly from a single tickbox that allows you to install apps that don't come from Google, the same tickbox that lets you install alternative app stores that don't necessarily have the same limitations or guidelines as the Play Store. If you take away that tickbox, I'm not sure the ecosystem will benefit more than it will be hampered.
Plenty of developers seem to be raking in the money on Android, they just use a different approach than they do on iOS. Instead of "Pay up front and be done with it", it's more "Get it free and supplement with in-app purchases" or "ad supported". Angry birds did the latter, Dead trigger (the one the "Piracy" reference was made about earlier this week) did the former. Their app is getting a lot of press, I will be interested to see just how well they do now.
I don't see why this would affect refunds of licenses? It's seems to deal more with the transfer of licenses to another party. What I'd like to know is how this affects digital distribution like app stores, steam, xbox live and so on. That is, IF it affects them. I have a huge collection of games on steam and XBLA that I don't play much these days.. I'd love to be able to ebay them.
True, I'm certainly not going to argue that there's been some pretty fucking awful Android phones made - and by more or less all manufacturers as well. The openess and diversity of Android is a bit of a double-edged sword.
However, you do have to look at why the phones are shit - it's generally not down to them being incompatible with certain apps, or because it misses out on some API or critical hardware component. It's usually because it's a low-powered, low-resolution cheap plastic piece of crap. The point of the Google certification is to make sure your phone is compatible with the infrastructure (to a degree, there's obviously going to be issues if an app is compiled for ARM and it's an x86 device). It'd be a lot easier to just butcher the underlying OS and break tonnes of shit in the process but then you don't get an App store unless you install a 3rd party one.
As for consistency, that was really the point I was originally making - people are saying that Google should force manufacturers to not use custom Skins, to not make exotic hardare and generally do everything the same. I don't really need to explain why that's a bad idea, but I can point to Windows Phone 7 as an example of an ecosystem that does actually operate like this. Look at all the WP7 launch phones are they're nearly identical with each other with very little setting them apart. I'm not sure that's a good thing, as that pretty much forces people to never innovate or do anything different.
Why would I do that? There's no point in arguing with trolls.
Sez the person who has done exactly that for THREE rounds now...
Sure sounds like you're admitting it to me. I couldn't be exactly doing that if you weren't a troll.
Still, I will humour you - however, you'll have to provide actual citation as to how Google has "failed" in their objectives. Otherwise it's a bit like me saying you've failed as a human being - without any explanation as to why, it's a largely redundant comment.
Well let's see, your name is "macs4all" and your comment was highly critical of Google thus it was obviously you trolling. I feel I addressed that quite appropriately.
Yes and somewhat yes, however quite a few OEMs would feel much the same way if you'd installed another OS on your laptop. As for permanent bricks, there's no simple answer for that as different phones have different levels of "Brickableness".
However as a rule of thumb, the techniques used are generally fairly mature and well tested, the process of installing a new ROM usually involves installing recovery software first which is required to flash a new ROM. This same recovery software is also capable of backing up the current software.
You can't upgrade the RAM on a phone, so there's that. However, what you've just described (sans memory card) is possible with Android as it is, depending on how willing your manufacturer and/or carrier are to letting you unlock the device. Anyone with a Galaxy Nexus can install Jelly Bean onto it right now if they wanted, same with the Galaxy S III or the HTC One X, despite official ROMs not being available yet - all because of being able to root them.
You're an idiot that has failed to understand the point of Android. Google does have certain mandates to let you Google-certify a device, that is load the Android Market (Google Play) and apps (Gmail, etc.) onto it. If you don't want Google certification you can still run Android and do whatever you want with it, but even then the Google mandates are more to ensure quality rather than consistency.
Google's ethos is that they want people to innovate and do things differently. Google APPROVES of the custom-UI's like Sense and TouchWiz and according to the guy who actually designed ICS
That’s actually one of the things that I feel really strongly about: the idea that we should require as little as possible, because I want to have as much innovation as possible out there. For example, two years ago there was a Chinese company that was able to release an Android device that didn’t have any buttons at all. Not just on-screen soft-key buttons like we have in Ice Cream Sandwich and now Jelly Bean, not just capacitive buttons, not just not-physical buttons, but no buttons at all! And it supported all of the Android functionality — homescreen, back, etc. — by using gestures, like of like what we did with WebOS. And it was great, because that was compatible with Android, because our requirements are so loose that people can innovate that way.
Less requirements means more innovation and more diversification. Otherwise you just end up with 5 phones that are all the same.
Yes, this comes at a cost - the Changes to Android's system need to be ported over to the various custom skins and that takes time, but that's what Google is focusing on now rather than just giving up and making everyone do the same thing.
The carriers are only part of the issue. The Manufacturer has to supply the carriers with a ROM, it's up to the carriers to them load their bloatware and push that ROM.
Sadly this is true, but I can understand their reasoning behind it - the -1 I disagree effect would be even more pronounced. Still, I don't see why they need to lock you out of the entire post, surely it could be done on a per-thread basis.
Guess what, you just learned a hard lesson about legislation - if you take the piss too much, the people will outrightly reject it to the point that you won't even get a chance to implement something half as draconian. All someone has to do is say "it's the new SOPA!" and people will instantly hate it.
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Yes, absolutely you should look up this list and memorise every single facet of it! Otherwise, you're just a horrible human being or something.
Seriously though, correcting people is just fine on the internet but there's ways to do it without being a dick.
Windows 8 can boot just fine without UEFI secure mode, it's the UEFI secure mode itself that prevents stuff from booting, not the OS (Although it may also have its own internal checks for the "chain of trust" for various reasons).
I would say there's plenty of great reasons for wanting to watch this - witnessing a fairly major event in history (possibly even more major depending on what it finds on the planet), seeing science hard at work, watching how millions of dollars and collaboration between thousands of people can pay off.
However, ultimately, the reason many people will be watching is purely to be there if something goes wrong. There'll be fireworks, or at least some sort of graph that suddenly dips.
I know this is going to sound like trolling, but I promise you it's not.
Anyway, the "not having to go to the command line" is, frankly, the biggest reason Linux fails on the consumer Desktop. Quote productivity all you want, but the second you have to type a command to do something that Windows has a button for, you've lost 95% of customers (if not more).
I've yet to see a single Linux Distro that accomplishes this. Even Ubuntu has its flaws.
Run aground by the HD 3000? I'm sorry good, sir, I genuinely wonder if you're trolling here or just.....for lack of a better word, ignorant?
If you're talking about watching videos or something then yeah, the HD 3000 is more than enough but for any kind of graphical processing then things are much, much different.
Take a gander - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Intel+HD+3000
The intel HD 3000 gets a passmark score of 422. The HD 4000 gets a bit better at 583, a nice 20% increase. Of course, if you compare that to say, a Geforce 560 (a mainstream card from the previous generation), it pales as that GPU gets 2,716. The Ti verison gets 2,992. That's nearly 5x faster for a card that can be had in single-slot, passively-cooled variants.
Really, Intel doesn't cut it for current, modern games.
This is precicely what I was referring to and, sadly, it accounts for at least (at a guess) 75% of games on Steam. Probably more and the number rises as you count more and more recent games.
Regarding point 1, even though Intel has made great strides lately, it's still pretty much a given that "Intel" and "Gaming" don't fit in the same sentence unless you includes words like "social" as well. Still, it does give hope that AMD/Nvidia will see the light and put some serious effort into the Linux driver game. If anyone can cause that to happen, it's Valve and the promise of a new era in PC gaming.
As for point 2, I should clarify that I'm not just talking about Valve's own games, I'm talking about all the other games on steam. Valve makes pretty excellent games but it'll take more than the valve catalogue to get things moving. If Valve can find a way to ensure that the majority of my steam catalogue will run on Linux, I am in there. If they can make them run with less than a 10% hit in performance, I think many other people will be game as well.
I don't think it's possible to understate how much of a monumental task this is. Not just for Valve, but for everyone with an interest in the Linux world.
If Valve wants this to succeed, they'll need to do more than just port their games and Steam to the platform. They'll need to really get the likes of AMD and nVidia on board to get better driver support, they'll need to convince the big publishers that it's worth taking the time to port their games and find some way to make WINE and its equivalents run at nearly native speed for the ones that can't be easily ported for whatever reason.
Then you have to deal with all the old DRM schemes that still exist and throw a fit even on newer versions of Windows, never mind a completely different OS. SecuROM rootkits? Yeah, good luck with that.
Still, for all the issues, all the potential pitfalls I really do wish Valve the best of luck with this as it can only be a good thing for everyone. Well, everyone except Microsoft maybe.
Oh Gosh, "Open" is broken as a money-making platform model!
This isn't an attack on Android, it's an attack on anything open-source, anything that gives the user the slightest bit of control or freedom. Yes, we are much better off in a completely locked down ecosystem where we can't even change the default browser, where you had best hope the owners of said ecosystem don't decide to compete with their own app that does a similar thing, or you'll get wiped off the one-and-only app store without a care or an explanation from them.
Yes, I'm blatantly talking about Apple here. However, I don't mean to sound like I'm ragging on iOS, or Apple in general, I'm merely pointing out that the opposite end of the spectrum has its own set of issues as well.
Android does have a piracy problem, but it stems mostly from a single tickbox that allows you to install apps that don't come from Google, the same tickbox that lets you install alternative app stores that don't necessarily have the same limitations or guidelines as the Play Store. If you take away that tickbox, I'm not sure the ecosystem will benefit more than it will be hampered.
Plenty of developers seem to be raking in the money on Android, they just use a different approach than they do on iOS. Instead of "Pay up front and be done with it", it's more "Get it free and supplement with in-app purchases" or "ad supported". Angry birds did the latter, Dead trigger (the one the "Piracy" reference was made about earlier this week) did the former. Their app is getting a lot of press, I will be interested to see just how well they do now.
Yes they will, they'll refund you a proportionate amount of the remainder of the bar. So nothing.
I don't see why this would affect refunds of licenses? It's seems to deal more with the transfer of licenses to another party. What I'd like to know is how this affects digital distribution like app stores, steam, xbox live and so on. That is, IF it affects them. I have a huge collection of games on steam and XBLA that I don't play much these days.. I'd love to be able to ebay them.
True, I'm certainly not going to argue that there's been some pretty fucking awful Android phones made - and by more or less all manufacturers as well. The openess and diversity of Android is a bit of a double-edged sword.
However, you do have to look at why the phones are shit - it's generally not down to them being incompatible with certain apps, or because it misses out on some API or critical hardware component. It's usually because it's a low-powered, low-resolution cheap plastic piece of crap. The point of the Google certification is to make sure your phone is compatible with the infrastructure (to a degree, there's obviously going to be issues if an app is compiled for ARM and it's an x86 device). It'd be a lot easier to just butcher the underlying OS and break tonnes of shit in the process but then you don't get an App store unless you install a 3rd party one.
As for consistency, that was really the point I was originally making - people are saying that Google should force manufacturers to not use custom Skins, to not make exotic hardare and generally do everything the same. I don't really need to explain why that's a bad idea, but I can point to Windows Phone 7 as an example of an ecosystem that does actually operate like this. Look at all the WP7 launch phones are they're nearly identical with each other with very little setting them apart. I'm not sure that's a good thing, as that pretty much forces people to never innovate or do anything different.
Sure sounds like you're admitting it to me. I couldn't be exactly doing that if you weren't a troll.
Still, I will humour you - however, you'll have to provide actual citation as to how Google has "failed" in their objectives. Otherwise it's a bit like me saying you've failed as a human being - without any explanation as to why, it's a largely redundant comment.
Aha, by your own admission you are trolling then.
Why would I do that? There's no point in arguing with trolls.
Well let's see, your name is "macs4all" and your comment was highly critical of Google thus it was obviously you trolling. I feel I addressed that quite appropriately.
Trolololoolololololol.
Yes and somewhat yes, however quite a few OEMs would feel much the same way if you'd installed another OS on your laptop. As for permanent bricks, there's no simple answer for that as different phones have different levels of "Brickableness".
However as a rule of thumb, the techniques used are generally fairly mature and well tested, the process of installing a new ROM usually involves installing recovery software first which is required to flash a new ROM. This same recovery software is also capable of backing up the current software.
You can't upgrade the RAM on a phone, so there's that. However, what you've just described (sans memory card) is possible with Android as it is, depending on how willing your manufacturer and/or carrier are to letting you unlock the device. Anyone with a Galaxy Nexus can install Jelly Bean onto it right now if they wanted, same with the Galaxy S III or the HTC One X, despite official ROMs not being available yet - all because of being able to root them.
You're an idiot that has failed to understand the point of Android. Google does have certain mandates to let you Google-certify a device, that is load the Android Market (Google Play) and apps (Gmail, etc.) onto it. If you don't want Google certification you can still run Android and do whatever you want with it, but even then the Google mandates are more to ensure quality rather than consistency.
Google's ethos is that they want people to innovate and do things differently. Google APPROVES of the custom-UI's like Sense and TouchWiz and according to the guy who actually designed ICS
Less requirements means more innovation and more diversification. Otherwise you just end up with 5 phones that are all the same.
Yes, this comes at a cost - the Changes to Android's system need to be ported over to the various custom skins and that takes time, but that's what Google is focusing on now rather than just giving up and making everyone do the same thing.
The carriers are only part of the issue. The Manufacturer has to supply the carriers with a ROM, it's up to the carriers to them load their bloatware and push that ROM.
Sadly this is true, but I can understand their reasoning behind it - the -1 I disagree effect would be even more pronounced. Still, I don't see why they need to lock you out of the entire post, surely it could be done on a per-thread basis.
There is one, it's called Slashdot. Use your moderator points properly and dumb posts aren't an issue.
Guess what, you just learned a hard lesson about legislation - if you take the piss too much, the people will outrightly reject it to the point that you won't even get a chance to implement something half as draconian. All someone has to do is say "it's the new SOPA!" and people will instantly hate it.
Statistically, 1 out of 1 people didn't have their Macbook Air break after 12 months. This means that the Macbook Air has a 0% fault rate.
Statistically, small sample sizes for statistics are misleading 100% of the time. This is based on a sample size of 1.