Why to say that Android is based on Linux, while Android definetely use the Linux (2.6.32) as the operating system. Android is a software system, for what the operating system is just small part of it. It is just so funny to say that Android is based to Linux, while Android includes more different softwares and Linux is just one of them, but just most important one.
For a analogy. The OS is like a car engine. You do not see it or use it directly. You use pedals, wheel and so on (they are like command line, GUI, mouse/keyboard etc). The car is like the software system, they are compilations of the engine, wheels, seats, GPS/Radio, lights and so on. One engine can be used in different cars. And when turning that to software again, they are not different OS's as they all use same OS. But they are different cars, aka distributions.
And then someone would say "This car is based to engine XL" It actually does not mean anything for normal user. When then the user steps in the other car what is with four doors instead two, with four seats instead two, the salesman comes and say "This car is based to engine XL". And the normal user would just be very confused as he/she does not care what engine there actually is, more important thig are the stuff what makes the car usable or not for him.
If you develop software for software platform and specific virtual machine (dalvik), then you make specific API's for them what Linux OS need to use. Then you are already maded Linux a such that you can not drop vanilla version from it, but only a specically compiled version. If you compile LInux yourself to meet your computer, it is not different OS as what you can get when you use vanilla or even the one what someone else precompiles for you. It is just different release (/+ version) of the same OS.
Vanilla is vanilla and precompiled ir patched version are suchs, but not different OS's.
Why it should be counted as development platform what GNU/Linux is? GNU/Linux is Linux operating system + GNU development tools and platform. Linux kernel is monolithic (what is the full OS architecture alone) and not microkernel as GNU would like to present it as. Not even GNU can say that HURD is the operating system and not the kernel, because GNU Mach and L4 are used microkernels running HURD (= Microkernel + servers = Server-Client architctured operating system).
This argument is similar to the ones made for Windows prior to NT (and XP at home). DOS was being used to execute the windows shell, yet would it be accurate to count Windows as DOS? We can use the metric derived for Windows to answer our conundrum about Android.
That would demand to be exact what version of Windows are we talking about. Like Windows 1.0 -> 3.11 was just a windowing environment top of the DOS. The OS was DOS but then later the DOS OS functions were replaced by the functions what were part of the Windows, so the part of the Windows became part of the OS. And if you had multiple parts joined, so example the HTML engine and one OS function (like networking) was in same stack, the HTML-engine was part of the OS.
Even today the NT is very small OS, only using under a 40Mb RAM. Everything else in Windows does not belong to the OS. But it is always harder to say what belongs to NT and what does not when there is not so accurate map about the software system architecture or from NT architecture.
Can Android applications exist outside of Android OS? No, therefore Android is not equal to Linux. Admittedly simplistic, but pretty accurate.
You have wrong conclusion there because you think Android is the OS. Main question is, does Dalvik VM work without Linux OS? And then you can ask other questions like, does Linux OS work without Dalvik VM? And then the question what you wanted to ask, can Android Applications exist outside of Linux OS? YES, they do it already because the are ran by Dalvik VM. Where ever you get Dalvik, there you get Android applications as well virtualised.
So with that Logicl, If I install Java/Qt to Windows so they run over NT operating system, the software system is not anymore Windows can not be counted to be using NT operating system, because I can run Qt/Java software while "official" Windows and NT version what it use, can not run them.
Even that Android and WebOS (and Google Chrome OS etc) does not have all the libraries and software platforms what mainstream distribution does, it does not make the Linux in them [A and WOS] any less OS than what you can get from kernel.org directly.
That is not technically valid point at all for trying to define what OS is what by checking what binaries the device can run. I could very easily make own distribution but using vanilla Linux OS directly from kernel.org and it could not run any of the software what F/OSS community is developing, just by doing my own virtual machine (like Dalvik etc) top of it what is only possible way to get any software work on it.
Android is full Linux. Same Linux OS (version 2.6.32 now?) runs it as it runs desktops, servers etc. There is few different aspects what need to be taken in subject.
1) Linux is monolithic operating system. It includes all the OS functions in the kernel = all device drivers, architectures, functions etc.
2) As monolithic architecture what was maded modular in 2.2 and open source project, you can easily compile Linux with wanted features in it or compile them as modules.
3) When you compile Linux with own settings, you end up to have a own release of the same version OS. When you add other software, you get software system what you can distribute as license states. Hence the name distribution (what is not a synonym of the OS).
4) The software what you can run, does not depend just the OS. It is about the binary for one point. Many does not remember that there are lots of libraries and software platforms top of the OS what all builds a new layer what can be used to run different softwares. Like you can need Qt to run applications what is made with Qt. You need Java to run Java applications and so on. We have virtualmachines what function is to deliver a platform what software developers can use to distribute their software for different systems, without knowing what OS is under the software platform as its maintainer is responsible to take care of it.
5) Android has Dalvik Virtual Machine. Made with Java (but not Java VM) and it just allows software developers to make applications only knowing the functions of Dalvik, but not needed to take care anything else, like what Linux OS version is in there etc. X11 and other software platforms are as well removed. None of those makes Android using a "non-Linux OS", far from it. In contrary, it just makes Android one more special Linux distribution.
Is it so terrible info that Android use Linux OS? Is Linux someway so bad that it is right away "No, it sucks!" among normal people?
Canonical and Ubuntu community has done lots of work to make Ubuntu as synonym for the Linux. And they have ruined the hard work what the OSS community has done among years. They have broken the bigger community. They spread lies about Ubuntu being the OS and not the Linux kernel. They give illusions that Ubuntu community is responsible to the software what you get from the package management. Many Ubuntu users even believes that Ubuntu has own special desktop what is better than GNOME, even that they are using GNOME. Or that Canonical is responsible to develope Firefox and all other software what is available from repositories.
And it is not news that Ubuntu is in google trend the #1, Ubuntu fans are worse than Windows fanatics or Apple fans. Because they believe that Canonical is the "God" and Ubuntu community is more like a religion to them. They talk everywhere about Ubuntu and how it is better than Windows or Mac OS X and how it is even better than Linux.
Ctrl+Alt+Esc and click the screen. Because the video was fullscreen, you could not miss it. This just would not work if the Xorg has crashed so the input devices does not work.
And if not a tarball, at least a LSB compatible binary!
I, and any of my friends or schoolmates do not use Ubuntu. We use OpenSUSE, Mandriva and some has the Fedora. Deb package is not enough at all and it actually is insult towards Linux users! Maybe Ubuntu fans does not care it, but when they actually would care about the whole F/OSS community instead only their own?
Thats why we do have LSB (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/lsb) so we can all choose the distribution what to use, instead choosing a specific RPM or DPKG using distribution.
The tarball would be best because that gives the distributors a change to do their job, distribute the software for the users!
NT is a "hybrid" microkernel just like Darwin, which gets it the worst of both worlds.
Not acording Microsoft OS reseachers what said that NT use pure microkernel, like Singularity as well. And Darwin is not OS, XNU is. Darwin is XNU + Apples official compilation tools. When you download the Darwin package, you get the tools, XNU OS what is separated to Mach microkernel, I/O Kit and BSD parts and so on. You can compile XNU with own compilation tools if wanted, without the Apple's. But you do not get it work with Mac OS X closed ABI then. You need to know exact Darwin version to know XNU was compiled.
DragonFly has message passing tacked on, but isn't a microkernel as far as I'm aware
It has microkernel, just different way than original idea to implent Server-Client architecture. There is no such thing as "hybrid" in scientifical means, only in marketing.
L4Linux might be interesting if they aren't just using it as a hypervisor, I'll have to look into it.
Idea is to run Linux OS on VM (what L4 would be) and achieve by that faster way to load Linux OS when it crash. It is interesting idea but does not really solve any problems what the monolithic OS can have (!can!) and what reason the Server-Client architecture was done in the first place. The OS still runs in L4Linux as monolithic but just in user space. So it can help to speed up servers downtime when OS crash with few seconds.
As to the whole "hybrid kernel" thing - it's just marketing. It's "oh, those microkernels had good PR, how can we try to get good PR for our working kernel? Oh, I know, let's use a cool name and try to imply that it has all the PR advantages that that other system has"" -Linus Torvalds
Moving servers to kernel space does not make the OS monolithic. You can not have monolithic and server-client together or mixed anyway. The microkernel is always alone, even it would be with servers in same kernel space. And if you limit the amount of servers making them to serve more different OS functions than in the original Server-Client idea, the architecture is still the Server-Client in the XNU.
Even Microsoft has learn that the marketing "Hybrid" did not work or lead anywhere and they stopped it. They understanded that it just caused lots of problems among new becaming OS engineers in their first lessons in OS classes as the "Hybrid" is pure marketing lie and not scientifical fact.
Example the Microsoft OS resereachers who work with the Singularity OS, they informed tha NT is not hybrid but Server-Client and so does Singluarity, pure microkernel, even that all servers and user processes are at same address space. It was much easier by that to explain the technology than try to say something "Oh, this has best sides of all but no flaws of them!" and fail with it.
it can have "servers" for different subsystems, including BSD, which aren't really "kernel modules" in the Linux or BSD sense.
XNU has servers (btw, Darwin is the name of the development platform, XNU OS + Apples official development tools and settings so the Mac OS X closed source ABI's can work with the XNU) and the servers are as well called modules, but the difference just is that the modules in monolithic OS are tightly integrated to the OS architecture. The modularity in monolithic OS is in the binary level, but not in architecture level. While in Server-Client (like XNU) operating system the modularity is in architecture and binary level. The microkernel is separated binary from servers, even that the servers would exist in kernel space, they just does not belong to the microkernel. And microkernel can be protected from the server (modules) crashes, even they would exist in kernel space, it is just much much harder, but still possible to do. Same thing is with monolithic OS architecture, you can protect rest of the OS if the module crash, it is possible but as well littlebit harder to do. But at today Linux, the modules can crash without crashing the Linux OS and by that crashing the whole software system.
"As to the whole "hybrid kernel" thing - it's just marketing. It's "oh, those microkernels had good PR, how can we try to get good PR for our working kernel? Oh, I know, let's use a cool name and try to imply that it has all the PR advantages that that other system has"" -Linus Torvalds
Moving servers to kernel space does not make the OS monolithic. You can not have monolithic and server-client together or mixed anyway.
Actually they did not make it monolithic, it is still Server-Client architecture but they just moved the servers from user space where they would be placed if wanted to follow the original idea of Server-Client architecture. But most times the Server-Client OS is developed so the some of the servers exist in kernel space with the microkernel, but they are never part of the microkernel.
Microsoft did same thing with NT as well. They tried to market it as a new OS architecture called "Hybrid" what would be "fast as Monolithic OS, but secure as Server-Client". But that did not take off because the servers were never part of the microkernel.
Now today, Microsoft researchers say that NT is normal Server-Client architectured OS, where just some of the servers are moved to kernel space but separated from the microkernel. With their Singluarity project they are using SIP's, what gives one address space where microkernel and all the servers are located among other normal system programs.
If you want to see a common OS using microkernel, there are lots of those from what to choose. Like from kFreeBSD, HURD, Minix, L4Linux, DragonFly BSD, NT and so on....
Wrong. The Mac OS X is build top of the Mach microkernel what runs the XNU operating system, from what the BSD is just part of it, being responsible of: process model, user ids, permissions, basic security policies, POSIX API, BSD style system calls, TCP/IP stack, BSD sockets, firewall, VFS and filesystems, System V IPC, crypto framework and various synchronization mechanisms
Rest of the software system ------------- OS border ----------- (Free)BSD + I/O Kit Mach microkernel
FreeBSD is just part of the XNU OS while Mach is the kernel on it. And no, there is no such OS architecture as "hybrid". That is just marketing.
I think it would be very nice to get change to host a AoE2 game with very very big maps, so that there could be hundreds of players at same time and still have so much space that you could get lost.
The maps should be over 2000x bigger than what there was no possible to have. And then have possibility to make allies and other diplomacy things in-the-fly.
After a few weeks there could be seen a so big armies and kingdoms that the management comes very hard if you have multiple enemies from different directions.
And if servers would run all the time without possibilities to save, you could keep your kingdom up and running as long as someone would be taking care of it as well. That would need you have friends playing as well for who you trust and you could give control. Otherwise your kingdom would just get conquered by enemies and crushed while new players would join to game in middle of it and start own kingdoms.
It would be real capitalised world with trades and wars... Kingdoms would be like companies, what could vanish at any time.
Maybe the real game would be.... who can stay a wake longest!
Who would trust Microsoft that it would not kill the gamestore and shutdown DRM servers (who really believe that there would not be DRM?) after few weeks/months the start?
Microsoft has not almost every done any good services. It is just ironic that Microsoft is very lousy software company but world biggest. But it was good hardware manufacturer, but almost non-existing one.
Look Microsoft game controllers, the joysticks and wheels. They were great! But even then Microsoft did kill their support for next Windows. Now the one of the best flight sticks and gaming wheels are useless as Microsoft did not make drivers for Windows XP! Windows Vista and Windows 7 are at same class... no drivers. You bought devices and soon when Windows 98 and 98SE became obsolete, the devices were obsolete as well.
Thats why at least me and my friends are not trusting anything what Microsoft brings. Not even that XBox 360 is nice console, but very lousy media center.
Age of Empires II was great game, like the first one was as well. Third was just something not so good. And now bringing those with new versions?
Even today AoE2 is game what is very fun in LAN. But... No reboots thanks... (Maybe AoE2 with just new well done graphics but nothing else!).
But Microsoft is just not investing to PC as it was at them Windows 95 and WIndows 98 time. So no thanks!
I have four passwords hidden in there. I could print that to paper as one line and you would not find none of them. The underlines are not borders or anything. They can or not be part of the password.
Make 10 lines of that to paper and you have list what you can use as you know from where to look.
Security is almost as good as password lists where you can use them only once and you need username to use them. As long as you dont write username (what is numbers/letters) to same paper or anywhere near (memoryze it), it is secure even to give the paper to random guy in the street or to Mr. Schneier.
You have tried different distros since last years... NOW you take Ubuntu and you prise it because it just happened to be your first choise TODAY?
I can not find anything special from Ubuntu, no matter how hard I try to find such... Like right now, I have openSUSE 11.3, Fedora 13, Ubuntu 10.4 and Mandriva 2010 Spring running in virtualbox, all the GNOME editions. Only thing what makes Ubuntu really different is it has own theme. Oh wait.... So does all of them! OpenSUSE even use own menu what is more "special" than what Ubuntu has.
I can install any mainstream Linux distribution to friends machine and she/he would find them such they will work with their computer without problems.
The REAL speciality what Ubuntu has, is the marketing "Ubuntu != Linux" and other propaganda and how Ubuntu sexy in the eyes of the media.
That ">60fps = smooth gameplay" kind arguments are totall rubbish. The science can proof that 24 is enough for totally smooth animation.
But same time science can proof that human eye can notice forms in 1/10 000 second time. The human eye is slow to adapt the light and as fast as that, will "burn" to eye for longer time.
Why some players feels that 60fps is not enough is that they do not have good hardware combination to get _stable_ framerate. If we could lock game framerate to 24 FPS (not 23,9FPS or 24,1FPS) and it would get renderended smoothly by the monitor (TFT/LCD monitors does have same problems as CRT's had) in same timing as the display card and CPU could get info fast enough from input devices and OS could calculate the movement fast enough... 24 FPS would be totally enough. But because some players machines are rubbish, they can even need 120FPS so one frame mistake is much faster than it is in 24 FPS.
But it is just always funny some people still say that they can notice the difference in 60 FPS and 120 FPS, when using 50Hz monitor. If someone would calculate the framerate difference what happens when screen Hz and jumping FPS (not just 1FPS but many times.1 FPS jumping) causes one pixel distortions to lines, maybe "60 FPS is a must" gamers could understand that 60 FPS is not needed at all.
I could think that most game developers has 20% coders (engine, AI, scripting etc), 20% artists (textures, environment ideas), 50% mappers and modelers (the accuracy in maps and characters have grown dramatically since 2005) and 10% writers, actors and other company persons who writes the stories, character infos, subtitles, speeches and handles the company money and other PR functions.
Many will even include beta testers but typically those are all the people as well in the game development.
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Why to say that Android is based on Linux, while Android definetely use the Linux (2.6.32) as the operating system. Android is a software system, for what the operating system is just small part of it.
It is just so funny to say that Android is based to Linux, while Android includes more different softwares and Linux is just one of them, but just most important one.
For a analogy. The OS is like a car engine. You do not see it or use it directly. You use pedals, wheel and so on (they are like command line, GUI, mouse/keyboard etc). The car is like the software system, they are compilations of the engine, wheels, seats, GPS/Radio, lights and so on. One engine can be used in different cars. And when turning that to software again, they are not different OS's as they all use same OS. But they are different cars, aka distributions.
And then someone would say "This car is based to engine XL" It actually does not mean anything for normal user. When then the user steps in the other car what is with four doors instead two, with four seats instead two, the salesman comes and say "This car is based to engine XL". And the normal user would just be very confused as he/she does not care what engine there actually is, more important thig are the stuff what makes the car usable or not for him.
If you develop software for software platform and specific virtual machine (dalvik), then you make specific API's for them what Linux OS need to use. Then you are already maded Linux a such that you can not drop vanilla version from it, but only a specically compiled version.
If you compile LInux yourself to meet your computer, it is not different OS as what you can get when you use vanilla or even the one what someone else precompiles for you. It is just different release (/+ version) of the same OS.
Vanilla is vanilla and precompiled ir patched version are suchs, but not different OS's.
Why it should be counted as development platform what GNU/Linux is? GNU/Linux is Linux operating system + GNU development tools and platform. Linux kernel is monolithic (what is the full OS architecture alone) and not microkernel as GNU would like to present it as. Not even GNU can say that HURD is the operating system and not the kernel, because GNU Mach and L4 are used microkernels running HURD (= Microkernel + servers = Server-Client architctured operating system).
This argument is similar to the ones made for Windows prior to NT (and XP at home). DOS was being used to execute the windows shell, yet would it be accurate to count Windows as DOS? We can use the metric derived for Windows to answer our conundrum about Android.
That would demand to be exact what version of Windows are we talking about. Like Windows 1.0 -> 3.11 was just a windowing environment top of the DOS. The OS was DOS but then later the DOS OS functions were replaced by the functions what were part of the Windows, so the part of the Windows became part of the OS. And if you had multiple parts joined, so example the HTML engine and one OS function (like networking) was in same stack, the HTML-engine was part of the OS.
Even today the NT is very small OS, only using under a 40Mb RAM. Everything else in Windows does not belong to the OS. But it is always harder to say what belongs to NT and what does not when there is not so accurate map about the software system architecture or from NT architecture.
Can Android applications exist outside of Android OS? No, therefore Android is not equal to Linux. Admittedly simplistic, but pretty accurate.
You have wrong conclusion there because you think Android is the OS. Main question is, does Dalvik VM work without Linux OS? And then you can ask other questions like, does Linux OS work without Dalvik VM? And then the question what you wanted to ask, can Android Applications exist outside of Linux OS? YES, they do it already because the are ran by Dalvik VM. Where ever you get Dalvik, there you get Android applications as well virtualised.
So with that Logicl, If I install Java/Qt to Windows so they run over NT operating system, the software system is not anymore Windows can not be counted to be using NT operating system, because I can run Qt/Java software while "official" Windows and NT version what it use, can not run them.
Even that Android and WebOS (and Google Chrome OS etc) does not have all the libraries and software platforms what mainstream distribution does, it does not make the Linux in them [A and WOS] any less OS than what you can get from kernel.org directly.
That is not technically valid point at all for trying to define what OS is what by checking what binaries the device can run.
I could very easily make own distribution but using vanilla Linux OS directly from kernel.org and it could not run any of the software what F/OSS community is developing, just by doing my own virtual machine (like Dalvik etc) top of it what is only possible way to get any software work on it.
Android is full Linux. Same Linux OS (version 2.6.32 now?) runs it as it runs desktops, servers etc. There is few different aspects what need to be taken in subject.
1) Linux is monolithic operating system. It includes all the OS functions in the kernel = all device drivers, architectures, functions etc.
2) As monolithic architecture what was maded modular in 2.2 and open source project, you can easily compile Linux with wanted features in it or compile them as modules.
3) When you compile Linux with own settings, you end up to have a own release of the same version OS. When you add other software, you get software system what you can distribute as license states. Hence the name distribution (what is not a synonym of the OS).
4) The software what you can run, does not depend just the OS. It is about the binary for one point. Many does not remember that there are lots of libraries and software platforms top of the OS what all builds a new layer what can be used to run different softwares. Like you can need Qt to run applications what is made with Qt. You need Java to run Java applications and so on.
We have virtualmachines what function is to deliver a platform what software developers can use to distribute their software for different systems, without knowing what OS is under the software platform as its maintainer is responsible to take care of it.
5) Android has Dalvik Virtual Machine. Made with Java (but not Java VM) and it just allows software developers to make applications only knowing the functions of Dalvik, but not needed to take care anything else, like what Linux OS version is in there etc. X11 and other software platforms are as well removed. None of those makes Android using a "non-Linux OS", far from it. In contrary, it just makes Android one more special Linux distribution.
Is it so terrible info that Android use Linux OS? Is Linux someway so bad that it is right away "No, it sucks!" among normal people?
Canonical and Ubuntu community has done lots of work to make Ubuntu as synonym for the Linux. And they have ruined the hard work what the OSS community has done among years. They have broken the bigger community. They spread lies about Ubuntu being the OS and not the Linux kernel. They give illusions that Ubuntu community is responsible to the software what you get from the package management. Many Ubuntu users even believes that Ubuntu has own special desktop what is better than GNOME, even that they are using GNOME. Or that Canonical is responsible to develope Firefox and all other software what is available from repositories.
And it is not news that Ubuntu is in google trend the #1, Ubuntu fans are worse than Windows fanatics or Apple fans. Because they believe that Canonical is the "God" and Ubuntu community is more like a religion to them. They talk everywhere about Ubuntu and how it is better than Windows or Mac OS X and how it is even better than Linux.
Ctrl+Alt+Esc and click the screen. Because the video was fullscreen, you could not miss it. This just would not work if the Xorg has crashed so the input devices does not work.
And if not a tarball, at least a LSB compatible binary!
I, and any of my friends or schoolmates do not use Ubuntu. We use OpenSUSE, Mandriva and some has the Fedora. Deb package is not enough at all and it actually is insult towards Linux users! Maybe Ubuntu fans does not care it, but when they actually would care about the whole F/OSS community instead only their own?
Thats why we do have LSB (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/lsb) so we can all choose the distribution what to use, instead choosing a specific RPM or DPKG using distribution.
The tarball would be best because that gives the distributors a change to do their job, distribute the software for the users!
If everything is running in kernel space, you've given up all the advantages of a microkernel.
Not when you use SIP.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/singularity/
NT is a "hybrid" microkernel just like Darwin, which gets it the worst of both worlds.
Not acording Microsoft OS reseachers what said that NT use pure microkernel, like Singularity as well. And Darwin is not OS, XNU is. Darwin is XNU + Apples official compilation tools. When you download the Darwin package, you get the tools, XNU OS what is separated to Mach microkernel, I/O Kit and BSD parts and so on. You can compile XNU with own compilation tools if wanted, without the Apple's. But you do not get it work with Mac OS X closed ABI then. You need to know exact Darwin version to know XNU was compiled.
DragonFly has message passing tacked on, but isn't a microkernel as far as I'm aware
It has microkernel, just different way than original idea to implent Server-Client architecture. There is no such thing as "hybrid" in scientifical means, only in marketing.
L4Linux might be interesting if they aren't just using it as a hypervisor, I'll have to look into it.
Idea is to run Linux OS on VM (what L4 would be) and achieve by that faster way to load Linux OS when it crash. It is interesting idea but does not really solve any problems what the monolithic OS can have (!can!) and what reason the Server-Client architecture was done in the first place. The OS still runs in L4Linux as monolithic but just in user space. So it can help to speed up servers downtime when OS crash with few seconds.
http://www.usenix.org/publications/login/2006-04/openpdfs/herder.pdf
You just falled to marketing...
As to the whole "hybrid kernel" thing - it's just marketing. It's "oh, those microkernels had good PR, how can we try to get good PR for our working kernel? Oh, I know, let's use a cool name and try to imply that it has all the PR advantages that that other system has""
-Linus Torvalds
Moving servers to kernel space does not make the OS monolithic. You can not have monolithic and server-client together or mixed anyway. The microkernel is always alone, even it would be with servers in same kernel space. And if you limit the amount of servers making them to serve more different OS functions than in the original Server-Client idea, the architecture is still the Server-Client in the XNU.
Even Microsoft has learn that the marketing "Hybrid" did not work or lead anywhere and they stopped it. They understanded that it just caused lots of problems among new becaming OS engineers in their first lessons in OS classes as the "Hybrid" is pure marketing lie and not scientifical fact.
Example the Microsoft OS resereachers who work with the Singularity OS, they informed tha NT is not hybrid but Server-Client and so does Singluarity, pure microkernel, even that all servers and user processes are at same address space.
It was much easier by that to explain the technology than try to say something "Oh, this has best sides of all but no flaws of them!" and fail with it.
it can have "servers" for different subsystems, including BSD, which aren't really "kernel modules" in the Linux or BSD sense.
XNU has servers (btw, Darwin is the name of the development platform, XNU OS + Apples official development tools and settings so the Mac OS X closed source ABI's can work with the XNU) and the servers are as well called modules, but the difference just is that the modules in monolithic OS are tightly integrated to the OS architecture. The modularity in monolithic OS is in the binary level, but not in architecture level. While in Server-Client (like XNU) operating system the modularity is in architecture and binary level. The microkernel is separated binary from servers, even that the servers would exist in kernel space, they just does not belong to the microkernel. And microkernel can be protected from the server (modules) crashes, even they would exist in kernel space, it is just much much harder, but still possible to do. Same thing is with monolithic OS architecture, you can protect rest of the OS if the module crash, it is possible but as well littlebit harder to do. But at today Linux, the modules can crash without crashing the Linux OS and by that crashing the whole software system.
Run Windows and Adobe Reader and you are safe to open it....
"As to the whole "hybrid kernel" thing - it's just marketing. It's "oh, those microkernels had good PR, how can we try to get good PR for our working kernel? Oh, I know, let's use a cool name and try to imply that it has all the PR advantages that that other system has""
-Linus Torvalds
Moving servers to kernel space does not make the OS monolithic. You can not have monolithic and server-client together or mixed anyway.
Actually they did not make it monolithic, it is still Server-Client architecture but they just moved the servers from user space where they would be placed if wanted to follow the original idea of Server-Client architecture. But most times the Server-Client OS is developed so the some of the servers exist in kernel space with the microkernel, but they are never part of the microkernel.
Microsoft did same thing with NT as well. They tried to market it as a new OS architecture called "Hybrid" what would be "fast as Monolithic OS, but secure as Server-Client". But that did not take off because the servers were never part of the microkernel.
Now today, Microsoft researchers say that NT is normal Server-Client architectured OS, where just some of the servers are moved to kernel space but separated from the microkernel.
With their Singluarity project they are using SIP's, what gives one address space where microkernel and all the servers are located among other normal system programs.
If you want to see a common OS using microkernel, there are lots of those from what to choose. Like from kFreeBSD, HURD, Minix, L4Linux, DragonFly BSD, NT and so on....
Wrong. The Mac OS X is build top of the Mach microkernel what runs the XNU operating system, from what the BSD is just part of it, being responsible of: process model, user ids, permissions, basic security policies, POSIX API, BSD style system calls, TCP/IP stack, BSD sockets, firewall, VFS and filesystems, System V IPC, crypto framework and various synchronization mechanisms
Rest of the software system
------------- OS border -----------
(Free)BSD + I/O Kit
Mach microkernel
FreeBSD is just part of the XNU OS while Mach is the kernel on it. And no, there is no such OS architecture as "hybrid". That is just marketing.
I think it would be very nice to get change to host a AoE2 game with very very big maps, so that there could be hundreds of players at same time and still have so much space that you could get lost.
The maps should be over 2000x bigger than what there was no possible to have. And then have possibility to make allies and other diplomacy things in-the-fly.
After a few weeks there could be seen a so big armies and kingdoms that the management comes very hard if you have multiple enemies from different directions.
And if servers would run all the time without possibilities to save, you could keep your kingdom up and running as long as someone would be taking care of it as well. That would need you have friends playing as well for who you trust and you could give control. Otherwise your kingdom would just get conquered by enemies and crushed while new players would join to game in middle of it and start own kingdoms.
It would be real capitalised world with trades and wars... Kingdoms would be like companies, what could vanish at any time.
Maybe the real game would be.... who can stay a wake longest!
Who would trust Microsoft that it would not kill the gamestore and shutdown DRM servers (who really believe that there would not be DRM?) after few weeks/months the start?
Microsoft has not almost every done any good services. It is just ironic that Microsoft is very lousy software company but world biggest. But it was good hardware manufacturer, but almost non-existing one.
Look Microsoft game controllers, the joysticks and wheels. They were great! But even then Microsoft did kill their support for next Windows. Now the one of the best flight sticks and gaming wheels are useless as Microsoft did not make drivers for Windows XP! Windows Vista and Windows 7 are at same class... no drivers. You bought devices and soon when Windows 98 and 98SE became obsolete, the devices were obsolete as well.
Thats why at least me and my friends are not trusting anything what Microsoft brings. Not even that XBox 360 is nice console, but very lousy media center.
Age of Empires II was great game, like the first one was as well. Third was just something not so good. And now bringing those with new versions?
Even today AoE2 is game what is very fun in LAN. But... No reboots thanks... (Maybe AoE2 with just new well done graphics but nothing else!).
But Microsoft is just not investing to PC as it was at them Windows 95 and WIndows 98 time. So no thanks!
Very well said...
At least you made clear you are not working for Microsoft, because they are two generations behind.
Humm... What?
Just joking...
fk#kJ25@$£2sdl_kjg£4sjl-f£g223wWr_2£@£"!349#"9jfKjJsSdK£]Sd_Sdi_s!"9sdaSdjJs@!
I have four passwords hidden in there. I could print that to paper as one line and you would not find none of them.
The underlines are not borders or anything. They can or not be part of the password.
Make 10 lines of that to paper and you have list what you can use as you know from where to look.
Security is almost as good as password lists where you can use them only once and you need username to use them. As long as you dont write username (what is numbers/letters) to same paper or anywhere near (memoryze it), it is secure even to give the paper to random guy in the street or to Mr. Schneier.
Wait...
You have tried different distros since last years... NOW you take Ubuntu and you prise it because it just happened to be your first choise TODAY?
I can not find anything special from Ubuntu, no matter how hard I try to find such... Like right now, I have openSUSE 11.3, Fedora 13, Ubuntu 10.4 and Mandriva 2010 Spring running in virtualbox, all the GNOME editions. Only thing what makes Ubuntu really different is it has own theme. Oh wait.... So does all of them! OpenSUSE even use own menu what is more "special" than what Ubuntu has.
I can install any mainstream Linux distribution to friends machine and she/he would find them such they will work with their computer without problems.
The REAL speciality what Ubuntu has, is the marketing "Ubuntu != Linux" and other propaganda and how Ubuntu sexy in the eyes of the media.
And they are called as farmers....
That ">60fps = smooth gameplay" kind arguments are totall rubbish. The science can proof that 24 is enough for totally smooth animation.
But same time science can proof that human eye can notice forms in 1/10 000 second time. The human eye is slow to adapt the light and as fast as that, will "burn" to eye for longer time.
Why some players feels that 60fps is not enough is that they do not have good hardware combination to get _stable_ framerate. If we could lock game framerate to 24 FPS (not 23,9FPS or 24,1FPS) and it would get renderended smoothly by the monitor (TFT/LCD monitors does have same problems as CRT's had) in same timing as the display card and CPU could get info fast enough from input devices and OS could calculate the movement fast enough... 24 FPS would be totally enough. But because some players machines are rubbish, they can even need 120FPS so one frame mistake is much faster than it is in 24 FPS.
But it is just always funny some people still say that they can notice the difference in 60 FPS and 120 FPS, when using 50Hz monitor. If someone would calculate the framerate difference what happens when screen Hz and jumping FPS (not just 1FPS but many times .1 FPS jumping) causes one pixel distortions to lines, maybe "60 FPS is a must" gamers could understand that 60 FPS is not needed at all.
I could think that most game developers has 20% coders (engine, AI, scripting etc), 20% artists (textures, environment ideas), 50% mappers and modelers (the accuracy in maps and characters have grown dramatically since 2005) and 10% writers, actors and other company persons who writes the stories, character infos, subtitles, speeches and handles the company money and other PR functions.
Many will even include beta testers but typically those are all the people as well in the game development.