While an interpreted interpreter is a fascinating concept to ponder, the recursive nature of such a design, it seems to me, would by necessity eventually consume all computing cycles in the universe.
Getting to a command prompt, or a gui screen, is only a small part of what people set up a machine to do, and so we should expand the task for the comparison.
A better challange would be to have a new user install the OS and create and print a simple text document.
With Windows 98 and any recent printer, the printing services are automatically installed. This is not at all the case with any flavor of Linux I have experienced.
Maybe a better test yet would be for the new user to install the OS, get onto the Internet and print a specified web page. The user is allowed to use whatever resources he/she needs to establish a new account to get onto the net. This would include the freedom to establish an account with one of the half dozen or so national ISPs whose icons are installed by default on the Windows 98 machine, or some maw and paw hole-in-the-wall outfit if desired.
I'm not sure what options the user would have under Linux (I remember seeing an AT&T Worldnet icon printed on a Linux Mall CD for OpenLinux over a year ago,) but I know for a fact it wouldn't be as easy. Since we are talking about a newbie user, it wouldn't be acceptable for them to just plug in the info from a previous account somewhere. They could of course use any ISP they wanted, even dial up by voice and get the info from an operator at the ISP (a popular choice with some Linux users).
Installing the OS and then a game (something a few years old, like perhaps Quake or Doom) and getting it to work, including sound and joystick, would be yet another worthy test case. I remember a few years ago waiting at the register at CompUSA with a woman behind me her crying child. She was trying to tell him the game that he wanted "wouldn't run on the Mac." I suppose for the sake of objectivity, we shouldn't insist on there being a crying child in the background as the test subject struggles to get something fun for a kid running on the Linux machine. Xbill doesn't count, needless to say.
Re:Damn. Realplayer G2 no longer offered on Linux
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Matt Welsh on NPR
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The content providers will only 'broadcast' on a proprietary protocol, because they use the privateness to "protect" their content. If the.ra format was open, they'd choose something else.
4) View the system's behavior under a hardware emulator, or tap into the data/address bus with a logic analyzer.
To do this these days, you're best off using an older platform for your testbed. Say a slow 386 machine. I don't even want to think about how expensive a Pentium-class emulator is, and you can't just tap into the PCI bus with the logic analyzer *I* can afford (mine is an HP1630G). Obviously the "big boys" can afford some of this more than some kid.
For the sake of completeness, though, real-time hardware monitoring schemes need to be mentioned.
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While an interpreted interpreter is a fascinating concept to ponder, the recursive nature of such a design, it seems to me, would by necessity eventually consume all computing cycles in the universe.
You'll have to pay them that before you can find out, I guess.
Don't worry.
Good practice dictates that a reliable backup copy be made before deleting the original.
Softway was doing so badly that they'd even proposed going to an Open Source development model awhile back.
Getting to a command prompt, or a gui screen, is only a small part of what people set up a machine to do, and so we should expand the task for the comparison.
A better challange would be to have a new user install the OS and create and print a simple text document.
With Windows 98 and any recent printer, the printing services are automatically installed. This is not at all the case with any flavor of Linux I have experienced.
Maybe a better test yet would be for the new user to install the OS, get onto the Internet and print a specified web page. The user is allowed to use whatever resources he/she needs to establish a new account to get onto the net. This would include the freedom to establish an account with one of the half dozen or so national ISPs whose icons are installed by default on the Windows 98 machine, or some maw and paw hole-in-the-wall outfit if desired.
I'm not sure what options the user would have under Linux (I remember seeing an AT&T Worldnet icon printed on a Linux Mall CD for OpenLinux over a year ago,) but I know for a fact it wouldn't be as easy. Since we are talking about a newbie user, it wouldn't be acceptable for them to just plug in the info from a previous account somewhere. They could of course use any ISP they wanted, even dial up by voice and get the info from an operator at the ISP (a popular choice with some Linux users).
Installing the OS and then a game (something a few years old, like perhaps Quake or Doom) and getting it to work, including sound and joystick, would be yet another worthy test case. I remember a few years ago waiting at the register at CompUSA with a woman behind me her crying child. She was trying to tell him the game that he wanted "wouldn't run on the Mac." I suppose for the sake of objectivity, we shouldn't insist on there being a crying child in the background as the test subject struggles to get something fun for a kid running on the Linux machine. Xbill doesn't count, needless to say.
The content providers will only 'broadcast' on a proprietary protocol, because they use the privateness to "protect" their content. If the .ra format was open, they'd choose something else.
You forgot one:
4) View the system's behavior under a hardware emulator, or tap into the data/address bus with a logic analyzer.
To do this these days, you're best off using an older platform for your testbed. Say a slow 386 machine. I don't even want to think about how expensive a Pentium-class emulator is, and you can't just tap into the PCI bus with the logic analyzer *I* can afford (mine is an HP1630G). Obviously the "big boys" can afford some of this more than some kid.
For the sake of completeness, though, real-time hardware monitoring schemes need to be mentioned.
Sounds interesting. But where did he come up with a figure like 20%. Did he supply references for his "candid" claim?
A multi-platform cluster. Hmmm. That sounds like Amoeba.
Doctor Torvalds?
I didn't know he had a doctorate.
I didn't even know he owned Transmeta.
As it's shaping up to be a graceful end for Netscape??
I just came to the frightening realization that you might actually believe Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet.