Ubuntu 9.10 Off To A Great Performance Start

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 9.10 Off To A Great Performance Start

The first alpha release for Ubuntu 9.10 was made available yesterday and while it does net yet integrate Plymouth or any other new features, it has picked up a few new packages. Most prominently, Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 1 features the Linux 2.6.30 kernel and GCC 4.4. There are also other updated packages from Debian like GNOME 2.27, but most notable are the kernel and compiler updates. We have tested out Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 1 and compared its performance to Ubuntu 9.04. While this is very early within the Ubuntu 9.10 development cycle, the results already may come as a surprise.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13833

[curaga]

Pretty nice results - could you say are they more due to GCC 4.4 or 2.6.30?

[[Knuckles]]

It would be interesting to isolate whether these speedups come from the new kernel, or the new gcc, or something else.

I'm guessing most of it is the new kernel.

[bugmenot]

Great to see the Kernel devs making an effort to improve the desktop experience ... makes me tempted to upgrade to the 2.6.30 kernel on Jaunty (not sure if thats possible)

[d2kx]

Great to see the Kernel devs making an effort to improve the desktop experience ... makes me tempted to upgrade to the 2.6.30 kernel on Jaunty (not sure if thats possible)

All:http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

Linux 2.6.30 RC5: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30-rc5/

Warning: may make your kitteh eat a dog.

[deanjo]

Guess that kind of proves how screwed SQLite performance was because of a kernel regression.

[cyrex]

The third test says

We had run the other tests within the compilation suite found in the Phoronix Test Suite too, and in every case Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha 1 / GCC 4.4 were faster. With that said, we next moved onto looking at a compression speed test. 7-Zip compression was 4% faster with the Karmic Koala packages compared to the Jaunty Jackalope.

Should say Ubuntu 9.10

Just a minor glitch in the matrix i found while crusing on my favorite website.

100% addicted to Phoronix chems.:D

[kraftman]

Guess that kind of proves how screwed SQLite performance was because of a kernel regression.

Ehm, same 'regression' on Linux, *BSD and Solaris?

I still hope we'll see Ubuntu x86_64 on Ext 4 partition vs Macos comparison.

[Apopas]

Ehm, same 'regression' on Linux, *BSD and Solaris?

I still hope we'll see Ubuntu x86_64 on Ext 4 partition vs Macos comparison.

Same here mate!

[L33F3R]

very nice performance gains :)

[KDesk]

Ehm, same 'regression' on Linux, *BSD and Solaris?

I still hope we'll see Ubuntu x86_64 on Ext 4 partition vs Macos comparison.

+1 (also with some tweaks)

[MaestroMaus]

and while it does NOT yet
Typo on the first sentence.

[hdas]

I am guessing it might be a Core-i7 thing - may be new kernel and gcc are more optimized for it. Would be very surprised if that's the case for E8400 too, since the Core2 architecture has been around for quite a while. Pretty happy anyways :D.

[Luis]

Ok, so since everyone is trying to guess here, I'll try my guess too:

Could the performance improvements (they are most notable in I/O operations) be due to changing the default in ext3 from date=ordered to data=writeback? In other words, anyone could have enjoyed these improvements years ago, as long as they don't care about a few safety/security problems when mounting the filesystem with data=writeback.

Well, at least one of those safety problems have been addressed so you won't get zeroed files if a crash happens just after a file is renamed/replaced by a program that does not use sync. Still, you might get files from other users (or other users can get files belonging to you).

[deanjo]

Ok, so since everyone is trying to guess here, I'll try my guess too:

Could the performance improvements (they are most notable in I/O operations) be due to changing the default in ext3 from date=ordered to data=writeback? In other words, anyone could have enjoyed these improvements years ago, as long as they don't care about a few safety/security problems when mounting the filesystem with data=writeback.

Well, at least one of those safety problems have been addressed so you won't get zeroed files if a crash happens just after a file is renamed/replaced by a program that does not use sync. Still, you might get files from other users (or other users can get files belonging to you).

Not sure but the regression happened around the 2.6.18 time frame. It's just now that Ext3 finally starts performing like it did back then.

[susikala]

Ok, so since everyone is trying to guess here, I'll try my guess too:

Could the performance improvements (they are most notable in I/O operations) be due to changing the default in ext3 from date=ordered to data=writeback? In other words, anyone could have enjoyed these improvements years ago, as long as they don't care about a few safety/security problems when mounting the filesystem with data=writeback.

Well, at least one of those safety problems have been addressed so you won't get zeroed files if a crash happens just after a file is renamed/replaced by a program that does not use sync. Still, you might get files from other users (or other users can get files belonging to you).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but data=writeback is in the default kernel. The one used in the benchmarks however is rebranded, are you sure Ubuntu doesn't fall back to data=ordered, like predicted by Corbet at least for some time?

[jbrown96]

I have to give Michel a lot of credit for this article. It's significantly better than the last article about Ubuntu 9.10 (the Intel graphics regressions) that I complained about so loudly. There's some good discussions about why performance improved. I particularly like the discussion about the MySQL test. This is a great step forward. Keep it coming Michel, and of course, the entire Ubuntu team.

[drag]

Great to see the Kernel devs making an effort to improve the desktop experience ... makes me tempted to upgrade to the 2.6.30 kernel on Jaunty (not sure if thats possible)


It should be.

Use the kernel-package program.

What you do is basically this:
1. download the source code from kernel.org. Untar it to /usr/src

2. in the linux-2.6.30 directory, copy your /boot/config-2.6.29-whatever to /usr/src/linux-2.6.30/.config

3. Run 'make oldconfig'

Answer any questions that pop up. If it asks questions it is because of features in 2.6.30 that are not in 2.6.28-whatever-the-hell-it-is. If you don't know the correct answer, choose the default as it's the safest setting.

What this does is that you get as close as possible to original kernel's configuration.

Then run the make-kpkg stuff.


Something like this:

make-kpkg clean
make-kpkg --config=menuconfig kernel_image modules_image

What this does is that it compiles the kernel and packages it into debian packages. Then you just install the .deb package.

What this does is that it allows you to remove your current kernel (which I don't recommend) it fullfills any package dependences and it'll run all the hooks to configure grub and all that when you install it.

Also it makes it easy to uninstall it.

That is about the safest way to build a custom kernel. Just remember if it doesn't work then you can go back to the original one.

good luck.

[neuron]

Worth mentioning that new kernels default to ext3 in writeback mode rather than ordered, I'm guessing that's where all your disk improvements come from.

[Kano]

@drag

When you use root=UUID=... then you should compile kernels with initrd support (--initrd option). Also intersting is to compile a kernel from Ubuntu git, when you add a git pull master you can update em to latest code. Currently merging is a bit tricky, but not impossible. I packaged -5 kernels updated to rc6 for Kanotix. There you see the changes in U git:

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git?p=ubuntu/ubuntu-karmic.git;a=summary

Needed packages:

sudo apt-get install git-core kernel-package kernel-wedge debhelper build-essential devscripts makedumpfile fakeroot

To checkout:

git clone git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-karmic.git

To update:

git pull git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git master

edit the files which fail to merge (seek for <<<< and >>>>), most of the times it is straight forward. Then

git add file-1-edited file-2-edited

git commit

to compile the generic kernel:

time fakeroot debian/rules binary-debs flavours=generic skipabi=true skipmodule=true

missing package for header:

time fakeroot debian/rules binary-headers

[Yfrwlf]

Awesome.

Hopefully AMD will have either closed or open source driver support for my 4850 X2 under newer versions of Linux by then including for 2.6.28 (Jaunty). :X

Whatever happened to the "same day support" stuff. :P

[bridgman]

Same day support with Catalyst drivers was for new GPUs, not for new OS versions.

For new kernel / X / distro versions we said that we expected gradual reduction of the time from new kernel/server/distro availability to Catalyst support, although our first priority will still be the enterprise distros most of our customers use.

Support for 9.04 is currently at "early look" stage per the release notes, ie it runs but has not been through a full engineering/QA pass. I don't think we have been able to repro the X2 problems on our systems yet, so accumulating good information in a Bugzilla ticket (one, not many) will help the developers. I took a look through the Bugzilla system and didn't see *any* applicable tickets, so creating one would be a good start.

This appears to be a regression related to Jaunty but even that info is not 100% consistent, so accurate info about "works with this combionation, doesn't work with that combination" will help.

[Yfrwlf]

Same day support with Catalyst drivers was for new GPUs, not for new OS versions.

OK, I'll certainly give you that, and Ubuntu even had a notice saying that upgrading to the newer version would break your closed source graphics drivers.

However, while it is impossible to track what random devs are rolling out, a new X server isn't really random and is what AMD needs to be tracking any way. Hopefully things will be a lot better and easier with Gallium3D, but it just would have been nice to see better communication and tracking in this situation between AMD and X Server 1.6, but I guess you sort of address that in the next comment...

For new kernel / X / distro versions we said that we expected gradual reduction of the time from new kernel/server/distro availability to Catalyst support, although our first priority will still be the enterprise distros most of our customers use.

What is needed is tracking of X, and standardisation among distros, for both the open and closed drivers. Linux users shouldn't have to worry about what distro they are running, nor should AMD, because there should be standards in place to allow for universal easy Linux driver installation. I hope AMD is helping to push for that, maybe even help plan/program such a thing to help it come to pass faster. Partnering with other companies to get this done would of course be best.

Support for 9.04 is currently at "early look" stage per the release notes, ie it runs but has not been through a full engineering/QA pass. I don't think we have been able to repro the X2 problems on our systems yet, so accumulating good information in a Bugzilla ticket (one, not many) will help the developers. I took a look through the Bugzilla system and didn't see *any* applicable tickets, so creating one would be a good start.

In other words, to continue from what I said above, it shouldn't be AMD's problem to fix a distro, it should be that distro's problem to correctly follow the standards and protocols the community brings to bare. AMD should only have to follow standards and help push for better ones. Track Xorg and the kernel and any other important APIs your driver needs to correctly interface with or whatnot, and be done with it. :)

I've created and added to bugs about this issue on Launchpad, which is a fairly nice bug tracking system that I like, but I'm sure there are many others. I haven't created any bugs anywhere else yet like for X Server or whatnot.

This appears to be a regression related to Jaunty but even that info is not 100% consistent, so accurate info about "works with this combionation, doesn't work with that combination" will help.

Yep, I've filed bugs already, thanks for the suggestion though. :)

[deanjo]

What is needed is tracking of X, and standardisation among distros, for both the open and closed drivers. Linux users shouldn't have to worry about what distro they are running, nor should AMD, because there should be standards in place to allow for universal easy Linux driver installation. I hope AMD is helping to push for that, maybe even help plan/program such a thing to help it come to pass faster. Partnering with other companies to get this done would of course be best.


Won't happen, with linux you have too many distro's with differing POV's. They have tried standardization, it's called the LSB, but again you have a bunch of pig headed people in the distro's that seem to see that as a "infringement of freedom of choice" and let politics such as community developed vs corp developed distros inpeed the much needed standardization of key base foundations. Anybody remember United Linux and how it failed?


In other words, to continue from what I said above, it shouldn't be AMD's problem to fix a distro, it should be that distro's problem to correctly follow the standards and protocols the community brings to bare. AMD should only have to follow standards and help push for better ones. Track Xorg and the kernel and any other important APIs your driver needs to correctly interface with or whatnot, and be done with it. :)
You will NEVER get the stubborn opensource community to be co-operative with closed source drivers. When it comes to that stuff they are extremely pig headed. Proprose such a thing and they will cry "We can't fix their crap, screw them." Closed sourced developers have tried to get a bit of help in area's to ensure compatibility instead they are greated with "Fuck you". Nvidia has accepted that and they don't expect any help from the X community at all anymore.

[SolidSteel144]

That's a damn shame. Instead of people just getting something that works and make it their own they should just improve that software. Unity is key. ;)

[krazy]

What is needed is tracking of X, and standardisation among distros, for both the open and closed drivers. Linux users shouldn't have to worry about what distro they are running, nor should AMD, because there should be standards in place to allow for universal easy Linux driver installation. I hope AMD is helping to push for that, maybe even help plan/program such a thing to help it come to pass faster. Partnering with other companies to get this done would of course be best.There is already a standard in place allowing for "universal easy Linux driver installation". It's called "open source code".
Unfortunately with closed-source drivers such as fglrx, only the vendor has the ability to get the driver tracking the evolving X APIs. This is why the open source radeon/radeonhd drivers already work with the new X server.
In other words, to continue from what I said above, it shouldn't be AMD's problem to fix a distro, it should be that distro's problem to correctly follow the standards and protocols the community brings to bare. AMD should only have to follow standards and help push for better ones. Track Xorg and the kernel and any other important APIs your driver needs to correctly interface with or whatnot, and be done with it. :)
Nope. It's the distro's job to package the software for easy installation (and to develop packaging tools etc.).
If all hardware companies followed the "open source" (and open specs) linux standard for hardware support, then there would be no problem. AMD's currently doing the right thing by releasing code and hardware specs, but it will take time for hardware support to mature.

[krazy]

You will NEVER get the stubborn opensource community to be co-operative with closed source drivers.
I think you'll find it's the other way around. Ever read the nv driver code?
When it comes to that stuff they are extremely pig headed. Proprose such a thing and they will cry "We can't fix their crap, screw them."
Other way round again I think. Taking the nvidia driver for example, instead of contributing to an open acceleration architecture in X such as EXA or UXA, they went and implemented their own proprietary solution.
Closed sourced developers have tried to get a bit of help in area's to ensure compatibility instead they are greated with "Fuck you". Nvidia has accepted that and they don't expect any help from the X community at all anymore.
Bullshit. Provide a link to this "Fuck you" quote.
Closed source developers get amazing support when they decide to reach out to the open source community. For example, how else has there been such rapid support for VDPAU provided in Xine, MPlayer, VLC, FFmpeg and others? It was only announced in November last year!

[bugmenot]

I'm intrested in the boot time of the new ubuntu alpha. Fastboot(async hardware probing) from the Intel Moblin project is enabled by default from kernel 2.6.30. This would in theory speed up the bootup process. I'm curious for real life examples.

[kraftman]

Bullshit. Provide a link to this "Fuck you" quote.
Closed source developers get amazing support when they decide to reach out to the open source community. For example, how else has there been such rapid support for VDPAU provided in Xine, MPlayer, VLC, FFmpeg and others? It was only announced in November last year!

Exactly. Guess who helps nvidia making their installer? OS community :D

[Yfrwlf]

Won't happen, with linux you have too many distro's with differing POV's. They have tried standardization, it's called the LSB, but again you have a bunch of pig headed people in the distro's that seem to see that as a "infringement of freedom of choice" and let politics such as community developed vs corp developed distros inpeed the much needed standardization of key base foundations. Anybody remember United Linux and how it failed?

You will NEVER get the stubborn opensource community to be co-operative with closed source drivers. When it comes to that stuff they are extremely pig headed. Proprose such a thing and they will cry "We can't fix their crap, screw them." Closed sourced developers have tried to get a bit of help in area's to ensure compatibility instead they are greated with "Fuck you". Nvidia has accepted that and they don't expect any help from the X community at all anymore.

That's extremely hurtful to all who are involved with Linux. A lack of standards hurts everyone, including open source programs as well, as constant recompilation shouldn't be required and isn't something normal users can do, the ones that Linux is trying to target now for it to ever be popular on the desktop.

Linux should be all about standards, it's ironic that standards are pushed heavily in other areas, and that lock-in is looked down upon, yet in critical areas like package management, the lack of standards is awful and heavily impedes everyone's freedoms, yet it's perfectly OK?

You know what I think, is that distros and the companies behind them don't want a Linux program to be a Linux program, they don't want to respect the developers and use the code as they intended it and rename the program to something else if they change it, they want to keep Linux a moving target and keep package management proprietary to their versions of their own "distro". The problem is, if you could just go download *Firefox*, and it would be *Firefox from Mozilla*, or if you downloaded Xorg, and it would be the original thing from those devs, if all Linux software was clearly labeled with packages that had clear dependencies on the *original* versions of other programs, what would that mean?

Distros would die. Those companies would die with them unless they focused on their other ways of making money. There would no longer need to be a "distro" because it would all be Linux, and no one would have to beg a distro for a repository so they could install software. Instead they could go directly to the source, the devs/community, or use any one of a billion different Linux software mirrors that *anyone* can use regardless of what they were running as long as it was Linux.

Diversity is good, competition is great, and the various differences in Linux ARE good, don't get me wrong. What is bad is when things aren't labeled, when the sources for software aren't respected, so as to keep everyone on the same page and to give the software projects that are most widely used their appropriate light and attention from the community. Those individual software projects should be the focus of the community, NOT a distro, like they're so special when all they did was compile what some dev's offered just because of the refusal to
make a universal Linux packaging system/format.

There is already a standard in place allowing for "universal easy Linux driver installation". It's called "open source code".

You point out something important here, which is that traditionally a lot of the modularity in Linux allowing for compatibility and interoperability has been implemented on the source code level. I understand that. However, that way sucks, because it would mean users have to *compile* to get that compatibility. If Linux is going to be a desktop OS for normal users, while having complete freedom to install what they want, this can't stand.

For now, this is what will have to happen to solve this problem as far as I can figure:

1) Programs which are very modular need to work on creating an ABI for their core system, if possible and if it is felt necessary, meaning plugins. Lets take imagemagick as an example:
a) core imagemagick program - the core bit that everyone will use, and should not be modified. If it is, like with any program, a different name for the program should be used.
b) jpg support - should be a module, if the intention is to cut down on size, etc
c) png support - etc
2) Because of the fact that space isn't so much an issue any more with computers these days, the developers may choose to wrap nearly all or all of their library into one big package. Either way, have a clear naming convention so that other packages can correctly call upon your program's name and version number if it's a dependency.
3) Package your software using at least one universal Linux packaging format so that ALL Linux users, not just Ubuntu users, will have access to your software. Help create a universal packaging format/API/ABI/whatever that all packaging managers can adopt if needs be. Don't release your code for a proprietary system, demand standards so everyone can be free to use it.

IMO, as I said before, I blame the distro companies for not wanting this to happen, otherwise they lose some of the power and uniqueness that many of them currently have. The solution for these companies is to:

1) Be a support company for Linux as a whole.
2) Be a development/bounty company for Linux as a whole.
3) Get your "own" software project(s) and back it/them, or in other words provide specialised and focused development and support of one or more software projects, like so many other companies do.
4) Kill the term "distro", and instead provide your images as they were intended: as "just another specific selection of Linux software that we like to have as our base OS installation, but feel free to easily install software from any repository or any website to add to it, as we support Linux packaging standards so you can do that".

Linux can either continue jailing it's users who don't know how to compile, or it can get in gear with the 21st Century, and provide real freedom by simply respecting the community and it's developers and users and getting a system together for real software sharing.

Nope. It's the distro's job to package the software for easy installation (and to develop packaging tools etc.).

Who are you, the Linux software foreman? ;) I know how it works now, believe me, and I'm saying that the way it works now sucks. Linux will remain fragmented if things stay that way. "Sorry, you have to reinstall this different Linux OS if you want this software, because it's not in the repositories." How many times have you wanted, say, a newer version of OOo, or to try out a newer Xorg, or a newer <insert program here>, but couldn't because they only offered source code? Maybe you're totally OK because you love spending all your time searching for dependencies so you can spend all your electricity re-compiling programs that should have only needed to be compiled once by the actual developers of the programs or for anyone interested in software development?

The way Linux is now sucks, and if you want to support freedom for desktop users, or any users that don't want to bother with compiling software like I do, then you will support a unified package format and for it to be adopted by the current popular package managers. I want Linux to grow exponentially, not be artificially be walled off from one another, unable to easily share programs with each other and for dev's to share programs with the community, just because some retarded companies refuse to help the community make some real standards for packaging and adopt them out of fear that they won't be relevant any more if no one is forced to come to them begging for software that should be easily freely available directly from the real devs.

Oh, and btw, you don't even need to bother with a "no this feature is not needed!" response, because if you want to continue compiling your own programs, be my guest. Linux needs to continue to be an environment that makes compilation easy, even a lot easier than it is now, to help spur Linux software development. But, this feature would in no way prohibit you from doing so. This would be a *feature* that should be added. There is no harm in that. This whole system causes nothing but frustrations for not only end users, but developers, especially when distro #73258 user #3 comes crawling to them with a bug that is completely not their fault because this distro modified their program without renaming it and introduced bugs into it.

[Yfrwlf]

If all hardware companies followed the "open source" (and open specs) linux standard for hardware support, then there would be no problem. AMD's currently doing the right thing by releasing code and hardware specs, but it will take time for hardware support to mature.

Open source software is great, I agree, it allows others to more easily help out and submit bug fixes, it encourages transparency, and best of all, if the community as a whole doesn't like it, they can help change it, and if the dev's don't want to, it can be forked if needed. Ideally though, if it has to do with certain features or options being available, the dev's should make a plug-in system to allow anyone to piece in the modules they prefer, but that's a different subject.

However, having all the modularity on the source level isn't the answer, because modern Linux users don't want to be bothered with compiling, and having every distro do it isn't the most free answer either as this only makes users have to go round about through them instead of from the devs, and needlessly creates duplicated effort and work when every version of a program should only have to be compiled once, and then made available for all Linux users. For example, I can't even try out Firefox Beta 3.5 cleanly because there are no packages for it right now, just a simple binary when all the other platforms have a nice juicy package they can all easily install. They get a nice feature, while Linux users suffer. In other words, right now, things suck. That's the coffee, so wake up to it.

That's a damn shame. Instead of people just getting something that works and make it their own they should just improve that software. Unity is key. ;)

Exactly, the original dev's are the one who should get the web traffic, bug reports, etc, and while mirrors and easy software installation systems like yum and apt-get are great, don't get me wrong, and should definitely continue to be used, those systems would have a billion times more software packages available to users if universal Linux packages were being used instead of the way things are now.

"Oh please oh please distro company ZYX, package this new game that just came out for meeeeeeeee, it has this awesome feature XYZ!"

"NO! We won't! If you want it, reformat your computer and install this other distro, they have it! Or, wait until the new version of our distro comes out, maybe by then it'll be available for you! Mwuhahahaha!"

OK maybe not the mwuhahaha part, was added for dramatic effect, but you get the point. They're not the ones who should be in control, the original devs should be in control, and if they are being poofaces for whatever reason, the project can be forked or someone else can package it and/or rename it or whatever is needed.

Any way, all software developers should demand a universal Linux package format, and help push for it, a format that existing managers are going to want to adopt. Then hopefully in the future, the universal packages will replace the proprietary stupid old-way-of-doing-things packages.

[Kano]

I see no new major packages in karmic at all. I basically only look at: virtualbox-ose and squashfs-tools because i would like to backport the first to kanotix (only a simple change that would install the guest addons there) and squashfs-tools 4 is needed for kernel 2.6.29+ - so without they will not build any live images. You see directly what status live images have got for U development...

[curaga]

You're advocating an universal package format, and demanding that every open source dev create packages for that format. Don't you think that increases their workload, hm?

Say you wrote a nice utility in 1999 that is still used. Something like xsri. How would you react if, as a result of this move, you'd start getting *cough*spam*cough* hundreds of requests to create a package for this format X, because they somehow think it's *your* responsibility.

And that's just one example. It's not the devs' responsibility at all, and it should not be. Also, if I read your post right, you want packages to be downloaded all from the original source. Thus upping bandwidth requirements, losing all the convenience of package managers, and finally, it's the Windows model.

[deanjo]

I think you'll find it's the other way around. Ever read the nv driver code?

Since when is the nv driver code closed?


Other way round again I think. Taking the nvidia driver for example, instead of contributing to an open acceleration architecture in X such as EXA or UXA, they went and implemented their own proprietary solution.
And be limited to crappy performance and accept 50% 3d performance as good enough? I don't think so. Now that would really put linux gaming another 10 years behind.

Bullshit. Provide a link to this "Fuck you" quote.The quote was to relay the general attitude that closed sourced developers, not a direct quote from a mailing list. (although it has been used in several private emails) get when trying to add support for any device specific items that involve a closed source driver. This has been seen many times over the past in the kernel and xorg for example:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-July/037098.html
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzE1Mw

In fact, if it wasn't for Linus keeping a sane head on him a lot of the kernel devs would outright lock out closed source drivers if they had their way. You can read a crap load of attempts by kernel devs to sway Linus in this direction.

Perhaps Greg KH relayed this best with his

We, the undersigned Linux kernel developers, consider any closed-source Linux kernel module or driver to be harmful and undesirable. We have repeatedly found them to be detrimental to Linux users, businesses and the greater Linux ecosystem. Such modules negate the openness, stability, flexibility and maintainability of the Linux development model and shut their users off from the expertise of the Linux community. Vendors that provide closed-source kernel modules force their customers to give up key Linux advantages or choose new vendors. Therefore, in order to take full advantage of the cost savings and shared support benefits open source has to offer, we urge vendors to adopt a policy of supporting their customers on Linux with open-source kernel code.
We speak only for ourselves, and not for any company we might work for today, have in the past or will in the future.
Then there are items like this from a sane Linus:

http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/10/334625

Well, I've talked to various people, and none of the main kernel people
end up being at all interested in a kernel that has external dependencies
on binary blobs for tuners.

So right now it seems like while I would personally want to have more
vendors supprt their own drivers, if that in this case means that we'd
have to have user-space and unmaintainable binaries to tune the cards,
everybody seems to hate that idea.

As such, the old and decrepit em28xx driver seems more useful to people,
since at least it supports the limited set of hardware on its own.

Closed source developers get amazing support when they decide to reach out to the open source community. For example, how else has there been such rapid support for VDPAU provided in Xine, MPlayer, VLC, FFmpeg and others? It was only announced in November last year!Now VDPAU isn't closed is it?

[curaga]

Now VDPAU isn't closed is it?I don't see VDPAU in Intel, AMD, nv, nouveau drivers..

[deanjo]

I don't see VDPAU in Intel, AMD, nv, nouveau drivers..

There is nothing that is stopping other drivers from incorporating VDPAU into their own drivers.

[Yfrwlf]

You're advocating an universal package format, and demanding that every open source dev create packages for that format. Don't you think that increases their workload, hm?

Might respond to the rest later, but, that was just an asinine response and I have to comment..

No, I expect Linux developers to want users to download and use the software they write. If they didn't want users using it, they shouldn't have released it to begin with. Since they apparently do, of course they want to release it in a universally accessible format which is also easy to install. They should only have to release it in this format, and nothing else.

If I were a developer, I'd be releasing the source code, as required by law any way under my license, as well as a binary inside a universally supported package which actually integrates into the OS better than any straight binaries or installers ever could or will. Those packages are what everyone should be supporting, you know, actual important Linux standards for everybody, instead of proprietary garbage that only helps a select few.

[bridgman]

I guess the over-arching question is "what is the business model if there's only one Linux rather than a bunch of distros" ? Right now a good chunk of the common Linux work is done by developers working for major distros; how do those companies continue to succeed and continue funding Linux development ? Selling support contracts can be part of the solution but I don't think they're a complete solution.

I think most of the participants understand the drawbacks of the current model, but AFAICS maintaining a bit of proprietary differentiation is an important part of funding the ongoing work, even if the source code for that proprietary work is freely available.

[krazy]

Since when is the nv driver code closed?
It's not, I'm saying that it is deliberately obfuscated.

You will NEVER get the stubborn opensource community to be co-operative with closed source drivers. When it comes to that stuff they are extremely pig headed. Proprose such a thing and they will cry "We can't fix their crap, screw them." Closed sourced developers have tried to get a bit of help in area's to ensure compatibility instead they are greated with "Fuck you". Nvidia has accepted that and they don't expect any help from the X community at all anymore.Other way round again I think. Taking the nvidia driver for example, instead of contributing to an open acceleration architecture in X such as EXA or UXA, they went and implemented their own proprietary solution.
And be limited to crappy performance and accept 50% 3d performance as good enough? I don't think so. Now that would really put linux gaming another 10 years behind.
So, paraphrasing: "We can't fix their crap, screw them." ? :rolleyes:

The quote was to relay the general attitude that closed sourced developers, not a direct quote from a mailing list.
Your quotes all relate to binary blobs which are impossible to properly support. There is an open offer of help to hardware companies for linux support. See here (http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view).
Now VDPAU isn't closed is it?
Nope, and thanks to that the "closed-minded" open source devs have provided support in most of the major linux video solutions.

[deanjo]

It's not, I'm saying that it is deliberately obfuscated.


So, paraphrasing: "We can't fix their crap, screw them." ? :rolleyes:


Your quotes all relate to binary blobs which are impossible to properly support. There is an open offer of help to hardware companies for linux support. See here (http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view).

Nope, and thanks to that the "closed-minded" open source devs have provided support in most of the major linux video solutions.

Did you even bother actually reading my initial comment? Seems you are arguing the exact same thing now.

You will NEVER get the stubborn opensource community to be co-operative with closed source drivers.As far as "binary blobs which are impossible to properly support" that my friend is a load of horseshit. If the X layer didn't change on a weekly basis and they actually settled on some set standards then it becomes very easy to maintain blob compatibility. It's because of this volatile type of development that you do see blobs break. In other OS's you are fully capable of upgrading kernels and video subsystems without breaking the previously installed driver.

[Yfrwlf]

I guess the over-arching question is "what is the business model if there's only one Linux rather than a bunch of distros" ? Right now a good chunk of the common Linux work is done by developers working for major distros; how do those companies continue to succeed and continue funding Linux development ? Selling support contracts can be part of the solution but I don't think they're a complete solution.

I think most of the participants understand the drawbacks of the current model, but AFAICS maintaining a bit of proprietary differentiation is an important part of funding the ongoing work, even if the source code for that proprietary work is freely available.

So the logic is thus:

1) Without proprietary packages, distros wouldn't be very unique since the packaging system is much of how they differentiate themselves from others, except for the support, several software projects that they are the main directors of, and their unique "starter bundle"/iso of Linux software which may be a good starting point for many Linux users wanting to get up and running quickly with a certain set of basic software.

2) Getting rid of proprietary software packaging leaves you with everything else aside from the first thing.

3) They're quite possibly clinging to proprietary package management then as a way to be more unique.

Which comes at the cost of: fragmenting the Linux community, making it difficult for developers to supply Linux software for others to use, making it difficult for device manufacturers to supply easily installable drivers on CDs shipped with their products, and heavily reducing the sharing of software between Linux users.

Yahoo IM User: "Here, try out this cool program!"
AIM User: "OK! Wait, it's not in my repository, they haven't packaged it yet..."
Yahoo IM User: "OK, here's the package I have!"
AIM User: "Oh...my system can't read these kinds of packages." OR "It's not installing correctly...says that the dependencies can't be met."
MSN User: "Haha, I'm on Windows, basically all software packages can be shared easily."
Other two: *grumble*

If what you say, and I also hypothesis, is true, then I'm their enemy. Creating packages that are proprietary is selfish, and I and everyone else should only support packaging solutions which will grant free and open access to anyone using a package manager that adopts the open format(s). Companies pushing things to be proprietary in order to force, what do they call it...their "stream", to force everyone to have to come to them for everything? Yeah, that. That goes against everything that made the Free Software Movement great. Lock-in is exactly what Linux users are trying to escape from, so aiding an environment of lock-in and proprietary packaging for Linux is just flat out wrong.

[bridgman]

Honestly I don't know enough about the pros and cons of various package managers to know if the package manager itself is an important part of distro differentiation. I suspect that it is not. Distros are mostly concerned with "delivering a complete solution" and choose the components & tools which they feel best meet their needs.

The primary reason for each distro staying with its current packaging systems is probably nothing more than the high cost of changing and the fact that the groups which would have to fund the work would probably be hurt more than helped. Nobody likes it when companies put their own priorities ahead of the greater good, but (a) there is usually a lot of overlap between company priorities and user priorities, and (b) we do still expect companies to fund most of the work, so we either need solutions that allow those companies to continue to prosper or we need to find another way to get the work funded.

My point was more that with our current understanding of business models there is probably a need to maintain some differentiation between distros rather than throwing everything completely into a common "Linux" pot. The current model is inefficient but it's the best anyone has come up with so far; there *are* barriers but they are soft and permeable; source code is there for anyone willing to pick it up and make use of it, but that requires enough time and effort that there can be some commercial payback to justify funding development in the first place.

I'm not trying to discourage you here; quite the opposite. In the grand scheme of things both the free software movement and what we call modern civilization are both relatively young and everyone is still learning. The fact that we have a workable system today doesn't mean things can't change or improve, but unless there is some reasonably clear benefit to the folks who will have to invest in a new model it's going to be tough to sell the change.

[Kano]

The buildpkg option is nice, but the current kernel support is crap, if i had to decide which i would prefer it would be current kernel support.

[curaga]

Might respond to the rest later, but, that was just an asinine response and I have to comment..

No, I expect Linux developers to want users to download and use the software they write. If they didn't want users using it, they shouldn't have released it to begin with. Since they apparently do, of course they want to release it in a universally accessible format which is also easy to install. They should only have to release it in this format, and nothing else.

If I were a developer, I'd be releasing the source code, as required by law any way under my license, as well as a binary inside a universally supported package which actually integrates into the OS better than any straight binaries or installers ever could or will. Those packages are what everyone should be supporting, you know, actual important Linux standards for everybody, instead of proprietary garbage that only helps a select few.Cool. Except that the happy scenario won't happen unless everyone switches to this universal format at once. And since that won't happen, it's more work. Not something that everyone can justify even if it, as you say, brings more users. That is obviously because at that point, your dream format is only "another format" and there might even be more users gainable by packaging for ubuntu.

[Kano]

Sourcecode is definitely the best way for Linux, maybe a beginner does not understand this. Some projects provide also deb or rpm packages, but without diff.gz/dsc for deb or spec files for rpm they do not help much. checkinstall is able to create those too but thats not reuseable. So the best would be certainly if somebody from the project would be the distro maintainer of that package. If a package is not binary compatible then you can just recompile it if build-deps are met.

For commerical apps which are usually not provided as source the generation of a binary which runs on most systems is of course more problematic, but not impossible, maybe Svartalf could provide you with more infos about that. Basically you have to compile your app against a pretty old glibc and provide all used libs with it. LD_LIBRARY_PATH in a startup file will do the rest.

[krazy]

Did you even bother actually reading my initial comment? Seems you are arguing the exact same thing now.
You're arguing this:
And be limited to crappy performance and accept 50% 3d performance as good enough? I don't think so. Now that would really put linux gaming another 10 years behind.
Which is exactly the same as this:
"We can't fix their crap, screw them."
Get it?

As far as "binary blobs which are impossible to properly support" that my friend is a load of horseshit. If the X layer didn't change on a weekly basis and they actually settled on some set standards then it becomes very easy to maintain blob compatibility. It's because of this volatile type of development that you do see blobs break. In other OS's you are fully capable of upgrading kernels and video subsystems without breaking the previously installed driver.
Hmm, seems that over a hundred kernel developers (https://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Kernel_Driver_Statement) and (http://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html) Linus (http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0512.3/0986.html) disagree (http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.1/0802.html) with you. I guess they just don't understand? Maybe you should enlighten them. :)
In fact, just last year some guy explained it like this (http://linux-foundation.org/weblogs/openvoices/linus-torvalds-part-i/):
Well, there’s – the lack of an ABI is two-fold: one is we really, really, really don’t want one. Every single time people ask for a stable ABI, the main reason for wanting a stable ABI is they want to have their binary drivers and they don’t want to give out source and they don’t – certainly don’t want to merge that source into the stable kernel or the standard kernel.

And that, in turn, means that all the people who actually do all the kernel work and maintain the kernel are basically unable to work with that piece of hardware and that vendor because if there’s any bugs whatsoever, we can’t fix them.

So, all the commercial vendors—even the ones who used to accept binary drivers—have moved or are moving away from wanting to have anything at all to do with binary drivers because they’re completely unmaintainable.

So, there’s one of the reasons. Some people see it as political. There is probably a political aspect to it, but a lot of it is very pragmatic; we just can’t maintain it.

(...)

And when you have that kind of distributed support system when – where everybody ends up being involved at some point, you really can’t afford to have the situation where only a very small subset actually has access to the code that may be causing the problem. You need to have the code out there, not because of any social issues, but simply because you don’t know who’s going to be the one who has to fix it.

So, there’s a real reason why we need to be able to have source code which means that to all kernel developers, a binary interface is basically – it is only a bad thing. There is – there are no upsides whatsoever.

But there’s another reason which is that we actually do end up changing things in radical ways inside the kernel and that has led to the fact that even if we wanted to have a binary interface, we simply couldn’t or we could but it would then stop us from fixing stuff and changing how we do things internally.

And this is something you do see in other projects where, yes, they have binary interfaces for one reason or another—quite often because of commercial reasons—and that just means that they cannot fix their fundamental design. They sign up not just the binary interfaces, they also sign up to the exact design they had when they came up with that interface.

So, there’s – that’s the second major reason why a stable ABI is not going to make – in fact, that means that we don’t even guarantee a stable API; so, even on a source level we say, “Okay, this is the API and we’ll – if you have external drivers that use this, we’ll help you fix them up when we have to change the API. But we don’t guarantee that the same API will work across versions.” And it doesn’t.

[Apopas]

Here is a very enlightening article about kernels ABI's and API's!
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html

[Yfrwlf]

unless there is some reasonably clear benefit to the folks who will have to invest in a new model it's going to be tough to sell the change.

You're right, and because companies see money in locking users into their system and software, Linux users will suffer. That's why I will continue to help projects like Zero Install which break down those barriers toward easy Linux software installation.

Cool. Except that the happy scenario won't happen unless everyone switches to this universal format at once. And since that won't happen, it's more work. Not something that everyone can justify even if it, as you say, brings more users. That is obviously because at that point, your dream format is only "another format" and there might even be more users gainable by packaging for ubuntu.

No, it's called a technological challenge, and just because you haven't thought of a solution after thinking about it for maybe a fraction of a second doesn't mean there isn't one. One way of doing it is simply defining a bunch of metadata about a package and then letting the manager do what it wants to with it, and making the software be flexible and not using stupid static links so that the program can be completely manipulated in any way that package manager wants to. Such a solution means you can make a package manager be compatible with multiple formats and yet still install them all, you don't have to completely switch from RPM or DEB to NEWFORMAT, hell you may not even have to switch at all if DEB or RPM were updated to be more flexible so that they could be used as universal formats. Seriously, it's not that hard, it's not that complicated, it's just that these companies aren't interested in playing nice with the rest of the Linux community.

I'm talking about using format*S*, you don't have to force a single one on users, but you SHOULD use formats that any manager can easily adopt that are good enough formats to be worthy of the term Standard. Such formats should be promoted by the ISO, Freedesktop.org, and any other standards bodies as being of pivital importance in helping Linux interoperability.

(that is, if the ISO wasn't already possibly sold out to M$)

Sourcecode is definitely the best way for Linux, maybe a beginner does not understand this.

Yes, because if Linux users could actually easily install programs from across the Internet instead of being controlled and limited by their distro company, that might help to increase the rate of adoption for all of Linux as a whole, it'd be horrible.

Clearly we have different opinions of what is best.

Hmm, seems that over a hundred kernel developers (https://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Kernel_Driver_Statement) and (http://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html) Linus (http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0512.3/0986.html) disagree (http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.1/0802.html) with you. I guess they just don't understand? Maybe you should enlighten them. :)

You can do whatever you want to. Those developers don't want to do it because then the distro companies can stay in control and have the focus on them instead of sharing with the Linux ecosystem. There is no technical reason for not having an API. The entire point and definition of an API is so that you can have progress while still having compatibility. Maybe you should read the definition sometime.

This immature motive is revealed in the very opening paragraph which maybe you should actually read: "Every single time people ask for a stable ABI, the main reason for wanting a stable ABI is they want to have their binary drivers and they don’t want to give out source and they don’t – certainly don’t want to merge that source into the stable kernel or the standard kernel."

Ooooh, so they don't WANT it just because they don't want anyone, random developers or companies, to be actually able to make drivers for their kernel without them being able to know about it, control it, and accept it. They want to be in control, and remove that control from those random individuals. So do the distro companies, they have the exact same goal. They want all the focus to be on them instead of the general Linux community itself, so *they* can be recognised and become the household name, and force everyone to have to come to them for everything.

There's a billion parallels I could tell you about in the business world, like how car companies do the same thing by trying to make it so that every part has to come from them, for example using proprietary computer systems in their cars that require either finding and copying the program, if you're lucky enough to find the program online, or you have to go to them for simple things like "resetting it" so they can charge you $$$. They don't want competition, they don't want an open ecosystem of sharing and interoperability and standards, and it's the exact same thing with these companies that fund the kernel development. Hmm maybe who writes their paychecks has something to do with it??? Naaaaaaaah.

So, because of these assholes, because of that reason, I can't easily install drivers, and are pushed to get all my software from Canonical instead of from the REAL developers. Yay! Linux sure is all about freedom and choice isn't it?!

[movieman]

There is no technical reason for not having an API.

Yes there is. It's called Windows.

Windows has a 'stable API' which will still run binaries from twenty years ago; as a consequence it includes about a bazillion lines of crud that no-one should be using anymore, which includes a ton of bugs, tons of security holes, and requires vast amounts of time for developers to maintain.

The entire point and definition of an API is so that you can have progress while still having compatibility.

You only need binary compatibility if you refuse to hand out your source code. Linux kernel developers don't want to be tied down into some fossilised API which prevents them from making major design improvements, because they've seen what that's done to other operating systems.

'Stable APIs' are a really, really bad idea from a technical standpoint, because it ties you into bad design choices made years before. I don't know why this is so hard for some people to understand.

[Apopas]

Yup, APIs may be comfortable but they can easily fill your code with a lot of garbage. This guy here explains it much better (it's part from the link I posted above)...
If you have any questions please go read this file. It explains why Linux doesn't have a stable in-kernel api, and why it never will. It all goes back to the evolution thing. If we were to freeze how the kernel works internally, we would not be able to evolve in ways that we need to do so.

Here's an example that shows how this all works. The Linux USB code has been rewritten at least three times. We've done this over time in order to handle things that we didn't originally need to handle, like high speed devices, and just because we learned the problems of our first design, and to fix bugs and security issues. Each time we made changes in our api, we updated all of the kernel drivers that used the apis, so nothing would break. And we deleted the old functions as they were no longer needed, and did things wrong. Because of this, Linux now has the fastest USB bus speeds when you test out all of the different operating systems. We max out the hardware as fast as it can go, and you can do this from simple userspace programs, no fancy kernel driver work is needed.

Now Windows has also rewritten their USB stack at least 3 times, with Vista, it might be 4 times, I haven't taken a look at it yet. But each time they did a rework, and added new functions and fixed up older ones, they had to keep the old api functions around, as they have taken the stance that they can not break backward compatibility due to their stable API viewpoint. They also don't have access to the code in all of the different drivers, so they can't fix them up. So now the Windows core has all 3 sets of API functions in it, as they can't delete things. That means they maintain the old functions, and have to keep them in memory all the time, and it takes up engineering time to handle all of this extra complexity. That's their business decision to do this, and that's fine, but with Linux, we didn't make that decision, and it helps us remain a lot smaller, more stable, and more secure.

And by secure, I really mean it. A lot of times a security problem will be found in one driver, or in one core part of the kernel, and the kernel developers fix it, and then go and fix it up in all other drivers that have the same problem. Then, when the fix is released, all users of all drivers are now secure. When other operating systems don't have all of the drivers in their tree, if they fix a security problem, it's up to the individual companies to update their drivers and fix the problem too. And that rarely happens. So people who buy the device, and then use the older driver that comes in the box with the device, which is insecure. This has happened a lot recently, and really shows how having a stable api can actually hurt end users, when the original goal was to help developers.

[suokko]

'Stable APIs' are a really, really bad idea from a technical standpoint, because it ties you into bad design choices made years before. I don't know why this is so hard for some people to understand.

It is simple to change underlying implementation while keeping same interface. That why we have libraries between kernel and programs translating the SUS interface to kernel interface.

[movieman]

It is simple to change underlying implementation while keeping same interface.

You can do it, yes: Windows ability to run ancient DOS programs has proven that. But why would you want to?

Again, the only reason to push a 'stable API' on the kernel is because you don't want to release your source code. If you don't want to release your code, then the onus is on _YOU_ to keep up with kernel changes, not on kernel developers to go to a great deal of extra trouble maintaining APIs that they no longer want.

[deanjo]

You can do it, yes: Windows ability to run ancient DOS programs has proven that. But why would you want to?


Why? Because there are a large number of applications out there that are specialized for tasks. DOS based apps are still alive and well in many industrial applications. Typically these applications are not your "on the shelf for $50" but often cost thousands of dollars and do their job rather well. Just off the top of my head I can think of 10+ applications that there is no other OS equivalent. Hardware gets old and dies and replacing it shouldn't mean having to re-invest in software that fully accomplishes the task needed.

[kraftman]

Why? Because there are a large number of applications out there that are specialized for tasks. DOS based apps are still alive and well in many industrial applications. Typically these applications are not your "on the shelf for $50" but often cost thousands of dollars and do their job rather well. Just off the top of my head I can think of 10+ applications that there is no other OS equivalent. Hardware gets old and dies and replacing it shouldn't mean having to re-invest in software that fully accomplishes the task needed.

There wouldn't be such problems with open source. It's better to implement better API from time to time and OS projects will adapt. You don't have to keep crappy designed ABI's to make some old programs work. It's one of the reasons why OS is better then closed source.

[deanjo]

There wouldn't be such problems with open source. It's better to implement better API from time to time and OS projects will adapt. You don't have to keep crappy designed ABI's to make some old programs work. It's one of the reasons why OS is better then closed source.


Not true at all. How many developers for example would maintain items such as dry cleaning software, oil field monitoring software, trucking software, ILS systems, weight and scale systems, custom inventory applications, seed cleaning software, etc etc etc. Many such applications would require complete rewrites add large cost to the user for a system that would mean either investing heavily in not only paying for the redevelopment of the software but also in many industrial cases would require upgrading of the hardware they are meant to be monitoring as well. When it comes to opensource such solutions are like trying to find hens teeth where they are maintained on a regular basis. Being opensource by no means of the imagination means maintained. Sure one might have the oppertunity to do so but it does not mean by any extent that will happen, especially in specialized software where the target market is small.

[kraftman]

Not true at all. How many developers for example would maintain items such as dry cleaning software, oil field monitoring software, trucking software, ILS systems, weight and scale systems, custom inventory applications, seed cleaning software, etc etc etc. Many such applications would require complete rewrites add large cost to the user for a system that would mean either investing heavily in not only paying for the redevelopment of the software but also in many industrial cases would require upgrading of the hardware they are meant to be monitoring as well. When it comes to opensource such solutions are like trying to find hens teeth where they are maintained on a regular basis.

If they have to be completely rewritten that's clear. If such apps are very old it will be even harder to maintain them or impossible if they're closed source and company is no more.

[deanjo]

If they have to be completely rewritten that's clear. If such apps are old it will be even harder to maintain them or impossible if they're closed source and company is no more.

Thus why maintaining that backward capability is important. To switch to other solutions would millions if not billions of dollars in infrastructure to redo. Saying it sucks because it's closed and hoping that someone may even have the faintest clue let alone ambition to maintain such needs exists in a "dream world" but when real life is in play it doesn't apply in practice.

[kraftman]

Thus why maintaining that backward capability is important. To switch to other solutions would millions if not billions of dollars in infrastructure to redo.

When comes to unstable API/ABI you can usually stick with older system which remains compatible with some application.

Saying it sucks because it's closed and hoping that someone may even have the faintest clue let alone ambition to maintain such needs exists in a "dream world" but when real life is in play it doesn't apply in practice.

Yeah, theory sometimes looks nice, but it's not so nice when comes to real situation. However, you still have greater chance to do something which such old relic if it's open source. Everything depends :)

[susikala]

Thus why maintaining that backward capability is important. To switch to other solutions would millions if not billions of dollars in infrastructure to redo. Saying it sucks because it's closed and hoping that someone may even have the faintest clue let alone ambition to maintain such needs exists in a "dream world" but when real life is in play it doesn't apply in practice.

Your point is largely moot. Saying that crappy approaches to software design should be kept in place and used because they have met with large audience and _now_ the only affordable solution is to keep them in place is no more than saying 'this is the situation, face it'. It's not even an argument, it's at best a laying forth of the pitiful situation in the closed source world.

The 'solution' to this 'situation' is developing sustainably to begin with, and that would mean for Linux.

[deanjo]

Your point is largely moot. Saying that crappy approaches to software design should be kept in place and used because they have met with large audience and _now_ the only affordable solution is to keep them in place is no more than saying 'this is the situation, face it'. It's not even an argument, it's at best a laying forth of the pitiful situation in the closed source world.

The 'solution' to this 'situation' is developing sustainably to begin with, and that would mean for Linux.

Perhaps we should apply the same philosophy to hardware in the kernel too then. Think of all the additional talent that could be used in focusing on current hardware instead of maintaining old legacy hardware. Think of how much easier it would be to maintain the kernel if all that old hardware support was scrapped.

[susikala]

Perhaps we should apply the same philosophy to hardware in the kernel too then. Think of all the additional talent that could be used in focusing on current hardware instead of maintaining old legacy hardware. Think of how much easier it would be to maintain the kernel if all that old hardware support was scrapped.

I really fail to see how your logic works. You're taking an argument that relates to closed source software _leaching_ on the kernel and transferring it to open source software _within_ the kernel.

The main point raised here in contra-stable-API camp was that catering to closed source software isn't sustainable and in fact not even the kernel's job. It is, however, one of the kernel's declared jobs to support even very dated software.

Also, as for old hardware, why shouldn't one use the 2.2.* / 2.4.* / 2.6.16.* branches? Old hardware can anyway not use the latest features, therefore it doesn't _really_ make sense to apply the newest kernel to it. As long as you port back the security patches, you're well off.

On a more general note, I would say, as long as something is open source it is per definitionem (more) maintainable.

[deanjo]

I really fail to see how your logic works. You're taking an argument that relates to closed source software _leaching_ on the kernel and transferring it to open source software _within_ the kernel.

The main point raised here in contra-stable-API camp was that catering to closed source software isn't sustainable and in fact not even the kernel's job. It is, however, one of the kernel's declared jobs to support even very dated software.

Also, as for old hardware, why shouldn't one use the 2.2.* / 2.4.* / 2.6.16.* branches? Old hardware can anyway not use the latest features, therefore it doesn't _really_ make sense to apply the newest kernel to it. As long as you port back the security patches, you're well off.

On a more general note, I would say, as long as something is open source it is per definitionem (more) maintainable.

Maintaining an API to sustain is extremely doable without breaking previously working software. 90+ percent of the world runs on such a system and it does fine.

As to why to not use an old kernel that's really simple. Old kernels are maintained for security but outstanding bugs are left as "Won't Fix" because the fixes are found in the current version of the kernel. Plus again in that situation older kernels do not have support for newer hardware that maybe required to be replaced. Trying to run a 2.6.16 kernel for example on most modern motherboards simply will not work at all.

opensource is only more maintainable if there is someone willing and qualified to do so. Same can be said about closed source. In either case if there is nobody interested in doing so with the qualifications your hooped either way. There are millions of unmaintained open and closed projects out there sitting around because nobody has the interest or skills to do so. Your basing your conclusion on ideal circumstances, then again under ideal circumstances a closed source provider would support their solution as well indefinitely as well.

[susikala]

Maintaining an API to sustain is extremely doable without breaking previously working software. 90+ percent of the world runs on such a system and it does fine.

Agreeing to that statement is equal to declaring that the large bulk of Linux developers are driven by their ego. While I wouldn't say this is necessarily not the case, I can't agree with that statement, since Linux is in too many respects simply superior to every other operation system out there (just look at fefe's benchmarks, it says it all). So, "extremely doable" or not, it works better than stable APIs.

The next sentence is even more ludicrous. The majority of this world's servers run Linux _and_ work fine. The majority of this world's personal computers run Windows and are slow, infested with viruses and as stable as cardboards. If that is what you term 'does fine', then your expectations of software are really low.

As to why to not use an old kernel that's really simple. Old kernels are maintained for security but outstanding bugs are left as "Won't Fix" because the fixes are found in the current version of the kernel. Plus again in that situation older kernels do not have support for newer hardware that maybe required to be replaced. Trying to run a 2.6.16 kernel for example on most modern motherboards simply will not work at all.

I don't even need to comment on that. First you say that removing support for old hardware would speed development up, then when I actually _agree_ and say the people who have old hardware should keep to old(er) kernels, you say it won't work since those lack support for new hardware. I'm sorry, but can't you maintain a thread of thought?

opensource is only more maintainable if there is someone willing and qualified to do so. Same can be said about closed source. In either case if there is nobody interested in doing so with the qualifications your hooped either way. There are millions of unmaintained open and closed projects out there sitting around because nobody has the interest or skills to do so. Your basing your conclusion on ideal circumstances, then again under ideal circumstances a closed source provider would support their solution as well indefinitely as well.

I largely agree on that. Only the difference is: open source guarantees the code is open and work can picked up at any time. Of course, if the source is badly commented then it'd be a pain in the arse, but it's still better than what, being able to do nothing?

[Zhick]

Seriously:
When a company says that they need to "protect their intellectual property", that's fine, I and no other kernel developer has any objection to that. But by the same token, you need to respect the kernel developers intellectual property rights. We released our code under the GPL, which states in very specific form, exactly what your rights are when using this code. When you link other code into our body of code, you are obligated by the license of the kernel to also release your code under the same license (when you distribute it.)
[...] Some companies try to skirt the license of the law on how they redistribute their closed source code, forcing the end user of it to do the building and linking, which then causes them to violate the GPL if they want to give that prebuilt module to anyone else. These companies are just plain unethical and wrong.
Closed source modules are illegal. So there's no point in supporting them with a stable api (but pretty many points against it, which have already been mentioned in this thread).
End of discussion.

[deanjo]

Agreeing to that statement is equal to declaring that the large bulk of Linux developers are driven by their ego. While I wouldn't say this is necessarily not the case, I can't agree with that statement, since Linux is in too many respects simply superior to every other operation system out there (just look at fefe's benchmarks, it says it all). So, "extremely doable" or not, it works better than stable APIs.

I'm sorry but a model that continuously has to break existing infrastructure to progress is not superior at all from a end user perspective. This is why we do not see mass adoption in the average user desktop space.


The next sentence is even more ludicrous. The majority of this world's servers run Linux _and_ work fine. The majority of this world's personal computers run Windows and are slow, infested with viruses and as stable as cardboards. If that is what you term 'does fine', then your expectations of software are really low.

Who is talking about a static environment that webservers enjoy? I love how fans such as you always have to pull the "server card" when they have nothing else to fall back on.



I don't even need to comment on that. First you say that removing support for old hardware would speed development up, then when I actually _agree_ and say the people who have old hardware should keep to old(er) kernels, you say it won't work since those lack support for new hardware. I'm sorry, but can't you maintain a thread of thought?


I wasn't saying any such thing I was applying your reasons to breaking backwards support to the same application in the linux kernel. By removing such support in the kernel you lose one of linux's biggest features which is it's ability to work with hardware from multiple generations. This is also what API's should strive to achieve instead of having to go back to the drawing board every few months never actually completing one solution before progressing to the next.


I largely agree on that. Only the difference is: open source guarantees the code is open and work can picked up at any time. Of course, if the source is badly commented then it'd be a pain in the arse, but it's still better than what, being able to do nothing?

For the most part closed source can be purchased and continued to be developed by a entitiy wanting to do so as well. It happens all the time in closed source.

[krazy]

I'm sorry but a model that continuously has to break existing infrastructure to progress is not superior at all from a end user perspective. This is why we do not see mass adoption in the average user desktop space.
See my last post and Apopas' link following it. You obviously have no idea what you are on about.

For the most part...What? How do you know the attitudes of "most" closed source developers? What if they don't want to sell? How is this in any way equivalent to open source, where code is always available to be modified, forked etc.?
...closed source can be purchased and continued to be developed by a entitiy wanting to do so as well.It happens all the time in closed source.
I don't think it does. Got any examples? As the entity doesn't necessarily have the cash to pay whatever the asking price is for the project, I think this more often results in people reinventing the wheel.

I know your scenario often happens in open source. Except the purchasing bit ;). This means that even if a single developer is interested in a project they are free to continue development without hindrance. See, for example, mpg123 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpg123). I have never seen something similar happen with closed source software.

[Apopas]

I know your scenario often happens in open source. Except the purchasing bit ;). This means that even if a single developer is interested in a project they are free to continue development without hindrance. See, for example, mpg123 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpg123). I have never seen something similar happen with closed source software.

Tremendous example is Blender which needed to be bought by the community and become open-source to be able to become advanced and mainstream competitive...
Anyway, we can argue till eternity for such things, the matter is just one. Linux is superior to any other proprietary filesystem, the benchmarks is out there as well as the technology is to test for yourself if you want, that means that the current model of creation indeed works! Some may argue that we didn't test the other way to be sure that it would work better like that but hey window$ and maco$x do that and "follow" Linux in everything but mass people adoption! But seriously is the way kernel is built the reason for that? I mean if for example proprietary quality games are essential for guys around the world to use Linux then why Loki closed its doors? Come on guys, other things are responsible for Linux's inpopularity, financial mainly and because the absolute majority of people don't feel comfortable with instant changes in their life, that's human nature and for that we'll see Linux slowly but surely to take its place in the world's desktop sales.

[deanjo]

See my last post and Apopas' link following it. You obviously have no idea what you are on about.
I know exactly what I'm talking about. GKH's rant is more of a religious statement then anything having to do with a technical perspective.


What? How do you know the attitudes of "most" closed source developers? What if they don't want to sell? How is this in any way equivalent to open source, where code is always available to be modified, forked etc.?


Closed IP is always for sale. Believe me if a company can make a last buck off a dead product they will. Just this year the software company I work for picked up six pieces of unmaintained IP and sold two and this is from a relatively small company.


I don't think it does. Got any examples? As the entity doesn't necessarily have the cash to pay whatever the asking price is for the project, I think this more often results in people reinventing the wheel.


Oh lets pick a couple shall we? Let's see DOS comes to mind, Wordperfect, in fact just go ahead and type Microsoft squires or Apple acquires and you'll find many high profile scenario's where this happens on a regular basis.


I know your scenario often happens in open source. Except the purchasing bit ;). This means that even if a single developer is interested in a project they are free to continue development without hindrance. See, for example, mpg123 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpg123). I have never seen something similar happen with closed source software.

Without hinderence maybe to code, except for the fact again you are hoping someone with the knowledge and interest is willing to do so. It also can hinder you towards what application of use is depending on the license. This however is not a viable solution for most end users who would end up paying more for the continued development of a solution where the market is small. If it wasn't for the almighty large corporate dollar paying for most of linux's development it would be decades behind any other solution. Opensource likes promote itself on a worse case scenario FUD towards closed source. While that worst case can happen, it is by no means the defacto standard.

[deanjo]

I mean if for example proprietary quality games are essential for guys around the world to use Linux then why Loki closed its doors?


Oh man that is a can of worms that you don't want to get into. It being essential or not isn't really why Loki closed the doors. Piss poor management and some crooked people are responsible for that mess. I'll let Svartalf rant on about that.

[curaga]

Are there actually some sensible corps that don't charge six figures for dead dos-era software?

[deanjo]

Are there actually some sensible corps that don't charge six figures for dead dos-era software?

Ya there are a lot. You just tend to hear about the 6 digit deals more as they are more "news worthy". No different then not hearing about the guy who got mugged vs a bank holdup, which do you think is going to make the news? Plus non-public companies do not have to publish press releases about acquirements like a traded company has too.

[Apopas]

Oh man that is a can of worms that you don't want to get into. It being essential or not isn't really why Loki closed the doors. Piss poor management and some crooked people are responsible for that mess. I'll let Svartalf rant on about that.

Exactly! That's my point, to show that always other things mainly financial and such keep Linux behind, no the way it evolves!

[yotambien]

The majority of this world's personal computers run Windows and are slow, infested with viruses and as stable as cardboards.

That is an outright lie born in the feverish mind of a fanboi. We all read bull like that far more often than we wished; every week there is yet one more would be blogger that posts the same old same old Ubuntu installation screenshots alongside the reasons why you really (really) want to trash windows. They are repeated as a mantra and, at some point, I even think they are believed by those who spread them. The problem, of course, is that they don't hold their own weight. It is interesting how one's own experience can be denied and substituted by religion. My personal favourite is that of 'stability', perhaps because it's just so in your face that I can't believe it's tossed on the table over and over again.



Linux is superior to any other proprietary filesystem, the benchmarks is out there as well as the technology is to test for yourself if you want, that means that the current model of creation indeed works!

I don't think that that is what is being argued. Benchmarks, you say? Maybe, I don't know. I certainly don't run linux because of its speed (or stability, heh). The point beind made is that the continuous code and destroy strategy is not all that great for the users, and that it has repercussions to the adoption of the platform as a whole. If you don't see why it is inherently positive (or even mandatory), to be able to run a program made 15-20 years ago on a current computer, then you are not seeing the big picture and are just thinking in Mr. Joe Average' computing needs--which are fully satisfied with a browser and a music player, anyway, so why on earth bother?

It surely seems that the reason for not having a stable ABI is a political one. There's a point in that decission, but a highly ideological one, and I fail to see how it really is bringing practical beneficts to the users. Of course, you could argue that this is the sort of pressure that companies feel until they decide to, for instance, open their drivers and play nicely with the community.


open source guarantees the code is open and work can picked up at any time.

I lied. THIS is actually my favourite linux fallacy. Somehow, having a bunch of code accessible is the magic bullet that will solve everybody's problems. Our army of coders will take on it and cook the ultimate solution for the masses. Again, sometimes no amount of reality can wake up some minds. The state (and future expected performance) of the open drivers after AMD released the especifications some time ago is one of those situations where reality and myth collide badly.

[deanjo]

That is an outright lie born in the feverish mind of a fanboi. We all read bull like that far more often than we wished; every week there is yet one more would be blogger that posts the same old same old Ubuntu installation screenshots alongside the reasons why you really (really) want to trash windows. They are repeated as a mantra and, at some point, I even think they are believed by those who spread them. The problem, of course, is that they don't hold their own weight. It is interesting how one's own experience can be denied and substituted by religion. My personal favourite is that of 'stability', perhaps because it's just so in your face that I can't believe it's tossed on the table over and over again.


I don't think that that is what is being argued. Benchmarks, you say? Maybe, I don't know. I certainly don't run linux because of its speed (or stability, heh). The point beind made is that the continuous code and destroy strategy is not all that great for the users, and that it has repercussions to the adoption of the platform as a whole. If you don't see why it is inherently positive (or even mandatory), to be able to run a program made 15-20 years ago on a current computer, then you are not seeing the big picture and are just thinking in Mr. Joe Average' computing needs--which are fully satisfied with a browser and a music player, anyway, so why on earth bother?

It surely seems that the reason for not having a stable ABI is a political one. There's a point in that decission, but a highly ideological one, and I fail to see how it really is bringing practical beneficts to the users. Of course, you could argue that this is the sort of pressure that companies feel until they decide to, for instance, open their drivers and play nicely with the community.

I lied. THIS is actually my favourite linux fallacy. Somehow, having a bunch of code accessible is the magic bullet that will solve everybody's problems. Our army of coders will take on it and cook the ultimate solution for the masses. Again, sometimes no amount of reality can wake up some minds. The state (and future expected performance) of the open drivers after AMD released the especifications some time ago is one of those situations where reality and myth collide badly.

Well spoken truth.

[Apopas]

That is an outright lie born in the feverish mind of a fanboi. We all read bull like that far more often than we wished; every week there is yet one more would be blogger that posts the same old same old Ubuntu installation screenshots alongside the reasons why you really (really) want to trash windows. They are repeated as a mantra and, at some point, I even think they are believed by those who spread them. The problem, of course, is that they don't hold their own weight. It is interesting how one's own experience can be denied and substituted by religion. My personal favourite is that of 'stability', perhaps because it's just so in your face that I can't believe it's tossed on the table over and over again.
Whatever you are going to say in that manner it will make sense to the absent minded only! Because I'm sure the vast majority of people who wish to not read more of that bull (as you say) are windows users who are not going to make the switch even if god himself comes down and tell them that they should. Because YES! Windows are run from a lot of guys who don't know/care/interested about computers and such are all the time infected of viruses and thus slow and instable. But unfortunately these guys (whose only copncern is to surf, chat and listen music) don't know that with this other "program" (as they say everything that exist in PCs) is gonna make their life easier.
You can keep argue ofcourse if you wish but I don't wait to read whatever fanboy writes in his blog because I see these things almost everyday with my own eyes on the puters of my young sister's friends and the friends of my old father who pay "experts" to clean their pcs or give hundreds of euros to buy idiot programs rough equivalent to open source ones. YES! The guys who show the old screenshots of Ubuntu and try to persuade the average user to throw their windows in the trash have 90% the truth on their side.




I don't think that that is what is being argued. Benchmarks, you say? Maybe, I don't know. I certainly don't run linux because of its speed (or stability, heh). The point beind made is that the continuous code and destroy strategy is not all that great for the users, and that it has repercussions to the adoption of the platform as a whole. If you don't see why it is inherently positive (or even mandatory), to be able to run a program made 15-20 years ago on a current computer, then you are not seeing the big picture and are just thinking in Mr. Joe Average' computing needs--which are fully satisfied with a browser and a music player, anyway, so why on earth bother?My point was only to show that since Linux goes well in banchmarks then its evolution goes well as it is and I repeat that the reasons most users to adopt Linux are totally different than computerish... but well, I'm tired of speaking in general. Point me exactly where is that problem in Linux, name these old programs you can't use!

[kraftman]

That is an outright lie born in the feverish mind of a fanboi. We all read bull like that far more often than we wished; every week there is yet one more would be blogger that posts the same old same old Ubuntu installation screenshots alongside the reasons why you really (really) want to trash windows. They are repeated as a mantra and, at some point, I even think they are believed by those who spread them. The problem, of course, is that they don't hold their own weight. It is interesting how one's own experience can be denied and substituted by religion. My personal favourite is that of 'stability', perhaps because it's just so in your face that I can't believe it's tossed on the table over and over again.

Rather then writing crap can you give some real arguments like tests etc?


I don't think that that is what is being argued. Benchmarks, you say? Maybe, I don't know. I certainly don't run linux because of its speed (or stability, heh). The point beind made is that the continuous code and destroy strategy is not all that great for the users, and that it has repercussions to the adoption of the platform as a whole. If you don't see why it is inherently positive (or even mandatory), to be able to run a program made 15-20 years ago on a current computer, then you are not seeing the big picture and are just thinking in Mr. Joe Average' computing needs--which are fully satisfied with a browser and a music player, anyway, so why on earth bother?

Bullshit. You can say the same about nvidia when comes to 'code and destroy strategy' and about many other closed source projects. In example service packs for Windows which break compatibility with some apps, introduce new bugs and regressions. Give some real arguments not just stupid imaginations.

I lied. THIS is actually my favourite linux fallacy. Somehow, having a bunch of code accessible is the magic bullet that will solve everybody's problems. Our army of coders will take on it and cook the ultimate solution for the masses. Again, sometimes no amount of reality can wake up some minds. The state (and future expected performance) of the open drivers after AMD released the especifications some time ago is one of those situations where reality and myth collide badly.

And those VERY IMMATURE AMD OS drivers beat binary blobs in many aspects. You accuse others as fans, but your entire post is like stupid fanboy talk without any arguments.

[yotambien]

Because YES! Windows are run from a lot of guys who don't know/care/interested about computers and such are all the time infected of viruses and thus slow and instable. But unfortunately these guys (whose only copncern is to surf, chat and listen music) don't know that with this other "program" (as they say everything that exist in PCs) is gonna make their life easier.

You are conveniently choosing a particular cross section of users to back up your argument. You must be aware that the majority of computer users run some version of Microsoft OS, and shit works, no matter how you want to paint it. In the two companies I worked for and in my present academic environment, I count with one hand's fingers the number of people using linux. Now, these companies are making profits year after year, and the guys around the department get grants for projects and publications out in a constant manner. I have no heard of viruses, slownesses, instabilites nor any other particular problems related to their computers. Actually, nobody talks about their computers for any reason, they just care--and get--their work done.

You don't have to convince me of the goodness of linux, I am aware and take advantage of them daily; it just happens that I also suffer from its drawbacks and refuse to be blind before those.

My point was only to show that since Linux goes well in banchmarks then its evolution goes well as it is and I repeat that the reasons most users to adopt Linux are totally different than computerish... but well, I'm tired of speaking in general. Point me exactly where is that problem in Linux, name these old programs you can't use!

I got your point. And surely good performance is a good indicator that things are up and running well under certain scenarios. However, it is not the only measure of the overall goodness of the OS. A bad analogy could be made with the different programming languages; if performance was all that mattered, why not do it all in assembly and forget about the slow crap the rest must be?

That _I_ found 1, 10, 100 or none applications that I can't use nowadays is not relevant. I was thinking more than anything else in private companies that, when it comes to weighting out the possibility of adding linux among the supported systems for their applications/drivers, decide that it's not worth it due to the lack of a stable ABI. In any case, to satisfy your curiosity, I did have problems with some code to analyze X-ray diffraction data that is not maintained anymore and it won't run on any reasonably current linux system. Luckily enough, I found an alternative, how long is it going to last?

[kraftman]

However, it is not the only measure of the overall goodness of the OS.

Of course it's not. Linux has much more advantages. In many parts it's far better then proprietary systems and it's free.

A if performance was all that mattered, why not do it all in assembly and forget about the slow crap the rest must be?
Because assembly code will be very hard to maintain. Some of critical parts are actually written in assembler in Linux, but rather of some other reasons then performance.

You are conveniently choosing a particular cross section of users to back up your argument. You must be aware that the majority of computer users run some version of Microsoft OS, and shit works, no matter how you want to paint it.It matters how things works and if you can get such things for free only fool will pay for them.

I was thinking more than anything else in private companies that, when it comes to weighting out the possibility of adding linux among the supported systems for their applications/drivers, decide that it's not worth it due to the lack of a stable ABI.Can you backup your statement?

@Deanjo

Well spoken truth.Bullshit. Only idiot will bring AMD OS drivers as argument here.

[deanjo]

Can you backup your statement?

That was one of the reasons why PTC dropped linux support with Pro/E.



@Deanjo

Bullshit. Only idiot will bring AMD OS drivers as argument here.

OK lets talk about the state of audio or webcams or printers even when the documentation is freely available to linux devs.

[kraftman]

OK lets talk about the state of audio or webcams or printers even when the documentation is freely available to linux devs.

Everything works great here out of the box (except printer, because I don't have it). Without 3rd party drivers. Don't make entropy even bigger then in your previous posts, because you jump from one thing to another too much sometimes ;p.

[susikala]

That is an outright lie born in the feverish mind of a fanboi. We all read bull like that far more often than we wished; every week there is yet one more would be blogger that posts the same old same old Ubuntu installation screenshots alongside the reasons why you really (really) want to trash windows. They are repeated as a mantra and, at some point, I even think they are believed by those who spread them. The problem, of course, is that they don't hold their own weight. It is interesting how one's own experience can be denied and substituted by religion. My personal favourite is that of 'stability', perhaps because it's just so in your face that I can't believe it's tossed on the table over and over again.


Aside the fact this is trolling (i.e., not being to the point and calling people names), I'd dare say the same thing you wrote is a lie. Windows _is_ slow, Windows _is_ more than often unstable. I work with Windows every day and sigh over its sheer stupidity. I laugh at watching $$ roll into my bank account because Microsoft has produced and is producing such a lame OS that people must be hired to get it to work properly. Oh, the irony.

I lied. THIS is actually my favourite linux fallacy. Somehow, having a bunch of code accessible is the magic bullet that will solve everybody's problems. Our army of coders will take on it and cook the ultimate solution for the masses. Again, sometimes no amount of reality can wake up some minds. The state (and future expected performance) of the open drivers after AMD released the especifications some time ago is one of those situations where reality and myth collide badly.

It's no fallacy. I actually expected xv to take _much_ longer than it needed. The code opened 2 months after I bought my igp, and 2 months after I got what I wanted, a lot faster than with fglrx. Wonders where you get with patience.

As for 3d? Waiting a few months isn't that hard. This is a process on the move, gaming on Linux is still doing its babysteps, so people complaining about that have little to no brains, as far as I'm concerned. It's all well proportioned at the moment.

[deanjo]

Everything works great here out of the box (except printer, because I don't have it).

Well I wish it was as smooth here. Windows 7 on the other hand picked up every piece of hardware from tv card to board specific monitoring and still being able to run old applications without issue. Worst case experience was having to set a few installers to XP compatibility mode. Couldn't say the same for linux despite all devices "supposedly" being properly supported.

[Apopas]

Well I wish it was as smooth here. Windows 7 on the other hand picked up every piece of hardware from tv card to board specific monitoring and still being able to run old applications without issue. Worst case experience was having to set a few installers to XP compatibility mode. Couldn't say the same for linux despite all devices "supposedly" being properly supported.
Yeah I heard that from hundreds of people back while Vista was in beta... I doubt half of them switched to vista finally heh...But! The same sayings ages ago. We will give another example about how Linux worked for us while window$ didn't and then you'll take the baton and so on and so on... Seriously, if you are so satisified with window$ and disatisfied with Linux then why you write in these forums with geeks like us? I bet there are millions other out there which belaud window$' attributes...

[deanjo]

Yeah I heard that from hundreds of people back while Vista was in beta... I doubt half of them switched to vista finally heh...But! The same sayings ages ago. We will give another example about how Linux worked for us while window$ didn't and then you'll take the baton and so on and so on... Seriously, if you are so satisified with window$ and disatisfied with Linux then why you write in these forums with geeks like us? I bet there are millions other out there which belaud window$' attributes...


I use all OS's equally. They all have their strengths and weak points. Desktop usage is still the weak point of linux as is full featured hardware usage. I'm a geek as well, I like to tweak, I like to code, I like fixing stuff, thus why I use linux. It's more of a hobby os. When it comes to getting serious work done though in area's like cad, multimedia creation, or even professional documentation I will opt to the OS's that are more geared towards that and use OS X or Windows. I can't in all honesty, recommend linux for home usage for the average person. Linux simply breaks on the desktop all to often where the philosophy seems to be as of late break first, fix later without leaving a working alternative during the transition ( *cough*pulseaudio*cough* ).

[Apopas]

You don't have to convince me of the goodness of linux, I am aware and take advantage of them daily; it just happens that I also suffer from its drawbacks and refuse to be blind before those.
Every OS has drawbacks. If not then everyone would have switched to the specific one without them. So what really matters are your priorities.


That _I_ found 1, 10, 100 or none applications that I can't use nowadays is not relevant. I was thinking more than anything else in private companies that, when it comes to weighting out the possibility of adding linux among the supported systems for their applications/drivers, decide that it's not worth it due to the lack of a stable ABI. In any case, to satisfy your curiosity, I did have problems with some code to analyze X-ray diffraction data that is not maintained anymore and it won't run on any reasonably current linux system. Luckily enough, I found an alternative, how long is it going to last?
My bests friends father is a photographer by proffesional. Back in window$ 2000 had spent about 1500 Euros (about 2000$) for a TV/Video card. I think was Hauppauge's. He worked it for few months with that still XP came out and didn't support it, unfortunately for him Hauppauge did never make drivers for XP. What a waste for a small company.
Your turn now... if you want I can give examples till eternity or till you realize that both ways of computers evolution have advantages and disadvantages, both open source and proprietary each for its own reasons. Now if we make opensource to evolute in the same way as proprietary does then... (well if I really begin write what is gonna happen then I'll need about 512GB of RAM for all the text to fit here and I'll repeat things that have been spoken ages ago again again).

[Apopas]

I use all OS's equally. They all have their strengths and weak points. Desktop usage is still the weak point of linux as is full featured hardware usage.
Huh? What kind of strengths does this vista have?

[deanjo]

Huh? What kind of strengths does this vista have?

Hmmm, wider full featured hardware support, quality software selection (some even opensourced), professional grade apps and games, far superior multimedia without having to jump through hoops, not to mention working ATI and intel drivers ;D.

[Apopas]

Hmmm, wider full featured hardware support, quality software selection (some even opensourced), professional grade apps and games, far superior multimedia without having to jump through hoops, not to mention working ATI and intel drivers ;D.
WOW! All these? I must be blind then, especially that quality software selection... So since the majority of window$ desktop users didn't switch from XP means that XP are so much better... Seriously if they offer so much what advantage did you find in Linux? (I promise you I don't understand)

[deanjo]

WOW! All these? I must be blind then, especially that quality software selection... So since the majority of window$ desktop users didn't switch from XP means that XP are so much better... Seriously if they offer so much what advantage did you find in Linux? (I promise you I don't understand)


Well lets put it this way Apopas, my father is now in his 70's. He's by no means a computer geek, but over the years I can count on one hand the number of times he's called me to help fix something and three of those times were because of hardware failure. He's done his own system upgrades, 2k-->xp-->vista, doesn't fear doing updates, all his hardware does work, he can spend his retirement hours surfing, playing photo touch up artist, record his satellite programs, get all his mouse buttons to work, upgrade his video card or printer without worrys, use that digital camera he just upgraded, sync his cell phone, video IM, enjoy his music using 5.1 with proper filtering, if he does have to contact me he can IM and Desktop share because he hears all about these virii, worms, spyware, etc but yet has ever to actually be effected by any, and spend hours on hand analyzing the next set of lotto numbers (some of his lotto apps are still on 5 1/4 and still work). Real life, real situations.

[susikala]

Well lets put it this way Apopas, my father is now in his 70's. He's by no means a computer geek, but over the years I can count on one hand the number of times he's called me to help fix something and three of those times were because of hardware failure. He's done his own system upgrades, 2k-->xp-->vista, doesn't fear doing updates, all his hardware does work, he can spend his retirement hours surfing, playing photo touch up artist, record his satellite programs, get all his mouse buttons to work, upgrade his video card or printer without worrys, use that digital camera he just upgraded, sync his cell phone, video IM, enjoy his music using 5.1 with proper filtering, if he does have to contact me he can IM and Desktop share because he hears all about these virii, worms, spyware, etc but yet has ever to actually be effected by any, and spend hours on hand analyzing the next set of lotto numbers (some of his lotto apps are still on 5 1/4 and still work). Real life, real situations.

And then again, he can't possibly be using his all-too-superior Windows-based system without having a costly anti-virus / spyware / adware software 24/7 on.

Another segment of the market only existent as a result of Windows' extremely lame design, of course. But I even might hear from you there are viruses on Linux.

Off topic -- sorry to be an ass, but it's 'vira' if you insist on correct Latin. XD

[Apopas]

Well lets put it this way Apopas, my father is now in his 70's. He's by no means a computer geek, but over the years I can count on one hand the number of times he's called me to help fix something and three of those times were because of hardware failure. He's done his own system upgrades, 2k-->xp-->vista, doesn't fear doing updates, all his hardware does work, he can spend his retirement hours surfing, playing photo touch up artist, record his satellite programs, get all his mouse buttons to work, upgrade his video card or printer without worrys, use that digital camera he just upgraded, sync his cell phone, video IM, enjoy his music using 5.1 with proper filtering, if he does have to contact me he can IM and Desktop share because he hears all about these virii, worms, spyware, etc but yet has ever to actually be effected by any, and spend hours on hand analyzing the next set of lotto numbers (some of his lotto apps are still on 5 1/4 and still work). Real life, real situations.
Bro, you again want to speak with examples. As you wish. I gave real life examples in previous posts, I'll give some more.
Few weeks ago. My 12 years old cousin. He had WinXP. He never spent many hours in computer, good for him (actually he sit before the monitor just to do something minor for school no more than 5 hours per week) and occasionaly brought me some video files to conver them to 3gp for his mobile phone. One day he called me to say that his puter doesn't start. I thought it was a hardware problem. I went there and saw that window$ complained about ntldr is missing. I asked him to bring me the windows' cd and I'll fix it, but he didn't have one (or he thought so). Anyway I didn't have one ofcourse (never had for the last 7 years) and found the opportunity to get him in my place hehe. I jumped home and brought the new Ubuntu by telling him I'll install him something better.He didn't care, always trusted me.
When after few minutes Ubuntu logged for first time his reaction was (I swear) "WOW! That's the desktop?". I installed some programs I believed would fit for him, some essentials firefox addons imo and turned on a few light compiz effects.
Now, he calls me almost every day (doesn't use IM yet) to ask me what program I need to do this? He found extremely comfortable to just type it in synaptic and voila he had it and the funny was that it told to my sister in school, Linux has nice games no just solitaire and bullshits (he likes Nexuiz and Maryo Chronicles). I just saw that all these years he found complex to search via internet, download and install programs, mess with zonealarm and such he neglected his pc.
Now tell me, what is wrong with this guy? Should I keep him using windows? He finds Linux easy and clean and he loves that his system is in greek (his xp was in english), oh and converts his video on his own now :P
WHat I can see mate here is that, your father is not a computer geek but knows few things about computers. My cousin, sister, father do not and they find Linux easy and nice, without annoying popups and antivirus software. My sister always keeps in her flashdrive vlc and xvid because she gets videos from her digital camera to her friends and she wants to be sure that their puters will play them... Also, since the day she bought the digital camera she loved to edit pictures and now she is learning Gimp. She's 17 btw!

Real Life , real situations!

[deanjo]

And then again, he can't possibly be using his all-too-superior Windows-based system without having a costly anti-virus / spyware / adware software 24/7 on.

Another segment of the market only existent as a result of Windows' extremely lame design, of course. But I even might hear from you there are viruses on Linux.

Off topic -- sorry to be an ass, but it's 'vira' if you insist on correct Latin. XD

Costly? If free is costly then I guess so. Of course if you feel your up to task getting his system going on linux, with applications to do all the above tasks, you only have to PM me and I will gladly give you his phone number

[deanjo]

Bro, you again want to speak with examples. As you wish. I gave real life examples in previous posts, I'll give some more.
Few weeks ago. My 12 years old cousin. He had WinXP. He never spent many hours in computer, good for him (actually he sit before the monitor just to do something minor for school no more than 5 hours per week) and occasionaly brought me some video files to conver them to 3gp for his mobile phone. One day he called me to say that his puter doesn't start. I thought it was a hardware problem. I went there and saw that window$ complained about ntldr is missing. I asked him to bring me the windows' cd and I'll fix it, but he didn't have one (or he thought so). Anyway I didn't have one ofcourse (never had for the last 7 years) and found the opportunity to get him in my place hehe. I jumped home and brought the new Ubuntu by telling him I'll install him something better.He didn't care, always trusted me.
When after few minutes Ubuntu logged for first time his reaction was (I swear) "WOW! That's the desktop?". I installed some programs I believed would fit for him, some essentials firefox addons imo and turned on a few light compiz effects.
Now, he calls me almost every day (doesn't use IM yet) to ask me what program I need to do this? He found extremely comfortable to just type it in synaptic and voila he had it and the funny was that it told to mys sister in school Linux has nice games no just solitaire and bullshits. I just saw that all these years he found complex to search via internet, download and install programs, mess with zonealarm and such he neglected his pc.
Now tell me, what is wrong with this guy? Should I keep him using windows? He finds Linux easy and clean and he loves that his system is in greek (his xp was in english), oh and converts his video on his own now :P
WHat I can see mate here is that, your father is not a computer geek but knows few things about computers. My cousin, sister, father do not and they find Linux easy and nice, without annoying popups and antivirus software. My sister always keeps in her flashdrive vlc and xvid because she gets videos from her digital camera to her friends and she wants to be sure that their puters will play them... Also, since the day she bought the digital camera she loved to edit pictures and now she is learning Gimp. She's 17 btw!

Real Life , real situations!

Same goes for you with the above post. You want to find substitutes of equal capibility I will gladly give you his phone number.

[susikala]

By the way, just to leave a general remark on the OS-versus discussion.

Most of the 'Linux sucks, is hard to learn, doesn't work as I want it to, hardly has any games, has a steep learning curve, doesn't run the programmes I need' and so further and so forth come from people who have used Windows before. They have to have got the Windows mentality burnt into their minds to say that (whether that mentality is good or bad is debatable, I consider the 'serve me'-point of view puerile and not showing of extended intelligence; but people'd say I don't cater to average Joe with that).

I happen to have met a few persons who -never- used Windows (usually because their parents were Unix freaks) and therefore accepted Linux as something completely natural. They are your simple, average users, but their view of software is completely different from your typical Windows migrant.

So again, much at fault is the current situation at hand where children are educated into falsities. Linux, so-to-say, begins its life in every person's mind as an outsider, and we know how those are generally treated.

[Apopas]

By the way, just to leave a general remark on the OS-versus discussion.

Most of the 'Linux sucks, is hard to learn, doesn't work as I want it to, hardly has any games, has a steep learning curve, doesn't run the programmes I need' and so further and so forth come from people who have used Windows before. They have to have got the Windows mentality burnt into their minds to say that (whether that mentality is good or bad is debatable, I consider the 'serve me'-point of view puerile and not showing of extended intelligence; but people'd say I don't cater to average Joe with that).

I happen to have met a few persons who -never- used Windows (usually because their parents were Unix freaks) and therefore accepted Linux as something completely natural. They are your simple, average users, but their view of software is completely different from your typical Windows migrant.

So again, much at fault is the current situation at hand where children are educated into falsities. Linux, so-to-say, begins its life in every person's mind as an outsider, and we know how those are generally treated.

EXACTLY! Fortunately in schools they teach Linux as well now (here in Greece at least).

[Apopas]

Costly? If free is costly then I guess so. Of course if you feel your up to task getting his system going on linux, with applications to do all the above tasks, you only have to PM me and I will gladly give you his phone number
Free? He got his 2k-xp-vista for free? And tell me what programs he uses that they are free? I'm very curious...

BTW... very interesting for a man in his 70s to upgrade video cards and cares for 5.1 sound with proper filtering heh :cool:

Also, you didn't answered me deanjo when I asked you in previous post. Why you keep using Linux as well if you find window$, especially vista, so superiour?

[deanjo]

Free? He got his 2k-xp-vista for free? And tell me what programs he uses that they are free? I'm very curious...

BTW... very interesting for a man in his 70s to upgrade video cards and cares for 5.1 sound with proper filtering heh :cool:

Also, you didn't answered me deanjo when I asked you in previous post. Why you keep using Linux as well if you find window$, especially vista, so superiour?

Upgrade editions are certianly cheaper then having to pay for someone to write custom code.

Nothing curious about a 70 year old guy liking his music and video, he upgraded video cards so he can encode video's faster with badaboom. He's retired and likes to tape his grandkids events. The guy also has 3, 5.1 surround sound systems in his house, he likes his music and also spends a lot of time converting his vinyl over to CD.

I did answer your question. So here it is again. Must be suffering from selective seeing, not to worry though I'm used to situations like that. My wife suffers from selective hearing.

I use all OS's equally. They all have their strengths and weak points. Desktop usage is still the weak point of linux as is full featured hardware usage. I'm a geek as well, I like to tweak, I like to code, I like fixing stuff, thus why I use linux. It's more of a hobby os. When it comes to getting serious work done though in area's like cad, multimedia creation, or even professional documentation I will opt to the OS's that are more geared towards that and use OS X or Windows. I can't in all honesty, recommend linux for home usage for the average person. Linux simply breaks on the desktop all to often where the philosophy seems to be as of late break first, fix later without leaving a working alternative during the transition ( *cough*pulseaudio*cough* ).

[Apopas]

Upgrade editions are certianly cheaper then having to pay for someone to write custom code.
Yeah... usual habbit of Linux users...

Nothing curious about a 70 year old guy liking his music and video, he upgraded video cards so he can encode video's faster with badaboom. He's retired and likes to tape his grandkids events. The guy also has 3, 5.1 surround sound systems in his house, he likes his music and also spends a lot of time converting his vinyl over to CD.
Transcoding in Linux is a hard job huh?

I did answer your question. So here it is again. Must be suffering from selective seeing, not to worry though I'm used to situations like that. My wife suffers from selective hearing.
Yeah I answered to your post at 12:45 and you edited it at 12:47...

I use all OS's equally. They all have their strengths and weak points. Desktop usage is still the weak point of linux as is full featured hardware usage. I'm a geek as well, I like to tweak, I like to code, I like fixing stuff, thus why I use linux. It's more of a hobby os. When it comes to getting serious work done though in area's like cad, multimedia creation, or even professional documentation I will opt to the OS's that are more geared towards that and use OS X or Windows. I can't in all honesty, recommend linux for home usage for the average person. Linux simply breaks on the desktop all to often where the philosophy seems to be as of late break first, fix later without leaving a working alternative during the transition ( *cough*pulseaudio*cough* ).
Breaks? Well I gave ya few examples of average users who found piece with Linux but you keep argue. As you wish, it seems that the average users I know and convinced to make the transition are just genious...

[deanjo]

Yeah... usual habbit of Linux users...

You know of apps in linux that can handle:
realtime landscaping
agexpert analyst for his farm accounting
quicktax to do his tax returns (Canadian edition)
plus a whole schwack load of lottery analysis programs, in linux?


Transcoding in Linux is a hard job huh?Ever try doing x264 for multiple devices on a sempron without GPU encoding?

Yeah I answered to your post at 12:45 and you edited it at 12:47...You told me I never answered your question 2 hours after I did. It was edited to add on the pulseaudio statement. Everything else is the same.


Breaks? Well I gave ya few examples of average users who found piece with Linux but you keep argue. As you wish, it seems that the average users I know and persuaded to make the transition are just genious...Gullible to FUD more like it.

[susikala]

Haha Apopas, look what you did, you made deanjo comment his edits. :p