Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> I think Vista has a feature where it saves the RAM contents to disk and gets
> into sleep (not hibernate) mode. 

Yeah. They stole that from OSX. ;-)

> Or, maybe, the feature was that when it's running low on battery, it wakes
> up, saves RAM to disk, and hibernates.

That's the old way that XP uses. Works poorly if you set up the timings 
wrong, as waking and spinning up the disk and such kills the battery half 
way thru hibernating if you do it wrong.

In Vista, sleep *looks* like it goes to sleep (turns off screen and 
speakers, etc, rather than the XP way of showing you a progress bar), then 
saves the RAM to disk, then actually goes to sleep. You can set it to go to 
full hibernate after some time, so you save lots of battery if you're not 
coming back to it.

Then there's "Away mode", which means hitting the sleep button turns off the 
screen and speakers, tells anyone who cares that you're "away", and then ... 
leaves the power on.  For people who are running servers on their machine 
but want it to look like they're being energy-efficient, I guess.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:00:02 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Now go find a Linux binary application that runs on Windows without
>> something like Cygwin.
> 
> Most of the utilities are ported to native Windows. The appropriate
> google term is to tack "win32" onto whatever you're searching for:
> gunzip win32
> diff win32
> ... and so on.
> 
> Just in case you ever go looking.

Oh yes, I did know that - but always good to have a reminder. :-)

Jim

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On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:35:20 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Things have improved since 2006 then. ;-) I wasted a whole day trying
>>> to get the nVidia drivers to work...
>> 
>> 2006 is about 4 generations ago for openSUSE.
> 
> Actually is was (IIRC) Debian at the time, but whatever. ;-)

It's still "n" generations.

>> Yeah, things have changed
>> since then.  The ATI drivers used to be a royal pain the ass to install
>> and configure.  Not anymore.
> 
> All I remember is that even after endless fiddling, I couldn't get 3D
> acceleration to work. (Actually producing a picture didn't require any
> special attention at all.)

Yes.  *Used* to be.  Not anymore.  Time to update your knowledge - that's 
what I'm saying.  It's like saying "Windows can't run DirectX 10" and 
then admitting you're talking about Windows 98.

>>> (Of course, a few months later I upgraded my graphics card, making my
>>> Linux partition non-bootable. That was roughly when I decided to just
>>> not bother fixing it.)
>> 
>> Probably rebuilding the kernel?  Otherwise, I can't see how a graphics
>> card change would affect the hard drive at all.
> 
> OK, to be completely clear: It booted, but X wouldn't run.

That's quite different from "the Linux partition was non-bootable", which 
is almost a direct quote of what you originally said.  X not running is 
something that used to be an issue with a kernel update.  It's rare now.

>>> Sure. And it'll probably continue to get larger over time. But right
>>> now, it's still fairly modest by comparison.
>> 
>> You must be looking at different places than I.  Go have a look at
>> sourceforge.net, freshmeat.net, and at the repository list for openSUSE
>> at the number of packages available.  There's TONS of software for
>> Linux.
> 
> Most of which is only marginally functional.

Percentagewise, perhaps - look at the raw number of usable applications.  
It's not "6".

> Don't get me wrong, there *is* some seriously quality software out
> there. But there's also a lot of stuff that doesn't work very well.
> (E.g., klogic. It does almost exactly what I want. But it doesn't *work*
> properly. It randomly segfaults, and sometimes it GIVES YOU THE WRONG
> ANSWER. It's also fiddly to use for no good reason.)

And did you submit bugs against this, or did you just say "this thing 
doesn't work" to yourself and go somewhere else.

> Anyway, how much *commercial* software (such as big-budget games) are
> there for Linux?

Ever hear of Cedega?  Transgaming?  Loki Games (OK, they're now defunct - 
a shame because now they'd probably do OK)?

You have to keep in mind as well that the mindset of the typical Linux 
user is different - commercial applications are secondary considerations 
*most* of the time - after all, if I can find a quality OSS solution for 
no cost, why would I look to a commercial application?

>> Then add to that Windows apps that work with WINE (and that is growing
>> significantly every month).
> 
> It's news to me that *anything* works under WINE yet. (But then,
> admittedly it's not something I follow closely. If I want to run Windows
> software, I just run Windows...)

Go and look at the Wine AppDB.  The list of supported apps is 
significant.  Which reminds me, I need to try running Framemaker 8 under 
it.  One less reason to run Windows in a VMware session.

>> Now tell me again that you have more choice on Windows than on Linux.
> 
> Most of the software *I* want runs only under Windows. Not all of it
> (there are some notable exceptions), but most of it.
> 
> Of course, it depends what you're trying to do with your PC...

Exactly.  And that's part of the reason why the approach of saying what 
you said that got me started is the wrong approach.

Jim

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On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:09:30 -0200, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:26:15 -0200, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>> 
>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> No Linux drivers for what high-end expensive graphics cards, exactly?
>>> 
>>> No accelerated Linux drivers for almost any graphics card.
>>> 
>>> ...I mean for DirectFB, not X :D
>> 
>> I don't know that that's a true statement, but I don't use DirectFB on
>> my systems. :-)
> 
> In practice, I think DirectFB it's only used by embedded developers, and
> by the people working on DirectFB itself :)

In which case it's a sort of "who cares?" situation. :-)

Jim

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On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:54:24 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Either way, don't you find that huge amounts of hardware stops working
> properly when you start it back up again?

Maybe that happens on Windows, but I don't have that experience on 
openSUSE 11.  Therefore, Windows sucks. ;-)

Jim

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>> Either way, don't you find that huge amounts of hardware stops working
>> properly when you start it back up again?
> 
> Maybe that happens on Windows, but I don't have that experience on 
> openSUSE 11.  Therefore, Windows sucks. ;-)

I just observe that there's a *vast* list of KB articles about "device X 
does something weird after hibernation", "device Y does something weird 
after hibernation", "device Z stops working after hibernation"... Maybe 
they fixed all the problems by now, but the fact that so many exist in 
the first place suggests that getting this to work properly is 
fundamentally "difficult".

(Personally, I wouldn't know. I never, ever, use any kind of standby 
mode. My PC is always on, or off.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>> 2006 is about 4 generations ago for openSUSE.
>> Actually is was (IIRC) Debian at the time, but whatever. ;-)
> 
> It's still "n" generations.

OK, fair enough.

>> All I remember is that even after endless fiddling, I couldn't get 3D
>> acceleration to work. (Actually producing a picture didn't require any
>> special attention at all.)
> 
> Yes.  *Used* to be.  Not anymore.

When last I heard, all the nVidia and ATi offerings for Linux were a 
half-empty token gesture. I'd be surprised if they seriously changed 
their minds about it... but stranger things have happened.

>> OK, to be completely clear: It booted, but X wouldn't run.
> 
> That's quite different from "the Linux partition was non-bootable", which 
> is almost a direct quote of what you originally said.  X not running is 
> something that used to be an issue with a kernel update.  It's rare now.

I didn't do anything to the kernel - I changed the graphics card. And 
witout X, I have *no idea* how to configure X. (Well, without 
reinstalling anyway. And that's so much bother...)

OpenSUSE has fixed this; you can now run the configuration tools in 
text-mode.

>> Most of which is only marginally functional.
> 
> Percentagewise, perhaps - look at the raw number of usable applications.  
> It's not "6".

I'll take your word for it.

>> (E.g., klogic. It does almost exactly what I want. But it doesn't *work*
>> properly. It randomly segfaults, and sometimes it GIVES YOU THE WRONG
>> ANSWER. It's also fiddly to use for no good reason.)
> 
> And did you submit bugs against this, or did you just say "this thing 
> doesn't work" to yourself and go somewhere else.

Well, without an Internet connection, how am I going to file a bug?

>> Anyway, how much *commercial* software (such as big-budget games) are
>> there for Linux?
> 
> Ever hear of Cedega?  Transgaming?  Loki Games?

Nope.

> If I can find a quality OSS solution for
> no cost, why would I look to a commercial application?

There *is* that of course. ;-)

>> It's news to me that *anything* works under WINE yet. (But then,
>> admittedly it's not something I follow closely. If I want to run Windows
>> software, I just run Windows...)
> 
> Go and look at the Wine AppDB.  The list of supported apps is 
> significant.

Mmm, that's impressive. (Given that what Wine does should be impossible 
in the first place...)

>> Of course, it depends what you're trying to do with your PC...
> 
> Exactly.  And that's part of the reason why the approach of saying what 
> you said that got me started is the wrong approach.

Hmm. OK, now I'm confused. :-}

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:54:24 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> 
>> Either way, don't you find that huge amounts of hardware stops working
>> properly when you start it back up again?
> 
> Maybe that happens on Windows, but I don't have that experience on 
> openSUSE 11.  Therefore, Windows sucks. ;-)

With RedHat 7.something in 2001-2002 I had to ifdown eth0 && ifup eth0
after hibernating HP Omnibook 6000. I never tried the onboard modem, though.

So I guess Linux sucks also :p.

> Jim

-Aero

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> (Given that what Wine does should be impossible
> in the first place...)

You keep saying things like this. It's very useful to distinguish between 
"should be impossible", "in actuality is exceedingly difficult", and 
"possible but really not worth the effort."

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Maybe that happens on Windows, but I don't have that experience on 
> openSUSE 11.  Therefore, Windows sucks. ;-)

I never had that trouble on Linux, because I've never run it on a machine 
where either hibernate or standby even starts to work. ;-)

Even under VirtualPC, hibernate works, but it crashes when you start it up 
again, then goes thru a presumedly longer boot sequence where it finds the 
hibernation file and reloads it, so it works better under VirtualPC than it 
ever did for me on actual hardware.  (Of course, I'm one of those for whom 
Linux is cursed, so YMMV.)

Under Windows, only my TV tuner card doesn't recover reliably from anything 
but being turned off for several minutes, but it used to work, so I'm 
thinking that might be a hardware problem. It used to work, but I think I 
might have overheated the machine it was originally in. One of these days, I 
need to take the 10 minutes it would take to change it out for the other 
card and see if it's any better.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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