Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> One somewhat annoying thing is that most distros will automatically
> install multiple gigabytes of "stuff", most of which I have no interest
> in. Sure, you could *try* to uninstall it all, but you still have to
> wait for it to install in the first place. *Some* distros give you a
> "minimal text install" option or similar, and if so I usually start from
> there. However...

You should try Ubuntu Server, or maybe Debian, instead of the desktop 
Ubuntu. Or maybe you can tell Ubuntu not to install all the mess, I don't 
remember.

Ubuntu Desktop comes with all sorts of graphical programs that you may or 
may not need. It's better to install yourself what you know you will need.

> I don't have any specific, repeatable examples. But, from memory, I once
> had a KDE desktop, and I just wanted to install gnumeric (because
> KSpread was rubbish). Watch as the dependency resolver decides I need to
> download and install every GNOME library known to man - including the
> GNOME sound system (something beginning with e?)

Well sure. If you install a GNOME app in KDE, that will happen :) Instead of 
complaining, you should be glad all those packages get downloaded and 
installed *automatically*.

> Also... Debian's dselect thing is a horrid, horrid tool! >_<

dselect still exists? I thought that was deprecated a few ice ages ago?

Try aptitude.

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On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:07:18 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> You just happen to know that there's a program for doing this and it's
> called LAME. If you didn't already know that, I estimate it would take a
> while to figure it out.

zypper se mp3

Gave me a nice list of mp3-related programs on my openSUSE system.

Scan the list, and I see "LAME - Lame Ain't an Mp3 Encoder"

I wonder what that does:

zypper if lame

Oh, look, it's "an education tool to be used for learning about MP3 
encoding.  LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 
encoding.  The goal of the LAME project is to use the open source model 
to improve the psycho acoustics, noise shaping and speed of MP3.  Another 
goal of the LAME project is to use these improvements for the basis of a  
patent free audio compression codec for the GNU project."

In other words, an encoder.

So add another 20 seconds to figure all that out. ;-)

Jim

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On 12/12/09 12:42, Warp wrote:
>    Which is sad, really. If a regular user who only checks his email, surfs
> the web from time to time and maybe writes some letters, could be a lot
> better off with Linux than with Windows. He wouldn't get the myriads of
> adware/spyware, browser toolbars, email viruses, etc, the system would not
> get congested with time due to every single legitimate and illegitimate
> piece of software installing tons of useless (and sometimes harmful) stuff
> everywhere, and the computer would overall be somewhat safer from regular

	They have that already. It's called Mac OS.<G>

> attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
> too.

	Sadly, not cheaper. But in a sense, it shouldn't be. By making an OS 
really easy and friendly to use - and somewhat robust, you're really 
adding value. People want to pay extra to get that.


-- 
----> If you cut here, you'll ruin your monitor. <----

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On 12/12/09 12:56, Darren New wrote:
> Thus, _this_ word will probably show as _italic_ on your screen, if
> you're using something that does things like make *this* word bold.

	Nope. Underlines. I think /this/ is how you do italics.


-- 
----> If you cut here, you'll ruin your monitor. <----

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On 12/12/09 11:17, nemesis wrote:
>> Compare that to the situation where, in Windows, you don't have any
>> software
>> to create mp3 files and you want to get one.
>
> You install winamp?
>
> sorry, that comparison of yours was kinda... lame. :P

	Sorry. Agree with Warp on this one.

	Maybe Windows stuff has changed a lot. In the old days, for a lot of 
software that had both a free and paid version, it was often nonobvious 
how to navigate the site to find the free version. All too often, I'd 
tell a friend "Oh, you can do that task in this software." And then they 
would report to me that they never tried it because it was only a demo 
(i.e. they didn't realize there was a free version).

	And still, you've got to go and manually download Winamp, and install 
it, and then remove the installer. In Linux, with a simple command, you 
just install it.

	And Winamp is overkill as an mp3 encoder. Can you use it with other 
software to encode the audio that software produces?


-- 
----> If you cut here, you'll ruin your monitor. <----

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>  Sadly, not cheaper. But in a sense, it shouldn't be. By making an OS
> really easy and friendly to use - and somewhat robust, you're really
> adding value. People want to pay extra to get that.

If you really want, I may install and support Ubuntu for 200 bucks. ;)  But
perhaps Ubuntu's official paid support is even cheaper...

sad thing is:  so far, I only got my ex-wife to give Linux a chance... and
that's for free!  Thankfully, I don't need to give much support, she found her
way with doing stuff just nicely.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Thus, _this_ word will probably show as _italic_ on your screen, if you're
>> using something that does things like make *this* word bold.
> 
> _This_ shows underlined in KNode.
> 
> I believe /this/ is italics...

Yes. My bad.  (Actually, /this/ is oblique. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> It's also the case that even a small company can make a difference in
>> Microsoft's stuff. Like the company that did the first defrag program for
>> NT designed the APIs for that and told MS how to write it.
> 
> Then they bought the company?

I think they still license the defragger. The company is still around 
because they make defraggers for other operating systems too.

> Or did they just make their own defragmenter and put it in the OS to ensure 
> other companies selling defragmenters go out of business? :P

It might have been that in Vista and later, but until then it was licensed.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Warp wrote:
>   Thinking about it, are there *any* other viable free (as in no-cost)
> operating systems for embedded systems, other than Linux and NetBSD?

Some folks write it themselves.

But no, that's kind of the point.  People use Linux professionally not so 
much because it's particularly good, but because it's licensed free, which 
is what you like when you have either 500,000 servers or you have a profit 
margin in the single-digit dollars.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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> Ubuntu Desktop comes with all sorts of graphical programs that you may or 
> may not need. It's better to install yourself what you know you will need.

I don't mind that. But a scanner program? I don't own a scanner, why 
would I want a fancy GUI for controlling one?

>> I don't have any specific, repeatable examples. But, from memory, I once
>> had a KDE desktop, and I just wanted to install gnumeric (because
>> KSpread was rubbish). Watch as the dependency resolver decides I need to
>> download and install every GNOME library known to man - including the
>> GNOME sound system (something beginning with e?)
> 
> Well sure. If you install a GNOME app in KDE, that will happen :) Instead of 
> complaining, you should be glad all those packages get downloaded and 
> installed *automatically*.

Well, you know, I'm trying to run a GNOME program that doesn't use 
sound, yet I'm still forced to install the GNOME sound drivers. (And 
sort out the mess when it expects a different kernel driver than the one 
I'm currently using...)

Similarly, ever tried installing Linux without network support? 
Apparently it can't be done.

>> Also... Debian's dselect thing is a horrid, horrid tool! >_<
> 
> dselect still exists? I thought that was deprecated a few ice ages ago?

Possibly. I haven't used Debian recently.

Back when I tried Debian (potato?), the (text-mode) installer would 
automatically launch dselect for you, or else install a default package 
set which gives you a bash shell and a few programs like "cp", and about 
nothing else.

> Try aptitude.

That's what I use with KNOPPIX, yes... SuSE gives you Yast instead. And 
Gentoo uses Emerge. Whatever, insane package dependency chains are still 
common.

(E.g., try installing something that demands a different version of 
"glibc", and watch the anarchy that results...)

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

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Warp wrote:

>   Thinking about it, are there *any* other viable free (as in no-cost)
> operating systems for embedded systems, other than Linux and NetBSD?

Anybody know the status of QNX?

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

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> 
>>   Thinking about it, are there *any* other viable free (as in no-cost)
>> operating systems for embedded systems, other than Linux and NetBSD?
> 
> Anybody know the status of QNX?

Oh dear.  I was going to make fun of someone who would ask that question, 
but then I saw it was Andrew.

http://www.qnx.com/

That didn't even take google. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> > attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
> > too.

>         Sadly, not cheaper.

  Last time I checked, Windows costed hundreds of euros, while Linux was
completely free. I call that cheaper. Maybe your definition is different.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> But no, that's kind of the point.  People use Linux professionally not so 
> much because it's particularly good, but because it's licensed free, which 
> is what you like when you have either 500,000 servers or you have a profit 
> margin in the single-digit dollars.

  But nowadays eg. Solaris is free too, and should be quite robust (as it has
a long history precisely in server environments). Also the different BSD
variants (but especially NetBSD, if I have understood correctly) are of
quite high quality (especially in terms of security), especially for server
environment.

  I'm not exactly sure why precisely Linux is so popular, given that most
software is not designed specifically for Linux, but basically everything
has been ported to other unix-style systems as well (especially the BSD
variants).

  Maybe it's because Linux has the most polished distributions which minimize
the amount of setupping and administrative work?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> > Warp wrote:
> > 
> >>   Thinking about it, are there *any* other viable free (as in no-cost)
> >> operating systems for embedded systems, other than Linux and NetBSD?
> > 
> > Anybody know the status of QNX?

> Oh dear.  I was going to make fun of someone who would ask that question, 
> but then I saw it was Andrew.

> http://www.qnx.com/

> That didn't even take google. :-)

  A quick look seems to reveal that QNX (whatever it might be) is not free
for commercial use, so it doesn't really fit the no-cost part of my question.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 12/13/09 12:21, Warp wrote:
> Neeum Zawan<m.n### [at] ieeeorg>  wrote:
>>> attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
>>> too.
>
>>          Sadly, not cheaper.
>
>    Last time I checked, Windows costed hundreds of euros, while Linux was
> completely free. I call that cheaper. Maybe your definition is different.

	I meant Mac OS was not cheaper.

-- 
I'm! A! Graduate! Of! The! Bill! Shatner! Acting! School!

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Warp wrote:
>   But nowadays eg. Solaris is free too, and should be quite robust (as it has
> a long history precisely in server environments). Also the different BSD
> variants (but especially NetBSD, if I have understood correctly) are of
> quite high quality (especially in terms of security), especially for server
> environment.

Oh, I think those get used also. You could argue that the BSD variants are 
driving Apple's server clusters, for example.

Plus, people using Solaris or BSD don't necessarily tell you they're doing 
so. I've often heard "We use X inside our product, but we don't tell people 
that because it's a competitive advantage."

>   Maybe it's because Linux has the most polished distributions which minimize
> the amount of setupping and administrative work?

It could be that.

It could be that Linux is more friendly than Solaris or BSDs to people doing 
significant improvements and incorporating them into future releases. For 
example, if Google releases a "fall over from master to slave replica 
without stopping the server" improvement to MySQL, it likely it gets into 
future releases. That doesn't necessarily happen with MS SQL Server. I would 
suspect the same is true of improvements in Linux.

Basically, it's a network effect. Everyone uses Linux because that's what 
everyone knows in detail. It's good marketing, somehow.

When Google talks about map/reduce, someone implements it on Linux within a 
month. I don't know why they picked Linux, but probably because they already 
had Linux yadda yadda. So it's the same "unjustified" network effect you get 
with Windows - people pick Windows because everyone they know uses Windows. 
OS geeks hack on Linux because Linux is the platform where all the OS geeks 
hack. Computer nerds move to Silicon Valley because that's where all the 
other computer nerds live, which means there's nerd jobs to choose from, 
which means there's a big bunch of nerds to choose from, ...

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Warp wrote:
>   A quick look seems to reveal that QNX (whatever it might be)

QNX is a well-known RTOS that's quite popular. It's basically real-time 
Unixish. It's very portable.

At this point, such special systems are fading out, because even stuff as 
small as your phone is capable of running Linux.  Back when "embedded" meant 
8K ROM 1K RAM, it wasn't reasonable to have anything close to Linux on such 
chips.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Darren New wrote:

> QNX is a well-known RTOS that's quite popular. It's basically real-time 
> Unixish. It's very portable.
> 
> At this point, such special systems are fading out, because even stuff 
> as small as your phone is capable of running Linux.  Back when 
> "embedded" meant 8K ROM 1K RAM, it wasn't reasonable to have anything 
> close to Linux on such chips.

As I understand it, the main use for RTOS is stuff like industrial 
robotics, where guaranteed timing is crucial. (E.g., you don't want a 
robot to drill a hole in the wrong place just because of a scheduling 
glitch.) It's not really for "personal computers", as such.

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

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> As I understand it, the main use for RTOS is stuff like industrial 
> robotics, where guaranteed timing is crucial. 

Yep. And video games. And media decoding. And a whole bunch of other stuff 
that interacts with physics including the time dimension.

> It's not really for "personal computers", as such.

I disagree. As I've said before, cell phones are extremely real-time 
devices, to the point of needing to know the temperature so they can adjust 
for how much that makes their quartz crystal drift.

You're not going to want a GC cycle to interrupt your playback of your CD, 
either. Etc.

When your machine has 5x the power it would need to do the job with 
dedicated software from the ground up, it's easy to load a 3x overhead 
factor in the form of a general purpose OS and still get it working OK.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Ubuntu Desktop comes with all sorts of graphical programs that you may or
>> may not need. It's better to install yourself what you know you will
>> need.
> 
> I don't mind that. But a scanner program? I don't own a scanner, why
> would I want a fancy GUI for controlling one?

That is a graphical program; as opposed to the command-line 'scanimage' 
tool.

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>> I don't mind that. But a scanner program? I don't own a scanner, why
>> would I want a fancy GUI for controlling one?
> 
> That is a graphical program; as opposed to the command-line 'scanimage' 
> tool.

Sure, but if I don't own a scanner, why would I want all the image 
capture libraries, CLI infrastructure and GUI front-end? Why can't I 
just skip downloading and installing all that stuff?

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Warp wrote:
>   There was one point in history when I had the opinion that if a game takes
> more than 4 floppy disks (that would be about 5.5 MB), it's way too large.

Rise of the Robots AGA for the Amiga.

14 disks. And such a sophisticated level of data caching that each time 
you get to the next level, you have to swap disks multiple times.

This is made up for my the game's delicious graphics. All of which is 
little consolation for the fact that the game itself SUCKS. It's like 
they spent so much time making lush graphics that they forgot to write a 
GAME...

>   Nowadays I'm wondering why there aren't multi-DVD games yet in the market.

Faster processors = more compression? ;-)

>   Rather curiously, we are nowadays in the same situation with respect to
> 64-bit computers. Hard drives are about 500 GB, RAMs are about 2-4 GB on
> average, which is about the same ratio as above. And again, a file of
> 2^64 bytes feels basically unthinkable (although slightly less so due to
> the past experience).
> 
>   I'm wondering if 15 years from now we will be using files of that size.

2^10 = 1 KB
2^20 = 1 MB
2^30 = 1 GB
2^40 = 1 TB (we are here already)
2^50 = 1 PB (never yet heard of anybody except huge corporations 
reaching this)
2^60 = 1 EB (unthinkably vast)

 From MB to GB is "only" 1000x (or 1024x or whatever). From the GB or TB 
figures we're at today up to exabytes is a million times. But, sure, I 
guess we'll reach it eventually.

I wonder how much data you can physically store in a given volume using 
purely magnetic technologies?

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Darren New wrote:

> what protects Linux is more that it isn't 
> popular enough to be valuable to the current virus writers that do it 
> for money.

That, and the fact that currently the only people who run Linux are 
geeky people with long beards who eat lentil burgers. These people 
probably know a thing or two about how to manage a computer securely. ;-)

(Although this is less true today than it was, say, 10 years ago...)

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Darren New wrote:

> When your machine has 5x the power it would need to do the job with 
> dedicated software from the ground up, it's easy to load a 3x overhead 
> factor in the form of a general purpose OS and still get it working OK.

The idea is that for an RTOS, too soon is as bad (or maybe even worse) 
than too late. You need precise timing.

That said, if you have a machine under minimal load, it's less difficult 
to guarantee exact timing.

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Invisible wrote:
>>   I'm wondering if 15 years from now we will be using files of that size.
> 2^40 = 1 TB (we are here already)

I don't think in one *file*.  One file system, perhaps.

> 2^50 = 1 PB (never yet heard of anybody except huge corporations 
> reaching this)

Amazon has special rates if you're storing more than 5 PB, so it seems 
someone is.

> I wonder how much data you can physically store in a given volume using 
> purely magnetic technologies?

Depends how you define "volume".  Think of the Google File System, spread 
over lots and lots of disks.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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>>>   I'm wondering if 15 years from now we will be using files of that 
>>> size.
>> 2^40 = 1 TB (we are here already)
> 
> I don't think in one *file*.  One file system, perhaps.

I was thinking in terms of available storage capacity. You can buy 
multi-TB drives now for half-sane prices.

>> 2^50 = 1 PB (never yet heard of anybody except huge corporations 
>> reaching this)
> 
> Amazon has special rates if you're storing more than 5 PB, so it seems 
> someone is.

Sure. Large comporations have reached here. Hell, if you put all the 
servers in my company together, it might total almost 1 TB. What I'm 
saying is that individual users typically don't store this kind of 
volume. (Yet.)

>> I wonder how much data you can physically store in a given volume 
>> using purely magnetic technologies?
> 
> Depends how you define "volume".  Think of the Google File System, 
> spread over lots and lots of disks.

I was more wondering if magnetic spinning disks are soon going to lose 
the ability to increase any further in capacity, much like the way 
processors can't go faster any more.

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On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:51:44 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Sure. Large comporations have reached here. Hell, if you put all the
> servers in my company together, it might total almost 1 TB. What I'm
> saying is that individual users typically don't store this kind of
> volume. (Yet.)

I know several people who do - I've got over 2 TB of storage here at 
home, in fact - more than we had in network storage in a building serving 
1700 employees.

(A fair amount of it is really old data that I just haven't gone through, 
and multiple copies for backup purposes of some other data, mostly 
downloaded software for my Linux installs).

Jim

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>> Sure. Large comporations have reached here. Hell, if you put all the
>> servers in my company together, it might total almost 1 TB. What I'm
>> saying is that individual users typically don't store this kind of
>> volume. (Yet.)
> 
> I know several people who do - I've got over 2 TB of storage here at 
> home, in fact - more than we had in network storage in a building serving 
> 1700 employees.
> 
> (A fair amount of it is really old data that I just haven't gone through, 
> and multiple copies for backup purposes of some other data, mostly 
> downloaded software for my Linux installs).

...at some point I seem to have mixed up TB and PB. o_O

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

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On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:24:17 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Sure. Large comporations have reached here. Hell, if you put all the
>>> servers in my company together, it might total almost 1 TB. What I'm
>>> saying is that individual users typically don't store this kind of
>>> volume. (Yet.)
>> 
>> I know several people who do - I've got over 2 TB of storage here at
>> home, in fact - more than we had in network storage in a building
>> serving 1700 employees.
>> 
>> (A fair amount of it is really old data that I just haven't gone
>> through, and multiple copies for backup purposes of some other data,
>> mostly downloaded software for my Linux installs).
> 
> ...at some point I seem to have mixed up TB and PB. o_O

;-)

Jim

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Invisible wrote:
>>> I don't mind that. But a scanner program? I don't own a scanner, why
>>> would I want a fancy GUI for controlling one?
>> 
>> That is a graphical program; as opposed to the command-line 'scanimage'
>> tool.
> 
> Sure, but if I don't own a scanner, why would I want all the image
> capture libraries, CLI infrastructure and GUI front-end? Why can't I
> just skip downloading and installing all that stuff?

Then do what I said. Don't use Ubuntu :D

Ubuntu was made for newbies who would say "Linux sucks, I can't use my 
scanner!"

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>> Sure, but if I don't own a scanner, why would I want all the image
>> capture libraries, CLI infrastructure and GUI front-end? Why can't I
>> just skip downloading and installing all that stuff?
> 
> Then do what I said. Don't use Ubuntu :D
> 
> Ubuntu was made for newbies who would say "Linux sucks, I can't use my 
> scanner!"

"Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning 'I can't install Debian'."

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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> Ubuntu was made for newbies who would say "Linux sucks, I can't use my
> scanner!"

Linux Mint was made for newbies who would say "Ubuntu sucks, I can't use my
monitor!"

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