Linux-Advocacy Digest #680, Volume #32 Tue, 6 Mar 01 22:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: Microsoft screws itself again! (Bloody Viking)
Re: Computing Power to Peak SOON! (WAS: Moore's Law, continued...) (Ian Pulsford)
Re: Windows Owns Desktop, Extends Lead in Server Market (Michael Vester)
Re: Windows XP! Will it really be reliable? (Michael Vester)
Re: Are todays computers 1000 times better than the original PCs? (Bloody Viking)
Re: Does anyone know how much computer power we have/ (Bloody Viking)
Re: Does anyone know how much computer power we have/ (Bloody Viking)
Re: The Double Fucking ala MS... (snoopygates)
Re: GPL Like patents. (mlw)
Re: Computing Power to Peak SOON! (WAS: Moore's Law, continued...) (Bloody Viking)
Re: Does anyone know how much computer power we have/ (Donn Miller)
Re: Sometimes, when I run Windows... (Michael Vester)
I am looking for a newsreader (Brad Sims)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: Microsoft screws itself again!
Date: 7 Mar 2001 01:23:43 GMT
Charlie Ebert ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/03/05/010305opcringely.xml
: Interesting article which prooves NT IS faster than W2K.
: And now that the news is OUT, Microsoft is attempting to BURY IT FAST!
Of course, old Windows (when it runs) is faster than new Windows. Imagine
Windows 3.11 on a 400MHZ Pentium v.2.0 with half a gig of RAM.
Microsoft has been leveraging Moore's Law forever, slowing down the
ever-faster hardware. The fun begins when chips come with _integrated water
jacket packaging_ to watercool them like car engines. At that point, Moore's
Law ends on the desktop with silicon, leaving any speed increases to
overclockers with ice water cooling systems.
Without Noore's Law, people will no longer be able to tolerate increasing
bloat. Combined with Linux on these icewater cooled beasts, Microsoft can't
survive. A fundimental limit will be reached soon, that being heat
dissipation on the desktop. Servers can use refrigerated chips (integrated
freon-cooling?) but Linux already is gaining good on the server market.
As of now, the fastest CPUs from Intel put out 40 watts of heat, meaning we
are approaching the limit of aircooled chips. Who knows? Newsgroups like
comp.os.linux.watercooled.ice anyone?
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: Ian Pulsford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.microsoft.sucks,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Computing Power to Peak SOON! (WAS: Moore's Law, continued...)
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 11:30:27 +1000
Bloody Viking wrote:
>
> I saw that thread, and realised that Moore's Law is coming close to the limit,
> though there's some life left. The writing will be on the wall when Intel
> starts selling CPUs that take liquid cooling resembling a micromini car engine
> cooling system, complete with radiator, antifreeze, fan, and water pump and
> little reservoir. Once the first overclocker makes that gadget for his CPU, we
> will be nearing Game Over for Moore's Law, certainly in terms of silicon or
> similar technology. (GaAs, etc.) It will be awful expensive to build a tiny
> "Joule-Thompson" liquid air machine to cool the chips. And I don't see the
> emergence of a liquid nitrogen delivery service like The Milk Man showing up.
>
> The upshot is that at that time, Microsoft will lose the paradigm of the
> upgrade-go-round as it will no longer be possible. People will demand FASTER
> software finally, not tolerate slower software. Microsoft's whole marketing
> depends on Moore's Law just as much as Detroit depends on cheap petrol to sell
> cars.
So does Intel's.
> It's going to be awful hard to keep a chip cool at a heat flux of 100W/sq.in.
> We will never reach the 10KW chip, not by a long shot. It's already getting
> hard to aircool chips now, and the next logical step is liquid cooling with
> the water jacket integrated with the chip package, a water pump, the
> antifreeze, and a heat exchanger like a hotrod's oil cooler with fans.
Sooner or later we'll have fast asynchronous CPUs that are more power
efficient than current synchronous processors, and no doubt other
advances to keep the ball rolling.
--
"Dear someone you've never heard of,
how is so-and-so. Blah blah.
Yours truly, some bozo." - Homer Simpson
------------------------------
From: Michael Vester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Windows Owns Desktop, Extends Lead in Server Market
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 11:23:55 -0700
chrisv wrote:
>
> "Masha Ku'Inanna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >Othertimes, people'd come in wanting to buy Red-hat linux, and I'd point 'em
> >to the book-section. (Linux Bible series). They'd ask "Why not get the full
> >version?.." I'd tell em "Why? This is still a full installation, for half of
> >the retail box, and you get this thick 'manual' with it.."
> >
> >The expressions are always priceless..
>
> What's their expression like when they find out your store has, like,
> ZERO Linux apps for sale, while there's THOUSANDS of Windows apps on
> the shelves?
All the apps are packaged with the distributions. With
losdos, you get just a marginal OS. With a Linux distribution,
you get, compilers, databases, several window managers and all
the Internet apps you could ever wish for. My Suse
distribution came on 6 cd's. Online, there are thousands of
Linux apps. There is more to the world of software than what
you see at your local computer store.
--
Michael Vester
A credible Linux advocate
"The avalanche has started, it is
too late for the pebbles to vote"
Kosh, Vorlon Ambassador to Babylon 5
------------------------------
From: Michael Vester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows XP! Will it really be reliable?
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 11:25:47 -0700
Stuart Krivis wrote:
>
> On Sat, 3 Mar 2001 22:46:54 -0800, Sean Turner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >It is built on the 2000 kernal, so it will be much better than ME, 95, or
> >98. My 2000 machine can stay up for a month.
>
> Should we be impressed?
Obviously, the losedos advocate is.
>
> sgk@poof sgk]$uname -a
> SunOS poof.apk.net 5.8 Generic_108528-01 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-1
> sgk@poof sgk]$uptime
> 5:47am up 87 day(s), 21:59, 8 users, load average: 1.02, 1.08, 1.31
>
> --
>
> Stuart Krivis
--
Michael Vester
A credible Linux advocate
"The avalanche has started, it is
too late for the pebbles to vote"
Kosh, Vorlon Ambassador to Babylon 5
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: Are todays computers 1000 times better than the original PCs?
Date: 7 Mar 2001 01:44:33 GMT
Aaron Kulkis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: Plastic doesn't have the quantum-dynamic properties offered by
: Silicon and Gallium Arsenide, etc.
And Microsoft had better find that nirvana semiconductor quick. The latest
Intel chips are pushing the limit of aircooled chips. There are now production
1GHZ chips, and in the labs Intel has been overclocking something to 1.5GHZ.
We don't know what they are doing in the overclock lab to cool chips, but with
40W for those server chips, it must be some serious shit. Read my posting
called "computing power to peak SOON" for my speculation on the Moore's Law
endgame on the desktop. (and ideas for overclockers)
Computer Nerd meets Shadetree Mechanic.
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: Does anyone know how much computer power we have/
Date: 7 Mar 2001 01:50:03 GMT
Edward Rosten ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: Diamons suffers the same problem as GaAs: no native solid oxide. Pity
: since it is really useful.
If we can't make a faster CPU with an exotic semiconductor, the speed limit is
coming up quick. The speed limit on the desktop will be heat dissipation while
servers can squeeze a doubling or two with refrigeration. But you can't go too
far with that as the temp gradient gets ridiculous quick as you further rev up
the chip. It could end up with the world's fastest chip being owned by an
overclocker somewhere.
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: Does anyone know how much computer power we have/
Date: 7 Mar 2001 01:54:39 GMT
Peter Hayes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: One place I worked in had everal thousand PCs. They were 386/486/low-end
: pentiums. They ran Win3.1 and the better ones ran Win95.
: They threw them out, replacing them with PIIs with 16 or 32 Mb ram running
: Win95.
: They threw them out, replacing them with PIIIs with 128Mb ram and 20Gb
: hdds. They run Win98.
: They're thinking of throwing them out, getting P4s and putting Win2000 on
: them.
: What's all this endeavour in aid of? So we can run e-mail and write the odd
: memo.
: What a waste of resources. Millions wasted for new kit. More millions in MS
: licensing. Some people are completely mad.
Look on the bright side of all this. If you use Linux on the present machines,
they will be FAST! Your litany of upgrades is incredible, but so typical of
companies it seems. But the road ahead has a silicon boilover in the form of a
heat dissipation limit on chip speed.
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: snoopygates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: The Double Fucking ala MS...
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 17:57:48 -0800
w2k just came out and they haven't sat down to fix the bugs. Now they are
forcing the new windows on us. When will it ever stop?
I remember when I used windows 95 and it just kept locking up, due to lack
of resources, and then when I upgraded to windows 98, the blue screen of
death was ever more present. It was the same problem all over again. Not
enough CPU and Ram to run all the programs I wanted too. On Linux, it is
different, it allows you to run several programs at a time with limited CPU
and ram, and doesn't ever lock up, or show the blue screen. Why is this
such a problem for Microsoft to overcome?? Is it because they want to suck
out as much money possible from your purchases of their products? Is that
all that is important to them? It would appear so.
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: GPL Like patents.
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 21:17:36 -0500
Ian Pulsford wrote:
>
> mlw wrote:
> >
> > Craig Kelley wrote:
> > >
> > > mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > >
> > > > OK, we have bitched long enough, how do we fix it?
> > >
> > > Use a different license, of course. :)
> >
> > Yes, but then we run into the crap that is going on already.
>
>
> Remove the colonising effect of the GPL. I concider it fair enough to
> require derived work to be released under the GPL but remove this bit
> and related parts:
>
> "These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
> identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and
> can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
> themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
> sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
> distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on
> the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this
> License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire
> whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it."
The only issue I have, is the interpretation of the "whole." Under scrutiny,
and on the surface, the GPL seems very fair. It is only after laborious debate
(This thread as an example) that one can see how different interpretations of
"work," "independent," and "separate" can lead to the whole viral meaning
which, despite the protestations of RMS, could not have been intentional.
The issue is that, I believe, and I have talked to a lawyer about this, that
the GPL should allow many of the open things that people say it does not. The
issue would be that it would require a civil action to clearly define the
limitations and the true legal definition of the GPL and words used within. I
do not have the cash for such a fight, nor do many open source developers. It
should be easier.
I believe in the GPL insofar as I have come to understand it. This whole debate
that we have been through has scared me a bit because of the various
interpretations.
If I were a multi-millionaire I would challenge it in court to try and force a
precedent. I think a clarifying action would be very beneficial to the open
source community.
--
I'm not offering myself as an example; every life evolves by its own laws.
========================
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.microsoft.sucks,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Computing Power to Peak SOON! (WAS: Moore's Law, continued...)
Date: 7 Mar 2001 02:20:39 GMT
Ian Pulsford ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: So does Intel's.
They can still make the Pentium Plateau, but the price will drop and they
won't need to build an even costlier fabricating plant for a faster chip. I
suspect the watercooled chips will end up in the servers with the last
aircooled chips in the last desktops.
: Sooner or later we'll have fast asynchronous CPUs that are more power
: efficient than current synchronous processors, and no doubt other
: advances to keep the ball rolling.
Then, there's the Moore's Law corollary. As you widen the bus, integrating
dual CPUs, the cost of fabrication continues to escalate. The flawed chip loss
rate will be ridiculous. At some point - and soon - chips won't be able to go
faster but will have to improve by an ever-widening bus. 64-bit is soon, and
that means all the more transistors to shove onto the same real estate. And
more transistors, despite being smaller, means you hit that heat-fluc-per-
unit-real-estate limit all the same. A good move is at the aircool 32-bit
limit, switch to watercool 64-bit. From that point, it's bigger tracts of real
estate per chip.
The latest Pentium v.4.0 chips are dissipating 40 watts of heat as they run.
Look at that CPU in your computer. The 486SX 25 had no fins. The Pentium v.1.0
75MHZ does. The Pentium v.2.0 at 233MHZ has a fan plus fins. See the pattern?
Speed dissipates heat. Even if Intel made a "Pentium Insane!" with liquid
helium, before that the temperature gradient in the wafer itself would crack
it. The heat limit is merely coming faster than the molecular limit.
It wouldn't surprise me if the 1GHZ Pentium v.4.0 (the "80986") has the fins
and a forced draft blower to cool it or peltier junctions plus forced draft
blower. I bet the Pentium v.5.0 ("801086" aka "decium") will either be
watercool or be pushing the edges of the envelope on aircool. The first
watercool chip warns thar the end of the line on the desktop is coming fast.
As cooling requirements - which does not follow Moore's Law - worsen and
costlier chips arrive, consumers will see that the upgrade-go-round was a
scam. Microsoft depends on Moore's Law as much as it does Copyright. Once
Moore's Law is repealed on the desktop, it's Game Over for a LOT of players.
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 21:30:45 -0500
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Does anyone know how much computer power we have/
Peter Hayes wrote:
> One place I worked in had everal thousand PCs. They were 386/486/low-end
> pentiums. They ran Win3.1 and the better ones ran Win95.
>
> They threw them out, replacing them with PIIs with 16 or 32 Mb ram running
> Win95.
>
> They threw them out, replacing them with PIIIs with 128Mb ram and 20Gb
> hdds. They run Win98.
>
> They're thinking of throwing them out, getting P4s and putting Win2000 on
> them.
>
> What's all this endeavour in aid of? So we can run e-mail and write the odd
> memo.
>
> What a waste of resources. Millions wasted for new kit. More millions in MS
> licensing. Some people are completely mad.
Don't tell the Winvocates this. They'll tell you stories about how Win
2000 runs fine on old HW. Hey, some of those older machines, like say a
486 DX4 would make an awesome X terminal that you can network to the
newer machines. Unfortunately, most Windows users think Windows is the
only OS that will run on i86 machines. They aren't aware of X, Linux,
or BSD. As an aside, most SunOS users probably don't know what to do
with those old SPARC IPX's they have lying around. Surely, they're too
"outdated" to run the newer versions of Solaris, right? Wrong! Install
NetBSD or Linux on those babies, and watch them fly! Old PC HW isn't
the only "oldie but goodie" computer HW out there.
MS isn't the only company milking Moore's Law.
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: Michael Vester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Sometimes, when I run Windows...
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 12:40:57 -0700
chrisv wrote:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi) wrote:
>
> >Done several Linux installs, on about 25 different hardware configurations,
> >including laptops, custom builds, Dell machines, and dreaded laptops.
> >Never had hardware problems with supported hardware.
>
> That's funny, I've had problems with the majority of the machines I've
> tried it on! Examples: Voodoo3 not supported. Adaptec (!) SCSI card
> not supported.
My "message" log from booting up. SCSI is very well supported. Any
distribution out of the box will flawlessly detect and configure SCSI. If
you can't make your Vodoo work, your problem is with rhe driver. My
apologies to any losedos advocate if this listing is to difficult to
understand.
Linux version 2.2.10 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc version 2.7.2.3) #4
Tue Jul 20 17:01:36 MEST 1999
Detected 300687181 Hz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 299.83 BogoMIPS
Memory: 257540k/262080k available (1260k kernel code, 408k reserved
(endbase 0x9f000), 2828k data, 44k init)
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
CPU: Intel Pentium II (Klamath) stepping 04
Checking 386/387 coupling... OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.35 (19990512) Richard Gooch ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xf0750
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd v 1.5
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Real Time Clock Driver v1.09
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 20480K size
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 21
PIIX4: device not capable of full native PCI mode
PIIX4: device disabled (BIOS)
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
md driver 0.36.6 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8
linear personality registered
raid0 personality registered
raid1 personality registered
raid5 personality registered
(scsi0) <Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter> found at PCI 12/0
(scsi0) Wide Channel, SCSI ID=7, 16/255 SCBs
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 413 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.1.19/3.2.4
<Adaptec AHA-294X Ultra SCSI host adapter>
scsi : 1 host.
(scsi0:0:0:0) Synchronous at 40.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 8.
Vendor: QUANTUM Model: QM39100TD-SW Rev: N1B0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Vendor: IOMEGA Model: ZIP 100 Rev: N*32
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi removable disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
(scsi0:0:6:0) Synchronous at 5.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 8.
Vendor: PIONEER Model: CD-ROM DR-U24X Rev: 1.01
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
scsi : detected 1 SCSI cdrom 2 SCSI disks total.
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 20x/20x xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CDROM driver Revision: 2.55
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 17783249 [8683 MB] [8.7
GB]
SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 196608 [96 MB] [0.1 GB]
sdb: Write Protect is off
Partition check:
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
sdb: sdb4
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 44k freed
Adding Swap: 136544k swap-space (priority -1)
Serial driver version 4.27 with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ
enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
eth0: 3c509 at 0x300 tag 1, 10baseT port, address 00 10 4b 54 55 7e, IRQ
5.
3c509.c:1.16 (2.2) 2/3/98 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
eth0: Setting Rx mode to 1 addresses.
/dev/vmmon: Module vmmon registered with major=10 minor=165 tag=$Name:
build-212 $
/dev/vmmon: vmx86 module initialized
vmnet0: bridge eth0 up
vmnet0: bridge eth0 attached
--
Michael Vester
A credible Linux advocate
"The avalanche has started, it is
too late for the pebbles to vote"
Kosh, Vorlon Ambassador to Babylon 5
------------------------------
Subject: I am looking for a newsreader
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Sims)
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 03:01:09 GMT
Knode is ok but I want something like Xnews, that I can run on
my linux partition (SuSE 7.0, KDE 2.1). I have tried krn and did
not like it either.
--
I sense much distrust in you. Distrust leads to cynicism,
cynicism leads to bitterness, bitterness leads to the
Awareness Of True Reality which is referred to by
those-who-lack-enlightenment as "paranoia". I approve.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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