Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On Friday 06 January 2006 23:27, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote: ... Fortunately, I'd say that roughly 1/2 of the home users Just Don't Care. They aren't looking to run any super-duper MS-specific apps or games or anything. They want: 1) E-mail 1a) To be able to watch the (virus-laden) attachments and/or links they get from their friends 2) Web surfing 3) IM Linux can do all that, NOT get (as many) viruses, AND be a whole lot less expensive. However, until you start seeing Linux boxen next to MS boxen at (say) Circuit City -- and for less money -- I don't see us making a substantial difference in userbase numbers. I did buy a Linux box at Microcenter last year, and I believe WalMart had some low-end Linux offers running Linspire or some such. Still, would be nice to see a stronger penetration of those. However, for the millions who use their computers more as *appliances* than anything else, I am just not excited. A side note on Microcenter: Even though they are probably the best computer store outlet in the general area, and the best I've ever seen barring none in the US, I'm a bit miffed about their customer service. They gave me a hard time with my tax-free purchases as a corporation, and I utterly despise paying Mass taxes when I live in New Hampshire. So, I guess I'll have to suck in my gotta have it right now mentality and go back to ordering online. You'd think my dropping a few thousand bucks in their store would be important to them, but I guess not. Oh well. -Fred ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On Sunday 08 January 2006 09:34, Ted Roche wrote: ... Yup, I thought Microsoft had a good plan in keeping Intel on the straight-and-narrow and giving UNIX a run for its money with Intel- AMD / PowerPC / Alpha / MIPS rollouts of NT. I saw NT demoed on Alpha at Valinor in Manchester, and it was a snappy machine. Instead, the multi-platform support just turned out to be another head fake, causing their customers to waste a huge amount of time, resources and effort chasing an opportunity that Microsoft wouldn't support. It just amazes me the number of times that Microsoft has pulled the rug out from under their own customers. Ted Roche Yep, which is one of the many reasons that this former NT guru is now solidly in the Linux camp! But what can I say? For a while during the 90s, anyone with NT experience was heavily sought after and *paid well.* It was all about the money, nothing more. I had wanted to go Unix after the fall of Commodore/Amiga, but there were already too many Unix guys on the market! Had I not been newly married and a baby on the way, I might have stuck it out anyway. And for what it was, NT was at least 32-bit, and saved me from having to do really smelly 16-bit Windows development. NT was smelly enough, still carrying over the legacy bass-ackwards 16-bit Windows API and event model, which they should've by all rights dropped, burned, nuked and back to the drawing board to get it right. And Microsoft was notorious for its Embrace, Extend, Extinguish technology 'adoption' principles. Anybody with half a brain knew this. Customers so foolish as to jump on anything not Microsoft Mainstream were doomed from the very beginning. Well, you were kinda doomed with the Mainstream stuff anyway, but at least you didn't get fired. ;-) Oh, I recall the NT-beta days with glee. If you managed to get by 5 minutes before you saw the dreaded blue-screen-of-death, it was a miracle. By all rights it should've been called NT-alpha, but that might have caused some confusion. :-) -Fred ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Oh, and given the amount of work it took me to port POV-Ray to Alpha (32-bit pointer assumptions everywhere) I can see why Microsoft wasn't chomping at that particular bit. But the work eventually had to be done, didn't it? When we started Alpha Linux, Jim Paradis wanted to make a 32-bit version because he was afraid all the free software would take a lot of porting. I told him that I did not think that would be the case, since a lot of the software already ran on Digital Unix, and already had been ported to 64-bits. Actually, good code with proper type-casting does not need much, if any, porting just to get it to work. He tried a few packages and agreed with me. He then tidied up the 32-bit port he was working on and joined Linus in the 64-bit port. md md -- Jon maddog Hall Executive Director Linux International(R) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. (R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other countries. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On Jan 7, 2006, at 10:38 PM, Bill McGonigle wrote: Whether anyone ever ran it or not (or if it even worked) is a different question. SGI was going to reinvent the company by getting into bed with Microsoft. We all know how that limerick ends. It did run. At the Microsoft Solutions Provider consultancy I helped run in the nineties, we had a MIPS R4000 machine running NT. Several years later, I brought it to a BLU Installfest attempting to get a distro of Linux running on it. I was all gung-ho for NT 4 on Alpha, even if it only ran in 32-bit mode, having used Alphas (on OSF/1) to do graphics work in a grad class at Dartmouth (bitchin' fast). The FX!32 Kool-Aid Compaq (nee DEC) was selling sounded great. Yup, I thought Microsoft had a good plan in keeping Intel on the straight-and-narrow and giving UNIX a run for its money with Intel- AMD / PowerPC / Alpha / MIPS rollouts of NT. I saw NT demoed on Alpha at Valinor in Manchester, and it was a snappy machine. Instead, the multi-platform support just turned out to be another head fake, causing their customers to waste a huge amount of time, resources and effort chasing an opportunity that Microsoft wouldn't support. It just amazes me the number of times that Microsoft has pulled the rug out from under their own customers. Ted Roche Ted Roche Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
Bill McGonigle writes: Oh, and given the amount of work it took me to port POV-Ray to Alpha (32-bit pointer assumptions everywhere) I can see why Microsoft wasn't chomping at that particular bit. Still, it is pretty pleasing as a programmer to learn that somebody has taken your (low-level) code and compiled it on an architecture that you've never touched before (different endianness, OS, compiler, and larger pointer size) and find out that self-tests you included with the code JUST WORK. Anyways, I was pretty happy when this happened to a protocol stack I wrote. Writing code like this takes some attention to detail... --kevin -- The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On Jan 8, 2006, at 09:12, Jon maddog Hall wrote: But the work eventually had to be done, didn't it? Absolutely. But you're thinking about the right thing to do from a product prospective rather than maximizing quarterly profits. Sure, they finally had to clean up that code to get the recent 64-bit code out the door, but they also sat on the money it would have taken to do it in 1994 for a decade, probably at least quadrupling the value of that money. See also Windows security. Stop thinking of Microsoft as a technology company. :) -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On 1/9/06, Jon maddog Hall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... I hereby withdraw from the thread. Oh, no, we're not letting you go *that* easily! Moohoohahahahahahaha*bonk* ow. -- Ben I really need to get to bed Scott ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
Kuni, You forgot to copy the rest of the list, but I will pick this up: --- Jon maddog Hall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: NT was available for the Alpha, and isn't any more. Microsoft dropped support for it several years ago, leaving a lot of Alpha NT customers high and dry. Of course the customers blamed Digital, not Microsoft. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: From what I understand, it was Digital that dropped it. The issue was that Digital was always lagging behind since they did not get code to port until near the end of the development cycle... They were always about a year or so behind main NT development and got tired of playing catch-up. Add to that the fact that the deal with MS only extended to NT, not the later branches off of that code. So it was Digital's fault... at least partly. Anyone who was actually involved care to comment? I doubt that anyone other than some of the senior VPs, Ken Olson, Bob Palmer or Gates/Balmer/Cutler knows the total story of the relationship between Digital and Microsoft. However, I was in Digital when the partnership broke up, and I remember the stunned feeling that came out of the NT group after a decade of Microsoft is our friend and NT is the volume business for Alpha when the announcement of the divorce was made. Personally, I believe that getting the NT code at the end of the development cycle is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes from Microsoft, but not working the 64-bit code into the base product was definitely a lack on Microsoft's part. You are right, it was Digital's fault, for ever believing that Microsoft ever has anyone's interest at heart other than Microsoft, and for believing that such a company could be a true partner. IMHO, if Digital and Microsoft had been married, Digital could have sued for cruel and unusual treatment. md -- Jon maddog Hall Executive Director Linux International(R) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. (R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other countries. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On Jan 6, 2006, at 21:05, Jon maddog Hall wrote: NT was originally supposed to run on the MIPS, Alpha and Intel chips, all capable of little endian format. MIPS was more or less still-born, and I do not belive NT ever was officially released for it. Just to be pedantic, it was released - here's a disc I have: http://bfccomputing.com/downloads/docs/windows/nt4/cd/picture/nt4cd.jpg Whether anyone ever ran it or not (or if it even worked) is a different question. SGI was going to reinvent the company by getting into bed with Microsoft. We all know how that limerick ends. I was all gung-ho for NT 4 on Alpha, even if it only ran in 32-bit mode, having used Alphas (on OSF/1) to do graphics work in a grad class at Dartmouth (bitchin' fast). The FX!32 Kool-Aid Compaq (nee DEC) was selling sounded great. Then Microsoft told the hardware shops (Motorola, DEC I presume, not Intel) that they had to take on the burden of development for their chips and allowed the manufacturers to kill the products (see, Microsoft didn't do it...). 64-bit NT on Alpha was supposed to debut in NT 5, IIRC, so it's fair to say it never made the light of day, even if it were in the shop. Oh, and given the amount of work it took me to port POV-Ray to Alpha (32-bit pointer assumptions everywhere) I can see why Microsoft wasn't chomping at that particular bit. -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
Congrats to maddog for getting his letter to the editor printed in the most recent issue of Infoworld. A previous issue had a cover article trumpeting The 64-bit Apps Are Here! and maddog pointed out that the featured software company's operating system was probably the LAST major OS to finally make it to 64-bits. Linux did it on Alpha in 1995, and on SPARC and PowerPC soon after. Bravo! Ted Roche Ted Roche Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
Congrats to maddog for getting his letter to the editor printed in the most recent issue of Infoworld. A previous issue had a cover article trumpeting The 64-bit Apps Are Here! and maddog pointed out that the featured software company's operating system was probably the LAST major OS to finally make it to 64-bits. Linux did it on Alpha in 1995, and on SPARC and PowerPC soon after. Well... not to toot MS's horn, but NT came out for a variety of processors, and I'm 99.9% at least one of them was 64-bit. So the magazine could have been a lot safer with saying, The Windows x86-64 Apps Are Here! But that doesn't roll quite as trippingly off the tongue, does it? ;-) So, regarding x86-64, yeah, MS is pretty late to the party. And since that's what runs the huge majority of desktops, that's really where it's at. -Ken (who's still miffed Apple didn't go with AMD for their x86-64 OS-X) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 13:28:27 -0500 (EST) Ken D'Ambrosio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well... not to toot MS's horn, but NT came out for a variety of processors, and I'm 99.9% at least one of them was 64-bit. I believe NT was available for the Alpha chip. Imagine there is also a story there as well. Ed Lawson -- Edward E. Lawson, Esq. Lawson Persson, PC 67 Water Street, Suite 103 Laconia, NH 03246 Tel: 603-528-0036 FAX:603-528-3332 NOTICE REGARDING CONFIDENTIALITY AND ATTORNEY/CLIENT PRIVILEGE This message, including any attachments, is a PRIVATE communication which may contain attorney/client privileged material and is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not read, copy, use, or disclose to others. If you have received this message in error, please reply to sender and delete this message from your system. Thank you. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Bravo! Thank you, Ted. I believe NT was available for the Alpha chip. Imagine there is also a story there as well. NT was originally supposed to run on the MIPS, Alpha and Intel chips, all capable of little endian format. MIPS was more or less still-born, and I do not belive NT ever was officially released for it. NT was available for the Alpha, and isn't any more. Microsoft dropped support for it several years ago, leaving a lot of Alpha NT customers high and dry. Of course the customers blamed Digital, not Microsoft. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: So, regarding x86-64, yeah, MS is pretty late to the party. And since that's what runs the huge majority of desktops, that's really where it's at. Sorry, Ken, have to disagree with you. There is such a thing as a server system. There are two big differences that go into making a 64-bit operating system: o use of 64-bit registers as the native registers o ability to access large amounts of virtual memory There are four minor differences that *usually* come along with those: o ability to do double-word floating point operations as one operation o ability to access large amounts of real memory o ability to handle large data busses o ability to do atomic operations over large data structures Note that the double-word floating point operation is especially useful in C, since all single-word floating point operations are expanded to double-word, then truncated back to single-word again. If you are doing lots of floating-point work (scientific and engineering), this means it typically speeds up significantly given the same number of clock-cycles per operation. Microsoft operating systems eventually did the first big difference, and the minor differences, but they (until now) have not been able to access large amounts of virtual memory. There are whole classes of problems that really benefit from having large address spaces. Data bases, for instance can have much larger tables, with fewer levels of indices. Hashing algorithms can work much better, mmap comes into its own, along with very large amounts of virtual memory being able to be locked into real memories. Movie rendering becomes more interesting when you can map the entire film into one virtual address space. Simulations can be done easier when you don't have to worry about artificial edge processing caused by lack of address space. If Microsoft had only touted their operating systems for desktop, I might agree with you, but they have been saying that they are a server operating system too, and I feel that their inability to produce a TRUE 64 bit operating system until now is pathetic, particularly when Digital offered them the code to make NT truly 64-bit back in 1992. If Microsoft had accepted the code, then the Alpha would have been the only processor to support those very large address spaces, and perhaps its fate would have been a little bit different. As it was, the Alpha was basically a very fast, incompatible Intel chip to most developers. The lack of real 64 bit support in MS products (particularly in their server products) I believe has hurt the computer industry. While we had a few applications (most of the database vendors, some CAD apps) re-write their code to take advantage of the larger address space, a lot of applications held back until MS said they were coming out with it. The article in Infoworld that I responded to was trumpeting the arrival of this address space. I simply pointed out that (once again) MS was late to the table. Apparently the Infoworld people agreed with me. In fact they wrote me a letter telling me how much their entire staff appreciated my letter. md -- Jon maddog Hall Executive Director Linux International(R) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. (R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other countries. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
Ken D'Ambrosio [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So, regarding x86-64, yeah, MS is pretty late to the party. Ahm, but isn't that *exactly* what MS Excels (pun intended ;) at? Seriously, they've been late to *every* single part to hit the computing world: WindowsX Windows and Macs had them long before MS Integrated AppsGates has been quoted they'd never sell (I believe there was Star(Calc,word... back in the DOS days) Internet MSN is where the future was supposed to be Groupware Lotus Notes Downloadable music iTunes Web browsers Netscape Honestly, I can't think of single where MS has been first in anything. But from a business perspective, that's genius. Let everyone else make all the mistakes, spend all the time, effort, and money convincing the world this new thing is a great idea. Then, when the world is finally convinced they need this new thing, but that all current implementations aren't good enough, release what you've been working on the whole time. It's worked for them for the last almost 30 years, why stop now? -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!
So, regarding x86-64, yeah, MS is pretty late to the party. And since that's what runs the huge majority of desktops, that's really where it's at. Sorry, Ken, have to disagree with you. There is such a thing as a server system. Oh, absolutely. I didn't want to muddy the water with the place where, as far as I'm concerned, we've already won. [Don't get me wrong: I don't mean raw figures, or MS leaving the server market, or anything. But I only see Linux expanding its grip on servers as time goes on, and as more CS students with Linux under their belt enter the workplace.] What I mean by desktops being where it's at is that that's where the fight is. Five years ago, I thought Linux was six months from being able to make inroads -- perhaps I was a bit optimistic. Now, however, I have no doubt that Linux -can- make inroads. The functionality is in place. It'll just take time for us to wear away at the huge amount of inertia (You can't get fired for buying IBM^H^H^H Microsoft) that they have. Fortunately, I'd say that roughly 1/2 of the home users Just Don't Care. They aren't looking to run any super-duper MS-specific apps or games or anything. They want: 1) E-mail 1a) To be able to watch the (virus-laden) attachments and/or links they get from their friends 2) Web surfing 3) IM Linux can do all that, NOT get (as many) viruses, AND be a whole lot less expensive. However, until you start seeing Linux boxen next to MS boxen at (say) Circuit City -- and for less money -- I don't see us making a substantial difference in userbase numbers. Which just means, of course, that we continue fighting the good fight. In other words, I violently agree. ;-) -Ken ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
