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LinuxWorld Summary 196

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-happened dept.
Figured I'd take a moment now that I've caught up on most of my post-LWCE email buildup to mention a few things that caught my eye at the Javitz Center this year. Hit the link below to get bits on PS/2 Linux, the Sharp Zaurus, and whatever else I remember before I click 'save.'

By far the thing that impressed me the most was Sony's PS/2 Linux booth. I've been the gaming console running Linux several times in the past at other shows (most notably LinuxWorld in Tokyo) and it always struck me as a fascinating thing. And it looks like they may have it as close to right as reasonably possible. They plan on it being just $200... for a 40 gig hard drive, and ethernet. Basically $200 turns your $300 into a full featured Linux Box. The APIs are accessible to the prospective game developer. Ethernet is right there. The thing has USB ports. If you're looking for a way to get a decent PC connected to your TV and Stereo, this is a nifty way to do it. And since the video out will be able to support HDTV res like 720p and perhaps 1080i, it might even be a non-sucky display for certain applications. I'm not saying throw away your desktop, but there is a lot there to love: get a wireless USB compatible keyboard/mouse, and you have a nifty setup. Of course the CPU speeds aren't exactly P3 or P4 speeds, but for web browsing, MP3 playing and so forth, it'll do. Especially when the true nature of the X-Box is revealed.

The Sharp Zaurus PDA also struck my eye. The developer version is relatively inexpensive, and the consumer version is coming soon. The Linux Based Handheld has a lot of stuff that I'm not used to seeing in a handheld including a tiny, but reasonably usable keyboard, a built in compact flash slot (for little hard drives, or wireless network adapters). It's also nice to see that the handheld Linux projects have come so far in the last year or so. These things can interoperate pretty well with Palm and Wince boxes... but they also can have a shell prompt if you so desire. I still think that $550 for a handheld is a tough sell, but it's close.

The Golden Penguin Bowl was fun once again. I actually had time to catch a few speeches for a change since OSDN didn't have a 10x10 cage to keep me in this time, but instead had a sales meeting room - with massages.

It seemed smaller then the last LinuxWorld held in the Javitz, and less crowded. But not as much as I would have expected -- I went in half expecting it to be the size of the earliest of Linux Tradeshows, but most the usual suspects were there and strong. Ximian had actual boxes with Evolution on them. Intel, Compaq, and Sun (update my bad, I said SGI the first time... I meant Sun... those damn 3 letter unix oriented companies that start with S always mess me up) had their typical monstrous booths towering over all. The major distribution vendors mostly had smaller booths then in the past, but they were there, and that gives me some confidence. I really don't know whats going to happen to future LinuxWorlds. Now that the hype has died down, I suspect that these glitzy events will be the first to lose their glitz. But I really hope that the more technical cons are unaffected by the end of the hugest of hypes.

The thing that I came away with is that there are tons of things that are using Linux. It's maturing as an OS, and more platforms are using it. And in the vast majority of these cases, you can get your hands on the source code, which in my eyes means things are going just fine.
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LinuxWorld Summary

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  • What about GNOME and .NET (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MadCow-ard ( 330423 ) on Saturday February 02, 2002 @02:35PM (#2942580)
    Check out Icaza's .NET adoption strategy [theregister.co.uk]. Drop Java? No more GPL for GNOME? Interesting read...

    • I think it's sad to see Java being ignored by the open-source community; if they would just stop to think about it, they'd realize that it's their only chance of being noticed on the desktop.

      Adopting C# is a real head-shaker; what possible use would their be in helping the enemy?

      He gives as a reason for supporting C# that Well most of what you have is C C++ and Fortran code, but is holding on to legacy code in such low-level languages really worth sacrificing your integrity?

      • With both Kaffe [kaffe.org] and Wonka [acunia.com] out there, I don't think Java is being ignored by the open source community. Remember, Ximian != opensource community; FSF != open source community. The OSS community is us, and if we want to see Java (or whatever) being embraced, we have to embrace it.
      • Java's been around for a while now and I think that if it was going to make a impact it would have happend sooner, at least in relation to the desktop. I think that the problem is that it is halfway to an interpreated and compiled langerage and slow as a result (from my understanding). Also It is also commerical in its focus rather then python etc which are free langerages (also from my understanding)

        From my experience apps based on java like star office tend to be slow and bring a whole lot of there own problems with them.

        If you just base everything on open stardards for your doc formats then it doesnt really matter what app you us as long as they use that standard, or whether it is a native compile or uses a VM for that matter

        Also I am aware that most of the problems with the speed of java have been solved but I guess once you get a bad rep your doomed.

        To me Java is still a might have been IMHO.

        • "From my experience apps based on java like star office tend to be slow and bring a whole lot of there own problems with them."

          Oh many I thought you were actually being serious for a minute there then I read the above sentence and could not stop laughing to read the rest of your post.

          Very funny and a nice troll congratulations.
    • Read it again, java support is avilable in .net (although off the top o my head i can't think of any java gnome apps) an there are no licence changes for gnome, the licence for the mono liraries was changed for much the same reason that gtk is licenced under the lgpl not gpl.
    • This is another expresion of the originality of Icaza. GNOME was a complete failure. Poor APIs, poor performance, and the new .NET startegy is like the confirmation of that. Icaza want to make the billonare Bill dirty work. It's sad, because one of the things I like about linux it's that, thanks to GPL everithing ends within the community, now the question is: how much of this .NET madness will belong to linux?
      • I use KDE all the times + XChat + XMMS - so I don't have much to do with GNOME...

        However - it's Ximian full right to do what they wish to do with their money...

        Selling Connector for $70 while there is no justification for this price? (you pay for client access twice! one when you buy MS exchange and one when you buy MS Office - read the papers) - it's their right...

        They're going implement MS .Net (while they KNOW MS is not naive and MS will add tons of proprietary stuff to it which will hold Ximian 18 months back) and Ximian doesn't seems to learn from computing history [regarding competition with MS]? fine - its their money, and their right!

        So why do people moaning and bitching about GNOME? are Ximian now the sole writers of GNOME? (judging by the popularity of Red Carpet - I would think that it looks like Ximian is doing the major work of GNOME) last I heard - GNOME is written by volunteers from all over the world - or has it changed that everyone now counts on Ximian regarding GNOME?

        You tell me...
        • The whole point of it, after sitting through the 10 minute presentation at the expo, is to have all the true features of MS Outlook (using Ximian Evolution), on Linux, and be able to sync with a MS Exchange 2000 server.

          Supposed to work with Lotus Domino as well.

          Does not work with older version(s) of MS Exchange :(

          Of course, with MS doing "bug fixing" this month (Feb 2002), any patches might make XC useless.

          Ximian Evolution (free as in beer) is the cool product, Ximian Connector just makes it usefull in a Windows office environment.

          Ximian Desktop runs on top of Gnome. AFAIK, it is not required for XC/XE.

          (No, I don't work for Ximian)

          • Re:Ximian Connector (Score:3, Informative)

            by HeUnique ( 187 )
            Few more details:

            * it can connect to Exchange 2000, but it will be able by June to connect to Excahnge 5.5 (with a new version of the Connector)

            * regarind MS "bug fixing" - I hardly belive that they'll break their protocols right now - or they'll face tons of support nightmares (before/after patches) - take a look what happend with MS Win NT SP 6 with Lotus (and that was accident)..

            * Ximian Connector costs too much - look at Binary's solution for example ($10 less then XC)...

            One last think - I cannot reveal companies names right now - but if I was a sys admin thinking about implementing Ximian Connector for mail to connect to Exchange... I would wait a bit more.. some competition is coming...

    • Re:What about GNOME and .NET (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, interesting as long as you *actually read it*.

      No more GPL for GNOME? You are as bad as that arsewit poster Eric Laffoon on LinuxToday - (offtopic rant) He can't fucking well read either... and unfortunately, the asshole editors of LT don't like people criticising him and censor messages pointing out where and why he's wrong. (back on topic)

      Mono to play a big part in GNOME 4.0 (3.0)? Maybe... it certainly doesn't mean that GNOME will be a .NET Microsoft lackey. It means that, should it ever happen (and it's only a posiblity), GNOME will have a very easy way to develop software in many different languages. Flexibility and freedom, what a combination.

      As for the Mono licencing that every shithead is getting his pants all twisted up about: The c# compiler and JIT are both still GPL. The class libraries used to be LGPL - but are now X11. If you don't fucking like that, feel free to take them and relicense them as LGPL and develop them yourself... that's the freedom that X11 gives you.

      Whining maggots.

      -- miguel

      • I think most people don't get what he is trying to do. Here is my take on the situation.

        Migues is using MS as an R&D dept. MS spends money on R&D and Miguel looks at what they have done and dupes it!. It's a great idea. Overall I agree with this stradegy but the real test will come later. What happens when MS ignores the ECMA standard and changes .NET or C# to lock out Miguel? If at that point Miguel tries to change his implementation to match the MS one he is doomed. If he declares that he will stick to the published standard and officially "forks" the .NET he wins and MS loses because .NET will suffer the same fate as commercial unixes.

        Has anyone asked him that??
    • Don't forget that ximian is now writing and selling proprietary software: http://www.ximian.com/about_us/press_center/press_ releases/ximian_connector.html [ximian.com].

      Then there was that whole stir-up with RMS running for a position on the Gnome board and loosing. I think I recall he made some vague references about being distrubed about the direction Gnome was going, and the need to keep it focused on Freedom.

      But RMS seemed concilatory when the non-GPL license was announced.

      Can someone with more connections into the Cambridge circle of FSF people comment on what the heck is going on ? Personally I feel disturbed by this .NET focus and the proprietary software from Ximian, enough to start focusing on finding non-de Icaza replacements for tools I depend on (switching from gnucash to SQLledger will be the biggest).

      Has de Icaza just lost it and sold out ? Does RMS see .NET as a very big threat, way bigger than everyone else is seeing it, and thus it is worth any strategy at all to open it up ? Can someone fill in with information on the views of the key players ?

      • Re:What about GNOME and .NET (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        sold out.
        ximian was given several million dollars by battery ventures about 18 months ago; they are blowing through it and don't yet have a clear path to profitability.

        They will do what they have to in order to survive, including the re-jiggering of licenses.

        They have been working very closely with microsoft, and have even attended MS seminars on .NET with MS's dime.

        You tell me why MS would be so interested. Philanthropy? A deep love for free software? Hardly.
        • You tell me why MS would be so interested. Philanthropy? A deep love for free software? Hardly.

          MS are interested not because of "a deep love for free software", but more because of "a deep love" for their own stuff. I mean, who doesn't ? Of course MS want to see C# and .Net do well. The explanation is quite simple, and it doesn't involve obscure conspiracy theories.

      • I just installed the latest Xfree and layered Ximian on it. Once working, this IS good enough for the non-geeks to enjoy, and Moz. 9.7 is noticably snappier.

        But the most important reason that I can't recommend this platform to my fortune 500 client (yes, sadly, only one) is that it's not a slam dunk with their crappy Exchange Servers. And it has to be. Reverse engineering that interface is not nearly as good a solution as licensing it from the manufacturer, and that costs money, and there are undoubtedly "don't open source this or we'll crush you like Netscape" clauses in the contract they signed.

        The corporate folk who need this won't give a damn about $60 a head to have out of the box interoperability with with their current systems, and once it's on everyone's system, they may later discover the wonder of Sendmail.

        Best of luck to Ximian in this endeavor.
        • If getting linux running on machines inside a Fortune 500 company is your pet project, then good luck, and I hope that you find what you need.

          But my concern with the licensing of Ximian projects and parts of .NET doesn't derive from the worry that Fortune 500 companies may not make the most technically sound software choices. In fact, I'm pretty sure that whatever we do Fortune 500 companies will tend to buy over conservative, overly bloated, over priced crap. If Linux or FreeBSD was the only OS out there, they would invent a SCO or IBM to price it higher for them.

          My main concern is Freedom, especially my Freedom. If Miguel devotes resources to writing GPL or LGPL code, I am sure those resources are not being used to curtail what I can do. If he writes code under the X11/MIT license, then that code may be used by parties that have shown a consistent inclination to try to limit what I can do with my computers.

          So if Art Popp is happy because his job just got easier, great. If I have to look forward to the time several years or a decade hence, when I can't read web pages or emails from my Mom because they are only readable with .NET version 6.66 which MS changed and the old X11 licensed free .NET doesn't read, and .NET is the only net out there because it became universal when Miguel's software worked on all alternitive OS's . . . . well, you'll have to forgive me for saying that I'd prefer that Art Popp and his Fortune 500 company all went the way of Enron. If it comes to my Freedom or you being able to use cool software at your Fortune 500 client, learn to shake a tin cup, fucker.

          Not that I have any real say in the matter -- except one thing: I can refuse to get on .NET/Mono bandwagon now, and dig in my heels just like I delete unread MSOffice attachments, take the lost business and angry frustrated friends it generates, and BE FREE.

          I think I'll write to RMS directly with my concerns.
      • Has de Icaza just lost it and sold out ? Does RMS see .NET as a very big threat, way bigger than everyone else is seeing it, and thus it is worth any strategy at all to open it up ?

        Their strategy is not to "open it up". C# is a standard, and as such, does not need to be "opened up". I think a lot of the slashdot zealots are putting this anti-Microsoft jihad ahead of the interests of improving Linux software.

  • Doesn't it also add a video card or VGA capabilities? I thought I read on the press reelase that you could *not* use a normal TV for the Sony Linux PS/2.
  • What's the Golden Penguin Bowl? Maybe I'm just ignorant... but....
    • I don't know either, but it sounds like one of those, ah, special 'parlors'. ;-)

      The Golden Penguin Bowl was fun once again. I actually had time to catch a few speeches for a change since OSDN didn't have a 10x10 cage to keep me in this time, but instead had a sales meeting room - with massages.
    • It's a sort of quiz show hosted by Chris Dibona, with various Linux luminaries on stage to answer questions about just about anything.

      CmdrTaco was one of the judges, again.
  • Admittedly, it was pricey, but it's a nice PDA for when a laptop is too much, but a Palm might not be enough (IMO). Not to mention I can change almost everything to work how I want it to...big plus. Now if the price would drop, they might interest people outside the Linux-geek sector.
  • + USB Mouse/Keyboard + TV Out + Linux? Neat. Sony's gonna sell a million of these. I see thousands of webservers or ftp servers in the near future....

  • Console? (Score:5, Funny)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Saturday February 02, 2002 @02:44PM (#2942620) Journal
    I've been the gaming console running Linux several times in the past at other shows (most notably LinuxWorld in Tokyo)

    How many Mhz do you run at?
    • And I don't *even* want to know where the USB ports are. ;-)
    • Hey, maybe Taco's finally spellchecking his work! I ran the article through a spell checker, and it didn't find any errors!

      Obviously a spell checker will fix all of Taco's spelling errors!

  • A change? (Score:3, Funny)

    by rudib ( 300816 ) on Saturday February 02, 2002 @02:46PM (#2942631) Homepage

    and whatever else I remember before I click 'save.'

    Errr, click the little button named 'Spell check' for a change ;)

  • SGI? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PinkFreud ( 51474 ) on Saturday February 02, 2002 @02:49PM (#2942641)
    Actually, SGI was one of the companies which did NOT show up this year. I believe they were originally supposed to be situated where IBM wound up having their booth.
    • Yeah I was going to say I didnt see SGI there at all, I though maybe I missed them but thankfully that is not the case
    • Hang around those pinball and foosball machines Compaq had out for long enough and I guess you could have seen anything. The pinball was free.

      The usual suspects in this case were: IBM, Compaq, HP, Intel and AMD - no SGI, just about everyone else had tiny looking stands by comparison. However, size doesn't matter, they tell me...
  • PS/2 is a port used for connecting mice and keyboards to computers. I'm positive Sony had little if anything to do with its creation, and Linux has certainly supported mice and keyboards through this port for a long time.

    I think what you meant is PS2, the acronym used to denote the Sony PlayStation2 console.
    • Actually PS/2 is a line of PCs made by IBM around 1989/90. They had a new bus architecture called MCA except for a few low-end machines, and if I remember correctly, the PS/2 model 70 was the first available 486 from any major manufacturer (IBM were still seen as a PC market leader then).

      Linux wasn't supported for quite a while on MCA-based machines. That said, MCA wasn't supported for that long by PC manufacturers, either.

      They also had keyboards and mice that used a smaller mini-DIN plug, replacing the earlier 5-pin DIN made standard by IBMs AT computer.
    • the "PS/2" was a computer system sold by IBM in the early 1990s. It used a bunch of propritary technology to stifle the 'clone' PCs. In addition to the microchannel bus, the PS/2 also had new keyboard and mouse ports. These ports were adopted by the clones and became known as "PS/2" ports.
      • MCA was not proprietary, neither was the PS/2 mouse interface. The keyboard interface was exactly the same, with a smaller connector.

        MCA didn't catch on as an accepted standard, but that doesn't mean it wasn't released as one.
    • no, no, you misunderstand! the enterprising hackers at Sony have actually ported Linux to the PS/2 contollers embeded on your average PC motherboard! nobody, including the engineers who did the job, is exactly clear on why they'd do such a thing, though. "somebody told us to get Linux running on PS/2" said one Sony engineer, who asked to remain anonymous "so we did."
  • I know that this will be modded to hell but I cant understand why sony didn't buy beos and use it as a OS for the PS2, I think that the multimedia aspect's of the os would have been more in line with what I think the direction of the Playstation is, basically the nest Amiga (made that was a sweet computer). It would have been nice to see that os reach it full potential rather then being sold to palm, which to paraphase the register.co.uk, have to be the stupidest tech company is history.


    While linux on ps2 is a cool hack I can't help thinking that it is something that would have been done anyway, and basically sony are profiting as a result, It also aint the right tool for the job


    Also people seem to be compaining as to the age of the port (doesnt use the latest version of gcc or xfree for example)


    Who knows perhaps linux will be the next Beos thanks to the port, I would much rather the fact that the PS2 has a hd be played up more then the fact linux run's on it, basically nullifying any reason of buy a eX-BOX IMHO.

    • Wasn't BEOS greatest merit it's multiprocessor capabilities? They were much closer to being the perfect Mac partner considering where the PowerPC is heading today.

      Though I don't doubt that the BEOS hardware hackers would have done wonders if they had the PS2 to work with, but Sony already has an API for that haven't they. But getting Linux to work with it is another issue, specializing on a special hardware isn't really what Linux is all about.
      • I thought that the PS2 was multiprocessor, having two floating point units named fo1 and fo2 with a third chip to handle the other stuff, thus forming the emotion engine, with a graphic processor which most developers complained about being too underpowered (read not enough shaders, aliasing problems err jagged lines, being a right pain in the bum to get all the chips working togetherer etc). However, it does have a good io chip, and really good memory bandwith. Anyway excuse my ignoreance having never developed for it.

        Also Mac would never partner with Beos, and would only take over Beos to close them down (this is due to a less then honourable history the companies share, which I wont go into) Palm not wishing to be taken over by Apple is the stongest reason i can think of for buying Beos.

        I agree that specialising isn't really what linux is about, unless you count enbedded versions, Also , I recon sony have a Os in development for the PS2 or PS3, and with luck it might demonstrate the design skills that the jap's are famous for, but that is speculation

        Basically the post is just wishful thinking on my part, I loved Beos (although you could argue the C++ kernel bit) and I loved the Amiga (The computer which the PS2 most closely resembles IMHO) and while I would love to see them both back (workbench on PS2 mmmm) it aint going to happen. But, dont you wish it could.

    • They are not using Linux as "their operating system", a normal PS2 has "PS2-OS" (or whatever it might be called). Neither Linux or BeOS is really of any importance to Sony and is not used in the "real" product.

  • PS/2 Support? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Saturday February 02, 2002 @03:01PM (#2942679)
    (BEGIN sarcasm)

    Linux is now beginning to support IBM's Personal System/2? Wow... new keyboard and mouse ports, micro-channel architecture... talk about screaming into the 20th century!

    (END sarcasm)

  • The PS2 is very interesting (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The point that everyone seems to be missing is that the PS2 will become the first general computer targeted for the home audience with a 64 bit processor (and a 128 bit co-processor).

    A couple of revs later, and while Microsoft, Intel, various OEMs etc are trying to figure out how to handle the 64 bit migration, Sony will have their answer selling in stores already.
    • Amen to that.

      But one thing we should be careful of is whether the compiler is actually compiling 64-bit binaries (with 128-bit code where useful).

      I use Linux on an UltraSparc (64-bit with 32-bit compatibility) a lot, and only recently has the GCC series of compilers been capable of generating proper code for 64-bits.

      As for the 128-bit coprocessors, I doubt whether the compiler is optimizing for these. Now that would be an awesome project!

      Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "Linux on PlayStation2 is a bad idea", just that there's probably room for an enterprising hacker (or group thereof) to do some inteeresting things with the compilers.

      This is an awesome idea IMHO, and i'm getting a PS2 real soon now just because of this announcmenet.
      • The graphics engine itself is 128-bit. Anything that needs to be optimized is built right into the proprietary libraries (graphics synthesizers, etc). I saw a screen grab from the bootup of the Japanese kit awhile ago. The kernel had build-in support for the graphics synthesizing chip. So you can forget them shipping GIF and support for other graphics formats in the form of a library - they're built right into the chip. This is a major speed increase.

        I see many people falling prey to the MHz game. The PS2 has a 300MHz processor, which is nowhere near that of the latest Pentium 4's (or the X-Box, for that matter). They're neglecting to mention that the PS2 has a RISC chip; its goal being to provide a small, but fast, instruction set. If you reduce the complexity of the chip, you increase the speed of the chip, regardless of the clock speed (to a certain extent). What the PS2's chip can run in two clock cycles might take a Pentium 4 five clock cycles.

        Just remember the days of DEC (now Compaq) Alpha. A 300MHz Alpha could beat the heck out of any 600-800MHZ Pentium (AFAIK).

        I just detest seeing Microsoft's comparison and their usual marketing techniques: PS2 - 300MHz, X-Box - 900MHz. They're taking advantage of the fact that a lot of gamers (not all) don't know the difference between the two architectures.

        • Just remember the days of DEC (now Compaq) Alpha. A 300MHz Alpha could beat the heck out of any 600-800MHZ Pentium (AFAIK).


          Yes, but the performance of the PlayStation 2 CPU isn't anywhere near an Alpha (which still 0wnz in the pure number crunching power metric). For conventional CPU-type stuff what I've heard is that it turns in decent but not stellar performance: its primary mission in life is to churn out geometry for the GS chip to render. :)

    • well, from the PS2/Linux FAQ..

      Can I upgrade the RAM on my PlayStation 2 ? No. The RAM is fixed at 32 MB.

      With that limitation, I don't see it as much more than web-tv... or a 64-bit thrashing machine

  • I'm optimistic about the display of support for Linux from some of the 'big players' in the industry. This is what Linux needs to succeed further. The various ways in which linux is being used is absolutly astounding (mainframes, high-end DB servers, clusters, embeded, etc.).

    And yet, it still remains a hobbyist OS for those of us who want it that way too. It's everything to everybody!
    • "You can please some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time."

      Not my quote, but the point is - it's awful hard for one thing to be "everything to everyone." But the open source nature of linux makes it possible to have a version of linux for everyone...but they may not all be the same thing, you know what I mean? it can't be a geek configure-till-you-die OS, and still be a Joe User OS. You can take your kernel + apps and make it user friendly, while someone else can take the code and port it to a mainframe, while a third person hacks the kernel to his hearts content.
  • Will VA still have a presence at LWCE next year? To what end? Will they still pay for your flight? Beyond the PR, what does VA's shift really mean?
    • Prescense is a nebulous question. VA as a company was not there - OSDN was. VA had sales folks there, working on selling SourceForge Enterprise, but no booth. OSDN had an open meeting room, that was quite nice.

      As for the shift, it means exactly what everything says - VA is no longer selling Linux/servers. VA is now selling SourceForge Enterprise, and that's it. OSDN, the parent of Slashdot and other sites, is the Open Source component of VA.

      As for next year - who knows? Remember, as of this time last year, VA was still in the hardware business, and people would have thought they'd be attending as a big sponsor and such this year. VA was there to make sales. OSDN was there to do the same, but also to talk to people in the community, as long as that's stil there, we'll still be attending (OSDN).

      • Alas I am afraid VA has lost credibility. Where is the oft promised sourceforge open edition (or whatever they were calling it)?. They have been acting shamefully about it. In a very real sense they took GPLed software and closed it off. For the life of me I don't know why they aren't being sued by the FSF.
      • Thanks for the reply (which was honestly much nicer than my borderline trollish question).

        But I still have a question: how does OSDN as a whole fit into VA? I can certainly understand Sourceforge, and, to a lesser extent, freshmeat, but themes, slashdot, thinkgeek, etc.

        Assuming that they all make a profit, fine, it helps to get enough sourceforge sales to make that arm profitable. But at that point, what is the fit? It's like some of the massive conglomerates of the 80's, where companies were just big to be big. Many were spun off in the 90's, as there was no synergistic effect.

        Assuming there is no profit, or a loss, what does VA gain? Mindshare? Doubtful, if the /. crowd is any indication, us cheap bastards have no intention of actually, *gasp* buying software.

        Like I've said, despite the problems I've had with you people (come to my house for Festivus next year, we'll have a real good time during the airing of grievances), I still like the place, and with Larry's waffling over the past 18 months, I'm a bit concerned.

        I also know that you and CT have some sort of out (I think I remember this from the andover buyout), but don't know what that means for the site. Certainly you can't afford the bandwidth, and with ad sales being in the crapper... And suppose they just don't want to pay you, or want someone else in charge? Then things really go into the dumper. I look at linuxnewbie.org. I don't know what it is like now, but for several months after Sensei left, it was complete garbage. (And I'm not enough of a troll to say that /. is complete garbage now, so how would it be possible to tell the difference).

        Anyway, I'm already bound to be modded offtopic, and that is a bad thing for karma-whores. I'm already in the mid-40's, after a boundless stream of OT comments this week:)

        (Also, glad you guys are back. Content always REALLY suffers when you are out of town. Michael, et al. do the best they can, but it really seems like the volume goes down.)
  • "At the time of writing, the internal hard disk drive is not supported by any PlayStation 2 games in North America and is only sold for use with Linux. In the future, PlayStation 2 games in North America may support the HDD. A HDD with Linux installed cannot be used with these games."

    well that just scratched any idea i may have had for buying this kit. I dont know the first thing about linux, but everything else in the kit seemed too good to pass up for 200 bucks...but if im not gonna be able to use the hard drive for future games that take advantage of / require it, i guess ill just have to pass on the kit.
    • If history is any guild, I think that any games which use the kit will come with the hdd, and since it will blow out the cost of such games, they would have to be real killer type games. Phantasy star online being the best example

      This is based on the experience of the memory expansion for the N64 which didn't sell well and become a bundle option for games which needed it

      Ofcourse, the option could have the same success as the rumble pad or the memory stick, I think only time will tell the answer to that one.

      Personally, I think it is nice that Sony let you install a os on their machine rather then providing you with a encryic-cache drive like M$ there by killing any real advantage to owning one (Apart from putting more textures in a game, or bigger levels), I would still have to see linux in action on the thing before making my own mind up.

    • Given the history of the success of drive add-ons for video game consoles in North America, I would say the may in that sentence is crucial. IMO, I don't think the PS2 hard drive will ever be released in the US except as part of the Linux kit.

      There are a couple of reasons for this besides the fact that historically they just don't do well.

      1) The reason mentioned by kasek. What are users who have the Linux kit going to do? Pop the hard drive out and put the other one in just to play games that require the hard drive? No... I don't really think so. That is a ridiculous inconvenience. If Sony would is really serious about releasing a stand-alone hard drive in the US, they would have made the Linux hard drive compatible with it (for example, partitioned the Linux drive so that Linux used 20Gb and 20Gb was completely free for use by games, and then the stand-alone hard drive would also be 20Gb.)

      2) PS2 memory cards are much larger than memory cards for older systems where a hard drive was considered for US release. Any *reasonable* amount of game data can be stored on PS2 memory cards. Most features that save more data than can be accessed quickly off a memory card are superfluous, in my opinion, and not very valuable to consumers. This is just coming from one consumer, of course. Maybe some people do want to be able to save 150 replays of thier races in GT3. Not me.
      3)Hard drives are fragile. Video game consoles are owned and handled by unresponsible American 8 year-olds. Enough said. :)

      It's an interesting idea, but I don't think Sony plans to carry through with it here. May is a tipoff.
      • I think hard disks on consoles have a future as cache drives, being what the XBOX uses it's for, IANA playstation developer so I dont know what advantage this would be, but the PS2 has so much bandwidth avilable to it anyway, I think any would be null, It's also possible that a mod scean might grow up for PS2 games but I think that is unlikely.

        who knows what the future could hold

        • Try to imagine trying to sell a "cache drive" to the average video game console buyer. :) A video game console is not like a home computer... no one at CompUSA is going to be able to corner people into buying this, because it's additional. Sure, on a $1500 computer purchase, most people give on the "256 more megs of RAM will make it faster", because it's in addition to a big chunk of hardware they don't understand anyway. People know consoles "just work." Who's going to buy a "cache drive?", except the same people who bought the Linux kit? :)
      • The most obvious reason why any add-on is unlikely to be widely supported is simply because it is an add-on rather than standard equipment. A game that wants a large market is going to write to the common denominator (which is the whole point of games consoles).
    • You could always use an external USB drive or connect to an NFS server (I assume you already have a PC), if you want to keep the internal hard drive for games.

  • yeah (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    BELA LUGOSI is my CO-PILOT!
  • Works fine. It's a bit slow, taking about 5 hours to compile the kernel. And it has that weird MCA bus...
  • my friends and i have been going to linuxworld for the past two years. hell, we look forward to it months in advance, but this year is just... dissapointing, and here's why:
    * no bsd chicks
    come on, they were hot
    * no osdn... no slashdot
    i missed kicking the slashdot crew's ass at tekken this year... that was at least half the reason why i came
    * no suse or slackware
    eh... it's less the fault of the expo, but i miss our fallen comrades
    but most of all....
    there was no aftershow party!
    ::sigh::
    guess we'll just have to hope for the best next year
    • Shoulda come by the room - we were there.


      Albiet, with no Tekken. :(

    • Yeah fallen comrades are always sad, but I kind of like the sound that linux is still going despite a lot of the hype fading, giving a lot more certainly to the direction of the movement. I am sure that once the industry is out of the slump then a lot of those guys will return, I mean how can a site with the popurlarity of slashdot ever go broke (where would all the trolls go), I've always found booth chicks to be a bit seedy, Suse and Slackware are disto's which will always be around (unless suse merge with mandrake) and while no doubt that booths in the future, and for me, after show parties always degenerate into wars over weather star trek is better then Farscape, and other religouse questions (get a bunch of nerds drunk and the results are scary).

      For me it seems a return to what the movement was all about rather then any kind of starting over, which I think Rob was scared of.

  • Sony == RIAA, MPAA (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How soon we forget.

    Yes, Linux on the PS2 is cool.

    But Sony is not. How can you support a company that is one of the larger members of both the RIAA and MPAA?

    Sony and the RIAA don't want you to be able to listen to your CD's on Linux.

    Sony and the MPAA don't want you to be able to watch your DVD's on Linux.

    Once upon a time, Sony was cool. They made interesting electronics. They fought the movie studios all the way to the Supreme Court so that you could tape TV shows.

    But that was the old Sony. The new Sony is a movie studio. And a record company. And a company that sues people who hack the Aibo. Completely uncool.

    Don't support control freaks. Don't buy Sony products.
    • "Sony and the RIAA don't want you to be able to listen to your CD's on Linux.

      Sony and the MPAA don't want you to be able to watch your DVD's on Linux."

      But Sony is selling Linux for the PlayStation 2 (with gcc, no less), so there ain't a damned thing Sony can do about it.

      "Don't support control freaks. Don't buy Sony products."

      Ever hear of positive reinforcement? The idea behind making the PS2 not just a set-top box but a cheap server (to quote the countless trolls, "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!") is too good to pass up. Sony is doing everything right in this instance (at least from our standpoint) and they deserve to have my money because of it.

      You want us to boycott Sony. Indefinitely? Ten or fifteen years ago you'd probably be screaming to boycot IBM. Would you still be boycotting them today?

      Besides, unless Sony turns some profit off of this idea, nobody else would even want to consider doing something like this again. This is something to grab on to with both hands.
  • The SGI booth presentation this year was unbelievable! Not only did the invisible sales and marketing people give their entire presentation silently, but they also introduced a new version of their powerhouse workstation, the SGI "O2" (as in air). The workstation was clearly inspired by the Apple G-4, but the translucent case was taken even a step futher to the point of invisibility!.

    Were you even at LinuxWorld NYC?

  • huh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Of course the CPU speeds aren't exactly P3 or P4 speeds, but for web browsing, MP3 playing and so forth, it'll do. Especially when the true nature of the X-Box is revealed.

    So... for $500 I can have something slower and suckier than a $500 PC. Why do I want to do this?

    And maybe I've been out of the loop, someone tell me what the "true nature of the x-box" to be revealed is? It's secretly a pod that turns you into a korean grocer while you sleep?

    • So... for $500 I can have something slower and suckier than a $500 PC. Why do I want to do this?

      $500 is a great deal for a PS2 if you want to get a taste of, or try to break into the video game console market. Usually a game console development station is in the order of $10,000+ and they just don't sell those to anybody.

      Just like the PS1 Yaroze was, this product is an enabling technology that is available to anybody. Truly cool if you ask me.

      Also, a Linux based box that easily attaches to a TV and has 1394 built-in might just be a catalyst for some imaginative people to create the next new killer app. And it will run on Linux, not some other OS. This could be the force that brings the Linux Desktop into mass popularity.
    • And for existing PS2 owners, $200 for another PC in the house is a pretty great deal.

      The PS2 was a gift! I swear it! Why would I want to spend untold hours play FFX or something? Get real! I've got a life...no, really....I do!
  • I was a bit surprised to see bomb sniffing dogs at LWE. Then I realized with all the Linux hippies, they were probably DRUG sniffing dogs :)

  • zaurus (Score:1)

    by dizco ( 20340 )
    I was amazed at how many zauruses sharp seemed to be selling. I was there on friday, and the sharp booth was definitly the most popular at the time. They had a window on the side of their booth just for selling zauruses, and when i first came across it, there were 4 or so people in line. There was a line every time i walked by except once.

    I ended up buying one. pretty cool toy. Definitly need an 802.11b cf card.

    --sean

  • As the world turns, changes at LWE (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What I missed at this year's LWE were the costumes. In years gone by there was a heavy sci-fi theme to LWE. You couldn't walk two feet without spying a "Klingon" or "Darth Vader". Last year Hemos looked so adorable in his "Yoda" outfit. Rob Malda was a wild-man with his Luke Skywalker get-up complete with battery powered light saber. At past LWE everyone sported "Spock ears", part of the swag give-away from VA Linux.

    This year, all that has changed. The costumes are gone. No more "Spock ears". No more friendly geeks greeting each other with the shouts of "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto". No more tee shirts. No more Doom marathons and bean-bag "chairs".

    Now it is all business. It is all money. Suits. Ties. Real money. IBM. Compaq. Sun. Linux is going downhill fast.

  • PIG
    I mean, I couldn't go this year, but now i feel less bad about it.
    /PIG

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