FreeMWare Renamed 'plex86' 120
Joey Lawrance writes, "FreeMWare, the LGPL'd replacement for VMWare, has a new name: plex86. From their site: 'The new name "plex86" is derived from the (pseudo)words multiplex and x86. Many users had requested a new name; one that is short, easy to remember, and directly relates to the function of the software.'" It's been less than a year since FreeMWare's first mention on Slashdot; looks like they've made great progress since then in creating a free/Free multi-OS platform. If you're interested in contributing (including documentation), they're looking for you.
IA64? (Score:1)
Rebuttal (Score:1)
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc
Yes, their Private Client Group is deploying Win2K on desktops that were previously Windows 95. Fortunatly for their customers, they still use time tested, 99.998% uptime IBM mainframes for mission critical data and V3 AS/400 midranges to validate any data passed on from the Windows boxen.
Nabisco
Nabisco has replaced it's Microsoft machines every two years since they decided to use Win95 instead of OS/2 and SCO. Those machines had been in service almost four, and the rest of their leasing portfolio seems, as a whole, to turn over every five years. I know Microsoft isn't making stellar products when it's customers feel the need to replace them over twice as often as the rest.
Credit Suisse/First Boston
First off, spell the name right. I had to file a whole stack of paperwork last time I omitted the slash. Second. They have expressed no intention of replacing the RS/6000 and Sun beasties that currently do this job, nor has either MS product been cleared for use in such a position. Credit Suisse is a financial institution, and the 97.4% availability record of your previous offerings is simply not acceptable. Please see The Gartner Group's 1998/99 offerings for more disappointing performance statistics.
Lockheed Martin
I see no evidence of this! They just acquired several Tru/64 boxes to replace NT for IS services!
micronpc.com
According to the hearsay inside the company, they will not be phasing out Windows 95 / NT 4.0 internally until late 2001 at the soonest. On the other hand, since the prices on Windows NT will increase dramatically now that 2K has hit store shelves, I'm sure they will save at least that much by bundling it instead of NT with their OEM systems, which they have already started doing. Additionally, Micron has been a MS shop since day one, so 'upgrading to Microsoft' is both a wrong and an oxymoron.
Bzzzt! Nice try. (Score:1)
If there's anything the Open Source community needs to learn, it's the value of a good name. And this whole "plex86" nonsense only serves to demonstrate it. A name is part of the marketing, and marketing is without a doubt the most essential aspect of the success of a particular piece of software.
Why is Linux the big free Unix clone? Because it has a cooler name. Things like "FreeBSD" and "OpenBSD" have all these odd letters jumbled together. And don't even get me started on "386BSD".
But back on topic: "plex86" is absoulutely the worst name they could possibly have come up with. What the hell is a "plex"? Was it made in 1986? Don't the developers know how to capitalize proper nouns?
Speaking of "capitalization", I predict that plex86 will be an complete disaster, and probably bring down a few careers, not to mention some wildly out-of-control egos. I'm not in the business of naming names (years of hustling teaches you that), but you know damn well who I'm talking about.
And sweet jesus, imagine what will happen if someone decides that they don't like the direction that plex86 is going. So they fork it off, and create "Netplex86" or "Openplex86". This leads to more problems, such as "What the hell is a 'Netplex'?" And hey, don't forget those Linux-style version numbers, either. Pretty soon you'll be patching your Freeplex86 0.1.2.33 against the diffs from Picoplex86 1.3.22, which was merged with the Motorola port, Debian GNU/plex68k.88.332.666, giving you an unholy Debian GNU/FreePicoplex8668k.0.1.2.33.1.3.22.88.322.666, downloaded from 124.76.33.133 with patches from 23.54.76.103. Is this what you want? Are you going to tell a user to do all this?
I thought so.
But does it work? (Score:1)
Re:Better or worse? (Score:1)
Re:Name change goes against reason for change? (Score:1)
Re:Hardware emulator? plex86 (Score:1)
Re:plex86.com, plex86.net available (Score:1)
Now I'm just waiting for the ".exe" TLD...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Re:Open Source != Innovation or Rapid Development (Score:1)
I will stand behind this statement 100%. As a system administrator for years and a computer/network consultant for years prior to that, the standard response when a particular utility failed in specific circumstances has been "Replace it with the GNU version".
This has always taken care of the problem for me and the organizations I deal with and hasn't caused a problem once to date (knock on wood).
The GNU version usually results in a slight-to-incredible performance increase also, which no one has ever complained about.
It's in the dictionary (Score:1)
How can you own a "noun combining form"? It's in the dictionary. [m-w.com]
Main Entry: -plex
Function: noun combining form
Etymology: partly from Latin -plex (as in duplex);
partly from complex
1 : a figure of a given power <googolplex>
2 : a building divided into an often specified number of spaces (as apartments or movie theaters) <fourplex> <multiplex>
Re:FreeMWare is not a Hardware Emulator (Score:1)
Anyway, TPFKAF (The Project Formerly Known As FreeMWare) can use the x86 pun without fear for that very reason; anything Intel tried wouldbe groundless. The VMWare folks might actually have had a case with their product, so the name needed changing.
BeOS port (Score:1)
--
BeDevId 15453
Download BeOS R5 PE [be.com] free!
Re:That's the reason!!! (Score:1)
I humbly feel this name 'plex86' does less to relate to their project than what 'FreeMWare' did. Maybe another name change is due?
--
Re:Name change goes against reason for change? (Score:1)
If you're running native instructions on your computer, using the virtual machine capabilities of the CPU, then you are running a virtual machine.
Mainframes do this too. There was another article just yesterday on Slashdot where a single 390 mainframe was running over 40,000 virtual machines, all of those each running a copy of 390 Linux.
Open Source != Innovation or Rapid Development (Score:1)
This is not to say that Open Source doesn't have some pluses, and I don't want to get into the specific reasons for OSS's failings, but please face reality!
plex86.com, plex86.net available (Score:1)
Re:Name change goes against reason for change? (Score:1)
Re:Too late (Score:1)
www.plex86.org isn't a pointer to their home page, it is their home page.
At least they got the .org domain before posting (Score:1)
congrats.. (Score:1)
on an off-topic note, the word "multiplex" brings to mind images of movie theaters (you know.. they're called multiplex's because they have multiple screens, yaddy yaddy ya....)
Monkey (Score:1)
Due to your post, a large sign reading "Save the Monkeys!" was epoxied to a monkey's hand. The monkey was then driven to the corner of 6th and Pike in Seattle and released.
Within fifteen minutes, police in riot gear showed up and beat the monkey to death.
LouZiffer
Re:This needs hardware support (Score:1)
> means that the overhead from running the
> 'desperate' software virtualizer fortunately
> becomes more irrelevant each day.
That would be true if the overhead of the virtualizer was less than O(n) (ie sqrt or log or something). I would guess that scanning is O(n) wrt instructions executed. If scanning is only performed once (O(n) wrt executable size) then you are correct.
Ryan
Re:Name change goes against reason for change? (Score:1)
Warning: Above post is a troll (Score:1)
Registrant:
Kevin P. Lawton (PLEX9-DOM)
439 Marrett Rd.
Lexington, MA 02421-7714
US
Domain Name: PLEX86.ORG
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Lawton, Kevin (KLH188) kevin@BOCHS.COM
439 Marrett Rd.
Lexington , MA 02421-7714
781-674-1424
Record last updated on 06-Mar-2000.
Record created on 06-Mar-2000.
Database last updated on 7-Mar-2000 14:06:04 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.FASTXS.NET 212.204.201.31
NS2.FASTXS.NET 212.204.201.39
$ whois plex86.com
NO MATCH: This domain is available!
Go to www.networksolutions.com to register it now!
$ whois plex86.net
NO MATCH: This domain is available!
Go to www.networksolutions.com to register it now!
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Domains? (Score:1)
Whois Server Version 1.1
{snip}
No match for "PLEX86.NET".
No match for "PLEX86.COM".
Domain Name: PLEX86.ORG
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS1.FASTXS.NET
Name Server: NS2.FASTXS.NET
Updated Date: 06-mar-2000
Wouldn't want to run into an OpenSSH'ish fiasco...
Re:Open Source != Innovation or Rapid Development (Score:1)
Huh? I've never heard of 'Innovation' being a strength of open source. It's always been, 'Creating the tools you need that work. Feel free to modify.'
BTW, even if there was a hundred innovations that OSS produced, you could simply say 'No, that's not significant enough.' So, I guess you're right. Yay for you.
Later
Erik Z
Re:But does it work? (Score:1)
treke
OT: Car names (Score:1)
At the time Peugeot owned the rights to numbering cars with a "0" in the middle, so Porsche had to change it to the 911.
And the rest, as it goes, was history.
Re:This needs hardware support (Score:1)
It would indeed be an uber-cool feature to have, but with both Intel and AMD concentrating fully on getting the highest MHz numbers stamped on the CPU's it isn't likely we will see this any time soon. Raw processing power is the thing that sells processors nowadays, and full virtualization is a niche feature. And it's been done in software already...
</cynic mode>
On the other hand, increasing processor power means that the overhead from running the 'desperate' software virtualizer fortunately becomes more irrelevant each day. The x86 family has traditionally used sheer raw power to compensate for the backwards compatible design flaws.
By the way, does anyone know extensively the full virtualization capability is integrated into the operating system of those IBM mainframes? How easy is it to create new a VM? Is it like running a program in a chroot environment, or like VMWare, where you have to boot an entirely new copy of the operating system?
There's already a tool called Cool:Plex (Score:1)
OS Support (Score:1)
Re:OS Support (Score:1)
Right now it doesn't do much except run kernels that say "Hello World."
Re:good now maybe they can make something that wor (Score:1)
plexi... (Score:1)
Visit uMoo - http://www.uMoo.com/ [umoo.com] Join the bulls
Re:IA64? (Score:1)
As for plex86, the following question in the information page answers your question:
Will this run on my Mac?
Judging from the IA-64 docs however, I don't think this will happen in the forseeable future (I might be a bit short sighted here). First of all comes the fact that you'll have to emulate IA-32 since IA-64 cpus can run in IA-32 mode. Then comes all those nasty addition features of the IA-64. It takes quite and effort just getting to understand the whole architecture fully.Replacement? (Score:1)
Tommy - happy FreeBSD hacker
the difference being (Score:1)
Badge of honor (Score:1)
It's good to see some "competition" to VMware.   I like having choices.
Re:Name change goes against reason for change? (Score:1)
Stefan
Re:plex86.com, plex86.net available (Score:1)
-Earthman
Re:plex86 naming - and plex86 itself (Score:1)
print <<__ENDRANT__;
I think you may have hit on one of the key problems slowing down Linux's widespread take-up. Attitudes like "Nobody gives 2 shits what you think [if you write code or documentation for plex86] someone might listen to you" are hardly likely to encourage new users into the friendly, supportive atmosphere that we are supposed to be.
For your information, I have released several programs into GPL, mostly CGI and Web Log Analysis. If someone suggested that the name of my program sounded odd, or hard to remember, I would most likely take notice, or at least consider the suggestion of a new name.
One of the reasons heaps of people are anti-micro$oft in my part of the world is that they feel that they can't possibly have any effect on anything the behemoth company does - this is a very frustrating feeling, and one that it would pay the Linux world to pay attention to lest we alienate the people we are trying to rescue from the monolithic monetarily mammoth megacorp.
__ENDRANT__
plex86 naming - and plex86 itself (Score:1)
plex86 is perhaps *too similar* to plain ol' "x86" for people to actually remember it
Hmm perhaps a better name would have been VirtPC or something along those lines?
Re:That's the reason!!! (Score:1)
Speaking of CP/M86 and PC-DOS... (Score:2)
Re:Better or worse? (Score:2)
--
Re:Better or worse? (Score:2)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Open Source != Innovation or Rapid Development (Score:2)
GNU tools outshine their propietary cousins precisely because there simply isn't a significant paying market for them (even though combined they're extremely usefull, few are going to go out and spend a great deal on money on individual tools (and they're certainly not going to upgrade on a regular basis)) None the less, the development on these particular tools was not rapid, nor was it particularly innovative. Quite the oppositite, in fact, these tools developed slowly, but continuously, absorbing many different points of flexibility as users modified them to fit their needs (an area which propietary products may never quite be able to hit). Most of these modifications were not ingenious by any means [nor were they the result of a SINGLE driving focus, like what is necessary to create products such as VMware]...Because they evolved so slowly, with so many interests in mind, they become highly versatile and very stable.
As it stands right now, you have two mostly distinct groups of software. The first group is rapidly evolving and highly complex projects. The second being, slower moving and smaller projects. Open source has yet to touch the first, but does very well in the second.
When, and if, the software industry ever slows down (e.g., fewer feature sets required, less bloat, Open Source efforts like this might become appropriate for an even wider array of applications and operating systems (e.g., the 'first' group). But until that time, I just don't think Open Source will ever keep pace in #1.
Plex86 vs. VMWare (Score:2)
If anyone has seen Mendel Rosenblum's (main guy behind VMWare and also a Stanford grad) Stanford lecture on VMWare you'd have to agree that he acted little like a scrouge. He wouldn't even answer some simple questions by saying: "Ooooo... I can't tell you that... we spent a lot of time thinking about that and I don't wanna give it away" etc...
In any case... FreeMWare (now Plex86) will rock.. I tried some dev code and it's a great start. Give it another 6-8 months and it'll be competitive with VMWare.
--
GroundAndPound.com [groundandpound.com] News and info for martial artists of all styles.
How good is it? (Score:2)
s/vmware/unix/ s/plex86/linux/ (Score:2)
This didn't apply to unix and GNU/Linux, did it?
Something like plex86 should be simpler than GNU/Linux. Its job is much more specific - working round a few inadequacies in the x86 architecture, rather than writing a whole operating system and applications from the ground up.
Re:Plex86 vs. VMWare (Score:2)
treke
Re:plex86.com, plex86.net available (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of CP/M86 and PC-DOS... (Score:2)
So now they'll be sued by Plextor (Score:2)
The REAL reason... (Score:2)
Actually, the real reason they changed the name is so they wouldn't have to put up with the crap in the comp.emulators.freemware newsgroup with fools who think it is another WAREZ emulator group.
Let's take a look at recent posts in the group.
Pokemon Roms
BEST ROM STIE ON EARTH. UP AND RUNNING
Free CallWave Internet Answering Machine
Want Traffic? 8.5 million pages enough?
***FREE MOBILE CALLS*** This works! 9997
{{IT's FUN! THERE IS NO FEE TO JOIN!!||
Yes, that's right 5 out of 6 posts are general spam, and the other post is a WAREZ rom site.
hmm...Re:Plex86 vs. VMWare (Score:2)
That'd be like, admitting something or something.. We can't have that can we? That's what lawsuits are for!
*grin*
- Steeltoe
good now maybe they can make something that works. (Score:2)
call me an asshole, it's just something i've noticed. i say less bullshit, more code.
-Jon
How about LyX? (Score:3)
of one for TeX, either (LyX uses LaTeX to print. It is *not* a front end
for LaTeX [anymore].)
Oh, wait; there are a couple of commercial knock-offs, but Scientific
Word and the other one are years behind LyX in usability and function.
If you need to
a) write your equation without reaching for the mouse
b) be able to edit from the keyboard, and
c) see your equation displayed
LyX *is* the leading edge. (Note: older versions of Word on the Mac,
1.0-5.1, could do a&b, or c, but not all three at the same time)
And as for speed? There was a feature I used regularly in word (insert a single character of greek/symbol) that wasn't in lyx. I mentioned it on the developer's list. Within a week it was part of the main code base. This was about four years ago--around the same time that this feature became awkward to use on Word . . .
That's the reason!!! (Score:3)
See the linux.com interview [linux.com] for more on the topic.
VMWare vs Plex86 (Score:3)
plex86, crusoe and jit compilation (Score:3)
Then came Transmeta and Crusoe. This CPU has "hardware" just in time compilation of X86 code, which means that the cpu compiles the x86 code to Crusoe native code before executing, and saves the compiled code in a cache. The cpu discards old compiled code in the cache, which stops the cache from growing beyond limits.
These techniques could be combined, by doing jit compiling of x86 code to x86 code (ie. coping the code to a cache and adding breakpoints to the compiler at every instruction which isn't compiled before or discarded from the cache). This is fast, since no "real" compilation is necessary. On the Crusoe the compilation is much harder since you compile to another instruction set. If this is possible, running a guest OS on a linux machine should be very fast and smooth, and all this could be done in user mode, without kernel support. As more of the guest os code is "compiled", we could discard (or page out) the "interpreted" code (the original os code) thus saving memory for the cache. The memory usage of vmware has disappointed more than one user.
constant bytching (Score:3)
Several concurrent copies of 80x86 OS.
Multiple copies of 80x86 OS
Multiple 80x86 OS
Multiple x86 OS
multiple x86
multiplex86
plex86
Good enough!
Re:Open Source != Innovation or Rapid Development (Score:3)
The GNU [gnu.org] tools, such as the file utilities, grep, sed, and so on, have long been better than the tools supplied with most vendors' Unices. Tests [google.com] show that they simply work better. (In fact, those particular tests, in which various vendors' utilities crashed when fed random input, have been mentioned before on Slashdot [slashdot.org].)
I now consider Linux to be better than proprietary Unix simply because it comes with the GNU tools. For example, we recently acquired a Sun box which was essentially unusable until we wasted a large amount of time replacing many of the utilities with their GNU equivalents.
This needs hardware support (Score:3)
That's a desperation approach because the hardware is broken. AMD and Intel should be pushed towards fixing the few hardware problems that require this hack. This will eliminate the need for scanning, breakpointing, and emulating in a hypervisor, which will make such programs much, much simpler and cleaner. IBM has had this right on their mainframes since System/370, and it's extremely useful in the mainframe world. You really can run VM under VM under VM. Better, you can run the stuff that's not trusted in a separate virtual machine, where it can't do too much.
Name change goes against reason for change? (Score:4)
The
new name "plex86" is derived from the (pseudo)words multiplex and x86. Many
users had requested a new name; one that is short, easy to remember, and
directly relates to the function of the software.
From what I see, plex86 (flex your muscles?) seems less easier to remember than FreeMWare. Also, since this software is supposed to be a hardware emulator, why slap the 86 across it? I'm pretty sure the alpha ppl would get this working on their boxes soon enough, not to mention the PPC dudes.
--
Better or worse? (Score:4)
Is plex86 is easier to say than VMWare?
plex-eight-e-six = 4 syllables
V-M-Ware = 3 syllables
followed by the tongue-twister-test:
Be scared and beware VMWare's fare.
Rexx and Beck's plex86 flex best.
No contest - plex86 is harder to say. Harder to type? Hmm..a closer call.
plex86 - mostly lowercase letters, but the numerics on the end complicate matters. plex876 plex86 plex86 plex76
VMWare - All letters, but the change in case (though in two sections), makes it harder to type. VMWare VMware VMWare VMware
Too close to call, obviously.
--Conclusion--
Well, VMWare has it, by virtue of being easier to pronounce.
Of course, the actual question was is it easier to remember? Is what easier to remember? If you're not going to make sense I'm going home *slam*
Vmware making a profit (Score:4)
Re:VMWare vs Plex86 (Score:5)
Plex - already owned by Ericsson. (Score:5)
Re:FreeMWare is not a Hardware Emulator (Score:5)
It seems that when IBM changed the name of the System/3 family to AS/400, they had to pay an undisclosed sum to the current sole holder of a registered trademark consisting of a sequence of letters followed by the digits 400, used to refer to automatic data processing equipment. Care to guess what "automatic data processing equipment" they were talking about?
The Atari 400.
How's that for funny?
Re:Open Source != Innovation or Rapid Development (Score:5)
In terms of quality products, it is hard to deny software such as PHP, Apache, The linux kernel, perl, yadda yadda, all the usual stuff. However none of these can really be considered "rapid" from start, they all started quite some time ago.
Most really rapid initial Open Source development can never be quoted, since it usually consists of a large number of developers abandoning a previous implementation and starting again from scratch. Much of the good Open Source software you see now has gone through at least one phase of being heavily re-written, almost or sometimes literally from the ground up, in an astounding amount of time, but because nobody clocked it, or changed the name, it just turns up as the latest release.
However I think there are some, smaller, cases of applications that appears almost from nowhere. The various linux napster clients for instance. One moment I had just heard of napster, the next their protocol was reverse engineered and two or three Open Source versions of the client appeared.
Similarly with email software. Sendmail, king of the hill for so long now, was looking pretty much invincible, then qmail came out, and suddenly what had looked like something that was good enough seemed somehow tarnished. No dust on Sendmail, I use it, and love it, but many don't, and a slew of new email servers have appeared recently, qmail and exim being two of the notable mentions.
I am unwilling to stand up and say "Look, under any circumstances, Open Source software will develop a complete application faster than a Commercial method would", for a start there are different levels of interest in various types of applications, and for second, theres a mindhsare capture thing. Commercial places just hire their employees, Open Source projects have to attract their developers, and that takes a bit of time, especially as you have to get exponentially more than those of a commercial project in order to make up for the (at least inital) fact that nobody is working on it full time.
However I think that Apache, PHP, Linux and many others are undeniable proof that once that mindshare of developers is attained, development is unbelievably fast. Just watching the kernel mailing list for a week is enough to make one dizzy, and you don't see a 10th of what is going on.
When I was doing one of my own projects, I really noticed that speed-up effect after the initial block was over. TDT took two weeks to get to something vaguely working, another one to get to something that looked fairly ok and had the major engine working, and then within a week enormous improvements were made, contributions even by the few people who were interested in it made a huge difference, lighting, explosions, tuning of coloring, models, rewrites of parts of the engine to support effects like waves and menus, I was making releases less than hourly on the evenings I was working on it.
I don't think we have yet seen the true power of the Open Source development method, but places like Source Forge and tools like CVS and autoconf are slowly pushing their way into the fore, making things go quicker and quicker and quicker. I look forward to the future.
FreeMWare is not a Hardware Emulator (Score:5)
I should also mention that FreeMWare/plex86 is not a hardware emulator. It allows you to virtualize the x86 chip through software to run multiple operating systems on one CPU, even though the x86 architecture has no hardware virtualization. This is similar to what you can do on mainframes like the IBM S/390, although on a much smaller scale (I doubt anyone could run over 4,000 instances of Linux on an x86 chip).
It's actually explained right on their web site. "The goal of the FreeMWare project is to create an extensible open source PC virtualization software program which will allow PC and workstation users to run multiple operating systems concurrently on the same machine".
If you want hardware emulation, check out Bochs [bochs.com], which was written by one of the founding authors of FreeMWare/plex86.