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It's funny. Laugh.

Alan Cox on a Chip 85

Posted by Hemos from the prince-albert-in-a-can dept.
Azar writes "Beware Intel. Be afraid AMD. Transmeta has an ace up there sleeve. After perusing the net I came across an amusing satire of Transmeta and the Linux guru, Alan Cox. With proper homage being paid to the man that does so much for the Linux kernel, Alan Cox on a Chip is good for a quick laugh. Be ready to be amazed at "The ultimate Linux platform... it writes drivers for *and* debugs itself!"."
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Alan Cox on a Chip More

Alan Cox on a Chip

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  • I never claimed that Windows 2000 is immune to crashes. Hell, even Linux will core dump if you run it with shitty drivers. All I'm saying is: that particular picture is not of a Windows 2000 box.

    I'm sorry to hear about your computer problems. Have tried calling technical support? :p

  • Just Imagine a Beowolf cluster of these.... :P
  • Other things on a chip. [fsu.edu] I especially like tux on a chip. [fsu.edu]

    --
  • The behavior of MS is irrelevant to this discussion. You cannot take the moral high ground against MS when you are using the same tactics.

    >>Anybody remember Microsoft attempting to fool the judge with falsified evidence?

    No.

    Because it didn't happen.

    Allchin (remember him :P) testified that video evidence was unaltered - a recorded display of exactly what happened. However, the video HAD been altered - icons could be seen to have moved/disappeared.

    However, nothing was falsified. The changes were determined to be trivial rather than attempting to mislead the court. No evidence was made up - in fact, the video evidence was _not_ thrown out.
    That incident wasn't important because of the evidence, it was important because Allchin claimed the video was unaltered - casting doubt over the rest of his testimony.

    Either he was poorly informed, or he is incompetent. Or a GNU/mole :) Or combinations of the above.

  • It's a lot like engrish (see "all your base are belong to us"): If you think in Japanese, the English will become Engrish; if you think in C, the architecture will become englisH.

    Being an AnonCow shouldn't exempt you from being whined at.

    Now, since I'm taking the time to pick on an AnonCow, I'm going to throw in my massive list of Slashdot sigs and odd comments. As an experiment, I wanted to see what I could find in one half hour. I'm amazed Jon's slashdot sig's section isn't twenty pages long; based on my success, it should be eighty by this point in time.

    Random slashdotting:
    The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them...-Einstein
    The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
    I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.
    the skunks, on the other hand, are graffiti bastards.
    This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
    Ah! A Moderator in the wild. Look at it! I'll stick my thumb up its ass. That'll really piss it off!
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.
    * CmdrTaco can admit it.
    DOS is dead, and no one cares...
    If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
    Linux has no chance to survive make your time
    "just connect this to..."
    BZZT.
    "ahrg! You didn't unplug it?"
    They fsck you up, your mum and dad.
    They may not mean to, but they do.
    -- dont feed the trolls.... TEASE the trolls.. It's fun to get them upset. --
    "I may not have morals, but I have standards."
    http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead
    Time to die, nerd-boy!
    All buffers are full
    Your message can not be posted
    Base directories have no inode reference
    Are you irratable
    Belong to a group of people who care
    To whine now is a little late
    US residents encouraged to run away

    Someone should pay me.
    Set the dogs on these dotheads
    Up your own A*!
    US president Bush died today..dreams, man, dreams
    The stuff after the enter is mine.
    Bomb the Canadians!

  • Cocks on a Chip (Score:3)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @03:48PM (#397070) Journal
    Let loose the pornographic joke floods...
  • quote: I don't think anyone in their right mind would call Win9x stable, would they?

    Hmmm. Microsoft must have said that a gazillion times therefore everyone at Microsoft is incredibly insane including bill gates.
    Woohoo! We now have definate proof! Lock them up!

    "just connect this to..."
    BZZT.

  • Like I said, *nobody* claimed it was stable. (Read: tooting ones own horn doesn't count as being somebody)
  • See my earlier post. Microsoft claimed FOR YEARS that win9x was stable. Please don't forget this.

    "just connect this to..."
    BZZT.

  • You know, whining at AnonCows may be my new hobby. I've refused to do now as I did in...the account before this...
    Anywho, whine, B*, complain
    Now, Who wants to this AnonCow find his head with both hands? Don't point out where to look, thank you.
  • I'm forced to dual boot b between Linux and Windows, and I have *never* had the Linux kernel die on me.
    I've been keeping track of kernel panics I've had on Linux. Since 1.4, I'm up to 5. And I think 3 of them (on 2.1) are attributable to a bad motherboard. (It had a tiny crack in it, I found later. A few rare times, thermal changes opened it while my machine was running.)

    I have not bothered to track BSODs -- I don't think I need explain why.

  • ... and besides, they never claimed it was stable in the same sense that NT or UN*X was stable... just that it was more stable than Win3.x
  • I think 0E is Integer overflow... or was that 0D or 0C, it think its 0E
  • No, I believe he's claiming Windows doesn't perform as well as Linux. Pay closer attention.

    Also note that user friendlyness != technical superiority or helpfulness. User friendly = Joe Idiot can sit down and start doing basic things without RTFMing. Linux is not 'user' friendly. It's operator friendly. Big freakin' difference.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • ... and besides, they never claimed it was stable in the same sense that NT or UN*X was stable... just that it was more stable than Win3.x

    ...but it wasn't, not by a long shot.

  • Download an ISO image of a CD through a 56K modem. Or some other such insane stunt.

    In what way is this insane? Downloading a large file is insane? Even if it takes a long time, it's still sane, and definately not a 'stunt'.

  • that would work for a time. though you'd have to keep it fed fairly well or you would get the jitters. Quake framerates would have sudden spikes and such. Though eventually he'd build an amunity to caffeine and you'd half to either cut him off and let him loose the imunity or up the dosage. I would prefer the first method my self, because after he's clean and past the jitters you could give him your Bawls [bawls.com] and he would have a massive boost in OC capabilities.
  • How does falsifying evidence de-stabilize Windows 2000? I don't follow your logic.

  • Re:The "Windows snapshot" is FUD... (Score:4)

    by heinzkeinz ( 18262 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @03:15PM (#397083) Homepage
    Yes, but regardless of your high moral ground and karma-whoring, it's a really funny picture.

    Also--as anyone with experience diagnosing Windows problems can tell you--simply because Windows says that you have a hardware problem does not necessarily mean that one has a hardware problem.
  • Not really... might be interesting to see if NVidia would care about getting a video card that's almost three years old to work better on Widnows 2000...
  • Microsoft software doesn't need any anti-propaganda! Just yesterday I performed a clean install of windows 2000 advanced server for my friend during which we witnessed no less than 8 bugs!

    "just connect this to..."
    BZZT.

  • Just Imagine a Beowolf cluster of these.... :P

    Oh my God...

    • Where will we store all ac pre-patches produces by such a beast?
    • How can Linus survive to the amount of patches submitted to him?
    • Can we provide him/them with Linux0.99 so he can stabilise it and backport support for USB?
    • Who is going to afford the shampoo?
    --ricardo

  • Check out the Registrant Company (Score:4)

    by jjr ( 6873 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @03:58PM (#397087) Homepage
    Whois info for, ALANCOXONACHIP.COM:
    Registrant:
    Goat Engineering Genetics LTD
    532 Monroe St.
    Santa Clara, CA 95050
    US

    Domain Name: ALANCOXONACHIP.COM

    Record last updated on 27-Feb-2001.
    Record expires on 15-Feb-2003.
    Record Created on 15-Feb-2000.

    Domain servers in listed order:
    NS1.GIMP.ORG 128.32.45.176
    NS2.GIMP.ORG 195.92.249.252


  • goatse.cx on a chip?


  • %%Rot13: Vg'f n "juvgr" cncre... trg vg?

    == It's a "white" paper... get it?

    very droll
  • They lied to the judge, and got caught red-handed. No amount of hand-waving will make that go away.
  • > Every version of Windows has BSOD's.

    But Windows NT 4.0 / 2000 BSODs are much rarer, and look very different (scarier) than Windows 9x.

  • Re:The "Windows snapshot" is FUD... (Score:3)

    by Saint Nobody ( 21391 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @05:15PM (#397092) Homepage Journal

    According to Microsoft [microsoft.com], Fatal Exception 0E means invalid page fault. a bsod with fatal exception 0e should mean that a critical system raised an invalid page fault.

  • linux...? that's how important this news is... this open source information is killing our kids' brain cells. They might as well watch the TV (webTV that is)
  • I don't know if you realize it or not, but there is no way to even get a screenshot of a BSOD. It's not possible. Thus, such things must be artistically reproduced. That means an extended period of time on the part of an individual. It's a fairly lengthy process - I've made one before. To get it looking realistically is another issue entirely.

    What very likely happened was the individual came through and simply relabeled the image to update the spoof page to make it 'modern' so as to increase the humor...

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • ...We could call it Cox in a box.
  • Why you throw chip?!

    Fuckin' come on then!

    --
  • lordriff, you am dumb.

    WHERE AM THY FREIGHTOR?
  • It looks to me like a software failure, as in a 16bit OS failure. Look up 'windows sucks' on napster and you will find Billy's personal BSOD from Comedex.

    Face it, windows isn't stable. Its a 16bit outdated load of crap.

  • My guess is that it's that screensaver in Linux.

    Gerb
  • well, there is the badmem kernel patch that allows the kernel to find bad memory and remember what sections not to use. it was in Linux Journal last month(?) wasn't it? Linux may not perform any better when the RAM craps out, but it won't do it twice.

  • Customer (over telephone) "Hello, do you have Alan Cox on a chip"
    Salesmen "Why yes we do"
    Customer "Well, YOU BETTER LET IM' OUT!!!!"
    hehehehe
  • win9x doesn't execute the HLT instruction when the cpu is idle. Linux (and NT and BeOS and...etc) does. On modern CPU's, the HLT instruction puts the CPU in a state of reduced power consumption (= heat output).

    He's right!
    -

  • Hrm... (Score:3)

    by Ig0r ( 154739 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @02:51PM (#397103)
    Where have I seen this before..?

    Oh, yes, I remember now. It was in a quickie quite a while ago.

    There isn't even much at the site to warrent a whole article for it.

    --
  • All I can say to people in your situation is you must have either:

    A) shitty components or
    B) good components that conflict with each other

    *ALL* of my win2k, linux and BSD boxes are rock solid and will stay up indefinitely (until i reboot them manually).
    Don't blame your poor choice in hardware on the OS. That's what compatibility lists are for.... oh wait tho, then you would have nothing to complain about.
  • Good thing there are no bugs in linux

  • Amen brother,

    but remember.... this is the fansite of all fansites so asskissing abounds. I'm seeing less and less intelligent material on here an more and more "j34h m4nG, m1cr050ft 5uxX! 10X!!! L1nuX r00lZ!"

  • Alan Cox on a chip? I don't want Alan Cox on a chip.

    I want Bill Gates on a chip...so I can overclock the hell out of it and watch it go up in smoke.

  • That's debatable. They both sucked ass, but 9x was probably more stable considering it had a real kernel with genuine protected mode support instead of that bullshit 386-enhanced layer on top of a shell layer on top of DOS.

  • The "Windows snapshot" is FUD... (Score:3)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @02:52PM (#397109) Homepage


    ...and we should stop using it as evidence of Linux/*BSD stability.

    Look close enough and you'll see that the fault number is the one meaning "hardware failure," specifically bad RAM. I don't believe that Linux performs any better when the RAM suddenly craps out.

    I like the 8-bit version of Cox-on-a-chip though. :-)

  • I've just remembered who Alan Cox reminds me of.
    "Adam Douglas" in Gary Spencer Milledge's "STRANGEHAVEN" comic.

    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • Hate to point it out but their little Windows 2000 snapshot is actually a Windows 9x snapshot. I dislike Big Business just as much as the next guy, but that kind of unfair anti-Windows 2000 propaganda is only stooping down to the same low level.
  • The only Linux kernel panic I had was from bad hardware too. Most notably a loose SIMM slot, not suprising it panicked when half its memory disappeared..

    I feel likewise on the BSODs for all variants of Windows.. it starts out okay after a new install of the OS and it can run for a while (that's when they do all their benchmarks, on these 'fresh' machines). Then over time as the machine is actually USED (shock!? .. you're not meant to USE it!) the likelihood of BSODs rises and rises until it's boofing* time.

    *boofing = reformatting and reinstalling the OS

    --
  • There's a lot to be said for that! .. I don't have problems nearly as much on my Linux or Windows machines at home (no problems with Linux, Windows sometimes gives up but its install of Win95B is pretty old now). Those machines I built myself from components I selected right down to the fans.

    I do though have a lot of problems with machines at work (from Dell mainly) that die after some usage. I've used (personal work machine) Dell machines running NT and Windows98 and they have died quite frequently. I thought Dell made good machines too .. Hmm. I have to dislike the plastic cases though.. just seems cheap.. maybe the rest of the components are cheap too.

    --
  • Not to mention that it is a Win9x failure screen and not a Windows 2000 blue screen. I don't think anyone in their right mind would call Win9x stable, would they?
  • Internal Server Error

    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

    All buffers are full
    Your message can not be posted
    Base directories have no inode reference
    Are you irratable
    Belong to a group of people who care
    To whine now is a little late
    US residents encouraged to run away
  • Heh, interesting you should mention that! I was just looking back for the BadRAM page yesterday, since I've got a 256 meg PC133 DIMM which has bad addressing around 700k... hope I can get it working. :)

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • I was reading the article on the Alan Cox chip and someone walks by and asks (obivously reading over my shoulder) if i think the chip will work well and when it's going to be released! I assumed that he uses Winblows and try to explain to him that Aln Cox is a major conribtor to the devlopment of the Linux Kernel at which point he asks me the same question again! People are funny arn't they!
  • No but it will write the driver for it!
  • Every version of Windows has BSOD's.

    I have seen (and caused) BSOD's on Ick2K.

    Wanna try?

    Get to a java-heavy site with multiple windows of (your favorite/forced choice browser) and switch between them.

    Download an ISO image of a CD through a 56K modem.

    Or some other such insane stunt.

    I have - and can - pull off stunts like these in Linux without crashing the OS.

    Amen.


    Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
    "As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
  • WELL...you'd better let him OUT!

    ..........wait a minute, nevermind, sorry.

    bash$ echo 'Finger me for my public key' > ~/.signature
  • The only thing that annoyed me about the Tux on a chip [fsu.edu] page was that they attributed the original idea of using a penguin as a centrepiece for Linux to Linus Torvalds. We know that this is not true, that Linus merely endorsed the penguin, and the idea was Larry Ewing [tamu.edu]. Just a minor detail, but I do like seeing people get credit that is due.
    ____________________________________________ _________________
  • "The ultimate Linux platform... it writes drivers for *and* debugs itself!"."

    Except perhaps lose some weight and get a haircut.

  • Actually, i can say quite the opposite. The ONLY time i've EVER seen a Win2k BSoD is when i toppled my case over and the CPU (Slot1 Celery) popped out of the loose socket. On Linux, if i try to even THINK of using my sound card, panic.

  • Huh?? Did you even look at the page?

    They took a *photograph* of a monitor (at a bus-terminal or some damned thing) with a supposed "Windows 2000" bluescreen.

  • That does paint AlChin's comments in a better light...

    But still, perjury is perjury; looks bad on a resume

    Heh...

  • I have a similar problem with my Matrox card and 3D accelerated games. But, it's a very predictable crash.

    I don't ever run NT at home, and when I've run it at work a Windows BSOD is a very, very rare event (though less rare than a Linux crash. I've never had Linux crash at work). I think it requires certain kinds of load, certain software, or certain hardware to make your machine BSOD prone. The thing is, from what I can tell, it's very difficult to tell exactly what it is that's doing it when it happens. It's very rarely an obvious cause and effect relationship.


  • So ironic... I ask people to behave fairly, and it's a high moral ground. Somebody out there raises the article by *one* point, and it's karma whoring. Oh well, gotta get the minimum flame quotas in for the day, I guess.

    I never said it wasn't a funny picture. I was one of the first to send it around. :-) It was even better since I had just flown a long trip when the picture was taken and released, but that's another story.

    Also -- as anyone with experience diagnosing any kind of hardware problems can tell you -- simply because <random flavor of Unix> says that you have a hardware problem does not necessarily mean that it's true. When it comes to hardware problems, Unix ain't all that much better at self-diagnosis.

    For software problems, of course, Unix kicks ass. :-)

  • Linux has support for bad RAM modules, and has for a while. See this HOWTO [uni-mannheim.de] for how to do it. Windows has no such support.
  • LOL
    That's going into my list of "interesting comments"

    All your .sig's are belong to Bob

  • Yeah the Dells we have at work here suck too.... right out of the box they get weird video glitches in windows. They get marketed as a well engineered machine but the reality is when you take apart a dell/IBM/HP/overpriced_brandname machine you will see they use low end everything. They source they cheapest components of reasonable quality that they can find. So building your own is the way to go if you feel comfortable doing it.... unfortunately sooner or later you will run into a case where 2 very good components simply will not co-exist (you usually find this out after 3 days of banging your head against the wall). The only solution for this is to not put them in the same machine together. =/
  • The only Linux kernel panic I had was from bad hardware too. Most notably a loose SIMM slot, not suprising it panicked when half its memory disappeared..
    I wouldn't call that a kernel 'panic', so much as a kernel 'full-on vertigo terror'.

    I think I'll go add that to my 2.4 source tree. Just a shame I won't see it...

    You're right that a utilized Microsoft machine has a fraction of the stability of a new install. (But remember the time counter bug last year - the machine would crash every 48 days or so, used or not...) The other poster gave some specifics about his crashes - namely, that he's never seen a NT2000 BSOD. I haven't either; I've hung it half a dozen times, but no BSOD. I assume it's the windows equiv of an app calling 'XGetPointer' and then crashing. Of course, on a Unix I can ssh in and fix it...

  • "Hate to point it out but I've been the blue screen of death in Windows 2000"

  • They forgot... (Score:3)

    by schmack ( 32384 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2001 @02:58PM (#397133)
    ..the one golden rule of Satire - make it funny!

    Maybe the site is so "in", you have to wake up next to Cox to appreciate little gems like "Temperature control using Beard(tm) technology"?

    Maybe Cox himself came up with a new take on the Resume format - "capable of handling practically infinite tasks at a time while churning them all out without a hitch"? What a guy!

    Seriously, I haven't seen such an overtly fawning fansite since Ready,steadman,go [pair.com].

    --

  • Hate to point it out but I've been the blue screen of death in Windows 2000... specifically when I use this TNT card with drivers that I downloaded from NVIDIA's website.. and I press the Windows key when I'm in a game of Quake 3 Arena... it goes into a blue screen of death/instant reboot...
  • It is actually white papers :)

  • I believe 0E can be any number of general failures, not necessarily hardware failure.

    But it's a Win9x bluescreen anyway, and nobody ever claimed that was stable.

  • Sadly, I think the anti-MS propaganda is the only thing that makes this post slashdot-worthy. C'mon Hemos, what gives?!
  • Personally, I'd rather see Courteney Cox [ign.com] on a chip...


    But, if ugly bearded guys is what the /. crowd wants to see... (Sorry Alan) :) so be it!

  • %%Title: Copyright (C) 2000 Alan Cox On A Chip, Inc.
    %%Rot13: Vg'f n "juvgr" cncre... trg vg?

  • %!PS-Adobe-3.0
    %%Creator: Alan Cox AI

    %%Title: Copyright (C) 2000 Alan Cox On A Chip, Inc.
    %%Rot13: Vg'f n "juvgr" cncre... trg vg?

    %%Pages: 6
    %%PageOrder: Ascending

    %%Page: 1
    showpage

    %%Page: 2
    showpage

    %%Page: 3
    showpage

    %%Page: 4
    showpage

    %%Page: 5
    showpage

    %%Page: 6
    showpage
  • Are you an idiot?

    Read your own post "They place America at the bottom, Did they use reverse alpha order or place US on a list of Importance"

    US stupid. Your country is called United States of America in case you hadn't noticed and comes just before Venezula and just after Uganda in any alpha list.

    Next time there is a drop box in an address form that defaults to USA try dropping it and you will see that even American sites have USA near the bottom of the list.

    And you wonder why we get frustrated with americans.

  • You forget to mention the grep -v foo ~/alanchipwp.ps you needed to get that.
    ___________________________________________ __________________
  • just to drive the point home:

    the link text in the article says "Windows 2000 snapshot capability", but the screenshot is definitly Win9x, not Win2k.
  • Transmeta has an ace up there sleeve

    An ace up where sleeve?

    ---

  • Someone get rid of the slashdot story posting newbies, alan cox on a chip was a quickie a while back. You think they could atleast check and search to see if what they are posting has been posted before.
  • What, making up evidence isn't the hallmark of an operating system that has Made It? Anybody remember Microsoft attempting to fool the judge with falsified evidence? If you're going to fight the pigs, you're going to get mud on you.
  • What do you do to overclock it, drip-feed it espresso?
  • I have to say that was the most informative white paper I have ever read :)
  • Well, BSODs aren't FUD for me; they're quite factual. I'm forced to dual boot b between Linux and Windows, and I have *never* had the Linux kernel die on me. I can't, however, say the same thing for the Win2k side of things. While it's light years beyond NT in terms of stability, it's still not the rock that Linux is and has been, at least for me.

    As for Linux performing better when RAM craps out? I beg to differ! Check out BadRAM [vanrein.org]. (that's http://rick.vanrein.org/linux/badram/ for the goatsex-wary) While it won't prevent problems from crashing if some addresses go bad while the machine is booted, after the very next reboot, the RAM you have will be "good" all over again!

    BadRAM was featured in a /. article a while back as well http://www.slashdot.org/articles/00/10/25/1448233. shtml

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