Oh - and inline de-dupe. Much discussion on it in some lists, but it's a killer feature that would be of huge benefit in the right place.

Argue all you like where that right place is, but an admin ought to have the right to use a tool such as dedupe where they like - even if that may not be your ideal use for dedupe.

I'd like to see btrfs implement a proper block tiering system. They're doing something for storing "hot" blocks on SSD, but what about giving us the full monty? Where I can rank storage types myself, assigning a different cost to each type. Hotest blocks in RAMdrive (battery backed of course), next step down fast SSD and then slower SSD, followed by Fibre, SAS, SATA and finally tape. Yes tape. Just create snapshots as backups. These blocks then sit there and drift down to tape storage when required.

Funny how this has all been done before when disks were really slow. I suppose it's the big gap of incredibly fast SSD's (compared to mechanical) that's resurrecting these ideas. With this done, btrfs could be stuck in as a relatively cheap SAN/NAS solution. All done in a big tower case in my loft.

Conversion to btrfs, however, isn't out of the question. It is unlikely that this would be forced on you during pre-upgrade though.

Thing about scene data is that it gets sent once. You then perform transforms on the models, textures & maps etc. I'm figuring that although there will be an initial load phase for complex scenes, textures and the like, there wont actually be an enormous amount of traffic from that point on.

Although graphics rendering is the largest part of a game at the moment, physics and AI are being pushed harder and harder. There are also games out there with huge AI & Physics requirements that are extremely modest in terms of graphics rendering. If I prefer 2D games to 3D shooters, could I not opt for a very basic graphics module?

Sure, this does mean graphics processing and graphics memory at the local end, but this is scaleable no? Android tablets are playing pretty good 3D games at the moment with very little in the way of classic 3D hardware.

This kind of stuff could be included as a modular part of cable set top boxes for example. User then buys the graphics module that suits their needs and the cable company provide low latency connection to their own hosted games servers.

Basically you're solving a load of issues like game patching, licensing, piracy etc for some other ones; mainly latency related.

I think it's a great idea. Publishers could set up rental periods, pay per play, outright purchases etc. Players will always be connecting to the latest patched version of the game. AI engines and game physics could be improved throughout the lifecycle.

My biggest concern is the client end. I'd prefer to see a local render engine capable of displaying the entire scene. The current solution renders the entire lot on the OnLive servers and then just sends you the screen image updates - is that right? I'd have thought that sending scene and POV updates would have compressed better. Then players could buy whichever capability render client they want/afford.

At the end of the day, this isn't for low latency gaming just yet. But that's purely down the nature of the internet.

Cheers

D

You said "First of all" twice. Doesn't count the second time.

I would mirror most of the rest of what you said though. GNOME 3 is actually pretty good - unless you WANT your desktop to be based on Win95.

Cheers

D

You should really take a step back from the keyboard and look at the history. .0 releases are, without fail, a major step forward in the technologies that Red Hat want to put in their distro. New kernel base, new packages, new security, new authentication etc. The list goes on. To call it "half-baked crap" is really little short of a half-baked comment. You can demand a flawless OS all you like, but without early adopter customers (of whom I've worked for several), these things don't stand a chance of getting ironed out. What do these early adopters get? They are first to learn how to use the new release and have accumulated a wealth of experience with RHEL x before x.1 comes out. It's their choice - just as it's your choice not to use it in the first place.

Finally, I've worked with Red Hat distros for over ten years too. I've got the badges, felt the hurt, dealt with their support guys and even engineers. At the end of the day, it's been worth it. If what is delivered isn't what you expect/demand, change your expectations/demands, or wait until the release that does match those expectations/demands.

Cheers

When they looked at Red Hat, they saw a distro that they wanted, so copied it, before ruining it and pretending it was theirs. OK, so they weren't actually pretending it was theirs, they were more pretending that it was any good!

They're trying to creep closer to the Falkland Islands?

Cheers

D

True, my Acorn Electron didn't boot into a Qt application, but it managed to get to a prompt virtually instantly.

I've been waiting for those days to return.

Anadarko

Running a Windows desktop VM on a Linux workstation is actually an excellent solution in the right circumstances. On one hand you seem to say that using the right tool for the job is best, but then you come out with this tripe? Shame on your 4-digit UID!

Having worked for a large oil company, we used VMPlayer to run the standard Windows desktop build on each of the extremely high-end Linux geophys workstations. Why? Because having 2x 30" monitors on a geologists desk was enough and using a KVM to completely switch everything from one machine to another was not desirable. This wasn't done because we were zealots or anything, but because the geologists requested it. And when you're in oil exploration, everything revolves around the geologists (as long as they're good!)

Cheers

Duncan

Blah blah blah - BP - blah blah blah

Why don't we hear much from Haliburton and Anadarko about the spill?

Who modded me Funny? I'm serious - I like the scheme. But it's like PIN numbers on credit cards - people HATE change. They'll find a way to criticise it as insecure, big brother, or anything - just to denigrate it.

You think the current system is secure?
You think the current system works well?

Seriously - there are more people who would accept this scheme than is reported in the general press. And the concerns about big brother and invasion of privacy are only equal to the same concerns but of the current system. The new driving licenses are great (apart from the points I've currently got of course). This scheme isn't such a big step away from that.

And to the real privacy concerned brigade . . . get your tin foil hats off.

I like mine . . . no really, I do.