second step......

how is it horribly misguided, when you're one example proves his point.

that you cannot optimise the ASM layer, cause it's already directly on the cpu, but you can optimise the algorithm.

your example did just that and this optimisation is done FAR FAR above the assembly level.

dear sir, you have a very short memory, that is all.

that opengl problem doesn't seem to affect ATI though, so I guess it shouldn't affect nvidia also?

or have I missed something?

oops, meant "Not proud of it" before any grammer nazis find it :)

really?? you have engineers working for you? are you sure they're engineers? cause I've never ever heard of a programmer call himself an engineer other than those who want to glorify what they do, which is type code into a terminal and HOPE it doesn't crash without even as much as a couple of page refreshes in their favourite browser or executions and the barest amount of testing known to man.

I'm one of those people and I certainly DON'T call myself an engineer. Now proud of it, but the tools we have are too immature and I'm improving my situation as I go along.

I use linux on my tv connected computer and a macbook for my professional job.

at work, I need to get my work done, not read about some facinating configuration file, or wonder why I can no longer play mp3 files or even better, I can't boot into x.org.

last night I booted my fedora tv computer which was working perfectly for weeks, I haven't upgraded it and nor did I upgrade it before I switched it off last night correctly and I don't upgrade it because linux upgrades have made me afraid, yet last night I'm dumped on the console, why??

the ONLY solution was, switch to a new virtual terminal, cause I was left on the bootup screen with all the services, login as root, run a yum upgrade, then reboot.

I suppose your mum or dad can do that? awesome! cause mine can't...seriously? why? it worked fine for months....yet all of a sudden stopped working and the only solution open to me was to do that...

so I'm an idiot for switching to OSX right? yeah I get that, you hate it because you see your precious linux exposed for what it is, a bag of loosely collaborating code which sometimes just breaks for no reason and leaves you reading some wonderfully obscure rescue process, OR hopefully you're like me, has been using linux since I'm 16 (18 years of experience) and thankfully knows how to do these things.

I think it might be the opposite, you're the idiot for assuming we all want to get our hands dirty, I don't give a damn, I just want the fucking computer to work, it's 2012, not 1995

you're right, but you know the result is the same, it doesn't matter who is to blame, the fact is, the linux desktop and it's process of development is broken.

as for the idea of a QA testing package, it's a good idea, but nobody is building and probably will never build one.

it's not like I'm trying to pin the blame on any particular person, or project, but fact is, to the user, it doesn't matter, they just see "my desktop is broken"

it takes everybody to fix it in slightly different ways when it applies to them, but as a whole, nobody cares...it's just broken. thats all they see and all they think. then they reboot into windows and well, now everything works, they just blame linux..(as a whole, not the kernel)

sure no worries...an example...ok...so I installed ubuntu and my sound card wouldn't work, I rolled around the internet for hours and trying to find the reason why, in aplay the sound would work, but in gnome desktop it wouldn't.

at the end, I found a specific feature in a specific file, don't ask me which now, it was in the /usr/ directory that when I opened it and appended a :0 onto the end of one of the configuration values the sound worked again!!

this is with an ION2 motherboard, nvidia chipset running HDMI video+audio.

sorry I don't have the specific information, it'd be hard to find exactly the information I used to fix it, I just remember thinking wtf?? are you seriously for real? I had to do that? then about a week later, it asked me to upgrade, then killed x.org stone dead, all I did was click the button to upgrade, next reboot, desktop is dead, multiple times that happens. even with fedora it happens, sometimes I'm just dead on the console, I have to upgrade using yum and then reboot, then everything is cool again, why do I need to do that?

then afterwards, I want to find out which driver x.org is using, there isn't a default way to know it, you have to run some utility which is installed and looks like a blast from the past to know it's running the nvidia driver or not, btw this doesn't only affect nvidia, so please dont suggest anything about proprietary drivers, etc, etc, this was about knowing WHY the x.org desktop is running in a weird resolution and found it was using the vesa driver, how did I know that? cause I hunted for 30 minutes finding the method to detect which graphics driver I'm using cause gnome can't tell me.

it's like the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. I appreciate that tools in unix are supposed to be interdependent and independent in particular circumstances, but it would be REALLY REALLY great if for once, somebody would collaborate with the other in order to achieve a whole system that works together, but sometimes it really feels like everybody just does whatever they want and nobody cares what the other is doing.

then on slashdot, we get the articles about linux on the desktop failing and the follow up question: why?

don't you think it's kind of obvious why?.....I do....

I mean, if the FBI says it didnt happen, then it didn't happen, right guys??

yeah thats right! mark is as a troll, cause it's something you don't wanna hear, you people are insane....

I can remember a time before i got into computers that I had to work in chicken factory, tissue factory and a cardboard factory and in all of those standing up next to a conveyor for 8 or 12 hour shifts with just 30 minutes break and it was the norm, its hard but not overly and doesn't need superhuman powers to do it

So whilst I emphasise with the conditions, its hardly slave labour...plus they are being paid better than most other jobs....so not much to complain about. At least they don't have to smash rocks with a hammer whilst being chained up or threatened with death. That would actually be slave labour

a farce? are you serious? the linux desktop is the farce, can I just "install" something which out of the box will let me configure my desktop, region settings, monitor, graphics card, install drivers, etc.

after you've got 50% of that working, you'll need to open the terminal to do the rest and thats only if you can find or learn the instructions to do it.

win7, you just install it and use the built in tools which do the job, you can find information on how to do it everywhere and there is only one tool for the job and it does the job.

the 1% of people who have problems, take it back to the shop where they will help you and you pay.

farce? you are smoking something illegal......there is no farce with windows 7, you're just another arrogant, self absorbed linux user with no real experience of the real world, stuck in their little bubble about how easy these things are.

take a look around you, nobody agrees, everybody thinks you're smoking crack...there is a reason why everybody thinks that, it's because it's the truth, whether you like it or not.

it hides the bullshit you don't care about, hides the shit people here need to deal with on an everyday basis and presents a single system which knows how to do things and handles all the ugly stuff.

android is the future, it might be limited and not yet available in many places, but unfortunately, I can see a time where android is used on the desktop like it is in those "fake laptops" (tablet+keyboard) or on TV's, etc. It's just getting started.

it'll all be linux underneath, except nobody will know and nobody will care either.

why do we need two distributions for desktop and server?

they all sit on the same base system, server installs apache, desktop installs x.org

why do you need two distributions for that? why not just install different packages? or have a meta-package group all the server and desktop stuff into a single package so when you install it, it'll install everything in the configuration.

sometimes I think we need to stop allowing programmers to make decisions and stick to writing code