But, could you please give me one of these?
It’s a YeeIoong notebook with a MIPS processor (Loongson 2F, 800－900MHz). I guess, Richard Stallman uses one of these.
Being a GNU/Linux enthusiast i would love to get my hands on one of these.
Sincerely,
Me.
“I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe” – Gabe Newell
And there you have it… a disembodied and decontextualized quote which can mean almost anything, to almost anyone, thanks to cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
What was Newell really talking about? Windows Ocho and what it will do to the PC game market.
If you read my It’s Killer App Time post, it was a meandering story more or less about, to quote Gabe Newell again,
“The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior,”
I wasn’t quite that pithy, but games can make you buy hardware. Back in the day, all my friends bought an Xbox right after it was released. The only reason? To play Halo. I had a PS2. Long story short, I always died first (and a lot) at the lan parties we had. It’s enough to make me nostalgic for those first generation Xbox controllers.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”
Maybe now I can go to the bank and file for a loan to sell Linux computers? But I’m not holding my breath.
Anyone know how to reset the root password on Solaris. Skill level = no cdrom
Then there’s that whole, “what do I do with it” problem… I could SSH the crap out of stuff. Not much else worthwhile, or is there?
More importantly, how much do I offer for this? Low-ball, high-ball, vodka martini?
The root password needs to be reset. It has no CD-ROM, but does have a SCSI port. So that could be done, but would be a pain in my ass. I’ve seen instructions to the effect of, 1) boot a UN*X cd (“ boot cdrom -s” for Solaris at OBP) 2) mount the filesystem 3) cd to /etc/shadow 4) open with vi and clear the password text, then save 5) reboot.
It has a Sparc 32-bit processor and around 80MB of ram (i forget, and the photo is too low res. to tell). So that limits the OS selection to Solaris (duh!), and as far as I can Google, OpenBSD. The documentation I have read says it has a special version of Solaris. So, re-installing Solaris would probably give all sorts of errors. I have no experience with OpenBSD and very limited experience with FreeBSD.
Thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated!
What’s a killer application, you ask? Well, according to our friends at Wikipedia it
“…is any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system.”
Why am I blathering about killer apps? If there’s one thing Linux needs in order to get more people using it, it’s a video game that makes you want to use Linux. As long as there are many quality video games available for Linux (like this one called Oil Rush, available for $20 in the Ubuntu App store), it should eventually make people question the value of a $100 Windows license as a gaming platform. Especially when Linux does everything Windows does, like Open/Libre Office instead of M$ Office, while saving another $130. If you could save $230 on the most basic versions of M$ software, you could do other things when purchasing a new system, like upgrade the hardware, get a bigger monitor, etc.
Is $230 a tipping point when it comes to buying a new PC loaded with Linux vs. M$? I don’t have the answer to that question. But I would guess that if you asked most people “Are you interested in saving $230 (before tax) on a new PC“, they would probably say yes. Which brings us back to the Killer App…
Wasteland 2 just reached the critical milestone of $1.5 million raised on Kickstarter. In short, it will be available to download for Linux! Here is a satirical video explaining the concept of Kickstarter and/or independent game development. They key is bypassing the publisher and selling directly to the consumer.
Never heard of the original Wasteland? I hadn’t either until very recently. In short, it’s a very influential RPG game from the late 80′s.
Will Wasteland 2 be the killer application of Linux? Only time will tell.
I found this at work today. If you are wondering, it’s not supposed to do that.
I joined the long list of people waiting for a Raspberry Pi.
Waiting builds character, I'm told.
How long it will take, I have no idea.
Now you just need to get your hands on a Raspberry Pi.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
At any rate, it’s looking like this is shaping up to be a pretty fast system.
“Raspberry Pi, in terms of multimedia, outperforms any other dev board in existence – which is nice,” explained Eben, “In terms of general purpose computing, it’s got this 700MHz ARM11, and our benchmark shows it’s about 20 per cent slower than a Beagleboard for general purpose computing. But, you know, it’s a quarter of the price.” 1
As soon as I get one, a horrible handheld video will be uploaded. Because ya know, I can’t take the time to plan out, shoot, and then edit the video myself 
(yes that was a shot at all the crappy handheld videos on youtube. It’s called a tripod. I suggest you invest in one.)
I’ve just downloaded this as a demo. It’s still the “full version” of the program. I haven’t really had a chance to play around with it/test it out… I’m currently running it on Ubuntu 11.10. It seemed really fast and solid, especially considering the older hardware being used. I would rather be running Mint or Fedora, but Ubuntu was put on my laptop for testing purposes (Mostly to test how much the Unity Desktop sucks: a lot).
Obligitory promotional video:
Corel Aftershot Pro
Hopefully in a few days i’ll get around to uploading some photos. I’ll keep you posted.
UPDATE 1: 1/20/12 13:00
I have installed Linux Mint and Aftershot Pro. More to come later.
This looks pretty exciting, a Linux native digital audio workstaiton. It’s apparently being made by some of the same people that made Ableton. Which would explain why it looks so Ableton-ish (at least to me).
It’s also got some nifty features lined up for release after the 1.0 version.
LAN multi-user jammingMultiple users can jam on the same document, and everything can be captured in the document’s arrangement.Multi-user music production over the internetMultiple users can compose music on the same document from different locations. Bitwig Studio keeps everything in sync.
This is my first post. I better make it good.
It’s got some pretty impressing specs too. IF they’re claiming it can run BluRay, then i’m guessing it could be a decent HTPC… if Netflix was supported on Linux. It should be more than adequate for basic tasks like email, Internet, and flash videos.
The SoC is a Broadcom BCM2835. This contains an ARM1176JZFS, with floating point, running at 700Mhz, and a Videocore 4 GPU. The GPU is capable of BluRay quality playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. It has a fast 3D core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries.
I don’t care what anybody says, I’m buying 2. It’ll even run off 4xAA batteries. Right now, On the RaspberryPi website, the release date is scheduled for somewhere around late January early February.
P.S. It doesn’t come with a case. Know anybody with a 3D printer? I guess you could carve out a block of wood or something… Cross that bridge when you get there.
