Posts by Tom 38

Re: 5 reasons

No, OSS was BSD licensed. The main guy writing OSS drivers - drivers that fitted into the OSS system - started selling newer drivers for profit. This didn't make any of the earlier work not be BSD licensed.

The people who eventually wrote ALSA did not like this one bit, so they made sure that their project was GPL tainted so that one of them could not also do the same. There was no reason why they could not have continued to develop OSS, but releasing newer bits under GPL; they preferred to reimplement from scratch, which I don't think has any bearing on the license.

Re: 5 reasons

Your "fragmentation" complaint (which I agree with BTW) is actually just a prime example of the NIH syndrome that affects Linux.

Sound on UNIX started out with OSS - Open Sound System. This worked, and continues to work on most UNIX variants, and is the basic level of sound support that almost every piece of UNIX software has.

However, this did not suit some Linux users, so they set out to solve some of the issues that OSS had. However, one of those issues was that they guy behind OSS had taken his codebase closed source, and started selling newer drivers for cash.

In order to ensure that didn't happen any more, their new project ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture was started, which added a new sound interface, just for Linux this time. Their new system supported cool things like virtual channels and hardware mixing, but co-existed with OSS. One program would use ALSA, another may use OSS emulation via ALSA, and there was a wonderful way of producing sink/source graphs linking different audio components just using an obscure text file.

However, this wasn't enough. One of the problems with ALSA was that it didn't provide a simple way to play audio on one box, but have the speakers connected to another box, using a network transport. Or perhaps it was that you couldn't mux in a skype call into a DTS soundtrack over SPDIF. Or perhaps it was that everyone was fed up with low latency audio.

Regardless, the next solution dreamt up by completely different people was moving the whole shebang to user space. Yes, we are now in the realms of PulseAudio. PulseAudio is a sound server and client - you too can shove your desktop audio down a SSH tunnel. The benefit of this system is a detach between physical sound card and application producing sound, so you can funnel that sound data around as you like. A virtual pulse audio device can emulate ALSA, and also OSS. So you can now play through an emulated virtual OSS device that plays through your ALSA sound graph.

In my experience, PulseAudio monopolises your sound card, decreases audio clarity and introduces a lot latency into the system. PulseAudio is now a core part of most desktop distributions, and you must explicitly take off and nuke from orbit to be sure the crap is no longer used.

I don't actually use Linux, I use FreeBSD. On FreeBSD (like the rest of UNIX), ALSA was ignored, and we simply fixed the problems with OSS. I get vchans and hardware mixers with FreeBSD's OSS, and once PulseAudio was killed, I have a simple to use audio interface that is fully documented in man pages.

Linux's problem is that it isn't an OS, it's a kernel, with distributors all making their own decisions about which pieces of software to use. As such, un-related components simply get added over and over again, each time with a slightly different API, solving different issues and presenting different problems.

Every N years someone outside of the existing projects tries to fix those problems, but they fix it with a new solution, rather than fixing the original one. This is particularly prevalent outside of the kernel, which itself is kept in control quite well by Torvalds. It doesn't happen in other projects, eg in FreeBSD the whole OS is managed by the community, which would not stand for multiple competing solutions all being present.

This was just one example using the sound sub-system. You can make identical claims using many other sub systems, eg wifi is/was (I've not looked for a while) a mishmash of binary blob drivers, and various other standalone drivers, where as on BSD each driver builds on common 802.11 layers - so much so that some drivers are in effect quite trivial. Or Xorg, where in the space of about a year dbus, policykit, consolekit and hald all hovered between optional, recommended and mandatory, jumping back and forward as the relevant projects decided where we should be (I think currently policykit is mandatory; dbus and hald are recommended and consolekit is deprecated).

No-one will ever read this sentence, but I also think that you are too down on the RTFM attitude. It exists for a reason, one of the joys of UNIX is that almost everything is documented, where as in Windows all you can find is idiot documentation ("To start a slideshow, click the button that says Start slideshow"). We know it is in the manual because that is where we read it, and RTFM is simply letting you know that you have the information at your fingertips.

If you do actually RTFM and are still confused, any request will/should show you read the manual, and instantly a crowd of people will come help you. 3 of them will probably argue incessantly about what the manual should have said, but still…

Re: "Smart" vs "feature" is just marketing

I've had an iphone since the 3G launched and never cracked the screen. I have seen a lot of smashed iphone screens though (working iphones underneath).

I don't use itunes and synch music just fine to my phone.

Bluetooth file transfer - theres an app for that.

What happens on Android if you swap out an SD card that has your running app on it? IE, how feasible is it actually to swap SD cards, if you install your apps to SD card?

Re: Qualifications?

Ministers do not have to understand their ministry, that is what permanent under secretaries were invented for. Have none of you seen "Yes Minister"?

1) It's slow as fuck. The only time I come to use IE is on relatives ageing machines. Opening the browser window is some sort of feat akin to cleaning the Augean stables, given how long it takes. Opening a tab gives you enough time to read a couple of chapters of your new book. Chrome is much faster to launch up, as it doesn't involve 500 different windows subsystems all churning into life.

2) It's insecure by design. The only time I've had to reinstall windows was when I accidentally opened a website in IE from an IRC link (I know, I know - I thought it was going to open in Opera), which in turn redirected to a windows media URL that trashed my registry. It auto opened it because "IE" is simply a rebadged version of the explorer, the windows shell. This, and activex, are the vectors of so many whack-a-mole bugs (they fix one, 2 months later, a virtually identical exploit is found).

3) It's been like this for years. It's no longer "why chrome is better than IE", it is now up to IE to show to that I should be using it

Re: Come on, Mr. Orlowski, you can surely do better

…Apple latest patents to use against Samsung are slide to unlock (now how many public and private toilet doors are using some sort of a latch that slides horizontally ?)

And yet, before Apple deployed this technique on their very first phone, no other touch screen device was using this "obvious" solution. A few years after, and every single one of them is. Why was it not obvious on WP 5 devices?

Re: 4 Options

You do realise that option 1 already exists. Both the UK and Sweden cannot allow him to be extradited to a country where he may stand trial for capital offences.

Option 2 is impossible; Ecuador cannot 'give' people diplomatic status in this country; they can request to the Foreign Office to give Assange diplomatic status, highly unlikely to be granted.

Option 3 is you following Assange on his paranoia trips - Hague is constrained by the actions of the court to pursue this.

Option 4 is you having a little lefty daydream.

Re: So if some tinpot country decided

Assange supporters just wilfully ignore the facts. The government is constrained to extradite him based upon the court rulings. What the government wants is neither here nor there; the highest courts in the land (and Europe) have ruled that he must be extradited, and in this country we follow the rule of law.

If the courts ruled that Blair must be extradited to your hypothetical country, the government would be similarly obliged.

Assange is a low life who enjoyed all the protections and benefits of our legal system, and then pissed all over it. Once he's done with in Sweden, we should get him back so he can do some porridge here too.

Re: Ibrahimshah Shahulhameed

King Abraham King Who Is Praised. Not that complex. Shahulhameed is simply a Keralite rendering of Shah al-Hameed.

Re: The Somebody Said Something Unpleasant To Me Act 2012. @L:inbox

I wouldn't allow people like that to post on my FB page, if in fact I had a FB page. The problem with engaging with everyone is that some people are twats.

I have had people say stuff like that to me on the intertubes. The correct response is "".

Re: Excellent

"I want to upgrade to Windows 8, because that's the version they made file copy work correctly"

Damned by faint praise

Re: Logic and Actions of the US

It may not be sensitive or secret, but it was classified. A soldier removing classified information and passing it to foreign civilians is probably treason. I think the Army don't really care what he actually leaked, just that he committed treason in their eyes.