http://www.osnews.com/story/2161/Introducing_the_Linux-based_Moxi Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:56:40 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? its funny that Paul Allen would not put Windows software in his own devices, even Paul knows how much Windows sucks Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It is all about money and time, not how good or bad an OS is. The Moxi had already been developed with Linux when Digeo acquired Moxi. A lot of human work hours have been spent to develop this product, and reverting to a completely different OS *at that point in time*, was just out of the question. It has nothing to do with how much Windows or Linux sucks or rules.

This is a consumer product, where the average user have no idea what OS lies behind that box. Allen wanted something that works to get it out of the door and ship it, not to go months behind schedule and change OSes just for the fun or zealotry of it. Get your clues together. Money and time talks. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Very well said, I fully agree. Just because Allen has a stake in MS doesn't mean he's going to cram it everywhere or make sure everything is supermicrosoft. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You guys are right. Let's just put the best tool for the job. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 10:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Multithreading and Multimedia, BeOS would have been the best tool for the job. but we will settle for Linux

Paul Allen the no 2 man at M$ and owner of the struggling Seattle Seahawks has an exorbant amount of money, it would not have hurt him if he had a focus shift to cram in Windows. The fact that he is not says somthing completely different. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? But the initial decision of which OS to used had to be based on something right? They could have used Windows for start, but they choose linux. It's what I would have done as well. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? OK BEOS could be used , but why not QNX ???

QNX team has a lot of projects in develop software devices.

;) Mon, 18 Nov 2002 12:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Paul Allen is not Bill Gates, nor is he Microsoft. He happens to have a history at Microsoft way back then and he still owns a lot of shares. However, there is not a shred of Bill Gates' committed fanatism in his words and he is not bothered by Microsoft.

Linux, Windows - what does it matter to him? He can as well make good money and interesting things with Linux, too. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 12:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>Paul Allen the no 2 man at M$
>> Paul Allen is not Bill Gates,
>> he still owns a lot of shares.


I believe Paul Allen has already sold ALL his shares in Microsoft a few years ago.

I don't know if Paul likes Windows or not, but we do know that Bill Gates certainly drove the man insane. Gates literally make him sick. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 12:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? David Coursey I believe... Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Paul Allen isn't stupid. Windows Embedded over Linux: what does it lack and what does it have over Linux? Practically nothing. Allen just choosed the cheapest. Windows isn't crap. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thank you for correcting my mistake.

Paul Allen really sold every single Microsoft share he privately held in May, 2002. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry, sloppy again :-( Paul Allen did the major selling already in 2000. If he owns any MS stocks any more, his stake is insignificant (at least on his own terms). Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think the main reason for choosing Linux in the first place could be that due to its open source nature, Linux can be adapted to the task at hand as much as they like. All the non-PC OSes from Microsoft are usually built for some particular device (PDA, Smartphone, ...) and there's very little room for customisation. Microsoft ships these OSes with a clear vision what the devices have to look and act like, which is why all these devices look and act almost exactly the same - as if they were all built by the same company.

This is (I believe) the reason why Sendo dropped their plans for a "Windows" smartphone - they know all "Windows-powered" smartphones will be exactly the same, they have no way of differentiating themselves from other smartphone vendors through innovation.

If people drop "Windows" - even for devices for which a "Windows" version exists - because they can't customize it, why would anyone choose a version of "Windows" for a device for which no dedicated "Windows" version exists? It'd be insane. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I don't know if Paul likes Windows or not, but we do know that Bill Gates certainly drove the man insane. Gates literally make him sick."

iS that true? Gates made him sick? Don't you mean allen already had health problems?

Regardless, paul allen is a good businessman. Linux saves his investment money. forcing them to use would windows would cost him a lot more in development time and possibly additional resources. His goal is to make money not spread the gospel of microsoft. That latter goal belongs to gates. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry for the triple post, but on a set up box, who really cares about multithreading and multi-whatever. Geeks. If Moxi is targeting this market, they better just leave instead of wasting millions of investor money.

Besides, it is not like Be is the only one that have multithreading support. Linux, used here, has a remarkably good support for a project this old. Multimedia wise, maybe they would win some points going Be OS, but how much? Essentially, all of they need isn't 10 Quicktime movies playing at once on a 200Mhz Pentium II. What they need is something that supports the current multimedia "standards". Linux is closer to that than BeOS would ever be.

---

Aki, Bill Gates is in everyway someone like Paul Allen. Only luckier. Bill Gates isn't the one pushing the business. That person is Steve Balmer. Bill Gates happens to be a lucky geek. :-) Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Paul Allen was always the more technical the Allen and Gates pair. Do a couple of searches on google and you will see he has also always favored Unix - Xenix was pretty much a Paul Allen decision that was unloaded when he left. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? BeOS has most of the "current" multimedia standards

Streaming Audio Yes with ease
Macromedia Flash Yes not 5 or 6 but its comming
Divx Yes
Ogg Vorbis & MP3 Yes
OpenGL Yes but not hardware excellerated yet
MMX Support Yes
Quicktime Mostly
Windows Media Player, No (not likely to happen)
Real Player Yes
Image Support, All Kinds
Midi Yes
AVI and FLI yes
Firewire support yes
TV Tuner Support and Video in, built in to the basic media kit
Internet Radio Yes, and extreamly inexpensive.
all your standard legacy formats such as mod, yes

BeOS Media kit, is also being rewritten, and improved upon
as i speak. BeOS is also used in a lot of highend audio
applications.

It should also be noted that image video and sound translators
are plugins into the OS, independent of any particular application.
and Drivers can easily be tweaked and changed without restarting the computer.

If your bringing cheap and effective embeded appliances, you will want somthing that can play 10 Quicktime files latency free on a Pentium 200, because a Pentium 200 costs pennies.

Multimedia was what BeOS was intended for, Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry to sound rude, but all the things you mentioned is available on Linux. Does Be OS support Microsoft's formats? Xine and (especially) MPlayer supports it to some long extend.

Besides, unlike Linux, BeOS is DEAD. Nadda. Bye bye. Sayonara. Sure, there is OBOS and Zeta and a trillion of other projects, but except for Zeta, all of them don't seem to have a problem any time soon. And even if they release a product tommorrow, it is a little too late for Moxi.

And all the other features (esp. advance audio)... how would it benefit Moxi? Why would a person using moxi feel the need to play 10 Quicktime files? Why would Moxi need a architecture where the drivers can be changed without a reboot (da, unless it is based on the kernel, you don't need to reboot Linux). Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Xenix was unloaded because it was making a huge loss, and at that time, Microsoft couldn't really sustain the lost. Besides, Paul Allen more technical than the Allen and Gates pair? :-)

Bill Gates is a geek with a gag order. A old lousy geek at that :-) Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? After thinking a lot.... why Flash for the UI? Isn't it faster for the user by them taking something like Qt Embedded or PicoGUI and building their UIs on it? Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would like one of these PVR, they look very nice. I just hope they would make them a little bit cheaper than the alternative. Standard ones cost between $300 and $1000, plus the montly fees, plus activations fees.

Hopefully, there is lot of new PVRs on the market. Some linux-based (http://www.metrolink.com), some i don't know (http://www.sonicblue.com). I'm not sure the Linux-based option make them cheaper.

And by the way I like the Moxi GUI. Compared to the Windows Media Center I just tried... there is no match. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? becasue it is cool looking. this is a consumer product, and flash is not going to be slow on an embeded system.
I think that this interface is awsome and depending on the priceing, I might get it to replace my OLD dvd player.

any one know if you have to subscribe to a service for the tv schedule? Mon, 18 Nov 2002 16:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? has this site became a mirror of slashdot? Mon, 18 Nov 2002 16:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Paul Allen still has 138 million shares of Microsoft stock.

http://biz.yahoo.com/t/68/18.html Mon, 18 Nov 2002 16:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? QNX ?

Anyone will vote for QNX here ?

I am sorry to say that, but qnx is the most developed product for embebed systems !

:) Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There are many QNX-based digital video recorders deployed in the security departments in banks and casinos around the world, where the infamous Tivo/Linux crashes can't be tolerated.

http://www.silentwitness.com/products_dvms800-1600.html Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>"I don't know if Paul likes Windows or not, but we do know that Bill Gates certainly drove the man insane. Gates literally make him sick."

iS that true? Gates made him sick? Don't you mean allen already had health problems?
>>


Yes, he did already have problems back them. He got sick while he was at Microsoft, and not a few people believe that the continous head-knocking with Billy-boy was the cause. For sure, Gates rubbed him the wrong way.

Anyway, his health improved very drammatically right after he quit! Go figure! Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Paul Allen left Microsoft in 1983 when he was diagnosed with cancer (Hodgkin's Disease) --- the same type of cancer that struck Mario Lemieux. As powerful as Bill Gates is, he can't cause cancer. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is off topic but this is as good a time and place to discuss the problem. A few posts above this some one who was not paying much attention tersely asked, "has this site became a mirror of slashdot?" The author of that post did not realize that while this story did just appear on Slashdot it was, in fact, an OSNews exclusive story with never-before-screenshots of a exciting new product.

At the time that this story reaching Slashdot, this forum had about 21 relevant posts. Since that time OSNews has received about 6 more while Slashdot has 75 relevant posts. Not only is there no mention in the Slashdot posting about the already healthy conversation thread at OSNews, a Slashdot reader copied the entire story in his post in the Slashdot forums.

So, I ask you, is this a problem for those of you who maintain websites that take the responsibility to host your own forums? Slashdot serves a great service for sites that have no outlet for discussion. OSNews is not one of those. When the discussion on a story like this is fragmented accross two major news sites is it a public service or a distraction? Should Slashdot editors and moderators show more responsibility in directing the discussion to where it belongs?

I'm not sure, but the Web has grown up since Slashdot came to be. I think Slashdot should change to address this. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The Moxi device was under development for years before being purchased by Paul Allen, so the decision to use Linux was made long before he had anything to do with it. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Actually, it's not so clear cut as that. The choice of Linux over Windows was most likely due to the fact that the system had already been engineered with Linux, true. However, it says something else about Windows CE. If Windows CE doesn't offer anything that Linux doesn't, what's the point? You've got two products here in a market where backwards compatibility really doesn't matter. If WinCE is just the equal of Linux, yet Linux is free and WinCE isn't, and Linux is customizable and WinCE isn't, why bother? Recent SEC reports showed that Microsoft is still losing money in its WinCE division. Part of the reason WinCE can't become successful is technical issues (WinCE does have lots of technical problems, one of the major ones being that it is not cross-platform anymore, and it's support for the new ARM chip, the XScale, sucks) and the other part is competition. If WinCE doesn't offer anything that a free alternative doesn't, then it's not going to make any money. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wow! It would be cool if linux could do for something useful like this, I just wish I could play games like CS om it. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? They will sell it with linux then migrate over to windows
once they have everybody subscribed. Then it will meld
into the Xbox rigging. Tada... The ultimate M$ plan,
control over the personal media delivery in the home. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Using Flash for the UI seems to be a very good idea, from a purely graphical point of view.
Artists are (mostly) not geeks and it is hard to ask them to work on a project without the real help of a good authoring and drawing tool.
Like for the choice of linux for the kernel, the point here was : Use the best product to respond to each specific problem. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 21:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If BeOS were dead, you would not have to keep telling people it is dead. But the fact of the matter is, BeOS will keep haunting you. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 21:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It might make sense if this site actually had a thread of posts instead of a single fifo stream that is barely readable. You guys must have hired a really lazy webmaster, considering slashcode is free and all.

You honestly call this improvement over slashdot? Both sites suck ass IMO. Hell, I could design a better news site if I cared to waste my time on such a non profitable venture. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 22:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Interestingly, I have tried all of the above. BeOS was too big (almost impossible to get below 200MB with anything meaningful beyond a kernel). The embedded Be OS did not have any of the external media support (TV Tuner, etc.) since it did not have the media framework ported - and it is DEAD. QNX is horrible for anything other than straight C coding. The engineers at QNX do not (truly) support any C++ coding - in fact, they will steer you away from it. AND QNX is very difficult to work with. WinCE is very costly - licensing, developers, support. Unless you have a very vested interest in MS or need IE browser, then WinCE is not a good device OS.

Linux has fantastic support from the software development community. Even if a driver is not available, usually engineers at the device company will provide something to get you started. Linux also has reasonable media support (MPEG, H.323, JPEG, DiVX, etc.). Linux is only deficient in the browswer space - customers demand desktop experience if a browser is prominent.

For this application, Linux is the correct choice by FAR. Mon, 18 Nov 2002 22:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'll love an article where it shows what chipset they use for TVout... always wanted to get a good looking TVout (like the screenshots) without paying $1000 for a scanconverter.... Mon, 18 Nov 2002 23:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>>The engineers at QNX do not (truly) support any C++ coding - in fact, they will steer you away from it. AND QNX is very difficult to work with.

Except that QNX has donated their c/c++ tools source codes to the eclipse consortium and now heads the eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tools) project. Tue, 19 Nov 2002 18:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments