Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 30th Oct 2009 12:07 UTC
I'm in a bit of a pickle here. I have an Atom 330-based tiny computer which I use as my HTPC. It performed its job fine running Windows 7 and Boxee, and over the past few months, it ran Mac OS X Leopard with Plex. Now, however, I want to try Linux as an HTPC operating system, but I kind of ran into a roadblock there with Ubuntu 9.10 - so the question is: what is a good HTPC Linux distribution?
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RE: Comment by Thom_Holwerda
by moondevil on Fri 30th Oct 2009 15:14
in reply to "Comment by Thom_Holwerda"
Member since:2005-07-08
And the main reason why I am mostly on Windows nowadays on the desktop and leave Linux on the server room.
I would gladly be on MacOS X, if they weren't so expensive in Europe.
I am a Linux user since the kernel 1.0.9 days, and nowadays have more interesting things to do with my life that spending endless hours with such configuration issues, or broken releases. My desktop should just work.
RE[2]: Comment by Thom_Holwerda
by spiderman on Fri 30th Oct 2009 15:24
in reply to "RE: Comment by Thom_Holwerda"
Member since:2008-10-23
If you want a desktop to just work, you should only use stable software, man.
People use testing software, which are advertized as testing software: for tests, which means: "please help us test this software, which probably is buggy" and then they complain that it does not work!
Man, if Windows development was open and they had a portal where you could download all their testing stuff, you would probably be crying!
People complain and they don't even use the bug tracking system.
Well, maybe linux is not for you. It's open and documented but if you can't read, it won't help you.
RE[2]: Comment by Thom_Holwerda
by Zifre on Fri 30th Oct 2009 21:30
in reply to "RE: Comment by Thom_Holwerda"
Member since:2009-10-04
Am I the only one who has never had any major problems with Ubuntu on the desktop? Windows gives me headaches all the time. Various apps will crash the system, I get constantly high CPU usage that overheats my laptop, the UI seems very inconsistent (once you have apps from all over the place), and I find it to be very unintuitive compared to Ubuntu. A Mac would be nice, but they're ridiculously expensive.
RE: Comment by Thom_Holwerda
by spiderman on Fri 30th Oct 2009 15:17
in reply to "Comment by Thom_Holwerda"
Member since:2008-10-23
RE: Comment by Thom_Holwerda
by phoenix on Fri 30th Oct 2009 20:44
in reply to "Comment by Thom_Holwerda"
Member since:2005-07-11
I'm quite confident that the problems I'm having stem from the Intel integrated video chip (GMA950 in my case). On the Ubuntuforums, people with integrated Intel chips are reporting problems with random freezes and crashes, both during normal use and during installation.
My god what an epic, epic fail. Intel's integrated video chips are ridiculously popular. It probably has something to do with the architecture switch in the Intel video driver.
My god what an epic, epic fail. Intel's integrated video chips are ridiculously popular. It probably has something to do with the architecture switch in the Intel video driver.
I'm waiting for the price of nVidia ION systems to come down a bit, and then building my HTPC. So far, the Acer Revo looks just about perfect.
* Dual-core Atom 330 CPU @ 1.6 GHz
* 2 GB RAM
* 160 GB HD
* nVidia 9400M graphics onboard
* HD sound onboard
* VGA and HDMI output
* several USB 2.0 ports
* gigabit NIC onboard
* wireless N chipset on board
Comes with a VESA mount, so it can be mounted on the back of monitor/flatscreen.
Now to find one for less than $400 CDN. All the reviews online show this setup (dual-core atom + nvidia 9400) capable of doing 1080p without hiccups, and only around 30% CPU usage.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2005-06-29
I'm quite confident that the problems I'm having stem from the Intel integrated video chip (GMA950 in my case). On the Ubuntuforums, people with integrated Intel chips are reporting problems with random freezes and crashes, both during normal use and during installation.
My god what an epic, epic fail. Intel's integrated video chips are ridiculously popular. It probably has something to do with the architecture switch in the Intel video driver.
Big bummer.
Edited 2009-10-30 15:00 UTC