Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 23rd Sep 2011 22:22 UTC, submitted by kragil
The story about how secure boot for Windows 8, part of UEFI, will hinder the use of non-signed binaries and operating systems, like Linux, has registered at Redmond as well. The company posted about it on the Building Windows 8 blog - but didn't take any of the worries away. In fact, Red Hat's Matthew Garrett, who originally broke this story, has some more information - worst of which is that Red Hat has received confirmation from hardware vendors that some of them will not allow you to disable secure boot.
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RE[6]: Pressure Microsoft
by MysterMask on Wed 28th Sep 2011 08:26
in reply to "RE[5]: Pressure Microsoft"
Member since:2005-07-12
Pure speculation driven by blind Apple hate.
(you shouldn't mix up the firm grip that Apple tries to get in the media / phone / tablet area with their politics in the Mac business - the same goes for MS: they behave completely different in markets where they have to fight uphill e. g. look at their HW business practices vs. their server software business behavior)
RE[7]: Pressure Microsoft
by Alfman on Wed 28th Sep 2011 09:27
in reply to "RE[6]: Pressure Microsoft"
Member since:2011-01-28
MysterMask,
"Pure speculation driven by blind Apple hate."
Not likely. According to this link, there were already more than a million EFI systems on the market prior to Apple's x86 switch in 2006.
http://www.intel.com/technology/framework/overview1.htm
"The first example of a complete end-user PC that was sold by a major OEM incorporating the framework was released in the second half of 2003. During 2005, more than one million systems shipped with the framework."
It is well known that apple's x86 macos refuses to run on non-apple PC hardware. I really do not know exactly why, however the fact that Psystar sold a "Rebel EFI" implementation designed to run MacOS on standard PCs is pretty compelling evidence that, somehow, MacOS depends on a proprietary EFI implementation.
http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/22/psystars-rebel-efi-allows-you-to-i...
Edited 2011-09-28 09:29 UTC
RE[7]: Pressure Microsoft
by Neolander on Wed 28th Sep 2011 17:29
in reply to "RE[6]: Pressure Microsoft"
Member since:2010-03-08
Pure speculation driven by blind Apple hate.
You're right that it's a big affirmation that's a bit hard to believe without sources, so I've tried to find my original source back. Although I haven't, I have found something else which qualifies pretty well as a proof that Mac firmwares do not follow standard EFI specs.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI
These are howtos which explain how to install two popular Linux distros on (U)EFI systems. Notice the presence of Mac-specific instructions and information. The reason for their presence is clearly stated : Apple uses a nonstandard mix of EFI 1.x and UEFI 2.x, which cannot work with standard EFI code and requires specific workarounds.
(you shouldn't mix up the firm grip that Apple tries to get in the media / phone / tablet area with their politics in the Mac business - the same goes for MS: they behave completely different in markets where they have to fight uphill e. g. look at their HW business practices vs. their server software business behavior)
I don't think I confuse both. On iOS, Apple attempts to squeeze money off every single financial transaction, and even freeware development. On the Mac platform, they currently only want to sell expensive and high-profit margin hardware to people who don't need necessarily need it. The introduction of an iOS-ish paying developer agreement and App Store system for OS X make it sound like they might want to introduce iOS-like full financial control in the future, but that's not the way it is now.
I do not blindly hate Apple, their engineers can do some wonders (for me, examples would include Exposé, application bundles, and Lion's Auto Save/Versions), but you must admit that the way they can treat their user base in the name of profit is quite irritating.
Edited 2011-09-28 17:36 UTC
News
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
Google 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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/15/13 23:03 UTC
"During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.More News »
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2010-03-08
Again, if I remember correctly, the implementation of EFI which you find on Macs does not follow the spec well, and standard-compliant EFI OSs must be heavily patched and riddled with specific workarounds to work well on Macs. For me, this qualifies as a proprietary firmware.
If I created a dvd drive which only works with square DVDs, and my company was the only one selling these drives, would you call that a standard DVD drive, or a proprietary drive ?
I don't believe that Apple would have a strong interest in preventing installation of other OSs on Macs right now, they don't have a strong interest in helping it either for that matter. However I do believe that the company has a strong interest in making installation of Mac OS X impossible on cheap standards-compliant PCs. And that nonstandard firmwares are a way to achieve that goal. So when I read on Linux development mailing lists that the implementation of EFI which you find on Macs is requires patching to deal with, I have a hard time believing that this is accidental.
Edited 2011-09-27 16:19 UTC