131–140 of 145 posts
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OSS branding dates to around 1998, ~17yrs old. The GNU Manifesto was published in 1983, the free software movement is ~32 years old.
True, but the GPL wasn't widely used until Linux took off in the mid-90's, roughly 20 years ago. So I was off by a few years, you're right. (But I'd say the idea of free/libre software certainly predates even the GNU manifesto.)
You may also be interested in a project a number of us have been working called lowRISC, aiming to produce a fully open-source SoC in volume using the RISC-V instruction set architecture. http://www.lowrisc.org/ I'm giving a main track talk on it at FOSDEM next weekend: https://fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/lowrisc/ so say hi if you're there. My speaker interview gives more background on the project and our motivati…
SBCL, for example, uses 2 stacks in its precise GC, as it will use one stack for unboxed integers and calling out to C, and another for lisp objects, which should be the roots for the GC; on x86-64 it uses a conservative GC for this reason (on ARM they implemented the precise one, but seem to be losing significant performace due to register pressure).
In general 16 registers seems to be "just barely enough" most of the time, which translates to "super painful" the few times you could use more.
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Fine, if you don't perceive value, then you are not part of the target market for this product/project. Enjoy your current choice of hardware and software. Other people may see value where you do not however.
4 GB of RAM and 500 GB HDD sounds like a hand-me-down I'd get from my grandma, not a new cutting edge laptop. What exactly justifies that cost?
Thinkpad X61s with 2.5Gb RAM and 100Gb hard drive. Runs Kubuntu 15.04 alpha very responsively (with baloo working) and allows me to complete office/planning type tasks.
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Every non-programmer/IT person I know want a `numberpad`. It's really easier for them to type numbers and when they happen to use my laptop and have to type numbers they really struggle with the shift keys.
Shift keys? Which keyboard layout is this? I've used a few and always had 1-0 directly on keys. I personally find number pads infuriating; I just don't really get it. It seems like something of very limited application, useful for only those who spend hours per day inputting numbers solidly and not much else. What's the use case? It seems like that amount of manual data entry would be slowed down by error checking mu…
From what I see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout there are very few keyboard like that now. I'd go with a number pad myself if I had to use one of them. On the bright side, if the US keyboard had shifted numbers the keys !"£$%&/()=?^ won't be shifted and a programmer might actually be using them more than numbers.
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Every non-programmer/IT person I know want a `numberpad`. It's really easier for them to type numbers and when they happen to use my laptop and have to type numbers they really struggle with the shift keys.
Shift keys? Which keyboard layout is this? I've used a few and always had 1-0 directly on keys. I personally find number pads infuriating; I just don't really get it. It seems like something of very limited application, useful for only those who spend hours per day inputting numbers solidly and not much else. What's the use case? It seems like that amount of manual data entry would be slowed down by error checking mu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shift keys? Which keyboard layout is this? I've used a few and always had 1-0 directly on keys. I personally find number pads infuriating; I just don't really get it. It seems like something of very limited application, useful for only those who spend hours per day inputting numbers solidly and not much else. What's the use case? It seems like that amount of manual data entry would be slowed down by error checking mu…
The old Italian keyboard (last seen in the 80s) was like that. It was qzerty too. Numbers moved to the unshifted position and Z and W swapped place. From what I see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout there are very few keyboard like that now. I'd go with a number pad myself if I had to use one of them. On the bright side, if the US keyboard had shifted numbers the keys !"£$%&/()=?^ won't be shifted and a…
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how's the battery life? Being able to go long periods without a charger is really important to me. I have a friend who has a zenbook, was pretty unimpressed by the build quality, but that might have been a lower end model.
depends on the model, I'm sure. I've never had any problems with the battery life, but that's highly subjective to the way people use a laptop. I'm always spending a couple hours here and there at a coffee shop, but I carry my laptop in a messenger bag so having a charger nearby isn't a problem. Plug it in when I need to, don't bother if I don't. I'm always curious why people talk about needing battery life so often.…
At least the starbucks around my area don't have that many plugs either.
Another advantage of having such a long battery life is that I basically can go anywhere after work (where I do have a charger) and not worry about plugging it in at all until the next day. Also, not having to carry around my charger makes carrying around my laptop great.
It's definitely a priority thing, and also dependent on lifestyle. In college there were power outlets basically everywhere so I didn't have the issue, but ever since I've started working in various spots not having to look for the power outlet has been a net benefit.
You may also be interested in a project a number of us have been working called lowRISC, aiming to produce a fully open-source SoC in volume using the RISC-V instruction set architecture. http://www.lowrisc.org/ I'm giving a main track talk on it at FOSDEM next weekend: https://fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/lowrisc/ so say hi if you're there. My speaker interview gives more background on the project and our motivati…
I haven't looked at RISC-V much; a quick glance at the ISA spec makes me think it has 32 GPRs? That is nice to see, as with Power slowly fading and Sparc essentially dead, we are stuck with the somewhat more constrained x86-64 and ARM. SBCL, for example, uses 2 stacks in its precise GC, as it will use one stack for unboxed integers and calling out to C, and another for lisp objects, which should be the roots for the…
And the lowRISC project is looking into adding two tag bits with a focus on practical security for languages like C, but with the ability to use them for things like GC.
Largest nits I see about the RISC-V ISA is no support for integer math error checking aside from divide by zero (a New Jersey design), and per a slide set I found for the January workshop, the work in progress 64 bit VMM mode will only support 43 bits of address space, i.e. "only" 8 TiB, vs. e.g. the 256 TiB of x86-64. Which of course is rather a lot, but I find it uncomfortably close to the DRAM you can put on current systems with Intel CPUs; I've watched this game way too many time in my career.
Partially offtopic, but looking at the case of that laptop I wondered if I am the only one that slides them to the right to have the touchpad and the spacebar aligned with the central symmetry axis of my body? That means having 2/3 of the screen to the right of my eyes, which is a waste because I end up piling windows with important information to the left, for not having to tilt my head to the right. I believe that…
Yeah, I don't find the number pad at all useful, yet there it is on virtually all laptops. The last decent laptop that didn't have it was the Lenovo W530. But the latest version, the W540 has the number pad too. Sigh. I just want a halfway decent laptop with a 15in screen, without an optical drive or number pad. But paying Macbook Pro prices feels like a punch in the gut.
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Yeah, I don't find the number pad at all useful, yet there it is on virtually all laptops. The last decent laptop that didn't have it was the Lenovo W530. But the latest version, the W540 has the number pad too. Sigh. I just want a halfway decent laptop with a 15in screen, without an optical drive or number pad. But paying Macbook Pro prices feels like a punch in the gut.
Configuring the W540 you mentioned identically to the base model 15" RMBP ($2000) costs $1850. RMBP is ~ 1 lb lighter and .4" thinner, has a faster SSD, and gets about 3 hours more battery life. W540 has an optical drive, a removable battery, and a workstation graphics card. (Surprisingly, though, raw performance of that seems to be pretty similar to the Iris Pro 5200 in the RMBP, based on my minimal research.) In an…
In general, depending on what you want to give up, you can get a i7, 15.6in 1080p screen, 16GB RAM and SSD for a little over $1000. That's with a discrete graphics chip and not terribly good battery life, because it is a mid-range gaming laptop.
I've actually been looking at refurbished Macbook Pros too. Still thinking about it.