Recent Posts

5701

General Software Discussion / Re: How to prove which Firefox add-on is trying to access 128.127.110.10 ?

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2012, 08:43 AM »

Maybe what we need is a security auditing add-on to audit the installed add-ons...    

-IainB (July 06, 2012, 08:23 AM)

It would be too easy to get around. As it stands, the binary "salami chop" (love that!) method suggested by Carol and 4wd is still your best bet. Don't be surprised if it turns out not to be caused by an add-on however. I've seen some incredibly subtle and clever bugs that install in drive-by fashion if you so much as land on the wrong website. A few of them even got by fully updated antimalware products and weren't caught by them until much later. It's a jungle out there.

FWIW there used to be an old MacOS (not OSX) app called Conflict Catcher that diagnosed startup extension problems by doing the exact same thing Carol suggested, albeit in a semi-automated fashion. It would disable half your extensions and then reboot and ask if everything looked ok. It would then repeat the process in binary tree fashion until it found the culprit. It was an extremely useful and popular (i.e. widely bootlegged ) app. Almost every Mac I ever saw had a copy installed.

 

5702

General Software Discussion / Re: Unity Desktop (Ubuntu)

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2012, 08:14 AM »

HUD is probably the best thing Unity has going for it. That said, it looks almost exactly like Launchy and behaves very much like FARR in operation. Where it gains its power is in creating the appearance of being context aware. But that's not a great engineering achievement once you come up with an API and convince major software developers to incorporate it into their applications. Of course, with open software, somebody with sufficient resources like Ubuntu can simply put it in themselves, and then incorporate the customized app into their repositories. GPL specifically allows you to do that.

In the "old days" this used to be loosely referred to as "embedding hooks" in something. It's really nothing new. It's just implemented differently these days. Like much everything else when it comes to computers.

Old wine, new bottle, add a twist - and you're done! Thus what passes for technological "progress" is largely achieved.  

Which is one more reason why we need to get rid of software patents.

5703

General Software Discussion / Re: Unity Desktop (Ubuntu)

« Last post by 40hz on July 06, 2012, 03:50 AM »

^ As I said earlier: If you like this sort of thing, you're all for it. If you don't, you don't. 

5704

General Software Discussion / Re: Unity Desktop (Ubuntu)

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2012, 07:04 PM »

Canonical wants to experiment and they should. I don't understand what's wrong with it.

-mahesh2k (July 05, 2012, 03:41 PM)

There's nothing wrong with experimenting as long as you don't insist large portions of your user community (remember: Linux is supposed to be about community) become unwilling guinea pigs while you thrash around trying to figure out how to develop a tablet oriented OS for a piece of hardware that allegedly doesn't exist yet.

Where Canonical really wants to go is fairly obvious. They want a piece of branded hardware, and will probably introduce one within the next year. Once they have that, you can expect Ubuntu to drop support for regular desktop users. They'll keep their server because they are now offering their own cloud solutions. But Shuttleworth is firmly convinced the future lies in tablet devices so it's only a matter of time before Ubuntu shifts its efferts in that direction.

Apple got where it was today by customizing a borrowed OS core and building their own proprietary device to run it. Why can't Ubuntu do the same?

Apologies if I sound so cynical towards Ubuntu. It's only because I am.

 

5705

Living Room / Re: "You may lose your internet service Monday" ?

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2012, 12:33 PM »

@SB - Thx for posting that. I kinda forgot we were so close to the deadline. I'll be sending out a reminder along with the checkup weblink to all our clients today just in case my previous alerts were ignored or overlooked.
 

5706

General Software Discussion / Re: Unity Desktop (Ubuntu)

« Last post by 40hz on July 05, 2012, 12:22 PM »

I've given it a one month long active workout.

My experience is no different than what has been published in reviews too numerous to cite.

If you like this sort of thing, you're all for it. If you don't like tinker-toy desktop metaphors with a 60s era Fisher-Price color scheme (hello Windows 8?), you don't like it.

As you might have guessed, I don't like it, want it, or need it.

And to Renegade's earlier point about "not getting it" I think he doesn't give himself enough credit. I think he suspects he didn't get it because - despite assurances from Unity's creators and advocates -  there isn't really anything special to "get." Much like Gertrude Stein famously said about Oakland California: "There is no there there."

Unity isn't a breakthrough. Nor does it offer any real innovation (so far) to the user experience. It's just a different way of doing things you can already do (often better) with established desktop environments.

And being 'different' largely for the sake of being different has never been a compelling argument to me.
 

P.S. I find it ironic that something that has caused so much division in the Ubuntu user community was christened with the name Unity. Makes me wonder if somebody behind it has a truly warped sense of humor.
 

5707

Living Room / Re: Skrommel and DoCo sighting

« Last post by 40hz on July 03, 2012, 08:44 PM »

I use RSS extensively.

5708

Living Room / Re: FSF Spells out its concerns and recommendations regarding UEFI

« Last post by 40hz on July 03, 2012, 01:12 PM »

One more reason I have such high hopes for things like non-sellout Linux distros and the Rasberry Pi.



                   Have Pi - Will Travel

5709

Living Room / Re: Noisy PSU advice

« Last post by 40hz on July 03, 2012, 07:44 AM »

Sure it's the PSU fan? usually a system like that has a CPU-fan and a case-fan as well, so those could be the culprits too. You'll have to investigate by turning on the power while the case is open and you're watching/listening closely what's happening where.

-Ath (July 03, 2012, 01:28 AM)

You did say you opened the case and the noise was coming from the PSU. But Ath makes an excellent point. There are other fans in a computer case, and many times the case fans, or those smaller high-speed units on drive trays, CPU coolers, and graphics cards can also go bad. So as long as you're in there, it's not a bad idea to check them all.

be really careful blowing compressed air in a psu fan -- do NOT do it while the computer is running.
i destroyed a psu that way.

-mouser (July 03, 2012, 06:23 AM)

Agree 100%. Be very careful when blowing out dust. And don't use the concentrator tube that comes with the canned air. Stay back about 8 inches from the fan (with the machine of and unplugged) and do a series of short puffs rather than a long hard blast. Best to do it outside or someplace easy to clean since there may be a lot of dust in the unit.

Be careful not to breathe any of it in or get dust in your eyes while doing it. It's happened to all of us at least once. 

 

5710

Living Room / Re: Noisy PSU advice

« Last post by 40hz on July 02, 2012, 10:14 PM »

If some gentle dust blowing doesn't stop the noise there's a good likelihood the bearings in the fan are starting to go. Or something inside the PSU box has come loose and is brushing against the fan blades while they're rotating. Either way your PSU should be replaced. If the fan fails or its spin speed is slowed beyond a certain point, it won't be able to sufficiently cool the PSU and catastrophic failure could occur. And if your PSU is running hot due to insufficient cooling, the extra heat being generated could damage other components inside your computer even if it doesn't fail.

Can't offer any guidance on Seasonic's warranty service since I've never owned one of their units.

Luck!

5711

Living Room / FSF Spells out its concerns and recommendations regarding UEFI

« Last post by 40hz on July 02, 2012, 03:25 PM »

In the wake of Redhat/Fedora and Canonical/Ubuntu's recent attempt at reaching what some have politely called an "accommodation" with Microsoft's restricted boot initiative, the FSF has released a combination position paper/opinion piece on exactly what their issues are with what has been decided so far.

Especially interesting is the excerpt below where they address Canonical's decision to abandon the GRUB bootloader due to a misinterpretation of how GPL impacts (or more correctly - doesn't impact) Canonical's right keep their 'private key' private.

One telling point made is how Canonical made this interpretation and decision without seeking any input or guidance from the FSF. Which might be considered strange, unless you have noticed how Canonical seems bent on creating its own "separate peace" and distancing itself from the larger Linux community. Canonical has recently (in a grand display of poor manners) begun referring to itself as "the Ubuntu Operating System" with zero mention of it's underlying GNU/Linux base. Pretty ballsy and jive on Mark Shuttleworth's part IMHO. But that's Mr. Shuttleworth for you. That faux-humble laid-back arrogance has been his trademark from day one.

Anyway, here's what FSF had to say about that (emphasis added):

As with Fedora, on a system with Secure Boot properly implemented, Ubuntu users will be able to add their own keys, or Ubuntu's key.

Our main concern with the Ubuntu plan is that because they are afraid of falling out of compliance with GPLv3, they plan to drop GRUB 2 on Secure Boot systems, in favor of another bootloader with a different license that lacks GPLv3's protections for user freedom. Their stated concern is that someone might ship an Ubuntu Certified machine with Restricted Boot (where the user cannot disable it). In order to comply with GPLv3, Ubuntu thinks it would then have to divulge its private key so that users could sign and install modified software on the restricted system.

This fear is unfounded and based on a misunderstanding of GPLv3. We have not been able to come up with any scenario where Ubuntu would be forced to divulge a private signing key because a third-party computer manufacturer or distributor shipped Ubuntu on a Restricted Boot machine. In such situations, the computer distributor -- not Canonical or Ubuntu -- would be the one responsible for providing the information necessary for users to run modified versions of the software.

Furthermore, addressing the threat of Restricted Boot by weakening the license of the bootloader is backwards. With a weaker license, companies will now have a form of advance permission to obstruct the user's ability to run modified software. Rather than work to make sure this situation does not happen -- for example by enforcing the proper Secure Boot implementation they say they "strongly support in [their] own firmware guidelines" -- Ubuntu has chosen a path which explicitly allows Restricted Boot.

No representative from Canonical contacted the FSF about these issues prior to announcing the policy. This is unfortunate because the FSF, in addition to being the primary interpreter of the license in question, is the copyright holder of GRUB 2, the main piece of GPLv3-covered software at issue.

It is not too late to change. We urge Ubuntu and Canonical to reverse this decision, and we offer our help in working through any licensing concerns. We also hope that Ubuntu, like Fedora, will actively support users generating and using their own signing keys to run and share any versions of the software, and not require users to install a key from Canonical to get the full benefit of their operating system.

Take a moment to read the paper. Available online here or for PDF download here. It goes a long way towards dispelling some of the misinformed words and reporting thats swirling around this issue.

The better informed we all are, and the better we understand all sides of the argument, the less chance something will get slipped past us.

 

5712

Living Room / Re: Skrommel and DoCo sighting

« Last post by 40hz on July 02, 2012, 09:30 AM »

both panzer and you must be reading the same RSS feed at the same time..

• https://www.donation....msg292448#msg292448

-lanux128 (July 02, 2012, 07:27 AM)

Sure looks like it.

5713

Living Room / Skrommel and DoCo sighting

« Last post by 40hz on July 02, 2012, 05:03 AM »

Very complimentary article about Skrommel's 1 Hour Software and Donation Coder sighted over at the MakeUseOf website.

5 Programs To Customize The Appearance of Windows & Toolbars [Windows]
July 1, 2012 - By Craig Snyder

Even in the latest version of Windows, Microsoft manages to (probably intentionally) leave out many thoughtful customization preferences when it comes to personalizing your visual experience. I’m not the type of guy who goes nuts over features like Metro and Aero. Even so, certain enhancements provide levels of functionality that are past that of just, “Oh, this looks nice.”

1 Hour Software, a compilation by Skrommel over at DonationCoder, offers a lot of solutions to these possibilities that Windows has left out.
.
.
.
If you’re interested in more awesome, homebrewed applications like these, check out this post which outlines three of the headlining entries to DonationCoder.com’s NANY 2012 competition. All are lightweight and very purposeful, like the five listed here. If you’ve any questions or comments regarding any of these, just drop me a comment!

Congratulations Skrommel and Mouser! 

 

5714

Living Room / Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content

« Last post by 40hz on June 27, 2012, 07:06 AM »

If indeed?  That was from an interview with the man himself, with direct quotes at times.  And, he had a point, truthfully.  And he did his part- he wasn't a Luddite.  He just had valid concerns that I think have materialized.  We live in a world obsessed with instant gratification at no cost in critical thinking or focus of purpose and thought.  Technology has undeniable benefits.  But with that benefit comes drawbacks and a deeper long term cost that I don't think is adequately addressed or readily apparent.

HE SAYS THE CULPRIT in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate. In the book, Bradbury refers to televisions as “walls” and its actors as “family,” a truth evident to anyone who has heard a recap of network shows in which a fan refers to the characters by first name, as if they were relatives or friends.

Bread and circuses.

-wraith808 (June 23, 2012, 09:18 PM)

Definitely not a Luddite. Bradbury, like more than a few sci-fi authors on his generation, worried that a world similar to the one described in E.M. Foster's 1909 short story The Machine Stops was being brought into existence. Foster's story was one of Bradbury's favorites. Elements of it can be found in Fahrenheit 451 and most dystopian fiction of the 50s and 60s. (see: Logan's Run.) It was also "borrowed" wholesale by George Lucas (as is his wont) for the setting and most of the plot for his movie THX1138. At a little over 12k words, The Machine Stops is worth a read and available for download here.

excerpt here

For a moment Vashti felt lonely.

Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric
buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere--buttons to call for food for music, for
clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the
floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button
that produced literature, and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends.
The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.

Vashanti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes
burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like?
Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make
an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date?--say this day month.

To most of these questions she replied with irritation--a growing quality in that accelerated age. She said that
the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press of engagements. That
she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one--that four stars and three in the middle were like a man:
she doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her
lecture on Australian music.

The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience
stirred from their rooms. Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well,
and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of music in the pre Mongolian epoch, and went
on to describe the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote and prim¾val as were
the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the
musicians of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was
well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were
ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to
many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed.

The bed was not to her liking. It was too large, and she had a feeling for a small bed. Complaint was useless,
for beds were of the same dimension all over the world, and to have had an alternative size would have
involved vast alterations in the Machine. Vashti isolated herself--it was necessary, for neither day nor night
existed under the ground--and reviewed all that had happened since she had summoned the bed last. Ideas?
Scarcely any. Events--was Kuno's invitation an event?

By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages of litter--one book. This was the Book of
the Machine. In it were instructions against every possible contingency. If she was hot or cold or dyspeptic or
at a loss for a word, she went to the book, and it told her which button to press. The Central Committee
published it. In accordance with a growing habit, it was richly bound.

Sitting up in the bed, she took it reverently in her hands. She glanced round the glowing room as if some one
might be watching her. Then, half ashamed, half joyful, she murmured "O Machine!" and raised the volume to
her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual
performed, she turned to page 1367, which gave the times of the departure of the air-ships from the island in
the southern hemisphere, under whose soil she lived, to the island in the northern hemisphere, whereunder
lived her son.

She thought, "I have not the time

Not too far off from what we have right now. Foster even anticipated the emergence of platform fanbois.

5715

Living Room / Re: Odd cookie problem

« Last post by 40hz on June 26, 2012, 02:17 PM »

^I do. I removed it. Same result. Still drops login when you close browser.   

5716

Living Room / Re: Post Your Funny Videos Here [NSFW]

« Last post by 40hz on June 26, 2012, 06:15 AM »

An Apple Fanboy post being made on DC (realtime reaction):
http://www.liveleak....iew?i=a94_1340566754

-nosh (June 25, 2012, 05:22 AM)

Interesting. That's a LiveLeaks vid: That's what happens if a box of garbage falls into a volcano lake
Couldn't we dispose of all our garbage like this?

-IainB (June 25, 2012, 09:54 AM)

There was a company some time back that Inc. Magazine wrote up that was going to introduce a new type of incinerator. It used a superheated molten metal core. It supposedly incinerated just about anything put into it with virtually no residue or pollution since the burn was so complete. Wonder whatever happened to it...

5717

Living Room / Re: Odd cookie problem

« Last post by 40hz on June 26, 2012, 05:50 AM »

Sounds like you're getting a "session" or non-persistent type cookie which gets stored in RAM  rather to a text file. Close the browser and it's gone no matter what.

Why it's only happening on your laptop however is a puzzle. I have the same issue with cigarboxnation.com on my laptop (LinuxMint-64bit). That site stays logged in on every other PC I own. Ditto my iPhone. But not this laptop.

I just assumed it was a "Linux thing." Or possibly something between the site and the user agent my browser is reporting. Or a tweak I made to the FF config file. But now that I've seen you're having the same experience under Windows with three separate browsers, I'm getting curious again as to exactly what is happening here.

Anybody? Anybody?

5718

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt index (I think): how to fix?

« Last post by 40hz on June 26, 2012, 05:27 AM »

Then I read that updating the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers would fix my problem, and it sure seemed like it did!

-superboyac (June 25, 2012, 07:20 PM)

Yay!  

Driver updates. Don't you just love it when it's that easy?

P.S. I agree with Target. I'd do a scrub, re-partition, and reformat before I put it back in production too.

5719

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on June 26, 2012, 05:20 AM »

^Which board you should pick will depend on what you want to accomplish.

The Arundino is probably best suited for gadget and controller type projects. There's a huge hobbyist community in love with the thing. And for good reason. It's probably the best documented of all the tiny PCs because of that interest. A quick check of Amazon will point you to several books that are available for it. Make magazine does quite a few Arundino based projects, and there's lots more on the web.

If you're looking more for a small form factor general purpose PC, something like the PandaBoard is a better choice in that it can run most flavors of Windows or Linux. So anything that applies to those operating systems will apply to the board as well.

The RasberryPi is very much like the PandaBoard except it's more stripped down and less ready to go straight out of the box. However, that makes sense as it was designed to be a learning/experimenter's board. And now that it's shipping, a very active community seems to be developing around it. If they can get the manufacturing backlog straightened out I think it will eventually become as popular as the Arundino. From what I can see there's only one real book available for it called Beginning Rasberry Pi. It's only available as a Kindle edition (hmm...is this the shape of things to come?), but I suspect there will be other titles out shortly.

So...what's best?

Depends on what you want to do.

5720

Living Room / Re: Science News Roundup

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2012, 12:41 PM »

If they'ed quit trying to short-stroke human emotions maybe the population wouldn't be so screwed up half the time.

-Stoic Joker (June 21, 2012, 11:32 AM)

Maybe if they just short-stroked the population   and left emotions out of it, we'd all be better off. And possibly be left smiling a lot more too.

5721

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt index (I think): how to fix?

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2012, 12:34 PM »

Have you run the drive manufacturers diagnostic (usually a boot CD) on the disk to see what it finds/wants to fix?

-Stoic Joker (June 21, 2012, 11:42 AM)

Yup. What Stoic said. That's what you want to do.

Sounds like an intermittent controller issue may be the culprit. Something glitched and soiled the sheets. You'll want to check and see if there's updated firmware for that specific drive available from the manufacturer. Ditto for your mobo since the problem could have originated there rather than on the drive controller itself. Depending on the age there may be updated chipset drivers and BIOS updates that fix weird timing and related issues.

Once that's checked and (optionally) updated, I'd get a good backup of whatever you can get off that drive and then run the the most comprehensive and thorough set of diagnostics the manufacturer provides.

Be forewarned...on a 3TB drive, it's going to take a while.

Luck!

5722

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2012, 12:06 PM »

[Continuing the aside}

Blimey I had completely forgotten about Modular! A blast from the past - and yes it was a great Pascal-like language.

I do remember having fun with Forth - though it seems less like high level programming and more like a cross between a Mensa logic puzzle and assembly language!

-Carol Haynes (June 21, 2012, 11:57 AM)

Sorta. They did call it a mid-level language. And with good reason. FORTH's methodology is weird by today's standards. But for real-time controllers and things that interfaced with the real world you couldn't beat it. Especially with the limitations and clock speeds of the 8 and 16-bit hardware you had to work with back then. It screamed on a Zilog Z-80 chip. I used to run it (FigFORTH) on my C64. It was a lot easier than writing 6510 assembly via HesMon. You could program some pretty cool things for the SID music chip that way.

FORTH still has its supporters. And it's still used to this day. Last I heard there was a version of it you could run on an Arduino. My understanding is it's not a difficult environment to port. The core kernal is tiny. Most of FORTH is written in FORTH. And if something you wanted wasn't a part of the language, you could always add it yourself fairly easily. Much easier than trying to master an "everything plus the kitchen sink" framework like Net or Mono. Sleeker and much easier to understand too. That's one major reason FORTH became so popular for a while. You could engineer your own private FORTH-based language if you wanted to. ( Same went for Modula now that I think about it.)

5723

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2012, 11:56 AM »

Things have changed a lot since 1975. And one of the most notable changes is that the former 'rebels' are now doing their damnedest to become our new overlords.

-40hz (June 19, 2012, 08:00 AM)

Ummm... Apple was doing the same thing back then, i.e. Franklin Ace, Laser, and other clones.  They did it again in the 90s.  This is just part for the course for them... they never were truly rebels.

-wraith808 (June 21, 2012, 11:40 AM)

Excellent point although that was primarily Apple busting down on the clones for duplicating their ROM chips. Not reverse engineering (at least at first) either. They were reading out the chips and then reburning them IIRC. But Apple has gone way beyond that with their current legal arguments because they're now claiming ownership of paradigms and raw concepts - most of which weren't their inventions or discoveries to begin with.

And true, also that Jobs never really was. Woz maybe. But he got double-shuffled out of the picture once Jobs gathered a bunch of brilliant software and hardware people together to create the Macintosh - and then claimed the whole thing as his own personal invention.

What I find  amazing is that nobody ever really seriously called him out on that. And now, it's generally accepted "fact" that Steve Jobs created the Macintosh.

Love it! (not)  

5724

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2012, 11:47 AM »

Anyone remember OCCAM (programming language) - sounds like it might be useful again!

-Carol Haynes (June 21, 2012, 10:30 AM)

I do,I do!!!!

Nicholas Wirth's magnum opus. I never got my head completely around it. Probably because I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Modula-2 and Modula-3 are another story. I still thought that Modula was one of the finest general programming languages ever created. And the only one (other than FORTH) I was ever really comfortable using now that I think about it.

Now all we need is some Linux software to take advantage of that amount of horsepower!

There's quite a bit actually. A lot of Blender and other enthusiasts have built their own personal render farms for ray tracing, CGI, and 3D modeling. In the professional world it's a given to own a render farm. A Google search will spot you plenty of choices. One of my clients uses a commercial package called Deadline running under CentOS to handle their rendering admin, mainly because it has out-of-box support for over 20 of the big 3D apps such as Maya, Blender, 3ds MAX, etc. You can get a free 2-node copy here if you're curious or have an immediate use for this sort of thing. (I certainly don't. <*grin*> ) Deadline gets a little expensive once you go beyond that however. There's also equivalent freebies and other open source packages (and how-tos) out there if you look for them.

 

5725

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2012, 07:55 AM »

Just to very briefly risk risk going semi-off topic, there's two interesting articles over on the Phoronix website detailing the construction of a 12-core and a 96-core ARM cluster using inexpensive Pandaboard singleboard computers and Ubuntu. I think it serves as real world proof of just how much can be done with these little computers and an open operating system. Like famous burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee allegedly said: "It ain't how much you got. It's how you use it."

And lest we be too jaded, the 96-core cluster not only draws a relatively paltry 200 watts for the entire works - but the techno-wonks responsible for it decided to run it off a solar panel. Small surprise it's MIT where this is all happening, right?

Note: Using an industrial trashcan as the server rack was inspired AFAIC.   (The 12-core used a wooden dish drying rack.)

Last week I shared results from the Phoronix 12-core ARM Linux mini cluster that was constructed out of six PandaBoard ES development boards. Over the weekend, a 96-core ARM cluster succeeded this build. While packing nearly 100 cores and running Ubuntu Linux, the power consumption was just a bit more than 200 Watts. This array of nearly 100 processor cores was even powered up by a solar panel.

This past weekend I was out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where this build took place. A massive ARM build out has been in the plans for a few months and to even get it running off a solar panel. The build was a success and by Sunday, the goals were realized.

Here's the links for the 12-core and 96-core articles if anybody's interested.

So... is Linux "just a hobby" as another forum thread recently asked?