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More Groaning (Jun 10 2009)
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Author | Message |
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Matt Lebofsky Send message Joined: 1 Mar 99 Posts: 1444 Credit: 957,058 RAC: 0 |
Playing around installing the new Fedora Core on my desktop today. So far so good. It seems any time anybody in any context mentions a specific flavor of linux this inspires discussion, usually in an incredulous tone, about why in god's name would you even consider using version x instead of version y, etc. I understand the pros and cons, and we're not going to change anytime soon, if ever. Personally I'm waiting for the day when operating systems disappear and we can all get back to work. Still haven't gotten any of the Intel systems up and running for various reasons. I'm abandoning all of them for now. Very frustrating - every time I solve one problem another takes its place. And the inability to collect data at Arecibo continues - the problem has been narrowed down to the (very old) EDT card working on a newer OS. The good folks atEDT are working on it (even though they don't even sell this card anymore, I don't think...). - Matt -- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person -- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude |
Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0 |
. . . Thanks for the Updates Matt - it's appreciated Sir btw - off:topic - ask Eric Korpela re: FB request ;) BOINC Wiki . . . Science Status Page . . . |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30935 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
Thanks for the update. As to O/S everyone touts what they run. I don't quite see how to get rid of the file clerk completely so I suspect there will always be an O/S. Might be remote, but it will be there. |
Cosmic_Ocean Send message Joined: 23 Dec 00 Posts: 3027 Credit: 13,516,867 RAC: 13 |
Why can't we go back to the good ol'e days of the applications accessing the hardware directly? :p It was much more efficient to just get rid of the middleman (kernel). Kidding. Having the middleman keeps a total system lockup from happening as often. Much easier to just kill a problem process and leave the others running. Linux laptop: record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up) |
Geek@Play Send message Joined: 31 Jul 01 Posts: 2467 Credit: 86,146,931 RAC: 0 |
The current science apps are equivilant to what used to be called the "command line" versions in seti classic. Boinc's function is to perform the network communications to the seti servers and schedule the work units to be crunched and maintain your cache setting. In seti classic third party software performed the same functions as boinc but boinc is much more capable than what was available for classic. Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....Boinc.... |
DJStarfox Send message Joined: 23 May 01 Posts: 1066 Credit: 1,226,053 RAC: 2 |
Matt, I couldn't get Fedora 11 installed. It would crash after bootloader setup. I did install the Beta version and upgraded to the release version, however. I first learned Linux on RedHat 8.0, so Fedora is sort of my "home base" product. BTW, when was the last time the science database had its statistics updated? Some RDBMS systems can give really bad performance (but the explain plan will look good) if the stats are out of date. |
Tom Philippart Send message Joined: 29 May 06 Posts: 23 Credit: 949,840 RAC: 0 |
Very frustrating - every time I solve one problem another takes its place. This pretty much summarizes the art of using and working with computers and ... life. You'll never stop learning and problem solving is imo the most important skill you have to learn. |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30935 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
Why can't we go back to the good ol'e days of the applications accessing the hardware directly? :p It was much more efficient to just get rid of the middleman (kernel). Heck even the IBM1130 I used had "Monitor" as an O/S. Of course if you didn't have the disk pac then it didn't. |
Dena Wiltsie Send message Joined: 19 Apr 01 Posts: 1628 Credit: 24,230,968 RAC: 26 |
Yea, but it only went up to 01E0 in memory. you could list the whole thing on a few pages of paper. Of corse if you used one of the other disk routines, it went a little higher. IBM 1130 |
1mp0£173 Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 8423 Credit: 356,897 RAC: 0 |
These young kids today with their gigabytes of RAM don't know what real computing is like. You want graphics? Send it to the plotter! Those were the days.... |
Aurora Borealis Send message Joined: 14 Jan 01 Posts: 3075 Credit: 5,631,463 RAC: 0 |
Not to mention the fun of dropping the stack of punch card as you prepare to load your latest program. |
1mp0£173 Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 8423 Credit: 356,897 RAC: 0 |
Actually, the deck you wanted to be careful of was the assembler. If you dropped your source deck you could read the cards and re-sort them. Object decks could be recreated by reassembling. |
Fred W Send message Joined: 13 Jun 99 Posts: 2524 Credit: 11,954,210 RAC: 0 |
Plotter??? You were a bit advanced weren't you? The first "Word Processing" app I worked with used "dot" commands embedded in the text for formatting and I had to write the RS232 driver (in assembler) to create graphics with a mangled "!" character on a Qume daisy-wheel printer - we mangled that character because the constant battering flattened the plastic full-stop character but the spot on the exclamation mark was brass to provide registration of the position of the daisy-wheel as it spun. Outputting circles on that printer taught me what aspect ratio meant. F. |
1mp0£173 Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 8423 Credit: 356,897 RAC: 0 |
Nothing as advanced as a daisy-wheel on the 1620. It used what looked very much like a standard electric typewriter. We used it for all of our IO for the first year, and it tended to shed hammers. We were all pretty good at replacing them. |
Fred W Send message Joined: 13 Jun 99 Posts: 2524 Credit: 11,954,210 RAC: 0 |
Plotter??? You were a bit advanced weren't you? The first "Word Processing" app I worked with used "dot" commands embedded in the text for formatting and I had to write the RS232 driver (in assembler) to create graphics with a mangled "!" character on a Qume daisy-wheel printer - we mangled that character because the constant battering flattened the plastic full-stop character but the spot on the exclamation mark was brass to provide registration of the position of the daisy-wheel as it spun. Outputting circles on that printer taught me what aspect ratio meant. Yes. Standard output was on a matrix printer (hence the need for me to write the driver), but I was trying to sell the idea of "Word Processing" for commercial technical specifications that were to be sent to potential suppliers for contractual purposes. This was to get around physical "cut-and-paste" using paper and cow-gum followed by multiple cycles through the typing pool. F. |
1mp0£173 Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 8423 Credit: 356,897 RAC: 0 |
Plotter??? You were a bit advanced weren't you? The first "Word Processing" app I worked with used "dot" commands embedded in the text for formatting and I had to write the RS232 driver (in assembler) to create graphics with a mangled "!" character on a Qume daisy-wheel printer - we mangled that character because the constant battering flattened the plastic full-stop character but the spot on the exclamation mark was brass to provide registration of the position of the daisy-wheel as it spun. Outputting circles on that printer taught me what aspect ratio meant. We aren't talking about the same computer. Dot-matrix printers were developed around 1970. The IBM 1620 was developed in 1959. |
Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0 |
I worked at a place where we got quite nifty at using a card punch which didn't have a keyboard - instead you had to remember the hole combinations. Colleagues checked each other's cards. We found we could fix mistakes by placing a piece of chad in the hole and rubbing it in with a pencil. This was fine until the card reader on the mainframe was changed and decided to knock out all the loose pieces of chad. |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30935 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
The original dimpled chad! |
RandyC Send message Joined: 20 Oct 99 Posts: 714 Credit: 1,704,345 RAC: 0 |
Ya know they made little pieces of opaque tape that you could put over the holes in error... |
Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0 |
We only found this hi-tech solution later... |
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