Barely half a year after Blu-ray won the format war we're now being told that Pioneer is working on the next big thing, and when we say big, we really do mean it. The Japanese company has announced that it has successfully created a 400GB optical disc, similar in construction to Blu-ray.
The new discs aren't really designed for movie storage -- at least not for domestic use -- and if they were to end up being used in such a way they wouldn't play in existing machines anyway. But this new system is closely related to Blu-ray, as each of the discs' 16 layers can contain 25GB of data, the same as a single-layer Blu-ray disc.
This massive increase in storage has been made possible by better laser optics and vastly improved error correction. In order to read data through 16 layers you have to minimise the amount of 'crosstalk' between each layer, as well as have sophisticated electronics that can differentiate between signal and noise. The more layers you have, the harder this becomes, which was one of the things that prevented the 51GB HD DVD from reaching the market -- and possibly helped kill the format.
It's unclear at the moment what practical uses these discs will have, because they're designed as just read-only at the moment. We could see them being useful for TV companies and possibly even cinemas, which could use them to store movies for digital projection. If Pioneer managed to make consumer burners capable of creating these discs, it would be brilliant as a storage and backup medium, but with writable Blu-ray discs costing a small fortune, we have doubts it would be affordable.
It's possible that the Xbox 7530 and the PlayStation 2353 will use this system to provide insanely complex games in the future. With 400GB you'd easily have enough room to create the most graphically intense gaming experience known to man. Or record every episode of Big Brother ever, for repeat viewing from all the different cameras. Now there's a thought. –Ian Morris
EA Games donates SimCity toOne Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative
Electronic Arts has announced its plans to donate its original SimCity game to each computer in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative.
OLPC, for those who are unaware, is a non-profit humanitarian effort to design, manufacture and distribute inexpensive laptops, with the aim of giving every child in the world access to modern education. This initiative has been kick started by Nicholas Negroponte.
Now that EA is offering its SimCity game on each of these OLPC laptops, the entertainment company is hoping to nurture OLPC users when it comes to developing their decision-making skills and honing their creativity.
About EA’s SimCity:
In SimCity, the player takes on the role of mayor of a new municipality, and he/she will be responsible for building and maintaining a place where citizens can work and live happily. Doing so requires laying out essentials such as housing, transport links, schools, factories and shops. The job also requires an ability to choose wisely — for example, some power sources pollute, while others do not but are more expensive. Players must also be financially savvy — raising taxes enough to guarantee an income that can be allocated to public services such as policing and road repair, but not so high that business growth is hampered or that citizens revolt.
The mayor must always be prepared for emergency situations as well, as earthquakes, floods and fires can wreak havoc on the town and require an immediate response so that fallout can be contained.
It is interesting to know that the idea to connect SimCity with OLPC came from Internet pioneer, activist and OLPC advisor John Gilmore who knew the game’s history and recognized its potential relevance to the non-profit project.
According to Steve Seabolt, vice president of global brand development, The Sims Label, “SimCity is entertainment that’s unintentionally educational. Players learn to use limited resources to build and customize their cities. There are choices and consequences, but in the end, it’s a creativity tool that’s only limited by the player’s imagination. “The game should prove to be an incredibly effective way of making the laptop relevant, engaging, and fun, particularly for first time players. We are thrilled to be making this contribution to OLPC to help meet their goal of educating the children of the world.”
OLPC will begin distributing laptops in countries like Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Haiti, Cambodia and India by the end of 2007. It certainly is a great idea to offer EA’s SimCity, as it has the capacity to instill, as mentioned before, decision-making skills and other useful qualities in young children.
OLPC, for those who are unaware, is a non-profit humanitarian effort to design, manufacture and distribute inexpensive laptops, with the aim of giving every child in the world access to modern education. This initiative has been kick started by Nicholas Negroponte.
Now that EA is offering its SimCity game on each of these OLPC laptops, the entertainment company is hoping to nurture OLPC users when it comes to developing their decision-making skills and honing their creativity.
About EA’s SimCity:
In SimCity, the player takes on the role of mayor of a new municipality, and he/she will be responsible for building and maintaining a place where citizens can work and live happily. Doing so requires laying out essentials such as housing, transport links, schools, factories and shops. The job also requires an ability to choose wisely — for example, some power sources pollute, while others do not but are more expensive. Players must also be financially savvy — raising taxes enough to guarantee an income that can be allocated to public services such as policing and road repair, but not so high that business growth is hampered or that citizens revolt.
The mayor must always be prepared for emergency situations as well, as earthquakes, floods and fires can wreak havoc on the town and require an immediate response so that fallout can be contained.
It is interesting to know that the idea to connect SimCity with OLPC came from Internet pioneer, activist and OLPC advisor John Gilmore who knew the game’s history and recognized its potential relevance to the non-profit project.
According to Steve Seabolt, vice president of global brand development, The Sims Label, “SimCity is entertainment that’s unintentionally educational. Players learn to use limited resources to build and customize their cities. There are choices and consequences, but in the end, it’s a creativity tool that’s only limited by the player’s imagination. “The game should prove to be an incredibly effective way of making the laptop relevant, engaging, and fun, particularly for first time players. We are thrilled to be making this contribution to OLPC to help meet their goal of educating the children of the world.”
OLPC will begin distributing laptops in countries like Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Haiti, Cambodia and India by the end of 2007. It certainly is a great idea to offer EA’s SimCity, as it has the capacity to instill, as mentioned before, decision-making skills and other useful qualities in young children.
One Laptop per Child
The $100 Laptop or Children's Machine, is an inexpensive laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world,to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to "explore, experiment and express themselves" (constructionist learning). The laptop is developed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) social welfare organization, and manufactured by the Taiwanese computer company, Quanta Computer.
The laptops can be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. Pricing is currently set to start at US$188 and the goal is to reach the $100 mark in 2008. Approximately 500 developer boards (Alpha-1) were distributed in mid-2006; 875 working prototypes (Beta 1) were delivered in late 2006; 2400 Beta-2 machines were distributed at the end of February 2007;full-scale production started November 6, 2007. Quanta Computer, the project's contract manufacturer, said in February 2007 that it had confirmed orders for one million units. It indicated it could ship five million to ten million units that year because seven nations have committed to buy the XO-1 for their schoolchildren: Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, and Uruguay.Quanta plans to offer machines very similar to the XO machine on the open market.
The rugged, low-power computers contain flash memory instead of a hard drive and use Linux as their operating system.Mobile ad-hoc networking is used to allow many machines to share Internet access from one connection.
The OLPC project had stated that a consumer version of the XO laptop is not planned.However, the project established in 2007 the laptopgiving.org website for outright donations and for a "Give 1 Get 1" offer valid (but only to the United States, its territories, and Canadian addresses) from November 12, 2007 until December 31, 2007. It has been rumored that it is planning to put a modified version of Windows XP into their newer laptops.
The laptop falls into the newly-defined category of Netbooks.
The XO-1 is designed to be low-cost, small, durable, and efficient. It is shipped with a slimmed-down version of Fedora GNU/Linux and a GUI called Sugar that is intended to help young children collaborate. The XO-1 includes a video camera, a microphone, long-range Wi-Fi, and a hybrid stylus/touch pad. Human power is planned, allowing operation far from commercial sources of power.
Mary Lou Jepsen has listed the design goals of the device as follows:
minimal power consumption, with a design target of 2–3 W total power consumption
minimal production cost, with a target of US$100 per laptop for production runs of millions of units
a "cool" look, implying innovative styling in its physical appearance
e-book functionality with extremely low power consumption
open source and free software provided with the laptop
Various use models had been explored by OLPC with the help of Design Continuum and Fuseproject, including: laptop, e-book, theatre, simulation, tote, and tablet architectures. The current design, by Fuseproject, uses a transformer hinge to morph between laptop, e-book, and router modes.
The hardware specifications as of November 2007 are:
CPU: 433 MHz AMD Geode LX-700 at 0.8 watts, with integrated graphics controller
1200×900 7.5 inch diagonal LCD (200 dpi) that uses 0.1 to 1.0 W depending on mode. The two modes are:
Reflective (backlight off) monochrome mode for low-power use in sunlight. This mode provides very sharp images for high-quality text.
Backlit color mode, with an effective 800×600 resolution that is asymmetrically reduced in complicated ways. See below for details.
256 MB of Dual (DDR266) 133 MHz DRAM (in 2006 the specification called for only 128 MB of RAM)
1024 kB (1 MB) flash ROM with open-source Open Firmware
1024 MB of SLC NAND flash memory (in 2006 the specifications called for only 512 MB of flash memory)
Internal SD card slot
Wireless networking using an “Extended Range” 802.11b/g and 802.11s (mesh) Marvell 8388 wireless chip, chosen due to its ability to autonomously forward packets in the mesh even if the CPU is powered off. When connected in a mesh, it is run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power consumption. Despite the wireless chip's minimalism, it supports WPA. An ARM processor is included.
Dual adjustable antennas for diversity reception.
Water-resistant membrane keyboard, customized to the locale in which it will be distributed. The multiplication and division symbols are included. The keyboard is designed for the small hands of children.
Five-key cursor-control pad; four directional keys plus Enter
Four "Game Buttons" (functionally PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End)
Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input
Built-in color camera, to the right of the display, VGA resolution (640×480)
Built-in stereo speakers
Built-in microphone
Audio based on the AC97 codec, with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in
3 external USB 2.0 ports.
Power sources:
DC input, ±11–18 V, maximum 15 W power draw
5-cell rechargeable NiMH battery pack, 3000 mAh minimum 3050 mAh typical 80% usable, charge at 0…45°C
2-cell rechargeable LiFePO4 battery pack, 2800 mAh minimum 2900 mAh typical 100% usable, charge at 0…60°C
4-cell rechargeable LiFePO4 battery pack, 3100 mAh minimum 3150 mAh typical 100% usable, charge at -10…50°C
External manual power options include a pull-string generator designed by Potenco
Intentionally omitted features
One of the first beta test 1 units.In keeping with its goals of robustness and low power consumption, the design of the laptop intentionally omits all motor-driven moving parts; it has no hard drive, no optical (CD/DVD) media, no floppy drives and no fans. An ATA interface is unnecessary due to the lack of hard drive. There is also no PC card slot, although an SD slot is available, as well as USB ports.
A built-in hand-crank generator, making it self-powered equipment, was part of the original design, but Negroponte stated at a 2006 LinuxWorld talk that it was no longer integrated into the laptop itself, but that a similar device could someday be optionally available as a hand- or foot-operated generator built into a separate power unit.
How to access internet on Linux using BSNL WLL phone
Connect the usb modem and type
sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x15eb product=0x0001
To make it happen everytime the system boots, add the following line to the file /etc/modules
usbserial vendor=0x15eb product=0x0001
After these steps, the usb device would have been detected.
Step 2: (To edit wvdial configuration file)
edit the /etc/wvdial.conf to add the following lines [ sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf ]
[Dialer Defaults]
Inherits = Modem0
Init1 = ATZ
Init3 = at+crm=1;+cmux=1;+cps=33;+cta=0
Stupid Mode = 1
Phone = #777
Username =your_telephone_number_including_STD_code_without_zero
Password =last_four_digits_of_phone_number
[Modem0]
Init3 = ATM0
Init1 = ATZ
SetVolume = 0
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 460800
FlowControl = CRTSCTS
Dial Command = ATDT
Step 3: (Connect)
Type wvdial to connect to internet
sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x15eb product=0x0001
To make it happen everytime the system boots, add the following line to the file /etc/modules
usbserial vendor=0x15eb product=0x0001
After these steps, the usb device would have been detected.
Step 2: (To edit wvdial configuration file)
edit the /etc/wvdial.conf to add the following lines [ sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf ]
[Dialer Defaults]
Inherits = Modem0
Init1 = ATZ
Init3 = at+crm=1;+cmux=1;+cps=33;+cta=0
Stupid Mode = 1
Phone = #777
Username =your_telephone_number_including_STD_code_without_zero
Password =last_four_digits_of_phone_number
[Modem0]
Init3 = ATM0
Init1 = ATZ
SetVolume = 0
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 460800
FlowControl = CRTSCTS
Dial Command = ATDT
Step 3: (Connect)
Type wvdial to connect to internet
Three Ways To Access Linux Partitions (ext2/ext3) From Windows On Dual-Boot Systems
If you have a dual-boot Windows/Linux system, you probably know this problem: you can access files from your Windows installation while you are in Linux, but not the other way round. Thereare three ways by which you can access your Linux partitions (with ext2 or ext3 filesystem) from within Windows
1) Explore2fs
In Windows, open a browser and go to http://www.chrysocome.net/explore2fs. Download the latest explore2fs zip file...
2) DiskInternals Linux Reader
Go to http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader and download and install the DiskInternals Linux Reader.
After the installation, the Linux Reader starts automatically and scans your hard drive for Linux partitions
Afterwards, you can find your Windows and Linux partitions in the Linux Reader (which looks like the Windows Explorer):
Now you can browse your Linux partitions:
To copy a file/directory from a Linux partition to your Windows partition, right-click on the file/directory and select Save: Then select the folder on your Windows partition where you want to store the file/directory
3) Ext2 Installable File System For Windows
The Ext2 Installable File System For Windows (which supports ext2 and ext3!) can be downloaded from http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html. During the installation you will be asked to assign a drive letter to your Linux partitions (e.g. L:); you don't need to assign a drive letter to your swap partition.After the installation, you can find your Linux partition(s) in the normal Windows Explorer (under the drive letter that you assigned to it during the installation).You can now browse and use your Linux partition(s) like a normal Windows partition. As mentioned in the introduction of this article, the Ext2 Installable File System For Windows supports read and write operations on the Linux partitions. In order to test if the write support really works, we can try to create an empty folder on a Linux partition. Right-click on an empty area on the Linux partition and select New > Folder.
1) Explore2fs
In Windows, open a browser and go to http://www.chrysocome.net/explore2fs. Download the latest explore2fs zip file...
2) DiskInternals Linux Reader
Go to http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader and download and install the DiskInternals Linux Reader.
After the installation, the Linux Reader starts automatically and scans your hard drive for Linux partitions
Afterwards, you can find your Windows and Linux partitions in the Linux Reader (which looks like the Windows Explorer):
Now you can browse your Linux partitions:
To copy a file/directory from a Linux partition to your Windows partition, right-click on the file/directory and select Save: Then select the folder on your Windows partition where you want to store the file/directory
3) Ext2 Installable File System For Windows
The Ext2 Installable File System For Windows (which supports ext2 and ext3!) can be downloaded from http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html. During the installation you will be asked to assign a drive letter to your Linux partitions (e.g. L:); you don't need to assign a drive letter to your swap partition.After the installation, you can find your Linux partition(s) in the normal Windows Explorer (under the drive letter that you assigned to it during the installation).You can now browse and use your Linux partition(s) like a normal Windows partition. As mentioned in the introduction of this article, the Ext2 Installable File System For Windows supports read and write operations on the Linux partitions. In order to test if the write support really works, we can try to create an empty folder on a Linux partition. Right-click on an empty area on the Linux partition and select New > Folder.
Linux on Hollywood [Hollywood Movies which used Linux for Graphic rendering ]
Linux in Hollywood
For Star Wars: Episode II, Linux made Yoda a light saber-wielding action figure. In Lord of the Rings 2, waves of Orcs attacking the colossal fortress at Helm's Deep are not thousands of human extras, but digital actors created using Linux. To consumers, Linux may rank third after Windows and Macintosh, but Linux dominates motion pictures more than anyone but studio insiders may realize. It has been used to produce more than 30 blockbuster films, including Lord of the Rings, Star Wars: Episode II, Harry Potter, Shrek, and Titanic.
In short, the big news in Hollywood about Linux is it is no longer big news. Linux has won not only renderfarm servers, but the artist desktops of the top studios. It's hard to find a large studio that does not rely upon Linux as its primary animation and special effects OS, and many smaller film studios have adopted Linux, too.
At the software level, studios are using Linux versions of some of the leading commercial applications for 3D animation, compositing, special effects, and rendering — Alias Maya, Apple Shake, and Pixar RenderMan. Internally, the major studios have ported millions of lines of proprietary code to Linux and are creating their new programs in Linux.
Humble Beginnings
Linux got its commercial boost as a platform to serve web pages. During the Internet boom Linux captured a third of the ISP server market on its effectiveness powering Apache web servers. What Internet companies like about Linux servers is they are fast and cheap. Movie studio technologists saw the parallel between a rack of Apache servers outputting web pages and a rack of renderfarm servers outputting movie frames. It begged the question: could Linux make movies faster and cheaper?
Linux got its big Hollywood break in 1997 when Digital Domain (D2) used Linux to render the special effects for Titanic. D2 has now used Linux for more than two dozen motion pictures, including best visual effects Academy Award winners Titanic and What Dreams May Come.
Before taking the plunge (so to speak) with Titanic, effects studio Digital Domain had proven that Linux could coexist with its existing SGI renderfarm in tests on Dante's Peak. Being able to transition smoothly from UNIX on SGI was key to the adoption of Linux.
Since then, Linux renderfarm technology has matured to the point a studio such as Sony can install a hundred Linux Intel renderfarm servers and have them up and running in one hour. Linux machines come from the manufacturer (such as HP or IBM or Dell) with software preloaded to each studio's specification.
Linux on the Graphics Desktop
Making Linux a success on servers and renderfarms was simple compared to the next step — the desktop.
The chief obstacle: graphics drivers. Linux graphics performance was terrible, much slower than other operating systems. Linux lacked the proprietary accelerated 3D graphics drivers available on SGI workstations. Breakthroughs by nVidia and other PC game card manufacturers had made graphics performance on Windows stellar. Microsoft Windows seemed poised to take over Hollywood.
When large studios tried converting to Windows it was much harder than expected. Rewriting millions of lines of internal UNIX code to run on Windows would take forever.
Meanwhile, nVidia created a new graphics driver for Linux, using the same high-performance code in both its Windows and Linux versions (and now FreeBSD, too). Linux went from having the worst graphics performance to the best. In addition to nVidia, many PC graphics card manufacturers began offering high-performance Linux drivers.
So what did the availability of high-performance graphics cards for Linux mean in the working world of ILM? “More than 350 Linux boxes were deployed during Episode II,” says ILM production engineering manager Ken Beyer. Six hundred Linux desktops will be used for Star Wars: Episode III to be released summer 2005.
Linux Speed
DreamWorks' Shrek, released in 2001, was the first blockbuster to be both authored and rendered using Linux. In fact, DreamWorks SKG did more than convert their existing studios in Palo Alto and Glendale. They built a second Linux production pipeline to double their Glendale capacity. “For production of Sinbad every workstation and the entire renderfarm was Linux,” notes DreamWorks head of animation technology Ed Leonard.
DreamWorks created a proprietary plug-in for Maya called Calypso to animate oceans for Sinbad.
Back at ILM, sequence supervisor Robert Weaver noticed a tremendous performance boost upgrading from RISC workstations to Linux PCs during Star Wars: Episode II. “The old system was so slow that the clones firing lasers appear to be throwing javelins,” says Weaver. “We've seen about a 5x speed improvement in Linux. I'd say Linux is one of the most successful efforts we've had. I can't say enough good things about it. It is intuitive, incredibly stable, and we can get stuff fixed at a moment's notice.”
DreamWorks' Ed Leonard says the performance of Linux-based machines makes artists more productive. “To dramatically reduce costs was one of the big motivating factors in moving animators to Linux,” says Leonard. “But it is our animators' productivity that really counts.”
The transition at Weta Digital to Linux occurred during production on Lord of the Rings. Weta Digital used software called Massive to create the hordes of digital Orcs in Lord of the Rings 2. “Autonomous characters could only be done in a limited way before,” says Massive developer Stephen Regelous. “There's no way you can animate a hundred thousand characters in any other software in a reasonable amount of time,” says Regelous. “Massive runs twice as fast on Linux as it does on Windows.”
Why Open Source Rocks Hollywood
It seems ironic that Linux dominates at studios known for building secret proprietary technology to gain competitive advantage. What's happened is Hollywood has recognized that having a standard open platform to develop upon enables them to dedicate more of their resources to creating their secret sauce, the technology that sets them apart as a studio.
Contrary to common sense, to build the best secret proprietary software you need an open-source platform underneath it. The reason is that proprietary software can require tweaks to the operating system itself that no proprietary operating system vendor would be interested in implementing. Moreover, motion picture production is a very time-sensitive business. A problem in the operating system can't be allowed to hold up production. With open source, studios can throw programmers at anything, whether at the software or OS level.
CinePaint is an open-source deep paint and image retouching program available for free to anyone at www.cinepaint.org. CinePaint handles standard motion picture image formats such as Kodak Cineon as shown here and ILM OpenEXR.
Some studios have more than a hundred Linux programmers, normally working on internal proprietary software. Although not inclined to do so because of the expense, in an emergency a studio can re-task a small army of Linux programmers. Linux companies supporting the studios are often tiny by comparison. Studio technologists are bemused by Linux vendors trying to impress them with their “large engineering staff” of five or 10 programmers.
Top Software Vendors Join Linux
Of course, not all motion picture CG is done on proprietary software. Commercial software packages have a long history and vital role in motion picture production. When DreamWorks/PDI produced Shrek on a Linux platform, it was done using internally developed software. Little commercial software for making movies was available for Linux then.
Now, three of the most popular 3D animation drawing packages are available in Linux versions: SideFx Houdini (Linux in 1999), Alias Maya (Linux in 2001), and SoftImage (Linux in 2001). The Linux conversion touched off an unusual amount of software upgrade activity at the major studios, which will often stick with an older version indefinitely as long as it works. When ILM switched to Linux it meant upgrading all of the studio's old copies of SGI-based SoftImage software to Linux all at once.
An irony of the migration of software to Linux is that Apple and Pixar became leading suppliers of Linux software. The most popular motion picture compositing software — Apple Shake (Linux in 2000) — and the most popular renderer — Pixar RenderMan (Linux in 1999) — are both sold by companies headed by Steve Jobs. Jobs hasn't made any pro-Linux statements regarding the future of his products (and recently Apple dropped the price of the Apple version of Shake so much that the Apple computer to run it seemed free). How the Mac/Linux equation will play out remains a concern for studios intent on controlling their destiny by staying with an open-source operating system rather than beholden to a proprietary third-party platform.
The Next Open-Source Platform?
Another irony of Linux software proliferation is that, unlike Linux itself, only one popular motion picture production tool is open source. Will more open-source software applications eventually gain popularity as well? As the official (but unpaid) project manager of the most popular open-source motion picture software application — CinePaint — I have a front row seat to observe how that question plays out.
CinePaint is an image paint and retouching program with features similar to Photoshop. Like Linux, it is open source and anyone can download it for free. The checkered history of its development includes high hopes, bitter disappointment, abandonment, and resurrection.
CinePaint was based on a software project called Film Gimp, launched in 1998 to meet the practical requirement for a deep paint package for Linux. Deep paint, with more than 8 bits per channel of color depth, is necessary to support the higher dynamic range of film. Could the Hollywood market support a commercial deep paint tool tailored to motion picture production? Considering the small market niche, studio technologists didn't think so.
Hollywood came up with a novel solution. What if the popular Linux open-source GIMP program was enhanced for motion picture work? Although the industry couldn't justify developing a deep paint program from scratch, it could support a few open-source programmers to make a deep GIMP. Starting in 1998, technology company Silicon Grail (later acquired by Apple) and movie studio Rhythm & Hues footed the bill to enhance GIMP to become Film Gimp. The sponsors intended Film Gimp to become GIMP 2.0 in 2000, but that was not to be.
Linux anarchist-style GNU programmers and deadline-driven capitalist studio executives didn't mix well. The Film Gimp project was shelved in 2000, seemingly forgotten. As part of a story I wrote about Rhythm & Hues in 2002, I revealed that Film Gimp was still in use there and had been used on Harry Potter and many other films. It was even available for download for free by anyone who wanted it. Studios seemed to want it.
Film Gimp was subsequently used by Rhythm & Hues for Scooby-Doo, Dr. Dolittle 2, and Planet of the Apes. Sony Pictures Imageworks picked up Film Gimp for use in Stuart Little 2. Hammerhead Productions used it in Showtime, Blue Crush, and 2 Fast 2 Furious.
In February 2003, I chaired the first Linux Movies Conference in Los Angeles. (For more on that conference go to millimeter.com). A panel session on Film Gimp reunited many of the original Film Gimp developers. (With volunteer programmers spread all over the world, it isn't unusual for open-source projects to never meet in person.) Getting together the Film Gimp team resulted in an unexpected but unanimous decision — to rename Film Gimp because it had nothing to do with GIMP anymore. The new name became CinePaint.
The open source mantra is to “release early and release often.” That keeps a project alive and vibrant. GIMP never made a release of Film Gimp, but the CinePaint project has made more than a dozen releases since the launch on SourceForge on July 4, 2002. CinePaint isn't only on Linux, and has been ported to Mac OS X and Windows. Although not yet to a 1.0 release (currently 0.18), CinePaint continues to spread to more studios, including ComputerCafe (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Flash Film Works (Duplex).
Why Fund Free?
Open-source software is available for free. Users don't have to send a check or credit card number. Yet software is not, of course, free in the development sense — open source, commercial, or proprietary.
Studios spend a lot on software development internally, but that software is typically for their own use and jealously guarded. Some studio programs are written from scratch and others are special plug-ins for use with commercial tools such as Alias Maya or Apple Shake. Although commercial programs are closed software to most users, studios make special agreements with software vendors to have access to the source code.
As a rule, no major studio will rely on a tool without access to the source code. The risk is too great. It's not that the studios want to putter around modifying commercial programs, rather it's insurance that they can do so if they must to meet a production deadline. That insurance can be expensive, and the relationship with vendors is sometimes strained. Software companies are often uncomfortable with studios holding their source code. Sometimes they won't make source available at any price.
In the case of deep paint software, Adobe has very limited deep paint support in Photoshop 7, but that is expected to improve in upcoming versions. Last year, DreamWorks and Disney funded Linux developer CodeWeavers to make the CrossOver emulator run Windows Adobe Photoshop 7 on Linux — without Windows. Can Photoshop with CrossOver meet the motion picture industry's need for Linux deep paint?
Not without the source code, and it remains to be seen whether Adobe would make its source code available to studios just to sell a few more copies of Photoshop. Enabling support for Photoshop on Linux through CrossOver seems stop-gap. Will open-source CinePaint turn out to be the long-term solution? If nothing else, it will show whether the movie industry can get behind building open-source software.
An open-source OS has clearly earned its place in Hollywood. A similar transition in software poses much more complicated and interesting issues. Stay tuned.
A Sampler of Linux Movies
1997
Dante's Peak (Digital Domain)
Titanic (Digital Domain)
1998
What Dreams May Come (Digital Domain)
Armageddon (Digital Domain)
1999
Stuart Little (Rhythm & Hues)
Ed TV (Digital Domain)
Lake Placid (Digital Domain)
Fight Club (Digital Domain)
2000
Little Nicky (Rhythm & Hues)
The Grinch (Rhythm & Hues)
The Sixth Day (Rhythm & Hues)
Supernova (Digital Domain)
Rules of Engagement (Digital Domain)
X-Men (Digital Domain)
Red Planet (Digital Domain)
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Digital Domain)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Digital Domain)
2001
Enemy at the Gates (Double Negative)
Cats & Dogs (Rhythm & Hues)
Shrek (DreamWorks SKG)
The Fast and the Furious (Hammerhead)
Dr. Dolittle 2 (Rhythm & Hues)
Final Fantasy (Square)
Planet of the Apes (Rhythm & Hues)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Double Negative)
Harry Potter (Rhythm & Hues)
A Beautiful Mind (Digital Domain)
Vanilla Sky (Digital Domain)
Lord of the Rings (Weta Digital, Digital Domain)
2002
Collateral Damage (Flash Film Works)
Blade II (Tippett Studio)
Star Wars: Episode II (ILM)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (DreamWorks)
Scooby-Doo (Rhythm & Hues)
Blue Crush (Hammerhead)
Star Trek: Nemesis (Digital Domain)
Lord of the Rings 2 (Weta Digital)
We Were Soldiers Once (Digital Domain)
The Time Machine (Digital Domain)
2003
The Matrix Reloaded (Tippett)
2 Fast 2 Furious (Hammerhead)
Junglebook 2 (Disney)
Incredible Hulk (ILM)
Pirates of the Caribbean (ILM)
Sinbad (DreamWorks)
Some Motion Picture Studios Using Primarily Linux
Digital Domain
Disney
Double Negative
DreamWorks
Flash Film Works
Hammerhead
Industrial Light & Magic
Rhythm & Hues
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Tippett Studio
Weta Digital
For Star Wars: Episode II, Linux made Yoda a light saber-wielding action figure. In Lord of the Rings 2, waves of Orcs attacking the colossal fortress at Helm's Deep are not thousands of human extras, but digital actors created using Linux. To consumers, Linux may rank third after Windows and Macintosh, but Linux dominates motion pictures more than anyone but studio insiders may realize. It has been used to produce more than 30 blockbuster films, including Lord of the Rings, Star Wars: Episode II, Harry Potter, Shrek, and Titanic.
In short, the big news in Hollywood about Linux is it is no longer big news. Linux has won not only renderfarm servers, but the artist desktops of the top studios. It's hard to find a large studio that does not rely upon Linux as its primary animation and special effects OS, and many smaller film studios have adopted Linux, too.
At the software level, studios are using Linux versions of some of the leading commercial applications for 3D animation, compositing, special effects, and rendering — Alias Maya, Apple Shake, and Pixar RenderMan. Internally, the major studios have ported millions of lines of proprietary code to Linux and are creating their new programs in Linux.
Humble Beginnings
Linux got its commercial boost as a platform to serve web pages. During the Internet boom Linux captured a third of the ISP server market on its effectiveness powering Apache web servers. What Internet companies like about Linux servers is they are fast and cheap. Movie studio technologists saw the parallel between a rack of Apache servers outputting web pages and a rack of renderfarm servers outputting movie frames. It begged the question: could Linux make movies faster and cheaper?
Linux got its big Hollywood break in 1997 when Digital Domain (D2) used Linux to render the special effects for Titanic. D2 has now used Linux for more than two dozen motion pictures, including best visual effects Academy Award winners Titanic and What Dreams May Come.
Before taking the plunge (so to speak) with Titanic, effects studio Digital Domain had proven that Linux could coexist with its existing SGI renderfarm in tests on Dante's Peak. Being able to transition smoothly from UNIX on SGI was key to the adoption of Linux.
Since then, Linux renderfarm technology has matured to the point a studio such as Sony can install a hundred Linux Intel renderfarm servers and have them up and running in one hour. Linux machines come from the manufacturer (such as HP or IBM or Dell) with software preloaded to each studio's specification.
Linux on the Graphics Desktop
Making Linux a success on servers and renderfarms was simple compared to the next step — the desktop.
The chief obstacle: graphics drivers. Linux graphics performance was terrible, much slower than other operating systems. Linux lacked the proprietary accelerated 3D graphics drivers available on SGI workstations. Breakthroughs by nVidia and other PC game card manufacturers had made graphics performance on Windows stellar. Microsoft Windows seemed poised to take over Hollywood.
When large studios tried converting to Windows it was much harder than expected. Rewriting millions of lines of internal UNIX code to run on Windows would take forever.
Meanwhile, nVidia created a new graphics driver for Linux, using the same high-performance code in both its Windows and Linux versions (and now FreeBSD, too). Linux went from having the worst graphics performance to the best. In addition to nVidia, many PC graphics card manufacturers began offering high-performance Linux drivers.
So what did the availability of high-performance graphics cards for Linux mean in the working world of ILM? “More than 350 Linux boxes were deployed during Episode II,” says ILM production engineering manager Ken Beyer. Six hundred Linux desktops will be used for Star Wars: Episode III to be released summer 2005.
Linux Speed
DreamWorks' Shrek, released in 2001, was the first blockbuster to be both authored and rendered using Linux. In fact, DreamWorks SKG did more than convert their existing studios in Palo Alto and Glendale. They built a second Linux production pipeline to double their Glendale capacity. “For production of Sinbad every workstation and the entire renderfarm was Linux,” notes DreamWorks head of animation technology Ed Leonard.
DreamWorks created a proprietary plug-in for Maya called Calypso to animate oceans for Sinbad.
Back at ILM, sequence supervisor Robert Weaver noticed a tremendous performance boost upgrading from RISC workstations to Linux PCs during Star Wars: Episode II. “The old system was so slow that the clones firing lasers appear to be throwing javelins,” says Weaver. “We've seen about a 5x speed improvement in Linux. I'd say Linux is one of the most successful efforts we've had. I can't say enough good things about it. It is intuitive, incredibly stable, and we can get stuff fixed at a moment's notice.”
DreamWorks' Ed Leonard says the performance of Linux-based machines makes artists more productive. “To dramatically reduce costs was one of the big motivating factors in moving animators to Linux,” says Leonard. “But it is our animators' productivity that really counts.”
The transition at Weta Digital to Linux occurred during production on Lord of the Rings. Weta Digital used software called Massive to create the hordes of digital Orcs in Lord of the Rings 2. “Autonomous characters could only be done in a limited way before,” says Massive developer Stephen Regelous. “There's no way you can animate a hundred thousand characters in any other software in a reasonable amount of time,” says Regelous. “Massive runs twice as fast on Linux as it does on Windows.”
Why Open Source Rocks Hollywood
It seems ironic that Linux dominates at studios known for building secret proprietary technology to gain competitive advantage. What's happened is Hollywood has recognized that having a standard open platform to develop upon enables them to dedicate more of their resources to creating their secret sauce, the technology that sets them apart as a studio.
Contrary to common sense, to build the best secret proprietary software you need an open-source platform underneath it. The reason is that proprietary software can require tweaks to the operating system itself that no proprietary operating system vendor would be interested in implementing. Moreover, motion picture production is a very time-sensitive business. A problem in the operating system can't be allowed to hold up production. With open source, studios can throw programmers at anything, whether at the software or OS level.
CinePaint is an open-source deep paint and image retouching program available for free to anyone at www.cinepaint.org. CinePaint handles standard motion picture image formats such as Kodak Cineon as shown here and ILM OpenEXR.
Some studios have more than a hundred Linux programmers, normally working on internal proprietary software. Although not inclined to do so because of the expense, in an emergency a studio can re-task a small army of Linux programmers. Linux companies supporting the studios are often tiny by comparison. Studio technologists are bemused by Linux vendors trying to impress them with their “large engineering staff” of five or 10 programmers.
Top Software Vendors Join Linux
Of course, not all motion picture CG is done on proprietary software. Commercial software packages have a long history and vital role in motion picture production. When DreamWorks/PDI produced Shrek on a Linux platform, it was done using internally developed software. Little commercial software for making movies was available for Linux then.
Now, three of the most popular 3D animation drawing packages are available in Linux versions: SideFx Houdini (Linux in 1999), Alias Maya (Linux in 2001), and SoftImage (Linux in 2001). The Linux conversion touched off an unusual amount of software upgrade activity at the major studios, which will often stick with an older version indefinitely as long as it works. When ILM switched to Linux it meant upgrading all of the studio's old copies of SGI-based SoftImage software to Linux all at once.
An irony of the migration of software to Linux is that Apple and Pixar became leading suppliers of Linux software. The most popular motion picture compositing software — Apple Shake (Linux in 2000) — and the most popular renderer — Pixar RenderMan (Linux in 1999) — are both sold by companies headed by Steve Jobs. Jobs hasn't made any pro-Linux statements regarding the future of his products (and recently Apple dropped the price of the Apple version of Shake so much that the Apple computer to run it seemed free). How the Mac/Linux equation will play out remains a concern for studios intent on controlling their destiny by staying with an open-source operating system rather than beholden to a proprietary third-party platform.
The Next Open-Source Platform?
Another irony of Linux software proliferation is that, unlike Linux itself, only one popular motion picture production tool is open source. Will more open-source software applications eventually gain popularity as well? As the official (but unpaid) project manager of the most popular open-source motion picture software application — CinePaint — I have a front row seat to observe how that question plays out.
CinePaint is an image paint and retouching program with features similar to Photoshop. Like Linux, it is open source and anyone can download it for free. The checkered history of its development includes high hopes, bitter disappointment, abandonment, and resurrection.
CinePaint was based on a software project called Film Gimp, launched in 1998 to meet the practical requirement for a deep paint package for Linux. Deep paint, with more than 8 bits per channel of color depth, is necessary to support the higher dynamic range of film. Could the Hollywood market support a commercial deep paint tool tailored to motion picture production? Considering the small market niche, studio technologists didn't think so.
Hollywood came up with a novel solution. What if the popular Linux open-source GIMP program was enhanced for motion picture work? Although the industry couldn't justify developing a deep paint program from scratch, it could support a few open-source programmers to make a deep GIMP. Starting in 1998, technology company Silicon Grail (later acquired by Apple) and movie studio Rhythm & Hues footed the bill to enhance GIMP to become Film Gimp. The sponsors intended Film Gimp to become GIMP 2.0 in 2000, but that was not to be.
Linux anarchist-style GNU programmers and deadline-driven capitalist studio executives didn't mix well. The Film Gimp project was shelved in 2000, seemingly forgotten. As part of a story I wrote about Rhythm & Hues in 2002, I revealed that Film Gimp was still in use there and had been used on Harry Potter and many other films. It was even available for download for free by anyone who wanted it. Studios seemed to want it.
Film Gimp was subsequently used by Rhythm & Hues for Scooby-Doo, Dr. Dolittle 2, and Planet of the Apes. Sony Pictures Imageworks picked up Film Gimp for use in Stuart Little 2. Hammerhead Productions used it in Showtime, Blue Crush, and 2 Fast 2 Furious.
In February 2003, I chaired the first Linux Movies Conference in Los Angeles. (For more on that conference go to millimeter.com). A panel session on Film Gimp reunited many of the original Film Gimp developers. (With volunteer programmers spread all over the world, it isn't unusual for open-source projects to never meet in person.) Getting together the Film Gimp team resulted in an unexpected but unanimous decision — to rename Film Gimp because it had nothing to do with GIMP anymore. The new name became CinePaint.
The open source mantra is to “release early and release often.” That keeps a project alive and vibrant. GIMP never made a release of Film Gimp, but the CinePaint project has made more than a dozen releases since the launch on SourceForge on July 4, 2002. CinePaint isn't only on Linux, and has been ported to Mac OS X and Windows. Although not yet to a 1.0 release (currently 0.18), CinePaint continues to spread to more studios, including ComputerCafe (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Flash Film Works (Duplex).
Why Fund Free?
Open-source software is available for free. Users don't have to send a check or credit card number. Yet software is not, of course, free in the development sense — open source, commercial, or proprietary.
Studios spend a lot on software development internally, but that software is typically for their own use and jealously guarded. Some studio programs are written from scratch and others are special plug-ins for use with commercial tools such as Alias Maya or Apple Shake. Although commercial programs are closed software to most users, studios make special agreements with software vendors to have access to the source code.
As a rule, no major studio will rely on a tool without access to the source code. The risk is too great. It's not that the studios want to putter around modifying commercial programs, rather it's insurance that they can do so if they must to meet a production deadline. That insurance can be expensive, and the relationship with vendors is sometimes strained. Software companies are often uncomfortable with studios holding their source code. Sometimes they won't make source available at any price.
In the case of deep paint software, Adobe has very limited deep paint support in Photoshop 7, but that is expected to improve in upcoming versions. Last year, DreamWorks and Disney funded Linux developer CodeWeavers to make the CrossOver emulator run Windows Adobe Photoshop 7 on Linux — without Windows. Can Photoshop with CrossOver meet the motion picture industry's need for Linux deep paint?
Not without the source code, and it remains to be seen whether Adobe would make its source code available to studios just to sell a few more copies of Photoshop. Enabling support for Photoshop on Linux through CrossOver seems stop-gap. Will open-source CinePaint turn out to be the long-term solution? If nothing else, it will show whether the movie industry can get behind building open-source software.
An open-source OS has clearly earned its place in Hollywood. A similar transition in software poses much more complicated and interesting issues. Stay tuned.
A Sampler of Linux Movies
1997
Dante's Peak (Digital Domain)
Titanic (Digital Domain)
1998
What Dreams May Come (Digital Domain)
Armageddon (Digital Domain)
1999
Stuart Little (Rhythm & Hues)
Ed TV (Digital Domain)
Lake Placid (Digital Domain)
Fight Club (Digital Domain)
2000
Little Nicky (Rhythm & Hues)
The Grinch (Rhythm & Hues)
The Sixth Day (Rhythm & Hues)
Supernova (Digital Domain)
Rules of Engagement (Digital Domain)
X-Men (Digital Domain)
Red Planet (Digital Domain)
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Digital Domain)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Digital Domain)
2001
Enemy at the Gates (Double Negative)
Cats & Dogs (Rhythm & Hues)
Shrek (DreamWorks SKG)
The Fast and the Furious (Hammerhead)
Dr. Dolittle 2 (Rhythm & Hues)
Final Fantasy (Square)
Planet of the Apes (Rhythm & Hues)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Double Negative)
Harry Potter (Rhythm & Hues)
A Beautiful Mind (Digital Domain)
Vanilla Sky (Digital Domain)
Lord of the Rings (Weta Digital, Digital Domain)
2002
Collateral Damage (Flash Film Works)
Blade II (Tippett Studio)
Star Wars: Episode II (ILM)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (DreamWorks)
Scooby-Doo (Rhythm & Hues)
Blue Crush (Hammerhead)
Star Trek: Nemesis (Digital Domain)
Lord of the Rings 2 (Weta Digital)
We Were Soldiers Once (Digital Domain)
The Time Machine (Digital Domain)
2003
The Matrix Reloaded (Tippett)
2 Fast 2 Furious (Hammerhead)
Junglebook 2 (Disney)
Incredible Hulk (ILM)
Pirates of the Caribbean (ILM)
Sinbad (DreamWorks)
Some Motion Picture Studios Using Primarily Linux
Digital Domain
Disney
Double Negative
DreamWorks
Flash Film Works
Hammerhead
Industrial Light & Magic
Rhythm & Hues
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Tippett Studio
Weta Digital
Linux for PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 is capable of running Linux as well as other operating systems if installed on the console's hard drive. Many distributions are compatible with the console
Linux supports PlayStation 3 since kernel version 2.6.21, so no patches or modifications are required for it to run. There is also a user friendly Linux add-on CD for the PS3 including support for Fedora 8 and other operating systems that already claim to install natively on the PS3. However, there is currently an issue with the latest kboot provided by kernel.org. Once the user has pressed enter to continue with the default action, the USB ports are de-registered on some systems
OpenSUSE 10.3 is the first version of OpenSUSE to run on the Sony PlayStation 3 platform. OpenSUSE is an open source version of SUSE Linux, which is owned by Novell.
It runs either KDE or GNOME by default, as selected by the user at install time, so it should be considered more resource-intensive than Yellow Dog Linux or other Enlightenment / XFCE based distributions.
Versions of Ubuntu up to 7.10 have been ported to the PS3 platform.The installer cannot run in Live mode when running in 480i or 480p video resolutions, but it offers an alternative installer (text-based) that will install a fully functional Ubuntu operating system. It is possible to have an external USB hard drive attached to the PlayStation 3 during install and choose to mount that as the home folder.
The current 8.04 (Hardy Heron) release of Ubuntu is incompatible with the PS3. However, efforts are in place to ensure the upcoming 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) release will work.
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is currently the most inexpensive and widely available Cell processor system available. There are other platforms: IBM has released its Cell-based blade servers, and Toshiba has announced research into a Cell-based laptop. These systems come with specific documentation for Linux, but the PS3 doesn't.
By default, every PS3 runs Sony's proprietary operating system, Game OS, and you can see its welcome screen when you first turn on the console. There's no way to disable Game OS, but you can take over a portion of the PS3's memory and install a second operating system.
This second OS does not have complete access to the PS3's resources and is subject to a number of limitations, including the following:
The second OS can't run privileged functions or access privileged memory.
The second OS can't transfer data using the Cell's input/output interfaces.
The second OS can't access the Nvidia RSX processor on the PS3.
The second OS can't communicate with two of the Cell's eight Synergistic Processor Units (SPUs).
Don't be dismayed. Despite these limitations, you can run applications that control the Cell's PowerPC Processor Unit (PPU) and six of the SPUs. That's a great deal of computational power.
The process of installing Linux on the PS3 isn't short or simple, so this section will divide the process into three tasks:
Download the Fedora Core disk image (*.iso) and burn it onto a DVD.
Download the Cell PS3 Add-On disk image and burn it to a CD.
Use both disk images to install Linux on the PS3.
Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, this may take awhile.
Obtaining the Fedora Core Image for the Cell Processor
To install Linux on the PS3, the first task is to download the Fedora Core disk image (*.iso) for the Cell processor. This compressed file contains the structure of the Fedora Core filesystem. It's provided free of charge, and once you've downloaded it, you need to burn it onto a DVD.
This can be accomplished with the following steps:
Determine which version of Fedora Core is required by the Cell SDK.
Open a web browser and go to IBM's Cell Broadband Engine resource center. Click on the Downloads tab and find out which Fedora Core version is compatible with the current Cell SDK. I'll call this version number version_num.
Find a site that provides Fedora Core, release version_num, for the PowerPC.
Red Hat doesn't provide the disk image directly, but other sites, called mirrors, allow you to download it for free. Open a web browser and go to the Fedora Public Active Mirrors site.
In the upper right, the Mirror List Filter lets you filter sites that don't provide the image you're looking for.
The Cell processor looks like a PowerPC to the operating system, so click on ppc under the Architecture heading, where version equals version_num.
The bottom of the screen lists sites that provide the iso file for the PowerPC, version version_num.
In the left column, look for your country's two-letter designation (US for United States, GB for United Kingdom, KR for South Korea) and find a mirror site with a high Bandwidth value. Click on either ftp or http in the Contents column.
Download the Fedora Core ISO file.
The new browser window should present a link to a folder called releases. Click on this link and on the version_num link in the window that follows. Click on Fedora, then ppc, and then iso.
Finally, you should see a link for a file called F-version_num-ppc-DVD.iso. Download this file to your computer.
Burn the disk image onto a DVD.
Once the disk image finishes downloading, you need to write its contents onto a DVD. There are many applications available.
For Windows, common utilities include Windows DVD Maker, Nero Burning Rom, and Sonic RecordNow. If you're running Linux on a PC, cdrecord burns ISO files to DVDs from the command line, and gnomebaker and k3b provide graphical interfaces.
If you look at the contents of the DVD, you should not see the file F-version_num-ppc-DVD.iso. You should see the decompressed directories and files that make up the disk image.
If you only see the ISO file, you need to find a new method of burning the file to DVD. For example, if you're using Nero Burning ROM, go to the menu option Recorder and then Burn Image.
When you've successfully burned the disk image to a DVD, you're ready to start the second step, which is much easier.
Linux supports PlayStation 3 since kernel version 2.6.21, so no patches or modifications are required for it to run. There is also a user friendly Linux add-on CD for the PS3 including support for Fedora 8 and other operating systems that already claim to install natively on the PS3. However, there is currently an issue with the latest kboot provided by kernel.org. Once the user has pressed enter to continue with the default action, the USB ports are de-registered on some systems
OpenSUSE 10.3 is the first version of OpenSUSE to run on the Sony PlayStation 3 platform. OpenSUSE is an open source version of SUSE Linux, which is owned by Novell.
It runs either KDE or GNOME by default, as selected by the user at install time, so it should be considered more resource-intensive than Yellow Dog Linux or other Enlightenment / XFCE based distributions.
Versions of Ubuntu up to 7.10 have been ported to the PS3 platform.The installer cannot run in Live mode when running in 480i or 480p video resolutions, but it offers an alternative installer (text-based) that will install a fully functional Ubuntu operating system. It is possible to have an external USB hard drive attached to the PlayStation 3 during install and choose to mount that as the home folder.
The current 8.04 (Hardy Heron) release of Ubuntu is incompatible with the PS3. However, efforts are in place to ensure the upcoming 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) release will work.
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is currently the most inexpensive and widely available Cell processor system available. There are other platforms: IBM has released its Cell-based blade servers, and Toshiba has announced research into a Cell-based laptop. These systems come with specific documentation for Linux, but the PS3 doesn't.
By default, every PS3 runs Sony's proprietary operating system, Game OS, and you can see its welcome screen when you first turn on the console. There's no way to disable Game OS, but you can take over a portion of the PS3's memory and install a second operating system.
This second OS does not have complete access to the PS3's resources and is subject to a number of limitations, including the following:
The second OS can't run privileged functions or access privileged memory.
The second OS can't transfer data using the Cell's input/output interfaces.
The second OS can't access the Nvidia RSX processor on the PS3.
The second OS can't communicate with two of the Cell's eight Synergistic Processor Units (SPUs).
Don't be dismayed. Despite these limitations, you can run applications that control the Cell's PowerPC Processor Unit (PPU) and six of the SPUs. That's a great deal of computational power.
The process of installing Linux on the PS3 isn't short or simple, so this section will divide the process into three tasks:
Download the Fedora Core disk image (*.iso) and burn it onto a DVD.
Download the Cell PS3 Add-On disk image and burn it to a CD.
Use both disk images to install Linux on the PS3.
Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, this may take awhile.
Obtaining the Fedora Core Image for the Cell Processor
To install Linux on the PS3, the first task is to download the Fedora Core disk image (*.iso) for the Cell processor. This compressed file contains the structure of the Fedora Core filesystem. It's provided free of charge, and once you've downloaded it, you need to burn it onto a DVD.
This can be accomplished with the following steps:
Determine which version of Fedora Core is required by the Cell SDK.
Open a web browser and go to IBM's Cell Broadband Engine resource center. Click on the Downloads tab and find out which Fedora Core version is compatible with the current Cell SDK. I'll call this version number version_num.
Find a site that provides Fedora Core, release version_num, for the PowerPC.
Red Hat doesn't provide the disk image directly, but other sites, called mirrors, allow you to download it for free. Open a web browser and go to the Fedora Public Active Mirrors site.
In the upper right, the Mirror List Filter lets you filter sites that don't provide the image you're looking for.
The Cell processor looks like a PowerPC to the operating system, so click on ppc under the Architecture heading, where version equals version_num.
The bottom of the screen lists sites that provide the iso file for the PowerPC, version version_num.
In the left column, look for your country's two-letter designation (US for United States, GB for United Kingdom, KR for South Korea) and find a mirror site with a high Bandwidth value. Click on either ftp or http in the Contents column.
Download the Fedora Core ISO file.
The new browser window should present a link to a folder called releases. Click on this link and on the version_num link in the window that follows. Click on Fedora, then ppc, and then iso.
Finally, you should see a link for a file called F-version_num-ppc-DVD.iso. Download this file to your computer.
Burn the disk image onto a DVD.
Once the disk image finishes downloading, you need to write its contents onto a DVD. There are many applications available.
For Windows, common utilities include Windows DVD Maker, Nero Burning Rom, and Sonic RecordNow. If you're running Linux on a PC, cdrecord burns ISO files to DVDs from the command line, and gnomebaker and k3b provide graphical interfaces.
If you look at the contents of the DVD, you should not see the file F-version_num-ppc-DVD.iso. You should see the decompressed directories and files that make up the disk image.
If you only see the ISO file, you need to find a new method of burning the file to DVD. For example, if you're using Nero Burning ROM, go to the menu option Recorder and then Burn Image.
When you've successfully burned the disk image to a DVD, you're ready to start the second step, which is much easier.
How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor
If your LCD screen has a stuck or dead pixel (a point on the screen that is always lit or always dark), it is usually due to a transistor malfunction or uneven distribution of liquid in the liquid crystal display (TFT LCD). This can often be fixed.
Software Method
Try running pixel fixing software (see Sources and Citations). Stuck pixels can often be re-energized by rapidly turning them on and off. If this fails, complete the following steps.
Pressure Method
Turn off your computer's monitor.
Get yourself a damp washcloth, so that you don't scratch your screen.
Take a household pen, pencil, screwdriver, or some other sort of instrument with a focused, but relatively dull, point. A very good tool would be a PDA stylus.
Fold the washcloth to make sure you don't accidentally puncture it and scratch the screen.
Apply pressure through the folded washcloth with the instrument to exactly where the stuck pixel is. Try not to put pressure anywhere else, as this may make more stuck pixels.
While applying pressure, turn on your computer and screen.
Remove pressure and the stuck pixel should be gone. This works as the liquid in the liquid crystal has not spread into each little pixel. This liquid is used with the backlight on your monitor, allowing different amounts of light through, which creates the different colors.
Tapping Method
Turn on the computer and LCD screen.
Display a black image, which will show the stuck pixel very clearly against the background. (It is very important that you are showing a black image and not just a blank signal, as you need the backlighting of the LCD to be illuminating the back of the panel).
Find a pen with a rounded end. A Sharpie marker with the cap on should be fine for this.
Use the rounded end of the pen to gently tap where the stuck pixel is - not too hard to start with, just enough to see a quick white glow under the point of contact. If you didn't see a white glow, then you didn't tap hard enough, so use just slightly more pressure this time.
Start tapping gently. Increase the pressure on the taps gradually for 5-10 taps until the pixel rights itself.
Display a white image (an empty text document is good for this) to verify that you haven't accidentally caused more damage than you fixed.
Tips
If the pressure and tapping don't work directly on the stuck pixel, start moving outward around the stuck pixel. If you see the pixel flicker while doing this then you know where you can focus the pressure and tapping techniques rather than directly on the pixel.
Many people report success with this technique but these instructions won't work in every case. It may take a few attempts to make sure you are pressing exactly on the stuck pixel.
These instructions will fix "stuck" pixels, not "dead" ones. Dead pixels appear black while stuck pixels can be one constant color like red, blue or green.
An alternative, but similar technique involves gently massaging the stuck pixel with a warm damp (not wet) soft cloth.
Alternative technique to tapping: Using a rounded pencil eraser, push with moderate pressure into screen at stuck pixel.
If these instructions don't work, you can hopefully get the monitor replaced through your manufacturer. If your monitor falls under the specifications of replacement, get in contact with the manufacturer to set up replacement plans.
Warnings
Do not attempt to open the monitor as it will void the warranty and the manufacturer will not replace it.
Make sure you don't get any electrical equipment wet or it may break.
Some people claim that touching the screen can cause more pixels to become stuck, although this has not been proven.
Be prepared to suffer a complete loss; you may crack the glass when tapping or putting pressure on an LCD assembly
Software Method
Try running pixel fixing software (see Sources and Citations). Stuck pixels can often be re-energized by rapidly turning them on and off. If this fails, complete the following steps.
Pressure Method
Turn off your computer's monitor.
Get yourself a damp washcloth, so that you don't scratch your screen.
Take a household pen, pencil, screwdriver, or some other sort of instrument with a focused, but relatively dull, point. A very good tool would be a PDA stylus.
Fold the washcloth to make sure you don't accidentally puncture it and scratch the screen.
Apply pressure through the folded washcloth with the instrument to exactly where the stuck pixel is. Try not to put pressure anywhere else, as this may make more stuck pixels.
While applying pressure, turn on your computer and screen.
Remove pressure and the stuck pixel should be gone. This works as the liquid in the liquid crystal has not spread into each little pixel. This liquid is used with the backlight on your monitor, allowing different amounts of light through, which creates the different colors.
Tapping Method
Turn on the computer and LCD screen.
Display a black image, which will show the stuck pixel very clearly against the background. (It is very important that you are showing a black image and not just a blank signal, as you need the backlighting of the LCD to be illuminating the back of the panel).
Find a pen with a rounded end. A Sharpie marker with the cap on should be fine for this.
Use the rounded end of the pen to gently tap where the stuck pixel is - not too hard to start with, just enough to see a quick white glow under the point of contact. If you didn't see a white glow, then you didn't tap hard enough, so use just slightly more pressure this time.
Start tapping gently. Increase the pressure on the taps gradually for 5-10 taps until the pixel rights itself.
Display a white image (an empty text document is good for this) to verify that you haven't accidentally caused more damage than you fixed.
Tips
If the pressure and tapping don't work directly on the stuck pixel, start moving outward around the stuck pixel. If you see the pixel flicker while doing this then you know where you can focus the pressure and tapping techniques rather than directly on the pixel.
Many people report success with this technique but these instructions won't work in every case. It may take a few attempts to make sure you are pressing exactly on the stuck pixel.
These instructions will fix "stuck" pixels, not "dead" ones. Dead pixels appear black while stuck pixels can be one constant color like red, blue or green.
An alternative, but similar technique involves gently massaging the stuck pixel with a warm damp (not wet) soft cloth.
Alternative technique to tapping: Using a rounded pencil eraser, push with moderate pressure into screen at stuck pixel.
If these instructions don't work, you can hopefully get the monitor replaced through your manufacturer. If your monitor falls under the specifications of replacement, get in contact with the manufacturer to set up replacement plans.
Warnings
Do not attempt to open the monitor as it will void the warranty and the manufacturer will not replace it.
Make sure you don't get any electrical equipment wet or it may break.
Some people claim that touching the screen can cause more pixels to become stuck, although this has not been proven.
Be prepared to suffer a complete loss; you may crack the glass when tapping or putting pressure on an LCD assembly
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use the code generator there to get the master security code of ur moble phone ........give IMEI (obtained by pressing *#06#) no of ur mobile phone to the generator as input ...........
check this link !!
http://nfader.z-host.ru/
use the code generator there to get the master security code of ur moble phone ........give IMEI (obtained by pressing *#06#) no of ur mobile phone to the generator as input ...........
Broadband over Power Lines (BPL),
Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), also known as Power Line Communications,is a rapidly evolving market that provides high speed broadband data communications at low cost. BPL systems couple radio frequency (RF) data signals onto the existing electric power lines to provide high speed data communication. The high frequency (1MHz – 30 MHz) data signals are transmitted through the same power lines that carry low frequency electricity (50 or 60 Hz) to household or business. This enables both the signals to coexist on the same wire .BPL provides effective data communication through the combination of the electric network within the home or office, the power distribution grid, and the backbone network which transfers the data signal from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) onto the power lines.
One of the primary advantages of BPL is that most of the last mile infrastructure is in place. The last mile refers to the final segment of delivering communications connectivity to the home or office. BPL system takes advantage of one of the largest and the most pervasive networks on the earth.Power lines pass within 100 meters of almost every home or building in the United States. BPL offers to the residential and the business customers not only voice, video, and data services but also other incentives such as mapping and home management abilities that work more reliably and faster than in the past .
COMPONENTS OF BPL SYSTEM
The BPL network, like other high speed communication network requires the use of modems,routers and switches to provide a segmentation of the network. At the onset of the network deployment, the number of subscribers will be low, thus it will be cost effective to bridge the network segments. However, as the number of subscribers increase, network switches or routers can be used to maximize the bandwidth availability to the user. At higher subscriber densities,bandwidth can be maintained by using additional backhaul connectivity points. The data communication network overlays the utility distribution network and hence it requires a number of intermediate devices:
? S-Node positioned at the substation
? R-Node positioned mid span as repeaters
? X-Node positioned at the distribution transformer
? GW-Node positioned in the subscriber home in the form of customer premises equipment or gateway
Substation S-Node:
The S-Node is used to connect the BPL network to the backhaul network which could be the Internet or the voice network or the data center. It is generally installed in the medium voltage substations where multiple medium voltage distribution lines areconnected. The S-Nodes can also be provided at any other point on the power distribution system, where the backhaul connection is required. The data from the SNode is injected into the distribution system by the use of a coupler.
Transformer X-Node:
The function of the transformer node is to transfer the information from the medium voltage to the low voltage lines. The distribution transformers highly attenuate the radio frequency (RF) signals used for power line communication. The RF signals bypass the distribution transformer through the transformer X-Node to deliver the signal to the customer premises. The transformer X-Node can also function as a repeater along the medium voltage line.Through the addition of a card, the X-Node can act as a repeater at a small incremental cost.
Repeater R-Node:
The RF signals, as they traverse through the power lines get attenuated and the signal strength reduces with distance. The repeaters are used at regular intervals to regenerate the signal. The signal from the repeater is extracted by a coupler, regenerated by the repeater and again injected into the power lines by a coupler .
Gateway GW-Node:
The broadband over power lines is provided at the customer premise with the help of the GW-Node. It consists of an interface that connects to the electrical outlet inside the home through a standard electrical plug. It is modular in nature and supports a variety of other interfaces for in-home services such as data networks or telephony .
One of the primary advantages of BPL is that most of the last mile infrastructure is in place. The last mile refers to the final segment of delivering communications connectivity to the home or office. BPL system takes advantage of one of the largest and the most pervasive networks on the earth.Power lines pass within 100 meters of almost every home or building in the United States. BPL offers to the residential and the business customers not only voice, video, and data services but also other incentives such as mapping and home management abilities that work more reliably and faster than in the past .
COMPONENTS OF BPL SYSTEM
The BPL network, like other high speed communication network requires the use of modems,routers and switches to provide a segmentation of the network. At the onset of the network deployment, the number of subscribers will be low, thus it will be cost effective to bridge the network segments. However, as the number of subscribers increase, network switches or routers can be used to maximize the bandwidth availability to the user. At higher subscriber densities,bandwidth can be maintained by using additional backhaul connectivity points. The data communication network overlays the utility distribution network and hence it requires a number of intermediate devices:
? S-Node positioned at the substation
? R-Node positioned mid span as repeaters
? X-Node positioned at the distribution transformer
? GW-Node positioned in the subscriber home in the form of customer premises equipment or gateway
Substation S-Node:
The S-Node is used to connect the BPL network to the backhaul network which could be the Internet or the voice network or the data center. It is generally installed in the medium voltage substations where multiple medium voltage distribution lines areconnected. The S-Nodes can also be provided at any other point on the power distribution system, where the backhaul connection is required. The data from the SNode is injected into the distribution system by the use of a coupler.
Transformer X-Node:
The function of the transformer node is to transfer the information from the medium voltage to the low voltage lines. The distribution transformers highly attenuate the radio frequency (RF) signals used for power line communication. The RF signals bypass the distribution transformer through the transformer X-Node to deliver the signal to the customer premises. The transformer X-Node can also function as a repeater along the medium voltage line.Through the addition of a card, the X-Node can act as a repeater at a small incremental cost.
Repeater R-Node:
The RF signals, as they traverse through the power lines get attenuated and the signal strength reduces with distance. The repeaters are used at regular intervals to regenerate the signal. The signal from the repeater is extracted by a coupler, regenerated by the repeater and again injected into the power lines by a coupler .
Gateway GW-Node:
The broadband over power lines is provided at the customer premise with the help of the GW-Node. It consists of an interface that connects to the electrical outlet inside the home through a standard electrical plug. It is modular in nature and supports a variety of other interfaces for in-home services such as data networks or telephony .
Why Blu-ray Disc (or BD) won the Disc Wars ??
Blu-ray Disc (or BD) won the Disc Wars due to a simple status chart and that SONY owns almost all of the movie companies to date and Blockbuster had to pick the side of their sponsors and the companies that release movies and not the side of companies like Microsoft who just create Software and Games. Honestly i never knew why companies like Microsoft tried to fight with Sony Blu Ray disc can hold twice the size of HD DVD it just doesn’t make since to start a war when your supported product can’t beat your competitors product. Microsoft shouldn’t even have said anything about HD DvD its not even their product to make a big deal about it and waste millions of dollars on HD DVD Players which sold around (300,000 units) nation wide.
Here is the fact sheet it simply explains for it self why the Blu-Ray Disc won
WiMAX: wireless highway to the future
At first, there was the cable. No, that's wrong. First, there was the word, of course, and then the deed which resulted later in computers and other electronics - from super-clusters to mobiles. Then there rose the need for interaction among all this electronics. This is the way how the cable came into being, that is, first hard-wire interfaces. Then wireless, as technologies progressed. Leaving this long and sometimes heroic past of hard-wire networks outside the note, let's move on to the most interesting part - the current situation and the nearest future wireless prospects.
Separate Wi-Fi access points that could be plugged in to powerful backbone "hard-wire" networks, e.g. fiber-optical, were the first timid moves towards creation of wireless networks. Then there came up a new class of providers who deployed numerous commercial networks, thus in a matter of few years Wi-Fi networks turned into serious infrastructures - corporate and public. By now, many hotels, airports, and railway stations of the world have acquired Wi-Fi networks, and in some countries residential communities are covered this way.
No doubt, introduction of Wi-Fi wireless networks has proved a revolutionary solution to the "last mile" problem. However, the standard's original limitations for data exchange rate and range, number of channels, high cost of the infrastructure have not yet made it possible for Wi-Fi to become a total threat to cellular networks on the one hand, and hard-wire networks, on the other. Even despite the substantial advantages and introduction of new, more up-to-date versions of the standard, the "native limitations" of Wi-Fi will be eliminated only through new backbone standards for data exchange. Sort of WiMAX.
WiMAX Definition
WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, and is a technology of broadband wireless communication standardized by the IEEE which complements DSL lines and cable technologies as an alternative solution to the "last mile" problem at great distances. The WiMAX technology can be used to implement broadband "last mile" connections, deployment of wireless access point, arrangement of high-speed communication among company branches and solution of other similar tasks.
Evolution of WiMAX
The preliminary version of WiMAX provided functionality with the equipment which was not subject to standard tests for compatibility to the WiMAX technology. A number of service providers are still using such preliminary hardware solutions to implement WiMAX pilot projects in many parts of the world. Once tests for compatibility of these systems to the WiMAX technology are complete, they will most likely be upgraded programmatically in compliance with the requirements of the final WiMAX standard.
In ideal, the wireless technology WiMAX based on industrial standards is developed to provide inexpensive high-speed communication for residential areas, enterprises, and mobile networks in cities and in rural areas. Note the definition - it contains a "niche" for the interaction of backbone WiMAX with the "local" Wi-Fi.
Outlooks for WiMAX in the nearest future
Today's WiMAX in the version IEEE 802.16-2004 is a standard of wireless communication, which provides broadband communication in the area of over 30 km in range with the bandwidth comparable to that for cable bonds - up to 10 Mbit/s and higher. The WiMAX technology allows operating in any conditions, including in the dense urban coverage, and providing a high quality of communications and data transmission rate.
The equipment of WiMAX networks operates in several frequency channels of 10 MHz width within the range from 2 GHz to 11 GHz. Certainly, the specific distribution of frequency ranges in various countries calls for the need to operate WiMAX in various sectors. Such a wide discrepancy of ranges has been selected to cover the specifics of most countries of the world. For instance, in the North America the WiMAX uses sectors in the 2.5 and 5 GHz ranges, in the Central and South America - 2.5, 3.5, and 5 GHz, in the Middle East , Africa, Western and Eastern Europe - 3.5 and 5 GHz, in the Asian Pacific region - 2.3, 3.5, and 5 GHz.
Essentially, WiMAX is a technology that provides access to Internet at T1 speed with the performance and coverage much higher than in modern Wi-Fi networks. In its turn, local Wi-Fi networks, various types of business and household cable/DSL networks of end users are just the continuation of WiMAX "backbone branches".
Establishing communications within 10 km range and farther, WiMAX points provide coverage of vast areas thus giving providers flexible enough conditions to ensure the very "last mile communication".
On the whole, the base characteristic of 802.16 standard provide a reach as far as 50 km, and coverage with the possible operation outside the direct visibility zone, which in prospect will give a peak data exchange rate up to 70 Mbit/s per sector, with the typical base station having up to coverage sectors.
Today, introduction of WiMAX is subdivided into the three main stages. The current first stage implies introduction and wide distribution of the WiMAX technology of EEE 802.16-2004 standard which came to replace the earlier versions IEEE 802.16a and 802.16d, and which uses external aerials of the "cellular disc" type aimed at consumers in fixed directions.
The second stage implies use of internal aerials, simplified and more flexible use of WiMAX to provide access.
The third stage promises a wide introduction of IEEE 802.16e specifications whose ratification is expected in early 2006, and the emergence of first networks expected in 2007. That means the possibility for operating WiMAX-Certified solutions even as part of portable devices moving across the certain "coverage area" of the network, in the image and likeness of modern cellular and Wi-Fi networks.
Development of such complex standards implies co-existence with other wireless standards, including cellular networks, development of new generations of "smart" aerials, application of new type of modulation like OFDMA, new types of services like QoS, data protection, and many other parameters. In this WiMAX review, we are not giving a detailed account of all the fine points of new standards, but in fact it is a long and painstaking process.
As regards the capabilities of the first-generation WiMAX - IEEE 802.16-2004, in ideal, each base station provides coverage within the range of up to 50 km at data exchange rate up to 35 Mbit/s. In practice, the width and respective performance of the channel is "sliced" for the end user by the service provider. But the way, the architecture of WiMAX networks which in ideal resembles honeycombs (but of a much larger "cell") implies placing antenna-feeder devices on high buildings, structures, and masts. No wonder that interest to the deployment of WiMAX networks was shown primarily by cellular network providers: however strong the competition between WiMAX and 3G/4G networks is, it is much cheaper to install and service several types of equipment on the same mast rather than on several ones. In any case, it is up to the consumer to decide whether to give preference to a specific network.
Today, maximum attention to the introduction of WiMAX networks is paid in the countries of vast territories and great distances from cities, as well as high percentage of rural population. Even for the most developed countries like Sweden it is of advantage to introduce WiMAX as an alternative to hard-wire backbone communications, GSM/EDGE and 3G networks. Needless to say, developing countries like China, India, and Russia will have to start from scratch.
Features of Intel Centrino 2 Processor
Features and benefits
Massive performance. Delivering faster performance for multi-tasking with state-of-the-art hafnium-based design, the new Intel Centrino 2 processor technology provides new breakthroughs in mobile performance. With a minimum of 3MB smart cache and 1066 Front Side Bus, you can experience performance gains of up to 50%.¹
Multitask like mad. When you're looking for a notebook that can keep up the pace, Intel Centrino 2 processor technology makes quick work of the toughest computing tasks like HD video encoding and up to 90% faster so you can accomplish more without the wait.² Plus, when you get an Intel Centrino 2 processor technology with integrated Intel® Turbo Boost, you have everything you need to run Microsoft Windows Vista* with support for full Aero*.
Break free with longer battery life. Designed for the longest possible battery life, notebooks with Intel Centrino 2 processor technology will keep you unwired longer with Intel® Intelligent Power capability and Deep Power Down Technology built in.
Enjoy the hi-def mobile multimedia monster inside. With up to 90% faster performance when compressing HD videos² and over 3X better 3D graphics performance³, you'll enjoy your HD entertainment experience at home or on the fly.
The future of wireless now. With integrated WiFi, you'll get up to 5X the speed when connecting wirelessly to your Wireless N home network and up to 5X better wireless performance for even faster Wireless N technology that's just around the corner.4
With WiMAX rolling out in cities around the U.S., you’ll want to be ready with WiMAX built into your laptop powered by Intel® Centrino® 2 processor technology.5 Adding the optional WiMAX technology will position you at the cutting edge of 4G wireless. It’s like taking the fast, high-performance Internet experience you’ve come to expect at home, all around town with you.
Massive performance. Delivering faster performance for multi-tasking with state-of-the-art hafnium-based design, the new Intel Centrino 2 processor technology provides new breakthroughs in mobile performance. With a minimum of 3MB smart cache and 1066 Front Side Bus, you can experience performance gains of up to 50%.¹
Multitask like mad. When you're looking for a notebook that can keep up the pace, Intel Centrino 2 processor technology makes quick work of the toughest computing tasks like HD video encoding and up to 90% faster so you can accomplish more without the wait.² Plus, when you get an Intel Centrino 2 processor technology with integrated Intel® Turbo Boost, you have everything you need to run Microsoft Windows Vista* with support for full Aero*.
Break free with longer battery life. Designed for the longest possible battery life, notebooks with Intel Centrino 2 processor technology will keep you unwired longer with Intel® Intelligent Power capability and Deep Power Down Technology built in.
Enjoy the hi-def mobile multimedia monster inside. With up to 90% faster performance when compressing HD videos² and over 3X better 3D graphics performance³, you'll enjoy your HD entertainment experience at home or on the fly.
The future of wireless now. With integrated WiFi, you'll get up to 5X the speed when connecting wirelessly to your Wireless N home network and up to 5X better wireless performance for even faster Wireless N technology that's just around the corner.4
With WiMAX rolling out in cities around the U.S., you’ll want to be ready with WiMAX built into your laptop powered by Intel® Centrino® 2 processor technology.5 Adding the optional WiMAX technology will position you at the cutting edge of 4G wireless. It’s like taking the fast, high-performance Internet experience you’ve come to expect at home, all around town with you.
"Era of Tera " [Intel 's 80 core processor] Reviews
Quad-core? Pah! Intel has produced an 80-core chip, the world's first programmable microprocessor with teraflop performance capabilities, the chip giant claimed today. It's not compatible with the x86 instruction set - it's a proof of concept part designed to show how a production processor might operate.
The monster part incorporates not only the usual data-processing facilities - essentially they're just floating point maths co-processors - but also features a network processing unit on each core to control core-to-core communication. The cores are linked in a mesh configuration.
Each core's designed to be clocked to 3.1GHz and is mounted with 20MB of SRAM stacked up on top of the die. Connecting memory this way provides an aggregate bandwidth of a trillion bytes per second, Intel said.
Once Intel boffins have worked out the best way to interconnect cores, memory and other processing features such as specific protocol handles and maybe even graphics engines, they will have to determine how the whole thing can operate with real CPU cores instead of the test units.
Still, Intel CEO Paul Otellini reckons such a processor might become commercially available in five years' time.
Chief Technical Officer Justin Rattner demonstrated the processor in San Francisco last week for a group of reporters, and the company will present a paper on the project during the International Solid State Circuits Conference in the city this week.
The chip is capable of producing 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, known as a teraflop. That's a level of performance that required 2,500 square feet of large computers a decade ago.
Intel first disclosed it had built a prototype 80-core processor during last fall's Intel Developer Forum, when CEO Paul Otellini promised to deliver the chip within five years. The company's researchers have several hurdles to overcome before PCs and servers come with 80-core processors--such as how to connect the chip to memory and how to teach software developers to write programs for it--but the research chip is an important step, Rattner said.
A company called ClearSpeed has put 96 cores on a single chip. ClearSpeed's chips are used as co-processors with supercomputers that require a powerful chip for a very specific purpose.
Intel's research chip has 80 cores, or "tiles," Rattner said. Each tile has a computing element and a router, allowing it to crunch data individually and transport that data to neighboring tiles.
Intel used 100 million transistors on the chip, which measures 275 millimeters squared. By comparison, its Core 2 Duo chip uses 291 million transistors and measures 143 millimeters squared. The chip was built using Intel's 65-nanometer manufacturing technology, but any likely product based on the design would probably use a future process based on smaller transistors. A chip the size of the current research chip is likely too large for cost-effective manufacturing.
The computing elements are very basic and do not use the x86 instruction set used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices' chips, which means Windows Vista can't be run on the research chip. Instead, the chip uses a VLIW (very long instruction word) architecture, a simpler approach to computing than the x86 instruction set.
There's also no way at present to connect this chip to memory. Intel is working on a stacked memory chip that it could place on top of the research chip, and it's talking to memory companies about next-generation designs for memory chips, Rattner said.
Intel's researchers will then have to figure out how to create general-purpose processing cores that can handle the wide variety of applications in the world. The company is still looking at a five-year timeframe for product delivery, Rattner said.
But the primary challenge for an 80-core chip will be figuring out how to write software that can take advantage of all that horsepower. The PC software community is just starting to get its hands around multicore programming, although its server counterparts are a little further ahead. Still, Microsoft, Apple and the Linux community have a long way to go before they'll be able to effectively utilize 80 individual processing units with their PC operating systems.
"The operating system has the most control over the CPU, and it's got to change," said Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat. "It has to be more intelligent about breaking things up," he said, referring to how tasks are divided among multiple processing cores.
"I think we're sort of all moving forward here together," Rattner said. "As the core count grows and people get the skills to use them effectively, these applications will come." Intel hopes to make it easier by training its army of software developers on creating tools and libraries, he said.
Intel demonstrated the chip running an application created for solving differential equations. At 3.16GHz and with 0.95 volts applied to the processor, it can hit 1 teraflop of performance while consuming 62 watts of power. Intel constructed a special motherboard and cooling system for the demonstration in a San Francisco hotel
The monster part incorporates not only the usual data-processing facilities - essentially they're just floating point maths co-processors - but also features a network processing unit on each core to control core-to-core communication. The cores are linked in a mesh configuration.
Each core's designed to be clocked to 3.1GHz and is mounted with 20MB of SRAM stacked up on top of the die. Connecting memory this way provides an aggregate bandwidth of a trillion bytes per second, Intel said.
Once Intel boffins have worked out the best way to interconnect cores, memory and other processing features such as specific protocol handles and maybe even graphics engines, they will have to determine how the whole thing can operate with real CPU cores instead of the test units.
Still, Intel CEO Paul Otellini reckons such a processor might become commercially available in five years' time.
Chief Technical Officer Justin Rattner demonstrated the processor in San Francisco last week for a group of reporters, and the company will present a paper on the project during the International Solid State Circuits Conference in the city this week.
The chip is capable of producing 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, known as a teraflop. That's a level of performance that required 2,500 square feet of large computers a decade ago.
Intel first disclosed it had built a prototype 80-core processor during last fall's Intel Developer Forum, when CEO Paul Otellini promised to deliver the chip within five years. The company's researchers have several hurdles to overcome before PCs and servers come with 80-core processors--such as how to connect the chip to memory and how to teach software developers to write programs for it--but the research chip is an important step, Rattner said.
A company called ClearSpeed has put 96 cores on a single chip. ClearSpeed's chips are used as co-processors with supercomputers that require a powerful chip for a very specific purpose.
Intel's research chip has 80 cores, or "tiles," Rattner said. Each tile has a computing element and a router, allowing it to crunch data individually and transport that data to neighboring tiles.
Intel used 100 million transistors on the chip, which measures 275 millimeters squared. By comparison, its Core 2 Duo chip uses 291 million transistors and measures 143 millimeters squared. The chip was built using Intel's 65-nanometer manufacturing technology, but any likely product based on the design would probably use a future process based on smaller transistors. A chip the size of the current research chip is likely too large for cost-effective manufacturing.
The computing elements are very basic and do not use the x86 instruction set used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices' chips, which means Windows Vista can't be run on the research chip. Instead, the chip uses a VLIW (very long instruction word) architecture, a simpler approach to computing than the x86 instruction set.
There's also no way at present to connect this chip to memory. Intel is working on a stacked memory chip that it could place on top of the research chip, and it's talking to memory companies about next-generation designs for memory chips, Rattner said.
Intel's researchers will then have to figure out how to create general-purpose processing cores that can handle the wide variety of applications in the world. The company is still looking at a five-year timeframe for product delivery, Rattner said.
But the primary challenge for an 80-core chip will be figuring out how to write software that can take advantage of all that horsepower. The PC software community is just starting to get its hands around multicore programming, although its server counterparts are a little further ahead. Still, Microsoft, Apple and the Linux community have a long way to go before they'll be able to effectively utilize 80 individual processing units with their PC operating systems.
"The operating system has the most control over the CPU, and it's got to change," said Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat. "It has to be more intelligent about breaking things up," he said, referring to how tasks are divided among multiple processing cores.
"I think we're sort of all moving forward here together," Rattner said. "As the core count grows and people get the skills to use them effectively, these applications will come." Intel hopes to make it easier by training its army of software developers on creating tools and libraries, he said.
Intel demonstrated the chip running an application created for solving differential equations. At 3.16GHz and with 0.95 volts applied to the processor, it can hit 1 teraflop of performance while consuming 62 watts of power. Intel constructed a special motherboard and cooling system for the demonstration in a San Francisco hotel
Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition
Ubuntu MID Edition targets an exciting new class of computers called Mobile Internet Devices. Ubuntu MID, based on the world's most popular Linux distribution, and MID hardware from OEMs and ODMs, is redefining what can be done in mobile computing.
Ubuntu MID Edition, a fully open source project, gives the full Internet, with no compromise. Custom options may include licensed codecs and popular third-party applications.
Full Web 2.0/AJAX fidelity, with custom options of Adobe Flash®, Java, and more
Outstanding media playback so you can enjoy videos, music and photos with superior quality and easy navigation
A suite of applications that work seamlessly to meet every need of a digital parent, student or anyone who is on-the-go
Facebook®, MySpace®, YouTube®, Dailymotion®, 3D games, GPS, maps, in short, the full Web 2.0 experience delivered into your hands as a compact and powerful device that's easy and fun to use
The product of Canonical collaboration with Intel® and the open source community, Ubuntu MID Edition is the software that makes it all possible.
How to access blocked sites like Orkut within a restricted network !!
Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.
Visit Tor project website
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use Tor for a wide variety of reasons: journalists and bloggers, human rights workers, law enforcement officers, soldiers, corporations, citizens of repressive regimes, and just ordinary citizens. See the Who Uses Tor? page for examples of typical Tor users. See the overview page for a more detailed explanation of what Tor does, why this diversity of users is important, and how Tor works.
There are three pieces of fine print you need to know about.
Tor does not protect you if you do not use it correctly. Read our list of warnings and make sure to follow the instructions for your platform carefully.
Even if you configure and use Tor correctly, there are still potential attacks that could compromise Tor's ability to protect you.
No anonymity system is perfect these days, and Tor is no exception: you should not rely solely on the current Tor network if you really need strong anonymity.
Visit Tor project website
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world use Tor for a wide variety of reasons: journalists and bloggers, human rights workers, law enforcement officers, soldiers, corporations, citizens of repressive regimes, and just ordinary citizens. See the Who Uses Tor? page for examples of typical Tor users. See the overview page for a more detailed explanation of what Tor does, why this diversity of users is important, and how Tor works.
There are three pieces of fine print you need to know about.
Tor does not protect you if you do not use it correctly. Read our list of warnings and make sure to follow the instructions for your platform carefully.
Even if you configure and use Tor correctly, there are still potential attacks that could compromise Tor's ability to protect you.
No anonymity system is perfect these days, and Tor is no exception: you should not rely solely on the current Tor network if you really need strong anonymity.
Linux Foundation Publishes Study Estimating the Value of Linux
New report finds the value of developing a Linux distribution to be worth $10.8 billion
SAN FRANCISCO – October 22, 2008 – The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is publishing a new report written by Amanda McPherson, Brian Proffitt and Ron Hale-Evans on the value of Linux development. The paper finds that it would take approximately $10.8 billion to build the Linux community distribution Fedora 9 in today’s dollars with today’s software development costs. It would take $1.4 billion to develop the Linux kernel alone.
The report, titled “Estimating the Total Development Cost of a Linux Distribution,” is available today.
This report is an update of a 2002 study done by David A. Wheeler that examined the Software Lines of Code (SLOC) present in a typical Linux distribution (Red Hat Linux 7.1). At that time, Wheeler found that it would cost over $1.2 billion to develop a Linux distribution by conventional proprietary means in the U.S.
The authors examined the Fedora 9 distribution using Wheeler’s tools and methods, specifically the SLOCCount tool that estimates value and effort of software development based on the COnstructive COst MOdel (COCOMO). The report goes into detail on the methods used, how they specifically apply to the Fedora distribution and the Linux kernel, and what an estimate of Linux’ value really means.
Highlights of the paper include:
– How Much Does a Full Distribution Cost?
Using 2008 salary figures, the tests published in the paper revealed that if developed today, the full set of Fedora 9 distribution packages would cost $10.8 billion. The Fedora 9 distribution contains 204.5 million lines of code in 5547 application packages. The development effort estimate comes close to 60,000 Person-Years.
– How Much Does the Linux Kernel Cost?
Applying this test to the Linux kernel included in Fedora 9 found the value to be 6.8 million lines of code worth $1.4 billion. The development effort estimate for the kernel alone exceeds 7500 Person-Years.
– How Does This Really Measure the Value of Linux?
This study reveals that collaborative development creates enormous economic value. In the past two years alone, over 3,200 developers from 200 companies have contributed to the kernel. An even larger number has contributed to full Linux distributions. Measuring the economic effort involved is imperfect, but this report clarifies why the methodology is the best approach and some of the limitations.
”This year has seen an incredible proliferation of Linux-powered devices outside of traditional Linux strongholds: devices powered by the Moblin platform, netbooks like the eeePC, mobile phones like the Gphone, and consumer devices like the Amazon Kindle. Would these products be possible without Linux?” said McPherson. “I think this points to the power of the collaborative development model. Monopolistic software companies used to be able to fund heavy R&D budgets, keeping out competition. Given the cost associated with building an OS like Linux, one wonders if proprietary companies will ever go it alone again.”
Amanda McPherson is vice president, marketing and developer programs, at the LF and leads its promotion, developer, and community-relations activities. Brian Proffitt is community manager with the LF, managing the Linux Developer Network. Ron Hale-Evans is senior specifications writer with the LF and works closely with the Linux Standard Base (LSB) developer team to create LSB specifications.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. For more information, please visit www.linux-foundation.org.
SAN FRANCISCO – October 22, 2008 – The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is publishing a new report written by Amanda McPherson, Brian Proffitt and Ron Hale-Evans on the value of Linux development. The paper finds that it would take approximately $10.8 billion to build the Linux community distribution Fedora 9 in today’s dollars with today’s software development costs. It would take $1.4 billion to develop the Linux kernel alone.
The report, titled “Estimating the Total Development Cost of a Linux Distribution,” is available today.
This report is an update of a 2002 study done by David A. Wheeler that examined the Software Lines of Code (SLOC) present in a typical Linux distribution (Red Hat Linux 7.1). At that time, Wheeler found that it would cost over $1.2 billion to develop a Linux distribution by conventional proprietary means in the U.S.
The authors examined the Fedora 9 distribution using Wheeler’s tools and methods, specifically the SLOCCount tool that estimates value and effort of software development based on the COnstructive COst MOdel (COCOMO). The report goes into detail on the methods used, how they specifically apply to the Fedora distribution and the Linux kernel, and what an estimate of Linux’ value really means.
Highlights of the paper include:
– How Much Does a Full Distribution Cost?
Using 2008 salary figures, the tests published in the paper revealed that if developed today, the full set of Fedora 9 distribution packages would cost $10.8 billion. The Fedora 9 distribution contains 204.5 million lines of code in 5547 application packages. The development effort estimate comes close to 60,000 Person-Years.
– How Much Does the Linux Kernel Cost?
Applying this test to the Linux kernel included in Fedora 9 found the value to be 6.8 million lines of code worth $1.4 billion. The development effort estimate for the kernel alone exceeds 7500 Person-Years.
– How Does This Really Measure the Value of Linux?
This study reveals that collaborative development creates enormous economic value. In the past two years alone, over 3,200 developers from 200 companies have contributed to the kernel. An even larger number has contributed to full Linux distributions. Measuring the economic effort involved is imperfect, but this report clarifies why the methodology is the best approach and some of the limitations.
”This year has seen an incredible proliferation of Linux-powered devices outside of traditional Linux strongholds: devices powered by the Moblin platform, netbooks like the eeePC, mobile phones like the Gphone, and consumer devices like the Amazon Kindle. Would these products be possible without Linux?” said McPherson. “I think this points to the power of the collaborative development model. Monopolistic software companies used to be able to fund heavy R&D budgets, keeping out competition. Given the cost associated with building an OS like Linux, one wonders if proprietary companies will ever go it alone again.”
Amanda McPherson is vice president, marketing and developer programs, at the LF and leads its promotion, developer, and community-relations activities. Brian Proffitt is community manager with the LF, managing the Linux Developer Network. Ron Hale-Evans is senior specifications writer with the LF and works closely with the Linux Standard Base (LSB) developer team to create LSB specifications.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. For more information, please visit www.linux-foundation.org.
How to install codecs in Fedora !!
1. Enabling Livna repository:
rpm.livna.org provides many useful packages that can not be distributed in Fedora, probably for licensing issues.Switch to root using su - command in the terminal.Type the below in the terminal as root to enable to Livna repository
#rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm
Alternatively you you download the RPM file from http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm and then install it.
2. Next step is to install the codecs needed to play various multimedia file formats. In the terminal type:
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly
This will resolve the dependencies and list the packages that needs to be installed, removed or updated. It will ask for your confirmation to proceed further. Read and message on the screen and choose yes. Once the files are downloaded it will ask for your confirmation before importing GPG key from Livna. Choose yes. You will receive a message like below:
Installed: gstreamer-plugins-ugly.i386 0:0.10.5-2.lvn7
Dependency Installed: a52dec.i386 0:0.7.4-10.lvn6 lame-libs.i386 0:3.97-4.lvn7 libdvdread.i386 0:0.9.7-2.fc7 libid3tag.i386 0:0.15.1b-3.fc6 libmad.i386 0:0.15.1b-4.lvn6 libsidplay.i386 0:1.36.57-12.fc7 mpeg2dec.i386 0:0.4.1-2.lvn6
Complete!
Now you should be able to play MP3s using a player like Rhythmbox.
Note: If you receive a message that yum cannot be run, you will need to end the yum-updatesd process. Use the command
#killall yum-updatesd
to kill the already running Yum process. By default Package Manager will be running in the system which uses yum-updatesd. Two instances of
yum-updatesd are not allowed to run at the same time.3. To remove totem, totem-mozplugin totem-plparser which are already installed in the system by default. These packages are unable to play MP3 or MPEG files. Here's the command you need to type in the terminal
# yum remove totem totem-mozplugin totem-plparser
This will resolve the dependencies and list the packages that needs to be installed, removed or updated. It will ask for your confirmation to proceed further. Read and message on the screen and choose yes. Pretty much the same what you did with yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly command.
4. The last step is to install the correct audio and video players and codecs that play MP3 and MPEG files. Just one command is remaining:
# yum install totem-xine totem-xine-mozplugin totem-xine-plparser libdvdcss libdvdnav libdvdplay xine-lib-extras-nonfree rhythmbox.i386 0:0.10.0-8.fc7
Those are the steps you need to perform and you should be all set. Use Rhythmbox to play audio files. Use Totem(Movie Player) to play video files but other players also do well !!!!!!!!!!!!!
rpm.livna.org provides many useful packages that can not be distributed in Fedora, probably for licensing issues.Switch to root using su - command in the terminal.Type the below in the terminal as root to enable to Livna repository
#rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm
Alternatively you you download the RPM file from http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm and then install it.
2. Next step is to install the codecs needed to play various multimedia file formats. In the terminal type:
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly
This will resolve the dependencies and list the packages that needs to be installed, removed or updated. It will ask for your confirmation to proceed further. Read and message on the screen and choose yes. Once the files are downloaded it will ask for your confirmation before importing GPG key from Livna. Choose yes. You will receive a message like below:
Installed: gstreamer-plugins-ugly.i386 0:0.10.5-2.lvn7
Dependency Installed: a52dec.i386 0:0.7.4-10.lvn6 lame-libs.i386 0:3.97-4.lvn7 libdvdread.i386 0:0.9.7-2.fc7 libid3tag.i386 0:0.15.1b-3.fc6 libmad.i386 0:0.15.1b-4.lvn6 libsidplay.i386 0:1.36.57-12.fc7 mpeg2dec.i386 0:0.4.1-2.lvn6
Complete!
Now you should be able to play MP3s using a player like Rhythmbox.
Note: If you receive a message that yum cannot be run, you will need to end the yum-updatesd process. Use the command
#killall yum-updatesd
to kill the already running Yum process. By default Package Manager will be running in the system which uses yum-updatesd. Two instances of
yum-updatesd are not allowed to run at the same time.3. To remove totem, totem-mozplugin totem-plparser which are already installed in the system by default. These packages are unable to play MP3 or MPEG files. Here's the command you need to type in the terminal
# yum remove totem totem-mozplugin totem-plparser
This will resolve the dependencies and list the packages that needs to be installed, removed or updated. It will ask for your confirmation to proceed further. Read and message on the screen and choose yes. Pretty much the same what you did with yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly command.
4. The last step is to install the correct audio and video players and codecs that play MP3 and MPEG files. Just one command is remaining:
# yum install totem-xine totem-xine-mozplugin totem-xine-plparser libdvdcss libdvdnav libdvdplay xine-lib-extras-nonfree rhythmbox.i386 0:0.10.0-8.fc7
Those are the steps you need to perform and you should be all set. Use Rhythmbox to play audio files. Use Totem(Movie Player) to play video files but other players also do well !!!!!!!!!!!!!
How to Install proprietary ATI graphics driver
1) Download the driver from
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
2) Press Ctrl + Alt + F1 and login. Become root. (sudo -i in Ubuntu)
3) Stop GDM/KDM
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
or
/etc/init.d/kdm stop
4) Change directory to the one where ur downloaded driver resides.
5) sh atidriver(complete_the_name).run
6) Follow the instructions, do the recommended install.
7) Now, type aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf
------------------
Ubuntu users can use Envy. Its the easiest way!
Hardy heron users can install Envy directly from Synaptic Package Manager.
Others can get envy from
http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html
After installing Envy, run it and follow the procedure.
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
2) Press Ctrl + Alt + F1 and login. Become root. (sudo -i in Ubuntu)
3) Stop GDM/KDM
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
or
/etc/init.d/kdm stop
4) Change directory to the one where ur downloaded driver resides.
5) sh atidriver(complete_the_name).run
6) Follow the instructions, do the recommended install.
7) Now, type aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf
------------------
Ubuntu users can use Envy. Its the easiest way!
Hardy heron users can install Envy directly from Synaptic Package Manager.
Others can get envy from
http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html
After installing Envy, run it and follow the procedure.
World's fastest supercomputer runs Linux
IBM announced the completion of a one-petaflop supercomputer that runs Red Hat Linux. Twice as fast as the previous record-setter, the IBM Blue Gene, the Roadrunner uses a hybrid design that combines 6,948 dual-core AMD Opteron chips with 12,960 Cell processor engines.
The Roadrunner was built for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration and will be soon be shipped to its new home at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. There, it will be put to work monitoring the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, but will also be available for research into astronomy, energy, human genome science, and climate change, says IBM.
Like Blue Gene and some 75 percent of the world's supercomputers, the $100 million Roadrunner runs Linux. As with most of them, the new world record-holder runs multiple instances of Linux over a cluster of interconnected computers.
Lead engineer Don Grice of IBM inspects Roadrunner
With its mixture of i86 Opteron processors, running on IBM Model LS21 blade servers, and Cell processors running on IBM Model QS22 blade servers , the Roadrunner is billed as the world's first "hybrid" supercomputer. The recently announced QS22 features a die-shrunk version of the Cell processor. It is compliant with the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) Architecture co-developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, and which is best known for its use in Sony's Playstation3. Each multi-core "Cell" processor features eight synergistic processor units, with advanced floating-point performance and clock speeds in excess of 4GHz.
The Roadrunner's standard processing is handled by the i86-based Opterons, while the Cell processors perform the more mathematically and CPU-intensive operations. IBM arranges the Roadrunner's servers in a "tri-blade" configuration that combines two Cell-based IBM QS22 blade servers and one AMD-based IBM LS21 blade server. Each of the 3,456 tri-blade clusters can run at 400 billion operations per second (400 Gigaflops), says IBM.
Backed up with 80 terabytes of memory, the entire system can achieve "petaflop" performance, or 1,000-trillion operations every second -- the equivalent to the processing power of 100,000 laptops, says the company. By comparison, the Blue Gene is equipped with 131,072 embedded PowerPC processors and 32,768GB of RAM, and achieves 280,600 Gigaflops performance overall, with 367,000 Gigaflops peak performance.
According to IBM, the Roadrunner's hybrid design has helped make the system far more energy efficient than the Blue Gene. The Roadrunner boasts power consumption of 3.9 megaWatts, and is said to provide 376 million calculations per Watt.
The Roadrunner is housed in 288 refrigerator-sized BladeCenter racks occupying 6,000 square feet and weighing 500,000 pounds, says IBM. The system is also equipped with 10,000 Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet connections, requiring 57 miles of fiber optic cable. The computer is comprised almost entirely of commercially available technology, with components contributed from companies, including Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox, Panasas, and Voltaire.
IBM is developing new software to make Cell-powered hybrid computing broadly accessible, says the company. Big Blue is also developing an "open-source ecosystem" that will bring hybrid supercomputing to financial services, energy exploration, and medical imaging industries. Potential applications include calculating cause and effect in capital markets in real-time, and visualizing 3-D renderings of tissues and bone structures in real-time, as patients are being examined.
The Roadrunner was built for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration and will be soon be shipped to its new home at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. There, it will be put to work monitoring the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, but will also be available for research into astronomy, energy, human genome science, and climate change, says IBM.
Like Blue Gene and some 75 percent of the world's supercomputers, the $100 million Roadrunner runs Linux. As with most of them, the new world record-holder runs multiple instances of Linux over a cluster of interconnected computers.
Lead engineer Don Grice of IBM inspects Roadrunner
With its mixture of i86 Opteron processors, running on IBM Model LS21 blade servers, and Cell processors running on IBM Model QS22 blade servers , the Roadrunner is billed as the world's first "hybrid" supercomputer. The recently announced QS22 features a die-shrunk version of the Cell processor. It is compliant with the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) Architecture co-developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, and which is best known for its use in Sony's Playstation3. Each multi-core "Cell" processor features eight synergistic processor units, with advanced floating-point performance and clock speeds in excess of 4GHz.
The Roadrunner's standard processing is handled by the i86-based Opterons, while the Cell processors perform the more mathematically and CPU-intensive operations. IBM arranges the Roadrunner's servers in a "tri-blade" configuration that combines two Cell-based IBM QS22 blade servers and one AMD-based IBM LS21 blade server. Each of the 3,456 tri-blade clusters can run at 400 billion operations per second (400 Gigaflops), says IBM.
Backed up with 80 terabytes of memory, the entire system can achieve "petaflop" performance, or 1,000-trillion operations every second -- the equivalent to the processing power of 100,000 laptops, says the company. By comparison, the Blue Gene is equipped with 131,072 embedded PowerPC processors and 32,768GB of RAM, and achieves 280,600 Gigaflops performance overall, with 367,000 Gigaflops peak performance.
According to IBM, the Roadrunner's hybrid design has helped make the system far more energy efficient than the Blue Gene. The Roadrunner boasts power consumption of 3.9 megaWatts, and is said to provide 376 million calculations per Watt.
The Roadrunner is housed in 288 refrigerator-sized BladeCenter racks occupying 6,000 square feet and weighing 500,000 pounds, says IBM. The system is also equipped with 10,000 Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet connections, requiring 57 miles of fiber optic cable. The computer is comprised almost entirely of commercially available technology, with components contributed from companies, including Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox, Panasas, and Voltaire.
IBM is developing new software to make Cell-powered hybrid computing broadly accessible, says the company. Big Blue is also developing an "open-source ecosystem" that will bring hybrid supercomputing to financial services, energy exploration, and medical imaging industries. Potential applications include calculating cause and effect in capital markets in real-time, and visualizing 3-D renderings of tissues and bone structures in real-time, as patients are being examined.
Linux alternatives
3D Home Architect
Sweet Home 3D ( http://sweethome3d.sourceforge.net/index.html )
3D Studio Max
K-3D ( http://www.k-3d.org/ )
Wings 3D ( http://www.wings3d.com/ )
Art of Illusion ( http://www.artofillusion.org/ )
Blender ( http://www.blender.org/ )
ACDSee
KuickShow ( http://kuickshow.sourceforge.net/ )
ShowImg ( http://www.jalix.org/projects/showimg/ )
Gwenview ( http://gwenview.sourceforge.net/ )
GQview ( http://gqview.sourceforge.net/ )
Eye of GNOME ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/eog/ )
Adobe Acrobat Reader
okular ( http://kpdf.kde.org/okular/ )
Xpdf ( http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/ )
Evince ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/evince/ )
ePDFView ( http://trac.emma-soft.com/epdfview/ )
KPDF ( http://kpdf.kde.org/ )
Adobe Audition
Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ )
Adobe Illustrator
Skencil ( http://www.skencil.org/ )
Inkscape ( http://www.inkscape.org/ )
Karbon14 ( http://www.koffice.org/karbon/ )
Xara Xtreme for Linux ( http://www.xaraxtreme.org/ )
Adobe PageMaker
Scribus ( http://www.scribus.net/ )
Adobe PhotoAlbum
F-Spot ( http://f-spot.org/Main_Page )
KPhotoAlbum ( http://www.kphotoalbum.org/ )
digiKam ( http://www.digikam.org/ )
Adobe Photoshop
CinePaint ( http://www.cinepaint.org/ )
Krita ( http://www.koffice.org/krita/ )
GIMP ( http://www.gimp.org/ )
Adobe Premier
PiTiVi ( http://www.pitivi.org/wiki/Main_Page )
LiVES ( http://lives.sourceforge.net/ )
Kino ( http://www.kinodv.org/ )
Cinelerra ( http://cvs.cinelerra.org/ )
kdenlive ( http://kdenlive.sourceforge.net/ )
Jahshaka ( http://www.jahshaka.org/ )
Ant Movie Catalog
Moviefly ( https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/lmc/ )
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
Kopete ( http://kopete.kde.org/ )
Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im )
APC PowerChute
Network UPS Tools ( http://www.networkupstools.org/ )
Apcupsd ( http://www.apcupsd.com/ )
PowerD ( http://power.sourceforge.net/ )
CDex
Sound Juicer ( http://www.burtonini.com/blog/computers/sound-juicer )
Rubyripper ( http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Rubyripper )
ripperX ( http://ripperx.sourceforge.net/ )
Grip ( http://nostatic.org/grip/ )
KAudioCreator ( http://www.icefox.net/programs/?program=KAudioCreator )
Collectorz
aviManager ( http://avimanager.sourceforge.net/ )
GCstar ( http://www.gcstar.org/ )
Tellico ( http://periapsis.org/tellico/ )
Alexandria ( http://alexandria.rubyforge.org/ )
Griffith ( http://griffith.vasconunes.net/ )
vMovieDB ( http://vmoviedb.sourceforge.net/ )
Katalog ( http://salvaste.altervista.org/ )
Dreamweaver
Quanta Plus ( http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/ )
Geany ( http://geany.uvena.de )
Nvu ( http://www.nvu.com/index.php )
Screem ( http://www.screem.org/ )
KompoZer ( http://www.kompozer.net/ )
Bluefish ( http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html )
DVDShrink
k9copy ( http://k9copy.sourceforge.net/ )
OGMRip ( http://ogmrip.sourceforge.net/ )
Thoggen ( http://thoggen.net/ )
xdvdshrink ( http://dvdshrink.sourceforge.net/ )
DVD Rip-O-Matic ( http://dvdripomatic.sourceforge.net )
qVamps ( http://vamps.sourceforge.net/ )
dvd::rip ( http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/ )
AcidRip ( http://untrepid.com/acidrip/ )
Everest
HardInfo ( http://hardinfo.berlios.de/web/HomePage )
Finale
Lilypond ( http://www.lilypond.org )
Denemo ( http://denemo.sourceforge.net/index.html )
Rosegarden ( http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ )
NoteEdit ( http://noteedit.berlios.de/ )
Brahms ( http://brahms.sourceforge.net/ )
Flash
F4L ( http://f4l.sourceforge.net/ )
Fontographer
FontForge ( http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ )
Forte Agent
Pan ( http://pan.rebelbase.com/ )
FruityLoops
LMMS ( http://lmms.sourceforge.net/ )
Hydrogen ( http://www.hydrogen-music.org/ )
Google Desktop Search
Google Desktop ( http://desktop.google.com/linux/index.html )
Beagle ( http://beagle-project.org/ )
Guitar Pro
TuxGuitar ( http://www.tuxguitar.com.ar/home.html )
DGuitar ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/dguitar/ )
kguitar ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/kguitar/ )
iTunes
Banshee ( http://banshee-project.org/Main_Page )
aTunes ( http://www.atunes.org/ )
Quod Libet ( http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet )
SongBird ( http://www.songbirdnest.com )
Exaile ( http://www.exaile.org/ )
Amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ )
Listen ( http://listengnome.free.fr/ )
Rhythmbox ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ )
gtkpod ( http://www.gtkpod.org/ )
Legacy Family Tree
GRAMPS ( http://gramps-project.org/ )
LimeWire
FrostWire ( http://www.frostwire.com/ )
Meal Master
krecipe ( http://krecipes.sourceforge.net/ )
Gourmet Recipe Manager ( http://grecipe-manager.sourceforge.net/ )
Microsoft Access
Kexi ( http://www.koffice.org/kexi/ )
knoda ( http://www.knoda.org )
GNOME-DB ( http://www.gnome-db.org/ )
Microsoft Excel
KSpread ( http://www.koffice.org/kspread/ )
Open Calc ( http://www.openoffice.org/product/calc.html )
Gnumeric ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/ )
Microsoft Frontpage
Quanta Plus ( http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/ )
Nvu ( http://www.nvu.com/index.php )
KompoZer ( http://www.kompozer.net/ )
Bluefish ( http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html )
Microsoft HyperTerminal
minicom ( http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/ )
GtkTerm ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/gtkterm/ )
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Epiphany ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/ )
Opera ( http://www.opera.com/download/ )
Firefox ( http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ )
Konqueror ( http://www.konqueror.org/ )
Microsoft Media Center
XBMC Media Center ( http://xbmc.org/ )
Microsoft Money
KMyMoney ( http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/ )
GNUcash ( http://www.gnucash.org/ )
Gnofin ( http://gnofin.sourceforge.net/ )
Grisbi ( http://www.grisbi.org/ )
Microsoft Office
GNOME Office ( http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/ )
KOffice ( http://www.koffice.org/ )
OpenOffice ( http://www.openoffice.org/ )
Microsoft OneNote
BasKet ( http://basket.kde.org/ )
Microsoft Outlook (Express)
Thunderbird ( http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ )
Evolution ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/ )
Microsoft Powerpoint
Open Office Impress ( http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html )
KPresenter ( http://www.koffice.org/kpresenter/ )
Microsoft Project
KPlato ( http://www.koffice.org/kplato/ )
OpenProj ( http://openproj.org/openproj )
GanttProject ( http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net/ )
Planner ( http://live.gnome.org/Planner )
TaskJuggler ( http://www.taskjuggler.org/ )
Microsoft Visio
Dia ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ )
Kivio ( http://www.koffice.org/kivio/ )
Microsoft Windows Media Center
Freevo ( http://freevo.sourceforge.net/ )
Elisa Media Center ( http://www.fluendo.com/elisa/ )
MythTV ( http://www.mythtv.org )
LinuxMCE ( http://www.linuxmce.com/ )
Microsoft Word
Open Office Writer ( http://www.openoffice.org/product/writer.html )
AbiWord ( http://www.abisource.com/ )
Kword ( http://www.koffice.org/kword/ )
mIRC
Konversation ( http://konversation.kde.org/ )
KVIrc ( http://www.kvirc.net/ )
BitchX ( http://www.bitchx.org/ )
Xchat ( http://www.xchat.org/ )
ChatZilla! ( http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/ )
irssi ( http://www.irssi.org/ )
Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im )
Mp3tag
Kid3 ( http://kid3.sourceforge.net/ )
Pinkytagger ( http://pinkytagger.sourceforge.net/ )
EasyTAG ( http://easytag.sourceforge.net/ )
Cowbell ( http://more-cowbell.org/ )
Audio Tag Tool ( http://pwp.netcabo.pt/paol/tagtool/ )
MSN messenger
Mercury Messenger ( http://www.mercury.to/ )
Kopete ( http://kopete.kde.org/ )
aMSN ( http://amsn-project.net/ )
Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im )
Mudbox
SharpConstruct ( http://sharp3d.sourceforge.net )
Nero Burning Rom
X-CD-Roast ( http://www.xcdroast.org/ )
Brasero ( http://perso.orange.fr/bonfire/index.htm )
GnomeBaker ( http://gnomebaker.sourceforge.net/ )
Graveman! ( http://graveman.tuxfamily.org/ )
K3b ( http://www.k3b.org/ )
NetMeeting
Ekiga ( http://www.gnomemeeting.org/ )
NetStumbler
Kismet ( http://www.kismetwireless.net/ )
SWScanner ( http://www.swscanner.org/ )
NewzCrawler
RSSOwl ( http://www.rssowl.org/ )
Liferea ( http://liferea.sourceforge.net/ )
BasKet ( http://basket.kde.org/ )
Akregator ( http://akregator.kde.org/ )
Blam ( http://www.cmartin.tk/blam.html )
Straw ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/straw/ )
Notepad
leafpad ( http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/ )
NEdit ( http://www.nedit.org/ )
jEdit ( http://www.jedit.org/ )
Kate ( http://kate-editor.org/ )
gedit ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/gedit/ )
Scribes ( http://scribes.sourceforge.net/ )
tpad ( http://tclpad.sourceforge.net/ )
OrangeCD Catalog
GWhere ( http://www.gwhere.org )
Origin
SciGraphica ( http://scigraphica.sourceforge.net/ )
Partition Magic
Partimage ( http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page )
GParted ( http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ )
QtParted ( http://qtparted.sourceforge.net )
Picasa
F-Spot ( http://f-spot.org/Main_Page )
KPhotoAlbum ( http://www.kphotoalbum.org/ )
digiKam ( http://www.digikam.org/ )
Pro Tools
Ardour ( http://www.ardour.org )
Quicken
KMyMoney ( http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/ )
GNUcash ( http://www.gnucash.org/ )
Gnofin ( http://gnofin.sourceforge.net/ )
Grisbi ( http://www.grisbi.org/ )
SoulSeek
Nicotine ( http://nicotine.thegraveyard.org/ )
Nicotine-Plus ( http://nicotine-plus.sourceforge.net/ )
SoundForge
ReZound ( http://rezound.sourceforge.net/ )
Total Commander
GNOME Commander ( http://www.nongnu.org/gcmd/ )
xfe ( http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/ )
Tux Commander ( http://tuxcmd.sourceforge.net/ )
Midnight Commander ( http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/ )
Krusader ( http://krusader.sourceforge.net/ )
Traktor DJ
Mixxx ( http://mixxx.sourceforge.net/ )
terminatorX ( http://www.terminatorx.org/ )
Videora
thin liquid film ( http://thinliquidfilm.org/ )
Winamp
Audacious ( http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page )
Amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ )
XMMS ( http://www.xmms.org/ )
Windows Media Player
KPlayer ( http://kplayer.sourceforge.net/ )
VideoLAN ( http://www.videolan.org/ )
xine ( http://xinehq.de/ )
mplayer ( http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html )
Windows Movie Maker
PiTiVi ( http://www.pitivi.org/wiki/Main_Page )
LiVES ( http://lives.sourceforge.net/ )
Open Movie Editor ( http://openmovieeditor.sourceforge.net/HomePage )
Avidemux ( http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ )
Cinelerra ( http://cvs.cinelerra.org/ )
kdenlive ( http://kdenlive.sourceforge.net/ )
WinIso
ISO Master ( http://littlesvr.ca/isomaster/ )
KIso ( http://kiso.sourceforge.net/ )
WinMerge
KDiff3 ( http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/ )
Meld ( http://meld.sourceforge.net/ )
xxdiff ( http://furius.ca/xxdiff/ )
Kile ( http://kile.sourceforge.net/ )
WinTV
XdTV ( http://xawdecode.sourceforge.net/ )
tvtime ( http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/ )
WS_FTP
gFTP ( http://gftp.seul.org/ )
FireFTP ( http://fireftp.mozdev.org/ )
Zbrush
SharpConstruct ( http://sharp3d.sourceforge.net )
ZoneAlarm
Guarddog ( http://www.simonzone.com/software/guarddog/ )
Firestarter ( http://www.fs-security.com/ )
Sweet Home 3D ( http://sweethome3d.sourceforge.net/index.html )
3D Studio Max
K-3D ( http://www.k-3d.org/ )
Wings 3D ( http://www.wings3d.com/ )
Art of Illusion ( http://www.artofillusion.org/ )
Blender ( http://www.blender.org/ )
ACDSee
KuickShow ( http://kuickshow.sourceforge.net/ )
ShowImg ( http://www.jalix.org/projects/showimg/ )
Gwenview ( http://gwenview.sourceforge.net/ )
GQview ( http://gqview.sourceforge.net/ )
Eye of GNOME ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/eog/ )
Adobe Acrobat Reader
okular ( http://kpdf.kde.org/okular/ )
Xpdf ( http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/ )
Evince ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/evince/ )
ePDFView ( http://trac.emma-soft.com/epdfview/ )
KPDF ( http://kpdf.kde.org/ )
Adobe Audition
Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ )
Adobe Illustrator
Skencil ( http://www.skencil.org/ )
Inkscape ( http://www.inkscape.org/ )
Karbon14 ( http://www.koffice.org/karbon/ )
Xara Xtreme for Linux ( http://www.xaraxtreme.org/ )
Adobe PageMaker
Scribus ( http://www.scribus.net/ )
Adobe PhotoAlbum
F-Spot ( http://f-spot.org/Main_Page )
KPhotoAlbum ( http://www.kphotoalbum.org/ )
digiKam ( http://www.digikam.org/ )
Adobe Photoshop
CinePaint ( http://www.cinepaint.org/ )
Krita ( http://www.koffice.org/krita/ )
GIMP ( http://www.gimp.org/ )
Adobe Premier
PiTiVi ( http://www.pitivi.org/wiki/Main_Page )
LiVES ( http://lives.sourceforge.net/ )
Kino ( http://www.kinodv.org/ )
Cinelerra ( http://cvs.cinelerra.org/ )
kdenlive ( http://kdenlive.sourceforge.net/ )
Jahshaka ( http://www.jahshaka.org/ )
Ant Movie Catalog
Moviefly ( https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/lmc/ )
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
Kopete ( http://kopete.kde.org/ )
Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im )
APC PowerChute
Network UPS Tools ( http://www.networkupstools.org/ )
Apcupsd ( http://www.apcupsd.com/ )
PowerD ( http://power.sourceforge.net/ )
CDex
Sound Juicer ( http://www.burtonini.com/blog/computers/sound-juicer )
Rubyripper ( http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Rubyripper )
ripperX ( http://ripperx.sourceforge.net/ )
Grip ( http://nostatic.org/grip/ )
KAudioCreator ( http://www.icefox.net/programs/?program=KAudioCreator )
Collectorz
aviManager ( http://avimanager.sourceforge.net/ )
GCstar ( http://www.gcstar.org/ )
Tellico ( http://periapsis.org/tellico/ )
Alexandria ( http://alexandria.rubyforge.org/ )
Griffith ( http://griffith.vasconunes.net/ )
vMovieDB ( http://vmoviedb.sourceforge.net/ )
Katalog ( http://salvaste.altervista.org/ )
Dreamweaver
Quanta Plus ( http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/ )
Geany ( http://geany.uvena.de )
Nvu ( http://www.nvu.com/index.php )
Screem ( http://www.screem.org/ )
KompoZer ( http://www.kompozer.net/ )
Bluefish ( http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html )
DVDShrink
k9copy ( http://k9copy.sourceforge.net/ )
OGMRip ( http://ogmrip.sourceforge.net/ )
Thoggen ( http://thoggen.net/ )
xdvdshrink ( http://dvdshrink.sourceforge.net/ )
DVD Rip-O-Matic ( http://dvdripomatic.sourceforge.net )
qVamps ( http://vamps.sourceforge.net/ )
dvd::rip ( http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/ )
AcidRip ( http://untrepid.com/acidrip/ )
Everest
HardInfo ( http://hardinfo.berlios.de/web/HomePage )
Finale
Lilypond ( http://www.lilypond.org )
Denemo ( http://denemo.sourceforge.net/index.html )
Rosegarden ( http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ )
NoteEdit ( http://noteedit.berlios.de/ )
Brahms ( http://brahms.sourceforge.net/ )
Flash
F4L ( http://f4l.sourceforge.net/ )
Fontographer
FontForge ( http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ )
Forte Agent
Pan ( http://pan.rebelbase.com/ )
FruityLoops
LMMS ( http://lmms.sourceforge.net/ )
Hydrogen ( http://www.hydrogen-music.org/ )
Google Desktop Search
Google Desktop ( http://desktop.google.com/linux/index.html )
Beagle ( http://beagle-project.org/ )
Guitar Pro
TuxGuitar ( http://www.tuxguitar.com.ar/home.html )
DGuitar ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/dguitar/ )
kguitar ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/kguitar/ )
iTunes
Banshee ( http://banshee-project.org/Main_Page )
aTunes ( http://www.atunes.org/ )
Quod Libet ( http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet )
SongBird ( http://www.songbirdnest.com )
Exaile ( http://www.exaile.org/ )
Amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ )
Listen ( http://listengnome.free.fr/ )
Rhythmbox ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ )
gtkpod ( http://www.gtkpod.org/ )
Legacy Family Tree
GRAMPS ( http://gramps-project.org/ )
LimeWire
FrostWire ( http://www.frostwire.com/ )
Meal Master
krecipe ( http://krecipes.sourceforge.net/ )
Gourmet Recipe Manager ( http://grecipe-manager.sourceforge.net/ )
Microsoft Access
Kexi ( http://www.koffice.org/kexi/ )
knoda ( http://www.knoda.org )
GNOME-DB ( http://www.gnome-db.org/ )
Microsoft Excel
KSpread ( http://www.koffice.org/kspread/ )
Open Calc ( http://www.openoffice.org/product/calc.html )
Gnumeric ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/ )
Microsoft Frontpage
Quanta Plus ( http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/ )
Nvu ( http://www.nvu.com/index.php )
KompoZer ( http://www.kompozer.net/ )
Bluefish ( http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html )
Microsoft HyperTerminal
minicom ( http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/ )
GtkTerm ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/gtkterm/ )
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Epiphany ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/ )
Opera ( http://www.opera.com/download/ )
Firefox ( http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ )
Konqueror ( http://www.konqueror.org/ )
Microsoft Media Center
XBMC Media Center ( http://xbmc.org/ )
Microsoft Money
KMyMoney ( http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/ )
GNUcash ( http://www.gnucash.org/ )
Gnofin ( http://gnofin.sourceforge.net/ )
Grisbi ( http://www.grisbi.org/ )
Microsoft Office
GNOME Office ( http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/ )
KOffice ( http://www.koffice.org/ )
OpenOffice ( http://www.openoffice.org/ )
Microsoft OneNote
BasKet ( http://basket.kde.org/ )
Microsoft Outlook (Express)
Thunderbird ( http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ )
Evolution ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/ )
Microsoft Powerpoint
Open Office Impress ( http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html )
KPresenter ( http://www.koffice.org/kpresenter/ )
Microsoft Project
KPlato ( http://www.koffice.org/kplato/ )
OpenProj ( http://openproj.org/openproj )
GanttProject ( http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net/ )
Planner ( http://live.gnome.org/Planner )
TaskJuggler ( http://www.taskjuggler.org/ )
Microsoft Visio
Dia ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ )
Kivio ( http://www.koffice.org/kivio/ )
Microsoft Windows Media Center
Freevo ( http://freevo.sourceforge.net/ )
Elisa Media Center ( http://www.fluendo.com/elisa/ )
MythTV ( http://www.mythtv.org )
LinuxMCE ( http://www.linuxmce.com/ )
Microsoft Word
Open Office Writer ( http://www.openoffice.org/product/writer.html )
AbiWord ( http://www.abisource.com/ )
Kword ( http://www.koffice.org/kword/ )
mIRC
Konversation ( http://konversation.kde.org/ )
KVIrc ( http://www.kvirc.net/ )
BitchX ( http://www.bitchx.org/ )
Xchat ( http://www.xchat.org/ )
ChatZilla! ( http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/ )
irssi ( http://www.irssi.org/ )
Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im )
Mp3tag
Kid3 ( http://kid3.sourceforge.net/ )
Pinkytagger ( http://pinkytagger.sourceforge.net/ )
EasyTAG ( http://easytag.sourceforge.net/ )
Cowbell ( http://more-cowbell.org/ )
Audio Tag Tool ( http://pwp.netcabo.pt/paol/tagtool/ )
MSN messenger
Mercury Messenger ( http://www.mercury.to/ )
Kopete ( http://kopete.kde.org/ )
aMSN ( http://amsn-project.net/ )
Pidgin ( http://pidgin.im )
Mudbox
SharpConstruct ( http://sharp3d.sourceforge.net )
Nero Burning Rom
X-CD-Roast ( http://www.xcdroast.org/ )
Brasero ( http://perso.orange.fr/bonfire/index.htm )
GnomeBaker ( http://gnomebaker.sourceforge.net/ )
Graveman! ( http://graveman.tuxfamily.org/ )
K3b ( http://www.k3b.org/ )
NetMeeting
Ekiga ( http://www.gnomemeeting.org/ )
NetStumbler
Kismet ( http://www.kismetwireless.net/ )
SWScanner ( http://www.swscanner.org/ )
NewzCrawler
RSSOwl ( http://www.rssowl.org/ )
Liferea ( http://liferea.sourceforge.net/ )
BasKet ( http://basket.kde.org/ )
Akregator ( http://akregator.kde.org/ )
Blam ( http://www.cmartin.tk/blam.html )
Straw ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/straw/ )
Notepad
leafpad ( http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/ )
NEdit ( http://www.nedit.org/ )
jEdit ( http://www.jedit.org/ )
Kate ( http://kate-editor.org/ )
gedit ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/gedit/ )
Scribes ( http://scribes.sourceforge.net/ )
tpad ( http://tclpad.sourceforge.net/ )
OrangeCD Catalog
GWhere ( http://www.gwhere.org )
Origin
SciGraphica ( http://scigraphica.sourceforge.net/ )
Partition Magic
Partimage ( http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page )
GParted ( http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ )
QtParted ( http://qtparted.sourceforge.net )
Picasa
F-Spot ( http://f-spot.org/Main_Page )
KPhotoAlbum ( http://www.kphotoalbum.org/ )
digiKam ( http://www.digikam.org/ )
Pro Tools
Ardour ( http://www.ardour.org )
Quicken
KMyMoney ( http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/ )
GNUcash ( http://www.gnucash.org/ )
Gnofin ( http://gnofin.sourceforge.net/ )
Grisbi ( http://www.grisbi.org/ )
SoulSeek
Nicotine ( http://nicotine.thegraveyard.org/ )
Nicotine-Plus ( http://nicotine-plus.sourceforge.net/ )
SoundForge
ReZound ( http://rezound.sourceforge.net/ )
Total Commander
GNOME Commander ( http://www.nongnu.org/gcmd/ )
xfe ( http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/ )
Tux Commander ( http://tuxcmd.sourceforge.net/ )
Midnight Commander ( http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/ )
Krusader ( http://krusader.sourceforge.net/ )
Traktor DJ
Mixxx ( http://mixxx.sourceforge.net/ )
terminatorX ( http://www.terminatorx.org/ )
Videora
thin liquid film ( http://thinliquidfilm.org/ )
Winamp
Audacious ( http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page )
Amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ )
XMMS ( http://www.xmms.org/ )
Windows Media Player
KPlayer ( http://kplayer.sourceforge.net/ )
VideoLAN ( http://www.videolan.org/ )
xine ( http://xinehq.de/ )
mplayer ( http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html )
Windows Movie Maker
PiTiVi ( http://www.pitivi.org/wiki/Main_Page )
LiVES ( http://lives.sourceforge.net/ )
Open Movie Editor ( http://openmovieeditor.sourceforge.net/HomePage )
Avidemux ( http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ )
Cinelerra ( http://cvs.cinelerra.org/ )
kdenlive ( http://kdenlive.sourceforge.net/ )
WinIso
ISO Master ( http://littlesvr.ca/isomaster/ )
KIso ( http://kiso.sourceforge.net/ )
WinMerge
KDiff3 ( http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/ )
Meld ( http://meld.sourceforge.net/ )
xxdiff ( http://furius.ca/xxdiff/ )
Kile ( http://kile.sourceforge.net/ )
WinTV
XdTV ( http://xawdecode.sourceforge.net/ )
tvtime ( http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/ )
WS_FTP
gFTP ( http://gftp.seul.org/ )
FireFTP ( http://fireftp.mozdev.org/ )
Zbrush
SharpConstruct ( http://sharp3d.sourceforge.net )
ZoneAlarm
Guarddog ( http://www.simonzone.com/software/guarddog/ )
Firestarter ( http://www.fs-security.com/ )
Super GRUB Disc
Super Grub Disk (SGD) is a specialty rescue CD for emergency repairs on boot sectors. Despite its name, SGD not only manipulates the Grand Unified Bootloader (GRUB), but also works with the content of other master boot records as well. Available in English, French, and Castillian Spanish, SGD also works with a variety of operating systems and supports all the basic options needed to manipulate how a hard drive boots.
Rather than its functionality, SGD's name apparently comes from the fact that its interface consists of several hierarchies of GRUB menus. But instead of the partitions and kernels that you are used to seeing in an installed system, the menu items are recovery options. The result is a highly serviceable interface within a text-based environment that requires almost no input from users other than the selection of an option. Both basic and advanced menus are available, the main difference being that the advanced menus give you the option of more input into the available actions. Both menu interfaces gives you the option to go back to a previous menu at the top of each list of items.
The top level menu summarizes the software's functionality. SGD offers full support for GRUB, and LILO support is currently in beta. The CD is designed with GNU/Linux and Windows in mind, but also supports HURD and OpenSolaris in its Special menu. Both GRUB and LILO can be reinstalled in the master boot record or on another partition, or alternatively, uninstalled, while GRUB can usually be booted using the existing configuration on the hard drive -- although not, currently, if the /boot directory is on its own partition.
Similarly, Windows -> Fix Boot offers the equivalent of fdisk /mbr to restore a system for booting Windows. Other Windows options include booting from a second partition or second hard drive -- two unusual circumstances in Windows.
Alternatively, users can manipulate partitions regardless of of operating systems, making them active, hidden, or unhidden as needed. These options can help restore access to a system. In particular, they can ease the problem of installing Windows on a system that already has a GNU/Linux distribution or another version of Windows installed. All you need to do is hide the partitions that already have operating systems on them, then unhide them after the latest installation and select GNU/Linux -> Fix Boot (GRUB) to restore access to all operating systems.
Other potential uses for SGD are listed in the project's documentation. If necessary, users can also resort to the Special menu to set the keyboard used, or even to choose one of several color schemes in which to read to SGD -- an option which might seem unnecessary until you remember the problems of color-blindness.
SGD's functionality is welcome in itself. However, SGD is also reminiscent of the system hardener Bastille, in that its interfaces are designed to educate users while performing practical functions. Before each menu displays, SGD shows a screen that summarizes the menu items, and often suggests when they would be useful. For instance, Boot & Tools -> Hide Partition is recommended to hide partitions when you install multiple versions of Windows. In some cases, the program gives even more advice, as in Miscellanea -> Boot Windows, where SGD advises "Use this only if you do not have a Windows Cd or when you've used the options uninstall Grub from the MBR [and] Activate partition (1st one on 1st hard disk) and Windows still does not boot."
In the English version, these summaries and pieces of advice are mildly stilted, but understandable. However, each page should be prefaced with a warning that users should take notes, because, given the interface of linked GRUB menus, returning to a summary requires backing out of the current menu, then selecting the menu again from its parent menu.
Currently at version 0.9428, SGD still has a few omissions. So far, it lacks the backup tools mentioned in the notes for the menu items in Miscellanea -> Boot Windows, as well as the ability to manipulate NTFS partitions. Considering its goal of educating users, it would also benefit from a summary of the naming conventions for partitions, both in the supported operating systems and in GRUB. There is enough inconsistency in the conventions to confuse the inexperienced, and suggesting, as SGD does once or twice, that users try options until they find one that works is hardly calculated to soothe panicked novices who are desperate to restore their systems.
I would also like to see SGD on a disk with GNU Parted or even one of its GUI offshoots, which would create a complete rescue disk for partitions. Since SGD's files are only about 500KB in size, I suspect that there won't be a long delay before someone follows the instructions in the FAQ to add SGD to another CD image or those in the USB_readme.txt included in the CD image to add SGD to a USB flash drive -- either way providing the complete partition rescue tool I have in mind.
However, even without these enhancements, Super Grub Disk is worth adding to your collection of rescue CDs. You can never have too many rescue CDs in a crisis, and SGD not only delivers a thorough selection of options, but also the guidance that even experienced users can appreciate when they're too concerned about inaccessible data to remember the steps they need to recover.
Rather than its functionality, SGD's name apparently comes from the fact that its interface consists of several hierarchies of GRUB menus. But instead of the partitions and kernels that you are used to seeing in an installed system, the menu items are recovery options. The result is a highly serviceable interface within a text-based environment that requires almost no input from users other than the selection of an option. Both basic and advanced menus are available, the main difference being that the advanced menus give you the option of more input into the available actions. Both menu interfaces gives you the option to go back to a previous menu at the top of each list of items.
The top level menu summarizes the software's functionality. SGD offers full support for GRUB, and LILO support is currently in beta. The CD is designed with GNU/Linux and Windows in mind, but also supports HURD and OpenSolaris in its Special menu. Both GRUB and LILO can be reinstalled in the master boot record or on another partition, or alternatively, uninstalled, while GRUB can usually be booted using the existing configuration on the hard drive -- although not, currently, if the /boot directory is on its own partition.
Similarly, Windows -> Fix Boot offers the equivalent of fdisk /mbr to restore a system for booting Windows. Other Windows options include booting from a second partition or second hard drive -- two unusual circumstances in Windows.
Alternatively, users can manipulate partitions regardless of of operating systems, making them active, hidden, or unhidden as needed. These options can help restore access to a system. In particular, they can ease the problem of installing Windows on a system that already has a GNU/Linux distribution or another version of Windows installed. All you need to do is hide the partitions that already have operating systems on them, then unhide them after the latest installation and select GNU/Linux -> Fix Boot (GRUB) to restore access to all operating systems.
Other potential uses for SGD are listed in the project's documentation. If necessary, users can also resort to the Special menu to set the keyboard used, or even to choose one of several color schemes in which to read to SGD -- an option which might seem unnecessary until you remember the problems of color-blindness.
SGD's functionality is welcome in itself. However, SGD is also reminiscent of the system hardener Bastille, in that its interfaces are designed to educate users while performing practical functions. Before each menu displays, SGD shows a screen that summarizes the menu items, and often suggests when they would be useful. For instance, Boot & Tools -> Hide Partition is recommended to hide partitions when you install multiple versions of Windows. In some cases, the program gives even more advice, as in Miscellanea -> Boot Windows, where SGD advises "Use this only if you do not have a Windows Cd or when you've used the options uninstall Grub from the MBR [and] Activate partition (1st one on 1st hard disk) and Windows still does not boot."
In the English version, these summaries and pieces of advice are mildly stilted, but understandable. However, each page should be prefaced with a warning that users should take notes, because, given the interface of linked GRUB menus, returning to a summary requires backing out of the current menu, then selecting the menu again from its parent menu.
Currently at version 0.9428, SGD still has a few omissions. So far, it lacks the backup tools mentioned in the notes for the menu items in Miscellanea -> Boot Windows, as well as the ability to manipulate NTFS partitions. Considering its goal of educating users, it would also benefit from a summary of the naming conventions for partitions, both in the supported operating systems and in GRUB. There is enough inconsistency in the conventions to confuse the inexperienced, and suggesting, as SGD does once or twice, that users try options until they find one that works is hardly calculated to soothe panicked novices who are desperate to restore their systems.
I would also like to see SGD on a disk with GNU Parted or even one of its GUI offshoots, which would create a complete rescue disk for partitions. Since SGD's files are only about 500KB in size, I suspect that there won't be a long delay before someone follows the instructions in the FAQ to add SGD to another CD image or those in the USB_readme.txt included in the CD image to add SGD to a USB flash drive -- either way providing the complete partition rescue tool I have in mind.
However, even without these enhancements, Super Grub Disk is worth adding to your collection of rescue CDs. You can never have too many rescue CDs in a crisis, and SGD not only delivers a thorough selection of options, but also the guidance that even experienced users can appreciate when they're too concerned about inaccessible data to remember the steps they need to recover.
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