CD burning in Solaris

[chris]

I am new to the OpenSolaris scene but have been using Solaris since version 8. I have seen talks about cd and dvd buring software that people think should be included. most people seem to dislike k3b as it is QT based and they want a GTK solution. something I have yet to see adressed is the possibility of striking a deal with Nero and having the Nero burning suite based on GTK 2 included with the default instal. it is by far the best solution for any windows box and with each new release for linux it gets better and better. surely Sun would want to put software in representing its best foot forward. more information here

http://www.nero.com/eng/NeroLinux3Beta.html

please tell me what you think

-poundsmack


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[UNIX admin]

Nero is a child's plaything compared to cdrtools from Joerg Schilling, that BTW come built into Solaris:

cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord -v -data -sao dev=c,t,l /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO

where "c,t,l" are the numbers you'd get from `cdrecord -scanbus`, and that's it.

It doesn't get any simpler than that.

For burning files, one can use `mkisofs` and there are even advanced UDF image creation techniques involving the lofi(7D) driver and lofiadm(1M) command.

Nero can't touch any of that stuff; it's cumbersome and dumbed down to the extreme.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Bill Rushmore]

Post by UNIX admin
cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord -v -data -sao dev=c,t,l /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO
where "c,t,l" are the numbers you'd get from `cdrecord -scanbus`, and that's it.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Actually, in Solaris it does get simpler! :-)

cdrw -i MyImage.ISO


Bill
rushmores.net

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by Bill Rushmore

Post by UNIX admin
cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord -v -data -sao dev=c,t,l /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO
where "c,t,l" are the numbers you'd get from `cdrecord -scanbus`, and that's it.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Actually, in Solaris it does get simpler! :-)
cdrw -i MyImage.ISO

sorry, cdrw is definitely not simpler than cdrecord and it is a bad advise
ad cdrw is not really on development and as cdrw only implements a few basic
features.

Your commendline with cdrecord woult look>

cdrecord -v /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO

and you will get messages!!!! something that is missing with cdrw even in case
pof problems and it will write the cd in SAO mode which if better for
readability.



Jörg

[Anil Gulecha]

Post by UNIX admin
Nero is a child's plaything compared to cdrtools from Joerg Schilling,
cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord -v -data -sao dev=c,t,l /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO
where "c,t,l" are the numbers you'd get from `cdrecord -scanbus`, and that's it.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.
For burning files, one can use `mkisofs` and there are even advanced UDF
image creation techniques involving the lofi(7D) driver and lofiadm(1M)
command.
Nero can't touch any of that stuff; it's cumbersome and dumbed down to the extreme.

If we are talking ease of use, the Nero suite wins hands down. Avg Joe user
wont have the time to build ISOs or look through the man pages for the right
options and utilize the very powerful features that may be present in
cdrecord.

Calling Nero "cumbersome" and "dumbed down" is simply wrong. It is one of
the easiest to learn burning tools, and if there were a Solaris version, I'd
much rather use it over terminal cdrecord, or the nautilus CD/DVD
burner(which currently makes up for the lack of a dedicated GUI).

There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.

~Anil

[Nicholas Senedzuk]

Take a look at xcdroast. It has a GUI and is simple to use for burning CDs
and DVDs.

Post by Anil Gulecha

Post by UNIX admin
Nero is a child's plaything compared to cdrtools from Joerg Schilling,
cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord -v -data -sao dev=c,t,l /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO
where "c,t,l" are the numbers you'd get from `cdrecord -scanbus`, and that's it.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.
For burning files, one can use `mkisofs` and there are even advanced UDF
image creation techniques involving the lofi(7D) driver and lofiadm(1M)
command.
Nero can't touch any of that stuff; it's cumbersome and dumbed down to the extreme.

If we are talking ease of use, the Nero suite wins hands down. Avg Joe
user wont have the time to build ISOs or look through the man pages for the
right options and utilize the very powerful features that may be present in
cdrecord.
Calling Nero "cumbersome" and "dumbed down" is simply wrong. It is one of
the easiest to learn burning tools, and if there were a Solaris version, I'd
much rather use it over terminal cdrecord, or the nautilus CD/DVD
burner(which currently makes up for the lack of a dedicated GUI).
There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.
~Anil
_______________________________________________
opensolaris-discuss mailing list

[Ananth Shrinivas]

Post by Anil Gulecha
Calling Nero "cumbersome" and "dumbed down" is simply wrong. It is one
of the easiest to learn burning tools, and if there were a Solaris
version, I'd much rather use it over terminal cdrecord, or the nautilus
CD/DVD burner(which currently makes up for the lack of a dedicated GUI).
There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.

graveman - is a very neat Front-End for a number of tools including
cdrecord, growisofs and cdrw.

Its quite good if not as feature rich as Nero on Linux.

http://graveman.tuxfamily.org/index.php

Cheers,
Ananth

[Anil Gulecha]

I just wonder how useful a GUI is going to be when you're going over ttya.
I find Nero nearly useless. It's a *consumer grade* toy for plants. Be
that
as it may, we will just have to agree to disagree.

Post by Anil Gulecha
There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.

Nero does not need to "fill the gap", because there is no gap.

This kind of an outlook does not help in driving Solaris. There _is_ a gap.
Perhaps well-seasoned users wont require GUIs to get the work done, but
newcomers find it very convenient (say if they want to burn an mp3 disc
using files lying all over the filesystem).

@all: Yes, I know that wrappers exist, and have used xcdroast previously.
The last gcombust release was in 2003. Lets just say I like my GUIs pretty
and intuitive. The graveman screenshots look promising. The point is there
are no production quality ones, that could be included in SX by default.
Surprising that JDS/Gnome havent come out with a k3b equivalent.

Regards
Anil

You have

Xcdroast which is a GUI front end for cdrtools (which I also find
cumbersome
and counter-intuitive, but it's no worse than Nero). If you don't like
that,
there's also `gcombust` GUI front end for cdrecord, and it strikes a
pretty
good balance between being useful enough and making `cdrecord` and
`mkisofs`
easy to use.

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by Anil Gulecha

Post by Anil Gulecha
There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.

Nero does not need to "fill the gap", because there is no gap.

This kind of an outlook does not help in driving Solaris. There _is_ a gap.
Perhaps well-seasoned users wont require GUIs to get the work done, but
newcomers find it very convenient (say if they want to burn an mp3 disc
using files lying all over the filesystem).
@all: Yes, I know that wrappers exist, and have used xcdroast previously.
The last gcombust release was in 2003. Lets just say I like my GUIs pretty
and intuitive. The graveman screenshots look promising. The point is there
are no production quality ones, that could be included in SX by default.
Surprising that JDS/Gnome havent come out with a k3b equivalent.

Xcdroast is the only known cdrecord GUI that is carefully written in a portable
way and does not make any assumption on OS specifics. Unfortunately, xcdroast is
no longer actively maintained by Thomas...

All other cdrecord GUIs are either Win32 specific of depend on nonportable Linux
specifics.



Jörg

[Moinak Ghosh]

I just wonder how useful a GUI is going to be when you're going over ttya.
I find Nero nearly useless. It's a *consumer grade* toy for
plants. Be that
as it may, we will just have to agree to disagree.

Post by Anil Gulecha
There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.

Nero does not need to "fill the gap", because there is no gap.
This kind of an outlook does not help in driving Solaris. There _is_ a
gap. Perhaps well-seasoned users wont require GUIs to get the work
done, but newcomers find it very convenient (say if they want to burn
an mp3 disc using files lying all over the filesystem).

Ummm we have a couple of user groups here ... developers/power users
who want scriptablity
and power, casual users and newbies who want ease of use.

A developer/power user will go gaga over the power, flexibility,
detailed output and scriptability
that cdrecord and mkisofs provide. All sorts of automation using
remote terminals, expect,
distributed CD burning and what not ... wow wow!

Casual users, OpenSolaris newbies including people used to other OSes
like, Windows, MacOSx,
Linux couldn't care less about UDF, lofi, Joliet, Rock Ridge ... All
they want to do is pop in a
blank CD, grab a bunch of files, drop them into a window and voila -
they get written with all the
correct joliet-what and rock-what formatting. And what did you say
about some tty thingy ... well
do you mean those little green screens with lots of letters with
serious faced white robed guys poring
over them ... um uh oh ... well lets see wasn't that decades ago ...
I think I will go back to good ol'
Windows.

Regards,
Moinak.

[Richard L. Hamilton]

Post by Moinak Ghosh
Ummm we have a couple of user groups here ...
developers/power users
ho want scriptablity
and power, casual users and newbies who want ease
of use.
A developer/power user will go gaga over the
power, flexibility,
etailed output and scriptability
that cdrecord and mkisofs provide. All sorts of
automation using
remote terminals, expect,
distributed CD burning and what not ... wow wow!
Casual users, OpenSolaris newbies including people
used to other OSes
ike, Windows, MacOSx,
Linux couldn't care less about UDF, lofi, Joliet,
Rock Ridge ... All
hey want to do is pop in a
blank CD, grab a bunch of files, drop them into a
window and voila -
hey get written with all the
correct joliet-what and rock-what formatting. And
what did you say
bout some tty thingy ... well
do you mean those little green screens with lots
of letters with
erious faced white robed guys poring
over them ... um uh oh ... well lets see wasn't
that decades ago ...
think I will go back to good ol'
Windows.
egards,
Moinak.

Down with clueless newbies! RTFM!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. :-)

Seriously, the next thing you know, you'll want a "wizard" or dancing paper
clip or some such to step the newcomers through the choices that can't
just be defaulted (like what kinds of systems do you want to be able to
read this CD: Apple (Mac OS X), Solaris, Linux, Windows, ... (which says
something about which format would be best for the CD)).

Even that wouldn't be good enough for my aunt, who only uses a computer
in place of a typewriter; when I asked her for a recipe, she typed it into
(probably Word) and _mailed_ it to me. I mean, I'm no tree hugger, but
_really_, is that necessary? She can't even handle Windows (not that she's
dumb, but that she's _convinced_ herself she can't do a bunch of things),
so what do I care if she never uses Solaris?


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Manoj Joseph]

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
Seriously, the next thing you know, you'll want a "wizard" or dancing paper
clip or some such to step the newcomers through the choices that can't
just be defaulted (like what kinds of systems do you want to be able to
read this CD: Apple (Mac OS X), Solaris, Linux, Windows, ... (which says
something about which format would be best for the CD)).

And what is wrong with 'wizards' or animated paper clips if it helps
some people get the job done? (I personally find animated clips a
wastage of precious CPU, but *if* it helps, why not?)

I for one have always preferred well designed GUIs and wizards to commands.

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
Even that wouldn't be good enough for my aunt, who only uses a computer
in place of a typewriter; when I asked her for a recipe, she typed it into
(probably Word) and _mailed_ it to me. I mean, I'm no tree hugger, but
_really_, is that necessary? She can't even handle Windows (not that she's
dumb, but that she's _convinced_ herself she can't do a bunch of things),
so what do I care if she never uses Solaris?

I would say your aunt did pretty well. She successfully sent you the
message, perhaps not very efficiently. I have worked with this class of
users too - my dad. He keeps forgetting that to shutdown the PC he has
to go for the 'start button! ;)

I remember, when I first started working for Sun (2004), I was given a
Sun Ray that had no xmms, no gaim, no root permissions... My first
couple of week at work were spent trying to compile them and install in
my home folder. :-P

Most of my (real) work was over telnet (not ssh ;)) sessions to lab
machines and looking at core dumps. I came from a windows background, by
the way, and found it a pain.

Before I ramble on too far, the point I am trying to make is that for
many users (like your aunt and my dad) there is no glory in remembering
commands and options, no glory in reading the 'fine' manual. I find no
glory in it either and if I can do it with a GUI, I always do. How I
have wished mdb had a front end like WinDbg... how I have wished for
source debugging for the kernel.. (but that's a rant for another day).

I have no issues with command line interfaces to utilities like
cdrecord. But let's not brush away the usefulness of (good) GUIs and say
we do not care about that segment of users!

Regards,
Manoj

PS: I use Ubuntu and await the day VMWareServer works on OpenSolaris. :)

--
Manoj Joseph
http://kerneljunkie.blogspot.com/

[Richard L. Hamilton]

For some tasks, GUIs can be useful. Maybe even for most tasks, _if_
they can serve at least three levels of users (novice, intermediate, expert)
equally well, can (as AIX's "smit") optionally show command-line equivalents,
can log sessions (to do postmortem on how the user screwed up), and can
capture command-line equivalents (to use the GUI to generate scripts, with
possible use of a "wizard" to aid in parameterizing them), and preferably,
in expert mode, offer access to all the options that the command line
version would have.

I have yet to see any GUI that really does the above, although otherwise
hideous AIX's rather nice "smit" tries hard. I suspect some of that comes
from IBM's experience with text-based forms type interfaces (like
mainframe ISPF), where one really has to think through the interface, as
contrasted to someone with limited human factors knowledge
(which I don't pretend to have, as I spend far more time with computers than humans :-( ) using a GUI builder to whip out something pretty and easy for
low-end users as quickly as possible.

However, IMO a command-line form should always exist, and exist first, because that's the simplest case (in terms of development) of exposing the functionality, and because one can use a command over a 1200 baud serial line or in other very reduced circumstances, like partial failures.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Calum Benson]

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
I have yet to see any GUI that really does the above, although otherwise
hideous AIX's rather nice "smit" tries hard.

One reason for that is that GUIs don't necessarily map 1-to-1 onto CLI
commands, or vice versa. CLIs tend to be modal and procedural, a good
GUI is often the opposite. Indeed, most of the worst GUIs I've seen are
just thin wrappers around a pre-existing CLI command, with a bunch of
text fields and checkboxes that require you to be familiar with the CLI
command anyway.

Cheeri,
Calum.

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by Calum Benson

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
I have yet to see any GUI that really does the above, although otherwise
hideous AIX's rather nice "smit" tries hard.

One reason for that is that GUIs don't necessarily map 1-to-1 onto CLI
commands, or vice versa. CLIs tend to be modal and procedural, a good
GUI is often the opposite. Indeed, most of the worst GUIs I've seen are
just thin wrappers around a pre-existing CLI command, with a bunch of
text fields and checkboxes that require you to be familiar with the CLI
command anyway.

A well designed GUI is able to wrap around the CLI of cdrecord, mkisofs,
readcd, cdda2wav and give you additional functionality that users do not have
directly with the CLI commands.

Of course, there are always bad examples ;-)

Jörg

[Calum Benson]

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)

Post by Calum Benson
One reason for that is that GUIs don't necessarily map 1-to-1 onto CLI
commands, or vice versa. CLIs tend to be modal and procedural, a good
GUI is often the opposite. Indeed, most of the worst GUIs I've seen are
just thin wrappers around a pre-existing CLI command, with a bunch of
text fields and checkboxes that require you to be familiar with the CLI
command anyway.

A well designed GUI is able to wrap around the CLI of cdrecord, mkisofs,
readcd, cdda2wav and give you additional functionality that users do not have
directly with the CLI commands.

Yeah, the key word in my email was "thin", really... a thin wrapper
often results in the GUI being too-closely tied to one particular CLI.
A good GUI will typically be somewhat more abstracted from those
details.

Cheeri,
Calum.

[Ian Collins]

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)

Post by Calum Benson

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
I have yet to see any GUI that really does the above, although otherwise
hideous AIX's rather nice "smit" tries hard.

One reason for that is that GUIs don't necessarily map 1-to-1 onto CLI
commands, or vice versa. CLIs tend to be modal and procedural, a good
GUI is often the opposite. Indeed, most of the worst GUIs I've seen are
just thin wrappers around a pre-existing CLI command, with a bunch of
text fields and checkboxes that require you to be familiar with the CLI
command anyway.

A well designed GUI is able to wrap around the CLI of cdrecord, mkisofs,
readcd, cdda2wav and give you additional functionality that users do not have
directly with the CLI commands.

The current Gnome offering is pretty good in that regard. I have a
couple of novice users (including a 10 year old) who are happy to plug
in their cameras and make CDs from a selection of photos. This is
easier on Solaris than windows. Even 6 months ago this was a pipe dream
on Solaris!

A cool add-on would be the ability to combine the parts and burn a
Solaris DVD. Anyone?

Ian

[UNIX admin]

Post by Moinak Ghosh
Ummm we have a couple of user groups here ...
developers/power users
ho want scriptablity
and power, casual users and newbies who want ease
of use.
A developer/power user will go gaga over the
power, flexibility,
etailed output and scriptability
that cdrecord and mkisofs provide. All sorts of
automation using
remote terminals, expect,
distributed CD burning and what not ... wow wow!
Casual users, OpenSolaris newbies including people
used to other OSes
ike, Windows, MacOSx,
Linux couldn't care less about UDF, lofi, Joliet,
Rock Ridge ... All
hey want to do is pop in a
blank CD, grab a bunch of files, drop them into a
window and voila -
hey get written with all the
correct joliet-what and rock-what formatting. And
what did you say
bout some tty thingy ... well
do you mean those little green screens with lots
of letters with
erious faced white robed guys poring
over them ... um uh oh ... well lets see wasn't
that decades ago ...
think I will go back to good ol'
Windows.

Moinak, I urge you to think carefully one more time about what you've written (an excellent reply BTW). The number of true IT experts and professionals is dwindling exponentially every day. Over here I've got bakers and train drivers and construction workers being hired into IT to write web applications based on Oracle databases! I've got people working as Oracle DBAs on Solaris not knowing how to set up a PATH variable properly! I've got people doing Oracle who don't know how to use RMAN or RAC, let alone know what ZFS is, and that Solaris now runs on the i86pc platform!

How many Jeff Bonwicks and Adam Leventhals and Moinak Goshes and Joerg Schillings do you think are left in the world? And how many of them are outside of that small concentrated spot called Menlo Park, CA?

Can we dumb things down? Why yes of course we can. Any good engineer can! But what will happen when Jeff Bonwick retires? Or Moinak Ghosh? Or when Joerg ends up in a nursing home? If we don't educate the public, this knowledge will be lost. Who then will be left to develop advanced technologies, to push computer science forward, to have an understanding of why things were implemented the way they were?

Just look "around you" on this mailing list. How many "newbies" do we see daily complaining why some feature XYZ from their Linux distro isn't present, only because they don't know System V and therefore don't know it's already been there for DECADES? How many people do we have asking about GNU functionality not being present inside of System V tools, because they don't have the knowledge and experience to understand that the point *is not* implementing tools within other tools, but stringing the tools together for maximum flexibility?

My point is, quite simply, if we dumb everything down, once we're gone, the knowledge and experience might very well be lost. Forever. And I dread to imagine what IT and CS will look like without it. It's turning into a nightmare already.

So this approach of "dumbing things down" for the "newbie" can very well turn to be the undoing of IT and CS. Who will be left to work on all this advanced stuff if we raise a generation of "clicky-bunty" masses? It's already a bad, bad problem today. What will it look like in ten or twenty years from now?


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Calum Benson]

Post by UNIX admin
My point is, quite simply, if we dumb everything down, once we're
gone, the knowledge and experience might very well be lost. Forever.

As long as there's one person who still needs to make use of that
knowledge and experience, it won't get lost. If there's nobody, and the
world is functioning just fine with dumbed-down interfaces, then maybe
we were just over-complicating things in the first place :)

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, "perfection is achieved not when there is
nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"-- or,
in more modern usability parlance, "the best UI is no UI". IMHO, the
closer we get to that point, the *more* talented computer scientists are
required to figure out and implement the increasingly complex hardware
and software systems behind those simpler UIs, to compensate for the
reduced reliance on traditional user input methods.

Cheeri,
Calum.

[Moinak Ghosh]

Post by UNIX admin

[...]

Moinak, I urge you to think carefully one more time about what you've written (an excellent reply BTW). The number of true IT experts and professionals is dwindling exponentially every day. Over here I've got bakers and train drivers and construction workers being hired into IT to write web applications based on Oracle databases! I've got people working as Oracle DBAs on Solaris not knowing how to set up a PATH variable properly! I've got people doing Oracle who don't know how to use RMAN or RAC, let alone know what ZFS is, and that Solaris now runs on the i86pc platform!
How many Jeff Bonwicks and Adam Leventhals and Moinak Goshes and Joerg Schillings do you think are left in the world? And how many of them are outside of that small concentrated spot called Menlo Park, CA?
Can we dumb things down? Why yes of course we can. Any good engineer can! But what will happen when Jeff Bonwick retires? Or Moinak Ghosh? Or when Joerg ends up in a nursing home? If we don't educate the public, this knowledge will be lost. Who then will be left to develop advanced technologies, to push computer science forward, to have an understanding of why things were implemented the way they were?
Just look "around you" on this mailing list. How many "newbies" do we see daily complaining why some feature XYZ from their Linux distro isn't present, only because they don't know System V and therefore don't know it's already been there for DECADES? How many people do we have asking about GNU functionality not being present inside of System V tools, because they don't have the knowledge and experience to understand that the point *is not* implementing tools within other tools, but stringing the tools together for maximum flexibility?
My point is, quite simply, if we dumb everything down, once we're gone, the knowledge and experience might very well be lost. Forever. And I dread to imagine what IT and CS will look like without it. It's turning into a nightmare already.
So this approach of "dumbing things down" for the "newbie" can very well turn to be the undoing of IT and CS. Who will be left to work on all this advanced stuff if we raise a generation of "clicky-bunty" masses? It's already a bad, bad problem today. What will it look like in ten or twenty years from now?

You certainly do have a point from a different angle. I'd agree with
you on this CS/IT skill thing. I've had CS students asking me: What
is Unix ? Is it something similar to Linux ? I have interviewed folks
who have done Java Web Services development but did not know
how to set the CLASSPATH. For that matter how many of the Visual
C++ weenies would have even heard of something called WinMain ?
I have seen folks among the IDE crowd having no idea of Event Loops
or Makefiles. I have seen many "systems programmers" who cannot
distinguish between systems calls and library functions, or the criteria
for claiming to be a systems programmer is to have used open, close,
read, write.

The list goes on and on. But isn't the root cause of this sad situation
at some different point - academics. Isn't it the responsibility of the
academic institutions to focus on basics using CLI - IMHO start with
BASIC and Shells. Students in a hurry to get projects done use
clicky-bunty IDEs to just finish the work. Institutions in a hurry to
keep pace with the Industry Buzzwords skip teaching the basics.

The problem domain is different and needs to be tackled somewhere
else. Keeping the Human-Computer interface un-dumbed and difficult
to use won't really achieve the desired result. It will result in the
OS in
question being ignored and relegated to a niche because there are
always alternatives which are easy to use. Ease of use is always a
multi-edged sword but is nevertheless necessary and it's definition
varies with the target audience. In fact slick interfaces require a
lot of
skill to develop and maintain - whether it is a slick CLI or a slick GUI.
I'd rather be optimistic since there will always be inquisitive people
who want to dig underneath the pretty interfaces and get their hands
dirty, there will always be hackers, scientists, innovators - human
nature, thirst for knowledge after all.

How easy it is to use the Computers on board the USS Enterprise NCC
1701, and we still have geniuses like Scotty and La Forge - my kind of
future.

Regards,
Moinak.

Post by UNIX admin
This message posted from opensolaris.org
_______________________________________________
opensolaris-discuss mailing list

[UNIX admin]

Post by Moinak Ghosh
You certainly do have a point from a different
angle. I'd agree with
you on this CS/IT skill thing. I've had CS students
asking me: What
is Unix ? Is it something similar to Linux ? I
have interviewed folks
who have done Java Web Services development but
did not know
how to set the CLASSPATH. For that matter how many
of the Visual
C++ weenies would have even heard of something
called WinMain ?

[snipped for brevity]
...

Post by Moinak Ghosh
The list goes on and on. But isn't the root cause
of this sad situation
at some different point - academics. Isn't it the
responsibility of the
academic institutions to focus on basics using CLI
- IMHO start with
BASIC and Shells.

Yes, yes it is. Of course it is! I couldn't agree more with you.

However, IT / CS are very specific. By spawning IT as a product of CS, CS has effectively become an industry. And the thing is this: why would anybody spend their time fangling with students, if they are really a CS / IT expert, when they could be raking in the cash working in the industry?

And we can't really fault people for that; it's in the human nature to want to live comfortably. In addition to that, there are very few people, me included, that truly *enjoy* teaching what they know and transferring knowledge to others. It's just much easier to scrap all that and work for a corporation!

Post by Moinak Ghosh
The problem domain is different and needs to be
tackled somewhere
else.

I remember when I was going to school. During my student days, at the onset of the dot-com boom, we were going through teachers / professors / instructors like underwear; and anybody who was worth anything left to work for some corp raking up to 2.5 times more than what they were being paid in academia.

Consequently, there aren't very many Dijkstras and Knuths left teaching CS. That's our problem!

It's up to us to address this problem, because obviously it won't get solved by itself. And obviously academia will not become lucrative enough to attract exactly what CS needs - experienced professionals and veterans of the industry teaching real world knowledge to students.

So, what do you propose we do?

Post by Moinak Ghosh
Keeping the Human-Computer interface
un-dumbed and difficult
to use won't really achieve the desired result.

I grudgingly admit you have a point. It's a different construction site though: human-computer interface is for a general consumer, and will never be able to cope with requirements of professionals because it is either cumbersome to build all the functionality in it (monolithic Microsoft approach), or it will always lag behind the newest CLI executable (as is the case with MacOS X / Apple approach).

So if you want to make Solaris closer to the general consumer, you will need even more engineers and possibly a collaboration with Apple (it has been hinted here that bringing Aqua-like functionality and Solaris would be unprecedented in terms of functionality).

Post by Moinak Ghosh
I'd rather be optimistic since there will always be
inquisitive people
who want to dig underneath the pretty interfaces
and get their hands
dirty, there will always be hackers, scientists,
innovators - human
nature, thirst for knowledge after all.

Believe it or not, but that largely depends on one nation's mentality. 99% of the people here don't want anything to do with a computer. They'd rather spend obscene amounts of money for an appliance.

I mean, we're talking about people who even put appliances in big enterprises, just so they wouldn't have to develop expertise!

Perhaps you live in a different world. I did once too. Which is why where I'm at now is a nightmare in terms of "computer curiosity". Nobody cares about that stuff around here.

Post by Moinak Ghosh
How easy it is to use the Computers on board the
USS Enterprise NCC
1701, and we still have geniuses like Scotty and La
Forge - my kind of
future.

Mine too. But it requires something we currently neither have, nor are on the way of achieving with the current computing: a whole different computing model. Computers and technologies as we know them today will be incapable of reaching that kind of intelligence. Don't forget - in StarTrek computers don't have chips - but half-alive neural nets!


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[MC]

IT maintenance is one thing. Scientific innovation is a different thing altogether.

I can tell you this much: the software GUI is not the cause of a degeneration of computer science. There is nothing smart or noble about typing a word instead of clicking a button. If anything, GUIs make life easier for scientists so they can do real work. And real work does not include typing up scripts or console commands to burn CDs or maintain operating systems.

PS: If "the number of true IT experts and professionals is dwindling exponentially every day", you might say that the free market is letting it happen because it doesn't need them. That observation matters to Sun because they probably want to appeal to the new guard before the old guard retires completely.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[UNIX admin]

Post by MC
PS: If "the number of true IT experts and
professionals is dwindling exponentially every day",
you might say that the free market is letting it
happen because it doesn't need them. That
observation matters to Sun because they probably want
to appeal to the new guard before the old guard
retires completely.

The reality is that the market is hurting real, real bad. It's never been this bad before. I've got people that are basically charalatans. "Solaris test engineers", that spend two hours every day manually logging into servers and doing `ps -ef` to see if an app is running. "Administrators" creating home directories in /usr/local and blaming Solaris zones for the fact that stuff doesn't work afterwards. People writing shell wrapper scripts in which they are hacking up LD_LIBRARY_PATH just to get SSH to work, because the firm didn't know how to compile the product properly. Packages that you don't even dare install with "-R" because they barely work as it is... It is BAD.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[John Plocher]

Post by UNIX admin
My point is, quite simply, if we dumb everything down,

I'm glad we've managed to dumb things way down in the last 20 years:

No longer do we need to wire up plugboards to program the mainframes.
No longer do we need to toggle front panel switches to bootstrap a system.
No longer do we need to write in assembly language (or machine code or ...)
No longer do we need to ... add your own list ...

My point is that a good engineer can identify and remove gratuitous
or unneeded complexity (or abstract it safely away behind an API)
such that the rest of us can stand on their shoulders and reach much
higher.

-John

[UNIX admin]

Post by John Plocher
I'm glad we've managed to dumb things way down in the

...

Post by John Plocher
No longer do we need to write in assembly language
(or machine code or ...)

And that's a good thing? That we now have compilers generating bloated code that make it unthinkable to run a modern GUI?

Hey, I was coding realtime, *smooth* multimedia stuff on a 7MHz processor inside of 16KB worth of assembler code! How much faster would it have been if I had even a 40MHz CPU! Just look at people doing realtime Goraud shading inside a few KB worth of assembler code on a 0.99MHz Commodore 64!

For crying out loud, we were competing whose depack routine had the least number of *bytes* (48 *byte* depack routine was the record).

And we've progressed... how exactly?


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Stephen Lau]

Post by UNIX admin

Post by John Plocher
I'm glad we've managed to dumb things way down in the

...

Post by John Plocher
No longer do we need to write in assembly language
(or machine code or ...)

And that's a good thing? That we now have compilers generating bloated code that make it unthinkable to run a modern GUI?
Hey, I was coding realtime, *smooth* multimedia stuff on a 7MHz processor inside of 16KB worth of assembler code! How much faster would it have been if I had even a 40MHz CPU! Just look at people doing realtime Goraud shading inside a few KB worth of assembler code on a 0.99MHz Commodore 64!
For crying out loud, we were competing whose depack routine had the least number of *bytes* (48 *byte* depack routine was the record).
And we've progressed... how exactly?

... and my parents walked to school uphill both ways in the snow barefoot.

We've progressed to the point that nobody cares and we can think about
higher level constructs.

If you want to stick with the arcane knowledge that you have
accumulated, then fine. Nobody is taking that away from you. But don't
try and stop progress and development merely because you don't want to
know about it, or use it.

cheers,
steve

[Dennis Clarke]

Post by Stephen Lau

Post by UNIX admin

Post by John Plocher
I'm glad we've managed to dumb things way down in the

...

Post by John Plocher
No longer do we need to write in assembly language
(or machine code or ...)

sure we do.

I don't think we will ever get away from the hardware so far that
assembly becomes unneeded. Ever. So long as there is software to
write and compilers that attempt to convert it to machine executable
form then we will need assemblers. After all, someone somewhere
always wants to squeeze the last nanosec out of those loops and
nothing beats assembly.

Post by Stephen Lau

Post by UNIX admin
And that's a good thing? That we now have compilers generating bloated code
that make it unthinkable to run a modern GUI?

I hardly think that Studio 11 creates bloated code. In fact, I think
that the Sun Studio tools are the finest on the planet for AMD
Opterons and UltraSparc. Other processors *may* require other vendors.
Or maybe even just GCC. But bloated code starts with the programmers
and the software management process in place.

Post by Stephen Lau

Post by UNIX admin
Hey, I was coding realtime, *smooth* multimedia stuff on a 7MHz processor inside of 16KB worth of assembler code! How much faster would it have been if I had even a 40MHz CPU! Just look at people doing realtime Goraud shading inside a few KB worth of assembler code on a 0.99MHz Commodore 64!
For crying out loud, we were competing whose depack routine had the least number of *bytes* (48 *byte* depack routine was the record).
And we've progressed... how exactly?

... and my parents walked to school uphill both ways in the snow barefoot.

Loading Image...

:-)

I always want to use that in context.

Post by Stephen Lau
We've progressed to the point that nobody cares and we can think about
higher level constructs.

I don't know if that is progress. I often need to scope out the whole
process in flow charts and then pseudo code the routines and common
interfaces. Often times right down to atomic database operations in
order to ensure that a given high level transaction can be depended on
when many many such transactions are fed into a service queue. No, I
think that programmers still need to see the lower level bits in order
to create good solutions.

Post by Stephen Lau
If you want to stick with the arcane knowledge that you have
accumulated, then fine. Nobody is taking that away from you. But don't
try and stop progress and development merely because you don't want to
know about it, or use it.

I don't know what arcane is. Earlier today I ran headlong into someone
reading a MAC address to me and they told me that "ff" means there is
nothing in that memory location. They had no clue at all what
hexadecimal was and they had been a systems admin for years. I hope
that hexadecimal does not fall into the realm of "arcane". If you
mean things like how to write 3D graphics software in pascal on the
Apollo 10000 Domain/Aegis workstations .. then yeah .. we can flush
that down the drain.

Dennis

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
:: Turbo Pascal rules ! ::

[John Plocher]

Post by UNIX admin
And we've progressed... how exactly?

Look at Google Sketchup for a great example of the virtues of being able
to spend developer energies on 2nd and 3rd order features like intuitive
ease of use and great tutorials rather than on counting bytes in rendering
subroutines.

It is all about costs. Back in your C64 days, hardware was expensive and
coding time cheap - or at least cheaper than non-existent hardware. Now,
with a couple of 2Ghz processor cores and a few GB of RAM, not to mention
3d hardware graphics engines, outboard IO processors and ubiquitous network
bandwidth on a $2k laptop, look at what Apple has been able to produce.

Those 200 byte BASIC interpreters and 48 byte renderers etc are now relegated
to custom silicon - BASIC-Stamps and GPUs - that are good enuf for the rest
of us.

Case in point: My first programming job was to support an engineering
lab system - running a 4Mhz Z80 with 48KB of memory. It cost about $10k
back in 1980. We spent significant time and effort optimizing code so
that students could use the system to solve 5x5 and 6x6 arrays of
simultaneous equations, instructors could manage grades and the rest
of us could simply hack and have fun. Nowdays I can buy a Microchip PIC
processor development kit with more processing power than that system for
about $100; the all-in-one processor in it runs about $6 (I use several
dozen to run my model train layout...). Our daughter has a $60 TI graphing
calculator of her own that blows the socks off of that old Northstar
Horizon system. Do I care that she isn't learning to microoptimize
assembly code on a Z80? Hell no - she is off exploring trig, calculus,
graphical analysis of complex systems, robotics and the like.

So what if she "burns" all the resources of her Macbook doing inefficient
things like Sketchup, iTunes, Java and Robotics? Or if I "burn" a whole
PIC doing nothing but driving a few turnouts on my layout? Thats what
they are for - tools to learn and build greater things.

Besides, next year things will be faster and cheaper still.

Is the glass half empty or half full?

-John

[Artem Kachitchkine]

Post by John Plocher
It is all about costs.

You don't say. One would think it is all about fashion. The number of folks
wearing boss of the plains, leather chaps and lariats is dwindling exponentially.

-Artem.

[Peter Tribble]

Post by UNIX admin
The number of true IT experts and professionals is dwindling exponentially every day.

Dindling exponentially? Where are they all going? Perhaps systems are getting
harder to use so professionals are lkess productive and we nee more ofthem?

Post by UNIX admin
I've got people working as Oracle DBAs on Solaris not knowing how to set up
a PATH variable properly!

Seriously, why should they care about an ancient implementation artefact?
Why isn't their PATH just set properly anyway so they can get right on and
do the work they're paid for?

Post by UNIX admin
Can we dumb things down?

Is it actually dumbing down? Or making things easier to use? My time - and
that of users and customers - is precious, and we should do everything we can
to provide tools that aid users make the best use of their precious time.
Good graphical interfaces that can be used without effort do just that.

(The downside to this argument is that most GUI interfaces - like most
CLI interfaces - are badly designed, user hostile, and don't really make
the user's life better. We shouldn't accept that, but should strive to make
tools that are easier to use and that users are comfortable with.)

(As an anecdote of marginal relevance to the original subject, I once tried
at home to put some images on a CD. The home PC was simply incapable
of doing this - it had numerous tools that cliamed to be able to do this, both
bundled and unbundled. After a few failures it was starting to become a
challenge, so I persevered. Some applications had incomprehensible user
interfaces that made it impossible to do simple things like select the files
I wanted; others refused to recognize the CD writer; the rest produced
coasters. In disgust I turned the Solaris box on and had written the CD
in a few minutes. But the command line was far harder than a well
designed GUI *should* have been.)

Post by UNIX admin
So this approach of "dumbing things down" for the "newbie" can very well
turn to be the undoing of IT and CS. Who will be left to work on all this
advanced stuff if we raise a generation of "clicky-bunty" masses?

The people with the talent to do the advanced stuff will do it anyway. And
they will choose to work on those platforms that they find to have value
to them. Which, by and large, will have user-friendly ways of making their
whole lives easier.

[a b]

Post by Peter Tribble
Dindling exponentially? Where are they all going? Perhaps systems are getting
harder to use so professionals are lkess productive and we nee more ofthem?

That's a good question. Those few that are left refuse to be employed
permanently and usually work as consultants for large corporations here. You
won't find them working on the payroll, that's for sure.

In fact, I myself will do the same thing (again), once I perceive my tenure
is completed. And as long as I continue living where I live, I will not be
permanently employed.

So I guess the answer to your question is, no, the systems did not get
harder to use. It's just that all the people who do know how to use them
properly and effectively are wandering the country as freelancers.

Post by Peter Tribble
Seriously, why should they care about an ancient implementation artefact?
Why isn't their PATH just set properly anyway so they can get right on and
do the work they're paid for?

Good question! Their PATH isn't set up properly because years ago,
engineering fancied themselves better and smarter than Sun's own engineers,
so they went to create "Solaris on steroids", which turned out to be a total
and complete mess that the organization is stuck supporting up to this
present day with Solaris 10. So the users have been left to their own
devices, and not really understanding the environment themselves, hacked it
all up.

Post by Peter Tribble
Is it actually dumbing down? Or making things easier to use? My time - and
that of users and customers - is precious, and we should do everything we can
to provide tools that aid users make the best use of their precious time.
Good graphical interfaces that can be used without effort do just that.

It would seem, based on this discussion, that the perception and time spent
doing a task is strictly linked with one's experience.

I am highly unproductive clicking around on pretty icons and buttons inside
of various GUI windows. I am much faster running commands from a shell.
Much, much faster.

Others seem to claim the opposite, at least as far as ease of use. And there
I totally and completely fail to comprehend how a GUI tool like "Nero" can
be easier to use than

cdrecord -v /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO

to be concrete.

Post by Peter Tribble
(The downside to this argument is that most GUI interfaces - like most
CLI interfaces - are badly designed, user hostile, and don't really make
the user's life better. We shouldn't accept that, but should strive to make
tools that are easier to use and that users are comfortable with.)

As opposed to educating the user base?

Post by Peter Tribble
(As an anecdote of marginal relevance to the original subject, I once tried
at home to put some images on a CD. The home PC was simply incapable
of doing this - it had numerous tools that cliamed to be able to do this, both
bundled and unbundled. After a few failures it was starting to become a
challenge, so I persevered. Some applications had incomprehensible user
interfaces that made it impossible to do simple things like select the files
I wanted; others refused to recognize the CD writer; the rest produced
coasters. In disgust I turned the Solaris box on and had written the CD
in a few minutes. But the command line was far harder than a well
designed GUI *should* have been.)

What was so hard about it?

Post by Peter Tribble
The people with the talent to do the advanced stuff will do it anyway.

We keep this charade up, there won't be any left. Everybody will be turned
into consumers - plants.

Apparently encouraging people NOT to use their brains so that they could
concentrate on the "abstract" is nowdays called "progress", and those who
cry "the emperor is naked" are perceived as standing in the way of such.
Great future awaits the human race I see.

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

Post by Peter Tribble

Post by Peter Tribble
The people with the talent to do the advanced stuff

will do it anyway.
We keep this charade up, there won't be any left.
Everybody will be turned
into consumers - plants.
Apparently encouraging people NOT to use their
brains so that they could
concentrate on the "abstract" is nowdays called
"progress", and those who
cry "the emperor is naked" are perceived as standing
in the way of such.
Great future awaits the human race I see.

Not everyone wants to nor needs to know how things
work. Does everyone who drives need to know how to
build a car? No. Those who need to do more complicated
stuff like racing will obviously need to know more but
not everyone who drives races but they more or less
share the same controls.

Will there be a drought of those who can engineer
racing cars and those who drive the things? I doubt
it. Are drivers who engage in simple driving 'plants'?
I doubt that too.

But as you say, appropriate education is needed.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[UNIX admin]

have used xcdroast previously. The last gcombust
release was in 2003. Lets just say I like my GUIs
pretty and intuitive. The graveman screenshots look
promising. The point is there are no production
quality ones, that could be included in SX by
default. Surprising that JDS/Gnome havent come out
with a k3b equivalent.

For the purpose of this argument, let me agree with you. Now the key question is, what good does a *Linux* "port" of Nero do... for Solaris?


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Anil Gulecha]

Post by UNIX admin

have used xcdroast previously. The last gcombust
release was in 2003. Lets just say I like my GUIs
pretty and intuitive. The graveman screenshots look
promising. The point is there are no production
quality ones, that could be included in SX by
default. Surprising that JDS/Gnome havent come out
with a k3b equivalent.

For the purpose of this argument, let me agree with you. Now the key
question is, what good does a *Linux* "port" of Nero do... for Solaris?

I'm not specifically asking for a Solaris port of linux Nero. I'm asking for
a well designed GUI for burning CD/DVDs.. if Nero *were* to be ported, it
would be a great choice.

I'm a Campus ambassador for SUN, and spread awareness about Solaris and
other SUN technologies on campus. It is _essential_ that there are good
replacements to everyday tools that students use on Windows.

As a desktop, I'd give solaris a 6/10. There are replacement tools for
most.. music playing, movie player, etc. However the burning department is
sourly lacking. (I cant even multisession a CDRW using the nautilus in the
vanilla install).

Now linux has evolved a lot on the desktop, and as we all know, packaging is
one of the few places where SX lacks. pkg-get/Blastwave is a make-do option
for now, but something more concrete has to come.

The point is it is easier for a potential Solaris user to get things working
on a Linux box than on a Solaris. If we take steps to bridge this gap on the
desktop, I can assure you lots more participation from the student
community. Things like tools to play music (all codecs) , burn music/video
discs, easy installation/maintaining of software, etc.

Regards
Anil

PS : with regard to the doomsday like scenario you've outlined when all of
today's engineers fade away.. well it is dramatic and all, but not really
how I'd expect things to turn up. The command line tools will certainly
remain, and will be used by those with who want the specific uses, but the
use of these tools is to get work done, and if GUIs can do that, why not?

[UNIX admin]

Post by Anil Gulecha
I'm not specifically asking
for a Solaris port of linux Nero. I'm asking for
a well designed GUI for burning CD/DVDs.. if Nero
*were* to be ported, it would be a great
choice.<br><br>I'm a Campus ambassador for SUN,
and spread awareness about Solaris and other SUN
technologies on campus. It is _essential_ that there
are good replacements to everyday tools that students
use on Windows.

Why is that essential? I believe that the point is to bring up the next generation of system and kernel engineers and computer *scientists*, not bring up a next generation of plants and vegetables. There are enough of those in the world already, more than enough in fact.

If you just want to push Solaris to compete with Windows, then you need more engineers to produce a MacOS X desktop equivalent on Solaris, be that via GNOME/JDS, KDE, Compiz or by means of whichever vehicle necessary to get to that point.

Then Solaris will be able to compete in consumer grade space. And in that space, nobody cares what's "under the hood". That's exactly what makes it *consumer grade*.

Post by Anil Gulecha
PS : with regard to
the doomsday like scenario you've outlined when
all of today's engineers fade away.. well it is
dramatic and all, but not really how I'd expect
things to turn up. The command line tools will
certainly remain, and will be used by those with who
want the specific uses, but the use of these tools is
to get work done, and if GUIs can do that, why not?

Because a GUI is *useless* for any kind of serious deployment and work. And this especially concerns huge, geographically distributed, Lights Out Management farms. Lights Out Management modules, Remote Site Managers, or Console Management Switches are irreplaceable in such environments; there is no place for pretty clicky-bunty toys there, and the whole "pretty pictures GUI" concept collapses in an instant anyway. In other words, it's not consumer grade, nor can consumer-grade stuff touch any of that.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by Anil Gulecha
I'm not specifically asking for a Solaris port of linux Nero. I'm asking for
a well designed GUI for burning CD/DVDs.. if Nero *were* to be ported, it
would be a great choice.

The problem is thsat many people ask for something to happen instead of helping
things to be done.

Jörg

[ken mays]

Post by Anil Gulecha
I'm not specifically asking for a Solaris port of

linux Nero. I'm
asking for

Post by Anil Gulecha
a well designed GUI for burning CD/DVDs.. if Nero

*were* to be
ported, it

Post by Anil Gulecha
would be a great choice.

The problem is thsat many people ask for something to
happen instead of
helping
things to be done.

Jörg
------------------------

As stated before, it seems we need the hardware and
specs available to the right software engineers that
will provide the solution.

1. Sony has a workstation (130G, $1500 USD) and
Blu-Ray drives (BWU-100A and BRU-100A (external)). The
25GB Blu-Ray disks cost about $17 USD and the 50GB
drives cost about $35 USD.

2. The HD-DVD 15GB disks cost about $14 USD.

So maybe provide an OpenSolaris/Solaris 10 workstation
with a retrofitted Sony BWU-100A/BRU-100 Blu-Ray drive
for remote development purposes and move forward with
this project????

I have immediate access to the hardware - if needed.

Ken Mays
EarthLink,Inc.





__________________________________________________
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[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by ken mays
As stated before, it seems we need the hardware and
specs available to the right software engineers that
will provide the solution.
1. Sony has a workstation (130G, $1500 USD) and
Blu-Ray drives (BWU-100A and BRU-100A (external)). The
25GB Blu-Ray disks cost about $17 USD and the 50GB
drives cost about $35 USD.
2. The HD-DVD 15GB disks cost about $14 USD.
So maybe provide an OpenSolaris/Solaris 10 workstation
with a retrofitted Sony BWU-100A/BRU-100 Blu-Ray drive
for remote development purposes and move forward with
this project????
I have immediate access to the hardware - if needed.

???
What do you like to tell us here?

Do you like to tell me that I should buy a drive and give it to others?
This sounds silly.

Jörg

[ken mays]

Post by ken mays
As stated before, it seems we need the hardware and
specs available to the right software engineers that
will provide the solution.
1. Sony has a workstation (130G, $1500 USD) and
Blu-Ray drives (BWU-100A and BRU-100A (external)).

The

Post by ken mays
25GB Blu-Ray disks cost about $17 USD and the 50GB
drives cost about $35 USD.
2. The HD-DVD 15GB disks cost about $14 USD.
So maybe provide an OpenSolaris/Solaris 10

workstation

Post by ken mays
with a retrofitted Sony BWU-100A/BRU-100 Blu-Ray

drive

Post by ken mays
for remote development purposes and move forward

with

Post by ken mays
this project????
I have immediate access to the hardware - if needed.

???
What do you like to tell us here?

Do you like to tell me that I should buy a drive and
give it to others?
This sounds silly.

Jörg
-------------------------

No, why would you do that unless you're being very
generous this time of year?!? Xmas is only a few
months away...

I was asking if you needed immediate access to a
Blu-Ray drive and/or workstation for development
purposes.
I'd gladly donate some funds for hardware if you're
willing to provide the solution.

Yet, we seem to have multiple requirements. Do we need
a GUI tool as well?? A patch to a tool like Gnomebaker
or some other tool for GUI desktop usage?

Ken Mays
EarthLink, Inc.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by ken mays
I was asking if you needed immediate access to a
Blu-Ray drive and/or workstation for development
purposes.
I'd gladly donate some funds for hardware if you're
willing to provide the solution.

Do you have a Blu Ray drive in a machine and could give me
a login on that machine?

Post by ken mays
Yet, we seem to have multiple requirements. Do we need
a GUI tool as well?? A patch to a tool like Gnomebaker
or some other tool for GUI desktop usage?

I am only focussed to the cdrtools CLI tools.
GUI aspects should be discussed wth someione else ;-)

Jörg

[ken mays]

Post by ken mays
I was asking if you needed immediate access to a
Blu-Ray drive and/or workstation for development
purposes.
I'd gladly donate some funds for hardware if you're
willing to provide the solution.

Do you have a Blu Ray drive in a machine and could
give me
a login on that machine?

Post by ken mays
Yet, we seem to have multiple requirements. Do we

need

Post by ken mays
a GUI tool as well?? A patch to a tool like

Gnomebaker

Post by ken mays
or some other tool for GUI desktop usage?

I am only focussed to the cdrtools CLI tools.
GUI aspects should be discussed wth someione else ;-)

Jörg
---------------------------------------

1. I'll get a machine set up. Let me know if you need
Solaris 10 or SXCE (what build) and we can go from
there.

~ Ken




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Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)
Do you have a Blu Ray drive in a machine and could
give me
a login on that machine?

....

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)
---------------------------------------
1. I'll get a machine set up. Let me know if you need
Solaris 10 or SXCE (what build) and we can go from
there.

As Nevada by default uses DMA for CD/DVD drives and as
DMA is needed, a Nevada installation would be nice.

Jörg

[a b]

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)

Post by ken mays
I have immediate access to the hardware - if needed.

???
What do you like to tell us here?
Do you like to tell me that I should buy a drive and give it to others?
This sounds silly.

I think that he's either trying to tell you that he'll test the software for
you, perhaps even give you access to this system (:-)

And I *think* he was saying that a drive is cheap to buy...

Or maybe you can borrow the hardware...

Seriously now. If I had the hardware you require, it would be at your front
door as fast as Deutsche Post would ship it.

What the heck, electronics are cheap, and we all need to pull together
here.

Can anyone give a make and model of a Blue Ray drive? Admittedly, I don't
know much about any of that new stuff.

Joerg, I'll buy you one and send it your way so that you can work on it, if
I can find one to buy.

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[a b]

Post by Anil Gulecha
If we are talking ease of use, the Nero suite wins hands down. Avg Joe user
wont have the time to build ISOs or look through the man pages for the right
options and utilize the very powerful features that may be present in
cdrecord.
Calling Nero "cumbersome" and "dumbed down" is simply wrong. It is one of
the easiest to learn burning tools, and if there were a Solaris version, I'd
much rather use it over terminal cdrecord, or the nautilus CD/DVD
burner(which currently makes up for the lack of a dedicated GUI).

I just wonder how useful a GUI is going to be when you're going over ttya.

I find Nero nearly useless. It's a *consumer grade* toy for plants. Be that
as it may, we will just have to agree to disagree.

Post by Anil Gulecha
There is a need for GUI, and Nero can well fill the gap.

Nero does not need to "fill the gap", because there is no gap. You have
Xcdroast which is a GUI front end for cdrtools (which I also find cumbersome
and counter-intuitive, but it's no worse than Nero). If you don't like that,
there's also `gcombust` GUI front end for cdrecord, and it strikes a pretty
good balance between being useful enough and making `cdrecord` and `mkisofs`
easy to use.

_________________________________________________________________
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[Brian Gupta]

Shouldn't DVD burning be included in this discussion? I need all formats of DVD + and - as well as single and double layer.

Also I think that ideally there is a good scriptable cli tool, ideally the sam tool has a simple to use GUI, in addition to an ncurses interface.

How many people really need the info? If the source is open, any one can figure it out.

'Basically the thing here is to make solved problems easy and abstractable so that we have more time to do useful work.

eg: I could make my own Linux distro from scratch, and develop the skill to do so. However, using a prebuilt distro will enable to get on to doing what I needed Linux for in the first place.

-Brian

P.S. - I can't believe some people are actually advocating making a tool harder to use just so people will be forced to learn the underlying technology. That completely defeats the purpose of technological progress!!


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by Brian Gupta
Shouldn't DVD burning be included in this discussion? I need all formats of DVD + and - as well as single and double layer.

Well, cdrecord supports this....

Jörg

[UNIX admin]

Post by Brian Gupta
P.S. - I can't believe some people are actually
advocating making a tool harder to use just so people
will be forced to learn the underlying technology.
That completely defeats the purpose of technological
progress!!

If you're referring to me, you got it wrong. I don't believe cdrecord should be made harder to use. I even wrote there's an equivalent for "Nero", as have others as well.

But if all you wanted to do is just "get stuff out of your computer", then why are you here? Why Solaris? Somebody with that kind of mentality can be perfectly happy on Windows. If you don't care about how it all works, you don't need the most advanced operating system on the planet. Windows will do.

If all you care about is getting from point A to point B, any cheapo car will do. You don't need a Bugatti Veyron, and you shouldn't expect a Bugatti Veyron to be the same to use as a KIA, Citroen or Renault. If you do, then get a KIA, Citroen, or Renault.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Brian Gupta]

Post by UNIX admin
But if all you wanted to do is just "get stuff out of
your computer", then why are you here? Why Solaris?
Somebody with that kind of mentality can be perfectly
happy on Windows. If you don't care about how it all
works, you don't need the most advanced operating
system on the planet. Windows will do.

First, I don't necessarily agree that Solaris is the undisputed most advanced OS on the Planet. Solaris and x86 have a long way to go before they catch up to the mainframe.

As for why Solaris, because I know Solaris. I work with Solaris, and for the most part like working with Solaris. And to your point, I don't run Solaris as a desktop. It is missing too much. To me Solaris always has been and probably always will be a server OS. Currently I run Windows. So I use Roxio or Nero to do my burns. I may switch to MacOS.

Post by UNIX admin
If all you care about is getting from point A to
point B, any cheapo car will do. You don't need a
Bugatti Veyron, and you shouldn't expect a Bugatti
Veyron to be the same to use as a KIA, Citroen or
Renault. If you do, then get a KIA, Citroen, or
Renault.

Bad analogy, a better analogy would be to say that the advanced Buggati requires you to use non-standard steering controls that involve two retractable steering lever arms that alow you to independantly contol each wheel.

Bugatti would not force their customers to use this technically superior control system, that takes years to master. Why should a desktop OS force their users to learn an unfamiliar control system, when there is a standard paradym that over 998% of the world uses? The Window, Icon and Desktop metaphor. (MacOS, Windows, KDE, Gnome, FVWM, NextStep, CDE...etc...etc...etc)

-Brian


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[UNIX admin]

Post by Richard L. Hamilton

Post by UNIX admin
But if all you wanted to do is just "get stuff out

of

Post by UNIX admin
your computer", then why are you here? Why

Solaris?

Post by UNIX admin
Somebody with that kind of mentality can be

perfectly

Post by UNIX admin
happy on Windows. If you don't care about how it

all

Post by UNIX admin
works, you don't need the most advanced operating
system on the planet. Windows will do.

First, I don't necessarily agree that Solaris is the
undisputed most advanced OS on the Planet. Solaris
and x86 have a long way to go before they catch up to
the mainframe.
As for why Solaris, because I know Solaris. I work
with Solaris, and for the most part like working with
Solaris. And to your point, I don't run Solaris as a
Bad analogy, a better analogy would be to say that
the advanced Buggati requires you to use non-standard
steering controls that involve two retractable
steering lever arms that alow you to independantly
contol each wheel.
Bugatti would not force their customers to use this
technically superior control system, that takes years
to master. Why should a desktop OS force their users
to learn an unfamiliar control system, when there is
a standard paradym that over 998% of the world uses?
The Window, Icon and Desktop metaphor. (MacOS,
Windows, KDE, Gnome, FVWM, NextStep,
CDE...etc...etc...etc)

Because the "desktop way" is seriously lacking. Clicking on pretty buttons and icons doesn't cut it when you need to "floor the pedal to the metal". It's good enough for a consumer that wants to drive 55MPH on the highway. For those that need to floor it on the racing track, it has and will never cut it.

So I think that the analogy was pretty much in order. If you are going to buy a Ferrari, you will be forced to push the buttons to switch gears and there won't be any clutch. For a "regular" driver like me that just SUCKS because I want A SHIFTER AND A CLUTCH (aka "desktop user"), but Ferrari and the professional drivers obviously don't agree with me on that. Same with Bugatti Veyron. To transfer 1000HP from the engine to the road, you need a very special drivetrain, and driving the thing won't be the same as driving a FIAT or a KIA. It just won't physically cut it. So one needs different controls and mechanisms for that. I think it was a very good analogy.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

Post by UNIX admin
But if all you wanted to do is just "get stuff out
of your computer", then why are you here? Why
Solaris? Somebody with that kind of mentality can be
perfectly happy on Windows. If you don't care about
how it all works, you don't need the most advanced
operating system on the planet. Windows will do.

How could you promote the idea that Windows will do?
Windows only suffices because of the fact that there
is so much desktop software written only for it. Of
course, it would not be a problem if Windows is not
the resource abusing pest that it is.

Why not Solaris as a replacement for Windows? Drivers
for Solaris go a long way unlike Linux and even
Windows. Solaris has a better potential than Linux for
this reason to replace that malware infested platform
called Windows.

Why relegate Solaris to a niche?

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[a b]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Why relegate Solaris to a niche?

Not relegating Solaris to a niche. I just see that the desktop's days are
numbered, but the general consumer obviously isn't ready for a mindset
shift. Hauling floppies around, anyone?

When the shift does happen, and it already did start taking place, Solaris
will be the #1 operating environment powering the thin clients, web/AJAX
powered applications and home set-top boxes and appliances. Desktop
applications and the desktop computing model as we know them today will be
simply obsolete. You might vehemently disagree with me, might even have
trouble envisioning that kind of a future, but it is coming. It's already
knocking with the "Web 2.0".

And since that will be the mainstream, I certainly don't consider it to be
"niche market".

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Post by UNIX admin
cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord -v -data -sao dev=c,t,l /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO
where "c,t,l" are the numbers you'd get from `cdrecord -scanbus`, and that's it.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Just to make it more obvious, jet me answer again in order to
demonstrate that you may omit the dev= parameter to cdrecord:

cdrecord -inq
Cdrecord-ProDVD-Clone 2.01.01a26 (i386-pc-solaris2.11) Copyright (C) 1995-2006
Jörg Schilling
Warning: Using USCSI interface.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.9'.
No target specified, trying to find one... <==== Look at
Using dev=1,0,0. <==== this
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'PLEXTOR '
Identifikation : 'DVDR PX-755A '
Revision : '1.06'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM.


As cdrecord defaults to -sao since some time and defaults to data for
non audio files, you really only need:

cdrecord -v /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO


Jörg

[a b]

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)

Post by UNIX admin
It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Just to make it more obvious, jet me answer again in order to
cdrecord -inq
Cdrecord-ProDVD-Clone 2.01.01a26 (i386-pc-solaris2.11) Copyright (C) 1995-2006
Jörg Schilling
Warning: Using USCSI interface.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.9'.
No target specified, trying to find one... <==== Look at
Using dev=1,0,0. <==== this
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 2
Vendor_info : 'PLEXTOR '
Identifikation : 'DVDR PX-755A '
Revision : '1.06'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM.
As cdrecord defaults to -sao since some time and defaults to data for
cdrecord -v /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO

OK, so it can get even simpler than that! But that's even better for making
my point:

How much faster is it to type `cdrecord -v /var/tmp/MyImage.ISO` than have
to *click around* in some GUI?

GUI will never be as fast and as efficient for getting things done. That's
my point.
And where GUI doesn't work in some situations (like going over a serial
line), CLI tools work across the board.

For some bizzarre reason, some people misunderstood that to mean that I want
things to be harder, when it fact I was trying to show that things are
easier this way.

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Post by chris
I am new to the OpenSolaris scene but have been using Solaris since version 8. I have seen talks about cd and dvd buring software that people think should be included. most people seem to dislike k3b as it is QT based and they want a GTK solution. something I have yet to see adressed is the possibility of striking a deal with Nero and having the Nero burning suite based on GTK 2 included with the default instal. it is by far the best solution for any windows box and with each new release for linux it gets better and better. surely Sun would want to put software in representing its best foot forward. more information here
http://www.nero.com/eng/NeroLinux3Beta.html

Why don't you use just cdrecord?

There are GUIs for cdrecord..... and you need to select
one that gives you enough of the features that are in cdrecord.

Jörg

[Jerry Tan]

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)

Post by chris
I am new to the OpenSolaris scene but have been using Solaris since version 8. I have seen talks about cd and dvd buring software that people think should be included. most people seem to dislike k3b as it is QT based and they want a GTK solution. something I have yet to see adressed is the possibility of striking a deal with Nero and having the Nero burning suite based on GTK 2 included with the default instal. it is by far the best solution for any windows box and with each new release for linux it gets better and better. surely Sun would want to put software in representing its best foot forward. more information here
http://www.nero.com/eng/NeroLinux3Beta.html

Why don't you use just cdrecord?
There are GUIs for cdrecord..... and you need to select
one that gives you enough of the features that are in cdrecord.
Jörg

Just use nautilus-cd-burner, it is a GUI wrapper for cdrecord.

[chris]

I seem to have not been as clear as I should have. I sugest Nero not because there is no other alternative but because it is simple better. from and end user rospective it is highly intuative, can do anything you could posibly want, has every cd or dvd feature out there, and has a more powerfull (yes this is true go through the technical documentation if you must) engine then cdrecord. if we wantt o bring Solaris to the masses we need tools that the masses can use. if i put nero infront of my grandma (and i have infact done this) and told where that she could scroll ove rteh buttons and it would tel her what they wre she could use it (she picked it up in less then 5 min). if i put cdrecord (even with a decent UI) it would confuse her. Graveman and others are good but not as good, most of the UI's are still feature incomplete, while Nero is a full package and all very closely knit.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

chris <poundsmack-MwYPzc5+***@public.gmane.org> wrote:

If you like a useful discussion please keep lines <= 79 characters.

Post by chris
I seem to have not been as clear as I should have. I sugest Nero not because there is no other alternative but because it is simple better. from and end user rospective it is highly intuative, can do anything you could posibly want, has every cd or dvd feature out there, and has a more powerfull (yes this is true go through the technical documentation if you must) engine then cdrecord. if we wantt o bring Solaris to the masses we need tools that the masses can use. if i put nero infront of my grandma (and i have infact done this) and told where that she could scroll ove rteh buttons and it would tel her what they wre she could use it (she picked it up in less then 5 min). if i put cdrecord (even with a decent UI) it would confuse her. Graveman and others are good but not as good, most of the UI's are still feature incomplete, while Nero is a full package and all very closely knit.

There is xcdroast which is easy to use.

If you miss a feature with cdrecord, please go ahead and tell me.

Jörg

[chris]

hmm it seems i am uncapable of editing my previous post. there was one other thing I would add. Nero adds a farmiliarity that windows and cross over users can assosiate with. these farmiliarities (fire fox and other suck cross platform apps) help people transition away from there current platform and allow them to keep that feeling of farmiliarity with there environment. very impoirtant when competeing in the desktop market now a days.

-poundsmack


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[UNIX admin]

Post by chris
I seem to have not been as clear as I should have. I
sugest Nero not because there is no other alternative
but because it is simple better. from and end user
rospective it is highly intuative, can do anything
you could posibly want,

Actually, no, it can not. For example, the kind of UDF 1.50 images I create and burn, Nero can't do.

Post by chris
has every cd or dvd feature
out there, and has a more powerfull (yes this is true
go through the technical documentation if you must)
engine then cdrecord.

It would greatly interest me, from a technical standpoint, to learn of a piece of software that has a more advanced engine than cdrecord.

Please be so kind as to point out where Nero's burning engine is better than cdrecord.

Post by chris
Graveman and others are good but not as
good, most of the UI's are still feature incomplete,
while Nero is a full package and all very closely
knit.

I believe that what you're really saying in the above paragraphs is that you're so used to Nero and you like it so much, that you actually want *someone else* to do the porting for you to Solaris.

Two questions come to mind when I think about that.

1. did you lobby the makers of Nero to port it to Solaris?

2. if all you really care about is braindead "clicky-bunty" stuff, why do you care whether it runs on Solaris or not? You have "clicky-bunty" on Windows. And on MacOS X. You don't need Solaris for that.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Artem Kachitchkine]

Most OS vendors are prepared to invest in basic media recording support.
Advanced applications is the space where 3rd parties like Roxio and Nero
compete. These companies let burner vendors to include dumbed down versions of
their software in hopes that users will buy a full version. That's how things are.

We also need to distinguish two parts of a media recording solution: the engine
and the user interface. Most well-designed applications, regardless of the OS,
have the engine separated and "abstracted out". That includes Nero (it is
perfectly usable from command line in Windows). The engine defines core
features, such as supported media types, drive types, write modes, etc. The user
interface provides easy access to the core features, but also provides
supplemental features such as file management.

Then there's the third, the fun and creative part: authoring, making home movies
on DVD, making mix tapes^H^H^H^H^H CDs, designing labels, etc. That, IMO, is the
only thing that should differentiate 3rd party solutions and is worth paying
money for. It's a real shame that evolution of optical media has been such a
mess that simply putting bits on a disc requires a know-how.

With respect to OpenSolaris, cdrtools/cdrecord is the engine we prefer to invest
in. Missing features (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, LightScribe, Thingmabob...) should be
added to cdrtools, hopefully with the help from the community. The basic GUI we
currently ship is Nautilus CD burner, which appears to provide similar
experience to Windows explorer (not that it's ideal, but an example of "basic")
- again, it is open to improvements, patches are always welcome. It can be
tempting to "just rewrite everything", but it is more expensive than incremental
improvements and does not guarantee better results.

That said, it is always great to see new commercial applications for Solaris. If
Nero see a business opportunity, as they apparently see with Linux, they will no
doubt pursue it.

-Artem.

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
Most OS vendors are prepared to invest in basic media recording support.
Advanced applications is the space where 3rd parties like Roxio and Nero
compete. These companies let burner vendors to include dumbed down versions of
their software in hopes that users will buy a full version. That's how things are.

Things are even harder....

Richard Lesser, the chief of Nero (former ahead) did start a very agressive
advertizing campaign and did place a stack of his A4 ads everywhere on the
Cebit. He did aproach the CD vendors for a OEM software version with a
lower prize than any other competitor.

As the price became more important for selling drives, he at some time did
reach the point where every drive manufacturer did ship the drives with Nero.
Very lately, Nero did start to support DVDs.....

The problem with such a monoculture is that new drive manufacturers did not
give away any sample drives to me. See below for more information...

You should never compare to Nero, but Nero is a niche product that only works
on a very limited number of OS.

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
We also need to distinguish two parts of a media recording solution: the engine
and the user interface. Most well-designed applications, regardless of the OS,
have the engine separated and "abstracted out". That includes Nero (it is
perfectly usable from command line in Windows). The engine defines core
features, such as supported media types, drive types, write modes, etc. The user
interface provides easy access to the core features, but also provides
supplemental features such as file management.

I am not sure whether you missinterpret Nero.

In Y2000, Nero was a piece of code that did not exist as a command line utility
at all. I would guess tha the current versions of Nero still use this kind of
aproach on Win32.

The Nero command line tool was obviously written after looking at cdrecord
and because there are some kind of customers that like to run automated tools.

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
Then there's the third, the fun and creative part: authoring, making home movies
on DVD, making mix tapes^H^H^H^H^H CDs, designing labels, etc. That, IMO, is the
only thing that should differentiate 3rd party solutions and is worth paying
money for. It's a real shame that evolution of optical media has been such a
mess that simply putting bits on a disc requires a know-how.

cdrtools is a set of layered tools.

cdrecord writes the data asuming the data makes sense. It is possible to tell
cdrecord about the location of the layer break for a dual layer DVD Video.

mkisofs creates a ISO-9660 or UDF filesystem image asuming that the master tree
does make sense. If this is a DVD-Video stream, then mkisofs reads the IFO file
and inserts pad sectors acording to the IFO file to allow DVD players to
deal with the data.

If you like cdrtools to be used for mastering DVD-Video, you need an application
that creates the IFO and other related files.

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
With respect to OpenSolaris, cdrtools/cdrecord is the engine we prefer to invest
in. Missing features (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, LightScribe, Thingmabob...) should be
added to cdrtools, hopefully with the help from the community. The basic GUI we

HD-DVD drives are not yet available.
If I get a Blu-Ray drive, cdrecord will support Blu-Ray soon.

Lightscribe is a poblem, the initiators do not send me the needed information.


Jörg

[ken mays]

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
With respect to OpenSolaris, cdrtools/cdrecord is

the engine we
prefer to invest

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
in. Missing features (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, LightScribe,

Thingmabob...)
should be

Post by Artem Kachitchkine
added to cdrtools, hopefully with the help from the

community. The
basic GUI we

HD-DVD drives are not yet available.
If I get a Blu-Ray drive, cdrecord will support
Blu-Ray soon.

Lightscribe is a poblem, the initiators do not send me
the needed
information.


Jörg
-----------------

You have a point which many developers face and that
is having the specs as well as the hardware.

The next level is having the "Sun" workstations having
the available hardware as well (by Sun Store and
other). This makes HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drives available to
users of Sun workstations. I think having the
Sony/Toshiba drives would be worth the initial
investment, but any IHV can match specs.

We had a discussion about the various tools before and
I ran across this company which may be of interest:

http://www.gearsoftware.com/products/gearprounix.cfm

"GEAR PRO UNIX supports a wide range of IDE, USB and
(SCSI) recorders for DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW/DVD-RAM,
CD-R(W). GEAR's newest UNIX release offers both single
and double-layer (DL) media support, along with the
ability to master images for DVD-5, DVD-9, DVD-18."


Ken Mays
EarthLink, Inc.

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Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)
HD-DVD drives are not yet available.
If I get a Blu-Ray drive, cdrecord will support
Blu-Ray soon.

BTW: I did read on the net that if you call:

cdrecord driveropts=burnproof driver=mmc_dvdplusrw -force

cdrecord will already write Blu Ray...

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)
Lightscribe is a poblem, the initiators do not send me
the needed
information.
Jörg
-----------------
You have a point which many developers face and that
is having the specs as well as the hardware.

Sorry, I do not understand.

I spend a lot of time in order to stay in contact to manufacturers.
Due to the fact of repartitioning the market by new manufacturers
in the past few years, only contacts to Optiarc and Pioneer are left over.

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)
The next level is having the "Sun" workstations having
the available hardware as well (by Sun Store and
other). This makes HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drives available to
users of Sun workstations. I think having the
Sony/Toshiba drives would be worth the initial
investment, but any IHV can match specs.

Sony and Toshiba do not cooperate.

I did hear that TSST (Toshiba Samsung) may be a good idea for
Blu ray now....

Post by Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)
We had a discussion about the various tools before and
http://www.gearsoftware.com/products/gearprounix.cfm
"GEAR PRO UNIX supports a wide range of IDE, USB and

Why did you mention this company?

They did go bankrupt around 1998 after their former customers did
realize that there is cdrecord that runs on any OS and it is free.
I did hear that they still charge their customers 200,000 US $ per year
for a permission to use their software.

Jörg

[ken mays]

Can anyone give a make and model of a Blue Ray drive?
Admittedly, I
don't
know much about any of that new stuff.

Joerg, I'll buy you one and send it your way so that
you can work on
it, if
I can find one to buy.
----------------------------->

If you are looking for Sony Blu-Ray drives:

You can review:
http://www.sonybiz.net/biz/view/ShowProduct.action?product=BWU-100A&site=biz_en_EU&pageType=Overview&category=ITPBluRay

Note: Get the Sony BWU-100A (use Firmware Update 1.0c
or higher for evaluation).

Dealer Location:
http://www.sonybiz.net/biz/howtobuy/AccessDealerLocator.action?site=biz_en_EU&sectiontype=How+To+Buy&categoryGenericName=ITPBluRay

You can get it now for $539.95 at this location:
http://www.nothingbutsoftware.com/catalog_type.asp?ProductCode=36486&ai=531

Guess a few people are being generous this time of
year!!

Ken Mays
EarthLink, Inc.

__________________________________________________
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[UNIX admin]

Post by ken mays
Can anyone give a make and model of a Blue Ray drive?
Admittedly, I
don't
know much about any of that new stuff.
Joerg, I'll buy you one and send it your way so that
you can work on
it, if
I can find one to buy.
----------------------------->
http://www.sonybiz.net/biz/view/ShowProduct.action?pro
duct=BWU-100A&site=biz_en_EU&pageType=Overview&categor
y=ITPBluRay
Note: Get the Sony BWU-100A (use Firmware Update 1.0c
or higher for evaluation).
http://www.sonybiz.net/biz/howtobuy/AccessDealerLocato
r.action?site=biz_en_EU&sectiontype=How+To+Buy&categor
yGenericName=ITPBluRay
http://www.nothingbutsoftware.com/catalog_type.asp?Pro
ductCode=36486&ai=531
Guess a few people are being generous this time of
year!!

I contacted Joerg offline, we'll see what he has to say.

As far as generosity, it's for the common good. I firmly believe that if all of us pull together as much as we can, we will be a successful and happy-go-lucky community.

We might or might not have as much as single persons, but I'm pretty confident that together we could come up with some pretty awesome resources.


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Brian Gupta]

I'm sorry, at the moment Sun just doesn't have the software tools I need. (I work for a big corp. )

I have made a vow that when VMWare workstation comes out for Solaris, I will start running a Solaris desktop. (I have held of switching to a Linux desktop in the hopes that Sun will come through with a vmware port)

With Mac and Windows I can run Solaris in a VM. (which I do).

I also use Cygwin.

Cheers,
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Chung Hang Christopher Chan <chrisfz-/***@public.gmane.org>
Date: Tuesday, Apr 24, 2007 10:52 pm
Subject: Re: [osol-discuss] Re: Re: CD burning in Solaris

Post by UNIX admin
But if all you wanted to do is just "get stuff out

of your computer", then why are you here? Why
Solaris? Somebody with that kind of mentality can be
perfectly happy on Windows. If you don't care about
how it all works, you don't need the most advanced
operating system on the planet. Windows will do.

How could you promote the idea that Windows will do?
Windows only suffices because of the fact that there
is so much desktop software written only for it. Of
course, it would not be a problem if Windows is not
the resource abusing pest that it is.

Why not Solaris as a replacement for Windows? Drivers
for Solaris go a long way unlike Linux and even
Windows. Solaris has a better potential than Linux for
this reason to replace that malware infested platform
called Windows.

Why relegate Solaris to a niche?

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[a b]

Post by Brian Gupta
I'm sorry, at the moment Sun just doesn't have the software tools I need.
(I work for a big corp. )

And what do you need?

Post by Brian Gupta
I have made a vow that when VMWare workstation comes out for Solaris, I
will start running a Solaris desktop. (I have held of switching to a Linux
desktop in the hopes that Sun will come through with a vmware port)

Interesting, but why is it that you believe that Sun should somehow be
responsible for "coming through with a vmware port"?

If you want VMware to run on Solaris, then you have to lobby VMware. Why
should Sun have to "come through" with software written by some thrid party
corporation, and a corporation which obviously does not see any value in
porting their software to Solaris.

_________________________________________________________________
Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.com/

[Joerg.Schilling-8LS2qeF34IpklNlQbfROjRvVK+ (Joerg Schilling)]

Post by a b
If you want VMware to run on Solaris, then you have to lobby VMware. Why
should Sun have to "come through" with software written by some thrid party
corporation, and a corporation which obviously does not see any value in
porting their software to Solaris.

It would be interesting to know whether Andy Tucker does still remember Solaris
while he is working at Vmware.

Jörg

[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Why relegate Solaris to a niche?

Not relegating Solaris to a niche. I just see that
the desktop's days are
numbered, but the general consumer obviously isn't
ready for a mindset
shift. Hauling floppies around, anyone?

Hmm, my desktop does not have a floppy drive. However,
the servers here do.

When the shift does happen, and it already did start
taking place, Solaris
will be the #1 operating environment powering the
thin clients, web/AJAX
powered applications and home set-top boxes and
appliances. Desktop
applications and the desktop computing model as we
know them today will be
simply obsolete. You might vehemently disagree with
me, might even have
trouble envisioning that kind of a future, but it is
coming. It's already
knocking with the "Web 2.0".

Oh sure, all the resources invested in GNOME, KDE,
will be replaced by XBOX-3600 running crap from M$.
NOT!

Hands up those who will put their stuff on Google
Apps. Nobody? Aw.

And since that will be the mainstream, I certainly
don't consider it to be
"niche market".

When you see Solaris on a game console.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[a b]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Oh sure, all the resources invested in GNOME, KDE,
will be replaced by XBOX-3600 running crap from M$.
NOT!

Here is something to consider: when PlayStation 3 came out, a Linux kit was
also available, allowing one to turn a gaming console into a workstation and
switch back and forth between the two. And since Linux does support the X
windowing system, a PS3 could be used as a thin client.

So it's not as far away as you think. I believe that the PS3 has a PPC
compatible CPU. So imagine what will happen once OpenPolaris (PPC port of
Solaris) is finished.

It will be just a matter of time.

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Hands up those who will put their stuff on Google
Apps. Nobody? Aw.

Of course not. Hopefully nobody will be that stupid to put their private /
confidential data out there on the internet. But that doesn't stop one from
using Google's application over the web (SSL protected) and store the result
on one's home set-top box, which would be powered by Solaris and essentially
be a consumer-friendly UNIX(R) server under the hood.

And that would make desktop computing model with GUIs obsolete. Sure there
would be a GUI, but a GUI following a whole different usage / computing
model.

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
When you see Solaris on a game console.

It's just a matter of time. In this case, I consider the glass to be half
full.

_________________________________________________________________
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[demy]

同一个话题，干嘛开这么多帖子嘛


This message posted from opensolaris.org

[Stephen Lau]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Hands up those who will put their stuff on Google
Apps. Nobody? Aw.

I put a bunch of stuff on Google Apps because it's main point is
collaboration/sharing. It makes it considerably easier to
collaboratively edit a spreadsheet or document than anything else.

And depending on your privacy requirements, it's completely adequate.

If somebody hacks Google Apps, then oh no... they've managed to
compromise my privacy and now have a copy of my wedding's seating chart
and who prefers what meal.

... that's a small trade-off for the collaborative features it offers.

-steve

[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

Post by Stephen Lau

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Hands up those who will put their stuff on Google
Apps. Nobody? Aw.

I put a bunch of stuff on Google Apps because it's
main point is
collaboration/sharing. It makes it considerably
easier to
collaboratively edit a spreadsheet or document than
anything else.
And depending on your privacy requirements, it's
completely adequate.
If somebody hacks Google Apps, then oh no... they've
managed to
compromise my privacy and now have a copy of my
wedding's seating chart
and who prefers what meal.
... that's a small trade-off for the collaborative
features it offers.

Would you put company stuff there?

For Unix Admin:

How will Solaris figure in this if Google Apps really
takes off? Have you a guarantee?

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[a b]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
How will Solaris figure in this if Google Apps really
takes off? Have you a guarantee?

Google has an architectural problem. They have huge Linux farms. And Linux
as we know it is nowhere near ready for the enterprise. It does not have the
kind of architecture that would make it suitable for management in large
numbers. Actually, it has no architecture at all, it's all ad-hoc.

And that's a problem, a bigass problem. It's like Windows(R) in that
something that's based on not well thought-through arch, or lack thereof,
can never be good. It can look good, but looking good doesn't make it
overall good.

Furthermore, Google isn't that stupid. They see that Solaris is now gratis.
And the CEO is an ex Sun employee; he knows full well what Solaris is
capable of and how much of a quality engineered product Solaris is. And
especially, how manageable Solaris is. Don't think for a second that all
those facts have gone unnoticed or lost on Google.

What will happen is that Solaris will power Google someday, and all the
Google's AJAX apps. Solaris excells at such things really, in spite of all
the Slashdot.org FUD and propaganda.

So the AJAX app will run on your home set-top box, inside of a web browser,
which will also be powered by Solaris and send the display to your thin
client. Which could very well turn out to be your gaming console. We're
talking a full cycle here. The end-consumer will most likely be blissfully
unaware of the fact that it's Solaris ticking underneath.

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
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[Alan DuBoff]

Google has an architectural problem. They have huge Linux farms. And Linux as
we know it is nowhere near ready for the enterprise. It does not have the
kind of architecture that would make it suitable for management in large
numbers. Actually, it has no architecture at all, it's all ad-hoc.
And that's a problem, a bigass problem. It's like Windows(R) in that
something that's based on not well thought-through arch, or lack thereof, can
never be good. It can look good, but looking good doesn't make it overall
good.

I'd like to have their problem, because they have the $$$s to solve it.

There is no site that takes more hits than google, IMO, and they can
sustain the worst days. They're doing something right.

I don't know what they'll use in the future, but know that they use Linux
today and are able to keep their site going and their stock price seems to
reflect that Google is a growth player on Wall Street.

--

Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group

[a b]

Post by Alan DuBoff
I'd like to have their problem, because they have the $$$s to solve it.

They do not have that money. They have virtual money becuase of the stock
value. It is speculative at best what would happen if they tried to exchange
all that virtual money for cold, hard cash.

Post by Alan DuBoff
There is no site that takes more hits than google, IMO, and they can
sustain the worst days. They're doing something right.

Yes, they are. They are taking the brute force approach, which I like to
call "the American V8 approach":

a big block V8 is extremely inefficient. It guzzles fuel. A Japanese
turbodiesel engine will beat the living daylights out of it if it had the
same volume. But a V8 has brute, raw horsepower, and plenty of cylinders
which give it the near-turbodiesel's momentum, and that huge volume that
gives it top speed.

In the same analogy, Google more likely than not has a countless army of
people to run those server farms, where in a well thought out architecture,
up to 30 people would suffice.

Post by Alan DuBoff
I don't know what they'll use in the future, but know that they use Linux
today and are able to keep their site going and their stock price seems to
reflect that Google is a growth player on Wall Street.

Google's stock price is high because investors perceive it to be such. Is
perception the reality? Perhaps if one keeps convincing oneself long enough,
perception becomes the reality. At least for that person.

The reality regarding Google is that they are completely irrelevant. They
offer an abstract service that one cannot eat, drink, or create clothing and
shelter from, especially not in a 3rd world country, and especially not
directly. Only indirectly, provided certain social and financial
prerequisites are met. If a world-wide nuclear holocaust were to take place
tomorrow, Google would be worthless, irrelevant, and insignificant. I've
argued this before.

At it's core, Google is nothing more than a fast and effective search
engine. And that's nothing special in and of itself.

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
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[Brian Gupta]

Post by a b

Post by Alan DuBoff
I'd like to have their problem, because they have the $$$s to solve it.

They do not have that money. They have virtual money becuase of the stock
value. It is speculative at best what would happen if they tried to exchange
all that virtual money for cold, hard cash.

Is over $11 billion in cash and short term investments virtual money?
http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&q=GOOG

-Brian

P.S. - I hate myself for taking this offtopic bait. :(

[Christopher Mahan]

Post by Alan DuBoff

Post by Alan DuBoff
I'd like to have their problem, because they have the $$$s to

solve it.
They do not have that money. They have virtual money becuase of the stock
value. It is speculative at best what would happen if they tried to exchange
all that virtual money for cold, hard cash.

Post by Alan DuBoff
There is no site that takes more hits than google, IMO, and they

can

Post by Alan DuBoff
sustain the worst days. They're doing something right.

Yes, they are. They are taking the brute force approach, which I like to
a big block V8 is extremely inefficient. It guzzles fuel. A
Japanese
turbodiesel engine will beat the living daylights out of it if it had the
same volume. But a V8 has brute, raw horsepower, and plenty of
cylinders
which give it the near-turbodiesel's momentum, and that huge volume that
gives it top speed.
In the same analogy, Google more likely than not has a countless army of
people to run those server farms, where in a well thought out
architecture,
up to 30 people would suffice.

To be all UNIXY:

from "The Art of UNIX Programming" by Eric S. Raymond, (2004) page 13
(2nd paragraph) states:

Ken Thompson, the man who designed and implemented the first UNIX,
reinforced Pike's 4th rule with a gnomic maxim worthy of a Zen
patriarch: When in doubt, use brute force.

Post by Alan DuBoff

Post by Alan DuBoff
I don't know what they'll use in the future, but know that they

use Linux

Post by Alan DuBoff
today and are able to keep their site going and their stock price

seems to

Post by Alan DuBoff
reflect that Google is a growth player on Wall Street.

Google's stock price is high because investors perceive it to be such. Is
perception the reality? Perhaps if one keeps convincing oneself long enough,
perception becomes the reality. At least for that person.

The reason the stock is high is that the market perceives (and we're
talking about frightfully bright people who sit in very comfortable
Manhattan offices) that Google can come up with stuff that makes the
entire world economy more productive and can make monetize the stuff.

Post by Alan DuBoff
The reality regarding Google is that they are completely
irrelevant. They
offer an abstract service that one cannot eat, drink, or create clothing and
shelter from, especially not in a 3rd world country, and especially not
directly. Only indirectly, provided certain social and financial
prerequisites are met. If a world-wide nuclear holocaust were to take place
tomorrow, Google would be worthless, irrelevant, and insignificant. I've
argued this before.

Along with the Everything Else, including producers of foodstuff,
cars, airplane, electricity, and cotton/wool farmers. Your point
again?

Post by Alan DuBoff
At it's core, Google is nothing more than a fast and effective
search
engine. And that's nothing special in and of itself.

And that, knowing the crap that is on the internet, is the most
stunning fact of all: that their search engine actually works well.
My hats off to them. Further, that Microsoft with it's billions can't
get it right, but a bunch of hippies with linux in a basement can is
even more stunning. (replace basement with
multi-hundredmillion-dollar data centers, change hippies with geeks)

Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan-/***@public.gmane.org
chris.mahan-***@public.gmane.org
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
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[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Oh sure, all the resources invested in GNOME, KDE,
will be replaced by XBOX-3600 running crap from M$.
NOT!

Here is something to consider: when PlayStation 3
came out, a Linux kit was
also available, allowing one to turn a gaming
console into a workstation and
switch back and forth between the two. And since
Linux does support the X
windowing system, a PS3 could be used as a thin
client.

Hahaha. So you want to tell me that people will use
fancy 3D desktops over a X network connection? 3D
Pinball over Remote Desktop is just about
playable...over X? Not a chance.

So it's not as far away as you think. I believe that
the PS3 has a PPC
compatible CPU. So imagine what will happen once
OpenPolaris (PPC port of
Solaris) is finished.
It will be just a matter of time.

Really? You mock those who are asking for GUI stuff
now when things are run locally (and it will always be
so) but expect them to settle for GUI stuff over a
remote X connection or agree to buying some device
that is remotely controlled/managed and pay to use the
GUI stuff too?

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Hands up those who will put their stuff on Google
Apps. Nobody? Aw.

Of course not. Hopefully nobody will be that stupid
to put their private /
confidential data out there on the internet. But
that doesn't stop one from
using Google's application over the web (SSL
protected) and store the result
on one's home set-top box, which would be powered by
Solaris and essentially
be a consumer-friendly UNIX(R) server under the
hood.

Have you seen a Wii? On the Wii, you can pay to
download games and LOCALLY STORE and run them. Sorry,
no thin client here. Okay, maybe since those games are
run via an emulator. That is not much different from
downloading from Internet, installing (Mac OS X is
like just drop app and use) and then running on your
PC like we do now and without an emulator. Thin
client? Give me a break.

And that would make desktop computing model with
GUIs obsolete. Sure there
would be a GUI, but a GUI following a whole
different usage / computing
model.

Said model will have to forced down our throats.
Somehow I don't see Sun Microsystems being a part of
that nor do I see the success of any attempt to force
such a model of computing/usage.

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
When you see Solaris on a game console.

It's just a matter of time. In this case, I consider
the glass to be half
full.

Great. Hopefully that means games on Solaris-based PCs
too and therefore consumer Solaris and no more buggy,
malware ridden Windows everywhere.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[a b]

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Hahaha. So you want to tell me that people will use
fancy 3D desktops over a X network connection? 3D
Pinball over Remote Desktop is just about
playable...over X? Not a chance.

Like I wrote before... in the country where I'm at, people would rather use
a game console than a PC to play games, purely on the basis that it's too
much trouble to run "INSTALL.EXE" on Windows, and much easier/simpler to
just shove in optical media and have the game "pop-up". Feel free to draw
your own conclusions.

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Really? You mock those who are asking for GUI stuff
now when things are run locally (and it will always be
so) but expect them to settle for GUI stuff over a
remote X connection or agree to buying some device
that is remotely controlled/managed and pay to use the
GUI stuff too?

I never mocked anyone. All I stated were two observations of my own:

1. it's faster and more efficient to run a simple CLI command than click
around
2. desktop as we know it has no future.

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Great. Hopefully that means games on Solaris-based PCs
too and therefore consumer Solaris and no more buggy,
malware ridden Windows everywhere.

We brought that upon ourselves. Nobody forced us to use Windows and create
enough momentum so that it would effectively kill all competition. Only our
own ignorance (humanity's as a whole) and computer illiteracy did that.

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

Post by a b

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Hahaha. So you want to tell me that people will use
fancy 3D desktops over a X network connection? 3D
Pinball over Remote Desktop is just about
playable...over X? Not a chance.

Like I wrote before... in the country where I'm at,
people would rather use
a game console than a PC to play games, purely on
the basis that it's too
much trouble to run "INSTALL.EXE" on Windows, and
much easier/simpler to
just shove in optical media and have the game
"pop-up". Feel free to draw
your own conclusions.

Ah. Well there you go. There will not be a thin
client. The shove in optical media is more akin to
Live cds, not thin clients.

On Mac OS X, there is no 'run Install.exe'. You just
drop the application whereever you want and it is
already installed. You just run it straight.

Post by a b

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Really? You mock those who are asking for GUI stuff
now when things are run locally (and it will always

be

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
so) but expect them to settle for GUI stuff over a
remote X connection or agree to buying some device
that is remotely controlled/managed and pay to use

the

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
GUI stuff too?

I never mocked anyone. All I stated were two

My apologies.

Post by a b
1. it's faster and more efficient to run a simple
CLI command than click
around

Agreed.

Post by a b
2. desktop as we know it has no future.

This is why I disagree. There are two methods
currently in use that demonstrate that desktops we
have now are doing things contrary to the thin-client
desktop and are widely used where available.

Post by a b

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
Great. Hopefully that means games on Solaris-based

PCs

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
too and therefore consumer Solaris and no more

buggy,

Post by Chung Hang Christopher Chan
malware ridden Windows everywhere.

We brought that upon ourselves. Nobody forced us to
use Windows and create
enough momentum so that it would effectively kill
all competition. Only our
own ignorance (humanity's as a whole) and computer
illiteracy did that.

Maybe. Microsoft did not try to play the control game
in the beginning. Apple did. IBM did.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[Chung Hang Christopher Chan]

In the same analogy, Google more likely than not has
a countless army of
people to run those server farms, where in a well
thought out architecture,
up to 30 people would suffice.

Rubbish. Google uses images much like flash archives.
They have the resources and know how to take it that
far and not depend on any Linux distribution. They
more likely have a small army of people whose sole job
is to go around and replace disks, motherboards or
other components of downed systems and then turn on
the power.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com