MandrakeSoft heeft versie 6.1 van hun Linux Mandrake distribute gereleased. Dit schijnt één van de meest gebruiksvriendelijke Linux distro's te zijn, dus wellicht interessant om eens te proberen:

We are very pleased to announce the new version of the Linux distribution that won the "Product of the year" award at LinuxWorld Expo'99. Linux-Mandrake 6.1 (Helios), the first Linux distribution to include the new XFree 3.3.5 and KDE1.1.2, is available. This is the latest release of our user-friendly and flexible desktop Linux-based operating system. It is currently available for download via FTP, in both traditional and iso-image formats.

Introduction

Thanks to our dedicated staff and the Linux community, this new release of Mandrake takes an important step on our way to make Linux distributions better, faster and easier-to-use.

Mandrake 6.1 features

Core system
- Linux-Kernel: 2.2.13 (pre4)
- XFree86: 3.3.5
- Glibc: 2.1.1
- RPM: 3.0.3
- Bash: 2.03
- KDE: 1.1.2 [with Mandrake customization]
- Gnome: built from 1.0.4->1.0.14 versions [with Mandrake customization]
- Enlightenment 0.16-dev5, Windowmaker 0.60, AfterStep 1.7.111, XFCE 3.0.2, IceWM 0.9.48
- Apache 1.3.9 with useful modules (PHP3, Perl, Midgard, MySQL, PGSQL...), pluggable with cryptographic extensions available from several unrestricted FTP servers.

All packages have been compiled with CPU optimizations for pentium-class (intel, amd, cyrix, winchip...) and higher processors resulting in speed improvements up to 30%.

Check de press release voor meer info. Een overzicht met FTP mirrors vind je hier.

Linux is gisteren 8 jaartjes oud geworden!

The initial public release of Linux - version 0.01 - occurred on the 17th September 1991 [1]. The world's best operating system is therefore 8 years old this Friday.

From a lone hacker's bedroom in Finland, to the brink of usurping a $500 billion monopoly, it's come a long way!

Check deze Linux Birtday site voor leuke quotes en links.

Volgens EETimes bestaat er een mogelijkheid dat AMD in z'n Dresden fab koper-interconnect G4's gaat bakken voor Motorola:

Though a deal to share Dresden is far from complete, several Motorola executives noted that AMD uses a licensed Motorola 0.18-micron process with copper interconnects at the German fab, and that would make it relatively easy for the two companies to coexist there.

"It is AMD's fab, and it is up to them to decide if they need all of it for the Athlon [processor]. We could certainly use the capacity, and because we already use the same process, it would be relatively easy for us to share capacity," a senior Motorola official confided.

Allemaal leuk natuurlijk (ook voor AMD, want dit haalt geld binnen), zolang het maar niet 'onze' supply van Athlon's in gevaar gaat brengen .

Nog maar net na de release van de G4 verspreidt Motorola al weer plannen rond de 64-bit G5 wonderprocessor, die Merced performance moet brengen - maar dan op de desktop:

In addition, Swearingen said that except for processor-specific embedded OSes, the 64-bit G5 will require "virtually no" alterations to application code. Combined with the 2-GHz speeds at which the G5 should debut, according to a recent Motorola road map, this design should afford the G5 a distinct performance advantage over the Merced.

Merced will be best-suited for large servers because of its expected high price, cigarette-pack size and considerable heat production. By contrast, the G5 is being designed with desktop computing in mind, according to Motorola's road map.

Zou een leuk Linux procje kunnen zijn (om maar niet te spreken over 'dat andere OS' )

Onze engelse kameraden van Gamespot UK hebben een review van de Creative Labs (of noem het Cambridge Soundworks) DTTS-2500 5.1 Dolby Digtal speakers op hun site geplakt:

The DTTS-2500 is the latest PC speaker set from Cambridge Soundworks, a division of Creative Labs. This speaker set is a true 5.1 surround sound solution, complete with four satellites, a center channel speaker and a powered bass unit. There's also a control box with controls for bass output, surround field adjustments, center channel volume, and overall output. It also lets you configure the speakers for Dolby Digital, stereo, and four-point.

This last setting is key. For a long time now, gamers have had to choose between either four-speaker setups for game audio or 5.1 rigs for DVD audio. The DTTS-2500 lets you have both. You connect the speakers to both outputs on 3D positional sound cards, like the Sound Blaster Live or a Vortex 2 card. The card also has inputs for the DIN-like digital connector on the SB Live full version, as well as an RCA-style connector for AC-3 input from a DVD decoder card. It's one of the most flexible speaker setups I've come across. The plethora of controls can be a little daunting at first, but you'll soon be adjusting volume, pressing buttons for sound modes, and having a blast with your sound.

AVault heeft een aantal Max Payne screenshots gepost. Sommige screenshots hebben we al eerder kunnen zien, er zitten echter ook een paar nieuwe shots bij:

Gathering of Developers sent us these screenshots of Max Payne, a third-person 3D action game being developed at Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realms using an in-house engine. These images were also released at ECTS in London earlier this month. Note the high degree of detail the designers have managed to paint onto the lead character and the cool moves not seen in similar offerings. For more information and screenshots, read our preview, located here.

Bij GamePC staat een preview online van een setje Aureal Wavetracer Speakers. Dit zijn high-end speakers die pas in het 4e kwartaal uit zullen komen, en een heftige prijs van $300 dollar zullen meekrijgen. Tja, maar dan heb je ook wat:

The 4" studio-quality drivers are custom made by the Danish company, Vifa, and feature 2-way composite cones with a heavy rubber seal and a suspended tweeter. The heavy magnet base ensures high power output. The whole setup is industrial grade including shielded cables running to each of the individual speakers. The connection from the satellite cables to the subwoofer is through a collared four-pin industrial connector to minimize noise and interferance. All the channel separation is performed in the subwoofer, as opposed to the satellite where most current speaker set have their separation.

The Wavetracer Speakers will come in both 4.1 and 2.1 configurations with 35 Watts per channel and 70 Watts in the subwoofer. The max power of the system is 210 Watts, but the supply is rated for 600 Watts, so minimal distortion is heard even at maximum output. The computer that the speaker set was connected to had an SQ2500 Vortex2 card and, using WinAmp and several MP3 files, the output was cranked to an eardrum-blasting 106 dB level. Even at this level, no audible distortions were present.

[...] GamePC's Opinion : I was blown away by the performance of these speakers. Not only did they deliver room-shaking power, they also had all the little extras to enhance performance. Aureal made it clear to me that these are intended for users who want to have studio level audio from their audio cards, not just people who want to have sound coming from their computer. A set of Altec Lansing ACS48s (retail $150, okay not exactly in the same ballpark, but they are good speakers) were on hand for comparison, and they really sounded vanilla after listening to the Wavetracers. A very impressive demo, it will be interesting to see how the final product will look/sound; the prototype was very impressive. As far as multimedia speaker systems go, Aureal looks like it is trying to redefine the high-end of the market, while at the same time, producing a viable system for true audiophiles.

Onze Russische vrienden van iXBT-Labs hebben een review losgelaten van de Abit Hot Rod 66 ATA-66 controller. Zoals gewend van iXBT-Labs is de review erg verzorgd en uitgebreid.

Frankly speaking, there isn't much to comment on, because we got what we actually expected to get: a slight performance increase following a slight increase of the processor utilization. Again, the results are very illustrative. They show that the applications, which have to process large files (sound editor - Sound Forge 4.0, graphics editor - Adobe Premiere 4.2, well-known Adobe Photoshop 4.0), can hardly boast any significant gain (and the loss you have probably noticed by Fireball CX in Sound Forge is the result of averaging the values). And as for the applications working with smaller files, they appear to have greater gains. In this respect C++ compiler is situated somewhere in-between. And which was really pleasant, it's the fact that if the device does not support Ultra DMA/66, Hot Rod 66 works at least as it usually should and not a little worse.

3D Alpha heeft een review in elkaar gezet van de Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla soundcard, een Aureal Vortex 2 kaartje met 4-speaker support. Hier een hap uit de review.

Now it's time for Turtle Beach to put their money where their mouth is. Is this card all it claims to be? Well, with two receivers and a total of nine speakers, I intended to find out. I attached my Aiwa Mini-home theatre to the green output on the back of the Montego II for the frontal sound, and then connected my Sony receiver to the back of the breakout bracket for the rear sound. Now it was time for this card to do it's magic. I did the initial tests, you know. Played some MP3s, and messed around with the mixer on the AudioStation32 program included to get the audio sounding crisp and clear.

I decided I would then do a few other things. I launched up a game of Quake, and I was quite surprised: Perhaps it's just my young ears, but I was surprised at how much more crisp and clear this card was in comparison to my SBLive! Value card! The environment around me seemed to be right with me. I may have to attribute this to messing with the equalizer enough on this thing, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

Despite that, this card doesn't separate channels quite as well as it could. It didn't seem to have as distinct surround sound qualities such as other sound cards have. I wasn't disappointed though. The clarity of the sound more than makes up for the surround. One would say that my ears are clearly screwed up anyways.

GamePC heeft een review online gemikt van de AMD Athlon 600MHz. Zoals het hoort hebben ze er een Pentium-3 600 tegenover gezet, die er natuurlijk weer flink van langs krijgt . Check de review hier.

As you can see from the results, the Athlon really is a step ahead of Intel, but not as big of a step as we had hoped for. After reading review after review of the Athlon on the web, we had some pretty high expectations. It definately is faster than an exact-clocked Pentium III unit, which is no easy feat, but the margin of difference between the two chips isn't that big.

Looking closer at the results, you can see the largest margin difference in performance was using a TNT2 Ultra board, which edged out 20 FPS in Quake3 : Fastest, for the exact same clocked processor, that's a hefty difference. Also in all three tests, you can see the huge difference in the 3DMark CPUMark scores, which have a large difference between the two processors. You should note also, the Pentium III 600 also performed really well in these tests, and it's still a top-notch processor, but it seems AMD has one-upped them, finally.

A lot of people still remain skeptical at the Athlon scores, and I don't blame them. AMD has let down gamers in the past with their K6-processors, and it seems tough to believe that this company could come out of nowhere and create a processor that tops Intel's fastest offering. Believe it my friends, AMD finally has a state of the art chip, and can finally claim that they have the fastest consumer computer processor currently out today. I for one, couldn't be happier.

Hm, ik lees bij Silicon Investor dat het er naar uitziet dat 3dfx's next generation product oftwel "Napalm" het niet gaat redden voor dit jaar. Dit is wat Scott Sellers van 3dfx erover zei:

"What we have been telling others in the financial community is that there is significant risk at this time that napalm will not hit the 4th quarter. We believe that there is still a chance that we can make the quarter, but each day we are getting closer to knowing the actual likelihood. We should know within a week or two whether it will make the quarter. But right now, it is substantially at risk."

Nog even afwachten dus, maar het ziet er misschien naar uit dat we dit jaar alleen nog maar nVidia vs. S3 zullen krijgen..

Bij Deez Tech hebben ze een review gepost van de InWin Q500 ATX Full Tower Case, een vrij populaire bigtower. Hier heb je een gedeelte uit de review.

The InWin is a full tower ATX case with a 300 Watt power supply. It features five 5 1/4" drive bays, six 3 1/2" drive bays, a drawer style sliding motherboard tray, and a removable hard drive cage. The case cover consists of three removable panels, one on top and the rest on the sides, which after removing the one screw that holds them in place, they slide out quite easily. The case stand consists of four plastic legs, which swing out for better stability and support.

The front panel accomodates the main power switch, a reset switch, a power LED and no less than two hard drive LEDs. I guess they are expecting you to put a lot of hard drives in that case. The first thing that crabs your attention about the case, is its sheer size. Being a full tower, a big size comes with the territory. This is definitely not a case that you will be taking with you to local LAN parties.The inside of the case has more than enough room for even the most demanding of users. There is a slot right above the power supply for an additional power supply complete with screw halls and vents. The very top of the case accomodates two of the six 3 1/2" bays. One of them is for your floppy drive, and the other is for an additional hard drive. That is after you have completely filled out your hard drive tray at the bottom of the case. Below you will find the mechanical drawing of the case. You can clearly see how it comes apart. This diagram came with the case, so I scanned it and modified it to fit my needs for this review. I believe the manufacturer's site has a similar diagram on-line.

Bij GameWire.org hebben ze een review gepost van de Creative Blaster CDRW 4224 rewriter. Hier heb je wat info over z'n performance, meer vind je hier.

For a low budget CDRW this thing was incredibly fast. Not only did it burn at the advertised 4x (600 KBS), but a little bit faster giving me about 650 KBS. Average time to burn a CDR was about 23 minutes. Most of the time isn't spent burning the data but formation tasks like "Finalizing the Disk" and/or writing the "TOC".

However, CDRW speeds were quite a bit slower, mostly hovering at about 295 KPS when it was supposed to be 300 KPS. It seems strange but I re-tested several times and kept getting the same result. I don't really use CDRW features that much anyway because they are so expensive and most of the things I burn I want to keep.

Reading speed was great. It was on par with the Creative PC DVD 6X and my Generic 32x max CD-ROM drive was only slightly higher. In reading scratched CDs (I always like to test this because some CD-ROM drives cant even hold 1x when it comes to them) the drive slowed down to about 19x (2850 KPS). My Generic 32x Max CD-ROM drive slows to about 12x

All in all it has great performance but don't expect it to rival more expensive competition.

Ik kwam bij Ace's Hardware wat leuke info tegen over IBM's vijfde generatie PPC design:

"The IBM RS64 III superscalar RISC microprocessor integrates high bandwidth, short pipe depth with low latency, large caches, and zero-cycle branch mispredict penalty into a fully scalable, 64-bit, PowerPC-compatible symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) implementation." Thus one clearly sees that IBM wants these chips to be optimized in a server enviroment. The scary point is that, although optimized to be a low latency design like K6 and G4 the RS64 III chip still achieves a sweeping 450MHz with IBM's CMOS 7S process. The L1 is 128 KB each for both data and instruction, second only to PA-8500. (hmmmm what will a P6, K6 or K7 core do with this kind of L1?) The scary part is the 1 cycle load to use latency for the L1 data cache, which is something only mp6 seems to have in the IA32 arena. It also integrates L2 tags onto the chip like G3/4, and K7. L2 is DDR-SRAMs which provide up to 14.4 GB/sec bandwidth. The die size is 140mm^2, on par with Intel's celeron. However the most striking feature is the 1 or 0 branch-misprediction penalty, the biggest potential performance bottleneck to both P6, K7, and Alpha other than memory latency. All this in a 4 issue machine with 5 pipeline stages.

Check Ace's Hardware voor meer info over dit procje.

HardOCP heeft in het kort de oorzaken achter de huidige DRAM prijs explosie op een rijtje geparkeerd. Op één van de belangrijkste vragen (wanneer zien we weer normale prijzen?) krijg je hier het antwoord:

We know the DRAM manufacturers have much higher production capabilities than they are running at the present time. However, industry analysts are predicting it will take them roughly 2 to 3 months to ramp up production levels. If DRAM production gets up to speed with the current market, we should see a stabilization of prices and could see some decreases. However, with all of the factors listed above, the increases may continue during this time period. This will vary for the different memory technologies.

The Register bericht dat het franse ministerie van financiën een onderzoek is gestart naar de marktpositie van Microsoft:

The French finance ministry has opened an investigation into Microsoft, according to the local press. Apparently it has come to the ministry's attention that it's well-nigh impossible to buy a new PC that doesn't come with Windows pre-installed, so the French authorities will be asking why this is, and whether it harms consumers.

These two questions, readers of The Register's trial coverage will have noted, are inextricably bound together. Microsoft discount structures and MDAs (Market Development Agreements) make it prohibitively expensive for PC OEMs to ship rival operating systems, which results in a reduction in consumer choice, and in what is to all intents and purposes a monopoly of the desktop OS market (precise conclusion currently sub judice) for Microsoft.

Volgens The Register (waar anders?) gaan er geruchten dat Siemens plannen heeft om AMD over te nemen:

But AMD has said "it has no knowledge of such a move" and we think it's highly unlikely too.

According to the speculation, Siemens is preparing to offer as much as $40 a share for AMD stock. That is double its current share value on the New York trading floors.

We think this has to stay at the level of pure speculation. Reports have been surfacing over the last few days that its financial position is better this quarter than it was, but it is hard to see what Siemens would get out of the deal.

USB Workshop heeft een review van de Kodak DC240 digital camera op het net geplant. De camera heeft een maximale resolutie van 1280x960 pixels, meer dan genoeg voor normaal huis, tuin & internet gebruik. Hier een stukje over de beeldkwaliteit:

Photos captured by DC240 is sharp, colorful and satisfying. Color is bright and rich in optimal lighting/exposure. Auto white balance works in many cases, and specific white balance override may be needed in extreme (eg. low light) situation. In those and other cases when automatic exposure is not good enough, the manual exposure control is needed. It seems that the automatic exposure has problems in extreme bright (bright sunlight) and extreme dark (overcast sky) situations. Its limited 1.3million pixels CCD begins to show its problem when shooting far objects as details are needed.

Gamasutra (game developer site) heeft een interview gepost met Graeme Devine van id Software. Voor het geval je niet weet wie Graeme is, heb je hier een stukje uit de intro:

For many, it was quite a surprise when Graeme Devine was hired as id's in-house game designer a few months ago. The designer of the popular but hardly hardcore-gamer-friendly 7th Guest was going to be muscling in on the design for Quake 3? Good golly, Miss Molly.

To be fair, Graeme Devine's experience in game design stretches back over 20 years, and 7th Guest is but one example of his work. Gamasutra jumped at the opportunity to conduct an interview with the elusive Devine, who discussed the past, present, and future of id software, as well as that of his own career.

Nog niets concreets, maar volgens GA-Source staat er iets leuks te gebeuren:

Eric Lizotte, our Hardware Editor, was invited to a special press conference at Matrox this weekend, so you can expect some major news and announcements regarding Matrox's 2D/3D accelerator shortly. Big news ...

Matrox G600? Daar lijkt me het iets te vroeg voor, gezien het feit dat de G400 nog maar net op de markt is.

De release candidate 4 van DirectX 7 die sinds gisteren gedownload kan worden van Overclockers' Workbench is zo populair dat de server overbelast raakte. Er wordt aan gewerkt.

checked the log this morning, the response for DirectX7 RC4 is too overwhelming till my server can't handle it. What I intend to do is to put it on the files on the alternative site so that it will ease the traffic on the main site. Currently, only the first file can be downloaded (dx7core.arj), the rest are moved to offline. Stay tuned.

Maar waarom zou je dat doen als je de final version (7 Mb) hier (rage-fr.com) en hier (nethn.com) kan downloaden?? (tnx JanKees voor de tips!)

Volgens Overclockers' Workbench is de Pentium III 533 met 133 Mhz FSB inmiddels (in kleine hoeveelheden) verkrijgbaar in Hong Kong. Dit plaatje moet het bewijs leveren:

Het ding moet 2930 Hong Kong-dollars kosten, en volgens de laatste koers is dat ruim 800 gulden. Niet onrealistisch denk ik.