Multithreaded I/O in the DMD compiler (DDJ article by Walter)

[Olli Aalto]

Check out Portable Ubuntu for Windows: 
http://portableubuntu.sourceforge.net/index.php

I haven't done any extensive testing yet, but the short session I had 
yesterday worked just fine.

Daniel Keep wrote:
> Warning: semi-rant ahead.  Feel free to ignore.  :)
> 
> Sean Kelly wrote:
>> My
>> Windows machine is now used exclusively for playing games.  I have no
>> intention of ever using Windows for anything else again.  Games are
>> the only thing the other OSes lack compared to Windows anyway.
> 
> Winamp.  More specifically, Winamp 5 + the DSP plugins I use; without
> that, all my music sounds *wrong*.  Wine just can't seem to run Winamp
> properly.  And please don't anyone "recommend" any of the linux-specific
> players... they're either too bare-bones to be usable, or are pretending
> to be iTunes.  I HATE iTunes.
> 
> That and general usability.  It's likely I'm just biased because I've
> used Windows for so long, but there seems to be a long stream of things
> that don't work "right" in Linux.  Little things like mounting media,
> keyboard shortcuts on GUI widgets, navigating folders in the GUI with
> the keyboard, or that every second application uses different dialogs. :S
> 
>>> Whenever the endless debate of windows vs. linux vs. mac comes up, I
>>> repeat my comment: if you are a programmer, you better acquire some
>>> experience in each. For Windows/Mac it's not as easy because they may
>>> cost money, but now with virtual machines, good distributions etc. I
>>> think there is no excuse for a programmer to not seriously looking into
>>> Unix.
> 
> I have an Ubuntu VM lying around somewhere.  Aside from being broken, I
> could never find any reason to use the thing.
> 
>> I desperately wish my computer-illiterate family members would move
>> off of Windows as well, since it would eliminate basically every tech-
>> support call I field from them.  Perhaps I've simply had good luck with
>> other OSes, but Windows is the only one I've had regular problems with.
> 
> It's funny, but for me it's exactly the opposite.  I make an effort to
> switch to linux about once a year.  There's always, ALWAYS, something
> that goes horribly wrong that just can't be fixed.
> 
> Up until about two/three years ago, it was sound; I simply could not
> make noise come out of the speakers [1].  Weird thing was that it would
> sometimes work with the Live CD, but once installed it would stop
> working.  I only got it working when I accidentally discovered that the
> open-source drivers for my Creative card DISABLE SOUND BY DEFAULT.  I'm
> hard pressed to think of a stupider default setting.
> 
> Currently, the major technical issue with linux is that it's seemingly
> incapable of doing multiple monitors properly.  I've got two monitors in
> a specific physical arrangement with different resolutions.  This causes
> no end of issues, since X or Gnome or something seems to assume all
> monitors are the same size.
> 
> But it IS improving.  The previous time I tried it, I had one LCD and
> one CRT.  The built-in multi-monitor config applet ended up rendering my
> machine unbootable.  And if nothing else, at least it isn't showing new
> windows up between the two monitors, although it still has trouble
> working out WHICH monitor to show any given window on.
> 
> Let's not even touch goddamn graphics drivers.
> 
> Windows is a pain in the arse, and there isn't a day that goes by where
> I don't wish I could get rid of it from my life.  But the fact is that
> it's STILL better than Linux.
> 
> Andrei said that Windows is for users, and unix is for programmers.
> That's fine; I'm a programmer!  But I'm also a user.  I shouldn't have
> to spend all day to work out how to do something in linux that's trivial
> in Windows.
> 
> I'd almost be tempted to switch to Mac OSX if it weren't for the entire
> machine, hardware and software (sans BSD), driving me up the wall...
> 
>> As for programming specifically... I made a deliberate shift away from
>> Windows years ago because it's a nightmare to develop for (aside from
>> Visual Studio, which is a great debugging environment).  Best move I
>> ever made.
> 
> I don't really see this.  From the last several years of using Cygwin,
> I'm not sure what it is that would be markedly better.
> 
> I WANT to get off Windows.  But whatever I switch to would have to be
> better by a fair margin to offset the cost of re-learning how to do
> stuff.  And as far as I've been able to discern, Linux isn't it.
> 
>   -- Daniel
> 
> 
> [1] Which is sad when you consider the last time I had sound problems
> was with Win 95; by Win 98SE, sound always just worked.