Well , things are always somewhere in the middle. I agree that using
undocumented features, hacking OS libraries, patching memory and other
such techniques are not safe, and not even a sane practice. After all, if
you run a mission critical server , you dont need a Radeon as a video board
, and you can safely work with an older model, thats it , you dont need
blazing fast video.
What is interesting is things I heard about Win XP that it will “block”
device drivers which causes more than “X” OS crashes , and also I heard
there is
a list with already “banned” device drivers. My question is, will they ban
their own software (for example Outlook Express & the viral spreading it
allows
… core IIS services, poorly written bug fixes , and the list can be
continued) if they will harm more than “X” users ?
I can understand the reasons which pushed MS to do this, to many developers
blamed NT/2k for the instability which was in fact the result of their own
code.
Yet to limit the list of usable hardware at maximum performance, while
offering the end-user another crappy desktop schema and other meaningless
features which allows virus spreading in Outlook seems to mee too much.
Well, maybe is the result of their marketing research, and ppl wants this
instead of bullet proof boxes
for mission critical segments.
Dont get me wrong ppl, I like NT/2 kernel, and I think is a great OS, and I
love programing for it. I also know that NT/2k boxes can be secured as well
as BSD
servers or other *nix flavors. What NT/2k/XP lacks is configuration
flexibility. They should use a Unix like style, booting an overbloated GUI
only on demand,
complete control over the running services, their install programs should
have an advanced mode asking the user about every detail of the
configuration,
documentation for every important setting in registry, regardless is a
kernel control parameter or an afd.sys or TCP/IP setting … and so on , you
got the ideea.
Just my two cents … Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: “Moreira, Alberto”
To: “NT Developers Interest List”
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 8:00 PM
Subject: [ntdev] Re: AW: RE: Mapping scattered pages into process addr ess
space
> Well, Peter…
>
> Graphics is an immense field. It involves hardware, 2D drivers, 3D
drivers,
> kernel mode libraries, user mode libraries. It is a vertically integrated
> field too, and there’s a huge amount of code in there, from the tip of the
> app to the bottom of the chip. Furthermore, it evolves at a dizzying pace.
>
> So, it’s only too natural that there’ll be a lot of crashes due to
graphics
> ! Like Klaus said, people doing graphics are often confronted with the
need
> of doing things that the OS doesn’t do yet. Or with the need of doing
things
> that the OS says people shouldn’t. And that’s not because of us (now I’m
> putting on my old graphics developer cap on!) but because of our users:
> things evolve that fast due to user demand.
>
> So, for example, the other day people were talking about floating point in
> Ring 0, and someone said that people shouldn’t use FP in Ring 0. Well, I
> wrote a whole OpenGL ICD with my team, and we did Floating Point in the
> kernel as a matter of fact, and it worked fine - now, if the OS didn’t
> support it, too bad, we did it anyway. BTW, the OS didn’t support AGP
> either, yet we put it in and it worked. Because we’re talking about high
> speed graphics, and we don’t do high speed graphics for people who don’t
> need it ! But those people who need it keep reminding graphics developers,
> continuously, all the time, the difference a benchmark score makes.
>
> It may be the case that certain subsystems, used in certain ways, may hog
> system resources beyond the point where a non-graphics app would be
> comfortable with. But then, heck, this is a PC, use a lesser graphics
> subsystem if a Radeon or FireGL won’t do ! And I do not buy that using the
> hardware the way the hardware demands to be used will necessarily lead to
> instability!
>
> You see, this ain’t Win 3.1 no longer, indeed, but I can make the point
that
> it ain’t Win2K or WinXP either, not really. To an extent, it ain’t even
X86.
> We’re talking about functionality that is overwhelmingly implemented in
the
> chip, inaccessible to both processor and OS. Your typical video board has
> almost as much memory as your machine, it does most of the rendering
itself,
> it caches textures and bitmaps in video memory, it has the whole 3D
pipeline
> on chip, so, the kind of OS functionality we’re talking here about moving
> control information fast between the app and the chip, and little else. To
> get the right perspective, pretend you had a network card that implemented
> the whole of the TCP/IP stack on board, or a disk controller that
> implemented the whole of the file and directory system on board: what
would
> the point of having operating system functionality duplicating what’s
> already on chip ? If I say “open” today and that goes to an OS function,
but
> if tomorrow my chip implements the whole of that “open” function, why
should
> I need the OS at all ?
>
> It is more or less clear that graphics subsystems, because they require
both
> throughput and response time, don’t like to share datapaths with other
> peripherals. So, it’s just as well that we have AGP, and if video chips
can
> talk directly to the OpenGL library, I don’t see how that’s going to make
> the life of the OS any harder.
>
> As for NT being a general purpose OS: I believe we’re losing the
perspective
> that this is a PC, after all. It’s configurable. The fact that NT is a
> general purpose OS doesn’t mean that a PC running it shouldn’t be
> configurable to better suit a user’s need, be it graphics, servers,
> programming, or anything else. We want true general purpose, configurable
> and tunable, not a one-size-fits-all straightjacket. The strength of the
PC
> standard has been its flexibility!
>
>
> Alberto.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Viscarola [mailto:xxxxx@osr.com]
> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 11:58 AM
> To: NT Developers Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: AW: RE: Mapping scattered pages into process addr
> ess space
>
>
> “Moreira, Alberto” wrote in message
> news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >
> > What we do have to get away from, IMHO, is the straightjacket imposed by
> the
> > current party-line way of writing drivers. And let me put it this way,
if
> > you cringe at the relatively mild liberties graphics people take with
the
> > system, I wonder what your reaction would be to what we do within
SoftIce
> or
> > BoundsChecker, or even TrueTime ? Yet we don’t crash systems any more
than
> > anybody else.
> >
>
> There’s been lots of good feedback already, but I just couldn’t keep
silent:
>
> 1) I don’t really understand your argument, Alberto. Cuz SoftICE and
> BoundsChecker do unspeakable things in the kernel, it’s OK for graphics
> drivers to do so, too?? And, while ICE and BoundsCheker might be decent
> diagnostic tools – and enagage in their hacks in support of their
> short-term diagnostic mission – I, for one, am nauseated by some of the
> hacks these products engage in. (sorry, but you asked for that one!)
>
> 2) You DO realize that graphics drivers are the #1 cause of Windows
NT/2K/XP
> system failures, right? So, I’m thinkin’… QED. Hacking the O/S is bad
> for stability.
>
> While there are undoubtedly people who have the requisite skill,
experience,
> and deep understanding of NT kernel architecture to be able to do things
> that are counter to recommended practice, I’m sorry to say that (in my
> experience, at least) those people are few and far between. AND, the
> “clever” things that even THOSE knowlegeable few do OFTEN come back to
haunt
> them as unanticipated side-effects emerge and the o/s evolves around them.
>
> No, this ain’t Windows 3.1 anymore where we could “hook INT 21 and
party…
> yeeee haaa!”.
>
> Performance second. STABILITY FIRST.
>
> If people want unltra hot graphics, they can buy an xbox or something –
> Knock knock?!? NT is a general purpose operating system! (eh, GADS! There
I
> go agreeing with Roddy AGAIN),
>
> Peter
> OSR
>
>
>
>
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