Re: Preempt Kernel and Nice
On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 01:21:19AM +0300, Shaul Karl wrote: What are specjbb and volanomark, what gets increased idle time and what is wrong with that? specjbb and volanomark are benchmarks. I parse increased idle time as the scheduler thinks things are idle even when they shouldn't be. What is wrong with it is left as an excersize to the reader. -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 07:35:29PM +0300, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Hi, I am considering getting a digital camera (for amateur, not professional, use), with the obvious requirement that it will interact flawlessly with my Linux computers (desktops and laptop). I've searched TFW, found some general info etc, not much about specific models. Could not try anything, obviously. I would like additional input based on knowledge and personal experience. * How satisfied are you with your digital camera? Feature set, interface, Linux support, ease of setup (recompiling a current stable RH or vanilla kernel with the right modules is considered acceptable), reliability, etc. * What is your impression on Linux supporting software? What works? What works best? Gphoto2? Do any cameras come with Linux software now? Is it simple enough to mount the camera over USB (say) and copy the files? Does it even work that way (I got the impression it does). * USB or serial? ;-) * What non-obvious questions to ask? What features are essential/useful for Linux interoperability? * What to avoid? * Any HOWTOs or tips? [I found some, e.g. http://home.gagme.com/greg/linux/usbcamera.php, but the list of models known to work is pathetic, even though it's current] Info relevant to makes and models available in Israel and/or BG Duty-free is especially welcome. Thanks, -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] The cameras that Geoff was talking about are of the SLR or Single Reflex Lens type. In SLRs the camera body is a completely separate entity to the lenses. You sound like you are looking for a point-and-shoot type camera with a single integrated lens. Point-and-shoots are significantly less expensive than SLRs. It makes sense for you to by a digital SLR only if you are doing two things: 1: You already have a significant investment in a shelf or two of Nikon/Cannon/Minolta etc. SLR lenses (we are talking 20,000 NIS worth or so) and would like to keep your investment and keep shooting with them only with a digital body instead of a film one. Indeed professionals who have been shooting for 20 years and have a hugely expensive collection of superb lenses would not consider moving to digital if the big manufacturers were not to produce identical digital bodies for their existing lenses. 2: You are a person who is going to go into photography seriously and will in future start purchasing the above mentioned SLR lenses. You simply need a small, sturdy and reliable digital point-and-shoot according to your description. I have a collection of SLR cameras and lenses from Nikon which I use for serious hobbying (oxymoron?) but I also have a 300 NIS HP Photosmart C30 1MP digital. I use it to produce quick and dirty Web sized photos and as a Polaroid of sorts for composition when shooting with my film cameras. I really cannot recommend it though, it's a very low quality camera. I've been using it through gtkam without any issues for some time now. BTW If you study the digital photography techniques used by the pros under photoshop you will realize that they are almost all completely doable in the GIMP. Used correctly, the GIMP is overkill for a hobbyist photographer. -- Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice Regards, Yoni Rabkin pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
On Thu, 2003-09-11 at 19:35, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Hi, I am considering getting a digital camera (for amateur, not professional, use), with the obvious requirement that it will interact flawlessly with my Linux computers (desktops and laptop). [snipped] Info relevant to makes and models available in Israel and/or BG Duty-free is especially welcome. The following may be considered a bit less than flawless interaction, but it does work. I bought an Olympus C220Z (aka C2Z and D520Z) in Janary '03. It then cost 1560 NIS, with an included 8 MB SmartMedia card. Adding a 64 MB card, 4 rechargeable batteries and a charger pushed it to almost 2000 NIS. Although it's only 2.3 MP, it's been fine for my amateur use, and I chose it after a *lot* of comparison shopping, and would highly recommend it for amateur use. The one hitch is that when downloading from the camera card to the box through the USB cable, the camera misrepresents itself to the box, and locks up the process. There are several workarounds, including a kernel patch http://home.earthlink.net/~ebrombaugh/d150.html which is now being integrated into various kernels. You might also find these links useful: http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdev.php?id=1196 http://software.jodda.de/camediac220.html HTH. Good hunting. David. -- David Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Evolution 1.2.4 in Libranet 2.8 = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
Geoffrey S. Mendelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Also without going into the physics of it here (this is a linux group after all), a two million pixel camera is all that you need. As you know perfectly well, Geoff, I am a physicist by training. ;-) Is the 2Mpx number anything deeper than 1600x1200 resolution? This will display on a full screen nicely on modern displays, and also will lead to a less than 0.2 mm/px on paper at A4 size. The latter size is less than the characteristic scale of paper surface inhomogeneities, which is 0.3 mm for pretty high quality paper, AFAIK. Is that all, or is there anything deeper? -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 12:18, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Geoffrey S. Mendelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Also without going into the physics of it here (this is a linux group after all), a two million pixel camera is all that you need. As you know perfectly well, Geoff, I am a physicist by training. ;-) Is the 2Mpx number anything deeper than 1600x1200 resolution? This will display on a full screen nicely on modern displays, and also will lead to a less than 0.2 mm/px on paper at A4 size. The latter size is less than the characteristic scale of paper surface inhomogeneities, which is 0.3 mm for pretty high quality paper, AFAIK. Is that all, or is there anything deeper? Most professional printing (glossy magazines etc.) are printed at 300 DPI, which translates to roughly 0.08 mm per dot. I think high quality digital printing also uses this resolution. If you want sharp A4-size pictures, I'd go for at least 3 MP, preferably 4. In any case, you haven't yet said anything about your budget... I think more information in that direction would help a lot. -- Alex Shnitman [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hectic.net/ UIN 188956 PGP 0xEC5D619D / E1 F2 7B 6C A0 31 80 28 63 B8 02 BA 65 C7 8B BA = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
GIMP [was Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux]
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Official Flamer/Cabal NON-Leader wrote: Quoth Geoffrey S. Mendelson: GIMP is an excelent photo editor. Photoshop is better because there are more features, more commercial plug-ins and better documentation. For Photoshop has more features than GIMP? From when? FYI, out of the box, GIMP has much more features than Photoshop. (including some of the features present only in its third-party plug-ins). I don't know about the documentation. I know the online help of the GIMP is lacking, but there are some free online books. home use, I doubt the $700 for Photoshop (plus a Windows PC or Mac) is worth it. I agree about Photoshop, but the replacement should not be GIMP, but Paintshop Pro (jasc.com) - both it and Photoshop are so many miles ahead of gimp that it is really not fair to compare. I beg your pardon, again? Paintshop Pro is a shareware program that is much more minimalistic than either GIMP or Photoshop. Besides, neither it nor Photoshop were ported to Linux, and unless you're using WINE or some other emulation layer, you can't run it there. (and even then doubtedly). So, for Linux, much less other UNIXes, GIMP is the only option. The major argument people have against GIMP is that it is not as easy to use as Photoshop. I can't testify for other people, but I have found GIMP easier to use than Photoshop. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Writing a BitKeeper replacement is probably easier at this point than getting its license changed. Matt Mackall on OFTC.net #offtopic. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Also without going into the physics of it here (this is a linux group after all), a two million pixel camera is all that you need. As you know perfectly well, Geoff, I am a physicist by training. ;-) Yes, and I would gladly discuss the subject with anyone at any time, but thought that it might not be a topic of much concern here. :-) Is the 2Mpx number anything deeper than 1600x1200 resolution? That's exactly what it is. This will display on a full screen nicely on modern displays, and also will lead to a less than 0.2 mm/px on paper at A4 size. The latter size is less than the characteristic scale of paper surface inhomogeneities, which is 0.3 mm for pretty high quality paper, AFAIK. Is that all, or is there anything deeper? I don't know it by mm, but the sweet spot for printing color is between 200 and 300 dpi. It depends upon many factors, including pixel size (for inkjets, the size of a color dot that can be printed after the ink dries), how far you view the picture from, type of paper etc. I found by experimentation that my bottom of the line Epson 720x720 dpi printer produces just as good results when viewed (as opposed to looked at under a magnifier) as my 2400x2400 dpi HP with dropplet size control. If you have more pixels than dots per inch, the software must combine them to produce a dot. If you have less, it just streches them out. Depending upon the exact ratio of pixels to dots and the quality of the software you often loose something, and IMHO the too many pixels side is where you loose more. If you have a CCD or CMOS camera, you are not getting accurate color rendiditon anyway. The sensors only see one color at a particular point, the color information is interpolated from other pixels. This is due to the fact that the sensors see all colors from near I/R to violet and must be masked with color filters to get any color information at all. One of my favorite photographs of the last few years was taken on film black and white film and scanned at 1800x1200 (2mp). I then cropped it to about 1/4 the area in GIMP and slightly enhanced it. The ehancement was a contrast adjustment which I could have done when printing and sharpening which would have been more difficult. I then printed it on my EPSON 720 dpi printer in color. The reason to use color for a black and white photograph is that the color of the black ink that Epson uses is not to my liking and I can adjust the blackness of the ink that way. Unless you look at it close up and see that it is pixelated it looks like a good hand done photgraphic print. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 972-54-608-069 Icq/AIM Uin: 2661079 MSN IM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Not for email) Carp are bottom feeders, koi are too, and not surprisingly are ferrets. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Geoffrey S. Mendelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I found that the best way to use a digital camera is to treat the memory cards as film. You buy several of them acording to your needs and replace one when it gets full. What's wrong with dumping files onto a hard disk from time to time? You can re-use the memory, can't you? Nothing wrong. That's what I do. Canon just anounced a $1200 (US list price) EOS-300D. which has lots of features but a CMOS or CCD sensor (I think Canon prefers CMOS to CCD, but I'm not sure). I would very much prefer something a few times cheaper... There are. Mine is a Nikon Coolpix 4500 which cost 700US$ a year ago, you can probably find good cameras at half that price. It's going to be an ad, but they earned it - Go to Jugend Brothers (pronounced Yugend) at 5 Hayarkon St. in Tel-Aviv. They are a pro shop and their prices are fair and their advice is good (I could have bought my camera there for almost the same price as abroad, only I also would have had to pay 18% VAT). Look them up on the net, they have a site with forums etc. A good place to check about digital cameras in general, learn what the terminology means and read very thorought reviews is at http://www.dpreview.com. Ignore the prices quoted there since they are the recommanded price at time the camera was introduced, the prices decrease as the model gets older but they don't update this in their site. Once mounted in a USB reader it looks like a big floppy drive. The pictures are stored as files and you can copy them with cp, etc. You can remove them with rm. Do you really need a USB reader? Can't you connect the camera to USB and mount directly? I got a impression that it was possible. You should be able to do that (I did that with my Nikon over USB 1), but it: 1. Drains the camera's power. 2. Slower than a card reader. Besides, a USB card reader (I have a Microtech ZiO for CompactFlash) (http://www.microtechint.com) can be used as a larger diskette (a.k.a Disk on Key etc.) Already saved me once or twice. Thanks, Geoff. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
Alex Shnitman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In any case, you haven't yet said anything about your budget... I think more information in that direction would help a lot. It is somewhat stretchable: I would very much prefer to get something under $300, but if a somewhat higher price gets me a significantly better quality, I'll probably go for it. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Digital Cameras and Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's going to be an ad, but they earned it - Go to Jugend Brothers (pronounced Yugend) at 5 Hayarkon St. in Tel-Aviv. They are a pro shop and their prices are fair and their advice is good (I could have bought my camera there for almost the same price as abroad, only I also would have had to pay 18% VAT). From my experience as an amateur photographer I know that indeed Jugend brothers is one of the few serious stores in Israel, where one could get *good* advice and proffesional/rare equipment (Along with HAMA'ABADA ['The Lab'] at Dizzengoff TA, to name another option). Still, I would thoroughly check prices before buying in Israel, especially if I had the option of bringing stuff from NY. I lately made a market survey for Digital Video cameras. Cheapest NY stores were 2/3 prices in average (and even lower) of Israel cheapest locations, and yes, for a PAL camera. Indeed the price gap for still cameras is much smaller, I would have double checked for the model I intend to buy. I found dealtime.com a very nice price comparison engine for those tasks. Heck, if we're that into photography, if anyone is due for a trip to Vegas (some convention?) and is looking for a pro shop there, I could look for that store I bought a Cokin P160 circular polarizer (this piece is NOT found in the mall stores in the US). Look them up on the net, they have a site with forums etc. http://www.jugend.co.il/ A good place to check about digital cameras in general, learn what the terminology means and read very thorought reviews is at http://www.dpreview.com. Ignore the prices quoted there since they are the recommanded price at time the camera was introduced, the prices decrease as the model gets older but they don't update this in their site. And: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/cameraList.php And: http://www.google.com :-) Boaz. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Old Hardware
After a few talks with people, I thought it would be nice to publish what I want and what I can give: My wish list: 1. A socket 370 processor. 2. A slot 1 processor. 3. SDRAM memory cards. 4. ATX power supplier. My just-come-and-get-it list: 1.1 * mini case + 200WAT power supplier. 2.1* 120 MHz Pentium processor (socket 7) + motherboard. 3.2 * 90 MHz Pentium processors. 4.1* floppy drive. 5.1 * X12 CDROM. 6. 4 * 4MB EDO memory cards. 7. 1 * 486 DX4 processor. 8. 1 * Soyo 6KL motherboard [1] 9. 1 * Creative CT1350B sound card 10. 1 * WTA2000 sound card(Realtek RT2000/RTL2000 chipset). 11. 1 * UMC UM82C862F IDE + Coms controller. 12. 1 * SMC 8013EWC Ethernet card [2] 13. 1* Trident tvga8900C video/VGA card [3] [1] http://www.motherboards.org/files/manuals/107/m6kl11.pdf [2] http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Ethernet-HOWTO-4.html#ss4.41 [3] http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/Status34.html I'm willing to save the hardware till Sunday, September 21st. Please let me know if you are interested in what I have, or can supply what I wish. Regards, Lior Kaplan[EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.Guides.co.il Come to write at the forums: http://www.guides.co.il/forums Regards, Lior Kaplan[EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.Guides.co.il Come to write at the forums: http://www.guides.co.il/forums - Original Message - From: Lior Kaplan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 2:26 AM Subject: [OT] Old Hardware Hi List, I'm trying to get some old hardware - which is mostly intended to run Linux. I'm after things people are willing to give, free of charge... If you think your are one of those people - please let me know (I suggest off the list) what do you have and where can I found you and the hardware. Sorry for the off-topic discussion. Regards, Lior Kaplan[EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.Guides.co.il Come to write at the forums: http://www.guides.co.il/forums
