FYI: story on LWN.net

FYI: story on LWN.net

[Pavel Roskin]

Hello!

LWN.net is featuring GRUB in its last weekly release.  The story will be
open for everyone two weeks from now.  In the meantime, it can be
accessed using this URL:
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/338337/e44cc926a53c0fc0/

The story has some interesting comments from people who are outside the
GRUB development but well inside the free software community.  In
particular, the comment about font formats may be interesting to those
working on the graphical interface.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

Re: FYI: story on LWN.net

[Robert Millan]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:38:59PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> LWN.net is featuring GRUB in its last weekly release.  The story will be
> open for everyone two weeks from now.  In the meantime, it can be
> accessed using this URL:
> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/338337/e44cc926a53c0fc0/

Very interesting read.

Well, there were a pair of things that I think were worth clarifiing, but
I notice you've done that already :-)

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: FYI: story on LWN.net

[Colin D Bennett]

Pavel Roskin wrote on Thursday 25 June 2009:
> Hello!
>
> LWN.net is featuring GRUB in its last weekly release.  The story will be
> open for everyone two weeks from now.  In the meantime, it can be
> accessed using this URL:
> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/338337/e44cc926a53c0fc0/
>
> The story has some interesting comments from people who are outside the
> GRUB development but well inside the free software community.  In
> particular, the comment about font formats may be interesting to those
> working on the graphical interface.

The article states:
> With respect to the technical qualities of GRUB 2, Rintel is mostly
> impressed about GRUB 2's modular architecture. He calls other features such
> as the graphics subsystem with mouse support capable of rendering
> antialiased Unicode glyphs "hardly things that would convince anyone to
> switch to GRUB 2".

There is no mouse support yet (though it should come in the near future now 
that USB is working) and there is no font antialiasing.

Regards,
Colin

Re: FYI: story on LWN.net

[Pavel Roskin]

On Thu, 2009-06-25 at 21:08 -0700, Colin D Bennett wrote:

> The article states:
> > With respect to the technical qualities of GRUB 2, Rintel is mostly
> > impressed about GRUB 2's modular architecture. He calls other features such
> > as the graphics subsystem with mouse support capable of rendering
> > antialiased Unicode glyphs "hardly things that would convince anyone to
> > switch to GRUB 2".
> 
> There is no mouse support yet (though it should come in the near future now 
> that USB is working) and there is no font antialiasing.

The point is that such features would not have convinced many users to
switch, whether such features exist or not.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

Re: FYI: story on LWN.net

[Robert Millan]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 06:34:00PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-06-25 at 21:08 -0700, Colin D Bennett wrote:
> 
> > The article states:
> > > With respect to the technical qualities of GRUB 2, Rintel is mostly
> > > impressed about GRUB 2's modular architecture. He calls other features such
> > > as the graphics subsystem with mouse support capable of rendering
> > > antialiased Unicode glyphs "hardly things that would convince anyone to
> > > switch to GRUB 2".
> > 
> > There is no mouse support yet (though it should come in the near future now 
> > that USB is working) and there is no font antialiasing.
> 
> The point is that such features would not have convinced many users to
> switch, whether such features exist or not.

And a modular architecture would?  I'm not sure I agree.

Then again, a modular architecture attracts developers, which tends to be more
useful :-)

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."