How do we know it will be 16 when nothing has been announced or released? Well, actually, something has been released. TiVo is based on Linux, and to comply with the GPL 2.0 license for the Linux kernel TiVo needs to post the source for any modifications they make to the GPL’d code. While they don’t need to post the source until they’re actually shipping the code, they’ve already posted the source for the files they’ve modified for 16.x.

And the geeks have pounced and started reviewing the code to see what tidbits they can eek out about the next major revision. Remember, this is just the GPL’d files from the Linux kernel and not the TiVo ‘application’ itself – the UI and functions most people think of as TiVo.

The most obvious change is that 16.x uses Linux kernel 2.6.31 while 14.x is using 2.6.18. User brentil has done the work of compiling a list of the key changes in each kernel from .19 to .31. It looks like 16.x will no longer include support for the Series3 family as code for the Broadcom BCM740x CPU has been removed along with other S3 specific info. There’s some interesting info/speculation in the first post:

Digging into the TiVo specific stuff there’s some references to GraphicsSurfacePoolSize for all the existing Gen07 devices I see across multiple other code sections. Seems to be a 60MB region of the 512mb now being set aside for specific graphics reasons.

Then in those TiVo config files is more references to the Gen07C & Gen07P which their real names are Gen07C-Gimbal & Gen07P-Picasso which deeper in their info shows they have “/* Second bmem region: Cable Modem */” so I’m betting these are the TiVo Premiere Q & it’s streaming box. I’m betting the Gimbal is the Q because it has more memory allocated to the Cable portion than the Picasso. The Gimbal name for the Q makes sense too as a gimbal is “a pivoted support that allows the rotation of an object about a single axis (WikiPedia)” in essence it’s the point everything else is based on where Picasso, duh, is a painter showing what he sees (non-tuner TiVo).

It’s nice to see some good movement forward on the kernel level at least. Of note the line in the kernel denoting the 2nd CPU is disabled on boot is gone now too. I had stumbled on it in the old code but now I can’t find it again, but I’ll keep hunting.

Interestingly, William McBrine, who runs an online HME-based Reversi game and therefore sees TiVo version numbers in his server logs, reports seeing 14.8.5, 14.9, and even 20. So it sounds like TiVo has a few versions in play. It think 14.8.5 and/or 14.9 are likely updates for the Premiere and perhaps the launch software for the Premiere Elite, while 16 is the next major update for the whole Premiere family.

I love things like this, but then I’m a big geek too.

Hello everybody out there using minix –

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and
I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have .

As you might have guessed from the name of the poster, or the image of Tux I’m using for this post, the project is what the world came to know as Linux.

But “One of the most important software projects in history”? I think that’s a fair statement. You may not be a ‘Linux geek’ – you don’t run a Linux desktop, maintain a Linux server, etc. (Yes, I’m sure some of you do.) But odds are you use Linux every day.

Android, of course, is based on the Linux kernel . So if you use an Android phone, Google TV, etc., you benefit from Linux. ChromeOS is also based on a Linux kernel.

Many home routers and WiFi access points use the Linux kernel. TiVo famously uses the Linux kernel in their products. Google’s servers run a custom version of Linux. The New York Stock Exchange runs on Linux – frankly countless corporations use Linux for core servers, trying to list them all would be pointless. The ‘LAMP’ platform is an industry standard – where LAMP is Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl/PHP/Python. (The P tends to vary.)

Linux powers cash registers and ATMs. It is used in set top boxes and automotive applications.

Linux is used in network gear that caries vast quantities of Internet traffic. My day job employer, F5 Networks, uses the Linux kernel on our boxes, which are used by pretty much all of the leading banks and financial institutions, major corporations, and web services that you probably use every day. Ever use Facebook? Or Microsoft’s Xbox network? Your traffic very likely passed through a box running the Linux kernel.

Beyond the direct effects of having a free and open source UNIX-like operating system available to jump start countless projects, and avoid reinventing the wheel and/or paying big fees to license a proprietary platform, Linux has had an even greater impact by popularizing open source. The success of Linux inspired countless open source projects. It helped people realize you can do open source and still be a successful business. Linux is free and open, but it is still a big money maker for countless vendors. The two aren’t exclusive. I feel that Linux did more to raise awareness of this than BSD or GNU which preceded it.

My first exposure to Linux came nearly twenty years ago, not long after it released. I was in college at the time and I remember downloading it in the campus computing center to try out. What has since been jokingly dubbed the ‘stack of floppies’ distro, since that’s how you got it. I vaguely remember it being eleven 3.5″ floppies, but time may have fuzzed that memory. Later moving on to my first ‘real’ distro, Slackware. Still later on, in my professional career, I was a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) for a while, having long since switched to Red Hat Linux as my primary choice. I also worked with SuSE, RHEL, CentOS, and a few others. (Sorry, I was never a big Debian fan for some reason.) Linux never really caught on in the desktop world, but it did well for itself everywhere else. And with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets setting the world on fire, and conventional PC sales slipping, Linux may win the long game yet.

And it all started with one man doing something as a hobby twenty years ago. On the one hand I feel like “Wow, has it really been twenty years already?” But even more so I feel “Wow, have things really come so far in only twenty years?”

That one simple post was the start of something unimaginably huge.

Happy 20th Birthday, Linux.

And thanks for the gift, Linus.

Netflix relies on Microsoft Silverlight for the Windows and MacOS clients. While there are Netflix clients for a number of Linux-based devices, such as TiVo, Android, and ChromeOS, as well as other platforms, like iOS, the PS3, and Blu-ray players, that isn’t the same as running on a Linux PC. Netflix relies on DRM to secure the streams, which they must do to satisfy the content owners who grant them the licenses to stream. Silverlight provides the DRM on Windows and MacOS, but on other platforms the DRM is generally provided by the hardware itself. That’s not an option on a generic PC, so the client would have to provide it.

Via Liliputing.

Product Features

• Play Blu-ray™, HD DVD™ or regular DVD movie on your computer
• Reads data from all popular DVD and CD format – Blu-ray™ and HD DVD™, standard DVD and CD
• Write to DVD+/-R/RW/DL media and CD-R/RW media
• Records up to 8.5GB of data or 4 hours of video on compatible DVD+R DL (dual layer) and DVD-R DL(dual layer) media
• Choice of enclosure for eSATA or eSATA/USB 2.0 interface connection
• Bundled with Cyberlink High-Def Suite – software is for use in Windows XP, 2003, and Vista only
• Sturdy aluminum construction
• Compact size for convenient transportation
• Plug and play
• Stereo ear phone jack
• OS support – Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, Linux (Kernel 2.6 and above), Solaris 10, Mac OS X 10.4*

The drive can read Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD and CD, and can burn DVD and CD. It is a fairly peppy Blu-ray reader too, 6x reads. The eSATA version is $409, the eSATA/USB2.0 is $429.

Via EngadgetHD.

Updates over V6.2 include:

-animated user interface
-support for the SageTV STX-HD100 High Definition Media Extender
-added 125 new online content sources
-expanded hardware support on Macintosh (HDHomeRun, HVR-950, ElGato EyeTV Hybrid)
-DXVA capable MPEG2 decoder on Windows
-various bug fixes & performance enhancements
-MKV & DVR-MS file format support

For the full release notes for 6.3, see the SageTV Community Forums. Picked up from PVR Wire @ TV Squad.