Linux-Advocacy Digest #467, Volume #25 Thu, 2 Mar 00 02:13:08 EST
Contents:
Re: How does the free-OS business model work? (Peter Seebach)
Re: 64-Bit Linux On Intel Itanium (was: Microsoft's New Motto (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: 64-Bit Linux On Intel Itanium (was: Microsoft's New Motto ("Drestin Black")
Re: Microsoft migrates Hotmail to W2K ("Drestin Black")
Re: Dell picks Linux over Windows 2000 for dellhost.com ("Drestin Black")
Re: Clarification of the word "communism", re LINUX = COMUNISM more... (Donovan
Rebbechi)
Re: Giving up on NT ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: ProSplitter 2000 is released FREE for Linux ("Drestin Black")
Re: ProSplitter 2000 is released FREE for Linux ("Drestin Black")
Re: w64k - the bugs are being found ("Drestin Black")
Re: My Windows 2000 experience (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Windows 2000: flat sales (Christopher Browne)
Re: Fairness to Winvocates (was Re: Microsoft migrates Hotmail to W2K) (Jim
Richardson)
Re: My Windows 2000 experience (Jim Richardson)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: How does the free-OS business model work?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Seebach)
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 06:25:10 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Thu, 02 Mar 2000 03:24:51 GMT, Peter Seebach wrote:
>>If the people who make the sequencer I use for MIDI stuff were unable to use
>>copyright to protect their work, there are a few possibilities:
>>1. They would never release anything but binaries, and they would make a
>>living selling hardware keys for specific versions of their software for
>>specific platforms. This is very close to their business model right now.
>I've already raised objections to this scheme. The main one is that it
>creates a rat race between crackers and those designing security schemes.
>It also causes a headache for users ( have you used mathematica before ? )
Yes, but it's what we have now in a large number of fields, so nothing
changes.
>What I'd be interested in hearing about is this -- has anyone set up some
>kind of succesful business using such an "alternative funding scheme" ?
Well, Cygnus has to count; they grew fairly large before they did anything
but sell support for free software. I believe Walnut Creek counts; they
make money selling FreeBSD CD's, and later added support contracts.
Now, you can point out that not all of the costs of development were borne
by either party.
That is *NOT* a weakness; that is the big strength of open source.
-s
--
Copyright 2000, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting & Computers: http://www.plethora.net/
Get paid to surf! No spam. http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: 64-Bit Linux On Intel Itanium (was: Microsoft's New Motto
Date: 2 Mar 2000 06:25:24 GMT
On Thu, 02 Mar 2000 03:04:02 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>On Thu, 2 Mar 2000 02:52:34 -0000, "John Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Linux is truely a luser.........
That's "truly", moron. Come back when you graduate from high school.
>Buy MSFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you have to be an adult to buy stock ?
Come back when you're capable of of posting something of more substance than
the illiterate drivel contained in this lame attempt at a troll.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: 64-Bit Linux On Intel Itanium (was: Microsoft's New Motto
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:17:12 -0500
"John Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:89kkki$tb$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> Chad Myers wrote in message ...
> >
> >"Mark S. Bilk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:89gomf$6rp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> In article <89fo31$fe8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> >"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> >
> >> >>How's the Trillian Linux64 team doing?
> >> >>http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/news/0,4538,2431772,00.html
> >> >
> >> >>Hey! A public beta... but wait... when you start reading the
> >> >>fine print, SMP has got a long way to go (gasp! I thought linux
> >> >>was so well designed, it should've been a snap to get SMP working
> >> >>in 64-bit, guess that hacked puke of SMP support in the Linux
> >> >>kernel was a more hacked piece of puke than they thought).
> >>
> >> It is Chad Myers' job to spew lies and hate against Linux, and
> >> propaganda in favor of Microsoft, into comp.os.linux.advocacy
> >> at every possible opportunity.
> >
> >Thanks for the warning, Pastor Mark.
> >
> >> >Or you could fire up Babel and read this one:
> >> >http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/odi-28.02.00-001/
> >
> >Hello Mark. Do you even read my posts, or do you just immediately
> >start writing your hate monger speeches?
> >
> >The articles I posted showed that there was SMP support running
> >(kind of) with Linux on 64, but it's >2 processor support was
> >suffering.
> >
> >Show me a linux box running 16 Itanium processors and taking
> >good advantage of each processor, then you can call me a liar.
>
> Hey Chad - show the group any NT box running ANY 16 CPUs
> you can think of AND taking good advantage of each CPU...
>
> Something that several UNIXes have been doing for years.
> Still, whilst you MS zealots continue to pay I guess NT might
> catch up (although its taking its time).
>
> And no Chad - pointing out that W2000 can support 16 CPUs
> is not that same as taking good advantage of them....
Ouch! Looks like you missed the windows 2000 launch. You should head to MS
and view the video of the event. You'll see a live demo where they fire up a
16 processor unisys box and run an application on it with 8 processors. Then
they dynamically add in 4 more, then 4 more and they get linear scalability.
All with a few clicks of a mouse, the OS just moves the loads around and
evens things out and bingo performance surge EVENLY among all 16 processors.
You really should see this - it's worth watching.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/launch/keynote.asp
it's long and you have to sit through stale humor but if you do you'll see
live demonstrations of 16 processors in a single machine scaling wonderfull.
You'll see 500 PCs slamming a group of Dell servers. See them plug in some
live to get more performance. See them yank the ethernet out of one randomly
and watch the others just pick up and go. if you've not see this then you
really can't comment on it until you do.
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microsoft migrates Hotmail to W2K
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:20:18 -0500
"Christopher Browne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:s8lv4.55695$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when George Marengo would say:
> >On Wed, 1 Mar 2000 16:25:08 -0500, "Drestin Black"
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>"George Marengo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >>> On Wed, 1 Mar 2000 14:10:38 -0500, "Drestin Black"
> >>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>> <snip>
> >>> >I think you would be wrong. Again, as the TPC benchmarks show,
> >>> >using less processors and less machines, the Compaq/MS solution
> >>> >smoked various Sun solutions.
> >>>
> >>> You're right, but that's a single benchmark.
> >>
> >>No, more than one. Many more, but it just happens that both of the two
most
> >>recent submissions BOTH beat every other machine ever submitted. And I
do
> >>see every other OS/hardware represented.
> >
> >Yes, there are several TPC-C entries, but the point is that TPC-C
> >isn't the be-all, end-all benchmark --- it's only one of several.
>
> This sort of thing happens fairly often; it was not so many years ago
> that C compilers were written to detect ByteMark benchmark programs,
> and generate code that essentially precomputed the answers at compile
> time, so that the compilers generated spuriously high benchmark
> numbers.
>
> What the Compaq/MS solution most likely displays is *not* that
> they've got better software or hardware, but rather that they found
> the "trick" that decomposes TPC-C such that it is no longer a useful
> (e.g. - realistic) measure of performance on large transaction sets.
>
> This is why the TPC council has a sizable set of TPC benchmarks, and
> is why nobody cares anymore about the older TPC-A or TPC-B
> benchmarks. Presumably once it is established that everybody can
> "cheat" on TPC-C, it will be discontinued as well.
Oh - I see how it goes. god this is really amazing. TPC stands as THE
benchmark to beat so long as unix boxes reign supreme. For two years it's
been; Ha! NT/SQL might be good for cheap solutions (cause they always won on
price/performance) but when you want SERIOUS performance, it's big expensive
iron and unix running oracle. ha!
So, now MS smokes the competition and suddenly... oh, they cheated. yeah,
that's it. Musta been cheating. Yea, we know the world is watching and
everyone has scoured the 600 page disclosure and it's been independently
audited and it's the same benchmark everyone else uses but suddenly: ms
cheated, that's it that's how they did it.
what sour grapes.
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dell picks Linux over Windows 2000 for dellhost.com
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:32:03 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:89l08g$u66$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In a stunning blow to Microsoft, Dell has picked Linux over
> Windows 2000 for dellhost.com
you are being intentionally deceptive and you know it troll.
Dell offers BOTH NT and Linux for any solution. It lets the customer choose.
dell.com runs W2K/IIS5 - that is undisputed.
Any delhost account can choose between running NT or Linux - it is very
clearly spelled out at dellhost and you deliberately did not post this
information. I applaud Dell for providing choice - choice is good.
To suggest that Dell has picked anything over anything else re: delhost is
to not even remotely understand what you are talking about. But, mr. Scsi
man, that is already obvious to us.
and, of course, www.dellhost.com runs on W2K/IIS5 :)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: alt.sad-people.microsoft.lovers
Subject: Re: Clarification of the word "communism", re LINUX = COMUNISM more...
Date: 2 Mar 2000 06:38:55 GMT
On 2 Mar 2000 02:23:29 GMT, Mark S. Bilk wrote:
[ largely sensible stuff snipped ]
Hey Mark, you actually sound reasonably intelligent when you talk about
political theory instead of usenet conspiracy theory ...
>So GNU/Open Source/GPL is similar to true communism, not to
>capitalism nor to the Russian/Chinese state capitalist system.
Well sort of yes, sort of no. The main difference is that participation
in these software communities is entirely voluntary. A capitalist could
justify giving their software away as a voluntary act. They may see the
software as an asset that they have every right to hoard, but choose
to give it up.
>Yes, except that Communism Russian style is simply *not*
>communism in any respect except the name. The use of that
>name by the controlling class of that system is simply
>a lie designed to induce people to obey.
An interesting fact about China -- the second biggest name as far as the
Chinese are concerned ( after Marx, of course ) is Plato. If you know what
Plato stood for ( essentially, he was an aristocrat and in favour of
a totalitarian rule by supposedly "enlightened" philosopher-kings )
this will sound somewhat contradictory, but when you look at their
government, you can see how they get it to work ( they take the worst of
each and combine them ;-)
BTW, you're dead right about the Chinese. There are entrepreneurs there,
but the government essentially decides who can and can't be an entrepreneur.
It's certainly not communist, it's more like a state capitalist economy
with some pseudo-private business enterprise ( ie the systems rigged
to give easy money to the business ventures of the leaders and their cronies )
--
Donovan
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 06:20:25 GMT
LP writes:
>>> ZnU wrote:
>>>> HDTV is 1920x1080.
>>> And looks great sitting 1' infront of the screen?
>> Irrelevant, given that HDTV isn't designed to be viewed from 1' in
>> front of the screen. Why do you think television screens are so
>> much larger than computer monitors? Do you sit 1' in front of a
>> 42" computer monitor?
> I see you deleted the context.
Incorrect, given that the context is the resolution of HDTV, whose
context has been preserved above.
> Whether or not they are "designed" to be viewed in the nearfield is
> not relevent to determining whether or not they offer the same
> resolution and image quality as a computer monitor.
How they are designed to be viewed is quite relevant to how "great"
they look, which is the remark of yours to which I was responding.
> It is *because* the designers did not care about that issue.. that
> they don't offer the same picture quality and sharpness.
On what basis do you claim to know what the designers did and did not
care about?
> The largest computer monitor that I find personally acceptable is
> the Sony or Mitsu 24" units.
Have you tried viewing them from a sofa ten feet away at a comparable
resolution? Are they still acceptable?
> The apparent size of either of those at a viewing distance that
> allows a clear and non-fuzzy image is far far larger than any
> "big screen" tv can hope to offer.
Irrelevant, given that HDTV isn't designed to be viewed from that
close.
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: at.linux,aus.computers.linux,comp.os.linux.alpha
Subject: Re: ProSplitter 2000 is released FREE for Linux
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:40:21 -0500
Ok, that's what I thought, thankx
"mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Drestin Black wrote:
> >
> > if it's resident within the core unix system utilities - why does the
> > product exist for Linux? who'd ever want it if it's entirely redundant?
> >
> A very good question.
>
> SPLIT(1) FSF SPLIT(1)
>
> NAME
> split - split a file into pieces
>
> SYNOPSIS
> split [OPTION] [INPUT [PREFIX]]
>
> DESCRIPTION
> Output fixed-size pieces of INPUT to PREFIXaa, PREFIXab,
> ...; default PREFIX is `x'. With no INPUT, or when INPUT
> is -, read standard input.
>
> -b, --bytes=SIZE
> put SIZE bytes per output file
>
> -C, --line-bytes=SIZE
> put at most SIZE bytes of lines per output file
>
> -l, --lines=NUMBER
> put NUMBER lines per output file
>
> -NUMBER
> same as -l NUMBER
>
> --verbose
> print a diagnostic to standard error just
>
> before each output file is opened
>
> --help display this help and exit
>
> --version
> output version information and exit
>
> SIZE may have a multiplier suffix: b for 512, k for 1K, m
> for 1 Meg.
> --
> Mohawk Software
> Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
> Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
>
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: at.linux,aus.computers.linux,comp.os.linux.alpha
Subject: Re: ProSplitter 2000 is released FREE for Linux
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:40:06 -0500
ok, so that's what I thought. ... thankx
"Andreas Rottmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > if it's resident within the core unix system utilities - why does the
> > product exist for Linux? who'd ever want it if it's entirely redundant?
> >
> Okay lets see what the 'UNIX core utils' have for us...
>
> > "mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > >
> > > A fine example of something one must buy for Windows a capability
> > > resident within the core UNIX system utilities.
> > >
> > > Oscar Agra wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi everyone,
> > > >
> > > > ProSplitter 2000 is finally released....
> > > >
> > > > ProSplitter 2000 is available FREE for Linux and also available for
> > > > Windows 95/98/NT
> > > >
> > > > ProSplitter 2000 is a fast and powerful file splitting utility.
> > > >
> > > > ProSplitter 2000 makes it possible to transfer manageable sized
files
> > > > through any medium and for any purpose. It offers via its
> > > > straightforward graphical interface a wealth of features which
provide
> > > > a complete solution to your needs.
> > > >
> > > > Features include :
> > > >
> > > > - Easy to use graphical user interface
> Nope, but probably easy to write using TK or Glade or something else...
>
> > > > - Fast 32 bit splitting / joining of very large files or DIRECTORIES
!
> Linux is 3bit isn't it... *ggg*
>
> > > > - Recursive archiving of directories
> tar -czf file dir
>
> > > > - File Compression
> cat somefile | { gzip | bzip2 } > compressed_file
>
> > > > - DES (Data Encryption Standard) Encryption
> Is there some utility for this out there? Anyway, PGP/GPG has much
> stronger encryption...
>
> > > > - Robustness and Reliability guaranteed via CRC data checks
> md5sum?
>
> > > > - Self-joining executable allows files to be joined without
ProSplitter
> shell archives
>
> > > > - Attachment of comments to pieces
> Just put a short README to each piece (there may be some better solution
> than this, but it's 5 am now ;-)
>
> > > > - Drag-and-Drop of files, directories and links (Win 95/98/NT only)
> May be working, depends on file manager, however...
>
> > > > - Support for splitting via the Windows Explorer Context-Menu (Win
> > 95/98/NT
> > > > only)
> Thank goodness, Linux does not have a Windows Explorer Context-Menu...
>
> > > >
> > > > Download it directly from ;
> > > > For Win95/98/NT - http://www.prosplitter.co.uk/zips/psplit21.exe
> > > > Linux -
> > > > http://www.prosplitter.co.uk/zips/psplit21.tar.gz
> > >
> No need to download it... it's right on yor UNIX box...
>
> Summary:
>
> IMHO the functionality of this piece of software can be 'simulated'
> with a few *simple* shell scripts - except for the UI things, which
> are tagged as 'Windoze only' anyway...
>
> Long Live The Shell!
> Andy
> --
> Andreas Rottmann (Dru@ICQ, 54523380@ICQ)
> Pfeilgasse 4-6/725, A-1080 Wien, Austria, Europe
> http://www.altern.org/arot/
> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
------------------------------
From: "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: w64k - the bugs are being found
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:41:03 -0500
well put!
"pac4854" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> ObTopic: I want to see Linux become a viable alternative to MS.
> I really do. But this kinda shit is nit-picking. It's
> counterproductive. There are workarounds for these. There will
> be a service pack. And another. And all 63,000 "issues" will be
> found (and posted here, no doubt - yucch!) and resolved. I'm not
> necessarily fond of Microsoft, but this kinda crap is getting
> old, tiresome, boring, and does not a goddamned thing to further
> Linux. Give it a rest, fer $DEITY's sake.
>
> Geez, I'm half tempted to go out and buy (yes, for $$$$) W2K, not
> that I'd ever use it, but I'm that fed up with all this juvenile
> whining. Either advocate Linux here, or fuck off.
>
>
> * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network
*
> The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: My Windows 2000 experience
Date: 2 Mar 2000 06:47:02 GMT
On Wed, 01 Mar 2000 19:39:36 -0600, Rob Hughes wrote:
>You've never installed an app that required updated libs, and then had
>the updated libs cause something to break? WOW!
The dependency checking will catch you if you try to do an upgrade that
will break another app.
Of course on the BSDs where you compile things, it's a complete nonissue
because you always compile against whatever is on your system. ( source
compatibility is much easier to do than binary compatibility )
>I don't expect to be around for Win3k. And for me, it isn't a problem
>now. I don't want users installing apps. If you do, then you go ahead. I
>want an OS that doesn't allow users to install apps. I remember my first
>shell account. I installed an IRC bot despite this being against the
>policies of the company providing the shell and thinking "man... so much
>for security."
You can make it impossible for the user to do this sort of thing.
>Then the end user should understand what they're doing before they do
>it. Being clueless isn't an excuse. Wanting to be protected and blame
>the vendor for failing to understand what you're doing is a cop out. Why
>is that so hard to understand?
I agree.
>will never trash it and just like moving to a new kernel will never
>trash the system.
It won't. You can keep both versions of the kernel. If the new kernel acts
up, you can just reboot with the old kernel.
>bad driver. What, praytell, do you do when the kernel immediately panics
>upon initialization? How do you recover from that? About the same way
>you do on an NT install, I would imagine...
No idea what you do on NT. On Linux, I'd just boot from the old
kernel.
>Now its a cultural thing? Was it caused by the liberals or the
>conservatives? Please explain.
ROFL. Personally, I blame it on the NYPD.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: flat sales
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 06:51:37 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Drestin Black would say:
>"Craig Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> "John Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>
>> > Drestin Black wrote in message ...
>>
>> >> Personally, and not being sarcastic, if I could find one reason to
>> >> run Linux I would run it again - but I sat down one day and tried
>> >> to find one single thing I needed linux for. One thing that linux
>> >> did that W2K could not... When that failed I started to think of
>> >> anything that linux did easier? (that took less time) Finally I
>> >> deleted the partion, expanded my W2K into it and kept going
>> >> (without rebooting of course)
>> >
>> > Do you expect anybody to beleive this crap ?
>>
>> Why not?
>>
>> Linux isn't for everybody -- espcially Drestin.
>
>I tried it - it did nothing for me. Nothing I didn't already have, easier,
>faster and better supported with more apps.
I would think that your comment "it did nothing for me" ought to represent
a "Not for me; I'm out of here; bye!"
Is there some particular reason why you feel a need to continue to
"evangelize" in this newsgroup?
--
"Windows NT was designed to be administered by an idiot and usually
is..." -- Chris Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Fairness to Winvocates (was Re: Microsoft migrates Hotmail to W2K)
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 17:53:43 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 1 Mar 2000 16:36:18 -0600,
Chad Myers, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>
>"Mr. Rupert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>>
>> Both Chad's and Drestin's rebuttal argument to Joseph's post is
>> absolutely moot. MS is runnig UNIX at their hotmail site.
>
>-- because that's what it was running when they bought it.
>
>> That speaks volumes for NT and W2K. End of story!
>
>It says that MS wasn't stupid enough to try to pick up a
>half-way working system to move it to NT, only to move it
>to Win2K again in a few months.
If it's that tough to port from NT to W2K, why should anyone else
do it?
>
>-Chad-
>Have you recompiled your kernel today?
>
>
Drat, forgot again, ah well, I didn't want to interrupt my
server's 78day uptime from the last power failure. Poor thing
spends most of it's time with a cpuload of around 0.60 (amazing
what a '486-33 can do, with the right software...)
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: My Windows 2000 experience
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 18:52:48 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 01 Mar 2000 10:37:38 -0500,
Seán Ó Donnchadha, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>petilon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>>Because pcAnywhere installs just like any other application.
>>>
>>>Which is how, exactly?
>>
>>pcAnywhere uses InstallShield. When you install pcAnywhere
>>there is no indication that you are modifying the operating
>>system. pcAnywhere doesn't warn you, neither does Windows.
>>
>
>Win2K doesn't let regular users install any software. Software
>installation is a privilege that can only be granted by the
>administrator. Beyond that, I don't see how it's Win2K's
>responsibility to warn you when a driver gets installed. No OS I've
>ever worked with ever did that. Certainly no version of Unix does, so
>why are you holding Win2K to a higher standard?
>
if you are installing with rpm, rpm will balk at overwriting
another app's libraries (or other files) you can force it, but by
default it will stop and tell you why. Assuming that the system
is maintained by rpm all the time, rpm won't hesitate to
overwrite a lib it doesn't know about though.
>>
>>In other words, Windows 2000 allows any random application
>>off the street to trash the OS without your knowledge.
>>
>
>Only if the user installing the app has sufficient privilege, and the
>fact that it installs a system-level component isn't documented. But
>what do you expect? If I'm root on a Unix box and I run the installer
>of some "random application off the street", how do I know it won't
>trash the OS? Answer: I don't. Unix is absolutely no better about this
>than Win2K.
>
>>>>
root or no, rpm will error out if you attempt to overwrite an
existing file in the rpm database. You can also get a listing of
the files to be installed (rpm -qpl package-name, or a click and
drag in the kpackage or gnome equiv) You can also do a "test"
install (rpm -i --test package_name) which will do all but the
actual installation, to test for conflicts. You can also redirect
the files where _you_ want them rather than where the package
builder wanted to put them.
>>>>What happened to the much touted "System File Protection"?
>>>
>>>What system files were lost?
>>
>>The device drivers, apparently.
>>
>
>Fine. What device drivers were lost?
>
>>
>>Windows 2000 apparently allows
>>any random application off the street to install its own
>>device drivers without your knowledge or consent.
>>
>
>So does Unix. Can you name an OS that doesn't let you install device
>drivers even if you have sufficient privilege to do so?
>
>>
>>This means Windows 2000 can only be as stable and reliable as
>>the last application you installed.
>>
>
>Of course, and the same holds true for Unix. That's why software
>installation on both operating systems requires the privileges of
>someone who knows what they're doing.
however, under linux, with rpm, I can test the install, inspect
the package, redirect it somewhere else (to a /test partition
perhaps) and safely back it out afterwards if it blows up.
>>>
>>>Are you seriously suggesting that Win2K should never allow the
>>>installation of device drivers?
>>
>>Of course not! All I am saying is that Win2K should not allow
>>applications to install device drivers in a clandestine manner.
>>
>
>So what do you suggest, a warning? That wouldn't accomplish anything,
>because installing a bad device driver is only one way to trash an OS.
>You can also trash system files. That's why there are permissions. As
>long as you have the ability to modify system files (or install
>drivers), the system must assume that you know what you're doing with
>respect to those files (or drivers). If you believe the system should
>warn even the superuser when a driver is installed, then you must also
>believe the system should issue warnings every time the superuser
>installs or modifies a system file. And that's a ludicrous suggestion.
>
you can allways chattr +i the files you want to preserve, and
that way, if you are not paying attention, and you force rpm to
install over something you didn't want to lose. You can't.
>>Win2K should put the end-user in control, not some random
>>application installer.
>>
>
>The end user *IS* in control. The installer runs on the user's behalf.
>That's why the ability to install software isn't given to just anyone,
>or, at least, it doesn't have to be.
under linux, _anyone_ can install software, just not *anywhere*
if you want appfoo, then you can have it, if you have the space
in your $HOME for it.
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
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