Linux-Advocacy Digest #878, Volume #25 Thu, 30 Mar 00 03:13:05 EST
Contents:
Re: BEOS 5 the new star in OS's (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (Bob Hauck)
Re: UNIX recruiters and MS Word resumes (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux (Donn Miller)
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (Craig Kelley)
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (Craig Kelley)
Re: UNIX recruiters and MS Word resumes (Jim Richardson)
Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns... (Matt Chiglinsky)
Re: Iridium Tech Support ("bobsun")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: BEOS 5 the new star in OS's
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 04:33:46 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, piddy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on Thu, 30 Mar 2000 00:53:57 GMT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:23:46 GMT, "Erna Odelfsan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>
>>
>> Just ignorant of BE, is it GPL ?
>
>You sir are in danger of be ing. Can you be? I thought not. Now be
>elseware.
Are you trying to be funny? :-)
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- douy
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 05:02:02 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Colin R. Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on Wed, 29 Mar 2000 23:56:46 +0000 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> Obviously I was referring to the Linux version.
>> Windows has an hourglass to let you know it is busy.
>>
>> Steve
>
>And Linux has a stopwatch.
Actually, X Windows has the stopwatch. Linux doesn't really have
anything to tell anyone it's busy. :-) (I'm not sure it really needs
to, either.)
One nice thing about X's "stopwatch" is that it's set and forget
(well, so is Windows', AFAIK); the program can set the stopwatch
(XCreateFontCursor(), XDefineCursor()), do something more exciting,
then come back, reset the stopwatch (XUndefineCursor()), and reenter
its event loop -- wherever it is.
Both X Windows and Windows can also define custom cursors,
complete with coloration if desired.
While a top-level window is "stopped up", one might overlap it with
another window, which of course causes the usual minor refresh problems;
but in X Windows, one can also iconify it, resize it, or move
it around (note that resizing it will probably cause the usual
redraws -- later on). Can't do that in Windows, unless the
programmer of the window took pains to code the CPU-intensive part
of his app in another thread or process.
Just to complicate things even more...Windows has two stopwatches
(one attached to a pointer). Presumably the pointer/stopwatch
combo indicates something's busy, and something else is available
for pointing.
The only major problem I really have in X is the scrolling using
XCopyArea() -- and that may be simply because I haven't figured out
all of its idiosyncracies yet. (Because of X's event loop and
protocol queueing, an XCopyArea() might be called to copy one area to
another, but the source area isn't quite ready yet to be copied.)
But I'll trade that in for Window's "frozen window" problem anyday,
especially since I can simply refresh the window by hiding it,
or iconifying and then uniconifying it.
I'm also not sure about aliased fonts, either. To me, it's
not that much of an issue.
>
>Colin Day
>
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Mister Pedant
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
Date: 30 Mar 2000 05:09:09 GMT
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 14:27:46 -0600, Chad Myers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>... What about auditing capabilities. Certinaly some
>variants have auditing, but Linux's is pitiful compared to NT's.
So NT logs every job run by every user, when it started, ended, how long
it took plus cpu and I/O stats?
Unix (including Linux) does have process accounting you know. I see you
NT guys finally have disk quotas. It is really too bad they're broken.
>Not necessarily, since in NT, there are a set of complex deliberate
>actions you must take. There is no "accidentally" deleting user files,
>where with root, you can have a hay-day without anything stopping you.
Only if you go through and change virtually all of the default
permissions. A stock NT setup lets Admin (indeed, almost anybody) delete
all sorts of important system stuff.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.bobh.org/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: UNIX recruiters and MS Word resumes
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 05:15:59 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, BSD Bob <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on 28 Mar 2000 22:18:59 GMT <8brb4j$lng$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>The Ghost In The Machine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>Well, if we are supposed to be *nix types, send it to them in
>>>native troff. After all, if you don't know nroff/troff on *nix,
>>>you are still in training.....(:+\\.....
>
>> One could do that, admittedly! However, AFAIK nroff/troff/groff
>> only lives on in manpages.
>
>Gee.... I must live on another planet, since I use the old engine
>daily for memos, reports, books, etc., to this day. I will admit,
>writing in native troff is becoming a lost art form.....(:+{{.....
I think writing, period, is becoming a lost art form... :-)
I'll admit, though, nroff/troff format descriptors were
pretty simple; start on the line, have a dot, have a ball... :-)
Of course, remembering all of the dot commands could, well,
drive one dotty... :-) but it's probably documented somewhere.
(And of course one can dredge up the man source or groff source
and grep through it. Not sure I'd want to do that except as
a last resort, though... :-) )
>
>> A more general option would probably to use one of the TeX family.
>> Probably LaTeX.
>
>Probably so, I use that a lot, too, and it has good portability.
It also generates absolutely gorgeous mathematical output with
a minimum of fuss. :-) (It is a little finicky about grouping,
though -- if one's not careful, one gets an equals sign pulled
into the numerator or denominator of an \over expression.
But it still does that gorgeously. :-) )
>
>> Or SGML, since Linux sports a fine suite of SGML-conversion tools.
>> One can convert SGML to HTML, TeX, or raw text.
>
>Probably also good, but not yet settled in for the long haul.
>Give it 5 more years.
Absent any "improvements" by Microsoft...
>
>> If MSOffice can't read HTML format, well, it really sucks! :-)
>> Note also that I use MSOffice 2000 at work, and it can in fact read
>> from and write to HTML format, although I can't say how well it writes;
>
>Lousy, actually. I do a lot of web pages with input from peecee-wares.
>The conversion to a decent unix web system, can be frustrating, mostly.
>Generally, the output is, at best, less that optimal... at worst, abysmal.
>Give them 5 years, too, and maybe the dust will settle, and it will
>become seamless.
I wouldn't bet on it. I can't say I've seen a lot of other
HTML generators (Netscape being the only other one I'm familiar
with at all), but the HTML output from Word has an awful lot of
'style="..."' stuff in it, describing physical attributes for
that piece of text (point size, font, underline/bold/italic,
that sort of thing). Needless to say, if one wants a
"proper" web page (IMO, anyway!), all that stuff has to be
sifted through and removed, or replaced with style sheet
declarations.
Yuck.
Netscape's output has its own peculiarities -- it likes to
delete <PRE> ... </PRE>, replacing them with a bunch of
<BR>, , and such, if one so much as touches something in the
<PRE> ... </PRE> area. Granted, it doesn't affect the
formatting, but it does make the "source code" look a bit odd
with all of those  :... sequences in there.
I don't remember what it does if one highlights a word and
says "embolden that".
>
>Still, for electronic resumes, and especially for the unix world, IMHO,
>plain old ascii is still the best format if you have to send it in to
>a headhunter that is going to goof it up their way.
>
>The idea of pdfs that are mostly cast in stone, is interesting, and
>possibly more stable. But, the headhunters would probably also have
>a hard time with that, too.
So would I, if only because I've not got the tools -- yet -- to
generate PDF files. I can generate Postscript files without
difficulty of course, and PDF is mostly Postscript, but there
are things in the PDF header that I have no knowledge about.
In fact, I don't think I have a thing in the PDF file that
I *do* have knowledge about... :-)
Still, Adobe did release an 'acroread' for Linux at one point, so
perhaps they've finally figoured out that there may be a market. :-)
>
>Mebbie we need to retrain the headhunters into *nix.....(:+\\.....
Maybe 5 more years? :-)
>
>Bob
>
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- one can hope so, anyway! :-)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 00:18:57 -0500
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
> I'm also not sure about aliased fonts, either. To me, it's
> not that much of an issue.
I think that's the underlying thing about X -- it was designed to be a
practical, flexible and portable windowing system instead of a
good-looking desktop system.
- Donn
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 29 Mar 2000 22:20:54 -0700
"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Craig Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > And, all you really need to do is add the Backup group to the
> > > > Administrator....
> > >
> > > No, really, Craig, I want to hear it. Exactly what would that do?
> > > Please inform all of us. Let us know how much you know about NT.
> >
> > It would allow you (on a default NT installation) to read every file
> > on the system, regardless the ACL settings.
>
> Let me understand what you're saying... if I use the SYSTEM account,
> I could get around all ACLs? This is incorrect. You can deny the
> SYSTEM account from accessing files or directories through ACLs.
You asked what the _BACKUP_ group gave you, not the system account.
[snip]
> Also, it's a deliberate action that someone would have to take, as
> opposed to rm * -rf... OOPS! I'm in the /home directory instead of
> /home/userx!
Which is why I never do that. The usrdel script takes care of all
that for me. It removes the user, their Microsoft networking logins,
thier roaming profile, their mail account, their database accounts
(both local and remote machines), their mailing list subscriptions and
everything.
I never logon as root after a machine is up and running, other than to
change installation options or to fix something.
> > > 4.) What lesson did they learn, please inform us?
> >
> > That running a service as a system user *all the time* is a bad thing.
>
> Why is that? When IIS spawns processes, it spawns them as the
> currently logged in user (usually IUSR_BLAH). You could log on using
> NTLM or SSL/Basic and then it would spawn as that specific user.
>
> Even if you did manage to do an #exec in an SSI page, it would be
> spawned as IUSR, which would have pretty much no privelges.
I think we are violently agreeing on this point.
> > > > > What happens if you lose the root password?
> > > >
> > > > Boot up with a floppy, change the password.
> > >
> > > Wow, that is secure.
> >
> > Wow, that's what you do with NT as well.
>
> JOOC, how do you do it in NT? Back in the day, before SP3 it was easy.
>
> Now, it's quite difficult. You could use NTFSDOS and get the SAM and use
> l0pthcrack to hash it out, probably.
Nope, setup.exe works just great.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 29 Mar 2000 22:26:04 -0700
"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Craig Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > > JOOC, (off topic somewhat), how does apache handle anonymous users and
> > > authenticated users?
> >
> > Through the AUTH phase, which can do anything from a simple plaintext
> > password to a secured authentication against an NT primary domain
> > controller. With suexec, you can have the process itself change
> > security contexts to the target users.
>
> But if you don't use suexec... it runs as with the same user context
> as Apache?
1) Apache comes with suexec.
2) If you don't use it, then everything is accessed by the account you
told apache to use (so, if you have a userdir like public_html, you
have to explicitly override your umask to make it world-readable).
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Subject: Re: UNIX recruiters and MS Word resumes
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 05:51:25 GMT
On Thu, 30 Mar 2000 05:15:59 GMT,
The Ghost In The Machine, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
brought forth the following words...:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy, BSD Bob <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote on 28 Mar 2000 22:18:59 GMT <8brb4j$lng$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>The Ghost In The Machine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>Well, if we are supposed to be *nix types, send it to them in
>>>>native troff. After all, if you don't know nroff/troff on *nix,
>>>>you are still in training.....(:+\\.....
>>
>>> One could do that, admittedly! However, AFAIK nroff/troff/groff
>>> only lives on in manpages.
>>
>>Gee.... I must live on another planet, since I use the old engine
>>daily for memos, reports, books, etc., to this day. I will admit,
>>writing in native troff is becoming a lost art form.....(:+{{.....
>
>I think writing, period, is becoming a lost art form... :-)
>
>I'll admit, though, nroff/troff format descriptors were
>pretty simple; start on the line, have a dot, have a ball... :-)
>Of course, remembering all of the dot commands could, well,
>drive one dotty... :-) but it's probably documented somewhere.
>
>(And of course one can dredge up the man source or groff source
>and grep through it. Not sure I'd want to do that except as
>a last resort, though... :-) )
>
>>
>>> A more general option would probably to use one of the TeX family.
>>> Probably LaTeX.
>>
>>Probably so, I use that a lot, too, and it has good portability.
>
>It also generates absolutely gorgeous mathematical output with
>a minimum of fuss. :-) (It is a little finicky about grouping,
>though -- if one's not careful, one gets an equals sign pulled
>into the numerator or denominator of an \over expression.
>But it still does that gorgeously. :-) )
>
>>
>>> Or SGML, since Linux sports a fine suite of SGML-conversion tools.
>>> One can convert SGML to HTML, TeX, or raw text.
>>
>>Probably also good, but not yet settled in for the long haul.
>>Give it 5 more years.
>
>Absent any "improvements" by Microsoft...
>
>>
>>> If MSOffice can't read HTML format, well, it really sucks! :-)
>>> Note also that I use MSOffice 2000 at work, and it can in fact read
>>> from and write to HTML format, although I can't say how well it writes;
>>
>>Lousy, actually. I do a lot of web pages with input from peecee-wares.
>>The conversion to a decent unix web system, can be frustrating, mostly.
>>Generally, the output is, at best, less that optimal... at worst, abysmal.
>>Give them 5 years, too, and maybe the dust will settle, and it will
>>become seamless.
>
>I wouldn't bet on it. I can't say I've seen a lot of other
>HTML generators (Netscape being the only other one I'm familiar
>with at all), but the HTML output from Word has an awful lot of
>'style="..."' stuff in it, describing physical attributes for
>that piece of text (point size, font, underline/bold/italic,
>that sort of thing). Needless to say, if one wants a
>"proper" web page (IMO, anyway!), all that stuff has to be
>sifted through and removed, or replaced with style sheet
>declarations.
>
>Yuck.
>
>Netscape's output has its own peculiarities -- it likes to
>delete <PRE> ... </PRE>, replacing them with a bunch of
><BR>, , and such, if one so much as touches something in the
><PRE> ... </PRE> area. Granted, it doesn't affect the
>formatting, but it does make the "source code" look a bit odd
>with all of those  :... sequences in there.
>I don't remember what it does if one highlights a word and
>says "embolden that".
1) Those damned   take up bytes, not many, but enough to annoy me
when I see a row of them
2) They assume that the format of the display used to create the page
(800x600 say) is the format all viewers will use. (granted, compared
to <pre></pre> maybe not much diff, but annoying none the less.)
>
>>
>>Still, for electronic resumes, and especially for the unix world, IMHO,
>>plain old ascii is still the best format if you have to send it in to
>>a headhunter that is going to goof it up their way.
>>
>>The idea of pdfs that are mostly cast in stone, is interesting, and
>>possibly more stable. But, the headhunters would probably also have
>>a hard time with that, too.
>
>So would I, if only because I've not got the tools -- yet -- to
>generate PDF files. I can generate Postscript files without
>difficulty of course, and PDF is mostly Postscript, but there
>are things in the PDF header that I have no knowledge about.
>In fact, I don't think I have a thing in the PDF file that
>I *do* have knowledge about... :-)
ps2pdf works for me. Part of the ghostscript rpm I think.
>Still, Adobe did release an 'acroread' for Linux at one point, so
>perhaps they've finally figoured out that there may be a market. :-)
there's also xpdf for reading, and I think ghostview will preview most pdf
files.
--
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] (Matt Chiglinsky)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: I don't want to stir up any concerns...
Date: 30 Mar 2000 07:25:21 GMT
On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 16:54:54 GMT, JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Furthermore, you've got Sun that's actively trying to "cut off
> Microsoft's airsupply" at the moment. The Win32 version of
> StarOffice is something that WinDOS users appreciate: FREE. This
> will cause a slow defection of users bound to Microsoft's cash
> cow. They will cease to line Bill's coffers and make it easier
> for some other office competitors to win marketshare. The decrease
> in general dependence on msoffice itself will undermine the
> artifical need to run Windows.
I had forgotten about that. I have the Solaris and Linux versions of
StarOffice sitting on my hard drive right now, but I take it the
Windows version is freely downloadable from that same page?
Now, I would use it if it could deal properly with objects (e.g. Excel
graphs) embedded in .doc files, but that goes back to the previous
point of the .doc format being poorly documented.
------------------------------
From: "bobsun" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Iridium Tech Support
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 07:59:03 GMT
evilsofa wrote in message ...
>In article
><nnrD4.18965$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "bobsun"
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Colin R. Day wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>> >ZnU wrote:
>> >
>> >> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jerry
>> >> McBride) wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >The surface of the earth has an area of about 200 million square
>> >miles. As the total area of the world's cities is much more than 200
>> >square miles, the probability is greater than one in a million.
>>
>>
>> Greater Los Angeles has to cover several (5?) thousand square miles
alone.
>> Phoenix is about 2000 sq miles.
>>
>> bobsun
>
>Incorrect. The largest city by area in the US is Juneau, Alaska, with
>3,081 square miles. [1] The city of Los Angeles only covers 468 square
>miles. [2]
>
>[1] <http://geography.about.com/library/misc/bllgcity.htm>
>[2] <http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=02D4C000&page=2#s3>
>
>Okay, okay, if you want to get technical about it, the Los Angeles
>metropolis covers 88,000 square miles and 5 counties...
I guess that it wouldn't have counted if it landed in Burbank ;^)
>--
>The last words of General John Sedgewick, Union
>commander in the American Civil War:
>
>"They couldn't hit an elephant from this dist----"
------------------------------
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