Linux-Advocacy Digest #80, Volume #26 Tue, 11 Apr 00 23:13:34 EDT
Contents:
Re: Penfield Jackson bitch-slaps Bill Gates ("John W. Stevens")
Re: Penfield Jackson bitch-slaps Bill Gates ("John W. Stevens")
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (abraxas)
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (abraxas)
Re: Windows IS the dominant corporate OS (abraxas)
Re: Which distro for server?? (Brian Langenberger)
Linux for ex-Windows users (long story) (Cihl)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "John W. Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Penfield Jackson bitch-slaps Bill Gates
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 12:15:57 -0600
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> In article <8cpluh$rek$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Paul 'Z' Ewande©" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit dans le message :
> > 8colgf$nfo$[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Depends where you're looking. Last I've seen, Motorola's
> profits were above expectations (even with the drain of the
> Iridium stuff). High-end servers are not Intel,
Not yet, but very soon I expect high end servers to be using Intel
chips.
On the other hand, most of the high end servers won't be running
Windows.
> My point was that no one _requires_ a Win32 app, unless they need
> it to run on a machine that only supports Win32 apps. To be
> honest, they don't care about the architecture; they care about
> the functionality.
Which is why the Win32 API *EXISTS* . . . to lock the ISV's into
Windows.
> It's becoming easier (for various reasons). But over the years,
> Micro$ux has done everything in their power to prevent such
> reusable code and common interfaces.
Exactly. . . they did this in order to gain control over the market.
Why do you think that the file formats for their office products were
secret for so long? . . .b ecause when you save your work in their
secret format, you let them encrypt your data in such a way as *THEY*
control *YOUR* data!
That gives them a huge amount of power over their customers.
> > It's better for some types at doing certain things.
>
> The major advantage is in the range of apps available. If
> the lawsuit can cause a change in behaviour so that apps
> can be written for "common" platforms,
Not "common", but open, public standards, such as POSIX and CORBA, and
SMTP and NNTP and MIME and POP3 and Kerberos 5 and . . .
> so that we will
> see many more apps written for a range of machines and
> OSs, I think this will be to the benefit of all. Such
> things as Java and other platform-independent code are
> a threat to the Micro$ux hegemony, and this, AFAICT, is
> why Microsoft tried their little sleazy number here
> (and got slapped by the court for it). They _knew_
> what they were doing, and it wasn't very nice. . . .
Yep.
> I also keep an eye on the future, and do what I can to see it
> go the direction _I_ think it should go. I did a fair bit here
> in the effort to port our software to different hardware platforms
> and OSs. I'd be glad to help others in this effort as well.
> FWIW, we did do a NT implementation of some stuff here, but
> most people have found that the NT stuff sucks bigtime, and
> it's not very popular.
The NT overhead can be *HUGE* . . .
> In Solaris, you can (and _do_) _have_ various versions of
> labraries for use. You can use libX.so, libX.so.3, and
> libX.so.4 all on the same machine. And you can specify
> which you are to use with a particular application (in the
> application itself). What's more, in many cases one version
> will substitute quite nicely for another.
On Linux boxen, I've had as many as four different verions of the C
library installed . . . and in use. No library problems at all.
In fact, I'm not sure how anybody could ever have a library version
conflict in any Linux program . . . examples, please?
--
If I spoke for HP --- there probably wouldn't BE an HP!
John Stevens
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "John W. Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Penfield Jackson bitch-slaps Bill Gates
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 12:17:01 -0600
Paul 'Z' Ewande© wrote:
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit dans le message news:
> 8cqjfo$mu6$[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > In article <8cpluh$rek$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> My point is that it's not as bad as you make it to be.
For you, maybe. You don't seem to realize that your experience is not
universal.
--
If I spoke for HP --- there probably wouldn't BE an HP!
John Stevens
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
Date: 11 Apr 2000 18:29:46 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy A transfinite number of monkeys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 11 Apr 2000 14:06:20 GMT, abraxas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> : The password was unfortunately entirely unrecoverable. (we even
> : had a team of MCSEs all staring blankly at the box for a few hours).
> : Unfortunately, the data that was on that box was absolutely mission
> : critical.
> M ust
> C onsult
> S omeone
> E xperienced
> +
> I mmediately
> :)
> You couldn't retrieve your data using NTFSDOS and an extra drive? How about
> pulling the drive and installing it in a working NT box?
Yep, we actually thought of that route and tried the NTFSDOS method and
discovered that NTFS security is actually pretty good. We still couldnt
read anything without the proper authentication. :)
> : Thankfully, its been decided that the databases on that box be switched
> : to UNIX; probably solaris. We wont have this problem again.
> Excellent choice. Can't go wrong w/Solaris && Oracle, that is, unless
> you've got retards running the systems (like a certain large auction site).
Hah...I agree completely. Oracle wont be the only DB (the translation from
what we were using to Oracle in some situations would be too painful to bear)
but rest assured, it will be used. :)
=====yttrx
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
Date: 11 Apr 2000 18:31:16 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> "Jim Ross" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> news:uGxI4.5637$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >
>> > Bill Godfrey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> > > "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> > >
>> > > > > > What happens if you lose the root password?
>> > > > > Boot up with a floppy, change the password.
>> > > > Wow, that is secure.
>> > >
>> >
>> > Doesn't Windows 2000 have this same problem unless you use encryption?
>>
>> It's not near as simple. It involves locating the SAM, attempting to
>> extract the passwords from it, hoping it isn't encrypted, and then
>> hashing through them and hoping everything works.
> ... or you just boot up with the setup CD and re-install. When it
> asks for the Administrator password you want, just type it in.
Assuming that the CD rom is bootable and that some MCSE lemonhead
hasnt disabled it in the name of 'security'.
And even then, I refuse to do such a thing. Its an extremely stupid
method to recover data from an event that shouldnt have been possible
in the first place.
=====yttrx
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas)
Subject: Re: Windows IS the dominant corporate OS
Date: 11 Apr 2000 18:43:17 GMT
Joseph Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Windows will remain the dominant corporate operating system because it has
> some features/frameworks that would make it easier for enterprise wide
> computing. For instance, DAO, ADO and COM. These frameworks that to the best
> of my knowlede only exists on the Windows platform
Thank god.
> put them at an advantage
> over the competition.
How, exactly?
> For corporate IT managers
Who are consistently underqualified and WAAAYYY overpaid...
> what matters most
To them? I find that what matters most to the corporate IT managers that
*I* have to deal with on a daily basis is that no one find out that theyre
actually talentless fops who shouldnt be allowed anywhere near a computer
of any kind.
> in an OS
> is not its quality or performance.
I guess im doing it wrong then.
> I wouldn't say that this doesn't matter,
> but its just not the most important. What is the most important is whether
> or not its serves your enterprise needs for: database access, network
> support and distributed computing.
Linux: Oracle, SQL, etc---samba, appletalk, tcp/ip, ipx, etc---beowulf.
Problem?
> ADO and DAO serves the purpose of making
> database access easy to accomplish in Windows systems. COM is Microsoft's
> model for interprocess communications and distributed computing.
Its an ancient piece of buggy, bloated shit.
> ADO and DAO
> gives you an extra layer of abstraction when dealing with your database.
> This means that you don't have to worry that much about lower level details
> when making a program to manipulate your database.
So you can be an idiot and still write database clients. Neat. That must
be whats been happening.
> Your data could be on a
> server in the next room or located in some little known server somewhere it
> Timbuktu in doesn't matter.
Welcome to the internet.
> You can access your data in the same fashion.
Why cant you do that with *any* operating system?
> Another advantage of DAO and ADO is the standardisation of data accessing.
The standardization within microsoft and microsoft products only. Thats
some standard you got there.
> This means similar programs which also uses DAO and ADO can talk to each
> other via COM. This allows for rapid application development which also
> matters a lot in the corporate environment.
Do you ever actually talk to real live programmers about this stuff?
> From the above reasons, I think
> the enthusiasm over Linux and overly optimistic and overhyped. Microsoft,
> because of its better supporting frameworks and protocols still has the
> upperhand as far as the big corporate guys are concerned.
I think you're very, very stupid.
=====yttrx
------------------------------
From: Brian Langenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Which distro for server??
Date: 11 Apr 2000 19:04:31 GMT
Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: In article <C47I4.4742$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:>Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:>
:>: I'd recommend compiling your own apache from source if you want
:>: a web server on any platform, though. Apache is really a
:>: toolkit of modules and it is worth building exactly what
:>: you need.
:>
:>And turn off those damn cookies!
: Sorry, but cookies are the way servers handle personalized
: services. If it is a choice between service the way I want
: it and remaining anonymous, I'll take the former, thank you.
Apache is not primarily in charge of handling cookies.
Turning them off is simply a matter of having your CGI not
generate them in the first place.
Furthermore, cookies are *a* way to retain state over multiple
web pages. At present they are the most common way, but I've
handled state management quite well without them. Still, it
would be nice to have some sort of actual state-ful protocol
on the web rather than having to need such kludges, but the
web was designed to be stateless...*shrug!*
As for anonymity, we should never have to sacrifice it for
the sake of a full-featured web. Certain things require
a valid ID (web shopping) but I'll happily filter out web
banners to keep the spammers away.
------------------------------
From: Cihl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Linux for ex-Windows users (long story)
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:15:02 GMT
After years of experience with using software in
the Windows-range, i decided to try Linux about a
year and a half ago. I would like to take this
opportunity to share my experiences since then.
======
I'm a student in electrical science (technical
computer science direction). As i said, i had been
used to working with Windows, taking all
advantages and disadvantages (see all other posts)
for granted. Then someone in my class asked me to
try Linux, mainly to see what it's like and to
learn how to use Unix-like systems.
At the time, my choice of distribution was SuSE
6.0 and it came in a box with 5 cd's and a (rather
large) manual. I managed to setup the system in a
dual-boot configuration in three to four hours. It
took quite a while to figure out which package to
install and which not to install. Apart from that
the installation went smoothly and more
intuitively than i thought it would.
First thing i noticed after install, is that it
took surprisingly little effort to get the
hardware to work. The installation had already
seen my video card, monitor, network card, modem
and mouse with minimal configuration. Only the
printer (HP720C) and a scanner (HP4100C-USB)
remained. I found it impossible to set these up
properly, mainly because the scanner is USB and
the printer is Windows-only.
Seeing the login-prompt was a little, well, stupid
at first and reminded me of the old DOS system in
the XT-age. Just generally working and navigating
the text-based shell was pretty confusing. After
typing 'startx' i got a gui, called KDE. It was
kinda flaky and wouldn't do what i wanted to. In
general, it took a lot of getting used to the new
system, already being used to Windows and all.
After that, i tried a couple of distributions and
it came to my attention that the development of
this OS was happening faster than i could keep up
with, and the GUI became a lot prettier.
Furthermore, as i got more used to Linux, i became
more and more annoyed with having to go back to
Windows for playing a game or using my
scanner/printer. The Windows-GUI got a certain
feel that you could cut your fingers on it at any
time. Also, i became cautious whenever using
Windows, because it felt like it could crash on me
any second.
It suddenly snapped into my head: i have gotten
used to Linux, and there is no way i can go back
to Windows permanently. I have grown to hate
Windows more and more. I have also gotten used to
stability, flexibility and *real* multitasking
over time, and cannot take it whenever Windows
takes control of the computer and all i can do is
wait until it's ready. (like when scanning
something.)
=====
My final point is: I can't imagine those so-called
"Wintrolls" who are all over the newsgroups having
a lot of experience in using Linux at all. I don't
think *anybody* could go back to Windows
permanently after having used Linux for a while. I
think all these people should try using Linux for,
say, three to six months. After that they should
come back and rant+rave about Linux here again as
much as they want. If they still don't like it,
they should at least be able to give better
reasons for it. The more trolling they do then,
the more we can improve on Linux.
------------------------------
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