Linux-Advocacy Digest #747, Volume #26 Mon, 29 May 00 17:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: The Linux Fortress (Pete Goodwin)
Re: democracy? ("Andrew N. McGuire ")
Re: how to enter a bug report against linux? (lop@k)
Re: how to enter a bug report against linux? (poru@kl)
Re: I wish I could replace Windows with Linux..... (JoeX1029)
Re: I wish I could replace Windows with Linux..... (sandrews)
Re: Tholen's Thole tholenated - Thread now tholenified (Marty)
Re: Why only Microsoft should be allowed to create software ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? ("Daniel Johnson")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: The Linux Fortress
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 20:08:27 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roberto Alsina) wrote in <8gtq10$c4j$1
@nnrp1.deja.com>:
>Pay me $100, and you will have that in a week.
>It's just two tiny python scripts and a kdelnk file, really.
Why not do it for free?
>Something like this:
>
>A script called addsmbshare, which asks for the password and adds the
>share to smb.conf (which would have to be writable by some group,
>so this is a VERY low security setting)
>
>A script called delsmbshare, which does the opposite.
>
>Those are really low tech text processing tasks.
>
>Associate both with the inode/directory mime type on KDE, so they appear
>on the RMB menu.
>
>Done.
>
>Not much than a couple hours work.
>
>The bad side, is that this allows (just like in windows) any user to
>mess the sharing settings, maybe disrupting another user's, or for that
>matter, opening the whole computer! but for a single user system in
>a private non-connected net it's not that nasty.
>
>It will never make it into the regular KDE distribution, though.
Whyever not? Surely you would want to add ease of use features or is that a
no-no?
Pete
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
From: "Andrew N. McGuire " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: democracy?
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 15:11:08 -0500
On Mon, 29 May 2000, Mark Wilden wrote:
+ "Andrew N. McGuire" wrote:
+ >
+ > Well, for example you have the majority who believe that as of
+ > January 1st, we started a new millenium. Then you have those
+ > of us who are smart enough to realize that there was no year 0.
+
+ January 1st did start a new millenium. It just didn't happen to be the
+ third one after the purported birth of Jesus. :)
Clever. :-) I guess every year really starts a new millennium,
although this does not directly pertain to the millennium we were
discussing.
+ Seriously, all this means is that the majority of people think the
+ rollover to 2000 is more interesting and significant to them than the
+ arithmetic facts. Does it really matter? To them (and to me), the real
+ 'idiot' is someone who thinks this is important.
Well, to me the real idiot is one who does not take the time to think
about the truth of the matter, and then refuses to admit when he is
blatently incorrect.
millennium
1.A span of one thousand years.
2.A thousand-year period of holiness mentioned in Revelation 20,
during which Jesus and his faithful followers are to rule on earth.
3.A hoped-for period of joy, serenity, prosperity, and justice.
4.A thousandth anniversary.
*By definition*
+ > You have the majority that believes that Windows is the best OS
+ > ever to rear its head
+
+ The majority thinks no such thing. They have no experience with any
+ other OS, nor do they want any (the majority is quite intelligent in not
+ wanting to recompile a kernel simply so that Doom makes sounds on their
+ machine). So to say that the majority believe Windows is the best is
+ rather...idiotic.
[ First of all, let me point out that you more than likely do not have
to recompile your kernel to make your sound card work. ]
Not so, chosen ignorance is not an excuse, to say that people think that
Windows is better becuase they do not want to try anything else just
points out their stupidity. If this were the case in all aspects of
life, we would not even have electricity for goodness sake. And to say
that the majority of people believe that Windows is best is not idiotic,
it is true, look at the usage percentage!!! Microsoft Windows runs 90%
of the computers on the planet... Are you saying that that many people
would use it even if there were something better? If so, then you
have made the majority of people out to be more idiotic than even I did.
Either way you slice it, the majority looks rather dumb. Why do you
have to tell so many people to RTFM? It is becuase people want to be
spoon-fed every little detail. Not all people, but the majority.
Above all an intelligent person keeps an open mind.
+ >... Then you have those who know better.
+ > You have the majority of Usenetters who reply to posts jeopardy
+ > style, then you have the good Usenauts who don't. etc, etc, etc...
+
+ Of course, there are people who are smarter than average, and I think
+ Usenetters in general fall into that category. But just because I
+ (err--we) are smarter than average doesn't mean the average is low. It
+ just means that we're quite smart. :)
Why the (err-we), are you directly insulting my intelligence?
I made no attempt to insult yours, but if this is your course
of argument, let me know now, so we can either agree to disagree,
or killfile each other ( I would rather not do that ).
Best Wishes,
anm
--
/*-------------------------------------------------------.
| Andrew N. McGuire |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
`-------------------------------------------------------*/
------------------------------
From: lop@k
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: how to enter a bug report against linux?
Date: 29 May 2000 12:42:44 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>How would a problem reported to the sane
>developers ever even make it into the kernel bug tracking database?
It does not idiot. A sane application bug is entered in the sane
bug tracking database.
This is no brain surgery (may be for you). The same way you decided
to send you email message to sane mailing list, you instead enter
the bug to the sane bug database.
>Are you
>saying that a problem reported to the cdrecord developer couldn't
>potentially be related to a bug in the Linux SCSI code?
If you worried about posting a bug to the wrong application and others
not finding about it, this is easy to solve. Think. Think.
------------------------------
From: poru@kl
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: how to enter a bug report against linux?
Date: 29 May 2000 12:32:30 -0700
In article <8gtrsf$fik$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Peter says...
>My point here is, I repeat, that linux is a success measured in terms
>of social impact, numbers of deployed systems, and economic influence.
In this case, then windows is 100's of times more success than Linux,
since it depolyed in millions more systems and used by millions
more people than Linux.
>then you had better first explain why it is a success without
>it.
The above shows your level of thinking is so shallow and you can't
see a little ahead.
Everything can be improved. Do not think in black and white terms
like a little kid. Think in terms of how a process can be improved.
Very successfull organizations in the world are improving and making
changes to their process everyday to try to become better and to
produce a better product. If they do not, they will eventually die.
Linux has managed to pull things togother so far in an adhoc fashion
with little engineering process involved becuase the kernel so far
was relatively a small program. It is only now that it starting
to become large enough that people need to start thinking about
these things.
A 500,000 lines C program is large, yet in relative sizes, it is small.
VMS is about 7 millions lines of code, NT is 30 millions, Solaris
is about 10 millions, OS390 go to be over 10 millions, etc..
As the linux kernel grow in size and becomes more
complex and more pepole start to use it and work on it, starting
to use better engineering process to manage the task becomes more
important.
>_My_ theory
.. stupid theory snipped..
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JoeX1029)
Subject: Re: I wish I could replace Windows with Linux.....
Date: 29 May 2000 20:22:48 GMT
try BeOS PRO it's supposed to be the best fro graphics/multimedia
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 16:22:15 -0400
From: sandrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: I wish I could replace Windows with Linux.....
John Gluck wrote:
>
> Tom wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > I have a gig of RAM, so it's not the RAM requirements that are choking
> > it.
> >
> [snip]
>
> By default most linux distributions don't see more than 64 Megs of RAM.
> You need to tell the kernel at boot time that you have more.
> I have 256Megs so in /etc/lilo/conf i added a line that says: append
> "mem=256M" (if i remember the syntax correctly)
>
> There are several ways to check if you are using all your ram.
> One is in the KDE control center, choose information memory
> Second is do a top command. That will show you all processes but will
> also give you info about memory usage.
> --
> John Gluck (Passport Kernel Design Group)
>
Actually John it`s a BIOS problem, the BIOS under reports the amount of
RAM.
It doesn`t happen on all PC motherboards, some will report it correctly
some won`t. That is why on some Intel systems you have to put the
append line in lilo.conf.
--
"You can open self extracting archives using PKZIP25.EXE
or unrar" - censored by Microsoft."
"You can unzip a self extracting .EXE with WinZip" -BANNED BY MICROSOFT"
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Tholen's Thole tholenated - Thread now tholenified
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 20:39:02 GMT
Shock Boy wrote:
>
> "Marty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Shock Boy wrote:
> > >
> > > "Marty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > Shock Boy wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Mayor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > > > In article <0_WW4.10747$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > > > > >Mayor writes:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >>> Christopher Smith writes:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >>>>>> We sic Tholen onto you.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >>>>> Who is "we"?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >>>> We is us.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >>> Who is "us"?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >> Us is "we", obviously.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >Classic circular reasoning.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > If A=B does not B=A?
> > > > >
> > > > > And that does nothign to tell you
> > > >
> > > > What it does "nothign" to tell us is irrelevant. What you can prove
> > > > is relevant.
> >
> > Note: no response.
>
> No response
Restating the obvious?
> as you did not ask a question to respond to.
Irrelevant, as a question is not a necessary precondition for a response.
> > > > > if in actuality, A=B
> > > >
> > > > Illogical. A=B is a given. Haven't you been paying attention?
> > >
> > > You stated "IF". Not that it "IS".
> >
> > Attribution problems, Shock Boy? I made no such statement. More evidence
> > of your reading comprehension problems.
> >
> > However, whether or not I stated such a thing is irrelevant, as "us = we"
> > is a given.
>
> Sorry, that is not correct..
Evidence, please.
> The population of "Us" and "we" may be the same,
Aren't you sure?
> but they are not 100% equatable.
On what basis do you make this claim?
> "we" denotes that the group is in the subject of a sentence, where as "us"
> is the objective case of "we".
>
> Subjective case is not fully equal to the objective case.
I see you are resorting to a semantic argument since your logical argument has
run dry. No surprise there.
> All you can state is that the "Population of We" = "Population of Us".
Incorrect. Witness the fact that I have stated more than this fact.
> Their location/position, however, differs.
Take that up with Christopher Smith, who said:
CS] We is us.
------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why only Microsoft should be allowed to create software
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 20:39:58 GMT
"Joe Ragosta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <43uY4.4218$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
> > The installer that does this is downloaded from the website, too;
> > it does not "upload whatever info they want"; that would be
> > prohibitively expensive. Potentially, Windows Update might
> > check every bloody file in C:\Windows; uploading all that to
> > Microsoft would take a long, long time.
>
> On a 200 baud modem, sure.
>
> Let's say that there are 1000 files in the C:\Windows directory. Then,
> let's say that there are an average of 100 bytes in each path name. That
> means you only have to upload about 100 kb--hardly prohibitively
> expensive.
I tried to have it count them for me, but the Win98 file-find applet
gave up after finding 10,000 files in my C:\Windows directory.
(And that's not counting the stuff in C:\Program Files\ that
Windows Update needs to check)
And the pathname isn't enough. You also need the content of the version
resource for files that have them, and probably modification date/times.
You don't really need all this info for an update, but Windows Update
does not know what files it will need to check until its time to update.
Uploading all the necessary info would be, um, painful.
That's why they download a program to do the checks, instead.
------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 20:40:00 GMT
"Joseph" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Daniel Johnson wrote:
[snip]
> > > A lie is only as good as the money it's printed on so who cares what
is
> > > said as long as there is increasing shareholder value.
> >
> > That's a remarkably unintelligable sentance you've got there.
>
> MS isn't credible, MS is profitable. As long as MS is profitbale the
> shareholders are happy. Blaming and demonizing their opponents isn't
> going to protect MS IF the stock drops and doesn't recover due to a
> pending company split.
Well, that's true. Not terribly important though.
[snip]
> > Oh, I dunno. You are assuming the DoJ will win this thing; MS seems
> > to be betting they can beat this on appeal.
>
> That's why I think they'll be sued by the shareholders. MS lost the
> trial when the facts and law were being established. Now MS has a
> devestating Finding of Fact but MS says that on appeal they can win.
I dunno; I hear the more virulent MS-bashers saying that the finding of fact
is utterly damning and totally unappealable- but I don't hear any *credible*
sources sayings either of these things.
MS, I suspect, hopes to overturn enough of the finding of fact to gut it.
A ruling, for instance, that "intel based desktop PCs" aren't a market
in the Sherman Act sense would do that nicely.
> > If they are wrong, they may face some shareholder complaints about
> > their conduct during the trial; even if they never had a chance with
Judge
> > Jackson presiding, it still does not mean they should've acted as
> > goofy as they did.
>
> They had a chance with the judge but screwed it up early on by insulting
> him and not cooperating. They created their own problems. Why will
> they not continue to do so on appeal?
Ah, that is possible. If MS's arrogance is just incurable, they could
be in for a world of hurt. But we'll see.
> > Nevertheless, Bill Gates has a pretty good explaination for why he
> > didn't settle: tried it once, didn't work.
>
> The explanation might be a large liability. If the remedy hurts
> shareholder value then the shareholders can sue on the basis that
> Management did NOT negotiate in the good faith they insist. The
> shareholders were mislead.
I don't see how you could make much of a case for *that*.
Not that that would stop anyone from suing. This is America, after all. :D
> > > Like crummy software, MS's defense is supposed to get better on
appeal,
> > > the next release. Well if it doesn't get better MS managent could
well
> > > be be sued for making misleading statements to the shareholders.
> >
> > I think the theory is not that MS's defence will get better, but that
they
> > believe they'll get a court that doesn't have it in for them.
>
> That presupposes MS will change their behavior at a time they need to be
> even more agressive.
No, I don't think that it fdoes. It presupposes that the Judge in this case
wasn't being objective, and that the next one will be.
Whether *that* is true is another story,.
But it doesn't presuppose anything about Microsoft's behavior.
> The appeals court is no more tolerant than the
> conservative, Reagan appointed trial judge.
Honestly, so far the appeals court seems to have been significantly
more forgiving.
> On appeal they have to work
> with the Finding of Fact and that means they need to undercut the law -
> "Yeah we did these things but so what? The law doesn't apply...."
> That means they'll need to be careful to represent case law within the
> the context of the case law least they anger the three judges.
Well, they could try to get parts of the finding of fact overturned on
the theory that they aren't facts, but legal judgements dressed up
as facts. I dunno if they'll try that, but it's probably their best bet to
keep
the finding of fact from getting recycled in future cases.
If they could manage that, they coudl argue that the
things they've admittedly done are legal.
(They could also go for broke and try to get the Sherman Act
overturned; but that's what we might call a 'long shot' there.. :D )
> > Whether this is true, of course, remains to be see; but there are some
> > promising indicators.
>
> Most say it cannot get worse but it can.
Oh, I admit it could get worse for MS. The appeals court
seems favorable, but what if the alienate him?
------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 20:40:02 GMT
"Joseph" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Daniel Johnson wrote:
[snip]
> > Yes; as you point out, hardware and software are different. Software
> > manufacturing is very, very cheap compared to hardware manufacturing.
> >
> > But software design is very expensive, and the demands placed on it
> > are growing faster than the demands placed on hardware.
>
> So too is hardware design expensive and errors are less tolerable - one
> does not download a harware patch.
Yes, you've said this, and I've disputed it. Software has to cope with
an unknown and unknowable environment; it can't be tested
as a unit in place.
> A superior metric for pricning is profit margins. MS has the highest
> profit margins and they are the ones give us consumers the least cost
> reduction.
They also give us consumers the most feature improvements.
> > > Hardware is programming logic and it too needs to be designed.
> >
> > Some of it is; CPU design is comparable. But most of a computer
> > is simpler than that.
>
> A computer CPU is very difficult because it not only has to be very
> reliable, it has to be done cost effectively.
*Everything* has to be done "cost effectively"; that's a truism. CPUs are
not as bug-free as you seem to think. They do not have to be complete
without design flaws.
> > Even a CPU is *much* simpler than a large software project, like
> > Windows 2000. It's not *simple*, of course, but the really big software
> > systems are just mind-numblingly complicated.
>
> Still MS's profit margins are so excessive the argument is moot. If
> they did have higher costs, it would show in their profits.
I don't know what you are refering to when you talk about "profits";
they certainly would not show up in Microsoft's gross profit, and
after that it gets to be very complicated. Whether it shows up in MS's
profits depends a lot on accounting.
> > Which may be a Bad Thing (tm); many have argued against such
> > complexity. It's just that nobody has found a way to deliver the
> > functionality that is in demand without it.
>
> I would also argue MS's proreection of a monopoly makes their software
> more costly,
You can *say* that, but can you show it to be true?
> integration is bad software engineering.
I don't agree.
> > > It also
> > > has to be orders of magnitude more reliable than a MS software
product.
> >
> > No, actually, it doesn't. Most hardware is assembled by manufacturers,
> > not end users; they have a fairly clear idea of what it will be working
> > with, and can test the configurations they sell.
>
> A CPU is better tested and more reliable than any stand alone MS
> software product.
*Really*?
> They which often have need for repair without any
> consideratons for 3rd party addons or any hardware specific defects.
I can't interpret this sentence. Intel's CPUs have had defects
serious enough to require replacement on occasion. Most
defects, of course, are not that bad.
> > Software has to work, as if by magic, on practically any hardware
> > and with practically any other software that happens to be there;
> > and you do not get to test the configuration in advance.
>
> Credit the CPU makers for doing a superior job of backwards
> compatibility. MS doens't load CPU and platffrom specific codes to
> correct for hardware differences.
Sure they do. They do it seamlessly so you don't notice it, but
they do it. This is why, for instance, DirectX can take advantage of
MMX instructions, but still runs if they aren't there.
And of course, computers are so much more than just CPUs.
Windows must low approach bus enumerators depending
on whether you are using ISA, EISA, Microchannel, PCI or whatnot.
Similarly different enumerators are needed for IDE vs SCSI.
And there's so much more.
A PC manufacture does not need to worry about EISA if
he doesn't support it; he doesn't have to because Microsoft
takes care of it. Software talks to Windows, and Windows
deals with whatever the PC throws at it.
> > > Still prices are dropping, not increasing.
> >
> > However, functionality isn't increasing very much; computers have
> > more storage and run faster, but don't offer very much in the new
> > features department.
>
> Functionality is increasing. The smaller size and power consumption are
> features.
Sure. So are those extra buttons some companies put on their
keyboards, for that matter. But it's pretty rinky-dink compared to
what MS does.
> > They expect the software to do that, for the most part.
>
> We do?
Sure; these days PC makes rely *heavily* on Microsoft's work.
They provide cheaper modems, for instance, by offloading most
of the hard stuff onto driver software. This works *only* because
the OS they are running abstracts modem access so programs
can't tell they aren't talking to a real modem. On OSes with more
primitive services, like most Unixes, the OS offers less abstraction,
and these WinModems are largely unsupported.
They *could* be supported, theoretically, if the hardware makers
provided some emulation mechanism, so the cheap win modems
would look like normal modems to the software. But they don't,
because that would cost money.
> > A new Linux distribution is hardly a new OS.
>
> Windows98, SE and ME are hardly a new OS. Even Win95 was a evolution of
> DOS and Windows WFWG.
It's pretty silly to equate the DOS->Windows 98SE development to
rolling a new distribution of Linux toegether.
> > My point, I think, remains unscathed: most of the software development
> > technologies and techniques that have come out over the years do not
> > apply to OS design.
>
> Baloney. Even old OS/2 has a modular design and is mostly written in
> C/C++.
As I *said*, C++ is an exception to this trend. Find me something
*other* than C++, and I will take it a bit more seriously.
> As MS defines the OS a vast majority of software does indeed
> fall under these technqiues.
I think not. Perhaps you have an example, though?
> > There really isn't anything that can help you build,
> > say, a VM subsystem in the way that Visual Basic will help you build
> > a (simple) user interface.
>
> Visual basic is a bad exmaple. I'm not sure many software packages we
> use today are made in the crippled product visual basic.
Oh, come now. Visual Basic is very good at what it does. True, it
doesn't do all that *much*, but that's the problem with specialized
tools- and that is why you can't expect to use most of them for
OS work.
You couldn't use PowerBuilder either, you know.
> > Hell, quite a few don't even apply to *shrinkwrap application* design;
> > they are really for custom apps.
>
> Visual basic is a bad choice as an example. Powerful frameworks for
> program development exist. MS used MFC for IE and IE is part of the
> Windows OS. Sun offers SWING.
Erm, MFC is not exactly a shining beacon of progress. It's a rather
crude object wrapper around Win32 that can be retargeted (with some
effort) for multiple platforms. It's fine as far as it goes, but that isn't
very far at all.
It is *not* comparable to Visual Basic, or even Delphi. Never mind
the *fancy* stuff that's out there.
It's *completely* useless for anything low level in an OS, and
while it can be used for user interface stuff once you get up to
writing applets, it doesn't buy you much.
I don't know Swing, so I'll withhold comment. It *is* possible
that its a remarkable step forward in some way, but it is not
seriously plausible for Microsoft to write their OS in Java,
and I believe that that is required to use Swing.
A better example of the kind of thing I'm talking about is
not Swing but Enterprise Java Beans, which from what little
I've heard, sound very keen.
------------------------------
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