Linux-Advocacy Digest #318, Volume #28 Tue, 8 Aug 00 23:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Are Linux people illiterate? (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says Linux
growth stagnating (Christopher Browne)
Re: Paging BIG DON ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Paging BIG DON ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Dresden's copyrights (Just curious, how do I do this in Windows?) (R.E.Ballard (
Rex Ballard ))
Re: Big Brother and the Holding Company ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Sucking fees? Please help ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Big Brother and the Holding Company (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says (Jacques
Guy)
Re: Sucking fees? Please help ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: What I've always said: Netcraft numbers of full of it (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard
))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Are Linux people illiterate?
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 01:14:54 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8l22th$94$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > In article <8l1un0$dob$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > > "MH" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This is very funny. Debating the "illiteracy" of people who
don't speak english.
> > > "Payed" is much more logical than "paid".
> > > Just try to *logically*
> > > explain why "shure" is a misspelling.
Mark Twain once said:
"It takes a small mind
to spell a word only one way"
> > To understand the root for the illogical
> > spelling rules of the english
> > language we have to consider the
> > source of the language as well as the
> > traditions and culture that surrounded it.
As one of my english teachers put it "English is a bastard
language for a bastard race" (I am of English decent).
The fact is that North American English, especially the dialects
spoken in the southwest and New York/New Jersey, is really an
international language.
> > Logic was never a part of the development
> > of the spelling rules of the english language.
> >
> > English is a large and rich and evolving language
> > with multiple ways to say the same thing
> > --all with equal validity.
> > The English language has an inheritance from the
You forgot the Angles (from which the word English is derived)
> > Picts, Celts, Vikings, Romans, Normans, Angelo, Saxons,
> > Jutes, Francs, and many other peoples.
Essentially, each race conquered the previous race, and the
conquered race gradually adopted the language to communicate
with their conquerers. Later, when Britian became an Empire,
new words were added to communicate with their colonies.
In fact, almost none of the original "Anglish" actually exists,
other than a few simple words and pronouns.
> > These sources provides us a large
> > pallete of words, phrases, and idioms to select from.
> > Many meanings have multiple ways of being stated and
> > many words also have multiple meanings--all valid.
Essentially, it wasn't really until the early 18th century
that any attempt to standardise the language was made.
> > When that became too much of a problem,
> > the crown commissioned the
> > development of the standard speller
> > an dictionary for the language of the English.
Since that time, numerous people, most notably George Bernard Shaw,
attempted to create a "Phonetic English". Indeed, the use of "Phonics"
in the classroom has often led to a push to a more standardized
spelling.
The biggest problem of course is that if you try to write the way
they speak in TaxArkana (Texas, Arkansas, Louisianna), even phonetic
english get complicated:
Jeetjet
noju
lesgweet
Translated:
Did you eat yet?
No, did you?
Let's go eat!
> > However, I will close with mixed language statement:
> >
> > ( ( 2 * b ) || !( 2 * b ) ) tolerant is the question.
Can I steal that quote? (with attribution of course!)
> --
> Aaron R. Kulkis
> Unix Systems Engineer
>
> A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 42 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says
Linux growth stagnating
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 01:23:45 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )
would say:
>How much does Microsoft pay these guys? Dresting Black has posted
>over 1559 articles to COLA, and an additional 892 articles to COMNA.
The motivation behind this all is _quite_ confusing.
On the one hand, it is quite evident that with the _HUGE_ amounts that
get written, these guys have _got_ to have some sigificant motivation,
or a _serious_ case of "nothing _better_ to do."
In the case of "Tim Palmer" aka "all sorts of aliases," it would be
unsurprising if he's a high school student who gets his jollies out
of ripping virtual raspberries at Linux. It's quite a bit sad if he
had nothing more meaningful to do with his time than that.
Drestin Black is a bit confusing in motivation; he writes a better
"spun" story which would make it not unbelievable that he might be
a "Microsoft contractor," paid to spin anti-Linux stories.
While it's not greatly related to COLA, John Dyson's periodic
"anti-FSF harangues" on gnu.misc.discuss are a bit bewildering to me.
Perhaps he has some contracting work that periodically pays _very_
well, and then leaves him free to spend a couple months posting flames
on gnu.misc.discuss. I would think that there is some FreeBSD coding
work he could do that would be of greater benefit to him and the world
at large than the "driveby-flamings" on the newsgroup.
On the other hand, I have a difficult time believing that Microsoft
would _want_ to have any kind of association with these people.
Some [Toilet Paper, I mean Tim Palmer, and "Stinky Boris"] write _such_
worthless rubbish as to be an outright embarassment to have associated
with Microsoft. As a result, I can't believe that Microsoft would be
anywhere near to paying them.
Drestin Black is coherent enough that it would be faintly believable,
although _were_ it the case, I'd expect any sort of payment to be
made quite indirectly. (His "porn" connections would be a bit of bad
publicity, irrespective of whether anyone feels that is "puritanical
moralism.") Directly giving these folk stock options in return for each
"Linux Bash" would not be good business, as since MSFT is a publicly
traded company, it has to be audited, and that would represent a way that
information would have a way to leak out to make MSFT look bad/stupid.
The point is that if Microsoft was hiring AntiLinux Evangelists, I'd
expect them to hire more competent evangelists, or ones that _sound_
more competent. [An associate who is a near-namesake of mine actually
got a call from Microsoft for this very "position;" they have indeed
recruited amongst _QUITE COMPETENT_ people for this purpose.]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
"Applicants must have *at least* five years experience with Windows
XCVIII..."
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Paging BIG DON
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 21:24:58 -0400
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>
> On 8 Aug 2000 20:20:48 GMT, Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> > And better watch out for those Russian women you love so much --
> >they may be trying to hitch a ride on some wonderfully gullible American
> >so they can immigrate into the US.
>
> Right on the money, Loren.
According to the US Government
Marriages surviving 5 years:
American men with Eastern European/Russian woman: 80%
American men with American women: 50%
The particular Russian girl I am involved with, had the opportunity
to just 'latch onto' a guy a couple years ago when he proposed to
her. I actually met him the same week he turned him down.
>
> There are enormous numbers of people in third world countries who want to
> immigrate to the US, and the only way to get there is through grad school,
> in math/science/engineering or through marriage. For those not so
> academically inclined ( or without a science background ), the former is not
> an option, but the latter is.
>
> You'd be surprised by how many people immigrate using this "method", and
> how many people marry for the sole purpose of immigration.
^^^^
Considering that most Russian women consider it to be the worst
of all fates to marry a Russian man (for a wide variety of significant
reasons: alcoholism; poverty induced by spending excessive amounts of
money on alcohol; heavy smoking; overall disrespect for women, etc.),
then of course, the prospect of immigration enters the picture.
Many women, actually, are rather torn about the fact that marrying
most non-Russian men pretty much requires them to move a long distance
from their family.
>
> If Kulkis is after Russian women, he'd probably be better off living in
> a country where he does *not* have citizenship, because as it stands, he's
> awfully attractive to the green card hunters.
I'm waaaaaaaaaay ahead of you.
>
> BTW, if Kulkis thinks that only American women use deception and trickery,
> he should get out more.
All women do. However, the pure con-artist mentality seems to be
widespread only among North American women.
>
> --
> Donovan
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
J: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Paging BIG DON
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 21:27:20 -0400
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>
> On Tue, 08 Aug 2000 16:02:46 -0400, Aaron R. Kulkis wrote:
>
> >> >> But why boycott *all* American women?
> >> >Because they ALL are being raised within a psychological toxic
> >> >waste dump of a culture which is filled with radical militan
> >> >feminist dehumanizing attacks on men
>
> It's not "filled with" this. Most women do not subscribe to the
> views you summarise below. The fact that there exists a kook does not
> imply that everyone ( or even anyone ) takes their opinions terribly
> seriously.
You don't get out much, do you.
>
> > > >("all men are pigs"), blanket
> >> >accusations of felonious behavior ("all men are rapists"), gross
> >> >mischaracterizations of male-female ralations ("All sex is rape")
> >> >and other sortts of "no matter what you do, girl, all of your
> >> >problems can rightly be blamed on some man" messages, which
> >> >promotes irresponsibility and blame-shifting.
>
> The above is a load of crap. I mean, sure there's a feminist militia
> guilty of all of the above, but most American women do not subscribe
> to their doctrine. The existence of kooks in a society does not discredit
> the society -- in fact perhaps the fact that they have the right to express
> absurd views could be seen in a positive light.
Ever notice how when a loud machine is in operation, after a while,
you don't even notice the fact that the thing is creating 95 decibels
of noise....but when you leave the area, or the machine is suddenly
shut down, you quickly realize how much noise the thing makes...
The same thing occurs when one leaves the North American continent.
The anti-male messages are so pervasive that you don't even
notice them anymore.
>
> --
> Donovan
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
J: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dresden's copyrights (Just curious, how do I do this in Windows?)
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 01:28:04 GMT
In article <kZ0e5.3198$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > the syntax for usage is:
> >
> > command_1 [args] [| ... [| command_n [args]]...] | tee _filename_ [|
> command_n+1 [args] ...]
> >
> > tee accepts input from standard input
> > and copies it to both standard output AND to a file named _filename_
> >
> > This should take all of ... oh... 15 minutes....even for me,
> > and I haven't written more than 3 trivial C programs in
> > the last 5 years.
> >
> > Just so everybody knows, I'm sending a copy to Drestin,
> > so that everyone knows exactly when he gets a copy of this message.
> >
> #1) I replied privately.
Awww Drestin, you took all the fun out of it.
> #2) I have no idea how to write such a thing in C,
I'm not a C programmer.
What languages do you program in? Which languages do you use
that support a command line interface?
> #3) I could perhaps write this in BASIC,
probably. But... why?
> A real programmer doesn't have to prove it to anyone...
You obviously haven't interviewed with some of the companies I've
worked with/for. In 1982, Microsoft made me send a 100 page
specification, along with 100 pages of production source code.
(much of which ended up in MS-DOS, OS/2, and NT).
Which is why they have the MCSE, so that incompetant programmers
can still get jobs playing with their drag-n-drop GUI toys.
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 42 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 01:40:41 GMT
What were you expecting, WWWF?
Claire
On 9 Aug 2000 01:14:16 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pascal Haakmat) wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Only kidding :)
>
>I ask to be in a fight with you and this is how you respond?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Sucking fees? Please help
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 01:40:42 GMT
I hope I've caught your attention with the subject line. I tried to
retrieve the posts from the sweet little old lady who recently joined
this NG smelling of fish, but (*wonderment*)... there is no trace of
her/him/it at all in DejaNews. I cannot figure that one out and, I
believe, this is the very first time that I see such a glitch (not you,
Glitch). I am curious. How can a series of posts to a newsgroup
_consistently_ fail to appear on DejaNews?
(Said sweet little old lady mentioned in a post that she was "expensive"
so I wondered if her concern could not possibly be because Linux sucks
for less than she does--clearly, Windows blows for more than she does,
that's why she doesn't mind Windows. Yet, I'd like to ferret out that
post, and DejaNews glitch (go away, Glitch!) really puzzles me).
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Date: 8 Aug 2000 21:05:23 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Yep...Linux is a dismal failure as far as the average desktop, non
>nerd person is concerned.
>
>If Gates were giving away Windows at the local computer shop or on the
>net you wouldn't even be able to get near the place.
>
Virtually everyone with a PC has paid for a copy of Windows
whether they wanted it or not. Why would anyone bother
going to get a free copy?
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 02:13:25 +0000
From: Jacques Guy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says
Christopher Browne wrote:
> The point is that if Microsoft was hiring AntiLinux Evangelists, I'd
> expect them to hire more competent evangelists, or ones that _sound_
> more competent.
Perhaps it is much simpler. Eighteen months ago I met a fellow
who mentioned "what a great company" Microsoft was. Why? He
had left Shri Lanka for the USA, was living there, had bought
Microsoft shares, and could see the time, soon, when he could
retire. Bit the same as, having bought a lottery ticket, praying
to XYZ to land a winner. With enough money riding on MSFT, it
is to be expected that some people flip their lid. There are
about 5 billion Microsoft shares about. When MSFT dropped from
$119 to $70 or so, you had people on misc.invest.stocks shrieking
for the US government to intervene, close the DOJ, impeach
Greenspan (!), and so on. I suspect this--MSFT share ownership--
might be the case for most trolls here. One exception, though:
Tim. Tim just does not compute as a troll. I think he is an
extraordinary leprechaun. But back to Wintrolls. Microsoft does
not have to pay those you see here. It would be ridiculous on
three counts:
1. Their influence is nil: how many people read COLA and the
few other NGs to which they cross-post? Deux pelés et trois
tondus, as we say in my lingo. There just isn't an audience.
2. If there were an audience, their ineptitude, their venom,
would do Microsoft only harm.
3. If my guess is right, *they* have paid Microsoft for the
privilege of Wintrolling, in the form of MSFT shares.
All in all, they have just flipped the lid. Statiscally,
there is nothing to wonder about a dozen loony-bin cases
turning up in every newsgroup (you should try sci.archaeology!)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Sucking fees? Please help
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 02:11:40 GMT
Jesus, this one is even worse than the sticky bit discussion.
Even "I" knew about that one and I'm not a programmer by any wild
stretch of the imagination.
I used to believe that Linux users were a bit more up to the technical
stuff than Windows users, but I am beginning to wonder.
Anyway............
Ok my little pet, I will educate you.
1. Get yourself a decent NewsReader, and dump Netscrape.
2. X-No-Archive is your friend.
Get it?
Got it?
Good...
Mistress Claire says lesson is over.
Claire.
BTW If you were referring to me, I don't smell like fish, and yes I am
quite expensive. Probably more than the allowance your parents give
you. But maybe if you save for a while...................
Of course, somehow I don't think you were looking to have some 78's
cleaned up and transferred to DAT using the Cedar System among others.
On Wed, 09 Aug 2000 01:40:42 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>I hope I've caught your attention with the subject line. I tried to
>retrieve the posts from the sweet little old lady who recently joined
>this NG smelling of fish, but (*wonderment*)... there is no trace of
>her/him/it at all in DejaNews. I cannot figure that one out and, I
>believe, this is the very first time that I see such a glitch (not you,
>Glitch). I am curious. How can a series of posts to a newsgroup
>_consistently_ fail to appear on DejaNews?
>
>
>(Said sweet little old lady mentioned in a post that she was "expensive"
>so I wondered if her concern could not possibly be because Linux sucks
>for less than she does--clearly, Windows blows for more than she does,
>that's why she doesn't mind Windows. Yet, I'd like to ferret out that
>post, and DejaNews glitch (go away, Glitch!) really puzzles me).
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What I've always said: Netcraft numbers of full of it
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 02:09:21 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Boris wrote:
> >
> > "mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Drestin Black wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > > [snippage]
> > > > > To simply say that the fortune 500 use NT,
> > > > > so it's good, is false. The
> > > > > fortune 500 companies can pay for
> > > > > the huge expenses that an NT
> > > > > environment will incur in exchange
> > > > > for the "strategic" business
> > > > > opportunities which the monopoly
> > > > > Microsoft provides.
Actually, even very large companies can't afford to stake
the actual critical information flow of the company on NT.
Using NT as a "vanity server" makes a lot of sense (which is
why many corporations do put the "home page" on NT servers.
You typically get handed off to a UNIX/Netscape or UNIX/Apache
box as quickly as possible though.
Microsoft knows this. But it's like so many of the other
Myths and Benchmarks published by Microsoft. The core statement
is true - in this case, most of the Fortune 500 do use NT or 2000
as their main server.
> > > > > For the merely
> > > > > normal sized companies that do not
> > > > > have the clout to grab Microsoft's
> > > > > attention and good graces,
> > > > > NT is a disaster of unreliability and poor
> > > > > cost/performance.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > unreliability and poor cost/performance?
> > > > You couldn't be more wrong and if
> > > > you'd quit living in 3.51 days you'd know this.
> > > > When is the last time anyone
> > > > not a linux zealot ever saw a blue screen?
Actually, Microsoft was acutely aware of the
instability of Windows NT and went to extraordinary
lengths to make sure that Windows 2000 was at LEAST
3 times more reliable in terms of MTBF, than NT 4.0.
This was critical because most of the NT shops were getting
to the point where the logistics of managing huge farms of
servers that crashed - even if only 2-3 times/month, and had
to be rebooted manually at least once per weeks to reduce the
risk of unscheduled autages was too much for most of the big
companies.
The admins were sneaking in Linux boxes and people would literally
forget about them. The maintenance was scripted and nondisruptive.
Linux even did their own scheduled reboots (twice a year) to get rid
of zombies.
> > > Actually, I saw one today with a dual processor domain controller.
> > Have you ever tried to research why it crashes?
I've followed a number of NT crashes, and their resolution.
> > How do you know that it's NT fault?
It's the fault of the environment and culture of NT.
It's a function of "DLL Hell", installations that create
library conflicts, and kernel mode software (see below).
> > Maybe hardware is faulty.
> > Or maybe you installed some
> > kernel-mode software which was responsible
> > for that (there're lots of 3rd party
> > kernel-mode software around: firewalls, anti-virus
> > packages, device drivers).
NT didn't support any form of interprocess communication, other than
sockets or dcom. But dcom cut performance by 90% or more when dcom
objects were used out-of-process to pass information between two
processes (as opposed to in-process COM objects).
> Any number of reasons I am sure.
> This time I was not in the "guru"
> position. I was a casual developer
> who could not access docs on an NT
> server because of it. (I explicitly did
> NOT want to be involved!)
Watching NT administrators in mighty entertaining. It's like
watching a bunch of fools try to drain a swamp full of alligators.
It's kind of amusing, until they ask you to come down and help out.
> Fortunately, I was using Linux and could work on other stuff.
> > I once worked for unix software company
> > which bought VMS box to test their software on.
> > I heard complains about that box that it crashes
> > every 2 hours.
I've worked with VMS systems before myself.
> > But VMS solutions are supposed to be the most reliable
> > ones out there.
VMS was very reliable when configured properly and managed
properly and carefully tweaked and tuned on a regular basis.
We had 5 administrators for 2 vaxen.
> > Btw, nobody in that company knew anything
> > about VMS/DEC hardware.
Who did? DEC was very proprietary, especially about their HSC
and proprietary backplanes. And the reps got as much as 10 times
the commission on the DEC proprietary products as they got on the
"Open" products. VMS was included with the VAX. By the time you
chose DEC not-SCSI, DECNet, HSC, and bliss, you were beyond the point
of no return. Unfortunately, by the time you realized that the
Tahoe (a UNIX platform) was 4 times faster than the 8600 for half
the price you just paid for the "DEC solution", there was no way out!
> > Is it a coincidence? Maybe it is and maybe it isn't.
Actually, the strained relations between the DEC reps and the
UNIX administrators was quite exciting, especially back in the
mid-1980s. The DEC reps would show up, unannounced, and do
"service calls", installing "VMS Fixes" to BSD 4.x systems.
I remember when our UNIX admin actually told the security guard
at the front door; "If the DEC rep shows up, you call me and tell
him to wait. If he tries to go upstairs, shoot him in the kneecaps".
The admin had caught the DEC rep doing a "VMS Fix" (which entailed
sticking VMS on the master drive, applying some patches, and leaving
the core UNIX pretty much dependent on a good back-up.
The admins did eventually outsmart the reps though. They demanded
that the reps make appointments, very late at night, they installed
VMS on the boot pack (back in the days of removable platters), and
let the DEC rep do his thing. Then they removed the VMS pack,
installed the UNIX pack, and had the system rebooted and running
UNIX before the rep got home.
> The guys running the NT boxes are pretty bright.
I've seen some really good NT administrators go nuts trying to
trace system failures. Typically, it's third party software
that has been installed and then broken by a new NT service pack.
SP-1 killed Netscape Enterprise, Notes Server, and several others.
SP-2 killed Cyrix chips. SP-3 killed software, but developers
made the adjustments when Microsoft promised they'd be good for
at least until 1/1/2000. Just before 2000, SP-4 broke Domino, Apache,
Enterprise, Navigator, Notes Client, and numerous other 3rd party
products. Many companies were trapped between being "non Y2K compliant"
because they hadn't implemented SP4, and having disfunctional systems
because they had implemented SP4. SP-5 and some software upgrades
have made things a bit more stable now.
Of course, some third parties still bring their own legacy DLLs
to the game, which can mess things up for post-pack upgraded software.
SunOS 3.0 had the same problems, which is why the UNIX community
adopted ELF.
> Don't shoot the messenger. It happened.
>
> --
> Mohawk Software
> Windows 9x, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
> Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
> Nepotism proves the foolishness of at least two people.
>
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 42 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
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