Linux-Advocacy Digest #47, Volume #30 Sat, 4 Nov 00 23:13:02 EST
Contents:
Re: IBM to BUY MICROSOFT!!!! ("Weevil")
Re: Ethernet efficiency (was Re: Ms employees begging for food) (Joe Doupnik)
Re: Linux growth rate explosion! (Goldhammer)
Re: 2.4 Kernel Delays. ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: Why should I keep advocating Linux? ("Colin R. Day")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Weevil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM to BUY MICROSOFT!!!!
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 21:28:14 -0600
Bruce Schuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:Zf%M5.122784$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:NlZM5.13020$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > "Bruce Schuck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:VyXM5.122687$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > >
> > > >
> > > > No, your notion of Linux involvement comes strictly from your
> > > > overactive imagination. English speakers or not, everyone
> > > > knows there are ego problems among the *bsd's (hence the
> > > > plural form) and thus that their counter claims of superiority are
> > > > questionable.
> > >
> > > I've seen the long long list of Linux security advisories on various
> > distro
> > > makers.
> > >
> > > I'll stand by what I said. Linux is insecure.
> >
> > Note that those bugs are all fixed. Where is the current problem
> > that can be exploited with anywhere near the ease of sending
> > a trojan to some outlook users? You are also trying to confuse
> > raw numbers with real statistics. A Microsoft distribution would
> > have to include about $10,000 worth of add-on third party programs
> > (which, in fact, most offices have installed...) to match the number
> > of applications that come up in a Linux distribution. Most of the
> > warnings you see are about applications that happen to be included
> > in the distributions, not the Linux kernel itself.
>
> I'm sure the NT kernel is just as secure as the Linux kernel. Neither of
> them are too vulnerable without any services connecting them to a network.
>
> :)
>
> > To be fair you
> > would have to include all the warnings about all the apps you
> > might run under windows (like exchange being an open relay
> > if you expose it to the internet).
>
> Not with 5.5 and up.
>
> > The fact that a distribution
> > does not include a needed service doesn't make it a bit more
> > secure after you add what you need to run.
>
> I really like this testimonial from the OpenBSD site:
>
> few] years ago I was just getting into system administration. I learned
> Linux first. Then one of our old (I mean *really* old) BSDi servers
crashed,
> and it was up to me to rebuild the system.
> I looked at FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux. In the end, it came down
to
> "secure and stable" that took the prize. OpenBSD 2.1 was installed.
>
> Since then, I've run 2.1-2.5 on everything from production servers to
> laptops. We've never (repeat: NEVER) had a break-in.
>
> A coworker setup a RedHat based box to test his skills at setting up SSL
and
> a secure web site. It was hacked literally overnight, and by the next
> morning was attacking other sites.
>
You like testimonials? Here's another:
============================================================================
"Life after moving Cats [an order fulfillment and inventory system] to NT
was a nightmare. The system was crashing two to three times a day with no
reason that I could find. I was on the phone with Microsoft and Cats
constantly, but nobody could figure it out. Microsoft had me apply Service
Packs one through three and a few HotFixes, which helped, but it still was
crashing at least twice a week with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death".
After many weeks and about $1500.00 in phone support from Microsoft, the
technical support rep told me that I should find a better software package
than The Cat's Pajamas. This was not the solution I was looking for, since
this is the package that a sizeable percentage of presses our size
nationwide are running, so I was forced to bring the old Novell server back
into production until I could figure something out. . . . Fourteen months
later, we are running Linux as our server. "
-- Quinn P. Coldiron, University of Nebraska Press's Information Systems
Department Manager
============================================================================
Want another?
============================================================================
"I was reading your web page article and thought you might like a rather
graphic example of the difference between NT's at command and cron.
I have been involved in migrating some web and FTP services from a Solaris
platform to NT (don't ask!), and there was a need to move a scheduled task
that was previously handled by cron and some Korn shell scripts.
The scripts were re-written in Perl in short order, but the scheduling of
the task turned out to be a headache.
The task needs to run every 3 minutes. Under UNIX this meant a single,
although ugly, entry listing the minutes in the hour. Under NT this meant
making 720 entries into the Scheduler using at (one for each discrete
time -- 20 per hour with 24 hours). Needless to say I wrote a Perl script to
do that. For ease of re-use (and since I expect to need it again), I set it
up to read and attempt to re-create a cron file. And even so, I can't
duplicate the full functionality of cron. I can't schedule items to occur on
specific months for instance. I would need to add a special task to start up
periodically and change the currently scheduled list of jobs. What a kludge!
Neil McKellar
============================================================================
Yeah, I know the subject is security. But you started throwing up
testimonials, and I happened to run across a page full of them. Here's
another:
============================================================================
"From an administrator perspective, I have a very difficult time taking an
operating system seriously when it needs 128 megs of RAM, two 200-Mhz
processors and 8 gigs of hard drive space just to run a small intranet web
server, especially when the OS crashes and reboots from a simple, standard
TCP packet. NT is just impossible to consider when reliability and speed are
required. You could perform the same task I mentioned above on a 386 with 16
megs of RAM running FreeBSD, without paying the high Microsoft price tag.
============================================================================
Just curious, Bruce...does Win2K have the same Win32 API all its
predecessors had? I mean, I know it has gobs of new functionality and all,
but does it still have things like mciDoSomething() and AVIDoSomething() and
all those other time-tested Win32 functions?
jwb
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Joe Doupnik)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.arch,comp.os.netware.misc
Subject: Re: Ethernet efficiency (was Re: Ms employees begging for food)
Date: 4 Nov 00 20:08:42 MDT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Patrick Farrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Timothy A. Seufert" wrote:
>>
>> In article <A9KM5.12881$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Les
>> Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> >Actually putting in any 10/100 switch can shake out cable problems
>> >in systems that ran fine at 10M. You really want cat 5 everywhere,
>> >including the jumpers from the wall to PC. Apparently some
>> >noise that would be ignored by 10M equipment confuses them.
>>
>> In my experience, a common cabling mistake that gets caught by this is the
>> one where the cables were made assuming that the mapping between twisted
>> pairs and RJ45 pins is (1,2) (3,4) (5,6) (7,8) instead of the correct
>> (1,2) (3,6) (4,5) (7,8). 10M will sort of run on such cables if they're
>> short enough, 100M will fall flat on its face.
>>
>> -- Tim
>> To mail me unsolicited advertisements: Move to Siberia. Wait until I
>> say it's OK to send. Everybody else, remove "noUCE." from my address.
>
> That's because wires 1 2 3 and 6 are used in the connector (why not 1,2,3,4 I
> have no idea :), and if you wire them without splitting the pairs, you no longer
> have the positive signal twisted around the negative signal and thus you lose
> the "shielding" effect achieved by the positive and negative signals canceling
> each others noise out. Or so I understand it.
>
> Patrick
========
That's rather close. Splitting the pairs causes massive crosstalk
between the Tx and Rx circuits and that means instant collision detection
for HDX work. This is transformer action between wires (unfortunately,
the wrong wires). Splitting pairs is very bad.
There are standards on RJ45 pinouts and even color coding.
Follow them rigorously and avoid trouble for the people replacing you.
One reference is to use a web browser to netlab1 or netlab2.usu.edu,
choose the "Search the FAQ" item on the opening page, and in the search
box type 568B. Use the "See Match In Doc" choice at the right to zero in
on the reference.
Joe D.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Goldhammer)
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux growth rate explosion!
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2000 03:50:11 GMT
On Sat, 4 Nov 2000 18:56:15 -0800,
Simon Cooke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"Goldhammer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:%N3N5.35894$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On Sat, 4 Nov 2000 11:27:15 -0800,
>> Bruce Schuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >Access is a great starting point.
>> >If you get busy you can upgrade later
>> >to something robust like SQL Server.
>>
>>
>> Are you trying to suggest that Access isn't robust?
>> Many experienced individuals would agree with you.
>>
>> So Access is a toy, and when the chips are down and you
>> have serious work to do, write off the money you spent
>> on Access and move up to MS SQL server, where you finally
>> see a semblance of functionality which was available under
>> *nix workalikes for free in the first place.
>
>No; it's not designed for server applications.
Then why is Schuck reccommending a migration path from
Access to MS SQL server? If Access is the solution for
low-end moron DB Rad-design applications, why even say
that SQL server is an upgrade path for Access users?
You people should rehearse your pre-digested
disinformation scripts more often.
>For low-user counts or
>single-user work, it's great.
No it isn't. I've used Access in a professional context
for a long time, until Access 97, after which
I simply refused to offer any further support or
development with this product to my contractors.
Access is an interesting toy that captivates
people who know nothing about database management.
After walking through a silly tutorial, the buyer of
the Access product says to himself: hey, I just created
a database with a nice interface. kewl. However, this
novelty wears off very quickly once you start having
to _manage_ the monstrosities you have created
with Access.
> It's also much faster than most SQL
>implementations.
No it isn't. Access, and it's underlying technology
of Jet, DAO, VBA, etc, is unbelievably slow. No bullshit
benchmarks are going to convince me that my personal
professional experience of Access performance is
somehow mistaken. I have used Access since its inception
until Access 97, and I have found its performance to
be utterly pathetic and absolutely unacceptable. Under no
circumstances would I ever recommend Access to handle DBs
involving more than two or three tables of 10k records each.
>It also binds to MSDE (free download), which lets you
> use a cut down version of MS SQL Server for testing.
Who cares? I can get standards-compliant SQL for free under
BSD, Unix, or Linux. Why do I need to bother with MS's
bastardization?
>Not to mention that it'll also connect to any ODBC database.
So will just about any DB product, including Perl DBI. This
is something Schuck hasn't figured out yet.
--
Don't think you are. Know you are.
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: 2.4 Kernel Delays.
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 23:04:26 -0500
Chad Myers wrote:
> "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Chad Myers wrote:
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Does it matter? If fact is, they do. You and others were ignorantly
> > > claiming that if Redmond got nuked (how cute, by the way), that Windows
> > > would be lost forever which is simply rediculous.
> > >
> >
> > But even if code survives, there are still a few issues. First, who owns
> > the code? Second, would that owner(s) be able to control changes to the
> > code?
>
> There would certainly be someone left alive from MS, regardless,
> MS would be done and the remaining employees or an appointed lawyer (assuming
> all the lawyers died as well) would be responsible for selling the
> remainder of the assets to pay off debts in good faith. Someone would
> purchase it in an auction (probably IBM) and either throw it away (unlikely)
> or continue producing Windows and assume leader in the multi-billion dollar
> market of the desktop OS.
But Windows isn't just the code. Who could stringarm the OEM's into
preinstalling it?
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,alt.linux.sucks
Subject: Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever
Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2000 04:08:15 GMT
Ayende Rahien wrote:
>
> What does MIME types has to do with VBS/JS?
Opening.
> Use two explorer windows and switch between them.
> Or use command line.
That's indeed what I often do. But, you still have to do
the very same process (navigate to source, navigate to destination)
in both. So it helps only for more than one copy.
> True for anything, but outlook has better help than 99% of the cli tools.
Man, you need to look at the man pages for Linux. You're talking about
Windoze help, which, quite frankly, is bad. It's almost as bad
as help on the old Atari ST.
>
> > > Can you please inform me what you can do in Vi that you can't in Word.
> > > Or even what you can do much more easily in Vi than in Word.
> >
> > Edit source code. For that task, vi is the best. You barely have to move
> > your fingers... no need to stretch for the Alt key (just the Shift and
> Ctrl
> > keys)... no need to leave the home position to find the mouse. Quick
> > context searches, repetition of edit operations, very slick and fast.
> > No waiting for the WSIWYG to catch up, no bugs because you're using the
> > newest version of Word.
>
> For editing source code, an IDE is the best, period.
Now, that is pure bullshit, in my experience. IDE editors are
the weakest, lamest programmer's editors you could ever use.
Have you ever used CodeWright, my man? A Windows programmer's
editor, very powerful. Of course, you pay a heck of a lot for
it, still, it is very useful. I only edit in the IDE when
the editing task is small. Otherwise, CodeWright is much faster.
> But I've used Word to edit source code, it does the work.
Ever compare the load times between Word and a programmer's editor?
> If you use shift/ctrl, you don't need to stretch your fingers to the alt.
?????
> And word can be fully functional without a mouse.
Yes, I have always liked the ability of Windows to be useful without
a mouse.
> Define quick context search?
Various contexts: the next letter, the next word, the end of line,
the end of the paragraph, then end of the block of code, the next
search target.
Various commands: insert, delete, change, yank, put
COMMAND CONTEXT
Very simple. Almost always much easier than "select with the mouse,
then edit or replace or cut".
> Define repetition of edit operations?
Do one of the above, or some other atomic operation.
Then move to the next desired edit location. Hit the period
key. It is done.
>
> WSIWYG? Do you mean WYSIWYG?
>
> > Edit HTML (a special case of the above). You can do that with Word,
> > but you end up with unsatisfactory HTML.
>
> HTML editing in Word?
> Editing HTML in WYSIWYG is usually a bad thing.
We are agreed, then, on this issue.
> You can turn off the unneccecary HTML, (I believe that you can do it in
> Word. I know that you can do it in FP2000)
> Although, if you want full control, write the HTML in word, and later copy &
> paste the code to a txt file, and save it as htm/html.
Just did that this evening with a Word 2000 document. Microsoft is
serious about this xml stuff. The styles are XML embedded in comments.
May be a change worth it, for Word, this time!
>
> > > For that matter, what do you complain about the single windows manager
> in
> > > windows.
> >
> > Because it is painfully slow to use.
>
> Slow how?
> You mean in response time?
Response time, definitely. Windows does not multitask very well from
the perspective of the human user. Foreground jobs don't get enough of
the time slice.
> Or the way you do things?
Well, I ain't perfect, but I am lazier and pickier than many people.
So I work extra hard to find the easy way of doing things. I usually
end up loading an old old version of the MKS ToolKit so's I can have
a decent vi clone.
> > I didn't know that -- I tend to go straight to the CMD in Wind-ohs.
>
> Well, you live and learn.
We all do, hopefully.
>
> It is also very easy to lose files using the NT Explorer GUI.
>
> How?
Drag, then your fingers slip. Since NT directories aren't masked
with permissions by default, your file will drop into whatever directory
your mouse cursor was over when your finger slipped. Curses, gotta search.
Luckily, the recent vintages of Windoze provided the Undo key, Ctrl-Z.
> > Too many prompts, too, in places where you can't configure them out.
>
> Examples?
Ooops, I ran Windows Messenger instead of Windows NT Explorer by typing
Ctrl-Esc/P/W instead of Ctrl-Esc/P/W/W. Now I have to answer three prompts
to stop that erroneous task.
> > Poor selection of utilities. You have to buy a Resource Kit to get
> > many items that come standard with Linux.
>
> You've a point.
Basically, what makes me happier about Linux than NT or 2000 is that
the whole set of tools is free, or at least much much cheaper than
the Windows workstation operating systems. Yet you actually get a
workstation OS plus a server OS. The documentation is very cheap,
the online help is not a big secret, you only need to buy books
if you like the heft of a big-ass bible in your lap while you're
sitting on the toilet studying.
You get tons of screensavers, tools, window managers, databases,
compilers for C/C++, Java, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Python, shell-scripts,
network tools, games, desktop themes (not just color, font, and size
selection), window managers, text-processors, spreadsheets, word
processors, secure shells, man, the list is endless, really, and you
either pay the price of some download time, or about $30, to get all
of this (four disks with Red Hat, more with SuSE). And much of it
is high quality, and the stuff that isn't of quite such
high quality, is still very useful and to-the-point. There are some
monolithic pain-in-the-ass applications in Linux, if you like that
kind of gooie stuff. But even the simplest of CLI programs can
become a significant part of a string of piped commands.
Why should I pay even the $50 upgrade fee for ME, when I can
upgrade Linux for $30, or for a couple hours of download time and
disk burning? Sure, I still have a crippled SCSI card that
Win supports, but Lin doesn't. But, for the money I saved using
Linux, I can buy some compatible hardware!!!!
With Windows only, I could barely afford my machine and an old machine
for my daughter. With Linux, I can buy three desktops and two lap
tops and outfit them all with a powerful server OS, with no guilt
about installing illegal copies of Windows application software
stolen from work.
Of course, at work they think differently, but at least they're paying.
And they pay me to work around Windows problems. So I shouldn't
complain about Windows. Should I? After all, like war, Windows
drives the engine of the economy, nicht wahr?
Chris
--
Bill Gates, and see if he pays up.
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why should I keep advocating Linux?
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 23:09:03 -0500
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> "Charlie Ebert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> skrev i meddelandet
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > He is a classic example of a person who has
> > NO PRIVATE CONVICTION but rather
> > has sold his SOLE and in it's place has
> > inserted MICROSOFT.
>
> Windows is used by 92% on the desktop, and about 40 % on the server
> market...Windows wins...*nix loose...
Sorry, but reality is not a product of voting.
Colin Day
------------------------------
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