Linux-Advocacy Digest #78, Volume #31 Wed, 27 Dec 00 14:13:06 EST
Contents:
Re: Why Advocacy? (Ralph Miguel Hansen)
RH Support Stealing A Page From Microsoft's Book?? (Mike O'Neill)
Re: Nobody wants Linux because it destroys hard disks. (Roberto Alsina)
Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does) (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: So how do we get from here to there? (Bruce Scott TOK)
Re: So how do we get from here to there? (Bruce Scott TOK)
Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does) ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Operating Systems? Where would you go next? (Chris Wenham)
Re: Operating Systems? Where would you go next? ("Brad Wardell")
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge (mlw)
Re: Newbie: "Linux has come so far only to seem so far away" (Form@C)
Re: Windows 2000 (Matthias Warkus)
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge (Stuart Fox)
Re: Conclusion (Stuart Fox)
Re: Newbie: "Linux has come so far only to seem so far away" (Form@C)
Re: Question with Security on Linux/Unix versus Windows NT/2000 (Stuart Fox)
Re: if linux is good, why is it so easy to freez it with netscape? (Form@C)
Re: Windows 2000 ("Jeepster")
MS using Linux? (sfcybear)
Re: Question with Security on Linux/Unix versus Windows NT/2000 (mlw)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ralph Miguel Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:29:10 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
pip wrote:
> kiwiunixman wrote:
>>
>> <snype>
>>
>> >> This is unfair. Take USB, as Xmas has passed I now have a USB mouse
>> >> which worked fine under windows, yet I know that I really don't want
>> >> the pain of configuring USB under Linux and would prefer to wait until
>> >> 2.4. Linux is a better OS technically, but many end users are not as
>> >> concerned if it does not easily support hardware and perhaps more
>> >> importantly software. Linux will in time.
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > Maybe USB-support is not perfect in Linux. So I donīt buy USB-Devices
>> > because I want the OS and not a special kind of a mouse.
>> Down at my local computer store, I can either spend $189 for a Mickysoft
>> USB mouse or $50 on a decent logitec PS/2 mouse. What would you choose?
>> most poeple would know which mouse I would choose and it an't the
>> over-priced, glorified micksoft mouse.
>
> ...and this is typical of the problems of some Linux advocates. It is
> now the users fault for selecting bad hardware. Don't you both see
> problems with your argument?
>
> Also, "glorified" features are sometimes very useful. It is called
> progress. With that attitude you'd never user GUI.
>
> As a matter of interest it is a Logitech mouse and it also comes with a
> usb-ps/2 adapter. This is hardly the point. Everything is possible, but
> if you want an advantage of windows it is off the hoof usb and 1394
> support. These are examples where Linux must catch up. Own up, own the
> problem and stop avoiding the issue. There is nothing wrong with the
> current situation as it will produce the best results in the long term
> when properly thought out support is included.
>
And how fast does M$* run on other computing Hardware like Mac, Alpha or
S/390? Okay, it doesnīt support usb very well, but a lot of other things M$
wonīt even dream of. I can spent a few bucks and get the software which
runs on these platforms and you keep on crying about missing mouse-support
in some cases. Linux Hardware-support is as superior to M$-Hardware-support
like Britsh sense of humour is superior to the german sense of humour. I
know what I am talking about!
--
Ralph Miguel Hansen
Auf der Donau 29
45139 Essen
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mike O'Neill)
Subject: RH Support Stealing A Page From Microsoft's Book??
Date: 27 Dec 2000 16:31:19 GMT
Hi Everybody,
I bought RH's super deluxe RH7 Professional Server package, which
comes with "full" installation support. The price would make Bill
Gates blush.
After upgrading from RH6.1 to RH7.0, a number of services weren't
running. "Minor" things like lpd, smbd etc. So I contacted RH
Support via their stupendously bizarre web support (has anyone else
used this? Who designs something like this? Not even MS could invent
something so non-intuitive and arcane.) RH has told me that debugging
the upgrade is beyond the scope of installation support and that I
should back up the computer and install Linux from scratch.
I'm wondering what's the point of the upgrade option if it doesn't
work? My RH6.1 installation is right out of the box, nothing strange
or exotic. Why shouldn't RH be expected to support the upgrade?
------------------------------
From: Roberto Alsina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: Nobody wants Linux because it destroys hard disks.
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 16:42:45 GMT
In article <1V826.59708$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Linux's collection of User interfaces suck. KDE2 goes a long way
> into reducing the amount of "suck" in it, and Enlightenment goes
> even further, to add "eye-candy", but the resulting UI's don't go
> into adding FUNCTIONALITY that is substantial to the previous
> revisions of KDE and Gnome & Enlightenment (or sawmill).
Escuse me, are you saying that KDE2 has no substantial functionality
over KDE 1.1.2?
--
Roberto Alsina
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:02:52 GMT
Les Mikesell wrote:
>
> "Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Kyle Jacobs wrote:
> > >
> > > Five years.
> > >
> > > And I still see the horrible RedHat Linux "Control Panel" is still
> > > lingering.
> > >
> > > Although there are some advantages to the Control Panel, Linuxconf has
> > > pretty much overridden it in functionality and features, making the
> Control
> > > Panel items useless.
> >
> > I use them a lot. Linuxconf doesn't let you control the
> >
> > background
> > panel
> > screensaver
> > theme selector
> > window manager
> > MIME types
> > URL handlers
> > Window manager behavior (and its 11 items)
> > User interface.
> >
> > Do you really /use/ Linux?
>
> 'Window manager' behavior? Which window manager? Are you recommending
> forcing everyone to use a single window manager or teaching Linuxconf to
> configure all possible window managers? Do you really have a hard time
> finding the place to control these in KDE or GNOME?
Not sure what your beef is here. I have no trouble controlling anything.
I was merely retorting to the statement above that linuxconf has
made the Control Panel items useless. Makes no sense to me.
In my control panel, sawfish has apparently inserted some
configuration menus.
Man, people go out of their way to hassle you here!
Chris
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bruce Scott TOK)
Subject: Re: So how do we get from here to there?
Date: 27 Dec 2000 17:55:58 +0100
In article <927v46$14t$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Furthermore, I doubt most Linux users would even know the user requirements
>of an OS these days. They are still in the 'old school' way of thinking
>where a kernel should be 1MB even when there are 1 terabyte ram chips in
>development. <sigh>
This is a stupid comment... there are those of us, you know, who prefer
our platforms to be productively running our applications rather than
having most of their capacity be taken up by the OS. You think 256M or
even 2G is a lot of space? Think again. Lots of serious stuff like
multidimensional computations or graphics need that space. In my 256M
the Linux takes about 15M and so my code's requirement of 240M can be
met.
Don't talk to us about 1T chips when such a world is still far away and
the things are mere vaporware. Do note however, that the RAM
requirements of W and W/NT are apparently growing even faster than RAM
capacity.
>That is why Linux will *never* replace windows... it is not because it
>doesn't have potential, it's because of the users.
>
>I'm sure you don't even understand what I am talking about.
I don't think you understand the breadth of modern computing.
I cannot believe there are serious people who put up with the fact that
their OS takes up half their RAM capacity or more (though there do seem
to be).
--
cu,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bruce Scott TOK)
Subject: Re: So how do we get from here to there?
Date: 27 Dec 2000 18:01:32 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Bruce Scott TOK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[...]
>This is a stupid comment... there are those of us, you know, who prefer
>our platforms to be productively running our applications rather than
>having most of their capacity be taken up by the OS. You think 256M or
>even 2G is a lot of space? Think again. Lots of serious stuff like
>multidimensional computations or graphics need that space. In my 256M
>the Linux takes about 15M and so my code's requirement of 240M can be
>met.
Let me clarify: that 15M is the mostly the X server, plus a few of the
other things that appear in the list when you run 'top'
--
cu,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:12:59 GMT
Of course, benchmark leadership is a fluid thing - ebbing and flowing
like the tides. One day, results with OS Foo are on top, the next, OS
Bar is right up there. OS Baz waiting in the wings. And so, without
desiring to promote any one side over any other, here are the top three
SPECweb99 results from www.spec.org as of about 9 AM Pacific time on
12/27/2000:
System Result HTTP Version # CPU
PowerEdge 8450/700 7500 TUX 1.01 8
PowerEdge 8450/700 7300 IIS 5.0 and SWC 3.0 8
IBM eServer pSeries 680 7288 Zeus 3.3.6 12
who knows which will be in the top tomorrow :) As with any benchmark,
there are a plethora of details, too many for me to be willing to type
and discuss, but I'm sure the most fervent supporters of either side
will be able to find if they read the disclosures.
rick jones
http://www.netperf.org/
--
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not
want them anyway... :)
feel free to email, or post, but please do not do
both...
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.freebsd,comp.os.openbsd,comp.os.netbsd,comp.os.inferno
Subject: Re: Operating Systems? Where would you go next?
From: Chris Wenham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:20:47 GMT
>>>>> "Charlie" == Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> They are also the ONLY one which is GPL'ed which ensure's it
> won't end up in the hands of some evil bunch of jerks.
The GPL doesn't prevent that.
Regards,
Chris Wenham
www.disenchanted.com
------------------------------
From: "Brad Wardell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.os.linux,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.networking.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Operating Systems? Where would you go next?
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:33:07 GMT
"David T. Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> I also mentioned some non-fragmentation issues. By 'performance,' you
> seem to mean raw speed. I would broaden 'performance' to include the
> areas of data security, stability, speed degradation and hardware
> reliability. For instance, what happens to the data on your NTFS volume
> if something happens to your master file table? Generally, though, it
> appears that the "features" of NTFS (which you briefly mention above)
> are more important to you than the actual file system performance and
> security (which you seem to ignore).
Precisely, that was kind of what I was getting at. What makes one "better"
than the other depends on what we are using them for. That is why one
cannot say HPFS is BETTER than NTFS without qualification.
In practice, NTFS, HPFS, JFS are all very very reliable file systems. JFS
is arguably the most reliable.
But from a feature point of view, per file encryption, compression mixed
with raw performance, streams, security, ownership, etc are what puts NTFS
over the others for me.
I don't think it's reasonable to say HPFS, for instnace, is "better" than
NTFS simply because it fragments less. That is akin to saying that SuperFat
is better because in some cases it's faster.
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 12:50:20 -0500
The issue with GNU software is that people do not know how to make money
yet. Everyone is thinking that they can make money being an OS vendor.
You can't. You must take the point of view that you are a VAR. You must
support the core distribution, but you must also, carve out the value
proposition that you, as a vendor, bring to the table.
Without the value proposition, a vendor will not make money. Microsoft
is pretty much the only non-hardware vendor that is making money off an
OS. This is because of their OS monopoly.
One vendor I think has the beginning of a clue is Postgres, Inc. They
support the Postgres open source database, and are developing
"enterprise" add-ons which they will sell. Will it work? I don't know,
it could.
I think the rational approach is to treat OSS development as an R&D
expense. Think about it.. The amount of functionality which is free from
OSS is amazing. Contributing back development efforts, is but a mere
fraction of the over all development costs associated with developing
all this up front.
In the end, there may be one or two Linux OS vendors left, perhaps even
a consortium. With the exception of Microsoft, it is difficult to make
money selling an OS.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Newbie: "Linux has come so far only to seem so far away"
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Form@C)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:53:47 GMT
pip <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
<snip>
>1. Servers tend to run more processes than in user machines
>(mail, web, ftp, nis, nfs, time, backup, smb, ip routing etc, etc, etc:
>name your service!)
yep, but the users arn't affecting which processes are running i.e. they
can't mess things up. The system won't let them. Also, *any* system *must*
become less stable as you increase the number of processes. All processes
must be assumed to have bugs. Therefore, as the number of progs increases
so does the number of bugs. My point is that, for many basic file servers,
there are *less* processes running and the system is, therefore, more
stable. Your average server runs processes in turn or via cron. Not
simultaneously. They may also be running in virtual machines on the
processor, using their own memory areas. This allows them to crash
independently!
>2. A GUI does not reduce system stability in a well designed OS
>(I have never been able to regain control of a crashed windows GUI, yet
>in Linux I can telnet in and restart it AND my other processes are NOT
>effected!)
>
>Your arguments here are just factually incorrect and could be called FUD
>:-(
>
following on from my comments above, any GUI *must* reduce stability of the
system because it adds more simultaneous processes. This is *not* factually
incorrect - it is a matter of mathematics. I think you will also find,
although I may be mistaken on this point, that the majority of GUIs do not
run on virtual machines themselves - although they give access to processes
that do. If I am wrong on this then I apologise in advance!
>Linux is _NOT_ DOS. DOS is just not comparable in *any* aspect!
>
Sorry, it *is* comparable - just not favourably, that's all! I completely
agree, Linux is *not* DOS. I would never attempt to substitute one for the
other, they are too dissimilar. I couldn't run Linux on a 2M RAM 286 for a
start and DOS doesn't have any file serving built in! :-)
>> The arguments in this NG are the birthing pains of what *may* become a
>> truly great OS, but there is a long, long way to go...
>
>Linux is already a truly great OS! It just depends who you
>are and what you want to do with it...
Exactly my point. If you want a server, run a server OS. If you want a
desktop, run a desktop OS. If you want to run games, run a games OS. None
of the current crop of OSs are fully capable of all tasks. IMHO a "truly
great" OS *would* be capable ao all these and more! It would also be easy
to configure, unconditionally stable and intuitive in use. At least Linux
is on the way there...
--
Mick
Olde Nascom Computers - http://www.mixtel.co.uk
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Warkus)
Subject: Re: Windows 2000
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:49:26 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was the Wed, 27 Dec 2000 14:07:22 -0000...
...and Jeepster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You dont have to be so rude.
What do you expect? That I'd be nice with you? A guy without a real
name, without a real e-mail address and without a grasp of how to
spell "don't" correctly?
Oh please.
mawa
--
An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect
plan.
-- George Patton
apparently talking about Unix and/or X11
------------------------------
From: Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:04:04 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Curtis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> What is it that these distributors are doing that makes it so hard for
> them to prosper while distributing and providing support services for
> the fastest growing OS market in history? The OSS model and approach
to
> software development and production is advocated as being profitable
Advocated as profitable - but not proven to be so. Making money off
support is far more difficult than making money off software
licensing. A couple of thoughts are:
1. Linux users tend to be more technically savvy than a standard
Windows user (they have to be), and thus are more capable of finding
their own (free) support on the web/newsgroups etc
2. People hate paying for support. When you don't have licensing
revenue to offset the cost of support, your support costs will probably
be higher.
3. Support is a horrible horrible business to be in. Why do Microsoft
farm their support out to other companies (most of the time when you
call MS support, you don't talk to a MS employee. They are treated
almost as such, but not quite).
4. Services relies on you having consumers of your services.
It will be interesting to see which of the Linux companies survive.
I'd say Red Hat would be one as it has large mindshare. VA Linux might
scrape through, but they're not offering anything different, and seem
to be supporting a whole host of loss making ventures.
Stu
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Conclusion
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:12:05 GMT
In article <92c13p$m11$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
sfcybear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Here is independent evidence the supports my claim that w2k is
unstable:
>
> http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.microsoft.com
>
> Even MS has problems keeping W2K up and running! Just over 12 days
> average uptime!
Or is that 12 days average of their firewall? Or could it be set of
clustered servers?
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Newbie: "Linux has come so far only to seem so far away"
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Form@C)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:25:01 GMT
matt newell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
<snip>
>The X windowing system is actually fairly old and hasn't changed(besides
>extensions) for years. If you are refferring to KDE or gnome, they are
>toolkits and desktop applications. Saying that it is not an OS for
>users is ridiculous. Currently, linux can satisfy any user except the
>hard-core office user, but that is comming along quickly.
>
Don't get me wrong on this, Linux is an excellent operating system.
Unfortunately it isn't really suitable for average home computer users
because of its lack of hardware support and rather arcane command line-
based structure. Office users really need fast,cheap support even more than
individual computer stability.
>> Linux is great for server applications because, in such applications,
>> only a few components tend to be running simultaneously. This means
>> that the OS is smaller and consequently more stable. Unfortunately, as
>> with DOS, putting a GUI on top of it tends to reduce its stability...
>
see my comments in my reply to pip's post above.
>
>> Windows is for users. That is why almost all software is written for
>> it. It has problems, but by and large these do not prevent it from
>> working.
>
>Software is written for windows because that is where the money is at,
>that is the only reason. People write software for linux because they
>want to and Linux will continue to improve until people stop wanting to
>write new software.
very, very true.
>
>> Windows 2K is more like Linux than windows - in spite of its
>> appearance. Some people have said that it has stability problems but I
>> am not sure about this. So far I havn't managed to crash it fatally!
>
>You are measuring stability in comparison to Windows 9x, this is
>absolutly foolish. Try keeping Windows 2000 up for a year or so, I bet
>you can't. Now install a bunch of software, the system gets less
>stable, linux doesn't have this problem. I have never crashed my Linux
>box and have been using it for over two years.
>
uh? My comment above is about W2K, not Linux. IMHO Linux is *very* stable
*in server applications*. W2K *may* approach it in stability but it is way
too early to tell.
>> The arguments in this NG are the birthing pains of what *may* become a
>> truly great OS, but there is a long, long way to go...
>
>First of all, A truly great OS is just an opinion. Linux has been a
>truly great OS for sysadmins or programmers for years. Are you implying
>that Windows is a truly great OS, it isn't. I will admit that Linux
>needs a few things before it will become perfect, but it is getting
>there quickly.
>
NOPE! Windows is definitely *not* in the truly great OS field! Once again,
see my comments in my reply to pip's post above.
<snip>
>My Desktop uses fully anti-aliased fonts, does yours?(Window font
>smoothing doesn't count)
Nice one Matt! As a matter of interest, do the Apple machines use fully
ant-aliased fonts?
--
Mick
Olde Nascom Computers - http://www.mixtel.co.uk
------------------------------
From: Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Question with Security on Linux/Unix versus Windows NT/2000
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:15:22 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > There's another solution to the Omnipage problem. You give the
user rights
> > to start devices. Omnipage uses a kernel level device driver, and
as such
> > needs rights to start such a device if it's not started
automatically at
> > boot time.
>
> Oh my god! A user should never be able to directly start an arbitrary
> device!!!
>
> This is one of the things I have been saying, NT does not have the
> infrastructure to support a secure system. In Linux once the device is
> installed by the administrator it can be demand loaded as needed.
So started then?
Giving
> users the ability to load devices is the single largest hole in
security
> one can make.
>
Did you just contradict yourself? He said "start", not "load", worlds
apart I think...
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
Subject: Re: if linux is good, why is it so easy to freez it with netscape?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Form@C)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:37:54 GMT
SwifT - <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in <Pine.GSO.4.10.10012271048590.20108-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>On 26 Dec 2000 mike@nowhere wrote:
>
>Oh geez, he we go again...
>
>> And, after all these years, no one is able to fix this problem
>> with netscape? the source is out there right? and I hear that
>> hundereds of hackers are working on it, and yet, no one knows
>> how to prevent Netscape from locking up the computer if it is
>> able to connect to network?
>
>Netscape source is not open. Some Linux-users don't use Netscape. It's
>crap. End of story.
>
>Why don't we talk about iexplore.exe? If it crashes, the whole system goes
>to the moon.
>
not on here it doesn't. If my IE crashes (hangs) a quick ctrl-alt-del and
stop IE almost always works. Nothing else affected. Am I just lucky?
(hint - don't use any "badged" versions of IE. Most of them seem to have
problems). System is W98SE with IE5.5
--
Mick
Olde Nascom Computers - http://www.mixtel.co.uk
------------------------------
From: "Jeepster" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows 2000
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:46:52 -0000
'Nuff said.
------------------------------
From: sfcybear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: MS using Linux?
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:41:36 GMT
http://www.zdnet.com/sp/stories/column/0,4712,2668494,00.html
Simultaneously, deploying .Net is as big a play as Microsoft will be
making in 2001, but, at heart, it's an infrastructure play, not a
product play. Microsoft also is delivering <A
HREF="/sp/stories/news/0,4538,2664804,00.html">Microsoft Media
Server</A> services from, believe it or not, a Linux platform. Who ever
would have thought that Microsoft would approve delivering anything off
a non-Windows platform? And, despite recent <A
HREF="/sp/stories/news/0,4538,2663245,00.html">ASP failures like
HotOffice</A>, Microsoft still is moving ahead with plans to deliver
Office functionality as a service.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Question with Security on Linux/Unix versus Windows NT/2000
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 13:53:41 -0500
Stuart Fox wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > > There's another solution to the Omnipage problem. You give the
> user rights
> > > to start devices. Omnipage uses a kernel level device driver, and
> as such
> > > needs rights to start such a device if it's not started
> automatically at
> > > boot time.
> >
> > Oh my god! A user should never be able to directly start an arbitrary
> > device!!!
> >
> > This is one of the things I have been saying, NT does not have the
> > infrastructure to support a secure system. In Linux once the device is
> > installed by the administrator it can be demand loaded as needed.
>
> So started then?
No, why use the resources if they are not currently needed? You do not
need to load a device until it is needed.
>
> Giving
> > users the ability to load devices is the single largest hole in
> security
> > one can make.
> >
> Did you just contradict yourself? He said "start", not "load", worlds
> apart I think...
In Linux the kernel will load a module on demand, as needed, but only as
enabled by the administrator (root). The user need not have the rights
to load the device.
On NT, a user must have the rights to start a device which is not
already loaded at startup.
>
> Sent via Deja.com
> http://www.deja.com/
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 19:04:32 +0000
mlw wrote:
> In my experience:
> Linux is more stable, Windows hangs too often.
Linux on its own is stable yes.
But Linux + KDE, I'd disagree.
> Linux is easier to configure, windows buries settings in endless
> hierarchies of dialog boxes, and I frequently have to go looking. If you
> bounce between Windows NT and 98, you will notice that similar things
> are in different places and it is frustrating and hard to use.
Some would say that because you're used to Linux you'll find it easy to
configure. Others have pointed out to me that because I'm used to Windows I
find it easier to configure than Linux, because I'm used to where
everything is.
Recently I had to drop down to the CLI to get SMB to startup on boot. For
some reason linuxconf couldn't do it for me. I had to figure out how to
create a symbolic link and where to put it, and what to call it (S35smb and
K35smb). Those names are really intuitive aren't they?
> In linux, things are just easier to do. There is a huge difference,
> which IMHO needs to be debated often, "easier to use" vs "easier to
> learn" Linux is easier to use, Windows may be easier to learn, but I'm
> not even sure I believe that. Many of the problems Windows people seem
> to have with Linux is that Linux is not Windows. Once they adapt, they
> love it.
I'd disagree that in Linux things are just easier to do. Why is it with the
GUI, there appear to be several different and conflict Open File dialogs.
Windows has just one, that makes it easier to do.
> There are some programs that Windows has, true, and these are things
> that windows has that Linux does not, but, what does Windows do
> "better?"
Elsewhere I've listed them.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
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