Linux-Advocacy Digest #608, Volume #31 Sat, 20 Jan 01 11:13:06 EST
Contents:
Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Is Bill Gates MAD?!?!? ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: I just can't help it! (Charlie Ebert)
Re: Multiple standards don't constitute choice (Bob Hauck)
Re: NTFS Limitations (Was: RE: Red hat becoming illegal?) (Bob Hauck)
Re: What really burns the Winvocates here... (Bob Hauck)
Re: Windows curses fast computers ("Gary Hallock")
Re: It's not all about up-time (or: Time for some marketing?) ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance (Ed Allen)
Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance (Ed Allen)
Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance (Ed Allen)
Re: Multiple standards don't constitute choice ("mmnnoo")
Re: It's not all about up-time (or: Time for some marketing?) ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: M$ *finally* admits it's OSs are failure prone ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: A salutary lesson about open source ("Chad Myers")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:40:18 GMT
On 20 Jan 2001 03:30:17 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cliff Wagner)
wrote:
>I liked this one....better then usual from steve.
>"scouring the net"....
>open www.lycos.com
>search: "font howto"
>gee, what do the top 4 results all have in common?
>Yups, they're all for the FDU Howto.
Assuming one can actually get a connection to the net.
Read the setup groups for some idea of how many people seem unable to
accomplish that amazing feat.
Secondly the point was that the Linonuts are in such denial around
here, you mention ugly fonts and they say you are crazy, yet one of
the chapters from their very gospel of truth ((The How-To's) admits
the problem, and also admits BTW that this is only a partial solution.
Thirdly why should I have to scour the net looking for ways to make
Linsux usable. I don't do that with WIndows.
Nope, Linux sux right out of the box and there is simply too much net
surfing to repair it and make it usable to make it worth my time.
>Just for kicks, since steve is a MS drone, I went
>to msn to search for the same search phrase....
>well, after BLAZING along at a snappy 200 BYTES
>per second (when I usually get 200K/s), it finally
>came back with...the top 4 results for the FDU
>howto.
>
>I guess steve went about searching the same
>way he went about learning linux,
>types in "www.fontde-uglificationhow-to.com"
>Unable to locate server??? HOW UNINTIUTIVE!
>Windows would have read my mind to tell me
>where to find it, or better yet, they would
>have told me where I should have been looking for, since
>they know better then I do anyways.
>
>
>[more useless drivel snipped]
Flatfish
Why do they call it a flatfish?
Remove the ++++ to reply.
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is Bill Gates MAD?!?!?
Date: 20 Jan 2001 15:40:27 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
:>That's the purpose.
:>
:>Wish we had them here in the Cleveland area, which has a fourth of
: U-Turns are generally illegal in Ohio, aren't they?
In most municipal corporations, yes. The quality of our streets and
our drivers is fairly low, even by urban U.S. standards (Detroit's
are MUCH better), so allowing U-turns here would probably create far
more problems than it'd be worth.
:>metro Detroit's population and damn near 100% of its traffic mess,
:>especially in the suburbs.
: OTOH, the ability to make a right & then a U-Turn is quite
: often less harrowing than needing to make a rather extreme
: left. I'll gladly tolerate those 'michigan lefts'.
It's nearly impossible to turn left in the Cleveland suburbs other
than at late night. Michigan Lefts would help this problem on
highways that have a median, but most of ours don't (they have two
completely useless left-turn lanes or a combined left turn lane
instead).
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charlie Ebert)
Subject: Re: I just can't help it!
Reply-To: Charlie Ebert:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:41:27 GMT
In article <94caap$qoo$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Joseph T. Adams wrote:
>Erik Funkenbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>: Second, as with the TCO debates, until empirical studies on Linux are
>: available, you're just spouting hot air about Linux's average MTTF.
>
>
>Linux doesn't fail often enough to produce meaningful MTBF statistics.
>
>For all practical purposes the MTBF for Linux versions > 1.0 is
>infinite.
>
>
>
>Joe
This man it totally correct. Linux failures are VERY FEW.
There are banks of servers in Houston, Tx. I'm aware of which
server E-mail and web servers which are approaching 4 straight years
of use in a commerical 24X7 datacenter. And they get a shit load
of traffice everyday.
It has been my experience with Linux commercial gear, that they
client will want and UPGRADE of his hardware for increased business
demand before 3 years have gone by. And Linux will do 3 years straight
uptime in a heartbeat.
Charlie
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: Multiple standards don't constitute choice
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:43:42 GMT
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 10:46:14 +0000, Pete Goodwin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Everyone goes on about how Linux offers me the 'choice' of which desktop I
> can use, unlike Windows. However, choice here does not equate to consistant
> style.
Of course not. That's what choice means. Things aren't forced into a
consistent mold.
Personally, that's fine with me. I am not especially hung up on all
apps having a consistent interface. Some of the apps I use daily
(e.g. Emacs) are very old and long predate KDE and Gnome, so of course
they are not visually consistent with either. However, I am not willing
to give up a trusted tool for the sake of desktop consistency, which is
a minor, almost trivial, consideration in my view.
In my mind the real value of KDE and Gnome is not "consistent look and
feel", but in having standard programming API's with modern features.
This makes it easier for programmers to come up to speed, resulting in
more apps being available.
> If I want all my file save/open dialogs to all look the same - like
> the KDE style, or MOTIF or Gtk, can I do that with the Linux desktop?
> No I can't - my choice is restricted here to whatever toolktip the
> application is created with.
Actually you can't force that with Windows either. Lots of apps supply
their own dialogs instead of using the standard ones. These tend to be
far less customizable than the KDE or Gnome dialogs.
> Unfortunately, you can't change this standard - like have different
> shapes buttons etc. (and this is what I would call a "choice" - not
> the varying standards Linux offers).
Oh, I see. You are primarily concerned with choice in window dressing.
Kind of a Doublespeak definition of "choice", don't you think?
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: NTFS Limitations (Was: RE: Red hat becoming illegal?)
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:43:43 GMT
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:19:31 GMT, Chad Myers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It's even more embarassing when Linux STILL doesn't have a fully
> released and tested FS that supports > 2GB files. Only a measly 2GB.
Once again, ext2 has always supported > 2GB files. The linux kernel
also has, on 64-bit machines. With the release of the 2.4 kernel, it
supports large files on 32-bit machines in a "released and tested"
configuration.
If you are referring to the fact that no standard distribution comes
with 2.4 yet, well, you'd better make the most of this in the month or
two you have left. Then you'll have to find a new mantra.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: What really burns the Winvocates here...
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:43:45 GMT
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 07:47:43 +0000, Pete Goodwin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'm beginning to see Linux Mandrake is not the best choice for me.
As far as I can tell, what you really want is something that is nearly
identical to Windows 98, only more reliable. You clearly should be
using W2K.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: "Gary Hallock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows curses fast computers
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 10:50:24 +0500
In article <M6ha6.1011$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Erik Funkenbusch"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Even if they don't, it's because FreeBSD and Linux don't shut down the
> computer when you halt the OS.
>
Where have you been? I don't know about FreeBSD, but Linux does shut
down the computer when you halt.
Gary
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: It's not all about up-time (or: Time for some marketing?)
Date: 20 Jan 2001 15:55:10 GMT
Lloyd Llewellyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: It's good to know about Linux's stability and reliability, because it's another
: weapon in the arsenal. However, though Windows isn't "best" in these areas, it's
: "good enough" for a huge number of people. How do we convince these people?
It's simply a matter of time right now. Linux itself is of far higher
quality than anything M$ makes. But desktop-oriented Linux/UNIX apps,
by and large, are less mature than their Winblows counterparts.
That's simply because they haven't been around as long. Give them a
little more time, and they will be best-of-breed, just as Linux/UNIX
server applications already are. At that point, there will be little
reason *not* to switch.
: I don't want to see Linux become a consumer-targeted OS, but dammit, I want
: enough people to use it so that MS does not consume the planet.
Linux has colonized the server space very successfully, holding
double-digit leads over most of its competitors.
The business desktop market is next. Linux already has all the
features it needs to colonize this market as well. OpenOffice is the
key enabling technology that will allow this to happen. M$ Office is
very important to almost all large businesses, and it also constitutes
Mafia$oft's largest revenue stream. Nothing that isn't at least
somewhat comparable, *and* compatible, with M$ Office will ever be
able to dislodge it. Right now, OpenOffice is the one product that
meets both criteria and is free (in both senses of the term). Once it
is released and commercially supported, companies can switch from M$
Office, which is the one thing most of them use that currently
requires Winblows. Once they've switched to OpenOffice, they can then
begin the long, slow process of migrating away from Winblows and other
Mafia$oft technologies entirely.
The home/consumer desktop market, if it still exists, will be next.
Hardware support and games will be vital. The slow bleeding death of
Mafia$oft in the desktop OS and app space will force it to release its
stranglehold against hardware vendors, and concentrate on the few
areas where it remains strong. Hardware vendors once freed from the
ability of Mafia$oft to dictate "no support for Linux" terms will have
every financial incentive to support Linux, hopefully via free drivers
and/or specs so that other free OSen such as the Hurd and the *BSDs
can use this hardware too.
World domination is closer than anyone ever thought possible.
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ed Allen)
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:00:50 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Said Chad Myers in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sun, 14 Jan 2001 20:11:05
> [...]
>>We don't know because it's
>>never been thoroughly tested except by a scant few brave (stupid?)
>>souls who trust their data to a beta, untested file system.
>
>Actually, its being tested, constantly and on an on-going basis,
>probably by several tens of thousands of people. So far, there have
>been no problems that you or I are aware of, though I'd scarcely say
>there have been none. None that would affect all implementations,
>obviously, or make it too unstable to use in a commercial environment.
>You DID know that its being used in reliable production commercial
>environments, I know you did, because it was in the post you're
>responding to. Why are you ignoring it?
>
It is pure FUD. Chad is trying to convince people that remaining
ignorant is always safer.
I submit this quote from "The Book Of The Damned" by Charles Fort:
About one hundred years ago, if anyone was so credulous as to think that
stones had ever fallen from the sky, he was reasoned with:
In the first place there are no stones in the sky:
Therefore no stones can fall from the sky.
Or nothing more reasonable or scientific or logical than that could
be said upon any subject. The only trouble is the universal trouble:
that the major premise is not real, or is intermediate somewhere between
realness and unrealness.
In 1772, a committee, of whom Lavoisier was a member, was appointed by
the French Academy, to investigate a report that a stone had fallen from
the sky at Luce, France. Of all attempts at positiveness, in its aspect of
isolation, I don't know of anything that has been fought harder for than
the notion of this earth's unrelatedness. Lavoisier analyzed the stone
of Luce. The exclusionists' explanation at that time was that stones do
not fall from the sky: that luminous objects may seem to fall, and that
hot stones may be picked up where a luminous object seemingly had landed
-- only lightning striking a stone, heating, even melting it.
The stone of Luce showed signs of fusion.
Lavoisier's analysis "absolutely proved" that this stone had not fallen:
that it had been struck by lightning.
Yesterday's Truth is not always good enough for today.
--
"Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventually 'invent' Unix."
- George Bonser
"No chance. they only have a finite number of monkeys."
- Thomas Lakofski
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ed Allen)
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:00:50 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Microsoft will be eviscerated by autumn; deal with it.
>
Made me grin. Thanks for the image.
--
"Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventually 'invent' Unix."
- George Bonser
"No chance. they only have a finite number of monkeys."
- Thomas Lakofski
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ed Allen)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:00:50 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Said Jan Johanson in comp.os.linux.advocacy on 14 Jan 2001 20:53:12
>>Funny... I can't remember hardly anything that has linux beating NT... 2.7%
>>"victory" in a web test is hardly much to look it, and it wasn't really an
>>OS battle as much as an HTTPD one...
>
>Well, considering MS, I'm told, put a cache in front of their server,
>and *still* couldn't beat Linux, I'd say a 2.7% victory is rather
>telling. The original study had Linux well up over 100% faster, I hear.
>
Another part of the story they like to leave out:
W2K 9 disks 8 15,000 RPM 1 10,000 RPM
Linux 5 disks all 10,000 RPM
If you ran Linux on the better hardware it would be *at least* 27%
better performance.
--
"Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventually 'invent' Unix."
- George Bonser
"No chance. they only have a finite number of monkeys."
- Thomas Lakofski
------------------------------
From: "mmnnoo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Multiple standards don't constitute choice
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:01:25 GMT
In article <LZda6.184771$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Pete Goodwin"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
However, choice here does not equate to consistant style.
<snip>
No, choice, diversity, and variation do not equate to standardization,
consistency, and homogeneity. The root of this dilemma is seldom examined.
The awful truth is that language itself is highly inconsistent. No sooner
is a word given meaning than another word is invented and given an
entirely dissimilar definition.
Of course, chaos has been the inevitable result. Researchers claim that
dissonant verbiage is a factor in 97.6% of all divorce, war, and political
bickering.
We *must* return to the vocabulary endowed us by nature. No conflict
will be found in the speech of the newborn babe.
Wawa googoo gaa gaa, ahh googoo gaa.
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: It's not all about up-time (or: Time for some marketing?)
Date: 20 Jan 2001 16:01:25 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: With Word 97 try:
: Tools->Options->Save
: Click on the Save AutoRecovery Info every.
: 10 minutes is usually a good interval.
: BTW, application crashes are what you are talking about here - this
: has little to do with OS uptimes. X applications under Linux crash as
: well - perhaps even more often than those in the MS Office suite.
Crashes of applications in user space often bring down WinDOS itself
since it can't protect its own memory space from app errors.
That can't happen in Linux or any other properly designed OS.
(To Mafia$oft's credit, it also only very rarely happens in NT4.)
Joe
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: M$ *finally* admits it's OSs are failure prone
Date: 20 Jan 2001 16:03:37 GMT
Erik Funkenbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> All available evidence suggests that on good hardware, MTBF is longer
:> than the interval between *major* kernel releases (i.e., > 2 years).
:> And thus for most practical purposes not even an issue.
: Which evidence might that be?
: I can give you tons of Linux sites in netcrafts database with averages of a
: few days uptime. Of course longer ones exist to (as they do for Win2k), so
: clearly you can't be using Netcraft for your evidence.
Of course not, as Netcraft doesn't report MTBF.
Joe
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A salutary lesson about open source
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 15:53:43 GMT
"Cliff Wagner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:13:08 GMT, Chad Myers typed something like:
> >
> >"Cliff Wagner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> On Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:46:37 GMT, Chad Myers typed something like:
> >> >
> >> >"J Sloan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> Chad Myers wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >Right. 500 "My Cat Fluffy" websites vs 500 e-Commerce Fortune 500
> >> >company web sites means the same thing.
> >>
> >> Please provide proof of this statement.
> >> From my experience, most "My Cat Fluffy" sites are hosted
> >> on places like geocities and homestead and places
> >> like that because people generally don't want to
> >> pay money to host something so inane.
> >
> >If you compare surveys from other parties (besides Netcraft), they
> >mostly survey Fortune500, Global500, etc. Those numbers, IIS is
> >in the lead or closely follows iPlanet and Apache is far behind.
> >
> >Netcraft is the only survey where Apache leads.
> >
> >http://www.biznix.org/surveys/
> >
> >Netcraft doesn't differeniate between corporate and personal
> >sites. It also counts each virtual host on a hosting provider.
> >
> >The numbers are grossly inflated for Apache. All Netcraft's
> >numbers tell us is that Apache is the choice for hosting providers,
> >which we already know, so it doesn't really give us anything.
> >
> >As far as geocities and homestead, there are still many people
> >who purchase domain names for personal sites or family web sites.
> >Aside from that, many non-profit organizations, clubs, and
> >other small organizations have web sites.
> >
> >The people who have high traffic and who have high demand use
> >iPlanet and IIS. The people who show pictures of their family
> >or who post meeting calendars for the local VFW use hosted
> >Apache virtual hosts.
> >
> >-Chad
> >
> By your claim Fortune 500 = top web site.
> Someone has already refuted this claim, so I won't
> waste my breath.
I don't recall saying that Fortune 500 = top web site. Nor do
I see that anywhere in my previous post. Please show us where
you see this.
It's my contention that Fortune 500 sites receive MORE hits
and visits than does your average non-profit or personal site.
Wouldn't you agree?
Also, Fortune 500 customers are finicky and typically demand
the best. Many of them conduct business or customer service
on-line, so a stable web platform is critical. The fact that
many choose IIS over Apache is the point I'm trying to make.
A huge majority of them believe that iPlanet and IIS (both
closed source) are much more reliable and bet their on-line
business on it.
That's my point. Repute if you wish, but I'm not sure
what there is to argue, it's basic facts.
-Chad
------------------------------
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