Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Instead of second guessing what people might need or want, why not ask??? During install ask some simple questions: You have installed a web server (apache), do you want it to start automatically [yes] [no] You have installed blah blah ... Maybe with context sensitive help for each service Alexander Skwar wrote: Hmm, thinking about it - hmm, as Mandrake is targeted at the newbie kind of user, I begin to think that even after an install, a service should default to being turned off. Yes, it's beginning to make sense. If someone knows that he wants something, than it's easier for him to turn the service intentionally on. AGREE. But then again, someone may not know what he wants. Suppose a new linux user, who just read, that linux comes with an email server. He knows that he wants an email server, but fails to see that postfix is an email server. Now the service is turned off - he comes to the conclusion, that "Linux is not working" because he expected to have an email server when installing Linux. What about these kind of users? It makes much more perfect sense to write a message in a dialog box after install: "Dear user, your servers are not turned on by default so that you can choose which one you want to run by yourself. If you need it, log in as root user and type drakxservices from the console and start the services that you need for your servers. If you only want to run Mandrake as a desktop/development workstation, you don't have to turn on any services so that your computer is optimized for desktop. To update Mandrake, you can run Mandrake Update Robot if you user your computer as a server or rpmdrake for Desktop user" The problem with that is that you want to run some services. Of the top of my head i guess xfs would be essental for a desktop user. Maybe the services should be partioned into desktop and server services. Another good idea is, try installing Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4 and you'll see that login boot screen says "anacron [Enabled], crond [Enabled], apache [Disabled], portmap [Disabled], nfs [Disabled], etc etc etc" However, Caldera still doesn't turn them off by default, which is bad. Yes, this should not happen. Upgrading packages should not change the whether a service is turned on or off. Of course it should NEVER happen. I don't understand why the packaging forces us to run these unwanted services :-( -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Pete wrote: He had chosen an expert install and wanted to know what packages he needed. Windows doesn't even *have* an ``expert'' install! He then asked me why everything was installed by default, The reasonable presumption is made that if you install something, you want to run it. IMHO it should all be running by default, but only listening to localhost (lo interface). That way you can try out all of the services on the machine, from the machine, but need to make configuration changes to expose them to the rest of the world. Those configuration changes should be well documented, and explicitly referred to in a document *clearly*linked*from* a greeting message that comes up on first boot, and is available from the XDM login. and why everyone was trying to make Linux like the particular operating system he was trying to get away from. That's easy enough: to minimise transition trauma. I couldn't possibly do a standard install, because when I do a standard install with a different operating system it installs a bunch of stuff I don't want. Actually, the Windows equivalent of a ``custom'' install puts in some stuff (MSN comes to mind, and more recently WMP) even if you explicitly ask it *not* to during the install. Also *application* installs will often install system stuff you don't want (I remember an MS-Office install downgrading the existing IE to a more vulnerable version!) or sometimes do want (a friend had his sound-card burst into life after an IE upgrade) but shouldn't have needed anyway. I think one way to do that would be to not start services by default and work on informing the user that the functionality that they want is there, but they need to enable it. Agree, only I would enable all of the services only in ``safe mode,'' see above. Then work on making it easier for the users to understand how to enable it. Agree. -- We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities -- Pogo
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Thursday 08 March 2001 18:52, you wrote: On Thursday 08 March 2001 05:26, you wrote: Actually, I think its KDE thats bloated and resource hungry. I have an AMD K6 350 with 64 megs of RAM, give it KDE and netscape 6 and it goes so slowly I have to check to make *certain* its not running Windows! 64MB is tight. However, run Konqueror instead of Netscape and see how much free memory you have. Netscape 4 is certainly a massive memory hog. There is a good point I want to raise here, and that's to put the requirements into perspective. To trim memory from Konqueror, XFree, and the rest of the packages is very likely a massive amount of effort, if it's even doable. At that expense comes the expense of not having new features added or bugs fixed - after all, a developer can do only thing at a time. Now let's look at the price of memory these days. In Minnesota, a 64MB PC133 DIMM can be had for under $20. 128MB is only $35. Check out http://www.nanosys1.com for verification. The system I just bought had a 256MB DIMM in it - and yes, the price of the memory dropped about 25% since I bought it a month or two ago :-( Now, do we really want a developer to be spending hours and hours trying to save a few bytes off the memory fingerprint to save you spending $20 for another 64MB? A few years ago when 64MB was expensive, the answer would probably be yes. But I don't believe that should be the case anymore. I sure I hope I don't sound like MS and encourage bloatware, because I don't and would like to see small, compact efficient implementations. Sometimes, however, end users are asking for the impossible. If you want to run in a small memory footprint like the "good old days", go back to the software of the "good old days" and scrap the windowing interface and use a shell. You can't have it both ways. .../Ed p.s. I'm old enough to remember programming overlays on RSX-11M to fit applications into 64K and remember muli-user graphics systems shipping with 512K. I've got memory on my video card now than you can physically fit into an older VAX I've still got in production at work! -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, Pete wrote: snip Here is my point: This is the kind of mentality I am presented with most often. Oh, I know operating systems, so I can do an expert install. What? There are thousands of packages? Oh, well I have the hd space so I guess I will install everything, and figure out what I need later.(Yeah, that will happen!) Or, I don't have the hd space, but don't want to weed through thousands of packages, so I will let the installer only install 50% of them. It knows what I need. :) I couldn't possibly do a standard install, because when I do a standard install with a different operating system it installs a bunch of stuff I don't want. Therefore I must do either a custom or expert install. (And unknowingly install a bunch of stuff I don't need or want) Simple solution: s/Expert/Linux Expert/ Michael
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
So sprach Matias Griese am Wed, Mar 07, 2001 at 05:56:22PM +0200: BTW: why do I have wu-ftpd, proftpd (added by myself), tftp-server and anonftp installed at the same time? Don't get me wrong here, but this sentence is just a great example and aid to what pranha (??) said: People don't get the namings. wu-ftpd kinda needs anonftp if you want anonftp for wu-ftpd. anonftp is not a ftp server, and neither is tftp. tftp is needed if you want machines to be bootable from the network, ie. diskless machines. And dangerous too. Someone might send a bomb to the idiot (read developer) who thought that turning the services on by default would be a good idea. Now you are really getting way to far! There's no need for name calling here! My experience always was, that if you stay polite, you're much more likely to get a point accross! Alexander Skwar -- How to quote: http://learn.to/quote (german) http://quote.6x.to (english) Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die guenstige Art an Linux Distributionen zu kommen Uptime: 4 days 2 hours 11 minutes
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Wednesday 07 March 2001 09:56, you wrote: On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Prana wrote: And in 8.0 there's an install option that asks them about what services they want to run. For God's sake, they're Windows-convert users, how can Like I said, the only question which I want to hear is: "Do you like to run SSH daemon to permit logins from the network?" If you're installing as a desktop, all services should be off. If you're installing as a server, then services might be considered to be on, but xinetd not started by default. There is no reason to start services that are not used. None. Repeat after me - do not start a service that will not be used. What comes to Aurora, amd, anacron, atd, harddrake, etc, etc, I'm not sure what do with them. Any ideas? You can safely remove Aurora - it's cute at boot time but serves no other useful purpose. You hopefully won't be booting much anyway. anacron is only useful if your system is not on all the time and you want to run cron jobs after the system comes back up. If the person is installing a desktop, they might want it on. For servers, it's a strong possibility that the system is always on, so anacron should not even be installed. This brings us to the next question. Why the installer has to install all the services, even if I don't need them? Those servers should not be installed, because if they are not there in the first place, they cannot be exploited either. A couple of very good cases are uucp and inn. Seriously, why install them in the first place? Those who know what to do with them will know that they need to be installed. You'll never find a neophyte that just decided that putting up an inn server and getting a full feed from his buddy is a good idae. BTW: why do I have wu-ftpd, proftpd (added by myself), tftp-server and anonftp installed at the same time? tftp is another service that should never be installed by default. anonftp only by special request. If you've installed proftpd, uninstall wu-ftpd - those two can not be used at the same time. course it is, since it includes stuff like GIMP, XMMS, etc. However, I've personally never used stuff useless stuff like xmame and xmess which takes a lot of hard-drive space and they're in the default selection of install. I never run tin, xrn, or other old and ugly news Agreed too. Yup. If the user is installing KDE, let them use knode. If they decide to install another application like tin or xrn, let them do it manually. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Title: RE: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog! One point. Dependencies. Different users use their computers for different purposes. One of the more frustrating things for a newbie is for some task not to work on their freshly installed linux system because a service is turned off by default and have no clue as to what needs to happen to (insert your need here). If everything is turned on by default, we avoid this problem. If everything is turned off by default, the a LOT better job needs to be done to explain how capabilites depend on different services. Right now, the installer is asked which cryptic service should be enabled. I would prefer that this be changed to a list of common tasks (i.e., Do you want to share your files with a networked Windows computer?, etc.) and have necessary services enabled as required. Regards, Steven Gorwood -Original Message- From: R.I.P. Deaddog [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 5:57 AM To: Cooker Subject: Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog! Agree the security part of it here. Remember the Ramen worm? Most people tend to make full installation, and did nothing to turn them off later, and left it open to internet thinking that it's the most secure OS in the world. Yes, a *VERY LARGE* portion of people's linux knowledge is like this: what is apache? I think the following sentence is known well among more experienced people: If you don't know what it is, you don't need it. The converse is also true: If you need it, you'll know what it is. (and know how to turn it on too) ...
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Pixel wrote: we don't think this as user-friendly. Either a server is useful and should be enabled, or it is not and should not be installed (and the server must be kind of hard to install). It is *THIS* point that's important here. "Either a server is useful and should be enabled, or it is not and should not be installed" is a viewpoint from developers, as well as experienced users. I'm afraid 90% users out there are clueless, and think, "hey, we can install everything first, and investigate what it is at some time later. I don't know what those name means, but it's interesting. It will probably be useful in future." And it get r00ted soon. And clueless users complain: "Linux is worthless. They are HACKED so easily, even worse than Windows. I regret my choice of installing linux. Blah blah blah..." (don't want to repeat Prana's words) I'm not sure, if it's decided by management level, then I can say nothing (since managers are supposed not to have any knowledge about what they are deciding; not so sure in other countries, but in Hong Kong it's 101% so); however, if it's decided by developers, I'd be rather sad, since a majority of users' action is not even considered before making conclusion. Abel Cheung
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Pete wrote: I definitely turn off "mon", as it usually has my system for lunch right after the install. Another thing that slows performance initially are things like slocate. I know that it is necessary to update the database and that once the database is updated, the next update goes relatively quickly. However, if you have a number of partitions/hd's the initial update takes forever, and all your resources are gone. A new user would have no clue what is happening. Seconded - the initial slocate update can bring a machine to a virtual halt for quite a long period of time, certainly long enough for a newbie to (wrongly) conclude that "Linux is slow". Michael
RE: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Also, I had a problem when Mandrake Update (in 7.2), after patching things, services which have already been turned off are turned on again. I only need those services occasionaly (such as xinetd) and I don't run it everytime. I ran into this the other day. I couldn't believe it! I had just installed a 7.2 system, and was rpm -Fvh'ing all the updates that have been released since. Nearly half the services I had disabled were enabled again! Hell, I had MySQL turned off, and when it upgraded, it turned it back on! I see this as a VERY SERIOUS issue that needs to be looked into. RPM CAN NOT re-enable services that I've disabled! I've got a nuclear reactor. I turn it off because I'm not using it yet. Someone comes to replace the plutonium. He checks to make sure the reactor is turned off, then he does his job. On his way out, he turns the reactor on. There's no one there to watch the thing blow up. I don't know that he turned it on until it's too late. YES! It could happen to you! When you look at it this way, suddenly it all becomes clear that RPM should not change any settings with chkconfig. Period. End of story. If you install something, it should be turned off until you're ready to activate it, and maybe a little warning echo'd, "This service has been installed but not turned on. Please use ntsysv or some other tool to turn it on." Now.. During an install, yes, I think some people would get a little ticked if their system booted up and didn't do anything. There are some services that should be enabled by default, in my opinion: Workstation installs: xfs, cups/lpd, crond, drakfont, gpm, harddrake, kudzu, sound, network, usb, sshd (if installed), xinetd (but none of the services), numlock Development installs: Probably similar to the above.. Server installs: cups/lpd, crond, network, usb, sshd, xinetd (maybe some of the services), nfs, smb, httpd, ypserv (if installed), ldap, mysql, named, postfix, portmap, etc. It really should be obvious which ones make sense. We have 3 different installation types, let's use those to our advantage and select default services accordingly. And let's make sure that under no circumstances should RPM be using chkconfig to re-enable services. It's a horrible, horrible thing. Don Head SAIR LCA, CIW-P, Network+, A+ Systems Administrator [ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] Web Designer[ 1 314 997-7847 ] [ AIM - Don Wave ] [ ICQ - 18804935 ] [ Yahoo - Don_Wave ]
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
"Steve Wray" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually, I think its KDE thats bloated and resource hungry. I have an AMD K6 350 with 64 megs of RAM, 64 mbytes is too little for 7.2 + kde2.. -- Guillaume Cottenceau - http://us.mandrakesoft.com/~gc/
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On 9 Mar 2001, Guillaume Cottenceau wrote: "Steve Wray" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually, I think its KDE thats bloated and resource hungry. I have an AMD K6 350 with 64 megs of RAM, 64 mbytes is too little for 7.2 + kde2.. Ehem, i'm using 7.2 with kde2 for quite a while now and it's quite usable. Of course, nothing beats 128M, but the point is that if you avoid the bloat of netscape, and confine yourself to konqueror and kde-native stuff, you'll live.
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
So sprach Prana am Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 12:13:18AM -0500: See, even Pete installs Zope, nfs, heartbeat :-) And Pete doesn't want to run it. Maybe he just wants to test it? So how come developer's conclusion is: "If I want to install this RPM package, it means I want to install it?" :-) And how can I remember 2200 RPM packages? :-) Well, I can understand this conclusion and think it's right - if I install a package, I may do so because I may know what it is and thus use it. Why would I install a package and not use it? I think Mdk should stay the way they are; ie. if a package is installed, enable it. Also the opposite is true: I would be kinda pissed if I chose to install a package and then it would be turned off. This makes no sense to me. However what if we come up to a solution to add one more check box in the like: = Installation option: [ ] Recommended [o] Customized [ ] Expert Option: [x] Turns off network servers (daemon) by default to make Linux That should read: "Turn off *ALL* network servers..." Mandrake secure and more responsive because I only want to run this computer as a desktop for either workstation or development machine. But then, this does not make sense to me. Why install and turn off? Alexander Skwar -- How to quote: http://learn.to/quote (german) http://quote.6x.to (english) Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die guenstige Art an Linux Distributionen zu kommen Uptime: 4 days 23 hours 58 minutes
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Thu, 8 Mar 2001, Alexander Skwar wrote: Don't get me wrong here, but this sentence is just a great example and aid to what pranha (??) said: People don't get the namings. wu-ftpd kinda needs Yes, that's true. It's been over a year when I last time used wu-ftpd. At the time I had also anonftp installed so I didn't pay much attention to the fact which package implemented which feature. And because there are way too many packages in the distribution, most people don't have the time to look through all of them. anonftp if you want anonftp for wu-ftpd. anonftp is not a ftp server, and neither is tftp. tftp is needed if you want machines to be bootable from the network, ie. diskless machines. Maybe I should have read the descriptions before claiming anything. But still I have to ask: how many of you have diskless computers in your home? In my opinion those rare used features should be left optional. Now you are really getting way to far! There's no need for name calling here! My experience always was, that if you stay polite, you're much more likely to get a point accross! Ok, I admit that I went too far. The comment was made as a joke but somehow I forgot to put some evil grins or calming comments into it. My purpose was not to be offencive, just to say that sometimes good intentions may cause a lot of harm. To make all the services available right after the installation may safe some time, but on those services which need to be configured anyway it can lead to major security risks and even to something completely unexpected behaviour. BTW: I updated my distribution (7.2 updates) yesterday and noticed that all the daemons which were updated were started, even if they were not running before the update. Could this be changed at least in the upcoming version of Mandrake and the new security fixes? I think that the Mandrake is the best distribution, but there are few flaws in it too. It seems to be unstable, because of too many services are are automaticaly started in the normal installations. Most of them are not needed and if they are, some of them seem to be ill configured regarding to the intended use. I have 6 friends who have tried MDK 7.2 and 4 of them swiched back to RedHat because of they thought that MDK was too slow and just didn't work. They all made the same mistake than I did on some of the first tries: they installed all (or most of) the packages. The result was that nothing seemed to work: one of them couldn't even compile the programs. The only fix to these was to install MDK again and try to install only those packages which were needed. The main problem is that most of the people think that installing everything (they have the disk space) and as expert (of course, we all want to be experts) they get all they ever want. So with this assumption you should at least force the user to turn the wanted services on by themselves in the installation process. Another thing: I don't know if this true anymore as it was in 7.2, but using the logical partitions (e.g. hda5..) may cause Windows (98/ME) to discard every succeeding partition by drive letters. For example: hda1 (win c), hda2 (dos ext), hda5 (win e), hda6 (ext2), hda7 (swap) hdb1 (win d), hdb2 (dos ext), hdb5 (win f) In this case Windows may be unable to find the letter F: until those linux partiotions are deleted and changed to be as hda3 and hda4. Regards, Matias
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Fri, 9 Mar 2001 09:27:53 + (GMT) Michael Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Pete wrote: Another thing that slows performance initially are things like slocate. I know that it is necessary to update the database and that once the database is updated, the next update goes relatively quickly. However, if you have a number of partitions/hd's the initial update takes forever, and all your resources are gone. A new user would have no clue what is happening. Seconded - the initial slocate update can bring a machine to a virtual halt for quite a long period of time, certainly long enough for a newbie to (wrongly) conclude that "Linux is slow". Not so much slow - 'maybe it's hung' .. especially on slower older machines. Comments from a 12-month 'newbie' on this point Hows' about this... The newbie sees the last section of the install process after X has been set up and _assumes_ that when she/he clicks 'ok' the system is going to reboot and be ready to rock. The system does in fact reboot, then appears to do little but rattle the HDD-cage for quite some time while those various databases are finalised. Why not tell her/him what's happening?? "Please wait while final settings are written.." or some such, That other opsys does this and that's where most newbies will be coming from, that at least is more meaningful than a long weight (sic) !! And while on the issue of slocate - it's taken me almost 12 months to find how to tell the slocate script _NOT_ to parse /mnt/cdrom, /mnt/windows and any other non-linux partitions. --- Mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected" (The UNIX Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972.)
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
So sprach Michael Brown am Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 09:27:53AM +: Seconded - the initial slocate update can bring a machine to a virtual halt for quite a long period of time, certainly long enough for a newbie to (wrongly) conclude that "Linux is slow". Granted - but when should be the 1st time in your oppinion? In SuSE they also run updatedb, but they have a text that clearly says that now some things need to be run for the 1st time which hog your system Alexander Skwar -- How to quote: http://learn.to/quote (german) http://quote.6x.to (english) Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die guenstige Art an Linux Distributionen zu kommen Uptime: 5 days 0 hours 2 minutes
RE: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Don, I see this as a VERY SERIOUS issue that needs to be looked into. RPM CAN NOT re-enable services that I've disabled! Strongly agree ! There are some services that should be enabled by default, in my opinion: Workstation installs: xfs, cups/lpd, crond, drakfont, gpm, harddrake, kudzu, sound, network, usb, sshd (if installed), xinetd (but none of the services), numlock This looks good. Development installs: Probably similar to the above.. Server installs: cups/lpd, crond, network, usb, sshd, xinetd (maybe some of the services), nfs, smb, httpd, ypserv (if installed), ldap, mysql, named, postfix, portmap, etc. Disagree. Yes, these can be part of the installation, but absolutely do NOT turn on the services which are for remote access, like nfs, smb, httpd, ypserv, mysql, named, ... People installing servers are more knowledgeable about Unix/Linux, and they (like me) will turn them on when ready. First an administrator needs to put security TCP wrappers in place, one service at a time. Thanks... Dan.
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Alexander Skwar wrote: So sprach Prana am Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 12:13:18AM -0500: See, even Pete installs Zope, nfs, heartbeat :-) And Pete doesn't want to run it. Maybe he just wants to test it? So how come developer's conclusion is: "If I want to install this RPM package, it means I want to install it?" :-) And how can I remember 2200 RPM packages? :-) Well, I can understand this conclusion and think it's right - if I install a package, I may do so because I may know what it is and thus use it. Why would I install a package and not use it? I think Mdk should stay the way they are; ie. if a package is installed, enable it. Also the opposite is true: I would be kinda pissed if I chose to install a package and then it would be turned off. This makes no sense to me. However what if we come up to a solution to add one more check box in the like: = Installation option: [ ] Recommended [o] Customized [ ] Expert Option: [x] Turns off network servers (daemon) by default to make Linux That should read: "Turn off *ALL* network servers..." Mandrake secure and more responsive because I only want to run this computer as a desktop for either workstation or development machine. But then, this does not make sense to me. Why install and turn off? Alexander Skwar Some points that me irritates me about this atm. 1. Because I want to have a service installed but only run it once in a while ? 2. I'm a newbie and press the big "install everything" button. 3. If I know I want this service running I should be able to turn it on but it shouldn't be turned on by default, to hinder the common "I happened to install something I don't know" and then run a bunch of daemons that you don't know what they do (and which exploits are found against). 4. I have a service turned off and every time I upgrade that package the daemon is turned on again. Joakim Bodin
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
So sprach Matias Griese am Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 05:04:05PM +0200: Maybe I should have read the descriptions before claiming anything. But still I have to ask: how many of you have diskless computers in your home? In my opinion those rare used features should be left optional. Sure, you should have - but by not doing so, you just showed how "newbies" would approach this. Mind you, I'm not calling you a newbie - I don't know who you are and what your experience is, but it just happens so, that newbies would also use this (non-)approach (I assume). They see bla*FTP*blah and think it's some sort of normal ftp server. I don't think that it is your fault to wrongly assume tftp to be normal ftp. Most don't even know that it would be possible to have a diskless machine, I suspect. So you are definitely right: tftp should for sure not be installed by default. I surely hope that you don't mind me using you as an example, and I don't want to offend you, but it simply fits so nice .] BTW: I updated my distribution (7.2 updates) yesterday and noticed that all the daemons which were updated were started, even if they were not running before the update. Could this be changed at least in the upcoming version of Mandrake and the new security fixes? Yes, I think so too - if a service is disabled, updating the package should never ever enable it. And if a service is already enabled, updating a package should never ever disable it. flaws in it too. It seems to be unstable, because of too many services Can't say that it is unstable for me. Another thing: I don't know if this true anymore as it was in 7.2, but using the logical partitions (e.g. hda5..) may cause Windows (98/ME) to discard every succeeding partition by drive letters. For example: hda1 (win c), hda2 (dos ext), hda5 (win e), hda6 (ext2), hda7 (swap) hdb1 (win d), hdb2 (dos ext), hdb5 (win f) In this case Windows may be unable to find the letter F: until those linux partiotions are deleted and changed to be as hda3 and hda4. Hmm, might be that hda6 and hda7 are created with partition type 85. Try to change this to 81 and everything should be fine (I guess - I don't "use" Windows, so I can't try) Alexander Skwar -- How to quote: http://learn.to/quote (german) http://quote.6x.to (english) Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die guenstige Art an Linux Distributionen zu kommen Uptime: 5 days 6 hours 28 minutes
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On 03.09 Alexander Skwar wrote: Mandrake secure and more responsive because I only want to run this computer as a desktop for either workstation or development machine. But then, this does not make sense to me. Why install and turn off? It makes perfect sense to me, even from the point of view of an expert installer-unix admin. For example, I would like the installer to put there proftpd, talk, sshd, even apache, but to let them peacefully quiet and stopped until I check my hosts.deny-allow. Until I decide to start them. I would see perfect an install with all services off, and a big announce the first time root logs-in asking to run drakservices (if that exists) or tksysv, or even auto-launching it. And for new converted users from the evil side, this could be preceded by a big: "Now you are a linuxer, you can turn your PC into a powerfull server. Read Services-mini-HOWTO to learn about it". Yes, perhaps this is the better solution. And a thing I hate very very much is something that has also been commented in this thread. Every time I update chkconfig or initscripts (don't remember exactly which one is responsible), all that services I have stopped with chkconfig 'cause I do not need them (nfs, rawdevices, kheader, etc.) turn to be on again. I suppose this will be based on a logical reason... -- J.A. Magallon $ cd pub mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] $ more beer Linux werewolf 2.4.2-ac15 #1 SMP Fri Mar 9 01:46:56 CET 2001 i686
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
So sprach Joakim Bodin am Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 11:26:53PM +0100: Some points that me irritates me about this atm. 1. Because I want to have a service installed but only run it once in a while ? Uhm, then turn it off, but... 2. I'm a newbie and press the big "install everything" button. 3. If I know I want this service running I should be able to turn it on but it shouldn't be turned on by default, to hinder the common "I happened to install something I don't know" and then run a bunch of daemons that you don't know what they do (and which exploits are found against). Hmm, thinking about it - hmm, as Mandrake is targeted at the newbie kind of user, I begin to think that even after an install, a service should default to being turned off. Yes, it's beginning to make sense. If someone knows that he wants something, than it's easier for him to turn the service intentionally on. But then again, someone may not know what he wants. Suppose a new linux user, who just read, that linux comes with an email server. He knows that he wants an email server, but fails to see that postfix is an email server. Now the service is turned off - he comes to the conclusion, that "Linux is not working" because he expected to have an email server when installing Linux. What about these kind of users? 4. I have a service turned off and every time I upgrade that package the daemon is turned on again. Yes, this should not happen. Upgrading packages should not change the whether a service is turned on or off. Alexander Skwar -- How to quote: http://learn.to/quote (german) http://quote.6x.to (english) Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die guenstige Art an Linux Distributionen zu kommen Uptime: 5 days 8 hours 53 minutes
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Alexander Skwar wrote: Hmm, thinking about it - hmm, as Mandrake is targeted at the newbie kind of user, I begin to think that even after an install, a service should default to being turned off. Yes, it's beginning to make sense. If someone knows that he wants something, than it's easier for him to turn the service intentionally on. AGREE. But then again, someone may not know what he wants. Suppose a new linux user, who just read, that linux comes with an email server. He knows that he wants an email server, but fails to see that postfix is an email server. Now the service is turned off - he comes to the conclusion, that "Linux is not working" because he expected to have an email server when installing Linux. What about these kind of users? It makes much more perfect sense to write a message in a dialog box after install: "Dear user, your servers are not turned on by default so that you can choose which one you want to run by yourself. If you need it, log in as root user and type drakxservices from the console and start the services that you need for your servers. If you only want to run Mandrake as a desktop/development workstation, you don't have to turn on any services so that your computer is optimized for desktop. To update Mandrake, you can run Mandrake Update Robot if you user your computer as a server or rpmdrake for Desktop user" Another good idea is, try installing Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4 and you'll see that login boot screen says "anacron [Enabled], crond [Enabled], apache [Disabled], portmap [Disabled], nfs [Disabled], etc etc etc" However, Caldera still doesn't turn them off by default, which is bad. Yes, this should not happen. Upgrading packages should not change the whether a service is turned on or off. Of course it should NEVER happen. I don't understand why the packaging forces us to run these unwanted services :-( -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Perfect example of this happened to me today. A friend of mine stated he was tired of running a certain other operating system and wanted to try something different. He knew I ran Linux and asked if I could help him install it. I was busy, but gladly gave him my Mandrake 7.2 cd's. This friend is a system administrator and is comfortable and competent with the particular operating system that he runs, so I felt he would have no problems with the mdk install. I gave him the cd's yesterday. Today he asked if I could help him. He had chosen an expert install and wanted to know what packages he needed. He explained to me that, the day before, he had chosen an expert install, but didn't like the fact that he had an ftp and a web server running. He also asked what identd, inetd, xinetd, and portmap were, and whether he needed them. He said he had tried to go through the thousands of packages, but that it had given him headache so he quit and installed everything. He told me that he wanted to run an ssh server, thought he needed ipchains, and wanted to have "standard", whatever that is, desktop functionality, but may want to run some servers in the future. I told him he should do a Desktop install and not run the expert mode install. He then asked me why everything was installed by default, and why everyone was trying to make Linux like the particular operating system he was trying to get away from. Here is my point: This is the kind of mentality I am presented with most often. Oh, I know operating systems, so I can do an expert install. What? There are thousands of packages? Oh, well I have the hd space so I guess I will install everything, and figure out what I need later.(Yeah, that will happen!) Or, I don't have the hd space, but don't want to weed through thousands of packages, so I will let the installer only install 50% of them. It knows what I need. :) I couldn't possibly do a standard install, because when I do a standard install with a different operating system it installs a bunch of stuff I don't want. Therefore I must do either a custom or expert install. (And unknowingly install a bunch of stuff I don't need or want) Balancing security and usability is a constant problem, and since Mandrake is aimed at the "newbie" I would say that enabling everything by default makes sense from a usability standpoint. However, with a lot of people moving to Linux from other operating systems, mostly for security and/or performance reasons, I think we need to strive to maintain that security and performance. I think one way to do that would be to not start services by default and work on informing the user that the functionality that they want is there, but they need to enable it. Then work on making it easier for the users to understand how to enable it. Ok, I am done now. That was wy too wordy. Pete Prana wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED]">Alexander Skwar wrote: Hmm, thinking about it - hmm, as Mandrake is targeted at the newbie kind ofuser, I begin to think that even after an install, a service should defaultto being turned off. Yes, it's beginning to make sense. If someone knowsthat he wants something, than it's easier for him to turn the serviceintentionally on. AGREE. But then again, someone may not know what he wants. Suppose a new linuxuser, who just read, that linux comes with an email server. He knows thathe wants an email server, but fails to see that postfix is an email server.Now the service is turned off - he comes to the conclusion, that "Linux isnot working" because he expected to have an email server when installingLinux. What about these kind of users? It makes much more perfect sense to write a message in a dialog boxafter install: "Dear user, your servers are not turned on by default sothat you can choose which one you want to run by yourself. If you needit, log in as root user and type drakxservices from the console andstart the services that you need for your servers. If you only want torun Mandrake as a desktop/development workstation, you don't have toturn on any services so that your computer is optimized for desktop. Toupdate Mandrake, you can run Mandrake Update Robot if you user yourcomputer as a server or rpmdrake for Desktop user"Another good idea is, try installing Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4 and you'llsee that login boot screen says "anacron [Enabled], crond [Enabled],apache [Disabled], portmap [Disabled], nfs [Disabled], etc etc etc"However, Caldera still doesn't turn them off by default, which is bad. Yes, this should not happen. Upgrading packages should not change thewhether a service is turned on or off. Of course it should NEVER happen. I don't understand why the packagingforces us to run these unwanted services :-(
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Alexander Skwar wrote: Hmm, thinking about it - hmm, as Mandrake is targeted at the newbie kind of user, I begin to think that even after an install, a service should default to being turned off. Yes, it's beginning to make sense. If someone knows that he wants something, than it's easier for him to turn the service intentionally on. AGREE. But then again, someone may not know what he wants. Suppose a new linux user, who just read, that linux comes with an email server. He knows that he wants an email server, but fails to see that postfix is an email server. Now the service is turned off - he comes to the conclusion, that "Linux is not working" because he expected to have an email server when installing Linux. What about these kind of users? It makes much more perfect sense to write a message in a dialog box after install: "Dear user, your servers are not turned on by default so that you can choose which one you want to run by yourself. If you need it, log in as root user and type drakxservices from the console and start the services that you need for your servers. If you only want to run Mandrake as a desktop/development workstation, you don't have to turn on any services so that your computer is optimized for desktop. To update Mandrake, you can run Mandrake Update Robot if you user your computer as a server or rpmdrake for Desktop user" The problem with that is that you want to run some services. Of the top of my head i guess xfs would be essental for a desktop user. Maybe the services should be partioned into desktop and server services. Another good idea is, try installing Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4 and you'll see that login boot screen says "anacron [Enabled], crond [Enabled], apache [Disabled], portmap [Disabled], nfs [Disabled], etc etc etc" However, Caldera still doesn't turn them off by default, which is bad. Yes, this should not happen. Upgrading packages should not change the whether a service is turned on or off. Of course it should NEVER happen. I don't understand why the packaging forces us to run these unwanted services :-( -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, Alexander Skwar wrote: Maybe I should have read the descriptions before claiming anything. But Sure, you should have - but by not doing so, you just showed how "newbies" would approach this. Mind you, I'm not calling you a newbie - I don't know I don't mind because I have found out that even experts tend to do the same. Nobody reads the manual. It will always be a fact. who you are and what your experience is, but it just happens so, that newbies would also use this (non-)approach (I assume). But now as I start to think experts tend to think that Linux won't do anything behind of your back. They have been installed the packages from the source tarballs for years and by doing so they've had a perfect touch of the system. For the same reasons the only window manager they're used is fvwm. Now they install the new Mandrake which seems to install everything they don't want to install. And like that would have been not enough it also starts all the unneeded daemons. So after five minutes using the new system he says that it's way too bloaded and begin to have wet dreams of having Debian (and apt-get). Even those not so old fashioned are used to know what is installed and which of the servers are running. They also go through all the configuration files which are used by some of those servers _before_ starting them. I like Debian too (minimal installation + apt-get whenever something useful is missing). But I wan't to be more bleeding edge too, I wan't to have something fancy and new. Debian is perfect for the servers, but if you are using the computer also as a desktop, Mdk is just the best choice this time. But as power user I wan't to have more flexibility in the installation process without having to go through 2000 packages by hand. That gives me an idea. Why not to make a expandable tree (like in Corel Draw's installation): Desktop... KDE... Gnome... Others... Multimedia... Programming... General (C/C++)... Other languages... Assembly Java ... ... Server... WWW server... Apache Apache php Apache perl ... Ftp server... SSH server... Others... It's much more flexible to have for example three levels of choices + individual packet selection than having just one level + individual. More levels is too much and even this structure should be kept quite abstract. So this would become some kind of individual field selection where fields are guite general and contain many packages. The normal user needs only the first or two first levels. And the power user has his customizing options (without having to select every individual package by himself). flaws in it too. It seems to be unstable, because of too many services Can't say that it is unstable for me. It's not unstable for me either, now that I have configured everything. In this case Windows may be unable to find the letter F: until those linux partiotions are deleted and changed to be as hda3 and hda4. Hmm, might be that hda6 and hda7 are created with partition type 85. Try to change this to 81 and everything should be fine (I guess - I don't "use" Windows, so I can't try) I don't use Windows either. Haven't been using it for years. But it was my father's computer with Windows ME preinstalled. I didn't have much time to install the Mdk 7.2 so I thought that I'll take a normal (not expert) installation. So it made the partiotions automatically (without giving me the choice to use the primary partitions). The extended partiotion type was 5 (if I remember it right). Regards, Matias
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Hi Pixel, we don't think this as user-friendly. Either a server is useful and should be enabled, or it is not and should not be installed (and the server must be kind of hard to install). If you want a comparison: in Windows 2000, terminal server, IIS server, etc are not running by default, and it's still user friendly. With Mandrake I believe that a lot of people install things but they don't want to run it at the first time, they just want to install it for future use. I, for example, only run Apache for occasional use before I upload it to my server cyest.org. Also, I had a problem when Mandrake Update (in 7.2), after patching things, services which have already been turned off are turned on again. I only need those services occasionaly (such as xinetd) and I don't run it everytime. http://www.linux-mandrake.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/gi/perl-install/share/rpmsrate Well, first off, I don't have a write access to Mandrake's CVS :-) Do you want to give me one? I'm glad that finally you take off wu-ftpd. Can you increase the rate for pan, a much better newsreader than archaic xrn for X-Window news reader? we won't change this for 8.0 Well, this is entirely up to you. I'm just giving a suggestion. But if Linux Mandrake has a bad reputation of being cracked (like Redhat before 7.0), then it's not entirely user's fault. See attrition.org and watch why Redhat is hacked a lot, it's because they have a lot of junk services turned on for their web sites. I'm just concerned about Linux reputation about having bad security if vendors insist of doing this. After they got hacked, the clueless will say "Oh my... I should've just installed Windows, Linux is so insecure, etc etc etc"... and remember that there's a lot of clueless people who are trying out Linux. The history repeats itself -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
--- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hiya, Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized snip I believe if we run a vote in MandrakeForum.com, a lot of people will want to have services turned off by default, for security and speed. Yes, please; DEFAULT:OFF For that matter, don't even install Apache, ZOPE, NFS or any other broadcasting service(except absolutely mandatory ones i.e.,CUPS, etc.) by default, please. Force the installer to make a choice for installing such services by asking him/her, please. ( one reason: I was rooted when first started using LM _because_ some services were on that I did not know about, i.e., did not know what the H! they were or if it was safe to turn them off. The interdependicies are not easy to pin down for someone new to Linux. Yes, there are other reasons it happened but I caught the B! in time _only_ because I was snooping around in the logs with fr. Not many (any?) real newbies are going to do that. ) Have A Great Day! rj -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3 __ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Well... I think I should apologize to Pixel since I was too harsh about turning network services off. I like Mandrake, it's an excellent distro, and I hope the next version will be better, and I'll continue to contribute more software to it (besides gnome-telnet MandrakeUpdateRobot). Oh well, from now on I won't persist developers about turning the services off. It's really up to you guys. We'll probably see the effects that we can learn. Thanks, Prana -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 07:02:21PM -0500, Prana wrote: Hiya, Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized - Development" version. For God's sake, what for? The team's conclusion was that if you have something installed then you must want to use it and so we want it to be run by default. Of course we had many arguments over that issue but that's the conclusion that we finally came to. And anyway the default policy now is that we don't install any servers for the desktop. And also, they say that LM 7.2 is bloated (read ActiveWin.com). Of course it is, since it includes stuff like GIMP, XMMS, etc. However, I've personally never used stuff useless stuff like xmame and xmess which takes a lot of hard-drive space and they're in the default selection of install. I never run tin, xrn, or other old and ugly news readers. I don't know but I don't think so, I have a 7.2 server running and I did a very fine install even if I say so myself. The point is, if you install the default install then of course things like this are going to be installed and I don't think that's wrong. If you are going to be running a server then run a customized install instead of accepting the defaults. I'm not trying to flame here. I personally like Mandrake and I dedicate my software for Mandrake, and so far I've contributed 2 (gnome-telnet - 7.2 ext CD #2 and Mandrake Update Robot - contrib 8.0). I really hope Mandrake will now turn off the services by default like Redhat 7.0. Many people don't like services turned on by default, it's useless, trust me. If they want to know about how to turn it on, give a simple message box after the install to run drakxservices. In higher security levels things are silently turned off by default. I believe that security level is 4 ... This was again mentioned not so long ago. -- Geoffrey Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] 李長風 http://devel.mandrakesoft.com/~snailtalk ftp://devel.mandrakesoft.com/pub/people/snailtalk $/usr/games/fortune Anything that can go wrong will go Segmentation fault (core dumped) $
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hiya, Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized - Development" version. For God's sake, what for? there maybe were errors, but newbie installs were server free. [...] Mandrake will now turn off the services by default like Redhat 7.0. Many people don't like services turned on by default, it's useless, trust me. If they want to know about how to turn it on, give a simple message box after the install to run drakxservices. we don't think this as user-friendly. Either a server is useful and should be enabled, or it is not and should not be installed (and the server must be kind of hard to install). I hope this time Mandrake will listen the opinion of users. I've had many people who are confused - what is "heartbeat", "cfengine", "bootparamd", "xntpd","tftp", "xinetd", etc. They don't even understand those cryptic abbreviation. My point is, I hope for 8.0 all of the junk services are turned off by default. Please help! http://www.linux-mandrake.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/gi/perl-install/share/rpmsrate classes packages. packages with rate 4/5 may be chosen in beginner installs. 3/4/5 may be chosen in expert installs. So 1/2 rated packages will not be chosen unless the user choose them in the tree of packages. for example, wu-ftpd is not there anymore (proftpd is the ftp server chosen for now). there must still be a lot of errors, so any modifications are welcome :) i believe if we run a vote in MandrakeForum.com, a lot of people will want to have services turned off by default, for security and speed. we won't change this for 8.0 thanks, cu Pixel.
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Geoffrey Lee wrote: On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 07:02:21PM -0500, Prana wrote: Hiya, Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized - Development" version. For God's sake, what for? The team's conclusion was that if you have something installed then you must want to use it and so we want it to be run by default. Of course we had many arguments over that issue but that's the conclusion that we finally came to. And anyway the default policy now is that we don't install any servers for the desktop. Under "now" you mean upcoming 8.0? It is good. I always asked myself, what have NIS and NFS to do on a lone home PC without LAN card ... -andrej
RE: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Actually, I think its KDE thats bloated and resource hungry. I have an AMD K6 350 with 64 megs of RAM, give it KDE and netscape 6 and it goes so slowly I have to check to make *certain* its not running Windows! I think its something to do with the processes that KDE runs to check for hung applications. Its just a hunch tho. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Prana Sent: Thursday, 8 March 2001 7:56 p.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Pixel Subject: Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog! Well... I think I should apologize to Pixel since I was too harsh about turning network services off. I like Mandrake, it's an excellent distro, and I hope the next version will be better, and I'll continue to contribute more software to it (besides gnome-telnet MandrakeUpdateRobot). Oh well, from now on I won't persist developers about turning the services off. It's really up to you guys. We'll probably see the effects that we can learn. Thanks, Prana -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Prana wrote: Hiya, Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized - Development" version. For God's sake, what for? I've told many times that this is for security and *speed*, why nobody (developers) listened to me? Users, being Linux newbies, have all promiscous services running, and if they forget to run Mandrake Update they will get hacked. They don't even know what a daemon is, so why bother turning all NFS server on? Why not just give a message box after install saying that the services for servers are turned off by default and that they can run drakxservices? How many times Zope has a security vulnerability? What about rpc.statd? And in 8.0 there's an install option that asks them about what services they want to run. For God's sake, they're Windows-convert users, how can you expect them to know what a daemon is. Most of my friends who runs Mandrake don't even know what xfs means. They go like "Huh?" when I told them what nfs, identd, etc means. *Just turn the services off _by default_*. This is because Mandrake have ALL services running, at least it is for the development version. I don't know how many times I've told Mandrake developers to turn it off by default, and they NEVER listen to me. And now a whole bunch of people who don't know how to turn it off, of course, say that LM is slow, whereas it's actually much faster than Win 2000 if they turn them off by default. Why not put a message saying them to run "drakxservices"? That's better than turning all junk services like cfengine and stuff that won't be use by regular users? And also, they say that LM 7.2 is bloated (read ActiveWin.com). Of course it is, since it includes stuff like GIMP, XMMS, etc. However, I've personally never used stuff useless stuff like xmame and xmess which takes a lot of hard-drive space and they're in the default selection of install. I never run tin, xrn, or other old and ugly news readers. I'm not trying to flame here. I personally like Mandrake and I dedicate my software for Mandrake, and so far I've contributed 2 (gnome-telnet - 7.2 ext CD #2 and Mandrake Update Robot - contrib 8.0). I really hope Mandrake will now turn off the services by default like Redhat 7.0. Many people don't like services turned on by default, it's useless, trust me. If they want to know about how to turn it on, give a simple message box after the install to run drakxservices. I hope this time Mandrake will listen the opinion of users. I've had many people who are confused - what is "heartbeat", "cfengine", "bootparamd", "xntpd","tftp", "xinetd", etc. They don't even understand those cryptic abbreviation. My point is, I hope for 8.0 all of the junk services are turned off by default. I believe if we run a vote in MandrakeForum.com, a lot of people will want to have services turned off by default, for security and speed. I will second this. I've used Mandrake for awhile, and always turn everything off that I don't want or need, (nfs, heartbeat, fetchmail, zope, ...) during install. However, most users don't know what or how to turn daemons off, and therefore don't! I definitely turn off "mon", as it usually has my system for lunch right after the install. Another thing that slows performance initially are things like slocate. I know that it is necessary to update the database and that once the database is updated, the next update goes relatively quickly. However, if you have a number of partitions/hd's the initial update takes forever, and all your resources are gone. A new user would have no clue what is happening. I completely agree with turning everything off by default and presenting a dialog with directions on how to turn them on. My 2 Cents. Pete
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Thursday 08 March 2001 05:26, you wrote: Actually, I think its KDE thats bloated and resource hungry. I have an AMD K6 350 with 64 megs of RAM, give it KDE and netscape 6 and it goes so slowly I have to check to make *certain* its not running Windows! 64MB is tight. However, run Konqueror instead of Netscape and see how much free memory you have. Netscape 4 is certainly a massive memory hog. I think its something to do with the processes that KDE runs to check for hung applications. Its just a hunch tho. Don't go on hunches. Do your homework, and at least run top to see who is using what memory. Don't blame KDE until you've got evidence to back it up. -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Ed Wilts wrote: If you're installing as a desktop, all services should be off. If you're installing as a server, then services might be considered to be on, but xinetd not started by default. There is no reason to start services that are not used. None. Repeat after me - do not start a service that will not be used. Ed, I know that services turned off for desktop in the commercial CD. Well, I've told Pixel that I wouldn't bother him anymore about turning off services by default and I won't insist. So, my explanation here is only for you now. From 7.2, I install "Customized" - "Development" and a whole bunch of services are turned on. That bugs me because I don't install it as "Server", I installed it as "Customized" - "Development". If you want to hear other arguments, read Matias Griese's e-mail about how incomprehensible running NFS with empty export, nothing in /etc/exports. So why run it? There's an exception to that, of course - like webmin, which is very useful if run by default. 2nd reason, here's another reason by Matias Grese: And why dhpcd is running by default? Last time I updated my server to Mandrake 7.2 I missed the check box and the whole 130.232.134.* subnetwork went mad for couple of hours! And this just because of an old configuration file which wasn't even used before the update (the dhcp daemon wasn't running!). 3rd reason: if I run a server and it runs everything by default and the admin knows nothing about why they should update their RPM packages via either Mandrake Update or console Mandrake Update Robot, what's gonna happen? Have you ever heard how quickly script kitty can find open servers? Some of them are just 3-7 days and brought down r00ted because the admin knows nothing about updates. A couple of very good cases are uucp and inn. Seriously, why install them in the first place? Those who know what to do with them will know that they need to be installed. You'll never find a neophyte that just decided that putting up an inn server and getting a full feed from his buddy is a good idae. My argument: when I install wu-ftpd or uucp or inn it doesn't mean that I want to run it everytime. It can mean that I only know what it is, and I can see the entries from drakxservices. I use apache only to view my files locally in my local Mandrake webserver before I upload it to a Cobalt Linux shared hosting in another place. I use it to learn PHP language, etc, not as a server. How is a Linux newbie supposed to understand cryptic unix abbreviation like "inn", "cfengine" means? How are they suppose to understand what "uucp" is for, "eggdrop", etc? tftp is another service that should never be installed by default. rpmsrate = 3, I've requested Pixel to lower it. Thanks, Prana -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
See, even Pete installs Zope, nfs, heartbeat :-) And Pete doesn't want to run it. Maybe he just wants to test it? So how come developer's conclusion is: "If I want to install this RPM package, it means I want to install it?" :-) And how can I remember 2200 RPM packages? :-) crond + anacron + xfs are definitely useful tools, but regular desktop users don't need "cfengine", "heartbeat", "xinetd", "bind", "nfsclient". However what if we come up to a solution to add one more check box in the like: = Installation option: [ ] Recommended [o] Customized [ ] Expert Option: [x] Turns off network servers (daemon) by default to make Linux Mandrake secure and more responsive because I only want to run this computer as a desktop for either workstation or development machine. = What do you think?? Prana Pete wrote: I will second this. I've used Mandrake for awhile, and always turn everything off that I don't want or need, (nfs, heartbeat, fetchmail, zope, ...) during install. However, most users don't know what or how to turn daemons off, and therefore don't! I definitely turn off "mon", as it usually has my system for lunch right after the install. Another thing that slows performance initially are things like slocate. I know that it is necessary to update the database and that once the database is updated, the next update goes relatively quickly. However, if you have a number of partitions/hd's the initial update takes forever, and all your resources are gone. A new user would have no clue what is happening. I completely agree with turning everything off by default and presenting a dialog with directions on how to turn them on. My 2 Cents. Pete -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
[Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Hiya, Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized - Development" version. For God's sake, what for? I've told many times that this is for security and *speed*, why nobody (developers) listened to me? Users, being Linux newbies, have all promiscous services running, and if they forget to run Mandrake Update they will get hacked. They don't even know what a daemon is, so why bother turning all NFS server on? Why not just give a message box after install saying that the services for servers are turned off by default and that they can run drakxservices? How many times Zope has a security vulnerability? What about rpc.statd? And in 8.0 there's an install option that asks them about what services they want to run. For God's sake, they're Windows-convert users, how can you expect them to know what a daemon is. Most of my friends who runs Mandrake don't even know what xfs means. They go like "Huh?" when I told them what nfs, identd, etc means. *Just turn the services off _by default_*. This is because Mandrake have ALL services running, at least it is for the development version. I don't know how many times I've told Mandrake developers to turn it off by default, and they NEVER listen to me. And now a whole bunch of people who don't know how to turn it off, of course, say that LM is slow, whereas it's actually much faster than Win 2000 if they turn them off by default. Why not put a message saying them to run "drakxservices"? That's better than turning all junk services like cfengine and stuff that won't be use by regular users? And also, they say that LM 7.2 is bloated (read ActiveWin.com). Of course it is, since it includes stuff like GIMP, XMMS, etc. However, I've personally never used stuff useless stuff like xmame and xmess which takes a lot of hard-drive space and they're in the default selection of install. I never run tin, xrn, or other old and ugly news readers. I'm not trying to flame here. I personally like Mandrake and I dedicate my software for Mandrake, and so far I've contributed 2 (gnome-telnet - 7.2 ext CD #2 and Mandrake Update Robot - contrib 8.0). I really hope Mandrake will now turn off the services by default like Redhat 7.0. Many people don't like services turned on by default, it's useless, trust me. If they want to know about how to turn it on, give a simple message box after the install to run drakxservices. I hope this time Mandrake will listen the opinion of users. I've had many people who are confused - what is "heartbeat", "cfengine", "bootparamd", "xntpd","tftp", "xinetd", etc. They don't even understand those cryptic abbreviation. My point is, I hope for 8.0 all of the junk services are turned off by default. I believe if we run a vote in MandrakeForum.com, a lot of people will want to have services turned off by default, for security and speed. -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Agree the security part of it here. Remember the Ramen worm? Most people tend to make full installation, and did nothing to turn them off later, and left it open to internet thinking that it's the most secure OS in the world. Yes, a *VERY LARGE* portion of people's linux knowledge is like this: "what is apache?" I think the following sentence is known well among more experienced people: If you don't know what it is, you don't need it. The converse is also true: If you need it, you'll know what it is. (and know how to turn it on too) Yes, I know msec does part of it, but still needs more tightening. Yet I don't want to criticize Mandrake so much, since at that time Mandrake 7.2 was a lot better than Redhat 6.2 --- it even ignores such things as openwall patch and Bastille Linux. For the complain that it's bloated, I don't agree. Let's compare with SuSE, and I think u get it immediately. It's up to users to choose what to install. Yes, you don't use news readers (me neither), but does that mean all people in the world don't use news readers? All people don't use Gimp? For those who don't even know what some package "foo" can do, how can they tell which is needed and which is not then? They will only complain "There is no tool for me to do this thing" instead. If you can trim down the OS, it can be only 150MB something or even smaller (see vector linux) yet still contain most of the apps needed. However that needs a certain expertise before you can even decide what is needed and what is not. Abel Cheung On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Prana wrote: I've told many times that this is for security and *speed*, why nobody (developers) listened to me? Users, being Linux newbies, have all promiscous services running, and if they forget to run Mandrake Update they will get hacked. They don't even know what a daemon is, so why bother turning all NFS server on? Why not just give a message box after install saying that the services for servers are turned off by default and that they can run drakxservices? How many times Zope has a security vulnerability? What about rpc.statd? And in 8.0 there's an install option that asks them about what services they want to run. For God's sake, they're Windows-convert users, how can you expect them to know what a daemon is. Most of my friends who runs Mandrake don't even know what xfs means. They go like "Huh?" when I told them what nfs, identd, etc means. *Just turn the services off _by default_*. This is because Mandrake have ALL services running, at least it is for the development version. I don't know how many times I've told Mandrake developers to turn it off by default, and they NEVER listen to me. And now a whole bunch of people who don't know how to turn it off, of course, say that LM is slow, whereas it's actually much faster than Win 2000 if they turn them off by default. And also, they say that LM 7.2 is bloated (read ActiveWin.com). Of course it is, since it includes stuff like GIMP, XMMS, etc. However, I've personally never used stuff useless stuff like xmame and xmess which takes a lot of hard-drive space and they're in the default selection of install. I never run tin, xrn, or other old and ugly news readers. I'm not trying to flame here. I personally like Mandrake and I dedicate my software for Mandrake, and so far I've contributed 2 (gnome-telnet - 7.2 ext CD #2 and Mandrake Update Robot - contrib 8.0). I really hope Mandrake will now turn off the services by default like Redhat 7.0. Many people don't like services turned on by default, it's useless, trust me. If they want to know about how to turn it on, give a simple message box after the install to run drakxservices. I hope this time Mandrake will listen the opinion of users. I've had many people who are confused - what is "heartbeat", "cfengine", "bootparamd", "xntpd","tftp", "xinetd", etc. They don't even understand those cryptic abbreviation. My point is, I hope for 8.0 all of the junk services are turned off by default.
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [...] Did you guys read the review in ActiveWin.com about Linux Mandrake 7.2? Yeah. Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a resource hog, and it's true because they're running a whole bunch of services turned on by default - I guess they install the "Customized - Development" version. For God's sake, what for? We did that for Linux-Mandrake 7.2 ; no servers are installed in Recommended install. That's the important point. -- Guillaume Cottenceau - http://us.mandrakesoft.com/~gc/
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Prana wrote: Since last year I've been saying "Turn off services by default" for more than 10 times. Now I read a review in ActiveWin.com about LM 7.2 being a I agree. Last time I installed cooker (MDK8.0b) I had to turn most of the services off. It was not enough, because I had to reconfigure the rest of the services anyway. Or do you like NFS server running in your server without any shared directories? Result: you have no service and one extra source of exploits. The only network server I know to be useful right after the installation is sshd, and even it should be configured not to allow root logins. (developers) listened to me? Users, being Linux newbies, have all promiscous services running, and if they forget to run Mandrake Update they will get hacked. They don't even know what a daemon is, so why bother turning all NFS server on? Why not just give a message box after And those who are power users (with direct connection to the network) turn all the services off until they have corrected the corresponding configurations and updated the packades. So why to brother to keep the services on by default?!? And in 8.0 there's an install option that asks them about what services they want to run. For God's sake, they're Windows-convert users, how can Like I said, the only question which I want to hear is: "Do you like to run SSH daemon to permit logins from the network?" What comes to Aurora, amd, anacron, atd, harddrake, etc, etc, I'm not sure what do with them. Any ideas? default_*. This is because Mandrake have ALL services running, at least it is for the development version. I don't know how many times I've told Mandrake developers to turn it off by default, and they NEVER listen to This brings us to the next question. Why the installer has to install all the services, even if I don't need them? Those servers should not be installed, because if they are not there in the first place, they cannot be exploited either. BTW: why do I have wu-ftpd, proftpd (added by myself), tftp-server and anonftp installed at the same time? And why dhpcd is running by default? Last time I updated my server to Mandrake 7.2 I missed the check box and the whole 130.232.134.* subnetwork went mad for couple of hours! And this just because of an old configuration file which wasn't even used before the update (the dhcp daemon wasn't running!). Luckily enough I noticed fast enough that the server which was not supposed to run was running and blocking the internet access from over 50 people by giving false addresses and netmasks for each of them! I hope you learn the lesson here and disable all the services by default. I don't care if someone who is testing the system in his own private network wants to save a minute of his time by running all the services by default. You can really mess up the whole subnetwork by your way of doing things. course it is, since it includes stuff like GIMP, XMMS, etc. However, I've personally never used stuff useless stuff like xmame and xmess which takes a lot of hard-drive space and they're in the default selection of install. I never run tin, xrn, or other old and ugly news Agreed too. people don't like services turned on by default, it's useless, trust me. And dangerous too. Someone might send a bomb to the idiot (read developer) who thought that turning the services on by default would be a good idea. Regards, Matias
Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7.2 + 8.0 bloated and resource hog!
"R.I.P. Deaddog" wrote: Yes, a *VERY LARGE* portion of people's linux knowledge is like this: "what is apache?" Yes, and a *VERY LARGE* portion of people's Linux knowledge is like this: "what is amd, dhcpd, heartbeat, ldirectord, lvs, portmap, xntpd, xinetd?" . Those abbreviation really *doesn't make sense* to non-technical Linux newbies. Also, about naming, sure, experienced Linux people know what "Gpa" stands for. But non-technical people will goes like "Huh? What's GPA?" ... why not just name them with *human* name and spell it out "GNU Privacy Assistant?" If you want to attract non-technical people to Linux, communicate with regular language that can be understood by ordinary human being. My point is: why not name them with a regular name "GNU Privacy Assistant" in /usr/lib/menu entries? These ***little small things become huge*** and they are obstacles to Linux newbies into getting acquinted with Linux. About the security, please let me elaborate this a little bit. Most of Linux newbie that I know, they try to install everything because they want to know what's in there. After a while, will they use it? Not all, and it takes quite a while to understand what xntpd is for. About bloatedness, what I meant was there's a lot of double packages and one of them have better quality but both are installed. One example is: xrn pan, then GXEdit gedit. Why not save the space for other applications? Why is there is still bash1 ? Hmm.. then I was confused what that's for. Also, I often talk with ordinary people who don't know what Linux is. Some of them, after they try it out, they like it. But then they turned away from it because Netscape unstable, X Window crashes and goes blank, X Window freezes after they launch 3D games, and the list goes on. So, what is the stability mean for them? They can't even distinguish between kernel stability and application stability. But hey, don't get me wrong. I like Linux and I'm involved in Gnome Foundation, and 1 of my proggie (gnome-telnet) is included in LM 7.2, Redhat 7.1, and TurboLinux. For the complain that it's bloated, I don't agree. Let's compare with SuSE, and I think u get it immediately. It's up to users to choose what to install. Yes, you don't use news readers (me neither), but does that mean all people in the world don't use news readers? All people don't use Gimp? For those who don't even know what some package "foo" can do, how can they tell which is needed and which is not then? They will only complain "There is no tool for me to do this thing" instead. If you can trim down the OS, it can be only 150MB something or even smaller (see vector linux) yet still contain most of the apps needed. However that needs a certain expertise before you can even decide what is needed and what is not. Abel Cheung -- Prana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyest.org GnuPG Key ID: 0x33343FD3 (2000-07-21) Key fingerprint = F1FB 1F76 8866 0F40 A801 D9DA 6BED 6641 3334 3FD3 http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x33343FD3
