Re: php and apache
# Gert Cuykens: > can somebody explain what the difference is between forks and > threads Nutshell version: fork(2) produces a new process, which may consist of multiple threads. fork(2)ing used to be slightly more expensive, as it creates a new process with an accompanying process control block (PCB) and allocates its own memory pages. Threads just use their processes' data segment and thus share pages. Which basically means one thread can trash another's data, whereas related processes can not. OTOH the time slices handed out by the process scheduler ("Hey! PID 384! Your turn for the next 20ms!") are further subdivided by the thread scheduler. Since both thread scheduler and context switches between threads produce some overhead (storing local data, instruction pointer and such) threads used to reduce the real CPU time a process could actually use for its algorithms. I said "used to", because this is basically the theory introductory textbooks on OS design will tell you.[1] There's plenty of ways to adapt costs, i.e. by making the process scheduler hand out larger slices to multithreaded processes or employing copy-on-write, which means that the parent processes' pages are just mapped into the child process, until the child actually writes to them. Traditionally, Unices had pretty cheap processes but rather expensive threads. (Windows, for example, had it the other way around). I didn't delve into this for quite a while, so sadly, I can't give you any details on the current state of things. HTH, Mario [1]: Be warned, this is from the top of my head and it's 4am in the morning with my bed waiting for me. I just hope I've been at least *somewhat* coherent... ;) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: referencing in files
# Jarrod - Cybertek: > > Say i have a file /root/setup.client.sh, and it has this line: > IFACE=ng10 > Now I want to have the motd, when it is displayed after login, to go fetch > the current value of that IFACE, and display that value. This probably won't get any points for style, but instead of using /etc/motd, you could just as well do this with a small script in your .zlogin/.login/whatever file. E.g. if [ ! -e .hushlogin ]; then IF=`awk '/IFACE *=/ { gsub(/IFACE *= */,""); print; }' setup.client.sh` echo "My interface: $IF" fi HTH Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Is Yahoo! moving from FreeBSD?
# Ted Mittelstaedt: [ Anthony bemoans the lack of support for obsolete hardware ] > Now let's see, your last post was jus advocating buying everything > new, you said you bought your house, car, etc. all new... > > and here your advocating obsolete hardware? > > Is this a flip-flop? You kidding? If that was a flip-flop, you'd actually know what to insert to get the output you wanted. No, this is actually a Schroedinger troll and lacking proper support for RSP[1], you can't get it in a stable situation. Cheers. Mario [1]: Remote Strangulation Protocol. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: fatal error configuring Xorg on 5.3
# dave: > Fatal server error: > xf86EnableIO: Failed to open /dev/io for extended I/O It seems you don't have the modules io and/or mem loaded. Check with # kldstat and load whatever's missing with # kldload [io|mem] Does this solve your problem? You might want to just add 'device io' and 'device mem' to your kernel config. Cheers. Mario ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: perl.core files in almost every dir
# [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [ lots of core dumps ] > > Has anybody ever seen perl.core files in a good number of the > > directories in FreeBSD? I'm running 5.3. [...] > Try to identify the script that triggers those coredumps, then > look at the extension modules used by that script. You might also want to gather coredumps somewhere central for easier cleanup. E.g. sysctl kern.corefile="/tmp/core/%U-%N.core" This makes all cores dump to /tmp/core in the form -.core HTH. Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: system time mysteriously changes
# Kevin Smith: > I'm having a problem with my system clock. The time will be fine for a > few days, then all of a sudden, I will notice that it has jumped ahead > by a number of hours (usually enough to change the day to the next day). Does the number of hours vary or is it constant? > Any ideas on what could be wrong ? I also have ntpd running, which I > used as an attempt to keep the clock set correctly (in effort to find a > solution to the problem), but it does not appear to be able to handle > correcting the time. Could you check which timezone the "advanced" time is displayed in? Sounds like some application assumes -say- UTC instead of PST. Obviously, even ntp couldn't fix that, since the time is actually valid (just not your current localtime). It's just a shot in the dark, though. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Pop-up or plugin or script for folder change
# Amy Dee: [ Gkrellm2 plugin for folder changes ] > Please notice I said folder, not file, so > gkrellm plugins I found are only for file changes, not > folder. Have you tried those plugins? Just like everything else, a directory *is* just a file. Go ahead, use vi or most[1] to look inside! You'll see a bunch of dirent(5) entries, one per file inside, plus some zero-padding. It's a pretty regular file actually (when compared to, say, printers), the only special thing being the lack of write access as only the kernel is allowed to write to a directory. Which it automagically does whenever a file within is added or removed. So unless the plugin developer decided to allow only regular files, you should be able to just use it for directories as well. HTH, Mario [1]: I think less (more is really less here) is less willing to cooperate on directories than most. -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: ld-elf __lxstat undefined symbol
# Alex Teslik: [ mplayer fails on realaudio ] > > /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/lib/win32/sipr.so.6.0: Undefined > symbol "__lxstat" [...] > don't know where I can find the __lxstat symbol and get it into the ld-elf > linker library. Any ideas? Well, let's have a look at the library itself: $ objdump -T /usr/local/lib/win32/sipr.so.6.0 | grep __lx DF *UND* 0137 GLIBC_2.0 __lxstat $ objdump -T /usr/compat/linux/lib/libc-2.2.4.so | grep __lx 000d8824 gDF .text 019f (GLIBC_2.1) __lxstat64 000d8144 gDF .text 0326 GLIBC_2.0 __lxstat 000d8824 gDF .text 019f GLIBC_2.2 __lxstat64 I think this belongs to the linux_base-port, does updating it fix your problem? HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: tcsh, colorful prompt
# Thanos Tsouanas: > I dont really care for the color of the prompt, but I would like > to see what i type (input) with a specific color. [...] > In short, i would like the color to end upon \n... I think you can do this with alias postcmd 'echo "[0m"' For the character, press ctrl-v and then esc (which inserts a ^[-character as literal). HTH, Mario -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: What is the task of pmap_enter ?
# Romil Shah: >I am working on 2200S RAID controller and using aac driver from RELEGN4 , > aac_disk.c in the driver uses pmap_enter for coping the virtual pages to > some physical location. Not really copying (afaict) but rather assigning a physical address to a virtual one. > In FreeBSD 4.10 pmap_kenter_temporary is used which > return the address which is passed to the controller for dumping on kernel > panic where as this is not happening with pmap_enter , can any one tell me > the difference between pmap_enter and pmap_kenter_temporary (both this > file are present in i386/pmap.c. Caveat emptor: I'm no kernel hacker and thus not overly familiar with the internal workings. So buy my explanation at your own risk.;) pmap_kenter_temporary() *temporarily* maps a physical address to a virtual one, which is then returned. No change in the page table, no state-keeping whatsoever. In contrast, pmap_enter() creates persistent mappings (or alters existing ones) and changes the page table of the process to include them. That's why it doesn't need to return an address. Quoting the daemon book [McKusick et al,1999]: |On the HP300, pmap_enter() takes the following actions: | |1. If no page-table exists for the process, a 4-MByte range is |allocated in the kernel's address space to map the process's |address space. | |2. If the process has no segment table of its own[...], a private |one is allocated | |3. If a physical page has not yet been allocated to the process |page-table at the location required for the new mapping, that is |done now. Kernel page-table pages are acquired from the reserved |pool allocated at bootstrap time.[...]For either kernel or user |pagetable pages, the kernel mapping for the new page is flagged |as being a pagetable page, and the physical address of the page |is recorded in the segment table. Afterwards, once existance of the entered mapping is ensured, it may change either the protection or wiring attributes (iff the exact same mapping already exists) or replace an older mapping referencing the same virtual address (but a different physical one). In the latter case, it creates a pv_table entry (iff physical address is in range of the respective pmap module) and creates a page-table entry. pmap_entry() has probably changed a little since 4.4BSD, but I think the above steps have pretty much stayed the same (modulo some architectural necessities). HTH, Mario [McKusick et al, 1999]: McKusick, Bostic, Karels, Quarterman "The design and implementation of the 4.4BSD operating system", Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-201-54979-4 -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Trackball and graphics tablet recommendations
# Vulpes Velox: > "Jon Mercer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [ graphics tablet and FreeBSD? ] > > Only restriction is that it has to be relatively recent (i.e. still > > in the shops) and most of the functionality should work. PS2 or USB > > doen't matter. [...] > Not sure about tablets. You may want to check on the USB list to see > what the status of the Wacom ones are. USB tablets won't work, I think (see http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/all>). | | I recognize that FreeBSD and similar systems have USB support; | however, until someone can bridge the gap between the FreeBSD | kernel and the XFree86 driver, the problem is largely unsolved. I've googled quite extensively for that a while back and came up with pretty much nothing (except for some posters whose questions about tablets remained unanswered). I'd actually love to be proved wrong here. ;) Cheers, Mario -- "Für Gegner der Reform wird ein Wagen, der an die Wand gefahren wurde, nicht dadurch wieder flott, dass man zwei seiner Räder für intakt erklärt." -- Hermann Unterstöger, SZ, über die Rechtschraipreform ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Does Xorg use another keymap than XFree86?
# Andreas Davour: > > How come my xmodmap isn't working. It has been obsoleted, I think. > Is there another way to remap the keyboard if you're using Xorg? Yes, see http://x.org/X11R6.8.2/doc/XKB-Enhancing.html>. > A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? > A: Top-posting. > Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail? :) HTH, Mario -- "Für Gegner der Reform wird ein Wagen, der an die Wand gefahren wurde, nicht dadurch wieder flott, dass man zwei seiner Räder für intakt erklärt." -- Hermann Unterstöger, SZ, über die Rechtschraipreform ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: aide-0.10_1 is marked as broken
# Riccardo Giuntoli: > ===> aide-0.10_1 is marked as broken: Incomplete pkg-plist. [...] > Why? Well, because it's pkg-plist is incomplete. ;) Afaict, the pkg-plist is used to make pkg_delete (or make deinstall) remove all files the port installed. If it's incomplete, some files are left behind. Quick fix: just delete (or comment out) the line in the Makefile which says: BROKEN= Incomplete pkg-plist HTH, Mario -- "Für Gegner der Reform wird ein Wagen, der an die Wand gefahren wurde, nicht dadurch wieder flott, dass man zwei seiner Räder für intakt erklärt." -- Hermann Unterstöger, SZ, über die Rechtschraipreform ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Questions about FreeBSD support for Multiple Monitors & IPv6 Protocol
# Matthew Jordan: > > Does FreeBSD, Xorg or the Window Managers have support for more than > one Monitor, and if so how would I enable that feature? There are multiple ways to do this, i.e. xinerama. Try googling for "multiple monitors xorg" or something like that. If you use the nVidia-driver from ports, it's even easier, I just modified my xorg.conf: Section "Device" Identifier "NV AGP" Driver "nvidia" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Option "TwinView" "on" Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,NULL" Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "28-64" Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60" Option "TwinViewOrientation" "LeftOf" EndSection > Can I use IPv6 Protocol with FreeBSD on my internal network if I > wanted to? I haven't tried, but in all probability: yes. HTH, Mario -- "Für Gegner der Reform wird ein Wagen, der an die Wand gefahren wurde, nicht dadurch wieder flott, dass man zwei seiner Räder für intakt erklärt." -- Hermann Unterstöger, SZ, über die Rechtschraipreform ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: RELENG_5_3 // RELENG_5_3_RELEASE
# bsd: > Since I have switched to the 5_3 instead of 5_3_RELEASE, do I have to > do more updates for my system. I guess that the patched software that > have been released since the 5_3_RELEASE are included in the 5_3 and > that I have to install them somehow. > > So my question is how ? http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html > Do you think this is a good idea to stick to 5_3 instead of > 5_3_RELEASE for a production system (mail server) ? Yes. RELENG_5_3 is a security branch of 5.3-RELEASE and thus handled in a very conservative manner. No bad surprises there. Tracking it will get you updates iff they're strictly necessary. Regards, Mario -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Need help with DSL setup in FreeBSD 5.4
# anand srikantaiah: > I was using RedHat 7.3 for past 1 Year ans now switched to FreeBSD. I am > not able to configure my DSL conectin can any one help please Since you're a bit sparse on details, I can only suggest to read http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ppp-and-slip.html My own /etc/ppp/ppp.conf looks like this: tdsl: set device PPPoE:ed0 set MTU 1492 set MRU 1492 set dial set crtscts off set speed sync accept lqr disable deflate disable pred1 disable vjcomp disable acfcomp disable protocomp disable ipv6cp set log Chat Connect Radius Phase LCP IPCP CCP Warning Error Alert set ifaddr 10.0.0.1/0 10.10.10.20/0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 add default HISADDR set login set authname set authkey Maybe this'll get you started. Mario -- "Für Gegner der Reform wird ein Wagen, der an die Wand gefahren wurde, nicht dadurch wieder flott, dass man zwei seiner Räder für intakt erklärt." -- Hermann Unterstöger, SZ, über die Rechtschraipreform ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: IPv6 setup script ... doesn't work!!
# Fafa Diliha Romanova: ># ifconfig gif create Try uncommenting this (by removing the '#'). > gifconfig gif0 inet 213.187.181.70 213.121.24.85 Looks like a typo, this is probably just ifconfig. > route add -inet6 default fe80::%gif0 The shell will mangle this. Quote it, like 'fe80::%gif0'. > ifconfig fxp0 inet6 2001:618:400:6ad9:: prefixlen 64 Replace every occurence of fxp0 with your ethernet NIC (i.e. xl0). > sysctl ?w net.inet6.ip6.forwarding=1 ^^ Another typo, this is supposed to be -w. > echo "IPv6 activation complete!" || > { echo "IPv6 activation failed!" 1>&2; exit 1; } > ;; Eh? So if echo on stdout fails, we're moving to stderr? What am I missing here? I'd guess the actual intent was more like /usr/sbin/rtadvd fxp0 if [ $? = "0" ]; then echo "IPv6 activated." else echo "IPv6 activation failed." 1>&2 exit 1 fi > gifconfig gif0 delete > echo "IPv6 deactivation complete!" || > { echo "IPv6 deactivation failed!" 1>&2; exit 1; } > ;; More junk code. > echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}" echo "Usage: `basename $0` {start|stop|restart}" 1>&2 > Where did I go wrong? You didn't. The script is rotten. Regards, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: smbd bind problem
# Dennis Olvany: > Alright, looked at the log file. Seems the bind to *:139 is failing. Nmbd is > already bound to 139, so what's the solution? Which one is supposed to be > bound to 139? Someone please advise. Afaict the default ports are 137/udp for nmbd and 139/tcp (SMB over NetBIOS) and 445/tcp (plain SMB) for smbd. > It seems that smbd will not run. It will not run from inetd.conf. It will > not run from the command line. Which is to say, it won't remain running, > even with the -D switch. Not surprising, it'll probably suicide after bind(2) fails. Regards, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: auto mount external hard drive but only when present?
# Duane Winner: > I have a laptop with a docking station and in the expansion bay of the > dock, I have a second hard drive, which I have configured as /dev/ad4s1d > and mount it to /hd2 [...] > But because this is a laptop, and will be pulled off the dock when I'm > on the road, I can't have that, because FreeBSD will scream into single > user mode if that partition isn't there. I could put a 'noauto' switch > into fstab, but that still leaves me with the problem: Just a (rather crude) quickhack: #!/bin/sh SLEEP=300 MOUNTED=0 while [ 1 ]; do sleep $SLEEP if [ $MOUNTED = 0 ]; then mount -t ufs2 /dev/ad4s1d /hd2 >/dev/null 2>&1 if [ $? = "0" ]; then MOUNTED=1 fi else touch /hd2/.touchme >/dev/null 2>&1 if [ $? = "1" ]; then umount -f /hd2 >/dev/null 2>&1 MOUNTED=0 fi fi done Basically, this'll try every $SLEEP seconds to either mount the disk or, once this has been done successfully, to touch a file on /hd2. If that fails, the disk's no longer there, so force-unmount it. I can't really test it, so I'm none too sure this works, though. :( HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Theo de Raadt
# Morten Johansen: [ http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/1993/11/15/0003.html ] > > Date: 11/15/1993 16:27:50 [...] > Mr. Deraadt made the following [patently false] statement about the > FreeBSD team: [...] Well? Is there any point other than fanning the flames to this? Let's just state the obvious here: That posting is more than _eleven_ years old. It thus dates back to a time where the FreeBSD project had just about started. Not exactly significant now, don't you think? Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: FreeBSD 5.3 and too many files open...
# [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > kern.maxfilesperproc: 5898 > kern.maxusers: 384 > > My /boot/loader.conf looks like: > kern.maxfiles="65536" > kern.ipc.nmbclusters=64000 > kern.ipc.nmbufs=256000 > kern.maxproc=8192 > kern.ipc.somaxconn=4096 > > So i do not get it, imho the configuration is just fine, but why do i get > the message "too many files open..."? What does ulimit -a tell? Any limits in /etc/login.conf? Regards, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Problems starting X windows :S
# faisal gillani: > > Fatal server error: > xf86EnableIO: Failed to open /dev/io for extended I/O > > what can be wrong ? /dev/io has been made a module a while back. Either load mem/io with kldload or rebuild your kernel with an additional device io device mem in your kernel config. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: AWK in 4.X different from 5.X?
# Francisco Reyes: [ strftime() not in 5.x-awk ] > > Now I just wonder how to get date in my output. :-( Well, if nothing else helps there's always system("date"). However, you could also install lang/gawk. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: md5
# Matt Kosht: > Is there a simple way to compare the md5 checksum of a file, to a file > that contains possibly more than one md5 checksum entry in it? Kind > of like mdsum -c does? Perfect job for a shellscript. :) #!/bin/sh if [ -z "$2" ]; then echo "Usage: `basename $0` " 1>&2 exit fi sum=`md5 "$1" | sed 's-^MD5 [^=]*= --'` cnt=`grep -c "$sum" "$2"` if [ $cnt -eq 0 ]; then echo "No match." else echo "Match." fi HTH Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: mysql upload_max_filesize
# Dennis Olvany: > Everything I've seen says to put the upload_max_filesize into php.ini, > but I searched my drive and I don't have a php.ini. Anyone know the deal? IIRC there are two files (php.ini-dist and php.ini-recommended) in /usr/local/etc. Copy either to php.ini and you're all set. :) HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Bourn Shell Scripts that Produce Multiple Files
# Martin McCormick: > I wrote a Bourn Shell script which has a while loop in it that > reads a file line by line. The output of the script is supposed to go > to a file with a different name for each iteration of the loop. This > scheme is obviously a rotten idea because all the new files end up > created, but quite empty. If I take out the > $newfilename.txt > directive, I get the proper output at stdout so the only problem is > with changing the file name in the middle of the game several times. This sounds a bit like a truncation issue. If you do something like command1 > bar # some code command2 > bar then the second redirect will truncate the file to 0 bytes before redirecting the output from command2 into it. Try using >> instead of >, as it appends to the file. If this doesn't help, please post the script (or a simplified version thereof). We're not clairvoyant, you know... :) HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: make nodes for new disk with devfs
# Tetsuji Maverick Rai: > > Hi, I'm having a problem with devfs in 6-current. I used to use > FreeBSD about 7-8 years ago, but since then I've been using Linux, and > got back to freebsd these days, and found MAKEDEV has gone!! Jup. > My question is simple: how to make nodes in /dev for ad1 > slice/partitions? Well, that's the neat thing about devfs: you don't. Once you slice your disks, the respective nodes are created automagically. :) Cheers, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: How to fix failed CRC file?
# T.F. Cheng: > Hi, I have downloaded some multimedia files from a > news server, and they are usually coming in rar format > and lots of pieces. I use par2repair to fix them, but > one of the files failed, and reported to be CRC > failed. Can anybody tell me how to fix this? thanks!! Basically, redownload the broken file. It might save you some time to get an md5-sum of the server's file first, in case it's already broken there. FWIW, you could also try unraring with the kb-switch, but I doubt unrar can handle a CRC-error. Regards, Mario -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Anyone ever consider a filesystem served by MySQL for mail folders?
# Doug Lee: [ fixed quote-levels ] > On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 05:33:22PM -0400, Chuck Swiger wrote: [ mail storage backed by DB ] > > > > The advantage is that users gets fancy searching. > > > > The disadvantage is that you need to provide around 4 times as much disk > > space for a DB-based mailstore as you would for a normal mbox/maildir style > > representation, you need to provide a lot more server horsepower, you need > > to continuously maintain and purge old mail from the database, and you end > > up with your mail buried in database tables, so heaven help you if the > > database becomes inconsistent and you need to recover. Whereas you can repair mbox-files with your favorite editor and employ pretty much the same level of fancy searching with a couple of scripts. > But as for increased storage requirements, I've always wondered how > much could be saved by an intelligent method of behind-the-scenes > handling of quoting among messages in a thread. Goodness knows half > the mail on a lot of lists, and even in a lot of personal mail > streams, is simply copies of some or all of other messages, perhaps > shifted over by quote signs like `>' etc. Seems to me a system could > be devised to store directions for rebuilding a message instead of the > message itself with all quoting intact. Basically, you could just kill any quotechar, trim headers and store the threads as incremental diffs. You could squeeze redundancy a bit more, but then you'll cry if some bug decides to eat a byte or two. ;) > but I wouldn't be surprised if it could reverse the > increased storage requirements you mention. Probably. What's the gain in all that, though? The mbox-format is simple enough[1], you can just build something to suit your needs in your favorite scripting language. Personally, I'd just build three scripts for that: - The first to interactively insert some headers from within my MUA (mutt, in this instance), i.e. 'X-Archive-Keywords: ' and 'X-Archive-Location: '. - The second to (as a cron-job) i) extract mails from mbox files ii) move them into some kind of archive directory tree (based on the above -location-header, i.e. $TREEBASE/$LOCATION) and iii) store interesting headers inside a DB. - The third for searching and cat(1)ing results to stdout (which in turn is nothing but a new mbox-file). The hard part about this is integrating it into $MUA, but there might be some hook around for that. Actually looks like a perfect mini-project to learn a new language with. ;) Cheers. Mario [1]: IIRC: the header of a mail starts with /^From / and terminates with /^$/ and the other way around for the body of a mail. Can't get more simple than that. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Secure File Copy
# Joshua Lewis: > I have a FreeBSD 5.4 system and I have no way to back up the data. I don't > have a burner and I can't get one anytime soon. I do however have a burner > on my wifes G4 laptop. I have enabled SSH on the FreeBSD system and I can > SSH into the box from the Mac, However I do not know how to copy the files I > need to back up from the FreeBSD system to the Mac. With scp. From your mac type: $ scp -r [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/remote/path /local/path which copies the directory /remote/path on the BSD machine to /local/path on the mac. There are also graphical frontends for this, e.g. Fugu http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/fugu/>. If you need to do this frequently (and your wife doesn't mind keeping your files on her book) it's probably better to use rsync, i.e. $ rsync -vatz --delete [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/remote/path /local/path (see the man page for details). HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: BSD 5.4 fs problem...
# xinyu zeng: [ building ports leads to system hang ] > What I am concern is 'Is there any utilities can make a through > check of my HD and see if it is table'? If the disks support SMART, you might install $PORTS/sysutils/smartmonutils and run e.g. smartctl -t long /dev/ HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: BSD 5.4 fs problem...
# xinyu zeng: > sysutils/smartmonutils: No such file or directory. > FreeBSD# cd sysutils/ > FreeBSD# cd smartmontools/ Ooops. My fault, sorry. > => make-3.80.tar.bz2 doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/. > => Attempting to fetch from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/. > make-3.80.tar.bz2 9% of 899 kB 2034 Bps 06m57s Does it always hang in mid-fetch? That's interesting, because FS activity at this point is rather low. It sounds like some kind of deadlock is triggered here. However, I must admit that I've got absolutely no idea what might cause this. Unless some other -questions reader has an idea, you might try posting your problem to the -stable list or filing a PR. I think a dmesg-output might prove useful, too. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: umapfs file system
# Valerio daelli: [ compiling umapfs ] > ../../../fs/umapfs/umap_vfsops.c:56: error: prototype declaration > ../../../fs/umapfs/umap_vfsops.c: In function `umapfs_root': > ../../../fs/umapfs/umap_vfsops.c:300: error: 'td' redeclared as different > kind of symbol > ../../../fs/umapfs/umap_vfsops.c:298: error: previous definition of 'td' was > here > *** Error code 1 > > Do you think is still supported? Quoting from mount_umapfs(8): | BUGS | THIS FILE SYSTEM TYPE IS NOT YET FULLY SUPPORTED (READ: IT DOESN'T WORK) | AND USING IT MAY, IN FACT, DESTROY DATA ON YOUR SYSTEM. USE AT YOUR OWN | RISK. BEWARE OF DOG. SLIPPERY WHEN WET. | | This code also needs an owner in order to be less dangerous - serious | hackers can apply by sending mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and announcing | their intent to take it over. Basically, I think that's a no. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Unresolved symbol in libdri.a (X.org)
# Louis LeBlanc: > First my config: > OS: 5.4-RELEASE-p8 > X.org version: xorg-6.8.2 (built from ports) > video driver: nvidia-driver-1.0.7676_1 (built from ports) > > > My xorg.conf (only including what I suspect is relevant: > > Section "Module" > Load "dbe" > Load "extmod" > Load "dri" ^^ Remove this from you xorg.conf (see below why). > Symbol __glXgetActiveScreen from module > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libdri.a is unresolved! This is the result of the 'Load "dri"'-line above. DRI is hardware accelleration for several *non-nVidia*-GPUs. If you're using the nVidia-driver, DRI is useless. In this particular case, libdri.a needs to resolve the external symbol __glXgetActiveScreen, which simply isn't provided by nVidia's /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so. [1] HTH, Mario _ [1]: try: objdump -T libGL.so | grep glX ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: After upgrading Perl, cannot reinstall modules - Cwd.so: Undefined symbol "perl_get_sv
# Mark Kane: [ upgrade perl 5.6.x->5.8.7 failed on 4-9R ] > ===> p5-HTML-Tagset-3.10 depends on file: /usr/local/bin/perl5.8.7 - found > ===> Configuring for p5-HTML-Tagset-3.10 > /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: > /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/mach/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so: Undefined symbol > "perl_get_sv" Hm. Just a data point that just caught my eye: $ nm -D auto/Cwd/Cwd.so CORE/libperl.so | grep get_sv U Perl_get_sv 0001e4d4 T Perl_get_sv ^^^ Please note the symbol in your error message isn't capitalized. Not much help, really, but maybe someone else can make something of it. Regards, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: releng for 6
# eoghan: > Im going to upgrade to 6, I was wondering if someone could tell me > the RELENG for 6, for my supfile? > Should it be tag=RELENG_6_0? Either RELENG_6_0 or RELENG_6. RELENG_6_0 tracks 6.0.x, i.e. 6.0 + critical fixes. This is the least risky update path, but you'll have to switch to RELENG_6_1 or higher _manually_ (once they're available). RELENG_6 tracks 6.x (the 6-STABLE branch). You'll automagically cvsup new releases once they're ready, but there's a slighly higher risk involved. Yes, the branch is supposed to be stable (and in my experience it usually is) but you might run out of luck. Personally, I'd use RELENG_6_0 for a production server and RELENG_6 for everything else. But that's up to you, really. Regards, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: dd to unused partition (Hey! someone stole my foot-shooting gun!)
# Lee Harr: > dd if=iso of=/dev/ad0s1 > > but what I am getting now is ... > > dscheck(#ad/0x22): fixlabel: invalid magic > fixlabel: invalid magic > dd: /dev/ad0s1: Read-only filesystem This error isn't new, it just, well, doesn't happen very often: kern/subr_diskslice.c: | static char * | fixlabel(sname, sp, lp, writeflag) [...] | /* These errors "can't happen" so don't bother reporting details. */ | if (lp->d_magic != DISKMAGIC || lp->d_magic2 != DISKMAGIC) | return ("fixlabel: invalid magic"); Prior reports seem to indicate this fails if non-ufs slices somehow got themselves a disklabel. According to http://makeashorterlink.com/?S37C2186B>[1] a workaround might be using dd if=/dev/foo of=/dev/ad0 oseek=63 HTH, Mario ___ [1]: This is really http://groups.google.de/group/mailing.freebsd.questions/browse_frm/thread/46bc3662805a349c/146b0cdc6e294288?q=dscheck+fixlabel&rnum=3&hl=de#146b0cdc6e294288>. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: undelete in FreeBSD?
# Aaron Siegel: [ there is no un-rm ] > > One option I have seen for creating your own restore is to create a script > that will move files you want to delete to a temporary directory, a "Trash > Bin". Then use your shells aliases to alias the script to the rm command. Don't *ever* create aliases for rm(1). rm's sole purpose in life is to destroy files. If you tame it, you'll eventually adapt and rm with less caution. There are lots of people who eventually got bitten by that when working on a machine other than their own. A better way is to use a name like "[tT]rash" or "tt" (=[move] to trash). That way, when working on a machine without your script, you'll get a nice and friendly "command not found" reminding you there's no safety catch. I'm personally none too fond of this, though. Unixoid systems have quite a lot of ways to destroy files. Trashes won't really protect you from that. Instead, they just give you a false feeling of security, which merely encourages sloppiness. My own solution is actually quite simple: I treat dangerous commands the same way I'd carry a deadly and pretty annoyed snake: with my thoughts on the task at hand. I read the command *before* I hit enter. Not the one I *think* I've written, but the one I'm about to execute. I also tend to tab-expand globs to see which files are actually affected. YMMV, though. Cheers, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Important question cant figure it out...
# Louis LeBlanc: [ libm.so.3 not available on 6.0 ] > It might be that FreeBSD 6.0, or just the installation you have > doesn't have that particular file present. Check on the > freebsd-current mailing list to see if this is normal. It is normal, just a version bump from libm.so.3 to libm.so.4. > You might have to update your source and rebuild world. You will want > to check before doing anything, because it could be that this lib is > simply part of a compatibility package. In this particular case, adding libm.so.3 libm.so.4 to /etc/libmap.conf should suffice. The math library is expected to conform to the ISO-C standard, so this mapping most likely won't create any fallout. In fact, I'm using it right now and I've used a similiar line for the libm.so.2->libm.so.3 transition in the past. I'm not aware of any trouble this caused. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: top -I and load average from 4.9 into 5.4
# [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > We upgraded from 4.9 to 5.4 and the 'top -I' and load average seem to > behave slightly different. 'top -I' in 5.4 stays empty most of the time > with processes flashing in and out from time to time. Well, I'd actually expect them to, as -I filters out any idle process. Justed tested on my 6.0B2, major CPU hogs are shown as expected. > In 4.9 the processes stayed there until they are done. Where's the difference to top [-i], then? I don't really know enough about how load and utilization are calculated. I'd guess load is calculated by the scheduler, based on the number of processes whining for more/larger time slices, whereas utilization is guessimated elsewhere, probably something like process CPU time / available CPU time. I'm none too sure there's an actual correlation between these values, let alone load 1 = utilization 100%. Cheers. Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: DVD image making utility, equivalent to mkisofs
# Sherman, Michael (GE Energy): > Does anyone know whether there is a way to force mkisofs to create > a DVD image or a different utility. Any input would be appreciated. The port sysutils/dvd+rw-tools provides growisofs, which should do the trick. HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: gnome2 and packages cleanup
# Gareth Campbell: > I was installing gnome2 from the ports collection (on dial-up!) and it > took like 3 days of constant work when it finally ran out of space on my > /usr drive (only using a 6.4gig). I thought this would be more than > enough, but alas... Did you run a 'make clean' in between? During the build process, the work-directories are _not_ removed and they tend to eat up quite a lot of space. The whole gnome probably isn't more than 300M installed (if that). HTH, Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Thanks a lot!!!
# Gregory Nou: [ Playing with FBSD ] > I ran Neverwinter Nights, Enemy Territory and UT2004 with great success. There are two issues with FreeBSD here (I've found out the hard way): 1) There is no nVidia-driver for amd64 and --unless nVidia changes their mind-- there won't ever be one. 2) The i386-nVidia-driver (tested 6113, 7667, 7676) seems to have a major problem with Athlon64 on socket 939. Just google for | NVRM: AGP cannot be enabled on this combination of the AMD CPU and OS kernel | NVRM: kernel upgrade recommended. Apparently, the driver is unable to use either NVAgp or native AGP. You'll still be able to use twin-screens and hardware accelleration, albeit at a very limited transfer bandwidth to the GPU. Some people seem lucky enough and are still able to play, but I know that _for me_ UT2004 runs *way* too slow since updating CPU+Mainboard. (Ran perfectly fine before). In short: if your PCs have a combination of nVidia-GPU and Athlon64/939-CPU, FreeBSD is not a good choice atm. :( HTH Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Fly Segfaults?
# Warren Block: [ SIGSEGV with fly 2.0 ] > % cat flytest > new > size 26,20 > copy 0,0,-1,-1,-1,-1,/home/wblock/2.gif > copy 13,0,-1,-1,-1,-1,/home/wblock/6.gif > % fly -i flytest > test.gif > Creating new 26 by 20 image > Segmentation fault (core dumped) The problem here seems to be the image-type: the default type is set to PNG and the program seems to never check the type of the image loaded with copy. As a result, the gif file runs through 1271img_file = gdImageCreateFromPng(img_to_copy); ^^^ That returns an unchecked NULL, which is dereferenced just a couple of lines down: 1298arg[4] = img_file->sx; Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x0804cf46 in copy_to_img (infile=0x281a22c0, img=0x8053000, resize=0) at fly.c:1298 I'm not really sure how to fix this (and I don't really use the program), so maybe contact the author about it. HTH, Mario PS: Followup-To/Reply-To -ports set. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Error Code 1 building Sendmail. FreeBSD 5.4-p6
# Jordan Freeman: > Here's the output. Any assistance would be apprecaited. > > make > Warning: Object directory not changed from original > /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail > cc -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 [...] > -D_FFR_SMTP_SSL -I/usr/local/lib -o sendmail [...] > /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lsasl2 > *** Error code 1 Looks like a typo. Changing that "-I/usr/local/lib" to "-L/usr/local/lib", so it's added to the library search path instead of the include search path, should do the trick. HTH Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Configuring multiple monitors
# Pat Maddox: > Anyway I've got a Dell 2001fp and a Viewsonic vp201, hooked up to a > GeForce4 Ti4600. You'll need to run the binary nvidia-driver (~ports/x11/nvidia-driver) for this to work. Once that works, the xorg.conf-entries are rather simple: # see /usr/X11R6/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0 for nVidia-specific docs Section "Device" Identifier "NV AGP" Driver "nvidia" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Option "TwinView" "on" Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024" Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "28-64" Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60" Option "TwinViewOrientation" "LeftOf" # Or RightOf Option "RenderAccel" "true" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen 1" Device "NV AGP" Monitor "samsung" DefaultDepth 24 Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x1024" EndSubsection EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout 1" Screen "Screen 1" InputDevice "Mouse 1" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Keyboard 1" "CoreKeyboard" EndSection The screen-section sets up the primary display, the other is set up with the SecondMonitorXXX-options in the Device Section. ServerLayout sets the screen-section to use. HTH Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Configuring multiple monitors
# Pat Maddox: > I did some searching and disabled agp.ko in the device.hints file. > Still I get this error (twice), and I have no idea what it means: > Symbol __glXGetActiveScreen from module > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libdri.a is unresolved! Search your xorg.conf for Load "dri" in Section "Module". DRI won't work with the nVidia-driver (but since the driver already provides accelerated drawing, you don't need it anyway). Just comment that line out. HTH Mario ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: IE in FreeBSD?
# Ted Mittelstaedt: > # On Behalf Of Frank Jahnke > > > >filled out and saved on a FreeBSD system? > > > > PDF doesn't belong in complex forms that are filled out online. I use > PDF at my job and we use it for one use only - contracts. A contract > must be in paper with a human's signature on it to have any validity > whatsoever in a court of law, despite what you may read otherwise. In Germany, electronic signatures conforming to the conditions in §17 SiG ("signature law") and §15 Annex 1 SigV ("signature decree") are as valid as a "hard" signature and can (for example) be used for communication with government departments. The world doesn't end on US borders. > >>The Mac isn't > >> a gateway to UNIX by any means. Apple made it easy for Mac users to > >> continue to be stone stupid, and the Mac users by and large chose to > >> stay stone stupid. Apple knows it's customer base that's for sure. *Shrug*. I'm a CS + Math student and I've used FreeBSD since 3.3 (Linux before). I don't think I'm stone stupid. Yet I happen to like my Powerbook. > >I find this attitude to be very distressing, but remarkably common. Yup. > >Sure, users are not as informed as they might be, and they can do stupid > >things. But they use the computer as a tool to do certain tasks, and > >they shouldn't have to know about how the computer works to accomplish > >those tasks. > > Yah yah yah. I hear the same thing about cars - "we shouldn't need to > know how a car works to drive it" Sure - sounds great. Cars != computers. With cars, failure to understand their basic features is likely to get people killed. I don't see that kind of risk with ordinary PCs. The analogy is thus pointless. You could just as well demand that anyone ever using mathematics knows the entire theory behind it. Next time you assume that "1*(1 + 1) = 2" (in |R), please take a brief moment to remind yourself that the result is guaranteed to exist solely because |R is a field and thus both (|R, +) and (|R, *) form abelean groups, i.e. |R is closed under both addition and multiplication. Please remember as well the proof that 1 is uniquely identified, 2 defined as 1+1 and thus 2 is uniquely identified as well. Don't forget that 1 is also the neutral element of (|R, *) and thus you can safely assume that 1*(1+1) = (1+1). And sure as hell hope you never need \pi, because that's a rather unpleasant series, even using the simple Leibniz formula. > It's like teaching mathematics in school. You can teach the kids to do > addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by hand, so they > understand what is going on, No, they don't. Mathematics in school is nothing but a "desktop" for real mathematics. With just school mathematics, you don't understand the slightest thing of what's going on, but you've learned how to use it. The above example is *very* basic (this is the stuff you usually learn at the very beginning of your first math-lecture at a university), but you won't learn any of that in school. At least not around here. A more advanced example are integrals. You learn how to integrate, but you haven't got the slightest clue an integral is really defined as (from the top of my head) \int f := \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} f_k where each f_k is a step function, i.e. an element of the vector space \mathcal{F}_{ST}(|R,|R) spanned by the elementary functions g_i. That is: f_k := \sum_{i=1}^{k} \lamda_i g_i with g_i(x) := \begin{cases}1 & x \in [a,b[ \\ 0 & otherwise\end{cases} There's a *lot* of theory behind those few lines and believe me, it ain't pretty or simple. However, there's no reason anyone but a mathematician should care about this. That's why the "desktop" school mathematics exists. So people who aren't interested in mathematics won't have to deal with its intricacies. I think this is a better analogy than yours, because in both cases i) the matters involved are widely considered complicated. ii) the users have to deal with "virtual" quantities, i.e. they can't touch them. This tends to be a problem for many people. iii) the risks involved are pretty much the same. None of this applies to cars. > >It seems that you are arguing the BSDs (Free, Net, Open and so on) > >should be used only for servers (and perhaps a few other applications > >like embedded systems), and to leave the desktop to the Mac and Windows. > > No, you are missing the point totally. I'm arguing that the so-called > "desktop" isn't important. For you. There's other needs than yours and they're of no less importance. > The desktop needs to serve as a portal to the real applications > and processing, which is centralized. It is a means to an end, > not an end itself. The servers in the center that are doing the > Really Important Work are of course all FreeBSD. This doesn't exactly make sense for home PCs. I'll certainly not stick another machine in my single room appartment so I have a "server". [ da