Re: [luau] MSWindows
The part about Microsoft that I detest is their abusive business practices that leaves the industry with little choice by destroying competition. I want competition in the marketplace. I hate Microsoft for this to such a degree, that I would NEVER take a job that uses primarily Microsoft, develops on Microsoft, or promotes the use of Microsoft technology no matter how much I am offered. This may not seem like much to this list, but this is a radical concept in the Computer Science department and I was laughed at by an entire room of fellow students when I said it. This is precisely why I have issues with Microsoft. I support well-deserved success. Microsoft deserves a few pats on the back. Frankly, I don't have trouble with my win98, 2000, and XP installations. I may demand less of these products than others, but, I keep them up to date with patches and when I must boot to them for school, etc., they perform for me. I believe in corporate responsibility. It is not responsible to manipulate market and political forces in order to create and sustain an artificial advantage. What is good for shareholders is not always good for stakeholders. In my book one is not more important than the other. Without rambling about specifics, it is this area that I fault the Redmond folks. Another thread I have followed as I sit around in the hospital is the learning curve required to adopt linux. Some account for this adaptation rate by blaming the lack of good GUI tools. This is what I have learned: there are a lot of great GUI administrative tools for linux. There are not as many as I like, but that's because I have not written one. That's the problem. I used to fault them for linux being so tough. Why didn't they make better tools. Well, I have learned that I am both them and they. I am a user of Openly Sourced software, and as such am responsible for its success. I want better GUI tools for Linux, but I have not written them. I have superior CLI tools for linux, but that's because the people who use Linux/Unix/*BSD the most wrote them already. So, what will it take to get linux on my Mom's desktop and pose a threat to MS? Not much, really. We are dealing with economic and market forces here, not technology shortcomings. Either kde or gnome are stable enough to send email, surf the web, and read all those attachments her friends send. She needs as much help with a MS OS as she does a Linux OS. In the beginning, it is all the same. What will it take for the intermediates to adopt linux? That was/is me not all that long ago. I craved the GUI. I felt dependant upon it. The wiser among me said go forth, son, into the CLI and make yourself whole. They were right, but I was afraid and felt powerless. This frustrated my fragile excursions into rookie sysadmin 101. Then I found Webmin. It is platform independent. It runs on my mac w/ OSX, it is on my debian, my redhat, and my freebsd box. It is open sourced, so I can cheat and see the commands that the gui is actually issuing. I also found humility and how to RTFM. But, these things take time. Steve jobs saw the GUI at PARC and became enlightened. Gary Kildall saw the GUI at PARC and made something of it. Had he answered IBM's call, we would have no MS. When he did not, a young entrepreneur took advantage of an excellent opportunity. Now we have Microsoft. The point is that Microsoft has had success not because of innovation superiority, but rather because of managerial and strategic successes that have become monopolistic. This can be defeated. As we gaze into the future corporate dance between Microsoft and its Openly Sourced adversaries, we see a battle of ideals that each of us can affect. If we have a problem with our Open Source software, it is our responsibility to report or fix it. If we want a feature in our OS software, it is up to us to write it. If we don't like a distribution, we can change it. Here is where Democracy rules. If the people want it, then so be it. Philoshophical debates keep us in the present. Proactive solutions and innovations put Open Sourced software closer to the masses. When it gets there because of the organizational structure of Open Source projects (the bazaar) then we are one step closer to a better corporate America. A place where capitalism is Democratized, not exploited. scott my $.02
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Whatever happened to console apps or curses? I still use PINE to read email. It's only a matter of time before even this application disappears (i.e. the maintainer stops maintaining it). --jc That's funny.. I was just going to ask you if you use pine or elm to read this list, because that is the kind of thing I think a GUI is made for. Email these days is designed for everyone, and although I am still fond of pine from college, I enjoy Mozilla much more dean
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Couldn't a graphical method of executing 'rm -rf' also allow accidental deletion? You could certainly design a GUI so that it was just as easy (a bad design), and people seem capable of out-idioting any idiot-proof measure. But let's face it, accidentally typing rm -rf /lib/* and hitting enter (when what was intended may have been something like rm -rf /lib/*.xxx) is a *lot* easier than openning a window on /lib, selecting every item in the directory, dragging them all to the trash, and then emptying the trash, all by accident.
Re: [luau] MSWindows
If you'd like to explain how to delete files on a system that's 100s of miles away without using rm or a similar command line utility, I'd be happy to hear it. Even if there is none (existing), that is hardly a good reason for everyone to have to learn the arcana. This case is the exception, not the rule. I could imagine all sorts of problems that would call for extraordinary measures, that doesn't mean that it is actually a good idea to advise newbies to train themselves to provide these measures. CLI deserves to be an obscure specialty at best, not the foundation of administration. Daffy Dave
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Fri, 2 Aug 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Couldn't a graphical method of executing 'rm -rf' also allow accidental deletion? You could certainly design a GUI so that it was just as easy (a bad design), and people seem capable of out-idioting any idiot-proof measure. But let's face it, accidentally typing rm -rf /lib/* and hitting enter (when what was intended may have been something like rm -rf /lib/*.xxx) is a *lot* easier than openning a window on /lib, selecting every item in the directory, dragging them all to the trash, and then emptying the trash, all by accident. Hmm, you seem to have conveniently deleted the sentence in my response where I said features to prevent accidental deletion of files can be added to a CLI program as easily as to a GUI program. It is just as easily done to make rm move files to a trash directory. But this is not the default behavior. The reason is, that is not what people want rm to do. They want a program that wipes out the list of files and directories specified. This is a powerful feature. But like all powerful tools, it is also dangerous. This is true for mechanical tools, it is true for computer tools. If the person does not understand the dangers, they should not be allowed to use the tools. This is not elitism, it is common sense. If you shoot yourself in the foot with a shotgun, do not blame the gun. Blame the person who gave you that gun without explaining the hazards. --jc -- Jimen Ching (WH6BRR) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [luau] MSWindows
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you'd like to explain how to delete files on a system that's 100s of miles away without using rm or a similar command line utility, I'd be happy to hear it. Even if there is none (existing), that is hardly a good reason for everyone to have to learn the arcana. This case is the exception, not the rule. I could imagine all sorts of problems that would call for extraordinary measures, that doesn't mean that it is actually a good idea to advise newbies to train themselves to provide these measures. CLI deserves to be an obscure specialty at best, not the foundation of administration. My objective was to point out that remote administration on low bandiwidth connections by GUI is *impossible*. Graphics inherently need lots of bandwidht to be done in realtime. Remember when you have your 2400baud modem (if you never had one, I'm sure someone you know did)? I bet you disabled images in netscape (or mosaic as the case may be). You did this because they took ages to download (and you might have been paying for every bit you moved too). The time of slow downloads is over, and a remote GUI is *technologically* feasable. However, *cost* prohibits them from being used in a WAN environment. The command line, on the other hand, is extremely low bandwidht. Typing rm -rf /lib/* is 13 bytes+TCP overhead. Heck, the TCP overhead is higher than than sending the actual data! The command line is VERY bandwidht friendly (it's usable over a 1200bps serial link, though barely if you have many screen refreshes). Try setting up SLIP or PPP over a null modem cable, and run it at 1200-9600bps. Now try doing a VNC or X window export. Heck use TightVNC with the highest (as in it looks really bad) JPEG compression. It's still unusable! At 9600bps, a command line is basically like your on a local console. As I said, extremely high bandwidth internet links are available. However, they sure aren't cheap! Traffic for colocated serevers is very espensive (multiple dollars per gigabyte is not uncommon). Start up a remote display of soemthing like GMC or Nautilius over your LAN and see how fast the traffic adds up. That kind of transfer will needlessly cost you big money on a colocated server link. There's just no way around it at this point in time. Daffy Dave --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
If nothing exists for this, something could easily be invented. I don't know if ftp, sftp, or scp are capable of deleting files, but it would be easy enough to make a graphical ssh client that does all of its graphics client side. -Eric Hattemer - Original Message - From: MonMotha [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 2:14 PM Subject: Re: [luau] MSWindows [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you'd like to explain how to delete files on a system that's 100s of miles away without using rm or a similar command line utility, I'd be happy to hear it. Even if there is none (existing), that is hardly a good reason for everyone to have to learn the arcana. This case is the exception, not the rule. I could imagine all sorts of problems that would call for extraordinary measures, that doesn't mean that it is actually a good idea to advise newbies to train themselves to provide these measures. CLI deserves to be an obscure specialty at best, not the foundation of administration. My objective was to point out that remote administration on low bandiwidth connections by GUI is *impossible*. Graphics inherently need lots of bandwidht to be done in realtime. Remember when you have your 2400baud modem (if you never had one, I'm sure someone you know did)? I bet you disabled images in netscape (or mosaic as the case may be). You did this because they took ages to download (and you might have been paying for every bit you moved too). The time of slow downloads is over, and a remote GUI is *technologically* feasable. However, *cost* prohibits them from being used in a WAN environment. The command line, on the other hand, is extremely low bandwidht. Typing rm -rf /lib/* is 13 bytes+TCP overhead. Heck, the TCP overhead is higher than than sending the actual data! The command line is VERY bandwidht friendly (it's usable over a 1200bps serial link, though barely if you have many screen refreshes). Try setting up SLIP or PPP over a null modem cable, and run it at 1200-9600bps. Now try doing a VNC or X window export. Heck use TightVNC with the highest (as in it looks really bad) JPEG compression. It's still unusable! At 9600bps, a command line is basically like your on a local console. As I said, extremely high bandwidth internet links are available. However, they sure aren't cheap! Traffic for colocated serevers is very espensive (multiple dollars per gigabyte is not uncommon). Start up a remote display of soemthing like GMC or Nautilius over your LAN and see how fast the traffic adds up. That kind of transfer will needlessly cost you big money on a colocated server link. There's just no way around it at this point in time. Daffy Dave --MonMotha ___ LUAU mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Eric Hattemer wrote: If nothing exists for this, something could easily be invented. I don't know if ftp, sftp, or scp are capable of deleting files, but it would be easy enough to make a graphical ssh client that does all of its graphics client side. -Eric Hattemer You mean a frontend? Use an FTP client then, FTP can delete files (see the DELE command). However, file management is a very, VERY small portion of remote system administration. It's MUCH easier to just ssh in and do it from a command line. There have been attempts at making remote GUI administration tools (see webmin, and I think LinuxConf had seom remote features). They work for simple tasks, but if your system has major problems (and believe me, there are problems yuo can get into where a webmin won't work, but you can still SSH in), the CLI can save your behind. Notice also that all these thigns are sysadmin functions. A sysadmin should know the command line anyway because by definition a sysadmin should be able to fix a system no matter what state it's in (assuming it's fixable at all). This includes no network, broken XFree install, etc. In those situations, you can bet you'll want a command line. For the average user, a GUI is fine. The average user isn't working on systems hundreds of thousands of miles away. The average user won't want to fix their own XFree install; they have someone else to do it for them (a sysadmin). The average user doesn't normally need to know how to use a command line. If you don't want to learn the command line, you don't need to, but don't call yourself a sysadmin until you do (and learn a bunch of other things too)! Also, just because you think a command line is archane doesn't mean we all do. This whole movement is about choice. If you don't like Windows, try Linux. Don't like Linux? Try a BSD. Don't like any of the BSDs? Try QNX, or AtheOS, or YammitOS for all I care. Don't like any of those? Write your own OS like Linus did. The command line is there because there is a desire for it. I personally have 5 tabs up in my GNOME console right now, but there's no need for it. I could be using Nautilus for file management, and my menus for launching and such, but I like doing things from a command line. I find that a good shell is a very handy thing. I used to think the command line as archane or cryptic too, but that was because I was basing my thoughts off DOS's command.com command interpreter. I don't even think I can call that a shell. BASH is very powerful, but I don't say it's as easy to use as a GUI. Don't start a compaign to eliminate something just because you don't like it. If you can get by without it, just ignore it. If there's functionality missing in your favorite GUI application, feel free to write it. If you're not a coder (and I understand this completely; I'm not either), submit a bug report or request the feature. Most projects listen to their userbase as that's what makes them popular. In the OSS community, there's competition, but unlike the commercial software world, this competition is based on functionality, not price. If something doesn't have what you need, ask for it. If the project doesn't pay any attention, pick a different app. There's the whole KDE vs. GNOME thing. Again, CHOICE! /flame mode --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
I've been busy lately, and never had the chance to reply to this message, but here we go: From: Jimen Ching [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Eric Hattemer wrote: I suppose I missed the logic in the first part of your message, so I'm cutting it. Only about 1:5 times when I try to compile something in linux does it come out correctly. Let me get this straight, you are comparing the installation of windows programs to the compilation of linux programs? And for some reason, you feel they should have the same difficulty level? Or the same easiness level... Perhaps this is slightly unfair. I've never compiled anything in windows that I didn't write myself. However, this is because I didn't need to. That's just how I get a lot of programs in linux. Only taking redhat rpms is like refusing to run any program not written by microsoft. I have seen other organizations make redhat rpms for their programs, but often its for an older version of redhat. Even if they are the right version, they often require odd dependencies, as mentioned in my last email on this subject. get things installed on. Windows doesn't require that the user remember anything. Do you really think most of the world moved away from the command line by pure chance? No, it allows you to manipulate files and etc. without learning or remembering any commands. More evidence of brain washing? You're telling me that you didn't have to remember anything to use or install Windows applications? So you were born with the knowledge of the 20 to 40 odd menu options in MS-Word? Or the 5 to 10 dialogs for installing the new Inbox Express? I guess Microsoft must have found the technology to beam this information directly to your mother's brain, and she passed it to you via the umbilical cord. The Ctrl-C to copy and the Ctrl-V to paste is learned through osmosis, right? As for installing, I put the CD in, it says, would you like to install this, then I say yes, yes, next, next, finish. If I forgot how to do this each time, it would be no trouble to figure it out again. I didn't mention use of MS-Word. However, if I had, I would have had a clear case. Just by looking through the file menus for word, you can mostly tell what they do. Now there are some obscure ones, but I simply don't need to use those ones. However, if I ever found the need, the words in the file menus match up well with the intended functions. So its quite possible to find out new functions intuitively. Compare that to something like vi, which may be faster or more powerful, etc, but really takes a lot of work to learn. Oh, and about the ctrl-C, ctrl-V, I suppose its not pertinent information that those are written on my keyboard, but I could find those in the file menus, and conveniently enough, they have the keyboard shortcuts written in. This is another example of learning the slow but easy way first, then eventually moving to the harder yet faster method. I am the type that says: I wish the people, who wants to use Linux, to learn the tools the right way, rather than expect it to function like Windows. Even if that means learning vi. Would it be acceptable for us to use emacs? Its laid out in a much more intuitive way. Even pico is easier to use than vi. As for pushing the responsibility towards the user, that is exactly what Microsoft does. The only difference with Linux is that it is not Microsoft. And that just ticks you off because we are asking you to relearn what took you years to learn already. Why should you have to relearn anything at all to use Linux? Linux should just do it the Microsoft way. Because that is THE RIGHT WAY, THE ONLY WAY! Take a look at KDE and GNOME as evidence. Those developers believe as you do. Why re-invent the wheel, when Microsoft did it right the first time? Microsoft has brained washed the entire planet to the point where people defend it without knowing why. It is sad, but it is also reality. If the command line were definitively better, why would anyone have left DOS? Windows sold well because it was easier to use than DOS ever was. To get people to use win3.1 didn't take brainwashing, it just took them seeing how easy it was to use. Now I haven't used gnome in a while, but KDE has many customizations and themes that allow you to make it look very different from windows if you want. Now I'm not saying the command line should be eliminated or anything silly like that. I use the windows command propmt for things like ping, ipconfig, nslookup, etc. I use the linux command prompt on a regular basis. But I think that the command prompt should just be for more obscure functions, or for advanced users who find it faster to use; not for beginning users doing basic operations. -Eric Hattemer --jc P.S. Do not for a moment believe that Microsoft is unique. Give Red Hat a chance, and they will do the same. I don't believe there is anyone who is reading this email
Re: [luau] MSWindows
I have never once said that the command line should be eliminated, or anything of the sort. The command line is useful as a secondary shell for a lot of people, and should be available for an init 1 type of situation. However, I've just been saying that the GUI should be improved to the extent that people would have the choice not to use the command line. -Eric Hattemer Don't start a compaign to eliminate something just because you don't like it. If you can get by without it, just ignore it. If there's functionality missing in your favorite GUI application, feel free to write it. --MonMotha ___ LUAU mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau
Re: [luau] MSWindows
MonMotha wrote: Eric Hattemer wrote: If nothing exists for this, something could easily be invented. I don't know if ftp, sftp, or scp are capable of deleting files, but it would be easy enough to make a graphical ssh client that does all of its graphics client side. -Eric Hattemer You mean a frontend? Use an FTP client then, FTP can delete files (see the DELE command). However, file management is a very, VERY small portion of remote system administration. It's MUCH easier to just ssh in and do it from a command line. There have been attempts at making remote GUI administration tools (see webmin, and I think LinuxConf had seom remote features). They work for simple tasks, but if your system has major problems (and believe me, there are problems yuo can get into where a webmin won't work, but you can still SSH in), the CLI can save your behind. Notice also that all these thigns are sysadmin functions. A sysadmin should know the command line anyway because by definition a sysadmin should be able to fix a system no matter what state it's in (assuming it's fixable at all). This includes no network, broken XFree install, etc. In those situations, you can bet you'll want a command line. For the average user, a GUI is fine. The average user isn't working on systems hundreds of thousands of miles away. The average user won't want to fix their own XFree install; they have someone else to do it for them (a sysadmin). The average user doesn't normally need to know how to use a command line. If you don't want to learn the command line, you don't need to, but don't call yourself a sysadmin until you do (and learn a bunch of other things too)! Also, just because you think a command line is archane doesn't mean we all do. This whole movement is about choice. If you don't like Windows, try Linux. Don't like Linux? Try a BSD. Don't like any of the BSDs? Try QNX, or AtheOS, or YammitOS for all I care. Don't like any of those? Write your own OS like Linus did. The command line is there because there is a desire for it. I personally have 5 tabs up in my GNOME console right now, but there's no need for it. I could be using Nautilus for file management, and my menus for launching and such, but I like doing things from a command line. I find that a good shell is a very handy thing. I used to think the command line as archane or cryptic too, but that was because I was basing my thoughts off DOS's command.com command interpreter. I don't even think I can call that a shell. BASH is very powerful, but I don't say it's as easy to use as a GUI. Don't start a compaign to eliminate something just because you don't like it. If you can get by without it, just ignore it. If there's functionality missing in your favorite GUI application, feel free to write it. If you're not a coder (and I understand this completely; I'm not either), submit a bug report or request the feature. Most projects listen to their userbase as that's what makes them popular. In the OSS community, there's competition, but unlike the commercial software world, this competition is based on functionality, not price. If something doesn't have what you need, ask for it. If the project doesn't pay any attention, pick a different app. There's the whole KDE vs. GNOME thing. Again, CHOICE! /flame mode --MonMotha ___ LUAU mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau ** Hey Mon, I'm with you. When all else fails use the command line. In many cases it's faster that going to a GUI. -- Aloha! Al Plant - Webmaster http://hawaiidakine.com Providing FAST DSL Service for $28.00 /mo. Member Small Business Hawaii. Running FreeBSD 4.5 UNIX Caldera Linux 2.4 RedHat 7.2 Support OPEN SOURCE in Business Computing. Phone 808-622-0043
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Eric Hattemer wrote: I've been busy lately, and never had the chance to reply to this message, but here we go: From: Jimen Ching [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Eric Hattemer wrote: I suppose I missed the logic in the first part of your message, so I'm cutting it. Only about 1:5 times when I try to compile something in linux does it come out correctly. Let me get this straight, you are comparing the installation of windows programs to the compilation of linux programs? And for some reason, you feel they should have the same difficulty level? Or the same easiness level... Perhaps this is slightly unfair. I've never compiled anything in windows that I didn't write myself. However, this is because I didn't need to. That's just how I get a lot of programs in linux. Only taking redhat rpms is like refusing to run any program not written by microsoft. I have seen other organizations make redhat rpms for their programs, but often its for an older version of redhat. Even if they are the right version, they often require odd dependencies, as mentioned in my last email on this subject. get things installed on. Windows doesn't require that the user remember anything. Do you really think most of the world moved away from the command line by pure chance? No, it allows you to manipulate files and etc. without learning or remembering any commands. More evidence of brain washing? You're telling me that you didn't have to remember anything to use or install Windows applications? So you were born with the knowledge of the 20 to 40 odd menu options in MS-Word? Or the 5 to 10 dialogs for installing the new Inbox Express? I guess Microsoft must have found the technology to beam this information directly to your mother's brain, and she passed it to you via the umbilical cord. The Ctrl-C to copy and the Ctrl-V to paste is learned through osmosis, right? As for installing, I put the CD in, it says, would you like to install this, then I say yes, yes, next, next, finish. If I forgot how to do this each time, it would be no trouble to figure it out again. I didn't mention use of MS-Word. However, if I had, I would have had a clear case. Just by looking through the file menus for word, you can mostly tell what they do. Now there are some obscure ones, but I simply don't need to use those ones. However, if I ever found the need, the words in the file menus match up well with the intended functions. So its quite possible to find out new functions intuitively. Compare that to something like vi, which may be faster or more powerful, etc, but really takes a lot of work to learn. Oh, and about the ctrl-C, ctrl-V, I suppose its not pertinent information that those are written on my keyboard, but I could find those in the file menus, and conveniently enough, they have the keyboard shortcuts written in. This is another example of learning the slow but easy way first, then eventually moving to the harder yet faster method. I am the type that says: I wish the people, who wants to use Linux, to learn the tools the right way, rather than expect it to function like Windows. Even if that means learning vi. Would it be acceptable for us to use emacs? Its laid out in a much more intuitive way. Even pico is easier to use than vi. As for pushing the responsibility towards the user, that is exactly what Microsoft does. The only difference with Linux is that it is not Microsoft. And that just ticks you off because we are asking you to relearn what took you years to learn already. Why should you have to relearn anything at all to use Linux? Linux should just do it the Microsoft way. Because that is THE RIGHT WAY, THE ONLY WAY! Take a look at KDE and GNOME as evidence. Those developers believe as you do. Why re-invent the wheel, when Microsoft did it right the first time? Microsoft has brained washed the entire planet to the point where people defend it without knowing why. It is sad, but it is also reality. If the command line were definitively better, why would anyone have left DOS? Windows sold well because it was easier to use than DOS ever was. To get people to use win3.1 didn't take brainwashing, it just took them seeing how easy it was to use. Now I haven't used gnome in a while, but KDE has many customizations and themes that allow you to make it look very different from windows if you want. Now I'm not saying the command line should be eliminated or anything silly like that. I use the windows command propmt for things like ping, ipconfig, nslookup, etc. I use the linux command prompt on a regular basis. But I think that the command prompt should just be for more obscure functions, or for advanced users who find it faster to use; not for beginning users doing basic operations. -Eric Hattemer --jc P.S. Do not for a moment believe that Microsoft is
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 03:10:45PM -1000, Eric Hattemer wrote: I have never once said that the command line should be eliminated, or anything of the sort. The command line is useful as a secondary shell for a lot of people, and should be available for an init 1 type of situation. However, I've just been saying that the GUI should be improved to the extent that people would have the choice not to use the command line. Well, being a community-developed project, anyone is free to work on whatever they think is important. Funny part is, the people expert enough to make a GUI tend to like using the command line, and so aren't interested. I personally don't even start X unless I've found an image I really want to see while browsing with Lynx. I like the command line better. I don't care what newbies use, or even what options newbies have. They can have pointy-clicky if they want, just don't make it so I have to have that too. -- Carl Tucker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Jimen Ching wrote: On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Eric Hattemer wrote: I'm just disappointed that so many distributions start carry this baggage and forcing the rest of us to drag it along. --jc Why do you feel forced to use the GUI? Or do you feel that Linux development is wasted on GUI dev? dean
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Dean Fujioka wrote: Jimen Ching wrote: I'm just disappointed that so many distributions start carry this baggage and forcing the rest of us to drag it along. Why do you feel forced to use the GUI? I am not forced to use the GUI. But if a distribution includes both GNOME and KDE, it means there is more testing, which means longer release cycle. It also increases the number of CD's to store everything. Well, this last part is not such a big deal. Or do you feel that Linux development is wasted on GUI dev? There is enough developers to go around, so there is nothing wasted. But if you look at all the new projects, they are all either GNOME based, or KDE based. Whatever happened to console apps or curses? I still use PINE to read email. It's only a matter of time before even this application disappears (i.e. the maintainer stops maintaining it). --jc -- Jimen Ching (WH6BRR) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [luau] MSWindows
At 02:11 PM 7/27/2002 -0500, you wrote: He had accidentally run, as root, rm -rf /lib/* on his colocated system, hundreds of miles away. Restoring from backup was simply not an option as it would take days just to get there (as I recall he was in canada and the server was in florida). Note that it was a command line command improperly used that trashed his system in the first place. Note that this is a highly unusual situation, in which it is *perhaps* appropriate not to have reasonable backups available. In other words, the cost of doing reasonable backups and having them available was considered to be higher than taking a risk backed up only by highly expert firefighters. This looks like a good choice in retrospect? Maybe this (necessity for use of CLI) is the state of the art, but you guys are talking as if we should be resigned to this situation, or even proud of it. I am not convinced. Raving Dave
Re: [luau] MSWindows
T. David Burns wrote: At 02:11 PM 7/27/2002 -0500, you wrote: He had accidentally run, as root, rm -rf /lib/* on his colocated system, hundreds of miles away. Restoring from backup was simply not an option as it would take days just to get there (as I recall he was in canada and the server was in florida). Note that it was a command line command improperly used that trashed his system in the first place. If you'd like to explain how to delete files on a system that's 100s of miles away without using rm or a similar command line utility, I'd be happy to hear it. I don't want a oh, remote display nautilius answer either as that takes such an ungodly amount of bandwidth that I sure wouldn't want to see the bills... Note that this is a highly unusual situation, in which it is *perhaps* appropriate not to have reasonable backups available. In other words, the cost of doing reasonable backups and having them available was considered to be higher than taking a risk backed up only by highly expert firefighters. This looks like a good choice in retrospect? He had backups, but it was an issue of restoring them. He had no physical access to the server as it was hundreds of miles away. It would have taken him a few days just to get to the server, then he would still have to take the server out of the colo, restore, and then ptu it back in. Some colo companies will do restorations for you, but usually at a very high price if they will at all. Maybe this (necessity for use of CLI) is the state of the art, but you guys are talking as if we should be resigned to this situation, or even proud of it. I am not convinced. If the system's sitting at your desk or on your local lan where you can export X displays to your heart's content without paying thousands of dollars in bandwidth fees to money grubbing telcos, a nice GUI works just fine. However, when you've got a server living in a datacenter habitat that's hundreds or even thousands of miles away from you and you're paying for every bit you transmit, you'd better be sure you're gunna be workign on it from the command line. Any other method of administration is simply uneconomical. Raving Dave --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, MonMotha wrote: Maybe this (necessity for use of CLI) is the state of the art, but you guys are talking as if we should be resigned to this situation, or even proud of it. I am not convinced. If the system's sitting at your desk or on your local lan where you can export X displays to your heart's content without paying thousands of dollars in bandwidth fees to money grubbing telcos, a nice GUI works just fine. However, when you've got a server living in a datacenter habitat that's hundreds or even thousands of miles away from you and you're paying for every bit you transmit, you'd better be sure you're gunna be workign on it from the command line. Any other method of administration is simply uneconomical. Couldn't a graphical method of executing 'rm -rf' also allow accidental deletion? An accident is an accident, no matter what tools you use. Mechanisms to prevent such accidents can be applied to CLI commands just as easily as to GUIs. --jc -- Jimen Ching (WH6BRR) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Jimen Ching wrote: On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, MonMotha wrote: Maybe this (necessity for use of CLI) is the state of the art, but you guys are talking as if we should be resigned to this situation, or even proud of it. I am not convinced. If the system's sitting at your desk or on your local lan where you can export X displays to your heart's content without paying thousands of dollars in bandwidth fees to money grubbing telcos, a nice GUI works just fine. However, when you've got a server living in a datacenter habitat that's hundreds or even thousands of miles away from you and you're paying for every bit you transmit, you'd better be sure you're gunna be workign on it from the command line. Any other method of administration is simply uneconomical. Couldn't a graphical method of executing 'rm -rf' also allow accidental deletion? An accident is an accident, no matter what tools you use. Mechanisms to prevent such accidents can be applied to CLI commands just as easily as to GUIs. The solution is to never use -f when executing rm as root. If you do, make sure you aren't using it with -r also. Only if you have really checked over what's going to happen (replace -i with -f first) should you ever consider typing rm -rf as root. I know people who alias rm -rf to echo 'Don't even think about it!' so that if they type that, they have to explicitly unalias it to make it work. --jc
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Eric Hattemer wrote: I don't think this is true at all. I have never needed help for ANYTHING in windows. That is because you were brain washed. There is more proof of this below. On the other hand, anything I attempt in linux usually takes several days, I ask for help, then it fails anyway. Funny, I hear the same thing from people who have called Microsoft tech support. The thing is, I'm not a stupid user or anything. I have never had real problems installing programs in windows. If ever I did, the product was not worthwhile anyway. More evidence of brain washing? Are you reading the words you are typing? I have never had real problems installing programs in windows, [except when I do have problems...] Only about 1:5 times when I try to compile something in linux does it come out correctly. Let me get this straight, you are comparing the installation of windows programs to the compilation of linux programs? And for some reason, you feel they should have the same difficulty level? Or the same easiness level... get things installed on. Windows doesn't require that the user remember anything. Do you really think most of the world moved away from the command line by pure chance? No, it allows you to manipulate files and etc. without learning or remembering any commands. More evidence of brain washing? You're telling me that you didn't have to remember anything to use or install Windows applications? So you were born with the knowledge of the 20 to 40 odd menu options in MS-Word? Or the 5 to 10 dialogs for installing the new Inbox Express? I guess Microsoft must have found the technology to beam this information directly to your mother's brain, and she passed it to you via the umbilical cord. The Ctrl-C to copy and the Ctrl-V to paste is learned through osmosis, right? enough to use linux, because other people would get in the way, but if you're the type who says, I wish other people used linux. That would make society better, then you can't expect people to say, Hey, if I could learn to use vi and type in commands, my life would be much better. I am the type that says: I wish the people, who wants to use Linux, to learn the tools the right way, rather than expect it to function like Windows. Even if that means learning vi. As for pushing the responsibility towards the user, that is exactly what Microsoft does. The only difference with Linux is that it is not Microsoft. And that just ticks you off because we are asking you to relearn what took you years to learn already. Why should you have to relearn anything at all to use Linux? Linux should just do it the Microsoft way. Because that is THE RIGHT WAY, THE ONLY WAY! Take a look at KDE and GNOME as evidence. Those developers believe as you do. Why re-invent the wheel, when Microsoft did it right the first time? Microsoft has brained washed the entire planet to the point where people defend it without knowing why. It is sad, but it is also reality. --jc P.S. Do not for a moment believe that Microsoft is unique. Give Red Hat a chance, and they will do the same. I don't believe there is anyone who is reading this email believes that AOL, Oracle, Sun, Viacom, or any other conglomerate wouldn't want what Microsoft has. Don't believe for a second that these companies don't want to use the same tactics to achieve the same goals. We hate Microsoft because it affects us the most. In the 70's and 80's, our older colleages before us hated IBM and ATT for the same exact reasons. The young believe they invented the rebellion. But the only new thing is the technology. -- Jimen Ching (WH6BRR) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Jimen Ching wrote: On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Daniel J Nishimura wrote: By the way, Linux and Unix isn't harder to configure, it is just that the configuration is NOT LIKE Windows. People are so brain washed into the Windows way of doing things, that anything else is considered 'difficult'. Sorry if this turned into a rant. I am just tired of people complaining why Unix is so user unfriendly, and why programmers like myself flock to Linux. Even if you look just at the surface only, the answer is so obvious. --jc Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with those last two paragraphs. Linux isn't inherently harder to use for Average Joe (who doesn't isntall his own OS or most of his software anyway), it's just *different*, and that scares Joe. --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with those last two paragraphs. Linux isn't inherently harder to use for Average Joe (who doesn't isntall his own OS or most of his software anyway), it's just *different*, and that scares Joe. --MonMotha I don't think this is true at all. I have never needed help for ANYTHING in windows. On the other hand, anything I attempt in linux usually takes several days, I ask for help, then it fails anyway. The problem is, people think they are smart enough to install and configure their own computer. When they realize this isn't true, they question why doesn't the software engineers design easier to use software, as if that was the problem to begin with. The thing is, I'm not a stupid user or anything. I have never had real problems installing programs in windows. If ever I did, the product was not worthwhile anyway. Only about 1:5 times when I try to compile something in linux does it come out correctly. Then even with RPMs, they often complain about obscure library dependencies. An RPM says it needs libsoq.so.12, then I look for soq in the rpms, and nothing similar exists. In windows, its double click the install file, next, next, next, finish. There is nothing easier. It is obvious that most of the time linux is quite a bit harder to get things installed on. Windows doesn't require that the user remember anything. Do you really think most of the world moved away from the command line by pure chance? No, it allows you to manipulate files and etc. without learning or remembering any commands. Now the linux community can sit around and think that everyone but themselves are stupid and learn the command line interface, but if they really want anyone else to learn linux, the way to do it is to make it easier, not to try to convince everyone to work harder. An install shield type of program, more gui menus, and other such things would help considerably. Command line interfaces are for system administrators and programmers. They are good for people who are really into their systems. However, they are not for average people who just want to install and uninstall programs. Look at MacOSX. The command prompt is there for people who really like to type in commands, but the GUI is done so well that the average mac user doesn't even know or need to know that the terminal is available. Now maybe you're one of those people who says, Linux is fine the way it is, and putting menus and making it easier would just make it for stupid people. I'm glad that my friends and I are the only people smart enough to use linux, because other people would get in the way, but if you're the type who says, I wish other people used linux. That would make society better, then you can't expect people to say, Hey, if I could learn to use vi and type in commands, my life would be much better. -Eric Hattemer
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Eric Hattemer wrote: Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with those last two paragraphs. Linux isn't inherently harder to use for Average Joe (who doesn't isntall his own OS or most of his software anyway), it's just *different*, and that scares Joe. --MonMotha I don't think this is true at all. I have never needed help for ANYTHING in windows. On the other hand, anything I attempt in linux usually takes several days, I ask for help, then it fails anyway. You're one of the intermediate users. There are plenty of those too. I usually find that there are three basic categories of users: *Beginner/Too cautious for their own good: Won't do anything that's not on their cheat sheet (like installing an OS or software, or using uncommon features in their programs) without calling up a more techie friend to help them. These are the people I was speaking of. There's a lot of these. *Intermediate/Willing to try and occassionaly messes up: These are the people who will install their own software, but don't have the know-how or will to troubleshoot something when it goes wrong. These people will only bother their techie friends when something breaks or if they come across a feature that's intriguing and they want to know more. This group is probably one of the hardest to support as they are willing to do things on their own (and this is a GOOD THING), but don't walk the walk if you will. *Advanced/Knows how to fix things: This group is where your average hard-core linux user falls. They're willing to do just about anythign on their own, and if something doesn't work they either know what to do to fix it or where to go. However, these people aren't gods. They may need to ask another advanced user who is more familiar with a certain subsystem for more information or help on occasion. There are subcategories of course. But notice I leave off a knows everything level. Even Linus Torvalds doesn't know everything that's going on on a Linux system. There are parts of your redhat box that Alan Cox has no idea what to do if they utterly fall apart. But these guys of course know who to call. The problem is, people think they are smart enough to install and configure their own computer. When they realize this isn't true, they question why doesn't the software engineers design easier to use software, as if that was the problem to begin with. See Intermediate level above. The thing is, I'm not a stupid user or anything. I have never had real problems installing programs in windows. If ever I did, the product was not worthwhile anyway. Only about 1:5 times when I try to compile something in linux does it come out correctly. Then even with RPMs, they often complain about obscure library dependencies. An RPM says it needs libsoq.so.12, then I look for soq in the rpms, and nothing similar exists. In windows, its double click the install file, next, next, next, finish. There is nothing easier. It is obvious that most of the time linux is quite a bit harder to get things installed on. Windows doesn't require that the user remember anything. Do you really think most of the world moved away from the command line by pure chance? No, it allows you to manipulate files and etc. without learning or remembering any commands. Get a better packaging system, one that can fulfill dependencies for you automatically. Windows programs have library dependencies too (of course), but they generally include them all on the CD. Linux programs try to avoid redundant downloading, so they don't do that. Debian's apt-get program will take the package you ask for, and automagically download and install it and all it's dependencies. Gentoo's BSD ports system does the same but it also compiles it from source. Honesly I don't know how RPM became the standard for Linux packages. It was a great first step, but there have been vast improvements upon it. Lately, many RPM based distributions have taken to a debian like approach. I believe Mandrake has urpmi and you can actually make apt-get work with RPM on redhat systems. This should eliminate the dependency hell commonly complained about by RPM users. Now the linux community can sit around and think that everyone but themselves are stupid and learn the command line interface, but if they really want anyone else to learn linux, the way to do it is to make it easier, not to try to convince everyone to work harder. An install shield type of program, more gui menus, and other such things would help considerably. Command line interfaces are for system administrators and programmers. They are good for people who are really into their systems. However, they are not for average people who just want to install and uninstall programs. Look at MacOSX. The command prompt is there for people who really like to type in commands, but the GUI is done so well that the average mac user doesn't even know or need to know
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Get a better packaging system, one that can fulfill dependencies for you automatically. Windows programs have library dependencies too (of course), but they generally include them all on the CD. Linux programs try to avoid redundant downloading, so they don't do that. Debian's apt-get program will take the package you ask for, and automagically download and install it and all it's dependencies. Gentoo's BSD ports system does the same but it also compiles it from source. Honesly I don't know how RPM became the standard for Linux packages. It was a great first step, but there have been vast improvements upon it. Lately, many RPM based distributions have taken to a debian like approach. I believe Mandrake has urpmi and you can actually make apt-get work with RPM on redhat systems. This should eliminate the dependency hell commonly complained about by RPM users. Perhaps this really is the right solution. But once again, instead of pusing the responsibility toward the user (use a different distribution), RedHat should work on their packaging system, moving to a ports or apt-get type of program. Furthermore, their GUI packaging programs kind of suck. gnorpm hasn't changed since 6.0, and still contains messages like not all functionality is here, but someday, we'll fix it, and kpackage (which I really liked, but Warren had some kind of problem with), mysteriously disappeared in the newest versions of redhat. But really, since Redhat has become the standard that everyone knows how to use and support, etc., its a shame that their packaging tools are so bad. Actually, people are working on this. KDE and GNOME are a far cry from what my X11 desktop looked like on Slackware 3.6 (aka Slackware98). There are GUIs (both X and console based) for things such as software installation, but with a good package manager, the GUI isn't needed. Why click next 10 times when you can just type apt-get install foo? Configuration is also progressing rapidly. There have got to be tens, possibly hundreds of tools for helping you configure your system. If anything, the problem is there's too many of them! I have no problem with multiple desktops, etc. I just wish KDE didn't crash so often. Now while some people would like to type in commands, and I'm sure it is faster, but it is a lot to expect from beginning users. Its one of those things that can make your life easier if you learn it, but shouldn't be a requirement. Something similar to kpackage would be great. -Eric Hattemer
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Eric Hattemer wrote: Get a better packaging system, one that can fulfill dependencies for you automatically. Windows programs have library dependencies too (of course), but they generally include them all on the CD. Linux programs try to avoid redundant downloading, so they don't do that. Debian's apt-get program will take the package you ask for, and automagically download and install it and all it's dependencies. Gentoo's BSD ports system does the same but it also compiles it from source. Honesly I don't know how RPM became the standard for Linux packages. It was a great first step, but there have been vast improvements upon it. Lately, many RPM based distributions have taken to a debian like approach. I believe Mandrake has urpmi and you can actually make apt-get work with RPM on redhat systems. This should eliminate the dependency hell commonly complained about by RPM users. Perhaps this really is the right solution. But once again, instead of pusing the responsibility toward the user (use a different distribution), RedHat should work on their packaging system, moving to a ports or apt-get type of program. Furthermore, their GUI packaging programs kind of suck. gnorpm hasn't changed since 6.0, and still contains messages like not all functionality is here, but someday, we'll fix it, and kpackage (which I really liked, but Warren had some kind of problem with), mysteriously disappeared in the newest versions of redhat. But really, since Redhat has become the standard that everyone knows how to use and support, etc., its a shame that their packaging tools are so bad. Unfortunately, it seems that RedHat has turned into a company that seems split on where to go. One one hand they have the opensource volunteer developers that gave them something very impressive to start with and are still helping them along. On the other hand they have the class coporate the only people we care about are our shareholders and lawyers. Believe me, many people in the Linux community (myself included) are beginning to doubt redhat. They are poised to become the microsoft of the Linux world. Let's hope they do the right thing. There's not much we as the community can do to force redhat to change. The best the community can do is petition them to change, the same thing we have to do with any company. What we as the community CAN do is direct people at something that will solve their problems. Actually, people are working on this. KDE and GNOME are a far cry from what my X11 desktop looked like on Slackware 3.6 (aka Slackware98). There are GUIs (both X and console based) for things such as software installation, but with a good package manager, the GUI isn't needed. Why click next 10 times when you can just type apt-get install foo? Configuration is also progressing rapidly. There have got to be tens, possibly hundreds of tools for helping you configure your system. If anything, the problem is there's too many of them! I have no problem with multiple desktops, etc. I just wish KDE didn't crash so often. Now while some people would like to type in commands, and I'm sure it is faster, but it is a lot to expect from beginning users. Its one of those things that can make your life easier if you learn it, but shouldn't be a requirement. Something similar to kpackage would be great. Unfortunately things crash. It's a fact of life. I don't think you're going to try telling me Windows never crashes. Windows has gotten a LOT better recently. Remember, windows has had over 15 years to get to this point WITH CORPORATE SPONSERSHIP. Linux has only existed (and originally as a hack your drivers together yourself project) for a mere 10 years. Only during the past few has it really started to take off. Imagine where Linux will be 10-15 years from now! On the subject of crashing and Linux improving, most projects are very happy to accept bug reports! Go to their homepage and see if they have a bug report page, and YOU can help make Linux better. -Eric Hattemer --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Sunday 28 July 2002 07:49, you wrote: Jimen Ching wrote: On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Daniel J Nishimura wrote: By the way, Linux and Unix isn't harder to configure, it is just that the configuration is NOT LIKE Windows. People are so brain washed into the Windows way of doing things, that anything else is considered 'difficult'. Sorry if this turned into a rant. I am just tired of people complaining why Unix is so user unfriendly, and why programmers like myself flock to Linux. Even if you look just at the surface only, the answer is so obvious. --jc Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with those last two paragraphs. Linux isn't inherently harder to use for Average Joe (who doesn't isntall his own OS or most of his software anyway), it's just *different*, and that scares Joe. --MonMotha ___ Scares me a little so I cant complain. Sometimes doing the simplest thing like loading flash 6 to my RH71 so my daughter can check out zoogdisney.. Just trying to get her used to Linux. But I must have did something wrong and the Flash site was incorrect in the instructions on how to install on a Linux machine. LUAU mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Dan George wrote: Scares me a little so I cant complain. Sometimes doing the simplest thing like loading flash 6 to my RH71 so my daughter can check out zoogdisney.. Just trying to get her used to Linux. But I must have did something wrong and the Flash site was incorrect in the instructions on how to install on a Linux machine. The flash plugin is rather dodgey at the moment (and has been for a while). Warren can probably attest to this with all the thin clients he does (there's a bug when remote displaying). Trust me, it probably wasn't your fault. Unfortunately, the flash plugin isn't opensource or maintained by the OSS community. It's a binary only thing distributed by Macromedia. I have to give them good points for thought though. At least they did SOMETHING. --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Microsoft may not have the most efficient or robust products on the market today, but what they do excel at is marketing their products and technologies to the public and big businesses, which open-source based companies are still lacking. A company can produce the most secure and stable OS, but if they do not have the marketing edge, the company will surely flop. Microsoft does play dirty, but corporate business is a dirty game. Don't get me wrong...I am a sys admin for linux servers and a few windows servers(only for asp purposes), and I want to completely convert to having only linux. I love the stablity and administrative freedom that linux and other *nix systems have to offer. To compete with Microsoft will take more than designing technologies and producing products that are better. Someone has to step up to their dominance in the marketing game. As software developers and programmers and advocates of open-source, we need to think about why we do what we do. What is the purpose of creating this certain program? How is it feasible to the general public or the user we are developing for? What type of impact will it have? Has it already been done? If the product we develop is similar to another proprietary product, (such as one from Microsoft) what can we do to have a greater appeal than the product we are competing against. I remember trying to set up a linux box for the first time, and I didn't know what to do or what anything meant, so I flew the floppies into my closet and reloaded windows. However, my first time setting up a Windows server was a cinch and got it up and running to do what I wanted to do in less than 2 hours. One last commentdon't you think it's ironic that the GUI front-end for Linux such as KDE and GNOME (on default settings anyways) have such a strong resemblence to the Windows desktop? We can't hate Microsoft for everything? By the way (sorry this IS the last comment), Redhat's administrative tools are a bit confusing, but I believe that new sys admins should learn to do everything from commandline. Someday your system will mess up, and you will have to boot into single user mode without any graphic interface to work with. -dan - Original Message - From: Warren Togami [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Friday, July 26, 2002 10:32 pm Subject: Re: [luau] MSWindows On Sat, 2002-01-26 at 19:14, Randall Oshita wrote: Sup guys, I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? my opinion after surfing around numerous open-source communities. Is it because they don't give their software away for free? I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better? I'm not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red Hat, just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks. Randall Oshita I have a different take on the situation than most Linux folks. I acknowledge that Microsoft has some very well designed technologies... like Visual Studio, MS SQL Server management tools (not the server itself), Windows XP remote desktop (and sound) protocol that beats VNC by a wide margin, and especially MMC abstracted plugin-based managementtool interface and some others. Notice how nearly everything I mentioned is a management or development tool. These pieces of their warchest have much greater levels of integration, and GUI learning curvethan anything Open Source currently has. (Yes, our system management and design tools need SERIOUS work. Look at Red Hat 7.3's configuration tools as an example of poor consideration toward potential new sysadmins. Look at the extreme flexibility and control of MSSQL Enterprise Manager, then look at the best Open Source tool. I would love for someone to prove me wrong, though.) The part about Microsoft that I detest is their abusive business practices that leaves the industry with little choice by destroying competition. I want competition in the marketplace. I hate Microsoft for this to such a degree, that I would NEVER take a job that uses primarily Microsoft, develops on Microsoft, or promotes the use of Microsoft technology no matter how much I am offered. This may not seem like much to this list, but this is a radical concept in the Computer Science department and I was laughed at by an entire room of fellow students when I said it. I simply will NOT support unethical practices, no matter what the cost. What would it take for me to stop hating Microsoft? If they stopped being mean. That's all. In addition to my future plans for RHCE, I've recently decided that I must study all aspects of other technologies including Microsoft and Cisco. I plan on getting CCNA soon, and studying MCSE after their .NETserver is released. I am already very familiar with Windows 2000 Active Directory because I've owned a license of Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Pro edition since
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Saturday 26 January 2002 19:14, someone wrote: Sup guys, I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? 1) Microsoft has done some genuinely arrogant stuff. (netscape java come immediately to mind.) They only really like standards that they control. M$ is a really big boat and leaves a big wake, kinda makes it hard on the little skiffs trying not to capsize. Can you blame them for griping? Wherever we want to go today, M$ seems to be in the way. 2) Class war-fare: IT managers made windows a success, not the techies, who always preferred unix or maybe even mac (though ATT Apple have their problems too). Linux is the techies' revenge. 3) Everyone loves to knock the top dog - we used to hate IBM when they looked unbeatable, now I can't remember why, except they had an incredibly strict dress code and a snotty attitude. For all I know they still do, but no one bothers to hate them any more. I've always tried to resist all this, since its kind of a waste of time and why complain about the systems that other people want to use? With windows 2000 they actually came up with something worth using, though it is not perfect. Having made that mistake, they couldn't resist coming out with XP and all its little sneaky arrogant bits. They call this an *up*grade? Dave
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Fri, 2002-07-26 at 23:51, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the way (sorry this IS the last comment), Redhat's administrative tools are a bit confusing, but I believe that new sys admins should learn to do everything from commandline. Someday your system will mess up, and you will have to boot into single user mode without any graphic interface to work with. -dan I am in total agreement. I actually want BOTH the easy GUI method and the old command line way of configuring everything. This gives you power, because you can use either method that you prefer with equal results. Makes everyone happy. New users get started quickly so they may more easily like the system, THEN they can be trained in advanced command line stuff.
Re: [luau] MSWindows
At 11:51 PM 7/26/2002 -1000, you wrote: One last commentdon't you think it's ironic that the GUI front-end for Linux such as KDE and GNOME (on default settings anyways) have such a strong resemblence to the Windows desktop? We can't hate Microsoft for everything? 1) I wish the resemblance was stronger, then I could find stuff faster. 2) So M$ invented the GUI now? Or even was first to market? Xerox invented it and Apple got people to buy it. Then M$ got on the bandwagon, and after a few years of serious effort and several revisions came up with something ... actually usable. By the way (sorry this IS the last comment), Redhat's administrative tools are a bit confusing, but I believe that new sys admins should learn to do everything from commandline. Someday your system will mess up, and you will have to boot into single user mode without any graphic interface to work with. *** Irrational rant mode on *** This sounds like an excuse to me. If it's that messed up, its time to get out the backups. For this one (hopefully unlikely) possibility we should memorize the command line arcana? Put your system on a different partition from your data, and back it up. If it goes fizz, reload it. Using a GUI all the while, if possible. ** Irrational rant mode off *** Whew, what came over me? Where do I get off telling you what to do? Guess I really don't want to go back to the bad old days. Dave
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, T. David Burns wrote: At 11:51 PM 7/26/2002 -1000, you wrote: One last commentdon't you think it's ironic that the GUI front-end for Linux such as KDE and GNOME (on default settings anyways) have such a strong resemblence to the Windows desktop? We can't hate Microsoft for everything? 1) I wish the resemblance was stronger, then I could find stuff faster. 2) So M$ invented the GUI now? Or even was first to market? Xerox invented it and Apple got people to buy it. Then M$ got on the bandwagon, and after a few years of serious effort and several revisions came up with something ... actually usable. To clear things up, I didn't say Microsoft invented the GUI. I said that the front-end GUI's that Linux uses such as KDE and GNOME resembles the Windows desktop (i.e. The start button on the bottom lefthand side, the task bar, etc...). By the way (sorry this IS the last comment), Redhat's administrative tools are a bit confusing, but I believe that new sys admins should learn to do everything from commandline. Someday your system will mess up, and you will have to boot into single user mode without any graphic interface to work with. *** Irrational rant mode on *** This sounds like an excuse to me. If it's that messed up, its time to get out the backups. For this one (hopefully unlikely) possibility we should memorize the command line arcana? Put your system on a different partition from your data, and back it up. If it goes fizz, reload it. Using a GUI all the while, if possible. ** Irrational rant mode off *** GUI's are always a convienence to have...but as a sys admin, unpredictable situations will occur where you are left only with the commandline. I had KDE, Gnome, icewm, etc... mess up at one point. If you are using linux as a server, it is good practice to install only what is necessary, (GUI is usually not necessary for a server) to minimize the number of possible exploits.
Re: [luau] MSWindows
T. David Burns wrote: ... *** Irrational rant mode on *** This sounds like an excuse to me. If it's that messed up, its time to get out the backups. For this one (hopefully unlikely) possibility we should memorize the command line arcana? Put your system on a different partition from your data, and back it up. If it goes fizz, reload it. Using a GUI all the while, if possible. ** Irrational rant mode off *** ... I had a guy who came into #linuxhelp on EFNet because he was in a major bind. He had accidentally run, as root, rm -rf /lib/* on his colocated system, hundreds of miles away. Restoring from backup was simply not an option as it would take days just to get there (as I recall he was in canada and the server was in florida). For those of you who don't know what happens when you do that, basically nothing new can start up. Everything on a UNIX system these days at some point depends on a libc. Most of the stuff on your system is dynamically linked to allow for easy upgrades of libraries and to save space. Unfortunately, when you delete everything in /lib, the libc goes with it and nothing can run as the linker can't find the libc. He still had his telnet session up, and the FTP server was standalone and accepting logins. I sent him a statically linked copy of busybox (a tiny little thing normally used on rescue disks; it has all the utils you need to recover a system). Since it was statically linked it could be run even without his libc. He then found someone with a similar redhat system and had them tar up their /lib. I had him FTP over the busybox and tarball of /lib, run the busybox shell, and run busybox tar to extract /lib. Viola, we have a working system again. Had he not known how to do some command line stuff, that would have been impossible (insert argument that he wouldn't have been playing with rm either, but remember, many of those admin tools are run from the command line, but automate things for you). As it was, he again had a working linux system, with only about 15 minutes of downtime, instead of days. All this because he could use the command line effectively. --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
W. Wayne Liauh wrote: But I am wondering how many of us are trying Mandrake 9.0 beta? Red Hat Limbo? Or even Mozilla 1.1 beta? Running GCC 3.1.1 prerelease, Mozilla 1.1a, on Gentoo 1.3b (prerelease), using kernel 2.4.19-rc1-xfs, on ALSA 0.9.something beta, and I'll not go on naming all my beta software. Then again, if you're running redhat, you're running entirely on beta software :) Most people don't want to run prerelease quality software. They don't want to deal with reporting bugs, they jsut want it to work. --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 12:32:51AM -1000, Warren Togami wrote: On Fri, 2002-07-26 at 23:51, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the way (sorry this IS the last comment), Redhat's administrative tools are a bit confusing, but I believe that new sys admins should learn to do everything from commandline. Someday your system will mess up, and you will have to boot into single user mode without any graphic interface to work with. -dan I am in total agreement. I actually want BOTH the easy GUI method and the old command line way of configuring everything. This gives you power, because you can use either method that you prefer with equal results. Makes everyone happy. I agree, sort of. I'm all for automation, but only once you understand what the heck you're automating. It's more work/learning now, but a lot less trouble in the long run. Once you start relying on the slick GUI tools with checkboxes and menus, you start getting that magic box and all your problems go from minor annoyances that need fixing to mysterious glitches. May as well have a Windows box at that point. Once you notice a standard, repetetive procedure that you're doing by hand, that works, that becomes a candidate for automation. Sure, a newbie needs something to look at right away, or he's not going to stay with *nix. Avoid the magic box scenario, though. Especially avoid the something's not right, lets restore backups mentality. Sounds like a MS tech support line. Just reinstall windows and see if the problem goes away. -- Carl Tucker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Unfortunately, when you delete everything in /lib, the libc goes with it and nothing can run as the linker can't find the libc. The linker is in /lib, too, i believe :-) He still had his telnet session up, and the FTP server was standalone and accepting logins. An interesting irony is, he wouldn't have been able to fix the system if he was using ssh. Well that's convinced me. I'm going to uninstall ssh now and put telnet and ftp back on... maybe not. --Ray
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Ray Strode wrote: Unfortunately, when you delete everything in /lib, the libc goes with it and nothing can run as the linker can't find the libc. The linker is in /lib, too, i believe :-) He still had his telnet session up, and the FTP server was standalone and accepting logins. An interesting irony is, he wouldn't have been able to fix the system if he was using ssh. Well that's convinced me. I'm going to uninstall ssh now and put telnet and ftp back on... maybe not. --Ray Sure he could have, you just need a few redirections to play shell tricks to transfer the files over the already existant SSH terminal (since you might not be able to establish a new SSH session without the controlling terminal). That's what I was going to do with his telnet session if I couldn't get the FTP working. --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Dan George wrote: One thing is Windows is overpriced for what you get. Windows is not as configurable as Linux or opensource. Bill Gates is a Pirate. First stealing from Steve Jobs then telling everyone else not to steal from him. When Paladium comes out, you wont be asking that question again. You will just wonder why it took you so long to convert. Why do I get over 80% of my calls from people complaining about windows. And why are 100% of those BTOs we sell with Linux arent complaining at all. Try the fact that over 62% of those who converted to Linux are saving $$$ within the first couple months. They want to kick themselves. I called one customer (followup call) to see how his Linux box was working. He told me he was configuring his kernel and call him back in about 6mths because he wanted to do so much now in customizing his system. He said the changes are going to save him $$$ in fees and its fun!! On Saturday 26 January 2002 19:14, you wrote: Sup guys, I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? my opinion after surfing around numerous open-source communities. Is it because they don't give their software away for free? I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better? I'm not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red Hat, just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks. Randall Oshita # GO Dan! This is an excellent customer feedback with facts not fud. Aloha! Al Plant - Webmaster http://hawaiidakine.com Providing FAST DSL Service for $28.00 /mo. Member Small Business Hawaii. Running FreeBSD 4.5 UNIX Caldera Linux 2.4 RedHat 7.2 Support OPEN SOURCE in Business Computing. Phone 808-622-0043
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Sure he could have, you just need a few redirections to play shell tricks to transfer the files over the already existant SSH terminal (since you might not be able to establish a new SSH session without the controlling terminal). How would that work? The only thing I could imagine is using echo and manually building the file by looking at it with a hex editor, but that would take hours. Can't copy and paste binary data i don't think. Do you have a better way? Would definately be useful to know, if you do. --Ray
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Randall, I won't quote the usual open source articles such as the Cathedral and the Bazaar, or the Cluetrain Manifesto. I won't even mention the Halloween documents. Instead I'll point you to a book I read years ago before Linux was on anybody's mind. This book, Undocumented DOS did more than anything to convince me that Microsoft was run by the kind of people that I did not prefer to do business with. (Go get it from the library and read it. While the material is dated, I think the description of M$ business practices still applies today.) As soon as I could, I switched to OS/2 and used that until I couldn't run any of the software that I need to run anymore. After that I switched to RH 5.2 and have used Linux at home ever since. I won't argue that everything that M$ writes or published is evil, some of it is pretty good. I use many of their products daily at my job. It is only recently that offfice-ware products in the Linux world have caught up. Even so, M$ has made it increasingly difficult for folks to keep up with what they do without spending lots of . I for one had a difficult time explaining to my boss why we had to upgrade all of our computers after a shipment from a popular vendor delivered machines loaded with a version of software that was not backward compatible. It appears that synchronization of software in your environment is part of the M$ scheme... Suddenly, the new computers could talk with each other, the old computers could talk also, they just couldn't talk to each other without fouling up all the formatting and losing info etc. Not a good thing... Not only did we have to spend a lot more $$$ so we could exchange office products at work and across several other agencies we deal with, we had to spend an awful lot of time recreating our historical and recyclable documents. That was very frustrating, and from my personal experience, the trend continues. The odd thing is that for the most part, I have yet to find a real justification for the cash in terms of productivity that was not achieved with the release of Windows 95 and its corresponding office suite. Windows 98 and 2K have achieved little more than an incremental resistance to crashes and have driven many upgrades and redos in the office in order to keep things moving. I'm not the only one that feels this way either. The comm folks at the base where I work have done some extensive research on what users do with their office-ware. About 95% (of several thousand users) never do anything more complicated than authoring documents, using spreasheets, preparing briefing slides, and email/net surfing. A few design and implement web pages or databases and occasionally a very few do computer aided design. We had all that with Windows 95. It is no wonder that folks are looking at thin clients and storage area networks very seriously for the future. As a comparison, all the stuff I have created on my linux boxes as far back as RH 5.2 still works today, the upgrades are cost effective, and my boxes all run for months without crashing. Hope this helps, Ben On Saturday 26 January 2002 07:14 pm, you wrote: Sup guys, I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? my opinion after surfing around numerous open-source communities. Is it because they don't give their software away for free? I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better? I'm not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red Hat, just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks. Randall Oshita
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Ray Strode wrote: Sure he could have, you just need a few redirections to play shell tricks to transfer the files over the already existant SSH terminal (since you might not be able to establish a new SSH session without the controlling terminal). How would that work? The only thing I could imagine is using echo and manually building the file by looking at it with a hex editor, but that would take hours. Can't copy and paste binary data i don't think. Do you have a better way? Would definately be useful to know, if you do. --Ray All sorts of ways to do this :) echo file.bin disconnect terminal (without closing pty), and dd binary at the /dev/pts entry. If you can bring up uudecode, uudecode - file.bin paste uuencoded binary ctl+c, run if you can bring up a new ssh session WITHOUT a controlling terminal or shell (probably possible as that doesn't require spawning anything special), just use scp --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Oh, and I forgot to mention that all MS systems seem to eat your hard drive in 1-5 years of use. Things start to crash, and the crashing causes more crashes and corrupts data, etc. I haven't really run win2000 for long enough to see it do this, although I have reinstalled it a couple of time for other reasons (different partition size, new motherboard without raid, etc). Somethimes programs are able to do this, sometimes windows updates break the system. But I've broken my linux to the point where I needed to reinstall it too. I could have done some massive upgrading, compiling, reinstalling, etc., but since its a system just to mess around with, I just reinstalled it. -Eric Hattemer - Original Message - From: Eric Hattemer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 5:10 PM Subject: Re: [luau] MSWindows The odd thing is that for the most part, I have yet to find a real justification for the cash in terms of productivity that was not achieved with the release of Windows 95 and its corresponding office suite. Windows 98 and 2K have achieved little more than an incremental resistance to crashes and have driven many upgrades and redos in the office in order to keep things moving. The argument that windows crashes often is no longer a valid argument. Win95 crashed often. Win98 crashed less often, but ate your disk more often. However, winNT/2000/XP don't crash when configured properly. Win2000 was the first usable system of these. My first windows 2000 system went well over a year without a single crash. Then I upgraded my motherboard and all periferals, and reinstalled win2000. Its been a couple of months, and still no crashes. You could make an argument about memory leaks, or that windows isn't good for servers, but aside from cost issues, linux doesn't really compete for the desktop. My linux applications used to mysteriously disapear all the time. Now that KDE has a crash dialog, I'm pretty familiar with that too. Now of course I'm sure I could use dated versions of KDE, and a 2.2 kernel, and maybe it'd be more stable. But I think its highly ironic that people talk about windows desktops crashing, considering my experiences. Now of course linux makes a better server. Win2k servers are a joke. But as long as you turn you at least reboot your windows desktop once a day (which doesn't seem like too much to ask), it does a great job. -Eric Hattemer ___ LUAU mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Eric Hattemer wrote: The argument that windows crashes often is no longer a valid argument. Win95 crashed often. Win98 crashed less often, but ate your disk more often. However, winNT/2000/XP don't crash when configured properly. Win2000 was the first usable system of these. My first windows 2000 system went well over a year without a single crash. Then I upgraded my motherboard and all periferals, and reinstalled win2000. Its been a couple of months, and still no crashes. -Eric Hattemer Agreed. Win2k is actually a usable OS. Quite frankly, I think it's a *good* OS. I'm not a big fan of XP, but that's simply because it seems like it's designed to treat me like an idiot and I don't like having to beg billy boy to use my computer again if I swap out too much hardware (I've swapped out basically everything but the hard drive before, usually needs a reinstall of windows, but at least it works, linux usually does fine, jsut needs some config tweaking to load different drivers). However, I have only once had Win2k hard crash on me (BSOD). I loaded up a new version of my IDE drivers and the system wouldn't even boot (I finally ended up reinstalling since I couldn't even get to safe mode). All in all, Win2k is a fine OS. What it's not is a cheap OS. Linux is a cheap OS (price wise), and it works for me. --MonMotha
Re: [luau] MSWindows
echo file.bin do you mean cat file.bin ? disconnect terminal (without closing pty), How do you do that with ssh? and dd binary at the /dev/pts entry. I'm confused. the pseudo-terminal is allocated on the server, yes? If you can bring up uudecode, uudecode - file.bin paste uuencoded binary ctl+c, run Most people dont' keep statically linked copies of uudecode installed. :-) if you can bring up a new ssh session WITHOUT a controlling terminal or shell (probably possible as that doesn't require spawning anything special), just use scp Do you know how to get scp to use an existing connection? ssh -h shows some options for not allocating a tty and not spawning a shell, maybe those options could be passed to scp using -o or something. --Ray
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Saturday 27 July 2002 05:10 pm, you wrote: The odd thing is that for the most part, I have yet to find a real justification for the cash in terms of productivity that was not achieved with the release of Windows 95 and its corresponding office suite. Windows 98 and 2K have achieved little more than an incremental resistance to crashes and have driven many upgrades and redos in the office in order to keep things moving. The argument that windows crashes often is no longer a valid argument. Win95 crashed often. Win98 crashed less often, but ate your disk more often. However, winNT/2000/XP don't crash when configured properly. Win2000 was the first usable system of these. My first windows 2000 system went well over a year without a single crash. My point was that the appware functionality I needed was there in '95, the OS just wasn't able to run stably enough to keep me happy. Combine that with the other problems I mentioned and that's where my dissatisfaction stems from. I agree that win 2K is a pretty stable OS. I haven't had very many crashes with it since it was installed at my work. Most of the trouble I have had at work are network problems, although I have seen a two or three strange error messages that no none seems to have heard of. In short, Win 2K is reliable enough to do what I need it to do. It also strikes me as odd that a company with as much knowledge power as M$ has couldn't get the OS fixed sooner. OK enough on this rant... Cheers, Ben
Re: [luau] MSWindows
One thing is Windows is overpriced for what you get. Windows is not as configurable as Linux or opensource. Bill Gates is a Pirate. First stealing from Steve Jobs then telling everyone else not to steal from him. When Paladium comes out, you wont be asking that question again. You will just wonder why it took you so long to convert. Why do I get over 80% of my calls from people complaining about windows. And why are 100% of those BTOs we sell with Linux arent complaining at all. Try the fact that over 62% of those who converted to Linux are saving $$$ within the first couple months. They want to kick themselves. I called one customer (followup call) to see how his Linux box was working. He told me he was configuring his kernel and call him back in about 6mths because he wanted to do so much now in customizing his system. He said the changes are going to save him $$$ in fees and its fun!! On Saturday 26 January 2002 19:14, you wrote: Sup guys, I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? my opinion after surfing around numerous open-source communities. Is it because they don't give their software away for free? I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better? I'm not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red Hat, just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks. Randall Oshita Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii; name=Attachment: 1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Description:
Re: [luau] MSWindows
Randall Oshita wrote: Sup guys, I?m a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? my opinion after surfing around numerous open-source communities. Is it because they don?t give their software away for free? I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better? I?m not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red Hat, just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks. Randall Oshita Personally, I just try to use the cheapest thing that does the job well. I have a fair number of windows machines. There's some stuff I can do on windows that I just can't do on linux yet (though most of that is due to a lack of commercially supported applications, which there's not much the community can do about). Would I set my grandma up on Linux? Probably not. While grandma can probably use KDE/GNOME, she can't walk out to CompUSA and buy the latest and greatest version of insert common windows software here and run it. However, don't complain about the ease of use thing. That's utterly wrong. I've set up computers for people who have never touched one before. Let me say they have as hard a time learning Win9x as they do learning KDE. The main reason people say it's harder is because it's different than what they're used to. They have to relearn some stuff, and people don't like to do that. --MonMotha P.S. I think your date might be off by a few months.
Re: [luau] MSWindows
On Sat, 2002-01-26 at 19:14, Randall Oshita wrote: Sup guys, I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie. Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? my opinion after surfing around numerous open-source communities. Is it because they don't give their software away for free? I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better? I'm not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red Hat, just wanted to hear some opinions. Thanks. Randall Oshita I have a different take on the situation than most Linux folks. I acknowledge that Microsoft has some very well designed technologies... like Visual Studio, MS SQL Server management tools (not the server itself), Windows XP remote desktop (and sound) protocol that beats VNC by a wide margin, and especially MMC abstracted plugin-based management tool interface and some others. Notice how nearly everything I mentioned is a management or development tool. These pieces of their warchest have much greater levels of integration, and GUI learning curve than anything Open Source currently has. (Yes, our system management and design tools need SERIOUS work. Look at Red Hat 7.3's configuration tools as an example of poor consideration toward potential new sysadmins. Look at the extreme flexibility and control of MSSQL Enterprise Manager, then look at the best Open Source tool. I would love for someone to prove me wrong, though.) The part about Microsoft that I detest is their abusive business practices that leaves the industry with little choice by destroying competition. I want competition in the marketplace. I hate Microsoft for this to such a degree, that I would NEVER take a job that uses primarily Microsoft, develops on Microsoft, or promotes the use of Microsoft technology no matter how much I am offered. This may not seem like much to this list, but this is a radical concept in the Computer Science department and I was laughed at by an entire room of fellow students when I said it. I simply will NOT support unethical practices, no matter what the cost. What would it take for me to stop hating Microsoft? If they stopped being mean. That's all. In addition to my future plans for RHCE, I've recently decided that I must study all aspects of other technologies including Microsoft and Cisco. I plan on getting CCNA soon, and studying MCSE after their .NET server is released. I am already very familiar with Windows 2000 Active Directory because I've owned a license of Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Pro edition since it was released. (Active Directory is my only real certification at this point.) Why the heck would I do this? 1. It wouldn't take me much additional work. 2. I can make a more convincing argument of why Open Source is better at a certain task if I fully understand Microsoft's tech. Know thy enemy. 3. Knowing multiple systems, especially with experimentation with Linux/Windows interoperability (like Samba) tends to create a much greater level of understanding of Windows than most MCSE's will ever know.
