Slashdot Mirror

• Knoppix, live linux boot CD ("rescue"), http://www.knoppix.org/
• Unix Rosetta Stone, table to convert linux vs bsd vs unix, http://bhami.com/rosetta.html
• GNU screen, switch between shells in one login, priceless via ssh, http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
• GNU stow, simple package management for ANY posix system, http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/
• vim, not vi (I depend on ^P and a real undo history, note emacs is not so great for sysadmins who need quick changes on dozens of architectures), http://www.vim.org
• sudo, especially when giving a group permission as a non-root user as in my /. post groups + sudo can allow installation rights , http://www.sudo.ws/
• wiki, which tells people how to do things without bugging the sysadmin, (any wiki is good, I use mediawiki), http://www.mediawiki.org/
• CVS/Subversion, note changes in important configuration files (cvs is for older Unixes that can't run svn), http://subversion.tigris.org/
• rdesktop, remotely log into windows Remote Desktop/Terminal Services, http://www.rdesktop.org/
• fail2ban, drop traffic to attacking IPs (ie, failed logins) for small intervals, http://fail2ban.sourceforge.net/

I usually stay out of the Windows/Linux/Mac arguments, but I'm afraid you just don't understand my world.

I've been there, done that and got holes in that T-shirt. And I call bullshit.

I work for a very small company, probably typical of thousands of other very small companies.

I've worked in IT situations with multiple labs of 30 computers. I've worked in companies with 5 computers. Both, however, had the management brains to hire at least a part-time student IT worker or (in my case) a full-time sysadmin. Before these fancy computer systems a small business involved dozens of people just typing and tabulating stuff. Office automation is not a free ride. If the boss gets a personal secretary all to himself yet your bread-in-butter computer systems have a good coating of dust, someone isn't minding the store.

We have one Unix machine, which I despise, because its desktop GUI is primitive and its command interface makes MS-DOS look well-designed and intuitive.

Unless you're willing to provide everyone with echo $SHELL and $SHELL --version get off UNIX's nuts about command interfaces. Unlike Windows you have a choice of both GUI and command line environments in UNIX. Being a Windows Guy(tm) means you probably didn't think of that, but this is expected.

I rarely get to spend more than two or three hours a week on network maintenance, security monitoring, and research combined.

Stop reading newsgroups. Block slashdot.org while at work. Spend one of those hours learning about filtering out stupid work emails. Lack of willingness to spare time does not mean that time doesn't exist.You mentioned all your training is from work done "in my spare time" so I can assume that you're willing to sacrifice personal time to work.

How many inches of your resume are taken up with MS technologies you learned in your free spare time? Your work situation has little to do with the OS Marketplace and everything to do with the resume marketplace. Those of us working with UNIX and Linux desktops typically have to learn MS products in addition to whatever prefered platform we have. It's called interoperability. (FYI, once you learn a UNIX, you will find that
it works similarly everywhere, unlike Microsoft's OSes)

I didn't choose Windows; I inherited it and have no resources to replace it. My company didn't really choose Windows; it was forced on us by the marketplace.

Why did your company chose Windows? Because it looked good on your developer's resumes. Why do folks still use Windows? Because it looks good on a resume. Why did you chose to learn Windows in your spare time? Because it looked good on your resume. The WMF vulnerability will not change this. Knowing what ISC or what a patch is will not change this. As long as nobody got fired for buy Microsoft, security issues caused by Microsoft assuming single-user non-networked use will continue to plauge IT.

We have about $60,000 invested in software (other than OS's) that will only run under Windows. We have no hardware to set up a test server, no money (or time) to spend on unsuccessful experiments.

What do you do with older PCs once you reach the next turn of the upgrade treadmill from Microsoft (and it's attendent super-sized performance requirements)? Linux runs great on old, depricated hardware you have sitting in a closet. I know I've bought many an ex-windows PC from resellers of medium to large businesses for under the cost of an expensive business lunch. Heck, I'd put Linux on the old and new machines and run Windows in a locked-down vmware session. I seriously doubt your old COM+ business software requires the latest SLI video card or Dolby 5.1 soundcard. The generic emulated ones would suffice and restarting a hacked vitural image is a cakewalk compared with having a compromised workstation or server that must be physcially removed.

B

Have you ever used another UNIX-like system where adduser works the same way as on Linux? Take a look at the UNIX Rosetta Stone for a comparison of the different commands for doing this kind of thing. From your earlier post, you complain that they didn't just put a nice GUI on FreeBSD (completely ignoring the fact that OS X is not FreeBSD, it's OpenStep with some of the old 4.4BSD stuff replaced with FreeBSD stuff). Perhaps you've tried running adduser on FreeBSD? It has completely different options and syntax to the Linux command of the same name.

The variety of programs in Unix are nothing a good reference guide can't handle. A guide such as the Rosetta Stone for Unix. Unices are fundamentally similar, so at worst you just need to look up the differences in a few programs. I've translated my knowledge of Linux to both Solaris and OS X with that simple reference.

Not much of a weakness.

• I've wondered for a while now, is one Unix like another Unix? I've used Linux in the past and am trying out FreeBSD now. Frankly, I don't notice the difference from an end-user perspective.
  

Old tried and tested tools also aren't available.

Obviously you've never heard of the Unix Rosetta Stone. It's certainly the case that you don't know all Unix systems by knowing one. However, I found when I learned my second Unix system, that I understood much better what made it "Unix" as opposed to Solaris, Linux, BSD, whatever. Flexibility is hard, but worth learning.

:w

Not really what you asked for as it doesn't have the experience factor, but it does give an overview of differences: Unix Rosetta Stone

There's a similar handy tool on the web. Check out the Rosetta Stone for UNIX whenever you're trying to remember whether it's adduser or useradd on $OS.

The first place I always look in this circumstance is the Rosetta Stone of Unix aka " What do they call that in this world?" Unfortunately, vax mainframes aren't one of the listed. Read up on the DEC stuff, since they had a similar design philosophy. I remember two things about VMS: prepare to go all caps, and version control is with a semicolon and file version after it for every file. Good luck.

is right here

I'm sure its not nearly as comprehensive as this UNIX rosetta stone.

"it uses NetInfo instead of /etc/hosts, /etc/group and /etc/passwd"

Kind of. The big change in 10.2 was that now the FFAgent (for using traditional flat files like /etc/passwd) is consulted before NIAgent (which looks up info in NetInfo).

This is actually really convenient. It gives people the choice of either method as well as allowing you to use flat files to override settings in NIAgent and DNSAgent (which yeah, looks up DNS...) you can check the LookupOrder by running lookupd in debug mode.

lookupd -d

and then typing "configuration" at the lookupd prompt.

This article at macdevcenter was lame. A much more useful link for people coming from another unix to OSX is The Rosetta Stone for UNIX.

Or just browse MacOSXHints for an hour...

Apparently the Rosetta Stone can survive 4,000 years of Mother Nature's worst, but cripples in minutes under the power of the Slashdot effect.