Slashdot Mirror

btw, since when are scientist supposed to be social?

I'm dying to see what he looks like with the beard and the haircut that are compulsory for all MBA's.

Before and after?

There's an abandoned project called SnapFS that worked as an extension of the ext3 filesystem, but it seems long dead. There's more mention of it here as well.

Hmmm...doing some Googling, I found this page that may have a useable download, but it's in alpha form.

It also looks like you can use LVM to create snapshots as well. I'll have to look at that more myself.

Personally I'm going to customize the GPL for my work where you cannot use it with SCO software, for the SCO company, etc. etc.

There's no reason I'm going to better the work of a company who tries to harm my OS!

I guess ipxtunnel
(http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/IP X-HOWTO-15. html) did not help you?

Beware: most VPN solutions (IPSec, PPTP, ...) don't implement IPX - just IP.

Well, there is a huge difference between the GPL and the average EULA: the GPL allows you to do things you wouldn't normally be allowed to do, such as give verbatim copies to your friends.

But so does every EULA. For instance, the Windows EULA allows you to "store or install a copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install or run the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on your other COMPUTERS over an internal network" if you acquire a separate license for each concurrently used copy.

The other EULAs make up arbitrary restrictions as they feel like, and hope that most will stick in court.

I'm not sure what's arbitrary about their restrictions. Why is the restriction not to reverse engineer arbitrary but the restriction to distribute source code not?

Many of these restrictions take away rights that you would otherwise have (for instance they restrict the way you USE of the software, which expressly permitted by basic copyright law).

As does the GPL. It takes away the right to resell a binary copy without including the source code.

Yes, the terms are on the GPL are "arbitrary", but they can be ignored, in which case you don't get to copy the software, which is an exclusive right of the copyright holder.

Same with any EULA. Until you do something which requires a license, why would the license apply? Just because the license says it applies? That's nonsense, and a judge will see it as such.

Considering how careful the FSF has been, even in the way they word things in their writings, I find it almost impossible to believe that a judge wouldn't find that someone violating the GPL is in fact violating copyright law.

Depends on the action. If the action was fair use, or first sale, or some other right which the person already had, then they likely wouldn't be found guilty of copyright infringement. For instance, if I legally acquired RedHat CDs which didn't include source code and resold them, I'd be violating the GPL, but probably wouldn't be found to be violating copyright law.

heres the link to the download locations for sco's distro on linux.org some of the foreign ones work. lol

First, let me be honest. I just skimmed the LinuxDevices article and didn't read the Microsoft article.

One thing I've noticed among PHBs is an ever-broadening definition of "embedded systems". I've seen more than one project go down the road of using a cPCI system running Windows NT 3.51 (yes these are current systems running this old version) on a harddrive. These systems are calling themselves "embedded".

This has been especially in systems that had serious size, weight, and power needs. Had I designed the system, I guess I would've used something like QNX or Linux on a much smaller processor, compact flash card, etc.

I guess my point is that these days it seems like general-purpose computers are being called "embedded" when I see embedded as much, much smaller (e.g. no moving parts, a microcontroller, etc...).

I dunno, I'm rambling...

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

This post brought to you by linuxfreak , a proud member of the GNAA

G_____________________________________naann_______ ________G
N_____________________________nnnaa__nanaaa_______ ________A
A____________________aanana__nannaa_nna_an________ ________Y
A_____________annna_nnnnnan_aan_aa__na__aa________ ________*
G____________nnaana_nnn__nn_aa__nn__na_anaann_MERI CA______N
N___________ana__nn_an___an_aa_anaaannnanaa_______ ________I
A___________aa__ana_nn___nn_nnnnaa___ana__________ ________G
A__________nna__an__na___nn__nnn___SSOCIATION_of__ ________G
G__________ana_naa__an___nnn______________________ ________E
N__________ananan___nn___aan_IGGER________________ ________R
A__________nnna____naa____________________________ ________S
A________nnaa_____anan____________________________ ________*
G________anaannana________________________________ ________A
N________ananaannn_AY_____________________________ ________S
A________ana____nn_________IRC-EFNET-#GNAA________ ________S
A_______nn_____na_________________________________ ________O
*_______aaaan_____________________________________ ________C
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam mollis, libero non facilisis vehicula, quam sem fermentum urna, at porttitor neque odio nec purus. Morbi felis. Mauris arcu turpis, dignissim sed, tristique sit amet, euismod ac, tellus. Pellentesque sit amet nulla. Vestibulum volutpat. Fusce viverra mattis orci. Phasellus sed ante. Vivamu

I mean, hell, you want friends, it helps to have something in common with them. Personally, I was a military brat, and the military folks tend to be much more welcoming of any new person, as they're used to being the new person themselves, but most people aren't so used to getting thrown in a new place every few years.

If you're in any professional/hobbyist/whatever organizations, look to see if there are any chapters where you're going...for those geeks, maybe a linux users group, perl mongers, whatever. There might be a lego users group, or something else where you can meet people, if that's what you're trying to do. Of course, there's also the chance that these people are obsessive freaks.

Do some research before you go... for all you know, you have relatives living in that same town, or friends from high school or college who are only an hour or two away from where you're going. Ask your friends if any of them have been there, any maybe they have recommendations on things to do, places to go, whatever. Check online ... look for a local newspaper, and see what sort of things there are going on in the town. If it's a big city, look for an independant newspaper, like the Baltimore or Washington City Papers. You might also check colleges in the area, and see what sort of events their student papers have listed.

You can also check out DMOZ by region, and you might be able to find something of interest. You might check the local phone book for independant bookstores, comic book / game shops, whatever sparks your interest.

Without knowing what sort of people you're trying to meet, it's hard to give any useful suggestions as to where to find them.

"we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system"

That is like saying I replaced my old car with a new one, and I can't find the engine crank. Linux Ext filesystems dont need to be defragmented my friend, and with ext3, no more scanDisk/fsck crap. Defreagging and scanDisk are outdated obsolete processes, replaced by superior technology.

As for token-ring support, its there, I've never used it, but I know Linux has it.

970 designers! Holy nerd-fest Batman! That's where Gotham's entire supply of throat lozenges disppeared to!

*ahem.
That's a verry cromulent observation, Robin^H^HLimo. Say, is that a lousenge in your spandex underwear or are you happy to have saved some from the grasp of the Penguin's evil henchmen?

By that logic, SCO has no case. To most people, if it isn't Windows it doesn't exist.

They could throw out some nice, Judge-convincing BS like "We only made these files available via the 'FTP' program, which is only for highly advanced technical individuals such as corporate IT managers, for the convenience of our paying customers. It was not intended for download by unlicensed individuals, and in fact doing so constitutes hacking as per the terms of the DMCA..."

Unless reading security advisories from LinuxSecurity.com constitutes "hacking", I don't see that argument as particularily convincing. SCO posted the kernel on their FTP server May 9th. A Linux kernel developer told SCO about it a month ago. Links to the story were posted on many popular news sites. The code is still there.

I thought it was 198.182.196.56!

The point is not that it's theoretically possible to move apps or RPM under linux, or it can be automated if you do some fiddling under the hood (and anything that involved touching a file that starts with a '.' is almost by definition under the hood), but that Linux should offer this functionality automagically.

Why should it? Because it's possible in Windows of Mac OS? Or because it adds some useful functionality for a user, in which case what is that functionality?

For any given app, in a properly organised Linux system, there is only one right place. Being able to move it to the wrong place is not a benefit.

And if you're going to whine but what happens if the file system is full, isn't it time you were using logical volume management?

Installing or moving apps in Linux can be a nightmare. In OS X its just drag and drop. Why can't we improve?

In what sense would it be an improvement? It looks to me like a category error, or someone who doesn't understand how UN*X systems are organised.

I "felt compelled to raise the issue" because it's an issue which impacts on myself, my life, and my business, and because it's something I'm interested in. Most importantly, I *did* because I *can*. I fail to see what point you're trying to make other than fishing for karma or simply being malevolent: surely you have something more accomplished, finely worded, or interesting to bring to the discussion than that.

If you genuinely feel that Linus's wording wasn't improvable-upon and that there was nothing wrong with his statement, perhaps you'd like to tell me why? That would categorically be altogether more productive than making a poorly veiled, ambiguous, and unfunny jibe at the marriage of someone you don't know for the sake of it. But then, looking at your picture, perhaps you don't know much about marriage in any case. (feel free to be jibed back. ;))

Perhaps most of my point is that I have an altogether hidden agenda which motivates most of what I post with regard to any of my views as expressed on this site - I'm fairly anti-libertarian (and also fairly liberal - take that as you will). I majored in philosophy at a fairly respectable university, and part of the belief structure which, as someone who's devoted a reasonable amount of time to constructive thought, I've generated includes a lot of idealism, part of which is a genuine wish for open source operating systems to be able to gain more users than currently they seem doomed to be restricted to. There are some genuinely well-intended attempts which have been made by the open-source community to strike out into new ground (eg. lindows, or the way in which mandrake has rounded off what most average users would see as unsightly corners) but almost all of these are based in commerce - it is *necessary* in order for open-source projects to reach the mass-market (unless they sell themselves out) that any spokespeople which they have (and Linus is certainly this) pander to the needs and perceptions of the mass majority. And Linus, in this case, did *not* do this. In my original post, I stressed a number of possible reasons for this not having happened, but the fact remains that it *didn't*. And until this happens consistantly, Linux will remain, ostensibly, a project for geeks.

AND I will also be able to partition the hard disk to toss Red Hat 9 on it, providing me with a powerful portable UNIX workstation that supports 3 button functionality RIGHT on its built-in mouse pad...

   (Try that with a Mac!)

Okay, I think I will.

filesystem writes can and should occur in such a manner that no external journal is required.

My name is Mike, and I thank you for having the courage to come forward with your problem.

The concept of having access to source code was very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.

Bravo! [clapping]

Although we met several technical challenges along the way (specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system)

I'm sensing anger here, but I feel it is a bit misplaced. Linux does support Token Ring generally. Unlike FAT32, ext2 does not need defragmentation. Perhaps you should confer with a support group that discusses your distro?

Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position.

Hold on a second, if I understand you correctly, you are concerned that under the GPL which states that you have to release the source code of your modifications if you plan to distribute the binaries of your code, you will have to release your source code. But at the same time, you don't plan on distributing any code outside of the company. I don't understand your confusion, my son, but if you never plan on releasing anything outside of your company, you never need to worry about releasing the source code.

I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it.

Damn it! You were doing so well. Why did you fall off the wagon. Was it me? Did the community not do enough to support you?

I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source". Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure it remains only a bit player.

INTERVENTION! Here's some reading material for you. Open source principles,GPL, and where you can find help. Please read them and when you're ready, you can rejoin the group.

How come I haven't yet seen a mention of the Linux more or less everything repository?

"they can't see the beauty in something that doesn't have two black webbed feet dressed in a tuxedo that doesn't compile the lastest kernel."

Last time I saw, the little fellow had yellow feet.

Maybe this is a new Blackfoot distro I've not heard of before.

The eth0 card faces the internet with a ARIN registered IP. The eth1 card faces the internal network which uses RFC1918 (192.168.0.0) addressing.

For a good step-by-step guide, as well as some background material, consult the IP Masquerade Howto[linux.org]

The script works by blocking the ports used by P2P services for establishing communications, and then also blocking the home networks for the major P2P systems.

Free Software works on a system of replacing, And originally Replacing UNIX. Now it is replacing Microsoft. But now many Open Source advocates are saying they dont mind Windows but use Linux anyway, and keep a second Windows partition. Why not just use Microsoft Windows and cygwin for all your geek stuff.

Third thing after backup space and admin cost is a balance between processing power and storage space. More space you use - more CPU (in average) you need, so there no reason to put more than 2x120Gb (one HDD for backup and and one for user data) to typical hosting server (Linux/FreeBSD, 2GHz CPU, 512Mb RAM). Maximum domains is about 300 per server, to keep CPU load at 0.3-0.4, Ok, OS requires about 5-10 Gb, another 10Gb we hold for reserve and 100Gb we will use for customers data. This means that we can offer 100Gb/300 hosts = only 300MB (!) for one host includes web content, database and email files.

NFS Linux FAQ
Howto #1
Howto #2

If you find yourself needing help, try asking people at Just Linux forums, or trying the NFS mailing list.

I'm very interested in the idea of designing new kinds of reliable store (if anything in IT can be really new these days!) I've even tinkered with this myself. The hash-table-like store is of particular interest to me... I guess this is done using trees in a way reminiscent of the grand plans Will Phillips discussed for the Tux2 file system. Do you have some URLs for papers/prototypes?

uh yeah? well, how about defragging them then?

Also, perhaps another blocksize would help too.

the RIAA ain't done until gentoo won't run.

Don't forget to spite them

You can get it from here. At least I think that's it... I haven't had NT4 running on my alpha in years, and that file's an Installshield self-extracting EXE for NT Alpha, so I can't run it.

So obviously the people at linux.org have now become a tad annoyed about this, and the page they put up goes on at length. But it is worth noting that they've already talked about this proposal of Lessig's at the bottom of the page and don't seem all that impressed about it. I think they have a point (although they seem to have expressed it a bit badly...).

One of the other points they address is the one you talk about yourself: When people are spamming for others, the people hiring them can't easily be shown to be responsible. Joe Bloggs down the road could send a ton of spam saying "vote for anonymous_loser for president", it doesn't actually mean you asked him to, even if in most cases it is pretty likely. So no, generally they don't have any sort of useful contact information that is available to you.

Taking this one step further, I really don't see the need for more than a couple of Unix-like OSes.
Does each of these *really* have some unique features that just couldn't be added to one of the main distributions?!

Let's see... we have OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSDI, FreeBSD, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Tru64, IRIX, UnixWare, SCO, Mac OSX,

Of course just for Linux we have: RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, SuSe, Caldera, Gentoo, Antartica, Lycoris, Yggdrasil, Conectiva, Corel, Elfstone, RockLinux, SharkLinux, Sisyphus, ASPLinux, Beehive, BlueLinux, BlueCat, oh my god the list goes on and on...

Linux + WineX is a BIT unstable for Windows apps, right? Here's an idea. Why doesn't someone try to write a Windows 98 SE clone that sits on top of, oh, FreeDOS?

I couldn't be much help in such a project, as all I know is some BASIC, LOGO, and a little HTML. However, I think an open source Windows would be a great idea. Shoot, we could have LazyX, (BeatAroundThe)BushX, BushSound, BushVideo, etc.! Get it? Open source is to closed source as lazy is to active, and as beating around the bush is to being direct? Although, Bush needs eliminated (so did Saddam, but Bush needs eliminated too), so that might not be such a good idea.

Someone already mentioned a Detroit Linux Users Group, there are hundreds throughout the US and the World. Do a search on Google with your state and locality and LUG in the search bar and you will likely come up with something. I found the one here in Maine to be very professional, enlightening and friendly with zero troll factor and some excellent monthly meeting topics and presentations (even though I have yet to hit a meeting, I've read the ace notes posted online)

Here's a starter link: Linux User Groups listing at Linux.org

HERE

1. Out-of-date distributions,
2. On older hardware that was running 95
3. Without asking for help from more clued-in Linux help
4. Requiring a dual boot, difficult under most OSes.

That or IP chains on a 486 could help protect your wimpy little M$ box from the big bad internet. Need help with those pesky chain rules? Try plonk. The best patch I've seen so far is the M$ Offswitch. What was the wonderful New Technology, NT, good for again?

Get yourself to your closest Linux user group: a list can be found with this link. You'll find folks there who have probably been through the problems you are experiencing, and who will be helpful. Unlike Mandrake, RedHat, and SuSE, it's the business of LUG's to share what they know... and it's always free.

Ehm this why stuff such as tinc exists. It uses udp see this Did I mention it uses openssl for its ciphers?

Knoppix doesn't write anything to the harddrive so there is nothing to sniff.

As for writing encrypted, you could just mount an encrypted filesystem on your harddrive there is a zillion ways to do this for example

Would you expect to be able to charge for a media player in today's marketplace? Good luck!

why wouldn't someone charge for a media player? doesn't real one cost money (after 14 day trial)? how about quicktime 6 pro? and of course, we can't forget about windvd!

based on your question, one could easily argue that microsoft has no future because a free alternative is available.

I'm of the opinion that it is almost criminal these days for a system to not run a quick test against passwords as the user chooses it. This is the case on most, if not all linux systems I use, and many others as well.

The problem is, that many users have a large number of systems they must access, and can't be bothered to choose decent ones for each systems, and can't be bothered to change them at any regular interval once they've been set. Password aging is a pretty basic security concept that is rarely implemented.

I always reccommend the use of passwords that are not words, but are pronouncable by the user. Many years ago, when I went to work for MCI, we were assigned MCIMail accounts. When you would initially log in, it would prompt you to change your password. Rather than just let you type in any old thing, it would give you 3 choices like this.

puwacane
solahota
yamatotu

You had the option of choosing one of the three listed, or could roll the dice for another three more to your liking. I kinda liked it.

These days, there are a number of programs that will do this for you quick and easily. I'm sure most of you are aware of 'gpw', which will generate passwords similar to those listed above. I've seen many variations of the program, and in fact currently use a perl-based one on my Solaris boxes when it's time to change passwords.

I mentioned earlier that people have many different passwords to remember. This, as well as the problem of multiple usernames are a major problem for many users. Fortunately, there are software solutions for this as well. For Linux users, I like 'gpasman', which is a small program that will keep track of usernames/passwords for you that is itself protected with a password/passphrase (use a darn good one!). Windows users may find ' password safe' to be a good choice.

Both of the above programs have enabeled me to have excellent passwords everywhere. Password Safe will even generate extremely strong passwords for you.

I guess my point, if there really is one, is that some of the pain of passwords can be alleviated to some degree by good technology. I wish more people took more care in their choice of passwords. Given the results reported elsewhere on this page, they don't seem to.

Jeepers will you all cut it out already. Let the man try Redhat, and let him hear about the alternatives: here here here here and here.

Ten'll get you one he'll eventually be installing this distro with a 2.6 kernel and either Redhat or Debian based, and he won't give a rat's ass about all this trash you're talking.

We now return you to your regularily schedualled flamewar...

Case A) Windows XP - you get letters from the BSA and eventually (implied) a visit from the Feds who will take everything whether you're guilty or not, after which the burden of proof is on you to prove you are not another dastardly mass market pirate organization

So perhaps you shouldn't break the law and install pirated software. And if you can't afford the license price for XP, install something else .

The biggest issue with this idea is cross-platform. So far a few suggestions have been raised, and I like the idea of a samba frontend, though it seems a little extreme.

BestCrypt is the only cross-platfrom encrypted drive/volume software I know of, its only free for Linux though. :(

Scramdisk/ e4m are options. Though Scramdisk doesn't run on w2k or XP, nor Linux. E4M doesn't run on linux either. The source for Scramdisk and E4M is available, but I've forgotten what the license is. I *think* its GPL, but don't count on it.

DriveCrypt is made by the same people as ScramDisk, but DC is closed source. Though they are promising a Linux release (as well as the current XP/2K/etc clients).

You may also like to try The Linux crypto mailing list to search for answers there.

Developing On-The-Fly encrypted drives for linux isn't all that hard, afterall, its been done before a few times. Doing so for Windows 95 though to XP is a lot harder.

As for the Mac side, I have no idea. I think the most portable option would be the Samba idea mentioned before. It shows the most promise, you are esentially piggybacking off a known and support product.

I've wished for something similar in the past. One solution that occurred to me would be to create an encrypted loopback filesystem under Linux (details here). For those not familiar with this scheme, it essentially encapsulates a filesystem in a regular file and [en|de]crypts it at the kernel level.

One potential way to access this from Windows would be using Namespace Extensions. I believe this is the way that "special folders" such as Control Panel and Scheduled Tasks are integrated into the Explorer. It would seem to be straightforward for someone knowledgable in the area to create a Namespace Extension that could mount an encrypted loopback filesystem created in Linux.

AFAIK linux doesn't have an encrypted FS, nor have I heard about anything under development. If any FS hackers are reading this, this would be a handy project if you're looking for something to do.

• Loopback-Encrypted-Filesystem-HOWTO
  
• secure notebook (runs windows in vmware, so even swapfile and hibernate file are encrypted!)
  

Hopefully I can use my old PC box as a server with this

And if that doesn't work, you might want to take a look at FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, amongst others. I understand they're fairly popular.

Symantec.

The same Symantec who's Norton Anti-virus product is prominently featured in a rash of spams in my inbox?

The same Symantec who claims to follow up on reports of this to spamwatch@symantec.com? That never seems to lead to any sort of actions?

The same Symantec who just changed their auto-renewal to cost people more money IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RENEWAL CYCLE?

Huh, who'd'a thunk it?

Glad I use somebody else's anit-virus software.