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Vista Bug Costs Users In Swedish Town Their Internet
Lund, Sweden refuses to work around a Vista bug, so people who live there must choose between Vista and internet access. It's nice to see the right people being held accountable for a change.
Ubuntu is an upgrade from XP and Vista.
Keep that shoe on the other foot for just a little longer. Imagine them having "support scripts" that travel through a KDE interface instead of Outlook Express or IE. Imagine them requiring Ubunto to install your access. In short, imagine all of the "standardization" Windoze enjoys being flipped on you.
In the free software world, users can edit a few well annotated text files to get the job done if they are given the proper information. That task is harder in Windoze because you must dig through several GUIs that don't tell you what to ask for in advance or ever.
It's a shame that ACs can post with more points and more frequently than Twitter.
Wouldn't using a router to connect to the internet bypass the bug?
Lundis Energi should have been testing Vista back in its early alpha release stages to ensure compatibility with their Linux based server system
Why? If their existing system follows the appropriate standards, why should they have to test someone else's future product to check compatibility?
The problem as reported is that the Vista DHCP client fails to obtain an address from Linux servers running (I'd presume) ISC dhcpd.
When I bought a laptop recently it came with Vista. When I connected it to my network it failed to obtain an address. I assumed there was some misconfiguration problem I was missing, Turns out it's a fundamental difference between the DHCP client in Vista and the one in prior versions of Windows. See this item from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us.
The version of dhcpd I'm using is an old one (2.0). I thought about upgrading it to see if that would solve the problem, but since I wasn't planning on keeping Vista on the laptop, I didn't bother upgrading. All our other machines run Linux and don't have this problem.
I wonder what decision will be made in enterprises running Linux DHCP servers that introduce Vista into the workplace. Will they follow the Microsoft KB item above and "fix" the problem on every new Vista box they buy? Or will the replace the Linux DHCP box with Windows Server?
"It doesn't work" has never been a useful comment.
Also, I don't see why an ISP should test every OS version to check if it's compatible with their network. I thought we all used the TCP/IP standard for internet stuff. And if Vista had a broken TCP/IP implementation, then why is this the first report about this? What makes this ISPs infrastructure so different?
Windows XP is the world's de facto standard for O.S. Not Vista. How come users in sweden can access the internet but those with Vista don't?
The answer here is that Microsoft probably took the decision to break the TCP standard on purpose, hoping the admins would work around the bug er... new standard.
Personally I applaud the decision of the sweden admins. Microsoft must not be allowed to gain control of the market by breaking even more standards.
It's funny because normally it's Linux users who are unable to connect to the internet because only Windows is supported (even when Linux behaves and Windows does not) - for example look at most wireless broadband services.
Now it's happening to someone else it's a big deal that should have been fixed? Well they can start by fixing all the stuff that has been broken longer that no one gave a shit about.
Indeed. Those of us who RTFA know that Microsoft has asked for details which the town refuses to give. I'm sure now that MS will get the details from the IT community, since we are pretty insane about finding and exposing bugs, but to complain the MS won't do anything and at the same time refuse to give them the necessary information... That's not idiotic, that's asshole.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
This is considered funny because of the past behavior of MS, and what people presume the problem to be.
In the past, MS fearing things like Java (and rightfully so, Java done right could eliminate the need for Windows) made their own versionsof the Java Virtual Machine, broken n various ways to kill compatibility. MS is known for having run with and mucked up the Kerberos standard, so their implementation doesn't play well with competitors. It's believed that Silverlight is an attempt to make a Flash that only works on MS and Apple machines, cutting out Linux users.
In view of how MS has a reputation for breaking standards for their own gain (lookup "embrace and extend" for details) many people, at least semi-reasonably jump to the conclusion that MS is deliberately trying to break Internet standards. What if Lundi would apply a patch to their Linux server that made it play the MS way instead of the official standard way? At that point, MS would be emboldened to do it again, and again. Soon, with all the frequent ways the net was being trivially "broken" (when in actuallity only the MS software wasn't playing right) companies would move to MS servers that never seemed to have the problems. Viewed cynically, this is a ploy to cut out non-MS servers from the net, by harrassing the operators of said non-MS servers through users that MS deliberately made discontent.
There's 2 sides though:
1: MS is up to old tricks (which isn't flat MS bashing, MS does have a reputation for illicit practices)
2: MS made a legitimate mistake, and this is just a bug. It wouldn't be the first time, and all programmers make mistakes. That said, that it still just so happens to work with MS servers but not Linux servers seems to point away from this option, but I can't say for sure, as light on the details as this story is.
In short, people are laughing because they believe #1 is true, and MS is getting a taste of being told where to go instead of being blanketly obeyed.
That said, it is NOT funny for the end users. The end users don't pay much attention to the deeds / misdeeds of major companies. The end users don't care about standards. All the end users care about is whether it works. As much as Vista costs, they shouldn't have to deal with this sort of problem.
If Lundi is following the standard and MS isn't, it really shouldn't be Lundi's problem. MS knows how to talk to the net, they have from 3.1 to XP. Lundi has every reason to expect that MS will continue to get right what they've gotten right so far.
And counter to Microsoft's last 4 operating systems.
They got it right back in 1995 (12 years ago)
Nope. Just another example of how Microsoft does not care about published standards. Their DHCP services can handle it so why should they spend any time understanding the standard that the rest of the world follows?
After all, everyone else will probably change to support Microsoft's weird implementation. Who cares about the problems that the users have in the meantime? If Microsoft is lucky, no one will be able to explain the problem in terms those users could understand and the rest of the world will be blamed for the problems when it is Microsoft who is not following the published standard.
Were you paid for finding bugs? You have paid for Vista, or am I wrong? Businesses are for making money, not free help for giant world-wide corporations which sell you "bug-fixed" software in the first place.
It is always better to be a first grade version of yourself than a second grade version of someone else.
We don't get paid for finding bugs. We don't want money for that. We have bugs ourselves in our programs and we are glad when our users informs us and cooperate with us. So we do the same with everyone. Being nice is a good thing. We don't point o MS and laugh in the typical 14 y.o. slashdottish way just because it's MS. We cooperate if we can. The world is a better place that way.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Actually, Vista is not following the RFC. They SHOULD NOT set the broadcast bit.
Since it is only affecting customers with Vista and only those without a NAT firewall, it is not a widespread problem, and the correct solution should be a patch from Microsoft.
That's not a bad thing here. Microsoft is generally a dick without principle.
Microsoft, however, does. And the only way to get through to Microsoft is through their end-users -- or maybe their actual customers.
Actually, no.
Generally, when it's the other way around -- that is, when some open-source project can't communicate with something standard-compliant -- well, first off, pigs are flying; this just generally doesn't happen.
But also, we fix it. We don't run around screaming and blaming others unless there is a reason to.
Example: If it's actually a bug in, say, Firefox rendering, we fix Firefox. However, if someone deliberately sends the wrong page, or even just an "access denied" page, to Firefox users based on nothing more than a user-agent string, then we pull out our user-agent switchers and pretend to be IE -- and we also bitch loudly.
Take a look at the shit the Wine project has to do, on pretty much a daily basis, just to get Windows programs to run. They can't even write to Microsoft's standard, because Microsoft doesn't, and application developers don't -- Microsoft writes whatever they felt like that day, developers work around that, and Wine gets stuck having to reproduce "bug for bug" compatibility.
So in general, no, the community does not usually have an attitude of "obey the standards or we won't cooperate." Perhaps we should. I know I often have a mind to block users on IE6, at least, and maybe IE7 also, so I don't have to do extra work to support them.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If by "modern", you mean "at least 1 gig of RAM", I guess that works.
I have tried it on a machine with 512 megs of RAM. It was Home Basic, and it was loaded down with HP crap, but no matter how much I cleared away, it still took several minutes to do anything. And I mean anything. Control panel? Two minutes. Internet Explorer? A minute and a half. It was ludicrous.
And I am fairly confident it was the RAM, because it was paging like mad. I did plug in a USB stick and used ReadyBoost while I was there, and it did improve things, but not by much.
Now, I know someone who upgraded from XP 64-bit to Vista, and basically raves about everything about it, and I don't blame her -- XP 64-bit sucked. She realizes that was a mistake, should've stayed on 32-bit. But Vista 64-bit isn't bad (finally catching up to Linux' 64-bit support), and it's generally been solid for her.
She also has, I believe, some 2 gigs of RAM.
Her advice to me was, less than a gig of RAM? XP is faster. A gig or more? Vista is faster.
Which makes me wonder what the fuck it's using half a gig of RAM for. I have Kontact (Outlook-like app, so email, calendar, etc), Konqueror (web browser), two IRC clients, Kopete (multi-IM client), KTorrent (bittorrent), and a Windows game open in Wine right now, and it's using less than 600 megs of RAM. Vista, apparently, uses at least that much just to show you a desktop -- I remember it being a gig or so paged (I'm not kidding) with nothing open other than the task list. What gives?
It's not Aero, by the way. I've had Beryl on this computer before, and right now, it's running KWin with everything turned on, which includes some Beryl/Aero-like features (including real drop shadows and transparency), and that doesn't use a significant amount of RAM, either.
The issue is that when you play media, your download slows. And there is absolutely no reason for this, and versions of Windows prior to Vista are not effected, all the way back to 95, probably 3.1.
And I actually do have a PC that doesn't do that. It runs Ubuntu. It also doesn't slow down when downloading, even torrents, because they use so little of my resources (aside from bandwidth) that I can do pretty much anything I was doing before (unless it's online).
Where'd you get this information?
Last I checked, they hadn't even acknowledged it as a bug. They were still insisting that it had to be this way in order to not have the music skip. (Well, guess what? My music doesn't skip even when I'm transferring stuff over Gigabit. Novel concept, I know.)
People complain that Linux is focused on throughput and not latency -- that is, that it'll make my desktop lag just so that background compile can run 2% faster. Here's a clear example of why you don't want to go too far the other way, though -- playing any audio at all on Vista slows your network down by 10%.
It may not be enough for you to notice, as that's still probably faster than your Internet. Probably. But it doesn't make it any less of a bug, no matter what Microsoft says.
That is and has been true, and occasionally various users find it better enough to make the switch. (Not all users do, obviously, and some never will.)
Being able to download fast while playing media is unarguably better than lagging. Being able to play a multiplayer
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Uhh what the fuck? Windows XP worked perfectly fine with the ISP. Windows Vista doesn't. That's **Microsoft's** regression. Linux users were never mentioned, as it assumes they have followed the standard all along and don't release new distributions who break standards for no purpose other than to break them. This should give **Microsoft** a bad name for not being able to release a new version of their own OS without breaking virtually every component in the process.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
That is what the Internet is for. You're projecting Windows' problems onto real computers. There is no reason why a router or hardware firewall should be necessary to add security -- they're both computers with instructions and flaws. Increasing the number of hardware pieces increases the number of failure points at the cost of also increasing latency and reducing actual bandwidth.
There are only three reason why a computer needs to be isolated from the Internet:
Help stamp out iliturcy.
From my understanding of the problem, Microsoft is no longer supporting the unicast response for DHCP like it did previously, even though that is the recommended way to do this. While Microsoft's implementation is valid (though not recommended), I can see why the ISP doesn't want to honor it. If a lot of Vista subscribers start doing this, there could potentially be a lot of broadcast packets. I.e. each time a Vista user connects, the DHCP server would send a broadcast response to everyone on the local subnet (which can be quite huge).
I remember scanning the broadcast network traffic years ago on my cable modem and it was tens to hundreds of DHCP requests packets per second. If most users start running Vista then this would double the broadcast traffic.
Broadcast should be avoided unless absolutely required.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Every one of the DHCP servers in the world, on every OS whether embedded or multi-purpose should be audited and downgraded (yes, this is a downgrade to a deprecated method) or replaced with obsolete equipment.
This should be done because Microsoft's Vista network programming team could not be troubled to code in something like "If DHCP request using deprecated method times out, retry with the standard method."
And no copying my idea. That's valuable Intellectual Property there.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If you think developers are lazy, the average non-user is pathetic. I guess I'd be quite screwed-up if I used such an opiate for over ten years. I prefer to serve and I was shown NT (the __only__ Windows when we began the experiment) was unsuitable right in front of my face.
The answer: People are lazy! (not just developers) What I cannot tolerate is all the needless suffering this laziness has caused. I'm pissed. Most people who are shown Linux (and more likely *BSD from the younger ones) take to Unix real fast. If "Generation X" had full use of their computers, they'd be dangerous!
Sorry this seems so burnt-out, but two days of dealing with Windows "non-users" is beyond my limits. ANYTHING UNIX(tm) or "Unix-like" simply attracts smarter people. That's not simply because they used it in university, Unix users are simply smarter. (Duh)
You're working with some assumed knowledge - you know that Synaptic is the package manager (heck, you know what a package manager is!)
When I first tried Ubuntu it took me hours and hours to find that Synaptic existed - yes I know there's an interface in the Ubuntu GUI now, but there wasn't when I first used it.
What seems to make it harder is that the last time I tried to find the package manager in the man pages I didn't know it was called a package manager - and even with UNIX experience (and the subsequent knowledge of man -k) I didn't have the right context with which to find the right tool.
Bad analogy - if you don't know what a spade is called, you may not find it in the Sears online catalogue, because you're looking for "digging tool".
The Pirate Bay
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Generally you're right, but assumed knowledge happens both ways. To be able to install something in Windows, you first of all have to know how to operate the Explorer. Unless, of course, you have autorun enabled and slip a CD with it into the drive, but this can technically be achived with Linux as well, if you insist in buying software instead of simply downloading and using it.
Every distribution also offers you a few pages to many MBs of documentation. Yes, that requires reading, I know, it's a dying art, but I heard some people still do that. I know, Luddites, reading stuff when you can click funny icons...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So what IP address do you send to to tell the computer what its IP address is?
The other computers may well not be interested, but the client is, and a multicast (or broadcast) is probably the only way to reach it, as it's not directly addressable (yet).
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.