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Microsoft Warns of Windows 7 Graphics Flaw
Barence writes "A flaw with the graphics driver in Windows 7 could compromise the stability and security of PCs, Microsoft has warned. The vulnerability lies in the Windows Canonical Display Driver (cdd.dll) for the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft claims that the flaw could lead to machines rebooting or even allow a hacker to remotely execute code, although it claims either eventuality is improbable. Concerned users are being advised to disable Windows Aero until Microsoft can issue a fix."
and Windows Server 2008 R2
This is why you don't use unnecessary things like Aero (and graphical displays) on servers. Granted Aero isn't enabled by default on Windows Server 2008, but it's still all unnecessary. Servers are meant to be configured and left running with minimal installs. You can do everything you need to from a command line, and sftp for editing those configuration files. When you have a minimalistic install there's also much less change of some random software having an exploitable bug.
GUI is still there for remote desktop and it's easier to configure then CMD only.
... machines could start spontaneously displaying goatse...
You'll get Areo when you pry it out of my cold dead... damn... it rebooted again!
Lurchicus - For Sig, see other side.
...This is why I wait to get my tech. I might be on the waning edge of things, but at least I get them when they work.
easier than cmd? you must be new here.
it might render your porn poorly.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
GUI is still there for remote desktop and it's easier to configure then CMD only.
That's because Microsoft has a crippled CLI, and yes, that included Powershell..
When I am playing BC2 it sometimes interrupts my game to tell me I have run out of memory and Aero is turning off. I cannot imagine why, I have 1GB GPU and 6GB RAM....
It seems there are some flaws in Aero on 64 bit systems.
This is why you don't use unnecessary things like Aero (and graphical displays) on servers.
This is why you don't use unnecessary things like Windows Server 2008 R2 on servers.
There. Fixed it for you
Why do I have the feeling this is overblown? I'm running W2K8R2 x64 as a Workstation OS, it is rock stable, possibly the best OS MS ever produced. Yet I'm sure there are _plenty_ of bugs like this one. Doesn't Microsoft issue bug reports like this every month? Doesn't _any_ OS company produce bug reports like this every month? Why is this one so special? Cause, I'd like to know.
I'm not saying it's should'nt be fixed, reported, or taken care of. I'm not saying Windows is the best OS. OS X can be pwned through the WiFi drivers. I'm sure can Unbuntu can be hacked in many ways too. When OpenBSD gets cracked, then it'll be frontpage material. Until then, keep the real news rolling.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
You missed a bracket in your sig.
And your point is?
Yeah, XOrg is shit. I don't think many people debate that, but it's not a reason to let Microsoft off the hook.
But a remote desktop shouldn't require any kind of display driver on the host.
easier than cmd? you must be new here.
If by "new here" you mean "under the age of 45", then yeah. I grew up around DOS, and I STILL prefer a GUI to a command line for getting stuff done.
Living With a Nerd
There is talk of useing GPU Computing in them and will something like this make easier to hack them?
A proper scripting shell! So the MS command line finally makes it into the 1970s...
Well, that is the point where Microsoft copied X Windows wrongly. There is no need to run the windowing GUI on the remote machine if the local machine is already running a windowing GUI.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I can see that. Perhaps you are a small business and you don't want to train your network admins on CLI tools, so they use the "easier" (read: "requires less training") GUI rather than the faster CLI. Fair enough, not everyone can afford fully-trained network engineers to manage a few small in-house servers.
But, seriously, Aero? Even the least experienced network admin doesn't need to enable Aero to administer the server. It's a waste of CPU and memory resources for something that (hopefully) you spend a few minutes a week on. If you insist on using a GUI to administer your servers, fine, but at least make it the simplest GUI you can use to get your job done.
As GP said, the simpler your interface, the less likely there is to be an exploitable security flaw in it. The more complex you make your remote access capabilities, the more likely it is that someone else can find a vector in to them.
SFTP/SSH exchanges very little data and has very few possible attack vectors. "Classic" GUI has a few more attack vectors and possible failures and exchanges a lot more data, but it adds simplicity for those not comfy with the CLI, so there's a logical trade-off there.
Aero adds a lot more traffic, a lot more complexity, a lot more potential vectors for both failure AND attack, and does not make the GUI any more functional for administrative tasks.
Now, if you're using Server 2008 on your desktop as your daily machine, and you like sexy GUI, OK, I can see Aero being enabled. But there's no reason to enable Aero on an actual server.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
XFree86 was even worse.
One day Linux will get a decent stable X server but I won't hold my breath. Thank god for alt-sysrq.
Well, yes: Because this driver is not vendor specific. It's part of the actual OS itself. When was the last time you saw, say, a huge flaw in the Linux framebuffer, or something like that?
If the vulnerability is caused by the vendor of a chip, or the shoddy documentation of s chip maker: hell yes, blame the third part. In this case... MS can only blame themselves. Their own 'canonical display driver' is shoddy, not a 3rd party chip maker.
This vulnerability was found in Aero, not in a video driver.
Vulnerabilities have been found in X before, and fixed. This is no different.
Not sure where the anger comes from, but you might consider a nice hot cup of tea and a short break. Cheers.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I didn't grow up around DOS and still prefer a command line to a GUI for getting real work done.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Before Microsoft issued this warning, how many people had found the flaw, and now that they have told the world about how many people know? Would it have not made more sense for them to silently patch the issue and not tell every person that has access to the internet? Or are they just covering their "six"?
My box will randomly crash. The screen wigs out and then the box reboots. It's not even a BSoD, the whole screen goes completely crazy for about 5 seconds before it reboots, and it occurs at totally random times. I have triple (probably quadruple at this point) checked that all hardware is compatible, all software is completely up-to-date, all drivers are up-to-date, and I have paid top-of-the-line antivirus software. I finally gave up and chalked it up to Win7 64-bit....looks like I was right.
CDD (the affected driver) is for GDI (read: pre-Vista, although quite a lot of current software still uses GDI) applications to display on a display using the Desktop Window Manager. Disable Aero, and you're using XPDM instead of DWM, and it's GDI all the way.
Although I believe the DWM disables itself for remote desktop, anyway.
Canonical
Could they have released a borked up driver named after the competition so that in time people looking into Ubuntu might recognize the name Canonical and associate it with something that "compromise the stability and security of PCs?"
I think this post demonstrates a new level of paranoia when it comes to Microsoft.
So you wrote a lot and it even makes sense and considers most of the cases.
But Aero is disabled by default in Server 2008/R2. So there's no harm - it's available if you need it, but it doesn't affect your security with just being there.
In Delphi, (. .) translates to [ ]
Just saying...
Remember to maintain your supply of
Does Aero even work if you remote desktop in?
My guess is it drops back down to Basic.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I won't debate it a lot, but I did like XOrg better than XFree86.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I definitely prefer a GUI. Then I can have terminals open with all the command lines I need, but also be able to use my web browsers and graphics applications at the same time.
I use the command line for a lot of things, but I definitely wouldn't want to use a CLI-only system as my desktop.
Bah. I always switch to the classic mode anyway. It updates the screen faster, is more responsive, and seeing as how I grew up with this (see links), I already think it's pretty enough - http://toastytech.com/guis/c64g.html http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/amigaos10.png
Question:
Why does this flaw affect NT 6.1 and 6.2, but not 6.0 (vista)??? And why's the driver called "Canonical"?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Funny, because Powershell is a joy to work with, compared to Bash. .NET, object piping, consistent naming, no obscure 2-character parameters? I think I just orgasmed.
Aero is a nice GUI. And in most servers, it only takes up system resource that wouldn't be used anyways.
If you are running systems so close that running Aero has an actual practical effect, then you are running underpowered servers.
IT does NOT add a 'lot more' traffic, or a 'lot more' complexity.
It add a minor bit of each.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I grew up with DOS (more specifically 1541 CASCII and AmigaCLI), but still prefer a GUI. I can backup all my documents to an external drive with a simple drag-and-drop. I can't imagine trying to do that with a CLI. Well I can, but it would take longer.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
So there's no harm - it's available if you need it, but it doesn't affect your security with just being there.
You're right, of course. However, the paranoid sysadmin (which I'd argue is the only sysadmin one should aspire to be) would want to make sure stuff not being used isn't even sitting on the server. A good lockdown checklist not only disables unneeded services and applications, but takes steps to uninstall whenever possible.
All that's needed is another exploit that allows unauthorized remote activation of Aero, or a policy oversight that permits an ignorant or malicious user to enable it. Why even allow the opportunity to have a disabled security hole laying around?
(. .)
You missed two brackets in your comment.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Please elaborate, I've only heard good things about Powershell (but am willing to accept that this may say more about people willing to learn Powershell than Powershell itself)
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
CLI does have its uses. There are things it offers that no GUI can, and vice versa.
But claiming you need it for "real work" is like claiming you need a printing press to print a sheet of paper with "real text" on it. Both are equally ridiculous statements.
For most work environments, neither CLI nor GUI alone covers all needs. Welcome to the real world, where we use the appropriate tools for each task.
While you might not be able to imagine it, those who do know how to perform an administrative task both from a terminal and from a GUI often find that doing it from the terminal is more efficient and more reliable.
I have not noticed anything at all since I disabled that annoying Aero immediately after install. (-2 redundant)
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
If there's no need to do it why is X Windows the only windowing system that does it? Why does VNC/somethingX (the new one) exist for X Windows when X servers are available on all platforms?
I don't know that you're wrong in calling Microsoft's approach wrong, or have more than an idea of why you might be wrong, but the fact that everyone else uses the "wrong" approach sets off the BS-meter.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
A shell is only useful if it's the default action when you create a program, and a GUI is an afterthought. PowerShell is the afterthought, so even where Microsoft's tools are fully scriptable, some of your middleware isn't going to be.
I'm not sure if being paranoid is the right step - careful, sure, paranoid - no.
In the end, the goal of IT is to enable it's users to be more productive. Sometimes overparanoid IT guys can make life more difficult for the Users - this should be minimized.
All of the Windows Server components are always on-the-disk in Server 2008/R2. IIS on the disk, whether you use it or not. But only when enabling it you'll actually get the services you need for it.
This doesn't hurt. It doesn't compromise security.
Points on Aero being disabled on Server and Remote Desktop aside, I have one more thing to note. Saying that Aero wastes CPU and memory is being extremist. At its most busy point, rendering multiple translucent non-fullscreen windows, Aero barely tops 3% CPU on a 2GHz Athlon. At fullscreen (compositing disabled) it's 0%. And memory? It doesn't take much, and VRAM on a server machine is being put to waste, anyway.
Well, your post should be modded down too.
1) Troll
2) Default judgement.
I still haven't read why the windows powershell is crap. Concensus seems to point in that direction, but could anybody who has considerable experience with windows power shell and any unix-like shell comment on this?
Removing it doesn't hurt. This is not an overzealous sysadmin problem, this is Microsoft sucking at modular design.
"Most servers" are increasingly virtualized. So those resources would be better used by another VM if the current isn't using them.
I does, even d3d.
Almost every flaw with anything in Windows could allow a hacker to execute code remotely. What's the deal with that?
The point is. Linux has a lot of problems that most people excuse and overlook or blame elsewhere, vs actually trying to fix them. Windows has problems too but even for smaller problems they will get hounded for being such a horrible system. Sure lets discuss windows problems, we should demand that Microsoft keeps their product at high quality, but I am tired of this "well I use Linux so I am so much better off" nonsense. Wow they are two different systems with different code bases and they have different bugs... Duh! You like Linux and you use it and you are happy that is all well and good... However bragging that your OS doesn't suffer from That particular vulnerability is just silly and not actually useful. If this was a Ubuntu reported bug and you state that it doesn't happen in an other Linux Distribution it would be more useful as you are talking about a similar codebase and that it seems there is a unique Ubuntu problem. But comparing Windows and Linux is just a wast of time. And if you are going to pretend that Linux is a flawless OS and Superior then windows you are just fooling yourself. Linux is not Superior to windows it may be better overall but not the God OS.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Windows Server 2008 R2 added support for Aero over RDP. It is disabled by default and is only supported when remoting in from a Windows 7 or higher machine I believe. Otherwise, yes, it drops back down to basic.
No, his symbol makes perfect sense if he is gay or a pedophile.
There was no freely availalbe Xserver/XClient for Windows until recently .....
VNC will work on any graphical system, Windows, X, And most others .... that's the point it is *not* tied to X and so can be universal
The X approach is wrong (for various reasons)
- But X is simple enough that it's inadequacies can be worked around
Windows is wrong (for various other reasons)
- But this is Windows so there is no way to work around it's inadequacies...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Powershell is by far, one of the best Microsoft has created on the scripting side. Why? They basically took a shell and enhanced it by making it object aware, and giving it access to .net. In Microsoft lingo, cmdlets replace unix utilities.
I am not a fan of the naming conventions they use in powershell! It makes it harder to write terse scripts.
Please see
http://w3.linux-magazine.com/issue/78/Bash_vs._Vista_PowerShell.pdf for a comparison of powershell vs Bash.
http://blog.brandonbloom.name/2009/04/powershell-condemned-to-reinvent.html
A shell is only useful if it's the default action when you create a program, and a GUI is an afterthought.
So that explains why many Linux applications are lacking functionality in the GUI.
Aero is mostly eye candy.
http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/toolkits.html
My favourite bit (at the moment):
Let's suppose that down in the bowels of some particular version of some particular toolkit library, there lurks a bug. Let's suppose that the nature of this bug is something relatively obscure: say that it's something like, if you hold down 5 keys on the keyboard for 10 seconds then drag the middle mouse button, the text entry widget gets a SEGV. (In fact, I'm not making this up: I saw this very bug once, years ago.)
Now, that's the sort of bug that is not likely to be noticed or fixed, because it's the sort of thing that people "never" do. If that bug was reported against, say, a web browser, nobody would much care: User: "I can crash my web browser by doing this crazy thing!" Developer: "Uh, don't do that then." And that's not a totally unreasonable response.
However, in the context of security software, it matters, because then it's not merely a cute trick that crashes the program: now it's a backdoor password that unlocks the screen.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
I think this post demonstrates a new level of paranoia when it comes to Microsoft.
If you choose to name your company by using a word in common usage like canonical, you're bound to get problems at some time, not least because you can't TM it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you are running systems so close that running Aero has an actual practical effect, then you are running underpowered servers.
Personally, I don't think that a server needs a video card with DirectX 3D support, a hardware pixel shader, 32 bits per pixel, etc. If you really, honestly need a GUI to administer a server, a much simpler VGA card will suffice, and will have much more stable drivers.
Once you start turning on 3D effects, you will send a lot more data over the stream for your remote desktop. Maybe not enough to affect your network, but it certainly adds complexity to the whole process.
You have to make decisions for your own servers. Given that Aero has already had published vulnerabilities that are not present in "Classic", of which this is just another one, I personally feel it's foolish in the extreme to load Aero on to a server.
It may be "nice", but it does not appear to enable an admin to do anything that non-Aero could do just as well, it just looks prettier. And adds complexity (points of possible failure and vulnerabilities).
Having a GUI is a logical tradeoff for a less-experienced admin to be able to manage a server. Fine. Making that GUI more complex doesn't add anything to that capability, it just makes it prettier. And makes the system more vulnerable to failure and attack.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
No, they are not equal. The problem is that using GUIs as we know them today, is NOT using a computer. It is instead the same thing as fiddling with an appliance. A static thing. Good luck piping the output of a Firefox menu item to Gimp. Good luck scripting the interface. That’s the real problem. You can’t really. Everything is monolithic static applications. With the rare plug-in exception.
Real work = AUTOMATING
Do you know that saying, that the computer creates the work that you wouldn’t have without it?
That is what happens if you use it like an appliance, instead of automating your work away.
It’s sad that KDE and Gnome raped the Unix philosophy... with a 30 inch pipe... sideways... ...instead of doing it the proper way, and making everything a small module that does one thing, and does it right.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Poor underprivileged kids.... I grew up around Unix. we had a wyse terminal at home and I had my own login on the Uni mainframe (mom being a administrator had advantages) CLI in a real computing environment, with it's near endless scripting abilities Completely kicks the butt of a GUI.
call me when you can script a GUI as easily as a CLI.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Canonical
Could they have released a borked up driver named after the competition so that in time people looking into Ubuntu might recognize the name Canonical and associate it with something that "compromise the stability and security of PCs?"
I think this post demonstrates a new level of paranoia when it comes to Microsoft.
Our new FUD plan is working flawlessly! Soon we'll have an entire legion of naysayers and apologists that would graciously accept a steaming load from my sweaty bowels to defend Microsoft's holy name! HAhahahahAHAHA! *throws chair*
And how are GUI tools on Linux any different?
PS isn't limited to the command line; it can also interact with any COM applications, an extremely common task. WSH let you totally automate window interaction - I don't know if PS does, but this plugin for PS seems to aim for that.
If your OS only has configuration options in the GUI, then your OS is horribly broken. EVERYTHING should be configurable via CLI. if not then the people designing it made gigantic mistakes.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You’re thinking of |. .|
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Areo isn't even installed by default with Windows Server 2008 - you have to install it, reboot, and then enable it. That's hardly any attack vector at all IMO.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Welcome to the real world, where we use the appropriate tools for each task.
I painted my house with a hammer you insensitive clod!!!
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I can backup all my documents to an external drive with a simple drag-and-drop. I can't imagine trying to do that with a CLI.
Really? Typing 'rsync -av /home/user /mnt/external' takes longer than drag & drop? How would you do something like backing up all PDFs (and only pdfs) in a tree with a GUI? Does drag & drop recognize when two files are identical and only transfer files that have changed? Can it resume an interrupted transfer without copying the entire thing again? Can drag & drop transfer from host to host with compression? Can it verify the transfer went correctly by checksums?
In my experience, using rsync is not only faster and easier than a GUI, but far more capable as well. The GUI is suitable if and only if you're transferring a random set of files (i.e. one that you cannot specify with a glob or regex), otherwise the CLI is a much, much better option.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
cp -r ~/mydocs /myexternaldrive/backup-`date +%d%m%Y`
That's just one way.
"I didn't grow up around DOS and still prefer a command line to a GUI for getting real work done."
Okay, that's twice in this thread that I've squinted at my monitor and said, "What the fuck?"
Is the bar really so very low on slashdot that saying you prefer a command line gets you +5 insightful? Actually, it clearly is.
We need to be able to moderate something "completely devoid of insight but somehow I connect with this". Or maybe we need "so obvious even a caveman can see it".
Why?
Because those that don't know X are doomed to reimplement it poorly, and those that do know X just use X.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Wow...
Nice to see Microsoft Certified means no clue about server hardware and performance.
Thanks for cluing me in, I'm chucking every resume with MCSE on it from the pile on my desk.
In my experience, working the way you like is vastly superior to working the way some Internet stranger likes, regardless of the geek cred it'll give you on Slashdot.
I am not a fan of the naming conventions they use in powershell! It makes it harder to write terse scripts.
All commands in PS have a short-hand equivalent. All options to those commands are matched by nearest approximation.
So, you could type, gci -r -ex "*.txt" some-folder.
But this is frowned on, because it's as ugly as Linux is and just as incomprehensible when reading. So the recommended approach is usually get-childitem -recurse -exclude "*.txt" some-folder. But it's your choice.
A few weeks ago, my Vista machine just spontaneously rebooted. When it started back up, my Chrome desktop starter link was busted (chrome.exe was gone) and IE (which I don't use) would only open to a scam page pretending to scan my computer, and the only things I could do was go to a page to pay for their system.
They were even using a squatter web link that was a 1-off misspelling of a known, real anti-spyware product, I forget which one. This was one devil of an infestation, as I could not start any applications, either.
I got into safe mode and did a rollback to a previous configuration prior to some updates, and it all went away. I know it's there somewhere, if Windows re-updates. Hopefully I won't get attacked again.
I wonder if this issue is taking advantage of that problem, because I decidedly was not using IE nor did I download, much less execute, any executables (and yes, I check if it's downloading a .exe before blindly clicking on anything I download.)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
From the 20 pictures, copy only those that feature my dog. Start scripting... now!
Yakuake!
call me when you can script a GUI as easily as a CLI
Visual Basic is on the phone for you.
On a desktop that would be ridiculous.
On a server, on the other hand, everything should be editable from the command line. In my opinion, the installation of a GUI shouldn't even be considered. sftp and ssh are perfectly usable and acceptable for remote access. At no time in the history of a server should a GUI ever consider coming into play. As has been previously stated, you're just introducing more points of failure and vectors for attack when you do so.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
When I can rattle off half a dozen features one has that the other doesn't, it ceases to be a matter of opinion. rsync is just plain better. It's ok for you to use the GUI if that's what you like, but don't go around saying that it's better.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Modularity also has its drawbacks, esp. concerning speed. No OS has done this to date (Singularity might). And it's particularly bad for testing, where it's infeasible to test n^2 component configurations.
Regardless, as mentioned in TFA, it can be permanently disabled. Worrying about a "policy oversight" is unprecedented and stupidly over-paranoid.
example fail.
How about, in one operation, finding all the text files on the entire disk, (I'll even let you assume a .txt extension on this one and exclude all files that don't have an extension), must follow a certain naming pattern, and also contain certain keywords inside the file.
Do that with your gui in less time then it would take me to read the man page to write the regex and then execute the command.
Starting...now!
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
also, if you haven't already sorted your files before you need to move them that's your own fault. :p
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
You still haven't fixed the bracket!
copy *hump*.jpg
copy *peanut*.jpg
copy *butter*.jpg
Well yeah because, xcopy "C:\backup\*" "H:\backup\" /s /y /e" is just so hard to type. Not to mention takes less time to actually move the data vs GUI.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Can you provide an example that is applicable to the configuration and maintenance of a server? The only thing I can think of are graphical representations of server usage logs, and honestly those aren't useful enough to warrant having a full graphical desktop installed (and you can just expose them on an internal web page).
The argument is not that the GUI is useless. The argument is that the extra complexity of installing a GUI stack is not worth the minimal benefits it brings. Every single piece of software you install on a computer increases its attack surface, so as a matter of policy you should keep it to a minimum. Windows is kind of retarded in that there are significant configuration options that are difficult if not impossible to change via the command line (and that's if you can find out how to change them like that in the first place!), which means that you basically have to run the GUI stack - but that's okay, because it's almost impossible to uninstall.
Look: humans are fallible. If your goal is uptime, you need to remove as much of the human element as you can. This is simply not possible with a GUI; you must have a person manning the computer if you need to interact with one. The command line, on the other hand, is something computers can handle quite well if you tell them how. That's why you use the command line when you want to get "real" work done - "real" work is work that you do once or twice, then write a script for and never do again. If your ongoing solution is to press the same ten buttons once a month, that is not a solution at all.
example CLI fail.
As if you weren't already. Your bias is showing.
You could make a case for shouldn't, but that would be irrelevant, since it does.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383015(VS.85).aspx
On the server, RDP uses its own video driver to render display output by constructing the rendering information into network packets by using RDP protocol and sending them over the network to the client
Just curious, do you use lynx as a browser or are you one of these GUI lovers...
Administering IIS has been a pain in the ass since day 1. Unlike NCSA, Netscape, and Apache servers, you had to point-and-click through a zillion tabs and dialog boxes in IIS to configure and tune the server - or for more advanced tuning, do something even worse: hark back to the day of C= BASIC 2.0 and do the equivalen of PEEK and POKE to the IIS Metabase. Microsoft has FINALLY seen the light and now offers the ability to edit configuration files. This makes things MUCH easier since you can see right in front of you which features are enabled or disabled, tweak things like buffers, and so forth, and don't have to click through eleventyteen places to find the bottleneck or what is breaking your server.
For a long time Apache has been kicking Microsoft's butt on the server side, and believe it or not, a large part of it is not just Apache's lesser system requirements, but the ability to easily administer it. If you're a serious sysadmin you'll appreciate the command line and the ease of administration it brings. Sure, you have to learn a little more, and put more up-front effort into the job, but once you have acquired the skills you will find you are repeating tasks only once or twice and then spend some time writing scripts to handle it automatically.
Aside from activation (I've spent thousands on Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, etc.) this is one of the big reasons we dumped Windows in favor of Linux. The only Windows server we have left is an MSDN installation, for testing, not production. All the other servers run Linux, and I have a ton of stuff automated.
Windows is really getting there - it really is. It just needs a really good CLI. Powershell is a good step, but I prefer bash. (Cygwin or AndLinux or SFU) + powershell are two ways you can get close to the flexibility of Unix administration, but even that doesn't get you 100% there.
Don't fear the CLI. Even Microsoft has seen the light and is well on its way to reinventing Unix, poorly (remember, "those who do not understand unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly").
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Like a Delphi programmer's ever seen those...
After installing it was to disable all of the extra GUI junk in the UI. It now looks like Windows 2000 and runs slightly better too.
Truth be told if I could replace the GUI with the one from windows 95 I would, and why do they keep changing how control panel looks/works, I would like some freeking consistency.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I may be dumb but how do I have three text (*.config) documents open, copy and paste between them in ssh? never mind having a few file explorers open to do right click extract, looking at the event viewer and inspecting IIS manager.
So on and so on.
Or maybe it's just me been spoiled with WYSIWYG and the teletype is going to be the next big thing. *shrugs*
and scriptable far more easily, for repeating later when we're not around...
2^3 * 31 * 647
The argument is not that the GUI is useless. The argument is that the extra complexity of installing a GUI stack is not worth the minimal benefits it brings.
On Windows, editing the registry is a PITA using the command line.
For one-off "add this registry item" work, the command line programs are fine, but for doing things like "find all mention of 'C:\Users' and replace it with 'D:\Users'", a graphical registry editor is not just the easiest, but pretty much the only way.
IT does NOT add a 'lot more' traffic, or a 'lot more' complexity.
It add a minor bit of each.
As we can see, it adds enough complexity to open an additional potential security hole. For what?
Pretty windows on your server.
It's like putting doily drapes in your warehouse: it has no useful effect, yet marginally increases your fire hazard. Should be a no-brainer.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
If there's no need to do it why is X Windows the only windowing system that does it? Why does VNC/somethingX (the new one) exist for X Windows when X servers are available on all platforms?
I don't know that you're wrong in calling Microsoft's approach wrong, or have more than an idea of why you might be wrong, but the fact that everyone else uses the "wrong" approach sets off the BS-meter.
Bandwidth and latency. A lot of apps are written with the assumption that they will only be run locally (which isn't unreasonable).
X was generally designed for LAN-level speeds (10 Mbit) and latencies (sub-second). Once you start getting in MAN and WANs, things become slower. Running Matlab during my EE worked fine between the SparcStation 5 that had the (Type-5) keyboard and (8-bit color) display, and the Sun E3500 that the code was executing on. Try that over a DSL (at the time ~2 Mbit) or a v.42bis modem and you would be in a world of pain (though it would eventually display).
Also ran Mathematica and Netscape Navigator 4.x over remote X.
Is Windows 7 still running the graphics driver in Ring 0? They moved it from Ring 3 (least privileged) to the most privileged mode in NT 4.0 as a performance hack. Still reaping the 'benefits' of that decision today.
You never know... he might’ve been born back when breast-feeding was more common.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
>Welcome to the real world, where we use the appropriate tools for each task.
Where is this real world of which you speak? In my world, I'm surrounded by people (metaphorically) using screwdrivers to hammer square pegs into round holes. :(
You can automate a GUI. AppleScript on Mac Classic used to be brilliant for this-- I'm not sure if it's still good or not.
Comment of the year
Right - but Aero is not installed or enabled by default, and drivers that support Aero are not included in the box either. RDP won't show you Aero if it's not available on the system. So out of the box, you get a plain if a bit ugly GUI that a low-end graphics card can handle.
Most servers do not come with a display adapter that supports Aero. I've tried just to see if it was even possible, but the ATI ES1000 that comes standard in my IBM xSeries servers just doesn't cut it :)
So, most of the people using Server 2008 R2 as a server OS will be safe from this one.
CLI beats you there... I write a script to rsync the important files, put it in cron and I don't have to do anything after that to backup my files.
... seriously, I expect people to not RTFA, but you didn't even read the next sentence. Here it is, because I specifically mentioned exactly what you said:
Basically, the registry is a piece of junk. It provides no benefit over config files except for sometimes it provides you with a fun-filled night of everyone's favorite activity, "Fixing Windows' Shit", because it's corrupted itself and died.
This is really Windows' modus operandi - here's a feature that might make your life a little bit easier, but has these downsides that just barely make it less than useful, except nobody notices those downsides until your entire company has standardized on the feature and now you have to pay out the nose to support it and oh god why didn't you just get an abortion in the first place?
That sentence kinda got away from me, but the fact remains - Windows doesn't Just Work, it Just Doesn't Work and you'll never know why. I mean fuck, even Mark Russinovich himself didn't realize that you don't have to change the machine SID for years, and he wrote a program to do it!
oh and in linux sftp is integrated with the the filemanager. Meaining I can have use gui on my desktop to browse the files on the server, and then drag and drop them somewhere else. Can even edit the files with whatever text editor I have on my desktop system. The key is to have good software on the desktop and have an awesome way of accessing the server (SSH).
Because it's fugly?
Yeah!
Same reason xWINDOWS is so screwed up, to taint Microsoft! YEAH!!!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I recall that Microsoft made a huge deal about the new Aero look, back when Windows Vista was released, touting it as some kind of major revolution for PC computing (even though it was "just" a GUI.) They even used bullsh*t "hype" language that it would "enable you to manage the windows on your desktop by arranging them in a visually striking yet convenient way", which is another way of saying "you can arrange windows on your desktop." Oh boy.
That Microsoft is advising users to disable Aero seems like a black eye for Microsoft:
"Yeah, that huge feature we said was really important to computing? Just turn it off, it's buggy."
"This has happened before and will happen again."
I know how to do it from both, and will honestly alternate depending on what I'm trying to get done. It really depends, but sometimes using the GUI is more straight forward, when there's a well designed gui in front of the configuration. Many times the gui isn't so great though. Also, if it's a smaller change, I'll lean towards an ssh/cli interface, if there's more to it, I'll go gui.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
In the gui, I can use ctrl+click on each of the documents I want to copy, say 5 out of 45, then drag them to the mount shortcut on the desktop. You'd have to type in 5 command lines to do that. Given, you can get through that almost as quickly at a command prompt, just the same there are advantages to both types of interfaces. As I've stated elsewhere in this thread, I'll alternate between the two.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Umn, not sure of any OS, aside from maybe OSX that fits that bill... and even then, it's probably all available via command line interfaces. Windows has powershell, and the scripting engine, osx has bash, perl, etc... they all have other options, and unix-origin tools available. It's a matter of preference. There are instances where GUI tasks are easier to manage, and others where the CLI is faster... with the GUI, you can have two windows on screen at once, you don't get that with a full screen CLI, that's the single biggest advantage.
Unless you're one of those heathens who uses a GUI to run his CLI instances out of? *gasp*
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
It's one boob, two nipples. It may be freaky but you'd stare if you saw it... ;)
Remember to maintain your supply of
I agree. If you can't glob, then you're better off with a GUI. Most of the time I find I can glob pretty easily. And if you're copying less than 10 files, it's easy enough to type a few characters and use tab completion. It's not even worth opening a graphical file manager in that case. There are a few use cases for GUIs, but in general the CLI is a better choice.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Last time I wrote VB, I used ASCII characters. That would make it a command line environment. A VB interpreter is a lot more like a shell interpreter (or perl or what have you) than it is like a GUI.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Typing 'rsync -av /home/user /mnt/external' takes longer than drag & drop?
Unless I have a *really* big monitor? Yes, it takes longer.
In theory, everything server-related in Windows Server 2008 is configurable through the PowerShell command line (I say "in theory" only because I haven't one this extensively, but from the little I've done I believe the claim).
I'm in the midst of switching to Windows Server 2008 for my home desktop OS, so I appreciate having a GUI as an option - just because something is sold as a server OS doesn't mean it's not also viable for other things. I really appreciate the Microsoft finally got a clue and just about everyhting is off by default in 2008 r2. Yeah, there's still a basic GUI, but that's about it: Aero, themes, even the sound driver is off by default.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Oh wait I run Linux, this problem never bothered me.
Even Microsoft has seen the light and is well on its way to reinventing Unix, poorly
Well, except for the better security system.
cp -R source destination cheers!
example of where gui is not so great: Excel 2007. example of where a cli saves the day no matter how they butcher the UI: AutoCAD. example of where a gui is great: volume control (except in cases where some bastard made it rotational instead of a slider bar)
I grew up around Windows, and then discovered Unix. It's unbelievable how bad a commandline DOS is. Even the NT commandline still sucks.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I can see that, if you neglect the time it takes you to grab the mouse, open 2 explorer windows, navigate to the correct directory in each, and find the entry you want to copy, *and* if you're a hunt and peck typist who has never heard of tab completion. Otherwise the CLI is faster.
Even if starting the copy is faster for you through a GUI, the copy itself will finish faster with rsync most of the time. Rsync won't retransfer blocks that already exist, and if you're transferring over a network it will use compression.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I have used it, and it is so much slow. Really.
I didnt feel the need to investigate any further after that, though.
Typing 'rsync -av /home/user /mnt/external' takes longer than drag & drop
Yes, for all positive values of "longer".
And of course, you haven't considered the time spend trawling the newsgroups and forums to establish what the correct arcane CLI incantation is to perform the rsync. Hmm, was it -av, or -avzxp ? Are my files in /home, or did my distro put them in some other wierd place ?
As opposed to "here's a picture of some files, here's a picture of a disk, drag these things from here to here, done".
Really, most normal people do not have entire MAN pages glued to the inside of their eyelids (heh, but most normal people don't read Slashdot either, so there you go).
rsync IS more powerful, with myriad switches and extra options, I'm not debating that. But to say it is "easier" is a huge distortion of the truth.
use python!
"Real" work...riiiight. Because nobody has ever gotten any real work done using, oh....OSX and Photoshop? Or Win95 and Access?
More "real" work is accomplished via a GUI than not. You are not special because you like to do things the "real" way.
We are talking about a server here, you troll.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Lynx as a browser is junk. I use links instead.
BUT, again, this started off talking about a server. Seeing as how that is the case, I'm not using any browser.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I prefer Perl. (:
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
As opposed to opening parent of Documents folder (home folder), opening USB stick folder, switching back to home folder, pressing ctrl+c, switching to stick, pressing ctrl+v.
Ah, sorry, drag and drop? You mean, I have to use mouse to align the folder windows too?
Sincerely,
a current Mac OS X user.
I'll get hate for saying this, but you just hit the nail on the head on why Linux has trouble gaining traction on the desktop. Regardless of how /. geeks like to "embrace the power of CLI" average users fricking hate CLI. They don't like it, don't want it, and with Linux requiring it at the slightest problem are completely turned off by it.
The days of people using CLI interfaces like DOS and being comfortable with them is gone and it isn't ever coming back. The current PC users have spent way to long in GUIs to want to touch CLI for any reason and as long as Linux can't run without CLI it'll remain a niche. Hell most of my Windows and Apple customers don't even know their OS has a CLI built in and they certainly don't want anything to do with it. It is too strange, too complex, and too primitive with its lack of spellcheck and autocomplete.
So while CLI is fine and dandy on servers, which is where Linux works best, it just doesn't have any place on the modern desktop. The /. geeks can bitch and whine all they want, but the rest of the planet, the non geeks and average Joes, just don't want anything to do with CLI, period.
As for TFA, I run W7 X64 with Aero and I'm not gonna bother turning it off. With ASLR,NX Bit, and firewall plus AV, I just don't see the odds of anybody managing to pull off an exploit for this worth worrying about. Malware writers tend to be lazy creatures and always go for the easy targets, and right now that is still the metric shitload of XP boxes on the net. It is just too easy to pwn an XP box running as admin with no protection than to jump through all the hoops required to get this to actually work, so I'd say TFA is really a non issue until/unless someone manages to make reliable exploit code for this, which I sincerely doubt will happen. It is just more of a PITA than it is worth.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You expect me to be able to manage a server without awesome hardware accelerated graphics? What is I am supposed to do with my graphics card?
No really. Remember commands and remember where to click through numerous windows is about the same. It depends on how you learn to do it.
I think you underestimate my mouse-fu.
Since a standard 2003 install can live pretty happily with a 10GB system drive, but a 2008 install needs over 30GB to function.
No, they are not equal. The problem is that using GUIs as we know them today, is NOT using a computer. It is instead the same thing as fiddling with an appliance. A static thing. Good luck piping the output of a Firefox menu item to Gimp. Good luck scripting the interface. That’s the real problem. You can’t really. Everything is monolithic static applications. With the rare plug-in exception.
Macro applications for automating tasks exist for this reason. API for sending messages such as mouse events and keys are available for this very purpose.
Real work = AUTOMATING
So people who write books, use 3d software for architecture, video editing, audio processing and music creation, and graphic designers who work on computers don't do real work. Your answer is highly subjective. I guess only admins and janitors do "real work"?
It’s sad that KDE and Gnome raped the Unix philosophy... with a 30 inch pipe... sideways... ...instead of doing it the proper way, and making everything a small module that does one thing, and does it right.
Only KDE and Gnome eh? You can use a terminal in all of these. It's sad that you're such an elitist.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
I've written scripts in powershell that couldn't be done in vbscript, at least, not without the use of send keys. Coincidentally, the only two script languages I could find that would handle this task reliably was Perl and PowerShell.
For those interested, the script had to split a file, written in an unmarked unicode format, at each Hex(84) character after the first one in the file. Bash might have been able to handle the task, but the files to be split lived on windows file servers, and there wasn't much documentation around handling unknown unicode formats. Perl required me installing a module from CPAN that MIGHT do the job, PHP doesn't have full Unicode support until PHP 6 (still in dev), vbscript doesn't handle unicode at all (and can't read a file in binary format)
With power shell, I just wrote one line:
$file_content = get-content -en byte $file
and had the file in binary form so that it could be easily split, writing it back out was equally easy:
add-content -path $cur_dir\$tempname.$tempext$split -value ([byte]$content) -encoding byte -force
To simplify file name manipulation, I called a .net class, it was as easy as:
$fname = [io.path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($file)
Basically, in about 125 lines of script, with comments and excessive logging, I completed this script. With an extra 100 lines of script, I added a folder browser to select the source directory to of the files to split, a windows dialog box to provide logging options, and the logic to parse the inputs.
So in less than 300 lines (285 to be exact), again with comments, logging, and formatting/spacing,I have a full script that doesn't require the user to modify any paths, log, or other variables and provides multiple options for logging (console, file, both, or none), prompts for a path, and returns a pre and post file conversion count so that it can be validated. If i were to have to re-write it, I could probably shorten it more, but it does the job and is an order of magnitude faster the vbscript + send keys solution it replaced. To do all of this, I never needed anything more than Powershell 1.0 and the io.path class of .net to make it all work.
For those still reading, this was my first powershell script, who needs hello world! ?
I'd also say that GUIs work well for even multiple CLI windows, or even a file manager and CLI... being able to visualize one resource while using it in another window is a huge advantage you wouldn't have in CLI alone.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
This confirms the fact that strcpy and memcpy are still used in all those libraries.
There are GUI-based copy tools to do all of that. For instance, check out RichCopy.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx
Yes, yes they are.
You know something, I always used to do that thing. For more than 15 years of OS re-installs. I start by disabling al those bling-bling GUI settings to the blood. But this time I decided to keep Aero on.
Fuck it man, it really looks good. And it's still fast. Very fast, even on crappy video cards. I mean c'mon, its just a semi-transparency effect, most video cards could pull that 10 years ago.
The only thing that grinds my gears is that stupid popup suggesting to disable Aero every time a game decides to use a decent amount of memory/CPU. And it does it "cleverly" a few seconds/minutes after the game started, completely fucking things over for games not designed to support alt-tab (most of good titles these days).
Oh damn it, now I've found more reasons to disable Aero. No! Never! You'll take semi-transparency out of my dead claws!
Well, that is the point where Microsoft copied X Windows wrongly. There is no need to run the windowing GUI on the remote machine if the local machine is already running a windowing GUI.
No, it's where they implemented a solution with a different goal. In particular, the ability to disconnect from, and reconnect to, a session.
I have about half a dozen shells open as I write this. At work, I easily reach two dozen. I pipe stuff around like crazy, to automate & save effort.
But to imply that KDE & Gnome go against UNIX philosphy is just mixing apples with oranges. Why would I want to pipe a flac of a song I am listening to to some other application? I want to search, select, queue and listen in one program.
You are not (easily) able to pipe stuff into irssi, either. Vim does not lend itself to having STDOUT piped to anywhere.
Some applications are meant to be intermediate stations for your data. Others are not.
And even though STDIN, STDOUT & STDERR are awesome, let's not pretend as if they were perfect. I could easily use several of each in a lot of circumstances, but mux/demux capabilities on CLI are sorely lacking. Sure, there are tricks, but meh.
And I have to admit that I envy PowerShell users for the object oriented goodness they can use if they want to. Giving a program the ability to automagically _know_ what kind of data I am feeding it at the moment would be extremely convient, sometimes. Kind of like overloading shell commands.
Sorry, didn't see the entire thread...just saw the really annoying assumption that REAL work is done only via command line.
Really? Typing 'rsync -av /home/user /mnt/external' takes longer than drag & drop? How would you do something like backing up all PDFs (and only pdfs) in a tree with a GUI? Does drag & drop recognize when two files are identical and only transfer files that have changed? Can it resume an interrupted transfer without copying the entire thing again? Can drag & drop transfer from host to host with compression? Can it verify the transfer went correctly by checksums?
I think you missed the "simple drag-and-drop" comment. Drag-and-drop can do some of the things you mentioned, but I doubt many people consider it robust. And some of the knuckle-draggers I work with would take a very long time to type that command, even if they knew what to type. In the GUI world, drag it to there makes a lot of sense and doesn't require a lot of thought (a good thing).
Better is subjective. If he prefers the GUI, then it quite simply is better. For him.
So don't go around trying to authoritatively say "CLI is better".
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
thank you for the info and explanation given http://crownrentcar.net/
If you're a Mac OS user, then you should know that's CMD+c, and CMD+v. No Ctrl here.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Because Canonical is a word? Next you'll be asking why there is a record type called "Canonical" in DNS servers.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I know, I know, this is /., but RTFA for once. The likelihood of this being used in the wild are rated at microsoft bla bla level 3 bla bla, which basically means very unlikely. Even then, all it would do is reboot, "Code execution, while possible in theory, would be very difficult due to memory randomisation, both in kernel memory and via Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR)." and more importantly, from the actual advisory, "vulnerability requires that a user view a specially crafted image file with an affected application. Only applications that use the APIs for GDI for rendering images are affected by this issue". So, while it looks like fairly wide array of apps might be vulnerable, my prediction is that by the time an in the wild exploit is release a patch will be out, not to mention this can easily be mitigated by not installing any new software and being careful about where you browse.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
call me when you can script a GUI as easily as a CLI.
http://www.autohotkey.com/
http://www.autoitscript.com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t0aew7h6(VS.85).aspx
http://archworx.wordpress.com/2006/11/05/how-to-create-a-vista-sidebar-gadget
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
Your ignorance doesn't change facts.
Well, I didn't mean to lump graphics manipulation into that, even for desktop. Just 90% of the stuff I do I do better with a CLI than I ever could with the distractions of a GUI (and that, for me, is GUI's biggest drawback "Oh, shiny!")
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I've been running into this issue, and I've been blaming BOINC for it (it HAD been running GPU runs, but my current client is buggy and refuses to run them, and I'm too tired/retarded to go back to the old client), because I never saw this happen with my laptop. Then again, I didn't run 64-bit Windows 7 long enough to see it happen there before I bricked it.
And I've always wondered why every now and then I slip back to Basic mode, and have to log out and log back in to get Aero back, which I had assumed, again, was with the BOINC GPU software. But it's happening even without running the GPU software.
Bryan
Even if starting the copy is faster for you through a GUI, the copy itself will finish faster with rsync most of the time. Rsync won't retransfer blocks that already exist, and if you're transferring over a network it will use compression.
What's to say the GUI can't use rsync technology underneath? You're now comparing specific implementations of copy technologies in a discussion over interfaces.
For a long time Apache has been kicking Microsoft's butt on the server side, and believe it or not, a large part of it is not just Apache's lesser system requirements, but the ability to easily administer it.
To be fair, you have to pay to use Windows and IIS; you can use Linux & Apache for free. That might have helped, too.
I am not saying X is the best there ist, but different design goals may account for this.
X was made to be interoperable and leverage remote resources.
Windows was made to sell as many licences (i.e. make money) as possible.
Also, from the general stability and amount of basic changes in software technology over the years, I would say that MS engineers were not exactly planning for the future. The fact that no modern Unix for PCs is forced to maintain binary compability over roughly 15 years may have helped, too.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOSH
I am not devoid of humor.
...that depends it on how you map it in System Preferences :)
Now seriously, mea culpa.
What's to say the GUI can't use rsync technology underneath?
http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/
no problem. using the Imagemagick library I can easily script something to automatically find all images with the color of your dog. or the filename, or the exif comments field... Lots of ways.
Plus what idiot would script for 20 photos? Let alone what lazy person leaves all his photos as "IMG001,IMG002...."
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Most operating systems divorce the GUI from the bare-bones server stuff needed to run the OS. It drastically reduces complexity, which is always good from a security and speed standpoint. Interacting with the sysadmin is a very small part of the server's duties, so it should be a very small part of the server's code.
You can automate a GUI. AppleScript on Mac Classic used to be brilliant for this-- I'm not sure if it's still good or not.
Pretty much so. Still got it's occasionally aggravating syntax problems, though, like why does a script work fine for the basic functions in one app but not in another despite the fact that Apple has published scripting standards that they're all supposed to use?
This ain't rocket surgery.
While you might not be able to imagine it, those who do know how to perform an administrative task both from a terminal and from a GUI often find that doing it from the terminal is more efficient and more reliable.
While that may be true, I sincerely doubt that a terminal would be more efficient then a GUI for any thing other than basic file manipulation on a Windows system.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
no problem.
Wow. I am impressed. Can you please post the script that will copy only the pictures that feature my dog?
It’s sad that KDE and Gnome raped the Unix philosophy... with a 30 inch pipe... sideways... ...instead of doing it the proper way...
Ok then, go ahead and tell us -- what is the proper way raping the Unix philosophy??
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
Yes, my comment definitely went over his head :)