Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the stuff-to-read dept.
wardk wrote in to
send us linkage to a PCWeek artcile that
Linux 2.2.
It starts off by saying that Linux is Enterprise Ready.
Talks about corporate support and improvements in SMP.
Check it out.
Like Linux, Samba requires IT managers to dig into source code to master it. We could reconfigure Samba 2.0 servers using the simple new Web interface, but for more advanced configuration chores, such as the reconfiguration of file cache memory, we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance.
Not a Samba user (yet), but it seems kind of odd that they'd have to dig into source code for any configuration. Are these Windows types so used to GUI control panels that they now consider text-based config files to be source code? Or is this something complex enough that it would require source tweaks?
Funny lines in the article
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Anonymous Coward
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"Linux previously supported only Intel, Alpha, MIPS and 32-bit Sun platforms."
ONLY? I don't know what this connotates, but is there another operating system that runs on all these platforms?
"... we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance."
Oh dear. They should at least try out emacs. (No insult intended to the vi people.)
They just don't get it.
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Anonymous Coward
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A Linux story at PC Week "Linux needs more than hype to battle Microsoft" shows how weirdly the corporate types view Linux. They see it as Microsoft vs. Linux, Inc. Since Linux, Inc. doesn't exist, they chose to discuss Linux in terms of Red Hat.
They get columnists who don't know what the fuck they are talking about, at least as far as Linux is concerned. But that never stopped anyone from yacking it up, right?
I tried to login to Slashdot, but it doesn't seem to take. So, I'm not an anonymous coward, but
Bob Lynch, rmlynch@best.com
They blundered again
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Anonymous Coward
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While the overall effect was positive for Linux, I feel it would have been moreso if they had gotten a few key details right:
1) Managers rarely touch source code
2) Tweaking a flat ASCII config file is not the same has hacking the source code. Not even close.
3) Vi is not necessary. What a great way to scare off newbies.
4) Windows does not scale at all. One processor, x86 based, is ALL it can handle.
5) Interesting that no real comparison of Linux to NT was given. I'd like to know what tests they ran, and what were the real results.
6) No observations were made about Samba file server performance as compared to NT. This would have REALLY made the article interesting.
Sign of the apocalypse
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Anonymous Coward
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Ziff Davis is raving about how good a NON-MS OS is. Better stock up on the guns and ammo, it's a sure sign of the apocalypse.
It won't last though. For them to talk about Linux they might have to actually learn something about computers and we all know they're completely computer illiterate after having been coddled by Microsoft for so long.
"Linux is Enterprise ready."
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Anonymous Coward
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It starts off by saying that Linux is Enterprise Ready.
Captain Kirk to the bridge, please.
Ignorance...
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Anonymous Coward
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Well, the fact that they equated config files with source code has already been pointed out. What's worse is the fact that they think this is a horrible thing. Sure, a point and click interface can be nice (esp. for those who are used to NT), but they fail to see that having the option to control things beyond that is _good_.
I love the way that they talk about speed, but make no mention of reliability and uptime. Let's not forget things like being able to set space quotas for the users. The article was written as though NT and Linux are completely equal in all of these areas.
No Subject Given
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Anonymous Coward
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"we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance."
Wow. I guess that must've required some thought? If you don't like VI (actually it's vi), try pico, or emacs, or joe, or jed or zile or vim or...
No one HAS to use anything. That's the point.
ATI Framebuffer you lamer
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Anonymous Coward
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RTFS:-)
More MS FUD!
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Anonymous Coward
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God! I love this free advertising courtesy MS! Thanks Bill!
HEY ROB - 2.2.1?
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Anonymous Coward
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What kernel is slashdot running on? When will it move to the 2.2.x? I imagine after some reports on stability, but what a great way to test...
Dear PC Week, We'd rather edit conf files, idiots!
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Anonymous Coward
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As Windows drones, PC Week will never get past the idea that editing config files actually makes sys admin tasks faster and easier:
1. If you admin several identical machines, you can just copy the conf files one box to another - duh! Hello?
2. It is faster and more efficient to admin a remote server via a "thin client" (ie. telnet) which means editing conf files in atext interface -- not abloated GUI.
3. It is faster/easier to give/receive tech support with other sys admins by comparing conf files rather than talking them through a bloated interface which may or may not the same as your GUI interface. The only GUI you need to learn to edit a conf file is a stupid text file editor.
4. Someone should tell PC Week bozos that they're are countless text editors in any Linux disto. A typical Red Hat install includes pico, and it doesn't get any easier than pico. If you can't figure out pico then you should stop using computers and find a new career.
In short, PC Week reviewers are too busy benchmarking office apps to see the big picture.
We do things this way not to be arcane and difficult, but because it makes our jobs easier, you Windows GUI drone idiots!!
Duh! zdnet, pcweek are owned (mostly) by Micro$oft
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Anonymous Coward
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Microsoft is trying to portray Linux as a competitor. That's all this article is about. We ALL know that the 'Linux 2.0 doesn't scale, but 2.2 is on par with NT4' shit is crap.
The tale of the Registry
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Anonymous Coward
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And it wouldn't even be so bad if you could fsck with it in full-boot mode and have your changes come up without reboot.. Like a dynamic DB (eg: the AIX ODM) or even a DBM..
But, as they would, MS FSCKED the idea up..
Who cares which editor
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Anonymous Coward
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Is there anything other than vi?
Comparisons between equal systems?
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Anonymous Coward
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Microsoft claims that they can't charge what they please, but doesn't $9999 (not a misprint, http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/99 01258C3E ) seem ridiculously high?
Couldn't I have 10 Linux boxes in a cluster for that cost. If we're going to compare systems, let's compare apples to apples. I'd expect 2 $1000 boxes to run comparably, regardless of the manufacturer. Why can't we have the same expectations with the software included?
Makefiles are insane
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Anonymous Coward
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I'm an expert C hacker. I can do C++ and perl too. I tolerate all the config files with inconsistant syntax. If forced, I can even deal with fucking useless Scheme or LISP.
Makefiles are another matter. I have a template one with explicit dependancies, so I normally just hack something out of that. For more advanced stuff though... Check this out:
One thing I see about linux comparisons
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Anonymous Coward
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I have always knowticed that linux seems to be compared with all the best features of everything out there. harder to learn then NT, dosn't scale as good as solaris, not as easy to install as win9x, not as preaty as Next, doesnt go as fast as my corvett, cant make shakes as well as my blender, its not as comfortable as my easy chair, it doesnt fit as well as my favorite pair of underware. I meant they always seem to compare it to the best of everything else. on the other had we could say that is there any other one product/project (as I like to refer to linux as a project rather than a product) that can do all these things any wehere near as good? and is there any that has the potintial to gain perfection that linux has?
Someone should send them a pointer...
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Anonymous Coward
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... to the thousand and one graphical config programs for SAMBA.
There is even a native Win32 SAMBA config program.
I think ZDNet would rather spend 1,000 dollars on NT for Windows file serving and printing rather than using the faster, cheaper, more stabile solution.
Who cares which editor
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Anonymous Coward
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vim,emacs,plenty of other,it's simply text,no need for a special editor.
Canadian AC
Me posts lame comment.
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Anonymous Coward
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I'm closer to understanding that than, say, Spanish. Insert bs and imagine some sense to the syntax (like you would for spanish, except the syntax is rather easy, its learning all the common day phrases/lingo that's hard.), and you may be halfway right =)
Dear PC Week, We'd rather edit conf files, idiots!
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Anonymous Coward
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You can also include your own comments into config files.
This way, you can comment your changes and later remmeber the reason why you canged anything.
This is specially good when you have several system administrators working as a team: the other persons will know the reason why you changed the config file...
Only one thing comes to mind here...
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Anonymous Coward
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ZDNET is giving Rob Malda money to advertise its Linux related articles...
We all know ZDNET is complete fud, sometimes they try to hide it, but in the end ZDNET == fud...
nope
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Anonymous Coward
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He said "runs", not "crawls".
PICO = bad for most files
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Anonymous Coward
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It also has this annoying habit of breaking long lines. ICK.
BackOffice has good SMP support
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Anonymous Coward
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Yes applications have to be threaded and well designed to make proper use of SMP but this is true of all OSes. NT is fully SMP capable and will take advantage of multiple processors out of the box. Of course, not all of NT's code is SMP capable but most of it is. I have a dual P6 at home and when I monitor the processor utilization and have something beefy going on in UI or kernel, both processors run with near equal load. I have noticed other times where one processor runs, then another. This is the case when a kernel is SMP capable but the app is not. All MS BackOffice apps and most other beefy server/workstation apps are well threaded and take excellent advantage of up to four CPUs. This is something that is just now viable for Linux (as of 2.2 kernel) and isn't yet reached by NetWare. All of these fall short of the likes of Solaris for servers or BeOS for workstations which both have extreme thread support in the kernel and so have a higher degree of SMP scalability.
The registry - a good idea fucked up
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Anonymous Coward
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The registry is only hard to use because that was the intent. Microsoft does not want people to understand all the settings.
Text files are slow. They require parsers that are tolerant of human errors. Text files can not enforce correct data types.
TRUE -- excellent point
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Anonymous Coward
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I'm not sure if ZDNet is owned in part by MS or not, but the fact that this article has plenty of "anti-DOJ-case" friendly material in it suggests that this article may be no more than a ploy.
Perhaps the time has come for the Linux community to not rely on the ZDNet people to give it props. There are probably other places (CMPNet, for example) that would do well to see positive and genuine Linux material.
It also appears that we can trust no one else but the Linux community. (Does MS = Mafia?)
Out.
2.2 needed for good 4-WAY scalablilty
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Anonymous Coward
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I think what they are saying about the 'on par with NT' is the performance gain per extra processor. This is a little different then saying that Linux on two processors mops the floor with NT on four. It just means that Linux takes advantage of the fourth processor as well as NT does, which wasn't the case with the 2.0 kernel.
Don't be an OS bigot
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Anonymous Coward
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NT has many uses for SMP both on servers and workstations. I have deployed dozens of NT SMP boxes where the SMP was critical (like the quad Xeon 450 that I'm installing now). To make statements like 'NT's a joke' or 'NT doesn't do SMP' is biased or ignorant. NT is a fine OS in many ways but has some serious code bloat and a few major design flaws (mostly for backward compat reasons). Don't be critical of everything that you don't personally use yourself.
RE: Don't be an OS bigot
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Anonymous Coward
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Yes I have. I've used NT, NetWare, Solaris, Linux, and BeOS. As for mission critical goes, there is no Intel-based OS that can compete with Solaris for up time and even this OS has some code bloat so we can dismiss this item as a matter of preference.
Concerning the design flaws, can you name one other OS that doesn't have a few design flaws of it's own. The king of the hill here (when it comes to the quantity of design flaws in the original code base) is probably Linux. Yet Linux has overcome it's past so I can't see this as a good excuse for throwing stones. The fact that there were design errors is a fact of life in OS land. The fact that they have gone uncorrected is the problem.
And to answer your question... no, I don't recommend NT in the glass house. I'm NetWare and MS certified (MCSE candidate) and have worked as an NetWare & NT Network Administrator for 5 years now. I stopped work toward my MCSE (even though I have only two elective tests to pass) due to my becoming disenchanted with MS code quality. NT was an elegant design for the most part (on paper, it's darn impressive compared to UNIX) but failed to improve with age. We hit version 3.51 and then started loosing ground in reliability. There have also been only hit minor performance improvements since then. Go back two years and NT looked pretty impresive compared to everything else on Intel hardware. Now it looks like Linux and Solaris have left it far behind as an Intel-based server OS. NT is still a great desktop OS but that is about it.
I'd *love* to see the Samba vs NT SMB numbers
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Anonymous Coward
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One thing I see about linux comparisons
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Anonymous Coward
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glad someone aggres with me and sorry i never was good at spelling
ArsonSmith
'steep learning curve'
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Anonymous Coward
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"Steep learning curve"? I had Linux running in less than a day, and feel like I can relay acomplish things with it.
Why is it that everyone in the press assumes that all users come from a Windows background. Those of us that use UNIX on a daily basis have a much easer time setting up a Linux box than an an NT.
NT is not enterprise ready. You have to reboot the darn thing erey time you want to reconfigure on of the "services"
Just five years ago ZD writers were telling the sheep how easy it was to use DOS, just fiddle some lines in text files - and voila! - the system ran like magic. I'm still using DOS, and it requires a heck of a lot more of this editing than Linux ever will. These writers are nuts.
Keep in mind the background of your average journalist. They likely skidded through all of high school and university with just one math, science, history, geography, and english class. The rest of their time was occupied by classes such as "The plight of the male lesbian in the post-moral society."
Heresy!
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Anonymous Coward
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The funniest part was that he capitalized it. VI he says. Probably thought it looked more impressive that way:-)
No Subject Given
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Anonymous Coward
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Yeah, vi is eVIl.
They must like Regedit or Regedt32.
I personally would rather be swallowing stuff from Sharps collection containers.
NT only thinks it can handle SMP
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Ranger+Rick
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Heh, yeah, our company is currently migrating it's Netware servers to NT. They have (I think) somewhere along the lines of 4,000 netware servers, and are now already at about the 10,000 mark with NT, and they're not even finished yet!
Yah! I noticed that too and thought it was the one chuckle-worthy spot in an otherwise decent article.
I think that GUI-dependent types may indeed think that tweaking textual config files is actually tweaking source. By this definition every Unix sysadmin tweaks source every day! I guess stepping up from there to editing Makefiles makes one a hacker eh?
and it's mighty snappy. Ever since installing the kernel and modules, I haven't once thought of going back to 2.0.x. 2.2.x is just too good!:)
The only reason I'd upgrade to 2.2.1 at this point is to get around that core thing... not that big a deal as my machine is primarily a desktop.
-- Codifex Maximus ~
In search of... a shorter sig.
Duh! zdnet, pcweek are owned (mostly) by Micro$oft
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gavinhall
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Posted by Jeremy Allison - Samba Team:
> We ALL know that the 'Linux 2.0 doesn't scale, > but 2.2 is on par with NT4' shit is crap.
Well actually, no. The curves and benchmarks that Henry publishes in his article are *completely* correct. I know, as I helped him run the benchmark.
Personally, apart from the 'tweaking config files' as source code error (and I actually tweaked the rc.local to change the max open files, max inodes and bdflush parameters to make sure the machine would reboot with the correct settings, not the smb.conf file) I though the article was completely accurate and very positive, thanks Henry !
Now the interesting question is why the NT Netbench numbers on the same machine in the same network configuration were not published as well......
But that's another story (and should be covered more fully later:-):-).
Nope, you're right, they were trying to say that applications won't benefit from the new capabilities, when it's obvious that they will, if they are properly written.
Examples:
glibc (threads)
make -j (fork:)
The Gimp (plug-ins are separate processes)
graphical mp3 players (fork off the GUI, the player, and sometimes even the oscilloscope)
Compare to Photoshop on the Mac, the only application that supported *any* kind of extra processor usage for a long time.:)
Or, for that matter, NT, which has much the same problem, actually, apparently unless you configure it properly and say the magic words and stuff... (I have yet to see this)
Always love the fact that they mention that Linux/*nix in general has a steep learning curve.
Should we bring up the fact that there are GIGANTIC VOLUMES written about the registry? I know i've seen several ~2k page books... Given the fact that my Perl book is less than 1k pages...and that's for a complete programming language...
We need to destroy this FUD tactic.
Initially good, then very bad
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Matts
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What initially start out looking like a very nice article, turns into something awful. What I don't understand is comments like "... now on a par with NT 4.0 on similar hardware..." when we all saw the Smart Reseller article pointing out that linux _before_ 2.2 is faster than NT.
Then it goes on to say "the community developing Linux moves at a snail's pace". What? When? Where? Last thing I knew I was installing RedHat 5.1, and now I'm on the 2.2 kernel. When did any other OS vendor move that fast?
Finally, they end on "Linux is still in flux". Who writes this FUD? Linux is far far far from being "in flux". NT2000, now there's an OS that's in flux. Linux 2.1.x was in flux. 2.2 isn't by definition, barring bug fixes and minor improvements.
Disappointing, although as they say - all press is good press.
dearth of applications that can exploit new SMP capabilities.
It's under the Linux Negitive side at the bottom of the page. Is there some exploit that screws up SMP Linux boxes running 2.2.0 or something? Or, is this his flowery way of saying that there aren't many things that really use SMP yet?
Believing it's the latter, isn't that totall BS because
Since in general source is avaliable for almost every app, and compile time flags, and smp optimization can be done for just about any app? (Doesn't SAL have a pretty big section about compilers for specific needs like this?
Even applications that are not SMP optimized benifit from good SMP implementation, since, this is suppose to be a server, and more than one job will be happening at a time, thus, there is more than one CPU to use?
Yes, not my subject, I could be totally wrong, but, I didn't think that that statement was totally true.
Funny lines in the article
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red_dragon
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Or 'pico', if Emacs is still too much for them.:op
-- In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Mainstream press attention void.
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vallee
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You know, it's really funny. Compaq mentions off-hand that it intends to rebrand Digital Unix to Tru64 Unix, and the whole world takes notice - lots and lots of mainstream articles in the week since then. Whereas, there's a groundbreaking new release of Linux, and hardly a peep. Meanwhile, Linux in the press in general is healthy, but nothing concentrating on the release. I wonder if it's because of incoherent media co-ordination inherent to the open-source model? Any ideas? --
--
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
Most Applications Already Parallel
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Brian+Ristuccia
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You gotta use threads or separate processes and that requires a whole different approach than some applications use. You'd basically have to rewrite the code to use parallel algorithms.
Not true. There's an automatic speed increase when more than one job is running, since there's more CPU time to go around.
Note that netscape or quake are not threaded, therefore you wouldn't get get any performance gain with the exception that you could be using the other processor for other processes.
Netscape is threaded. Also, the X server runs in a separate process and can be scheduled on the other CPU, so that UI operations can be run asynchronously on another CPU. While Quake isn't multithreaded, the extra CPU keeps routine system operations (like email and web server) from slowing down your game. SMP makes for a massive improvement when you're playing quakeworld on the same machine that runs the server, since the server runs in a separate process and can be scheduled on the other CPU.
This might be good for something like ftp or http, where processes are forked off the main process (or inetd or whatever), but not for something like an SQL database.
It makes for a great improvement with HTTP servers, especially when lots of CGI scripts get running. SQL databases like PostgreSQL fork separate processes for each client connected, and I belive mySQL uses threads. Both SQL servers can easily be scheduled across multiple CPU's to decrease execution time when multiple queries are run.
All this talk about smp starts me drooling for an smp motherboard to learn more about all this stuff:)
Intel pr440fx, $100 on most discount hardware and auction sites. Has two PPro CPU sockets, 4 dimm sockets (up to 512mb), USB, 4 PCI slots, onboard UW SCSI, 2 IDE ports, onboard sound, onboard temperature, voltage, and fan speed monitoring, and 100baseTX ethernet.
Hmm let's see pico, emacs, xemacs, jed, joe, axe and the list goes on and on. I once counted and SuSE had at least 10 text editors. Hell you could use Word Perfect if you wanted to.
Of course I use vi, because every where I go it exists. (At least any machine I want to use.) It fits on a boot floppy, and once you know how to use it it's dam fast. You could say the same for emacs.
-- IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer,
but I play one on GrokLaw.)
Since when has Windows been able to: "scale on high-end PC servers." From what I understand, unless the application was specifically written to take advantage of multiple processors on NT then the OS itself would make little use of the other processors. This is what I've been told by people who write SQL database software for Informix/MS SQL/etc...
Now that I read the whole article, they (PC Week) still missed the 'LINUX' point. Oh well...Maybe one day we can all live in a free software world....
-- Palin...
Who cares which editor
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Paul+Carver
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Why do these columnists always think it's important to mention what text editor they use? As if you can't modify a Samba config file with anything other than VI.
covert Workstation to Server
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datazone
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did you not know that you only need to change your registry to make your workstation a server? I guess microsoft does not want the world to know that they are not charf\ging more for server because it is different, but because they can. Here, go to this link, and see the light, maybe even make a program that can bring others into the light.
if you can code, or have a friend who can code, you can write a program like they did that can intercept microsoft's calls from turning back the settings. And thats that.
-- Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
Making sense of Makefiles
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Midnight+Coder
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I'm an expert C hacker. I can do C++ and perl too. Good for you. I tolerate all the config files with inconsistant syntax. If forced, I can even deal with fucking useless Scheme or LISP. Personally I like LISP a lot, you should have a look at Haskell too.
Makefiles are another matter. I have a template one with explicit dependancies, so I normally just hack something out of that. For more advanced stuff though... Check this out: Makefiles are very useful general purpose tool. Give functional (kinda LISP) and rule based (Makefiles) programming styles a fair go, it'll expand your mind much more than learning yet another imperative language will.
What is that shit? Here is some more, from a different package:
%.o : %.c $(strip $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $^)
Now %.o : %.c means this is a generic (also called implicit) rule for making any.o file (say foo.o) out of a.c file (foo.c). The left hand %.o is the target and the right hand side %.c is the dependency. Make makes targets out of dependencies and saves (the computers) time by only making the target if it is older than the dependency (ie if the target is out of date).
Okay, consider $(strip $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $^) start from the inside and work out $(CC) and $(CFLAGS) are environment variables defined previously (probably at the top of the Makefile). $(CC) is your c compiler say egcs and $(CFLAGS) are optional flags to be passed to your compiler (for optimization, debugging etc), like I said it's optional so let's assume it's blank. so $(strip $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $^) expands to $(strip egcs -c $^)
Now $^ is a special makefile variable (also known as an automatic variable). It evaluates to the list of dependencies, in this case there is just one %.c, so if foo.o was being made it would evaluate to foo.c. So we are left with $(strip egcs -c foo.c)
Strip is a make function that strips out redundant white space so this evaluates to egcs -c foo.c
Cool, onto the second rule: oldps w uptime tload free vmstat sessreg utmp: % : %.o $(strip $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $ $(LIB_TGT) $(EXTRALIBS))
Now this is simple, it'll make any of the (multiple) targets (called %) by making the file %.o and executing the command $(strip $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $where $@ is the target being made and $so executing make oldps will result in Make firing the second rule, with target oldps and dependecny oldps.o. This will result in the first rule being fired which will result in the command egcs -c oldps.c being executed if oldps.c is newer than oldps.o, now that the first rule has succeeded in making all its dependencies it executes egcs -o oldps oldps.o if oldps.o is newer than oldps.
That wasn't so hard was it? Now go change the makefile so it takes header (.h) files into account
A letter I wrote to the author...
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NikoDemous
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Mr.Chowdhry,
While it is most appreciated that you are testing Linux esp. the new kernel, a few point need to be made.
"The community developing for Linux moves at a snail's pace."
Applications dealing with user friendliness have accelerated much quicker than their Microsoft counterparts. Keep in mind that Linux is a multi-user OS (as compared to Microsoft's single user OS, NT) and the kernel will not be released until it is ready to be. Commercial interests are nice on the desktop but they do not effect the development of the kernel as the Linux community is under no commercial pressure to release beta quality products under the guise of being enterprise ready. Kernel development typically is much slower than application development. Already both the KDE and GNOME desktops have more functionality than the GUI of MS-Windows.
Installing Linux from a raw kernel is something that IS difficult. But you can not classify installing a raw development kernel with a commercial product release. I can install a Red Hat 5.2 server in 13 minutes and have it network ready with only one reboot. The same can not be said for WindowsNT. My 8 year old daughter installed Red Hat Linux at her school for science day. No help from a grown-up needed. Red Hat 6.0 will have an even easier install. Again the point is do not paint Linux in a broad brush as Linux is a comprehensive operating system with many facets.
"However, I find it difficult to applaud a product for mimicking the capabilities of its competitors--"
This is an interesting comment as Linux has been 64 bit on the alpha since 1995. Microsoft WindowsNT is still not at 64 bit. The clustering ability in NT is little more than a fallback for overload and does not compare with the PVM and SMP abilities of Linux. Clustering means something different to a Linux engineer than to a Windows MCSE.
While it is true that may OS vendors have been providing SMP for a while, hardware specifications had been closed up until recently making development much slower than needed.
"Like Linux, Samba requires IT managers to dig into source code to master it. We could reconfigure Samba 2.0 servers using the simple new Web interface, but for more advanced configuration chores, such as the reconfiguration of file cache memory, we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance."
Any tweaks that are needed now will be fixed in the commercial releases of Linux coming up. By the way the smb.conf file is not source code it is simply an ascii text configuration file.
"Although administration lags, technical support option for Linux are improving."
I'm not sure by what you mean by administration? Does Linux (as any good OS) should have a technically competent individual to administer it. LinuxConf (available at http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/) is a fairly comprehensive administration solution allowing everything from email,user,firewall,ftp,SAMABA,Apache,virtual domains, etc. I haven't seen anything from Microsoft that comes close either on the NT4.0 or the NT5.0 beta with it's management console. Caldera has the LISA tool as well.
I commend you for your efforts at evaluating Linux however I would ask you to evaluate all the possibilities available for it.
Good feedback on some of the technical aspects of your article can be glanced at by viewing http://www.slashdot.org and look at the comments section. Just a warning though...some people there can be rather harsh so you may have to dig for the gold nuggets in the mudslinging.;-)
Take Care,
Sincerely,
Nicholas Donovan Linux Systems Group
Who cares which editor??
by
NikoDemous
·
· Score: 1
This is a case where the author of the article in PC-Week was most likely a Windows person who wants to be a Unix person so throwing out neat words like vi make him feel so important...;-)
Nick LSG
(I feel like Rush L.) I Told You So!
by
NikoDemous
·
· Score: 1
Remember what I said about a month ago, M$ will say "Linux is a worthy competitor to NT4.0"
After the trial they will say "Linux is nothing compared to Windows2000" and of course ZD-Net and it's ilk will fall in lock step.
Trust me. This is exactly how it will go down.
Nick LSG
(I feel like Rush L.) I Told You So!
by
Axe
·
· Score: 1
Well, if you'd look at those books, you'd discover that 90% of what's in there are the keys for your desktop wallpaper or screen saver or whatever. I'm sure if you published a book with every parameter used for the Linux kernal, KDE, WindowMaker, GNOME, Wine, X, sendmail, etc it would be 5 times as thick as those NT books.
Personally, I don't think the idea of a central configuation database is all that stupid. What's dumb is the structure that MS chose to implement, with application settings scattered to and fro in a manner such that not even the installers can keep track of it all. However, even in the mess that it's in, it's a lot more consistant than the myriad of unix config files with their widely differing structures.
Furthermore, the stated design of the Registry was that it was not supposed to be user-editable. Of course, there's a ton of useful settings in there that MS provided no dialog box for. For example, MS DNS (joke) virtually requires that you dig around in the reg. Furthermore, enforcing policies requires detailed knowledge of the reg.
(BTW, they are somewhat improving the sitation with a scripting interface that exists now in IIS and is system-wide in Win2K. I also should add that I've never seen an NT registry go corrupt like a 9x registry is certain to do.)
Actually there is one cache related setting you can only do in the source, something about honoring the "write directly to disc" flag. I turns out windows clients use this bit more often than they should, so theres a big performance gain disabling it. I read it some time ago on the samba site, might not be valid in 2.0
How can one magazine print that Linux is just now getting to NT's performance level (Linux on a 386 vs NT on PII 450 maybe), but another magazine supposedly owned by the same company using the same testing lab say linux "kicks NT's butt"
??????
be careful what you wish for...
by
phred
·
· Score: 1
Now comes the millenium (well, almost) and all the trade rags are falling all over themselves to praise Linux (while they're at it, they should be praising *BSD, that's one of the pass/fail tests for these mainstream observers to see if they understand what they are talking about rather than just repeating the latest pack journalism buzz).
But be careful what you wish for. Behind the buzz is the inevitable backlash when people discover that Linux is *not* like NT and that GUI-based program installation and system management is a bit funkier and requires a different mindset (thank Gopod for that).
However, as anyone who has wrestled with the update-and-rebind-and-reboot SEVEN times process when trying to work on TCP/IP configuration in Win 95/98/NT will attest, this is where Linux has it all over the Microsoft stuff. I installed DHCP on my Debian box, hooked it up to my DSL router and it just . . . worked. Not so with NT, which required a fair bit of finagling to figure out a very simple change I needed to make.
phred@sunlight.portland.or.us
-------
-- Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
NT only thinks it can handle SMP
by
Master+Switch
·
· Score: 1
People just dont get it. The only market where NT server dominates is in the Workstation acting like a server market. I know of No one that relies on NT for any SMP tasks. People Use NT as a domain manager for other Windose boxes. It is not, never has been, and probably never will be an enterprise Server like Sun , HP, AIX, and LINUX. People spend too much time reading staged press releases. Win NT is a joke, and people should begin to realize this. IT IS NOT AN ENTERPRISE SERVER, it is a small workgroup domain server. All IT people know this, and all managers should learn this!
-- -Master Switch, one more element in the machine
"The advanced caching will make Web servers, such as those from the Apache Group, much faster once scalable versions of the software for Linux become available."
Why would Apache need to be changed? Why wouldn't it be faster unchanged on 2.2? Did someone tell ZDnet this? Or did they just "pluck it from the air"?
FUD, hidden in good press, abscured by compliments.. but, it's still FUD
ATI Framebuffer you lamer
by
Mad+Hatter
·
· Score: 1
OK, so I am lame because I don't know all the acronyms, flame away. But could someone point me to some sort of document that gives meanings for a good # of them.
Thanks
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
--
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true" --Terry Pratchett
Too bad they don't hilight ATYFB
by
Badfish
·
· Score: 1
2.2.0 has really nice ATYFB, too bad they didn't hilight that!
Slashdot Mirror
Like Linux, Samba requires IT managers to dig into source code to master it. We could reconfigure Samba 2.0 servers using the simple new Web interface, but for more advanced configuration chores, such as the reconfiguration of file cache memory, we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance.
Not a Samba user (yet), but it seems kind of odd that they'd have to dig into source code for any configuration. Are these Windows types so used to GUI control panels that they now consider text-based config files to be source code? Or is this something complex enough that it would require source tweaks?
"Linux previously supported only Intel, Alpha, MIPS and 32-bit Sun platforms."
ONLY? I don't know what this connotates, but is there another operating system that runs on all these platforms?
"... we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance."
Oh dear. They should at least try out emacs. (No insult intended to the vi people.)
A Linux story at PC Week "Linux needs more than hype to battle Microsoft" shows how weirdly the corporate types view Linux. They see it as Microsoft vs. Linux, Inc. Since Linux, Inc. doesn't exist, they chose to discuss Linux in terms of Red Hat.
They get columnists who don't know what the fuck they are talking about, at least as far as Linux is concerned. But that never stopped anyone from yacking it up, right?
I tried to login to Slashdot, but it doesn't seem to take. So, I'm not an anonymous coward, but
Bob Lynch, rmlynch@best.com
While the overall effect was positive for Linux, I feel it would have been moreso if they had gotten a few key details right:
1) Managers rarely touch source code
2) Tweaking a flat ASCII config file is not the same has hacking the source code. Not even close.
3) Vi is not necessary. What a great way to scare off newbies.
4) Windows does not scale at all. One processor, x86 based, is ALL it can handle.
5) Interesting that no real comparison of Linux to NT was given. I'd like to know what tests they ran, and what were the real results.
6) No observations were made about Samba file server performance as compared to NT. This would have REALLY made the article interesting.
Ziff Davis is raving about how good a NON-MS OS is. Better stock up on the guns and ammo, it's a sure sign of the apocalypse.
It won't last though. For them to talk about Linux they might have to actually learn something about computers and we all know they're completely computer illiterate after having been coddled by Microsoft for so long.
It starts off by saying that Linux is Enterprise Ready.
Captain Kirk to the bridge, please.
Well, the fact that they equated config files with source code has already been pointed out. What's worse is the fact that they think this is a horrible thing. Sure, a point and click interface can be nice (esp. for those who are used to NT), but they fail to see that having the option to control things beyond that is _good_.
I love the way that they talk about speed, but make no mention of reliability and uptime. Let's not forget things like being able to set space quotas for the users. The article was written as though NT and Linux are completely equal in all of these areas.
"we had to use VI editor to manually tweak our settings for optimal performance."
Wow. I guess that must've required some thought?
If you don't like VI (actually it's vi), try pico, or emacs, or joe, or jed or zile or vim or...
No one HAS to use anything. That's the point.
RTFS :-)
God! I love this free advertising courtesy MS!
Thanks Bill!
What kernel is slashdot running on?
When will it move to the 2.2.x? I imagine
after some reports on stability, but what
a great way to test...
As Windows drones, PC Week will never
get past the idea that editing config files
actually makes sys admin tasks faster and easier:
1. If you admin several identical machines,
you can just copy the conf files one box
to another - duh! Hello?
2. It is faster and more efficient to admin
a remote server via a "thin client"
(ie. telnet) which means editing conf files
in atext interface -- not abloated GUI.
3. It is faster/easier to give/receive tech
support with other sys admins by comparing conf
files rather than talking them through a
bloated interface which may or may not the
same as your GUI interface. The only GUI you
need to learn to edit a conf file is a stupid
text file editor.
4. Someone should tell PC Week bozos that they're
are countless text editors in any Linux disto.
A typical Red Hat install includes pico, and it
doesn't get any easier than pico. If you can't
figure out pico then you should stop using
computers and find a new career.
In short, PC Week reviewers are too busy
benchmarking office apps to see the big picture.
We do things this way not to be arcane and
difficult, but because it makes our jobs easier,
you Windows GUI drone idiots!!
Microsoft is trying to portray Linux as a competitor. That's all this article is about. We ALL know that the 'Linux 2.0 doesn't scale, but 2.2 is on par with NT4' shit is crap.
And it wouldn't even be so bad if you could fsck with it in full-boot mode and have your changes come up without reboot.. Like a dynamic DB (eg: the AIX ODM) or even a DBM..
But, as they would, MS FSCKED the idea up..
Is there anything other than vi?
Microsoft claims that they can't charge what they please, but doesn't $9999 (not a misprint, http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/99 01258C3E ) seem ridiculously high?
Couldn't I have 10 Linux boxes in a cluster for that cost. If we're going to compare systems, let's compare apples to apples. I'd expect 2 $1000 boxes to run comparably, regardless of the manufacturer. Why can't we have the same expectations with the software included?
Makefiles are another matter. I have a template one with explicit dependancies, so I normally just hack something out of that. For more advanced stuff though... Check this out:
What is that shit? Here is some more, from a different package: Oh yeah!$@ $< $^)
Even got a smiley in there!
I have always knowticed that linux seems to be compared with all the best features of everything out there. harder to learn then NT, dosn't scale as good as solaris, not as easy to install as win9x, not as preaty as Next, doesnt go as fast as my corvett, cant make shakes as well as my blender, its not as comfortable as my easy chair, it doesnt fit as well as my favorite pair of underware. I meant they always seem to compare it to the best of everything else. on the other had we could say that is there any other one product/project (as I like to refer to linux as a project rather than a product) that can do all these things any wehere near as good? and is there any that has the potintial to gain perfection that linux has?
... to the thousand and one graphical config
programs for SAMBA.
There is even a native Win32 SAMBA config
program.
I think ZDNet would rather spend 1,000 dollars
on NT for Windows file serving and printing rather
than using the faster, cheaper, more stabile
solution.
vim,emacs,plenty of other,it's simply text,no need for a special editor.
Canadian AC
I'm closer to understanding that than, say, Spanish. Insert bs and imagine some sense to the syntax (like you would for spanish, except the syntax is rather easy, its learning all the common day phrases/lingo that's hard.), and you may be halfway right =)
You can also include your own comments into config
files.
This way, you can comment your changes and later
remmeber the reason why you canged anything.
This is specially good when you have several system administrators working as a team: the other
persons will know the reason why you changed the
config file...
ZDNET is giving Rob Malda money to advertise its Linux related articles...
We all know ZDNET is complete fud, sometimes they try to hide it, but in the end ZDNET == fud...
He said "runs", not "crawls".
It also has this annoying habit of breaking long lines. ICK.
Yes applications have to be threaded and well designed to make proper use of SMP but this is true of all OSes. NT is fully SMP capable and will take advantage of multiple processors out of the box. Of course, not all of NT's code is SMP capable but most of it is. I have a dual P6 at home and when I monitor the processor utilization and have something beefy going on in UI or kernel, both processors run with near equal load. I have noticed other times where one processor runs, then another. This is the case when a kernel is SMP capable but the app is not. All MS BackOffice apps and most other beefy server/workstation apps are well threaded and take excellent advantage of up to four CPUs. This is something that is just now viable for Linux (as of 2.2 kernel) and isn't yet reached by NetWare. All of these fall short of the likes of Solaris for servers or BeOS for workstations which both have extreme thread support in the kernel and so have a higher degree of SMP scalability.
Text files are slow. They require parsers that are tolerant of human errors. Text files can not enforce correct data types.
I'm not sure if ZDNet is owned in part by MS or not, but the fact that this article has plenty of "anti-DOJ-case" friendly material in it suggests that this article may be no more than a ploy.
Perhaps the time has come for the Linux community to not rely on the ZDNet people to give it props. There are probably other places (CMPNet, for example) that would do well to see positive and genuine Linux material.
It also appears that we can trust no one else but the Linux community. (Does MS = Mafia?)
Out.
I think what they are saying about the 'on par with NT' is the performance gain per extra processor. This is a little different then saying that Linux on two processors mops the floor with NT on four. It just means that Linux takes advantage of the fourth processor as well as NT does, which wasn't the case with the 2.0 kernel.
NT has many uses for SMP both on servers and workstations. I have deployed dozens of NT SMP boxes where the SMP was critical (like the quad Xeon 450 that I'm installing now). To make statements like 'NT's a joke' or 'NT doesn't do SMP' is biased or ignorant. NT is a fine OS in many ways but has some serious code bloat and a few major design flaws (mostly for backward compat reasons). Don't be critical of everything that you don't personally use yourself.
http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,38750 6,00.html
glad someone aggres with me and sorry i never was good at spelling
ArsonSmith
"Steep learning curve"? I had Linux running in less than a day, and feel like I can relay acomplish things with it.
Why is it that everyone in the press assumes that all users come from a Windows background. Those of us that use UNIX on a daily basis have a much easer time setting up a Linux box than an an NT.
NT is not enterprise ready. You have to reboot the darn thing erey time you want to reconfigure on of the "services"
Just five years ago ZD writers were telling the sheep how easy it was to use DOS, just fiddle some lines in text files - and voila! - the system ran like magic. I'm still using DOS, and it requires a heck of a lot more of this editing than Linux ever will. These writers are nuts.
Keep in mind the background of your average journalist. They likely skidded through all of high school and university with just one math, science, history, geography, and english class. The rest of their time was occupied by classes such as "The plight of the male lesbian in the post-moral society."
The funniest part was that he capitalized it. VI he says. Probably thought it looked more impressive that way :-)
Yeah, vi is eVIl.
They must like Regedit or Regedt32.
I personally would rather be swallowing stuff from Sharps collection containers.
Heh, yeah, our company is currently migrating it's Netware servers to NT. They have (I think) somewhere along the lines of 4,000 netware servers, and are now already at about the 10,000 mark with NT, and they're not even finished yet!
And that's on better hardware.
*shudder*
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Yah! I noticed that too and thought it was the one chuckle-worthy spot in an otherwise decent article.
I think that GUI-dependent types may indeed think that tweaking textual config files is actually tweaking source. By this definition every Unix sysadmin tweaks source every day! I guess stepping up from there to editing Makefiles makes one a hacker eh?
and it's mighty snappy. Ever since installing the kernel and modules, I haven't once thought of going back to 2.0.x. 2.2.x is just too good! :)
The only reason I'd upgrade to 2.2.1 at this point is to get around that core thing... not that big a deal as my machine is primarily a desktop.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Posted by Jeremy Allison - Samba Team:
:-) :-).
> We ALL know that the 'Linux 2.0 doesn't scale,
> but 2.2 is on par with NT4' shit is crap.
Well actually, no. The curves and benchmarks that Henry publishes in his article are *completely* correct. I know, as I helped him run the benchmark.
Personally, apart from the 'tweaking config files' as source code error (and I actually tweaked the rc.local to change the max open files, max inodes and bdflush parameters to make sure the machine would reboot with the correct settings, not the smb.conf file) I though the article was completely accurate and very positive, thanks Henry !
Now the interesting question is why the NT Netbench numbers on the same machine in the same network configuration were not published as well......
But that's another story (and should be covered more fully later
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
Nope, you're right, they were trying to say that applications won't benefit from the new capabilities, when it's obvious that they will, if they are properly written.
:)
:)
Examples:
glibc (threads)
make -j (fork
The Gimp (plug-ins are separate processes)
graphical mp3 players (fork off the GUI, the player, and sometimes even the oscilloscope)
Compare to Photoshop on the Mac, the only application that supported *any* kind of extra processor usage for a long time.
Or, for that matter, NT, which has much the same problem, actually, apparently unless you configure it properly and say the magic words and stuff... (I have yet to see this)
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Always love the fact that they mention that Linux/*nix in general has a steep learning curve.
Should we bring up the fact that there are GIGANTIC VOLUMES written about the registry? I know i've seen several ~2k page books... Given the fact that my Perl book is less than 1k pages...and that's for a complete programming language...
We need to destroy this FUD tactic.
What initially start out looking like a very nice article, turns into something awful. What I don't understand is comments like "... now on a par with NT 4.0 on similar hardware..." when we all saw the Smart Reseller article pointing out that linux _before_ 2.2 is faster than NT.
Then it goes on to say "the community developing Linux moves at a snail's pace". What? When? Where? Last thing I knew I was installing RedHat 5.1, and now I'm on the 2.2 kernel. When did any other OS vendor move that fast?
Finally, they end on "Linux is still in flux". Who writes this FUD? Linux is far far far from being "in flux". NT2000, now there's an OS that's in flux. Linux 2.1.x was in flux. 2.2 isn't by definition, barring bug fixes and minor improvements.
Disappointing, although as they say - all press is good press.
Matt.
--
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Hey - what's wrong with those Win32:: perl modules anyway :-)
Matt - Win32:: module author.
--
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
dearth of applications that can exploit
new SMP capabilities.
It's under the Linux Negitive side at the bottom of the page. Is there some exploit that screws up SMP Linux boxes running 2.2.0 or something? Or, is this his flowery way of saying that there aren't many things that really use SMP yet?
Believing it's the latter, isn't that totall BS because
Yes, not my subject, I could be totally wrong, but, I didn't think that that statement was totally true.
Or 'pico', if Emacs is still too much for them. :op
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
You know, it's really funny. Compaq mentions off-hand that it intends to rebrand Digital Unix to Tru64 Unix, and the whole world takes notice - lots and lots of mainstream articles in the week since then.
Whereas, there's a groundbreaking new release of Linux, and hardly a peep. Meanwhile, Linux in the press in general is healthy, but nothing concentrating on the release. I wonder if it's because of incoherent media co-ordination inherent to the open-source model? Any ideas?
--
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
You gotta use threads or separate processes and that requires a whole different approach than some applications use. You'd basically have to rewrite the code to use parallel algorithms.
Not true. There's an automatic speed increase when more than one job is running, since there's more CPU time to go around.
Note that netscape or quake are not threaded, therefore you wouldn't get get any performance gain with the exception that you could be using the other processor for other processes.
Netscape is threaded. Also, the X server runs in a separate process and can be scheduled on the other CPU, so that UI operations can be run asynchronously on another CPU. While Quake isn't multithreaded, the extra CPU keeps routine system operations (like email and web server) from slowing down your game. SMP makes for a massive improvement when you're playing quakeworld on the same machine that runs the server, since the server runs in a separate process and can be scheduled on the other CPU.
This might be good for something like ftp or http, where processes are forked off the main process (or inetd or whatever), but not for something like an SQL database.
It makes for a great improvement with HTTP servers, especially when lots of CGI scripts get running. SQL databases like PostgreSQL fork separate processes for each client connected, and I belive mySQL uses threads. Both SQL servers can easily be scheduled across multiple CPU's to decrease execution time when multiple queries are run.
All this talk about smp starts me drooling for an smp motherboard to learn more about all this stuff :)
Intel pr440fx, $100 on most discount hardware and auction sites. Has two PPro CPU sockets, 4 dimm sockets (up to 512mb), USB, 4 PCI slots, onboard UW SCSI, 2 IDE ports, onboard sound, onboard temperature, voltage, and fan speed monitoring, and 100baseTX ethernet.
Hmm let's see pico, emacs, xemacs, jed, joe, axe and the list goes on and on. I once counted and SuSE had at least 10 text editors. Hell you could use Word Perfect if you wanted to.
Of course I use vi, because every where I go it exists. (At least any machine I want to use.) It fits on a boot floppy, and once you know how to use it it's dam fast. You could say the same for emacs.
IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer, but I play one on GrokLaw.)
Since when has Windows been able to: "scale on high-end PC servers." From what I understand, unless the application was specifically written to take advantage of multiple processors on NT then the OS itself would make little use of the other processors. This is what I've been told by people who write SQL database software for Informix/MS SQL/etc...
Now that I read the whole article, they (PC Week) still missed the 'LINUX' point. Oh well...Maybe one day we can all live in a free software world....
Palin...
Why do these columnists always think it's important to mention what text editor they use? As if you can't modify a Samba config file with anything other than VI.
did you not know that you only need to change your registry to make your workstation a server? I guess microsoft does not want the world to know that they are not charf\ging more for server because it is different, but because they can.
/ oreilly/examples/windows/win95.update/ntno diff.html
Here, go to this link, and see the light, maybe even make a program that can bring others into the light.
http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/ftp/pub/doc/books
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
if you can code, or have a friend who can code, you can write a program like they did that can intercept microsoft's calls from turning back the settings. And thats that.
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
I'm an expert C hacker. I can do C++ and perl too.
:-)
.o file (say foo.o) out of a .c file (foo.c).
Good for you.
I tolerate all the config files with inconsistant syntax. If forced, I can even deal with fucking useless Scheme or LISP.
Personally I like LISP a lot, you should have a look at Haskell too.
Makefiles are another matter. I have a template one with explicit dependancies, so I normally just hack something out of that. For more advanced stuff though... Check this out:
Makefiles are very useful general purpose tool. Give functional (kinda LISP) and rule based (Makefiles) programming styles a fair go, it'll expand your mind much more than learning yet another imperative language will.
_Groovy_ horizontal rule.
modules: $(patsubst %, _mod_%, $(SUBDIRS))
$(patsubst %, _mod_%, $(SUBDIRS)) : include/linux/version.h
$(MAKE) -C $(patsubst _mod_%, %, $@) CFLAGS="$(CFLAGS) $(MODFLAGS)" MAKI NG_MODULES=1 modules
Let's not start with this one
What is that shit? Here is some more, from a different package:
%.o : %.c
$(strip $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $^)
Now %.o : %.c means this is a generic (also called implicit) rule for making any
The left hand %.o is the target and the right hand side %.c is the dependency. Make makes targets out of dependencies and saves (the computers) time by only making the target if it is older than the dependency (ie if the target is out of date).
Okay, consider $(strip $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $^) start from the inside and work out
$(CC) and $(CFLAGS) are environment variables defined previously (probably at the top of the Makefile).
$(CC) is your c compiler say egcs and $(CFLAGS) are optional flags to be passed to your compiler (for optimization, debugging etc), like I said it's optional so let's assume it's blank.
so $(strip $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $^) expands to $(strip egcs -c $^)
Now $^ is a special makefile variable (also known as an automatic variable). It evaluates to the list of dependencies, in this case there is just one %.c, so if foo.o was being made it would evaluate to foo.c.
So we are left with $(strip egcs -c foo.c)
Strip is a make function that strips out redundant white space so this evaluates to egcs -c foo.c
Cool, onto the second rule:
oldps w uptime tload free vmstat sessreg utmp: % : %.o
$(strip $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $ $(LIB_TGT) $(EXTRALIBS))
Now this is simple, it'll make any of the (multiple) targets (called %) by making the file %.o and executing the command
$(strip $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $where $@ is the target being made and $so executing make oldps will result in Make firing the second rule, with target oldps and dependecny oldps.o. This will result in the first rule being fired which will result in the command
egcs -c oldps.c
being executed if oldps.c is newer than oldps.o, now that the first rule has succeeded in making all its dependencies it executes
egcs -o oldps oldps.o
if oldps.o is newer than oldps.
That wasn't so hard was it? Now go change the makefile so it takes header (.h) files into account
Mr.Chowdhry,
;-)
While it is most appreciated that you are testing Linux esp. the new
kernel, a few point need to be made.
"The community developing for
Linux moves at a snail's pace."
Applications dealing with user friendliness have accelerated much
quicker than their Microsoft counterparts. Keep in mind that Linux is a
multi-user OS (as compared to Microsoft's single user OS, NT) and the
kernel will not be released until it is ready to be. Commercial
interests are nice on the desktop but they do not effect the development
of the kernel as the Linux community is under no commercial pressure to
release beta quality products under the guise of being enterprise ready.
Kernel development typically is much slower than application
development. Already both the KDE and GNOME desktops have more
functionality than the GUI of MS-Windows.
Installing Linux from a raw kernel is something that IS difficult. But
you can not classify installing a raw development kernel with a
commercial product release. I can install a Red Hat 5.2 server in 13
minutes and have it network ready with only one reboot. The same can not
be said for WindowsNT.
My 8 year old daughter installed Red Hat Linux at her school for science
day. No help from a grown-up needed. Red Hat 6.0 will have an even
easier install.
Again the point is do not paint Linux in a broad brush as Linux is a
comprehensive operating system with many facets.
"However, I
find it difficult to applaud a product
for mimicking the capabilities of its
competitors--"
This is an interesting comment as Linux has been 64 bit on the alpha
since 1995. Microsoft WindowsNT is still not at 64 bit. The clustering
ability in NT is little more than a fallback for overload and does not
compare with the PVM and SMP abilities of Linux. Clustering means
something different to a Linux engineer than to a Windows MCSE.
While it is true that may OS vendors have been providing SMP for a
while, hardware specifications had been closed up until recently making
development much slower than needed.
"Like Linux, Samba requires IT managers to dig into source code to
master it. We could reconfigure Samba 2.0 servers using the simple new
Web interface, but for more advanced configuration chores, such as the
reconfiguration of file cache memory, we had to use VI editor to
manually tweak our settings for optimal performance."
Any tweaks that are needed now will be fixed in the commercial releases
of Linux coming up. By the way the smb.conf file is not source code it
is simply an ascii text configuration file.
"Although administration lags, technical support option for Linux
are improving."
I'm not sure by what you mean by administration? Does Linux (as any good
OS) should have a technically competent individual to administer it.
LinuxConf (available at http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/) is a
fairly comprehensive administration solution allowing everything from
email,user,firewall,ftp,SAMABA,Apache,virtual domains, etc.
I haven't seen anything from Microsoft that comes close either on the
NT4.0 or the NT5.0 beta with it's management console.
Caldera has the LISA tool as well.
I commend you for your efforts at evaluating Linux however I would ask
you to evaluate all the possibilities available for it.
Good feedback on some of the technical aspects of your article can be
glanced at by viewing http://www.slashdot.org and look at the comments
section. Just a warning though...some people there can be rather harsh
so you may have to dig for the gold nuggets in the mudslinging.
Take Care,
Sincerely,
Nicholas Donovan
Linux Systems Group
This is a case where the author of the article in PC-Week was most likely a Windows person who wants to be a Unix person so throwing out neat words like vi make him feel so important...;-)
Nick
LSG
Remember what I said about a month ago, M$ will say "Linux is a worthy competitor to NT4.0"
After the trial they will say
"Linux is nothing compared to Windows2000"
and of course ZD-Net and it's ilk will fall in lock step.
Trust me. This is exactly how it will go down.
Nick
LSG
Trust me. This is exactly how it will go down.
Give me one reason why I should trust you...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Well, if you'd look at those books, you'd discover that 90% of what's in there are the keys for your desktop wallpaper or screen saver or whatever. I'm sure if you published a book with every parameter used for the Linux kernal, KDE, WindowMaker, GNOME, Wine, X, sendmail, etc it would be 5 times as thick as those NT books.
Personally, I don't think the idea of a central configuation database is all that stupid. What's dumb is the structure that MS chose to implement, with application settings scattered to and fro in a manner such that not even the installers can keep track of it all. However, even in the mess that it's in, it's a lot more consistant than the myriad of unix config files with their widely differing structures.
Furthermore, the stated design of the Registry was that it was not supposed to be user-editable. Of course, there's a ton of useful settings in there that MS provided no dialog box for. For example, MS DNS (joke) virtually requires that you dig around in the reg. Furthermore, enforcing policies requires detailed knowledge of the reg.
(BTW, they are somewhat improving the sitation with a scripting interface that exists now in IIS and is system-wide in Win2K. I also should add that I've never seen an NT registry go corrupt like a 9x registry is certain to do.)
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Actually there is one cache related setting you can only do in the source, something about honoring the "write directly to disc" flag. I turns out windows clients use this bit more often than they should, so theres a big performance gain disabling it. I read it some time ago on the samba site, might not be valid in 2.0
(sorry bout the english)
How can one magazine print that Linux is just now getting to NT's performance level (Linux on a 386 vs NT on PII 450 maybe), but another magazine supposedly owned by the same company using the same testing lab say linux "kicks NT's butt"
??????
Now comes the millenium (well, almost) and all the trade rags are falling all over themselves to praise Linux (while they're at it, they should be praising *BSD, that's one of the pass/fail tests for these mainstream observers to see if they understand what they are talking about rather than just repeating the latest pack journalism buzz).
But be careful what you wish for. Behind the buzz is the inevitable backlash when people discover that Linux is *not* like NT and that GUI-based program installation and system management is a bit funkier and requires a different mindset (thank Gopod for that).
However, as anyone who has wrestled with the update-and-rebind-and-reboot SEVEN times process when trying to work on TCP/IP configuration in Win 95/98/NT will attest, this is where Linux has it all over the Microsoft stuff. I installed DHCP on my Debian box, hooked it up to my DSL router and it just . . . worked. Not so with NT, which required a fair bit of finagling to figure out a very simple change I needed to make.
phred@sunlight.portland.or.us
-------
Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
People just dont get it. The only market where NT server dominates is in the Workstation acting like a server market. I know of No one that relies on NT for any SMP tasks. People Use NT as a domain manager for other Windose boxes. It is not, never has been, and probably never will be an enterprise Server like Sun , HP, AIX, and LINUX. People spend too much time reading staged press releases. Win NT is a joke, and people should begin to realize this. IT IS NOT AN ENTERPRISE SERVER, it is a small workgroup domain server. All IT people know this, and all managers should learn this!
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
Too bad they wrote it before 2.2.1
"The advanced caching will make Web servers, such as those from the Apache Group, much faster once scalable versions of the software for Linux become available."
Why would Apache need to be changed?
Why wouldn't it be faster unchanged on 2.2?
Did someone tell ZDnet this? Or did they just "pluck it from the air"?
FUD, hidden in good press, abscured by compliments.. but, it's still FUD
Thanks
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
--Terry Pratchett
2.2.0 has really nice ATYFB, too bad they didn't hilight that!