Hmm? I know, but the point is that DOSEmu does emulate some protected mode services, and I think that by making speed the first consideration, Freemware would be a better product.
A true x86 emulator should run on other platforms, but according to this proposal, Freemware would be x86-only. Therefore, it shouldn't have to emulate x86 opcodes, and should use virtual machines as much as possible, only emulating protected-mode instructions. (i.e. it's easier to trap a few instructions and emulate them than it is to emulate *all* of them, when the chip natively supports these instructions in the first place.)
There's no reason to make a virtual environment on an x86 run as slowly or slower than Softwindows on a different architecture, say. That is my point.
Personally, I'd much rather start with DOSEmu, and add the necessary virtualization and portability. Why? Because I'd be very impressed if Bochs (which is designed to run on a platform with a C compiler...) ever gets faster than two orders of magnitude below the native speed of the machine.
DOSEmu already runs at full speed, as much as possible. All we want here is x86 on x86, so all that needs to be added are emulation for protected mode code, and porting from Linux. With Bochs as a base, on the other hand, there are a lot of needed features, and the first five of them are speed.
Bochs would be a good start for emulating x86 on something else, and possibly some virtualization could be taken from Bochs and used in DOSEmu.
Slashdot sure has gotten a lot more complicated since this all started... Personally, I like the added functionality and the increased speed. However...
Moderators? Alignment? A random 1000 users from the middle third? This is starting to sound less like even USENET and more like AD&D.
"Hi, I'm pb (1020), Neutral Good Slashdot User. I'd like to be Chaotic Evil, but people liked too many of my posts, I should troll more."
I think Rob has some good ideas on how to make this work, and I'm glad it's not my problem. I see his point with not commenting and moderating at the same time, it seems a little strict, but I can't think of many better ways to do it. The thing is, I comment on what I know about, and I'd want to moderate on the same topics. Maybe just not being able to moderate in a thread that you've posted in would be better, either way this doesn't sound easy, though.
Good luck, guys, and keep up the good work.
...I just want to cast 'Wish', and create some new boxes on the side.:)
Yep, I was just going to say that. Now I'm depressed. I personally think he picked a crummy time to retire. For April 1st, I want either all fake news, or all real news. On most days, lying isn't fair. Today, the truth isn't fair. At least it's April 2nd now, I can sort it out tomorrow.
"All the great themes have been used up, [and] turned into themeparks". -- HHH, Pump Up The Volume. Heck, I could quote that movie for pages, and they'd all be appropriate.
I know the feeling, but fortunately, there's no way JWZ can stop programming. Oh, I'm sure he could, but lets face it. Although there's a lot we could do, there isn't always a lot we want to do. I look forward to his next project. I love netscape. (It was so much better than Mosaic, but lately it's just been slowly loading pages and not displaying them until it finishes, just like Mosaic used to. Sure, the WWW is a more complicated place now, but computers are faster, compilers are better, and Mozilla is *way* faster. (Albeit not yet entirely stable, but neither is Netscape, or IE... IE hardly ever runs on Solaris, in my experience. It runs better in WINE on Linux.)) I love dadadodo, and I like xscreensaver. (It's a good concept. I'm more used to xlock, but xscreensaver has more display hacks, and an open, incredibly simple interface for adding them.)...and everyone knows about xdaliclock. Say what you will about Netscape, JWZ has made his mark.
I could care less about DivX, it sounds like an annoying, wasteful, proprietary idea. And there is little love lost between me and Circuit City or Best Buy, even though they do have okay prices on electronics, and lately Radio Shack has been getting worse.
However, big thanks to Rob for not posting yet another April Fools non-news stuff that doesn't matter content-free rubbish-laden text. That was getting old.
? Didn't that happen last year? He made it incredibly wide and the next day unveiled the version that scaled properly? (I hated it when everything was 600 or so pixels wide, if I wanted that I'd go to news.com or something)
Of all the jokes, this is the only one I'm worried about. Sure, the layout on the three pages looks suspiciously similar, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
metalabs mirroring download.com is an obvious farce, (that is just offensive) and since they make reference to Linus moving as a reason, and link back to slashdot, that looks like a friendly conspiracy.
This one, however, was definitely prepared in advance, if it indeed is a joke. If it was, then I admit, you really got me. But otherwise, I'm going to be without my Userfriendly.
How else are you supposed to get a shell on a system that's "secured"? (okay, I know, there are tons of ways, like Excel macros, or not-disabled Windows function keys, or changing, say, the Telnet proxy in netscape to run the command interpreter...)
I think one of my favorite oxymorons is "Windows Security". It's a good analogy, too. Want to break into a house? Break a window.
One reason to pay attention is when it's coming *at* you.
I saw a clip on the big screen from the Hitchcock movie The Birds, in 3D (polarized lenses, not the red-blue stuff) and it was really scary. Almost as bad as when movies first came out, and people were running out of the theaters because they thought the (grainy, mute, grayscale) train was going to hit them.
Personally I'd love to see any space opera in 3D. I don't care how bad it is, I'd drool. If they ever remastered Star Wars in 3D, you couldn't pry me away from it.
I would also just love to have something like this, so I could have a really big virtual monitor. But it sounds like I'll have to wait for the resolution to go up and the price to go down.
I live in a relatively free and democratic society, if you don't want to be dominated, then stand up for yourself. If you never learned how, then I'm sorry.
Not everyone has good parents, or learns all the right lessons, but some of us learn how to think for ourselves, strive for what we want, and avoid the battles that don't need to be fought.
Personally, I'm an Atheist, because I never saw the point in religion. I'm not terribly aggressive because I don't see how that would get me what I want out of life. I don't personally understand rape because (a) I don't have relationships with people I don't love and (b) I'd never want to do that to someone I love. Make your own morals and live by them, because if you don't know what you want, you're already in trouble.
I share the wish for swift justice in cases where the brutality is obvious, but I can't blame society for everything. If you want to be treated like a person, act like one, and don't put up with people who can't do the same.
(In this case, sue the people who let their stereotypes get in the way of their job, and rely on support from whatever friends you have. Then try to put the past behind you. Sometimes good people end up in horrible situations, and it can take a long time to recover from them.)
Back on the BBSes, I never saw the point of cybersex, and generally if I chatted, I'd chat with people I already knew in RL, or people I'd probably never meet.
Yep, with every medium there are new dangers, but these are still the same people. If Ann Landers warns all the moralistic people away from the Internet, then she might have a self-fulfilling prophecy on her hands. Not that I ever listened to her...:)
Perhaps a better word would be dated, not primitive. This is a very functional approach.
Although threads might work great on some platforms, they certainly don't work the same on all platforms, and sometimes doing things the old way is faster and more portable. Under Linux, I'd be happy with threads, because I know that clone() is faster than fork(), for starters. Other platforms, and I wouldn't be so sure...
I could also argue that, say, writing lots of stack code is primitive, and we should make a template class for it, but have fun trying to compile it. I know I've had enough problems with g++ and templates that I've ended up just include -ing actual C++ files instead of shoving linking info into headers or whatever.
They did a really bad job of porting it, I've tried IE4 and IE5beta under Solaris. I will admit that since I'm not root on those boxes, I haven't applied all the kernel patches they see as necessary, but I don't think a *browser* should require kernel patches when nothing else does.
Basically I don't know what Mainwin was smoking when they built those libraries. IE is slower and bigger than Netscape ever was under UNIX, and IE 3.0 for Win 3.1 flies on my Linux box. I'd like to compare IE 4.0 for Solaris and IE 4.0 emulated under WINE on Solaris x86. Heck, IE is faster under SoftWindows 4.0 on SPARC Solaris than it is "natively" on SPARC.
Maybe Bill is afraid that Windows source will be released under a freer license, but I don't see what he has to worry about.
I'm sure that source is so ugly after years of unseen development kludges to meet deadlines and have backwards compatibility to DOS and the 8086, and also use features of the 386 to both get around these limitations and simulate them... well, that's ugly already, to say nothing of their closed widgets and silly delays and animations, shoddy networking, etc, etc.
Maybe it would make porting Windows Apps to UNIX easier, maybe we could create a (probably less-free) version of WINE with that source code, and just run the apps on UNIX, but I wouldn't want to build an OS with that code.
Replace the Windows networking with SAMBA, replace the 'display server' with X (that would be hard) and get the manufacturers to make X drivers, (maybe easier if they're getting a better Windows) add window managers/toolkits) that replace the Windows widget set, (themeable look and feel across all apps) replace the scheduler, etc., etc. After a while you might have a decent operating system, but I'd rather improve the other ones we have currently.
It would be just like running WINE on *BSD, or any UNIX: the Windows apps don't work or crash, and the underlying OS (and hopefully X too) doesn't care.
It'd be just like UNIX is now, with more apps and less productivity. Like Windows, but with less bluescreens and rebooting. And still better than NT.
Ken Harrenstien RFC-812 Vic White 1 March 1982 Network Information Center SRI International NICNAME/WHOIS
INTRODUCTION
The NICNAME/WHOIS Server is an NCP/TCP transaction based query/response server, running on the SRI-NIC machine, that provides netwide directory service to ARPANET users. It is one of a series of ARPANET/Internet name services maintained by the Network Information Center (NIC) at SRI International on behalf of the Defense Communications Agency (DCA). The running on local hosts, and it delivers the full name, U.S. mailing address, telephone number, and network mailbox for ARPANET users.
server is accessible across the ARPANET from user programs
...It's 17 years old, open, and it's about as complicated as finger, which is to say it's simple. I don't think it could be proprietary. As to the contents of the database, they've been growing for the past 17 years, and whatever cheesy corporation who thinks they 'own' the internet now needs to go back to hanging out with the script kiddies and stop bugging the users.
I've tried out this technology, it does a really good job on high-resolution images combined with text, something that neither.gif nor.jpg can say right now. Maybe one day this sort of format will allow us to have the much-touted "virtual newspaper", (or in this case magazine) a cheap, networked, flatscreen display that downloads new content without killing trees.
However... Could you really void a contract for not monitoring a website regularly? Even when they don't define what "regularly" means? If they reserve the right to take the website down, does that mean the source isn't open because we can't monitor the website?
Silly clauses make for useless licenses. Why not just release the free stuff under an existing free license, which lets you license it simultaneously under other licenses? Hmm? GPL, BSD, even NPL?
Why pay your lawyers any more than you have to when other people have done the job for you?
These articles weren't *THAT* bad, much better than almost anything from ZD... Here's what I replied to...
For a first article on Linux, that was a good one. I've been using Linux as my desktop for a while now, and I agree: it's definitely not for everybody, but it is what I want from an operating system.
I will have to correct you on one fine point here, though:
Now I must confess my doubts about the Open Source movement. Do all those software developers writing open source code for Linux have the incentive to fix problems as they arise and--more important--to help people upgrade and keep old code running? Perhaps the greatest technological feature that Windows possesses is that it can handle programs as old as the first DOS applications. Linux will never do that.
Not only do they fix the problems that arise in Linux, Linux already runs the old DOS apps.
I use Linux to run my old DOS programs, and by and large, they run *better* than they did under DOS. The program I refer to here is DOSEmu, and it is in its late beta stage, I believe. (Wine is still alpha) It needs some configuration, but what else is new in UNIX.
DOSEmu (www.dosemu.org) provides a complicated DOS virtual machine, whereby Linux emulates the required DOS services. It only runs on x86 though, because it doesn't emulate instructions. However, on x86, it runs as fast as DOS does. (you can benchmark it and find in some cases the processor is only running at, say, 98% of DOS's speed, but there is no perceptible difference in almost all cases.)
Advantages: more free lower memory, better cache, features you'd expect from running under a good OS in protected mode. It is faster to defrag your hard drive (dos partition) under DOSEmu than it is under DOS.
Disadvantages: limited graphics support (original VGA works fine, SVGA is more problematic, and tied to SVGALib, this sometimes works better in X) and bad sound support. The only sound I could ever get working was MIDI (pipe it through Linux's MIDI, this is documented) and DMA. Star Control II is the only game I could get sound working perfectly on. However, this has no impact on, say, running an old version of Lotus 1-2-3. And some old DOS programs don't run very well under Windows 95 (or later)'s idea of a DOS VM.
There is also a less free (shareware) DOS emulator called Bochs that runs on UNIX (and, of course, Linux) which is much slower but more compatible. It does emulate x86 instructions, and can run Win '95, but I wouldn't reccommend it yet. (ever use SoftWindows? This is at least that bad)
And, for Windows, there's also WABI, for Windows 3.1. You have to pay for it, but Windows users are used to that. I prefer Wine, but it is certainly lacking in compatibility currently.
Sure, this is an old article, but it's also a *classic*, like The Story of Mel, A Programmer. (well, maybe not *that* old, but...)
Anyhow, I don't mind, because I meant to bookmark this a while back...:)
Tim Berners-Lee was right when he created the web as a personal mnemonic device, when I forget where something is, someone else remembers it for me, wonderful!
I don't use BSD, so I must admit to some ignorance here, I just notice that I never see incremental public releases of the kernel for people to try out, which is something I value in Linux.
Similarly, gcc is only updated by the same tight-knit group of people, and released when they think they're done. The Linux kernel, and egcs, on the other hand, release many incremental community releases, for peer review, and I find this more friendly and open.
I didn't really want to make this part of my discussion a licensing issue, because it really isn't. However, I don't like the FreeBSD license for, say, an operating system, because I hate to see a good free operating system bastardized by Apple, Microsoft, or anyone else who can't program, can market, and makes everything they touch turn proprietary. That is what the GPL defends against. I figure if someone else wants to use my code and not share, then they can just write it themselves.
So did you have any opinions on, or disputes with, any of the facts I mentioned? I would actually find that interesting.
No. The one I always saw people doing was putting in, say, twenty entries to run every hour or something.
They need a decent cron service, but that would probably die to, and... well, why not just run UNIX?:)
Hey, why not put the call to AT at the beginning of the batch file? Or fork it off, at least NT can do that with its command interpreter.
Linux ran fine on my old P133 (better than DOS, running DEFRAG on my old DOS partition back then was *much* faster in DOSEmu than in DOS because Linux caches so much better...), and NT4SP1 was a pig, and somewhat slow, but NT4SP3 with the IE integration stuff is incredibly slow. I think they call that progress.
I didn't scan port 21 (ftp) because that times out, it looks like their web service (80) keeps dying. That box sucks.
% exscan -q www.osopinion.com 25 37 79 80 110 143 exscan - v0.3 - By PolarRoot [pi9@hotmail.com] [http://exscan.netpedia.net] QueSO - Remote OS Identification - By Savage QueSO code has been modified and integrated with permission. Scanning Host: www.osopinion.com [38.185.217.81]
Port 25 Open: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Service Running. Data Returned: 220 wwmerchant.osopinion.com WindowsNT SMTP Server v3.03.0017/4c.adur/SP ESMTP ready at Fri, 26 Mar 1999 13:20:30 -0700
Port 37 Open: Time Service Running. Port 79 Open: Finger Service Running. Data Returned: Error: Unknown user
Port 110 Open: Post Office Protocol 3 Service Running. Data Returned: +OK POP3 server ready
Port 143 Open: Interim Mail Access Protocol 2 Service Running. Data Returned: * OK NTMail IMAP4 server 3.03.0014 ready
NT actually has most of the same features as the UNIX command line does, by extending the old DOS commands. However, because they added it on, it's clunky and ugly....and they still can't split a file.:)
I personally like having multiple text consoles, but I like the graphical features in XFree86 when I have to use it (playing games, say:)
Preferences aren't religion. Prostheletyzing is. RMS preaches, I'd rather teach. I love Linux, and Windows pisses me off, but I'm not about to force anyone to change, and I don't think I have an immortal soul at risk here. I'm quite happy to show dissatisfied Windows users the power I have in UNIX, but I can do this with facts. UNIX has a split command, and joining files with cat is simple. DOS can join files with copy, but it's really ugly. Macintosh and Windows GUIs have no support for these basic file operations. It just depends on what you want.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm? I know, but the point is that DOSEmu does emulate some protected mode services, and I think that by making speed the first consideration, Freemware would be a better product.
A true x86 emulator should run on other platforms, but according to this proposal, Freemware would be x86-only. Therefore, it shouldn't have to emulate x86 opcodes, and should use virtual machines as much as possible, only emulating protected-mode instructions. (i.e. it's easier to trap a few instructions and emulate them than it is to emulate *all* of them, when the chip natively supports these instructions in the first place.)
There's no reason to make a virtual environment on an x86 run as slowly or slower than Softwindows on a different architecture, say. That is my point.
Personally, I'd much rather start with DOSEmu, and add the necessary virtualization and portability. Why? Because I'd be very impressed if Bochs (which is designed to run on a platform with a C compiler...) ever gets faster than two orders of magnitude below the native speed of the machine.
DOSEmu already runs at full speed, as much as possible. All we want here is x86 on x86, so all that needs to be added are emulation for protected mode code, and porting from Linux. With Bochs as a base, on the other hand, there are a lot of needed features, and the first five of them are speed.
Bochs would be a good start for emulating x86 on something else, and possibly some virtualization could be taken from Bochs and used in DOSEmu.
...just use the right tool for the right job.
Slashdot sure has gotten a lot more complicated since this all started... Personally, I like the added functionality and the increased speed. However...
:)
Moderators? Alignment? A random 1000 users from the middle third? This is starting to sound less like even USENET and more like AD&D.
"Hi, I'm pb (1020), Neutral Good Slashdot User. I'd like to be Chaotic Evil, but people liked too many of my posts, I should troll more."
I think Rob has some good ideas on how to make this work, and I'm glad it's not my problem. I see his point with not commenting and moderating at the same time, it seems a little strict, but I can't think of many better ways to do it. The thing is, I comment on what I know about, and I'd want to moderate on the same topics. Maybe just not being able to moderate in a thread that you've posted in would be better, either way this doesn't sound easy, though.
Good luck, guys, and keep up the good work.
...I just want to cast 'Wish', and create some new boxes on the side.
Yep, I was just going to say that. Now I'm depressed. I personally think he picked a crummy time to retire. For April 1st, I want either all fake news, or all real news. On most days, lying isn't fair. Today, the truth isn't fair. At least it's April 2nd now, I can sort it out tomorrow.
...and everyone knows about xdaliclock. Say what you will about Netscape, JWZ has made his mark.
"All the great themes have been used up, [and] turned into themeparks". -- HHH, Pump Up The Volume. Heck, I could quote that movie for pages, and they'd all be appropriate.
I know the feeling, but fortunately, there's no way JWZ can stop programming. Oh, I'm sure he could, but lets face it. Although there's a lot we could do, there isn't always a lot we want to do. I look forward to his next project. I love netscape. (It was so much better than Mosaic, but lately it's just been slowly loading pages and not displaying them until it finishes, just like Mosaic used to. Sure, the WWW is a more complicated place now, but computers are faster, compilers are better, and Mozilla is *way* faster. (Albeit not yet entirely stable, but neither is Netscape, or IE... IE hardly ever runs on Solaris, in my experience. It runs better in WINE on Linux.)) I love dadadodo, and I like xscreensaver. (It's a good concept. I'm more used to xlock, but xscreensaver has more display hacks, and an open, incredibly simple interface for adding them.)
YOU GUYS SUCK!
Last April Fools Day was obvious, but this one was just... mean, man.
I could care less about DivX, it sounds like an annoying, wasteful, proprietary idea. And there is little love lost between me and Circuit City or Best Buy, even though they do have okay prices on electronics, and lately Radio Shack has been getting worse.
However, big thanks to Rob for not posting yet another April Fools non-news stuff that doesn't matter content-free rubbish-laden text. That was getting old.
? Didn't that happen last year? He made it incredibly wide and the next day unveiled the version that scaled properly? (I hated it when everything was 600 or so pixels wide, if I wanted that I'd go to news.com or something)
Of all the jokes, this is the only one I'm worried about. Sure, the layout on the three pages looks suspiciously similar, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
metalabs mirroring download.com is an obvious farce, (that is just offensive) and since they make reference to Linus moving as a reason, and link back to slashdot, that looks like a friendly conspiracy.
This one, however, was definitely prepared in advance, if it indeed is a joke. If it was, then I admit, you really got me. But otherwise, I'm going to be without my Userfriendly.
Hey, I like word macros.
How else are you supposed to get a shell on a system that's "secured"? (okay, I know, there are tons of ways, like Excel macros, or not-disabled Windows function keys, or changing, say, the Telnet proxy in netscape to run the command interpreter...)
I think one of my favorite oxymorons is "Windows Security". It's a good analogy, too. Want to break into a house? Break a window.
One reason to pay attention is when it's coming *at* you.
I saw a clip on the big screen from the Hitchcock movie The Birds, in 3D (polarized lenses, not the red-blue stuff) and it was really scary. Almost as bad as when movies first came out, and people were running out of the theaters because they thought the (grainy, mute, grayscale) train was going to hit them.
Personally I'd love to see any space opera in 3D. I don't care how bad it is, I'd drool. If they ever remastered Star Wars in 3D, you couldn't pry me away from it.
I would also just love to have something like this, so I could have a really big virtual monitor. But it sounds like I'll have to wait for the resolution to go up and the price to go down.
We? I treat people like people.
I live in a relatively free and democratic society, if you don't want to be dominated, then stand up for yourself. If you never learned how, then I'm sorry.
Not everyone has good parents, or learns all the right lessons, but some of us learn how to think for ourselves, strive for what we want, and avoid the battles that don't need to be fought.
Personally, I'm an Atheist, because I never saw the point in religion. I'm not terribly aggressive because I don't see how that would get me what I want out of life. I don't personally understand rape because (a) I don't have relationships with people I don't love and (b) I'd never want to do that to someone I love. Make your own morals and live by them, because if you don't know what you want, you're already in trouble.
I share the wish for swift justice in cases where the brutality is obvious, but I can't blame society for everything. If you want to be treated like a person, act like one, and don't put up with people who can't do the same.
(In this case, sue the people who let their stereotypes get in the way of their job, and rely on support from whatever friends you have. Then try to put the past behind you. Sometimes good people end up in horrible situations, and it can take a long time to recover from them.)
:) ALL HAIL BRAK, indeed.
:)
Back on the BBSes, I never saw the point of cybersex, and generally if I chatted, I'd chat with people I already knew in RL, or people I'd probably never meet.
Yep, with every medium there are new dangers, but these are still the same people. If Ann Landers warns all the moralistic people away from the Internet, then she might have a self-fulfilling prophecy on her hands. Not that I ever listened to her...
Let Brak do the credits!
Perhaps a better word would be dated, not primitive. This is a very functional approach.
Although threads might work great on some platforms, they certainly don't work the same on all platforms, and sometimes doing things the old way is faster and more portable. Under Linux, I'd be happy with threads, because I know that clone() is faster than fork(), for starters. Other platforms, and I wouldn't be so sure...
I could also argue that, say, writing lots of stack code is primitive, and we should make a template class for it, but have fun trying to compile it. I know I've had enough problems with g++ and templates that I've ended up just include -ing actual C++ files instead of shoving linking info into headers or whatever.
They did a really bad job of porting it, I've tried IE4 and IE5beta under Solaris. I will admit that since I'm not root on those boxes, I haven't applied all the kernel patches they see as necessary, but I don't think a *browser* should require kernel patches when nothing else does.
Basically I don't know what Mainwin was smoking when they built those libraries. IE is slower and bigger than Netscape ever was under UNIX, and IE 3.0 for Win 3.1 flies on my Linux box. I'd like to compare IE 4.0 for Solaris and IE 4.0 emulated under WINE on Solaris x86. Heck, IE is faster under SoftWindows 4.0 on SPARC Solaris than it is "natively" on SPARC.
Maybe Bill is afraid that Windows source will be released under a freer license, but I don't see what he has to worry about.
I'm sure that source is so ugly after years of unseen development kludges to meet deadlines and have backwards compatibility to DOS and the 8086, and also use features of the 386 to both get around these limitations and simulate them...
well, that's ugly already, to say nothing of their closed widgets and silly delays and animations, shoddy networking, etc, etc.
Maybe it would make porting Windows Apps to UNIX easier, maybe we could create a (probably less-free) version of WINE with that source code, and just run the apps on UNIX, but I wouldn't want to build an OS with that code.
Replace the Windows networking with SAMBA, replace the 'display server' with X (that would be hard) and get the manufacturers to make X drivers, (maybe easier if they're getting a better Windows) add window managers/toolkits) that replace the Windows widget set, (themeable look and feel across all apps) replace the scheduler, etc., etc. After a while you might have a decent operating system, but I'd rather improve the other ones we have currently.
It would be just like running WINE on *BSD, or any UNIX: the Windows apps don't work or crash, and the underlying OS (and hopefully X too) doesn't care.
It'd be just like UNIX is now, with more apps and less productivity. Like Windows, but with less bluescreens and rebooting. And still better than NT.
Ken Harrenstien RFC-812
Vic White 1 March 1982
Network Information Center
SRI International
NICNAME/WHOIS
INTRODUCTION
The NICNAME/WHOIS Server is an NCP/TCP transaction based
query/response server, running on the SRI-NIC machine, that
provides netwide directory service to ARPANET users. It is
one of a series of ARPANET/Internet name services maintained
by the Network Information Center (NIC) at SRI International
on behalf of the Defense Communications Agency (DCA). The running on local hosts, and it delivers the full name, U.S.
mailing address, telephone number, and network mailbox for
ARPANET users.
server is accessible across the ARPANET from user programs
...It's 17 years old, open, and it's about as complicated as finger, which is to say it's simple. I don't think it could be proprietary. As to the contents of the database, they've been growing for the past 17 years, and whatever cheesy corporation who thinks they 'own' the internet now needs to go back to hanging out with the script kiddies and stop bugging the users.
I've tried out this technology, it does a really good job on high-resolution images combined with text, something that neither .gif nor .jpg can say right now. Maybe one day this sort of format will allow us to have the much-touted "virtual newspaper", (or in this case magazine) a cheap, networked, flatscreen display that downloads new content without killing trees.
However... Could you really void a contract for not monitoring a website regularly? Even when they don't define what "regularly" means? If they reserve the right to take the website down, does that mean the source isn't open because we can't monitor the website?
Silly clauses make for useless licenses. Why not just release the free stuff under an existing free license, which lets you license it simultaneously under other licenses? Hmm? GPL, BSD, even NPL?
Why pay your lawyers any more than you have to when other people have done the job for you?
These articles weren't *THAT* bad, much better than almost anything from ZD... Here's what I replied to...
For a first article on Linux, that was a good one. I've been using Linux
as my desktop for a while now, and I agree: it's definitely not for
everybody, but it is what I want from an operating system.
I will have to correct you on one fine point here, though:
Now I must confess my doubts about the Open Source
movement. Do all those software developers writing
open source code for Linux have the incentive to fix
problems as they arise and--more important--to help people
upgrade and keep old code running? Perhaps the greatest
technological feature that Windows possesses is that it can
handle programs as old as the first DOS applications. Linux
will never do that.
Not only do they fix the problems that arise in Linux, Linux already runs
the old DOS apps.
I use Linux to run my old DOS programs, and by and large, they run
*better* than they did under DOS. The program I refer to here is DOSEmu,
and it is in its late beta stage, I believe. (Wine is still alpha) It
needs some configuration, but what else is new in UNIX.
DOSEmu (www.dosemu.org) provides a complicated DOS virtual machine,
whereby Linux emulates the required DOS services. It only runs on x86
though, because it doesn't emulate instructions. However, on x86, it runs
as fast as DOS does. (you can benchmark it and find in some cases the
processor is only running at, say, 98% of DOS's speed, but there is no
perceptible difference in almost all cases.)
Advantages: more free lower memory, better cache, features you'd expect
from running under a good OS in protected mode. It is faster to defrag
your hard drive (dos partition) under DOSEmu than it is under DOS.
Disadvantages: limited graphics support (original VGA works fine, SVGA is
more problematic, and tied to SVGALib, this sometimes works better in X)
and bad sound support. The only sound I could ever get working was MIDI
(pipe it through Linux's MIDI, this is documented) and DMA. Star Control II
is the only game I could get sound working perfectly on. However, this
has no impact on, say, running an old version of Lotus 1-2-3. And some
old DOS programs don't run very well under Windows 95 (or later)'s idea of
a DOS VM.
There is also a less free (shareware) DOS emulator called Bochs that runs
on UNIX (and, of course, Linux) which is much slower but more compatible.
It does emulate x86 instructions, and can run Win '95, but I wouldn't
reccommend it yet. (ever use SoftWindows? This is at least that bad)
And, for Windows, there's also WABI, for Windows 3.1. You have to pay for
it, but Windows users are used to that. I prefer Wine, but it is
certainly lacking in compatibility currently.
Sure, this is an old article, but it's also a *classic*, like The Story of Mel, A Programmer. (well, maybe not *that* old, but...)
:)
Anyhow, I don't mind, because I meant to bookmark this a while back...
Tim Berners-Lee was right when he created the web as a personal mnemonic device, when I forget where something is, someone else remembers it for me, wonderful!
I don't use BSD, so I must admit to some ignorance here, I just notice that I never see incremental public releases of the kernel for people to try out, which is something I value in Linux.
Similarly, gcc is only updated by the same tight-knit group of people, and released when they think they're done. The Linux kernel, and egcs, on the other hand, release many incremental community releases, for peer review, and I find this more friendly and open.
I didn't really want to make this part of my discussion a licensing issue, because it really isn't. However, I don't like the FreeBSD license for, say, an operating system, because I hate to see a good free operating system bastardized by Apple, Microsoft, or anyone else who can't program, can market, and makes everything they touch turn proprietary. That is what the GPL defends against. I figure if someone else wants to use my code and not share, then they can just write it themselves.
So did you have any opinions on, or disputes with, any of the facts I mentioned? I would actually find that interesting.
No. The one I always saw people doing was putting in, say, twenty entries to run every hour or something.
:)
They need a decent cron service, but that would probably die to, and... well, why not just run UNIX?
Hey, why not put the call to AT at the beginning of the batch file? Or fork it off, at least NT can do that with its command interpreter.
Linux ran fine on my old P133 (better than DOS, running DEFRAG on my old DOS partition back then was *much* faster in DOSEmu than in DOS because Linux caches so much better...), and NT4SP1 was a pig, and somewhat slow, but NT4SP3 with the IE integration stuff is incredibly slow. I think they call that progress.
yep, it's NT...
I didn't scan port 21 (ftp) because that times out, it looks like their web service (80) keeps dying. That box sucks.
% exscan -q www.osopinion.com 25 37 79 80 110 143
exscan - v0.3 - By PolarRoot [pi9@hotmail.com] [http://exscan.netpedia.net]
QueSO - Remote OS Identification - By Savage
QueSO code has been modified and integrated with permission.
Scanning Host: www.osopinion.com [38.185.217.81]
Port 25 Open: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Service Running.
Data Returned:
220 wwmerchant.osopinion.com WindowsNT SMTP Server v3.03.0017/4c.adur/SP ESMTP ready at Fri, 26 Mar 1999 13:20:30 -0700
Port 37 Open: Time Service Running.
Port 79 Open: Finger Service Running.
Data Returned:
Error: Unknown user
Port 110 Open: Post Office Protocol 3 Service Running.
Data Returned:
+OK POP3 server ready
Port 143 Open: Interim Mail Access Protocol 2 Service Running.
Data Returned:
* OK NTMail IMAP4 server 3.03.0014 ready
Scan Completed Successfully.
NT actually has most of the same features as the UNIX command line does, by extending the old DOS commands. However, because they added it on, it's clunky and ugly. ...and they still can't split a file. :)
:)
I personally like having multiple text consoles, but I like the graphical features in XFree86 when I have to use it (playing games, say
Preferences aren't religion. Prostheletyzing is. RMS preaches, I'd rather teach.
I love Linux, and Windows pisses me off, but I'm
not about to force anyone to change, and I don't
think I have an immortal soul at risk here. I'm
quite happy to show dissatisfied Windows users
the power I have in UNIX, but I can do this with
facts. UNIX has a split command, and joining
files with cat is simple. DOS can join files
with copy, but it's really ugly. Macintosh and
Windows GUIs have no support for these basic file operations. It just depends on what you want.