Well, I'm not a "confidant" but I will try to answer your post. That post you refer to is someone looking for a laundry list of tools to be delivered in a SINGLE app / interface (and I'd shudder at having all of that together in a blob). Basically they're wanting an iStat-type GUI tool... which would have to fill the entire screen (or screens) just to display all that info. On larger systems the concept would be even less useful.
KSysGuard does most of what they want in a single interface. SystemTap will give the rest.
Some of us have large numbers of older systems and servers to maintain, and simply magically upgrading everything isn't an option. Especially in today's financial climate, many companies are holding onto "known working" systems and delaying upgrades.
So your answer is to preserve Windows' out-of-the-box "dummy mode" and require people who need real tools to hunt down and install them?
Larger flamewars have been created on the exclusion of a repository to a Linux distro's default spin. It's not that we can't add something manually, it's that we have large numbers of machines and you're adding steps to the install / maintenance process. It's much simpler to have basic tools added by the OS or at least in its distro so they can be updated as a whole. Surely MS can take one of their crappy videos off the DVD to free up the 15MB it would take for a copy of all these tools.
In other words, yes I have CygWin installed on quite a few servers, but the process of setting them up and keeping them updated is significantly more trouble than keeping Windows programs patched (other than the frequency and size of Windows patches, which create their own problems). Since there's no built-in way to get updates for CygWin I either have to cobble something together or do without automated updates. If you don't see the difference then you've never worked with large groups of machines.
I thought perhaps Notepad was coded with a very early version of MS coding tools, and they thought it was a joke to see how long they could keep it in there. I mean, seriously, when an app you put on your commercial software CD and install by default has been redone countless times -- in better ways -- in introductory programming courses, that's saying something.
Next time add a few more words so we know what you're talking about -- are you trying to say that IE is hopelessly married to every windows OS until 7? Then you would agree with me.
On XP (I don't use 7 and probably never will) you can't even access some CHM files unless you have IE. Many features such as Windows Update require IE (the "automatic updates" utility is almost worse than useless). Many third party apps pull up IE even when it's set by prefs to NOT be the system browser. So yes, it's broken and "welded to the OS" is an apt description.
Perhaps you sent the link as a warning, as in "don't upgrade to this", in which case I thank you for your warning and assure you that I don't need Windows and have in fact decided to get off the Microsoft incompatibility, stability and security merry-go-round as of XP. You guys can opt to stay and sink with the ship; I'm outta there.
Shhh... you'll 'splode their minds. Let them sit happily in their Windows world, blissfully unaware of larger, more stable and secure systems and how they work. You can buy a Windows monkey for 1/3 the price of a decent 'NIX admin, and this is in part why.
Sounds like you missed the point entirely, having the EULA is the stupid part. Putting a graphical EULA on a command-line tool is just totally bizarre and goes further to show how stupid MS can be.
MS was a hacker-friendly (in the good sense of the word) company a long time ago, now it's just a shell of itself -- a law company run by lawyers. Everything they do now revolves around suing, or threats of suing, whether it's the BSA, Software "Assurance" or the nasty click-through EULAs. I go out of my way to avoid their products.
Several times I've been wanting to get more info on something I wanted to buy, and I looked up the manufacturer's site using my iPhone -- and the entire main page was Flash (i.e. useless). I used that time to take a step back and reevaluate my need for that product, and the times it's happened I've decided on either another product or that I really didn't want to go to the trouble of pursuing it anymore.
RHEL has moved away from positioning itself as a distro for both desktops and servers, and is now focused primarily on enterprise-level servers. It is not intended for laptops, desktops, or similar user-centric machines.
Let me say that again -- RHEL is designed to be used primarily for enterprise-level servers. OpenOffice, an end-user application, is by definition not something that would belong on an enterprise server unless it's a terminal server. If you want a terminal server then you just add the packages yourself, or you choose them during setup.
While I can see uses for GeoIP for webserver reporting, you need to give your feedback to Red Hat (not Slashdot) to try and get it included in the default repo so it will be supported. Adding repositories to RHEL is relatively simple. Or you could just install it manually. I use a couple of programs that I download and install manually (HP utils and rar). There are many ways to script this so it happens on all servers if you want; I only have 7 Red Hat servers (all but 1 are remote, and these run several different versions of RH OS) so it's quicker to do some things manually.
NTFS-3g adds NTFS support without recompiling the kernel. I use it daily for rsyncing 400+ GB of data between our datacenter and an external drive in another location on a host running Fedora 12. Maybe 30GB of the 400GB actually changes each day. So NTFS-3g works.
The more important issue with custom kernels is that the majority of third-party applications I've seen require specific kernels for support (or so they can duplicate the issue). Red Hat can require you to revert to a known good kernel if you require their support on an issue. Because of these reasons, drivers custom-compiled into the kernel are in general a bad idea if you picture yourself actually having to use the support you've paid for.
...and continuing this line of thought, the "flying cars" we hear about from time to time could use such an auto-land feature. Making the technology cheaper is part of what has to happen for that technology to "take off".
The difference is Microsoft, a convicted monopolist, has been a very bad boy throughout their history. Google has not. Microsoft typically uses the embrace-extend-extinguish philosophy toward standards, where Google open sources or provides open access to most of its products. Although both companies are obviously in it to make money, Google seems to be the "good guy" especially compared to Microsoft.
If you're not familiar with this, a couple minutes on your search site of choice will give you some insight.
At this point, I'd be willing to pay Bill Gates if he offers to secure all my personal data.
Yeah, because Microsoft has such a great track record when it comes to security. And when this honeypot of user data is cracked a week or two from now, all we'd hear is the excuse from the MS fanboys saying "but it's the largest compilation of user data, of course it will have people cracking it successfully. If <name_of_other_company> had a bigger marketshare, they would be a target too."
No. And hell no. I hope you're 'turfing and not really that naive. I will go anon (as Lumpy suggests elsewhere in this thread) before I give private data to MS for "safekeeping".
Wait, you have the money to run Oracle and choose to use an unsupported OS? RHEL and Oracle's version of RHEL are both supported and don't cost much at all.
If you aren't saving money or making money for your employer, then yes you are a cost center.
Some of us provide analysis that cannot be compiled by the C-levels or their subordinates; I design and implement tools that help my company make decisions. These tools directly affect the way the company operates and usually either save money or make money (some amount of infrastructure design is necessary). My salary is a pittance compared to the dollars saved / earned via these tools.
It starts with small wins, a lot of determination and "getting your time in" -- showing that you are invested in the company. Once you are seen as someone who makes a positive contribution, you are given more latitude with decisions. People give your opinion more weight. Over time you become well-regarded as an asset, not a cost center.
Granted, not everyone gets a voice, and you may be in a position where your voice will never be heard. Only you know whether that is the case. If that's your environment I wish you luck in making a positive transition as soon as you possibly can. Cogs in a wheel can be outsourced / replaced. Software architects with a track record of wins are seen as assets.
And yes, for the sake of argument, I have been taken advantage of at companies who didn't care about my commitment for success, who didn't pay attention to the hours I applied, and who were quick to tell me I was just a cost. I got out of there and you can too.
In today's "modern" world, people aren't taught grammar in school; instead they are taught to pass standardized tests. Unfortunately today's "standard" represents a lowered standard of knowledge compared to 10 or 20 years ago. Otherwise perfectly competent managers and executives stumble while trying to wordsmith their emails or business documents, and the end result is both jarring and disappointing.
I've sat shaking my head on more than one occasion, reading an email another has directly or indirectly sent to me. "Where" and "were" are often used interchangeably, and "their", "they're" and "there" are apparently some unholy trio of confusion for most.
Not to rant (but I know I am), others tend to treat you as stuffy when you use proper grammar. It's as if the movie Idiocracy were coming to fruition as we speak.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I'm not a "confidant" but I will try to answer your post. That post you refer to is someone looking for a laundry list of tools to be delivered in a SINGLE app / interface (and I'd shudder at having all of that together in a blob). Basically they're wanting an iStat-type GUI tool... which would have to fill the entire screen (or screens) just to display all that info. On larger systems the concept would be even less useful.
KSysGuard does most of what they want in a single interface. SystemTap will give the rest.
KSysGuard and SystemTap do the majority of what you say you need.
Some of us have large numbers of older systems and servers to maintain, and simply magically upgrading everything isn't an option. Especially in today's financial climate, many companies are holding onto "known working" systems and delaying upgrades.
So your answer is to preserve Windows' out-of-the-box "dummy mode" and require people who need real tools to hunt down and install them?
Larger flamewars have been created on the exclusion of a repository to a Linux distro's default spin. It's not that we can't add something manually, it's that we have large numbers of machines and you're adding steps to the install / maintenance process. It's much simpler to have basic tools added by the OS or at least in its distro so they can be updated as a whole. Surely MS can take one of their crappy videos off the DVD to free up the 15MB it would take for a copy of all these tools.
In other words, yes I have CygWin installed on quite a few servers, but the process of setting them up and keeping them updated is significantly more trouble than keeping Windows programs patched (other than the frequency and size of Windows patches, which create their own problems). Since there's no built-in way to get updates for CygWin I either have to cobble something together or do without automated updates. If you don't see the difference then you've never worked with large groups of machines.
I thought perhaps Notepad was coded with a very early version of MS coding tools, and they thought it was a joke to see how long they could keep it in there. I mean, seriously, when an app you put on your commercial software CD and install by default has been redone countless times -- in better ways -- in introductory programming courses, that's saying something.
Mod parent up. If MS is known for anything (well, maybe except for issues with stability and security) bloatware is very high on the list.
Next time add a few more words so we know what you're talking about -- are you trying to say that IE is hopelessly married to every windows OS until 7? Then you would agree with me.
On XP (I don't use 7 and probably never will) you can't even access some CHM files unless you have IE. Many features such as Windows Update require IE (the "automatic updates" utility is almost worse than useless). Many third party apps pull up IE even when it's set by prefs to NOT be the system browser. So yes, it's broken and "welded to the OS" is an apt description.
Perhaps you sent the link as a warning, as in "don't upgrade to this", in which case I thank you for your warning and assure you that I don't need Windows and have in fact decided to get off the Microsoft incompatibility, stability and security merry-go-round as of XP. You guys can opt to stay and sink with the ship; I'm outta there.
Whooooshhhh
Shhh... you'll 'splode their minds. Let them sit happily in their Windows world, blissfully unaware of larger, more stable and secure systems and how they work. You can buy a Windows monkey for 1/3 the price of a decent 'NIX admin, and this is in part why.
Sounds like you missed the point entirely, having the EULA is the stupid part. Putting a graphical EULA on a command-line tool is just totally bizarre and goes further to show how stupid MS can be.
MS was a hacker-friendly (in the good sense of the word) company a long time ago, now it's just a shell of itself -- a law company run by lawyers. Everything they do now revolves around suing, or threats of suing, whether it's the BSA, Software "Assurance" or the nasty click-through EULAs. I go out of my way to avoid their products.
Maybe the next great gold rush will be some product that takes a Flash site and recodes it in some other language.
Look, I know it's an oversimplification but these roadblocks often lead to greater progress after the dust settles.
Several times I've been wanting to get more info on something I wanted to buy, and I looked up the manufacturer's site using my iPhone -- and the entire main page was Flash (i.e. useless). I used that time to take a step back and reevaluate my need for that product, and the times it's happened I've decided on either another product or that I really didn't want to go to the trouble of pursuing it anymore.
RHEL has moved away from positioning itself as a distro for both desktops and servers, and is now focused primarily on enterprise-level servers. It is not intended for laptops, desktops, or similar user-centric machines.
Let me say that again -- RHEL is designed to be used primarily for enterprise-level servers. OpenOffice, an end-user application, is by definition not something that would belong on an enterprise server unless it's a terminal server. If you want a terminal server then you just add the packages yourself, or you choose them during setup.
While I can see uses for GeoIP for webserver reporting, you need to give your feedback to Red Hat (not Slashdot) to try and get it included in the default repo so it will be supported. Adding repositories to RHEL is relatively simple. Or you could just install it manually. I use a couple of programs that I download and install manually (HP utils and rar). There are many ways to script this so it happens on all servers if you want; I only have 7 Red Hat servers (all but 1 are remote, and these run several different versions of RH OS) so it's quicker to do some things manually.
NTFS-3g adds NTFS support without recompiling the kernel. I use it daily for rsyncing 400+ GB of data between our datacenter and an external drive in another location on a host running Fedora 12. Maybe 30GB of the 400GB actually changes each day. So NTFS-3g works.
The more important issue with custom kernels is that the majority of third-party applications I've seen require specific kernels for support (or so they can duplicate the issue). Red Hat can require you to revert to a known good kernel if you require their support on an issue. Because of these reasons, drivers custom-compiled into the kernel are in general a bad idea if you picture yourself actually having to use the support you've paid for.
Mod parent up. A brief moment of truth would be refreshing. I think most people would understand and sympathize.
...and continuing this line of thought, the "flying cars" we hear about from time to time could use such an auto-land feature. Making the technology cheaper is part of what has to happen for that technology to "take off".
Jeez, Apple, what were you thinking when you did this? You come across as a bully. As a Mac user I'm disappointed.
1999 iMac DV SE, 200? eMac, multiple iPod shuffles, 2.4 duo 15" MacBook Pro, iPod Touch 2G, iPhone 3GS
Mod parent +1 Insightful, succinct.
The difference is Microsoft, a convicted monopolist, has been a very bad boy throughout their history. Google has not. Microsoft typically uses the embrace-extend-extinguish philosophy toward standards, where Google open sources or provides open access to most of its products. Although both companies are obviously in it to make money, Google seems to be the "good guy" especially compared to Microsoft.
If you're not familiar with this, a couple minutes on your search site of choice will give you some insight.
At this point, I'd be willing to pay Bill Gates if he offers to secure all my personal data.
Yeah, because Microsoft has such a great track record when it comes to security. And when this honeypot of user data is cracked a week or two from now, all we'd hear is the excuse from the MS fanboys saying "but it's the largest compilation of user data, of course it will have people cracking it successfully. If <name_of_other_company> had a bigger marketshare, they would be a target too."
No. And hell no. I hope you're 'turfing and not really that naive. I will go anon (as Lumpy suggests elsewhere in this thread) before I give private data to MS for "safekeeping".
Wait, you have the money to run Oracle and choose to use an unsupported OS? RHEL and Oracle's version of RHEL are both supported and don't cost much at all.
Mod parent, like, insightful or something.
It has 3G on some models. $15 for 250MB / $30 unlimited. AT&T (yuck). No contract though.
I am amused by your thought process and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
If you aren't saving money or making money for your employer, then yes you are a cost center.
Some of us provide analysis that cannot be compiled by the C-levels or their subordinates; I design and implement tools that help my company make decisions. These tools directly affect the way the company operates and usually either save money or make money (some amount of infrastructure design is necessary). My salary is a pittance compared to the dollars saved / earned via these tools.
It starts with small wins, a lot of determination and "getting your time in" -- showing that you are invested in the company. Once you are seen as someone who makes a positive contribution, you are given more latitude with decisions. People give your opinion more weight. Over time you become well-regarded as an asset, not a cost center.
Granted, not everyone gets a voice, and you may be in a position where your voice will never be heard. Only you know whether that is the case. If that's your environment I wish you luck in making a positive transition as soon as you possibly can. Cogs in a wheel can be outsourced / replaced. Software architects with a track record of wins are seen as assets.
And yes, for the sake of argument, I have been taken advantage of at companies who didn't care about my commitment for success, who didn't pay attention to the hours I applied, and who were quick to tell me I was just a cost. I got out of there and you can too.
In today's "modern" world, people aren't taught grammar in school; instead they are taught to pass standardized tests. Unfortunately today's "standard" represents a lowered standard of knowledge compared to 10 or 20 years ago. Otherwise perfectly competent managers and executives stumble while trying to wordsmith their emails or business documents, and the end result is both jarring and disappointing.
I've sat shaking my head on more than one occasion, reading an email another has directly or indirectly sent to me. "Where" and "were" are often used interchangeably, and "their", "they're" and "there" are apparently some unholy trio of confusion for most.
Not to rant (but I know I am), others tend to treat you as stuffy when you use proper grammar. It's as if the movie Idiocracy were coming to fruition as we speak.