I think a lot of it depends on the Distro. Let's face it, I'm not sure Debian will ever be as friendly as Mandrake, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Personally, I would much rather have the Debian staff working to get woody stable than be writing cute little graphical wizards. Mandrake on the other hand, yeah, I think it's wonderful what they're doing trying to get linux into the hands of more people by easing the installing process. But isn't that why despite wild differences many Linux distro's fare reasonably well in popularity?
So to answer the original article: What Ximian and others are doing is a wonderful. But I think there's no reason for all the distro's to jump on the user-proof bandwagon.
I agree that for many students, the only major thing they do on the net is download music. I unfortunately don't sympathize with them and neither does the college administration which is more concerned about the students and parents complaining that the network is unusable. It might be a turnoff to potential/incoming students who find out this stuff is blocked. But it's a much worse turnoff when during tours and open houses current students are talking about how the network is virtually useless(which includes downloading mp3's since it was to the point that you couldn't do that either).
But even those students who do download mp3's are dependent on lesser services like email. In our case, conditions were so bad that surfing was almost impossible. Like I said, the browser would time out between packets. That sure does make it a problem to check your hotmail account. And pop'ing mail from anywhere outside of campus was impossible. So in the end, most students realized that when it came to a choice between email and mp3's, they were willing to give up the music.
Another interesting note to this whole argument is that most people seem to be overlooking the legality issue of downloading mp3's. They feel like it's their right. The network is free to use so they should be able to download mp3's since other people are allowed to browse. And it seems like they think it's cruel and heartless to block downloading mp3's since it's not fair to target a single service. Especially one that so many students use. I have news for you people. And all the RIAA gestapo stuff aside(which I agree is wrong on their part) you can't dispute that it's true. DOWNLOADING COPYRIGHTED MUSIC IS ILLEGAL! So if that constitutes the number one problem with the network bottlenecking, why shouldn't that be the first thing to go? Are playing games online illegal? Surfing the web illegal? What about checking email? Nope. So why should those things suffer to something that is?
And of course they've found lots of ways around it anyway. I have a roommate that runs the linux version of audiogalaxy on a remote server and then ftp's the music down to his machine on campus. Students are getting really good at cataloging what music different people have shared locally and who to talk to or what computer to browse to for given music. There will always be ways around this stuff. But fortunately(in my opinion) for my university, we have remedied the problem of bandwidth without effecting any legitimate uses of the network.
I attend a small state school of about 7000 undergrads(well, maybe not super small) and across the past year we have experienced precisely this problem. We have ethernet jacks in all the dorm rooms and everybody was running all the usual file sharing apps and it got to the point that you could not surf the web. The browser would time out because it went to long between packets! So the beginning of this year, A QoS package(I beleive we're running packeteer) was set up on our firewall to hunt down and block the packets for these programs as well as streamline some other network traffic and things have really cleared up. It's not blazing fast but surfing happens at a reliable 20k/second which is pretty snappy for browsing. Linux ISO's still take a while though;-)
Things to think about in the current suggested solutions:
1. Limiting bandwidth to dorms just hurts students who don't run these programs! Yes there are some of us out here. The majority of students even in a small school can not be organized to stop running this type of software. They just bitch about the slow connection and keep right on downloading mp3's. At least that's what happened when our college tried it.
2. Blocking ports isn't effective. One of the earlier posts mentioned about how Morpheous and others seek out new ports. This makes normal port blocking on a router or firewall useless and may arbitrarily block other software that is not a problem but happens to use the same port. You have to have software smart enough to look at packet type/content to be effective.
3. QoS software works if you get the right package. I work for the computer center at my college and I know we went through a number of packages before we settled on one. But it really makes a difference and it's suprising how many people don't even know this sort of software exists.
In looking over the opinions, it's seems everyone has their "for instances" that prove their points, at least to themselves. Some CS students don't know crap about linux. Others think they do. I'd like to state that both are true(at least in my "for instance"), even within the same system of education.
I attend Shippensburg Univeristy, part of Pennsylvania's state system of higher education. At Ship, there are many of us that are quite active with Linux and other open source software. Our computer science department even funds a student run linux server. And this is not a small machine, the new one ordered this year, was a $6,000 machine. On the other side of the coin, our rivals at Indianna University of Pennsylvania, another state school, has in recent years prided themsleves on being a "Microsoft School" were they teach students the MS way of life.
So, when you get down to it, I'm not sure anything is different than the way we find the indeustry now. There are a lot of youg people into linux and a lot of them not. Likewise, there are a lot of older people into linux and not. The war has not and will not be won or lost in a single generation of CS grads. Like everything else, both sides are represented and the fight will go on.
As a sys admin, I have to agree with the greater sentiment posted so far that I want my boot messages. I don't care about seeing a pretty graphic of Tux dancing while my computer boots. But for a long time, the debate has been raging over what it's gonna take to get Linux on the desktop. It's about time we realize that obscure text messages scare the common user. I'm sure the logs will still be there, but why scare the bejeezus out of a guy if you don't have too. This is only one more step in making linux seem a Little less elite to the geek community.
Perhaps what should be done(and may actually be the case, I really don't know) is that this could be set with a boot parameter. And the distro when you install it could ask you which you would prefer and adjust lilo accordingly. If a normal user with a graphic boot was having trouble, the tech guy could always pass the boot parameter for verbose messaging to disable the graphic boot.
Wouldn't leaving the lasagna out in the snow let it open to theft by all the militant alcoholics with guns, baseball bats, katanas and broken beer bottles? Plus, you'll have to leave the safety of your bunker when you get hungary which would give someone in camo a chance to shoot you for food.
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I think a lot of it depends on the Distro. Let's face it, I'm not sure Debian will ever be as friendly as Mandrake, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Personally, I would much rather have the Debian staff working to get woody stable than be writing cute little graphical wizards. Mandrake on the other hand, yeah, I think it's wonderful what they're doing trying to get linux into the hands of more people by easing the installing process. But isn't that why despite wild differences many Linux distro's fare reasonably well in popularity?
So to answer the original article: What Ximian and others are doing is a wonderful. But I think there's no reason for all the distro's to jump on the user-proof bandwagon.
I agree that for many students, the only major thing they do on the net is download music. I unfortunately don't sympathize with them and neither does the college administration which is more concerned about the students and parents complaining that the network is unusable. It might be a turnoff to potential/incoming students who find out this stuff is blocked. But it's a much worse turnoff when during tours and open houses current students are talking about how the network is virtually useless(which includes downloading mp3's since it was to the point that you couldn't do that either).
But even those students who do download mp3's are dependent on lesser services like email. In our case, conditions were so bad that surfing was almost impossible. Like I said, the browser would time out between packets. That sure does make it a problem to check your hotmail account. And pop'ing mail from anywhere outside of campus was impossible. So in the end, most students realized that when it came to a choice between email and mp3's, they were willing to give up the music.
Another interesting note to this whole argument is that most people seem to be overlooking the legality issue of downloading mp3's. They feel like it's their right. The network is free to use so they should be able to download mp3's since other people are allowed to browse. And it seems like they think it's cruel and heartless to block downloading mp3's since it's not fair to target a single service. Especially one that so many students use. I have news for you people. And all the RIAA gestapo stuff aside(which I agree is wrong on their part) you can't dispute that it's true. DOWNLOADING COPYRIGHTED MUSIC IS ILLEGAL! So if that constitutes the number one problem with the network bottlenecking, why shouldn't that be the first thing to go? Are playing games online illegal? Surfing the web illegal? What about checking email? Nope. So why should those things suffer to something that is?
And of course they've found lots of ways around it anyway. I have a roommate that runs the linux version of audiogalaxy on a remote server and then ftp's the music down to his machine on campus. Students are getting really good at cataloging what music different people have shared locally and who to talk to or what computer to browse to for given music. There will always be ways around this stuff. But fortunately(in my opinion) for my university, we have remedied the problem of bandwidth without effecting any legitimate uses of the network.
I attend a small state school of about 7000 undergrads(well, maybe not super small) and across the past year we have experienced precisely this problem. We have ethernet jacks in all the dorm rooms and everybody was running all the usual file sharing apps and it got to the point that you could not surf the web. The browser would time out because it went to long between packets! So the beginning of this year, A QoS package(I beleive we're running packeteer) was set up on our firewall to hunt down and block the packets for these programs as well as streamline some other network traffic and things have really cleared up. It's not blazing fast but surfing happens at a reliable 20k/second which is pretty snappy for browsing. Linux ISO's still take a while though ;-)
Things to think about in the current suggested solutions:
1. Limiting bandwidth to dorms just hurts students who don't run these programs! Yes there are some of us out here. The majority of students even in a small school can not be organized to stop running this type of software. They just bitch about the slow connection and keep right on downloading mp3's. At least that's what happened when our college tried it.
2. Blocking ports isn't effective. One of the earlier posts mentioned about how Morpheous and others seek out new ports. This makes normal port blocking on a router or firewall useless and may arbitrarily block other software that is not a problem but happens to use the same port. You have to have software smart enough to look at packet type/content to be effective.
3. QoS software works if you get the right package. I work for the computer center at my college and I know we went through a number of packages before we settled on one. But it really makes a difference and it's suprising how many people don't even know this sort of software exists.
I attend Shippensburg Univeristy, part of Pennsylvania's state system of higher education. At Ship, there are many of us that are quite active with Linux and other open source software. Our computer science department even funds a student run linux server. And this is not a small machine, the new one ordered this year, was a $6,000 machine. On the other side of the coin, our rivals at Indianna University of Pennsylvania, another state school, has in recent years prided themsleves on being a "Microsoft School" were they teach students the MS way of life.
So, when you get down to it, I'm not sure anything is different than the way we find the indeustry now. There are a lot of youg people into linux and a lot of them not. Likewise, there are a lot of older people into linux and not. The war has not and will not be won or lost in a single generation of CS grads. Like everything else, both sides are represented and the fight will go on.
As a sys admin, I have to agree with the greater sentiment posted so far that I want my boot messages. I don't care about seeing a pretty graphic of Tux dancing while my computer boots. But for a long time, the debate has been raging over what it's gonna take to get Linux on the desktop. It's about time we realize that obscure text messages scare the common user. I'm sure the logs will still be there, but why scare the bejeezus out of a guy if you don't have too. This is only one more step in making linux seem a Little less elite to the geek community.
Perhaps what should be done(and may actually be the case, I really don't know) is that this could be set with a boot parameter. And the distro when you install it could ask you which you would prefer and adjust lilo accordingly. If a normal user with a graphic boot was having trouble, the tech guy could always pass the boot parameter for verbose messaging to disable the graphic boot.
Wouldn't leaving the lasagna out in the snow let it open to theft by all the militant alcoholics with guns, baseball bats, katanas and broken beer bottles? Plus, you'll have to leave the safety of your bunker when you get hungary which would give someone in camo a chance to shoot you for food.