Sorry, I don't consider networking hubs or cards a normal consumer electronic device (like a CD player, say), even if they are sold into the home office market. --
The Palm is the only 3Com product that I can think of that is sold directly to consumers. Everything else is networking equipment sold into very specific vertical markets. (Maybe winmodems are another exception, but I would imagine that resellers are the majority of purchasers.)
Perhaps 3Com is worried that focusing on keeping "Best Buy" and other consumer outlets happy and selecting the right fruity colors for the plastic shell is detracting their management from pushing their commercial equipment. IBM stopped selling home computers for a similar reason.
Of course, what good is naming a stadium after yourself if you have a funny name only sell obscure networking equipment? I guess there really is no such thing as bad publicity. --
I thought Unisys did large memory support for Linux as well as some other things.
Anyway, they'd probably love to have a version of Linux that would run on these monsters because it would their rotting corpse right back in the midrange market with Sun and HP. I'm sure they don't believe that hitching to NT is the greatest thing, but without a modern Unix, what are they supposed to do? --
In the end, though, I think IBM sees Linux and Open Source as a way to win against Microsoft. They lost in the OS/2 battle, when they played by Microsoft's rules.
I think the thing you miss is that IBM plays by a different set of rules all together. They lost the OS/2 battle because they saw it as a low-end threat to their high end profit centers. Time and a consulting business has proved to them that there is money to be made on the low end.
Still, if you were to call IBM and ask for a 'ebusiness' solution, Linux wouldn't bubble up to the top of their list. They'd be more likely to do the following:
1) Do you need (can you afford) a Mainframe? 2) No? Do you need (can you afford) a high-end RS/6000? 3) No? Do you need (can you afford) an AS/400? 4) No? Do you need (can you afford) a low-end RS/6000? 5) OK. So you want Windows NT consulting services and hardware? 6) No? How about Linux consulting services and hardware? 7) Oh, you want OS/2? Let me transfer you.
The good news is that Linux is on the list, which means lots of support and ported products. (It also lets IBM drop it's less profitable low-end RS/6000 line. Linux is also good for 'services' like DNS and mail gateways to the big iron.)
The bad news, with a big high-end company like IBM, Linux is never going to be seen as a 'strategic' platform like AS/400 is. If you want a hardware vendor that's 100% behind Linux, buy VA, not IBM.
(AS/400, btw, has been growing far faster than Windows NT in recent years, and by IBM's account is more profitable than all of Sun Microsystems. They're not going to undercut that by pushing something like DB2 on Linux. They're not stupid.) --
I was considering ways that Microsoft, or some other "interested party", might pervert Linux to its own ends.
First of all, your post assumes that there's a big demand for an 'alternative' desktop platform to MS Windows. Of course, outside of the engineering dorm, there really isn't.
(Which is not to say that people aren't frustrated with Windows 9x, but if they are unwilling to try NT/2000, why would they even consider Linux?)
Second, Microsoft's motto is "Windows Everywhere". They've got a lot of ego, and billions of dollars of investment behind that idea. I can't even imagine the scale of the catastrophic event would get them to change their mind.
Third, if Microsoft is worried about Linux, it's only in the arena of server machines. Porting Office wouldn't do anything to stem the tide of Linux DNS, HTTP, database, and mail servers. These machines are already tipping the initiative away from MS's "Windows DNA" strategy. Server engineers wouldn't want to use a custom/closed source Linux that couldn't easily be patched.
(What would kill NT as a server platform is a port of "BackOffice", but that's even more unlikely, if it's even possible to do with good performance.)
Finally, I actually do expect a version of IE for Linux once MainSoft has moved it's Win32 porting library to Linux. However, this more of a final stab at Netscape (like IE/Solaris) than any attempt at destroying Linux.
All-in-all "MS Linux" might be interesting to chew over in your collective paranoia, but, knowing Microsoft, I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that it will never happen. If Microsoft wanted to conspire to subvert Linux, it would be much easier for them to push "Windows only" hardware. --
On my box, the default for "Restricted Sites" seems to allow JavaScript ("Active Scripting"), but does disallow cookies. There's several known JavaScript holes with IE/OE.
Moral: MS users - make sure to customize your security settings. --
A quick search of Freshmeat found an ext2 driver for both OS/2 and Win95, so you could reverse that trick with a Linux formatted drive. You could have also mounted that drive on any other NT box.
(I would imagine the OS/2 one could be ported to NT with a little trouble, so if anyone wants NT to interoperate with Linux, go ahead.) --
Just for the kid's reference, Lan Manager was a product from 1988 designed for small single segment LANs. It's weak hash was totally reasonable considering that Novell and Unix were sending passwords in cleartext in those days.
Now what's unfortunate is that NT supported it by default for so long (until NT4 SP3?)
NT's password database is also easily brute-force crackable, but then again, the original design wasn't to play with the big boys. --
It's also interesting to note that file acl's aren't stored in the file system, they're stored in the registry. (Boot two copies of NT on the same box, you can have two sets of permissions on the same file system object!)
I don't think this is true, it just seems this way with the old style ACL dialog. If you use the newer Security Config Manager setup you can see ACEs that don't belong to your current setup, except they just look like long strings of numbers. --
The fact that most office computer users were perfectly happy with Wordperfect 5.1 or Displaywrite 4.xx or whatever was beside the point
I respectfully disagree. WordPerfect users may have loved WordPerfect, but the inpenterable nature of the interface drove labor and training costs up for busineses. "Word Processing" used to actually be a marketable skill, and not just because of typing skills.
GUI rightfully won because it was cheaper and easier for casual users. (How many current middle managers have their secretaries type memos, or even have a secretary? All of them used to in the 1980s.) Microsoft won GUI because they had a mature product ported from MacOS.
(Then again, it might just be my personal jihad against WordPerfect. IMHO, the 1980s would have been better off if we would have stuck with WordStar, because at least the key commands were on the screen, not the keyboard. Plus they made sense too, unlike like that Shift+F7 WP crap.
And PS, MS Word 4 for the Mac was greatest word processor ever. Rant over. ) --
Both Sun and IBM make most of their money in areas of computing that Linux can't touch. They're both far more worried about DEC/Compaq and HP than they are about Linux. --
Re:What about the following FUD?
on
Stopping the FUD
·
· Score: 2
You make a good point. Linux does have better USB than any current 'server class' OS (with the possible exception of OS/2).
Which brings up the greater issue of comparisions between Linux (or Solaris or Irix or OS/400) with Windows 9x. What a waste of time. If you want to run a backass no-security OS that has been kludged to hell for Win3.1/DOS compability and game performance, that's your problem.
I respectfully ask all of Slashdot to limit all Linux versus Windows flamewars to NT4/2000. Forget about Windows 98 - ya'all should be beyond that, except for the occasional video game.
--
Re:Only anti-Linux FUD or all FUD?
on
Stopping the FUD
·
· Score: 2
To put your post in other words, if you had access to the NT kernel source code and build scripts, what are the odds you'd get a stable system?
On the other hand, I have hardware that's marvelously stable under Linux and NT, but will panic under Solaris 7. Does that mean that Solaris is a crappy unstable OS? No -- it comes down to hardware support, and Linux happens to have better lowend hardware support this side of Windows 98. My home NT machine will stay up for months, but at work the Celerons go blue when you click on the Start menu.
BTW, a blue screen = kernel panic, except that Linux runs less things in kernel mode, like video drivers for example.
(As a footnote, I think the stability of Linux is slightly exaggerated because the Linux OS vendors give you more integration services than Microsoft does. Simply, you get lots of shit in that RedHat box. If you were to take a base Linux OS install, and manually RPM hundreds of binary packages from vendors all around the world, you'd probably have the same DLL Hell that Windows can be. Not that that excuses kernel panics in NTFS.SYS.) --
Re:Only anti-Linux FUD or all FUD?
on
Stopping the FUD
·
· Score: 2
OK, substitute "Slashdot community" with "UNIX Community". If Slashdot gets credit for anything, it's spreading the old, dying UNIX ideology (both it's good points and it's bad) to a new generation. I fail to see how many of the attitudes here are different in anything except maturity level.
I'll accept that Microsoft FUD is different. I've seen paid employees of the Microsoft Corporation announce at MS-friendly conferences and whisper in corridors a variety of lies, half-truths, and mythical ship dates. Those bastards are downright mean in a way that no other corporation I know of is.
However, in the real world, I know of very few independent people wasting their own time with Microsoft advocacy. On the other hand, there's a certain Linux AgitProp with a ferocity not seen on the net since "Team OS2" (and we know what a successful endevor that was). The jihad rhetoric is only making your enemies hate you more.
It's been said here by the more insightful many times -- make a product that solves the most problems at the lowest price point, and you'll have the market. That's what Microsoft did, and Linux is on the way there, or is already there in many markets. If you think you're "supporting" Linux by playing the FUD/Advocacy game on the Internet, think again, and then start supporting the product in ways that really count. --
The worst is how it insists on reinstalling *fonts* that you have uninstalled. I don't know how or why the "MS Comic Book" font is a system file, but there it keeps reappearing.
Plus no configuration interface that I can see, not even in the registry. Another software victory for MS. --
"Root exploits"? You must be talking about NT 3.1, which stopped shipping in 1994 or so. Fixes for plain 'ol DOS/Win3.1 continued for a bit into 95-96 with networking fixes and a version of IE4.
And yes, AFAIK "supported" at Microsoft means that if you call on the phone someone will have some idea what you are talking about. It doesn't necessary mean that there will be many or any bug fixes.
However, I'm guessing that Windows 2000 will be a special case for MS support, because ActiveDirectory is going to scare people away from upgrading for a long time. Look at Novell -- they came out with a new version of NetWare 3 just this year for the we're-still-scared-of-NDS crowd-even-after-you've-browbeat-us-to-upgrade-for -five-years crowd. --
Just as a followup, most areas of the US are similar. When Cell phone service was introduced in the early 80s, markets were divided up into two bands at 900Mhz. Additional competitors are on the PCS bands (isn't there more than just one in the Bay Area?)
In most cases, the local phone company has the first band, but California is a little different because PacBell spun off their wireless business and later decided to get back in with PCS. --
Actually, the answer to your question is yes, there was a big hoopla.
The Compact Cassette medium was designed in the 60s for low quality voice recording, but by ~1970 people were introducing high quality stereo decks with Dolby B and so on.
The Audio industry responded by putting alot of weight behind the defective playback-only 8 Track format, refusing to release prerecorded Cassettes, and getting Detroit to dump Compact Cassette decks for 8 Track. You could eventually get 8 Track recorders, but I understand that they were fairly expensive, and 99% of the decks made were playback only.
It wasn't until the 80s, after all those lofi 8 Track cassettes had broken, did Compact Cassette have a big comeback. Record companies loved it then because it was cheaper for them to produce than LP. --
Sure DVD-Audio might have it's advantages over CD-Audio, but unlike DVD/LaserDisc video, I just don't see the mass market appeal.
Certainly there might be some in the high end 'audiophile' market that are clamoring for DVD-Audio (and are willing to pay for it, and unlikely to 'rip' copies), but by-in-large what I hear from people is that even CD Quality is 'too good' and they'd rather have a more storage/bandwidth efficient format like MP3.
Combine this with the fact that the vast majority of DVD players are actually computer drives, and that very few computers have sound cards/speakers worthy of even good CD-Audio reproduction, and I think I'm getting the picture.
Sure DVD-Video is a way to soak the audiophiles for extra cash (just like those 'Gold Edition' CDs). But it's primary intention in the long term is to get consumers to dump Compact Disc and adopt an audio format that supports encryption and discourges copying or piracy.
Just like those Divx discs that look like they came from the same crappy master as the VHS version, we need to start calling a spade a spade here. --
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I don't consider networking hubs or cards a normal consumer electronic device (like a CD player, say), even if they are sold into the home office market.
--
The Palm is the only 3Com product that I can think of that is sold directly to consumers. Everything else is networking equipment sold into very specific vertical markets. (Maybe winmodems are another exception, but I would imagine that resellers are the majority of purchasers.)
Perhaps 3Com is worried that focusing on keeping "Best Buy" and other consumer outlets happy and selecting the right fruity colors for the plastic shell is detracting their management from pushing their commercial equipment. IBM stopped selling home computers for a similar reason.
Of course, what good is naming a stadium after yourself if you have a funny name only sell obscure networking equipment? I guess there really is no such thing as bad publicity.
--
I'm not a political scholar, so if you want to call what the Soviets did something else that's fine.
I believe the correct marxist term is "State Capitalism".
--
I thought Unisys did large memory support for Linux as well as some other things.
Anyway, they'd probably love to have a version of Linux that would run on these monsters because it would their rotting corpse right back in the midrange market with Sun and HP. I'm sure they don't believe that hitching to NT is the greatest thing, but without a modern Unix, what are they supposed to do?
--
In the end, though, I think IBM sees Linux and Open Source as a way to win against Microsoft. They lost in the OS/2 battle, when they played by Microsoft's rules.
I think the thing you miss is that IBM plays by a different set of rules all together. They lost the OS/2 battle because they saw it as a low-end threat to their high end profit centers. Time and a consulting business has proved to them that there is money to be made on the low end.
Still, if you were to call IBM and ask for a 'ebusiness' solution, Linux wouldn't bubble up to the top of their list. They'd be more likely to do the following:
1) Do you need (can you afford) a Mainframe?
2) No? Do you need (can you afford) a high-end RS/6000?
3) No? Do you need (can you afford) an AS/400?
4) No? Do you need (can you afford) a low-end RS/6000?
5) OK. So you want Windows NT consulting services and hardware?
6) No? How about Linux consulting services and hardware?
7) Oh, you want OS/2? Let me transfer you.
The good news is that Linux is on the list, which means lots of support and ported products. (It also lets IBM drop it's less profitable low-end RS/6000 line. Linux is also good for 'services' like DNS and mail gateways to the big iron.)
The bad news, with a big high-end company like IBM, Linux is never going to be seen as a 'strategic' platform like AS/400 is. If you want a hardware vendor that's 100% behind Linux, buy VA, not IBM.
(AS/400, btw, has been growing far faster than Windows NT in recent years, and by IBM's account is more profitable than all of Sun Microsystems. They're not going to undercut that by pushing something like DB2 on Linux. They're not stupid.)
--
I was considering ways that Microsoft, or some other "interested party", might pervert Linux to its own ends.
First of all, your post assumes that there's a big demand for an 'alternative' desktop platform to MS Windows. Of course, outside of the engineering dorm, there really isn't.
(Which is not to say that people aren't frustrated with Windows 9x, but if they are unwilling to try NT/2000, why would they even consider Linux?)
Second, Microsoft's motto is "Windows Everywhere". They've got a lot of ego, and billions of dollars of investment behind that idea. I can't even imagine the scale of the catastrophic event would get them to change their mind.
Third, if Microsoft is worried about Linux, it's only in the arena of server machines. Porting Office wouldn't do anything to stem the tide of Linux DNS, HTTP, database, and mail servers. These machines are already tipping the initiative away from MS's "Windows DNA" strategy. Server engineers wouldn't want to use a custom/closed source Linux that couldn't easily be patched.
(What would kill NT as a server platform is a port of "BackOffice", but that's even more unlikely, if it's even possible to do with good performance.)
Finally, I actually do expect a version of IE for Linux once MainSoft has moved it's Win32 porting library to Linux. However, this more of a final stab at Netscape (like IE/Solaris) than any attempt at destroying Linux.
All-in-all "MS Linux" might be interesting to chew over in your collective paranoia, but, knowing Microsoft, I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that it will never happen. If Microsoft wanted to conspire to subvert Linux, it would be much easier for them to push "Windows only" hardware.
--
As a point of reference, IBM also sells the original clickty-clack PC AT keyboard with a trackpoint. The PN on mine is 13H6705.
--
Uhh -- I haven't heard much about UnixWare lately. Apologies to all the folks at SCO, Novell, and AT+T.
(Doesn't Solaris and UnixWare have a somewhat common source base?)
--
Every benchmark I've seen, Solaris beats the pants off of every other x86 OS, including Linux and NT. The hardware support is paper thin, though.
--
On my box, the default for "Restricted Sites" seems to allow JavaScript ("Active Scripting"), but does disallow cookies. There's several known JavaScript holes with IE/OE.
Moral: MS users - make sure to customize your security settings.
--
A quick search of Freshmeat found an ext2 driver for both OS/2 and Win95, so you could reverse that trick with a Linux formatted drive. You could have also mounted that drive on any other NT box.
(I would imagine the OS/2 one could be ported to NT with a little trouble, so if anyone wants NT to interoperate with Linux, go ahead.)
--
password hashing for LANMAN
Just for the kid's reference, Lan Manager was a product from 1988 designed for small single segment LANs. It's weak hash was totally reasonable considering that Novell and Unix were sending passwords in cleartext in those days.
Now what's unfortunate is that NT supported it by default for so long (until NT4 SP3?)
NT's password database is also easily brute-force crackable, but then again, the original design wasn't to play with the big boys.
--
And furthermore, the NSAKEY is only in the "CryptoAPI" module, so if you aren't using such a module, it's really a non-issue.
I can't name a program that uses CryptoAPI - PGP etc. certainly doesn't. Perhaps it's used in MS's VPN code or Win2000's encrypting file system.
--
It's also interesting to note that file acl's aren't stored in the file system, they're stored in the registry. (Boot two copies of NT on the same box, you can have two sets of permissions on the same file system object!)
I don't think this is true, it just seems this way with the old style ACL dialog. If you use the newer Security Config Manager setup you can see ACEs that don't belong to your current setup, except they just look like long strings of numbers.
--
Just be glad it's not WPG format clipart -- that's even worse.
--
The fact that most office computer users were perfectly happy with Wordperfect 5.1 or Displaywrite 4.xx or whatever was beside the point
I respectfully disagree. WordPerfect users may have loved WordPerfect, but the inpenterable nature of the interface drove labor and training costs up for busineses. "Word Processing" used to actually be a marketable skill, and not just because of typing skills.
GUI rightfully won because it was cheaper and easier for casual users. (How many current middle managers have their secretaries type memos, or even have a secretary? All of them used to in the 1980s.) Microsoft won GUI because they had a mature product ported from MacOS.
(Then again, it might just be my personal jihad against WordPerfect. IMHO, the 1980s would have been better off if we would have stuck with WordStar, because at least the key commands were on the screen, not the keyboard. Plus they made sense too, unlike like that Shift+F7 WP crap.
And PS, MS Word 4 for the Mac was greatest word processor ever. Rant over. )
--
Both Sun and IBM make most of their money in areas of computing that Linux can't touch. They're both far more worried about DEC/Compaq and HP than they are about Linux.
--
You make a good point. Linux does have better USB than any current 'server class' OS (with the possible exception of OS/2).
Which brings up the greater issue of comparisions between Linux (or Solaris or Irix or OS/400) with Windows 9x. What a waste of time. If you want to run a backass no-security OS that has been kludged to hell for Win3.1/DOS compability and game performance, that's your problem.
I respectfully ask all of Slashdot to limit all Linux versus Windows flamewars to NT4/2000. Forget about Windows 98 - ya'all should be beyond that, except for the occasional video game.
--
To put your post in other words, if you had access to the NT kernel source code and build scripts, what are the odds you'd get a stable system?
On the other hand, I have hardware that's marvelously stable under Linux and NT, but will panic under Solaris 7. Does that mean that Solaris is a crappy unstable OS? No -- it comes down to hardware support, and Linux happens to have better lowend hardware support this side of Windows 98. My home NT machine will stay up for months, but at work the Celerons go blue when you click on the Start menu.
BTW, a blue screen = kernel panic, except that Linux runs less things in kernel mode, like video drivers for example.
(As a footnote, I think the stability of Linux is slightly exaggerated because the Linux OS vendors give you more integration services than Microsoft does. Simply, you get lots of shit in that RedHat box. If you were to take a base Linux OS install, and manually RPM hundreds of binary packages from vendors all around the world, you'd probably have the same DLL Hell that Windows can be. Not that that excuses kernel panics in NTFS.SYS.)
--
OK, substitute "Slashdot community" with "UNIX Community". If Slashdot gets credit for anything, it's spreading the old, dying UNIX ideology (both it's good points and it's bad) to a new generation. I fail to see how many of the attitudes here are different in anything except maturity level.
I'll accept that Microsoft FUD is different. I've seen paid employees of the Microsoft Corporation announce at MS-friendly conferences and whisper in corridors a variety of lies, half-truths, and mythical ship dates. Those bastards are downright mean in a way that no other corporation I know of is.
However, in the real world, I know of very few independent people wasting their own time with Microsoft advocacy. On the other hand, there's a certain Linux AgitProp with a ferocity not seen on the net since "Team OS2" (and we know what a successful endevor that was). The jihad rhetoric is only making your enemies hate you more.
It's been said here by the more insightful many times -- make a product that solves the most problems at the lowest price point, and you'll have the market. That's what Microsoft did, and Linux is on the way there, or is already there in many markets. If you think you're "supporting" Linux by playing the FUD/Advocacy game on the Internet, think again, and then start supporting the product in ways that really count.
--
The worst is how it insists on reinstalling *fonts* that you have uninstalled. I don't know how or why the "MS Comic Book" font is a system file, but there it keeps reappearing.
Plus no configuration interface that I can see, not even in the registry. Another software victory for MS.
--
"Root exploits"? You must be talking about NT 3.1, which stopped shipping in 1994 or so. Fixes for plain 'ol DOS/Win3.1 continued for a bit into 95-96 with networking fixes and a version of IE4.
r -five-years crowd.
And yes, AFAIK "supported" at Microsoft means that if you call on the phone someone will have some idea what you are talking about. It doesn't necessary mean that there will be many or any bug fixes.
However, I'm guessing that Windows 2000 will be a special case for MS support, because ActiveDirectory is going to scare people away from upgrading for a long time. Look at Novell -- they came out with a new version of NetWare 3 just this year for the we're-still-scared-of-NDS crowd-even-after-you've-browbeat-us-to-upgrade-fo
--
Just as a followup, most areas of the US are similar. When Cell phone service was introduced in the early 80s, markets were divided up into two bands at 900Mhz. Additional competitors are on the PCS bands (isn't there more than just one in the Bay Area?)
In most cases, the local phone company has the first band, but California is a little different because PacBell spun off their wireless business and later decided to get back in with PCS.
--
Actually, the answer to your question is yes, there was a big hoopla.
The Compact Cassette medium was designed in the 60s for low quality voice recording, but by ~1970 people were introducing high quality stereo decks with Dolby B and so on.
The Audio industry responded by putting alot of weight behind the defective playback-only 8 Track format, refusing to release prerecorded Cassettes, and getting Detroit to dump Compact Cassette decks for 8 Track. You could eventually get 8 Track recorders, but I understand that they were fairly expensive, and 99% of the decks made were playback only.
It wasn't until the 80s, after all those lofi 8 Track cassettes had broken, did Compact Cassette have a big comeback. Record companies loved it then because it was cheaper for them to produce than LP.
--
Sure DVD-Audio might have it's advantages over CD-Audio, but unlike DVD/LaserDisc video, I just don't see the mass market appeal.
Certainly there might be some in the high end 'audiophile' market that are clamoring for DVD-Audio (and are willing to pay for it, and unlikely to 'rip' copies), but by-in-large what I hear from people is that even CD Quality is 'too good' and they'd rather have a more storage/bandwidth efficient format like MP3.
Combine this with the fact that the vast majority of DVD players are actually computer drives, and that very few computers have sound cards/speakers worthy of even good CD-Audio reproduction, and I think I'm getting the picture.
Sure DVD-Video is a way to soak the audiophiles for extra cash (just like those 'Gold Edition' CDs). But it's primary intention in the long term is to get consumers to dump Compact Disc and adopt an audio format that supports encryption and discourges copying or piracy.
Just like those Divx discs that look like they came from the same crappy master as the VHS version, we need to start calling a spade a spade here.
--