A month or two ago I could no longer ignore an itch that wanted to be scratched. I've had a few gizmos whose capabilities were only partially supported by the Linux kernel. After two years of waiting for the device driver to be updated, I searched the web until I found the specs that I needed, then just grabbed the kernel tarball, and started poking around.
Now, keep in mind that until then I've never looked at the Linux kernel source in much detail. I have manually compiled it a couple of times, but that was many years ago, in 2.0 days.
Still, after only an afternoon of poking around, I was able to easily figure out what I needed to hack, and how. I came away with a very favorite impression of the kernel's innards. I did not fully understand everything I've seen, but the code was clearly laid out, and there was no doubt that if I really wanted to invest some additional time, I wouldn't have any problems figuring it out.
It's not every day that you can download almost twenty megabytes of compressed source code that you've never seen before, and only a few hours later you are able to figure out how to go about doing what you want to do.
Be fierce with your money, keep in mind that if you are going through an agency plan on them getting 30% of your pay for every hour of work you do (You make $70, they make $30 and bill the client $100 per hour).
I go through an agency. Their cut comes out to about 10%. Yes, I know for sure.
Note that this is for a corp-to-corp arrangement (I pay my own payroll taxes, as a corporation). Even if you are a W-2 consultant, that's still too much. Payroll taxes amount to about 7%. Even after factoring in other miscellaneous expenses, for a W-2 gig the agency's cut shouldn't be more than 20%.
I just did it. Had a lawyer file the incorporation papers, then started sending out resumes, as a consultant.
Note, however, that my situation is slightly different. I do not telecommute, I still report to "customer site".
This was almost six years ago. I consider that to be the best decision I have made in my life. Consulting dollars are much better, there's less stress... Well, not always, occasionally you do wind up working for some asswipe. But the thing is, as a consultant it's much easier to wave good-byte, and one benefit of being a contract consultant is that you can change jobs fairly frequently, and nobody is going to look at you strangely for hopping from one place to another, after a month or two at each place.
But that's an exception to the rule, and is usually the case only in the beginning. After a while, you do figure out that you have far more leverage than you did before. Just last month, I told some pinprick from Legal and Compliance at my current "client" that he can take what he wanted me to sign, and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. This is something that they wanted both employees and consultants to sign. The employees had no choice in the matter, in the end. But, since none of that was in my contract, I had no legal obligation to masturbate him.
Also, it didn't help his case that he initially claimed that it was a legal requirement, but I actually looked up the law on the web, and proved that it wasn't, but that's beside the point...
Adding hardware in Linux is not the simple (plug the hardware and the disk in) that it is with Win2K
It wasn't too long ago when I swapped the motherboard on my workstation, which dual-boots 'doze and Linux.
Windows:
Windows begins booting.
"Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Bluescreen. Reboot. Safe mode. Go into device manager, and remove all the device drivers for the former chipset that are crashing because their hardware is missing in action. It doesn't help things that they are getting their shit kicked out of them by all the new device drivers that attempt to take over the same functionality. Reboot. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Ok. Done. Reboot. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Bluescreen. Reboot. Safe mode. Back into the device manager. Remove three copies of the driver for the joystick port. Reboot. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Ok. Reboot. Three reboots later, it keeps bluescreening no matter what. Wipe and reformat the Windows partition. Reinstall Windows from scratch.
Linux:
Press ENTER at the LILO prompt. The kernel boots, inventories the hardware, and initializes the correct device drivers. I resume working.
The following operational requirements apply both to the Requester
and to the WorldCom Internet Network with which it desires to enter
into a settlement-free interconnection arrangement:
...
2.7 Each Internet Network must be responsive to unsolicited email and network abuse complaints, as well as routing and security issues, providing a knowledgeable technician within a two-hour period after notice.
If UUNET really intends to implement this policy, they need to immediately depeer themselves from the rest of the world. UUNET is currently at the top of Spamcop statistics. Anyone who had to deal with UUNET-originated spam knows very well that abuse@uu.net is just a big gaping sinkhole. uu.net doesn't just routinely ignore standard spam complaints. They'll ignore pretty much any complaint unless you show them a penis that's bigger than theirs. They only respond when things escalate to the point where their entire netblocks are just about to be plonked into global spam filters.
Well, you do have to have the older version of the package lying around, but that's pretty much what this is.
Well, technically RPM will automatically deinstall any obsoleted packages on an upgrade, and so you'll also need to grab those as well, but this doesn't happen to often. Besides, you can always do:
rpm -q -a | sort >before
rpm -UvhF *.rpm
rpm -q -a | sort >after
It shouldn't be too hard to put together a wrapper for RPM that does that, and then reinstall all the older packages if you want to back out.
The obvious solution to your problem is to sign up with a broadband provider that explicitly allows their consumers to operate servers. Yes. There are broadband providers who do that, and whose salespeople and tech support people do not get a brain hemorrage when they hear that you run Linux.
The only ones who get any money in a class action suit are the lawyers. Besides, I do not see a cause for class action here.
You need to figure out where MS got your company's name from. If you've ever registered any piece of billware, that's one thing. If you've never registered any piece of billware, have your lawyer draft a nice letter saying that your company uses exclusively open-source software, and that you do not have any licensing obligations to billsoft.
Junkbuster's proxy is having lots of fun with this one -- because it blocks BOTH cookies and referer: headers. Going to www.linkexchange.com results in a barf "document contains no data". Trying to load up www.msnbc.com results in an endless redirect loop between www.msnbc.com, and msid.msn.com, as they vainly try to tag me, somehow.
Nope -- that was my first reaction as well. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn't a spaceball reference (at least i hope not, that movie deserves more respect).
Spaceballs was the last funny Mel Brooks movie. I don't think he made anything funny since then. It's one of those movies that gets funnier every time you watch it.
So let's play a game: choose a patent you don't like, any patent....
Ok, the Amazon 1-Click. What is the "analog-world" equivalent of one click? Is there is one...
Yes -- the vending maching that accepts credit cards. Each week I walk up to a railroad ticket machine and select my destination (load www.amazon.com into the browser and select the product I wish to buy), swipe my credit card once (click), I get my ticket, and I get automatically billed at the end of the month.
How about Priceline? Is there an "analog-world" equivalent? Not really...
Yes -- the flea market. Or yard sale. Tell the guy or lady that you'll give 'em a couple of bucks for this trinket. If they accept, it's yours.
From my perspective, upgrading to 7.0 is definitely worth it. The 7.0 distro has much more software than 6.2, and includes many packages that I have been manually installing since the 6.0 days. 7.0 will save me a lot of time: I no longer have to constantly maintain and upgrade the packages that ship with the base 7.0 distro. Folks who have been installing certain popular add-on software will be pleasantly surprised and relieved that they will no longer have to do that.
As far as the RPM 4.0 issue goes, changes in 4.0 are mostly on the database back-end. The database back-end is more reliable, and 4.0 packages are also a bit smaller due to some internal reorganization.
I really like the new default desktop in 7.0. 7.0 looks and feels much, much better than 6.2.
As far as upgrading goes, just make sure to run Xconfigurator after the upgrade, to make sure that you get the correct X server. Run sndconfig too, if you have a sound card. Also, go through/tmp/upgrade.log to see what configuration files have been reset, so that you can add back any site-specific configurations. This is really no different than previous RH upgrades, actually. Same thing.
I was appalled to find that the RedHat 6.1 installer wasn't able to do a non-destructive repartition, nor did it play well with Windows after I did so by hand.
I wasn't aware that the Windows installer -- on the other hand -- is able to do a non-destructive repartition of any existing Linux installs, and that the newly-installed Windoze 95/98/SE/NT/Whistler/Whatever would play nicely if you were to do that by hand.
The thing is that RPM packages **cannot** have interactive install/uninstall scripts. Well, sure, you can create one of these things, however all you could do with them is use them yourself.
All RPM packages shipped by redhat or any distributor (AFAIK) are **designed** to be noninteractive, so that the vendor's installer can load them up as part of a nice graphical installation script.
And I think that's right. I think that if there is any complicated configuration procedure, it should be made part of the application's internal configuration screen. Package installation and uninstallation has to be as simple as possible, no more complicated then copying a bunch of files, and maybe running a simple script, or two. That's it.
I don't want to turn Linux in 'doze, where you have to screw around with a bunch of convoluted questions during installation, then, after it's installed and you realize that you've fscked up, you have to go back and reinstall the bloody thing. No thanks.
From reading the transcripts of the DeCSS and Napster cases, I really think the real problem is the judges. I'm not sure how a "tech court" is supposed to help when you have a dingbat like Marilyn Pattel before the bench.
I have no doubt that if the DeCSS or the Napster case had a different judge behind the bench, the outcome would've been different. It's a sad state of the 'merkin legal system where the outcome often has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the cases, but it more has to do with which judge sits behind the bench.
Speaking from experience, it's a major pain in the ass to cancel a credit/debit card and get a new
one, not to mention trying to figure out how to live without one for a week.
Most banks who issue gold or platinum CCs will overnight you a replacement card for no extra charge. I've lost my credit card twice, in the last ten years. Each time the bank fedexed me a replacement by next morning.
From the AP article, it sounds more like sourceforge's compile farm, where you basically get an account where you'll download, compile, and test stuff:
"The founding companies said the lab will be
run by a nonprofit organization that will
select the software projects that gain
access to the lab in an "open, neutral
process."
That's all they'll do -- they're simply going to screen the applicants, so that they don't waste their resources on every joe-shmoe with a helloworld.c. They're not going to do any kind of testing or benchmarking, ala mindcraft. They'll just screen applicants, and it'll be up to the applicants to get the software loaded and tested.
What skip button? The remote control does have fast forward and reverse controls, of course, but I don't see any 30 second skip button (time to read the manual, I suppose).
Other GPLed utilities such as AIDE do just as good of a job as Tripwire, and we're losing mindshare. This is just a pathetic attempt to stay relevant while our a$$ is getting kicked. Since nobody in their right mind would pay us when they can accomplish the same thing with GPL software, we have no other choice.
Businesses with good products and services and a plan to deliver them to people who want them for reasonable prices deserve to survive. Other businesses don't. That's just the way it is.
Turbolinux will survive. They have a lot going for them. They're one of a scant few distros that already have an IA-64 build in public beta. Not everyone can say that. The build still has problems - that's to be expected - but it'll get better. Intel's backing them, and I don't believe for a second that Turbolinux will go belly up. Not a chance. They still have plenty of cash, and, if necessary, Intel needs them and the rest of the Trillian team, since they have, so far, the most viable operating system that Chipzilla needs to sell its hardware.
Intel will make sure that Turbolinux is not going to go anywhere.
There's a.spec file buried in the openssh tarball, which you can use to build your RPMs. It's not a very "high-quality".spec file, but should be good enough to put together a basic package with all the defaults.
Last year I mailed the maintainer a far more robust spec file, which I use, but, as typical with most OSS developers, the mail simply vanished into a black hole. Screw 'em.
Slashdot Mirror
A month or two ago I could no longer ignore an itch that wanted to be scratched. I've had a few gizmos whose capabilities were only partially supported by the Linux kernel. After two years of waiting for the device driver to be updated, I searched the web until I found the specs that I needed, then just grabbed the kernel tarball, and started poking around.
Now, keep in mind that until then I've never looked at the Linux kernel source in much detail. I have manually compiled it a couple of times, but that was many years ago, in 2.0 days.
Still, after only an afternoon of poking around, I was able to easily figure out what I needed to hack, and how. I came away with a very favorite impression of the kernel's innards. I did not fully understand everything I've seen, but the code was clearly laid out, and there was no doubt that if I really wanted to invest some additional time, I wouldn't have any problems figuring it out.
It's not every day that you can download almost twenty megabytes of compressed source code that you've never seen before, and only a few hours later you are able to figure out how to go about doing what you want to do.
---
I go through an agency. Their cut comes out to about 10%. Yes, I know for sure. Note that this is for a corp-to-corp arrangement (I pay my own payroll taxes, as a corporation). Even if you are a W-2 consultant, that's still too much. Payroll taxes amount to about 7%. Even after factoring in other miscellaneous expenses, for a W-2 gig the agency's cut shouldn't be more than 20%.
---
I just did it. Had a lawyer file the incorporation papers, then started sending out resumes, as a consultant. Note, however, that my situation is slightly different. I do not telecommute, I still report to "customer site".
This was almost six years ago. I consider that to be the best decision I have made in my life. Consulting dollars are much better, there's less stress... Well, not always, occasionally you do wind up working for some asswipe. But the thing is, as a consultant it's much easier to wave good-byte, and one benefit of being a contract consultant is that you can change jobs fairly frequently, and nobody is going to look at you strangely for hopping from one place to another, after a month or two at each place.
But that's an exception to the rule, and is usually the case only in the beginning. After a while, you do figure out that you have far more leverage than you did before. Just last month, I told some pinprick from Legal and Compliance at my current "client" that he can take what he wanted me to sign, and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. This is something that they wanted both employees and consultants to sign. The employees had no choice in the matter, in the end. But, since none of that was in my contract, I had no legal obligation to masturbate him.
Also, it didn't help his case that he initially claimed that it was a legal requirement, but I actually looked up the law on the web, and proved that it wasn't, but that's beside the point...
---
It wasn't too long ago when I swapped the motherboard on my workstation, which dual-boots 'doze and Linux.
Windows:
Windows begins booting. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Bluescreen. Reboot. Safe mode. Go into device manager, and remove all the device drivers for the former chipset that are crashing because their hardware is missing in action. It doesn't help things that they are getting their shit kicked out of them by all the new device drivers that attempt to take over the same functionality. Reboot. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Ok. Done. Reboot. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Bluescreen. Reboot. Safe mode. Back into the device manager. Remove three copies of the driver for the joystick port. Reboot. "Windows has detected new hardware, and is installing software for it". Ok. Reboot. Three reboots later, it keeps bluescreening no matter what. Wipe and reformat the Windows partition. Reinstall Windows from scratch.
Linux:
Press ENTER at the LILO prompt. The kernel boots, inventories the hardware, and initializes the correct device drivers. I resume working.
---
If UUNET really intends to implement this policy, they need to immediately depeer themselves from the rest of the world. UUNET is currently at the top of Spamcop statistics. Anyone who had to deal with UUNET-originated spam knows very well that abuse@uu.net is just a big gaping sinkhole. uu.net doesn't just routinely ignore standard spam complaints. They'll ignore pretty much any complaint unless you show them a penis that's bigger than theirs. They only respond when things escalate to the point where their entire netblocks are just about to be plonked into global spam filters.
---
Well, technically RPM will automatically deinstall any obsoleted packages on an upgrade, and so you'll also need to grab those as well, but this doesn't happen to often. Besides, you can always do:
rpm -q -a | sort >before
rpm -UvhF *.rpm
rpm -q -a | sort >after
It shouldn't be too hard to put together a wrapper for RPM that does that, and then reinstall all the older packages if you want to back out.
---
---
You need to figure out where MS got your company's name from. If you've ever registered any piece of billware, that's one thing. If you've never registered any piece of billware, have your lawyer draft a nice letter saying that your company uses exclusively open-source software, and that you do not have any licensing obligations to billsoft.
---
This is funny to watch.
---
---
Spaceballs was the last funny Mel Brooks movie. I don't think he made anything funny since then. It's one of those movies that gets funnier every time you watch it.
---
Ok, the Amazon 1-Click. What is the "analog-world" equivalent of one click? Is there is one...
Yes -- the vending maching that accepts credit cards. Each week I walk up to a railroad ticket machine and select my destination (load www.amazon.com into the browser and select the product I wish to buy), swipe my credit card once (click), I get my ticket, and I get automatically billed at the end of the month.
How about Priceline? Is there an "analog-world" equivalent? Not really...
Yes -- the flea market. Or yard sale. Tell the guy or lady that you'll give 'em a couple of bucks for this trinket. If they accept, it's yours.
---
Disclaimer: I've been beta-testing 7.0
From my perspective, upgrading to 7.0 is definitely worth it. The 7.0 distro has much more software than 6.2, and includes many packages that I have been manually installing since the 6.0 days. 7.0 will save me a lot of time: I no longer have to constantly maintain and upgrade the packages that ship with the base 7.0 distro. Folks who have been installing certain popular add-on software will be pleasantly surprised and relieved that they will no longer have to do that.
As far as the RPM 4.0 issue goes, changes in 4.0 are mostly on the database back-end. The database back-end is more reliable, and 4.0 packages are also a bit smaller due to some internal reorganization.
I really like the new default desktop in 7.0. 7.0 looks and feels much, much better than 6.2.
As far as upgrading goes, just make sure to run Xconfigurator after the upgrade, to make sure that you get the correct X server. Run sndconfig too, if you have a sound card. Also, go through /tmp/upgrade.log to see what configuration files have been reset, so that you can add back any site-specific configurations. This is really no different than previous RH upgrades, actually. Same thing.
---
---
I wasn't aware that the Windows installer -- on the other hand -- is able to do a non-destructive repartition of any existing Linux installs, and that the newly-installed Windoze 95/98/SE/NT/Whistler/Whatever would play nicely if you were to do that by hand.
---
Oh, I read "there" as "here"...
---
All RPM packages shipped by redhat or any distributor (AFAIK) are **designed** to be noninteractive, so that the vendor's installer can load them up as part of a nice graphical installation script.
And I think that's right. I think that if there is any complicated configuration procedure, it should be made part of the application's internal configuration screen. Package installation and uninstallation has to be as simple as possible, no more complicated then copying a bunch of files, and maybe running a simple script, or two. That's it.
I don't want to turn Linux in 'doze, where you have to screw around with a bunch of convoluted questions during installation, then, after it's installed and you realize that you've fscked up, you have to go back and reinstall the bloody thing. No thanks.
---
From reading the transcripts of the DeCSS and Napster cases, I really think the real problem is the judges. I'm not sure how a "tech court" is supposed to help when you have a dingbat like Marilyn Pattel before the bench.
I have no doubt that if the DeCSS or the Napster case had a different judge behind the bench, the outcome would've been different. It's a sad state of the 'merkin legal system where the outcome often has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the cases, but it more has to do with which judge sits behind the bench.
---
Most banks who issue gold or platinum CCs will overnight you a replacement card for no extra charge. I've lost my credit card twice, in the last ten years. Each time the bank fedexed me a replacement by next morning.
---
"The founding companies said the lab will be run by a nonprofit organization that will select the software projects that gain access to the lab in an "open, neutral process."
That's all they'll do -- they're simply going to screen the applicants, so that they don't waste their resources on every joe-shmoe with a helloworld.c. They're not going to do any kind of testing or benchmarking, ala mindcraft. They'll just screen applicants, and it'll be up to the applicants to get the software loaded and tested.
What skip button? The remote control does have fast forward and reverse controls, of course, but I don't see any 30 second skip button (time to read the manual, I suppose).
Here's a better translation:
Other GPLed utilities such as AIDE do just as good of a job as Tripwire, and we're losing mindshare. This is just a pathetic attempt to stay relevant while our a$$ is getting kicked. Since nobody in their right mind would pay us when they can accomplish the same thing with GPL software, we have no other choice.
Based on that NYT article, it seems to me that a single conventional warhead will put an end to this so-called data haven.
That doesn't seem to be secure to me.
Turbolinux will survive. They have a lot going for them. They're one of a scant few distros that already have an IA-64 build in public beta. Not everyone can say that. The build still has problems - that's to be expected - but it'll get better. Intel's backing them, and I don't believe for a second that Turbolinux will go belly up. Not a chance. They still have plenty of cash, and, if necessary, Intel needs them and the rest of the Trillian team, since they have, so far, the most viable operating system that Chipzilla needs to sell its hardware.
Intel will make sure that Turbolinux is not going to go anywhere.
There's a .spec file buried in the openssh tarball, which you can use to build your RPMs. It's not a very "high-quality" .spec file, but should be good enough to put together a basic package with all the defaults.
Last year I mailed the maintainer a far more robust spec file, which I use, but, as typical with most OSS developers, the mail simply vanished into a black hole. Screw 'em.