But there is a big difference. With OSX you know exactly what information you are sending them, and have the option of lying or typing N/A. With Windows XP, you have no options, without reading the paper you also dont know what is being sent. To download various "free" softwarez from the web, you often have to give contact information to the website. Which is being more big brotherly?
Finally, Microsoft has chosen a method of enforcing its policy that smacks of an invasion of privacy. The company says its database of PC configurations won't contain any personal information, and will be encrypted so that nobody can misuse it.
Gee, if this DB doesn't contain any personal info, why bother encrypting it? No-one should be able to mis-use it, right?
Another problem that I have with Wells Fargo is that it does not like Netscape 4.72 w/ either standard crypto or 128 bit crypto running under Linux. It says that it will only accept IE or Netscape running under Windows or MacOS. WTF?
I took CS162 (operating systems) at UC Berkeley. I was lucky enough to take it in the 1 magic semester that Brian Harvey (aka bh) taught it. Normally, 162 is taught with Nachos (the toy OS). But in this one semester, bh decided to go with FreeBSD.
We basically did the standard Nachos projects in the FreeBSD kernel. We used the 4.4 BSD OS book by McKusick as a reference. My memory fades, but we had about 4-5 projects in the semester. One was to implement a lottery scheduler in the kernel. Another had something to do with VM. There was a filesystems project, and I can't remember the rest (this was a few years ago).
Well anyway, I remember that while we all spent a lot more time on the projects than people who took it in the Nachos semesters, most of us felt like we were real kernel hackers because we went through a real kernel's source code and changed it and were running a real kernel that we changed. It was a great feeling (yes, it grew chest hairs for me).
But there were problems with using FreeBSD instead of NachOS which is why 162 was never taught with FreeBSD again. Firstly, Nachos runs under existing OS's, kinda like a user program. With FreeBSD (remember, this was before VMWare) each project group had to have a machine all to themselves. We had to compile a kernel on our machine and reboot the machine and on occasion, go through the kernel debugger to find out what broke. This led to several problems. We didn't have enough machines to support a class of around 100 students. Also, the sysadmins were squeamish about letting students hack up their own kernels (and have root) on machines connected to the campus network. So we only had 10-15 machines isolated from the network. Most of us used our own machines at home, which helped to ease the load on the school machines. Another problem was that this was a lot more work than a typical CS162 class. Also, while a lot of different people took the class, only 2 kinds of people left the class - the ones who knew what was going on and were really happy with the experience, and the ones who didn't know much unix and were even more confused by the projects than they were going into the class.
The second problem wasn't a fault of the course instructors though. They did their best (which was pretty damn good IMHO) and they did away with the grading curve which then allowed students to help each other.
So if you do plan on using FreeBSD or Linux for your OS class, look into the issue of computing resources, network access, VMWare, course load, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? KDE isn't a filesystem.
Imagine this over Iraq
All your base are belong to us!
Anonymous coward? Is that you who donated the money?
All your flash are belong to us!
But can the pigeons send the pictures back over IP?
rfc1149 info
But there is a big difference. With OSX you know exactly what information you are sending them, and have the option of lying or typing N/A. With Windows XP, you have no options, without reading the paper you also dont know what is being sent. To download various "free" softwarez from the web, you often have to give contact information to the website. Which is being more big brotherly?
Gee, if this DB doesn't contain any personal info, why bother encrypting it? No-one should be able to mis-use it, right?
We are the borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Another problem that I have with Wells Fargo is that it does not like Netscape 4.72 w/ either standard crypto or 128 bit crypto running under Linux. It says that it will only accept IE or Netscape running under Windows or MacOS. WTF?
I took CS162 (operating systems) at UC Berkeley. I was lucky enough to take it in the 1 magic semester that Brian Harvey (aka bh) taught it. Normally, 162 is taught with Nachos (the toy OS). But in this one semester, bh decided to go with FreeBSD.
We basically did the standard Nachos projects in the FreeBSD kernel. We used the 4.4 BSD OS book by McKusick as a reference. My memory fades, but we had about 4-5 projects in the semester. One was to implement a lottery scheduler in the kernel. Another had something to do with VM. There was a filesystems project, and I can't remember the rest (this was a few years ago).
Well anyway, I remember that while we all spent a lot more time on the projects than people who took it in the Nachos semesters, most of us felt like we were real kernel hackers because we went through a real kernel's source code and changed it and were running a real kernel that we changed. It was a great feeling (yes, it grew chest hairs for me).
But there were problems with using FreeBSD instead of NachOS which is why 162 was never taught with FreeBSD again. Firstly, Nachos runs under existing OS's, kinda like a user program. With FreeBSD (remember, this was before VMWare) each project group had to have a machine all to themselves. We had to compile a kernel on our machine and reboot the machine and on occasion, go through the kernel debugger to find out what broke. This led to several problems. We didn't have enough machines to support a class of around 100 students. Also, the sysadmins were squeamish about letting students hack up their own kernels (and have root) on machines connected to the campus network. So we only had 10-15 machines isolated from the network. Most of us used our own machines at home, which helped to ease the load on the school machines.
Another problem was that this was a lot more work than a typical CS162 class. Also, while a lot of different people took the class, only 2 kinds of people left the class - the ones who knew what was going on and were really happy with the experience, and the ones who didn't know much unix and were even more confused by the projects than they were going into the class.
The second problem wasn't a fault of the course instructors though. They did their best (which was pretty damn good IMHO) and they did away with the grading curve which then allowed students to help each other.
So if you do plan on using FreeBSD or Linux for your OS class, look into the issue of computing resources, network access, VMWare, course load, etc.
Won't somebody *please* think of Natalie Portman?