The problem here is that all distros are combining server and workstation packages onto one CD. This is fine for a user like me that knows what to select. (thank god there are distros like debian and slackware.)
There should be just a limited desktop CD for the average windows monkey without all the packages they don't need. (just your x windows programs, no command line stuff)
Plus there should be very very few choices in the install. I learned that the more you give windows monkeys choices the more they get lost.
This has happenned here during my porvinces election. The liberal party won a convincing majority vote but not enough seats (electoral votes). Instead a fascist/seperation party won. yeah no joke!
You really have to wonder if this is a really democracy after seeing this.
I was just going through the text installation mode and by default it destroyed my freeBSD & NTFS partition even though I selected expert.
My harddrive consisted of a freeBSD slice first and my NTFS partition second. I just wanted to go back to linux but GOD not in this way!
The installation just went ahead and did it, I swear I was not careless!
I lost a lot of crap, most of which I can replace but the rest of family's user files are all gone. (no backups SHAME ON THEM!)
I prefer text installations since it's nearly 50% faster to install but atleast mandrake could have added more "hands on" utilities like fdisk.
All this could have been avoided if I just selected expert in gui mode but I have my suspicions that it would have destroyed my hard drive anyways.
But why don't they allow me to use fdisk during the text install?
It seams that they keep making things easier and easier to use but they are pissing off those that like to have full control of what they are installing.
You're right CS degrees mean nothing. I don't even have one.
I wasted a lot of my time studying and getting fairly good in C++ but I never got interviews. (no joke)
I still feel it's important to be strong in the basics. How can anyone program if they don't understand what the hell they are doing?
I was getting really pissed off to see incompetent programmers getting jobs and here I was trying to pay the rent.
Finally, I decided to quit. I said to myself If I can't have a programming job atleast I'm going to use my skills for personal enjoyment. I then just focused my time learning skills in specific areas that I actually enjoyed doing, such as Perl. This was just because I wanted to design a personal website purely in mod perl, (just like slashdot)so I can just update it with simple forms. My laziness inspired me.
I designed a few projects on my own and made a crazy decision and presented this to employers. Something strange then happened and the phone actually ranged! My current employer tested me in Perl and was impressed.
The world is a strange place. The industry just wants specific skills. I had to learn how to learn this the hard way.
I've used my Pentium 100 mhz for 5 years before I finally upgraded to a pentium 2 466 mhz celeron.
The old PC was so useful under unix that I kept it as my only PC for quite all that time. When I bought it, it was top of the line at the time. I remember paying over 3000$ for it.
It was a capable machine and it can do everything I needed, play mp3s, compile, write perl and php scripts, browse the internet etc...
The strange thing is that with the latest windows and all the latest software I don't feel my new pc is any faster than my old box. Sure I can play nice games but I don't see the benefit.
Why does all windows software become more and more slower and bloated instead of being more efficient?
The only way I can really see a performance increase is doing anything under unix or when I'm compiling software under both windows and unix.
So now I'm sticking to my original platform (freeBSD) I wonder how many more years I can get use out of it before I finally need to upgrade!
Old PC's are still usefull. My old PC is still useful as a personal all-purpose server and I always look for old hardware people just throw away. (I just think their market idiots)
I have been testing windows 2000 and the first thing is how much slower it is on older hardware. You definitely need a lot of memory and more than one processer for this platform!
The stability has much improved! It's slow as hell but I don't see the blue screens that often. It still tends to run out of virtual memory which was always the trait of NT 4.
The network communication is NOT faster.
If linux or any unix that has good scalability I'm sure it will beat windows2000 on high end servers.
I can't wait for the release of FreeBSD 5.0 and Linux kernel 2.4. They are supposed to have better SMP support. Unix is going to level windows again. Sorry.
I'm one of those that believe MS should open the API source. Even though they own it being the industry OS standard their API should be opened.
They don't have to make it free just not out of reach by the common dude. I don't think open source should absolutely have to mean free.
This will prevent unfair breaking of competitor's software. Also if new features are introduced everyone can see it right away rather than wait till M$ release it (especially after they release their new product).
This will introduce fair competition and let the best software company win.
I don't care if people disagree with me but after years of watching the way M$ works. Opening their source would have been better than splitting them up.
Looks like 1999 was a very bad year for linux and NT in general. Why the sudden kie compare to other years? I don't believe the numbers are accurate. Since when does netware and macos get so few security holes? I think the numbers are much higher for these lame systems.
I purchased this book roughly 3 weeks ago. I'm still in the middle of reading this book. If my free time permits I'll finish it soon. I agree with hemos that this book has a very perlish feel to it (feels just like an orielly book). Full of info and no hype. However, I found the first introduction chapter on OOP way too vague. Since I needed to refresh my OOP skills I referred to my other more indepth texts. Plus the OOP syntax in perl just is not that intuitive. I'm coming from a C++ background so I didn't find OO perl nice. . I had to go through some OO perl tutorials. Now, that I have a general understanding of OO perl I'm now beginning to see how good this book really is. This is definitly not for a novice at Object Oriented programming. This is just my opinion. I came to this conclusion since I really have forgotten quite a bit of OOP concepts. I used to program a lot in C++ but since I began to code in Perl, It's been mostly C style. So the result is pretty sloppy dirty and long code. Hopefully now I can go back to writing cleaner code.:-)
Sure, having all the bells and whistles are nice but the bloat is very unwelcoming from RPM systems. The only thing I like about Mandrake is that it had "supermounts" and lots of KDE themes. I didn't find it faster despite being pentium optimized. I have it filling 90% of my 1 1/2 gig partition. It just installs just way too much crap even in expert mode! Now all I do is web development, (perl,c,c++ CGI programming. So all I need is X, gimp, netscape, gcc, perl and apache. I don't need all that crap. I tried uninstalling packages but I just can't figure out what's sucking my drivespace. There's packages that I don't even know what it's used for! sigh. You'll find that most will recommend debian or slackware for this. The RPM distro's base install is enormous compared to them. There are others but they don't have as large a user base. Besides these are REAL distros, most are just based on other distros like redhat anyway. If you like installing stuff from source just pick one favorite distro, install the base and just compile stuff you need from source as you need it. It doesn't really matter with distro if you work this way. Personally I like slackware but I honestly did not find it that stable. (please no flames). I tried Debian out and was absolutely impressed at the stability after a good install. I ran into a lot of trouble with debian installs but once it was in, it remained clean. I only have a problem with the turtle speed of the debian releases. Even with all these issues who cares when your installing from source right? go with redhat base since your very familiar with it. why change? your a SOURCE MAN! If I want an updated kernel I D/L it. If I want kde to run faster I D/L the source. If I want to install something I D/L it and compile it. Upgrading is just gets a little trickier but who cares when something works. Why fix it? If the extra features of a newer version are worth it then I upgrade it.
You are not alone. The market in montreal is extremely saturated. Everyone wants experience. Believe me, it doesn't even matter if you are good or not. All they want is a few grey hairs on your chest.
The funny thing is that most companies have unrealistic expectations. Take my excompany CAE. I saw some programming jobs require some knowledge of their MAXVUE system. MAXVUE is only known from within the walls of the company. Why bother posting that job outside the company at all. This isn't the only example.
Like two years experience using Java 2.0. Well Java 2.0 didn't wasn't even around for 2 freaken years! I hear complaints from companies stating they can't even find qualified people. GRRR! what lies!
I met large numbers of intelligent engineers that have graduated from the Mcgill (canada's best) even with master degrees working as technical writers. THEY CAN'T EVEN FIND A JOB!
To add to my discouragement:
Only a handful of my graduating class are actually programmers. Most are in some sore of technical support or network administrators.
BTW, I graduated in january of 98 and I finally found a programming job last week. This whole time I've been doing clerical work.
My advice to you is to get out. Get out of Quebec! Cause even if you do find a job, you'll almost never make a good salary.
I just began playing and learning the ropes of fbsd with 3.4 and just got a 4.0 in the mail. I noticed some packages I have become very accustommed to are gone! Where's my VIM?!!!
I am pleased of this merger. I'm sure the FreeBSD core team is drooling and anxiously awaiting BSDi's code.
Having been introduced to unix through linux, and then introduced to FreeBSD through linux. IMHO, I am very impressed with FreeBSD 3.4 and their ports system.
Having said that, I'm not suprised in the least that BSDi wants to use freeBSD as the core of their OS. This would definitely result in faster FreeBSD developement.
I can just see it now, linux users, like myself, making a switch to freeBSD with the next killer version!
I'm also assuming BSD/OS will, essentially, be a commercially packaged FreeBSD?
I've been introduced to Unix through Linux. I must say that the Unix environment just simply kicks ass!
Out of sheer curiousity I tried out freeBSD. Their kernel is incredible. I know that the bench marks aren't there to show it but their "claims" are true.
Their TCP/IP stack is better, loads can be handled with ease even on a extremely low-end systems and their memory management is out of this world. I was impressed at how fast my shitty unix boxes went.
Now I know that linux heads like myself would become defensive but linux has made big improvements and a lot of issues are being addressed with the next 2.4 kernel. Their "claims" will be seriously tested soon.
I have decided to go back to linux because I prefer it. There's more software and it makes a better desktop for me. Plus it is stable enough, user friendly enough, fast enough and damn good!
However, freeBSD is a great unix OS and the only way to find out is to try any BSD yourself. Even a linux head like me can defend freeBSD.
I'm going to exPLODE!!! I am so sick of guys like you just repeating M$ lies. If from what you say is true that DOS is "unloaded" then how can you explain that I can run windows from a batch file and continue in the batch file from where it left off? Get this in your thick skull, DOS is not unloaded. Just because it uses other means does not prove that it doesn't make traditional DOS calls. Caldera proved that windows 95 does infact make traditional DOS calls because they installed it right on DR-DOS 7. Do you actually believe that DR-DOS is being loaded to load windows 95 and then unloaded and then reloaded after shutdown? Use your brain! Windows is nothing more than windows 4.0 on MS-DOS7! I'm so sick of always saying this to M$ heathens but this is the "bleepen" truth. If you don't believe this then let's all pray that the DOJ forces Microsoft to open the source for all of you M$ heathens to see the "freaken" truth. there!
You'll never see a more "dumb" company. They bought netscape just to take what they want from it. AOL is not a software company. And what about SUN? Well I counted them out when JAVA didn't deliver all the promises. Netscape was the only one that drove JAVA along. For their own company's sake, I hope they realize just how important the netscape browser really is before it's too late.
In my opinion, if you are going to print on an Unix platform go with HP. These guys even make their own unix OS (HP-Unix). I work at CAE Electronics in the publication departments and the combination of Unix and HP printers simply kick ass. john monteiro
I don't want to insult anybody but I kind of preferred DG. It looks cleaner and more corporate. The "swirl" even looks uglier than the old one. What does the heck is the vase supposed to mean?
The only problem I have with redhat is their bugs and broken packages. However, overall it is a solid distro.
The installation is easy, it's constantly updated, and they support open source. I don't believe it's the best distro but it's damn good.
Linux is what you make of it. So what if you use Redhat or Slask or Debian as a base? What's important is what you have left after all the tweaking and modifications.
I've been using linux for about a year and a half now. I'm planning on making my own linux installation purely from scratch. I guess you can say I'll have my own personal distro. I'll take what I like best from every distro and incorporate it to my own.
I can understand some linux user's concerns about REDHAT's popularity but they really haven't acted "M$ish" yet. We should be glad that Redhat is getting more popular. I can't wait for the day when I can abandon my M$ workstation and go 100% linux!
Slashdot Mirror
The problem here is that all distros are combining server and workstation packages onto one CD. This is fine for a user like me that knows what to select. (thank god there are distros like debian and slackware.)
There should be just a limited desktop CD for the average windows monkey without all the packages they don't need. (just your x windows programs, no command line stuff)
Plus there should be very very few choices in the install. I learned that the more you give windows monkeys choices the more they get lost.
john
This has happenned here during my porvinces election. The liberal party won a convincing majority vote but not enough seats (electoral votes). Instead a fascist/seperation party won. yeah no joke!
You really have to wonder if this is a really democracy after seeing this.
I was just going through the text installation mode and by default it destroyed my freeBSD & NTFS partition even though I selected expert.
My harddrive consisted of a freeBSD slice first and my NTFS partition second. I just wanted to go back to linux but GOD not in this way!
The installation just went ahead and did it, I swear I was not careless!
I lost a lot of crap, most of which I can replace but the rest of family's user files are all gone. (no backups SHAME ON THEM!)
I prefer text installations since it's nearly 50% faster to install but atleast mandrake could have added more "hands on" utilities like fdisk.
All this could have been avoided if I just selected expert in gui mode but I have my suspicions that it would have destroyed my hard drive anyways.
But why don't they allow me to use fdisk during the text install?
It seams that they keep making things easier and easier to use but they are pissing off those that like to have full control of what they are installing.
BAD MANDRAKE!
VERY BAD MANDRAKE!
BAD!
You're right CS degrees mean nothing. I don't even have one.
I wasted a lot of my time studying and getting fairly good in C++ but I never got interviews. (no joke)
I still feel it's important to be strong in the basics. How can anyone program if they don't understand what the hell they are doing?
I was getting really pissed off to see incompetent programmers getting jobs and here I was trying to pay the rent.
Finally, I decided to quit. I said to myself If I can't have a programming job atleast I'm going to use my skills for personal enjoyment. I then just focused my time learning skills in specific areas that I actually enjoyed doing, such as Perl. This was just because I wanted to design a personal website purely in mod perl, (just like slashdot)so I can just update it with simple forms. My laziness inspired me.
I designed a few projects on my own and made a crazy decision and presented this to employers. Something strange then happened and the phone actually ranged! My current employer tested me in Perl and was impressed.
The world is a strange place. The industry just wants specific skills. I had to learn how to learn this the hard way.
I've used my Pentium 100 mhz for 5 years before I finally upgraded to a pentium 2 466 mhz celeron. ...
The old PC was so useful under unix that I kept it as my only PC for quite all that time. When I bought it, it was top of the line at the time. I remember paying over 3000$ for it.
It was a capable machine and it can do everything I needed, play mp3s, compile, write perl and php scripts, browse the internet etc
The strange thing is that with the latest windows and all the latest software I don't feel my new pc is any faster than my old box. Sure I can play nice games but I don't see the benefit.
Why does all windows software become more and more slower and bloated instead of being more efficient?
The only way I can really see a performance increase is doing anything under unix or when I'm compiling software under both windows and unix.
So now I'm sticking to my original platform (freeBSD) I wonder how many more years I can get use out of it before I finally need to upgrade!
Old PC's are still usefull. My old PC is still useful as a personal all-purpose server and I always look for old hardware people just throw away. (I just think their market idiots)
You can bash transmetta all you want but what they're ideas are pretty neat. I can't wait for my PC box to be small, compact and quiet!
I have been testing windows 2000 and the first thing is how much slower it is on older hardware. You definitely need a lot of memory and more than one processer for this platform!
The stability has much improved! It's slow as hell but I don't see the blue screens that often. It still tends to run out of virtual memory which was always the trait of NT 4.
The network communication is NOT faster.
If linux or any unix that has good scalability I'm sure it will beat windows2000 on high end servers.
I can't wait for the release of FreeBSD 5.0 and Linux kernel 2.4. They are supposed to have better SMP support. Unix is going to level windows again. Sorry.
I have to agree Perl's OO implementation is pretty bad but it does work though.
Large projects are difficult to do with perl because of this.
I think a redesign would be an excellent idea.
Maybe bring the keyword class.
touchez!
I'm one of those that believe MS should open the API source. Even though they own it being the industry OS standard their API should be opened.
They don't have to make it free just not out of reach by the common dude. I don't think open source should absolutely have to mean free.
This will prevent unfair breaking of competitor's software. Also if new features are introduced everyone can see it right away rather than wait till M$ release it (especially after they release their new product).
This will introduce fair competition and let the best software company win.
I don't care if people disagree with me but after years of watching the way M$ works. Opening their source would have been better than splitting them up.
Looks like 1999 was a very bad year for linux and NT in general. Why the sudden kie compare to other years? I don't believe the numbers are accurate. Since when does netware and macos get so few security holes? I think the numbers are much higher for these lame systems.
I purchased this book roughly 3 weeks ago. I'm still in the middle of reading this book. If my free time permits I'll finish it soon. I agree with hemos that this book has a very perlish feel to it (feels just like an orielly book). Full of info and no hype. However, I found the first introduction chapter on OOP way too vague. Since I needed to refresh my OOP skills I referred to my other more indepth texts. Plus the OOP syntax in perl just is not that intuitive. I'm coming from a C++ background so I didn't find OO perl nice. . I had to go through some OO perl tutorials. Now, that I have a general understanding of OO perl I'm now beginning to see how good this book really is. This is definitly not for a novice at Object Oriented programming. This is just my opinion. I came to this conclusion since I really have forgotten quite a bit of OOP concepts. I used to program a lot in C++ but since I began to code in Perl, It's been mostly C style. So the result is pretty sloppy dirty and long code. Hopefully now I can go back to writing cleaner code. :-)
Sure, having all the bells and whistles are nice but the bloat is very unwelcoming from RPM systems. The only thing I like about Mandrake is that it had "supermounts" and lots of KDE themes. I didn't find it faster despite being pentium optimized. I have it filling 90% of my 1 1/2 gig partition. It just installs just way too much crap even in expert mode! Now all I do is web development, (perl,c,c++ CGI programming. So all I need is X, gimp, netscape, gcc, perl and apache. I don't need all that crap. I tried uninstalling packages but I just can't figure out what's sucking my drivespace. There's packages that I don't even know what it's used for! sigh. You'll find that most will recommend debian or slackware for this. The RPM distro's base install is enormous compared to them. There are others but they don't have as large a user base. Besides these are REAL distros, most are just based on other distros like redhat anyway. If you like installing stuff from source just pick one favorite distro, install the base and just compile stuff you need from source as you need it. It doesn't really matter with distro if you work this way. Personally I like slackware but I honestly did not find it that stable. (please no flames). I tried Debian out and was absolutely impressed at the stability after a good install. I ran into a lot of trouble with debian installs but once it was in, it remained clean. I only have a problem with the turtle speed of the debian releases. Even with all these issues who cares when your installing from source right? go with redhat base since your very familiar with it. why change? your a SOURCE MAN! If I want an updated kernel I D/L it. If I want kde to run faster I D/L the source. If I want to install something I D/L it and compile it. Upgrading is just gets a little trickier but who cares when something works. Why fix it? If the extra features of a newer version are worth it then I upgrade it.
You are not alone.
The market in montreal is extremely saturated.
Everyone wants experience. Believe me, it doesn't even matter if you are good or not. All they want is a few grey hairs on your chest.
The funny thing is that most companies have unrealistic expectations. Take my excompany CAE. I saw some programming jobs require some knowledge of their MAXVUE system. MAXVUE is only known from within the walls of the company. Why bother posting that job outside the company at all. This isn't the only example.
Like two years experience using Java 2.0. Well Java 2.0 didn't wasn't even around for 2 freaken years! I hear complaints from companies stating they can't even find qualified people. GRRR! what lies!
I met large numbers of intelligent engineers that have graduated from the Mcgill (canada's best) even with master degrees working as technical writers. THEY CAN'T EVEN FIND A JOB!
To add to my discouragement:
Only a handful of my graduating class are actually programmers. Most are in some sore of technical support or network administrators.
BTW, I graduated in january of 98 and I finally found a programming job last week. This whole time I've been doing clerical work.
My advice to you is to get out. Get out of Quebec!
Cause even if you do find a job, you'll almost never make a good salary.
I just began playing and learning the ropes of fbsd with 3.4 and just got a 4.0 in the mail. I noticed some packages I have become very accustommed to are gone! Where's my VIM?!!!
I am pleased of this merger. I'm sure the FreeBSD core team is drooling and anxiously awaiting BSDi's code.
Having been introduced to unix through linux, and then introduced to FreeBSD through linux. IMHO, I am very impressed with FreeBSD 3.4 and their ports system.
Having said that, I'm not suprised in the least that BSDi wants to use freeBSD as the core of their OS. This would definitely result in faster FreeBSD developement.
I can just see it now, linux users, like myself, making a switch to freeBSD with the next killer version!
I'm also assuming BSD/OS will, essentially, be a commercially packaged FreeBSD?
I've been introduced to Unix through Linux. I must say that the Unix environment just simply kicks ass!
:-)
Out of sheer curiousity I tried out freeBSD. Their kernel is incredible. I know that the bench marks aren't there to show it but their "claims" are true.
Their TCP/IP stack is better, loads can be handled with ease even on a extremely low-end systems and their memory management is out of this world. I was impressed at how fast my shitty unix boxes went.
Now I know that linux heads like myself would become defensive but linux has made big improvements and a lot of issues are being addressed with the next 2.4 kernel. Their "claims" will be seriously tested soon.
I have decided to go back to linux because I prefer it. There's more software and it makes a better desktop for me. Plus it is stable enough, user friendly enough, fast enough and damn good!
However, freeBSD is a great unix OS and the only way to find out is to try any BSD yourself. Even a linux head like me can defend freeBSD.
Keep up the good work to all BSD contributers
I like him already.
:-)
His website is running apache on a linux box. Efficient I think he's heading in the right direction!
I'm going to exPLODE!!! I am so sick of guys like you just repeating M$ lies. If from what you say is true that DOS is "unloaded" then how can you explain that I can run windows from a batch file and continue in the batch file from where it left off? Get this in your thick skull, DOS is not unloaded. Just because it uses other means does not prove that it doesn't make traditional DOS calls. Caldera proved that windows 95 does infact make traditional DOS calls because they installed it right on DR-DOS 7. Do you actually believe that DR-DOS is being loaded to load windows 95 and then unloaded and then reloaded after shutdown? Use your brain! Windows is nothing more than windows 4.0 on MS-DOS7! I'm so sick of always saying this to M$ heathens but this is the "bleepen" truth. If you don't believe this then let's all pray that the DOJ forces Microsoft to open the source for all of you M$ heathens to see the "freaken" truth. there!
You'll never see a more "dumb" company. They bought netscape just to take what they want from it. AOL is not a software company. And what about SUN? Well I counted them out when JAVA didn't deliver all the promises. Netscape was the only one that drove JAVA along. For their own company's sake, I hope they realize just how important the netscape browser really is before it's too late.
In my opinion, if you are going to print on an Unix platform go with HP. These guys even make their own unix OS (HP-Unix). I work at CAE Electronics in the publication departments and the combination of Unix and HP printers simply kick ass. john monteiro
----
I don't want to insult anybody but I kind of preferred DG. It looks cleaner and more corporate. The "swirl" even looks uglier than the old one. What does the heck is the vase supposed to mean?
"Linux wasn't even on the general public's radar when this started. It might be on everybody's desktop by the time it's done."
Your words to my boss's ears!
The only problem I have with redhat is their bugs and broken packages. However, overall it is a solid distro.
The installation is easy, it's constantly updated, and they support open source. I don't believe it's the best distro but it's damn good.
Linux is what you make of it. So what if you use Redhat or Slask or Debian as a base? What's important is what you have left after all the tweaking and modifications.
I've been using linux for about a year and a half now. I'm planning on making my own linux installation purely from scratch. I guess you can say I'll have my own personal distro. I'll take what I like best from every distro and incorporate it to my own.
I can understand some linux user's concerns about REDHAT's popularity but they really haven't acted "M$ish" yet.
We should be glad that Redhat is getting more popular. I can't wait for the day when I can abandon my M$ workstation and go 100% linux!