you are offending a lot of people by underestimating the unixishness of MacOS X.
Well, I'm not personally offended, but I think there's hell of a lot of "UNIX" people out there that don't realise:
The Mac OSX CLI is a shell, just like any UNIX shell. If you want to run bash then you can, if csh is your thing then run that.
If you want to run vi or emacs, you can.
If you look at the file system structure then it follows the UNIX structure (/etc,/usr,/tmp,/var etc...)
The Mac OS-X kernel is based on BSD, that's pretty UNIXy to me! (1977 - CSRG?, 4.4BSD-Lite --> BSD/OS,FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD --> Mac OS X... ring any bells?)
What got me was the fact that Apple didn't have the foresight to supply a contrib CD with GNU tools.
UNIX has many different flavours: Solaris, HPUX, Linux (Yes, I consider Linux a UNIX), BSD (Free,Net & Open) + all those others each with it's own little foibles... add to that Mac OS-X.
As an employer, you've got your head in the sand if you think that training an employee is a cheap way to get skills. $1000 worth of training will get you (1000/(Hourly Market Rate of Skill)) hours of free skill use for your company before the employee realises that he should get a pay rise or look elsewhere for another job. I've been on many training courses, and they've often been touted by trainers, during the course, as a great way to get a pay rise or a higher paid job.
Let's face it, there's not exactly a shortage of employers looking for Technology employees.
Certain aspects about your company may delay this. It is only a delay, however, until your employees find something tempting enough to leave.
I heard Argos have hundreds of playstationos as they omitted to put them in their christmas catalogue so most people don't realise that they're selling them.
Online gaming started for me with Xpilots. I tried to show someone recently xpilots, they just turned and looked away (7years my junior). I've recently played UT (Unreal Tournament) hell of a lot (even won the odd game online). But sometimes I'm running around, dodging and everything, thinking no-one is going to get me when "URGHHH!" or "ARRRGHHHH!" and I'm dead.
Now maybe there is a sniper doing a head-shot on me there, but sometimes it's too incredible to believe.
So... "Ask Slashdot: Anyone know good cheats to Online Gaming, Unreal Tournament in particular."
Hell - if I can't beat these "Gods", I may as well join them... thanks
Moderators - you can mod me up or down, my karma will only go down, I get moderated up, yet it is in vain, somehow - my karma remains as it is - It can only go down.... maybe my karma is just too high for the likes of you.
I am unashamed. Mod Up or Mod Down, only Mods down will affect me, I am lifeless and worthless.
I think the last version of Extreme Linux was (searches for his Extreme Linux CD) is based on RedHat Linux 5.0 - it's a little out of date now - code has moved on considerably.
This book comes with a CD together with clustering software. It also comes with step-by-step instructions. I believe, however, that there are some errata, which means that some hacking will need to be done to get your cluster online.
It also goes through some aspects of choosing hardware etc...
If you were slashdotted at the weekend I would say you have a valid point here. If you were slashdotted during the week at a time when most users are either at work or asleep then it's a different kettle of fish all together, as many workers don't have the option of what OS they run at work.
I think many will agree though, Mozilla (it's the weekend and I'm using it now) is not as good as IE5.5 (which I use at work) on a Windoze machine.
I thought that the system idle time "process" or "thread" would still be running on a non-idle machine (a la multitasking), and the time shown would be the time that the process has been running, ie uptime.
but that is just an aside, this Exchange server is usually particularly busy, certainly hadn't been idle for 120 days!! So, I must assume that this time is cumulative and hence is an under-estimate of the total uptime.
Yes, but the *reason* OSes have bad uptime is because they *crash*. Crashing, AFAIK, is the number one problem users have with Microsoft products. Ever overheard a complaint about a computer? It's almost never about something that is a consistent problem with their computer; it's usually about how "I was just using it and suddenly it froze". Although 200-day uptimes aren't necessary, the point is that Linux won't just up and crash for no reason.
err... making it good for the Server Environment?
Seriously though... consider this user complaint:
"I was just working and it crashed... I lost all my work this morning"
Have you ever considered that they weren't doing any work that morning? It's a great excuse for users to perpetuate the myth of the unstable operating system... So which operating system bears the brunt of the blame? Well, it'll be the one that workers use.
I may just see if we have any "Intranet" workers and see if a Linux/Netscape build PC crashes as much as a WinNT/Explorer build... Let's face it, Linux hasn't really been tested on the non-tech workforce yet. Users are pretty good at messing up systems. Sometimes they deliberately sabotage them in the hope of getting a new laptop.
You know, I can't remember the last time anyone told me that they'd just lost loads of work because their machine crashed... perhaps they just stopped complaining.;^)
Have you had 100 unclean shutdowns? I've had a few due to power outages, Laptop batteries expiring, kids unplugging the wrong box to plug something else in and so on, 99% is a little high in my experience. Hell, I've had to learn to copy superblock backups.
At work most of our users have Laptops and some of them do indeed run Linux as well, although officially unsupported by IT, I still get questions from such users about how to retrieve their system, because it won't boot.
If you run remote admin stuff then leaving the PCs on over weekends can make uptime a client issue. I wasn't going to mention this before as I thought some fanatic zealot would try to behead me for saying it - 78 days uptime on a box is not a big deal, regardless of the Operating System. I was applying a service pack to one of our Exchange servers (NT4 Dell PE4300) to find that it had been up for 120 days recently. I noted this fact because I had previously heard that NT had a problem staying up for more than 55 days. I had even heard that it was impossible for an NT box to last longer than this. Before I had applied the service pack it was on service pack 4.
I only recently found out how to check the uptime on an NT box:
Bring up task manager and check the number of hours in the "System Idle" process. If you have some NT servers around the place check their uptimes, do a File --> Run --> calc.exe and divide the number by 24.
I think people may be pleasantly surprised by NT, or... they're just not very good at building a stable box. It they really get regular blue screens from NT, chances are that it's not correctly configured or you have a hardware problem.
These problems are difficult to troubleshoot as NT provides no sure fire way of finding out what is wrong. Make sure you have the correct drivers, have a box that is set up correctly etc... Easiest way is use a manufacturer who provides a good OEM installation process for NT.
I'm not going to get into this argument... (then he proceeds to do so):
KDE - nice desktop environment, nothing special, easy to use because it resembles Windows.
What happens, however, if a user turns his PC off with out shutting it down - It happens, especially when they want to get out of the office as fast as possible on a Friday evening. Chances are that Linux will not boot up again,/dev/hda2 was not cleanly unmounted, cannot find superblock, kernel panic etc... Windows 95 can recover quite easily from bad shutdowns, Linux can't... I'm sure some smart-alec will come along and mention some configuration change that makes Linux more robust with regard to unclean shutdowns
Koffice - I'll have to take a look at it, but you'll have the same problems with the underlying kernel.
StarOffice - you're not serious? I've had loads of problems with this. Their presentation app is ridiculous and practically unuseable, besides why run KDE when StarOffice insists on having it's own (terribly bloated) desktop environment.
TCO lower? - I'm the only local IT person in my company who even uses Linux. The only difference of TCO with Linux and MS is the client cost, less than $100 - which is an insignificant amount, when looking at total support costs, and Linux has significantly higher support costs.
Uptime - Are you secretly trying to agree with me here? Uptime is not a desktop client feature - it is a server feature. Nearly all desktop clients get rebooted daily.
ME? PRO Linux on the Server, Against Linux on the Client
Well, in the UK, Microsoft would arrive at the door accompanied by FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) and would be able to inspect every piece of computer equipment and ask for it's license.
It wouldn't surprise me if Micro$~01 has sent that letter to every government department in the US. It's a good way to get back at them.
Microsoft are actually quite lax with their software licensing, take NT server, install and enter "010-0123456" bingo - you're through. Same key works for SQL Server.
I'm waiting for the day where they hit every company & institution for their due.
I guess only open-source could hit back at this, but in my opinion Linux is just not ready for the desktop and UNIX, in general, seems to have always been a server OS or a development OS, not a PC OS.
Slashdot Mirror
you are offending a lot of people by underestimating the unixishness of MacOS X.
Well, I'm not personally offended, but I think there's hell of a lot of "UNIX" people out there that don't realise:
The Mac OSX CLI is a shell, just like any UNIX shell. If you want to run bash then you can, if csh is your thing then run that.
If you want to run vi or emacs, you can.
If you look at the file system structure then it follows the UNIX structure (/etc,/usr,/tmp,/var etc...)
The Mac OS-X kernel is based on BSD, that's pretty UNIXy to me! (1977 - CSRG?, 4.4BSD-Lite --> BSD/OS,FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD --> Mac OS X... ring any bells?)
What got me was the fact that Apple didn't have the foresight to supply a contrib CD with GNU tools.
UNIX has many different flavours: Solaris, HPUX, Linux (Yes, I consider Linux a UNIX), BSD (Free,Net & Open) + all those others each with it's own little foibles... add to that Mac OS-X.
AC Said:
I don't get it. What's the difference between administrating Darwin and other Unices?
I don't get it either... care to elaborate?
As an employer, you've got your head in the sand if you think that training an employee is a cheap way to get skills. $1000 worth of training will get you (1000/(Hourly Market Rate of Skill)) hours of free skill use for your company before the employee realises that he should get a pay rise or look elsewhere for another job. I've been on many training courses, and they've often been touted by trainers, during the course, as a great way to get a pay rise or a higher paid job.
Let's face it, there's not exactly a shortage of employers looking for Technology employees.
Certain aspects about your company may delay this. It is only a delay, however, until your employees find something tempting enough to leave.
Actually I've had offers from slashdot user ids under 100.
There was a certain amount of Red tape however... e.g. Disassociating future posts from previous ones etc...
I believe someone is selling their Id on eBay.
I heard Argos have hundreds of playstationos as they omitted to put them in their christmas catalogue so most people don't realise that they're selling them.
If the Australian Government did Invest in the Technology, Cisco would then buy Austrialia.
:^>
-
{rantmode}
Online gaming started for me with Xpilots. I tried to show someone recently xpilots, they just turned and looked away (7years my junior). I've recently played UT (Unreal Tournament) hell of a lot (even won the odd game online). But sometimes I'm running around, dodging and everything, thinking no-one is going to get me when "URGHHH!" or "ARRRGHHHH!" and I'm dead.
Now maybe there is a sniper doing a head-shot on me there, but sometimes it's too incredible to believe.
So... "Ask Slashdot: Anyone know good cheats to Online Gaming, Unreal Tournament in particular."
Hell - if I can't beat these "Gods", I may as well join them... thanks
Thanks
GC
-
End of message?
No---
What's cheating if the cheats are open-source?
{/rantmode}
Thanks for listening and modding me down!
GC
blah,,, blah,,,,
I've lost hope!!!!
Moderators - you can mod me up or down, my karma will only go down, I get moderated up, yet it is in vain, somehow - my karma remains as it is - It can only go down.... maybe my karma is just too high for the likes of you.
I am unashamed. Mod Up or Mod Down, only Mods down will affect me, I am lifeless and worthless.
ROB, Do something, before I change my sig...
---
Books have certain qualities:
Books are physical entities written on paper
Boots are set in stone, they cannot be modified
To keep on calling this a book is like calling a car a cart.
-
It sounds like you want 3 inch square buttons with the candidates' names on them as a means of voting
Actually - that's pretty much the only safest electronic method of doing things.
That ballot paper was misleading, yet I don't think you're at a point now where you can contest it.
Hell, didn't you think of testing ballot papers before you used them?
These Americans are crazy
That's the earliest I've seen, I wrote the sig as a joke.
How much anyone would pay would depend on your Karma!!
Here we go again!
---
I think the last version of Extreme Linux was (searches for his Extreme Linux CD) is based on RedHat Linux 5.0 - it's a little out of date now - code has moved on considerably.
For you I would like to recommend some reading:
Building Linux Clusters by David HM Spector published by O'Reilly, (hmmm site seems to be down, come back later, or check Google cached version)
This book comes with a CD together with clustering software. It also comes with step-by-step instructions. I believe, however, that there are some errata, which means that some hacking will need to be done to get your cluster online.
It also goes through some aspects of choosing hardware etc...
A more in-depth resource, without step-by-step instructions, but with in-depth discussions on granularity of Beowulf systems and whether they are actually good for the tasks you have in hand is:
How to Build a Beowulf, A guide to the implementation and application of PC Clusters by the MIT Press
Also check the The Beowulf Project Site and the The Beowulf Underground Site
Have fun!
---
Yup, actually many corporations have such a deal with Microsoft.
---
If you were slashdotted at the weekend I would say you have a valid point here. If you were slashdotted during the week at a time when most users are either at work or asleep then it's a different kettle of fish all together, as many workers don't have the option of what OS they run at work.
I think many will agree though, Mozilla (it's the weekend and I'm using it now) is not as good as IE5.5 (which I use at work) on a Windoze machine.
---
Actually - I use Linux. :^)
No, they'll get a root floppy, mount their root partition and wipe it. Or they'll just get a Win98 boot disk and resize their partitions.
Oh!
I thought that the system idle time "process" or "thread" would still be running on a non-idle machine (a la multitasking), and the time shown would be the time that the process has been running, ie uptime.
but that is just an aside, this Exchange server is usually particularly busy, certainly hadn't been idle for 120 days!! So, I must assume that this time is cumulative and hence is an under-estimate of the total uptime.
My point is enforced...
Thank you.
---
Yes, but the *reason* OSes have bad uptime is because they *crash*. Crashing, AFAIK, is the number one problem users have with Microsoft products. Ever overheard a complaint about a computer? It's almost never about something that is a consistent problem with their computer; it's usually about how "I was just using it and suddenly it froze". Although 200-day uptimes aren't necessary, the point is that Linux won't just up and crash for no reason.
err... making it good for the Server Environment?
Seriously though... consider this user complaint:
"I was just working and it crashed... I lost all my work this morning"
Have you ever considered that they weren't doing any work that morning? It's a great excuse for users to perpetuate the myth of the unstable operating system... So which operating system bears the brunt of the blame? Well, it'll be the one that workers use.
I may just see if we have any "Intranet" workers and see if a Linux/Netscape build PC crashes as much as a WinNT/Explorer build... Let's face it, Linux hasn't really been tested on the non-tech workforce yet. Users are pretty good at messing up systems. Sometimes they deliberately sabotage them in the hope of getting a new laptop.
You know, I can't remember the last time anyone told me that they'd just lost loads of work because their machine crashed... perhaps they just stopped complaining. ;^)
You make some very valid points. Although:
the fsck passes 99% of the time
Have you had 100 unclean shutdowns? I've had a few due to power outages, Laptop batteries expiring, kids unplugging the wrong box to plug something else in and so on, 99% is a little high in my experience. Hell, I've had to learn to copy superblock backups.
At work most of our users have Laptops and some of them do indeed run Linux as well, although officially unsupported by IT, I still get questions from such users about how to retrieve their system, because it won't boot.
If you run remote admin stuff then leaving the PCs on over weekends can make uptime a client issue. I wasn't going to mention this before as I thought some fanatic zealot would try to behead me for saying it - 78 days uptime on a box is not a big deal, regardless of the Operating System. I was applying a service pack to one of our Exchange servers (NT4 Dell PE4300) to find that it had been up for 120 days recently. I noted this fact because I had previously heard that NT had a problem staying up for more than 55 days. I had even heard that it was impossible for an NT box to last longer than this. Before I had applied the service pack it was on service pack 4.
I only recently found out how to check the uptime on an NT box:
Bring up task manager and check the number of hours in the "System Idle" process. If you have some NT servers around the place check their uptimes, do a File --> Run --> calc.exe and divide the number by 24.
I think people may be pleasantly surprised by NT, or... they're just not very good at building a stable box. It they really get regular blue screens from NT, chances are that it's not correctly configured or you have a hardware problem.
These problems are difficult to troubleshoot as NT provides no sure fire way of finding out what is wrong. Make sure you have the correct drivers, have a box that is set up correctly etc... Easiest way is use a manufacturer who provides a good OEM installation process for NT.
---
Ooohhh!!
How much do you want for it?
nah - only kidding...
yeah yeah...
/dev/hda2 was not cleanly unmounted, cannot find superblock, kernel panic etc... Windows 95 can recover quite easily from bad shutdowns, Linux can't... I'm sure some smart-alec will come along and mention some configuration change that makes Linux more robust with regard to unclean shutdowns
I'm not going to get into this argument... (then he proceeds to do so):
KDE - nice desktop environment, nothing special, easy to use because it resembles Windows.
What happens, however, if a user turns his PC off with out shutting it down - It happens, especially when they want to get out of the office as fast as possible on a Friday evening. Chances are that Linux will not boot up again,
Koffice - I'll have to take a look at it, but you'll have the same problems with the underlying kernel.
StarOffice - you're not serious? I've had loads of problems with this. Their presentation app is ridiculous and practically unuseable, besides why run KDE when StarOffice insists on having it's own (terribly bloated) desktop environment.
TCO lower? - I'm the only local IT person in my company who even uses Linux. The only difference of TCO with Linux and MS is the client cost, less than $100 - which is an insignificant amount, when looking at total support costs, and Linux has significantly higher support costs.
Uptime - Are you secretly trying to agree with me here? Uptime is not a desktop client feature - it is a server feature. Nearly all desktop clients get rebooted daily.
ME? PRO Linux on the Server, Against Linux on the Client
---
Well, in the UK, Microsoft would arrive at the door accompanied by FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) and would be able to inspect every piece of computer equipment and ask for it's license.
It wouldn't surprise me if Micro$~01 has sent that letter to every government department in the US. It's a good way to get back at them.
Microsoft are actually quite lax with their software licensing, take NT server, install and enter "010-0123456" bingo - you're through. Same key works for SQL Server.
I'm waiting for the day where they hit every company & institution for their due.
I guess only open-source could hit back at this, but in my opinion Linux is just not ready for the desktop and UNIX, in general, seems to have always been a server OS or a development OS, not a PC OS.
---
I don't know - perhaps they're for sale on eBay? :^)