Let's find someone at RedHat who'll be willing to actually run the test, and let's just start sending scads of hardware to him/her so the test can be duplicated, with a PROPLERLY set up (and tuned) Linux box and a properly set up NT box.
I'd pitch in my three P133 mobos. And probably cash for the server, too. This is worth it.
On the bright side, not ALL CS departments are like that. At my school, MS donated a bunch of computers, obviously running NT. They've barely been touched since they were installed four months ago. The only time people used them was when Omni-X was installed so that people could use them as xterms.
I fail to see the advantage of opening the Windows source code base. It seems to me this is just more evidence as to the ignorance of the DoJ and the media.
It would still take enormous amounts of time for real-world programmers to figure out most of the code and begin making improvements. In fact, I imagine that most Microsoft programmers would have trouble understanding most of the code. I doubt that a single Microsoft developer sits in front of a screen looking at lines of code all day; they probably use some form of internal development tools where they can drag and drop, then set the properties on code "chunks" that make programming more like building with Legos.
Even if the main Windows codebase was OSS, the rest of the add-ons, upgrades, and APIs rely on the bugs that have been in the system for years, so they would all get broken. And that would just increase the instability once people started poking around with the code.
OSS isn't the answer. Nor is breaking up the company. Try again, DOJ.
It's a shame that so many people use it only because it's free as in "free beer." That has a serious impact on its validity in the workplace. In my mind, the open-sourceness is the most important factor because it allows ANYONE to fix it.
The Microsoft Junkies in our department argue that Linux is an amateur operating system simply because it's free. They claim that is the reason we have been using it. Then, when they demand a side-by-side evaluation against NT for security, performance, and scalability, they get slammed.
I know what path the source is in. But I couldn't tell you what any of it does.:)
Most PCI-based implementations of basic I/O ports (serial, parallel, game) tend to be non-standard and therefore windows-only. I'd imagine that most companies which ship PCI-based IDE cards figure anyone with a PCI bus has on-board Super IO, since it's embedded in intel and third-party's chipsets.
Of course, if you want an ISA one, I've got cases...:)
Really cool stuff... (and some uncool stuff)
on
10+ Gig Removables?
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· Score: 1
Yeah, I bought this fixed disk drive from SyQuest called a "SyJet". It was advertised as a removable drive, but for some reason it's impossible to find the "cartridges" that are described in the manual. I haven't seen them at any stores, and when I call places like MicroWarehouse and PCMall, people think I'm crazy.
I knew this would happen. I'm surprised Dell is the company that did it.
"Cuteness" can only sell a system for so long. Once people realize that iMacs weren't being built with the (in my mind) necessary baseline features for a system nowadays, someone else had to step in and do it better. Build a good-looking system that has a DVD drive, 128Mb RAM, 17" monitor. Want to make it extra special? Throw in SCSI and Firewire. Who needs internal peripherals anyway?
Sure, one can argue that the next iMacs have that (see www.macosrumors.com). Or that SGIs have done it for years. But it was only a matter of time before a major Wintel player entered the ring.
All along, I figured Compaq would be the company to do it. They've got enough market share and enough guaranteed consumer base (think of all the places that ONLY buy from compaq... companies, schools, etc). Compaq has the in-store audience, too, that Apple seems to be losing despite strong iMac sales. (Just this week, I was in contact with several Best Buys, CompUSAs, and office supply stores that sold out of all their iMacs in just a few days, but never even attempted to stock more.)
The problem with Compaq is the price premium, as always. You're paying more for stuff you don't get. But that's there because of their "guaranteed customer base." So businesses have been moving to Dell and the public have been moving to Gateway.
Sheesh, why didn't Gateway do this? They're the ones that have the home entertainment PC audience. Imagine a cow-colored PC. I would buy one of those in an instant.:)
Computers are getting so cheap that aesthetics DO matter. Powerful beige boxes just don't hack it anymore.
Nor do underpowered teal, green, pink, orange, or purple ones.
-Chris (Of course, I'd love to buy an iMac and turn it into an iLinuxPPC)
From an administrator's POV, I'd imagine it would be great to see thin clients begin to replace PCs. Imagine only having to administer one box, maintain security in one place, and worry about hardware failures in one rack.
Everyone (on slashdot anyway) always tries for the arguement about wanting to do X on their machine that you can't do from a thin client. Then you, as a knowledgable user, can maintain your own system, with your own peripherial Y that does what you need. Be it video capture, some special joystick, or 3d accelleration. Geeks like slashdot users are the exception.
I'd even be one of the thin client users. I'm sure that as you're reading this, you think of yourself as one of the exceptions above, but how often do you REALLY do something out-of-the-ordinary with your system? To tell you the truth, all I ever do is: 1. netscape (for mail and browsing), 2. lyx, sc, and the like (or "Word" "Excel" "Powerpoint" for you MS people) 3. ssh, and 4. quake. Theoretically, most games could be played on a thin client. For the fancy ones, I could deal with moving using another platform. Now, what do YOU do that's above and beyond that?
Long live Larry Ellison and his dream of centralized computing!
-Chris
Linux on desktop systems for non-root people
on
Linux on Dilbert
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· Score: 1
What's going on here? How has a mom invaded our club for boy nerds? Who let her in?
If she doesn't leave, I'm gonna have to tell my mom, and if SHE starts posting on slashdot, I'll have to start writing device drivers to feel more secure in my geek status.:)
I had a meeting today to discuss problems with our current Firewall implementation (linux 2.0.36 with ipfwadm). We were hacked into a few weeks ago, and I had the wonderful job of cleaning up after the poor script kiddie.
I made a formal recommendation that we install a separate server with NO user accounts, unlike the server our department had which was a general purpose workgroup server and doubled as a firewall. I said for $1000 we could get a PC, install linux on it (as is on almost all of our servers) and have it be completely secure to anywhere except the local console.
Then the Windows Guru spoke. Things went downhill from there. Suddenly, the meeting which was about "when do we install the Linux firewall" turned into "why don't we evaluate hardware-only solutions" (ie Cisco, etc). And then it got even worse. When I mentioned the high price tag of the Cisco equipment, it instantly turned into "Oh, anyone can hack linux because the source code is available. Let's use NT and install firewall software on it."
These people whose brains are numb from staring at Outlook and Office and Publisher 24/7 scare me. I didn't realize there WERE people who were so loyal to Microsoft that they would suggest NT over a hardware firewall unit. Every arguement they made about the OpenSource community could be turned back around to stab them through the heart (and I tried), but those who were weaker minded were swayed to the banner of the Man from Redmond.
SUMMARY: Can anyone recommend or share experience with their hardware or NT firewalling solutions? Evidence towards IPChains being significantly better would be much appreciated.:)
>Well, ya wanna know where they got the logo for doom? They ripped it off from the English >hardcore band DOOM, which was around from the 1980's. Ask any punk!
As if punks don't need another reason to say "yeah, I was there when it was cool, in fact I was one of the first people to see doom in concert in their mother's garage." (or something to that extent)
It's April 1 *somewhere* in the world when this was posted...:)
Side note: Red Hat is Red Hat because they're headquartered in research triangle, North Carolina.. home of, among many other colleges, North Carolina State University, where no doubt most of the RH founders went. When you come from NC State, *everything* is red.
This is a hideous act of agression with the sole intent of instigating an international incident. The United States must declare war immediately. There is no other option. Whitehouse.gov is the cornerstone of the American Internet. Without it, there would be no way for United States citizens to learn the goings-on of the President, the Vice President or the entire Executive Branch of the government.
Premeditated acts of terrorism like this cannot be tolerated. It is time for America to stand up for itself and deal a crushing blow to the country of origin of this electronic invasion.
Er?
Wait a second. It's www.whitehouse.gov. That's the first or second website everyone goes to when they get an internet account, and they never visit again. It's probably the first thing that 12-year-olds try to hack as soon as they get their AOL account. There certainly isn't any worthwhile information on it that can't be obtained elsewhere.
It's my understanding that the legal issues with the N64 emulator came from copying the firmware from the N64 directly. This shouldn't be an issue with the gameboy, because the internal code is (relatively) easy to figure out. There ought to be a gameboy SDK somewhere that tells you all the things you need to know about the internal functionality.
Besides, people have been emulating Z80's for years on all sorts of platforms. The Gameboy isn't much more than a z80 with some near-off-the-shelf parts.:) Emulating the *proprietary* multi-RISC-processor (graphics, sound, cpu) 100mhz-bus system of the N64 requires a bit more knowledge of the "secrets" nintendo used. THAT's why they get mad about people emulating.
-Chris
(Hey, if I got the n64 hardware wrong, don't flame. People get the idea.:> )
I was reading the introduction to one of his books (I'm not a fan; it was on someone's coffee table) where he was talking about the reasons for not merchandising. This guy really needs to get over the fact that what he was producing was a COMIC STRIP. It's not something that's destined to hang on the walls of the Louvre. It's not something holy that's going to be "lessened" or "cheapened" by having stuffed dolls and t-shirts all over the place.
I never really got into Calvin and Hobbes (I'm a Dilbert/Far Side/Garfield kinda person), but after reading Mr. Watterson's little vendetta, I know I'll never go out of my way to read his strips.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's find someone at RedHat who'll be willing to actually run the test, and let's just start sending scads of hardware to him/her so the test can be duplicated, with a PROPLERLY set up (and tuned) Linux box and a properly set up NT box.
I'd pitch in my three P133 mobos. And probably cash for the server, too. This is worth it.
-Chris
Imagine their rc5 keyrate with 144 pentium 133s and a quad xeon box.
:)
By my rough estimate, that's 29,280 kkeys/s, or about 9428 blocks/day. That's some serious code pumping...
-Chris
http://www.figures.com/databases/action.cgi?setup_ file=ssnews2.setup&category=starwars&top ic=12&show_article=242
Check it out. Not exactly *reliable*, but promising.
-Chris
Just like the guy with the pornographic Palm V advertisement parodies should.
For a good example, find the "Meat of the Loom" legal debacle.
-Chris
On the bright side, not ALL CS departments are like that. At my school, MS donated a bunch of computers, obviously running NT. They've barely been touched since they were installed four months ago. The only time people used them was when Omni-X was installed so that people could use them as xterms.
-Chris
I fail to see the advantage of opening the Windows source code base. It seems to me this is just more evidence as to the ignorance of the DoJ and the media.
It would still take enormous amounts of time for real-world programmers to figure out most of the code and begin making improvements. In fact, I imagine that most Microsoft programmers would have trouble understanding most of the code. I doubt that a single Microsoft developer sits in front of a screen looking at lines of code all day; they probably use some form of internal development tools where they can drag and drop, then set the properties on code "chunks" that make programming more like building with Legos.
Even if the main Windows codebase was OSS, the rest of the add-ons, upgrades, and APIs rely on the bugs that have been in the system for years, so they would all get broken. And that would just increase the instability once people started poking around with the code.
OSS isn't the answer. Nor is breaking up the company. Try again, DOJ.
-Chris
It's a shame that so many people use it only because it's free as in "free beer." That has a serious impact on its validity in the workplace. In my mind, the open-sourceness is the most important factor because it allows ANYONE to fix it.
:)
The Microsoft Junkies in our department argue that Linux is an amateur operating system simply because it's free. They claim that is the reason we have been using it. Then, when they demand a side-by-side evaluation against NT for security, performance, and scalability, they get slammed.
I know what path the source is in. But I couldn't tell you what any of it does.
-Chris
Ace Hardware has more pressing issues to worry about -- like being killed by Home Depot.
-Chris
Old mac donald had a farm.. IDEIO.
:)
Most PCI-based implementations of basic I/O ports (serial, parallel, game) tend to be non-standard and therefore windows-only. I'd imagine that most companies which ship PCI-based IDE cards figure anyone with a PCI bus has on-board Super IO, since it's embedded in intel and third-party's chipsets.
Of course, if you want an ISA one, I've got cases...
-Chris
> Palms, notebooks, wire rooms, raised floors,
:)
> routers, racks, RAIDs, switches, CAT5 cabling,
> thicknet...line printers, ZIP drives, CD
> burners...
That paragraph is better than porn.
-Chris
Nitrogen. It's about time.
Yeah, I bought this fixed disk drive from SyQuest called a "SyJet". It was advertised as a removable drive, but for some reason it's impossible to find the "cartridges" that are described in the manual. I haven't seen them at any stores, and when I call places like MicroWarehouse and PCMall, people think I'm crazy.
-Chris
I knew this would happen. I'm surprised Dell is the company that did it.
:)
"Cuteness" can only sell a system for so long. Once people realize that iMacs weren't being built with the (in my mind) necessary baseline features for a system nowadays, someone else had to step in and do it better. Build a good-looking system that has a DVD drive, 128Mb RAM, 17" monitor. Want to make it extra special? Throw in SCSI and Firewire. Who needs internal peripherals anyway?
Sure, one can argue that the next iMacs have that (see www.macosrumors.com). Or that SGIs have done it for years. But it was only a matter of time before a major Wintel player entered the ring.
All along, I figured Compaq would be the company to do it. They've got enough market share and enough guaranteed consumer base (think of all the places that ONLY buy from compaq... companies, schools, etc). Compaq has the in-store audience, too, that Apple seems to be losing despite strong iMac sales. (Just this week, I was in contact with several Best Buys, CompUSAs, and office supply stores that sold out of all their iMacs in just a few days, but never even attempted to stock more.)
The problem with Compaq is the price premium, as always. You're paying more for stuff you don't get. But that's there because of their "guaranteed customer base." So businesses have been moving to Dell and the public have been moving to Gateway.
Sheesh, why didn't Gateway do this? They're the ones that have the home entertainment PC audience. Imagine a cow-colored PC. I would buy one of those in an instant.
Computers are getting so cheap that aesthetics DO matter. Powerful beige boxes just don't hack it anymore.
Nor do underpowered teal, green, pink, orange, or purple ones.
-Chris
(Of course, I'd love to buy an iMac and turn it into an iLinuxPPC)
(gosh I love when this issue pops up)
From an administrator's POV, I'd imagine it would be great to see thin clients begin to replace PCs. Imagine only having to administer one box, maintain security in one place, and worry about hardware failures in one rack.
Everyone (on slashdot anyway) always tries for the arguement about wanting to do X on their machine that you can't do from a thin client. Then you, as a knowledgable user, can maintain your own system, with your own peripherial Y that does what you need. Be it video capture, some special joystick, or 3d accelleration. Geeks like slashdot users are the exception.
I'd even be one of the thin client users. I'm sure that as you're reading this, you think of yourself as one of the exceptions above, but how often do you REALLY do something out-of-the-ordinary with your system? To tell you the truth, all I ever do is: 1. netscape (for mail and browsing), 2. lyx, sc, and the like (or "Word" "Excel" "Powerpoint" for you MS people) 3. ssh, and 4. quake. Theoretically, most games could be played on a thin client. For the fancy ones, I could deal with moving using another platform. Now, what do YOU do that's above and beyond that?
Long live Larry Ellison and his dream of centralized computing!
-Chris
What's going on here? How has a mom invaded our club for boy nerds? Who let her in?
:)
If she doesn't leave, I'm gonna have to tell my mom, and if SHE starts posting on slashdot, I'll have to start writing device drivers to feel more secure in my geek status.
-Chris
Maybe Truman Burbank wasn't the first child to be legally adopted by a corporation...
-Chris
I had a meeting today to discuss problems with our current Firewall implementation (linux 2.0.36 with ipfwadm). We were hacked into a few weeks ago, and I had the wonderful job of cleaning up after the poor script kiddie.
:)
I made a formal recommendation that we install a separate server with NO user accounts, unlike the server our department had which was a general purpose workgroup server and doubled as a firewall. I said for $1000 we could get a PC, install linux on it (as is on almost all of our servers) and have it be completely secure to anywhere except the local console.
Then the Windows Guru spoke. Things went downhill from there. Suddenly, the meeting which was about "when do we install the Linux firewall" turned into "why don't we evaluate hardware-only solutions" (ie Cisco, etc). And then it got even worse. When I mentioned the high price tag of the Cisco equipment, it instantly turned into "Oh, anyone can hack linux because the source code is available. Let's use NT and install firewall software on it."
These people whose brains are numb from staring at Outlook and Office and Publisher 24/7 scare me. I didn't realize there WERE people who were so loyal to Microsoft that they would suggest NT over a hardware firewall unit. Every arguement they made about the OpenSource community could be turned back around to stab them through the heart (and I tried), but those who were weaker minded were swayed to the banner of the Man from Redmond.
SUMMARY: Can anyone recommend or share experience with their hardware or NT firewalling solutions? Evidence towards IPChains being significantly better would be much appreciated.
-Chris
willie@perigee.net
>Well, ya wanna know where they got the logo for doom? They ripped it off from the English
:)
>hardcore band DOOM, which was around from the 1980's. Ask any punk!
As if punks don't need another reason to say "yeah, I was there when it was cool, in fact I was one of the first people to see doom in concert in their mother's garage." (or something to that extent)
Elitist bastards.
-Chris
Well, let's get busy then! :)
-Chris
Some poor Russian news server is getting /.'ed for the sake of a nerd april fools joke...
If it crashes, does that mean we're even for what they did to whitehouse.gov?
-Chris
It's April 1 *somewhere* in the world when this was posted... :)
Side note: Red Hat is Red Hat because they're headquartered in research triangle, North Carolina.. home of, among many other colleges, North Carolina State University, where no doubt most of the RH founders went. When you come from NC State, *everything* is red.
-Chris
(Just when I felt like moving out of the ECE department...)
:)
Etienne-Cummings (from the article) is just one of our assistant professors. Imagine what our full time professors do.
-Chris
This is a hideous act of agression with the sole intent of instigating an international incident. The United States must declare war immediately. There is no other option. Whitehouse.gov is the cornerstone of the American Internet. Without it, there would be no way for United States citizens to learn the goings-on of the President, the Vice President or the entire Executive Branch of the government.
:)
Premeditated acts of terrorism like this cannot be tolerated. It is time for America to stand up for itself and deal a crushing blow to the country of origin of this electronic invasion.
Er?
Wait a second. It's www.whitehouse.gov. That's the first or second website everyone goes to when they get an internet account, and they never visit again. It's probably the first thing that 12-year-olds try to hack as soon as they get their AOL account. There certainly isn't any worthwhile information on it that can't be obtained elsewhere.
What a waste of a posting.
-Chris
It's my understanding that the legal issues with the N64 emulator came from copying the firmware from the N64 directly. This shouldn't be an issue with the gameboy, because the internal code is (relatively) easy to figure out. There ought to be a gameboy SDK somewhere that tells you all the things you need to know about the internal functionality.
:) Emulating the *proprietary* multi-RISC-processor (graphics, sound, cpu) 100mhz-bus system of the N64 requires a bit more knowledge of the "secrets" nintendo used. THAT's why they get mad about people emulating.
:> )
Besides, people have been emulating Z80's for years on all sorts of platforms. The Gameboy isn't much more than a z80 with some near-off-the-shelf parts.
-Chris
(Hey, if I got the n64 hardware wrong, don't flame. People get the idea.
He's got bigger problems... :)
I was reading the introduction to one of his books (I'm not a fan; it was on someone's coffee table) where he was talking about the reasons for not merchandising. This guy really needs to get over the fact that what he was producing was a COMIC STRIP. It's not something that's destined to hang on the walls of the Louvre. It's not something holy that's going to be "lessened" or "cheapened" by having stuffed dolls and t-shirts all over the place.
I never really got into Calvin and Hobbes (I'm a Dilbert/Far Side/Garfield kinda person), but after reading Mr. Watterson's little vendetta, I know I'll never go out of my way to read his strips.
-Chris