Re:Back to the original subject...
on
Time To Dump XP?
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· Score: 1
Vista is loaded on the 'corporate' PC but XP is on the development PC. XP works, it's stable. End of story.
That is so back assward. If you develop on 7, your app is pretty much guaranteed to work on XP, the reverse is not true unless the developer is either lucky, or extremely careful. The only exception I can think of is possibly if you're doing a lot of device driver development, or you use 7 only features... which you should know if you are doing or not.
But that check is there regardless of whether the plug-in is used or not. For example, flash pages are standard object tags, and if there is no object tag in the browser, then the flash control doesn't get called.
You only pay the price when you actually have content for it to check.
And do you plan to keep upgrading those machines to Windows 8 and 9? I'm just waiting for a future version to drop 32 bit support... you can keep using whatever older OS you want, so long as MS keeps supporting it.
Because you can't use 32 bit browser extensions in a 64 bit browser. With 64 bit Flash, you can use a 64 bit Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc... instead of the 32 bit versions we're stuck with.
And yes, the 64 bit versions are faster.. I notice a huge difference in rendering speed between the 32 bit and 64 bit.
You misunderstand. They're not an emulator, they're a module. So you can boot MacOS or you can boot DOS. They're not Emulators at all. Why should you have to boot another os just to boot the OS you want?
Yes, and consider apple switched... One would think Apple would have had a reason for that. Perhaps EFI works better with Intel processors.
I'm not sure if OpenFirmware supports the pluggable modules that EFI does, for instance, BootCamp is partially implemented as an EFI module. Can that be done with OpenFirmware?
EFI can have BIOS compatibility modules installed. So it *MIGHT* cause compatibility issues, or it might not.. depends on the motherboard manufacturer, and if they include BIOS compatibility. You may also be able to add BIOS modules later.
DOS limits the number of partitions to 4, though you can make logical partitions after that within the pimary ones. that's 512 primary partitions, way greater than DOS. However, GPT is usable in BIOS as well, so no.. you don't need EFI for GPT.
The E in EFI is "extensible" and that's what makes it better than BIOS. It can include a BIOS emulator, for instance, or a Mac Emulator, or whatever... It's also creatable in higher level languages than BIOS which is limited to assembly.
I suggestion you spend some time here. While you can say "it's just a bios" with a very loose definition of "bios", it's really not. Saying so means you don't really understand what a bios is, nor what EFI is. BIOS is very specific.. it has a specific set of interrupt vectors it services with a specific set of commands. Whether or not it has a GUI is irrelevant, because there are already GUI based BIOS's and there are text based EFI's.
EFI, on the other hand, is extensible in that you can plug in different modules (such as a BIOS compatibility module), or a MacOS module. Apple use EFI, and part of bootcamp is to include a BIOS module for it's EFI.
BIOS is written in assembly. pretty much as to be. UEFI (other than the bootstrapper) can be written in almost any language, including C.. it's possible to use Java or C# or whatever, but it would require implementing a runtime that could work in EFI which I don't think exists right now.
In short, the BIOS has been holding PC's back for decades. Moving to EFI will allow a lot of new functionality.
EFI has been around for about 15 years, but was an Itanium thing... UEFI was created about 5 years ago and adapted it for use with x86 and x64 computers. Apple has been using it since 2006 in all their Mac based PC's.
Unfortunately, OpenFirmware was withdrawn from the IEEE in 1998, so OpenFirmware isn't really a standard. And there wasn't really an Open Source implementation until 2006 (a year after UEFI was introduced).
So to say (paraphrasing) "Why didn't intel use OpenFirmware instead of creating their own?" is to ignore the face that OpenFirmware was a non-player at the time.
No, Microsoft implemented EFI in Vista, although they only put it in the 64 bit versions IIRC. I can't wait for 32 bit Windows to die a horrible death... then more people (like Adobe) will start fully supporting 64 bit windows (and no, 64 bit Photoshop is not enough, let's get a 64 bit flash).
Linux has supported EFI for quite some time. And EFI has BIOS compatibility modes (or it can.. that's one of those "extensible" things). Mac's, for instance, use EFI and have since they went Intel (possibly earlier, but I think the Intel macs were the first).
Linus is not a big fan of EFI though.. says it's a bigger, clunkier bios.
This is a valid point. Seeing as how we've had ZERO successful terrorists make it onto flights originating in the US since 9/11, and there have been a number of failed attempts by terrorists that were caught, i'd say the theater does work. One could also argue that the terrorists that were caught were just too inept to make it through even security theater, or that the security personel were just lucky.. but either way, what does it say about the deterrent factor of it?
The iPad has little of those. There is no contract, and you can turn it on or off whenever you want. No termination fee. However, you can't move to another network... but you could use a tether from another network or a "my-fi" hotspot.
Because nobody cares about the 1% of desktop Linux users. There have been plenty of vulnerabilities in Firefox and other Linux browsers to allow it, should someone have wanted to.
Yes, such vulnerabilities can only compromise the users account (as if that wasn't enough!), but user level compromise can do a lot (including be a spam zombie), but it can be combined with well known local root vulnerabilities to rootkit a box as well (hint, where do you think the term "rootkit" came from?). Sure, some boxes may be patched right away, but a lot aren't.. many users ignore local root vulnerabilities, especially if it means a reboot.
Further, it usually takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks from a vulnerability being publicly known (not the same thing as discovered, since linux developers embargo many bugs and don't release the information until a patch is ready.. which can take weeks or months in many situations). So lots of boxes are vulnerable to known vulnerabilities until it appears in their distro's automatic update system.
Desktop Linux has plenty of vulnerability. Few people seem to care enough to exploit it, though.
It's not "easy" for any computer to get on botnets, it requires a great deal of work and research. If you're a virus writer, looking for a big payday, and you can make $1 million targeting macs, or $5 Million targeting PC's.. will say "Oh, $1 million is enough for me"? No. Virus writers are GREEDY, which is why they are doing it in the first place.
I'm not claiming Macs or anything else is easier to hack than windows. However, there are more people hacking windows than there are Macs, and those people share information, so it becomes a hacking ecosystem. Not only do you have 90% of the computers, but you also have nearly 100% of the hacking community sharing information (or probably, selling information).
These things don't happen as a lone programmer who discovers a flaw and decides to exploit it. It's a huge ecosystem of people who do this.
What information do you have that Apache is compromised less?
Website defacements are just the easiest way to track successful hack attempts. There are lots that can't be easily tracked. And OS security is a lot more than just buffer overflows. It includes the software that ships with it. OpenBSD knows this, and they make sure all the software they ship with it is highly secure by default.
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Why lie?
You might find this informative
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/6/19/05641/7357
That is so back assward. If you develop on 7, your app is pretty much guaranteed to work on XP, the reverse is not true unless the developer is either lucky, or extremely careful. The only exception I can think of is possibly if you're doing a lot of device driver development, or you use 7 only features... which you should know if you are doing or not.
Yes, that's because they don't typically install 32 bit apps in Linux, so there was no 32 bit "fallback" like there is in Windows.
But that check is there regardless of whether the plug-in is used or not. For example, flash pages are standard object tags, and if there is no object tag in the browser, then the flash control doesn't get called.
You only pay the price when you actually have content for it to check.
The extensions only come into play when you're using them, and possibly on opening the browser. It doesn't affect the speed of rendering.
No. You need a 64 bit browser plug-in to work in a 64 bit browser. It's an architecture requirement, not a memory requirement.
And do you plan to keep upgrading those machines to Windows 8 and 9? I'm just waiting for a future version to drop 32 bit support... you can keep using whatever older OS you want, so long as MS keeps supporting it.
Yes, but only the Itanium versions. They added EFI to x64 systems with Vista SP1.
Because you can't use 32 bit browser extensions in a 64 bit browser. With 64 bit Flash, you can use a 64 bit Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc... instead of the 32 bit versions we're stuck with.
And yes, the 64 bit versions are faster.. I notice a huge difference in rendering speed between the 32 bit and 64 bit.
No. An emulator is.. well, an emulator... Ok, the EFI module "emulates" the firmware of a Mac or BIOS, but the OS itself does not run in an emaulator.
You misunderstand. They're not an emulator, they're a module. So you can boot MacOS or you can boot DOS. They're not Emulators at all. Why should you have to boot another os just to boot the OS you want?
Servers, yes. I don't think so with Desktop motherboards.
Yes, and consider apple switched... One would think Apple would have had a reason for that. Perhaps EFI works better with Intel processors.
I'm not sure if OpenFirmware supports the pluggable modules that EFI does, for instance, BootCamp is partially implemented as an EFI module. Can that be done with OpenFirmware?
Considering that Apple switched from OpenFirmware to EFI, one would guess that maybe there were issues.
I don't think Mac's used OpenFirmware until the PPC Macs, which was 1994 I think.. about a year before EFI.
EFI can have BIOS compatibility modules installed. So it *MIGHT* cause compatibility issues, or it might not.. depends on the motherboard manufacturer, and if they include BIOS compatibility. You may also be able to add BIOS modules later.
DOS limits the number of partitions to 4, though you can make logical partitions after that within the pimary ones. that's 512 primary partitions, way greater than DOS. However, GPT is usable in BIOS as well, so no.. you don't need EFI for GPT.
The E in EFI is "extensible" and that's what makes it better than BIOS. It can include a BIOS emulator, for instance, or a Mac Emulator, or whatever... It's also creatable in higher level languages than BIOS which is limited to assembly.
I suggestion you spend some time here. While you can say "it's just a bios" with a very loose definition of "bios", it's really not. Saying so means you don't really understand what a bios is, nor what EFI is. BIOS is very specific.. it has a specific set of interrupt vectors it services with a specific set of commands. Whether or not it has a GUI is irrelevant, because there are already GUI based BIOS's and there are text based EFI's.
EFI, on the other hand, is extensible in that you can plug in different modules (such as a BIOS compatibility module), or a MacOS module. Apple use EFI, and part of bootcamp is to include a BIOS module for it's EFI.
BIOS is written in assembly. pretty much as to be. UEFI (other than the bootstrapper) can be written in almost any language, including C.. it's possible to use Java or C# or whatever, but it would require implementing a runtime that could work in EFI which I don't think exists right now.
In short, the BIOS has been holding PC's back for decades. Moving to EFI will allow a lot of new functionality.
EFI has been around for about 15 years, but was an Itanium thing... UEFI was created about 5 years ago and adapted it for use with x86 and x64 computers. Apple has been using it since 2006 in all their Mac based PC's.
Unfortunately, OpenFirmware was withdrawn from the IEEE in 1998, so OpenFirmware isn't really a standard. And there wasn't really an Open Source implementation until 2006 (a year after UEFI was introduced).
So to say (paraphrasing) "Why didn't intel use OpenFirmware instead of creating their own?" is to ignore the face that OpenFirmware was a non-player at the time.
No, Microsoft implemented EFI in Vista, although they only put it in the 64 bit versions IIRC. I can't wait for 32 bit Windows to die a horrible death... then more people (like Adobe) will start fully supporting 64 bit windows (and no, 64 bit Photoshop is not enough, let's get a 64 bit flash).
Linux has supported EFI for quite some time. And EFI has BIOS compatibility modes (or it can.. that's one of those "extensible" things). Mac's, for instance, use EFI and have since they went Intel (possibly earlier, but I think the Intel macs were the first).
Linus is not a big fan of EFI though.. says it's a bigger, clunkier bios.
This is a valid point. Seeing as how we've had ZERO successful terrorists make it onto flights originating in the US since 9/11, and there have been a number of failed attempts by terrorists that were caught, i'd say the theater does work. One could also argue that the terrorists that were caught were just too inept to make it through even security theater, or that the security personel were just lucky.. but either way, what does it say about the deterrent factor of it?
The iPad has little of those. There is no contract, and you can turn it on or off whenever you want. No termination fee. However, you can't move to another network... but you could use a tether from another network or a "my-fi" hotspot.
Because nobody cares about the 1% of desktop Linux users. There have been plenty of vulnerabilities in Firefox and other Linux browsers to allow it, should someone have wanted to.
Yes, such vulnerabilities can only compromise the users account (as if that wasn't enough!), but user level compromise can do a lot (including be a spam zombie), but it can be combined with well known local root vulnerabilities to rootkit a box as well (hint, where do you think the term "rootkit" came from?). Sure, some boxes may be patched right away, but a lot aren't.. many users ignore local root vulnerabilities, especially if it means a reboot.
Further, it usually takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks from a vulnerability being publicly known (not the same thing as discovered, since linux developers embargo many bugs and don't release the information until a patch is ready.. which can take weeks or months in many situations). So lots of boxes are vulnerable to known vulnerabilities until it appears in their distro's automatic update system.
Desktop Linux has plenty of vulnerability. Few people seem to care enough to exploit it, though.
It's not "easy" for any computer to get on botnets, it requires a great deal of work and research. If you're a virus writer, looking for a big payday, and you can make $1 million targeting macs, or $5 Million targeting PC's.. will say "Oh, $1 million is enough for me"? No. Virus writers are GREEDY, which is why they are doing it in the first place.
I'm not claiming Macs or anything else is easier to hack than windows. However, there are more people hacking windows than there are Macs, and those people share information, so it becomes a hacking ecosystem. Not only do you have 90% of the computers, but you also have nearly 100% of the hacking community sharing information (or probably, selling information).
These things don't happen as a lone programmer who discovers a flaw and decides to exploit it. It's a huge ecosystem of people who do this.
What information do you have that Apache is compromised less?
Website defacements are just the easiest way to track successful hack attempts. There are lots that can't be easily tracked. And OS security is a lot more than just buffer overflows. It includes the software that ships with it. OpenBSD knows this, and they make sure all the software they ship with it is highly secure by default.