As for Sparc. ..you're joking, right? I like my SparcStation too, but if I feel the need to blow hundreds of dollars on DVDs and a player I'll use my TV, thank you very much.
No, I'm not joking. It's true that if I wanted to view DVDs, I wouldn't go out an buy a Sparc. However, I have already made the investments in that hardware, and I already have the DVDs (most of which, yes, I do watch on my TV). So why shouldn't I use my existing Sparc hardware (which sports a DVD-RAM, currently used for backups) to watch my already purchased DVDs? BTW, my monitor is the same size as my TV, with a significantly higher refresh rate, so the old "your TV is better" claim won't wash. BTW, as for your "single monitor" argument, my Sparc has two...
This falls into the "better than nothng, but not by much" category. There's no mention of it in the FAQ, but I'm guessing that support for non-x86 platforms will be minimal or non-existant. They may go for a PPC version, but I don't hold out much hope of seeing a version for my Sparc Linux box. Oh well, at least there's still LiViD.
While the availability of our familiar distributions is nice, it's not that important in the scheme of things. Of more significance, by far, is that fact that IBM is now officially supporting the S/390 port. It had previously been available for free download, but that's not going to convince an IT manager to install it as a mission critical system. The fact that it is now supported by IGS (IBM Global Services), however, is likely to make them sit and and take notice. IBM offering the same consulting and implementation services that they offer for other S/390 OSes is a major boost. It make Linux/S390 into a mainstream platform. The importance of that shouldn't be underestimated.
Actually, no, I'm not. I even agree with much of what you've said. When things do go wrong, the chances of finding someone else with the same problem (and hopefully a solution) are orders of magnitude smaller for non-x86 platforms.
It does strange things, things that never happen on intel
What I'm trying to find out is what strange things happen. As I said, I haven't noticed any on non-x86 Linux, and I'm curious about what differences you have found.
I tried linux on a Digital Alpha and this _cured_ me of most of my desire to try alternative platforms. The trouble is that a whole lot of things just dont work on other than the X86 platform.
I'm curious about this. I've been a long time user of Sparc Linux, and I've found virtually no differences. The obvious ones I have noticed are the sexy console (which x86 can finally now do with the framebuffer support), and the fact that x86 binary-only apps (e.g., Acrobat Reader, Oracle etc.) obviously won't work. I can happily run the SunOS version of Acrobat Reader, though, and I'm not too bothered about other closed source apps. The only problems I've had with open source programs have been those that include x86 assembler with no C alternatives. What problems did you have with non-x86 Linux?
There are currently six VA FullOns serving web pages from an NFS server
This is something I've been wondering about recently. How do you have clustered web servers sharing storage? Sure, use NFS you say. But that introduces a single point of failure. If your NFS server goes down, you lose the entire cluster. Are there any solutions to this that don't involve spending vast quantities of money on a Sun HA failover system or an Auspex mirrored NFS system or similar?
And if Loki ports it, perhaps they will also come up with a robust, generalized voice recognition system for Linux!:)
Actually, there already is one. IBM's Via Voice should do everything you need. Freely available, IIRC, but not open source.
Re:Isn't there a max # of CPU's for Linux SMP?
on
New Mega Alphas
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· Score: 2
I though there was a limit of either 4 or 8 processors on a board
Nope. Above 4 CPUs, you get diminishing returns for Linux as it stands at the moment, but it's not a hard limit (and 2.4 should do better with more CPUs, too). Take a look at http://www.dare.demon.nl/linux/sparc 64/yow.txt for an example of Linux running on a 14 CPU UltraSparc system. It's worth remembering that Linux is not just Intel. I don't think that current Intel chipsets can handle more than 8 CPUs. Machines that can take more (e.g., the Data General AV25000 can take up to 64 CPUs) tend to use multiple quad-CPU boards. These are also NUMA configurations, rather than traditional SMP.
Frankly I feel it's an over-reaction on their part totally disabling those file attachment types.
Yes, but it's a bug in Outlook that it determines the file type from the extension anyway. Outlook completely ignores the MIME type of attachments, and guesses what they are from the extension. This makes sending a GIF called "image.vbs" non-trivial to someone using Outlook. Similarly, this means I could rename the love letter worm VBS file and call it "image.gif", and Windows would think it's an image. Of course, this means that it won't be run automatically by double clicking on it. Or will it? If your image viewer can execute VB scripts, then you're just as vulnerable. Can IE run VB scripts (it's configured as the default image viewer on many Windows systems)? Sigh.
It is about time that us "geeks" re-claimed our Internet from the dumbed down masses.
OK, so you're trolling, but I almost agree with you anyway. Back in the late '80s, I was wishing more people were connected to the net. It was a great place to be. Now they're all here, I occasionally find myself wishing they weren't. The problem is that there's no quality control. If only people with half a brain were allowed Internet access, we wouldn't have the AOL syndrome. But real life isn't like that. For better or worse (overall, I think it's for better, despite the problems it causes), the unwashed masses do contribute to the essence of the net. For every 1000 AOL lusers, the general population gives us a Rob Malda or an Iliad. Not an ideal ratio, but better than nothing.
If you're such a hotshot web designer, why have you committed one of the cardinal sins of web design
Not just one, either. For example, on http://www.zeldman.com/about/aboutf.html , you say "You need a frames-capable browser, buster". Well that's great... but I have one (Lynx). If you'd label your frames in a sensible manner, though, I wouldn't have to pick one at random ("content" would have been so much better that "mid"). As it is, I went for "bot" first, which took me to http://www.zeldman.com/about/bot.html, a prime example of what (for me, at least) is the cardinal sin of web design -- no alt attributes for images.
The rights granted under this license are limited solely to distribution and sublicensing of the Contribution(s) on, with, or for operating systems which are themselves Open Source programs.
I wonder what they're defining an operating system to be? Is it just the kernel, or the complete installation? If it's the former, then there's no problem. If it's the latter, then does this mean Linux/BSD dsitributions incorporating closed course components (e.g., Netscape, Acrobat Reader etc.) will run into problems? Also note that the license explicitly defines the term "Open Source", and it doesn't mean the same as the OSI definition.
As others have said, it depends on how critical the support is. An example:
I'm actually doing support now for a helpdesk application (developed in house). This helpdesk is for a billion dollor multinational (no, I'm not going to tell you which one), and there are severe financial penalties if we fail to respond to a support call within the contracted time (usually 4 hours). The funny thing is, I'm the only person supporting the application, and if they can't get hold of me, they're screwed. There's not that many actual users, but that's because most of it is automated. Entries into the system are made by the app from external data feeds, and they're currently going through at about one transaction every 2 seconds. The thing is, I've fixed most of the outstanding bugs, so it rarely fails now. I can easily cope with the workload myself. But if it does fail, and I'm not around, the financial penalties incurred would far exceed the cost of having another support employee, even if they're sitting around doing nothing for most of the day (as, indeed, am I). For some reason, the PHBs can never see this...
Now for the suggestion... please don't refer to this as "manpower." This is a very sexist term.
No, it's not. If you think it is, then maybe you need help. Manpower is a generic term referring to a number of people. It doesn't imply gender, no matter how much the politically correct morons claim it does.
Now that Linux is so popular is there any need for another free Unix-based operating system?
No, there isn't. But people may want an alternative, even if they don't need one. By your logic, Coke and PepsiCo should combine forces to make the ultimate soft drink, and Ford and GM should join to work on perfecting the motor vehicle. Diversity is good. If people want to develop BSD, who are you to tell them they'd be better off putting their efforts into Linux? From a purely commercial point of view, if there was a single company controlling the direction of both BSD and Linux, it would make sense to merge the two. Thankfully, real life isn't like that.
I seem to remember reading in the manual for my Libretto that Toshiba considered up to 6 (IIRC) flawed pixels acceptable. The problem is that from the users point of view, even a single flawed pixel can be unacceptable. A friend has an HP OmniBook with a single permanently blue pixel at the moment, and it is very noticable. You basically have two options: live with your manufacturer's ideas about the acceptable level of imperfection, or challenge it. In the UK, you may well be able to claim that the goods are not fit for purpose. Other countries probably have similar legislation. I suspect it'll need a test case in the courts before the manufacturers back down, though.
Programs should be portable, more or less (ie. it should come with reasonable defaults that can run as-is on the specific system it was designed for, but it should not require massive recompilation or source-level hacking to get it to work on a slightly differently-configured system).
I couldn't agree more. One of the biggest problems I have with the CorelDRAW beta for Linux is its insistence on installing into/usr. Make/usr the default, maybe (although the FHS says to use/opt), but let the user choose. My/usr filesystem is full, but I have gigabytes free in/usr/local and/opt. Sigh.
You can stop there. The problem is that "the scene" consists of crackers. Crackers have always called themselves hackers anyway, much to the annoyance of true hackers. FWIW, I've encountered "hacker" in the sense "really likes coding" quite a lot in the UK, though more so in recent years. Perhaps that's due to the influence of a global Internet -- cultural differences are bound to cross borders, particularly between coutries that (nominally, at least:-) speak the same language.
You're going to have a heck of a time bringing up X on that terminal -- trust me on this one.
Yes, but it may just be difficult, not impossible. I've seen someone running the Xggi server with the aalib ASCII art driver in a Linux console. The only problem is whether or not a VT100 can handle the screen updates fast enough. For a text terminal, though, they're great. I used to use one many years ago. Just connect it witha serial cable, spawn a getty to the right port and away you go.
My advice would be to get an old Pentium 2 or even a high end P1 and a fast SCSI controller and hard disk.
Doesn't even need to be that much. I used to burn CDs on my P75 wihout problems. I'd get occasional buffer underruns when doing other stuff at the same time, but since this is going to be a dedicated burning machine, you're not going to have much else happening anyway. Also, it was an older generation burner with a small (512K, IIRC) cache. Newer drives have 2MB and above, which should be more than enough. If you're using cdrecord, you get an additional software buffer, too, so buffer underruns are virtually unheard of.
Of course, SCSI goes without saying. You don't need anything great -- a cheap $50 card will be fine. Be prepared to pay slightly more for a SCSI burner, but if you shop around, it should only be an extra 10% or so. I even managed to find my Yamaha 4416S for less than IDE version.
People will pay a lot for absence of grief. We did.
Indeed. FWIW, we mocked up a gs replacement for the Harlequin and Hyphen RIPs we were using at the time, and it worked admirably. One of the reasons we didn't use it in production was the support issue. It's pure FUD to claim that the support for gs isn't available. However, we couldn't (at the time -- things may have changed by now) find support in the UK with the response times we needed.
Re:Why is MySQL more popular than PostgreSQL?
on
Why Not MySQL?
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· Score: 2
it isn't that much faster and sometimes it's slower, and it's not Open Source
While I haven't done any performance testing myself, others have found that it really is significantly faster for common tasks (e.g., simple selects for a website). And while it's not open source, it's close enough for most people. The source is available, and you the only restrictions on usage are if you resell the database itself.
[OT] BTW, why use the Harlequin RIP? It's not significantly faster than gs, and it's not Open Source. Not trying to be provocative, I'm just curious...
Re:What are you using it for?
on
Why Not MySQL?
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· Score: 1
don't use a Porche to tow your caravan.
Why not? If you have a Porsche, it's a perfectly valid tool for the job. A friend of mine gets some very odd looks because his vastly performance enhanced Lancia Montecarlo has a towball on the back. The point here is that if you don't already own a car, a Porsche shouldn't be your first choice when looking to buy something to tow a caravan. If you already have one, though, sticking a towball on the back is by far the easiest solution.
96% of the top 50 e-commerce sites use Oracle? That's 46 of them. There must be a reason for it... I'll trust their decisions and not try to reinvent the wheel.
Yes, there's a good reason for it -- virtually all IT managers are mindless sheep. It's the old "no one was ever fired for buying IBM/Microsoft/Oracle" principle. Most of them will never have evaluated all their options. They will instead have taken the attitude "I know Oracle can do the job, so we'll use that". There may well be other that can do the job just as well, but don't expect the majority of companies to even look at them.
I'm not trying to put Oracle down here. I think they have a great product (although I've always preferred Informix), but the fact that everyone else uses it is no reason to do so yourself. That's the reasoning that ended up in widespread use of NT for tasks it's simply not suited for. Use the right tool for the job. If you need a fast database that works well for 95% of applications, use MySQL. If you need guaranteed data integrity, then use Oracle / Informix / Sybase / PostgreSQL whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
Being in the UK, of course, I don't have to do that anyway...
No, I'm not joking. It's true that if I wanted to view DVDs, I wouldn't go out an buy a Sparc. However, I have already made the investments in that hardware, and I already have the DVDs (most of which, yes, I do watch on my TV). So why shouldn't I use my existing Sparc hardware (which sports a DVD-RAM, currently used for backups) to watch my already purchased DVDs? BTW, my monitor is the same size as my TV, with a significantly higher refresh rate, so the old "your TV is better" claim won't wash. BTW, as for your "single monitor" argument, my Sparc has two...
This falls into the "better than nothng, but not by much" category. There's no mention of it in the FAQ, but I'm guessing that support for non-x86 platforms will be minimal or non-existant. They may go for a PPC version, but I don't hold out much hope of seeing a version for my Sparc Linux box. Oh well, at least there's still LiViD.
While the availability of our familiar distributions is nice, it's not that important in the scheme of things. Of more significance, by far, is that fact that IBM is now officially supporting the S/390 port. It had previously been available for free download, but that's not going to convince an IT manager to install it as a mission critical system. The fact that it is now supported by IGS (IBM Global Services), however, is likely to make them sit and and take notice. IBM offering the same consulting and implementation services that they offer for other S/390 OSes is a major boost. It make Linux/S390 into a mainstream platform. The importance of that shouldn't be underestimated.
Actually, no, I'm not. I even agree with much of what you've said. When things do go wrong, the chances of finding someone else with the same problem (and hopefully a solution) are orders of magnitude smaller for non-x86 platforms.
It does strange things, things that never happen on intel
What I'm trying to find out is what strange things happen. As I said, I haven't noticed any on non-x86 Linux, and I'm curious about what differences you have found.
I'm curious about this. I've been a long time user of Sparc Linux, and I've found virtually no differences. The obvious ones I have noticed are the sexy console (which x86 can finally now do with the framebuffer support), and the fact that x86 binary-only apps (e.g., Acrobat Reader, Oracle etc.) obviously won't work. I can happily run the SunOS version of Acrobat Reader, though, and I'm not too bothered about other closed source apps. The only problems I've had with open source programs have been those that include x86 assembler with no C alternatives. What problems did you have with non-x86 Linux?
This is something I've been wondering about recently. How do you have clustered web servers sharing storage? Sure, use NFS you say. But that introduces a single point of failure. If your NFS server goes down, you lose the entire cluster. Are there any solutions to this that don't involve spending vast quantities of money on a Sun HA failover system or an Auspex mirrored NFS system or similar?
Actually, there already is one. IBM's Via Voice should do everything you need. Freely available, IIRC, but not open source.
Nope. Above 4 CPUs, you get diminishing returns for Linux as it stands at the moment, but it's not a hard limit (and 2.4 should do better with more CPUs, too). Take a look at http://www.dare.demon.nl/linux/sparc 64/yow.txt for an example of Linux running on a 14 CPU UltraSparc system. It's worth remembering that Linux is not just Intel. I don't think that current Intel chipsets can handle more than 8 CPUs. Machines that can take more (e.g., the Data General AV25000 can take up to 64 CPUs) tend to use multiple quad-CPU boards. These are also NUMA configurations, rather than traditional SMP.
Yes, but it's a bug in Outlook that it determines the file type from the extension anyway. Outlook completely ignores the MIME type of attachments, and guesses what they are from the extension. This makes sending a GIF called "image.vbs" non-trivial to someone using Outlook. Similarly, this means I could rename the love letter worm VBS file and call it "image.gif", and Windows would think it's an image. Of course, this means that it won't be run automatically by double clicking on it. Or will it? If your image viewer can execute VB scripts, then you're just as vulnerable. Can IE run VB scripts (it's configured as the default image viewer on many Windows systems)? Sigh.
OK, so you're trolling, but I almost agree with you anyway. Back in the late '80s, I was wishing more people were connected to the net. It was a great place to be. Now they're all here, I occasionally find myself wishing they weren't. The problem is that there's no quality control. If only people with half a brain were allowed Internet access, we wouldn't have the AOL syndrome. But real life isn't like that. For better or worse (overall, I think it's for better, despite the problems it causes), the unwashed masses do contribute to the essence of the net. For every 1000 AOL lusers, the general population gives us a Rob Malda or an Iliad. Not an ideal ratio, but better than nothing.
Not just one, either. For example, on http://www.zeldman.com/about/aboutf.html , you say "You need a frames-capable browser, buster". Well that's great... but I have one (Lynx). If you'd label your frames in a sensible manner, though, I wouldn't have to pick one at random ("content" would have been so much better that "mid"). As it is, I went for "bot" first, which took me to http://www.zeldman.com/about/bot.html, a prime example of what (for me, at least) is the cardinal sin of web design -- no alt attributes for images.
I wonder what they're defining an operating system to be? Is it just the kernel, or the complete installation? If it's the former, then there's no problem. If it's the latter, then does this mean Linux/BSD dsitributions incorporating closed course components (e.g., Netscape, Acrobat Reader etc.) will run into problems? Also note that the license explicitly defines the term "Open Source", and it doesn't mean the same as the OSI definition.
I'm actually doing support now for a helpdesk application (developed in house). This helpdesk is for a billion dollor multinational (no, I'm not going to tell you which one), and there are severe financial penalties if we fail to respond to a support call within the contracted time (usually 4 hours). The funny thing is, I'm the only person supporting the application, and if they can't get hold of me, they're screwed. There's not that many actual users, but that's because most of it is automated. Entries into the system are made by the app from external data feeds, and they're currently going through at about one transaction every 2 seconds. The thing is, I've fixed most of the outstanding bugs, so it rarely fails now. I can easily cope with the workload myself. But if it does fail, and I'm not around, the financial penalties incurred would far exceed the cost of having another support employee, even if they're sitting around doing nothing for most of the day (as, indeed, am I). For some reason, the PHBs can never see this...
No, it's not. If you think it is, then maybe you need help. Manpower is a generic term referring to a number of people. It doesn't imply gender, no matter how much the politically correct morons claim it does.
No, there isn't. But people may want an alternative, even if they don't need one. By your logic, Coke and PepsiCo should combine forces to make the ultimate soft drink, and Ford and GM should join to work on perfecting the motor vehicle. Diversity is good. If people want to develop BSD, who are you to tell them they'd be better off putting their efforts into Linux? From a purely commercial point of view, if there was a single company controlling the direction of both BSD and Linux, it would make sense to merge the two. Thankfully, real life isn't like that.
I seem to remember reading in the manual for my Libretto that Toshiba considered up to 6 (IIRC) flawed pixels acceptable. The problem is that from the users point of view, even a single flawed pixel can be unacceptable. A friend has an HP OmniBook with a single permanently blue pixel at the moment, and it is very noticable. You basically have two options: live with your manufacturer's ideas about the acceptable level of imperfection, or challenge it. In the UK, you may well be able to claim that the goods are not fit for purpose. Other countries probably have similar legislation. I suspect it'll need a test case in the courts before the manufacturers back down, though.
I couldn't agree more. One of the biggest problems I have with the CorelDRAW beta for Linux is its insistence on installing into /usr. Make /usr the default, maybe (although the FHS says to use /opt), but let the user choose. My /usr filesystem is full, but I have gigabytes free in /usr/local and /opt. Sigh.
You can stop there. The problem is that "the scene" consists of crackers. Crackers have always called themselves hackers anyway, much to the annoyance of true hackers. FWIW, I've encountered "hacker" in the sense "really likes coding" quite a lot in the UK, though more so in recent years. Perhaps that's due to the influence of a global Internet -- cultural differences are bound to cross borders, particularly between coutries that (nominally, at least :-) speak the same language.
Yes, but it may just be difficult, not impossible. I've seen someone running the Xggi server with the aalib ASCII art driver in a Linux console. The only problem is whether or not a VT100 can handle the screen updates fast enough. For a text terminal, though, they're great. I used to use one many years ago. Just connect it witha serial cable, spawn a getty to the right port and away you go.
Doesn't even need to be that much. I used to burn CDs on my P75 wihout problems. I'd get occasional buffer underruns when doing other stuff at the same time, but since this is going to be a dedicated burning machine, you're not going to have much else happening anyway. Also, it was an older generation burner with a small (512K, IIRC) cache. Newer drives have 2MB and above, which should be more than enough. If you're using cdrecord, you get an additional software buffer, too, so buffer underruns are virtually unheard of.
Of course, SCSI goes without saying. You don't need anything great -- a cheap $50 card will be fine. Be prepared to pay slightly more for a SCSI burner, but if you shop around, it should only be an extra 10% or so. I even managed to find my Yamaha 4416S for less than IDE version.
Indeed. FWIW, we mocked up a gs replacement for the Harlequin and Hyphen RIPs we were using at the time, and it worked admirably. One of the reasons we didn't use it in production was the support issue. It's pure FUD to claim that the support for gs isn't available. However, we couldn't (at the time -- things may have changed by now) find support in the UK with the response times we needed.
While I haven't done any performance testing myself, others have found that it really is significantly faster for common tasks (e.g., simple selects for a website). And while it's not open source, it's close enough for most people. The source is available, and you the only restrictions on usage are if you resell the database itself.
[OT] BTW, why use the Harlequin RIP? It's not significantly faster than gs, and it's not Open Source. Not trying to be provocative, I'm just curious...
Why not? If you have a Porsche, it's a perfectly valid tool for the job. A friend of mine gets some very odd looks because his vastly performance enhanced Lancia Montecarlo has a towball on the back. The point here is that if you don't already own a car, a Porsche shouldn't be your first choice when looking to buy something to tow a caravan. If you already have one, though, sticking a towball on the back is by far the easiest solution.
Yes, there's a good reason for it -- virtually all IT managers are mindless sheep. It's the old "no one was ever fired for buying IBM/Microsoft/Oracle" principle. Most of them will never have evaluated all their options. They will instead have taken the attitude "I know Oracle can do the job, so we'll use that". There may well be other that can do the job just as well, but don't expect the majority of companies to even look at them.
I'm not trying to put Oracle down here. I think they have a great product (although I've always preferred Informix), but the fact that everyone else uses it is no reason to do so yourself. That's the reasoning that ended up in widespread use of NT for tasks it's simply not suited for. Use the right tool for the job. If you need a fast database that works well for 95% of applications, use MySQL. If you need guaranteed data integrity, then use Oracle / Informix / Sybase / PostgreSQL whatever.