When you roll out updates, it is ROUTINE for the new software to backup the old conf file and install a new one.
This is completely standard.
No, it's completely crazy. As this bug demonstrates.
What should happen (and what does in RH systems, AFAIK) is that the new.conf file is created with a different extension (.conf.rpmnew) and then you diff *that* with your existing, customised config file.
Default behaviour should be as non-intrusive and - especially - as non-destructive as possible. This is referred to as "the principle of least amazement". Overwriting existing, customised files completely fails it.
The admin is not without fault for not testing and backing up his config, but Red Hat are much more at fault for *destroying end user data*.
(BTW, if it were a Microsoft product, you'd have NO WAY of auditing the changes.. so you could never get by without more testing than I outlined here).
Well, something is different about the CPUs, Dell have an option for a different 3.0 ghz CPU that was about $200 more per processor. I went with the cheaper one, but from what I can tell the Pro used the more expensive one.
Given Apple's slow hardware cycle, Dell probably have a newer, slightly different Xeon model (different clock speed, L2 cache, power usage, etc). Since, on their servers at least, the newer Xeons are cheaper than the older ones, that would explain your price discrepancy.
Vista is about as big of a leap as going from virgin XP to XP SP2.
Actually, it's more like going from Windows NT 3.51 to Windows XP. Or NeXT/OPENSTEP 4.x to OS X 10.5. There are numerous, major, and in some cases fundamental, changes to pretty much every significant part of the OS.
Try instead: you *see* more of the trial-and-error on Linux.
Which might carry some weight if not for the open development models of, say, FreeBSD (or any of the BSDs) and OpenSolaris.
Also, look at who complains about the lack of a binary interface. Not open source developers at all. Only folk who want to leverage community efforts without following community rules.
Wanting a stable target to aim development at is not "following the rules" ? Wanting a well supported platform for your business is not "following the rules" ?
WTF ? O.o
Exactly which part of developing software for a particular platform, do you believe is exploiting said platform ? Is it the part where users have more hardware and software to choose from ? Is it the part where it enables wider adoption ? Is it the part where wider adoptions spurs further development ? Do you think Microsoft or Apple developers feel exploited by all the software and hardware that Windows and OS X can use ? How about the FreeBSD developers ? Do you think they hate the way their OS endows developers with a known, stable target ?
On the other hand, let's look at all the people arguing against such stability. How unsurprising to see it's all the GPL zealots who think code that isn't GPLed is immoral and want to leverage a moving target so developers "have" to GPL their code (and who would undoubtedly use the same breath to lambast Microsoft as "evil" for similar behaviour).
Why should they have any say in this, at all?
Because they're potential users (which translates to "customers" to a non-trivial portion of the Linux developer community) ? Because they're right ? Because their worldview is more mature than "if it's not GPLed it's evil" ?
The folk who are actively moving the system forward have no problem working within those constraints.
That's because "the folk actively moving the system forward", as you put it, largely act like they're working on a personal hobby.
Yes, and it's the only remotely mainstream OS that's absurdly fast on almost everything it does.
Yes, OSes like FreeBSD are real dogs.
It regularly tops benchmarks, micro and macro.
Which benchmarks does Linux "top" commensurate with your cheerleading ? Say, by 20% or more ?
It releases new working features faster than every other operating system combined,
while still remaining very stable in vendor enterprise releases.
The "vendor enterprise releases" rarely, if ever, have the "new working features" that you are talking about. It typically takes *years* for "new working features" to make it into the "vendor enterprise releases" (which can be quite frustrating for those of us who use them).
A large part of that is because the developers have the freedom to improve APIs and in-kernel libraries whenever required.
Other OSes (Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS X) are able to achieve similar feats without this requirement. Your argument fails.
Not to turn this into a flamewar, but the G4s of that vintage Benchmarked significantly faster than their Pentium counterparts at the same clockspeed, and could address up to 2GB of RAM, which was a ridiculous amount in 1999.
Ah, but in 1999, PCs were also available in significantly higher clockspeeds (up to 800Mhz, from memory) and dual-processor configurations. A mere 6-12 months later and you're looking at 1Ghz+ boxes (I still have a dual ~900Mhz machine dating from 2000 - with a new (and dirt cheap) video card, it even ran Vista usably and with full functionality).
I still use it because it's perfectly adequate for what I need it for. Although Apple succumbed to a great deal of bloat in 10.5, OS X runs remarkably well on older hardware.
OS X runs like a dog on anything less than a G5, IMHO (and even my mum's iMac G5 stutters more than I like). That's the latest and greatest OS X, as well. Back before 10.4 it was *much* worse.
If you're not doing super-CPU-intensive tasks, old macs tend to do reasonably well.
So do old PCs (better, if anything, for reasons stated previously).
A surprising number of "Classic" Macs are still out there and still being used, although even I consider that a bit extreme.
I know, I own a few myself. That does not change my point that from an objective perspective a PC ages just as well as - if not better than - a Mac. Historically, Windows is kinder to older hardware than OS X has been (even Vista).
Amongst the standard Apple fanboi drivel, these two deserve special attention.
By Mac mini Pro, you're pretty much imagining a Cube; The G4 Cube was introduced in 2004 and flopped.
No, he's not. The Cube was an overpriced fashion toy, not a good computer. If Apple were to release an equivalent to the Cube today, it would be a Mac Mini with a discreet graphics card and a quad-core CPU, but cost as much as a Mac Pro.
The Cube failed because all but the craziest Apple cultists shunned it as the awesomely bad deal it was.
As a side note, I found something in your argument rather contradictory of itself. You ask for a conventional, average-specced desktop, then you ask for, essentially, a tiny Mac Pro. Does that make any sense?
It makes perfect sense. Half a Mac Pro *is* an "average-specced desktop" (nearly by definition).
Mac Pro: are you fucking insane? I don't need that much power (and even the GPU options for that one are ridiculous).
Make the Mac mini taller/bigger, put a 3.5" drive and a half-decent GPU in it (the ability to run Starcraft II and Diablo III at medium settings) and it WILL sell. A lot. You have no fuckin' idea how much people loathe all-in-one computers.
Congratulations, you've just identified why Apple don't do it.
A "Mac Pro Mini", as I like to call it, would indeed sell well - and take most of those sales away from the higher margin Mac Pro.
I have a 450 Mhz G4 tower that's still running nearly unmodified, and still generally useful, nearly 10 years after its original purchase.
A similarly aged PC is just as useful (probably more so, because it will be faster not only by virtue of raw hardware specifications, but also by running a less resource-intensive, yet still quite capable, OS).
Whether or not people choose to continue using such old hardware is a completely separate issue. It's easy to see why they wouldn't bother, though, when a _laptop_ nearly an order of magnitude faster only costs around US$700 today.
It's not a simple formula, but I've always personally defined "rich" as having sufficient assets and passive income to be able to live comfortably without needing to work.
If you need to go to work every day, you're not rich, you're middle-class.
Your argument is basically that writing shared libraries is just as easy as writing applications, and that maintaining API/ABI compatibility in shared libraries is "easy". Both of which contradict years of experience.
Actually I think the point is that when a product is well engineered, a stable API and ABI are quite feasible.
Supporting evidence for this is that basically every other platform _except_ Linux manages to keep a stable API and ABI.
The reason for this is, IMHO, large parts of Linux tend to be "trial and errored" into existence, rather than "specified, designed and implemented".
But Windows NT kernel does not have version numberin, (for developers there must be) but OS has the stupid NT x.y numbering and marketing names XP or Vista. So user does not know that XP is NT 5.1 and Vista is NT6 and next one is NT7 (Windows 7) and so on.
Oh please! Nobody in a position to be making decisions based on kernel version should be put off by a number like 2.6.26. Can you honestly see a PHB in ever being allowed by the developers to be in a position to say, "No, I don't think we should go with this kernel, lets go with another one."
I've already seen those sorts of decisions made on multiple occasions. In fact, I'd be surprised if it *hadn't* happened at anything except the smallest businesses.
Never underestimate the decisions that will be made by a egomaniacal micromanager who doesn't trust his staff.
Summary: Being able to improve the API regularly keeps Linux largely free of legacy cruft that slows down the development and runtime performance of other systems like Windows. That's why Linux maxes out hardware that runs like a dog under Windows.
This argument is horseshit and always has been. Linux is the only remotely mainstream OS that doesn't maintain a stable ABI.
You paid too much for your copy of Windows when you bought your computer. You also paid much more for your laptop than you would Microsoft did not control the operating system market. Did you pay $100 extra? Yes, at least.
OEM copies of Windows aren't anywhere close to $100.
If that's too complicated for you, how much is that anti-virus/firewall/Office app/other nasty hacks required to use Windows?
They're not required.
Finally, please do not shift your argument, or abuse other arguments.
Slashdot Mirror
(We could finally talk him out of spamming, however. Now he wants to use the data for targetted advertising.)
So you talked him out of spamming, but now he wants to use it for... spamming ? :)
With new machines shipping with 4gb of mem, I think that day is already here.
Most new machines are not shipping with 4G of RAM.
Unfortunately there was no Windows 64 bit to force the market to adopt the 64-bit processing for every day needs.
That's because there was no demand. Even today, 64 bit is still mostly pointless for average users (although this will probably change during 2009).
Well, let's stop for a moment and ask ourselves: would would Iraqi insurgents like to see become the next US president?
They just wouldn't care.
Looking at it again, it's just crap UI.
When you roll out updates, it is ROUTINE for the new software to backup the old conf file and install a new one.
This is completely standard.
No, it's completely crazy. As this bug demonstrates.
What should happen (and what does in RH systems, AFAIK) is that the new .conf file is created with a different extension (.conf.rpmnew) and then you diff *that* with your existing, customised config file.
Default behaviour should be as non-intrusive and - especially - as non-destructive as possible. This is referred to as "the principle of least amazement". Overwriting existing, customised files completely fails it.
The admin is not without fault for not testing and backing up his config, but Red Hat are much more at fault for *destroying end user data*.
(BTW, if it were a Microsoft product, you'd have NO WAY of auditing the changes.. so you could never get by without more testing than I outlined here).
FUD. Of course you could.
Well, something is different about the CPUs, Dell have an option for a different 3.0 ghz CPU that was about $200 more per processor. I went with the cheaper one, but from what I can tell the Pro used the more expensive one.
Given Apple's slow hardware cycle, Dell probably have a newer, slightly different Xeon model (different clock speed, L2 cache, power usage, etc). Since, on their servers at least, the newer Xeons are cheaper than the older ones, that would explain your price discrepancy.
2 Quad core 3Ghz CPUs (The Macs have Xeons, but the Dells don't. This is one the few real differences. It explains part of the price difference)
The Dells have Xeons. Only Xeons do multiple CPUs.
A great deal of your "premium" will come from Apple's crazy RAM prices.
Vista is about as big of a leap as going from virgin XP to XP SP2.
Actually, it's more like going from Windows NT 3.51 to Windows XP. Or NeXT/OPENSTEP 4.x to OS X 10.5. There are numerous, major, and in some cases fundamental, changes to pretty much every significant part of the OS.
But for everyone else the takeaway point is that you, an Apple zealot, [...]
You seem to have me (very) confused with someone else.
Try instead: you *see* more of the trial-and-error on Linux.
Which might carry some weight if not for the open development models of, say, FreeBSD (or any of the BSDs) and OpenSolaris.
Also, look at who complains about the lack of a binary interface. Not open source developers at all. Only folk who want to leverage community efforts without following community rules.
Wanting a stable target to aim development at is not "following the rules" ? Wanting a well supported platform for your business is not "following the rules" ?
WTF ? O.o
Exactly which part of developing software for a particular platform, do you believe is exploiting said platform ? Is it the part where users have more hardware and software to choose from ? Is it the part where it enables wider adoption ? Is it the part where wider adoptions spurs further development ? Do you think Microsoft or Apple developers feel exploited by all the software and hardware that Windows and OS X can use ? How about the FreeBSD developers ? Do you think they hate the way their OS endows developers with a known, stable target ?
On the other hand, let's look at all the people arguing against such stability. How unsurprising to see it's all the GPL zealots who think code that isn't GPLed is immoral and want to leverage a moving target so developers "have" to GPL their code (and who would undoubtedly use the same breath to lambast Microsoft as "evil" for similar behaviour).
Why should they have any say in this, at all?
Because they're potential users (which translates to "customers" to a non-trivial portion of the Linux developer community) ? Because they're right ? Because their worldview is more mature than "if it's not GPLed it's evil" ?
The folk who are actively moving the system forward have no problem working within those constraints.
That's because "the folk actively moving the system forward", as you put it, largely act like they're working on a personal hobby.
Yes, and it's the only remotely mainstream OS that's absurdly fast on almost everything it does.
Yes, OSes like FreeBSD are real dogs.
It regularly tops benchmarks, micro and macro.
Which benchmarks does Linux "top" commensurate with your cheerleading ? Say, by 20% or more ?
It releases new working features faster than every other operating system combined, while still remaining very stable in vendor enterprise releases.
The "vendor enterprise releases" rarely, if ever, have the "new working features" that you are talking about. It typically takes *years* for "new working features" to make it into the "vendor enterprise releases" (which can be quite frustrating for those of us who use them).
A large part of that is because the developers have the freedom to improve APIs and in-kernel libraries whenever required.
Other OSes (Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS X) are able to achieve similar feats without this requirement. Your argument fails.
Not to turn this into a flamewar, but the G4s of that vintage Benchmarked significantly faster than their Pentium counterparts at the same clockspeed, and could address up to 2GB of RAM, which was a ridiculous amount in 1999.
Ah, but in 1999, PCs were also available in significantly higher clockspeeds (up to 800Mhz, from memory) and dual-processor configurations. A mere 6-12 months later and you're looking at 1Ghz+ boxes (I still have a dual ~900Mhz machine dating from 2000 - with a new (and dirt cheap) video card, it even ran Vista usably and with full functionality).
I still use it because it's perfectly adequate for what I need it for. Although Apple succumbed to a great deal of bloat in 10.5, OS X runs remarkably well on older hardware.
OS X runs like a dog on anything less than a G5, IMHO (and even my mum's iMac G5 stutters more than I like). That's the latest and greatest OS X, as well. Back before 10.4 it was *much* worse.
If you're not doing super-CPU-intensive tasks, old macs tend to do reasonably well.
So do old PCs (better, if anything, for reasons stated previously).
A surprising number of "Classic" Macs are still out there and still being used, although even I consider that a bit extreme.
I know, I own a few myself. That does not change my point that from an objective perspective a PC ages just as well as - if not better than - a Mac. Historically, Windows is kinder to older hardware than OS X has been (even Vista).
Amongst the standard Apple fanboi drivel, these two deserve special attention.
By Mac mini Pro, you're pretty much imagining a Cube; The G4 Cube was introduced in 2004 and flopped.
No, he's not. The Cube was an overpriced fashion toy, not a good computer. If Apple were to release an equivalent to the Cube today, it would be a Mac Mini with a discreet graphics card and a quad-core CPU, but cost as much as a Mac Pro.
The Cube failed because all but the craziest Apple cultists shunned it as the awesomely bad deal it was.
As a side note, I found something in your argument rather contradictory of itself. You ask for a conventional, average-specced desktop, then you ask for, essentially, a tiny Mac Pro. Does that make any sense?
It makes perfect sense. Half a Mac Pro *is* an "average-specced desktop" (nearly by definition).
Mac Pro: are you fucking insane? I don't need that much power (and even the GPU options for that one are ridiculous).
Make the Mac mini taller/bigger, put a 3.5" drive and a half-decent GPU in it (the ability to run Starcraft II and Diablo III at medium settings) and it WILL sell. A lot. You have no fuckin' idea how much people loathe all-in-one computers.
Congratulations, you've just identified why Apple don't do it.
A "Mac Pro Mini", as I like to call it, would indeed sell well - and take most of those sales away from the higher margin Mac Pro.
If you really want to bitch about premiums, then let's stop bullshitting here and talk about Vista MSRP. Those prices make OSX look like a bargain.
Except that's a completely invalid and stupid comparison.
I have a 450 Mhz G4 tower that's still running nearly unmodified, and still generally useful, nearly 10 years after its original purchase.
A similarly aged PC is just as useful (probably more so, because it will be faster not only by virtue of raw hardware specifications, but also by running a less resource-intensive, yet still quite capable, OS).
Whether or not people choose to continue using such old hardware is a completely separate issue. It's easy to see why they wouldn't bother, though, when a _laptop_ nearly an order of magnitude faster only costs around US$700 today.
* what defines 'rich'?
It's not a simple formula, but I've always personally defined "rich" as having sufficient assets and passive income to be able to live comfortably without needing to work.
If you need to go to work every day, you're not rich, you're middle-class.
Your argument is basically that writing shared libraries is just as easy as writing applications, and that maintaining API/ABI compatibility in shared libraries is "easy". Both of which contradict years of experience.
Actually I think the point is that when a product is well engineered, a stable API and ABI are quite feasible.
Supporting evidence for this is that basically every other platform _except_ Linux manages to keep a stable API and ABI.
The reason for this is, IMHO, large parts of Linux tend to be "trial and errored" into existence, rather than "specified, designed and implemented".
But Windows NT kernel does not have version numberin, (for developers there must be) but OS has the stupid NT x.y numbering and marketing names XP or Vista. So user does not know that XP is NT 5.1 and Vista is NT6 and next one is NT7 (Windows 7) and so on.
C:\>ver
Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
C:\>
Oh please! Nobody in a position to be making decisions based on kernel version should be put off by a number like 2.6.26. Can you honestly see a PHB in ever being allowed by the developers to be in a position to say, "No, I don't think we should go with this kernel, lets go with another one."
I've already seen those sorts of decisions made on multiple occasions. In fact, I'd be surprised if it *hadn't* happened at anything except the smallest businesses.
Never underestimate the decisions that will be made by a egomaniacal micromanager who doesn't trust his staff.
Summary: Being able to improve the API regularly keeps Linux largely free of legacy cruft that slows down the development and runtime performance of other systems like Windows. That's why Linux maxes out hardware that runs like a dog under Windows.
This argument is horseshit and always has been. Linux is the only remotely mainstream OS that doesn't maintain a stable ABI.
You paid too much for your copy of Windows when you bought your computer. You also paid much more for your laptop than you would Microsoft did not control the operating system market. Did you pay $100 extra? Yes, at least.
OEM copies of Windows aren't anywhere close to $100.
If that's too complicated for you, how much is that anti-virus/firewall/Office app/other nasty hacks required to use Windows?
They're not required.
Finally, please do not shift your argument, or abuse other arguments.
Should he do as you say, or do as you did ?
That's because, for all intents and purposes, it is server 2003.
What's entertaining about this article, is that Vista SP1 and Server 2008 have the same relationship.
I enjoyed telling the survey lady when she called a few weeks after the event that I would buy 2k8 only because you can't buy 2k.
Which is a pretty dumb thing to say, given how much better use 2008 will make of any somewhat modern hardware than 2000 ever could.