I'd be willing to be that the majority of working 802.11b wireless networks in use today are Apple systems.
That wasn't true at the last place I worked. The base stations were all Ciscos (formerly Aeronet or something like that). Almost all of the laptops on it were wintel boxes (a fair number of them running some sort of Unix though). The only Mac that I knew of on them was my own personal box (which I got to play with OSX on).
I'm going to guess that given the vast wintel market share that most laptops are wintels, and even if only 20% of them have airports and 100% of the Macs do, there are still more wintel 802.11 boxes then Macs.
We still probably have Apple to thank for subsidizing, or at least taking no profit on the 802.11, and making the antenna built in (my PowerBook gets much better range then my Viao, and I never er worry about the antenna getting snapped off!).
Please tell me that linux isn't going to adopt the idea of having a "core" team like the BSD's do...
the only thing that will happen is that the kernel will be something that only the l33tist will be able to work on...
Eh?
Any Linux or BSD user can get the source to the kernel they use. They can change the local version. If they are on the BSD core team they can change the global version. If they are Linus they can change the global version. If they aren't the core team or Linus they can send a patch to the core team or Linus and hope it is appreciated. Or they can fork the code (it happened to BSD at least three times, about zero tomes for Linux).
I don't know anyone on the FreeBSD core team, I've never met any of them (I know some of the OpenBSD core, I've met Linus). I had a problem with the FreeBSD USB stack. I tracked it down and fixed it. I used diff to make a patch file. I ran send-pr to report the bug, I attached the patch. Some automated software assigned me a bug id (kern/17815). Some time later I received the following message:
The ids for this have been committed some time ago to both current
and stable.
Thanks for the patch!
So my change didn't exactly make it in, but as far as I can tell only because I wasn't the first to make it. Somebody actually looked at my bug report, and checked to see if it was fixed. I have no doubt that if it wasn't they would have used my patch, or fixed it in a better way.
So why do you think the core team hinders BSD's growth? Does Linus hinder Linux's growth in the same way?
Or in other words, yeah, sure, Linux is great, but why do you assume BSD sucks when you have no damn idea how it works?
If you want to bitch about BSD, go install it. Don't make uninformed complaints about it. It's just as bad as all the articles about how hard Linux is to use written by a bunch of Windows users who have never given Linux a shot.
Then people can probably say Sun Solaris isn't a UNIX system as well, as I'm sure it doesn't have any original source left in it,
You might be sure, but you might have figured 4.4BSD Lite didn't have any (original) UNIX source either, but something like six files were found to be infringing, which is the main reason there was a Lite2 release. Lite wasn't even bootable.
There probably is a small bit of the original Unix source left in Solaris. Not really a useful amount give the size of the code, but very likely to be a legally significant amount.
The fact remains, no matter how much original code is left over from System 6 UNIX, 1BSD forked from it in 1978 (which FreeBSD forked from down the line) and is therefore a UNIX derivative. Just because none of the original code exists doesn't mean the fork never happened. That's the way I've always defined a "UNIX derivative".
Legally it is different, which is why you can use it with no license from USL, or whomever currently licenses Unix.
I wrote a breakout game in 6502 assembly on the C=64. I started with the source code for a very simple text editor. I don't think that breakout is usefully described as "text editor based", even though there was actually shared code left over. But i guess it is all semantics. It may be useful in evaluating how BSD evolved to remember where it came from, even if absolutely none of the original code is left (or at least no amount that USL's expensive lawyers were able to argue as significant).
At the ISP I used to work for, our RADIUS servers logged to SQL servers.
Four years or so ago Sybase couldn't even delete a day's data as fast as it was rolling in. Machines have gotten faster since, any maybe Sybase has too, but so has the call volume (I don't know of Oracle was tried). It ended up being done with Sleepycat's DB B-tree product and a lot of custom code.
I can see a smaller ISP being able to get away with Sybase though. There are economies of scale, and diseconomies of scale too.
Why buy Apple when you can buy the core to Apple's new OS?
FYI, even though the OSX glossy says it is FreeBSD based, it is MACH with a compatibility layer to use FreeBSD drivers and filesystems and such. Look at the darwin docs on Apple's pages, or look at OSX in a store and poke around a bit. I would rather they used FreeBSD (or NetBSD), but the mach part was probably very very useful in getting the Classic compatibility mode to work (did you know it can run the 68000 version of MacDraw still?).
I think that it's not just BSD zealots who are superior assholes... Linix zealots get the same way.
No, BSD zealots are superior assholes draped in history (I should know I'm one). The Linux zealots are super-cool cutting edge assholes. There is a difference.:-)
Who is the greatest enemy to the People's Front of Judea? Why the Judedn People's Front!
Linux is a clone of a Unix kernel. BSD is a Unix kernel.
As a matter of law, no it isn't. Look at the USL vs. BSDI lawsuit. BSD contains no Unix source code, and is not a Unix system. It appears to act very much like one, but (legally) it isn't one any more then Linux is. Practically if "Unix" is defined as a derivative of Bell Lab's Unix, BSD also isn't one as all Bell Labs bits have been scrubbed clean out of the system, with the sole exception of cpio which AT&T donated to the world at large in the hopes something better then tar would come into common use.
The system architecture is quite different in BSD and Linux, but,t hanks to Posix compliance, programs recompilation is usually enough
Sure, unless you call clone in linux, or jail in FreeBSD, or write a device driver, or talk to the low level USB stuff (rather then using libusb). Or even one of those places where they both can really do pretty much the same thing with transmitfile/sendfile/splice, but choose to make the syscall a little different.
That isn't all that different, you can write a whole lot of useful programs without calling any of that stuff. Or you may intend to be writing a portable program and not have enough euxperiance to realize that you just called a FreeBSDism, or a Linuxism (does Linux have strlcpy.strlcat/strlcmp now?).
The development model : Linux is developped an anarchic-looking way and you may have the most advanced features on your system, you won't have a guaranteed stability. In the case of BSD, the development is centralized and each time they agree to release an update, you can be sure it is rock-solid in terms of stability.
I think in both cases if you run a dev release (FreeBSD5-current for example) you can end up with advanced features and instability. Or you can run a stable release and end up with advanced features and stability. Yes, that's right, Linux isn't the only OS with advanced features. Proud of XFS? Well you should be, but do take a look at FFS with Soft Updates. Way smaller code footprint, and almost as nice. Nicer in some ways even (snapshots and online fsck'ing are pretty cool, but not in -stable). Oh, and in case you couldn't read between the lines, yes I'm also saying BSD isn't the only stable OS. Get a release Unix, and it is nice and stable too.
One of the guys gets some CC numbers off the net and calls the 1-800 number on the back to see how much money is on the card?
You can do that. As a credit card merchant making a data call at least. You can do a verify for a charge (that doesn't actually make the charge), or a reserve for the charge (which still doesn't make the charge, but eats up credit for something like a day or three, until there is another charge from the same merchant number). You could even make a charge, and then issue a credit (but that costs money). There may even be other things, but that was the set that the two places I had to write software to talk to would do.
Of corse that requires a merchant account, and scamming those is probably a lot harder then snarfing up a few AOL accounts:-)
3. You *will* have the originating number even if *67 was used. This is because *67 is a feature set for end users which can be disabled/masked, whereas the originating number received on an ISDN PRI has been provided by SS7 signaling, and is mandatory to the system's proper functionning.
A lot of older ISP lines, and even some newer ones from more out of the way places do not have ANI or caller ID.
You can still get the account ID, and maybe the telco can get PEN info, or maybe not.
5. All of the above requires about a day, depending on the size of the log files that have to be searched through, and the short delay in getting info from local telcos (they do move quickly if the right person asks).
Or how well indexed the logs are. A big ISP gets over 300 login/logout events per second. You don't want to use a flat text file and grep for that. (Actually that number is about a year old, it may be 600/sec now)
Intel has a different market than AMD has, and I sincerely doubt that will ever change. Intel covers all kinds of CPU's, but AMD only has its Athlon/Thunderbird currently.
AMD also has the Duron, which competes with the Celeron (I don't think it is doing well in the market, I think due to motherbord prices). I think as far as x86 compatables go the only thing AMD is missing is a multi-CPU extra-costly CPU like the Xenon. As far as I know the normal AMD can run in a very large machine (same bus protocal as the EV6, which run in 40+ CPU machines). It is lacking motherbord chipsets that do it. The Xenon still has more cache. Oh, I almost forgot about notebook CPUs, AMD doesn't yet have a great one on the market, only announced.
The other Intel CPUs (i960, Xscale, and so on) arn't what everyone is talking about, and they don't make nearly as much money.
As for x86s, it looks like the top o' the heap is really really close again. I think Intel is going to have the lead again for a while, but they may lose it when the next round of AMDs are out (not the next shrink, but the next real design), or they may not. I may change my mind on that over the next few months, but if I had to bet today, I would have to bet on Intel. Of corse I like AMD more, but...
Slashdot only seems Intel biased to ignorant fools that don't know the difference.
So go hang out in comp.arch.
Oh, and AMD's chips also work well as space heaters.
Does that really mater in a desktop? My AMD box puts out less heat then my Sun 4/110 (not that I power the 4/110 up much). The only thing I care about in a desktop (other then how fast it is) is fan noise. My Intel and AMD both use to make the same amount of fan noise, but the Intel blew it's power supply, and the one I picked up locally is really quite too noisy.
In laptops Intel has a fast CPU, and AMD just doesn't. However Intel's puts out a crapload of heat. So it has a insanely loud fan (in my Viao). For laptops I'm kinda partial to Apple's G3 and G4. They even ship a Unix that isn't too sucky:-)
I read once that even if all natural and disease based causes of death were eliminated, the average human would only live about 600 years. The reason? Accidents.
Indeed, but a lot of effort tends to be focused on the leading killers. So if all natural/disease based death were gone, accidents would be next on the chopping block.
New cars would make today's volvos look like deathtraps. Buckets would have little sensors that would detect drowning, and open drain holes. Ladders would automatically drill themselves into the floor or ground.
Accidents would still kill, but that 600 number would slowly drift ever higher.
Is there something so wrong with getting old and eventually dying?
Biologically there is something quite right with it. There is a theory that old age death is very good for a species. It can't really be tested at this time, of corse. The closest you can do is take a genetic programming package, find a problem it can solve, and then change it to remove old age death. Then see if it can still solve it, and if it can if that takes more generations or not. My meager experiments with the "simplified ants looking for food" problem shows a huge increase in the number of generations needed to find the solution. But don't take my word for it, it's a pretty easy experiment, go try it. (note you still kill off the bad performers, you only let the "old" ones live if they are in the top few percent)
Socially it looks like old age death is a good idea. Most mathmations (for example) make their good discoveries early, and then don't do a whole lot. Or so I have been told. Plus think of the divorce rate if we don't have the death escape hatch 50% of marriages use:-)
All kidding aside, for social effects the only place I have seen them investigated is science fiction, and the results vary quite a bit. Many of those societies I wouldn't enjoy as much as this one, except of corse, I would have far more time to enjoy them....
Economically losing old age death would be a disaster if we didn't also lose old age (forget our current social security problems, if the avg. age shot up to 150 we would be sunk!). If we lost old age as well things wouldn't be as bad, but the increasing population would make jobs a bit scarce (unless birth rates dropped dramatically).
Personally, I would love to live forever (assuming I get to do it in fairly good health, and in a more or less normal mental state). It only causes a problem when we all get to do it:-)
With a system with atomic checkins, I look in foo.h's log for the relevant global change number, and then I ask what effect that change number had on foo.c. No manual searching.
That isn't because of a lack of atomic commits, that is a lack of a single global change number. Adding atomic commits to CVS wouldn't automatically buy you a global change number, nor would adding global change numbers need atomic updates.
You can also fake global change numbers. Make a small script that looks at the CVS tags for GCN_N, tag the current version as GCN_N+1. Run that after every commit (or make cvs commit do it for you, I think you can add a hook). As long as there isn't a network issue, or a crash or something that'l work for you.
Personally I just go with the commit message, but whatever works for you...
It's harder when there's not something simple like "superfoo()" to grep for.
Yeah, 'cvs anno' works great for anything you can grep for. It works OK while looking for additions, but it won't help you find when you removed code. Good commit messages are a must:-)
No atomic operations? That does not agree with my experience: if I do a "cvs commit" on a directory, all the files go in at once or they don't go in at all.
It isn't atomic. If there is a network or other issue 5 files into the checkin those files stay committed, they don't get rolled back.
It is pretty damn rare that it happens on LANs, but you can force it to check if you want. Reboot your machine part way in. Or just kill off your CVS client. It might be a bigger deal over a WAN, but with my modestly sized project on sourceforge, I haven't had trouble.
It would be nice if it really was atomic, but it isn't a huge deal to me (mostly because it almost almost almost never causes trouble for me).
atomic checkins on multiple files: basically meaning that you can't really tell what files came in with each checkin, so backing out of a change is a chore, also it's possible to checkin
only a part of what wanted to (if the network goes down) resulting in a broken tree
Do you mean lack of atomic checkins? That would make more sense. It isn't hard to tell what files came from what checkin. The checkin message will match (as long as you make a real one, not "changed some stuff"). You can also use the checkin date, but that can get false hits if another checkin went on at (almost) the same time.
This would be a pretty big pain to fix since the CVS runs on top of a plain filesystem, so it gets no transactions. If it ran on top of some DB it would be easy, but that would make other problems. I had thought about trying to integrate it into the sleepycat DB code, but never got very far (the sleepycat license isn't great for open source code, even if you can grab their source, so...)
file renaming breaks file history
Yeah, that sucks. You can log into the server and mv the file so the comments remain, but then old checkouts get the new name. You can cp the old file, and then it works a bit better, old checkouts get both files. I'm kind of surprised nobody fixed this, but I guess I can't complain much since I haven't gone and done it:-)
no disconnected operations on the repository(e.g. checking the file history when you are on a laptop in a plane)
Hmmm, I never really had a complaint about that. I guess I just bought into the CVS kool-aid on that one. Other then bitmover, what revision systems let you do this? How much extra space do they demand (not much of an issue on modern laptops, but still...)
branching and multiple merges back into the trunk is a little awkward
I haven't found it so. How do other systems make it simpler/cleaner/better?
setting up a staging area for integration of changes is similarly awkward
Again, I never felt so. How is it better on other systems?
The alternatives
Not all of those are available on more fringe platforms (the BSDs, Linux seems to have made it big time). I agree Bitkeeper looks really really nice. A shame Linus didn't decide to use it.
I did an 15 day eval of Perforce, I didn't see any clear advantages over CVS.
ClearCase ended up getting bought by another group, and they had lots of problems with the setup and other admin issues. CVS of corse can get admin issues, by being so open by default people can screw things up if they don't pay attention. It is a better default if you have good people though.
Never tried SourceSafe. I gave PCVS a shot, but it munched my source tree in the first few days, and I discarded it.
First of all, what the hell are you referring to with "protocol"? What protocol? Kerberos? win32? What utter nonsense. Not only do you not say what you mean, but even if you did there's no way it could make sense. Having a closed protocol will not help your product be better for a specific task. It will in fact make it worse, less compatabile, less reliable, and less secure.
I wasn't specific because it was a general point. It could be their Kerb5 extension. It could be Office2000 file formats (which I think of as protocols). Having their protocol closed makes their program no better at implementing it, but it makes all other programs worse because they have to work off of guesses and experiments. Their protocols are also (likely) to be worse then openly developed ones.
Microsoft has a monopoly so they can use protocols to leverage their market share into other markets like servers and pdas. It's really a shame that people are starting to feel sorry for microsoft and (especially on slashdot) rooting for them as some sort of underdog.
Where did you see me feeling sorry for them? Or rooting for them? I only said they might not fail. I didn't say if I wanted them to fail or not. I doubt this box makes a big difference, the Xbox is probably much more important to them. WindowsXP is way more important then either. I want all three to fail. However my desire for them to fail doesn't change their chances of failure.
I can want the webpad to fail, but that doesn't mean it will. If the only reason someone else says it will fail is all others in the niche have failed, I think it is a damn good idea to point out the flaw in that argument, even if I want the same thing they do.
I may want the Xbox to fail, but I have to admit that there seems to be a lot of people who are talking like they will buy it.
I may want WindowsXP to fail, but I have to admit it doesn't sound like they have screwed it up badly enough to lose out (they would be screwed if someone else had a "decent" offering that could run all the Win98 crud).
Maybe the youngin's growing up today don't care. Maybe they forgot what digital Freedom really means. Maybe their first OS experience was win95 (most likely if you're younger than 18).... sigh. I will still fight for personal liberty. Call me a myopic old-timer.. whatever. I still know what it's like to be free.
Nice to be mistaken for a snot-nosed kid. I assure you, I remember pre-microsoft. Or at least before they had an OS (they were cranking out BASIC interpreters for 8biters when I started).
This is true, but I was trying to point out that the opt-in would not be included in the Privacy Policy for no reason. Either they are working on it, or are doing some good thinking ahead.
It's good that Tivo lets people opt out. The problem with that is how many people read the manual?
The stuff in the manual isn't hidden fine print. It is normal size print. It is listed in the table of contents as "Privacy and Service". If someone gives a rat's ass about privacy and doesn't at least skim the manual, I can't say I care.
It's a lot like someone who only wants a full-size spare not bothering to look in the trunk before they buy the car. Should I care about them?
And who's to say there won't be some sort of McCarthy-like hunt for people who like violent shows in 5-10 years. And Hey! Tivo wants to help hunt down the ner-do-wells.
As long as you have stopped watching such shows by then it won't matter. The current loging isn't linked to the unit, so even if they later change the privacy policy then they will still not be able to link up my old data with my old habits.
Of corse I'm still screwed because I'm sure "DVD Empire" remembers what I have bought from them, and CD Now knows all the "violent lyric" music I've bought, and...
How many people (outside of the concerned population of/.) know about the data collected? And of those that do, how many have opted out? I doubt that many have.
Page 73 is fairly clear on what they collect, and they encurage you to phone them up and ask for a copy of data they collect, or opt-out if it bugs you. I assume anyone who really cares, knows how to read, and has five free minutes has done the opt-out.
What would you do to make it more clear if you were TiVo? I don't think making it opt-in is an option, because they need the money, and short of that it seems like they have done everything I think they should.
Thumbs *can* be sent, actually. The software provides for that. However, they are not actually sent,
I wasn't refering to what the software can/can't do, just to the promise that TiVo makes on page 70 of the manual "The TiVo Service has no way of knowing what shows you have given "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" to". That is explained in a little more detail on page 71 as well.
The privacy policy actually allows for an opt-in to send your private viewing data. It's assumed this is for future services like a web interface or some such. Especially the bit about "this may limit the services we can offer to you". So if they ever do make a web service, you'd have to sign up for it and give them permission to get your personal data for the service.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply the policy prevented opt-in agreements to sent/use more personal data. I was saying TiVo themselves have not said what these services would be, and the only people I have heard talking about it are not on the TiVo payroll (i.e. arn't RB, just other AVS wankers like Otto...er, I mean AVS members like that stripes fellow....). Of corse I think you have read more of the AVS stuff then I have, so you may have seen RB say something I missed.
I can dream up half a dozen opt-in services, but that doesn't mean TiVo is working on any of them.
So either you used something before w2k (which doesn't have the problem either as far as I know, heck the thing comes pre-installed with 98 on the xs and ME on the vn/ve), or you're video driver had some problem.
This thing long pre-dates Win2K. It might have had Win95 on it, but I think it was Win98. It was a very very old PictureBook, maybe bought within a month of release (it is actually broken now). I didn't use KDE on Unix (I havn't ever really used it or GNOME), I ran FVWM2 on it, and some xterms mostly (gcc, gdb, nvi...), and netscape and a few other things. Maybe that isn't all that fair, but that's all I needed:-)
I think most of the windows dialogs fit, but 3rd party ones (maybe the SecureCRT host set up?) didn't allways. I seem to recall at least one MSIE box not fitting though. It was two+ years ago though, so I don't 100% recall.
Not to mention that the setup menus include an opt-out option as well (though, I'm not clear on what happens to the data they've already collected if you use this method).
Really? I can't seem to find it.
The thing is you don't want to opt out. There's no junk mail you get because of it (though the junk mail your neighborhood gets might change slightly); you never get calls because of it and best of all, no one can tell you watch smut-o-vision;-)
The satalite (and I assume cable) smut-o-vision is pretty lame anyway. Your better off going to the local video store, or buying DVDs or something.:-)
The benefits on the other hand: better selection of "recommended shows" based on what you thumbs-up and down
T hey don't do that currently. Mostly because they can't do it on their server (it doesn't know what *you* watch), and the server would have to send too much data to your end (it would have to tell your TiVo that watching Judge Judy and QVC and blah-blah means you may want this other thing, even though you don't watch any of that!).
Thumb's up and down also aren't sent anywhere, I think that is covered on page 70:-) so it only knows what you watched, not how much you claim to like it.
There is talk of an opt-in service for that, but I think that is all TiVo users talking, not TiVo itself. Similarly web control of the TiVo would break the privacy policy, which is a big part of why they don't have it (and ReplayTV does).
Slashdot Mirror
That wasn't true at the last place I worked. The base stations were all Ciscos (formerly Aeronet or something like that). Almost all of the laptops on it were wintel boxes (a fair number of them running some sort of Unix though). The only Mac that I knew of on them was my own personal box (which I got to play with OSX on).
I'm going to guess that given the vast wintel market share that most laptops are wintels, and even if only 20% of them have airports and 100% of the Macs do, there are still more wintel 802.11 boxes then Macs.
We still probably have Apple to thank for subsidizing, or at least taking no profit on the 802.11, and making the antenna built in (my PowerBook gets much better range then my Viao, and I never er worry about the antenna getting snapped off!).
Eh?
Any Linux or BSD user can get the source to the kernel they use. They can change the local version. If they are on the BSD core team they can change the global version. If they are Linus they can change the global version. If they aren't the core team or Linus they can send a patch to the core team or Linus and hope it is appreciated. Or they can fork the code (it happened to BSD at least three times, about zero tomes for Linux).
I don't know anyone on the FreeBSD core team, I've never met any of them (I know some of the OpenBSD core, I've met Linus). I had a problem with the FreeBSD USB stack. I tracked it down and fixed it. I used diff to make a patch file. I ran send-pr to report the bug, I attached the patch. Some automated software assigned me a bug id (kern/17815). Some time later I received the following message:
So my change didn't exactly make it in, but as far as I can tell only because I wasn't the first to make it. Somebody actually looked at my bug report, and checked to see if it was fixed. I have no doubt that if it wasn't they would have used my patch, or fixed it in a better way.
So why do you think the core team hinders BSD's growth? Does Linus hinder Linux's growth in the same way?
Or in other words, yeah, sure, Linux is great, but why do you assume BSD sucks when you have no damn idea how it works?
If you want to bitch about BSD, go install it. Don't make uninformed complaints about it. It's just as bad as all the articles about how hard Linux is to use written by a bunch of Windows users who have never given Linux a shot.
You might be sure, but you might have figured 4.4BSD Lite didn't have any (original) UNIX source either, but something like six files were found to be infringing, which is the main reason there was a Lite2 release. Lite wasn't even bootable.
There probably is a small bit of the original Unix source left in Solaris. Not really a useful amount give the size of the code, but very likely to be a legally significant amount.
Legally it is different, which is why you can use it with no license from USL, or whomever currently licenses Unix.
I wrote a breakout game in 6502 assembly on the C=64. I started with the source code for a very simple text editor. I don't think that breakout is usefully described as "text editor based", even though there was actually shared code left over. But i guess it is all semantics. It may be useful in evaluating how BSD evolved to remember where it came from, even if absolutely none of the original code is left (or at least no amount that USL's expensive lawyers were able to argue as significant).
Four years or so ago Sybase couldn't even delete a day's data as fast as it was rolling in. Machines have gotten faster since, any maybe Sybase has too, but so has the call volume (I don't know of Oracle was tried). It ended up being done with Sleepycat's DB B-tree product and a lot of custom code.
I can see a smaller ISP being able to get away with Sybase though. There are economies of scale, and diseconomies of scale too.
FYI, even though the OSX glossy says it is FreeBSD based, it is MACH with a compatibility layer to use FreeBSD drivers and filesystems and such. Look at the darwin docs on Apple's pages, or look at OSX in a store and poke around a bit. I would rather they used FreeBSD (or NetBSD), but the mach part was probably very very useful in getting the Classic compatibility mode to work (did you know it can run the 68000 version of MacDraw still?).
No, BSD zealots are superior assholes draped in history (I should know I'm one). The Linux zealots are super-cool cutting edge assholes. There is a difference. :-)
Who is the greatest enemy to the People's Front of Judea? Why the Judedn People's Front!
As a matter of law, no it isn't. Look at the USL vs. BSDI lawsuit. BSD contains no Unix source code, and is not a Unix system. It appears to act very much like one, but (legally) it isn't one any more then Linux is. Practically if "Unix" is defined as a derivative of Bell Lab's Unix, BSD also isn't one as all Bell Labs bits have been scrubbed clean out of the system, with the sole exception of cpio which AT&T donated to the world at large in the hopes something better then tar would come into common use.
Sure, unless you call clone in linux, or jail in FreeBSD, or write a device driver, or talk to the low level USB stuff (rather then using libusb). Or even one of those places where they both can really do pretty much the same thing with transmitfile/sendfile/splice, but choose to make the syscall a little different.
That isn't all that different, you can write a whole lot of useful programs without calling any of that stuff. Or you may intend to be writing a portable program and not have enough euxperiance to realize that you just called a FreeBSDism, or a Linuxism (does Linux have strlcpy.strlcat/strlcmp now?).
I think in both cases if you run a dev release (FreeBSD5-current for example) you can end up with advanced features and instability. Or you can run a stable release and end up with advanced features and stability. Yes, that's right, Linux isn't the only OS with advanced features. Proud of XFS? Well you should be, but do take a look at FFS with Soft Updates. Way smaller code footprint, and almost as nice. Nicer in some ways even (snapshots and online fsck'ing are pretty cool, but not in -stable). Oh, and in case you couldn't read between the lines, yes I'm also saying BSD isn't the only stable OS. Get a release Unix, and it is nice and stable too.
You can do that. As a credit card merchant making a data call at least. You can do a verify for a charge (that doesn't actually make the charge), or a reserve for the charge (which still doesn't make the charge, but eats up credit for something like a day or three, until there is another charge from the same merchant number). You could even make a charge, and then issue a credit (but that costs money). There may even be other things, but that was the set that the two places I had to write software to talk to would do.
Of corse that requires a merchant account, and scamming those is probably a lot harder then snarfing up a few AOL accounts :-)
A lot of older ISP lines, and even some newer ones from more out of the way places do not have ANI or caller ID.
You can still get the account ID, and maybe the telco can get PEN info, or maybe not.
Or how well indexed the logs are. A big ISP gets over 300 login/logout events per second. You don't want to use a flat text file and grep for that. (Actually that number is about a year old, it may be 600/sec now)
AMD also has the Duron, which competes with the Celeron (I don't think it is doing well in the market, I think due to motherbord prices). I think as far as x86 compatables go the only thing AMD is missing is a multi-CPU extra-costly CPU like the Xenon. As far as I know the normal AMD can run in a very large machine (same bus protocal as the EV6, which run in 40+ CPU machines). It is lacking motherbord chipsets that do it. The Xenon still has more cache. Oh, I almost forgot about notebook CPUs, AMD doesn't yet have a great one on the market, only announced.
The other Intel CPUs (i960, Xscale, and so on) arn't what everyone is talking about, and they don't make nearly as much money.
As for x86s, it looks like the top o' the heap is really really close again. I think Intel is going to have the lead again for a while, but they may lose it when the next round of AMDs are out (not the next shrink, but the next real design), or they may not. I may change my mind on that over the next few months, but if I had to bet today, I would have to bet on Intel. Of corse I like AMD more, but...
So go hang out in comp.arch.
Does that really mater in a desktop? My AMD box puts out less heat then my Sun 4/110 (not that I power the 4/110 up much). The only thing I care about in a desktop (other then how fast it is) is fan noise. My Intel and AMD both use to make the same amount of fan noise, but the Intel blew it's power supply, and the one I picked up locally is really quite too noisy.
In laptops Intel has a fast CPU, and AMD just doesn't. However Intel's puts out a crapload of heat. So it has a insanely loud fan (in my Viao). For laptops I'm kinda partial to Apple's G3 and G4. They even ship a Unix that isn't too sucky :-)
Damn, my chances have just gone down a lot. Thanks for the correction though.
Indeed, but a lot of effort tends to be focused on the leading killers. So if all natural/disease based death were gone, accidents would be next on the chopping block.
New cars would make today's volvos look like deathtraps. Buckets would have little sensors that would detect drowning, and open drain holes. Ladders would automatically drill themselves into the floor or ground.
Accidents would still kill, but that 600 number would slowly drift ever higher.
Of all the people that have ever lived, only half have died. So you may be overstating your case.
Source: some smithsonian natural history exhibit or other.
Biologically there is something quite right with it. There is a theory that old age death is very good for a species. It can't really be tested at this time, of corse. The closest you can do is take a genetic programming package, find a problem it can solve, and then change it to remove old age death. Then see if it can still solve it, and if it can if that takes more generations or not. My meager experiments with the "simplified ants looking for food" problem shows a huge increase in the number of generations needed to find the solution. But don't take my word for it, it's a pretty easy experiment, go try it. (note you still kill off the bad performers, you only let the "old" ones live if they are in the top few percent)
Socially it looks like old age death is a good idea. Most mathmations (for example) make their good discoveries early, and then don't do a whole lot. Or so I have been told. Plus think of the divorce rate if we don't have the death escape hatch 50% of marriages use :-)
All kidding aside, for social effects the only place I have seen them investigated is science fiction, and the results vary quite a bit. Many of those societies I wouldn't enjoy as much as this one, except of corse, I would have far more time to enjoy them....
Economically losing old age death would be a disaster if we didn't also lose old age (forget our current social security problems, if the avg. age shot up to 150 we would be sunk!). If we lost old age as well things wouldn't be as bad, but the increasing population would make jobs a bit scarce (unless birth rates dropped dramatically).
Personally, I would love to live forever (assuming I get to do it in fairly good health, and in a more or less normal mental state). It only causes a problem when we all get to do it :-)
RCS, which CVS uses internally still (the ,v files are RCS files).
That isn't because of a lack of atomic commits, that is a lack of a single global change number. Adding atomic commits to CVS wouldn't automatically buy you a global change number, nor would adding global change numbers need atomic updates.
You can also fake global change numbers. Make a small script that looks at the CVS tags for GCN_N, tag the current version as GCN_N+1. Run that after every commit (or make cvs commit do it for you, I think you can add a hook). As long as there isn't a network issue, or a crash or something that'l work for you.
Personally I just go with the commit message, but whatever works for you...
Yeah, 'cvs anno' works great for anything you can grep for. It works OK while looking for additions, but it won't help you find when you removed code. Good commit messages are a must :-)
It isn't atomic. If there is a network or other issue 5 files into the checkin those files stay committed, they don't get rolled back.
It is pretty damn rare that it happens on LANs, but you can force it to check if you want. Reboot your machine part way in. Or just kill off your CVS client. It might be a bigger deal over a WAN, but with my modestly sized project on sourceforge, I haven't had trouble.
It would be nice if it really was atomic, but it isn't a huge deal to me (mostly because it almost almost almost never causes trouble for me).
Do you mean lack of atomic checkins? That would make more sense. It isn't hard to tell what files came from what checkin. The checkin message will match (as long as you make a real one, not "changed some stuff"). You can also use the checkin date, but that can get false hits if another checkin went on at (almost) the same time.
This would be a pretty big pain to fix since the CVS runs on top of a plain filesystem, so it gets no transactions. If it ran on top of some DB it would be easy, but that would make other problems. I had thought about trying to integrate it into the sleepycat DB code, but never got very far (the sleepycat license isn't great for open source code, even if you can grab their source, so...)
Yeah, that sucks. You can log into the server and mv the file so the comments remain, but then old checkouts get the new name. You can cp the old file, and then it works a bit better, old checkouts get both files. I'm kind of surprised nobody fixed this, but I guess I can't complain much since I haven't gone and done it :-)
Hmmm, I never really had a complaint about that. I guess I just bought into the CVS kool-aid on that one. Other then bitmover, what revision systems let you do this? How much extra space do they demand (not much of an issue on modern laptops, but still...)
I haven't found it so. How do other systems make it simpler/cleaner/better?
Again, I never felt so. How is it better on other systems?
Not all of those are available on more fringe platforms (the BSDs, Linux seems to have made it big time). I agree Bitkeeper looks really really nice. A shame Linus didn't decide to use it.
I did an 15 day eval of Perforce, I didn't see any clear advantages over CVS.
ClearCase ended up getting bought by another group, and they had lots of problems with the setup and other admin issues. CVS of corse can get admin issues, by being so open by default people can screw things up if they don't pay attention. It is a better default if you have good people though.
Never tried SourceSafe. I gave PCVS a shot, but it munched my source tree in the first few days, and I discarded it.
I wasn't specific because it was a general point. It could be their Kerb5 extension. It could be Office2000 file formats (which I think of as protocols). Having their protocol closed makes their program no better at implementing it, but it makes all other programs worse because they have to work off of guesses and experiments. Their protocols are also (likely) to be worse then openly developed ones.
Where did you see me feeling sorry for them? Or rooting for them? I only said they might not fail. I didn't say if I wanted them to fail or not. I doubt this box makes a big difference, the Xbox is probably much more important to them. WindowsXP is way more important then either. I want all three to fail. However my desire for them to fail doesn't change their chances of failure.
I can want the webpad to fail, but that doesn't mean it will. If the only reason someone else says it will fail is all others in the niche have failed, I think it is a damn good idea to point out the flaw in that argument, even if I want the same thing they do.
I may want the Xbox to fail, but I have to admit that there seems to be a lot of people who are talking like they will buy it.
I may want WindowsXP to fail, but I have to admit it doesn't sound like they have screwed it up badly enough to lose out (they would be screwed if someone else had a "decent" offering that could run all the Win98 crud).
Nice to be mistaken for a snot-nosed kid. I assure you, I remember pre-microsoft. Or at least before they had an OS (they were cranking out BASIC interpreters for 8biters when I started).
Yeah, and they do seem like the think ahead type.
The stuff in the manual isn't hidden fine print. It is normal size print. It is listed in the table of contents as "Privacy and Service". If someone gives a rat's ass about privacy and doesn't at least skim the manual, I can't say I care.
It's a lot like someone who only wants a full-size spare not bothering to look in the trunk before they buy the car. Should I care about them?
As long as you have stopped watching such shows by then it won't matter. The current loging isn't linked to the unit, so even if they later change the privacy policy then they will still not be able to link up my old data with my old habits.
Of corse I'm still screwed because I'm sure "DVD Empire" remembers what I have bought from them, and CD Now knows all the "violent lyric" music I've bought, and...
Page 73 is fairly clear on what they collect, and they encurage you to phone them up and ask for a copy of data they collect, or opt-out if it bugs you. I assume anyone who really cares, knows how to read, and has five free minutes has done the opt-out.
What would you do to make it more clear if you were TiVo? I don't think making it opt-in is an option, because they need the money, and short of that it seems like they have done everything I think they should.
I wasn't refering to what the software can/can't do, just to the promise that TiVo makes on page 70 of the manual "The TiVo Service has no way of knowing what shows you have given "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" to". That is explained in a little more detail on page 71 as well.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply the policy prevented opt-in agreements to sent/use more personal data. I was saying TiVo themselves have not said what these services would be, and the only people I have heard talking about it are not on the TiVo payroll (i.e. arn't RB, just other AVS wankers like Otto...er, I mean AVS members like that stripes fellow....). Of corse I think you have read more of the AVS stuff then I have, so you may have seen RB say something I missed.
I can dream up half a dozen opt-in services, but that doesn't mean TiVo is working on any of them.
This thing long pre-dates Win2K. It might have had Win95 on it, but I think it was Win98. It was a very very old PictureBook, maybe bought within a month of release (it is actually broken now). I didn't use KDE on Unix (I havn't ever really used it or GNOME), I ran FVWM2 on it, and some xterms mostly (gcc, gdb, nvi...), and netscape and a few other things. Maybe that isn't all that fair, but that's all I needed :-)
I think most of the windows dialogs fit, but 3rd party ones (maybe the SecureCRT host set up?) didn't allways. I seem to recall at least one MSIE box not fitting though. It was two+ years ago though, so I don't 100% recall.
Really? I can't seem to find it.
The satalite (and I assume cable) smut-o-vision is pretty lame anyway. Your better off going to the local video store, or buying DVDs or something. :-)
T hey don't do that currently. Mostly because they can't do it on their server (it doesn't know what *you* watch), and the server would have to send too much data to your end (it would have to tell your TiVo that watching Judge Judy and QVC and blah-blah means you may want this other thing, even though you don't watch any of that!).
Thumb's up and down also aren't sent anywhere, I think that is covered on page 70 :-) so it only knows what you watched, not how much you claim to like it.
There is talk of an opt-in service for that, but I think that is all TiVo users talking, not TiVo itself. Similarly web control of the TiVo would break the privacy policy, which is a big part of why they don't have it (and ReplayTV does).