You've completely missed my point regarding the set example. If YOU are only using features 0 through N, and not caring one bit about N+x where x > 0, then the addition of those features doesn't affect you. Adding ext3 support is not only minor, it also does not affect you if you choose not to use it. If you don't think ext3 is stable, just don't compile it when you build your next kernel. Simple! You go back to the original set. There's nothing wrong with adding new drivers to stable kernels. It's been done constantly and it's necessary for Linux or ANY operating system to survive.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
You're off your rocker. Linux boxes have to be admin'ed ONCE in a big way, then they just keep working after that. You've mistaken it for NT, which BREAKS constantly and requires constant attention. I have a Linux server sitting in my closet that I haven't touched for months. It just works and gets heavy use. Not to mention that when used properly, *nix solutions have a constant maintenance cost, while NT solutions require growing fees. What do I mean? With *nix, you have one central box that needs adminning, and all your clients get their apps, configuration, and data from that box. So, if you have N machines, you have 1 box to admin. With NT, every seat has to have its own apps, data, and configuration. You multiply your work load by a factor of N. So, if it costs C dollars to admin one machine, NT costs C*N, while properly implimented *nix solutions are C.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
More nonsense. ext2 will lose data if the data isn't written to the disk when a failure occurrs. So will UFS. But you won't experience corruption of data you're not working with otherwise. ext2 is stable and solid. It gets corrupted if you fuck with it. Same goes for every other fs.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
ReiserFS isn't in beta. It's sufficiently stable and is used by lots of people on production machines.
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Uh, no. Backwards compatability is good if the older stuff is still used. Also, the backwards compatability in ext3 does not break its implimentation. DOS is dead and burried. There was no reason to keep support for it lying around, but MS did anyway and it was responsible for a LOT of the instability in Windows 9x/2000. People still using DOS stuff, should not be upgrading. Microsoft just forces them to. Not only that, ext[123] was designed to be EXTENSIBLE, something Microsoft idiots don't seem to understand. Extensiblility is about being able to add future functionality without rewriting or breaking a package. Hooks exist in ext that let you add new features. This is a Good Thing.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
I'd like to see some statistics. This claim is unsubstantiated. I've seen Solaris boxses drop like flies. However, most Linux boxen I've ever used have been VERY stable and once everythings up and running, it flies smooth for months even years at a time. If "Linux" crashes (what you think is Linux crashing, is actually XFree86 or Mozilla), it's usually recoverable. Don't confuse your lack of knowledge with Linux being unstable.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
This is pathetic. Linux makes things at the system level easier for most users to understand. You're saying that, say,/dev/hda4 is easier to understand than/dev/ct0s1r4? Also, you're saying that the typical utilities are unreliable? Where's your support? Notice many commercial Unixes (not "Unices"... Unicos is Cray's OS) are moving to GNU utilities? Ugh... this complaint is so unsubstantiated I can't even level a structured retort!
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
You're right. Windows is much more stable and reliable. Oh yeah, and Solaris is much cheaper and secure. Forget free software. It sucks. I mean, it's worthless, because it's free, right? I mean, why would it be free if it was good? Anything that's good is worth paying millions for.
You're so hopelessly confused that I can't tell if you're a Windows luser/wadmin or a pro-BSD zealot that doesn't even use BSD but read about the fights between the two camps. Maybe I'm juts feeding a troll here, but I gotta battle the FUD.
Okay, if you have a set A with N elements, and you add an element to the set such that set A now has N+1 elements... well, that doesn't change the original 0 through N elements.
Your complaint can be applied to the case of adding driver support to an existing kernel. You see, in the life of a kernel, time passes. As time passes, new hardware, software, algorithms, etc. come out. In order for us to keep modern, we have to add new things to the existing set. You're just... silly.
Going back to my original statement, the new virtual memory subsystem wasn't an addition. He was removing an element from the set and replacing it with something different. That could be argued as bad, but in practical terms it ended up perfectly fine.
Furthermore, if you had done any homework, you'd have realized that ext3 is built using hooks that have been available in ext2 for years. Technically speaking, ext3 is as stable as ext2 because the fs can still function as ext2 if ext3 support goes away or breaks.
So stop bitching about support for new things being added to the kernel. We could only be lucky if new features were added faster. At the very least, stop dumping FUD on us. Your alias is so very appropriate in light of your post.
Read this. Fictional, but very interesting, and I think you'll learn that we've known how to modify brain activity with properly placed charges for quite some time. The brain passes signals using electrical impulses (more or less). If we can create our own, well, we can trigger certain results. "Damn, I'm hungry." *ZzZaaAApPp* "Wow, I'm stuffed!"
In brief and ONLY the basics... Modern operating systems today handle memory addressing in a virtual sense so that "fences" can be placed around memory owned by the OS and different applications. These fences serve to protect memory from being overwritten by other rouge programs. This works by making each program think that it's start of memory IS the actual start of physical memory. For example. Program "foobar" may be located at memory address 0xFF44 bytes, and have 0xFF bytes allocated to it. Instead of addressing its memory in the base:offset format as 0xFF44:0xFF, it thinks that 0xFF44 is actually address 0x00 and the top of memory is 0xFF. That way, it can't write to physical addresses at 0xFF43 or anything else lower. This range of memory can be broken into fragments and scattered through memory so that if other programs have been allocated since foobar started, it's not trapped.
Bear in mind, this is only the basic gist of what virtual memory is all about. This particlar subsystem will also handle memory paging (which is part of swapping out to disk), amongst other tasks.
Before you really get determined to start hacking the kernel tomorrow, I suggest you start with something a little more meager. You need to get some experience in computer arcitecture fundamentals, then really basic OS design. Read a few books. Learn Motorola or IA32 Assembly language. Learn to write some old DOS programs (a number of DOS emulators with free, open source DOS distros are available, so some searching) where you have to allocate every byte and word by hand, and not just say "Foo *f; f=new Foo();". Next, start to learn C and figure out what malloc() is all about. Then try coding a kernel module. This is obviously not an extensive road map, but computers and their operating systems are sophisticated. You can't really (unless you're someone like Cox or Torvalds) just dive right into systems programming and know what you're doing. It may take years of experience before you start to tinker with code in the kernel and actually write something that works.
*nix hierarchy explained. it's simple, & clean
on
MS DOS: A Eulogy
·
· Score: 2
There exists a hierarchy in *nix file systems. Programs and libraries placed right off the root are essential for booting. These are contained in/bin,/lib, and/sbin (system binaries or superuser binaries, your pick).
"usr" is short for "user". Meaning this is where user programs are located./usr has often been (and continues to be) a remote-mounted file system. Say you had a centralized network server that hosted programs that everyone on a network used. Instead of speanding hundreds of man hours installing Windows and required software at each seat, you can install it on ONE location and have everyone NFS mount the share. Simple. Only one set of programs to maintain. The paradigms for/bin,/sbin, and/lib are similar to those in/usr/*.
/usr/local, which means "local user files" is a mount point for a local disk that stores programs specific to a workstation. This is incase you want to install software that only you can use, located on your disk. Again, the paradigms are the same. This is very similar to the/opt file system on other *nix platforms that aren't GNU.
Try doing this with Windows. Microsoft has specially designed Windows such that you *have* to buy licenses for each and every seat, instead of buying one copy that everyone can use. I guess if you have N machines, it's better to buy N copies of a program rather than just 1. Spending money is better, right, to you Windows users? It's much better to give your money to Microsoft than to your employees. Sure.
As for where Windows puts files... it sticks practically the entire system in one directory, and otherwise scatters things out across different locations. Why does \winnt have so many subdirectories? Why are some system files in \Program Files? Try figuring out how *your* hierarchy works before you start cutting down on *nix, which has been developed and refined over 30+ years.
So, the original poster is certainly being inflamatory, he's certainly right when it comes to the obvious nature and elegance of *nix. Windows is just a disaster area... much like what happens when a building collapses as a result of building without any real plans in mind.
But you most definitely have to grow up a bit and understand that computers work much better when there is some thought put into their design, rather than marketing gimmicks.
Consider the range 0x00-0xFF (inclusive). Randomly pick a number in that range. Set that to your file system and get amazing results.
Really, this is getting pathetic. We've a few too many pointless and irrelevant (come on, a story based entirely off a screenshot?!), or hopelessly outdated subject matter into the on/. the past couple days.
Yes I am being a troll and I apologize, but I want to know why intelligent stories (maybe a couple that I've sent in) get rejected, and this nonsense gets posted in the main column. Get real! EVERY Linux distro I have EVER used starting with Slackware 3.0 has always recommended using ext2 as the Linux Default. (You'll notice certain partitioning utilities make this clear.) How can anyone disagree that this is a newbie Linux question? Posted on/.'s front page! Easily answered if someone would simply visit a documentation resource and RTFM.
The Ask Slashdot forum has traditionally seen questions that are difficult to answer and need expert advice. They usually lend some insight into a problem or ask questions many of may not have considered.
This guy just asked a question regarding Linux installation. What the hell? Next thing we'll see is an Ask Slashdot question with the following:
"Hi, I wanted to ask the/. community. I'm installing WindowsXP on my server where I'm serving Samba and web pages for my friends. The installation program asked me if I want to use FAT or NTFS. WHICH ONE DO I USE!? I'm so confused about what partition type to use! I hope the/. community can lend some insight!"
Go ahead and mod me down. I don't care, but I think there aughta be another voice expressing irritation at the reduced quality for a service that may become subscription in the near future (or drown us in ads). I don't think that's major news or anything someone in #linuxhelp on the Undernet couldn't have answered with a flood of flames.
I was just sort of passively taking this in as being a bit stereotypical. Not all gang members need rehab. Being in a gang does not make you a drug user and not all people in gangs have any serious problems.
How many of us would call our own little geek cults gangs? Ever have one of your group wronged by someone then have the group dislike and/or take action against a person? Would you call Masters of Deception (MOD) a gang? There's a few parallels between street gangs and geek cults, so... *shrug*
I think everyone should use Windows because it gives Americans jobs. The article says that the Unix solution would only create 1 part-time job (extended to full-time). The Windows solution on the other hand, creates 4 full-time jobs! Four times as many positions to fill. That's 3 more sys admins who can feed their families while the Unix solution could starve 3 unlucky admins.
I think the choice is clear. We want to keep Americans working. Choose Windows.
Want nostalgia? http://lord.nuklear.org
on
Ultima Revived
·
· Score: 2
Go check out Nuklear Lord, a kick ass game of Legend of the Red Dragon running under Linux on DOSemu with a cool Perl BBS gateway. You can also telnet to port 31337 on that server to play.
And look at the shadows coming from the cigarette box. They don't match up, do they?:)
There seems to be two light sources. One immediately above and behind the photographer, like a florescent ceiling light, which is evidenced by the reflection on the keyboard. The other source appears to be an regular incandescent also behind the viewer, casting shadows on the cigarettes that goes up. The shadow from the iWalk device is going to the upper left. They just don't seem consistent. There's also a *very* faint shadow leaning *towards* the photographer. Also notice the wrinkles on the sheet of paper beneath the iWalk. The shadows cast by them are also going "up", like from the cigarette box. Funny how it's the only object in the scene that casts light in its own unique direction. Light also does not seem to fall naturally on the device itself.
A few other observations I noticed... Zoom in close on the image. Other objects in the scene are slightly more crisp than the device itself.
Maybe I'm wrong, but the scene just looks very unnatural, but this may only be become I'm looking at it so intently. But if you ask me, that is definitely a mock up.:)
Sony has answered our petitions to bring a Linux port to the PSX2. Many people who singed the petition, myself included, claimed that seeing Linux available on the PSX2 would prompt a purchase. I know I intend to, but in general, are we going to support Sony for supporting us? Are we going to encourage big companies to do what we ask by following through with our claims? Or is the general public going to just drop the ball and show Sony and other large tech corps that what we write in petitions is bullshit?
I would venture to say that these people are very fortunate in a number of ways, aside from actually getting their hands on technology. They are delving into the computer experience for the first time, and many are possibly enjoying the experience felt by some of our older members. There was a time in this country where computers were an ethereal thing. Very little access, not to many around, time sharing, etc. But it's very interesting to explore their workings for the first time!
No, you've got to grow up, join the real world and realise that the line you've been fed by Slashdot about Microsoft being "evil" is utterly ridiculous. Once you've done that, then you can talk to adults about software development.
Ah, I get it. "Growing up" and joining the "real world" about software development is basically entering into the propaganda that we have to pay for something that should be free and of dismal quality. We can talk about "software development" on a platform where you can't even have the source. Yes, this is certainly maturation over open source ideals. What a fool I have been to think that I can get some magnetic signals on a disk for free all these years! How stupid I have been to expect that software have a sufficient level of quality!
They actually have a jealousy line on their site..
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 0
Yeah, I'm frustrated. I know this is all very silly because it really is just an uphill battle against the masses. This battle can't be won. I've heard for years from all sorts of people that idealism dies with age. It's true. I gotta give up this fight and let the bad guy win eventually. Blah.
Re:Where Can MS Go? Nowhere? Not So.
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Would you mind putting this in perspective and telling us what you've done with your life and what your qualifications are? Got a job?
I can't resist feeding this troll. I am still in school, attending college as a computer science major. I write open source software, but probably nothing that matters to you. I believe in freedom of choice, regardless of the forum. Microsoft doesn't like freedom, they want everyone to be locked into their way of doing things. They are the opposite of democracy, and even if the US isn't perfect, it's still better than what Microsoft offers. Clarify on the comparison? With Microsoft's power over the Internet, information, and how people use computers, they have a tight grip on how they can control our society. This grip is getting stronger. Passport will require users in large groups to authenticate through them..NET will remove ownership and possession of data and software from the users. These technologies will become the defacto standard simply because Microsoft has 90% of the world's computers under their control. What if someone else or another group of people have a viable idea or set of ideas that might actually be better than the MS way? They don't stand a chance. What you call success I call tyrrany. Hitler was very successful too. Is your name on the facist ballot (of course, that's your choice) by chance? Put things into perspective yet?
I know it's hard, but try to consider the big picture in the long run for a change. Not just that your icons get cool shadows or your menus fade in when you click them. Consider that Microsoft are an entity that really does present the possibility of a "Big Brother" (not to be confused with the misunderstood Orwellian sense) insofar as they can and will control (as well as grant control to other monied interests... RIAA, MPAA, etc.) the information that is the lifeblood of our information driven society.
I guess the only thing I can really say about people who don't understand the danger of absolute power in the hands of a few is this: Get out of my country, you swine. Blood has been shed to acquire the freedom we all take for granted today, and anyone who thinks we should just ignore the right to choices and let whatever great ruling entity exists tell us what to do doesn't deserve what we've got in America.
(There goes my karma for speaking my mind.)
Where Can MS Go? Nowhere? Not So.
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 2, Troll
I am not quite sure when Microsoft ever "innovated". As far as I remember, every consecutive release of Windows is ALWAYS 30-35% faster than the previous release, and 70-75% faster than the one before that. Windows ALWAYS has better multitasking than the previous version. Did you know your computing experience is also more "fun" every time you upgrade. Same goes for Office. When's the last time they introduced a truly useful new feature? Aside from introducing a useless feature then killing it (him) before the general public to raise hype.
My point is, I just don't get Microsoft. They don't DO ANYTHING. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation that adds bells an whistles to a leaky boat, then resells it for $300 a pop. If you want to talk about the progress Microsoft has been making, I would not call it "innovation". All Microsoft innovation has ever been is gradually making something work better than previous releases when it should have worked right before it hit store shelves. The improvements to their flag ship products are somewhat analagous to improvements on yearly versions of Encarta!
Are they headed the way of the dinosaur? I think I'd get a resounding 'yes' from the Slashdot community, but is this thinking right? After five years of "innovation", people still get suckered into their marketing hoopla and nonsense, thinking that every new version of Windows is a revolution in the making. No, I don't think MS is doomed to the fate we all hope it will fall into. So long as they keep using pictures of people filled with joy because they use Windows, they'll convince the general population.
*ugh* Sorry, just needed to rant a bit here. MS are just ridiculous, and it's pitiful how millions of people worldwide can follow them like sheep. I can't stand it anymore
"I like the technology, but it's just not a slam dunk," Levitas said. "The copyright protection that they've been able to embed is wonderful."
It's not just a slam dunk, it's a smack down. It's not "wonderful", and any embedded hardware to enforce copy protection is reason enough to never accept this format. Thankfully, record companies are having at least some trouble as it is to copy protect audio compact discs. To give them a 1-up with technology like this would be disasterous. Of course, there's always the possibility of ripping the data, wiping the disc, then re-writing it as whatever format you choose... but that's just plain absurd.
Why do these damn corporations incist on selling products to the consumers under lock to which we do not have the key? We have to stop supporting this. Even though this format looks like it has incredible promise, we should never buy into it. It should never be accepted so long as copy protection is built in. I will make the choice whether or not I want to obey copyright law.
Not only you, but many others, are cheering on Macromedia as they bring this legal action against Adobe. In some respects, yeah, cool. But you have to remember one thing: corporations who use patents to secure a foothold on a technology/idea/whatever, are not champions of open source ideals. Macromedia is just as evil as Adobe when it comes to corporate principles, so don't look at them as taking justice for what Adobe has done in the past. They'd just as soon slap the little guy around with the DMCA as Adobe would.
I think that cases like this are actually a detrement in some ways to open source and its philosophies. Typically, when we smile upon businesses for using open source software, it's because they've made the fruits of OSS developers' labor part of their process. In cases such as this, corporations are making open source software the product. I find it somewhat disturbing as in this case, AOL are profiting directly from the product, meanwhile, they contribute nothing back to the open source community (except bug reports, but what AOL users submit those).
You may ask, "what about other companies 'selling' open software, such as IBM?" My response to this would be simple. I don't have a problem with anybody capitalizing on open source so long as they contribute something in return. IBM is doing this - they are partly an open source development shop. Furthermore, with their case, even if IBM weren't contributing, they are selling a product that doesn't equate to software. Hardware running open source software. That's different... they make their money on the hardware, and try to benefit the customers for it. AOL, bear in mind, sells a service and I doubt many benefits (aside from the quality of Gekco), such as reduced costs, will be passed onto the end users.
I'm also kind of annoyed that this will favor AOL's position. They're strengthening themselves, and inherent to their relationships with other large corps. like Microsoft, it may be bad for OSS in the long run, but only in some facets.
I hope I do not sound pig headed. I am not trying to bash needlessly, or say that open software shouldn't be used in as many places as possible. It's just a thought.;) (Hell, it's only karma.)
If this is real, did they realize what they need?
on
RIAA to DoS Pirates?
·
· Score: 2
If there are N music traders, they may need as many as N^N systems in order to smack them all down. How economical!
Slashdot Mirror
You've completely missed my point regarding the set example. If YOU are only using features 0 through N, and not caring one bit about N+x where x > 0, then the addition of those features doesn't affect you. Adding ext3 support is not only minor, it also does not affect you if you choose not to use it. If you don't think ext3 is stable, just don't compile it when you build your next kernel. Simple! You go back to the original set. There's nothing wrong with adding new drivers to stable kernels. It's been done constantly and it's necessary for Linux or ANY operating system to survive.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
/dev/hda4 is easier to understand than /dev/ct0s1r4? Also, you're saying that the typical utilities are unreliable? Where's your support? Notice many commercial Unixes (not "Unices"... Unicos is Cray's OS) are moving to GNU utilities? Ugh... this complaint is so unsubstantiated I can't even level a structured retort!
You're off your rocker. Linux boxes have to be admin'ed ONCE in a big way, then they just keep working after that. You've mistaken it for NT, which BREAKS constantly and requires constant attention. I have a Linux server sitting in my closet that I haven't touched for months. It just works and gets heavy use. Not to mention that when used properly, *nix solutions have a constant maintenance cost, while NT solutions require growing fees. What do I mean? With *nix, you have one central box that needs adminning, and all your clients get their apps, configuration, and data from that box. So, if you have N machines, you have 1 box to admin. With NT, every seat has to have its own apps, data, and configuration. You multiply your work load by a factor of N. So, if it costs C dollars to admin one machine, NT costs C*N, while properly implimented *nix solutions are C.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
More nonsense. ext2 will lose data if the data isn't written to the disk when a failure occurrs. So will UFS. But you won't experience corruption of data you're not working with otherwise. ext2 is stable and solid. It gets corrupted if you fuck with it. Same goes for every other fs.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
ReiserFS isn't in beta. It's sufficiently stable and is used by lots of people on production machines.
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Uh, no. Backwards compatability is good if the older stuff is still used. Also, the backwards compatability in ext3 does not break its implimentation. DOS is dead and burried. There was no reason to keep support for it lying around, but MS did anyway and it was responsible for a LOT of the instability in Windows 9x/2000. People still using DOS stuff, should not be upgrading. Microsoft just forces them to. Not only that, ext[123] was designed to be EXTENSIBLE, something Microsoft idiots don't seem to understand. Extensiblility is about being able to add future functionality without rewriting or breaking a package. Hooks exist in ext that let you add new features. This is a Good Thing.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
I'd like to see some statistics. This claim is unsubstantiated. I've seen Solaris boxses drop like flies. However, most Linux boxen I've ever used have been VERY stable and once everythings up and running, it flies smooth for months even years at a time. If "Linux" crashes (what you think is Linux crashing, is actually XFree86 or Mozilla), it's usually recoverable. Don't confuse your lack of knowledge with Linux being unstable.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
This is pathetic. Linux makes things at the system level easier for most users to understand. You're saying that, say,
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
You're right. Windows is much more stable and reliable. Oh yeah, and Solaris is much cheaper and secure. Forget free software. It sucks. I mean, it's worthless, because it's free, right? I mean, why would it be free if it was good? Anything that's good is worth paying millions for.
You're so hopelessly confused that I can't tell if you're a Windows luser/wadmin or a pro-BSD zealot that doesn't even use BSD but read about the fights between the two camps. Maybe I'm juts feeding a troll here, but I gotta battle the FUD.
Okay, if you have a set A with N elements, and you add an element to the set such that set A now has N+1 elements... well, that doesn't change the original 0 through N elements.
Your complaint can be applied to the case of adding driver support to an existing kernel. You see, in the life of a kernel, time passes. As time passes, new hardware, software, algorithms, etc. come out. In order for us to keep modern, we have to add new things to the existing set. You're just... silly.
Going back to my original statement, the new virtual memory subsystem wasn't an addition. He was removing an element from the set and replacing it with something different. That could be argued as bad, but in practical terms it ended up perfectly fine.
Furthermore, if you had done any homework, you'd have realized that ext3 is built using hooks that have been available in ext2 for years. Technically speaking, ext3 is as stable as ext2 because the fs can still function as ext2 if ext3 support goes away or breaks.
So stop bitching about support for new things being added to the kernel. We could only be lucky if new features were added faster. At the very least, stop dumping FUD on us. Your alias is so very appropriate in light of your post.
Read this. Fictional, but very interesting, and I think you'll learn that we've known how to modify brain activity with properly placed charges for quite some time. The brain passes signals using electrical impulses (more or less). If we can create our own, well, we can trigger certain results. "Damn, I'm hungry." *ZzZaaAApPp* "Wow, I'm stuffed!"
In brief and ONLY the basics... Modern operating systems today handle memory addressing in a virtual sense so that "fences" can be placed around memory owned by the OS and different applications. These fences serve to protect memory from being overwritten by other rouge programs. This works by making each program think that it's start of memory IS the actual start of physical memory. For example. Program "foobar" may be located at memory address 0xFF44 bytes, and have 0xFF bytes allocated to it. Instead of addressing its memory in the base:offset format as 0xFF44:0xFF, it thinks that 0xFF44 is actually address 0x00 and the top of memory is 0xFF. That way, it can't write to physical addresses at 0xFF43 or anything else lower. This range of memory can be broken into fragments and scattered through memory so that if other programs have been allocated since foobar started, it's not trapped.
Bear in mind, this is only the basic gist of what virtual memory is all about. This particlar subsystem will also handle memory paging (which is part of swapping out to disk), amongst other tasks.
Before you really get determined to start hacking the kernel tomorrow, I suggest you start with something a little more meager. You need to get some experience in computer arcitecture fundamentals, then really basic OS design. Read a few books. Learn Motorola or IA32 Assembly language. Learn to write some old DOS programs (a number of DOS emulators with free, open source DOS distros are available, so some searching) where you have to allocate every byte and word by hand, and not just say "Foo *f; f=new Foo();". Next, start to learn C and figure out what malloc() is all about. Then try coding a kernel module. This is obviously not an extensive road map, but computers and their operating systems are sophisticated. You can't really (unless you're someone like Cox or Torvalds) just dive right into systems programming and know what you're doing. It may take years of experience before you start to tinker with code in the kernel and actually write something that works.
There exists a hierarchy in *nix file systems. Programs and libraries placed right off the root are essential for booting. These are contained in /bin, /lib, and /sbin (system binaries or superuser binaries, your pick).
/usr has often been (and continues to be) a remote-mounted file system. Say you had a centralized network server that hosted programs that everyone on a network used. Instead of speanding hundreds of man hours installing Windows and required software at each seat, you can install it on ONE location and have everyone NFS mount the share. Simple. Only one set of programs to maintain. The paradigms for /bin, /sbin, and /lib are similar to those in /usr/*.
/opt file system on other *nix platforms that aren't GNU.
"usr" is short for "user". Meaning this is where user programs are located.
/usr/local, which means "local user files" is a mount point for a local disk that stores programs specific to a workstation. This is incase you want to install software that only you can use, located on your disk. Again, the paradigms are the same. This is very similar to the
Try doing this with Windows. Microsoft has specially designed Windows such that you *have* to buy licenses for each and every seat, instead of buying one copy that everyone can use. I guess if you have N machines, it's better to buy N copies of a program rather than just 1. Spending money is better, right, to you Windows users? It's much better to give your money to Microsoft than to your employees. Sure.
As for where Windows puts files... it sticks practically the entire system in one directory, and otherwise scatters things out across different locations. Why does \winnt have so many subdirectories? Why are some system files in \Program Files? Try figuring out how *your* hierarchy works before you start cutting down on *nix, which has been developed and refined over 30+ years.
So, the original poster is certainly being inflamatory, he's certainly right when it comes to the obvious nature and elegance of *nix. Windows is just a disaster area... much like what happens when a building collapses as a result of building without any real plans in mind.
But you most definitely have to grow up a bit and understand that computers work much better when there is some thought put into their design, rather than marketing gimmicks.
Consider the range 0x00-0xFF (inclusive). Randomly pick a number in that range. Set that to your file system and get amazing results.
/. the past couple days.
/.'s front page! Easily answered if someone would simply visit a documentation resource and RTFM.
/. community. I'm installing WindowsXP on my server where I'm serving Samba and web pages for my friends. The installation program asked me if I want to use FAT or NTFS. WHICH ONE DO I USE!? I'm so confused about what partition type to use! I hope the /. community can lend some insight!"
Really, this is getting pathetic. We've a few too many pointless and irrelevant (come on, a story based entirely off a screenshot?!), or hopelessly outdated subject matter into the on
Yes I am being a troll and I apologize, but I want to know why intelligent stories (maybe a couple that I've sent in) get rejected, and this nonsense gets posted in the main column. Get real! EVERY Linux distro I have EVER used starting with Slackware 3.0 has always recommended using ext2 as the Linux Default. (You'll notice certain partitioning utilities make this clear.) How can anyone disagree that this is a newbie Linux question? Posted on
The Ask Slashdot forum has traditionally seen questions that are difficult to answer and need expert advice. They usually lend some insight into a problem or ask questions many of may not have considered.
This guy just asked a question regarding Linux installation. What the hell? Next thing we'll see is an Ask Slashdot question with the following:
"Hi, I wanted to ask the
Go ahead and mod me down. I don't care, but I think there aughta be another voice expressing irritation at the reduced quality for a service that may become subscription in the near future (or drown us in ads). I don't think that's major news or anything someone in #linuxhelp on the Undernet couldn't have answered with a flood of flames.
"[the program] sends them through rehab"
I was just sort of passively taking this in as being a bit stereotypical. Not all gang members need rehab. Being in a gang does not make you a drug user and not all people in gangs have any serious problems.
How many of us would call our own little geek cults gangs? Ever have one of your group wronged by someone then have the group dislike and/or take action against a person? Would you call Masters of Deception (MOD) a gang? There's a few parallels between street gangs and geek cults, so... *shrug*
I think everyone should use Windows because it gives Americans jobs. The article says that the Unix solution would only create 1 part-time job (extended to full-time). The Windows solution on the other hand, creates 4 full-time jobs! Four times as many positions to fill. That's 3 more sys admins who can feed their families while the Unix solution could starve 3 unlucky admins.
I think the choice is clear. We want to keep Americans working. Choose Windows.
Go check out Nuklear Lord, a kick ass game of Legend of the Red Dragon running under Linux on DOSemu with a cool Perl BBS gateway. You can also telnet to port 31337 on that server to play.
And look at the shadows coming from the cigarette box. They don't match up, do they? :)
:)
There seems to be two light sources. One immediately above and behind the photographer, like a florescent ceiling light, which is evidenced by the reflection on the keyboard. The other source appears to be an regular incandescent also behind the viewer, casting shadows on the cigarettes that goes up. The shadow from the iWalk device is going to the upper left. They just don't seem consistent. There's also a *very* faint shadow leaning *towards* the photographer. Also notice the wrinkles on the sheet of paper beneath the iWalk. The shadows cast by them are also going "up", like from the cigarette box. Funny how it's the only object in the scene that casts light in its own unique direction. Light also does not seem to fall naturally on the device itself.
A few other observations I noticed... Zoom in close on the image. Other objects in the scene are slightly more crisp than the device itself.
Maybe I'm wrong, but the scene just looks very unnatural, but this may only be become I'm looking at it so intently. But if you ask me, that is definitely a mock up.
Sony has answered our petitions to bring a Linux port to the PSX2. Many people who singed the petition, myself included, claimed that seeing Linux available on the PSX2 would prompt a purchase. I know I intend to, but in general, are we going to support Sony for supporting us? Are we going to encourage big companies to do what we ask by following through with our claims? Or is the general public going to just drop the ball and show Sony and other large tech corps that what we write in petitions is bullshit?
I'd really like to VIEW this video since I don't get cable (let alone have a television (thank god)).
It'd be great if people could read the threads here and try to figure out what is going on.
Something along these lines frequently appears in Slashcode comments.
I'm a little lost
There's a big surprise. Not the first time.
it looks like he's being overzealous.
Presenting Taco and his amazing insight.
"but it looks like he's being overzealous."
Alan Cox? Overzealous? Nah! I can't even imagine.
I would venture to say that these people are very fortunate in a number of ways, aside from actually getting their hands on technology. They are delving into the computer experience for the first time, and many are possibly enjoying the experience felt by some of our older members. There was a time in this country where computers were an ethereal thing. Very little access, not to many around, time sharing, etc. But it's very interesting to explore their workings for the first time!
No, you've got to grow up, join the real world and realise that the line you've been fed by Slashdot about Microsoft being "evil" is utterly ridiculous. Once you've done that, then you can talk to adults about software development.
Ah, I get it. "Growing up" and joining the "real world" about software development is basically entering into the propaganda that we have to pay for something that should be free and of dismal quality. We can talk about "software development" on a platform where you can't even have the source. Yes, this is certainly maturation over open source ideals. What a fool I have been to think that I can get some magnetic signals on a disk for free all these years! How stupid I have been to expect that software have a sufficient level of quality!
Make Your Friends Jealous. Order Today.
:)
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Yeah, I'm frustrated. I know this is all very silly because it really is just an uphill battle against the masses. This battle can't be won. I've heard for years from all sorts of people that idealism dies with age. It's true. I gotta give up this fight and let the bad guy win eventually. Blah.
Would you mind putting this in perspective and telling us what you've done with your life and what your qualifications are? Got a job?
.NET will remove ownership and possession of data and software from the users. These technologies will become the defacto standard simply because Microsoft has 90% of the world's computers under their control. What if someone else or another group of people have a viable idea or set of ideas that might actually be better than the MS way? They don't stand a chance. What you call success I call tyrrany. Hitler was very successful too. Is your name on the facist ballot (of course, that's your choice) by chance? Put things into perspective yet?
I can't resist feeding this troll. I am still in school, attending college as a computer science major. I write open source software, but probably nothing that matters to you. I believe in freedom of choice, regardless of the forum. Microsoft doesn't like freedom, they want everyone to be locked into their way of doing things. They are the opposite of democracy, and even if the US isn't perfect, it's still better than what Microsoft offers. Clarify on the comparison? With Microsoft's power over the Internet, information, and how people use computers, they have a tight grip on how they can control our society. This grip is getting stronger. Passport will require users in large groups to authenticate through them.
I know it's hard, but try to consider the big picture in the long run for a change. Not just that your icons get cool shadows or your menus fade in when you click them. Consider that Microsoft are an entity that really does present the possibility of a "Big Brother" (not to be confused with the misunderstood Orwellian sense) insofar as they can and will control (as well as grant control to other monied interests... RIAA, MPAA, etc.) the information that is the lifeblood of our information driven society.
I guess the only thing I can really say about people who don't understand the danger of absolute power in the hands of a few is this: Get out of my country, you swine. Blood has been shed to acquire the freedom we all take for granted today, and anyone who thinks we should just ignore the right to choices and let whatever great ruling entity exists tell us what to do doesn't deserve what we've got in America.
(There goes my karma for speaking my mind.)
I am not quite sure when Microsoft ever "innovated". As far as I remember, every consecutive release of Windows is ALWAYS 30-35% faster than the previous release, and 70-75% faster than the one before that. Windows ALWAYS has better multitasking than the previous version. Did you know your computing experience is also more "fun" every time you upgrade. Same goes for Office. When's the last time they introduced a truly useful new feature? Aside from introducing a useless feature then killing it (him) before the general public to raise hype.
My point is, I just don't get Microsoft. They don't DO ANYTHING. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation that adds bells an whistles to a leaky boat, then resells it for $300 a pop. If you want to talk about the progress Microsoft has been making, I would not call it "innovation". All Microsoft innovation has ever been is gradually making something work better than previous releases when it should have worked right before it hit store shelves. The improvements to their flag ship products are somewhat analagous to improvements on yearly versions of Encarta!
Are they headed the way of the dinosaur? I think I'd get a resounding 'yes' from the Slashdot community, but is this thinking right? After five years of "innovation", people still get suckered into their marketing hoopla and nonsense, thinking that every new version of Windows is a revolution in the making. No, I don't think MS is doomed to the fate we all hope it will fall into. So long as they keep using pictures of people filled with joy because they use Windows, they'll convince the general population.
*ugh* Sorry, just needed to rant a bit here. MS are just ridiculous, and it's pitiful how millions of people worldwide can follow them like sheep. I can't stand it anymore
"I like the technology, but it's just not a slam dunk," Levitas said. "The copyright protection that they've been able to embed is wonderful."
It's not just a slam dunk, it's a smack down. It's not "wonderful", and any embedded hardware to enforce copy protection is reason enough to never accept this format. Thankfully, record companies are having at least some trouble as it is to copy protect audio compact discs. To give them a 1-up with technology like this would be disasterous. Of course, there's always the possibility of ripping the data, wiping the disc, then re-writing it as whatever format you choose... but that's just plain absurd.
Why do these damn corporations incist on selling products to the consumers under lock to which we do not have the key? We have to stop supporting this. Even though this format looks like it has incredible promise, we should never buy into it. It should never be accepted so long as copy protection is built in. I will make the choice whether or not I want to obey copyright law.
Not only you, but many others, are cheering on Macromedia as they bring this legal action against Adobe. In some respects, yeah, cool. But you have to remember one thing: corporations who use patents to secure a foothold on a technology/idea/whatever, are not champions of open source ideals. Macromedia is just as evil as Adobe when it comes to corporate principles, so don't look at them as taking justice for what Adobe has done in the past. They'd just as soon slap the little guy around with the DMCA as Adobe would.
I think that cases like this are actually a detrement in some ways to open source and its philosophies. Typically, when we smile upon businesses for using open source software, it's because they've made the fruits of OSS developers' labor part of their process. In cases such as this, corporations are making open source software the product. I find it somewhat disturbing as in this case, AOL are profiting directly from the product, meanwhile, they contribute nothing back to the open source community (except bug reports, but what AOL users submit those).
;) (Hell, it's only karma.)
You may ask, "what about other companies 'selling' open software, such as IBM?" My response to this would be simple. I don't have a problem with anybody capitalizing on open source so long as they contribute something in return. IBM is doing this - they are partly an open source development shop. Furthermore, with their case, even if IBM weren't contributing, they are selling a product that doesn't equate to software. Hardware running open source software. That's different... they make their money on the hardware, and try to benefit the customers for it. AOL, bear in mind, sells a service and I doubt many benefits (aside from the quality of Gekco), such as reduced costs, will be passed onto the end users.
I'm also kind of annoyed that this will favor AOL's position. They're strengthening themselves, and inherent to their relationships with other large corps. like Microsoft, it may be bad for OSS in the long run, but only in some facets.
I hope I do not sound pig headed. I am not trying to bash needlessly, or say that open software shouldn't be used in as many places as possible. It's just a thought.
If there are N music traders, they may need as many as N^N systems in order to smack them all down. How economical!