I can see how this could be useful if I owned a windows machine. I want to find a file regardless of which user put it there. (on Linux I just use a find or locate as root)
The fact that it bypasses user protections speeks more about the security of Windows than the product itself. While only a privledged user should be able to do system wide searches, only a priviledged user should be able to install the software. If you let users run as root, then it's your own damn fault if someone installs it.
I was thinking about a new language the other day. SQL can be very inelegant. It can get very ugly when creating a stored procedure (I know there not part of the SQL specification) and you need to call an execute on query in a string and you're using constant string values. You need to figure out the right number of quotes to get a qote at the right 'level'. It can very easily be done, but there should be a better way of doing it.
SQL can give even a seasoned programmer a hard time.
The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'.
So because the most common format on an iPod is stolen, doesn't mean the iPod is most commonly used to steal it. This is a classic case of making loose connections to appear to be making a statement. I am suprised how many people make these logical leaps.
The "software doesn't wear out" argument is BS....Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS?
Monolithic software may wear out over time. But most things that follow the "KISS" mentality don't. Do you think that ls, grep or cat will ever wear out?
Linux with KDE or GNOME is, no offense to those projects, barely a 9 year old child's bicycle with training wheels, while OSX is a Harley.
You can do way more "under-the-hood" way easier in Linux. There is way more to an operating system than look and feel (If that's all there was, I'd still being using Windows).
When a complete novice wants to install something from a CD on OSX all they do is drag the.app bundle to the hard disk, with Linux you either have to use some vendor specific tool to manage the myriad dependencies or run rpm manually.
RPM isn't a very good package management system. With debians apt-get or gentoos emerge, installing a program is only one command away. All dependencies are solved, and you have thousands of apps available at your finger tips.
"I want Windows to be more secure, should we be performing buffer checks?"
This is not a rebuttal to your post, simply pointing out that it's not as black and white as that. Security is important, but usability is what made Microsoft a success.
So shaving off a a fraction of a millisecond results in better usibilty does it?
The government contends its court arguments should be sealed from public view and heard before a judge outside the presence of Gilmore and his attorneys.
We also have a secret law that secret hearings are fair and just. Anyone who disagrees with our secret policies will go to a secret jail.
The user interface is not as intuative and consistent as the Windows XP interface. Software IS more difficult to install on Linux, anyone who says otherwise is live in another world.
Maybe I am living in another world than you are, but how is typing "emerge ${SOFTWARE_PACKAGE}" harder than: 1) googling "${SOFTWARE_PACKAGE}" 2) searching through bad results to find site containing ${SOFTWARE_PACKAGE} 3) hoping through about three or four pages before finally getting a download link 4) download software 5) remember where I put installer, run installer 6) read and accept licence agreement 7) fill out name and other personal data 8) tell it what features to include 9) tell it target install location 10) after waiting for it to finich installing, hit finish.
But to me, it was a learning phase. I have never used Red Hat ever again. I've moved from Mandrake to SuSE to Mandrake to at long last Gentoo now.
I had a similar experience. I Tried Mandrake then Red Hat. I couldn't get everything to work on those (later I would learn that their configs are all fsck up).
Then I (dangerously, as a newbie) tried slackware on an old 386 just for kicks. I had the machine on side, so I could screw with it when ever I wanted. I actually got things to work nicely and learned a bit about the Linux system as I was hacking around with it.
Then I tried a newer version of Mandrake with a bit more success, but it was very painful to install software packages. After a year or so, I hit enlightenment after installing Debian. It was beautiful. Things just worked (there were A couple of minor things that I couldn't get to work). Then I went all hardcore and installed FreeBSD (I still have that box, makes a great file server). Finally, I sit here with gentoo. Gentoo is great, I have gotten things I have never seen before working in Linux to work. (The install procedure is not for the faint of heart).
It's been my experience with distros, that ease of install is inversely perportional to ease of maintainance (prove me wrong).
I was thinking, it would be nice if someone (I may do this one day yet) made a distro based off of Debian or Gentoo that had a really easy install (very few questions) that would convert a windows machine to a Linux machine.
A software installation manager with a nice GUI could easily be made on top of aptitude or emerge.
I would like to add that a lot of the people hear who say bad things about Linux aren't doing anything about it. That's what is so great about open source, you can do something about it. Seems to me these people are just the sort of people to go with the status quo.
I pretty much refuse to take any article seriously that offers The Gimp as a resonable alternative or replacement to Photoshop.
Well I'll agree with that. Keep in mind that this goes the other way to. For me, There are tools I use daily that aren't available for windows (sure I could cygwin, but I would not have access to my system like I would in Linux).
I deal with below average computer users daily (far below what everyone else here seems to deal with). I get MS Office attachments that do not format correct in OpenOffice, I get to visit webpages that do not format correctly in Firefox
I also deal with below average computer users daily. Most of them don't know that they are running Linux, and they don't need to because we will look after the system and make sure everything works for them. THAT'S WHY WE GET PAID.
I will agree that not all office documents format correctly, but Open Office is getting better and better. This is not really a problem with open Office, since it's formats are open, but rather with MS Office, because their format is closed.
When we mention that there is a new exploit for Windows out people for some reason feel the need to blame Windows instead of the users using it. Do you think that these same people are going to have a secure Linux machine, I certainly don't.
The average user is going to be have limited permissions to the system. Just enough so that they do what they need to. Giving users any more permissions than what they need is foolish. I don't tell me "well then they can't do X." because that's what sysadmins are for.
All the applications he lists (OpenOffice, Mozilla, GNU Cash) are no where near the level of their Windows counterparts. They are close but they are not the same.
Different, does not mean worse. That creates a contradiction. "A is worse than B because they are different." But wait a minute "B is worse than A because they are different."
Regular Joe Blow User does not want to do anything but point, click, and go.
And they can. To re-iterate, that's what Sys Admins are for. Or, it'd be nice if computers came with Linux pre-installed on them (But that's more of a problem with vendors than with Linux).
Basically all hardware works just fine with Windows. It's not the same for Linux.
Well, since you made a blatant generalization, here's my response. I have spent more time trying to get proper drivers installed and working right on Windows than I have with Linux.
That's why Windows will continue to reign supreme, at least for now.
Well it's good that your favorite sports team^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Operating system is winning.
No-one has said that. The article is about replacing sun boxes.
but our engineers have integrated the authentication across the board. Want to check your pay stub online? Use your exchange domain\username and password.......
And authentication across the board can't be done in Linux? Pardon? Who knows, maybe they are using LDAP, then it would be easy to migrate that system to Linux.
This silly ms-office elitism really needs to stop. standards, not vendor lock-ins, are the key to interoperability.
Absolutely agreed. We use OO in our office. Do you know what the number one interoperabilty problem is? People who send us documents with improper extensions. It doesn't matter weather you use OO or MS Office, if you don't have the proper extension, how does the email client know what to do with it?
Other than that, opening MS.doc files works just fine in OO.
I am glad to have found a Linux job.
on
Linux Jobs on the Rise
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I recently landed a Linux job. It was very hard to find. 99% of the jobs I looked at were Windows based. I stuck to my convictions and I eventually found the job I was looking for. I chalk it up to luck. There aren't that many Linux jobs in my city. Hopefully that is changing.
In my shop, everyone uses Linux, and most users (and they are not very computer literate at all) don't care that they are not using windows. We have managed to make Linux as user friendly as possible.
We impress the accountants with how cheap we can do things now. LTSP is a beautiful project which can save you time, money and hassle. I strongly suggest that any system administrator take a look at the project.
Or are you doing what Michael Moore does and complaining about a situation while having no solution whatsoever?
May I point out, you need to know what the problem is before you can find the solution. Also, if you are being helpful in pointing out a problem, it is not your responsibility to find a solution.
And in Michael Moore's case, lack of awareness was part of th problem. Obviously raising awareness is part of the solution (although much more needs to be done).
Like Open Source today, Word was the inferior solution from a feature set and usability standpoint
Pardon? Are you saying that Open Source is inferior in terms of features and usability?
Granted using the term Open Source encompasses my software packages, I can garantee you that for most Windows applications I can find at least one Open Source application to match it in terms of usability. Are far as features go, I would argue that Open Source Software (in general) has more features than Closed Source software.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see how this could be useful if I owned a windows machine. I want to find a file regardless of which user put it there. (on Linux I just use a find or locate as root)
The fact that it bypasses user protections speeks more about the security of Windows than the product itself. While only a privledged user should be able to do system wide searches, only a priviledged user should be able to install the software. If you let users run as root, then it's your own damn fault if someone installs it.
Try proposing to your boss to replace your mySQL database with "Tutorial D"
There is no need to replace the database. The database is seperate from the language used to access it.
I was thinking about a new language the other day. SQL can be very inelegant. It can get very ugly when creating a stored procedure (I know there not part of the SQL specification) and you need to call an execute on query in a string and you're using constant string values. You need to figure out the right number of quotes to get a qote at the right 'level'. It can very easily be done, but there should be a better way of doing it.
SQL can give even a seasoned programmer a hard time.
The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'.
So because the most common format on an iPod is stolen, doesn't mean the iPod is most commonly used to steal it. This is a classic case of making loose connections to appear to be making a statement. I am suprised how many people make these logical leaps.
The "software doesn't wear out" argument is BS. ...Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS?
Monolithic software may wear out over time. But most things that follow the "KISS" mentality don't. Do you think that ls, grep or cat will ever wear out?
Linux with KDE or GNOME is, no offense to those projects, barely a 9 year old child's bicycle with training wheels, while OSX is a Harley.
.app bundle to the hard disk, with Linux you either have to use some vendor specific tool to manage the myriad dependencies or run rpm manually.
You can do way more "under-the-hood" way easier in Linux. There is way more to an operating system than look and feel (If that's all there was, I'd still being using Windows).
When a complete novice wants to install something from a CD on OSX all they do is drag the
RPM isn't a very good package management system. With debians apt-get or gentoos emerge, installing a program is only one command away. All dependencies are solved, and you have thousands of apps available at your finger tips.
Hey, here's an idea! Why don't we drug the kids in the schools as well? Then we can make them even MORE controllable!
Ritalin anyone?
The idea itself is really nice, but at least for me doesn't seem to work nearly as well as it should.
I concur. It is an excelent idea. However, I have found that for certain configurations it doesn't actually manage to distribute.
and the whole monstrosity can be programmed with Visual C++
So it can only be programmed with this specific brand? It can't be programmed with g++?
"I want Windows to be more secure, should we be performing buffer checks?"
This is not a rebuttal to your post, simply pointing out that it's not as black and white as that. Security is important, but usability is what made Microsoft a success.
So shaving off a a fraction of a millisecond results in better usibilty does it?
Sh*t, it's 2004, and they've just now realized that unchecked buffers are bad?
The government contends its court arguments should be sealed from public view and heard before a judge outside the presence of Gilmore and his attorneys.
We also have a secret law that secret hearings are fair and just. Anyone who disagrees with our secret policies will go to a secret jail.
The user interface is not as intuative and consistent as the Windows XP interface. Software IS more difficult to install on Linux, anyone who says otherwise is live in another world.
Maybe I am living in another world than you are, but how is typing "emerge ${SOFTWARE_PACKAGE}" harder than:
1) googling "${SOFTWARE_PACKAGE}"
2) searching through bad results to find site containing ${SOFTWARE_PACKAGE}
3) hoping through about three or four pages before finally getting a download link
4) download software
5) remember where I put installer, run installer
6) read and accept licence agreement
7) fill out name and other personal data
8) tell it what features to include
9) tell it target install location
10) after waiting for it to finich installing, hit finish.
But to me, it was a learning phase. I have never used Red Hat ever again. I've moved from Mandrake to SuSE to Mandrake to at long last Gentoo now.
I had a similar experience. I Tried Mandrake then Red Hat. I couldn't get everything to work on those (later I would learn that their configs are all fsck up).
Then I (dangerously, as a newbie) tried slackware on an old 386 just for kicks. I had the machine on side, so I could screw with it when ever I wanted. I actually got things to work nicely and learned a bit about the Linux system as I was hacking around with it.
Then I tried a newer version of Mandrake with a bit more success, but it was very painful to install software packages. After a year or so, I hit enlightenment after installing Debian. It was beautiful. Things just worked (there were A couple of minor things that I couldn't get to work). Then I went all hardcore and installed FreeBSD (I still have that box, makes a great file server). Finally, I sit here with gentoo. Gentoo is great, I have gotten things I have never seen before working in Linux to work. (The install procedure is not for the faint of heart).
It's been my experience with distros, that ease of install is inversely perportional to ease of maintainance (prove me wrong).
I was thinking, it would be nice if someone (I may do this one day yet) made a distro based off of Debian or Gentoo that had a really easy install (very few questions) that would convert a windows machine to a Linux machine.
A software installation manager with a nice GUI could easily be made on top of aptitude or emerge.
I would like to add that a lot of the people hear who say bad things about Linux aren't doing anything about it. That's what is so great about open source, you can do something about it. Seems to me these people are just the sort of people to go with the status quo.
By far, the easiest part was actually getting it to install. Mandrake has a fantastic install, and i commend them on that.
Installing Mandrake was your first mistake.
stop using the following words when you are trying to convince people that "Linux is hard" is a myth:
The average user is not slashdot's target Audience.
I pretty much refuse to take any article seriously that offers The Gimp as a resonable alternative or replacement to Photoshop.
Well I'll agree with that. Keep in mind that this goes the other way to. For me, There are tools I use daily that aren't available for windows (sure I could cygwin, but I would not have access to my system like I would in Linux).
I deal with below average computer users daily (far below what everyone else here seems to deal with). I get MS Office attachments that do not format correct in OpenOffice, I get to visit webpages that do not format correctly in Firefox
I also deal with below average computer users daily. Most of them don't know that they are running Linux, and they don't need to because we will look after the system and make sure everything works for them. THAT'S WHY WE GET PAID.
I will agree that not all office documents format correctly, but Open Office is getting better and better. This is not really a problem with open Office, since it's formats are open, but rather with MS Office, because their format is closed.
When we mention that there is a new exploit for Windows out people for some reason feel the need to blame Windows instead of the users using it. Do you think that these same people are going to have a secure Linux machine, I certainly don't.
The average user is going to be have limited permissions to the system. Just enough so that they do what they need to. Giving users any more permissions than what they need is foolish. I don't tell me "well then they can't do X." because that's what sysadmins are for.
All the applications he lists (OpenOffice, Mozilla, GNU Cash) are no where near the level of their Windows counterparts. They are close but they are not the same.
Different, does not mean worse. That creates a contradiction. "A is worse than B because they are different." But wait a minute "B is worse than A because they are different."
Regular Joe Blow User does not want to do anything but point, click, and go.
And they can. To re-iterate, that's what Sys Admins are for. Or, it'd be nice if computers came with Linux pre-installed on them (But that's more of a problem with vendors than with Linux).
Basically all hardware works just fine with Windows. It's not the same for Linux.
Well, since you made a blatant generalization, here's my response. I have spent more time trying to get proper drivers installed and working right on Windows than I have with Linux.
That's why Windows will continue to reign supreme, at least for now.
Well it's good that your favorite sports team^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Operating system is winning.
Call me when your net worth is tens of billions of dollars and you're giving away 95% of it.
I hardly think Billy Boy is giving away 95% of his wealth.
chances are you have disposable income. What are you doing with it?
Amnesty International mabey. Because perhaps the Suadi's have a worse human rights record than Iraq.
And I don't think the generosity of one of the founders of Microsoft justifies their gross bussiness practises.
I thought the owner of IKEA was now worth more than Gates.
Could very well be. Bill Gates is the most POPULAR rich man, not the richest. His riches pale in comparison to the owners of Kraft for example.
I can say that MS isn't going away anytime soon.
.......
No-one has said that. The article is about replacing sun boxes.
but our engineers have integrated the authentication across the board. Want to check your pay stub online? Use your exchange domain\username and password
And authentication across the board can't be done in Linux? Pardon? Who knows, maybe they are using LDAP, then it would be easy to migrate that system to Linux.
This silly ms-office elitism really needs to stop. standards, not vendor lock-ins, are the key to interoperability.
.doc files works just fine in OO.
Absolutely agreed. We use OO in our office. Do you know what the number one interoperabilty problem is? People who send us documents with improper extensions. It doesn't matter weather you use OO or MS Office, if you don't have the proper extension, how does the email client know what to do with it?
Other than that, opening MS
I recently landed a Linux job. It was very hard to find. 99% of the jobs I looked at were Windows based. I stuck to my convictions and I eventually found the job I was looking for. I chalk it up to luck. There aren't that many Linux jobs in my city. Hopefully that is changing.
In my shop, everyone uses Linux, and most users (and they are not very computer literate at all) don't care that they are not using windows. We have managed to make Linux as user friendly as possible.
We impress the accountants with how cheap we can do things now. LTSP is a beautiful project which can save you time, money and hassle. I strongly suggest that any system administrator take a look at the project.
Or are you doing what Michael Moore does and complaining about a situation while having no solution whatsoever?
May I point out, you need to know what the problem is before you can find the solution. Also, if you are being helpful in pointing out a problem, it is not your responsibility to find a solution.
And in Michael Moore's case, lack of awareness was part of th problem. Obviously raising awareness is part of the solution (although much more needs to be done).
Like Open Source today, Word was the inferior solution from a feature set and usability standpoint
Pardon? Are you saying that Open Source is inferior in terms of features and usability?
Granted using the term Open Source encompasses my software packages, I can garantee you that for most Windows applications I can find at least one Open Source application to match it in terms of usability. Are far as features go, I would argue that Open Source Software (in general) has more features than Closed Source software.