no serious system is easy to operate at a server level. some are easier than others but you can't just become a sysadmin overnight and expect to get good results. MS's server products are just as complex as a linux system, and have just as many ways of being exploited and potentially fucked up as a linux or BSD or Solaris or Mac OS X box. The difference being that while the number of exploits against both types of systems is likely the same (have you SEEN the number of exploits available for *nixes?) the ease of pulling them off is heavily skewed to Windows because it's a) more likely to be unsecured and b) more ubiquitous. As more people install and run linux, the numbers will likely balance out. Put a windows box behind a secured firewall and kill all ports except those necessary and you'll cut down risk -- but MS requires a LOT more ports open for basic stuff (how many "ms ports" -- eg 135, 137 -- are hitting your firewall as infected or attacks?). Linux can be made more secure, all the way down to the software level where you can check source for yourself and see if the software is secure enough for you, and if you want to, you can run a particular piece of software in it's own jail, for added security. MS can't do that.
Mac OS's version of IE is sufficiently different that it poses a problem if you're coding for it, although for most end-user compatibility purposes, it's Good Enough. The real problem w/r/t Mac OS and IE is that there are a lot more mac users who are aware of other browsers other than IE on their platform (as compared to e.g., windows users who are aware that there are other browsers available for their platform.)
Another headache on vis-a-vis mac browsing is that safari is the only one of the bunch that really ties with Java well. There's hacks to get the mozilla browsers to use either Apple's Java or Sun's Java but none of them are really ready for either end users ("click this and it will install and work well!" is what the majority of mac users are expecting, not "okay, go to this website and download this package and in terminal run this command to unpack it and install it and this other command to get Firefox to see it's there").
I guess we could all switch to Esperanto, the Unitarian Univeralist of languages. Sadly, you can probably find more people that speak fluent Klingon than people who can speak fluent Esperanto. Which is a shame, because it's easy to learn and use.
how does it perform on sun sparc boxes? i've had a couple of ultra60's come my way and I'd like to test it out on them. How's the install on it? So far the only thing (besides Solaris) that I've been happy with on an ultra60 has been FreeBSD. Gentoo was Not A Fun Install and debian was equally unimpressive (sadly.) But I'd like to see how slack performs on it -- I started to install slackware 9 on one and something shiny distracted me for a few weeks, but this makes me curious about it.
"The Cuckoo's Egg" by Cliff Stoll. I read it when I was younger, probably 13 years ago or so, and it was the first introduction to issues w/ computer use and abuse and administration. I recently bought it and it brought me back to when I first read it. It's not relevant (telnetting to a unix server from a public IP? arguing the merits of Berkley Unix (BSD) versus SysV?) but it's probably still a good read for someone who's starting out.
The grandparent and parent posts do not take into account that used bookstores around literally scattered everywhere across the US, and indeed, even on teh interwebaolnet. powells.com has a huge selection and gives you the choice between used and new, ditto places like amazon and barnes & nobles or borders books. A physical store is best, since you can of course see what you're buying before you put your money down, but often selection is limited; you might not find what you were looking for, but if you're looking for something general (or just something to read,) you're bound to find something cheap and in good condition.
I picked up a hardcover copy of Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapogos" for 2 dollars less than a week ago. It's not new, and I didn't have it on mind going in to the store, but I knew I wanted to read some Vonnegut and a few friends had recommended that particular book. That's half as much as the grandparent post suggested for new softcover books, and my book is relatively good, condition-wise (dust jacket a bit frayed at the top, no creases or tears, no pages torn or written on, not obviously urinated on, etc.)
Online stores have better selection -- and you can sometimes ask to be notified if a particular item comes in and is available as "used" -- but tend to be just slightly pricier (shipping and handling,) but not by much. Their only real downside is you don't get to inspect your book before you buy it, so your recourse is to either not care too much about the condition of the book, or only buy from "trusted" sellers (or sellers rated as "trusted" by other buyers,) that promise the book is in good condition.
i fail to see how or why that would help, or why it's even a problem. If you rebranded woody, which uses kernel 2.2 by default (if you don't add special boot: parameters,) and installs Mozilla 1.0, Gnome 2.2, KDE 2.x as Debian 2004 or Debian 10 or whatever, it's still going to have old software. Giving it a sexier name will not make it current or relevant.
although it's quite laudable the way that debian sticks to it's guns w/r/t policy and free software, it's beyond a joke how long they take between releases. it's good to see a bit of common sense applied so that Sarge comes out quicker. It'd be nice if "Stable" were updated more often; FreeBSD's -STABLE does and they have almost as many architechtures to support as Debian.
The FTP install disc was pretty good, imo.. small iso download size, and once you got the install going it isn't that much of a PITA to install...all fairly standard GUI stuff AFAI recall. My only real complaint abou t it was that you had to konw the FTP server that you were going to install from., which is maybe not something that a newb would konw how to search for all that easily...a form of querying the server and getting a list of available FTP sites would probably be a boon for users; since they've already got a live CD distro they would do well to add a "install from live CD applet a la mepis or knoppix. SuSE was the first distro that I paid foor and that was mostly because the first linux CD i got was debian's 1.2 (or was it 2.0? don't remember) CD and that debian disc wasn't too friendly an install for a newbb....SuSE was MUCH friendlier and worth the 30$ for the box...now, most distros are pretty much the same and have similar feature sets especially w/r/t friendliness)
one reason you'd want swap on a system is to have someplace to dump/savecore information in the case of system crashes. Kind of hard to do with volatile memory.
fanout is a handy app for passing the same exact identical command to multiple servers at once. Since you're running 10 servers with the same distro, this seems like it would be handy for you at times. (updating etc)
Get one (preferably two) test systems and install and prep them as if they were the machines you were using. Hell, get one of those 10 servers and make a backup of it and restore it to your test systems.
Essential System Administration by O'Reilly is pretty good (although it covers a lot of ground...good for theory and the "why is it like this?" stuff). Linux Server Hacks (also on O'Reilly) is quite handy as well.
If they really wanted to get this out, they'd do a better job of it. There's a livecd version of the JDS -- suppoed to be based on morphix, I heard. They gave them out at some trade show (or maybe it was some Sun meeting thing) and supposedly sent you a copy if you signed up for (and attended) an online presentation that they gave. I was interested enough in it that I did this, and still didn't receive a livecd in a month's time. I called and emailed them about it and still haven't heard about it. Of course, there's no public.ISO for you to make your own: you have to buy the JDS for 100$ (or 50$ for now -- some early adopter promo I think.)
That's not the way to get users to pick up your product. SuSE is the only linux distro that's wholly "pay for product" -- and even they have a liveCD and an ftp-installer ISO available. I understand Sun wants to get the product out...but does Sun understand that?
if you're doing this on an NT/AD MS Domain, change your username to DOMAIN\username -- I've seen a lot of lockups happen because of this; it's wierd because it'll let you do it a few times and then start to lock the account.
sorry to nitpick, but not all 7 CDs are binaries -- there's at least one (I think the last two or three actually) source CD. (and the only way to get debian on DVD is to burn your own with jigdo or maybe get a reseller (who does the same thing...)
Slashdot Mirror
because it's too damn slow to have gone anywhere.
i realise why this is modded as funny, but maybe it should be +1, Insightful instead.
no serious system is easy to operate at a server level. some are easier than others but you can't just become a sysadmin overnight and expect to get good results. MS's server products are just as complex as a linux system, and have just as many ways of being exploited and potentially fucked up as a linux or BSD or Solaris or Mac OS X box. The difference being that while the number of exploits against both types of systems is likely the same (have you SEEN the number of exploits available for *nixes?) the ease of pulling them off is heavily skewed to Windows because it's a) more likely to be unsecured and b) more ubiquitous. As more people install and run linux, the numbers will likely balance out. Put a windows box behind a secured firewall and kill all ports except those necessary and you'll cut down risk -- but MS requires a LOT more ports open for basic stuff (how many "ms ports" -- eg 135, 137 -- are hitting your firewall as infected or attacks?).
Linux can be made more secure, all the way down to the software level where you can check source for yourself and see if the software is secure enough for you, and if you want to, you can run a particular piece of software in it's own jail, for added security. MS can't do that.
Mac OS's version of IE is sufficiently different that it poses a problem if you're coding for it, although for most end-user compatibility purposes, it's Good Enough. The real problem w/r/t Mac OS and IE is that there are a lot more mac users who are aware of other browsers other than IE on their platform (as compared to e.g., windows users who are aware that there are other browsers available for their platform.) Another headache on vis-a-vis mac browsing is that safari is the only one of the bunch that really ties with Java well. There's hacks to get the mozilla browsers to use either Apple's Java or Sun's Java but none of them are really ready for either end users ("click this and it will install and work well!" is what the majority of mac users are expecting, not "okay, go to this website and download this package and in terminal run this command to unpack it and install it and this other command to get Firefox to see it's there").
no, that would be a debian release. (said, posting from a sarge box....)
it's a new module for apache (make-their-eyes-bleed.css if you're interested.)
they have one, but i heard it's a cat, so it sees colors differntly. Apparently this blinding scheme is very comforting if you're a feline.
The bitch of it is, if you set your colorschemes to a non-white background, you'll see the graphics's rounded edges as white.
I miss lynx.
I guess we could all switch to Esperanto, the Unitarian Univeralist of languages.
Sadly, you can probably find more people that speak fluent Klingon than people who can speak fluent Esperanto. Which is a shame, because it's easy to learn and use.
how does it perform on sun sparc boxes? i've had a couple of ultra60's come my way and I'd like to test it out on them. How's the install on it? So far the only thing (besides Solaris) that I've been happy with on an ultra60 has been FreeBSD. Gentoo was Not A Fun Install and debian was equally unimpressive (sadly.) But I'd like to see how slack performs on it -- I started to install slackware 9 on one and something shiny distracted me for a few weeks, but this makes me curious about it.
"The Cuckoo's Egg" by Cliff Stoll. I read it when I was younger, probably 13 years ago or so, and it was the first introduction to issues w/ computer use and abuse and administration. I recently bought it and it brought me back to when I first read it. It's not relevant (telnetting to a unix server from a public IP? arguing the merits of Berkley Unix (BSD) versus SysV?) but it's probably still a good read for someone who's starting out.
The grandparent and parent posts do not take into account that used bookstores around literally scattered everywhere across the US, and indeed, even on teh interwebaolnet. powells.com has a huge selection and gives you the choice between used and new, ditto places like amazon and barnes & nobles or borders books. A physical store is best, since you can of course see what you're buying before you put your money down, but often selection is limited; you might not find what you were looking for, but if you're looking for something general (or just something to read,) you're bound to find something cheap and in good condition.
I picked up a hardcover copy of Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapogos" for 2 dollars less than a week ago. It's not new, and I didn't have it on mind going in to the store, but I knew I wanted to read some Vonnegut and a few friends had recommended that particular book. That's half as much as the grandparent post suggested for new softcover books, and my book is relatively good, condition-wise (dust jacket a bit frayed at the top, no creases or tears, no pages torn or written on, not obviously urinated on, etc.)
Online stores have better selection -- and you can sometimes ask to be notified if a particular item comes in and is available as "used" -- but tend to be just slightly pricier (shipping and handling,) but not by much. Their only real downside is you don't get to inspect your book before you buy it, so your recourse is to either not care too much about the condition of the book, or only buy from "trusted" sellers (or sellers rated as "trusted" by other buyers,) that promise the book is in good condition.
i fail to see how or why that would help, or why it's even a problem. If you rebranded woody, which uses kernel 2.2 by default (if you don't add special boot: parameters,) and installs Mozilla 1.0, Gnome 2.2, KDE 2.x as Debian 2004 or Debian 10 or whatever, it's still going to have old software. Giving it a sexier name will not make it current or relevant.
although it's quite laudable the way that debian sticks to it's guns w/r/t policy and free software, it's beyond a joke how long they take between releases. it's good to see a bit of common sense applied so that Sarge comes out quicker. It'd be nice if "Stable" were updated more often; FreeBSD's -STABLE does and they have almost as many architechtures to support as Debian.
The FTP install disc was pretty good, imo.. small iso download size, and once you got the install going it isn't that much of a PITA to install...all fairly standard GUI stuff AFAI recall. My only real complaint abou t it was that you had to konw the FTP server that you were going to install from., which is maybe not something that a newb would konw how to search for all that easily...a form of querying the server and getting a list of available FTP sites would probably be a boon for users; since they've already got a live CD distro they would do well to add a "install from live CD applet a la mepis or knoppix. SuSE was the first distro that I paid foor and that was mostly because the first linux CD i got was debian's 1.2 (or was it 2.0? don't remember) CD and that debian disc wasn't too friendly an install for a newbb ....SuSE was MUCH friendlier and worth the 30$ for the box ...now, most distros are pretty much the same and have similar feature sets especially w/r/t friendliness)
that'd be funnier if you posted it from his account....
just about the only things that run on sparcs/sun hardware is solaris, free|netBSD and debian. (and really old/outdated versions of other distros).
Headline should read: People who want encryption to PATRIOT ACT proponents: FUCK YOU
Fedora does suck; this is not an acceptable error for a release to have -- a devel release candidate, sure -- but not a full release.
one reason you'd want swap on a system is to have someplace to dump/savecore information in the case of system crashes. Kind of hard to do with volatile memory.
Get one (preferably two) test systems and install and prep them as if they were the machines you were using. Hell, get one of those 10 servers and make a backup of it and restore it to your test systems.
Essential System Administration by O'Reilly is pretty good (although it covers a lot of ground...good for theory and the "why is it like this?" stuff). Linux Server Hacks (also on O'Reilly) is quite handy as well.
That's not the way to get users to pick up your product. SuSE is the only linux distro that's wholly "pay for product" -- and even they have a liveCD and an ftp-installer ISO available. I understand Sun wants to get the product out...but does Sun understand that?
"network connectivity goes up and down because of the solar sunspot causing solar flares."
if you're doing this on an NT/AD MS Domain, change your username to DOMAIN\username -- I've seen a lot of lockups happen because of this; it's wierd because it'll let you do it a few times and then start to lock the account.
just cos he's got a beard doesn't give Linus any reason to call RMS "Santa".
sorry to nitpick, but not all 7 CDs are binaries -- there's at least one (I think the last two or three actually) source CD. (and the only way to get debian on DVD is to burn your own with jigdo or maybe get a reseller (who does the same thing...)