Since I know a little Spanish, here is my very crude translation of the core benchmarks:
First benchmark:
Writing, reading, and deleting a fairly large file (256MB). The commands used are as follows (omitting the redundant 'time' command used in all cases):
dd if=/dev/zero of=./prova bs=1M count=256
dd if=./prova of=/dev/null bs=1M count=256
rm -f./prova
And the time these commands took (in seconds):
Filesystem Write Read Delete
ReiserFS 18.5 23.41 0.4
Ext2FS 20.3 21.38 0.57
XFS 16.32 19.42 0.26
FAT32 43.65 27.98 1.59
Second benchmark: This benchhmark was donw with the source code of Linux 2.4.4. The.tar.gz file was first uncompressed, so that all the work was done on the tar file (which is larger then 100MB). The commands used on the uncompressed.tar file are as follows (with the time command ommitted again):
This reminds me of some M.C. Escher pictures
on
PanQuake
·
· Score: 3
This reminds me of some M.C. Escher pictures--two come to mind.
One is the one with a lot of worms going up and down stairs
Another is what appears to be two views of the same scene (a kid on some steps looking up with a palm tree), but is really two cpoies of the same scene, one upside-down, using a panoramic view.
In both cases, M.C. Escher used a vertical, as opposed to horizontal, panorama.
- Sam
Sun does not respect nor fully support Linux
on
Sun Launches JXTA
·
· Score: 1
Every time I hear Sun come out with a new "open source" project, I can't but help surpress a yawn.
It is clear to me that Sun is far too arrogant to consider anything besides their proprietary Solaris platform (and don't get me started on the SCSL license. Solaris is still proprietary!) a "real" OS. For example, one Sun employee says that "enterprise-class Linux is not ready for the data center, and it will be several years, at best, until this changes". (Look here
here.)
Until Sun gets rid of their notion that Linux is somehow a toy OS, a notion that caused their sales to drop 73 percent, I do not think the Linux and open source community should in any way assist Sun. The face that IBM makes a far superior Java VM for Linux than Sun does speaks volumes about each company's committment to Linux.
Anyway, I removed the acceptance ceremony from the 2.1 license, in the hope that this would satisfy the FSF. Unfortunately, the FSF's response to the 2.1 license (see above) seems to suggest that they have changed their position once again, and are now requesting other changes in the license. I'm very, very tired of this, so on to the next question!
The main reason I chose to to GPL my latest open source project--the MaraDNS server--was because I knew that there were some incompatibilities between the GPL license and the Python license. As long as the GPL may make it impossible to make a python module out of my code, I am not going to GPL it.
Instead, I made MaraDNS public domain. BTW, I use Python-style syntax for the mararc file MaraDNS uses.
BTW, isn't it against the license for Python to have a gdbm module, since gdbm is GPL and not LGPL? And, is it not inappropriate to have Python KDE bindings or use Python in KDE programs?
In fact, Yggdrassil (yes, they are still around, but they don't make a distribution of Linux any more) and SuSE make DVD-ROMs targeted for Linux users.
You know, there aren't that many DNS servers to choose from. Go read one of the latter lwn.net issues. They summarized the problem quite good. And no djdns is not considered an alternative to bind.
I am working on that particular issue. MaraDNS is a public domain DNS server that I have been working on for the last two months. Currently, MaraDNS has roughtly the functionality of TinyDNS--it works as an authoritative DNS server, but not as a caching DNS server.
A 1.0 release should come out in early June. Look at the roadmap on the MaraDNS web page.
UNIX varies in several factors. Though the history of UNIX is based on
GNU, or free, unsupported software; free is not always good. When dealing
with critical applications, free, and unsupported can be a threat, rather than a
benefit. The popularity of Red Hat LINUX, especially with other hosting
companies is merely due to profitability, and not scalability or support. While
Red Hat LINUX may be quite popular, the fact is that it is unsupported and
unstable in mass virtual hosting. Sun Microsystems Solaris 7 is a true 64-bit
Operating System, and is backed and supported by a Fortune 500 company.
While our competition may take a cheap route through Red Hat LINUX and
Intel-based hardware, we choose to take the reliable path, in the best interest
of our clients.
These people are obviously ignorant of Sun's own history. Sun caught on in the 1980s--not because it was the most stable, not because it was the most secure, but because Sun's software was the most open. Sun's success in the 1980s and early 1990s can be mainly attributed to the fact that they opened up the code for NFS, the code for the XV windowing toolkit, and the code for the RPC library.
NFS was, and still is a joke, compared to better systems like AFS. However, the popularity of PC-compatible hardware shows that it is not the best that wins in the computing marketplace, but the cheapest and most open.
The statistics prove this: Linux is gaining market share. Solaris is losing market share.
An article like this shows how low the quality of Slashdot's journalism has gone. Making these kinds of rash accusations wihtout a solid knowledge of the facts is irresponsible.
Due to the way that CD-Rs place pits on the CD-R, the laser that reads the data on the CD-R has to be the same wavelength as a standard infrared laser that CD players use.
"Silver" CDs will work with the Red laser that DVD players use, since, while the red laser breaks the spec, the pits on CDs pressed from glass masters are more tolerant of the laser's wavelength.
The DVD players that do work with CD-Rs have to have some extra electronics to work with CD-Rs. Basically, these DVDs have two lasers: one for DVD media, and one for CD and CD-R media.
It is an interesting synthesizer. However, it is difficult to program (it has an almost-noexistant user-interface), and has some stability problems. My friend tried upgrading the OS on the unit. Things got so fried, that he had to ship it back to Sweden to get it fixed.
Before this, the unit lost its memory, losing all of the synth presets on the unit. My friend was cheerful about it--he figured it was an oppertunity to learn synthesizer programming.
Keep in mind, also, that those old SID chips are really noisy.
Personally, I would go for an Andromeda from Alesis if I wanted to get a brand new genuine analog synthesizer.
The main problem with Spam is the lack of interest from law enforcement in persecuting people who engage in spamming practices. While many spammers act like crackers in order to hijack open mail relays in to being spam amplifiers, not one spammer has been given the Kevin Mitnick treatment.
Spam costs real money to the ISPs that become unintentional spam victims, the free mail domains that spammers forge return addresses from, the victims who purchase commercial software from people not smart enough to set up a mail server to not be an open relay, and the sysadmins that have to constantly refine their spam filters from spammers continual spam filter dodging techniques.
As long as spammers do not get sent to jail for their acitons, they will continue to spam. These people could care less if they make 10,000,000 people angry, as long as they get a few thousand dollars by scamming ignorant internet users.
The only way to make the internet a place where people feel safe putting their east-to-remeber email address on a web page, in a usenet posting, or in the whois data for a domain is to make spamming a crime, and to prosecute spammers to the fullest extent of the law.
BTW, I have written some pretty effective anti-spamming software here. Note that this software only runs on Linux/Unix machines. Windows users can use sneakemail.
I am sure a number of people will reply by complaining that this does not work with RedHat 7. The fact that it does not work with RedHat 7 highlights what is both a good thing and a bad thing for Linux:
Linux is in a constant state of change.
A slick program like this takes many man hours to develop. Due to the constant changes done to Linux, developers not only have to do all the effort involved with developing their program, but also have to expend a lot of effort keeping track of every single change to the Linux distributions thrown their way.
There is a lot of excitement in the Linux community about getting the latest distribution of (Debian/RedHat/SuSE/Slackware/whatever). This excitement oftentimes results in neglect of older, oftentimes more stable releases of Linux systems.
To RedHat's credit, RedHat still supports releases as far back as RH5.2, in the sense they still releases security upgrades for RH5.2. About a year ago, RedHat silently stopped releasing security upgrades for RH4.2. Since I still run a RH5.2 server (too far away and too mission-critical for me to conveniently upgrade), I dread the day no more security patches are made available for RH5.2.
I know that the people at Linux Weekly News have been making somewhat of a stink over the fact that Debian announced that they would not make available security patches for 2.1 bugs immediately after releasing Debian 2.2.
Anyway, the point being: The "latest and greatest" is not always the best solution.
The simple answer is that the host key changes whenever/etc/ssh/ssh_host_key is changed or replaced.
This usually happens when a new version of the OS is installed on a given server, and the sysadmin is careless about not moving the contents of the SSH host key to the new server.
There are some protections against this attack. When the host key is changed, ssh for Unix gives you a warning that you would have to be blind to miss. If you want better protection than that, the best solution is to hack OpenSSH or what not to only accept a key with a given key fingerprint for a given IP. In other words, if the host key is changed, the hacked client will not connect to the host in question.
Tungsten lights are inefficient beasts. They have been obsolete for many years because of folresent lamps.
So why haven't floresent light taken over?
The light from floresent lamps is, emotionally speaking, "cold" and "unpleasant". I have an Inova light (a cheap clone of the photon light), and the light from it by itself is cold and harsh compared to tungsten lights.
The first spam message of significance was the "Cantor and Siegal" green card spam of 1994. This, notably, was not a piece of Email spam, but was ap piece of Usenet spam.
Now, it is true that "MAKE.MONEY.FAST" was around before the Green Card spam. However, that was something ignorant college students would send to each other, and it did not have corporate backing. It is also true that people would occasionally post to every single Usenet newsgroup before the C&S spam, but such people were not doing this to try to advertise their product.
Before email spammers starting harvesting email address from Usenet, there was a book out called the "Internet White Pages", which had the email addresses of people on the internet, obtained from Usenet postings. I was glad to be in the 1994 Internet White Pages, and was hoping to be in the 1995 internet white pages.
I looked at the C source of the filter, and it looked like a potential security hole. I saw a strcat(), strcpy(), system(), and insecure use of files in/tmp.
Also, while the neural network source is available, the java source code isn't, so this is not an open-source application.
I think this kind of technology has a lot of potential, and I hope to see this implemented in a manner that can be used in a secure manner in the real world.
From what I have heard, Microsoft does not treat their employees in Redmond very well. I have heard stories of people working long hours for $40k/year jobs. This was 5-7 years ago, mind you.
From what I have seen in Silicon valley, they treat their employees there better. Contracters do not get benefits, yes, but they do get good money. Full-time employees get competitive salaries for silicon valley work.
Of course, working for Microsoft in silicon valley tarnishes ones reputation, so Microsoft can be cheap with there employees in silicon valley the way they can with employees up in Redmond.
Re:I know I'll be modded down, but bear with me he
on
Warez and Abandonware
·
· Score: 2
I think you make an excellent point. The real reason for cracking down on abadonware sites is because people who download and play free older games are less motivated to purchase newer games.
Someone who is content playing Super Mario Brothers has less motivation to purchase a new game for the N64.
That said, abadonware has an important purpose, which I feel justifies the existance of these sites: The preversation of video game history.
Even though audio recording technology has existed since the 1870s, we have virtually no audio recordings from before 1890 or so. Most of the recordings in the first two decades of audio recording technology have been permanently lost.
Movies have a similar problem.
People have worked hard making ROMs available for MAME, making disk images of early 80s PC games, and making ROMs of NES games. Because of their work, and the wide distribution of these files, a nearly complete history of the first generation of video games will be available when the copyrights finally expire.
Now, I would we lying if I told you I did not have an axe to grind here. I do. I enjoyed playing those video games in the early 80s. I am really glad that I am finally able to play those video games again. In fact, I have access to far more games today from that era than I did back when I was playing those video games.
The place where I draw the line is with the 16-bit generation of video games. In my book, anything 8-bit that is not being sold new today is up for grabs. Obtaining 8-bit (and older) video games is "preserving video game history". 16-bit and newer video games is piracy (read: stealing), plain and simple. One exception: The Game Boy is an 8-bit unit. Since the Game Boy is still being made today, obtaining Game Boy games is piracy.
One of the jokes I told in high school was that, one of these days, PG&E will no longer supply power. When this happens, the football team will have to be on stationary bicycle power generators every time there is a school dance to power all of the DJ gear.
Though, I think the football players will convince the geeks that they should perform power duty so the football players can dance with the cheerleaders.
Slashdot Mirror
First benchmark:
Writing, reading, and deleting a fairly large file (256MB). The commands used are as follows (omitting the redundant 'time' command used in all cases):
- dd if=/dev/zero of=./prova bs=1M count=256
- dd if=./prova of=/dev/null bs=1M count=256
- rm -f
./prova
And the time these commands took (in seconds):Filesystem Write Read Delete .tar.gz file was first uncompressed, so that all the work was done on the tar file (which is larger then 100MB). The commands used on the uncompressed .tar file are as follows (with the time command ommitted again):
ReiserFS 18.5 23.41 0.4
Ext2FS 20.3 21.38 0.57
XFS 16.32 19.42 0.26
FAT32 43.65 27.98 1.59 Second benchmark: This benchhmark was donw with the source code of Linux 2.4.4. The
- cp linux-2.4.4.tar prova.tar
- tar xf prova.tar
- rm -f prova.tar
- rm -rf linux
The times these commands took (in seconds):FS Copy Extract rm file.tar rm -rf dir
Reiser 38.48 58.44 0.45 10.09
Ext2FS 21.31 59.19 2.88 11.12
XFS 16.21 35.44 0.18 21.96
Fat32 39.76 134.19 1.2 6.7
One is the one with a lot of worms going up and down stairs
Another is what appears to be two views of the same scene (a kid on some steps looking up with a palm tree), but is really two cpoies of the same scene, one upside-down, using a panoramic view.
In both cases, M.C. Escher used a vertical, as opposed to horizontal, panorama.
- Sam
It is clear to me that Sun is far too arrogant to consider anything besides their proprietary Solaris platform (and don't get me started on the SCSL license. Solaris is still proprietary!) a "real" OS. For example, one Sun employee says that "enterprise-class Linux is not ready for the data center, and it will be several years, at best, until this changes". (Look here here.)
Until Sun gets rid of their notion that Linux is somehow a toy OS, a notion that caused their sales to drop 73 percent, I do not think the Linux and open source community should in any way assist Sun. The face that IBM makes a far superior Java VM for Linux than Sun does speaks volumes about each company's committment to Linux.
- Sam
Yes. In more detail, when someone tried to patent the waterbed, Stranger in a Strage Land was cited, invalidating the patent.
- Sam
Anyway, I removed the acceptance ceremony from the 2.1 license, in the hope that this would satisfy the FSF. Unfortunately, the FSF's response to the 2.1 license (see above) seems to suggest that they have changed their position once again, and are now requesting other changes in the license. I'm very, very tired of this, so on to the next question!
The main reason I chose to to GPL my latest open source project--the MaraDNS server--was because I knew that there were some incompatibilities between the GPL license and the Python license. As long as the GPL may make it impossible to make a python module out of my code, I am not going to GPL it.
Instead, I made MaraDNS public domain. BTW, I use Python-style syntax for the mararc file MaraDNS uses.
BTW, isn't it against the license for Python to have a gdbm module, since gdbm is GPL and not LGPL? And, is it not inappropriate to have Python KDE bindings or use Python in KDE programs?
- Sam
In fact, Yggdrassil (yes, they are still around, but they don't make a distribution of Linux any more) and SuSE make DVD-ROMs targeted for Linux users.
-Sam
There is at least one application out there that had a problem with the September 9 rollover of the UNIX time stamp.
I am working on that particular issue. MaraDNS is a public domain DNS server that I have been working on for the last two months. Currently, MaraDNS has roughtly the functionality of TinyDNS--it works as an authoritative DNS server, but not as a caching DNS server.
A 1.0 release should come out in early June. Look at the roadmap on the MaraDNS web page.
- Sam
From http://www.communitech.net/hosting/virtual/plans/u nix.cgi:
These people are obviously ignorant of Sun's own history. Sun caught on in the 1980s--not because it was the most stable, not because it was the most secure, but because Sun's software was the most open. Sun's success in the 1980s and early 1990s can be mainly attributed to the fact that they opened up the code for NFS, the code for the XV windowing toolkit, and the code for the RPC library.
NFS was, and still is a joke, compared to better systems like AFS. However, the popularity of PC-compatible hardware shows that it is not the best that wins in the computing marketplace, but the cheapest and most open.
The statistics prove this: Linux is gaining market share. Solaris is losing market share.
- Sam
Due to the way that CD-Rs place pits on the CD-R, the laser that reads the data on the CD-R has to be the same wavelength as a standard infrared laser that CD players use.
"Silver" CDs will work with the Red laser that DVD players use, since, while the red laser breaks the spec, the pits on CDs pressed from glass masters are more tolerant of the laser's wavelength.
The DVD players that do work with CD-Rs have to have some extra electronics to work with CD-Rs. Basically, these DVDs have two lasers: one for DVD media, and one for CD and CD-R media.
Anyway, I think I will go to Kuro5hin now.
- Sam
- Sam
It is an interesting synthesizer. However, it is difficult to program (it has an almost-noexistant user-interface), and has some stability problems. My friend tried upgrading the OS on the unit. Things got so fried, that he had to ship it back to Sweden to get it fixed.
Before this, the unit lost its memory, losing all of the synth presets on the unit. My friend was cheerful about it--he figured it was an oppertunity to learn synthesizer programming.
Keep in mind, also, that those old SID chips are really noisy.
Personally, I would go for an Andromeda from Alesis if I wanted to get a brand new genuine analog synthesizer.
- Sam
Spam costs real money to the ISPs that become unintentional spam victims, the free mail domains that spammers forge return addresses from, the victims who purchase commercial software from people not smart enough to set up a mail server to not be an open relay, and the sysadmins that have to constantly refine their spam filters from spammers continual spam filter dodging techniques.
As long as spammers do not get sent to jail for their acitons, they will continue to spam. These people could care less if they make 10,000,000 people angry, as long as they get a few thousand dollars by scamming ignorant internet users.
The only way to make the internet a place where people feel safe putting their east-to-remeber email address on a web page, in a usenet posting, or in the whois data for a domain is to make spamming a crime, and to prosecute spammers to the fullest extent of the law.
BTW, I have written some pretty effective anti-spamming software here. Note that this software only runs on Linux/Unix machines. Windows users can use sneakemail.
- Sam
$ telnet pagecreators.net
Trying 209.123.201.131...
Connected to pagecreators.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
Red Hat Linux release 6.1 (Cartman)
Kernel 2.2.12-20 on an i686
login:
Somewhat ironic.
- Sam
- Linux is in a constant state of change.
A slick program like this takes many man hours to develop. Due to the constant changes done to Linux, developers not only have to do all the effort involved with developing their program, but also have to expend a lot of effort keeping track of every single change to the Linux distributions thrown their way.There is a lot of excitement in the Linux community about getting the latest distribution of (Debian/RedHat/SuSE/Slackware/whatever). This excitement oftentimes results in neglect of older, oftentimes more stable releases of Linux systems.
To RedHat's credit, RedHat still supports releases as far back as RH5.2, in the sense they still releases security upgrades for RH5.2. About a year ago, RedHat silently stopped releasing security upgrades for RH4.2. Since I still run a RH5.2 server (too far away and too mission-critical for me to conveniently upgrade), I dread the day no more security patches are made available for RH5.2.
I know that the people at Linux Weekly News have been making somewhat of a stink over the fact that Debian announced that they would not make available security patches for 2.1 bugs immediately after releasing Debian 2.2.
Anyway, the point being: The "latest and greatest" is not always the best solution.
- Sam
This usually happens when a new version of the OS is installed on a given server, and the sysadmin is careless about not moving the contents of the SSH host key to the new server.
There are some protections against this attack. When the host key is changed, ssh for Unix gives you a warning that you would have to be blind to miss. If you want better protection than that, the best solution is to hack OpenSSH or what not to only accept a key with a given key fingerprint for a given IP. In other words, if the host key is changed, the hacked client will not connect to the host in question.
- Sam
So why haven't floresent light taken over?
The light from floresent lamps is, emotionally speaking, "cold" and "unpleasant". I have an Inova light (a cheap clone of the photon light), and the light from it by itself is cold and harsh compared to tungsten lights.
- Sam
Well, there are solutions to this problem.
Standard shameless plug disclaimer.
- Sam
Now, it is true that "MAKE.MONEY.FAST" was around before the Green Card spam. However, that was something ignorant college students would send to each other, and it did not have corporate backing. It is also true that people would occasionally post to every single Usenet newsgroup before the C&S spam, but such people were not doing this to try to advertise their product.
Before email spammers starting harvesting email address from Usenet, there was a book out called the "Internet White Pages", which had the email addresses of people on the internet, obtained from Usenet postings. I was glad to be in the 1994 Internet White Pages, and was hoping to be in the 1995 internet white pages.
Then the spammers came and changed all that.
- Sam
Also, while the neural network source is available, the java source code isn't, so this is not an open-source application.
I think this kind of technology has a lot of potential, and I hope to see this implemented in a manner that can be used in a secure manner in the real world.
- Sam
From what I have seen in Silicon valley, they treat their employees there better. Contracters do not get benefits, yes, but they do get good money. Full-time employees get competitive salaries for silicon valley work.
Of course, working for Microsoft in silicon valley tarnishes ones reputation, so Microsoft can be cheap with there employees in silicon valley the way they can with employees up in Redmond.
- Sam
Levi's made a similar decision to not hire me. Soon after that, had major layoffs as a result of a 94% reduction of their sales.
- Sam
Activision may still have a clerk somewhere looking after Pitfall, in the event they think to revive it
Actually, Activision has already revived the original Pitfall
- Sam
Someone who is content playing Super Mario Brothers has less motivation to purchase a new game for the N64.
That said, abadonware has an important purpose, which I feel justifies the existance of these sites: The preversation of video game history.
Even though audio recording technology has existed since the 1870s, we have virtually no audio recordings from before 1890 or so. Most of the recordings in the first two decades of audio recording technology have been permanently lost.
Movies have a similar problem.
People have worked hard making ROMs available for MAME, making disk images of early 80s PC games, and making ROMs of NES games. Because of their work, and the wide distribution of these files, a nearly complete history of the first generation of video games will be available when the copyrights finally expire.
Now, I would we lying if I told you I did not have an axe to grind here. I do. I enjoyed playing those video games in the early 80s. I am really glad that I am finally able to play those video games again. In fact, I have access to far more games today from that era than I did back when I was playing those video games.
The place where I draw the line is with the 16-bit generation of video games. In my book, anything 8-bit that is not being sold new today is up for grabs. Obtaining 8-bit (and older) video games is "preserving video game history". 16-bit and newer video games is piracy (read: stealing), plain and simple. One exception: The Game Boy is an 8-bit unit. Since the Game Boy is still being made today, obtaining Game Boy games is piracy.
- Sam
Though, I think the football players will convince the geeks that they should perform power duty so the football players can dance with the cheerleaders.
- Sam