I agree with everything you said there. My argument was kind of example driven to make a point. I know that to configure a Windows server properly takes a good amount of knowledge and skill, and it's much more of a pig to debug problems with it.
I think you actually provide examples that underline my point. If you actually know what you are doing then to manage any OS you need to gave a good in-depth skillset. However the OP was saying that *NIX people are not more technical by nature and in my experience that isn't true.
I think you missed my point. I agree (and thought I'd made this point) that to configure it the right way (tm), you really need to dig for infos and sometimes go through obscure steps. However it's possible to not know all this info and get something which works(tm) at an acceptable level.
I disagree with this completely. The original story appears to come from a professional windows admin. By the nature of ths OS, that is an easier job to be competent at than a UNIX admin.
I'm not flaming. Here's 2 examples:
If you need to setup an email / groupware server then go and install MS Exchange on a Windows 2000 server. I've done it. Click, Click, Click and you're done. For your clients you can install MS Outlook, point them at the Exchange server, give it a username and your done. Try and do the same thing on UNIX. You'll need to install an IMAP server. Then a separate LDAP server (which the IMAP server must be able to use). Then work out which of the myriad of Groupware options is the best for what you need. Then you'll need to configure each of the clients for the IMAP settings, LDAP settings, etc. Neither of these systems will work just by running./configure, make, make install. You'll need to have an understanding of how they work and how to configure them to play nicely together. And shared calendars from Windows clients communicating with a UNIX server? Not the simplest thing in the world.
What about a web server. Add Remove programs, Windows Components, Internet Information Server. Stick in the CD, away you go. Sure, it's simple to install apache on a linux box. But for dynamic pages? Well you can unstall PHP, but should you enable track vars? Which XML options should you choose? which database is better? Want to use mod_perl instead? should you install it as a DSO option or compile it into Apache? Or should you go the JSP route. then which version of tomcat do you choose?
Microsoft's product is designed to be easy. It's meant to be simple to setup a server. And as such it allows for less skilled individuals to get something working. If you actually did what I suggested in my examples then you would be having issues with your Windows Servers pretty quickly if they get reasonable load on them. For someone to understand exactly what their Windows server is doing and for it to be a scalable and reliable system, then they will need to be as knowledgable and experienced as their UNIX counterparts have to be. But the nature of the platform allows for lower skilled techs to get the systems running and that's why it's perceived to be a less technical solution to UNIX
Regardless of the nature of the interface, if you don't keep on top of it then it's going to get messy and cluttered no matter what.
You seem to be making 2 seprate points.
1. when is the desktop of the future going to turn up?
2. Why is the 2d interface so bad that my desktop is cluttered?
I'm in the process of tidying up my bookmarks. Some are crap I've can't remember why I bookmarked. Some are things which got my attention at the time but I saved until I had time to read it properly, others are sites I used to visit but I don't anymore. So I am reorganising things. I spent 15 minutes the other day reorganising the start menu on my work PC because it was massive. After creating a few folders and moving stuff around it's much more manageable and applications are now in folders that make sense to me. A 3d interface isn't going to help solve your clutter.
To be specific, the date / time, file sharing protocol, filename and C&D request originated from a third party company that specified it had been contracted by Paramount to track down and stop illegal file sharing of Paramount property. Which we (and presumably the ISP) read as being Paramounts legal team. Don't know the ins and outs of it, just the emails I saw
It was the ISP who forwarded the message and sent him the Cease and Desist letter, not the lawyers. Although we have no way of knowing whether or not they have forwarded the information on to Paramount or not.
Unlike you situation he was actually sharing the illegal file so he can't really complain.:)
A friend of mine recently got an email from his broadband provider which was forwarded from Paramount's legal team. He was sharing one of their movies with eDonkey and they tracked him down with the help of his ISP and sent a cease and desist letter with a threat of legal action if he doesn't cooperate. Interestingly they cited the DMCA which as I understand it is a US law without international jurisdiction.
I'm not sure what the "right" thing is here. Is it within his rights to have privacy on the Internet, or does he forfeit those rights when he breaks the law. Does the Corporation have right to take whatever means necessary to protect their product against theft.
One of the problems with MAME on the XBox is the RAM limitations. The XBox only has 64M of RAM. But the gamecube only has 40M. The developers who work on the XBox port of MAME are working to include modular support for virtual memory to get around this issue.
I think one of the reasons that this and other hobby OS's (Atheos springs to mind) are featured on slashdot is due to their geeky nature and the probable genuine interest of the readership. I'm interested in what you define as "so much attention". When was the last SkyOS post? These hobby OS's tend to pop up every few months whenever the developers do s significant release.
Although you are correct that the majority of people mod their XBoxes to play pirate movies and games, it's interesting to note the OP's point about giving people what they want.
The current DVD distribution method for example is completely consumer unfriendly. I have to wait until a TV series / movieis released in the UK before I can buy the DVD. That's not what I want. I want to be able to choose. I want to be able to choose between the American / European / Asian release of a DVD because they frequently have different content. I want to be able to take the film I've paid for and convert it to and AVI so I can watch it on my Pocket PC
Playing games from my XBox's hard drive is much more convenient than from the DVD I purchased it from. Much tidier too.
Yes I have a modded XBox and yes I still purchase games and DVD's. Friends with modded XBox's also still purchase games. Gaming is our hobby and stealing is not the way to get good games still made.
I recognise that we probably not representative of the majority of people. I just wanted to make the point that Modded XBox != warez.
On a website for nerds, an article about messing about with a 10 year old computer seems right as place. Perhaps you should try messing about with old kit and old operating systems. It's actually a huge amount of fun.
And in terms of job hunting, you are going to get hired based on commerical experience and qualifications rather that what you tinker with at home.
Instead of purchasing a gameboy advance last summer I upgraded my Ipaq 3630 to a Dell Axim X5. My plan was to use it as an MP3 player as well as being able to emulate SNES + Genesis games on it. After all, most of the decent games on the GBA are SNES ports anyway.
Although the Axim has a 400Mhz CPU in it, it really struggles to emulate the SNES or the Genesis. NES games are very basic. What I have found to be a good play though is a Game Gear / Master System emulator called CE/GG. I used to have a master system and playing Sonic, Sonic 2 and Sonic Chaos is superb. It's interesting that whilst Genesis games are far too slow to be playable, I've managed to get some SNES games going. (Not sure if this is the quality of the emulator or a reflection of the speed of the original system). Using PocketSNES as an example, by switching off the audio and skipping frames, Super Mario World for example is relatively playable. MODE 7 games such as Super Mario Kart are far too slow tho.
Not particularly related to the DC homebrew scene I know, I just thought it was interesting that 2 separate platforms had similar experiences with emulators.
Actually I think the most criticized OS on/. is BSD. I've yet to see a BSD story posted in the last 12 months without numerous trolls about BSD being dead.
With the increase in corporate interest in many open source projects, I think sometimes people miss the point about OSS. To qoute your post:
I guess it comes down to these questions: is BeOS fundamentally a more efficient platform for multimedia development? Is Linux architecture so different as to be incapable of matching BeOS performance in regards to MIDI performance, audio processing, nonlinear video editing, or 3D development? Is the performance gap substantial?
I've read the interview with Micheal Phillips and his comments seem to say that there is a way of doing things which the original BeOS did, which Linux doesn't / can't do. So from a technical standpoint he and other open source developers are trying to implement an idea and way of doing things. Linux and BSD didn't do things the way they wanted it doing. So they took it uppon themselves to implement something which they feel is better.
With it being open source, and therefore something they do in their spare time for enjoyment, I don't see that market forces come into it. Linux started gaining market share due to the quality of the product. Perhaps in a few years if OpenBEOS is so revolutionary and amazing then the same may happen. Or if it becomes a popular desktop for geeks and developers then is that really so bad?
I sgree with you that the "REAL musicians don't care about getting paid" thing is horseshit. My point was that the current popular argument that users of P2P networks are stealing money from artists is misleading. The groups (one of which is the RIAA) who are taking out legal injuctions against P2P networks aren't protecting musicians interests, they are protecting the interests of the music publishing companies. The protection of the musicians income is secondary / ancillary to the main goal.
The RIAA aren't really supporting 'artists' though. They are protecting the revenues of large corporates. Record producers and managers get significantly more money than most of the young popstars today. Britney Spears is an attarctive woman who can sing. But she doesn't write her own songs and she isn't singing about experiances real to her. She isn't making original music. Popstars (who create the majority of product the RIAA is trying to protect) aren't artists, they are performers.
Providing the consumer with something that they actually want and feel value for is something that can make a difference. In reference to you question, take the RIAA, SCO and Amazon as examples:
Amazon aren't the cheapest place to buys books from. But I have remained a loyal customer due to the excellent "people who bought... also bought..." feature. I don't mind paying a little extra than other Internet retailers (it's still cheaper than the local bookstore anyway).
However take the RIAA. Or the music industry in general. I feel quite strongly that the rise of napster and subsequent p2p networks is to do in part with the quality of the product. And the fall in music CD sales is also due to the quality of the product and not to do with p2p. Consumers aren't interested in pop music which is samey and generic and meaningless. A boy band in 2000 regurgitating the same cheesy song the Osmonds sang in the 70's isn't appealing to most. What the music industry today has done is instead of making music that some consumers will really enjoy (and some will detest) they have created a bland product which everyone finds inoffensive.
SCO have got people's backs up because they are appear to be trying to destroy Linux, which many people are passionate about. However I would argue that the reason they are probably currently the most unpopular company in the technology industry is because they don't have something of their own which they can sell to consumers but instead are taking advantage of others hard work.
My point is that if you create a good product and don't just adhere to the risk averse bean counter methodology then people will notice this. Promote what makes you stand out and if it's good enough people will love you.
So they compromised the server, cleared down some of the logs, but weren't able to completely hide the intrusion, but still managed to compromise the file integrity checker and the source code for emerge?
This being the same file integrtity checker that alerted the sys admins to the compromise in the first place? If you are good enough to compromise Tripwire or AIDE or whatever then you are good enough to hide the fact that you have done it, not remove some logs install a rootkit then get found out by the IDS.
However, the compromised system had both an IDS and a file integrity checker installed
The file integrity checker will have provided a list of the files that changed and if emerge was compromised then Gentoo would have let you know. After all, they haven't kept the compromise quiet so presumably they are informing users to let them know the Gentoo are on top of things.
The main story wasn't just about the HDTV capabilities of this new machine, but also about the possibility of it getting a lot of open source development interest becuase of the open standards is supports.
I mentioned the XBox becuase of the modding community and the active development projects that go on around it. As I don't have a PS2, I'm not really very aware of the PS2 scene. Is there a lot of support and homebrew apps / games?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with everything you said there. My argument was kind of example driven to make a point. I know that to configure a Windows server properly takes a good amount of knowledge and skill, and it's much more of a pig to debug problems with it.
I think you actually provide examples that underline my point. If you actually know what you are doing then to manage any OS you need to gave a good in-depth skillset. However the OP was saying that *NIX people are not more technical by nature and in my experience that isn't true.
I think you missed my point. I agree (and thought I'd made this point) that to configure it the right way (tm), you really need to dig for infos and sometimes go through obscure steps. However it's possible to not know all this info and get something which works(tm) at an acceptable level.
*nix people are NOT more technical by nature. I
./configure, make, make install. You'll need to have an understanding of how they work and how to configure them to play nicely together. And shared calendars from Windows clients communicating with a UNIX server? Not the simplest thing in the world.
I disagree with this completely. The original story appears to come from a professional windows admin. By the nature of ths OS, that is an easier job to be competent at than a UNIX admin.
I'm not flaming. Here's 2 examples:
If you need to setup an email / groupware server then go and install MS Exchange on a Windows 2000 server. I've done it. Click, Click, Click and you're done. For your clients you can install MS Outlook, point them at the Exchange server, give it a username and your done. Try and do the same thing on UNIX. You'll need to install an IMAP server. Then a separate LDAP server (which the IMAP server must be able to use). Then work out which of the myriad of Groupware options is the best for what you need. Then you'll need to configure each of the clients for the IMAP settings, LDAP settings, etc. Neither of these systems will work just by running
What about a web server. Add Remove programs, Windows Components, Internet Information Server. Stick in the CD, away you go. Sure, it's simple to install apache on a linux box. But for dynamic pages? Well you can unstall PHP, but should you enable track vars? Which XML options should you choose? which database is better? Want to use mod_perl instead? should you install it as a DSO option or compile it into Apache? Or should you go the JSP route. then which version of tomcat do you choose?
Microsoft's product is designed to be easy. It's meant to be simple to setup a server. And as such it allows for less skilled individuals to get something working. If you actually did what I suggested in my examples then you would be having issues with your Windows Servers pretty quickly if they get reasonable load on them. For someone to understand exactly what their Windows server is doing and for it to be a scalable and reliable system, then they will need to be as knowledgable and experienced as their UNIX counterparts have to be. But the nature of the platform allows for lower skilled techs to get the systems running and that's why it's perceived to be a less technical solution to UNIX
yes is does
Regardless of the nature of the interface, if you don't keep on top of it then it's going to get messy and cluttered no matter what.
You seem to be making 2 seprate points.
1. when is the desktop of the future going to turn up?
2. Why is the 2d interface so bad that my desktop is cluttered?
I'm in the process of tidying up my bookmarks. Some are crap I've can't remember why I bookmarked. Some are things which got my attention at the time but I saved until I had time to read it properly, others are sites I used to visit but I don't anymore. So I am reorganising things. I spent 15 minutes the other day reorganising the start menu on my work PC because it was massive. After creating a few folders and moving stuff around it's much more manageable and applications are now in folders that make sense to me. A 3d interface isn't going to help solve your clutter.
To be specific, the date / time, file sharing protocol, filename and C&D request originated from a third party company that specified it had been contracted by Paramount to track down and stop illegal file sharing of Paramount property. Which we (and presumably the ISP) read as being Paramounts legal team. Don't know the ins and outs of it, just the emails I saw
Posting anonymously via the 5th amendment
That would be why I haven't mentioned which ISP he used. (note the past tense)
It was the ISP who forwarded the message and sent him the Cease and Desist letter, not the lawyers. Although we have no way of knowing whether or not they have forwarded the information on to Paramount or not.
:)
Unlike you situation he was actually sharing the illegal file so he can't really complain.
A friend of mine recently got an email from his broadband provider which was forwarded from Paramount's legal team. He was sharing one of their movies with eDonkey and they tracked him down with the help of his ISP and sent a cease and desist letter with a threat of legal action if he doesn't cooperate. Interestingly they cited the DMCA which as I understand it is a US law without international jurisdiction.
I'm not sure what the "right" thing is here. Is it within his rights to have privacy on the Internet, or does he forfeit those rights when he breaks the law. Does the Corporation have right to take whatever means necessary to protect their product against theft.
One of the problems with MAME on the XBox is the RAM limitations. The XBox only has 64M of RAM. But the gamecube only has 40M. The developers who work on the XBox port of MAME are working to include modular support for virtual memory to get around this issue.
I think one of the reasons that this and other hobby OS's (Atheos springs to mind) are featured on slashdot is due to their geeky nature and the probable genuine interest of the readership. I'm interested in what you define as "so much attention". When was the last SkyOS post? These hobby OS's tend to pop up every few months whenever the developers do s significant release.
Certainly beats the ongoing SCO saga anyway
If this doofus hadn't told securityfocus.com about it he wouldn't have been found out either. So his current situation is entirely his own fault
Although you are correct that the majority of people mod their XBoxes to play pirate movies and games, it's interesting to note the OP's point about giving people what they want.
The current DVD distribution method for example is completely consumer unfriendly. I have to wait until a TV series / movieis released in the UK before I can buy the DVD. That's not what I want. I want to be able to choose. I want to be able to choose between the American / European / Asian release of a DVD because they frequently have different content. I want to be able to take the film I've paid for and convert it to and AVI so I can watch it on my Pocket PC
Playing games from my XBox's hard drive is much more convenient than from the DVD I purchased it from. Much tidier too.
Yes I have a modded XBox and yes I still purchase games and DVD's. Friends with modded XBox's also still purchase games. Gaming is our hobby and stealing is not the way to get good games still made.
I recognise that we probably not representative of the majority of people. I just wanted to make the point that Modded XBox != warez.
was a bit lazy when a simple bit of googling would have got the answer. Which is most of the fun of messing around with old machines anyway.
"slashdot - news for nerds, stuff that matters"
On a website for nerds, an article about messing about with a 10 year old computer seems right as place. Perhaps you should try messing about with old kit and old operating systems. It's actually a huge amount of fun.
And in terms of job hunting, you are going to get hired based on commerical experience and qualifications rather that what you tinker with at home.
220 quid PDA vs. 70 pounds for the GBA actually. ROMZ for free. GBA games 35 quid each.
PDA can also play mp3's / AVI's from the 1G microdrive I already owned. PDA can browse the net through the GPRS bluetooth phone I already owned.
Seems like a good deal to me.
Instead of purchasing a gameboy advance last summer I upgraded my Ipaq 3630 to a Dell Axim X5. My plan was to use it as an MP3 player as well as being able to emulate SNES + Genesis games on it. After all, most of the decent games on the GBA are SNES ports anyway.
Although the Axim has a 400Mhz CPU in it, it really struggles to emulate the SNES or the Genesis. NES games are very basic. What I have found to be a good play though is a Game Gear / Master System emulator called CE/GG. I used to have a master system and playing Sonic, Sonic 2 and Sonic Chaos is superb. It's interesting that whilst Genesis games are far too slow to be playable, I've managed to get some SNES games going. (Not sure if this is the quality of the emulator or a reflection of the speed of the original system). Using PocketSNES as an example, by switching off the audio and skipping frames, Super Mario World for example is relatively playable. MODE 7 games such as Super Mario Kart are far too slow tho.
Not particularly related to the DC homebrew scene I know, I just thought it was interesting that 2 separate platforms had similar experiences with emulators.
Actually I think the most criticized OS on /. is BSD. I've yet to see a BSD story posted in the last 12 months without numerous trolls about BSD being dead.
With the increase in corporate interest in many open source projects, I think sometimes people miss the point about OSS. To qoute your post:
I guess it comes down to these questions: is BeOS fundamentally a more efficient platform for multimedia development? Is Linux architecture so different as to be incapable of matching BeOS performance in regards to MIDI performance, audio processing, nonlinear video editing, or 3D development? Is the performance gap substantial?
I've read the interview with Micheal Phillips and his comments seem to say that there is a way of doing things which the original BeOS did, which Linux doesn't / can't do. So from a technical standpoint he and other open source developers are trying to implement an idea and way of doing things. Linux and BSD didn't do things the way they wanted it doing. So they took it uppon themselves to implement something which they feel is better.
With it being open source, and therefore something they do in their spare time for enjoyment, I don't see that market forces come into it. Linux started gaining market share due to the quality of the product. Perhaps in a few years if OpenBEOS is so revolutionary and amazing then the same may happen. Or if it becomes a popular desktop for geeks and developers then is that really so bad?
I sgree with you that the "REAL musicians don't care about getting paid" thing is horseshit. My point was that the current popular argument that users of P2P networks are stealing money from artists is misleading. The groups (one of which is the RIAA) who are taking out legal injuctions against P2P networks aren't protecting musicians interests, they are protecting the interests of the music publishing companies. The protection of the musicians income is secondary / ancillary to the main goal.
The RIAA aren't really supporting 'artists' though. They are protecting the revenues of large corporates. Record producers and managers get significantly more money than most of the young popstars today. Britney Spears is an attarctive woman who can sing. But she doesn't write her own songs and she isn't singing about experiances real to her. She isn't making original music. Popstars (who create the majority of product the RIAA is trying to protect) aren't artists, they are performers.
Providing the consumer with something that they actually want and feel value for is something that can make a difference. In reference to you question, take the RIAA, SCO and Amazon as examples:
... also bought ..." feature. I don't mind paying a little extra than other Internet retailers (it's still cheaper than the local bookstore anyway).
Amazon aren't the cheapest place to buys books from. But I have remained a loyal customer due to the excellent "people who bought
However take the RIAA. Or the music industry in general. I feel quite strongly that the rise of napster and subsequent p2p networks is to do in part with the quality of the product. And the fall in music CD sales is also due to the quality of the product and not to do with p2p. Consumers aren't interested in pop music which is samey and generic and meaningless. A boy band in 2000 regurgitating the same cheesy song the Osmonds sang in the 70's isn't appealing to most. What the music industry today has done is instead of making music that some consumers will really enjoy (and some will detest) they have created a bland product which everyone finds inoffensive.
SCO have got people's backs up because they are appear to be trying to destroy Linux, which many people are passionate about. However I would argue that the reason they are probably currently the most unpopular company in the technology industry is because they don't have something of their own which they can sell to consumers but instead are taking advantage of others hard work.
My point is that if you create a good product and don't just adhere to the risk averse bean counter methodology then people will notice this. Promote what makes you stand out and if it's good enough people will love you.
So they compromised the server, cleared down some of the logs, but weren't able to completely hide the intrusion, but still managed to compromise the file integrity checker and the source code for emerge?
This being the same file integrtity checker that alerted the sys admins to the compromise in the first place? If you are good enough to compromise Tripwire or AIDE or whatever then you are good enough to hide the fact that you have done it, not remove some logs install a rootkit then get found out by the IDS.
Perhaps you should FT
Even if you didn't RTFA, at least RTFP.
However, the compromised system had both an IDS and a file integrity checker installed
The file integrity checker will have provided a list of the files that changed and if emerge was compromised then Gentoo would have let you know. After all, they haven't kept the compromise quiet so presumably they are informing users to let them know the Gentoo are on top of things.
The main story wasn't just about the HDTV capabilities of this new machine, but also about the possibility of it getting a lot of open source development interest becuase of the open standards is supports.
I mentioned the XBox becuase of the modding community and the active development projects that go on around it. As I don't have a PS2, I'm not really very aware of the PS2 scene. Is there a lot of support and homebrew apps / games?
There is a version of Gentoo Linux for the XBox. The system runs a Celeron 533 & 128M of RAM. so it should run OK.