"... sometimes non-violent resistance isn't the best strategy"
True.
But for those who have tore thru "The Art of War" knows that many times the best way to fight a war is to let your opponents fighting amongst themselves - which btw MicroSoft is doing, with SCO against the Unices world thingy - and if M$ can do to us, so can we.
M$ has a lot of vulnerabilities, it's practically a leaking dreadnaught. To keep M$ busy, point out to the investors (aka WallStreet) those leaks, one by one (or a dozen at a time, if you choose) and when you watch those WallStreet rats jump ship by the drove, you will see the M$ dreadnaugh starts sinking, and sinks fast.
Linux is a great thing, and there are lots of great people working on Linux.
But when I see guys like Raymond Chen working on Windows, I just can't fanthom what types of wonders he could have created for those of us who use Linux, if Mr. Chen focus his works on Linux.
I've heard so much about the so-called "Rebellion" whenever Linux is mentioned. Sometimes I gotta admit that I dunno what they are talking about.
I use Linux not because I rebel against anyone, it's just that I got tired of the blue-screen-of-death cum you-gimme-more-$$$-and-we-still-won't-fix-the-bug thingy so I switched.
No rebellion, just got tired with you-know-who.
In other words, the "Rebellion" thingy may be overated.
Title: Why I run FreeBSD - SunOS, Solaris, Linux? No, thanks!
Why I run FreeBSD
SunOS, Solaris, Linux? No, thanks!
Abstract
Rich explains why FreeBSD is the superior OS for him. (1,500 words)
Last month's column ("Serious FTP") discussed anindustrial-strength FTP site, based on a 200-MHz P6 ("Pentium Pro") and a pile of special-purpose I/O hardware. Although my main server isn't trying to serve thousands of simultaneous FTP sessions, I still want it to be robust, easy to maintain, and convenient to enhance.
So, like Walnut Creek CDROM, I use FreeBSD. Specifically, I'm using FreeBSD 2.2.8; I'll switch over to FreeBSD 3.x in a while; for now, I'm just lurking on comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.*, watching the new development track's bug reports quiet down.
It's not that I haven't tried Sun's offerings; I have. In fact, I have both SunOS and Solaris running here, as well as a Power Mac (supporting the www.mklinux.org Web site).
However unwillingly, I have been initiated into the administrivia of a variety of Unixish systems. And, for a variety of reasons, I believe that FreeBSD is a clear winner over the others I have installed.
Why SunOS and Solaris lose I tried hard to retain the SunOS machine as my server. SunOS is a tidy (by current standards, at least) little BSDish operating system. Also, I am very familiar with its BSDish quirks, and it has been amazingly reliable, so I was strongly motivated to keep it going.
Unfortunately, SunOS has had no real support from Sun for several years. As a result, the system software is quite out of date. It has gaping security holes (e.g., ancient sendmail), annoying limitations (a "mere" 2 GB per filesystem), archaic development tools (no C++ or Perl), and some real oddities (no DNS without (yurggh!) NIS).
Patches and add-on packages could solve much of this, but there is no guarantee that they'll all play nicely together. In any case, I'm not into that degree of pain, so the SunOS box has been relegated to "experimental" use.
I have managed to avoid Solaris for several years, but I recently had reason to set up a Solaris system. I attached a CD-ROM drive and a pair of disk drives to the SCSI bus of a spare ELC and fired it up.
Everything went fine until Solaris looked at the disks. Then, because the disks didn't have Sun labels (well, duh!), the GUI installation procedure printed a nastygram and dropped me in front of a command-line prompt.
If this was a SunOS system, I would have known exactly what to do at that point: find a utility to get the exact size of the disks, fake up a plausible disk geometry to match the size(s), and edit the mess into the/etc/format.dat file.
You see, SunOS inherited the 4.2 BSD filesystem, which tries to employ disk geometry as a way to reduce head movement and rotational latency. Modern SCSI disks don't have fixed track sizes, however, so some parameter faking is required.
This, however, is Solaris 7, Sun's latest and greatest operating system. There must be a magic command to set things up on an "alien" disk drive. The fact that the GUI didn't call the appropriate routine is a bit annoying, but surely just an oversight.
So, I asked a friendly Sun support person for the answer. "Well, you have to find or create an entry in the/etc/format.dat file, matching the geometry..." Uh-huh. After years of development and millions of dollars, Solaris still can't figure out how to label a disk drive. Give me, as they say, a break.
I won't even get into the issues of Solaris support tools, save to say that a Unixish system without a C/C++ compiler and Perl 5 isn't up to any standards I'd wish to set.
Why Linux loses (for me)
Part of my problem with Linux is subjective; As a long-term BSD administrator, I am simply more comfortable
Some technology in the phone that isn't talked about
It will automatically phone police when if you text "Falun Gong". Also the words democracy, voting and human rights will also cause the phone to dial the appropriate authorities to protect the poor citizen from potential harm. It also helps identify and track citizens that need to be re-educated.
Nah, the Chinese cops doesn't have to come. Instead, what the user needs is the fire brigade.
Once "Falun Gong" and "Protest" are typed in, the new smartphone will incinerate the user, just like what the Falun Gong followers did to themselves.
I read with great awe many of the comments of this/. discussions, yours included.
The problem we have here isn't limited to the info-overloading, nor info-over-scattering, but also, the way we can learn how to teach.
I taught university level CS classes a few years ago, and although I knew the subjects that I've taught, a constant problem that I had was that sometimes it's kinda hard to relate what I knew (knowledge) to my students (knowledge transfer).
Many of the comments here about "the manuscrips are hard to understand" I think also suffer from the same problem.
You see, in effective information transfer, we not only have to tackle the amount of info-transfer, but the effectiveness (or the _how_) of information transfer.
If what we do makes sense, but we can't infer of what we know to those we want to teach, than what we know (insights?) would largely end up useless to the world.
It's the job of attorneys to look for things to litigate.
If they can find something, fine. They will sue based on what they found.
If they can't find anything, then they can let their imagination runs free and _then_ manufacture conspiracies, and proceed to sue based on their conspiracies/fantacies.
It's just unfortunate, no, it's sheer PATHETIC that the computer industry is being overpowered by the attorneys.
Now instead of we let our imaginations run free and produce killeraps, we have to waste our times to play with the run-away fantacies of them attorneys.
If you go to This Page, This Page, This Page, and This Page with Mozilla 1.5, Windows' version, you will see that Mozilla doesn't display the entire message.
However, if you use the Opera Browser, version 7.20 (win version) or MS IE, on the same pages, you will see that Opera and IE display the pages without any error.
I want to know if this bug have been filed or not. If no, please tell me the best way to file the bug report.
The same "Good Technology", if it's in the wrong hand... well...
Do not forget that the Japanese attacked the USA even before the gang led by Osama Bin Laden.
Do not forget that Toshiba is a Japanese company.
If Toshiba can make such a compact "nuke generator", what stops them from using the same technolgy to make the nukes that go "kaboom" and then they sell it to Osama Bin Laden ?
After all, what the Japs need is money, and what Osama Bin Laden (and his gang) have is money.
We should be careful to let Japanese having such "good technologies" because they could use whatever they have against us.
I am really pleased when I know that Adam Smith's book "The Wealth Of Nation" is online.
So, is the "Das Kapital" online as well ?
If so, where is it ?
Thank you !
Now, death of PDA, two years later ...
on
Death of the PDA?
·
· Score: 1
The headline will be "The Death of Smartphones"
Why ?
Because like the PDA, smartphones are not easy to use.
They are clunky, and their application is limited in scope.
Yes, it may become trendy for some to take pictures with their cellphones and then email (or MMS) the pictures to their friends and families.
Count that as ONE application.
Other than that, what else smartphone (and PDA) can do ?
Not pretty much, except for the mobility factor that the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) can't provide.
I for one, will still use my cellphone, sans "smartfeatures" because what I need the most from my cellphone is to call someone (or have someone get in touch with me) when I am out of my office.
If I need to take pictures, I can use my digital cameras. If I need to do serious computing stuffs (not only number crunching) I can use my laptop. If I need to jot down something, there're pens and paper. If I need to play games, I have PS/2 / X BOX game systems.
The older alternatives work. I don't need smartphones to try to do all that, which it can't, really.
I've tried very hard to locate actual sourcecode of TRON, be it ITRON, BTRON or whatever "tron".
Despite being publicly termed "open-sourced", the sourcecode of TRON is actually very hard to find.
Can anyone here please point out to us where we can get the source code of TRON, so at least we can see how they achieve their "small footprint" and their "real" RTOS position, versus somebody's claim that RTLinux isn't a "real" RTOS.
If we can come up with something that approach the ease of www.windowsupdate.com, perhaps Linux can be used by even more not-so-tech-savvy users.
Ahh, and there lies one of the big problems in Linux that I've been complaining about for years: the attitude of most Linux software developers towards end users. I can't count the number of developers (including major Linux folk) who I've heard say "I'd rather it not be too easy to use Linux as it keeps the riff-raff out." This is one of the things that is contributing to Linux's slow acceptance in the NON-tech marketplace.
Have you read the response to my second message ?
Read HERE and see how people talk about "CRON JOB" as if it's something that the not-so-tech-savvy average Joe users can do in their sleep.
Also there's a response that sounded like "I don't see why I have to lower myself to those stupid idiots to make their lives easier" or something like that.
It's THAT type of snobbish attitude that is hampering the widespread adoption of Linux.
Unfortunately, most of the Linux people never look at themselves in front of a mirror.
The above is yet another proof that many/. readers just don't grasp it.
The average not-so-tech-savvy users don't know a thing about `atp-get' or whatnots. All they know is to click here, click there, and perhaps change the background picture.
The average not-so-tech-savvy users also made up of the vast majority of computer users in the world, believe it or not.
Now, do we need to make them do the "apt-get" this, "apt-get" that, or do we make something simpler for them so they can patch their systems without having to crash their machines ?
What you are trying to do is to make TWO WRONGS A RIGHT.
Two Wrongs Can Never Become One Right.
Even if the guy is the world's foremost Asshole Cum Laude, he shouldn't be put through this type of shits.
What the gummint had done was wrong, and those public prosecutors (persecutors !!) should have their nuts cut out and fried for what they have done.
We don't, and SHOULD NEVER condone any abuse of the law, and what the gummint has done in this case, and in many other cases in the USA, are outright wholesale abuse of the laws.
In case you forgot, the BILL OF RIGHTS protects ALL, even the ASSHOLES are being protected.
If the Americans don't protect themselves, they deserve to be abused by the very government they have elected.
I read what you have written, and I understand them all, because I had a similar experience.
I was lucky, that the public prosecutor was a dork, and because I know people in really high places.
All I did was nothing - in a discussion, I laid out a _hypothetical-case-of-a-possibility-electronic-bre aking_ and then someone snitched on me.
All hell broke loose, and I had to face what you had gone thru, - sans the sentencing thingy, - but all in all, looking back, I spent more than 500K in attorney's fee alone.
That doesn't count the time lost in the entire meaningless hoopla, plus the agonies, anguish, comfusion, and ultimately, frustrations that have caused me and many of my friends/co-workers etc.
Now I don't live in USA anymore. Why should I continue to pay tax in a country which prosecuted its own citizen for NOTHING ?
My advise to all those who have been wrongly prosecuted - get out, and get out now !
If you stay, you will be paying tax to the same government which employs those damn bastards who do nothing but trampling on other people's rights and liberty.
Contrary to popular believe, USA is no longer a place which believes in LIBERTY.
There's no liberty in USA anymore, and that's the sad, cold truth.
Slashdot Mirror
You sez:
"
True.
But for those who have tore thru "The Art of War" knows that many times the best way to fight a war is to let your opponents fighting amongst themselves - which btw MicroSoft is doing, with SCO against the Unices world thingy - and if M$ can do to us, so can we.
M$ has a lot of vulnerabilities, it's practically a leaking dreadnaught. To keep M$ busy, point out to the investors (aka WallStreet) those leaks, one by one (or a dozen at a time, if you choose) and when you watch those WallStreet rats jump ship by the drove, you will see the M$ dreadnaugh starts sinking, and sinks fast.
Just a thought. Not a threat. Never a promise.
You sez:
"FreeBSD can do some really nifty stuff that Linux can't. Like jails."
Other than "jails", what other "nifties" FreeBSD has ?
I am really interested in knowing, so please elaborate.
Thanks !
Sigh !
Linux is a great thing, and there are lots of great people working on Linux.
But when I see guys like Raymond Chen working on Windows, I just can't fanthom what types of wonders he could have created for those of us who use Linux, if Mr. Chen focus his works on Linux.
Sigh !
I've heard so much about the so-called "Rebellion" whenever Linux is mentioned. Sometimes I gotta admit that I dunno what they are talking about.
I use Linux not because I rebel against anyone, it's just that I got tired of the blue-screen-of-death cum you-gimme-more-$$$-and-we-still-won't-fix-the-bug thingy so I switched.
No rebellion, just got tired with you-know-who.
In other words, the "Rebellion" thingy may be overated.
Just my thoughts, anyway.
Check this article out!
/etc/format.dat file.
/etc/format.dat file, matching the geometry..." Uh-huh. After years of development and millions of dollars, Solaris still can't figure out how to label a disk drive. Give me, as they say, a break.
Title: Why I run FreeBSD - SunOS, Solaris, Linux? No, thanks!
Why I run FreeBSD
SunOS, Solaris, Linux? No, thanks!
Abstract
Rich explains why FreeBSD is the superior OS for him. (1,500 words)
Last month's column ("Serious FTP") discussed anindustrial-strength FTP site, based on a 200-MHz P6 ("Pentium Pro") and a pile of special-purpose
I/O hardware. Although my main server isn't trying to serve thousands of simultaneous FTP sessions, I still want it to be robust, easy to maintain, and convenient to enhance.
So, like Walnut Creek CDROM, I use FreeBSD. Specifically, I'm using FreeBSD 2.2.8; I'll switch over to FreeBSD 3.x in a while; for now, I'm just lurking on comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.*, watching the new development track's bug reports quiet down.
It's not that I haven't tried Sun's offerings; I have. In fact, I have both SunOS and Solaris running here, as well as a Power Mac (supporting the www.mklinux.org Web site).
However unwillingly, I have been initiated into the administrivia of a variety of Unixish systems. And, for a variety of reasons, I believe that FreeBSD is a clear winner over the others I have installed.
Why SunOS and Solaris lose I tried hard to retain the SunOS machine as my server. SunOS is a tidy (by current standards, at least) little BSDish operating system. Also, I am very familiar with its BSDish quirks, and it has been amazingly reliable, so I was strongly motivated to keep it going.
Unfortunately, SunOS has had no real support from Sun for several years. As a result, the system software is quite out of date. It has gaping security holes (e.g., ancient sendmail), annoying limitations (a "mere" 2 GB per filesystem), archaic development tools (no C++ or Perl), and some real oddities (no DNS without (yurggh!) NIS).
Patches and add-on packages could solve much of this, but there is no guarantee that they'll all play nicely together. In any case, I'm not into that degree of pain, so the SunOS box has been relegated to "experimental" use.
I have managed to avoid Solaris for several years, but I recently had reason to set up a Solaris system. I attached a CD-ROM drive and a pair of disk drives to the SCSI bus of a spare ELC and fired it up.
Everything went fine until Solaris looked at the disks. Then, because the disks didn't have Sun labels (well, duh!), the GUI installation procedure printed a nastygram and dropped me in front of a command-line prompt.
If this was a SunOS system, I would have known exactly what to do at that point: find a utility to get the exact size of the disks, fake up a plausible disk geometry to match the size(s), and edit the mess into the
You see, SunOS inherited the 4.2 BSD filesystem, which tries to employ disk geometry as a way to reduce head movement and rotational latency. Modern SCSI disks don't have fixed track sizes, however, so some parameter faking is required.
This, however, is Solaris 7, Sun's latest and greatest operating system. There must be a magic command to set things up on an "alien" disk drive. The fact that the GUI didn't call the appropriate routine is a bit annoying, but surely just an oversight.
So, I asked a friendly Sun support person for the answer. "Well, you have to find or create an entry in the
I won't even get into the issues of Solaris support tools, save to say that a Unixish system without a C/C++ compiler and Perl 5 isn't up to any standards I'd wish to set.
Why Linux loses (for me)
Part of my problem with Linux is subjective; As a long-term BSD administrator, I am simply more comfortable
When compared to 2.4, is version 2.6 slower or faster on small machines ?
http://mymirror.asiaosc.org/
Some technology in the phone that isn't talked about
It will automatically phone police when if you text "Falun Gong". Also the words democracy, voting and human rights will also cause the phone to dial the appropriate authorities to protect the poor citizen from potential harm. It also helps identify and track citizens that need to be re-educated.
Nah, the Chinese cops doesn't have to come. Instead, what the user needs is the fire brigade.
Once "Falun Gong" and "Protest" are typed in, the new smartphone will incinerate the user, just like what the Falun Gong followers did to themselves.
Isn't technology wonderful ?
Here are two useful utilities to flush out the SucKIT rootkit:
Kernel Security Therapy Anti-Trolls
and
Kernel Security Checker
Have a nice day !
I read with great awe many of the comments of this
The problem we have here isn't limited to the info-overloading, nor info-over-scattering, but also, the way we can learn how to teach.
I taught university level CS classes a few years ago, and although I knew the subjects that I've taught, a constant problem that I had was that sometimes it's kinda hard to relate what I knew (knowledge) to my students (knowledge transfer).
Many of the comments here about "the manuscrips are hard to understand" I think also suffer from the same problem.
You see, in effective information transfer, we not only have to tackle the amount of info-transfer, but the effectiveness (or the _how_) of information transfer.
If what we do makes sense, but we can't infer of what we know to those we want to teach, than what we know (insights?) would largely end up useless to the world.
All I need now is to learn how to teach.
Is there something out there that would help me ?
Thanks !
This is what you get.
It's the job of attorneys to look for things to litigate.
If they can find something, fine. They will sue based on what they found.
If they can't find anything, then they can let their imagination runs free and _then_ manufacture conspiracies, and proceed to sue based on their conspiracies/fantacies.
It's just unfortunate, no, it's sheer PATHETIC that the computer industry is being overpowered by the attorneys.
Now instead of we let our imaginations run free and produce killeraps, we have to waste our times to play with the run-away fantacies of them attorneys.
It's just too darn pathetic.
First it's RIAA, then DCMA, then SCO, now this.
Sigh !
I have found a bug on Mozilla 1.5.
If you go to This Page, This Page, This Page, and This Page with Mozilla 1.5, Windows' version, you will see that Mozilla doesn't display the entire message.
However, if you use the Opera Browser, version 7.20 (win version) or MS IE, on the same pages, you will see that Opera and IE display the pages without any error.
I want to know if this bug have been filed or not. If no, please tell me the best way to file the bug report.
Thank you !
If the patching process is easy, then people can patch more frequently.
OTOH, people won't be able to patch as frequent if the process is not-really-that-easy.
Most people do understand the need to patch, but many of them really don't know How To do it.
That's the gist of it, AFAIK.
Technology is good if it's in good hand.
The same "Good Technology", if it's in the wrong hand
Do not forget that the Japanese attacked the USA even before the gang led by Osama Bin Laden.
Do not forget that Toshiba is a Japanese company.
If Toshiba can make such a compact "nuke generator", what stops them from using the same technolgy to make the nukes that go "kaboom" and then they sell it to Osama Bin Laden ?
After all, what the Japs need is money, and what Osama Bin Laden (and his gang) have is money.
We should be careful to let Japanese having such "good technologies" because they could use whatever they have against us.
Just be forewarned.
Dear Comrade,
I am a cheapskate. I admit it.
I am really pleased when I know that Adam Smith's book "The Wealth Of Nation" is online
So, is the "Das Kapital" online as well ?
If so, where is it ?
Thank you !
The headline will be "The Death of Smartphones"
Why ?
Because like the PDA, smartphones are not easy to use.
They are clunky, and their application is limited in scope.
Yes, it may become trendy for some to take pictures with their cellphones and then email (or MMS) the pictures to their friends and families.
Count that as ONE application.
Other than that, what else smartphone (and PDA) can do ?
Not pretty much, except for the mobility factor that the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) can't provide.
I for one, will still use my cellphone, sans "smartfeatures" because what I need the most from my cellphone is to call someone (or have someone get in touch with me) when I am out of my office.
If I need to take pictures, I can use my digital cameras. If I need to do serious computing stuffs (not only number crunching) I can use my laptop. If I need to jot down something, there're pens and paper. If I need to play games, I have PS/2 / X BOX game systems.
The older alternatives work. I don't need smartphones to try to do all that, which it can't, really.
There is such a thing as FreeCAD Version 8
Although it's far from being in the same league as AutoCAD, it's a start, nevertheless.
Can't get into www.opencap.org
Is opencap dead ?
I've tried very hard to locate actual sourcecode of TRON, be it ITRON, BTRON or whatever "tron".
Despite being publicly termed "open-sourced", the sourcecode of TRON is actually very hard to find.
Can anyone here please point out to us where we can get the source code of TRON, so at least we can see how they achieve their "small footprint" and their "real" RTOS position, versus somebody's claim that RTLinux isn't a "real" RTOS.
Thank you !
The GIMP is an alternative to Photoshop.
It is free.
With that unbeatable price, you even get the source code !
If there's a bug, you can do the debugging yourself.
Plus, if you think you wanna tweak the code to your own liking, you can do it.
With photoshop, you don't get the source code.
Plus, if you want a legal copy, be prepared to fork over your hard earned money.
Also, if you find a bug, you can't do anything about it, because you are at the mercy of Adobe.
So why are you using Photoshop ?
Download GIMP now !
You won't regret it.
Ever !
Yep, it sure looks like the open season for proprietory software products that keep on distancing themselves from their users.
Will the open-source alternative fill the void ?
If we can come up with something that approach the ease of www.windowsupdate.com, perhaps Linux can be used by even more not-so-tech-savvy users.
Ahh, and there lies one of the big problems in Linux that I've been complaining about for years: the attitude of most Linux software developers towards end users. I can't count the number of developers (including major Linux folk) who I've heard say "I'd rather it not be too easy to use Linux as it keeps the riff-raff out." This is one of the things that is contributing to Linux's slow acceptance in the NON-tech marketplace.
Have you read the response to my second message ?
Read HERE and see how people talk about "CRON JOB" as if it's something that the not-so-tech-savvy average Joe users can do in their sleep.
Also there's a response that sounded like "I don't see why I have to lower myself to those stupid idiots to make their lives easier" or something like that.
It's THAT type of snobbish attitude that is hampering the widespread adoption of Linux.
Unfortunately, most of the Linux people never look at themselves in front of a mirror.
Very unfortunately.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
holy crap, thats a tough thing to grasp.
The above is yet another proof that many
The average not-so-tech-savvy users don't know a thing about `atp-get' or whatnots. All they know is to click here, click there, and perhaps change the background picture.
The average not-so-tech-savvy users also made up of the vast majority of computer users in the world, believe it or not.
Now, do we need to make them do the "apt-get" this, "apt-get" that, or do we make something simpler for them so they can patch their systems without having to crash their machines ?
What you are trying to do is to make TWO WRONGS A RIGHT.
Two Wrongs Can Never Become One Right.
Even if the guy is the world's foremost Asshole Cum Laude, he shouldn't be put through this type of shits.
What the gummint had done was wrong, and those public prosecutors (persecutors !!) should have their nuts cut out and fried for what they have done.
We don't, and SHOULD NEVER condone any abuse of the law, and what the gummint has done in this case, and in many other cases in the USA, are outright wholesale abuse of the laws.
In case you forgot, the BILL OF RIGHTS protects ALL, even the ASSHOLES are being protected.
If the Americans don't protect themselves, they deserve to be abused by the very government they have elected.
I read what you have written, and I understand them all, because I had a similar experience.
I was lucky, that the public prosecutor was a dork, and because I know people in really high places.
All I did was nothing - in a discussion, I laid out a _hypothetical-case-of-a-possibility-electronic-br
All hell broke loose, and I had to face what you had gone thru, - sans the sentencing thingy, - but all in all, looking back, I spent more than 500K in attorney's fee alone.
That doesn't count the time lost in the entire meaningless hoopla, plus the agonies, anguish, comfusion, and ultimately, frustrations that have caused me and many of my friends/co-workers etc.
Now I don't live in USA anymore. Why should I continue to pay tax in a country which prosecuted its own citizen for NOTHING ?
My advise to all those who have been wrongly prosecuted - get out, and get out now !
If you stay, you will be paying tax to the same government which employs those damn bastards who do nothing but trampling on other people's rights and liberty.
Contrary to popular believe, USA is no longer a place which believes in LIBERTY.
There's no liberty in USA anymore, and that's the sad, cold truth.