What does this have to do with anything? This guy took a non-supported printer and is trying to reverse engineer it so it is fully supported under Linux.
Take any of the many PCL or PostScript printers out there and its plug and play.. As far as a "fucking waste of life" -- I don't see it like that.. I think its called "learning" and "contributing" or something.
> I just have a problem with people responsible for > laying off THOUSANDS of employees to save money. > Then turn around and receive a $8 million > severance package.
I will disagree with this. If your in a position where you need to fire employees as a method to meet your obligation as a CEO of a publically traded company (maximize profits) then why shouldn't you be compensated for making these tough choices?
I am not backing any particular actions, but management needs to do what they believe is in the best interest of the company. Granted, I think that for many executives they are primarily focused on the short term to maximize their own personal wealth instead of having their actions guided by long-term benefit, but thats a different topic altogether.
If an executive does not perform in a method satisfactory to the health and sustainment of the company (which I believe Carly did not do) it is really up to the board and shareholders to correct the actions.
> We're talking about servers here. In a well > designed domain no one has the rights to the > server systems required to infect them with > anything.
I guess assuming the server in question is not running any critically flawed software (ie the ASP.NET vulnerability that allows bypassing security mechanisms..) -- Given the huge amount of critical security advisories that Microsoft puts out that impacts a significant portion of their user base coupled with the fact the majority of these still require a restart, I'm just not buying that its better than a non-Windows box.
> However if you need to mes around with the > network settings, what are the odds you can > telnet into the box be it Windows or Linux?
Hmm.. considering I do all administrative tasks via SSH on my Linux/FreeBSD boxes, I'd have to say the odds are pretty high. I have changed IP addresses, routing tables, enabled/disabled services, upgraded the entire system, adjusted how bandwidth is utilized, yada yada yada... all via ssh on my linux and freebsd boxes.
Quite a few places did it up to 4 years ago.. but nowadays its not cost effective unless you are doing an absolute shoe-string budget, get donated parts and have volunteers assembling the systems.
For everyone else, the sweet spot is buying full systems w/service contract (usually 3 yr). Of course, this means getting Windows pre-installed (yuck) which kinda blows.. however, those purchases do make great LTSP machines down the road.
I was curious, so I looked up the 10-Q for Apple in summer of 1997..
Even though they were struggling (year over year), they still had over $1 billion in cash assets, $212 in short term investments, $1.2 billion in A/R.. this compared to around $1.9 billion total current liabilities.
Granted, compared to the latest 10-Q you can see they are definitely more financial secure right now.. but at the time, I don't think they necessarily needed the cash infusion to stay afloat -- they still had quite a bit of flex room.
Seems like ever since Distrowatch started tracking FreeBSD, everyone seems to think that FreeBSD is just another Linux distro.
The Linux community should tar and feather those who mix up ye unholy non-GPL software with the almight GNU/Linux distros!! Down with Distrowatch! Down with OSNews and James LaRue!! hehe..
1. Great documentation. The FreeBSD site has the FreeBSD Handbook-- in addition there is Absolute BSD, BSD Hacks and other books that provide lots of great detail of how the entire system is built.
2. Clear distinction of the base system. Unlike Linux, FreeBSD is an OS. There are clear boundries of what is and is not part of the base system. Ie -- config files of non-base system software does not go into/etc but/usr/local/etc. Same with binaries, libraries, etc..
3. Ports -- 12,000+ programs just a 'make install' away from using. Lots of advance tools such as portupgrade, portaudit, etc have been developed to make managing and auditing your system simple.
4. Well defined file hierarchy. See man hier for details on how its laid out -- the ports follow this layout. Nice and clean.
5. rc.conf vs init.d -- I dunno.. seems cleaner and easier to me.
6. ipfw/ipf vs ipfilter -- need I say more? I have yet to know anyone who prefers Linux's default firewall.
For me the switch from Linux to FreeBSD was easy.. stuff that I just couldn't quite grok with Linux came easy with FreeBSD (perhaps due to the excellent documentation) -- after learning FreeBSD, the consistency of the system made it very easy to know whats happening and where things installed. The use of ports/packages makes keeping an up-to-date system a breeze.
I use FreeBSD for several production systems (mail, web, ftp, print, file, spam/virus filtering, ldap, dns servers, desktops, etc..) and it works great. Granted, Linux is no slump, but I find myself reaching for the man pages, google and books more often with Linux than FreeBSD as it just isn't nearly as intuitive (for me).
In my latest assessment of conversions for a few different companies -- while the picture is better (more general business apps available for non-MS platforms (groupware, office suites, email/web, etc..)) each company had some critical software that was NOT available for any platform besides Windows.
While I suppose it could be possible to run this software via terminal services or similar (displayed on a non-MS desktop) this involves additional expense, additional complexity, etc that the small businesses I consult for simply do not want to deal with (they are not a tech company trying to make a point and the MS Tax isn't great enough to overcome the fear of change.)
I have been using the SlashFix extension and since installing, I have not had that issue anymore. hurray!:)
Re:Linux Desktop Thoughts...
on
Linux, Inc.
·
· Score: 1
My thoughts..
#1 -- whats wrong with X? It seems like you don't like the window managers, but X? Just curious -- With Xorg pushing ahead with development, it seems to be modernizing quite rapidly.. even KDE (and I'm sure others) are starting to optimize the interfaces -- infact, I just saw an OpenGL powered theme/style for KDE on kde-look.org
#2 -- If a new platform was to be developed, would there be enough benefit over existing platforms to convince people to switch? What would those benefits be? Why couldn't these be built on top of X?
#3 -- If there is enough benefit, would the time be better spent building on top of the pre-existing, available systems or is it truly "too far gone" and requires a total rewrite?
#4 -- If a total rewrite occurred, how trivial would it be to port X based apps to the new platform? Would it require completely new toolkits? Would developers buy into it?
As far as working on modern hardware -- I was under the impression that KDE4/QT4/Xorg were already working toward offloading a lot of tasks to the GPU?
First day back to work for all those who got their Mac mini's over the weekend. Those things must be super shweeet if that makes it the worse day of the year.
Korg announced the OASYS back in 1994... Interesting that they stuck with the name for this product.. However, I think this type of super-workstation keyboard is past its prime.. like others have said, most studios seem to be doing a significant amount of processing via software placing most of the $$ into mics/sound reinforcement/etc.. For gigging.. does anyone seriously want to cart one of these monsters around? No thanks.
Yah.. thats all fine and good, but lets not forget that Apple as a company was very lack-luster before the second coming of Jobs in 1997. The company during the early/mid 90's lacked any type of vision. Infact, IIRC, at one point they only had 1 or 2 developers working on MacOS.
Since that point in time, I think they have done a pretty good job as a company. Jobs in those first few months changed out the board of directors, axed lackluster product lines, got some cash and renewed interest from Microsoft (Office 98), and axed the failed clone experiment. He put up the online Apple Store, attempted to revigorate Apple exclusive displays in various retailers and transformed the entire line of computers coming out with a new processor, new operating system, new look, pushing industry-wide standards (usb, firewire, etc..), etc..
Needless to say, those first two years of him returning to the healm complete transformed Apple back to the innovative company that it was back in the early 80's..
Granted, I am not going to get into "who is better, Apple or Microsoft" as both companies have established themselves in different sectors of the market and as a result, expectations are different (backwards compatability requirements being perhaps the largest one).
Apple is the same company that took ten years and several totally abortive attempts to develop a replacement for their original MacOS [1].
I think I could make a strong argument that Apple is NOT the same company that had all of those issues.
They are not compressed. However, since it uses hard links for unchanged files, daily backups are relatively small (unless you change/update your files frequently). Ie -- I backup ~64GB of data every night and have 13 restore points (7 daily, 4 weekly and 2 monthly). This data takes up ~70GB total.
I'll second the use of rsnapshot. I use it for remote backups for several servers and it works well.
For those who do not know, rsnapshot uses rsync to backup. What makes it unique is its ability to use hard links to keep full copies of a particular backup (ie during the restore, go into the folder you want and copy the back.. no need to shift tapes or do a full + incrementals, etc..)
rsnapshot is run via cron so you can configure it to email when it runs (to verify correct operation).
I have had to restore from rsnapshot both full restores and individual file restores. It is as simple as going into the backup folder and dragging the file you need. It preserves all permissions, ownership, groups, etc as well.
Why not all education? I looked on their site, but it appears that educational sites, while getting a discount, do not qualify for a free, no-adware version?
Guess it doesn't matter much.. the sites I admin are using Firefox and will continue to do so.
It will cost a whole lot less to deploy as all the devices in NT4 are already supported under XP
What does this mean? I'm assuming your talking about hardware devices? I know of quite a bit of OEM hardware that works with NT but not XP not to mention custom interfacing hardware (computer controlled manufacturing equipment) that only have drivers for NT -- do these work under XP as well w/o update?
A nice middle road between fully dynamic and fully static is putting a cache in between.. Certain CMS systems (ie Plone) are fully dynamic, but integrate nicely with a proxy/cache that can serve up the generated pages without having to hit the backend database every time..
Granted, it is a bit more complex of a setup, but in may ways, it provides the best of both worlds.
Honestly, I don't really give a damn about Grandma (well from a tech marketing POV). I just find it funny that others post that Linux isn't ready for this or that or the other thing claiming its difficult to install, difficult to configure, etc.. I was just wanting to counter that with distros like Knoppix, it is very easy for Grandma to use and in reality, doesn't take much more effort than it would for a grandson or whoever to initially configure a Windows box and hope to lock it down adaquately enough to not be a spyware/spam spewing haven.
I am with you re: Apple is "unix on the desktop"--- I *really* hope to see the headless $500 mac come to fruition.. it is GREAT for this demographic (among others).
Proof of concept for one thing. If such a system works well for that target market, I could easily see custom knoppix disks made just for that type of user. That target market is interested in the KISS principle and keeping cost low.
Just think of the mountains of crap-o-la grandma has to do right now for Windows.. make sure anti-virus is updated, run spyware checks, run windows update, run a firewall, be leary of opening emails/websites/etc, etc..etc..etc.. lots of non-sense. The alternative being popping in a CD that is targeted specificly for that type of individual, it has the programs needed in a simple interface, the user account runs un-privileged, the default security is strong.
I find it intesting how everyone is so quick to dismiss Linux in the grandma test.
Here is my reality:
Grandma is 2500 miles away. What OS do I want to give her? Wells its definitely not Windows. She wants to get on the Internet and lets face it, my grandma is not very tech savvy and would probably load up that machine with so much spyware and viruses it would crumble.
My thoughts? Knoppix. Build a custom knoppix that includes browser, email, a few games, etc and presto she is set. Every boot is clean. It meets her computing needs without the worry of viruses/spyware/etc.. every few months, I could create a new Knoppix CD and send it to her.. boot off the new CD, and she has the latest software.
I could be a little bit creative, have her settings/documents stored on the hard drive and have Knoppix on boot run a script that would determine the last backup and prompt her to pop in a CD-RW to keep a backup of her data.
Since she is booting off the CD, I can boot my copy of the CD to know exactly what she is looking at on-screen if she has questions.
I dunno.. it seems like the right choice to me. Perhaps it could even go a step further where the hard drive is partitioned and when the Knoppix CD is booted up, it would prompt if she wants to update her computer (auto-install to hard drive) or boot from the CD. Keep the docs/settings on their own partition so it doesn't get removed.
I know grandma can pop in a CD and turn on the computer. Seems like this would pass the test.
unless you dont read the date marked "best before" before eating it.;-)
Microsoft should have the same thing for Windows...
Best before plugging into a network..
Best before being turned on..
Best left in the box..
In all honesty, when Windows is isolated (or on an isolated network) and locked down (ie users don't have any way to install new software, etc..).. its not too bad.. Unfortunately, everyone wants to plug it into that dang Internet.. hheh..
Slashdot Mirror
What does this have to do with anything? This guy took a non-supported printer and is trying to reverse engineer it so it is fully supported under Linux.
.. As far as a "fucking waste of life" -- I don't see it like that .. I think its called "learning" and "contributing" or something.
Take any of the many PCL or PostScript printers out there and its plug and play
> Even accepting your assertion, the same CEO
> should be penalized for screwing the company up.
hmm.. i thought this article was about them firing her?
> I just have a problem with people responsible for
> laying off THOUSANDS of employees to save money.
> Then turn around and receive a $8 million
> severance package.
I will disagree with this. If your in a position where you need to fire employees as a method to meet your obligation as a CEO of a publically traded company (maximize profits) then why shouldn't you be compensated for making these tough choices?
I am not backing any particular actions, but management needs to do what they believe is in the best interest of the company. Granted, I think that for many executives they are primarily focused on the short term to maximize their own personal wealth instead of having their actions guided by long-term benefit, but thats a different topic altogether.
If an executive does not perform in a method satisfactory to the health and sustainment of the company (which I believe Carly did not do) it is really up to the board and shareholders to correct the actions.
> We're talking about servers here. In a well
> designed domain no one has the rights to the
> server systems required to infect them with
> anything.
I guess assuming the server in question is not running any critically flawed software (ie the ASP.NET vulnerability that allows bypassing security mechanisms..) -- Given the huge amount of critical security advisories that Microsoft puts out that impacts a significant portion of their user base coupled with the fact the majority of these still require a restart, I'm just not buying that its better than a non-Windows box.
> However if you need to mes around with the
> network settings, what are the odds you can
> telnet into the box be it Windows or Linux?
Hmm.. considering I do all administrative tasks via SSH on my Linux/FreeBSD boxes, I'd have to say the odds are pretty high. I have changed IP addresses, routing tables, enabled/disabled services, upgraded the entire system, adjusted how bandwidth is utilized, yada yada yada... all via ssh on my linux and freebsd boxes.
Quite a few places did it up to 4 years ago.. but nowadays its not cost effective unless you are doing an absolute shoe-string budget, get donated parts and have volunteers assembling the systems.
For everyone else, the sweet spot is buying full systems w/service contract (usually 3 yr). Of course, this means getting Windows pre-installed (yuck) which kinda blows.. however, those purchases do make great LTSP machines down the road.
I was curious, so I looked up the 10-Q for Apple in summer of 1997..
Even though they were struggling (year over year), they still had over $1 billion in cash assets, $212 in short term investments, $1.2 billion in A/R .. this compared to around $1.9 billion total current liabilities.
Granted, compared to the latest 10-Q you can see they are definitely more financial secure right now.. but at the time, I don't think they necessarily needed the cash infusion to stay afloat -- they still had quite a bit of flex room.
FreeBSD is NOT Linux!!
Seems like ever since Distrowatch started tracking FreeBSD, everyone seems to think that FreeBSD is just another Linux distro.
The Linux community should tar and feather those who mix up ye unholy non-GPL software with the almight GNU/Linux distros!! Down with Distrowatch! Down with OSNews and James LaRue!! hehe..
ditto.. FreeBSD is great for production..
/etc but /usr/local/etc. Same with binaries, libraries, etc..
.. stuff that I just couldn't quite grok with Linux came easy with FreeBSD (perhaps due to the excellent documentation) -- after learning FreeBSD, the consistency of the system made it very easy to know whats happening and where things installed. The use of ports/packages makes keeping an up-to-date system a breeze.
reasons..
1. Great documentation. The FreeBSD site has the FreeBSD Handbook-- in addition there is Absolute BSD, BSD Hacks and other books that provide lots of great detail of how the entire system is built.
2. Clear distinction of the base system. Unlike Linux, FreeBSD is an OS. There are clear boundries of what is and is not part of the base system. Ie -- config files of non-base system software does not go into
3. Ports -- 12,000+ programs just a 'make install' away from using. Lots of advance tools such as portupgrade, portaudit, etc have been developed to make managing and auditing your system simple.
4. Well defined file hierarchy. See man hier for details on how its laid out -- the ports follow this layout. Nice and clean.
5. rc.conf vs init.d -- I dunno.. seems cleaner and easier to me.
6. ipfw/ipf vs ipfilter -- need I say more? I have yet to know anyone who prefers Linux's default firewall.
For me the switch from Linux to FreeBSD was easy
I use FreeBSD for several production systems (mail, web, ftp, print, file, spam/virus filtering, ldap, dns servers, desktops, etc..) and it works great. Granted, Linux is no slump, but I find myself reaching for the man pages, google and books more often with Linux than FreeBSD as it just isn't nearly as intuitive (for me).
In my latest assessment of conversions for a few different companies -- while the picture is better (more general business apps available for non-MS platforms (groupware, office suites, email/web, etc..)) each company had some critical software that was NOT available for any platform besides Windows.
While I suppose it could be possible to run this software via terminal services or similar (displayed on a non-MS desktop) this involves additional expense, additional complexity, etc that the small businesses I consult for simply do not want to deal with (they are not a tech company trying to make a point and the MS Tax isn't great enough to overcome the fear of change.)
I have been using the SlashFix extension and since installing, I have not had that issue anymore. hurray! :)
My thoughts..
.. even KDE (and I'm sure others) are starting to optimize the interfaces -- infact, I just saw an OpenGL powered theme/style for KDE on kde-look.org
#1 -- whats wrong with X? It seems like you don't like the window managers, but X? Just curious -- With Xorg pushing ahead with development, it seems to be modernizing quite rapidly
#2 -- If a new platform was to be developed, would there be enough benefit over existing platforms to convince people to switch? What would those benefits be? Why couldn't these be built on top of X?
#3 -- If there is enough benefit, would the time be better spent building on top of the pre-existing, available systems or is it truly "too far gone" and requires a total rewrite?
#4 -- If a total rewrite occurred, how trivial would it be to port X based apps to the new platform? Would it require completely new toolkits? Would developers buy into it?
As far as working on modern hardware -- I was under the impression that KDE4/QT4/Xorg were already working toward offloading a lot of tasks to the GPU?
First day back to work for all those who got their Mac mini's over the weekend. Those things must be super shweeet if that makes it the worse day of the year.
Korg announced the OASYS back in 1994 ... Interesting that they stuck with the name for this product.. However, I think this type of super-workstation keyboard is past its prime .. like others have said, most studios seem to be doing a significant amount of processing via software placing most of the $$ into mics/sound reinforcement/etc.. For gigging .. does anyone seriously want to cart one of these monsters around? No thanks.
Yah .. thats all fine and good, but lets not forget that Apple as a company was very lack-luster before the second coming of Jobs in 1997. The company during the early/mid 90's lacked any type of vision. Infact, IIRC, at one point they only had 1 or 2 developers working on MacOS.
Since that point in time, I think they have done a pretty good job as a company. Jobs in those first few months changed out the board of directors, axed lackluster product lines, got some cash and renewed interest from Microsoft (Office 98), and axed the failed clone experiment. He put up the online Apple Store, attempted to revigorate Apple exclusive displays in various retailers and transformed the entire line of computers coming out with a new processor, new operating system, new look, pushing industry-wide standards (usb, firewire, etc..), etc..
Needless to say, those first two years of him returning to the healm complete transformed Apple back to the innovative company that it was back in the early 80's..
Granted, I am not going to get into "who is better, Apple or Microsoft" as both companies have established themselves in different sectors of the market and as a result, expectations are different (backwards compatability requirements being perhaps the largest one).
Apple is the same company that took ten years and several totally abortive attempts to develop a replacement for their original MacOS [1].
I think I could make a strong argument that Apple is NOT the same company that had all of those issues.
This is great, unless you YOURSELF want to connect from the outside, like from your backyard.
Easy fix .. just put a wireless access point outside and connect it to your network. :)
They are not compressed. However, since it uses hard links for unchanged files, daily backups are relatively small (unless you change/update your files frequently). Ie -- I backup ~64GB of data every night and have 13 restore points (7 daily, 4 weekly and 2 monthly). This data takes up ~70GB total.
I'll second the use of rsnapshot. I use it for remote backups for several servers and it works well.
.. no need to shift tapes or do a full + incrementals, etc..)
For those who do not know, rsnapshot uses rsync to backup. What makes it unique is its ability to use hard links to keep full copies of a particular backup (ie during the restore, go into the folder you want and copy the back
rsnapshot is run via cron so you can configure it to email when it runs (to verify correct operation).
I have had to restore from rsnapshot both full restores and individual file restores. It is as simple as going into the backup folder and dragging the file you need. It preserves all permissions, ownership, groups, etc as well.
Why not all education? I looked on their site, but it appears that educational sites, while getting a discount, do not qualify for a free, no-adware version?
Guess it doesn't matter much.. the sites I admin are using Firefox and will continue to do so.
What does this mean? I'm assuming your talking about hardware devices? I know of quite a bit of OEM hardware that works with NT but not XP not to mention custom interfacing hardware (computer controlled manufacturing equipment) that only have drivers for NT -- do these work under XP as well w/o update?
A nice middle road between fully dynamic and fully static is putting a cache in between.. Certain CMS systems (ie Plone) are fully dynamic, but integrate nicely with a proxy/cache that can serve up the generated pages without having to hit the backend database every time..
Granted, it is a bit more complex of a setup, but in may ways, it provides the best of both worlds.
Honestly, I don't really give a damn about Grandma (well from a tech marketing POV). I just find it funny that others post that Linux isn't ready for this or that or the other thing claiming its difficult to install, difficult to configure, etc.. I was just wanting to counter that with distros like Knoppix, it is very easy for Grandma to use and in reality, doesn't take much more effort than it would for a grandson or whoever to initially configure a Windows box and hope to lock it down adaquately enough to not be a spyware/spam spewing haven.
.. it is GREAT for this demographic (among others).
I am with you re: Apple is "unix on the desktop"--- I *really* hope to see the headless $500 mac come to fruition
Proof of concept for one thing. If such a system works well for that target market, I could easily see custom knoppix disks made just for that type of user. That target market is interested in the KISS principle and keeping cost low.
.. make sure anti-virus is updated, run spyware checks, run windows update, run a firewall, be leary of opening emails/websites/etc, etc..etc..etc.. lots of non-sense. The alternative being popping in a CD that is targeted specificly for that type of individual, it has the programs needed in a simple interface, the user account runs un-privileged, the default security is strong.
Just think of the mountains of crap-o-la grandma has to do right now for Windows
I find it intesting how everyone is so quick to dismiss Linux in the grandma test.
Here is my reality:
Grandma is 2500 miles away. What OS do I want to give her? Wells its definitely not Windows. She wants to get on the Internet and lets face it, my grandma is not very tech savvy and would probably load up that machine with so much spyware and viruses it would crumble.
My thoughts? Knoppix. Build a custom knoppix that includes browser, email, a few games, etc and presto she is set. Every boot is clean. It meets her computing needs without the worry of viruses/spyware/etc.. every few months, I could create a new Knoppix CD and send it to her.. boot off the new CD, and she has the latest software.
I could be a little bit creative, have her settings/documents stored on the hard drive and have Knoppix on boot run a script that would determine the last backup and prompt her to pop in a CD-RW to keep a backup of her data.
Since she is booting off the CD, I can boot my copy of the CD to know exactly what she is looking at on-screen if she has questions.
I dunno.. it seems like the right choice to me. Perhaps it could even go a step further where the hard drive is partitioned and when the Knoppix CD is booted up, it would prompt if she wants to update her computer (auto-install to hard drive) or boot from the CD. Keep the docs/settings on their own partition so it doesn't get removed.
I know grandma can pop in a CD and turn on the computer. Seems like this would pass the test.
unless you dont read the date marked "best before" before eating it. ;-)
Microsoft should have the same thing for Windows...
In all honesty, when Windows is isolated (or on an isolated network) and locked down (ie users don't have any way to install new software, etc..).. its not too bad.. Unfortunately, everyone wants to plug it into that dang Internet.. hheh..