Grub doesn't need an extra parition to boot from. I'm noting that you said the 1st stage BSD bootloader. That would imply that, just like Linux, there is a 2nd stage to the boot loading. The 1st stage of grub fits in the MBR without issue. The 2nd stage is read from your boot partition, which in most modern distros is the same as your root partition. It also happens that is a handy place to put the bootloader config in human-readable form. You might call that bloat, but I call it handy for stuff like single user mode or testing a new kernel without worrying about needing a boot floppy.
The "last selected OS" is handy, and GRUB can be configured to do this as well, but what if you last selected single user mode, or memtest86? If you reboot your machine remotely, and forget that the last option selected has no network support, you have no way to access the machine. At least with GRUB, you can edit the config and tell it not to do that.
You just go right ahead using the same word to mean different things and calling it pedantry. I'll call it a pun when it's funny, and a crime against humanity when you are actualling making important calculations based on exabytes without a care in the world whether it's base-2 or base-10.
Mail user agents should be allowed network access only for the protocols that are actually useful (POP, IMAP, MAPI, LDAP, depending on your needs, and the application's design).
Allowing the content of an e-mail message to establish arbitrary network connections at all (or at the very least, without daully authorized consent from the user) is an immediate and obvious security risk. I understand that it is easiest to simply embed a full-fledged web browser component in the mail client, but it does not need network access of any kind to render the content passed to it.
Any word on whether GMail is vulnerable to such web bugs? I know they do a lot of filtering to strip out javascript and image-based exploits, but this sounds to be iframe-based. I'm a bit busy to test it right now, but this might be the final straw that forces me to use mutt as my GMail front-end. (I love mutt, but the GMail web ui is one of the few e-mail interfaces I actually like better.)
In terms of scale, 1 exbibyte and 1 exabyte are completely different, the difference in this kind of mistake could equal several hundred thousand copies of Wikipedia, as opposed to confusing KiB/KB or MiB/MB, which are different, but not earth-vs-sun different.
The post was moderated Insightful and then Informative before it was modded Funny
I'm counting the excellent sig too
That's 6, and I'm sure there are more I'm missing... Sorry if you think I'm stretching, but I really think this is one finely crafted layer-joke, and I just enjoy that kind of thing.
Insightful? Yes. Informative? Certainly not. Finally the Funny mod hits (what took so long?) This is the funniest thing I've read on Slashdot in ages, on so many levels.
On second thought, maybe it is Informative, since I was not previously aware you could cram that many puns into so few words.
What are they going to do? Literally prevent you from copying ISOs? Can you just change the file extension and keep copying? Is changing file extensions prohibited by the EULA as well? Or will Microsoft finally include magicfile(1) with Vista so they can correctly detect file types?
The only way I will be running any version of Vista is under VMware. There has to be something sandboxing this crap off for my real work, but I'm sure I'll need to test under Vista.
That's not true. If you fixed the bug and changed the artwork, you couldn't distribute and continue to call it Firefox.
From a practical point of view, why would one want to: a) Fork an application to fix a single bug? b) Call said fork the exact same thing as the original project, yet give it different artwork?
There is a very good reason to install Firefox via your distribution's package management system. If another packages relies on the Gecko libraries to embed a web browser (examples: Eclipse, Listen), and you installed Firefox manually, you'll wind up with two copies installed.
Actually, on Ubuntu you'll probably wind up with both Mozilla and Firefox installed (grr), but you see my point.
Note to any mods who may be influenced by reading the parent comment:
Please remember that some people deal with terrible tragic news such as this via humor. It's just a website.
Actual comment:
Does anyone know anything about Hans or the situation in general? I mean, if he has just been arrested for murder but no one is sure of anything yet, let's give him a 50/50 chance. If he's personally a total asshole to everyone who has ever dealt with him or there is a some kind of evidence other than a missing person, it's a bit more excusable to jump from "arrested" to "convicted wife murderer".
I love Debian, especially the Ubuntu flavor. I've been been using Linux on and off for 5 years. My day job as a.NET programmer does not afford me the kind of time I would have liked to learn, but I'm progressing better now that I no longer use WinXP at home (unless via mono, wine, or VMware;).
I am sincere about free software ideals. I am extremely grateful to have tens of thousands of free software packages at my fingertips, and yearn to see my own software in that list one day. I am currently adding DAAP client and server support to the Listen media player.
I personally lean towards MIT, but license zealots need not apply... If my software one day winds up tangled in a petty argument such as this, it would be time to don negotiating hat and come to the table willing to make a concesion or two. Debian and Mozilla Corp. appear unwilling to do concede anything.
I also believe that Mozilla is building a brand based on those exact same ideals. Building a sucessful (trademarked) brand is hard work, and legally requires Mozilla Corp. to defend that trademark. I think the Mozilla brand is as worthwhile as Debian to the open source world.
We want to succeed, don't we? If yes, we must play by the rules, even if we don't like them. Most importantly, we must get along.
My problem with this silliness is that it pollutes the Firefox brand and further fractures free software in general.
I could truly care less that I feel the need to run a script to get the "official" Firefox icons, or if I must download an extension so it can be called "Firefox". That said, "Iceweasel" is at least contrary if not condescending.
My first post was sarcasm, here is my unsolicited opinion: Use the official icon. Call it Firefox. And fuck Mozilla "approving" the patches you use with your own distribution. Make the Firefox package "Suggest" extension(s) that allows you to change the name and icon.
Heh. I thought my post was dripping with sarcasm. Yours contains so much sarcasm and double entendre that I can't even vaguely tell what you're talking about, let alone if you agree with me that this whole argument is silly...
Debian wants to preserve my rights to modify the artwork included with the distribution. I greatly appreciate this right! I sincerely hope they continute to defend my right to replace the crappy artwork they provide with the official Mozilla Firefox artwork, since I begrudgingly do this every single time Firefox is updated on my systems.
This would be like changing the name of the distribution to Dumbo GMAC/Looney and wondering why Disney and GM are sending you C&D letters, while Linus sends you an angry e-mail asking that you respect his trademark. It's free software, we can call it anything we want, and you are free to modify it! While technically true, that doesn't get anyone anywhere.
To Debian: We don't live in a black and white world. Please find another academic circular argument, and let this one go.
A) The so-called censored links your are referring to have long since been added back to the Google index.
B) The links to discussions of so-called censorship exist on the very site that you claim is performing the censorship!
C) The very first site on that list no longer exists. Truly a tribute to an issue that is still relevant today! I find this amazingly ironic, because Google is willing to link to, and keep a cached copy of, evidence of the very crime that you are accusing them of, long after the top-ranked site covering the issue has ceased to exist!
D) Scientologist have a written policy promoting the outright *destruction* of individuals and organizations that criticize or oppose them in any way. They have a track record of carrying out that policy to the letter without regard for laws, ethics, or morals (although they happily use the law if they can). I suspect that until Google was sure what it was dealing with and that it had a legal leg to stand on, they simply did not want to piss the Scientologists off. No one needs that shit at the office.
F) Maybe the number of search results is dwindling with time because more and more people realized that it is a smarter idea to simply ignore Scientology as opposed to baiting them into coming after you? Maybe just not as many people care about it one way or the other anymore?
My point about MySQL is that many components that people consider to be part of any Relational Database Management System (ACID-compliance, referential integrity, single-level local transactions, and a method to abstract database server logic into methods with parameters), were not design tenets of MySQL. They all feel like an afterthought, and require some effort to get working, instead of being the default.
As an example, I seem to remember that FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES was silently ignored in MySQL with the default table type, instead of at the very least issuing a warning that the desired data integrity feature is not available.
Yes, all these things are (mostly) implemented now, and they are standard in MySQL 5. However, most hosting providers are not currently offering MySQL 5, and most applications were designed with MySQL 4 or lower in mind, which means you have to basically turn off "strict mode" in MySQL 5 to run old code or target old servers. Disabling strict mode effecively turns off all the benefits we just proclaimed in MySQL 5.
My point is this: MySQL is great for someone who is learning, and good to know because it is ubiquitous, however it is not the choice of database for database people.
I prefer the LAMP camp myself, as opposed to the ASP.NET/SQL Server camp, which I assume is what you meant when you compared LAMP to "Windows development".
However, although I'm the first to brag about the power, simplicity, and performance that PHP and Apache offer when used by the right programmer, I do make a living off of ASP.NET/SQL Server applications, so please consider the following in the ensuing flamewar:
1. PHP is an extremely flexible scripting lanuage, that really excells at what it does: powering the back-end of a web application and interfacing with databases and the file system. Trying to make PHP do other things is possible, but is almost always a nasty hack.
2. The.NET Framework and CLR although sometimes misunderstood and often misguided, is really one of the best general purpose development environments bar none right now. It does web applications just as well as it does desktop and console applications. ASP was truly idiotic and horrid, but ASP.NET is very mature and worth an unbiased look if you aren't familiar with it. Then again, there is MSDN documentation and VB programmers, which tend to cancel out anything good I could say about.NET.
3. Say what you will about SQL Server, but if we could just replace the M in LAMP with PostreSQL, or, well, anything other than MySQL, I would be happy. SQL Server is not my favorite database, but it is very good. MySQL has its niche, but I expect a RDMS to have stored procedures and transactions as standard fare.
(yes, I know 5.0 has SPs, and InnoDB gives you transactions, but I said "standard fare")
4. This is the most important point of all: There are just as many cookie-cutter, craptastic, insecure, bug-ridden PHP apps out there as there are ASP.NET apps. On the other hand, if you are smart and creative, and truly use the tools provided by either platform, you can create fantastic applications with either one, just as easily.
It has 20 additional gigabytes of hard drive space compared to the model that costs $200 less. Plus the hard drive is easy to replace (according to the article.) Upgrade the mid-range model to the same specs on Apple store and it is *still* $150 more for the black one.
Bottom line is you are paying $200 for the color, or lack thereof.
I still want one bad, but 82 degrees C is way to hot for my lap. I can believe he didn't mention the temperature as a con at the end, I agree with his conclusion earlier in the article that a laptop that runs that hot is defective.
"Yeah, my PC is too shit to run this" (or of course the reverse)
"This run to shit too is PC my, yeah"
In reverse it says the exact same thing, only with worse grammar!
(Even scarier, I know exactly what you meant.)
For everyone that says Vista is not a hog, riddle me this:
My workstation is an Athlon XP 2500+ w/2GB of RAM and approx 750GB of storage in SATA drives. Not state of the art by anyone's book, but a beefy machine nonetheless that does everything I need fast enough.
I installed Vista build 5365 in VMware WS 5.5 and gave it a 16GB drive and 512MB of RAM. I turned off all the eye candy, nothing else was running on my machine. Opening a My Computer window in Vista Explorer takes roughly 7-15 seconds. Every. Single. Time. Every time you navigate to another folder, it does the same thing, even if there is nothing in the folder. It is using 100% CPU on both the virtual and real machine while doing this. Most 3rd party Windows apps seem to run at the exact same level of performance on Vista as on XP.
I seem to remember the last build I tried doing the same thing, only not quite as bad. Is this a bug in this build/other builds? Is it related to VMware? Should I try it with a larger HD image size (there's at least 4GB free)? Is there something else I'm missing? Is Vista just a total hog?
I think the performance rating control panel gave the virtual machine a 2.8 overall, which isn't good, but for a barebones setup with everything non-essential turned off, one would expect to be able to open a file browser without feeling inclined to go for a coffee break.
Everything from Windows 3.1 through Ubuntu 5.10 runs silky smooth in VMware on my machine. All installations are pretty much the standard install with VMware tools installed.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but Windows XP is pretty damn solid once you've invested the requisite 2 weeks tweaking and hardening it. Still can't multitask for crap, but for one thing at a time it's fast and stable. Vista doesn't seem even remotely as "flexible".
Does anyone else sense that Vista could be the most catastrophic Windows release ever?
Slashdot Mirror
Grub doesn't need an extra parition to boot from. I'm noting that you said the 1st stage BSD bootloader. That would imply that, just like Linux, there is a 2nd stage to the boot loading. The 1st stage of grub fits in the MBR without issue. The 2nd stage is read from your boot partition, which in most modern distros is the same as your root partition. It also happens that is a handy place to put the bootloader config in human-readable form. You might call that bloat, but I call it handy for stuff like single user mode or testing a new kernel without worrying about needing a boot floppy.
The "last selected OS" is handy, and GRUB can be configured to do this as well, but what if you last selected single user mode, or memtest86? If you reboot your machine remotely, and forget that the last option selected has no network support, you have no way to access the machine. At least with GRUB, you can edit the config and tell it not to do that.
Did you miss that I was explaining a pun?
You just go right ahead using the same word to mean different things and calling it pedantry. I'll call it a pun when it's funny, and a crime against humanity when you are actualling making important calculations based on exabytes without a care in the world whether it's base-2 or base-10.
You just FUCKING KILLED any hope of this being the most secure Windows ever!
Mail user agents should be allowed network access only for the protocols that are actually useful (POP, IMAP, MAPI, LDAP, depending on your needs, and the application's design).
Allowing the content of an e-mail message to establish arbitrary network connections at all (or at the very least, without daully authorized consent from the user) is an immediate and obvious security risk. I understand that it is easiest to simply embed a full-fledged web browser component in the mail client, but it does not need network access of any kind to render the content passed to it.
Any word on whether GMail is vulnerable to such web bugs? I know they do a lot of filtering to strip out javascript and image-based exploits, but this sounds to be iframe-based. I'm a bit busy to test it right now, but this might be the final straw that forces me to use mutt as my GMail front-end. (I love mutt, but the GMail web ui is one of the few e-mail interfaces I actually like better.)
- Excitebike sounds like exabyte
- 1020 petabytes != 1 exabyte
- 1 exbibyte != 1 exabyte
- In terms of scale, 1 exbibyte and 1 exabyte are completely different, the difference in this kind of mistake could equal several hundred thousand copies of Wikipedia, as opposed to confusing KiB/KB or MiB/MB, which are different, but not earth-vs-sun different.
- The post was moderated Insightful and then Informative before it was modded Funny
- I'm counting the excellent sig too
That's 6, and I'm sure there are more I'm missing... Sorry if you think I'm stretching, but I really think this is one finely crafted layer-joke, and I just enjoy that kind of thing.Insightful? Yes. Informative? Certainly not. Finally the Funny mod hits (what took so long?) This is the funniest thing I've read on Slashdot in ages, on so many levels.
On second thought, maybe it is Informative, since I was not previously aware you could cram that many puns into so few words.
Here you go. It sounds pretty painless, but as a Ubuntu user, I wouldn't know.
What are they going to do? Literally prevent you from copying ISOs? Can you just change the file extension and keep copying? Is changing file extensions prohibited by the EULA as well? Or will Microsoft finally include magic file(1) with Vista so they can correctly detect file types?
The only way I will be running any version of Vista is under VMware. There has to be something sandboxing this crap off for my real work, but I'm sure I'll need to test under Vista.
That's not true. If you fixed the bug and changed the artwork, you couldn't distribute and continue to call it Firefox.
From a practical point of view, why would one want to:
a) Fork an application to fix a single bug?
b) Call said fork the exact same thing as the original project, yet give it different artwork?
There is a very good reason to install Firefox via your distribution's package management system. If another packages relies on the Gecko libraries to embed a web browser (examples: Eclipse, Listen), and you installed Firefox manually, you'll wind up with two copies installed.
Actually, on Ubuntu you'll probably wind up with both Mozilla and Firefox installed (grr), but you see my point.
Note to any mods who may be influenced by reading the parent comment:
Please remember that some people deal with terrible tragic news such as this via humor. It's just a website.
Actual comment:
Does anyone know anything about Hans or the situation in general? I mean, if he has just been arrested for murder but no one is sure of anything yet, let's give him a 50/50 chance. If he's personally a total asshole to everyone who has ever dealt with him or there is a some kind of evidence other than a missing person, it's a bit more excusable to jump from "arrested" to "convicted wife murderer".
Whoa, slow down there.
.NET programmer does not afford me the kind of time I would have liked to learn, but I'm progressing better now that I no longer use WinXP at home (unless via mono, wine, or VMware;).
I love Debian, especially the Ubuntu flavor. I've been been using Linux on and off for 5 years. My day job as a
I am sincere about free software ideals. I am extremely grateful to have tens of thousands of free software packages at my fingertips, and yearn to see my own software in that list one day. I am currently adding DAAP client and server support to the Listen media player.
I personally lean towards MIT, but license zealots need not apply... If my software one day winds up tangled in a petty argument such as this, it would be time to don negotiating hat and come to the table willing to make a concesion or two. Debian and Mozilla Corp. appear unwilling to do concede anything.
I also believe that Mozilla is building a brand based on those exact same ideals. Building a sucessful (trademarked) brand is hard work, and legally requires Mozilla Corp. to defend that trademark. I think the Mozilla brand is as worthwhile as Debian to the open source world.
We want to succeed, don't we? If yes, we must play by the rules, even if we don't like them. Most importantly, we must get along.
My problem with this silliness is that it pollutes the Firefox brand and further fractures free software in general.
I could truly care less that I feel the need to run a script to get the "official" Firefox icons, or if I must download an extension so it can be called "Firefox". That said, "Iceweasel" is at least contrary if not condescending.
My first post was sarcasm, here is my unsolicited opinion: Use the official icon. Call it Firefox. And fuck Mozilla "approving" the patches you use with your own distribution. Make the Firefox package "Suggest" extension(s) that allows you to change the name and icon.
Heh. I thought my post was dripping with sarcasm. Yours contains so much sarcasm and double entendre that I can't even vaguely tell what you're talking about, let alone if you agree with me that this whole argument is silly...
Debian wants to preserve my rights to modify the artwork included with the distribution. I greatly appreciate this right! I sincerely hope they continute to defend my right to replace the crappy artwork they provide with the official Mozilla Firefox artwork, since I begrudgingly do this every single time Firefox is updated on my systems.
This would be like changing the name of the distribution to Dumbo GMAC/Looney and wondering why Disney and GM are sending you C&D letters, while Linus sends you an angry e-mail asking that you respect his trademark. It's free software, we can call it anything we want, and you are free to modify it! While technically true, that doesn't get anyone anywhere.
To Debian: We don't live in a black and white world. Please find another academic circular argument, and let this one go.
Why?
For Firefox and SeaMonkey anyway... http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm
My cat is named Scamp. Sounds like I should sue them for infringing on my IP!
You are an idiot. Or I have been trolled.
A) The so-called censored links your are referring to have long since been added back to the Google index.
B) The links to discussions of so-called censorship exist on the very site that you claim is performing the censorship!
C) The very first site on that list no longer exists. Truly a tribute to an issue that is still relevant today! I find this amazingly ironic, because Google is willing to link to, and keep a cached copy of, evidence of the very crime that you are accusing them of, long after the top-ranked site covering the issue has ceased to exist!
D) Scientologist have a written policy promoting the outright *destruction* of individuals and organizations that criticize or oppose them in any way. They have a track record of carrying out that policy to the letter without regard for laws, ethics, or morals (although they happily use the law if they can). I suspect that until Google was sure what it was dealing with and that it had a legal leg to stand on, they simply did not want to piss the Scientologists off. No one needs that shit at the office.
F) Maybe the number of search results is dwindling with time because more and more people realized that it is a smarter idea to simply ignore Scientology as opposed to baiting them into coming after you? Maybe just not as many people care about it one way or the other anymore?
You must be new here :)
My point about MySQL is that many components that people consider to be part of any Relational Database Management System (ACID-compliance, referential integrity, single-level local transactions, and a method to abstract database server logic into methods with parameters), were not design tenets of MySQL. They all feel like an afterthought, and require some effort to get working, instead of being the default.
As an example, I seem to remember that FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES was silently ignored in MySQL with the default table type, instead of at the very least issuing a warning that the desired data integrity feature is not available.
Yes, all these things are (mostly) implemented now, and they are standard in MySQL 5. However, most hosting providers are not currently offering MySQL 5, and most applications were designed with MySQL 4 or lower in mind, which means you have to basically turn off "strict mode" in MySQL 5 to run old code or target old servers. Disabling strict mode effecively turns off all the benefits we just proclaimed in MySQL 5.
My point is this: MySQL is great for someone who is learning, and good to know because it is ubiquitous, however it is not the choice of database for database people.
I didn't say VB.NET, I said VB programmers and MSDN documentation.
VB.NET is a fine language, if a tad verbose for my taste.
My problem is not with the language. My problem is with the swarms of morons churning out God-awful code using said language.
Now now, they aren't unlimited, they just have a lot of them and can give themselves more whenever they want...
I prefer the LAMP camp myself, as opposed to the ASP.NET/SQL Server camp, which I assume is what you meant when you compared LAMP to "Windows development".
.NET Framework and CLR although sometimes misunderstood and often misguided, is really one of the best general purpose development environments bar none right now. It does web applications just as well as it does desktop and console applications. ASP was truly idiotic and horrid, but ASP.NET is very mature and worth an unbiased look if you aren't familiar with it. Then again, there is MSDN documentation and VB programmers, which tend to cancel out anything good I could say about .NET.
However, although I'm the first to brag about the power, simplicity, and performance that PHP and Apache offer when used by the right programmer, I do make a living off of ASP.NET/SQL Server applications, so please consider the following in the ensuing flamewar:
1. PHP is an extremely flexible scripting lanuage, that really excells at what it does: powering the back-end of a web application and interfacing with databases and the file system. Trying to make PHP do other things is possible, but is almost always a nasty hack.
2. The
3. Say what you will about SQL Server, but if we could just replace the M in LAMP with PostreSQL, or, well, anything other than MySQL, I would be happy. SQL Server is not my favorite database, but it is very good. MySQL has its niche, but I expect a RDMS to have stored procedures and transactions as standard fare.
(yes, I know 5.0 has SPs, and InnoDB gives you transactions, but I said "standard fare")
4. This is the most important point of all: There are just as many cookie-cutter, craptastic, insecure, bug-ridden PHP apps out there as there are ASP.NET apps. On the other hand, if you are smart and creative, and truly use the tools provided by either platform, you can create fantastic applications with either one, just as easily.
It has 20 additional gigabytes of hard drive space compared to the model that costs $200 less. Plus the hard drive is easy to replace (according to the article.) Upgrade the mid-range model to the same specs on Apple store and it is *still* $150 more for the black one.
Bottom line is you are paying $200 for the color, or lack thereof.
I still want one bad, but 82 degrees C is way to hot for my lap. I can believe he didn't mention the temperature as a con at the end, I agree with his conclusion earlier in the article that a laptop that runs that hot is defective.
"Yeah, my PC is too shit to run this" (or of course the reverse)
"This run to shit too is PC my, yeah"
In reverse it says the exact same thing, only with worse grammar!
(Even scarier, I know exactly what you meant.)
For everyone that says Vista is not a hog, riddle me this:
My workstation is an Athlon XP 2500+ w/2GB of RAM and approx 750GB of storage in SATA drives. Not state of the art by anyone's book, but a beefy machine nonetheless that does everything I need fast enough.
I installed Vista build 5365 in VMware WS 5.5 and gave it a 16GB drive and 512MB of RAM. I turned off all the eye candy, nothing else was running on my machine. Opening a My Computer window in Vista Explorer takes roughly 7-15 seconds. Every. Single. Time. Every time you navigate to another folder, it does the same thing, even if there is nothing in the folder. It is using 100% CPU on both the virtual and real machine while doing this. Most 3rd party Windows apps seem to run at the exact same level of performance on Vista as on XP.
I seem to remember the last build I tried doing the same thing, only not quite as bad. Is this a bug in this build/other builds? Is it related to VMware? Should I try it with a larger HD image size (there's at least 4GB free)? Is there something else I'm missing? Is Vista just a total hog?
I think the performance rating control panel gave the virtual machine a 2.8 overall, which isn't good, but for a barebones setup with everything non-essential turned off, one would expect to be able to open a file browser without feeling inclined to go for a coffee break.
Everything from Windows 3.1 through Ubuntu 5.10 runs silky smooth in VMware on my machine. All installations are pretty much the standard install with VMware tools installed.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but Windows XP is pretty damn solid once you've invested the requisite 2 weeks tweaking and hardening it. Still can't multitask for crap, but for one thing at a time it's fast and stable. Vista doesn't seem even remotely as "flexible".
Does anyone else sense that Vista could be the most catastrophic Windows release ever?