As you note, this is far more than a mere Kernel core dumper. I know this site attracts many professional developers and sysadmins, but there are far more who have never had the pleasure of driving IRIX. Linux is really good, given it's maturity level, and I use it at work and home - I develop for it at work for our products : see Ariel Corporation ISP products, but IRIX has a some real jewels, and SGI has chosen to give the technology to the open source world. The first was XFS ( imo the best filesystem ever invented )plus some other assorted stuff that SGI is paying it's programming staff to give to us, and now the technology to pinpoint the exact cause of a kernel crash. The IRIX kernel crash postmortem technology is far beyond a mere core dump and pointer - it tries it's best to identify the offending system call, and pid if it can. This release appears to be a port of that technology to Linux. Stop whining folks - we have just been given one of the best debugging tools ( especially for kernel hackers and device driver writers!! ) in existence as a gift. Try using it, and be sure to thank SGI. After all, even though they have market reasons to do this, they still *did* it.
As you noted, you are concerned - quite rightly - , about the conversion of your database. There are a couple of things to note here, and other posters have already made one of these points. 1. There are both middleware tools to convert Access databases, and direct imports in the databases you want. 2. It is possible to create a new database from the old one *****if***** you wish to write a program to do the conversion. Your new preferred databases are widely used in the open source community ( MySQL is nice, and solid when properly configured ) and one can convert from Access almost trivially, as the SDK is available for free from M$, showing the exact underlying format of the database. As others have also noted, Access is rather sloppy in it's data rules, so be careful here.
Another solution is to use an open e-commerce solution and port your data. There was an article on our very own./ about a Linux e-commerce package not so long ago. Perhaps you might want to check the archives.
Just my two cents.
***Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are***
the fact that these questions / statements are being made. One can only hope that various managers actually read this all the way through - I sent it to mine after I read the whole thing. As a poster noted, the whole dichotomy was related in absolute terms, but perhaps it was written that way so **packers could read and understand it**. In reality we are a complex mixture of these two extremes - and spread across the spectrum of possibilities. That's why we need different programmers / software engineers for different tasks. An uber-mapper is not going to be particularly happy maintaining a piece of code where there is no chance at innovating within it, just as someone less a mapper might happily take that as one of their tasks. Anyway, it was an interesting read, and clarifies at least two of the psychological profiles that might be important when looking for those software ( and hardware for that matter ) people to make a difference.
One poster noted that some sentences were hard to parse. It was written in English ( contrasted to American ) college style;-)
Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are.
The Author ( and I usually like Jon ) is not focusing on the real power of the net. He focuses on *centralized* power, but that is not now, and never has been, what the net is about. The net is about *information*. Think about it - the net gives us the ability to learn the facts ( and a lot of lies ) without any other intervention. The real power of the net in transforming politics is that people actually *know* what their prostitute - oops, representatives - are actually doing and saying, even when they try and employ their spin doctors. I have successfully used the net to help turn back assaults on freedom ( it was called the RFA - and it's back ) only because it let me *get the word out* - we have to let people decide on their own, rather than the author's bias, which seems to be " Let's decide for them"... that is just old hat, and used for centuries. The net makes it possible to *break* that control. It does not make it possible to provide a forum in the traditional sense, where the politician is in control.
Just my 2 cents
" Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are"
Well, it seems that you don't think it's all worth it. As to your first point, the amount of electricity used to power this is minimal, as many of the boxes running this task are operational 100% of the time anyway. Second, the statistical chance is not 'absurd' at all. I have watched the evolution of electronics professionally for 30 years. If you told anyone back then that we would have virtually instant internetworking, you would have been told the odds of that happening were 'absurd'. I admit the chance is relatively small of finding an intelligent lifeform with a limited search such as this, but the chance exists. As to point #2. I don't think the researchers are relying on a divine intervention for this.. apart from not believing in such things in the course of scientific study, your argument has no merit. Point #3. Electromagnetics are unavoidable for many of the things we do - you might be surprised just where they show up - and the researchers believe there is a fair chance that any race advanced enough to have an advanced society would at least have found out the physics of electromagnetics. Perhaps you prefer RC5... great. Run it Disclaimer : I am not part of the SETI@home research team, although I run it on a number of clients
I find it interesting that few here have addressed the real issue here ; that technology *is* mysticism to the general populace. Just as the mystics of old wielded a well known - to them - power, so do we that design code and hardware. We, the 'techno elite' in a way, design what they use and rarely even now do we consult the users on what they want. Rather, we design what we think will work, because we believe, quite rightly most of the time ( but not all the time ) that the users don't know what they want specifically enough to translate to a design. There is little difference here betweeen what we do and what the mystics of old did. I don't think that mysticism and science are mutually exclusive if one simply starts from the point of 'This is something we do not understand' - by definition, we have not yet figured out which angle to look at the problem to find an answer. Who is to say which one is the best angle, or even which view is 'right'?
Slashdot Mirror
As you note, this is far more than a mere Kernel core dumper. I know this site attracts many professional developers and sysadmins, but there are far more who have never had the pleasure of driving IRIX. Linux is really good, given it's maturity level, and I use it at work and home - I develop for it at work for our products : see Ariel Corporation ISP products, but IRIX has a some real jewels, and SGI has chosen to give the technology to the open source world. The first was XFS ( imo the best filesystem ever invented )plus some other assorted stuff that SGI is paying it's programming staff to give to us, and now the technology to pinpoint the exact cause of a kernel crash. The IRIX kernel crash postmortem technology is far beyond a mere core dump and pointer - it tries it's best to identify the offending system call, and pid if it can. This release appears to be a port of that technology to Linux.
Stop whining folks - we have just been given one of the best debugging tools ( especially for kernel hackers and device driver writers!! ) in existence as a gift. Try using it, and be sure to thank SGI. After all, even though they have market reasons to do this, they still *did* it.
As you noted, you are concerned - quite rightly - , about the conversion of your database. There are a couple of things to note here, and other posters have already made one of these points.
./ about a Linux e-commerce package not so long ago. Perhaps you might want to check the archives.
1. There are both middleware tools to convert Access databases, and direct imports in the databases you want.
2. It is possible to create a new database from the old one *****if***** you wish to write a program to do the conversion. Your new preferred databases are widely used in the open source community ( MySQL is nice, and solid when properly configured ) and one can convert from Access almost trivially, as the SDK is available for free from M$, showing the exact underlying format of the database.
As others have also noted, Access is rather sloppy in it's data rules, so be careful here.
Another solution is to use an open e-commerce solution and port your data. There was an article on our very own
Just my two cents.
***Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are***
the fact that these questions / statements are being made. One can only hope that various managers actually read this all the way through - I sent it to mine after I read the whole thing.
;-)
As a poster noted, the whole dichotomy was related in absolute terms, but perhaps it was written that way so **packers could read and understand it**.
In reality we are a complex mixture of these two extremes - and spread across the spectrum of possibilities. That's why we need different programmers / software engineers for different tasks. An uber-mapper is not going to be particularly happy maintaining a piece of code where there is no chance at innovating within it, just as someone less a mapper might happily take that as one of their tasks.
Anyway, it was an interesting read, and clarifies at least two of the psychological profiles that might be important when looking for those software ( and hardware for that matter ) people to make a difference.
One poster noted that some sentences were hard to parse. It was written in English ( contrasted to American ) college style
Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are.
The Author ( and I usually like Jon ) is not focusing on the real power of the net. He focuses on *centralized* power, but that is not now, and never has been, what the net is about. The net is about *information*. Think about it - the net gives us the ability to learn the facts ( and a lot of lies ) without any other intervention. The real power of the net in transforming politics is that people actually *know* what their prostitute - oops, representatives - are actually doing and saying, even when they try and employ their spin doctors. I have successfully used the net to help turn back assaults on freedom ( it was called the RFA - and it's back ) only because it let me *get the word out* - we have to let people decide on their own, rather than the author's bias, which seems to be " Let's decide for them" ... that is just old hat, and used for centuries. The net makes it possible to *break* that control. It does not make it possible to provide a forum in the traditional sense, where the politician is in control.
Just my 2 cents
" Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are"
I have a picture in my Dilbert-style cube at work that sums all this up, and I am aware it's all done by true volunteers ...
...
The picture is a small boy on a potty
The caption : 'The Job isn't Finished until the Paperwork is Done'
Well, it seems that you don't think it's all worth ... great. Run it
it. As to your first point, the amount of
electricity used to power this is minimal, as many
of the boxes running this task are operational
100% of the time anyway.
Second, the statistical chance is not 'absurd' at
all. I have watched the evolution of electronics
professionally for 30 years. If you told anyone
back then that we would have virtually instant
internetworking, you would have been told the odds
of that happening were 'absurd'. I admit the
chance is relatively small of finding an
intelligent lifeform with a limited search such as
this, but the chance exists.
As to point #2.
I don't think the researchers are relying on
a divine intervention for this.. apart from not believing in such things in the course of
scientific study, your argument has no merit.
Point #3.
Electromagnetics are unavoidable for many of the
things we do - you might be surprised just where
they show up - and the researchers believe there
is a fair chance that any race advanced enough to
have an advanced society would at least have found
out the physics of electromagnetics.
Perhaps you prefer RC5
Disclaimer : I am not part of the SETI@home research team, although I run it on a number
of clients
I find it interesting that few here have addressed the real issue here ; that technology *is* mysticism to the general populace.
;-)
Just as the mystics of old wielded a well known - to them - power, so do we that design code and hardware. We, the 'techno elite' in a way, design what they use and rarely even now do we consult the users on what they want. Rather, we design what we think will work, because we believe, quite rightly most of the time ( but not all the time ) that the users don't know what they want specifically enough to translate to a design. There is little difference here betweeen what we do and what the mystics of old did.
I don't think that mysticism and science are mutually exclusive if one simply starts from the point of 'This is something we do not understand' - by definition, we have not yet figured out which angle to look at the problem to find an answer. Who is to say which one is the best angle, or even which view is 'right'?
Just a couple of thoughts