I totally agree. People cannot distinguish quality properly - they seem to confuse it with features, and I don't see how "quality" and "features" are related in any way.
Example: Less than 3 feet (1 metre) from me is a good-working GE table radio - built in 1960. Across from it is a fully calibrated oscilloscope and a signal generator - both built in the early 1950's, and working perfectly. (A 30-mHz range is plenty for audio and some radio work). My theory is that while individual component quality has gone up (resistors, capacitors, etc.) the overall ruggedness of design and construction has declined.
I used to do hi-fi repair for local shops; nowdays I prefer to deal in computers.
I fully agree that the technical literacy rate sucks; I have a manager who once told me that he wants a new computer with a 2 gigabyte chip...
and I kept a straight face.
I guess anything with scientific prefixes or suffixes attatched to its name triggers an odd sort of mental avoidance mechanism, similar to spastics. It's frustrating; the technical language and terminology is *not* that hard to figure out, if only people could pull themselves away from their cheap TV's for a few minutes with a dictionary.
Ah, thanks for answering a question I had for years. I've been wondering why germanium isn't more popular with the chip fabs, aside from (probably) being more expensive than silicon.
That's interesting about using carbon-based semiconductors - it had never occurred to me. Couldn't say much about the voltage drop, tho.
I wonder if it's possible to use a circular diamond die, doped accordingly near the outer edge to allow only partial light transmission (like a laser's mirror) to quell the side reflections.
Good points, thanks for responding. I *do* wish there were a few more OEM drivers since I've had problems in the past, especially with older CD-ROM drives and local printers. I guess my situation is one of the rare "handful".
I honestly don't know if I paid anything "extra", since I got it at cost, not retail. Space/heat were not a consideration, and my chassis were standard off-the-shelf for ATX/MATX.
Up-front cost is very difficult for me. I figure that my costs are compensated by easy upgradeability in the long term (dealing with small servers and mid-level workstations). I define long-term as greater than every 18 months.
I think that your wish for "one of the major market leaders to start writing drivers..." points to a huge hole in the market, and it needs to be addressed. I'd bet there's a few business opportunities there, to create linux drivers for OEM's who can't be bothered with it.
For What It's Worth: I prefer the Gigabyte and SuperMicro SMP motherboards. Never a problem with them, and they have power to spare. Kind of expensive though, but like I said I save in the long term on upgrades. In other words, I use the motherboard *forever*, and just swap cards.
Works for me, anyway. Our situations are probably different, though; I don't know.
Heh. There's a good reason why *nothing* is included on the motherboards (are you reading this, AC from a prior post?) I use. I just shop based on the number of PCI slots, supported CPU(s), and max RAM size. After all, it's a *lot* easier to upgrade your audio/video by swapping cards instead of desoldering chips. That said, it would be cool if there were more OEM drivers, just don't expect them to be Open Source or anything. I've had the best luck overall with low-end to mid-level server boards. Doing multimedia on them has nothing to do with the hardware for me - it just works.
Point 1. Make sure you select a very well-made drive, don't cut costs there. Example: I have a 20-year old Mountain HardCard that still works fine. However, I have had cheap 3-year old drives fail.
Bringing up point 2: If you try it, make sure to use an "exercise" schedule for all the drives in your backup set. For example, once a week for each drive, plug it into a spare box and ensure that it spins up, spins down, and the read/write arm travels its full sweep. Maybe do some read/writes at various places on the platter surfaces, just to be sure.
Bummer about the savings; I'd offer the knowledge as a potentially useful thing on my resume regardless (for the appropriate type of position)
I really should clarify though: When I said "unselect EVERYTHING" I meant everything offered by the major categories for one of the default RH installations within text mode.
In other words, this would be Gnome, KDE, Development, etc.
I'm not up on 3270 service (I use the default VT102) but I imagine that hacking/etc/termcap could provide the appropriate functionality.
BTW, I don't doubt that your tn3270 project was a good idea; I'd bet that the VP got scared by the technicality of it.
Decent -- this is the sort of info I can use. I'm trying to teach myself C without having to un-learn bad habits, so it helps to see the kind of things I should look out for. Where do you plan to post it when you consider it done? The LDP? I'll go grab a copy, thanks!
BTW the "s" in Sunday should be capitalized (the part where you mentioned "Sunday morning".
Er, what about their Eclipse project? Or the excellent references and projects at their DeveloperWorks Linux Zone? Not to mention that my current kernel supports JFS and EVMS...
I could go on, but you get the picture. Bear in mind that the server and the mainframe enterprise stuff is IBM's bread and butter; it's their core business to do enterprise stuff like that. I'd bet you'll see some desktop stuff from them, but it'll take a while.
Actually, my first distro was Slack 3.0 on floppies, 1 disk set at a time onto a 486... 2 weeks and 140 + floppies later, I had the whole thing on there. That was when I started learning.
Here's how I do a bare-bones RH install... I've done this on 486's even with RH8.
1. At the bootup screen, select "text mode" install 2. Set up your partitions, etc. 3. When you get to the "Package Selection" screen, choose either "workstation" of "server" as appropriate. 4. Do *not* opt to select individual packages 5. *Unselect* everything 6. Proceed
This leaves you with a bare-bones install between 90 - 150 mB, depending on the RH version.
You'd be amazed what you can do with "grep -v" and a few universities. For that matter, are they really that worried about 300-year-old Western Philosophy texts? If so, then I should be.
Most definitely, "how you get there" has a lot to do with the issue at hand. In that regard, the method used to "get there" make perfect sense from a business perspective; unfortunately it seems to be filthy (here in the US) from an ethical perspective. It's really a question of "What is your ethics anchored to, as a programmer, integrator, ISV, company, etc. I never thought I would say this, but perhaps RMS is right about a few things. I'm not against big business per se (as a registered voter, etc;) I am for ethical business practices in the US, which sadly seem to be going extinct within my lifetime.
No, I will debate whether IE is better than Netscape after using Mozilla. Mozilla is all the more impressive when I consider that I cannot find any monetary motive for it, ethical or otherwise... thus freeing moz developers from Yet Another Thing To Deal With (TM). Whether IE or Netscape is the superior browser is very much open to question in my experience. It does everything I want, including half a dozen different multimedia formats.
No doubt, MS has won the office productivity war; I'm not debating that. I *am* debating the methods used to obtain that status, thereby questioning your "Credit where it's due." statement. (wrt "mindshare" in a previous conversation)
BTW, the last I checked, "Aieeeeee" was French for "garlic".
I'm going to call you on your comment about mindshare and monopoly power.
A recent conversation with my production supervisor strongly reveals the power of mindshare through market dominance:
(me) "Hey, could you recommend some tips to learn about databases in general?"
(him) "You mean Access?"
(me) "Nah, just general database concepts"
(him) "Access is easy"
*rest of conversation snipped because it makes my brain hurt*
Now, why do you think Office owns the Mac productivity market? Think again.
BTW, I use OpenOffice on Linux (personal preference). In most work environments this probably isn't going to fly, simply because anything that is not 100% MS is "nonstandard" and therefore risky (aka not desirable).
On a slightly related note, it's interesting how many companies seem to want all the guarantees without having to offer any ("I hereby disclaim thee, O liability!") and of course, if you actually read and understand ie, EULA's you'll notice how they disclaim as much as possible.
All of which makes me wonder why the fsck am I paying them?
It's more gratifying to the ego if you see more people using your software because it's a better solution - including ease of use.
That said, ego is only a part of it IMHO. Many times I do a project to just to "scratch an itch". For example, if I need some specific kind of functionality, or just to see if I can.
There's probably better ways to do it, though; if anyone here is an sh wizard, then by all means please reply, and I thank you in advance for your ideas.
I totally agree... speaking from experience, you'd be amazed at what can be accomplished ie with "dumpster diving". I'm not talking about small accounts' either; more like department-wide accounts at companies and universities.
Let's not forget that the whole idea of computing and/or networked computing was invented by humans, for humans. Does this not mean that it is subject to human failings?
Ok, this is news to me, but then I never was a math major. Nor have I really followed chip devel since the P3, but the AMD stuff looks interesting. Unfortunately, hardware is not in their budget for the forseeable future; that was finalized at the beginning of the contract 10 years ago, as part of figuring the profit margin. Likewise, the software install (Win2k/XP Pro)is standardized by the corporate, and can't be touched.
I thought the 64-bit thing referred to the width of the data bus, and how fast you could keep the math co-processors fed. In this case, the floating-point is especially critical, right? So, I stand corrected it seems. If you know any ways around all that, I'll be glad to listen.
No, the corporate acceptance thing is a relatively new thing, appearing within the last few years. IMHO, the best way to discover the key points of OSS and especially Linux is to ask Linus. After all, it's still his project, regardless of what anyone else does in the macro scale.
No, you're not the only one who has noticed the switch in focus. I know a few large engineering companies that could use the (0)1 scheduler and save huge amounts of time (which equals money), but their management has standardized on MS products at most levels. Also I'm glad I have a gray beard and long hair, sometimes. It's good to be able to reminisce and hopefully learn from the past while trying to create the future. Though I prefer combat boots, not sandals.
Slashdot Mirror
I totally agree. People cannot distinguish quality properly - they seem to confuse it with features, and I don't see how "quality" and "features" are related in any way.
Example: Less than 3 feet (1 metre) from me is a good-working GE table radio - built in 1960. Across from it is a fully calibrated oscilloscope and a signal generator - both built in the early 1950's, and working perfectly. (A 30-mHz range is plenty for audio and some radio work). My theory is that while individual component quality has gone up (resistors, capacitors, etc.) the overall ruggedness of design and construction has declined.
I used to do hi-fi repair for local shops; nowdays I prefer to deal in computers.
I fully agree that the technical literacy rate sucks; I have a manager who once told me that he wants a new computer with a 2 gigabyte chip...
and I kept a straight face.
I guess anything with scientific prefixes or suffixes attatched to its name triggers an odd sort of mental avoidance mechanism, similar to spastics. It's frustrating; the technical language and terminology is *not* that hard to figure out, if only people could pull themselves away from their cheap TV's for a few minutes with a dictionary.
Ah, thanks for answering a question I had for years. I've been wondering why germanium isn't more popular with the chip fabs, aside from (probably) being more expensive than silicon.
That's interesting about using carbon-based semiconductors - it had never occurred to me. Couldn't say much about the voltage drop, tho.
I wonder if it's possible to use a circular diamond die, doped accordingly near the outer edge to allow only partial light transmission (like a laser's mirror) to quell the side reflections.
Good points, thanks for responding. I *do* wish there were a few more OEM drivers since I've had problems in the past, especially with older CD-ROM drives and local printers. I guess my situation is one of the rare "handful".
I honestly don't know if I paid anything "extra", since I got it at cost, not retail. Space/heat were not a consideration, and my chassis were standard off-the-shelf for ATX/MATX.
Up-front cost is very difficult for me. I figure that my costs are compensated by easy upgradeability in the long term (dealing with small servers and mid-level workstations). I define long-term as greater than every 18 months.
I think that your wish for "one of the major market leaders to start writing drivers..." points to a huge hole in the market, and it needs to be addressed. I'd bet there's a few business opportunities there, to create linux drivers for OEM's who can't be bothered with it.
For What It's Worth: I prefer the Gigabyte and SuperMicro SMP motherboards. Never a problem with them, and they have power to spare. Kind of expensive though, but like I said I save in the long term on upgrades. In other words, I use the motherboard *forever*, and just swap cards.
Works for me, anyway. Our situations are probably different, though; I don't know.
Heh. There's a good reason why *nothing* is included on the motherboards (are you reading this, AC from a prior post?) I use. I just shop based on the number of PCI slots, supported CPU(s), and max RAM size. After all, it's a *lot* easier to upgrade your audio/video by swapping cards instead of desoldering chips. That said, it would be cool if there were more OEM drivers, just don't expect them to be Open Source or anything. I've had the best luck overall with low-end to mid-level server boards. Doing multimedia on them has nothing to do with the hardware for me - it just works.
Point 1.
Make sure you select a very well-made drive, don't cut costs there. Example: I have a 20-year old Mountain HardCard that still works fine. However, I have had cheap 3-year old drives fail.
Bringing up point 2:
If you try it, make sure to use an "exercise" schedule for all the drives in your backup set. For example, once a week for each drive, plug it into a spare box and ensure that it spins up, spins down, and the read/write arm travels its full sweep. Maybe do some read/writes at various places on the platter surfaces, just to be sure.
It works for me, so I hope this helps.
have some Ajax (TM), you can get paranoid without even smoking anything!
does the phrase "reported in this article by MSNBC.com" ring any alarms for anyone else here?
My mileage most definitely varies, and far too much at that.
Bummer about the savings; I'd offer the knowledge as a potentially useful thing on my resume regardless (for the appropriate type of position)
/etc/termcap could provide the appropriate functionality.
I really should clarify though: When I said "unselect EVERYTHING" I meant everything offered by the major categories for one of the default RH installations within text mode.
In other words, this would be Gnome, KDE, Development, etc.
I'm not up on 3270 service (I use the default VT102) but I imagine that hacking
BTW, I don't doubt that your tn3270 project was a good idea; I'd bet that the VP got scared by the technicality of it.
Decent -- this is the sort of info I can use. I'm trying to teach myself C without having to un-learn bad habits, so it helps to see the kind of things I should look out for. Where do you plan to post it when you consider it done? The LDP? I'll go grab a copy, thanks!
BTW the "s" in Sunday should be capitalized (the part where you mentioned "Sunday morning".
Sorry about that (former English major)
Er, what about their Eclipse project? Or the excellent references and projects at their DeveloperWorks Linux Zone? Not to mention that my current kernel supports JFS and EVMS... I could go on, but you get the picture. Bear in mind that the server and the mainframe enterprise stuff is IBM's bread and butter; it's their core business to do enterprise stuff like that. I'd bet you'll see some desktop stuff from them, but it'll take a while.
Actually, my first distro was Slack 3.0 on floppies, 1 disk set at a time onto a 486... 2 weeks and 140 + floppies later, I had the whole thing on there. That was when I started learning.
Here's how I do a bare-bones RH install... I've done this on 486's even with RH8.
1. At the bootup screen, select "text mode" install
2. Set up your partitions, etc.
3. When you get to the "Package Selection" screen, choose either "workstation" of "server" as appropriate.
4. Do *not* opt to select individual packages
5. *Unselect* everything
6. Proceed
This leaves you with a bare-bones install between 90 - 150 mB, depending on the RH version.
You'd be amazed what you can do with "grep -v" and a few universities. For that matter, are they really that worried about 300-year-old Western Philosophy texts? If so, then I should be.
IANAL, but aren't local-only copies ok?
Most definitely, "how you get there" has a lot to do with the issue at hand. In that regard, the method used to "get there" make perfect sense from a business perspective; unfortunately it seems to be filthy (here in the US) from an ethical perspective. It's really a question of "What is your ethics anchored to, as a programmer, integrator, ISV, company, etc. I never thought I would say this, but perhaps RMS is right about a few things. I'm not against big business per se (as a registered voter, etc;) I am for ethical business practices in the US, which sadly seem to be going extinct within my lifetime.
No, I will debate whether IE is better than Netscape after using Mozilla. Mozilla is all the more impressive when I consider that I cannot find any monetary motive for it, ethical or otherwise... thus freeing moz developers from Yet Another Thing To Deal With (TM). Whether IE or Netscape is the superior browser is very much open to question in my experience. It does everything I want, including half a dozen different multimedia formats.
No doubt, MS has won the office productivity war; I'm not debating that. I *am* debating the methods used to obtain that status, thereby questioning your "Credit where it's due." statement. (wrt "mindshare" in a previous conversation)
BTW, the last I checked, "Aieeeeee" was French for "garlic".
OK, I'll go with a draw on that. The bundling of IE spooks me though; if I mutter "browser', 50,000 people scream "IE".
Practical upshot of it all: it's a draw
I'm going to call you on your comment about mindshare and monopoly power.
A recent conversation with my production supervisor strongly reveals the power of mindshare through market dominance:
(me) "Hey, could you recommend some tips to learn about databases in general?"
(him) "You mean Access?"
(me) "Nah, just general database concepts"
(him) "Access is easy"
*rest of conversation snipped because it makes my brain hurt*
Now, why do you think Office owns the Mac productivity market? Think again.
BTW, I use OpenOffice on Linux (personal preference). In most work environments this probably isn't going to fly, simply because anything that is not 100% MS is "nonstandard"
and therefore risky (aka not desirable).
On a slightly related note, it's interesting how many companies seem to want all the guarantees without having to offer any ("I hereby disclaim thee, O liability!") and of course, if you actually read and understand ie, EULA's you'll notice how they disclaim as much as possible.
All of which makes me wonder why the fsck am I paying them?
Just speaking from personal experience.
It's more gratifying to the ego if you see more people using your software because it's a better solution - including ease of use.
That said, ego is only a part of it IMHO. Many times I do a project to just to "scratch an itch". For example, if I need some specific kind of functionality, or just to see if I can.
Here's what I do (as root) for passwords:
/dev/random | uuencode -m -`;
#!/bin/sh
word=`head -c 7
echo $word | grep [:alnum:] | cut -b 21-29
There's probably better ways to do it, though; if anyone here is an sh wizard, then by all means please reply, and I thank you in advance for your ideas.
I totally agree... speaking from experience, you'd be amazed at what can be accomplished ie with "dumpster diving". I'm not talking about small accounts' either; more like department-wide accounts at companies and universities.
Let's not forget that the whole idea of computing and/or networked computing was invented by humans, for humans. Does this not mean that it is subject to human failings?
Sorry, I can't. Some Nigerians might have a problem with that.
Ditto, that basket full of ISA cards for me *winces*
well, at least my mastercard did its part in this glorious hi-tech venture...
Ok, this is news to me, but then I never was a math major. Nor have I really followed chip devel since the P3, but the AMD stuff looks interesting. Unfortunately, hardware is not in their budget for the forseeable future; that was finalized at the beginning of the contract 10 years ago, as part of figuring the profit margin. Likewise, the software install (Win2k/XP Pro)is standardized by the corporate, and can't be touched.
I thought the 64-bit thing referred to the width of the data bus, and how fast you could keep the math co-processors fed. In this case, the floating-point is especially critical, right? So, I stand corrected it seems. If you know any ways around all that, I'll be glad to listen.
No, the corporate acceptance thing is a relatively new thing, appearing within the last few years. IMHO, the best way to discover the key points of OSS and especially Linux is to ask Linus. After all, it's still his project, regardless of what anyone else does in the macro scale.
No, you're not the only one who has noticed the switch in focus. I know a few large engineering companies that could use the (0)1 scheduler and save huge amounts of time (which equals money), but their management has standardized on MS products at most levels. Also I'm glad I have a gray beard and long hair, sometimes. It's good to be able to reminisce and hopefully learn from the past while trying to create the future. Though I prefer combat boots, not sandals.