I think it was just an excuse for all the Windows shills to come out of the sewer again. Some of them are probably from New Orleans, so the sewers got flooded and they had nowhere else to go tonight.
I don't know if the guy was serious, but except for a couple useful posts (including mine), he sure didn't get much valid info or links to same.
I'm also assuming he doesn't intend an UNPLANNED migration. If he does, of course it will fail - unless he's amazingly lucky as well. But if he intended an unplanned migration, why bother asking anybody at all?
"Also, I concur with the advice of others here to either learn linux well before you try to deploy it, hire a linux admin, stick with what you've got or switch to OSX."
Never tell someone - especially a newbie - to use vi - or emacs.
That shit has been obsolete for the last decade, except for die-hard UNIX dinosaurs and crazed developers who have their fingers glued to the keys of their keyboard and are too dumb to want to learn something new.
I see my boss hunting and pecking with two fingers through vi every day and it drives me nuts. Just today I told him again, "Get jEdit! Use it!" Plus he uses sqlplus from the command line to connect to Oracle instead of SQLTools! Insane...
The only command line editor I ever use is pico, whenever I'm too lazy to fire up jEdit (or was dumb enough to close jEdit instead of leaving it up all day) and I only need to make some small one line change in a config file or something.
vi and emacs are crap for people who think they're being productive because they hit two or three keys instead of one to do something.
Everybody, don't even bother flaming me for this, I don't give a shit. My point stands. Never tell a newbie to use vi or emacs. That's fucking stupid. The only thing a newbie needs to know is the few ed commands necessary to navigate the command line itself - most of which are unnecessary in Linux running on a PC because it can handle most keys. You need this crap only if you're running on junk like HP/UX.
Well, he could virtualize Windows ON Windows, without setting up Linux. There are anti-malware advantages to doing that even on Windows.
In the end, however, he's still running Windows and while he has fewer virus worries, he's paying more for the hardware to get the same performance as without virtualization, and then he's paying for the complexity of maintaining virtualization as well.
You're right that it's not as good an idea as dumping Windows for Linux.
Virtualizing SOME machines on Linux might be a good idea to retain Windows-only mission critical apps that aren't available on Linux, if any.
However, your advice about phasing in Linux is sound. Obviously a rip and tear replacement without adequate planning is going to cause more problems than it solves. The operative phrase is "without adequate planning."
"how much will switching to linux cost in terms of lost productivity? the cost is non-trivial. if the cost per worker per year is greater than the cost of your current setup per worker per year, sticking with the m$ products makes the most business sense."
The problem with this concept is that it is HIGHLY unlikely that the lost productivity cost will stay the same year after year - whereas the cost of Windows licenses and TCO WILL or will INCREASE.
Assuming no great turnover percentage in a given company, if the cost of retraining and conversion for one employee approaches the cost of the Windows license for that employee - or better a Windows TCO, which is frequently estimated at ten or fifteen thousand dollars a year - for even five years, that cost will be dwarfed by the cost of Windows for a further ten years.
The primary advantage of OSS - other than the flexibility and modifiability - is the fact that it STAYS FREE. Whereas proprietary software has to be bought once, and then re-bought all over again every five years (for "support" or simply because of the external costs of using it such as viruses), even if no actual upgrades are made.
The overall difference between Windows and Linux over a given period of time may not be huge - it might be only ten, twenty or thirty percent. But it's still a savings - and then the intangibles of flexibility, modifiability, etc. kick in and provide the real benefits over time.
In the end, what really matters is the design of the IT infrastructure and the support provided by the IT staff. But you might as well start with a cost advantage by using OSS and using the flexibility of OSS to implement a great IT infrastructure. Right now, OSS isn't at the point where it has all the pebbles lined up for that for large enterprises, but it will get there. For a small enterprise, it's easier.
"The network you manage is more important than you realize. You're being paid to reduce uncertainty for the users. It's not fair to your users to increase that uncertainty by orders of magnitude unless there is a massive benefit to the users. Replacement of Office with equivalent functionality is NOT a benefit, as it will only frustrate your users everytime anything unexpected happens. The users will also then have you to personally blame when ANYTHING goes wrong, reguardless of its relevance to the OS switch."
All of which is pure bullshit masquerading as "insightful".
First of all, it's condescending to say "the network is more important than you realize." Who the fuck are you to tell this guy that? You don't know how important he considers his job. If I were him, I'd tell you to fuck off.
"Paid to reduce uncertainty"? What the fuck does that mean? He's paid to produce business benefit from the IT resources of the company. If the IT resources of the company cost thirty percent or more more than they should, and he can fix that, not to mention the intangibles that end up being more important than TCO anyway, he should do so.
If he screws it up, yeah, he's got a problem. He's being paid not to screw up, too. So he better do the conversion correctly and minimize user problems.
"Replacement of Office with equivalent functionality is not a benefit"? Bullshit. It saves the license costs, it saves the security risks, and more importantly, it means he doesn't have to use Windows everywhere else to support that desktop, which saves even more.
More importantly than ALL that, it gives the company options they will never have being tied to Microsoft. While this company may be small, it may well be able to take advantage of future developments in OSS and Linux software to make significant gains in business advantage or productivity - advantages that will only come from the flexibility and openness of open source.
Finally, there is still the absolute mathematical certainty that no matter how much the conversion costs, paying for Microsoft software for the next X years will exceed that cost at some point - and probably sooner than later.
Guys, he has ONE fucking server and FIFTEEN workstations.
This is NOT General Motors.
He needs to put Red Hat or SUSE on the one server, and Fedora or SUSE on the workstations.
This isn't rocket science, even for a newbie.
Yes, he needs to get up to speed. He needs to buy a book (or two) on Linux administration which covers both the command line and GUI tools like Webmin, he needs to buy the "Linux in a Nutshell" book for a desk reference, and he needs to review a lot of tutorials on the Web.
If he has any smarts at all as a tech, he can figure out what he needs to do from that.
The only issue will be if he's smart enough to PLAN the changeover in detail to minimize hassles that WILL arise from mistakes and overlooked items.
A phased changeover that puts everybody on Firefox and Open Office first, then deals with the server changeover, then the desktop changeover would be the obvious way to go.
The main issue vis-a-vis the server is whether he is extensively using the 2003 Small Business Server to its full capability, or whether it's just there as an email server. Switching over the server and the desktop clients in some rational method to avoid clients unable to get what they need from the server is the main problem.
After that is solved, switching the desktops over basically depends on determining who runs what software, what Linux software can do that job, and training and/or handholding the users until they can use the equivalent Linux software to do that job.
If there is any mission-critical stuff that HAS to run on Windows, he may have to run Terminal Services or something or delegate one or more machines to remain Windows to handle that.
It isn't a HUGE assignment - as long as he doesn't have some sort of management-imposed artificial deadline to meet.
If we were talking about five hundred desktops and ten or twenty servers over a half dozen corproate departments, I'd say it was a different kettle of fish by far. THEN he needs a consultant for sure.
Not to say it isn't possible, but you obviously didn't read what he said.
He said his only experience PROFESSIONALLY was with Windows, but he has SOME experience with Macs. I did NOT read that he said his experience was the same with both, which is your interpretation.
"Throwing out the existing config in order to "save money" is wrongheaded."
Really? Tell your boss that. He'll kill you. Your boss LIVES for saving money - even if he can't and everything he does turns to shit and expense.
Proactive patching for viruses? Dumb Windows idea. Read Marcus Ranum's recent rant mentioned here a day or so ago. It's bad enough you have to patch Linux and its apps for REAL vulnerabilities without having to patch for malware, too.
This guy is correct, if his motivation is a little imprecise. Dumping Windows and switching to all OSS software is the smartest thing he could do, even if the conversion costs for the first year are as much as Windows costs for the last FIVE years. Why? Because otherwise he'll be paying for Windows fuckups for the NEXT TEN YEARS, that's why. And sooner or later that WILL with mathematical certainty exceed the cost of conversion and any ongoing cost of maintenance.
As far as I know, none of the Iraqi people except a few Quislings have been freed from the brutal US dictatorship - yet.
The Iraqis are working on it though, very effectively.
Whether they can then deal with their OWN brutal dictatorship which will surely follow ours is another question - which I for one couldn't care less about since I don't live (or pay taxes) there.
What I'm concerned about is when we can get rid of OUR brutal dictator wannabe - without bringing in his brother or other relatives and cronies to replace him.
Acknowledging your caveat "if they feel that they must execute some attachment", do note that the first dumb idea in TFA was the "Default Permit" concept.
Email clients should RUN NOTHING except on demand - in fact, I'm not even sure that's a good idea - they really shouldn't run ANYTHING ANYTIME. Which means, among other things, no HTML email preview. If it isn't text only, don't do anything with it.
I've never understood why email needs HTML at all. DO we REALLY need to see pictures, animated crap, whatever, in email? Who uses it besides spammers and people who send you dumb jokes? When was the last time you crafted an HTML email that had serious content in it?
I think another of the "dumbest security ideas" is the notion that any pointless bullshit somebody wants to do is a good idea, so we should implement it immediately. HTML email qualifies. Most of Windows qualifies. "Featuritis" definitely qualifies.
It's intentional disfavor to the CITIZENS, not necessarily the organizations. He KNOWS morons like Brown aren't going to do the job - or at least HE'S too stupid to know that and doesn't care (which means the rest of America - or at least 40% as of the last poll - is too stupid to know they elected a moron as President.)
It's malicious to put incompetent cronies on the public payroll. That simple.
Doublechecking, you've responded to the wrong post.
I was responding to THIS post above yours:
Re:No, wrong. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 11, @11:43AM (#13531783)
"You choose the applications you need to run, in order to get whatever job you need done, and then you choose an operating system based on those applications."
You couldn't be more right in the real world. Please remember that this is Slashdot and that applies unless the apps only come on Windows in which case they are instantly deemed shit and an immediate scan of sourceforge is begun in hopes to find a free alternative that is better than the one on Windows. If you do find it it will be at 0.037b version wise.
"In this case, they want or need Apache as a web server. That's a fine, defensible choice. It's popular. It's pretty easy to find support on it, even without a contract. Most sysadmins are familiar with it. It has a good track record. Etc." Good track record??? Is that why the name itself comes from A Patchy WebServer? Apache is great now, but it's history doesn't reflect that greatness throughout its life. Probably rather like Sendmail.
As you can see, supposedly it works with everything - Windows, Mac, UNIX, whatever. A three-tier system.
I got sidetracked in my search because I found a document that referenced IBM, so I thought they developed it. Nope - their Student Information Practice consultants were apparently contracted for implementation assistance only.
Yeah, that's why Apache runs most of the Web sites in the world. While IIS 5 was a total bug-ridden, insecure POS only recently replaced by a slightly better and more secure POS.
Dumb troll. Take your Microsoft-shit eating face elsewhere.
Uhm, how do you "pick a web server" or "pick a database"?
Last I heard, all Web servers and databases had specific names attached to them.
I don't know anybody marketing "a database".
And what the hell is "UNIX hardware"? Sun Sparc? Anything other than Intel doesn't run Windows anyway, so how is this even an issue? How could anybody be so stupid as to even suggest running Windows on anything other than Intel?
Obviously if you've picked Apache and Oracle, UNIX is better suited, because there are fewer hoops to jump through installing and managing these products on UNIX than on Windows since the Windows versions are ports.
If the district is already using Windows everywhere, obviously it would be better to pick IIS and SQL Server (much as I hate Microsoft and its products, if you're COMMITTED to a Windows desktop, it's dumb to use non-Microsoft server products - whether one SHOULD be committed to the Windows desktop OR Windows server products is another issue.)
I agree the whole thing sounds like typical incompetence, but that's SOP everywhere I've looked for the last 56 years of my life.
I admit I haven't read TFA. How big is the school in the article?
SCT Banner is HUGE and costs over a million dollars. City College of San Francisco has it, and I work on it. It's a nightmare of complexity, indeed. Trying to figure out how their Oracle Forms works is unbelievably complex and poorly documented. The College spends $150K a year for "support" - and then another $200K or so for consultants who do the actual support.
If the school in TFA isn't that big, I doubt they're running it. It's designed for universities, and even City College, the largest community college district in the country, isn't using all of it.
We run it on HP hardware using HP/UX and Oracle, with Windows clients. SCT shifted to a Web browser front end, so Windows is not an issue any more.
Any school smaller than a state university trying to run Banner is crazy.
Yes, apparently there are issues with SP2 only. No surprise there. Supposedly Captive is no longer under active development since it works well enough for pre-SP2 machines.
I just found a post from Jan saying the following:
"Anyway Captive NTFS itself is already dead as Linux-NTFS may have finally got the read/write support (not tested myself) and people generally do not differentiate products as long as they work in 99% of cases, either in Linux-NTFS or Captive case. Both projects have that 1% due to different reasons. I still think Captive would be useful as generic MS-Windows drivers compatibility layer but there is currently no target market for it."
He appears to be wrong about full read/write support according to the official NTFS site. They still say, relative to the new FUSE ntfsmount system, that its functionality for writing is dependent on the NTFS kernel mods and they are STILL read-only. I may have interpreted this wrong - it doesn't seem like anybody involved can give a straight answer to the simple question "Can you read and write files to the NTFS volume from user space programs and utilities?" - but it doesn't look good.
From that article it seems the issues really aren't about SP2 "breaking" Captive - it's more that it just breaks Captive's ability to find the driver files. The read/write aspect still works once you have the XP files which the workarounds solve.
Also from some of the posts I've just seen in various pages via my Google search, I'd say Captive is not a "fire up and forget" approach to reading NTFS from Linux - sometimes it just doesn't work, apparently.
The NTFS for Linux utility that costs $70 from Paragon Software is beginning to look like the only way to go, since the NTFS project has only three people working on it in their spare time and they have absolutely no idea when write support will be included. They promise to do it, but it could be another five years...
"It's reasonable to assume that this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Don't assume he's a liar just because he's connected to Microsoft."
What's wrong with this picture?
He's a Microsoft shill. He doesn't know what he's talking about, but he made direct and unambiguous comments about it. That makes him a liar in my book.
As for violating the EULA terms, nobody gives a rat's ass whether Bart's PE is "reverse-engineering" (it probably is, at least as far as the build process goes - is that necessarily covered by the EULA? Take it to court and find out). Secondly, even if you are enabling Windows XP to run on a second machine, you are only running a small PORTION of XP, not the whole thing. You are therefore not using it to violate the purpose of the license, which is to prevent people from using XP on more than one machine.
And that latter is itself onerous, since it was my understanding that you could install a single copy of Windows on both a desktop and a laptop that you personally own (not that most people would need to, since they would get both machines with it already installed.)
In Section 1.5 of the Windows XP EULA it states: 1.5 Storage/Network Use. You may also store OR INSTALL [My emphasis] a copy of the software on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install OR RUN [My emphasis] the software on your other workstation computer. The logic here for the customer is that "I'm only storing a copy of the operating system on the back-up device, and only for the purpose of reinstalling the operating system in case of failure."
Pray tell, what is the difference between that and running Bart's PE?
And especially for tech support people like me, who would otherwise have to carry around a separate copy of Windows XP - which would be useless because it could not be installed on the client machine anyway without destroying the existing installation.
This column specifically states - and from official Microsoft sources, apparently - that it is a violation of the EULA to make an image backup of Windows XP!
If that is the case, yet another reason to tell Gates to stick Windows up his ass.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it was just an excuse for all the Windows shills to come out of the sewer again. Some of them are probably from New Orleans, so the sewers got flooded and they had nowhere else to go tonight.
I don't know if the guy was serious, but except for a couple useful posts (including mine), he sure didn't get much valid info or links to same.
I'm also assuming he doesn't intend an UNPLANNED migration. If he does, of course it will fail - unless he's amazingly lucky as well. But if he intended an unplanned migration, why bother asking anybody at all?
"Also, I concur with the advice of others here to either learn linux well before you try to deploy it, hire a linux admin, stick with what you've got or switch to OSX."
Wow, you really helped him make up his mind...
Never tell someone - especially a newbie - to use vi - or emacs.
That shit has been obsolete for the last decade, except for die-hard UNIX dinosaurs and crazed developers who have their fingers glued to the keys of their keyboard and are too dumb to want to learn something new.
I see my boss hunting and pecking with two fingers through vi every day and it drives me nuts. Just today I told him again, "Get jEdit! Use it!" Plus he uses sqlplus from the command line to connect to Oracle instead of SQLTools! Insane...
The only command line editor I ever use is pico, whenever I'm too lazy to fire up jEdit (or was dumb enough to close jEdit instead of leaving it up all day) and I only need to make some small one line change in a config file or something.
vi and emacs are crap for people who think they're being productive because they hit two or three keys instead of one to do something.
Everybody, don't even bother flaming me for this, I don't give a shit. My point stands. Never tell a newbie to use vi or emacs. That's fucking stupid.
The only thing a newbie needs to know is the few ed commands necessary to navigate the command line itself - most of which are unnecessary in Linux running on a PC because it can handle most keys. You need this crap only if you're running on junk like HP/UX.
Well, he could virtualize Windows ON Windows, without setting up Linux. There are anti-malware advantages to doing that even on Windows.
In the end, however, he's still running Windows and while he has fewer virus worries, he's paying more for the hardware to get the same performance as without virtualization, and then he's paying for the complexity of maintaining virtualization as well.
You're right that it's not as good an idea as dumping Windows for Linux.
Virtualizing SOME machines on Linux might be a good idea to retain Windows-only mission critical apps that aren't available on Linux, if any.
This is actually a pretty good plan for a small company. Not as good as going all OSS, but still better than staying with Windows.
"It won't make you save money (on the short run)"
Exactly - it WILL save him money in the long run.
Something wrong with thinking in the long run?
However, your advice about phasing in Linux is sound. Obviously a rip and tear replacement without adequate planning is going to cause more problems than it solves. The operative phrase is "without adequate planning."
"how much will switching to linux cost in terms of lost productivity? the cost is non-trivial. if the cost per worker per year is greater than the cost of your current setup per worker per year, sticking with the m$ products makes the most business sense."
The problem with this concept is that it is HIGHLY unlikely that the lost productivity cost will stay the same year after year - whereas the cost of Windows licenses and TCO WILL or will INCREASE.
Assuming no great turnover percentage in a given company, if the cost of retraining and conversion for one employee approaches the cost of the Windows license for that employee - or better a Windows TCO, which is frequently estimated at ten or fifteen thousand dollars a year - for even five years, that cost will be dwarfed by the cost of Windows for a further ten years.
The primary advantage of OSS - other than the flexibility and modifiability - is the fact that it STAYS FREE. Whereas proprietary software has to be bought once, and then re-bought all over again every five years (for "support" or simply because of the external costs of using it such as viruses), even if no actual upgrades are made.
The overall difference between Windows and Linux over a given period of time may not be huge - it might be only ten, twenty or thirty percent. But it's still a savings - and then the intangibles of flexibility, modifiability, etc. kick in and provide the real benefits over time.
In the end, what really matters is the design of the IT infrastructure and the support provided by the IT staff. But you might as well start with a cost advantage by using OSS and using the flexibility of OSS to implement a great IT infrastructure. Right now, OSS isn't at the point where it has all the pebbles lined up for that for large enterprises, but it will get there. For a small enterprise, it's easier.
"The network you manage is more important than you realize. You're being paid to reduce uncertainty for the users. It's not fair to your users to increase that uncertainty by orders of magnitude unless there is a massive benefit to the users. Replacement of Office with equivalent functionality is NOT a benefit, as it will only frustrate your users everytime anything unexpected happens. The users will also then have you to personally blame when ANYTHING goes wrong, reguardless of its relevance to the OS switch."
All of which is pure bullshit masquerading as "insightful".
First of all, it's condescending to say "the network is more important than you realize." Who the fuck are you to tell this guy that? You don't know how important he considers his job. If I were him, I'd tell you to fuck off.
"Paid to reduce uncertainty"? What the fuck does that mean? He's paid to produce business benefit from the IT resources of the company. If the IT resources of the company cost thirty percent or more more than they should, and he can fix that, not to mention the intangibles that end up being more important than TCO anyway, he should do so.
If he screws it up, yeah, he's got a problem. He's being paid not to screw up, too. So he better do the conversion correctly and minimize user problems.
"Replacement of Office with equivalent functionality is not a benefit"? Bullshit. It saves the license costs, it saves the security risks, and more importantly, it means he doesn't have to use Windows everywhere else to support that desktop, which saves even more.
More importantly than ALL that, it gives the company options they will never have being tied to Microsoft. While this company may be small, it may well be able to take advantage of future developments in OSS and Linux software to make significant gains in business advantage or productivity - advantages that will only come from the flexibility and openness of open source.
Finally, there is still the absolute mathematical certainty that no matter how much the conversion costs, paying for Microsoft software for the next X years will exceed that cost at some point - and probably sooner than later.
Guys, he has ONE fucking server and FIFTEEN workstations.
This is NOT General Motors.
He needs to put Red Hat or SUSE on the one server, and Fedora or SUSE on the workstations.
This isn't rocket science, even for a newbie.
Yes, he needs to get up to speed. He needs to buy a book (or two) on Linux administration which covers both the command line and GUI tools like Webmin, he needs to buy the "Linux in a Nutshell" book for a desk reference, and he needs to review a lot of tutorials on the Web.
If he has any smarts at all as a tech, he can figure out what he needs to do from that.
The only issue will be if he's smart enough to PLAN the changeover in detail to minimize hassles that WILL arise from mistakes and overlooked items.
A phased changeover that puts everybody on Firefox and Open Office first, then deals with the server changeover, then the desktop changeover would be the obvious way to go.
The main issue vis-a-vis the server is whether he is extensively using the 2003 Small Business Server to its full capability, or whether it's just there as an email server. Switching over the server and the desktop clients in some rational method to avoid clients unable to get what they need from the server is the main problem.
After that is solved, switching the desktops over basically depends on determining who runs what software, what Linux software can do that job, and training and/or handholding the users until they can use the equivalent Linux software to do that job.
If there is any mission-critical stuff that HAS to run on Windows, he may have to run Terminal Services or something or delegate one or more machines to remain Windows to handle that.
It isn't a HUGE assignment - as long as he doesn't have some sort of management-imposed artificial deadline to meet.
If we were talking about five hundred desktops and ten or twenty servers over a half dozen corproate departments, I'd say it was a different kettle of fish by far. THEN he needs a consultant for sure.
Not to say it isn't possible, but you obviously didn't read what he said.
He said his only experience PROFESSIONALLY was with Windows, but he has SOME experience with Macs. I did NOT read that he said his experience was the same with both, which is your interpretation.
I suspect the only troll here is you.
"Throwing out the existing config in order to "save money" is wrongheaded."
Really? Tell your boss that. He'll kill you. Your boss LIVES for saving money - even if he can't and everything he does turns to shit and expense.
Proactive patching for viruses? Dumb Windows idea. Read Marcus Ranum's recent rant mentioned here a day or so ago. It's bad enough you have to patch Linux and its apps for REAL vulnerabilities without having to patch for malware, too.
This guy is correct, if his motivation is a little imprecise. Dumping Windows and switching to all OSS software is the smartest thing he could do, even if the conversion costs for the first year are as much as Windows costs for the last FIVE years. Why? Because otherwise he'll be paying for Windows fuckups for the NEXT TEN YEARS, that's why. And sooner or later that WILL with mathematical certainty exceed the cost of conversion and any ongoing cost of maintenance.
Ahem, the UN proved that Saddam DID comply.
WMD's were a fucking lie by your hero, Georgie, and his equally crooked asshole cronies.
Every international legal body including Britain's top legal officer (although he lied about it) knew that this was an illegal war from the get-go.
Moron.
As far as I know, none of the Iraqi people except a few Quislings have been freed from the brutal US dictatorship - yet.
The Iraqis are working on it though, very effectively.
Whether they can then deal with their OWN brutal dictatorship which will surely follow ours is another question - which I for one couldn't care less about since I don't live (or pay taxes) there.
What I'm concerned about is when we can get rid of OUR brutal dictator wannabe - without bringing in his brother or other relatives and cronies to replace him.
There's a "Parent" button?
Oh, yeah, look, there is!
I've never used it - I just click "Reply to this" under the post I'm responding to...:-)
Why use pointers when you can use direct access?
Acknowledging your caveat "if they feel that they must execute some attachment", do note that the first dumb idea in TFA was the "Default Permit" concept.
Email clients should RUN NOTHING except on demand - in fact, I'm not even sure that's a good idea - they really shouldn't run ANYTHING ANYTIME. Which means, among other things, no HTML email preview. If it isn't text only, don't do anything with it.
I've never understood why email needs HTML at all. DO we REALLY need to see pictures, animated crap, whatever, in email? Who uses it besides spammers and people who send you dumb jokes? When was the last time you crafted an HTML email that had serious content in it?
I think another of the "dumbest security ideas" is the notion that any pointless bullshit somebody wants to do is a good idea, so we should implement it immediately. HTML email qualifies. Most of Windows qualifies. "Featuritis" definitely qualifies.
Isn't that how Windows is designed?
Watch - this WON'T get modded "(Score:5, Funny)".
It's intentional disfavor to the CITIZENS, not necessarily the organizations. He KNOWS morons like Brown aren't going to do the job - or at least HE'S too stupid to know that and doesn't care (which means the rest of America - or at least 40% as of the last poll - is too stupid to know they elected a moron as President.)
It's malicious to put incompetent cronies on the public payroll. That simple.
Doublechecking, you've responded to the wrong post.
I was responding to THIS post above yours:
Re:No, wrong. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 11, @11:43AM (#13531783)
"You choose the applications you need to run, in order to get whatever job you need done, and then you choose an operating system based on those applications."
You couldn't be more right in the real world. Please remember that this is Slashdot and that applies unless the apps only come on Windows in which case they are instantly deemed shit and an immediate scan of sourceforge is begun in hopes to find a free alternative that is better than the one on Windows. If you do find it it will be at 0.037b version wise.
"In this case, they want or need Apache as a web server. That's a fine, defensible choice. It's popular. It's pretty easy to find support on it, even without a contract. Most sysadmins are familiar with it. It has a good track record. Etc." Good track record??? Is that why the name itself comes from A Patchy WebServer? Apache is great now, but it's history doesn't reflect that greatness throughout its life. Probably rather like Sendmail.
THAT guy is the dumb troll.
Then either you or I must be responding to the wrong post.
I'm responding to the guy who suggested Apache was a piece of junk compared to Windows.
Went looking for more info on this system.
Here's http://dcstars.k12.dc.us:50825/ the home page.
Here http://www.aalsolutions.com/7_esis/tech.asp is the technical specs of the eSIS system from the company who developed it, AAL.
As you can see, supposedly it works with everything - Windows, Mac, UNIX, whatever. A three-tier system.
I got sidetracked in my search because I found a document that referenced IBM, so I thought they developed it. Nope - their Student Information Practice consultants were apparently contracted for implementation assistance only.
Yeah, that's why Apache runs most of the Web sites in the world. While IIS 5 was a total bug-ridden, insecure POS only recently replaced by a slightly better and more secure POS.
Dumb troll. Take your Microsoft-shit eating face elsewhere.
Uhm, how do you "pick a web server" or "pick a database"?
Last I heard, all Web servers and databases had specific names attached to them.
I don't know anybody marketing "a database".
And what the hell is "UNIX hardware"? Sun Sparc? Anything other than Intel doesn't run Windows anyway, so how is this even an issue? How could anybody be so stupid as to even suggest running Windows on anything other than Intel?
Obviously if you've picked Apache and Oracle, UNIX is better suited, because there are fewer hoops to jump through installing and managing these products on UNIX than on Windows since the Windows versions are ports.
If the district is already using Windows everywhere, obviously it would be better to pick IIS and SQL Server (much as I hate Microsoft and its products, if you're COMMITTED to a Windows desktop, it's dumb to use non-Microsoft server products - whether one SHOULD be committed to the Windows desktop OR Windows server products is another issue.)
I agree the whole thing sounds like typical incompetence, but that's SOP everywhere I've looked for the last 56 years of my life.
I admit I haven't read TFA. How big is the school in the article?
SCT Banner is HUGE and costs over a million dollars. City College of San Francisco has it, and I work on it. It's a nightmare of complexity, indeed. Trying to figure out how their Oracle Forms works is unbelievably complex and poorly documented. The College spends $150K a year for "support" - and then another $200K or so for consultants who do the actual support.
If the school in TFA isn't that big, I doubt they're running it. It's designed for universities, and even City College, the largest community college district in the country, isn't using all of it.
We run it on HP hardware using HP/UX and Oracle, with Windows clients. SCT shifted to a Web browser front end, so Windows is not an issue any more.
Any school smaller than a state university trying to run Banner is crazy.
Yes, apparently there are issues with SP2 only. No surprise there. Supposedly Captive is no longer under active development since it works well enough for pre-SP2 machines.
I just found a post from Jan saying the following:
"Anyway Captive NTFS itself is already dead as Linux-NTFS may have finally got the read/write support (not tested myself) and people generally do not differentiate products as long as they work in 99% of cases, either in Linux-NTFS or Captive case. Both projects have that 1% due to different
reasons. I still think Captive would be useful as generic MS-Windows drivers compatibility layer but there is currently no target market for it."
He appears to be wrong about full read/write support according to the official NTFS site. They still say, relative to the new FUSE ntfsmount system, that its functionality for writing is dependent on the NTFS kernel mods and they are STILL read-only. I may have interpreted this wrong - it doesn't seem like anybody involved can give a straight answer to the simple question "Can you read and write files to the NTFS volume from user space programs and utilities?" - but it doesn't look good.
An article here: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6261 talks about the SP2 problem and gives workarounds.
From that article it seems the issues really aren't about SP2 "breaking" Captive - it's more that it just breaks Captive's ability to find the driver files. The read/write aspect still works once you have the XP files which the workarounds solve.
Also from some of the posts I've just seen in various pages via my Google search, I'd say Captive is not a "fire up and forget" approach to reading NTFS from Linux - sometimes it just doesn't work, apparently.
The NTFS for Linux utility that costs $70 from Paragon Software is beginning to look like the only way to go, since the NTFS project has only three people working on it in their spare time and they have absolutely no idea when write support will be included. They promise to do it, but it could be another five years...
"It's reasonable to assume that this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Don't assume he's a liar just because he's connected to Microsoft."
/ 2004/0920gaskin.html:
What's wrong with this picture?
He's a Microsoft shill. He doesn't know what he's talking about, but he made direct and unambiguous comments about it. That makes him a liar in my book.
As for violating the EULA terms, nobody gives a rat's ass whether Bart's PE is "reverse-engineering" (it probably is, at least as far as the build process goes - is that necessarily covered by the EULA? Take it to court and find out). Secondly, even if you are enabling Windows XP to run on a second machine, you are only running a small PORTION of XP, not the whole thing. You are therefore not using it to violate the purpose of the license, which is to prevent people from using XP on more than one machine.
And that latter is itself onerous, since it was my understanding that you could install a single copy of Windows on both a desktop and a laptop that you personally own (not that most people would need to, since they would get both machines with it already installed.)
Read this from http://www.networkworld.com/net.worker/columnists
In Section 1.5 of the Windows XP EULA it states: 1.5 Storage/Network Use. You may also store OR INSTALL [My emphasis] a copy of the software on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install OR RUN [My emphasis] the software on your other workstation computer. The logic here for the customer is that "I'm only storing a copy of the operating system on the back-up device, and only for the purpose of reinstalling the operating system in case of failure."
Pray tell, what is the difference between that and running Bart's PE?
And especially for tech support people like me, who would otherwise have to carry around a separate copy of Windows XP - which would be useless because it could not be installed on the client machine anyway without destroying the existing installation.
This column specifically states - and from official Microsoft sources, apparently - that it is a violation of the EULA to make an image backup of Windows XP!
If that is the case, yet another reason to tell Gates to stick Windows up his ass.