I'm not really a frequent visitor to the U.S., but I've been there a couple of times as a tourist and I can say, my personal experiences aren't that bad. The unfriendliest welcome was when I was entering by car from Canada about 20 years ago but even that wasn't so bad, just a little annoying. The last times I entered through Houston and Washington D.C. and the custom officers were friendly as have been most Americans we met (if not all).
About the Olympics, Chicago would probably be a great city for Olympics, but I wouldn't believe custom procedures to be a major factor in the decision. I rather believe it's about the first games in South America.
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) has a Top 10 list, which lists the most serious web application vulnerabilities, discusses how to protect against them, and provides links to more information (http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project). This might be a good start.
I believe (or at least I hope) that the future of operating systems does not lie in fancier user
interfaces, but in making the computer more responsive.
Do you know that today's computers are really fast? I mean, those GHz processors are
incredibly fast, it is unbelievable what they are able to do in a second. But you
might not know it from just using a computer.
In my daily work I often receive very slow responses from both Windows and Linux
machines. I often have to wait seconds for things that should (and could) be instant. I mean
after the screen saver on my desktop machine locks the screen, the next user request invariably will be to unlock
it. The OS should know that. And it should sit there waiting for any sign that its
master wants to work again and then it should instantly present the password dialog.
Or what about those apps where I have to look for seconds at animated splash screens saying
that they load this or that module or plugin. Why can't the OS provide means for
loading pre-initialized applications (some folks might remember the undump utility).
There are possible performance improvements all over the place, which could be achieved
by using techniques like caching or using database technology or being able to
hint to the operating system which ressources might be needed next. Together
with maybe a little more RAM this could create a really reactive user experience.
I often wonder how you can spend so much money for creating software and come up with such
bad and slow design:-).
I know for a fact that there are ordinary PC users who have no problems with using Linux. From my experience I can characterize those users as "users who don't even think about installing software themselves".
But if Linux and the necessary apps are provided by a system administrator or a friend, these users hardly have any problems when using it.
The users I know were either company workers in small companies who used special software for their needs as well as some standard software (like browser, mail, Acrobat Reader and office software, which in this case was Applixware).
Or they were older people who just wanted to surf the net, send some e-mail to their grandchildren and type the odd letter.
And as I said, all those users hardly had any problems. Because Linux is a multiuser environment and for years had stricter user rights, the users (who of course didn't have root passwords) couldn't even mess with their system (except for the desktop settings).
On the other side those users who do install software themselves and who expect to buy a new gadget and pop in the driver CD and click setup.exe do have problems when using Linux. If your software needs vary and change you can have a hard time using Linux. I know this from first hand experience, too:-). I know, that most things are possible if you put in enough effort, but what ordinary user really wants to?
But for every user of the second type, there are maybe 20 of the first type. So I believe there is a huge base for Linux to grow.
back in the old days of Netscape 3.x I rolled out Netscape in a corporate environment and it was as easy as you could wish for:
copy the software directory anywhere on the disk
install a preferences file in the user's home directory (as it was a simple text file it could be customized with the user's mail address, etc.).
This really was an administrator's dream. Easy, flexible, transparent. You could do an automated rollout to lots of users and all the user had to do was to log on and start sending e-mail. Not a single configuration or setup was required on the user's side.
I always believed this was the Unix/Linux advantage: doing administrative tasks like this through scripts and giving the user a perfect pre-configured system.
So please can anybody tell me, why it changed so much? Today my Netscape preferences sit in ~/.mozilla/default/uw918lxz.slt and I have no clue why and the whole lot of files are nearly unreadable. So how do people rollout large Netscape/Mozilla installations? Do you really expect your user to call a setup or configure his mail address? Do you copy and adjust the.mozilla directory and have the same bad feeling when editing the Windows registry?
So my questions are:
why does it have to be so complex nowadays? Is it because we tend to convert Unix/Linux from the original multiuser system to a single user Windows clone?
how do people solve a task like this with today's Netscape/Mozilla and how did they learn it (maybe I'm too stupid or too old as I can even remember using Mozilla when it was labeled Mosaic?)
Michael
"Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom"
on
Laptops in Every Backpack
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I'm a computer geek myself and love to work with my computers. And I always found computers in schools a good idea. That's until I read Clifford Stolls"High-Tech Heretic. Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian".
You might know Clifford Stoll, he is famous from the early days of the Internet when he tracked down a computer spy. And he's programming computers since the mid 60s.
But his reasons for keeping computers out of the shools are compelling:
computers and educational software are expensive. Much more expensive than say good school books. And computers will break faster than books.
computers are also expensive because they bind ressources which could be used better. E.g. teachers have to do system administration instead of teaching. And computers and educational software get old soon.
educational software e.g. in physics only simulates reality. To understand magnetism you have to hold the real thing in your hand.
and most of all he thinks that computers are easy to use and you don't need computers in school to become computer literate. You can learn how to use a computer (which is what people need) in only a couple of weeks.
After I read the book, I was convinced, that we should have computers in school, but only where they are really useful. Giving a laptop to every pupil seems much too expensive and the money should better be spent for conventional education (more teachers, better books, better libraries).
Clifford Stoll sometimes sounds too extreme or even fanatic to me, but then he has a lot of facts which prove his ideas. So you might want to read his book or give it to your school:-).
I'd really like to buy a Loki game and I'd done it earlier (well, I bought one once as a present). Unfortunately I'm not very much into computer games and by looking at the boxes nearly all Loki games seem to be rather brutal shooting games.
Unfortunately this is not the kind of game I like best. I'd buy something like the Air Hockey game from Broederbund I once used to play on the Mac or Bolo (a kind of super mega break out game) for the Atari. Maybe a flight simulator.
So can you recommend me a Loki game? If it has to be a shooting game which one is the most intelligent or less brutal? I've seen the Solitaire but is it really worth it to buy a Solitaire game?
I know it's a tough question and different people like different distributions. But he asked so here's my answer:
I think SuSE is a great distribution. It is:
easy to install
has all the apps
has a nice GUI
has a journaled filesystem out of the box
can be updated over the network
If you haven't looked at SuSE for a while, they made a huge progress with their graphical installer. And the ease of graphical administration should appeal to Windows users.
I believe you do have some points but I also believe you're wrong.
Why be so pessimistic? I mean why are people so astonished that
Linux companies have to downsize or even close? Linux is free
software and no company owns it. You can make a living on selling
Linux (as demonstrated by SuSE), but you can't get rich by
programming a free file browser for Linux (as demonstrated by
Eazel).
But Linux with its Unix roots has lots of features which
make it a good OS for the desktop and I managed to put it on
about 70 corporate desktops where it runs without problems.
Some of those great features are:
- Linux can easily be configured to run on diskless
clients which boot from the server. That's the
configuration we use at our company and it works
great (reliable and fast). At one of our customers
two diskless clients got stolen but not the server
and you can't imagine how astonished he was when
we shipped him two new ones and he could continue
to work at once with not a single bit of data
lost.
- Linux is a multiuser OS, so its default settings
are more secure than those of Windows. Users can't
install software and compromise the system.
- As Linux stores most parameters in the user's home
directory which normally is on a network server,
a network of Linux desktops appears to the user
as a single computer with several identical terminals.
In the Windows world the concept is that each user
has its own PC with its own software installation.
In a properly set up Linux network you can log on
to every computer and have the exact same environment
as on every other workstation.
- As the Linux configuration is based on configuration
files, it is easy for professional system administrators
to set up lots of Linux workstations using automated
scripts. Easy, fast and much cheaper than Windows
software like SMS.
So much about why a Unix based system is better as a
desktop as a Windows based.
Now to the desktop environment: the only thing Linux is
really lacking is a wide range of applications. But that
could be changed, so again why be so pessimistic?
Linux does have a rock solid and easy to use desktop
environment (well, at least one: we use KDE 1.1.2 in
our company and it rocks). Users can configure their
screen savers and start applications. What more can
an ordinary user ask for?
And Linux does have toolkits to program applications
(Qt, GTK, Java/Swing, Motif, etc.).
So Linux has everything it takes to succeed in the
desktop world. So what's the problem?
It is my believe that there is one main problem for
Linux to be successful on the desktop: people want
a standardized look and feel. Every application must
behave as all the others. We need consistent file
select dialogs, consistent scroll bars, menus, buttons
and so on. I mean it's the same reason why Unix failed
in the first place. Users and developers had to
choose from OpenView, Motif, Xaw, etc.
So Linux folks have to unite or you might be right
an Linux will fail on the desktop. Choice isn't as
good for Linux as some people say it is.
Instead of serveral half-baked applications we need
one good browser, one good mail application, one
office suite, etc.
To make things clear: I think users can live with
several toolkits when they all look and feel the
same. It doesn't matter if the application is
programmed in C or C++ as long as the user can't
see a difference.
Let me close with one last remark: maybe you're looking
at the wrong places. Why whine about Corel, Mandrake,
Eazel, etc. and don't mention the new SuSE 7.1
distribution, KDE 2.1.2, Applixware Office Suite,
etc.
SuSE has really gone a long way and is really
easy to install even for a beginner. I can't really
tell anything about the stability of KDE 2.1.2, but
it also has some great developments. E.g. the
konqueror browser is really quite usable where Mozilla
is still a mess. And Applixware is a great office
suite: small footprint, rock solid, programmable in
ELF and it has everything a normal company user will
probably want (except for the talking paper clip:-).
So I hope you won't continue to write such pessimistic
editorials and maybe help to unite forces for Linux.
Sorry, but I believe he's right: we should have only one desktop. But I'd not call it lack of choice. I'd rather call it having a standard.
Would you recommend having more "choice" when it comes to connecting peripherals? Or more choice of keyboard layouts? Probably not.
The desktop and it's look and feel is just an interface between applications and the user. And it must be consistent.
I'm using Unix for more than 15 years and it was a better OS than DOS/Windows from the start. So why had it no chance to succeed? I bet it's because every application used to have a different file open dialog or printing dialog and every application had a different look and feel (like how a scroll bar behaves).
Is that really the kind of choice you want? That every application has a different scroll bar?
But please get me right: I'm only for a consistent user interface. I have nothing against the possibility to configure the user interface. Round buttons or square buttons I don't care as long as all buttons are round or all are square.
And probably the most important thing is that I don't want to limit programming languages or toolkits as long as they're consistent. X11 is the glue between all applications, maybe assisted by some other sort of IPC (CORBA, DCOP, etc.).
There's no reason why a C++ application can't communicate with a C application and have a consistent look and feel. So why not do it!
I don't have 2500 Linux boxes, but we deployed about 100 machines to a dozen locations within one year. And I believe very successfully:-). Those locations were our customers who run our own business software which was formerly used on ASCII terminals on a SCO server.
We used SuSE 6.2 and developed our own configuration that would allow diskless clients to boot from a server. We would manually install a stock SuSE Linux on the server first and then run our configuration script from the CD. This script would take a configuration file which describes the location (clients, users, printers, etc.) and would automatically setup the server according to those specifications.
After this you can immediately switch on the diskless clients, log on and start working.
Its easy to do this kind of configuration script yourself because in Unix/Linux you only have to change a couple of text files. Within several weeks of work we had our configuration script which would allow to setup a small company in about half a day. The installation/configuration of the Linux operating system would take about 2 hours (including setting up printers, users, mail, DNS, NFS, etc.).
We use SuSE Linux, KDE 1.1.2, Applixware Office and Netscape Communicator for browsing and mail and we built an intranet based on dial-on-demand ISDN. Our users are ordinary business users who used to work with ASCII terminals, some with Windows experience.
So what can I say about such an installation?
(1) the Linux configuration is really stable (uptime of the servers usually serveral months) and from what I hear it is well accepted. You can trust Linux for business critical application!
(2) the users have no major problems working with Linux. KDE together with applications like Applixware or Netscape is easy to use and rather similar to Windows. I don't understand why one other poster was commenting on high costs of user migration. The users shouldn't have to do any administration tasks and using an application like Netscape on Linux is not much different from using Netscape on Windows. OK, Applixware has different function keys from Microsoft Office, but the basic functions are the same.
(3) the remote administration possibilities of Linux are great. At most locations we don't have system administrators and we are able to do most administration through the intranet. Last week we had 2 clients stolen at on of our customers. Because the server was in a secure back room we would send him 2 new boxes, edit the ethernet addresses in dhcpd.conf and he could continue his work without any loss of data.
(4) we considered using some simple window manager with a fixed configuration so users wouldn't be able to make unwanted changes to their desktop. But we decided against it and used KDE instead because we believe a simple but secure desktop would not get as much user acceptance as a configurable, Windows-like desktop like KDE. And it seems the users like KDE and its configuration options (they deliberately use themes I personally find outright ugly:-). And in a case of mis-configuration you could alway have a backup copy of.kderc and.kde.
(5) Applixware is a quite nice Office package. It has everything a normal user wants and is a very stable application too. You can also make connections between the applications like integrating a spreadsheet in a word document. And you have extensive programming possibilities with the ELF macro language. The compatibility with Microsoft Office documents is ok, but not great. If you don't have an extensive document exchange with Microsoft Office users you should be ok.
(6) If you plan a business setup, don't save by using too cheap hardware. I mean why shouldn't you bother to use cheaper hardware than a Windows solution would use. And you wouldn't deploy a Windows 2000/Office 2000 solution with less than 128MB RAM, would you? The Linux kernel might need less ressources than the Windows kernel, but modern applications (like Java applications) can use a lot of ressources on Linux too.
(7) the greatest problem in everyday use is, I believe, the printing subsystem. Tracking and deleting print jobs on the network isn't always easy. Everything else runs without much user or administrator interaction.
(8) even if you don't use diskless clients, I'd second another poster's advice that you should have all your important data on the server. This simplifies the backup and other administration tasks and is no performance problem on a 100MBit ethernet (NFS caches file access by default which NT 4.0 to my best knowledge does not).
(9) we also built a couple of scripts which are scheduled by cron and automatically scan the server for problems (like running out of disk speed, alarms from hardware sensors, etc.).
(10) I also think that we have a simple and cheap but effective backup scheme. Backup is always a trade off between useability and data security. We use dump(8) for backup and have a second hard disk for an automatic daily incremental backup. And each week we do a full dump on DAT tape. This one is also scheduled automatically so the local administrator only has to change the tape once a week.
All in all, Linux is a great solution even for business use. Administration even of large installations is rather simple, at least for someone knowing the Unix way of things.
Of course, there are downsides too:
(1) hardware support for Linux is still not good enough. We had bad results with ink jet printers and scanners. At CeBIT 2000 fair I asked all major ink jet manufacturers (HP, Epson, etc.) about Linux support and all said there is none at all. Of course I know that there are some drivers mostly for older models, but with our available hardware we couldn't get the kind of results as with Windows software (e.g. our scanner would get much worse results with rastered images).
(2) there still aren't enough applications available for Linux. You can have office applications, even financial applications, but not everything the users want.
(3) you might not want to hear this, but I believe for commercial use the Linux development cycles are too fast. I think there are 3-4 SuSE releases every year, but in a large company you can only upgrade your installation every few years (because you can bet that with every upgrade there will be tons of new problems with your applications). Unfortunately the dependencies on new library versions gets larger and larger and more and more applications won't run or compile on older systems without the appropriate libraries. But nonetheless, go with Linux (or any Unix) if you can:-) Michael
I'd recommend using Java and I believe there are lots of advantages:
Portability ===========
Often discussed but actually quite good. Try using two virtual machines (e.g. Sun and IBM) during development and I believe you will easily find most portability issues. In my experience those issues most of the time are only minor differences like the following: a method defined as returning an Object[] might in the case of an empty array return a null pointer or an empty array. You can work around this easily and write a portable program [if (result == null || result.length == 0)].
Support =======
You can get virtual machines or programming tools from various sources and there is lots of documentation, literature, classes, etc. This is not available for most small cross platform toolkits.
Nice language =============
You might argue about this, but I like Java as a language. In my experience most of the things you might imagine are possible without major hacks (at least most things I can imagine:-).
Speed =====
If you're not into 3D game programming or do have extreme wishes (as supporting 66MHz 486), I believe that speed isn't much of an issue any more and I have three reasons: first, todays hardware is rather fast. Today you hardly can buy a machine with less than 500MHz. Second virtual machines get faster with compilation techniques, etc.
But I believe my third point is an important one: even though modern GUIs work event driven and mostly react on events, Java gives you the oportunity to design software in a way that can use the processor cycles between user interactions (and normally there goes a lot of CPU power unused - at least outside of action gaming).
You can easily create background threads which already prepare dialogues which will be used in the future. Of course you have to change your application design to a multi-threaded architecture.
Dynamic layout ==============
One of the things I like most with Java and AWT/Swing as a GUI is the possibility of layout management. Your program can create layouts on the fly. This supports a more generic programming. Try yourself how easy it is to create a nice layout without pixel calculation and how easy you can have your dialogues generated by a program.
we use a lot of diskless Linux clients here at several locations of our company and they work great.
If you have a company environment with a central database and/or file server you depend on a central server anyway so it wont bother you if the clients dont work without the server.
As for administration its the best thing to do. Its more like having ASCII terminals. You buy a new box, hook it on the network, make a few configuration entries on the server and as soon as you boot the new client it will have all the same software as the other clients, it will have an identical configuration and it will have access to all your personal files.
And if you care for a good integrated network configuration (NIS, NFS, DNS, etc.) you can really say that as Sun puts it "the network is the computer". People would be able to log in from every workstation and have the same desktop and applications everywhere. No need for complex registry things, just a shared/home and/usr file system:-).
Often people think a diskless client could be compared to X terminals or things like Microsoft Terminal Server, but this is not true! With a diskless clients each user has its own CPU and memory. They only share the disks. In times where every office application has animated cartoon characters talking to each other you need a lot of CPU power:-).
Another misconception (in my belief) is, that a diskless client is a "thin client", meaning a cheap client. We use our diskless clients for Java and office applications. This cant be done with an old 486. This cant even be done with good performance with a JavaStation (at least the last one Ive seen). But it can be done with a Pentium III 500 Mhz. And theyre cheap enough (at least for serious company use and more so when you look at TCO). The main benefit with diskless clients is not saving the money for a disk drive, but easy system administration and less problems for the users!
BTW, the performance is ok. Its a bit different from "normal" configurations. You might need to wait a little longer for the first load of a program after a reboot, but programs like Netscape or Applixware Office start in a couple of seconds and it will be faster the second time. After the initial loading you wont see any difference, at least if you dont have huge files as in image or audio processing.
My recommendations for say 10 diskless clients with heavy workload would be (things may vary):
Server: 256 MB main memory (you cant have enough here) Pentium III 500 MHz (the current user-space NFS needs a lot of CPU Power) SCSI disks (with diskless clients parallelization is important)
Clients: 128 MB main memory (they shouldnt swap) Pentium III 500 MHz (could be less depending on your applications, we use Java) Floppy (we boot from a floppy) NIC (buy a good one with a stable driver, as every bit will go through here; we use DEC Tulip based PCI 10/100 NICs).
Network: It might work ok with 10MBit, but you should really go for 100MBit. Buy a dual speed hub.
Now to the Linux setup:
First thing the client needs is a Linux kernel in his memory. You can use a boot PROM or start with a floppy which Id recommend. Just compile a kernel and dd it onto a floppy disk.
The kernel should have drivers for your favorite NICs compiled in and it should have support for root file system on NFS and Bootp support. After building the kernel you have to use rdev to actually configure the root file system.
After you start the kernel, it will ask a Bootp (DHCP) server for its IP address and root file system. This will then be mounted via NFS and the rest goes like any other Linux box.
If you want a really integrated solution, you have to set up the following subsystems:
* DNS Domain Name Server Have entries for the server and all clients. Better than/etc/hosts in the long range.
* Mail Use the server as SMTP and POP3 server.
* NIS/YP Network Information System Use NIS for a common login administration.
* DHCP/Bootp Use DHCP for configuration of diskless clients.
* Printer spooling This is a bit tricky with apsfilter, but having network printers or printserver helps.
* NFS Network file system This is the base system for sharing files. You can share/home,/usr,/opt between server and clients and should have / and/var separate for each.
For start make a copy of your Linux filesystem and name it say/clients/client1. Then compile a kernel with root NFS and setup DHCP or Bootp. With only a few changes on your server you should be able to boot a diskless client. The changes would be DHCP, an entry in/etc/hosts or DNS, and NFS server with exporting/clients/client1).
I did this using a SuSE Linux 5.3 but it should work with every distribution (we still use this older version, because in a company environment you just cant change your OS every other day:-).
Just try it out step after step: first boot the client and see if you get a Bootp request at the server. Then Bootp should give the client a new IP address. Both should be fairly easy. The tricky part might be getting a root file system from the NFS server. But then, you only have to get/etc/exports right. And then the client will boot and you can make adjustments in the root file system.
Good luck and best wishes!
Michael
P.S.: I made my first Unix diskless client system about 10 years ago using DECstations running DECs Ultrix because our university had ordered several DECstations but only one disk because of a money shortage:-).
I believe, that the ability to run on diskless clients is a huge advantage for Linux compared to Windows NT. As I said, the Microsoft Terminal Server is a different concept and its worse in performance because all users share a CPU.
But on the other hand, if you push Linux so far and make heavy use of all daemons ranging from DHCP to LDAP, you will also see its limitations. Coming from different persons, different parts of the system might not work as good as possible with others. Examples include the integration of NIS. I mean, most things in Linux work, sort of, but it could be better. Does anybody know how RedHat scales in this area, as I never actually tried it.
If you feel the need to criticize me for "Linux bashing" please make your own diskless client configuration first and install it in several companies with real users and real world problems and then come back. But to calm you: a large Linux installation is better than a large NT installation any day:-).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not really a frequent visitor to the U.S., but I've been there a couple of times as a tourist and I can say, my personal experiences aren't that bad. The unfriendliest welcome was when I was entering by car from Canada about 20 years ago but even that wasn't so bad, just a little annoying. The last times I entered through Houston and Washington D.C. and the custom officers were friendly as have been most Americans we met (if not all).
About the Olympics, Chicago would probably be a great city for Olympics, but I wouldn't believe custom procedures to be a major factor in the decision. I rather believe it's about the first games in South America.
Taking a picture of a paper check really sounds like state of the art in electronic banking :-).
Living in Europe, the last time I used a check was maybe 10 years ago.
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) has a Top 10 list, which lists the most serious web application vulnerabilities, discusses how to protect against them, and provides links to more information (http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project). This might be a good start.
Do you know that today's computers are really fast? I mean, those GHz processors are incredibly fast, it is unbelievable what they are able to do in a second. But you might not know it from just using a computer.
In my daily work I often receive very slow responses from both Windows and Linux machines. I often have to wait seconds for things that should (and could) be instant. I mean after the screen saver on my desktop machine locks the screen, the next user request invariably will be to unlock it. The OS should know that. And it should sit there waiting for any sign that its master wants to work again and then it should instantly present the password dialog.
Or what about those apps where I have to look for seconds at animated splash screens saying that they load this or that module or plugin. Why can't the OS provide means for loading pre-initialized applications (some folks might remember the undump utility).
There are possible performance improvements all over the place, which could be achieved by using techniques like caching or using database technology or being able to hint to the operating system which ressources might be needed next. Together with maybe a little more RAM this could create a really reactive user experience.
I often wonder how you can spend so much money for creating software and come up with such bad and slow design :-).
I know for a fact that there are ordinary PC users who have no problems with using Linux. From my experience I can characterize those users as "users who don't even think about installing software themselves".
:-). I know, that most things are possible if you put in enough effort, but what ordinary user really wants to?
But if Linux and the necessary apps are provided by a system administrator or a friend, these users hardly have any problems when using it.
The users I know were either company workers in small companies who used special software for their needs as well as some standard software (like browser, mail, Acrobat Reader and office software, which in this case was Applixware).
Or they were older people who just wanted to surf the net, send some e-mail to their grandchildren and type the odd letter.
And as I said, all those users hardly had any problems. Because Linux is a multiuser environment and for years had stricter user rights, the users (who of course didn't have root passwords) couldn't even mess with their system (except for the desktop settings).
On the other side those users who do install software themselves and who expect to buy a new gadget and pop in the driver CD and click setup.exe do have problems when using Linux. If your software needs vary and change you can have a hard time using Linux. I know this from first hand experience, too
But for every user of the second type, there are maybe 20 of the first type. So I believe there is a huge base for Linux to grow.
back in the old days of Netscape 3.x I rolled out Netscape in a corporate environment and it was as easy as you could wish for:
This really was an administrator's dream. Easy, flexible, transparent. You could do an automated rollout to lots of users and all the user had to do was to log on and start sending e-mail. Not a single configuration or setup was required on the user's side.
I always believed this was the Unix/Linux advantage: doing administrative tasks like this through scripts and giving the user a perfect pre-configured system.
So please can anybody tell me, why it changed so much? Today my Netscape preferences sit in ~/.mozilla/default/uw918lxz.slt and I have no clue why and the whole lot of files are nearly unreadable. So how do people rollout large Netscape/Mozilla installations? Do you really expect your user to call a setup or configure his mail address? Do you copy and adjust the
So my questions are:
Michael
You might know Clifford Stoll, he is famous from the early days of the Internet when he tracked down a computer spy. And he's programming computers since the mid 60s.
But his reasons for keeping computers out of the shools are compelling:
After I read the book, I was convinced, that we should have computers in school, but only where they are really useful. Giving a laptop to every pupil seems much too expensive and the money should better be spent for conventional education (more teachers, better books, better libraries).
Clifford Stoll sometimes sounds too extreme or even fanatic to me, but then he has a lot of facts which prove his ideas. So you might want to read his book or give it to your school :-).
Unfortunately this is not the kind of game I like best. I'd buy something like the Air Hockey game from Broederbund I once used to play on the Mac or Bolo (a kind of super mega break out game) for the Atari. Maybe a flight simulator.
So can you recommend me a Loki game? If it has to be a shooting game which one is the most intelligent or less brutal? I've seen the Solitaire but is it really worth it to buy a Solitaire game?
I think SuSE is a great distribution. It is:
If you haven't looked at SuSE for a while, they made a huge progress with their graphical installer. And the ease of graphical administration should appeal to Windows users.
Give it a try!
Michael
Here is a letter I wrote to Kevin Reichard:
:-).
Hi,
I believe you do have some points but I also believe you're wrong.
Why be so pessimistic? I mean why are people so astonished that
Linux companies have to downsize or even close? Linux is free
software and no company owns it. You can make a living on selling
Linux (as demonstrated by SuSE), but you can't get rich by
programming a free file browser for Linux (as demonstrated by
Eazel).
But Linux with its Unix roots has lots of features which
make it a good OS for the desktop and I managed to put it on
about 70 corporate desktops where it runs without problems.
Some of those great features are:
- Linux can easily be configured to run on diskless
clients which boot from the server. That's the
configuration we use at our company and it works
great (reliable and fast). At one of our customers
two diskless clients got stolen but not the server
and you can't imagine how astonished he was when
we shipped him two new ones and he could continue
to work at once with not a single bit of data
lost.
- Linux is a multiuser OS, so its default settings
are more secure than those of Windows. Users can't
install software and compromise the system.
- As Linux stores most parameters in the user's home
directory which normally is on a network server,
a network of Linux desktops appears to the user
as a single computer with several identical terminals.
In the Windows world the concept is that each user
has its own PC with its own software installation.
In a properly set up Linux network you can log on
to every computer and have the exact same environment
as on every other workstation.
- As the Linux configuration is based on configuration
files, it is easy for professional system administrators
to set up lots of Linux workstations using automated
scripts. Easy, fast and much cheaper than Windows
software like SMS.
So much about why a Unix based system is better as a
desktop as a Windows based.
Now to the desktop environment: the only thing Linux is
really lacking is a wide range of applications. But that
could be changed, so again why be so pessimistic?
Linux does have a rock solid and easy to use desktop
environment (well, at least one: we use KDE 1.1.2 in
our company and it rocks). Users can configure their
screen savers and start applications. What more can
an ordinary user ask for?
And Linux does have toolkits to program applications
(Qt, GTK, Java/Swing, Motif, etc.).
So Linux has everything it takes to succeed in the
desktop world. So what's the problem?
It is my believe that there is one main problem for
Linux to be successful on the desktop: people want
a standardized look and feel. Every application must
behave as all the others. We need consistent file
select dialogs, consistent scroll bars, menus, buttons
and so on. I mean it's the same reason why Unix failed
in the first place. Users and developers had to
choose from OpenView, Motif, Xaw, etc.
So Linux folks have to unite or you might be right
an Linux will fail on the desktop. Choice isn't as
good for Linux as some people say it is.
Instead of serveral half-baked applications we need
one good browser, one good mail application, one
office suite, etc.
To make things clear: I think users can live with
several toolkits when they all look and feel the
same. It doesn't matter if the application is
programmed in C or C++ as long as the user can't
see a difference.
Let me close with one last remark: maybe you're looking
at the wrong places. Why whine about Corel, Mandrake,
Eazel, etc. and don't mention the new SuSE 7.1
distribution, KDE 2.1.2, Applixware Office Suite,
etc.
SuSE has really gone a long way and is really
easy to install even for a beginner. I can't really
tell anything about the stability of KDE 2.1.2, but
it also has some great developments. E.g. the
konqueror browser is really quite usable where Mozilla
is still a mess. And Applixware is a great office
suite: small footprint, rock solid, programmable in
ELF and it has everything a normal company user will
probably want (except for the talking paper clip
So I hope you won't continue to write such pessimistic
editorials and maybe help to unite forces for Linux.
Best wishes
Michael
Would you recommend having more "choice" when it comes to connecting peripherals? Or more choice of keyboard layouts? Probably not.
The desktop and it's look and feel is just an interface between applications and the user. And it must be consistent.
I'm using Unix for more than 15 years and it was a better OS than DOS/Windows from the start. So why had it no chance to succeed? I bet it's because every application used to have a different file open dialog or printing dialog and every application had a different look and feel (like how a scroll bar behaves).
Is that really the kind of choice you want? That every application has a different scroll bar?
But please get me right: I'm only for a consistent user interface. I have nothing against the possibility to configure the user interface. Round buttons or square buttons I don't care as long as all buttons are round or all are square.
And probably the most important thing is that I don't want to limit programming languages or toolkits as long as they're consistent. X11 is the glue between all applications, maybe assisted by some other sort of IPC (CORBA, DCOP, etc.).
There's no reason why a C++ application can't communicate with a C application and have a consistent look and feel. So why not do it!
I don't have 2500 Linux boxes, but we deployed about 100 machines to a dozen locations within one year. And I believe very successfully :-). Those locations were our customers who run our own business software which was formerly used on ASCII terminals on a SCO server.
We used SuSE 6.2 and developed our own configuration that would allow diskless clients to boot from a server. We would manually install a stock SuSE Linux on the server first and then run our configuration script from the CD. This script would take a configuration file which describes the location (clients, users, printers, etc.) and would automatically setup the server according to those specifications.
After this you can immediately switch on the diskless clients, log on and start working.
Its easy to do this kind of configuration script yourself because in Unix/Linux you only have to change a couple of text files. Within several weeks of work we had our configuration script which would allow to setup a small company in about half a day. The installation/configuration of the Linux operating system would take about 2 hours (including setting up printers, users, mail, DNS, NFS, etc.).
We use SuSE Linux, KDE 1.1.2, Applixware Office and Netscape Communicator for browsing and mail and we built an intranet based on dial-on-demand ISDN. Our users are ordinary business users who used to work with ASCII terminals, some with Windows experience.
So what can I say about such an installation?
(1) the Linux configuration is really stable (uptime of the servers usually serveral months) and from what I hear it is well accepted. You can trust Linux for business critical application!
(2) the users have no major problems working with Linux. KDE together with applications like Applixware or Netscape is easy to use and rather similar to Windows. I don't understand why one other poster was commenting on high costs of user migration. The users shouldn't have to do any administration tasks and using an application like Netscape on Linux is not much different from using Netscape on Windows. OK, Applixware has different function keys from Microsoft Office, but the basic functions are the same.
(3) the remote administration possibilities of Linux are great. At most locations we don't have system administrators and we are able to do most administration through the intranet. Last week we had 2 clients stolen at on of our customers. Because the server was in a secure back room we would send him 2 new boxes, edit the ethernet addresses in dhcpd.conf and he could continue his work without any loss of data.
(4) we considered using some simple window manager with a fixed configuration so users wouldn't be able to make unwanted changes to their desktop. But we decided against it and used KDE instead because we believe a simple but secure desktop would not get as much user acceptance as a configurable, Windows-like desktop like KDE. And it seems the users like KDE and its configuration options (they deliberately use themes I personally find outright ugly :-). And in a case of mis-configuration you could alway have a backup copy of .kderc and .kde.
(5) Applixware is a quite nice Office package. It has everything a normal user wants and is a very stable application too. You can also make connections between the applications like integrating a spreadsheet in a word document. And you have extensive programming possibilities with the ELF macro language. The compatibility with Microsoft Office documents is ok, but not great. If you don't have an extensive document exchange with Microsoft Office users you should be ok.
(6) If you plan a business setup, don't save by using too cheap hardware. I mean why shouldn't you bother to use cheaper hardware than a Windows solution would use. And you wouldn't deploy a Windows 2000/Office 2000 solution with less than 128MB RAM, would you? The Linux kernel might need less ressources than the Windows kernel, but modern applications (like Java applications) can use a lot of ressources on Linux too.
(7) the greatest problem in everyday use is, I believe, the printing subsystem. Tracking and deleting print jobs on the network isn't always easy. Everything else runs without much user or administrator interaction.
(8) even if you don't use diskless clients, I'd second another poster's advice that you should have all your important data on the server. This simplifies the backup and other administration tasks and is no performance problem on a 100MBit ethernet (NFS caches file access by default which NT 4.0 to my best knowledge does not).
(9) we also built a couple of scripts which are scheduled by cron and automatically scan the server for problems (like running out of disk speed, alarms from hardware sensors, etc.).
(10) I also think that we have a simple and cheap but effective backup scheme. Backup is always a trade off between useability and data security. We use dump(8) for backup and have a second hard disk for an automatic daily incremental backup. And each week we do a full dump on DAT tape. This one is also scheduled automatically so the local administrator only has to change the tape once a week.
All in all, Linux is a great solution even for business use. Administration even of large installations is rather simple, at least for someone knowing the Unix way of things.
Of course, there are downsides too:
(1) hardware support for Linux is still not good enough. We had bad results with ink jet printers and scanners. At CeBIT 2000 fair I asked all major ink jet manufacturers (HP, Epson, etc.) about Linux support and all said there is none at all. Of course I know that there are some drivers mostly for older models, but with our available hardware we couldn't get the kind of results as with Windows software (e.g. our scanner would get much worse results with rastered images).
(2) there still aren't enough applications available for Linux. You can have office applications, even financial applications, but not everything the users want.
(3) you might not want to hear this, but I believe for commercial use the Linux development cycles are too fast. I think there are 3-4 SuSE releases every year, but in a large company you can only upgrade your installation every few years (because you can bet that with every upgrade there will be tons of new problems with your applications). Unfortunately the dependencies on new library versions gets larger and larger and more and more applications won't run or compile on older systems without the appropriate libraries. But nonetheless, go with Linux (or any Unix) if you can :-) Michael
I'd recommend using Java and I believe there are lots of advantages:
:-).
Portability
===========
Often discussed but actually quite good. Try using two virtual machines (e.g. Sun and IBM) during development and I believe you will easily find most portability issues. In my experience those issues most of the time are only minor differences like the following: a method defined as returning an Object[] might in the case of an empty array return a null pointer or an empty array. You can work around this easily and write a portable program [if (result == null || result.length == 0)].
Support
=======
You can get virtual machines or programming tools from various sources and there is lots of documentation, literature, classes, etc. This is not available for most small cross platform toolkits.
Nice language
=============
You might argue about this, but I like Java as a language. In my experience most of the things you might imagine are possible without major hacks (at least most things I can imagine
Speed
=====
If you're not into 3D game programming or do have extreme wishes (as supporting 66MHz 486), I believe that speed isn't much of an issue any more and I have three reasons: first, todays hardware is rather fast. Today you hardly can buy a machine with less than 500MHz. Second virtual machines get faster with compilation techniques, etc.
But I believe my third point is an important one: even though modern GUIs work event driven and mostly react on events, Java gives you the oportunity to design software in a way that can use the processor cycles between user interactions (and normally there goes a lot of CPU power unused - at least outside of action gaming).
You can easily create background threads which already prepare dialogues which will be used in the future. Of course you have to change your application design to a multi-threaded architecture.
Dynamic layout
==============
One of the things I like most with Java and AWT/Swing as a GUI is the possibility of layout management. Your program can create layouts on the fly. This supports a more generic programming. Try yourself how easy it is to create a nice layout without pixel calculation and how easy you can have your dialogues generated by a program.
Hi,
/home and /usr file system :-).
:-).
/etc/hosts in the long range.
/home, /usr, /opt between server and clients and should have / and /var separate for each.
/clients/client1. Then compile a kernel with root NFS and setup DHCP or Bootp. With only a few changes on your server you should be able to boot a diskless client. The changes would be DHCP, an entry in /etc/hosts or DNS, and NFS server with exporting /clients/client1).
:-).
/etc/exports right. And then the client will boot and you can make adjustments in the root file system.
:-).
:-).
we use a lot of diskless Linux clients here at several locations of our company and they work great.
If you have a company environment with a central database and/or file server you depend on a central server anyway so it wont bother you if the clients dont work without the server.
As for administration its the best thing to do. Its more like having ASCII terminals. You buy a new box, hook it on the network, make a few configuration entries on the server and as soon as you boot the new client it will have all the same software as the other clients, it will have an identical configuration and it will have access to all your personal files.
And if you care for a good integrated network configuration (NIS, NFS, DNS, etc.) you can really say that as Sun puts it "the network is the computer". People would be able to log in from every workstation and have the same desktop and applications everywhere. No need for complex registry things, just a shared
Often people think a diskless client could be compared to X terminals or things like Microsoft Terminal Server, but this is not true! With a diskless clients each user has its own CPU and memory. They only share the disks. In times where every office application has animated cartoon characters talking to each other you need a lot of CPU power
Another misconception (in my belief) is, that a diskless client is a "thin client", meaning a cheap client. We use our diskless clients for Java and office applications. This cant be done with an old 486. This cant even be done with good performance with a JavaStation (at least the last one Ive seen). But it can be done with a Pentium III 500 Mhz. And theyre cheap enough (at least for serious company use and more so when you look at TCO). The main benefit with diskless clients is not saving the money for a disk drive, but easy system administration and less problems for the users!
BTW, the performance is ok. Its a bit different from "normal" configurations. You might need to wait a little longer for the first load of a program after a reboot, but programs like Netscape or Applixware Office start in a couple of seconds and it will be faster the second time. After the initial loading you wont see any difference, at least if you dont have huge files as in image or audio processing.
My recommendations for say 10 diskless clients with heavy workload would be (things may vary):
Server:
256 MB main memory (you cant have enough here)
Pentium III 500 MHz (the current user-space NFS needs a lot of CPU Power)
SCSI disks (with diskless clients parallelization is important)
Clients:
128 MB main memory (they shouldnt swap)
Pentium III 500 MHz (could be less depending on your applications, we use Java)
Floppy (we boot from a floppy)
NIC (buy a good one with a stable driver, as every bit will go through here; we use DEC Tulip based PCI 10/100 NICs).
Network:
It might work ok with 10MBit, but you should really go for 100MBit.
Buy a dual speed hub.
Now to the Linux setup:
First thing the client needs is a Linux kernel in his memory. You can use a boot PROM or start with a floppy which Id recommend. Just compile a kernel and dd it onto a floppy disk.
The kernel should have drivers for your favorite NICs compiled in and it should have support for root file system on NFS and Bootp support. After building the kernel you have to use rdev to actually configure the root file system.
After you start the kernel, it will ask a Bootp (DHCP) server for its IP address and root file system. This will then be mounted via NFS and the rest goes like any other Linux box.
If you want a really integrated solution, you have to set up the following subsystems:
* DNS Domain Name Server
Have entries for the server and all clients. Better than
* Mail
Use the server as SMTP and POP3 server.
* NIS/YP Network Information System
Use NIS for a common login administration.
* DHCP/Bootp
Use DHCP for configuration of diskless clients.
* Printer spooling
This is a bit tricky with apsfilter, but having network printers or printserver helps.
* NFS Network file system
This is the base system for sharing files. You can share
For start make a copy of your Linux filesystem and name it say
I did this using a SuSE Linux 5.3 but it should work with every distribution (we still use this older version, because in a company environment you just cant change your OS every other day
Just try it out step after step: first boot the client and see if you get a Bootp request at the server. Then Bootp should give the client a new IP address. Both should be fairly easy. The tricky part might be getting a root file system from the NFS server. But then, you only have to get
Good luck and best wishes!
Michael
P.S.: I made my first Unix diskless client system about 10 years ago using DECstations running DECs Ultrix because our university had ordered several DECstations but only one disk because of a money shortage
I believe, that the ability to run on diskless clients is a huge advantage for Linux compared to Windows NT. As I said, the Microsoft Terminal Server is a different concept and its worse in performance because all users share a CPU.
But on the other hand, if you push Linux so far and make heavy use of all daemons ranging from DHCP to LDAP, you will also see its limitations. Coming from different persons, different parts of the system might not work as good as possible with others. Examples include the integration of NIS. I mean, most things in Linux work, sort of, but it could be better. Does anybody know how RedHat scales in this area, as I never actually tried it.
If you feel the need to criticize me for "Linux bashing" please make your own diskless client configuration first and install it in several companies with real users and real world problems and then come back. But to calm you: a large Linux installation is better than a large NT installation any day