As long as no one pretends that they can keep up with the better cards, they'll be fine. There's just no reason to use anything better than a realtek on a computer where the system load doesn't matter (eg: dedicated NAT box) with a network that's slow to begin with.
With Linux Desktops being most popular in corporate settings, it's going to start being targetted by professional black hats, if it's not already. Security is a concern, even local exploits.
A desktop system is exposed to tons of potentially hostile data. Strings are like acid, and a complex language like HTML is just asking for trouble.
Don't get me wrong, OpenBSD is waaay into diminishing returns territory as far as security goes, but there's a few things that could be done to get 90% of the benefits, eg propolice in the kernel and W^X.
I dunno about anyone else, but my ISP's DHCP server is shit slow, making it possible for a malicious server to respond faster. OS X machines on cable modem networks aren't exactly rare.
Try CVS over SSH for frequent backups. It's crazy to do it with your entire home directory, it works perfectly well for whatever you're working on if the size is reasonable.
As for people looking over your shoulder... I don't know what to say about that. Shrug.
"Why don't you think IA64 is here to stay? Intel isn't just going to drop this one"
Almost nothing needs it. Oh sure, it'll stagger on in a sort of living death, and Intel will be contractually obligated to keep it around, but it's just not what people need.
"You do know it is the fastest CPU money can buy, don't you?"
meh. As if that's a factor. If being the fastest CPU money could buy was a factor, Alpha would still be around.
KDE and Gnome are both there for desktop stuff. It's the stuff you have to do on the command line that's holding Linux back on the desktop. That stuff still exists.
On my personal scale, KDE is ahead by about 20 points on a scale between 0 and 1000. Given fast enough hardware, it's what I prefer. I use Gnome regularly, and if KDE disapeared tomorrow, I could switch pretty painlessly.
Productivity-wise, where productivity is defined as how productive I am doing what I do with my setup, they both beat Windows and OS X pretty easily. With enough tweaking, my productivity on them is pretty much the same, but Gentoo's default KDE config is closer to how I like it.
"There just isn't room for more than 2 or 3 high-end processor manufacturers, and SUN isn't one of them."
I agree, but I'm not sure about the number. If you have two, they tend to find markets where they don't compete and it's basically a monopoly situation until a third company springs up out of nowhere and very quickly gains a large market share.
I think there's probably room for more, but not many. I think the bigger issue is the number of competing architechtures... There's probably only room for 2-3 major architechtures. POWER/PowerPC and x86 are here to stay. IMO, one of Sparc, IA-64, and MIPS will survive on the high end, and I don't think it's going to be Itanium or MIPS.
They just scan a lot of them until they find one they like. I get scanned by someone on my subnet every day.
In general I'm not convinced of the benefit of disguising one's OS, but I might change my sshd to report the version as 3.7.1p2. OpenBSD's version of OpenSSH lacks the compatability code where the bug was, so no new version is needed. Unfortunately, people see the version string and assume I'm vulnerable.
It's just *annoying* to have all these people always trying to break in.
Well, what other BSDs are there? SunOS and now BSD/OS are no more, and MacOS X is based on Mach. Those are the only ones I can think of...
I think OpenBSD is safe, because a) it's based in Canada, b) it obviously doesn't have fancy pirated code that makes it faster than it should be, because it's not that fast, and c) SCO doesn't care because it's not that fast.
Dunno about the others. They should be fine legally, but they could be tempting targets, because for bread & butter stuff like web serving, they're nearly drop in replacements for Linux.
Close... The BSDs actually rolled back to an older version and removed some files, then backported the stuff they'd done since. As a result, they were clean after the settlement.
They're fanatical about keeping proprietary code out, they don't even like GPL'd code, so they're still clean. It would be near impossible to go after them successfully. Indeed, OpenBSD is based in Canada, so that would make it even worse.
On the other hand, basically every OS today has BSD code in it, some with the copyright notice, some without. The stuff without the copyright notice is stolen, and if the BSD settlement goes out the window, SCO is going to have a lot of stolen code.
I was fortunate enough to start with Windows 95, but I had to maintain trumpet for my family as late as 1999.
The kids nowadays won't remember life before Google, life before broadband (in Calgary at least), or life before P2P. It's an entirely different Internet.
It'll be interesting to see what the next big shift is. We're due. Hang on kiddies, it's almost always fun.:)
I'm 22, and the amount that things have changed since I was 16 blows me away. I didn't think I'd start feeling this way until I hit my late 20's at least.
I got access in 1995, and I won't bore you with the details of what's different now, but suffice it to say that you wouldn't recognize it. You won't recognize it when you hit 22, believe me.
By the time you have kids, the measures you talk about won't be options anymore. My friends are starting to have kids, and it won't be an option for the ones that have already been born. By the time they're old enough to use a mouse, the information you've based your decisions on won't be valid anymore.
The point? Play it by ear, because the rules are always changing.
MS almost certainly has Linux computers around if only for annalysis of the competition. Also, companies they've bought out probably have Linux computers around.
They probably made the decision because it props up SCO, I don't dispute that, but they're not just pulling it out of thin air.
Slashdot Mirror
As long as no one pretends that they can keep up with the better cards, they'll be fine. There's just no reason to use anything better than a realtek on a computer where the system load doesn't matter (eg: dedicated NAT box) with a network that's slow to begin with.
el cheapo cards have their uses.
eg external interface on a NAT box where the cable modem's network port is 10 megabit half duplex.
With Linux Desktops being most popular in corporate settings, it's going to start being targetted by professional black hats, if it's not already. Security is a concern, even local exploits.
A desktop system is exposed to tons of potentially hostile data. Strings are like acid, and a complex language like HTML is just asking for trouble.
Don't get me wrong, OpenBSD is waaay into diminishing returns territory as far as security goes, but there's a few things that could be done to get 90% of the benefits, eg propolice in the kernel and W^X.
I dunno about anyone else, but my ISP's DHCP server is shit slow, making it possible for a malicious server to respond faster. OS X machines on cable modem networks aren't exactly rare.
It's actually possible to disable that... /etc/resolver/local
go in and stick your nameserver in front of theirs, so it reads something like:
nameserver 10.0.0.1
port 53
nameserver 224.0.0.251
port 5353
timeout 1
I hate Apple quite a lot, but only because I know so much about them.
It's a "feature" to make life easy for people with big labs full of Apple computers, but I think home users substantially outnumber those.
Try CVS over SSH for frequent backups. It's crazy to do it with your entire home directory, it works perfectly well for whatever you're working on if the size is reasonable. As for people looking over your shoulder... I don't know what to say about that. Shrug.
Free and Net are pretty good.
It's a user space problem. The kernel has nothing to do with it.
Remote root. Period.
"Why don't you think IA64 is here to stay? Intel isn't just going to drop this one" Almost nothing needs it. Oh sure, it'll stagger on in a sort of living death, and Intel will be contractually obligated to keep it around, but it's just not what people need. "You do know it is the fastest CPU money can buy, don't you?" meh. As if that's a factor. If being the fastest CPU money could buy was a factor, Alpha would still be around.
KDE and Gnome are both there for desktop stuff. It's the stuff you have to do on the command line that's holding Linux back on the desktop. That stuff still exists.
(throws Troll a bone)
On my personal scale, KDE is ahead by about 20 points on a scale between 0 and 1000. Given fast enough hardware, it's what I prefer. I use Gnome regularly, and if KDE disapeared tomorrow, I could switch pretty painlessly.
Productivity-wise, where productivity is defined as how productive I am doing what I do with my setup, they both beat Windows and OS X pretty easily. With enough tweaking, my productivity on them is pretty much the same, but Gentoo's default KDE config is closer to how I like it.
"There just isn't room for more than 2 or 3 high-end processor manufacturers, and SUN isn't one of them."
I agree, but I'm not sure about the number. If you have two, they tend to find markets where they don't compete and it's basically a monopoly situation until a third company springs up out of nowhere and very quickly gains a large market share.
I think there's probably room for more, but not many. I think the bigger issue is the number of competing architechtures... There's probably only room for 2-3 major architechtures. POWER/PowerPC and x86 are here to stay. IMO, one of Sparc, IA-64, and MIPS will survive on the high end, and I don't think it's going to be Itanium or MIPS.
oh fuck yes
2.4 was completely unacceptable. 2.6 is what allowed me to ditch Windows.
I understand there are patches to 2.4 that can give you most of the same stuff, but I really didn't feel like dealing with that.
Yes.
They just scan a lot of them until they find one they like. I get scanned by someone on my subnet every day.
In general I'm not convinced of the benefit of disguising one's OS, but I might change my sshd to report the version as 3.7.1p2. OpenBSD's version of OpenSSH lacks the compatability code where the bug was, so no new version is needed. Unfortunately, people see the version string and assume I'm vulnerable.
It's just *annoying* to have all these people always trying to break in.
oh... my... sweet... jebus...
Well, what other BSDs are there? SunOS and now BSD/OS are no more, and MacOS X is based on Mach. Those are the only ones I can think of...
I think OpenBSD is safe, because a) it's based in Canada, b) it obviously doesn't have fancy pirated code that makes it faster than it should be, because it's not that fast, and c) SCO doesn't care because it's not that fast.
Dunno about the others. They should be fine legally, but they could be tempting targets, because for bread & butter stuff like web serving, they're nearly drop in replacements for Linux.
Close... The BSDs actually rolled back to an older version and removed some files, then backported the stuff they'd done since. As a result, they were clean after the settlement. They're fanatical about keeping proprietary code out, they don't even like GPL'd code, so they're still clean. It would be near impossible to go after them successfully. Indeed, OpenBSD is based in Canada, so that would make it even worse. On the other hand, basically every OS today has BSD code in it, some with the copyright notice, some without. The stuff without the copyright notice is stolen, and if the BSD settlement goes out the window, SCO is going to have a lot of stolen code.
Sun can use Open Firmware on their x86 machines if they want.
you insensitive clod.
I was fortunate enough to start with Windows 95, but I had to maintain trumpet for my family as late as 1999.
:)
The kids nowadays won't remember life before Google, life before broadband (in Calgary at least), or life before P2P. It's an entirely different Internet.
It'll be interesting to see what the next big shift is. We're due. Hang on kiddies, it's almost always fun.
ssshhhhhh...
I'm 22, and the amount that things have changed since I was 16 blows me away. I didn't think I'd start feeling this way until I hit my late 20's at least.
I got access in 1995, and I won't bore you with the details of what's different now, but suffice it to say that you wouldn't recognize it. You won't recognize it when you hit 22, believe me.
By the time you have kids, the measures you talk about won't be options anymore. My friends are starting to have kids, and it won't be an option for the ones that have already been born. By the time they're old enough to use a mouse, the information you've based your decisions on won't be valid anymore.
The point? Play it by ear, because the rules are always changing.
MS almost certainly has Linux computers around if only for annalysis of the competition. Also, companies they've bought out probably have Linux computers around.
They probably made the decision because it props up SCO, I don't dispute that, but they're not just pulling it out of thin air.