The kernel is the Operating system, those tools are userland applications. If you use a different kernel than it's no longer the linux operating system, if you use different tools you just used different tools.
Do not presume to speak as if you are the bearer of "educated enlightenment". There is no universally accepted answer to the question of what constitutes the operating system. My definition is that the operating system is whatever makes up the absolute lowest level software api. And in linux, that's the kernel, everything must speak with the kernel.
we aren't refering to MEMORY usage. sh is going to be INSTALLED on the system anyway. PYTHON does NOT need to be installed on most systems (is installed and need to be installed are two different things).
After poweroff your cpu and the other components of your system should be ice cold by the time you can crack the case. Because of the materials used and heatsinks (obviously the fans aren't cooling anything after poweroff). Touch a heatsink, ever noticed they are always cold to the touch? That's the "ice water" effect.
It does not have to be literally boiling temperature for my point to apply. Sidewalks generally (desert aside) don't get anywhere near that hot either, nor do they cool so rapidly as an eggshell in ice water. But the temperature variation in even the coldest climates is enough to crack them over time.
"How about: boil and egg and take it out of the water. Leave it on the table to cool, wait. Nothing happens."
Boil the same egg for 8hrs everyday, then leave it on the table to cool everyday. Never change eggs, that would be cheating. The example really doesn't work with an egg of course since the egg would rot, but any physics teacher can explain what I'm talking about. It's also only ONE of types of wear I've already indicated.
"Sure. Heat expansion probably does lessen the life expectansy of components somewhat (probably not enough to be significant, you're going to swap it in few years anyway)"
Define "few", I know people who keep any individual component for less than a year (myself), and those who keep the same hardware for 8, 10, or even 12yrs. I'd say the average is probably about 5yrs. We aren't talking about p1's here that get a little warm to the touch and can be kept at even keel with reasonable heatsink. Powersupply, various chips on the board, video chipsets, etc. It's bad stuff and why people who run and shutdown everyday almost NEVER make it 15months without having SOMETHING go bad in their computer and needing to replace it.
The additional wear and tear over time of repeated boots (combined with video editing and other disk intensive tasks becoming common place) are a BIG part of the reason hard drive manufacturers ganged up and dropped warranty lengths.
parallel service loading is one of the major reasons for instability in XP. Although even if the initial implementation isnt' done right in linux it will end up being done right thanks to the beauty of open source. So I say bring it on.
That's not the only problem though, because of XP's lack of TRUE protected memory space the processes loading in parallel can cause eachother problems, they can invade eachother's memory space in various ways when initializing.
If your linux system using the current init system takes a time measured in MINUTES to boot your running WAY too many services anyway! What did you do, pick the redhat "everything" option and leave it all turned on?
"Turning one average high-end box off at night can save as much as $14 a month"
And cost you it again when you turn the system on again and all the capacitors have to refill with juice. Not to mention costing you a harddrive every 6-8months because of the massive wear you put on it. The temperature change can also damage components (much more likely than damage due it "being hot" in a system where everything is operating properly), The heat centers of the pc have cooling technologies to rapidly dissapate heat that is produced when operating... this is a balancing factor that keeps the heat more or less at a fixed temperature. When you power off, there is no heat being added but the cooling heat sinks still rapidly dissapate the heat, causing the same kind of rapid temperature change that bursts pipes and cracks sidewalks.
Boil an egg and take it directly out of the boiling water and throw in ice water. Note the effect on the shell. Then remember you do that to the most critical components of your computer everday.
I'm not sure if this IS progress. But is the question really what's wrong with the current system? is that ever the right question? That's the thought process that leads to stagnation, whether or not new systems should be developed isn't really questionable, of course they should. The question is what advantages and disadvantages do they offer compared to the old.
If the new system is able to rival the configurability and flexiblity of init (and it sounds like it leaves that at the whim of app developers who are likely to throw in those stubs as an afterthought) AND accelerate boot time and desktop time in one system, one which is equally efficient in terms of cpu, memory, and disk storage and reduced number of depencies... I'll go with it.
Unfortunately it sounds like this won't be that answer, it sounds like he is reducing flexiblity for the sake of usability. It sounds like he's adding dependencies, and offloading the service startup times to be done at a different point (which feels faster but isn't, it's slower with his added dependancies, especially when done in a bloated language like python.) And it looks like added complexity in terms of code which = bugs out the arse and microbloatlike "technology".
old vs new is irrelevant, it's better vs not that matters. "The old way was good enough" is a horrible reason to want the old way back!! There is no such thing as "good enough", just "good enough for now".
Yes there are outdated and archaic things out there that are relics of the past and people who "don't want to learn something new", but don't think for a minute new = better. The better choice may be the new or it may be the old. I'm all for better, new and old I don't consider relevant.
ahem, this is reason #812 why you call the DISTRIBUTION by it's respective name and the Operating system (which consists of only one component in the case of linux, the kernel) linux. Compilation of user apps bundled with the kernel = distro, kernel=operating system=linux.
mmm hmm, those PhD's must be making more money than any drug researcher I've ever known. Paying a full staff of them for 5-10yrs doesn't even start to amount to 5mil, let alone the hundreds of millions or more drug companies claim. Try again.
"then pick and choose the particular incorrect conclusion that best suits your mindset, you're not biased"
You choose for yourself the correct an incorrect conclusion. The entire concept of correct and incorrect is a personal one. For myself, my beliefs of what is correct and not constantly are changing with new input... but nonetheless, what is correct in MY world is based entirely on my own review of the facts. No different than yourself or anyone else in the world.
How could your decision of correctness of any subject or material NOT be based on your previous opinions of correctness used to analyze that set of facts?
Correct or incorrect is relative to the individual. Sufficient "proof" of fact is relative to the individual. Adequate backing to be considered proof at all is relative to the individual.
Bias comes into play as an act of deliberatly skewing the facts to give someone else a false set of facts on which to make their own determination of correctness. It generally results in making your own determination of correctness on the basis of emotion and ignoring facts which conflict with it.
one, well lets see, welchia, blaster, klez, lovebug, just to name a few off the top of my head. NONE of those really involve "delving into history" ALL of them are still actively spreading. Welchia successfully shut down the internet in general for OVER A WEEK! Even during brief periods you could get on it CRAWLED... pick any isp, didn't matter.
"This is not the default", not sure what version of "windows" your using, but every version I've ever seen DOES default to full administrative privs, In fact the only version I remember even giving an option to create additional users is XP. And XP does so with the implication that administrative account is the "primary user" or whoever owns the computer, instead of making it clear that it should only be used for maintainance and not day to day use by ANYONE. (yes I realize if you know what your doing you can create additional users on any NT system but xp is the only one that PROMPTS you to do so, and if you only create that one it gives it full admin privs in ADDITION to administrator). Also unless explictily restricted on most versions of windows unpriv'd users have access to NUMEROUS critical files, and if ANY user downloads a virus it quickly has access to everything.
"Besides, crackers generally get in by attacking Internet accessible services/daemons, not the underlying OS."
True, last I checked microsoft considers OE, IE, IIS, the list goes on ALL part of the Operating system. And welchia and blaster definately exploit a service WELL into the zone ms considers part of the operating system.
Perhaps his would, but mine certainly wouldn't be, as I'm sure you've figured out since I pointed out the exact argument he is using with some numbers at the time (actually I think it was you I pointed it out to). It's called bias when you ignore one side of the issue in favor of another. Considering all the facts and comparing ALL the numbers is not bias. Even if you only mention it when it suits your overall conclusions it's not bias so long as you HAVE considered all the facts.
There is a difference between being biased and shooting yourself in the foot. The truth is that when you look at the numbers from real web reporting engines and any firm that is not funded by microsoft (pretty sure apache funds NONE how about you?), the numbers show microsoft is something on par to apache in web servers what apple is to microsoft in the desktop market, I'm refering to share gap of course.
The costs are only as high as they are BECAUSE of patents and creative accounting. Equiptment has to be purchased once, not once per drug researched using it. There may be 50 drugs researched in that 50million dollar lab, and the 50million will be factored in every time someone claims how much it cost to research the drug. Without patents, that 50million in equiptment would be drastically reduced, since the companies would have to legitimately compete with one another and couldn't hide behind a patent. I would be suprised if the costs went from $50mil to $500k and the equiptment would likely be better as well!
Miraculous drugs are coming out of europe where patents are much more difficult to get with price tags less than $500k and generally speaking more drugs of use come out of europe than the US.
So you see, your argument doesn't hold up. Competition leads to a better quality of life, and more reasonable prices. There may be individual exceptions (although the medical industry is hardly a place to look for anything gone RIGHT in terms of competition or price!), but as a general rule it holds up. Competition = good, stifling competition = bad. Patents are detriment to competition and therefore = bad.
Alas in the lawmaking world things are a bit different. If you don't get victory fast, you never will. If this war is lost then the rest of the fights will be about the terms of surrender. Under what conditions you can get software patents, etc.
Just as you no longer hear much about getting rid of the DMCA anymore, now you hear about amending or adjusting it. If laws like these are ever to go away completely as they should, it won't be until they are as irrelevant as the new developments with the commadore 64.
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The kernel is the Operating system, those tools are userland applications. If you use a different kernel than it's no longer the linux operating system, if you use different tools you just used different tools.
Do not presume to speak as if you are the bearer of "educated enlightenment". There is no universally accepted answer to the question of what constitutes the operating system. My definition is that the operating system is whatever makes up the absolute lowest level software api. And in linux, that's the kernel, everything must speak with the kernel.
Show me a cisco router that makes the grade in price/performance ratio with linux.
hey now, a proper 486 or p1 with a promise disk controller/drive to go with it can STILL manage to boot a linux box in about a minute.
we aren't refering to MEMORY usage. sh is going to be INSTALLED on the system anyway. PYTHON does NOT need to be installed on most systems (is installed and need to be installed are two different things).
I wasn't referring to starting/stoping in itself, I was referring to the disk load of the boot process.
Although granted, like virtual memory wear, this is GENERALLY reduced for a linux user.
After poweroff your cpu and the other components of your system should be ice cold by the time you can crack the case. Because of the materials used and heatsinks (obviously the fans aren't cooling anything after poweroff). Touch a heatsink, ever noticed they are always cold to the touch? That's the "ice water" effect.
It does not have to be literally boiling temperature for my point to apply. Sidewalks generally (desert aside) don't get anywhere near that hot either, nor do they cool so rapidly as an eggshell in ice water. But the temperature variation in even the coldest climates is enough to crack them over time.
"How about: boil and egg and take it out of the water. Leave it on the table to cool, wait. Nothing happens."
Boil the same egg for 8hrs everyday, then leave it on the table to cool everyday. Never change eggs, that would be cheating. The example really doesn't work with an egg of course since the egg would rot, but any physics teacher can explain what I'm talking about. It's also only ONE of types of wear I've already indicated.
"Sure. Heat expansion probably does lessen the life expectansy of components somewhat (probably not enough to be significant, you're going to swap it in few years anyway)"
Define "few", I know people who keep any individual component for less than a year (myself), and those who keep the same hardware for 8, 10, or even 12yrs. I'd say the average is probably about 5yrs. We aren't talking about p1's here that get a little warm to the touch and can be kept at even keel with reasonable heatsink. Powersupply, various chips on the board, video chipsets, etc. It's bad stuff and why people who run and shutdown everyday almost NEVER make it 15months without having SOMETHING go bad in their computer and needing to replace it.
The additional wear and tear over time of repeated boots (combined with video editing and other disk intensive tasks becoming common place) are a BIG part of the reason hard drive manufacturers ganged up and dropped warranty lengths.
I'm sorry but KDE and GNOME are only not BOTH FUCKING SLOW compared to other extremely bloated arse systems like XP and OSX.
"bytecode-VM"
So what your saying is, first it's compiled to a language which is passed to an interpretor err emm overbloated interpretor, err I mean vm.
parallel service loading is one of the major reasons for instability in XP. Although even if the initial implementation isnt' done right in linux it will end up being done right thanks to the beauty of open source. So I say bring it on.
That's not the only problem though, because of XP's lack of TRUE protected memory space the processes loading in parallel can cause eachother problems, they can invade eachother's memory space in various ways when initializing.
Getting the source code, the api, and the right to use it is much harder. Being modular is only a part of it.
If your linux system using the current init system takes a time measured in MINUTES to boot your running WAY too many services anyway! What did you do, pick the redhat "everything" option and leave it all turned on?
"Turning one average high-end box off at night can save as much as $14 a month"
And cost you it again when you turn the system on again and all the capacitors have to refill with juice. Not to mention costing you a harddrive every 6-8months because of the massive wear you put on it. The temperature change can also damage components (much more likely than damage due it "being hot" in a system where everything is operating properly), The heat centers of the pc have cooling technologies to rapidly dissapate heat that is produced when operating... this is a balancing factor that keeps the heat more or less at a fixed temperature. When you power off, there is no heat being added but the cooling heat sinks still rapidly dissapate the heat, causing the same kind of rapid temperature change that bursts pipes and cracks sidewalks.
Boil an egg and take it directly out of the boiling water and throw in ice water. Note the effect on the shell. Then remember you do that to the most critical components of your computer everday.
I'm not sure if this IS progress. But is the question really what's wrong with the current system? is that ever the right question? That's the thought process that leads to stagnation, whether or not new systems should be developed isn't really questionable, of course they should. The question is what advantages and disadvantages do they offer compared to the old.
If the new system is able to rival the configurability and flexiblity of init (and it sounds like it leaves that at the whim of app developers who are likely to throw in those stubs as an afterthought) AND accelerate boot time and desktop time in one system, one which is equally efficient in terms of cpu, memory, and disk storage and reduced number of depencies... I'll go with it.
Unfortunately it sounds like this won't be that answer, it sounds like he is reducing flexiblity for the sake of usability. It sounds like he's adding dependencies, and offloading the service startup times to be done at a different point (which feels faster but isn't, it's slower with his added dependancies, especially when done in a bloated language like python.) And it looks like added complexity in terms of code which = bugs out the arse and microbloatlike "technology".
But hey, we can still hope right?
old vs new is irrelevant, it's better vs not that matters. "The old way was good enough" is a horrible reason to want the old way back!! There is no such thing as "good enough", just "good enough for now".
Yes there are outdated and archaic things out there that are relics of the past and people who "don't want to learn something new", but don't think for a minute new = better. The better choice may be the new or it may be the old. I'm all for better, new and old I don't consider relevant.
ahem, this is reason #812 why you call the DISTRIBUTION by it's respective name and the Operating system (which consists of only one component in the case of linux, the kernel) linux. Compilation of user apps bundled with the kernel = distro, kernel=operating system=linux.
/bin/sh is the shell and is already going to be therre. Python is EXTRA bloat, whatever bloat sh has is going to be there either way.
except how long has it been since the last sco story? it's been a couple weeks at least unless I missed something.
mmm hmm, those PhD's must be making more money than any drug researcher I've ever known. Paying a full staff of them for 5-10yrs doesn't even start to amount to 5mil, let alone the hundreds of millions or more drug companies claim. Try again.
"then pick and choose the particular incorrect conclusion that best suits your mindset, you're not biased"
You choose for yourself the correct an incorrect conclusion. The entire concept of correct and incorrect is a personal one. For myself, my beliefs of what is correct and not constantly are changing with new input... but nonetheless, what is correct in MY world is based entirely on my own review of the facts. No different than yourself or anyone else in the world.
How could your decision of correctness of any subject or material NOT be based on your previous opinions of correctness used to analyze that set of facts?
Correct or incorrect is relative to the individual. Sufficient "proof" of fact is relative to the individual. Adequate backing to be considered proof at all is relative to the individual.
Bias comes into play as an act of deliberatly skewing the facts to give someone else a false set of facts on which to make their own determination of correctness. It generally results in making your own determination of correctness on the basis of emotion and ignoring facts which conflict with it.
one, well lets see, welchia, blaster, klez, lovebug, just to name a few off the top of my head. NONE of those really involve "delving into history" ALL of them are still actively spreading. Welchia successfully shut down the internet in general for OVER A WEEK! Even during brief periods you could get on it CRAWLED... pick any isp, didn't matter.
"This is not the default", not sure what version of "windows" your using, but every version I've ever seen DOES default to full administrative privs, In fact the only version I remember even giving an option to create additional users is XP. And XP does so with the implication that administrative account is the "primary user" or whoever owns the computer, instead of making it clear that it should only be used for maintainance and not day to day use by ANYONE. (yes I realize if you know what your doing you can create additional users on any NT system but xp is the only one that PROMPTS you to do so, and if you only create that one it gives it full admin privs in ADDITION to administrator). Also unless explictily restricted on most versions of windows unpriv'd users have access to NUMEROUS critical files, and if ANY user downloads a virus it quickly has access to everything.
"Besides, crackers generally get in by attacking Internet accessible services/daemons, not the underlying OS."
True, last I checked microsoft considers OE, IE, IIS, the list goes on ALL part of the Operating system. And welchia and blaster definately exploit a service WELL into the zone ms considers part of the operating system.
Perhaps his would, but mine certainly wouldn't be, as I'm sure you've figured out since I pointed out the exact argument he is using with some numbers at the time (actually I think it was you I pointed it out to). It's called bias when you ignore one side of the issue in favor of another. Considering all the facts and comparing ALL the numbers is not bias. Even if you only mention it when it suits your overall conclusions it's not bias so long as you HAVE considered all the facts.
There is a difference between being biased and shooting yourself in the foot. The truth is that when you look at the numbers from real web reporting engines and any firm that is not funded by microsoft (pretty sure apache funds NONE how about you?), the numbers show microsoft is something on par to apache in web servers what apple is to microsoft in the desktop market, I'm refering to share gap of course.
The costs are only as high as they are BECAUSE of patents and creative accounting. Equiptment has to be purchased once, not once per drug researched using it. There may be 50 drugs researched in that 50million dollar lab, and the 50million will be factored in every time someone claims how much it cost to research the drug. Without patents, that 50million in equiptment would be drastically reduced, since the companies would have to legitimately compete with one another and couldn't hide behind a patent. I would be suprised if the costs went from $50mil to $500k and the equiptment would likely be better as well!
Miraculous drugs are coming out of europe where patents are much more difficult to get with price tags less than $500k and generally speaking more drugs of use come out of europe than the US.
So you see, your argument doesn't hold up. Competition leads to a better quality of life, and more reasonable prices. There may be individual exceptions (although the medical industry is hardly a place to look for anything gone RIGHT in terms of competition or price!), but as a general rule it holds up. Competition = good, stifling competition = bad. Patents are detriment to competition and therefore = bad.
Alas in the lawmaking world things are a bit different. If you don't get victory fast, you never will. If this war is lost then the rest of the fights will be about the terms of surrender. Under what conditions you can get software patents, etc.
Just as you no longer hear much about getting rid of the DMCA anymore, now you hear about amending or adjusting it. If laws like these are ever to go away completely as they should, it won't be until they are as irrelevant as the new developments with the commadore 64.