Is it possible to run a desktop Debian system using Gnome 2.4 and other more recent packages(openoffice 1.1, mozilla 1.4, samba 3) without having to track unstable?
Except that you forgot to mention that the "compromise" of the kernel never happened and the Debian compromise was a password issue and again nothing serious happened.
The difference between open source and closed source is that due to open source being so open the developers on it tend to trust no one. Closed source projects tend to be a little more lax because the closed nature of the project makes it easy to get sloppy.
Yes you can download it for free, it's called Fedora.
With the Enterprise stuff you're paying for the Red Hat Trademarks(branding) and the support. If you don't want or need either, that's what Fedora is for.
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/performance.xml h ttp://home.comcast.net/~jcunningham63/linux/GCC_O ptimization_apollo.html
I've used Debian for 5 or 6 years and Gentoo for about 1. Gentoo stable is far more reliable than Debian's testing/unstable. In fact, Debian's testing is a PIA because often security updates don't make it into that branch for quite some time.
I know this, because I've used Debian testing(and unstable before testing even existed) on production servers for the last 5 years.
Debian is a solid distribution and it's stable/security branch will be in production use for me for quite some time on server installs for even future clients. It's the single best plug it in and forget it distribution around. In fact, the one I setup 5 years ago is still running strong without me being around.
But Gentoo is also very solid on the server and has a lot of technical merits above and beyond Debian.
The point about open source projects not having testers is not at all true, it's just that a segment of the community(bleeding edgers and power users) makes up the testing population.
For example, with Debian you have the unstable branches and the stable branches. There's a solid year+ of testing before packages make it into stable.
Of course if you expect your interviewie to know all the above, plus all the stuff you listed I sure hope the position you're hiring for pays 6 figures.
Just ran a quick line count on our dev server and got back 87,501 lines of code. Up until a month ago I was the sole developer for 3 years.
Oh, and I'm our senior Linux admin as well. So I got to do those duties as well. Joy joy.
I don't think strict typing has anything to do with it. Java development scales well because of projects like struts which let you seperate the layers of the project across different departments.
In PHP and Python I'm absolutely certain a single developer can handle more lines of code than in Java. The languages are just so much easier to work with. But Java's design does make it easier to have multiple people working on the same project.
If you're really happy with Debian, then not really.
Gentoo has portage which is pretty much the same as apt. The big different between Debian and Gentoo is that under Gentoo you'll be compiling all your software specifically to your specs. This has advantages other than just compiling to your specific processor.
Gentoo's portage tree is also a bit more up to date then Debian's.
If you have a fast machine, it might be worth switching just to check it out. If you have a slow machine though, stick with Debian.
Yes--contrary to the Slashbot idealist mindset--there are cases where security through obscurity is the best method. You have to look at each situation inviduallly and logically (instead of covering everything with a veil of ideology).
If security through obscurity was the best method here, then what would've happened if the source was leaked after the game had hit the stores?
They would've been totally screwed.
That's why security through obscurity is never the best method.
It infringes on my right to privacy in the same manner my sitting outside your home with a bullhorn announcing the benefits of a product X, Y or Z would infringe on your privacy.
Sure I could not answer the phone and you could just wear ear plugs in the above situation. But the point is, you or I shouldn't have to. Our homes are our refuge from business and the day to day crap that goes on in the world. A telemarketing call infringes on that.
"I was chatting with a SCORE member, and he said that a true business plan should be a living entity that evolves with the world around it."
I think the above is a great ideal and I personally prefer to work for companies that work like that, but many don't.
For a lot of companies they got successful, or maybe they feel they got successful, partly by luck. It was a matter of having the right product at the right time and making the right guesses about the market. A LOT more businesses fail than succeed because of timing or bad guesses. Starting a business is almost like gambling.
So when you hit success it's far far easier to resist and fight new markets than to submit to them, because the existing market is one where they're already a success while the new one would almost be like starting over again.
With Debian you have maintainers for each of the platforms. You have guys putting together debs for sparc, intel, ppc and so on.
Your install disk is arch dependent and so are the packages you download via apt.
With Gentoo your install disc may be arch dependent, but since the packages are downloaded and compiled automatically they don't have to be. The guy on the pcc uses the same ebuilds as the guy on the intel box.
It's not just about speed increases, it's about having the install process completely customized for your system even though you're using universal packages.
The "inherent superiority" is that under Debian when I run WindowMaker it was compiled by someone for me and includes support for a lot of things I may never need(like gnome or kde support). Under Gentoo when I get WindowMaker it's compiled based exactly on what I need from it. If I never use kde or kde apps, why increase the bloat in my window manager to support it?
Of course the downside to the above is that upgrades can take forever. But as computers get faster, that becomes less and less of an issue.
Competition
on
Aethera 1.0
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This is normal in the open source community and actually fairly healthy. What happens is that the community in general sees a need and then you'll have several solid solutions developed in response.
For example, 4 years ago Linux wasn't "Enterprise" enough because it didn't have a journaling filesystem. Today we have several: ext3, reiserfs, jfs, xfs and probably others.
Before that we needed a decent GUI toolset to replace Motif(which was commercial-only). Several sprung up and today we have 2 really solid and widely used ones, GTK and QT.
So while it's confusing today to have so many choices, typically a couple will dominate the "market" once everything settles down.
I think the point he was trying to make is that if American businesses are exporting their labor needs to India or other countries, people in those countries who have a deep understanding of American business will do well.
And while English may be easy, GOOD english isn't. India, Asia, Japan and eastern Europe already have a large market for native English speakers because the people there prefer to learn from native speakers.
I had a 22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, my best friend had one when he was 16. We sure as shit never shot at anyone or even towards where anyone might be.
It's kind of funny but before we had our 22's we had pellet and BB guns. Now those we sort of abused, shot out lights, stop signs, whatever. But our 22's were "real" guns and we treated them with respect.
Keep in mind that sendmail had to evolve over decades and various network protocols, like UUCP. Computers in town A would dial computers in town B that would dial to computers in town C and pass mail, files, shell commands and so on.
Sendmail was even smart enough to prioritize the mail and do things like delay the delivery for when the long distance calls were cheapest.
It's not SMTP itself so much as the evolving mail systems that surround SMTP. Like today we have spam filters and virtual domains.
Assuming that anyone who uses a wheelchair could eventually make use of this technology, I wonder if it would be cheaper to society to just give everyone who needs a chair one of these things(or something like it) instead of trying to make all buildings/areas wheel chair accessible?
Slashdot Mirror
Is it possible to run a desktop Debian system using Gnome 2.4 and other more recent packages(openoffice 1.1, mozilla 1.4, samba 3) without having to track unstable?
Except that you forgot to mention that the "compromise" of the kernel never happened and the Debian compromise was a password issue and again nothing serious happened.
The difference between open source and closed source is that due to open source being so open the developers on it tend to trust no one. Closed source projects tend to be a little more lax because the closed nature of the project makes it easy to get sloppy.
Simply block all email from S Korea or an Eastern Bloc country on your email server.
As soon as those countries start to proscecute spammers they can be unblocked.
Yes you can download it for free, it's called Fedora.
With the Enterprise stuff you're paying for the Red Hat Trademarks(branding) and the support. If you don't want or need either, that's what Fedora is for.
Oh, you wanted benchmarks:
h ttp://home.comcast.net/~jcunningham63/linux/GCC_O ptimization_apollo.html
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/performance.xml
I've used Debian for 5 or 6 years and Gentoo for about 1. Gentoo stable is far more reliable than Debian's testing/unstable. In fact, Debian's testing is a PIA because often security updates don't make it into that branch for quite some time.
I know this, because I've used Debian testing(and unstable before testing even existed) on production servers for the last 5 years.
Debian is a solid distribution and it's stable/security branch will be in production use for me for quite some time on server installs for even future clients. It's the single best plug it in and forget it distribution around. In fact, the one I setup 5 years ago is still running strong without me being around.
But Gentoo is also very solid on the server and has a lot of technical merits above and beyond Debian.
The point about open source projects not having testers is not at all true, it's just that a segment of the community(bleeding edgers and power users) makes up the testing population.
For example, with Debian you have the unstable branches and the stable branches. There's a solid year+ of testing before packages make it into stable.
Your questions touch onto subjects even a lead admin will likely never use and fails to cover essentials like:
MTA configuration: postfix, exim, qmail, sendmail.
Cluster management: DRBD, heartbeat, arp.
User deployment: openldap, nis, kerbos.
Systems management: cfengine, webmin, perl, bash.
DNS: Bind8/9.
Security: Snort, tripwire.
Web: apache, zope, mod_php, mod_perl.
Of course if you expect your interviewie to know all the above, plus all the stuff you listed I sure hope the position you're hiring for pays 6 figures.
Just ran a quick line count on our dev server and got back 87,501 lines of code. Up until a month ago I was the sole developer for 3 years.
Oh, and I'm our senior Linux admin as well. So I got to do those duties as well. Joy joy.
I don't think strict typing has anything to do with it. Java development scales well because of projects like struts which let you seperate the layers of the project across different departments.
In PHP and Python I'm absolutely certain a single developer can handle more lines of code than in Java. The languages are just so much easier to work with. But Java's design does make it easier to have multiple people working on the same project.
If you're really happy with Debian, then not really.
Gentoo has portage which is pretty much the same as apt. The big different between Debian and Gentoo is that under Gentoo you'll be compiling all your software specifically to your specs. This has advantages other than just compiling to your specific processor.
Gentoo's portage tree is also a bit more up to date then Debian's.
If you have a fast machine, it might be worth switching just to check it out. If you have a slow machine though, stick with Debian.
Um, KDE 3.2 is ALPHA software.
Why should Mandrake ship alpha software on the desktop?
When will Slashdot users grow up?
When people realize that when one slashdot user speaks, he doesn't speak for all slashdot users.
Yes--contrary to the Slashbot idealist mindset--there are cases where security through obscurity is the best method. You have to look at each situation inviduallly and logically (instead of covering everything with a veil of ideology).
If security through obscurity was the best method here, then what would've happened if the source was leaked after the game had hit the stores?
They would've been totally screwed.
That's why security through obscurity is never the best method.
It infringes on my right to privacy in the same manner my sitting outside your home with a bullhorn announcing the benefits of a product X, Y or Z would infringe on your privacy.
Sure I could not answer the phone and you could just wear ear plugs in the above situation. But the point is, you or I shouldn't have to. Our homes are our refuge from business and the day to day crap that goes on in the world. A telemarketing call infringes on that.
Well then, just post your email address and I'll sign you up to make sure a lot of spammers can put food on the table.
Frankly, another person's right to earn a living ends when it invades on my right to privacy.
"I was chatting with a SCORE member, and he said that a true business plan should be a living entity that evolves with the world around it."
I think the above is a great ideal and I personally prefer to work for companies that work like that, but many don't.
For a lot of companies they got successful, or maybe they feel they got successful, partly by luck. It was a matter of having the right product at the right time and making the right guesses about the market. A LOT more businesses fail than succeed because of timing or bad guesses. Starting a business is almost like gambling.
So when you hit success it's far far easier to resist and fight new markets than to submit to them, because the existing market is one where they're already a success while the new one would almost be like starting over again.
No it does not just pretend.
It renames the gentoo ebuild, which uses it's own name to figure out what to fetch and install.
So basically a 3.7_p1 named ebuild goes out and fetches the new 3.7 openssh package, compiles it and installs it.
If you don't want to wait for the official ebuild:
/usr/portage/net-misc/openssh/
cd
cp openssh-3.6.1_p2.ebuild openssh-3.7_p1.ebuild
emerge -f openssh-3.7_p1.ebuild
ebuild openssh-3.7_p1.ebuild digest
emerge openssh-3.7_p1.ebuild
With Debian you have maintainers for each of the platforms. You have guys putting together debs for sparc, intel, ppc and so on.
Your install disk is arch dependent and so are the packages you download via apt.
With Gentoo your install disc may be arch dependent, but since the packages are downloaded and compiled automatically they don't have to be. The guy on the pcc uses the same ebuilds as the guy on the intel box.
It's not just about speed increases, it's about having the install process completely customized for your system even though you're using universal packages.
The "inherent superiority" is that under Debian when I run WindowMaker it was compiled by someone for me and includes support for a lot of things I may never need(like gnome or kde support). Under Gentoo when I get WindowMaker it's compiled based exactly on what I need from it. If I never use kde or kde apps, why increase the bloat in my window manager to support it?
Of course the downside to the above is that upgrades can take forever. But as computers get faster, that becomes less and less of an issue.
This is normal in the open source community and actually fairly healthy. What happens is that the community in general sees a need and then you'll have several solid solutions developed in response.
For example, 4 years ago Linux wasn't "Enterprise" enough because it didn't have a journaling filesystem. Today we have several: ext3, reiserfs, jfs, xfs and probably others.
Before that we needed a decent GUI toolset to replace Motif(which was commercial-only). Several sprung up and today we have 2 really solid and widely used ones, GTK and QT.
So while it's confusing today to have so many choices, typically a couple will dominate the "market" once everything settles down.
I think the point he was trying to make is that if American businesses are exporting their labor needs to India or other countries, people in those countries who have a deep understanding of American business will do well.
And while English may be easy, GOOD english isn't. India, Asia, Japan and eastern Europe already have a large market for native English speakers because the people there prefer to learn from native speakers.
I had a 22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, my best friend had one when he was 16. We sure as shit never shot at anyone or even towards where anyone might be.
It's kind of funny but before we had our 22's we had pellet and BB guns. Now those we sort of abused, shot out lights, stop signs, whatever. But our 22's were "real" guns and we treated them with respect.
Keep in mind that sendmail had to evolve over decades and various network protocols, like UUCP. Computers in town A would dial computers in town B that would dial to computers in town C and pass mail, files, shell commands and so on.
Sendmail was even smart enough to prioritize the mail and do things like delay the delivery for when the long distance calls were cheapest.
It's not SMTP itself so much as the evolving mail systems that surround SMTP. Like today we have spam filters and virtual domains.
Assuming that anyone who uses a wheelchair could eventually make use of this technology, I wonder if it would be cheaper to society to just give everyone who needs a chair one of these things(or something like it) instead of trying to make all buildings/areas wheel chair accessible?
Products playing for ogg won't "fail", because they can also play mp3 and any other format the designer wants to add.
The unwashed masses can download low quality mp3's all they want. I prefer to rip ogg's off my cds and won't buy a player that won't play them.
Successful devices will be any two of: cheap, flexible, or high quality.
Looks like they're also going to port GroupWise to Linux, so we'll have yet another new groupware, email, calendar thingie to play with.