I am barely out of the ranks of newbies, but the text based install for OpenBSD does the job very well if you take the time to read what is asks of you. Also, print out the main FAQ and install stuff, or have it up on a browser on a pc next to you.
The partitioning took me a couple tries, but once I got that straightened out, I was happy with it. Once I got OpenBSD up, I had KDE up very quickly via their (limited compared to FreeBSD) ports collection.
Later that summer, I figured since this was a laptop, I ought to have the more populist FreeBSD installed so I would have increased access to ready made ports. Well, I had a helluva time getting KDE and XFree going on this Thinkpad, so from my history, I think the OpenBSD install is cleaner than FreeBSD's.
I still have FreeBSD on my laptop, and am running a OpenBSD box doing NAT at home. I really love the clean design of OpenBSD on servers- whats there is probably there because everyone uses it, but you are going to have to learn to activate it (sendmail as a daemon, for example) so you don't leave yourself wide open.
This might be worth it. Simson Garfinkel had an article in the Boston Globe a few months ago (can only search last 2 weeks for free, sorry guys), and was comparing DSL and cable. Anyhow, one thing he brought up was how well designed the MediaOne network was, by comparing the latency to the speed of light. From Cape Cod to NJ, it was fricking great. If Sega could create such an idiot proof nation wide network, even 3733T pc gamers might buy in.
Of course, if they want to let DSL and cable modem people like myself use it, then they would become subject to the existing vagaries of the net
hmmmm. Tough call when you consider the demographics of high speed home net users, who are probably the types to have early adopted a console system as well.
If they provided a Linux binary, people would scream bloody murder, because of the afflicted dozens and dozens of Linux Alpha users.
The alternative? Naturally it would be OSS.
In 48 hours *MAX*, a version that would work sans ads would be out, defeating the entire point.
I don't think it is incredibly asinine to expect companies to be able not to bleed cash to provide us services. I use JunkBuster because banner ads servers are uniformly slow, but the ads on AOL IM don't bother me as they don't slow down access, and ultimately take up a tiny chunk of my 1280x1024 desktop. Of course, I couldn't use "AOL 5.0 50 free hours" if I wanted to due to my running Win2k, but anyhow....
There has yet to been a really great OSS solution that works for all platforms, and yet allows companies to ensure certain requirements, be they displaying ads or cheat free Quake clients. This topic has come up on SlashDot before, but checksum'd clients and other solutions haven't appeared to work.
So OEM's can make new motherboards that work with both old and new Celerons. Old Celeron MB (my BP6) do not have the voltage req.'s and other tomfoolery for the new Celeron 2's, but new MB can be made to support both. It is much easier for big OEM's to make a MB that can be used across the entire celeron line
That is how is looks to me. The performance boost that comes with bigger cache only appears to effect certain server applications (DB stuff), and is next to nothing for desktop stuff, be it games, office apps, or what have you. It simply doesn't make sense to increase the cost of chips, which is the result of increasing cache due to the decreased yield.
I think that is a very geek centric viewpoint to think Cisco is some mysterious company. Almost 50% of Americans have some involvement in the stock market, and Cisco has been one of the 3 highest valued companies for a couple years now. Just a few days ago, my oral surgeon wanted to talk shop about the networking industry after I mentioned I am a system administrator.
I'd be cautious about asuming linear growth in coasts. Running two lines to the same room doesn't really cost 2x the man power. I am always suspicious of silly collegiate cost estimates from friendly administrators.
I am a NT user who worships at the altar of the start menu key. Start + R brings up a run dialog, Start +E brings up an explorer window, Start+f brings up the search window (in 2k MS replaces "find" with "search" everywhere. weird), Start + M minimizes all open windows.
Anyhow, I am of the belief that keys are good, and in *nix you just ought to program them to do something cool.
That seems good, but what incentive is there for business to offer higher bandwidth services? What if you want a 256k down, with a 1.44mb upstream to run a web server in your basement?
Ultimately this will stifle development of new services. Sure, you want the 256 bidirectional, but what if you need more?
Win2k has actually expanded upon the command interpreter of NT (type cmd in a run box). DOS apps that directly require hardware access are *going* to fail because NT/2k doesn't allow direct hardware access, it goes against the complete philosophy of the NT architecture. There isn't anything different about Win2k DOS support than 4.0 or 3.51, so far as I can tell. DOS apps that require sound (games), comm access (scientific? and DOS comm apps), or real mode network support (netware linked crud) aren't, and have never worked on a NT based OS.
Anyhow, DOS console apps are begging for investigation anyhow. I surmise that y2k has been addressed, but most dos apps I see still in use are on Novell lans, and are inextricably tied with things such as Btrieve.
The problem appears to be that you need companies to buy in to keep costs low, and because Linux is blowing up so quickly, more companies are making more demands, thus it is getting cutthroat. I can see the attraction to an all geeks fest, but would the geeks show up if they had to foot the whole cost of conference rooms? I have never been to one, but I bet the old conferences' companies' presentations were low key, because there was no money in Linux, but now, the types of companies that use showgirls and pyrotechnics at shows are getting involved, and that requires lots of floor space (for the monster truck showdowns).
Hmmm, I am looking at 5 1/4 bays on the desktop on this table, and I bet you could get 4 hot swapped 2.5inch cartidge/bays in a dual 5 1/4 bay unit. Raid 5 and a hot spare, or a 4 drive raid 5, or yet, RAID 10. hmmmmmm.....
I honestly would not worry about IDE limits on modern hardware. Any such limits in new hardware are bugs, and should be rectifiable via a BIOS flash. PC hardware had trouble really at 500meg and 2gig, and a little at 8 gig, but that has all been basically rectified.
I think good certification is a good thing. I self taught my way to a MCSE, forcing myself to learn a lot of stuff about 95 (took that test instead of NT workstation because I avoid 9x like the plague) and NT internals. Bad certification is of little good, and that is what MS's stuff has become.
MS had screwed it up for a long while. A small question pool made newbie cram to pass books and CBT possible. They completely screwed up the Office certified user program, so help desk types naturally just did the MCSE, further weakening its credibility.
MS appears to realize what it has done. There is one big exam for NT 4.0 MCSE's to recertify on Win2k (you avoid having to pass about 4 core exams). MS just announced that you get only one chance to pass this exam. Overall, reading their stuff, you seem to get the impression that it is going to be a lot harder than the 4.0 track.
Someone mentioned the CNE as a bastion of all that is wonderful. Well, I have heard a lot of people say that in the late 80s, there were a lot of people who became CNEs without ever touching a Netware console. Today, the CNE is probably less like that due to decreased marketability alone. Adaptive testing does not seem to be a panacea, as in the MCSE realm, they use the same old small question pool.
I had some passing interest in Red Hat Certification, although now I am more spiritually in tune with the BSDs. A lot of people post on Slashdot saying how their 8 years experience makes them the almighty Linux guru. Great, could well be true. But if that experience is at home, hacking away code, how do you prove that experience to pointy haired bosses and HR types, which is what needs to be addressed if Linux is going to go big time? Show these people some of your wonderful Perl scripts? Not likely.
A good certification, especially with a lab component can carry some real weight. I don't think MS could ever go to a lab format simply due to the scope of the project that would entail. Cisco certification has gotten very popular, especially at the low end, but I don't think there are going to be a lot more CCIE's due to the incredibly demanding lab portion.
Finally, cost. Not every company has MS bending over backwards to get your employees certified at a cut rate. A lab based Red Hat cert for 5k is probably well worth consideringing, as every fly by night continuing ed program is going to have linux instruction shortly, if they do not have it already.
Real geeks won't buy the WInTV-D because they know that it only supports low end digital tv (not justly called HDTV). Their next card will support 1080i, HDTV at its max. matt
"PC operating system" They are probably discounting Apple HW for that figure. That said, is it really fair to lump all WIndows together? (x has the most, but NT has about 30 million desktops I believe. Even 3.1 probably outweighs Linux.
For us to have competition, AMD needs to partake in the marketing war. End of story. Having successfully done so (so far), their products are become of better quality, as their Athlon revisions with full speed L2 cache will probably debut next quarter. This will probably dovetail nicely with SMP Athlon motherboards, of which I have heard that the first may debut in the 3rd quarter.
Well, AMD rightfully thinks it is important because people can go to COmpaq or Gateway *today*, custom build a system at 9xx+ mhz, and have it arrive within a month. A ghz system is probably price comparable with a Intel 8xx mhz system due to use of RDRAM, and the shipping times are probably about the same .
As an aside, Dell couldn't manage to get 2 P3 700 systems to a client at once. A 700 and all the 600s arrived, but the second 700 took two more weeks.
Slashdot Mirror
I am barely out of the ranks of newbies, but the text based install for OpenBSD does the job very well if you take the time to read what is asks of you. Also, print out the main FAQ and install stuff, or have it up on a browser on a pc next to you.
The partitioning took me a couple tries, but once I got that straightened out, I was happy with it. Once I got OpenBSD up, I had KDE up very quickly via their (limited compared to FreeBSD) ports collection.
Later that summer, I figured since this was a laptop, I ought to have the more populist FreeBSD installed so I would have increased access to ready made ports. Well, I had a helluva time getting KDE and XFree going on this Thinkpad, so from my history, I think the OpenBSD install is cleaner than FreeBSD's.
I still have FreeBSD on my laptop, and am running a OpenBSD box doing NAT at home. I really love the clean design of OpenBSD on servers- whats there is probably there because everyone uses it, but you are going to have to learn to activate it (sendmail as a daemon, for example) so you don't leave yourself wide open.
matt
Given that you have done the math, can you guesstimate as to what number of servers you must have before it becomes viable?
Matt
This might be worth it. Simson Garfinkel had an article in the Boston Globe a few months ago (can only search last 2 weeks for free, sorry guys), and was comparing DSL and cable. Anyhow, one thing he brought up was how well designed the MediaOne network was, by comparing the latency to the speed of light. From Cape Cod to NJ, it was fricking great. If Sega could create such an idiot proof nation wide network, even 3733T pc gamers might buy in.
Of course, if they want to let DSL and cable modem people like myself use it, then they would become subject to the existing vagaries of the net
hmmmm. Tough call when you consider the demographics of high speed home net users, who are probably the types to have early adopted a console system as well.
matt
But with the forthcoming USB 2.0, will all these rules still hold true? Can a USB 2.0 device get full throughput if plugged into a older USB device?
matt
I'll play devil's advocate.
If they provided a Linux binary, people would scream bloody murder, because of the afflicted dozens and dozens of Linux Alpha users.
The alternative? Naturally it would be OSS.
In 48 hours *MAX*, a version that would work sans ads would be out, defeating the entire point.
I don't think it is incredibly asinine to expect companies to be able not to bleed cash to provide us services. I use JunkBuster because banner ads servers are uniformly slow, but the ads on AOL IM don't bother me as they don't slow down access, and ultimately take up a tiny chunk of my 1280x1024 desktop. Of course, I couldn't use "AOL 5.0 50 free hours" if I wanted to due to my running Win2k, but anyhow....
There has yet to been a really great OSS solution that works for all platforms, and yet allows companies to ensure certain requirements, be they displaying ads or cheat free Quake clients. This topic has come up on SlashDot before, but checksum'd clients and other solutions haven't appeared to work.
matt
So OEM's can make new motherboards that work with both old and new Celerons. Old Celeron MB (my BP6) do not have the voltage req.'s and other tomfoolery for the new Celeron 2's, but new MB can be made to support both. It is much easier for big OEM's to make a MB that can be used across the entire celeron line
matt
The greater the cache...
the decrease of yield...
the increase of cost.
That is how is looks to me. The performance boost that comes with bigger cache only appears to effect certain server applications (DB stuff), and is next to nothing for desktop stuff, be it games, office apps, or what have you. It simply doesn't make sense to increase the cost of chips, which is the result of increasing cache due to the decreased yield.
matt
Got Best Director for Best Picture, Unforgiven, but he didn't win the leading male award.
matt
1. If you have Compaq hardware, then by comparison the training is cheap ; - )
2. I believe Compaq still flies all their ASE's gratis to a yearly conference. I know past locales include San Diego and Toronto. Not bad.
matt
That is simply the way Compaq does bidness. Full a full ASE, you previously needed to be a CNE or a MCSE. Not surprising they continued the trend.
Matt
I think that is a very geek centric viewpoint to think Cisco is some mysterious company. Almost 50% of Americans have some involvement in the stock market, and Cisco has been one of the 3 highest valued companies for a couple years now. Just a few days ago, my oral surgeon wanted to talk shop about the networking industry after I mentioned I am a system administrator.
matt
I'd be cautious about asuming linear growth in coasts. Running two lines to the same room doesn't really cost 2x the man power. I am always suspicious of silly collegiate cost estimates from friendly administrators.
matt
328 feet = 100 meters = CAt V limit
And it is 10baseT on CAT V, so they probably could push that limit.
matt
I am a NT user who worships at the altar of the start menu key. Start + R brings up a run dialog, Start +E brings up an explorer window, Start+f brings up the search window (in 2k MS replaces "find" with "search" everywhere. weird), Start + M minimizes all open windows.
Anyhow, I am of the belief that keys are good, and in *nix you just ought to program them to do something cool.
Matt
That seems good, but what incentive is there for business to offer higher bandwidth services? What if you want a 256k down, with a 1.44mb upstream to run a web server in your basement?
Ultimately this will stifle development of new services. Sure, you want the 256 bidirectional, but what if you need more?
Matt
Win2k has actually expanded upon the command interpreter of NT (type cmd in a run box). DOS apps that directly require hardware access are *going* to fail because NT/2k doesn't allow direct hardware access, it goes against the complete philosophy of the NT architecture. There isn't anything different about Win2k DOS support than 4.0 or 3.51, so far as I can tell. DOS apps that require sound (games), comm access (scientific? and DOS comm apps), or real mode network support (netware linked crud) aren't, and have never worked on a NT based OS.
Anyhow, DOS console apps are begging for investigation anyhow. I surmise that y2k has been addressed, but most dos apps I see still in use are on Novell lans, and are inextricably tied with things such as Btrieve.
matt
The problem appears to be that you need companies to buy in to keep costs low, and because Linux is blowing up so quickly, more companies are making more demands, thus it is getting cutthroat. I can see the attraction to an all geeks fest, but would the geeks show up if they had to foot the whole cost of conference rooms? I have never been to one, but I bet the old conferences' companies' presentations were low key, because there was no money in Linux, but now, the types of companies that use showgirls and pyrotechnics at shows are getting involved, and that requires lots of floor space (for the monster truck showdowns).
matt
Movies can already be wider than HDTV, as a 2.35 aspect ratio format has existed for a couple decades now.
matt
Hmmm, I am looking at 5 1/4 bays on the desktop on this table, and I bet you could get 4 hot swapped 2.5inch cartidge/bays in a dual 5 1/4 bay unit. Raid 5 and a hot spare, or a 4 drive raid 5, or yet, RAID 10. hmmmmmm.....
matt
I honestly would not worry about IDE limits on modern hardware. Any such limits in new hardware are bugs, and should be rectifiable via a BIOS flash. PC hardware had trouble really at 500meg and 2gig, and a little at 8 gig, but that has all been basically rectified.
matt
I think good certification is a good thing. I self taught my way to a MCSE, forcing myself to learn a lot of stuff about 95 (took that test instead of NT workstation because I avoid 9x like the plague) and NT internals. Bad certification is of little good, and that is what MS's stuff has become.
MS had screwed it up for a long while. A small question pool made newbie cram to pass books and CBT possible. They completely screwed up the Office certified user program, so help desk types naturally just did the MCSE, further weakening its credibility.
MS appears to realize what it has done. There is one big exam for NT 4.0 MCSE's to recertify on Win2k (you avoid having to pass about 4 core exams). MS just announced that you get only one chance to pass this exam. Overall, reading their stuff, you seem to get the impression that it is going to be a lot harder than the 4.0 track.
Someone mentioned the CNE as a bastion of all that is wonderful. Well, I have heard a lot of people say that in the late 80s, there were a lot of people who became CNEs without ever touching a Netware console. Today, the CNE is probably less like that due to decreased marketability alone. Adaptive testing does not seem to be a panacea, as in the MCSE realm, they use the same old small question pool.
I had some passing interest in Red Hat Certification, although now I am more spiritually in tune with the BSDs. A lot of people post on Slashdot saying how their 8 years experience makes them the almighty Linux guru. Great, could well be true. But if that experience is at home, hacking away code, how do you prove that experience to pointy haired bosses and HR types, which is what needs to be addressed if Linux is going to go big time? Show these people some of your wonderful Perl scripts? Not likely.
A good certification, especially with a lab component can carry some real weight. I don't think MS could ever go to a lab format simply due to the scope of the project that would entail. Cisco certification has gotten very popular, especially at the low end, but I don't think there are going to be a lot more CCIE's due to the incredibly demanding lab portion.
Finally, cost. Not every company has MS bending over backwards to get your employees certified at a cut rate. A lab based Red Hat cert for 5k is probably well worth consideringing, as every fly by night continuing ed program is going to have linux instruction shortly, if they do not have it already.
matt
Real geeks won't buy the WInTV-D because they know that it only supports low end digital tv (not justly called HDTV). Their next card will support 1080i, HDTV at its max. matt
"PC operating system" They are probably discounting Apple HW for that figure. That said, is it really fair to lump all WIndows together? (x has the most, but NT has about 30 million desktops I believe. Even 3.1 probably outweighs Linux.
matt
For us to have competition, AMD needs to partake in the marketing war. End of story. Having successfully done so (so far), their products are become of better quality, as their Athlon revisions with full speed L2 cache will probably debut next quarter. This will probably dovetail nicely with SMP Athlon motherboards, of which I have heard that the first may debut in the 3rd quarter.
matt
Well, AMD rightfully thinks it is important because people can go to COmpaq or Gateway *today*, custom build a system at 9xx+ mhz, and have it arrive within a month. A ghz system is probably price comparable with a Intel 8xx mhz system due to use of RDRAM, and the shipping times are probably about the same .
As an aside, Dell couldn't manage to get 2 P3 700 systems to a client at once. A 700 and all the 600s arrived, but the second 700 took two more weeks.
matt