Unix console text editors are annoying
on
The Birth of vi
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've been using them since 1993 and have never gotten used to them. I got hooked on the Borland 3.1 IDE and IMHO it was a better text editor. I appreciate the efficiency of nano and others when logged in over a serial line, but I really miss BC. One of the biggest problems has been keyboard sets. A Sun keyboard gives different scan codes than a PC and if the terminal settings don't take this into account, things get wacky. You end up with a complete evolution of keys and combinations in each editor just to cut and paste a line of text *ugh*. Nothing the same between them. Another problem with vi (and maybe others) is their growing dependancies on system libraries. I recently tried and install of vi which complained of a gtk dependancy; sheesh. This one [0] is from an embedded arm system (debian). Why do I need gpm when running vi? All I want is a simple, independant text editor that fits in a small space. The mouse isn't even useful in vi (directly). Another curious feature of these text editors is people seem to fancy themselves l33t h4x0r5 when they master the hjkl keys of vi or other un-intuitive keyboard combinations. People, you've not cracked a Gibson here; it's just a text editor. Go fix Bind, then we'll all be impressed.
[0] vim.basic: error while loading shared libraries: libgpm.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> The kick ass server being a Celeron 2ghz machine with 256 megs of ram.
There is a note of cynicism in your statement, but yes you will need adequate hardware and resources to take advantage of virtualisation. You should not expect to run two identical instances of a server environment on your hypervisor and expect a performance increase (depending on utilization of course). Also keep in mind your host os is going to need resources to run the show. This is where a stripped linux install has the advantage. One problem is people run their hypervisors on windows which really wasn't intended to be a multitasking server OS in the first place. They expect to see nice fluid resource management and it just doesn't happen and they get aggravated and try to throw more hardware at it with very little improvement. Also, keep in mind that Vmware and Xen are two separate types of hypervisors. As I understand, Xen is the operating system and hypervisor all rolled into one, whereas Vmware is an additional layer on top of the host os. YMMV with either.
A nice way to test-drive a distro before installing it. Check out distrowatch.com. Since your inclined to torment yourself with Advanced Math, you might be interested in Scientific Linux.
1) Debian == Knoppix, Ubuntu 2) Redhat == CentOS, Fedora, Mandriva, Scientific Linux 3) Slackware == Slax, Vector Linux 4) SuSE == Microsoft (see: techp.org )
> In just six years their numbers have fallen from 600,000 to 420,000
They're still going to be around for another two years, stop whining. The price of gasoline is lower, an SUV still gets over 15mpg, and all our manufacturing is done in China. There's nothing to worry about.
It sure seems to have come down to a matter of simple denial with the Windows platform. Vista has barely been released yet, and there are exploits[0] out for it. How can anyone claim to be concerned about system integrity[1] *and* be a windows advocate at the same time? It is a blatant contradiction. There are so many different alternatives with a better overall design that it makes no sense to run Windows unless you have been locked-in to the platform. If you are not yet locked-in, it seems Vista will help you with that[2].
Every time I see an article like this, it reminds of the small child that burns his hand on the stove, cries, and then tries it again 5 minutes later. If you don't like the way Microsoft is making the consumer bend to their will, STOP using their products. If you're foolish enough to be supporting Microsoft's marketing tactics by buying and using their products, there is nothing anyone can do to help you. If you value choice and alternative, you should start thinking about where your future choices are going to come from in the next few years. It's really going to be interesting when Microsoft's DRM is in full swing and everyone's word DOCs are locked up in some format that Microsoft itself can't even get right, and it will be illegal to try and figure out a solution.
Knoppix doesn't use the hard drive to boot. At all. You can take the hard drive out of your comp, put it in the microwave, and knoppix will still boot. It's that amazing.
> I don't know what to do to solve this, any suggestions?
1) Address the ignorance factor first. Make sure people are aware of the issue of data security and the seriousness of it. Don't assume they automatically know. Explain it to them in a way that is informative and not condescending.
2) Use a platform designed to keep users in userland.
3) Setup laptops with encrypted filesystems [0] and encrypted connections [1]. Do not give users administrative access. Re-image [2] system partitions for extra freshness. Stop using WEP.
Hate would indicate mostly emotion. There is plenty of emotion that drives my negativity towards Microsoft, but there is also just as much logic as well as principle. I started disliking Microsoft from the first week I typed win at a dos prompt. Many of the programs I had written in DOS did not run. My 386 would endlessly grind away trying to run "win", and oftentimes when something did happen on the screen, it was not a positive experience. There were many inconsistencies in both useability and performance. I was running Stacker at the time as well. A friend of mine used to work for them and mentioned one day how Microsoft had stole Stac's code and put it in DOS 6 and tried to get away with it. Stac won the court case, but the litigation expenses were tremendous. I never saw Stacker again. I thought that was pretty crummy that a company could do that to another.
Meanwhile Windows 95 came out and everyone was saying how it was going to fix all the problems with windows 3.1. Everyone threw money into upgrades but 95 failed to deliver. Things were actually worse, only faster. One day, someone mentioned how Microsoft was trying to kill off Netscape and force people to use Internet explorer. I never saw (the) Netscape again. I thought that was pretty crummy that a company could get away with something like that.
Meanwhile, windows 98 was in the works and everyone was saying how it was going to fix all the problemws with windows 95. Everyone threw money into upgrades but 98 failed to deliver. Things were actually worse, only faster. About this time, Microsoft was in an Anti-Trust trial for all their marketing activities. I figured this was the end of all this product killing nonsense, but the judge in the case "accidentally" said some stuff to the media that he wasn't supposed to and a lot of evidence had to be thrown out of court.
This cycle of fixed-in-the-next-update repeats itself every few years (and on patch tuesday) like clockwork. Fortunately, for Microsoft, there are plenty of people in the world that keep buying into the marketing hype and pretty wrappers and promises of a better product. Microsoft's success is simply a result of a well tuned marketing engine being passed off as a technological innovator and leader; it's complete hogwash but people are suckers for things that look nice.
The icing on the cake is that Microsoft is now financially wealthy enough to buy or litigate-to-death whatever opposition they encounter in order to keep their insanely dreadful products on the top (only?) shelf. With the advent of Vista and DRM (presented under the guise of a Good Thing (tm)) Microsoft will maintain their overbearing,unprincipled,hated success while keeping any alternatives completely off the hardware which are not sanctioned by Microsoft. All of the above is evidence that Microsoft is unable to compete in the market fairly. They need to resort to corporate level sucker-punches and knees-to-the-crotch in order to stay afloat. It's how they built their business, and it's how they stay in business and it's why so many people "hate" them.
Actually, even though you've been modded down, you bring up an excellent point and an interesting case study. In high school, the only computer available to me was an Apple IIe. I was absolutely fascinated with it. It had very little software for it but my curiosity eventually led me into BASIC programming. While a program was loaded, you could break out of it and actually see the code that ran it. I enrolled in a visual arts class so I could get more time working with it. Today, I program in Java, C, Perl, Shell and (years ago) Assembly. I also work with embedded Linux development on the ARM architecture. I am quite fluent in Linux and Solaris administration on the workstation and enterprise platforms as well. I have had two consulting companies and a Celluar phone company offer me positions this year (They came looking for me through mutual friends, I was not looking). My point is, this all started with a little bit of curiosity about how things work and a little bit of initiative to figure it out. If the Apple IIe would have come with everything already made for it, locked down with DRM and god knows what else, I would have already been beaten by the machine before even getting started. Having a somewhat open system allowed me the freedom to form theories and then prove them out. Linux still gives me that opportunity today. The opportunities of an open system are priceless.
FTFA: ".. will create a schism in the open source community and fork Linux."
What's the big problem with a fork? So you have Microvell Linux and the real Linux.
Microvell Lizard Linux is going to be a pregnant toad injected full of politics, DRM and Microsoft IP. Microsoft will have the option that way of killing it then with litigation, or letting it stick around to sell to Windows people that think they are smart switching to (MLL) Linux.
The real Linux will still be around, minus whatever Microsoft pays the courts to tell everyone they can't use anymore. The inevitability of all this is approaching like a garbage truck, so what is the problem with forking? M$ has been preparing for this for a long time buying up patents and everything else. Beginning over with a forked code base may be the only alternative. Either that, or put all your computer gear in front of the garbage truck and let it have it's way.
The internet was built on standards. Open standards at that. If you do not have open standards, then all you have is a closed system that allows for no alternatives. When you have no alternatives, you are locked into a system that dictates everything you do, whether it is broken or not, whether you like it or not. Right now, there are alternatives to Windows, but one day there may not be. Attitudes similar to the above will determine whether you have a choice tomorrow. choose wisely and carefully.
I know fork is a dirty word in this game, but why?. Why not just download the openSuSE 10.x source code and start rebuilding? call it openESuS or something. This seems like a perfectly reasonable opportunity to excersize that right under the GPL.
Btw - if you want to let novell know how you feel, Bruce Perens has setup an open letter to Ron Hovsepian. If you agree, and want to sign, it would reflect best on the OSS community if you keep the comments professional. ergo: "Fuck you" can be put as "Decided to abandon your product based on principle and merit". The choice is yours however, as is everything with OSS. http://techp.org/
There's more at stake with the Patent Agreement than just some money changing hands. From what I understand, under the MS/Novell agreement, there would be a potential opportunity for maliciously inserting copyrighted material into the codebase of whatever OSS projects Novell is working on. The codebase could find it's way into other projects too, creating an unintentional derived work off proprietary code. This is why everyone is getting so pissy about the whole thing. There's an Open Letter to Novell on Bruce Peren's website filled with a bunch of sigs of people telling Novell they want nothing to do with them because of this. I posted this link in another comment yesterday. I'm not affiliated, I just think it's worth knowing about, and signing if it suits you. http://techp.org/petition/show/1
The patent system in the US is a complete mess. When a monopoly can be recognized by the legal system, and still allowed to fill it's war chest unquestioned, something needs an overhaul. I too challenge microsoft, just as sco was challenged, to come forward with their disagreement. This is pointless because in all probability, microsofts intent is not based on resolving a patent issue. Their intent is to kill the competition. They will drag this FUD out for as long as possible. Novell is just a pawn (or paw0n3d rather) in the whole thing. In the meantime, you can
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using them since 1993 and have never gotten used to them. I got hooked on the Borland 3.1 IDE and IMHO it was a better text editor. I appreciate the efficiency of nano and others when logged in over a serial line, but I really miss BC. One of the biggest problems has been keyboard sets. A Sun keyboard gives different scan codes than a PC and if the terminal settings don't take this into account, things get wacky. You end up with a complete evolution of keys and combinations in each editor just to cut and paste a line of text *ugh*. Nothing the same between them. Another problem with vi (and maybe others) is their growing dependancies on system libraries. I recently tried and install of vi which complained of a gtk dependancy; sheesh. This one [0] is from an embedded arm system (debian). Why do I need gpm when running vi? All I want is a simple, independant text editor that fits in a small space. The mouse isn't even useful in vi (directly). Another curious feature of these text editors is people seem to fancy themselves l33t h4x0r5 when they master the hjkl keys of vi or other un-intuitive keyboard combinations. People, you've not cracked a Gibson here; it's just a text editor. Go fix Bind, then we'll all be impressed.
[0] vim.basic: error while loading shared libraries: libgpm.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Yes, I stopped reading it after that. As far as I'm concerned, in principle, SuSE is no longer OSS. Sign the petition. http://www.techp.org/
> The kick ass server being a Celeron 2ghz machine with 256 megs of ram.
There is a note of cynicism in your statement, but yes you will need adequate hardware and resources to take advantage of virtualisation. You should not expect to run two identical instances of a server environment on your hypervisor and expect a performance increase (depending on utilization of course). Also keep in mind your host os is going to need resources to run the show. This is where a stripped linux install has the advantage. One problem is people run their hypervisors on windows which really wasn't intended to be a multitasking server OS in the first place. They expect to see nice fluid resource management and it just doesn't happen and they get aggravated and try to throw more hardware at it with very little improvement. Also, keep in mind that Vmware and Xen are two separate types of hypervisors. As I understand, Xen is the operating system and hypervisor all rolled into one, whereas Vmware is an additional layer on top of the host os. YMMV with either.
Imagine for a moment the target group for this technology is the handicapped or blind. Kinda changes the perspective on the idea.
I, for one, welcome our new Toxoplasmosis overlords.
They are just pissing away money fighting an unbeatable battle. The only way they can lock down the content is by not using it.
--
Novell petition: http://www.techp.org/
You forgot Teenage girl + Teenage Boy + Hummer
A multitude of distractions.
A nice way to test-drive a distro before installing it. Check out distrowatch.com. Since your inclined to torment yourself with Advanced Math, you might be interested in Scientific Linux.
1) Debian == Knoppix, Ubuntu
2) Redhat == CentOS, Fedora, Mandriva, Scientific Linux
3) Slackware == Slax, Vector Linux
4) SuSE == Microsoft (see: techp.org )
Q: And where have we heard that name before?n k
A: http://www.google.com/search?as_q=sco+Deutsche+Ba
--
Ron we smell ponies: http://www.techp.org/
> In just six years their numbers have fallen from 600,000 to 420,000
They're still going to be around for another two years, stop whining. The price of gasoline is lower, an SUV still gets over 15mpg, and all our manufacturing is done in China. There's nothing to worry about.
It sure seems to have come down to a matter of simple denial with the Windows platform. Vista has barely been released yet, and there are exploits[0] out for it. How can anyone claim to be concerned about system integrity[1] *and* be a windows advocate at the same time? It is a blatant contradiction. There are so many different alternatives with a better overall design that it makes no sense to run Windows unless you have been locked-in to the platform. If you are not yet locked-in, it seems Vista will help you with that[2].
c urity+lacking1 2214
[0] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vista+virus
[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=vista+se
[2] http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/16/01
Every time I see an article like this, it reminds of the small child that burns his hand on the stove, cries, and then tries it again 5 minutes later. If you don't like the way Microsoft is making the consumer bend to their will, STOP using their products. If you're foolish enough to be supporting Microsoft's marketing tactics by buying and using their products, there is nothing anyone can do to help you. If you value choice and alternative, you should start thinking about where your future choices are going to come from in the next few years. It's really going to be interesting when Microsoft's DRM is in full swing and everyone's word DOCs are locked up in some format that Microsoft itself can't even get right, and it will be illegal to try and figure out a solution.
Knoppix doesn't use the hard drive to boot. At all. You can take the hard drive out of your comp, put it in the microwave, and knoppix will still boot. It's that amazing.
> I don't know what to do to solve this, any suggestions?
2 3/wep.html
1) Address the ignorance factor first. Make sure people are aware of the issue of data security and the seriousness of it. Don't assume they automatically know. Explain it to them in a way that is informative and not condescending.
2) Use a platform designed to keep users in userland.
3) Setup laptops with encrypted filesystems [0] and encrypted connections [1]. Do not give users administrative access. Re-image [2] system partitions for extra freshness. Stop using WEP.
[0] http://rubyforge.org/projects/fusefs/
[1] http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2001/02/
[2] http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l
Hate would indicate mostly emotion. There is plenty of emotion that drives my negativity towards Microsoft, but there is also just as much logic as well as principle. I started disliking Microsoft from the first week I typed win at a dos prompt. Many of the programs I had written in DOS did not run. My 386 would endlessly grind away trying to run "win", and oftentimes when something did happen on the screen, it was not a positive experience. There were many inconsistencies in both useability and performance. I was running Stacker at the time as well. A friend of mine used to work for them and mentioned one day how Microsoft had stole Stac's code and put it in DOS 6 and tried to get away with it. Stac won the court case, but the litigation expenses were tremendous. I never saw Stacker again. I thought that was pretty crummy that a company could do that to another.
Meanwhile Windows 95 came out and everyone was saying how it was going to fix all the problems with windows 3.1. Everyone threw money into upgrades but 95 failed to deliver. Things were actually worse, only faster. One day, someone mentioned how Microsoft was trying to kill off Netscape and force people to use Internet explorer. I never saw (the) Netscape again. I thought that was pretty crummy that a company could get away with something like that.
Meanwhile, windows 98 was in the works and everyone was saying how it was going to fix all the problemws with windows 95. Everyone threw money into upgrades but 98 failed to deliver. Things were actually worse, only faster. About this time, Microsoft was in an Anti-Trust trial for all their marketing activities. I figured this was the end of all this product killing nonsense, but the judge in the case "accidentally" said some stuff to the media that he wasn't supposed to and a lot of evidence had to be thrown out of court.
This cycle of fixed-in-the-next-update repeats itself every few years (and on patch tuesday) like clockwork. Fortunately, for Microsoft, there are plenty of people in the world that keep buying into the marketing hype and pretty wrappers and promises of a better product. Microsoft's success is simply a result of a well tuned marketing engine being passed off as a technological innovator and leader; it's complete hogwash but people are suckers for things that look nice.
The icing on the cake is that Microsoft is now financially wealthy enough to buy or litigate-to-death whatever opposition they encounter in order to keep their insanely dreadful products on the top (only?) shelf. With the advent of Vista and DRM (presented under the guise of a Good Thing (tm)) Microsoft will maintain their overbearing,unprincipled,hated success while keeping any alternatives completely off the hardware which are not sanctioned by Microsoft. All of the above is evidence that Microsoft is unable to compete in the market fairly. They need to resort to corporate level sucker-punches and knees-to-the-crotch in order to stay afloat. It's how they built their business, and it's how they stay in business and it's why so many people "hate" them.
--
*Ron we smell poniez: http://www.techp.org/petition/show/1
This is the financial equivalent of being surprised that 40% of all sick days are taken on Monday and Friday.
;)
That's simply not true. I take 100% of my sick days on Monday and Friday
That could likely pave the way for the RFID implant which was the revsion I read ;)
Actually, even though you've been modded down, you bring up an excellent point and an interesting case study. In high school, the only computer available to me was an Apple IIe. I was absolutely fascinated with it. It had very little software for it but my curiosity eventually led me into BASIC programming. While a program was loaded, you could break out of it and actually see the code that ran it. I enrolled in a visual arts class so I could get more time working with it. Today, I program in Java, C, Perl, Shell and (years ago) Assembly. I also work with embedded Linux development on the ARM architecture. I am quite fluent in Linux and Solaris administration on the workstation and enterprise platforms as well. I have had two consulting companies and a Celluar phone company offer me positions this year (They came looking for me through mutual friends, I was not looking). My point is, this all started with a little bit of curiosity about how things work and a little bit of initiative to figure it out. If the Apple IIe would have come with everything already made for it, locked down with DRM and god knows what else, I would have already been beaten by the machine before even getting started. Having a somewhat open system allowed me the freedom to form theories and then prove them out. Linux still gives me that opportunity today. The opportunities of an open system are priceless.
*Ron - We smell poniez: http://www.techp.org/
FTFA: ".. will create a schism in the open source community and fork Linux."
What's the big problem with a fork? So you have Microvell Linux and the real Linux.
Microvell Lizard Linux is going to be a pregnant toad injected full of politics, DRM and Microsoft IP. Microsoft will have the option that way of killing it then with litigation, or letting it stick around to sell to Windows people that think they are smart switching to (MLL) Linux.
The real Linux will still be around, minus whatever Microsoft pays the courts to tell everyone they can't use anymore. The inevitability of all this is approaching like a garbage truck, so what is the problem with forking? M$ has been preparing for this for a long time buying up patents and everything else. Beginning over with a forked code base may be the only alternative. Either that, or put all your computer gear in front of the garbage truck and let it have it's way.
Novell, we smell poniez: http://techp.org/
Hoo boy.. wait till the RIAA hears about it. Bet he gets sued for copleying stuff he didn't downleyload.
Ron seems to have completely forgotten about Microsoft's track record with "collaboration"..psst Ron..it sucks.
*Ron, we smell poniez: http://techp.org/
The internet was built on standards. Open standards at that. If you do not have open standards, then all you have is a closed system that allows for no alternatives. When you have no alternatives, you are locked into a system that dictates everything you do, whether it is broken or not, whether you like it or not. Right now, there are alternatives to Windows, but one day there may not be. Attitudes similar to the above will determine whether you have a choice tomorrow. choose wisely and carefully.
I know fork is a dirty word in this game, but why?. Why not just download the openSuSE 10.x source code and start rebuilding? call it openESuS or something. This seems like a perfectly reasonable opportunity to excersize that right under the GPL.
Btw - if you want to let novell know how you feel, Bruce Perens has setup an open letter to Ron Hovsepian. If you agree, and want to sign, it would reflect best on the OSS community if you keep the comments professional. ergo: "Fuck you" can be put as "Decided to abandon your product based on principle and merit". The choice is yours however, as is everything with OSS. http://techp.org/
There's more at stake with the Patent Agreement than just some money changing hands. From what I understand, under the MS/Novell agreement, there would be a potential opportunity for maliciously inserting copyrighted material into the codebase of whatever OSS projects Novell is working on. The codebase could find it's way into other projects too, creating an unintentional derived work off proprietary code. This is why everyone is getting so pissy about the whole thing. There's an Open Letter to Novell on Bruce Peren's website filled with a bunch of sigs of people telling Novell they want nothing to do with them because of this. I posted this link in another comment yesterday. I'm not affiliated, I just think it's worth knowing about, and signing if it suits you. http://techp.org/petition/show/1
The patent system in the US is a complete mess. When a monopoly can be recognized by the legal system, and still allowed to fill it's war chest unquestioned, something needs an overhaul. I too challenge microsoft, just as sco was challenged, to come forward with their disagreement. This is pointless because in all probability, microsofts intent is not based on resolving a patent issue. Their intent is to kill the competition. They will drag this FUD out for as long as possible. Novell is just a pawn (or paw0n3d rather) in the whole thing. In the meantime, you can
let Novell know how you feel here: http://techp.org/