99/100 times, someone saying something "troll like" about Apple is some guy who clearly formed his opinion based on "what the 7331 userz in #hax0rz told me they heard once", rather than personal experience.
Hmm.. I suppose it's subjective. I'm an Apple user, so I find I remember a lot of twits who bash Apple and MacOS (who have clearly never used them but have a "friend who told me").
Simply write games using only OpenGL. This allows maximum compatibility across any platform... hence the "Open" part of "OpenGL".
Another poster made the point that it shouldn't be technically much different to write for a UNIX machine or a Windows machine, as the two have much more in common than, say, Windows and a PS2.
If you believe the rumors, the PlayStation 3 is going to alleviate some of the PlayStation 2's notoriously difficult learning curve by using OpenGL as the graphics language.
Thus, using OpenGL gives you access to 99% of the worlds gaming-capable devices... Windows, the Macintosh, Linux and PlayStation 3.
Now, some people are going to come out and say that Direct3D is so much faster than OpenGL... but to them I say "tell that to John Carmack". Doom 3, as "un-fun" as it is, is one of the best looking games ever made and it seems to get along in OpenGL just fine, thanks.
Once the game is actualyl written in OpenGL, it's a lot easier argument to justify the cost of a port, when all you're porting is the HID and sound code...
See this, is the thing... Solaris does indeed work with a lot of hardware. While it doesn't support some of the more obscure stuff you get in chinatown, it does indeed work on most modern stuff.
Solaris isn't really a "desktop" OS, per se. I mean, I used Solaris with great sucess for years before I moved to OSX and it always met my needs, but I was basically using a decommissioned server box and the hardware was all supported well.
This is what really bothers me about people yammering about Solaris having poor hardware support. If you're building a server, it does indeed support most of the popular brands for SCSI controllers, network controllers, etc.
Hell, these days, every server I buy (usually either Dell rack-dense, or Tyan Transport opteron bare-bones sytems) has adaptec SCSI and broadcom gigabit ethernet and Solaris works great on that combination... Adaptec/Broadcom/Opteron is rapidly become mandatory for our server room, but then again, we spend the money on decent parts.
You should remember that, according to Microsofts testimony to the DOJ, Internet Explorer and the Windows OS itself are now inseperably linked.
As much as I think it's idiotic that the two couldn't be decoupled, such deep integration does suggest that a fault in a user-mode application could indeed transcend the user/kernel seperation and bring the whole works down.
Of course, this is fantastically poor design, but what did you really expect from the people who brought us Microsoft Bob?
By "intereting aromas from the users", do you mean, from products they are, say, sending into the atmosphere or their own, disturbingly unwashed persons?
Yeah, but the point you (and Linus) so quickly miss is that Solaris does indeed support a wide variety of Intel hardware, just not as wide as Linux. That said, everyone is hopping on the Linux bandwagon so it'll obviously have more extensive driver support, You're effectively criticizing Solaris for not being as popular, and how stupid is that?
I've had just as many hassles re-compiling Linux kernels to make hardware work as I have had trying to find drivers for hardware under Solaris Intel. That said, most servers have pretty standard hardware and Solaris/Intel does a reasonably good job recognizing the hardware. I suppose the fact that I recognize this and play within the spectrum of the HCL, rather then setting myself up for failure, is where you I take different paths.
I mean, sheesh.. Linus admits (though he obviously didn't notice) that he's talking out of his ass when he says "Solaris/Intel is a joke (so I've heard)".
That said, Solaris does indeed work with non-proprietary hardware, as well big iron SPARC systems (which aren't, as yo say, proprietary. The SPARC architecture is awfully open; it may not be commodity, but the opposite of commodity isn't proprietary).
What he said was that Linux is better at what Linux does
Well, to me:
Because I personally don't think they have anything left worth taking after I've applied the general Unix principles. I really do think Linux is the better system by now, in all the ways that matter.
This doesn't seemed to terribly quantified to me. Only a fool would say "i don't think they have anything left worth taking" without ever having seen what they have in the first place.
As I pointed out in a previous comment, that's not what he said, but even so, there is a good reason why kernel contributors might want to avoid the Solaris source code until the SCO suits are settled.
This is a good point, though peaking at the source code for inspiration is a lot different then just copying the code outright. That said, everything I've ever developed I've used all available code I can get my hands on to see how other people are doing it; it's just a good idea, no matter what you're doing, to see if there might be something that you didn't think of.
Of course, this is clearly the difference between me and Linus; I accept that i'm not omnipotent, whereas Linus has had his ego stroked by his fans for so long that he actually seems to think that he -is-.
There's just no logical reason for him to be so dimissive; it's all pride and ego.
That's also the only Solaris/Intel problem specificially mentioned by Linus in the interview, and the precise reason he called Solaris/Intel a joke.
Oh, I read that... and it's statements like this that really piss me off about Linus.
Yes, the whole operating system, with it's superior threading, source compatibility with the most popular commercial UNIX going, and unrivaled stability is a "joke" because it doesn't have as much driver support as the trendiest OS going.
That's just such a stupid thing to say it makes my head spin. Linus really does live on his own planet sometimes.
I dunno man... I recently installed Solaris 9 on a dual opteron, 2GB of DDR 400, Adaptec AIC-7XXX SCSI. No messing around, worked fine.
This is brand new hardware, and although Solaris 9 was indeed running in 32-bit mode (and not the 64-bit Solaris 10 would enjoy on the same hardware), it worked and worked very well.
I've never had much of a problem getting Solaris to run on a wide variety of Intel hardware. The key, if you want to build a Solaris/Intel box, is to consult the HCL. Sun is pretty specific about what Solaris will and will not work with, though I've never found it to be as restrictive as most people imply.
Solaris/SPARC and Solaris/x86 are, last I was told, 99% percent idential.
That said, the only problem with Solaris/Intel is it's driver support. If you have supported hardware, Solaris/Intel is the definition of production-ready.
At any rate, It still really bothers me whenever I see people on/. knock Solaris just because his holiness Linus said that Linux was better. A lot of people here rip on Solaris and have clearly never actually used it, and even more declare it "the sucks" because it didn't recognize their crappy AC97 sound card. Truly infuriating sometimes... though I can see how it all starts when Linus goes on the record saying that he doesn't even think that the Solaris source code is worth even peeking at.
Then again, Linus, though brilliant, is also rash, reactionary, highly defensive and an out-and-out ego-maniac sometimes... but like so many "rock-star" like figures, his fans don't ever notice this.
Solaris has been saving my (and a lot of other peoples) bacon for years and as much as I like Linux, Solaris is still my go-to operating system because it's just more reliable, regardless of what his majesty wants to think.
How much more reliable? We're talking, like, 99.9% reliable versus, say 99.1% percent... something so miniscule; irrelevant to most people, but paramount to me and the thousands of people who still prefer to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Solaris licenses for a very good reason.
Linux is improving steadily and someday I'll have no reason to buy Solaris... but it surprises me it's come this far sometimes when I see ignorant things like this from Linus.
Who still uses WEP? The weeknesses in WEP have been known for some time, and there have been more than a few working crackers in the wild for quite a while now.
WPA is the money. It's far more secure than WEP in that it has key rotation, and some of the snazzier base stations already support AES as the cryptographic algorithm. Most older stations with dilligent vendors will at least support WPA with TKIP (RC4 with rotating keys), since it's a trivial addition from a compute-intensiveness point of view.
That said, if you do insist on sticking with WEP (some people prefer classic cars to modern ones as well, I guess), or even less (ie, run an open base station) at least ensure that your access point is configured to only allow your specific MAC (as well as those you trust) to peer with it. This will at least keep the bandwidth sucklers off your back.
Unless, of course, being suckled upon is what you like. At that point, do what you want. I'm Canadian, so my personal bandwidth is everyones bandwidth.
Ahhh... socialism.:)
As for PPTP, switch to using KAME, FreeS/WAN or your IPSec implementation of choice. You can, of course, even use IPSec to do transport level encryption for your wireless connection if your base station doesn't support WPA, though you would need additional boxen to do this, of course.
Both of these (WPA and IPSec) provide the same functionality as what they replace (WEP and PPTP) with additional security benefits. We moved to WPA for our corporate access points over a year ago and have been running a 100% IPSec (SonicWall, specifically) VPN for just as long. They're functional, production tested and very secure.
The problem really is not -securing- your connection, it's both securing and limiting access to your wireless network.
That said, your best bet, until 802.11i is widespread, is to buy an access point and wireless card that support WPA, which provides for regular key changes.
Additionally, be sure to configure your base station to only allow your specific MAC address (the address of your personal wireless card and any other authorized cards) to peer with your access point.
This way, even if someone -does- break your WAP packets (though unlikely, especially since some base stations support AES now, your mileage may vary), at least they can't connect to your AP and suckle at your bandwidth.
FireFox MD5 hashes are calculated based on the binary, as are all MD5 hashes.
I can easily recompile FireFox, re-hash and then dupe you into thinking that it's the legit firefox.
That said, there is a huge difference between an MD5 -hash- (hash is the key word, the MD5 hash is not a signature) and code signing a la Microsoft.
Code-signing is cryptographic in nature, and is public/private key based much like PGP or SSL. In order to create a "signature" for code, you need to first possess the private key. Without the private key, you cannot generate a signature that would be mathematically valid.
Any signature you -did- generate, sans private key, would immediatly send up alarm bells by anyone who tries to install it, as there would be a difference between the installed code and the signature that is posted (due to the lack of an authentic private key used to generate the sig).
This is, of course, much the same as PGP signing (though not necessarily encrypting) an e-mail message.
That said, as for the mirror->main idea... all it takes is one bad mirror and a lot of people get a bad FireFox.
Mod me down as a troll all you like (I'm sure someone will do it.. saying anything even remotely bad about FireFox, Linux, His Holiness Linus Torvalds or the GPL is automatic grounds for "troll" on/., regardless of how logical the argument), but an MD5 hash is worlds worse than Microsoft code-signing for the simple reason that the two of them aren't even the same thing.
All an MD5 hash is good for is proving, assuming you trust the hash, that what you downloaded and what the mirrored hosted are the same thing (ie, not corrupted during download). As a trust mechansism, it's useless.
Then again, there was an article on/. not long about a proven way of changing a file and maintaing the MD5 hash, so even MD5 hashes are a little dated useless now.
Your response is troll/flamebait at best, "clueless" at worst.
Java GUI apps... go ahead, criticize java for not performing well in the context of a cross platform GUI app. All it needs to do is properly re-create an acceptable interface on every possible native GUI library. How hard can that possibly be?
It's not like half the native GTK+ or QT apps aren't just as unusable, or that no serious GUI apps are written in Java anyways. You could write a GUI app with PHP and it's QT bindings, but why bother? Red herrings do not a point make.
On the other hand, server side... the only thing that's slow about java is your understanding of it's progress since, well, 1997 or so, when you're comment may have been valid. Server-side java performance is about as good as PHP or.NET if you have half a clue of what you're doing.
That said, I can write a pretty poor, slow-ass PHP app just as easily. So what's the point?
As for Java not running well on all platforms... our company (and most others) have server side apps running on Debian, Solaris, OS X and Windows without issue.
So I'd suggest that, in your case, problems likely exist between chair and keyboard.
Slashdot Mirror
This I'd agree with.
99/100 times, someone saying something "troll like" about Apple is some guy who clearly formed his opinion based on "what the 7331 userz in #hax0rz told me they heard once", rather than personal experience.
A G3 iMac, even one of the originals at 233mhz, is a pretty powerful little machine in terms of serving standard, static content via Apache.
That machine could saturate a 10 Mbps connections easily, and could likely make a good run a 100 Mbps connection at that.
Hmm.. I suppose it's subjective. I'm an Apple user, so I find I remember a lot of twits who bash Apple and MacOS (who have clearly never used them but have a "friend who told me").
That said, I'm sure it runs both ways.
I know it is bad form to go against Apple on Slashdot...
Are you on glue? Apple is -the- whipping boy most days on Slashdot.
It's bad form to go against Linux or his holiness, Linus Torvalds. Get it right.
Yes, leave it to Mr. Bush.
How about, instead of complaining about spending money on science, you bitch about the US government for spending billions waging wars overseas?
Some people -really- have fucked up priorities.
Or ever better...
:)
Simply write games using only OpenGL. This allows maximum compatibility across any platform... hence the "Open" part of "OpenGL".
Another poster made the point that it shouldn't be technically much different to write for a UNIX machine or a Windows machine, as the two have much more in common than, say, Windows and a PS2.
If you believe the rumors, the PlayStation 3 is going to alleviate some of the PlayStation 2's notoriously difficult learning curve by using OpenGL as the graphics language.
Thus, using OpenGL gives you access to 99% of the worlds gaming-capable devices... Windows, the Macintosh, Linux and PlayStation 3.
Now, some people are going to come out and say that Direct3D is so much faster than OpenGL... but to them I say "tell that to John Carmack". Doom 3, as "un-fun" as it is, is one of the best looking games ever made and it seems to get along in OpenGL just fine, thanks.
Once the game is actualyl written in OpenGL, it's a lot easier argument to justify the cost of a port, when all you're porting is the HID and sound code...
And as for sound, that's why we have OpenAL.
This should be modded up to the sky...
Fucking christ this makes me sad...
Rest in peace Jerry...
God bless.
Clippy... too funny.
"Goodbye, Cruel World...."
Blip!
"Hi there! It looks like you're writing a suicide letter. May I make the following suggestions:"
See this, is the thing... Solaris does indeed work with a lot of hardware. While it doesn't support some of the more obscure stuff you get in chinatown, it does indeed work on most modern stuff.
Solaris isn't really a "desktop" OS, per se. I mean, I used Solaris with great sucess for years before I moved to OSX and it always met my needs, but I was basically using a decommissioned server box and the hardware was all supported well.
This is what really bothers me about people yammering about Solaris having poor hardware support. If you're building a server, it does indeed support most of the popular brands for SCSI controllers, network controllers, etc.
Hell, these days, every server I buy (usually either Dell rack-dense, or Tyan Transport opteron bare-bones sytems) has adaptec SCSI and broadcom gigabit ethernet and Solaris works great on that combination... Adaptec/Broadcom/Opteron is rapidly become mandatory for our server room, but then again, we spend the money on decent parts.
You should remember that, according to Microsofts testimony to the DOJ, Internet Explorer and the Windows OS itself are now inseperably linked.
As much as I think it's idiotic that the two couldn't be decoupled, such deep integration does suggest that a fault in a user-mode application could indeed transcend the user/kernel seperation and bring the whole works down.
Of course, this is fantastically poor design, but what did you really expect from the people who brought us Microsoft Bob?
By "intereting aromas from the users", do you mean, from products they are, say, sending into the atmosphere or their own, disturbingly unwashed persons?
Yeah, but the point you (and Linus) so quickly miss is that Solaris does indeed support a wide variety of Intel hardware, just not as wide as Linux. That said, everyone is hopping on the Linux bandwagon so it'll obviously have more extensive driver support, You're effectively criticizing Solaris for not being as popular, and how stupid is that?
I've had just as many hassles re-compiling Linux kernels to make hardware work as I have had trying to find drivers for hardware under Solaris Intel. That said, most servers have pretty standard hardware and Solaris/Intel does a reasonably good job recognizing the hardware. I suppose the fact that I recognize this and play within the spectrum of the HCL, rather then setting myself up for failure, is where you I take different paths.
I mean, sheesh.. Linus admits (though he obviously didn't notice) that he's talking out of his ass when he says "Solaris/Intel is a joke (so I've heard)".
That said, Solaris does indeed work with non-proprietary hardware, as well big iron SPARC systems (which aren't, as yo say, proprietary. The SPARC architecture is awfully open; it may not be commodity, but the opposite of commodity isn't proprietary).
What he said was that Linux is better at what Linux does
Well, to me:
Because I personally don't think they have anything left worth taking after I've applied the general Unix principles. I really do think Linux is the better system by now, in all the ways that matter.
This doesn't seemed to terribly quantified to me. Only a fool would say "i don't think they have anything left worth taking" without ever having seen what they have in the first place.
As I pointed out in a previous comment, that's not what he said, but even so, there is a good reason why kernel contributors might want to avoid the Solaris source code until the SCO suits are settled.
This is a good point, though peaking at the source code for inspiration is a lot different then just copying the code outright. That said, everything I've ever developed I've used all available code I can get my hands on to see how other people are doing it; it's just a good idea, no matter what you're doing, to see if there might be something that you didn't think of.
Of course, this is clearly the difference between me and Linus; I accept that i'm not omnipotent, whereas Linus has had his ego stroked by his fans for so long that he actually seems to think that he -is-.
There's just no logical reason for him to be so dimissive; it's all pride and ego.
That's also the only Solaris/Intel problem specificially mentioned by Linus in the interview, and the precise reason he called Solaris/Intel a joke.
Oh, I read that... and it's statements like this that really piss me off about Linus.
Yes, the whole operating system, with it's superior threading, source compatibility with the most popular commercial UNIX going, and unrivaled stability is a "joke" because it doesn't have as much driver support as the trendiest OS going.
That's just such a stupid thing to say it makes my head spin. Linus really does live on his own planet sometimes.
Sorry, I prefer to use just use English so I'm not up on my script-kiddy lingo. Indeed, I did wrap it in quotes for this very reason.
:P
That said, you know what I was getting at!
I dunno man... I recently installed Solaris 9 on a dual opteron, 2GB of DDR 400, Adaptec AIC-7XXX SCSI. No messing around, worked fine.
This is brand new hardware, and although Solaris 9 was indeed running in 32-bit mode (and not the 64-bit Solaris 10 would enjoy on the same hardware), it worked and worked very well.
I've never had much of a problem getting Solaris to run on a wide variety of Intel hardware. The key, if you want to build a Solaris/Intel box, is to consult the HCL. Sun is pretty specific about what Solaris will and will not work with, though I've never found it to be as restrictive as most people imply.
Solaris/SPARC and Solaris/x86 are, last I was told, 99% percent idential.
/. knock Solaris just because his holiness Linus said that Linux was better. A lot of people here rip on Solaris and have clearly never actually used it, and even more declare it "the sucks" because it didn't recognize their crappy AC97 sound card. Truly infuriating sometimes... though I can see how it all starts when Linus goes on the record saying that he doesn't even think that the Solaris source code is worth even peeking at.
That said, the only problem with Solaris/Intel is it's driver support. If you have supported hardware, Solaris/Intel is the definition of production-ready.
At any rate, It still really bothers me whenever I see people on
Then again, Linus, though brilliant, is also rash, reactionary, highly defensive and an out-and-out ego-maniac sometimes... but like so many "rock-star" like figures, his fans don't ever notice this.
Solaris has been saving my (and a lot of other peoples) bacon for years and as much as I like Linux, Solaris is still my go-to operating system because it's just more reliable, regardless of what his majesty wants to think.
How much more reliable? We're talking, like, 99.9% reliable versus, say 99.1% percent... something so miniscule; irrelevant to most people, but paramount to me and the thousands of people who still prefer to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Solaris licenses for a very good reason.
Linux is improving steadily and someday I'll have no reason to buy Solaris... but it surprises me it's come this far sometimes when I see ignorant things like this from Linus.
Well, you have to specifically enable WPA on the Airport Express/Extreme stations, but you can do so easily through the Airpot Admin Utility.
That said, once you enable WPA you do indeed only enter one password and then the base station deals with key rotation from then on.
Who still uses WEP? The weeknesses in WEP have been known for some time, and there have been more than a few working crackers in the wild for quite a while now.
WPA is the money. It's far more secure than WEP in that it has key rotation, and some of the snazzier base stations already support AES as the cryptographic algorithm. Most older stations with dilligent vendors will at least support WPA with TKIP (RC4 with rotating keys), since it's a trivial addition from a compute-intensiveness point of view.
That said, if you do insist on sticking with WEP (some people prefer classic cars to modern ones as well, I guess), or even less (ie, run an open base station) at least ensure that your access point is configured to only allow your specific MAC (as well as those you trust) to peer with it. This will at least keep the bandwidth sucklers off your back.
Unless, of course, being suckled upon is what you like. At that point, do what you want. I'm Canadian, so my personal bandwidth is everyones bandwidth.
Ahhh... socialism. :)
As for PPTP, switch to using KAME, FreeS/WAN or your IPSec implementation of choice. You can, of course, even use IPSec to do transport level encryption for your wireless connection if your base station doesn't support WPA, though you would need additional boxen to do this, of course.
Both of these (WPA and IPSec) provide the same functionality as what they replace (WEP and PPTP) with additional security benefits. We moved to WPA for our corporate access points over a year ago and have been running a 100% IPSec (SonicWall, specifically) VPN for just as long. They're functional, production tested and very secure.
Don't wait. Do it now.
The problem really is not -securing- your connection, it's both securing and limiting access to your wireless network.
That said, your best bet, until 802.11i is widespread, is to buy an access point and wireless card that support WPA, which provides for regular key changes.
Additionally, be sure to configure your base station to only allow your specific MAC address (the address of your personal wireless card and any other authorized cards) to peer with your access point.
This way, even if someone -does- break your WAP packets (though unlikely, especially since some base stations support AES now, your mileage may vary), at least they can't connect to your AP and suckle at your bandwidth.
FireFox MD5 hashes are calculated based on the binary, as are all MD5 hashes.
/., regardless of how logical the argument), but an MD5 hash is worlds worse than Microsoft code-signing for the simple reason that the two of them aren't even the same thing.
/. not long about a proven way of changing a file and maintaing the MD5 hash, so even MD5 hashes are a little dated useless now.
I can easily recompile FireFox, re-hash and then dupe you into thinking that it's the legit firefox.
That said, there is a huge difference between an MD5 -hash- (hash is the key word, the MD5 hash is not a signature) and code signing a la Microsoft.
Code-signing is cryptographic in nature, and is public/private key based much like PGP or SSL. In order to create a "signature" for code, you need to first possess the private key. Without the private key, you cannot generate a signature that would be mathematically valid.
Any signature you -did- generate, sans private key, would immediatly send up alarm bells by anyone who tries to install it, as there would be a difference between the installed code and the signature that is posted (due to the lack of an authentic private key used to generate the sig).
This is, of course, much the same as PGP signing (though not necessarily encrypting) an e-mail message.
That said, as for the mirror->main idea... all it takes is one bad mirror and a lot of people get a bad FireFox.
Mod me down as a troll all you like (I'm sure someone will do it.. saying anything even remotely bad about FireFox, Linux, His Holiness Linus Torvalds or the GPL is automatic grounds for "troll" on
All an MD5 hash is good for is proving, assuming you trust the hash, that what you downloaded and what the mirrored hosted are the same thing (ie, not corrupted during download). As a trust mechansism, it's useless.
Then again, there was an article on
SHA1, my brothers.
That is "$50 more", of course.
Although it's probably been said... they are also offering, for $50, a notebook with an Athlon CPU and Windows XP Home.
How, exactly, is this Linspire machine a good idea/deal?
Of course, this is all because the new IO libraries are very thin wrappers around native routines.
This is, of course, the point of Java.
You say it like it's just Java "cheating" somehow.
Your response is troll/flamebait at best, "clueless" at worst.
.NET if you have half a clue of what you're doing.
Java GUI apps... go ahead, criticize java for not performing well in the context of a cross platform GUI app. All it needs to do is properly re-create an acceptable interface on every possible native GUI library. How hard can that possibly be?
It's not like half the native GTK+ or QT apps aren't just as unusable, or that no serious GUI apps are written in Java anyways. You could write a GUI app with PHP and it's QT bindings, but why bother? Red herrings do not a point make.
On the other hand, server side... the only thing that's slow about java is your understanding of it's progress since, well, 1997 or so, when you're comment may have been valid. Server-side java performance is about as good as PHP or
That said, I can write a pretty poor, slow-ass PHP app just as easily. So what's the point?
As for Java not running well on all platforms... our company (and most others) have server side apps running on Debian, Solaris, OS X and Windows without issue.
So I'd suggest that, in your case, problems likely exist between chair and keyboard.