ICQ comes to mind as one of the bigger sell-outs - I don't need 500 features in a messaging program, with ads plastered all over every message I get from my buds.
The only thing about ICQ that makes it halfway decent is that they don't make random changes to the protocol in order to force people to stop using non-sancioned clients.
I had to buy a new keyboard after my cats chewed through the cable. It lasted for several months after they chewed halfway through, but last week they decided to finish it off.
As for future problems, I just reorganized my desk so they can't get at the cable. They don't seem to care about any other cables, just the keyboard. Lucky I bought a cheap one, I guess.
I didn't know NT was that old. I remember NT 4 in '96... didn't ever work with it before that.
Can NTFS pack multiple files or fragments into a single cluster? I think this is what ReiserFS does. I know XFS does this, and ext2 might someday.
Fragmentation sucks in NT. As does the 4GB limit on partitions you create at install time. What the hell is up with that? Format as FAT, convert to NTFS? Give me a break.
As fas as other features go, where the hell is quota support? Yeah, I know, Win2000, but you're talking about NT4, you say. Also, I know NTFS supports streams, but I've never seen them used. It's a cool idea - similar to HFS forks, right?
ext3 is... almost... there. I think Stephen Tweedie (the maintainer) is planning to merge it back into ext2, since ext3 is just ext2 + a journalling layer.
For ext3, you create a journal file on your ext2 fs, umount, and mount as ext3.
Perl? Oh hell yeah. Perl is my (and yours, right?) language of choice for text file parsing.
Why would rewriting system code be necessary? If you have a `vigroup' like you have `vipw', what's so difficult? That sounds to me like "the Right Way to do it."
Hmmm... I think I've heard all this some time before... let's see... 1996... Novell...
Oh, yeah, just this little product known as Novell Directory Services. Funny, I would have described NDS almost exactly like you did this... Microsoft "Active Directory" thing.
How many posts/day? Less than one, for sure. I post maybe once a week, and seem to reliably get moderator status every few weeks. I do, however, read at least the front page of slashdot every day. So, I think reading has more to do with getting moderator status than posting.
I once heard that NTFS was the ideal filesystem under Linux for removable
media, because it was resistant to the manglings that plague FAT and ext2fs. Is that true?
Uh, no, not at all. First of all NTFS is anything but ideal for removable media, period. Have you ever seen NTFS on a floppy? There's a damn good reason NT doesn't let you format a floppy with NTFS. The I/O overhead needed for NTFS kills perfomance dead, nevermind the space you lose to filesystem overhead. NTFS is OK on fast things, like hard drives, but don't even think about using it on anything slower.
If anything, FAT is ideal for small removable media - floppies, that is. For ZIP disks, you might think about ext2fs, if you're not going to use it under any other OS. FAT's simple structure keeps overhead low, which is good for removable drives, which are slower.
I'd rather have our last words be "oops" than "oh, well, too bad we never got anything accomplished."
People who refuse to take risks are so missing out. Why don't you go secure yourself in a fortress and never come out? You know, walking is a very unsafe activity.
Don't put the limit on the main router. Firewall off the dorms, and limit that traffic. OK, so the students can't run their own servers, but that's why the Uni offers shell accounts to everyone, right? Then, when they complain, tell them that if they can get all the Dormites to shell out the cash for another T-1, you'll devote it entirely to the dorms:).
You know, a friend of a friend just recently got a job at a small KS school where he ran into the same problem. I'll have to ask Dave if he knows how his friend solved it.:)
Biggest concern is stability. Ext3 is version 0.0.2e, which is not a reassuring sign.
OK, later on you mention that it's built on top of an exisitng fs, but you seem to neglect that here. Remember that ext3 is built on existing, proven filesystem technology - it's the actual journalling that's beta, not the filesystem itself.
Otherwise, you would count Sun workstations as 'desktop' users, and that's not
generally done.
Maybe where you come from, people don't use Suns on the desktop - but over here, we sure do.
My boss has two Sparcstations, an Apollo, and a Windows box on his desktop.
I have a Windows and a Linux box on mine.
My co-worker has a Sparcstation, a FreeBSD box, and a Windows/Solaris x86 laptop on his desk.
We also have an SGI Indy for the guys who come in and out of the office.
On the server side, we have a NetWare file/print server and a Linux file server.
I don't know about you, but I count all those as desktop computers, seeing as how they are all used to surf the web, read e-mail, write & compile programs, compose memos and bulletin board (the cork kind) postings, etc...
Even engineering people who use Unix for CAD applications usually also have a
Windows box next door to it.
Maybe, but UNIX still has a place on the desktop. Speaking of which, I recently toured an aircraft manufacturer's lab, where only HP Catia computers were on the desks. Running HP-UX, not Windows.
Linux is so "Grandma-usable." Grandma just has to learn to use it before Windows/Macs teach her that she's too stupid to understand anything other than their glorified, GUI, point-and-click-only interface.
No, not at all. They'll backport your bugfixes (not your new features) and call the package "aicq 1.1-2" or something similar.
The point is that you have a feature freeze for the software. You don't have to worry about having to upgrade libicq along with aicq; you know that the library requirements and all will stay the same.
You're right. I just posted first, then thought later. I haven't been following this deal awfully closely, but I think it's cool that Lars does understand mp3 isn't bad in and of itself.
I'm a Napster user and Metallica fan too. I'm no good at making music, though. Metallica, though, is. They've got some good stuff, and some great stuff. I guess that everytime I've heard Lars speak (or rather, see what he spoke), I've come away with the impression that he's never been on Napster, nor does he know why it sprung up. Maybe I'm wrong. I like it though- it [Napster] has certainly broadened my horizons. I've heard a lot of good music that I otherwise might not have come across otherwise.
From the article:
... users will be able to sample one of the artists, Goudie through MP3 downloads on the band's official site...
Do you think he'll let us distribute the samples via Napster?
Why doesn't he write an article about how to better maintain your site docs instead? T'would be more helpful.
But it wouldn't get his name in the press, or as many mentions in other news sources, or links to and hits on the web page. It wouldn't get nearly the praise from his employers.
He doesn't care about being helpful. He probably thinks he came up with a new, deep insight into why Windows is better than Linux. Poor, dumb bastard.
If your sysadmin is in the habit of planting backdoors, you're in deep shit anyway - this is they guy/gal who's in control of your servers, and if you don't trust him/her to do his/her job, you've probably got other problems than worrying about backdoors in your server.
TripWire provides a some of what you're talking about. A select group of files can be cheksummed each night, and compared against the previous night's cheksums.
People in this thread who are talking about 2 gig limits and storing database tables in files have no fscking clue how to help you with your problem...
Then please, tell us how it is. I understand that high availability and outright performance is probably going to be more a concern than cost.
I don't know much at all about working with databases of any significance. Is the data stored in separate files, or when he says a 30GB database, does that mean a 30GB file?
How much is in RAM? If the database server were to crash, would all the changes made be sync'ed to disk? Would you have lost data when you do get the computer back up? How does this depend on the platform the database runs on?
What other concerns are there? Can you give us a "fscking clue?"
At my site, we've been using ext3 on production NFS servers for almost a month now, with no trouble in terms of stability. Disk I/O has suffered a big performance hit (less than 1/2 previous performance), but for the better filesystem reliability, it's worth it.
The 2GB file size limit is your biggest problem. If you're going to go with Linux for sure, look into DEC- I mean, Compaq- Alpha hardware. It's a 64-bit architecture, so that limit shouldn't exist there. I haven't ever actually used Linux on Alpha though, so I cannot guarantee that.
As far as the software RAID bit...
The ext3 patch is against kernel 2.2.17-pre9, so we're sticking with that for now. No development kernels for us, here. Once Steven Tweedie's ported it to a moderately stable 2.4-test, I'll look at giving that a shot. From what I understand NFS performance has increased significantly there. Don't know about RAID. Don't know about databases, either, but if that will put a moderate load on your computer, you ought to look at hardware RAID in any case- you'll get better performance by far, if you take the RAID load off the main CPU.
First off, you may want to see if there is a FreeBSD or Debian port available for the Challenge XL (MIPS).
Not gonna happen, big boy. Linux (the only kernel Debian currently uses) hasn't been fully ported to MIPS. As far as FreeBSD goes, it only runs on x86 & Alpha. Hell, NetBSD hasn't even been fully ported.
As long as you're running SGI MIPS hardware, you ain't gonna get shit for performance or usability from anything but IRIX for some time yet.
Slashdot Mirror
ICQ comes to mind as one of the bigger sell-outs - I don't need 500 features in a messaging program, with ads plastered all over every message I get from my buds.
The only thing about ICQ that makes it halfway decent is that they don't make random changes to the protocol in order to force people to stop using non-sancioned clients.
As for future problems, I just reorganized my desk so they can't get at the cable. They don't seem to care about any other cables, just the keyboard. Lucky I bought a cheap one, I guess.
-Matthead
Can NTFS pack multiple files or fragments into a single cluster? I think this is what ReiserFS does. I know XFS does this, and ext2 might someday.
Fragmentation sucks in NT. As does the 4GB limit on partitions you create at install time. What the hell is up with that? Format as FAT, convert to NTFS? Give me a break.
As fas as other features go, where the hell is quota support? Yeah, I know, Win2000, but you're talking about NT4, you say. Also, I know NTFS supports streams, but I've never seen them used. It's a cool idea - similar to HFS forks, right?
-Matthead
-Matthead
For ext3, you create a journal file on your ext2 fs, umount, and mount as ext3.
-Matthead
-Matthead
Perl? Oh hell yeah. Perl is my (and yours, right?) language of choice for text file parsing.
Why would rewriting system code be necessary? If you have a `vigroup' like you have `vipw', what's so difficult? That sounds to me like "the Right Way to do it."
-Matthead
Hmmm... I think I've heard all this some time before... let's see... 1996... Novell...
Oh, yeah, just this little product known as Novell Directory Services. Funny, I would have described NDS almost exactly like you did this... Microsoft "Active Directory" thing.
-Matthead
From their web page: ... DjVu (pronounced "déjà vu") ...
Looks like the illiterate are right for once.
-Matthead
How many posts/day? Less than one, for sure. I post maybe once a week, and seem to reliably get moderator status every few weeks. I do, however, read at least the front page of slashdot every day. So, I think reading has more to do with getting moderator status than posting.
-Matthead
Uh, no, not at all. First of all NTFS is anything but ideal for removable media, period. Have you ever seen NTFS on a floppy? There's a damn good reason NT doesn't let you format a floppy with NTFS. The I/O overhead needed for NTFS kills perfomance dead, nevermind the space you lose to filesystem overhead. NTFS is OK on fast things, like hard drives, but don't even think about using it on anything slower.
If anything, FAT is ideal for small removable media - floppies, that is. For ZIP disks, you might think about ext2fs, if you're not going to use it under any other OS. FAT's simple structure keeps overhead low, which is good for removable drives, which are slower.
-Matthead
People who refuse to take risks are so missing out. Why don't you go secure yourself in a fortress and never come out? You know, walking is a very unsafe activity.
-Matthead
Don't put the limit on the main router. Firewall off the dorms, and limit that traffic. OK, so the students can't run their own servers, but that's why the Uni offers shell accounts to everyone, right? Then, when they complain, tell them that if they can get all the Dormites to shell out the cash for another T-1, you'll devote it entirely to the dorms :).
You know, a friend of a friend just recently got a job at a small KS school where he ran into the same problem. I'll have to ask Dave if he knows how his friend solved it. :)
-Matthead
OK, later on you mention that it's built on top of an exisitng fs, but you seem to neglect that here. Remember that ext3 is built on existing, proven filesystem technology - it's the actual journalling that's beta, not the filesystem itself.
-Matthead
Maybe where you come from, people don't use Suns on the desktop - but over here, we sure do.
- My boss has two Sparcstations, an Apollo, and a Windows box on his desktop.
- I have a Windows and a Linux box on mine.
- My co-worker has a Sparcstation, a FreeBSD box, and a Windows/Solaris x86 laptop on his desk.
- We also have an SGI Indy for the guys who come in and out of the office.
- On the server side, we have a NetWare file/print server and a Linux file server.
I don't know about you, but I count all those as desktop computers, seeing as how they are all used to surf the web, read e-mail, write & compile programs, compose memos and bulletin board (the cork kind) postings, etc...Maybe, but UNIX still has a place on the desktop. Speaking of which, I recently toured an aircraft manufacturer's lab, where only HP Catia computers were on the desks. Running HP-UX, not Windows.
-Matthead
Linux is so "Grandma-usable." Grandma just has to learn to use it before Windows/Macs teach her that she's too stupid to understand anything other than their glorified, GUI, point-and-click-only interface.
-Matthead
No, not at all. They'll backport your bugfixes (not your new features) and call the package "aicq 1.1-2" or something similar.
The point is that you have a feature freeze for the software. You don't have to worry about having to upgrade libicq along with aicq; you know that the library requirements and all will stay the same.
-Matthead
You're right. I just posted first, then thought later. I haven't been following this deal awfully closely, but I think it's cool that Lars does understand mp3 isn't bad in and of itself.
I'm a Napster user and Metallica fan too. I'm no good at making music, though. Metallica, though, is. They've got some good stuff, and some great stuff. I guess that everytime I've heard Lars speak (or rather, see what he spoke), I've come away with the impression that he's never been on Napster, nor does he know why it sprung up. Maybe I'm wrong. I like it though- it [Napster] has certainly broadened my horizons. I've heard a lot of good music that I otherwise might not have come across otherwise.
From the article:Do you think he'll let us distribute the samples via Napster?
-Matthead
Thanks for embracing the online revolution. It's nice to see a great band settling down to embrace the technology, instead of fighting it.
-Matthead
Hmmm... I'm self-trained. I'll teach myself to use anything you like. Are you hiring?
-Matthead
But it wouldn't get his name in the press, or as many mentions in other news sources, or links to and hits on the web page. It wouldn't get nearly the praise from his employers.
He doesn't care about being helpful. He probably thinks he came up with a new, deep insight into why Windows is better than Linux. Poor, dumb bastard.
-Matthead
If your sysadmin is in the habit of planting backdoors, you're in deep shit anyway - this is they guy/gal who's in control of your servers, and if you don't trust him/her to do his/her job, you've probably got other problems than worrying about backdoors in your server.
TripWire provides a some of what you're talking about. A select group of files can be cheksummed each night, and compared against the previous night's cheksums.
-Matthead
Not a flame, I'm serious:
Then please, tell us how it is. I understand that high availability and outright performance is probably going to be more a concern than cost.
I don't know much at all about working with databases of any significance. Is the data stored in separate files, or when he says a 30GB database, does that mean a 30GB file?
How much is in RAM? If the database server were to crash, would all the changes made be sync'ed to disk? Would you have lost data when you do get the computer back up? How does this depend on the platform the database runs on?
What other concerns are there? Can you give us a "fscking clue?"
With respect to journalling filesystems...
At my site, we've been using ext3 on production NFS servers for almost a month now, with no trouble in terms of stability. Disk I/O has suffered a big performance hit (less than 1/2 previous performance), but for the better filesystem reliability, it's worth it.
The 2GB file size limit is your biggest problem. If you're going to go with Linux for sure, look into DEC- I mean, Compaq- Alpha hardware. It's a 64-bit architecture, so that limit shouldn't exist there. I haven't ever actually used Linux on Alpha though, so I cannot guarantee that.
As far as the software RAID bit...
The ext3 patch is against kernel 2.2.17-pre9, so we're sticking with that for now. No development kernels for us, here. Once Steven Tweedie's ported it to a moderately stable 2.4-test, I'll look at giving that a shot. From what I understand NFS performance has increased significantly there. Don't know about RAID. Don't know about databases, either, but if that will put a moderate load on your computer, you ought to look at hardware RAID in any case- you'll get better performance by far, if you take the RAID load off the main CPU.
Not gonna happen, big boy. Linux (the only kernel Debian currently uses) hasn't been fully ported to MIPS. As far as FreeBSD goes, it only runs on x86 & Alpha. Hell, NetBSD hasn't even been fully ported.
As long as you're running SGI MIPS hardware, you ain't gonna get shit for performance or usability from anything but IRIX for some time yet.