These days, home machines are either Slackware (Slackware 14 coming up! Yay!) or OpenBSD (pre-ordered OpenBSD 5.2 already), except for two machines running Windows XP and Mac OS X.
Work is a mix of FreeBSD, Centos, Red Hat, SuSE and OpenSuSE. I have also worked on AIX, Sun Solaris, HPUX, Tru64, NetBSD and others.
I like the stability, flexibility and simplicity of Slackware, and the security and stability of OpenBSD. Both of these are, in my opinion, the open-source projects that have stayed the closest to their roots and offer the best experience overall across platforms and applications.
And, yes, I know OS X and Linux share a common heritage.
Actually, no they don't. Mac OS X is, at heart, a MACH micro-kernel, running a lot of FreeBSD userland, tons of libs from either NetBSD and OpenBSD, and quite a lot of GNU tools & utilities. It's a hodge-podge of stuff, really.
Linux is not Unix, it's a re-creation of Unix. Mac OS X is not Unix, but it's definitely closer to BSD Unix.
You have to do a "mknod/dev/tooth bp" for/dev/skyfairy to create the new kernel. The temporary device is deleted after the kernel creation is completed.
On some versions of Linux 3.x, you may need to init/dev/tooth for/dev/skyfairy to work correctly. Do read the man page.
Fossil (http://www.fossil-scm.org) is just great: it allows you to manage your code, documentation (wiki) and tickets (bugs).
It's really small and lightweight, offers its own web interface and can be made to run on a central server with a CGI script. Oh, and it's free and open-source.
It also scales very well: for instance the entire NetBSD code base has fossil repositories.
I am currently re-starting some personal projects and I will be using fossil almost exclusively for these. It's simply fantastic.
60+ floppies (check), X hand-made configuration,... Ah yes, those were the days, been there, done that as well.
Slackware is simply, as far as I am concerned, the first, the best and the only Linux I truly care about. All the rest are either boring, uninteresting, buggy or way over-the-top. Slackware always gave me this rock-solid, work-of-love, geeky feeling of goodness. And yes, with Slackware, everything works out of the box.
Keep your Ubuntu, your OpenSUSE or your Gentoo - as long as I got my Slackware CDs, I am good.
Now that my fanboi minute is over, I'd like to point something very important Pat "The Man" Volkerding said in that interview:
Right now, the big change that has me concerned about the future of not just Slackware but Linux in general is the impending implementation of Secure Boot in all Windows8 client certified hardware, and the total lockdown of ARM hardware with no option to shut this "feature" off. I'm imagining that we'll proceed forward initially requiring that Secure Boot be disabled in order to install Slackware, and was (to say the least) rather surprised that wasn't the path all the Linux distributions were taking. If that makes it impossible to dual boot without making a BIOS setting change, or leaves us without drivers because they are designed to only run against certain signed kernels then we'll have to reconsider that approach, but I can't imagine our users being happy if they suddenly found that they were prohibited from compiling their own kernels and modules. The goal here will be to maximize the end user's freedom to modify their own system, and if that means they'll need to go into the BIOS and flip a switch that doesn't seem like a high bar. Hopefully that won't evolve into needing to flash the BIOS because the switch has gone away when the next generation of machines comes out, if flashing the BIOS would even be possible. All it would take is making that a requirement for the next Windows hardware certification. I'd urge everyone to sign the Free Software Foundation's secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot petition to let the hardware manufacturers know where you stand on this issue. I'm especially disappointed to hear that the ARM based systems designed for Windows will be locked down out of the gate, but maybe it's possible that Google or some other company will come through for us.
While I have no experience with Orca, it seems to me most people with sight disabilities should use Linux on the command-line.
I know a lot of people who have that kind of disabilities long for the good old days of DOS 80x25 text screens, and there are tons of programs for Linux that can be really useful even with that kind of screen, starting with alpine, mutt, lynx, links, slrn, vim, emacs, snownews, screen and so on and so forth. Having a GUI is, frankly, not really useful for that kind of user. On the other hand, a simple text screen can be "read" with either a Braille terminal or a speech synthesis software.
After installing and configuring JAWS on Windows a couple of times for a blind friend, I can testify that it is the most expensive PoS I have ever seen...
SuSE Linux was originally based on Slackware, if I remember well.
Slackware simply doesn't provide the basic features most distros call for these days, such as a package management paradigm.
I truly don't care about package management -- or paradigms -- much, really.
Slackware gives me 95% of what I need - the rest I can compile on my own, thank you very much.
No, the "old UNIX way of doing things" isn't sufficient in today's world for widespread deployment across multiple systems and configurations.
Simply put, slackware fills a niche, which seems to be shrinking ever-smaller as the years pass.
I would say exactly the reverse: Slackware allows one to deploy software and updates quickly and effectively, by knowing exactly what has been installed and how.
If by "niche" you mean people who know what they are doing, and like having a system with a minimum of hand-holding, then, yes, I agree that this is an ever-shrinking niche. I am in charge or recruiting people here at my work, and it's astounding the number of Linux "experts" who are unable to go beyond "yum install" or "apt-get install" into the real nitty-gritty of compiling software exactly as you want it.
Let's face it: a lot of so-called "Linux administrators" these days are little more than clicky-clicky Windows drones, people who almost never use a command-line and prefer staying with dumb GUI tools. Yes, I blame Ubuntu and Debian and Red Hat and the like for this sorry state of affairs. People who know Slackware are, at least, a lot more aware and a lot more knowledgeable in all things UNIX and Linux. The same cannot be said of a lot of people out there.
Feel free to moderate me to oblivion while I go and donate money to Slackware.
Like a previous poster mentioned, the study ''proving'' the safety of GM crops was financed, at least in part, by a consortium of large French companies with an interest (a large interest) in GM crops.
Make of that what you will, but it reminds me of these studies, sponsored by Microsoft, ''proving'' that Windows was more secure than Linux.
The example at the URL above is quite old, but a good starting point. Just use a dozen cheap mini-itx cards with -- let's say -- Intel Core i5 and voilà! Probably the cheapest way to go, and, also much easier to program than using CUDA and nVidia. Hook the whole thing in a gigabit switch
I'll let the experts debate the best CPU for that job, but AMD should also have some nice products on offer.
I use OpenBSD every day - one of my machines has been OpenBSD-only since day one.
I run OpenBSD on 90% of the infrastructure of a small ISP I created with friends. The remaining 10% are FreeBSD only.
As a matter of fact, if you are running anything like a serious infrastructure, Linux is out of the picture entirely. FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are the way to go. OpenSSH owns the SSH field for a good reason: because it's based on one of the most secure OS out there. And the programmers of both OpenBSD and OpenSSH have a well-deserved reputation for quality code.
Just because you are your friends don't know how to run and administer OpenBSD does not mean it's irrelevant.
'We either allow collapse to overtake us or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we're not stupid.'
On the contrary, everything I have seen so far in my short life points in the same direction: we are stupid. Examples? Chernobyl. Fukushima Daiichi. 'nuff said. We may have a flash of inspiration, but that is once half of humanity has disappeared due to hunger and wars. THEN, and only then, will the survivors come to their senses. But mass extinction is a very distinct possibility.
... I hope 13.37 is better than 13.1. I upgraded to the latter from 13.0 on my laptop and stuff just stopped working properly so I had to revert back to 13.0.
Weird, I am using both 13.0 and 13.1 here, and I have never had any problem with 13.1.
Fingers crossed for 13.37 and kudos to Pat and the guys for still doing Slackware in the face of all the corporate competition (no I don't mean MS or Apple, I mean Novell, RedHat AND Canonical).
Yup: Pat, if you are reading this, you rule. I'll upgrade both my machines to 13.37, just for the heck of it (and I am going to order the DVD and the CD set right away).
Government by the corporations, for the corporations. War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength. With slavery and injustice for all (except the CEO).
You have to remember that this is France, a country where laws are voted by Parliament, but then quietly dropped once less clueless people realize they are unworkable.
Think I am crazy? In France, to become the "law of the land", any legislative PoS like this one must be first described and "configured" -- so to speak -- through "Décrets d'application" that are written by the Government. Any law that does not have its "Décrets" is simply not applied by the courts. And you would be surprised to learn that -- if I remember correctly -- close to 50% (I think the number was 43% to 45%) of all laws voted by Parliament never receive a "Décrets".
In other words, it goes something like this:
A. Clueless Parliament vote clueless law, based on a clueless request ("Think of the Children!") by a clueless (Conservative) Government. For instance: "Evil Nazi Hackers Must Surrender Passwords to Police Or Else!".
B. Every geek in France loudly protests and are soundly ignored by Clueless Parliament: Clueless law passes and makes it mandatory for all Evil Hackers to surrender passwords to police (Or Else). Yeah, right. You can pry my passwords from my cold, dead fingers, mate.
C. Large, politically influential e-commerce companies (Errr... www.fnac.com, www.amazon.fr, etc) quietly contact Government and whipers: "Clueless law will destroy e-commerce in France. By the way, e-commerce is now worth XYZ Billion Euros a year in France and here is a (large) check for your... er... humanitarian projects".
D. Clueless Government promptly forget all about Clueless Law, which is, in turn, immediately ignored by all the Courts of Justice in France.
E. Profit. Meaning: everyone is happy: (Clueless Conservative) Governement and Parliament posture and pretend they are doing something about children-threatening Evil Hackers (tm), declare victory on all Evil Hackers and move on to the next "outrage du jour", e-commerce sites go back to business as usual and Courts breathe a sigh of relief they won't have to get into a whole heap of trouble trying to judge something so badly designed. Even the police is happy because they will now have another tool to be able to put pressure on small businesses in order to hound them. Big businesses, of course, have their own ways of dealing with that kind of pressure (see point C above).
Move along folks, nothing to see here: just clueless (Conservative/Liberal) politicians doing their jobs.
If I sound cynical, it's because I freaking hate these freaking people. I am just so sick & tired of these fsckers. As a Frenchman, I really think it's time to get the Guillotine out, give it a good scrub, and start chopping some (politician) heads off. Tree of liberty refreshed by the blood of tyrants and all that.
Welcome to France, just make sure you hand over all your passwords to the nice man in blue at the frontier. (Just kidding!)
Let's agree not to call this a "Republican" or "Democratic" position.
Have you read the article? It clearly states that the vast majority of Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are against global warming. So, yes, this is clearly, first and foremost, a "Republican" problems -- though I'll be the first to admit Democratic politicians also trade in "woo".
So me claiming a "scientific" position on global warming, creationism, evolution or abortion is to some extent who I want to have faith in.
First of all, how can you have a scientific position on abortion? It's a moral issue, not a scientific one.
Second, Abortion is pretty much a clear-cut case: the vast majority of abortions take place while the foetus is several millimeters long. They are not human beings, don't even have a brain let alone pain centers, and don't even remotely look like a child. You may still be against abortion -- and I am even willing to admit there is a moral component to this -- but it definitely require a bit more than the fuzzy statement given above.
Third, evolution is also pretty much a clear-cut case: we have evidence of evolution happening right now, under our very noses. Evolution has been proven true, again and again, since Darmin formulated it in the 19th century, and only the brainwashed religious masses still contest it. There are even 'sophisticated' theologians who are perfectly willing to admit that evolution and the existence of God are perfectly compatible, for Pete sake!
Fourth, pretty much everything I said about evolution is also true about global warming: this is not a scientific problem: it is a political problem and a problem of corporate propaganda (meaning: there are some very very rich, powerful and influential people who still want to pollute unhindered by rules and regulations). Period.
Generally I choose respected scientists, but its still faith on my part because I haven't done the research myself.
No, you are just propagating Republican talking points. if you have nothing to offer to this discussion, please, by all means remain silent and let other debate with more ideas and facts on both sides.
There, i have finished my rant, feel free to mod me down to the center of the Earth...
The only problem is: enterprise application does not manage database very well, and leaves zombie processes on the database server. After a while, the database server just crashes (hard) and takes down the application server with it.
Did I mention the application... runs 24x7
So which is it, it crashes "often" enough to be a problem, or it never crashes ever?
It runs 24x7... until it crashes. And that's often enough that it is fast becoming a huge problem.
The obvious solution is to reload it every day at the least inconvenient time.
Easier said than done: we have users in (almost) every time zone under the sun. The only time for our (regular) interventions is on Saturday and Sunday. And said "enterprise" application is bad enough that it takes litterally hours to restart. And that is on top-of-the-line major vendor iron too -- we are talking about dozens of CPUs and GB of memory here.
The next "solution" is a (caching?) sql proxy server in the middle, no one will notice if the reboot is fast.
That is, perhaps, one solution. On the other hand, I am not really sure this would work with said application.
Is the upgrade suggested by the admins themselves whom have tested it under load on a test server so they know it'll work, or suggested by the vendor dazzled by the vision of fat commission checks? "It'll work great, sure, it'll work great, great at paying for my sports car, yeah it'll work great"
Trust me on this one: this was born out of desperation, knowing full well the management would not allow the upgrade to be budgeted. And, no, no one in the admin group actually got any "fat commision checks" from any vendor -- as a matter of fact, the only people who are wined and dined by the vendors are the top management, way, way way up above your truly and the rest of his team (aka "the peons").
Many times, what I hear as "solutions" are simply variations on the theme: "Why can't we reboot the server?" or "Why can't we reinstall the server from scratch?".
And my answer usually was: "Listen, I don't care how many times you do this on a Windows machine, but this is UNIX - I'll only reboot this machine if I absolutely need to. In the meantime, watch and learn as I kill the offending processes. Oh, and re-installing the machine means 24h of downtime".
These days, I help run a (very) large application, which runs on top of a (very) large "enterprise" SQL database for a (very) large company. The only problem is: enterprise application does not manage database very well, and leaves zombie processes on the database server. After a while, the database server just crashes (hard) and takes down the application server with it. Logical solution (and the one recommended by sysadmins): upgrade application to version X, which is supposed to have a much better database management.
What do you think the PHB/management solution is? Ask the DBAs to write a script that will monitor zombie processes, so the sysadmins will be warned in advance... Like, around 20 minutes before the application crashes. Just enough time to tell all users to save their work, because we need to reboot everything. Just like under Windows.
Did I mention the application is considered mission-critical and runs 24x7? And that downtime can cost more than 6 figures to said (nameless) company?
And, since you asked, yes, I am looking for another job. (Clueless admins and pointy-haired bosses: a match made in...)
Wasn't there a hack, published recently, that allowed a user to bypass all security & protections on an IOS device, simply through the standard connector?
I just don't understand how you can seriously evaluate the security of a mainstream COTS OS and expect it to survive more than 5 minutes versus a dedicated attack, not to mention an attack financed by a rogue state. Even industrial controls are becoming more and more endangered -- see stuxnet.
Other devices, such as the Blackberry, should be banned as well, as the French intelligence has been requesting for quite some time now. And don't even mention the words "Windows", "Mobile" and "Security" in the same sentence, please.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's see, it went something like this:
Slackware (1995!) -> Caldera -> Red Hat -> Mandrake -> FreeBSD -> Slackware -> OpenBSD -> Slackware -> Slackware -> Ubuntu -> Slackware.
These days, home machines are either Slackware (Slackware 14 coming up! Yay!) or OpenBSD (pre-ordered OpenBSD 5.2 already), except for two machines running Windows XP and Mac OS X.
Work is a mix of FreeBSD, Centos, Red Hat, SuSE and OpenSuSE. I have also worked on AIX, Sun Solaris, HPUX, Tru64, NetBSD and others.
I like the stability, flexibility and simplicity of Slackware, and the security and stability of OpenBSD. Both of these are, in my opinion, the open-source projects that have stayed the closest to their roots and offer the best experience overall across platforms and applications.
And, yes, I know OS X and Linux share a common heritage.
Actually, no they don't. Mac OS X is, at heart, a MACH micro-kernel, running a lot of FreeBSD userland, tons of libs from either NetBSD and OpenBSD, and quite a lot of GNU tools & utilities. It's a hodge-podge of stuff, really.
Linux is not Unix, it's a re-creation of Unix. Mac OS X is not Unix, but it's definitely closer to BSD Unix.
You have to do a "mknod /dev/tooth bp" for /dev/skyfairy to create the new kernel. The temporary device is deleted after the kernel creation is completed.
On some versions of Linux 3.x, you may need to init /dev/tooth for /dev/skyfairy to work correctly. Do read the man page.
A beowulf cluster of Linux-powered Velociraptors? I'd pay good money to see that. From a safe distance.
Fossil (http://www.fossil-scm.org) is just great: it allows you to manage your code, documentation (wiki) and tickets (bugs).
It's really small and lightweight, offers its own web interface and can be made to run on a central server with a CGI script. Oh, and it's free and open-source.
It also scales very well: for instance the entire NetBSD code base has fossil repositories.
I am currently re-starting some personal projects and I will be using fossil almost exclusively for these. It's simply fantastic.
60+ floppies (check), X hand-made configuration,... Ah yes, those were the days, been there, done that as well.
Slackware is simply, as far as I am concerned, the first, the best and the only Linux I truly care about. All the rest are either boring, uninteresting, buggy or way over-the-top. Slackware always gave me this rock-solid, work-of-love, geeky feeling of goodness. And yes, with Slackware, everything works out of the box.
Keep your Ubuntu, your OpenSUSE or your Gentoo - as long as I got my Slackware CDs, I am good.
Now that my fanboi minute is over, I'd like to point something very important Pat "The Man" Volkerding said in that interview:
Right now, the big change that has me concerned about the future of not just Slackware but Linux in general is the impending implementation of Secure Boot in all Windows8 client certified hardware, and the total lockdown of ARM hardware with no option to shut this "feature" off. I'm imagining that we'll proceed forward initially requiring that Secure Boot be disabled in order to install Slackware, and was (to say the least) rather surprised that wasn't the path all the Linux distributions were taking. If that makes it impossible to dual boot without making a BIOS setting change, or leaves us without drivers because they are designed to only run against certain signed kernels then we'll have to reconsider that approach, but I can't imagine our users being happy if they suddenly found that they were prohibited from compiling their own kernels and modules. The goal here will be to maximize the end user's freedom to modify their own system, and if that means they'll need to go into the BIOS and flip a switch that doesn't seem like a high bar. Hopefully that won't evolve into needing to flash the BIOS because the switch has gone away when the next generation of machines comes out, if flashing the BIOS would even be possible. All it would take is making that a requirement for the next Windows hardware certification. I'd urge everyone to sign the Free Software Foundation's secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot petition to let the hardware manufacturers know where you stand on this issue. I'm especially disappointed to hear that the ARM based systems designed for Windows will be locked down out of the gate, but maybe it's possible that Google or some other company will come through for us.
Here is the petition in question. Go sign it.
When someone like Pat Volkerding mentions such an issue, you can be fairly sure it's an important one.
All true.
As far as the book burning is concerned, just wait a couple of generations and it will be there.
Depends.
While I have no experience with Orca, it seems to me most people with sight disabilities should use Linux on the command-line.
I know a lot of people who have that kind of disabilities long for the good old days of DOS 80x25 text screens, and there are tons of programs for Linux that can be really useful even with that kind of screen, starting with alpine, mutt, lynx, links, slrn, vim, emacs, snownews, screen and so on and so forth. Having a GUI is, frankly, not really useful for that kind of user. On the other hand, a simple text screen can be "read" with either a Braille terminal or a speech synthesis software.
After installing and configuring JAWS on Windows a couple of times for a blind friend, I can testify that it is the most expensive PoS I have ever seen...
Any of them that I (or anyone else) has heard of?
SuSE Linux was originally based on Slackware, if I remember well.
Slackware simply doesn't provide the basic features most distros call for these days, such as a package management paradigm.
I truly don't care about package management -- or paradigms -- much, really.
Slackware gives me 95% of what I need - the rest I can compile on my own, thank you very much.
No, the "old UNIX way of doing things" isn't sufficient in today's world for widespread deployment across multiple systems and configurations.
Simply put, slackware fills a niche, which seems to be shrinking ever-smaller as the years pass.
I would say exactly the reverse: Slackware allows one to deploy software and updates quickly and effectively, by knowing exactly what has been installed and how.
If by "niche" you mean people who know what they are doing, and like having a system with a minimum of hand-holding, then, yes, I agree that this is an ever-shrinking niche. I am in charge or recruiting people here at my work, and it's astounding the number of Linux "experts" who are unable to go beyond "yum install" or "apt-get install" into the real nitty-gritty of compiling software exactly as you want it.
Let's face it: a lot of so-called "Linux administrators" these days are little more than clicky-clicky Windows drones, people who almost never use a command-line and prefer staying with dumb GUI tools. Yes, I blame Ubuntu and Debian and Red Hat and the like for this sorry state of affairs. People who know Slackware are, at least, a lot more aware and a lot more knowledgeable in all things UNIX and Linux. The same cannot be said of a lot of people out there.
Feel free to moderate me to oblivion while I go and donate money to Slackware.
That was in 1992. Get a life.
Seriously, though, Torvalds vs Tanenbaum is so 20th century.
Yup, Slackware. Still the best after all these years.
Like a previous poster mentioned, the study ''proving'' the safety of GM crops was financed, at least in part, by a consortium of large French companies with an interest (a large interest) in GM crops.
Make of that what you will, but it reminds me of these studies, sponsored by Microsoft, ''proving'' that Windows was more secure than Linux.
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/cluster/?p
The example at the URL above is quite old, but a good starting point. Just use a dozen cheap mini-itx cards with -- let's say -- Intel Core i5 and voilà! Probably the cheapest way to go, and, also much easier to program than using CUDA and nVidia. Hook the whole thing in a gigabit switch
I'll let the experts debate the best CPU for that job, but AMD should also have some nice products on offer.
We have a global plutocracy, which the government of the richest, for the richest and by the richest.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
I use OpenBSD every day - one of my machines has been OpenBSD-only since day one.
I run OpenBSD on 90% of the infrastructure of a small ISP I created with friends. The remaining 10% are FreeBSD only.
As a matter of fact, if you are running anything like a serious infrastructure, Linux is out of the picture entirely. FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are the way to go. OpenSSH owns the SSH field for a good reason: because it's based on one of the most secure OS out there. And the programmers of both OpenBSD and OpenSSH have a well-deserved reputation for quality code.
Just because you are your friends don't know how to run and administer OpenBSD does not mean it's irrelevant.
'We either allow collapse to overtake us or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we're not stupid.'
On the contrary, everything I have seen so far in my short life points in the same direction: we are stupid.
Examples? Chernobyl. Fukushima Daiichi. 'nuff said.
We may have a flash of inspiration, but that is once half of humanity has disappeared due to hunger and wars. THEN, and only then, will the survivors come to their senses. But mass extinction is a very distinct possibility.
... I hope 13.37 is better than 13.1. I upgraded to the latter from 13.0 on my laptop and stuff just stopped working properly so I had to revert back to 13.0.
Weird, I am using both 13.0 and 13.1 here, and I have never had any problem with 13.1.
Fingers crossed for 13.37 and kudos to Pat and the guys for still doing Slackware in the face of all the corporate competition (no I don't mean MS or Apple, I mean Novell, RedHat AND Canonical).
Yup: Pat, if you are reading this, you rule. I'll upgrade both my machines to 13.37, just for the heck of it (and I am going to order the DVD and the CD set right away).
Government by the corporations, for the corporations.
War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
With slavery and injustice for all (except the CEO).
Remember that Cisco probably sold a lot of equipment to China to build its 'Great Firewall'.
Dont believe me? Check it out:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/05/leaked-cisco-do/
I hope Cisco pays through the nose for this.
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ is a very useful web site indeed.
Think of it as Google for cheap flights.
I hope Google does the right thing and keeps ITA alive: these guys knew their stuff.
You have to remember that this is France, a country where laws are voted by Parliament, but then quietly dropped once less clueless people realize they are unworkable.
Think I am crazy? In France, to become the "law of the land", any legislative PoS like this one must be first described and "configured" -- so to speak -- through "Décrets d'application" that are written by the Government. Any law that does not have its "Décrets" is simply not applied by the courts. And you would be surprised to learn that -- if I remember correctly -- close to 50% (I think the number was 43% to 45%) of all laws voted by Parliament never receive a "Décrets".
In other words, it goes something like this:
A. Clueless Parliament vote clueless law, based on a clueless request ("Think of the Children!") by a clueless (Conservative) Government. For instance: "Evil Nazi Hackers Must Surrender Passwords to Police Or Else!".
B. Every geek in France loudly protests and are soundly ignored by Clueless Parliament: Clueless law passes and makes it mandatory for all Evil Hackers to surrender passwords to police (Or Else). Yeah, right. You can pry my passwords from my cold, dead fingers, mate.
C. Large, politically influential e-commerce companies (Errr... www.fnac.com, www.amazon.fr, etc) quietly contact Government and whipers: "Clueless law will destroy e-commerce in France. By the way, e-commerce is now worth XYZ Billion Euros a year in France and here is a (large) check for your... er... humanitarian projects".
D. Clueless Government promptly forget all about Clueless Law, which is, in turn, immediately ignored by all the Courts of Justice in France.
E. Profit. Meaning: everyone is happy: (Clueless Conservative) Governement and Parliament posture and pretend they are doing something about children-threatening Evil Hackers (tm), declare victory on all Evil Hackers and move on to the next "outrage du jour", e-commerce sites go back to business as usual and Courts breathe a sigh of relief they won't have to get into a whole heap of trouble trying to judge something so badly designed. Even the police is happy because they will now have another tool to be able to put pressure on small businesses in order to hound them. Big businesses, of course, have their own ways of dealing with that kind of pressure (see point C above).
Move along folks, nothing to see here: just clueless (Conservative/Liberal) politicians doing their jobs.
If I sound cynical, it's because I freaking hate these freaking people. I am just so sick & tired of these fsckers. As a Frenchman, I really think it's time to get the Guillotine out, give it a good scrub, and start chopping some (politician) heads off. Tree of liberty refreshed by the blood of tyrants and all that.
Welcome to France, just make sure you hand over all your passwords to the nice man in blue at the frontier. (Just kidding!)
Let's agree not to call this a "Republican" or "Democratic" position.
Have you read the article? It clearly states that the vast majority of Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are against global warming. So, yes, this is clearly, first and foremost, a "Republican" problems -- though I'll be the first to admit Democratic politicians also trade in "woo".
So me claiming a "scientific" position on global warming, creationism, evolution or abortion is to some extent who I want to have faith in.
First of all, how can you have a scientific position on abortion? It's a moral issue, not a scientific one.
Second, Abortion is pretty much a clear-cut case: the vast majority of abortions take place while the foetus is several millimeters long. They are not human beings, don't even have a brain let alone pain centers, and don't even remotely look like a child. You may still be against abortion -- and I am even willing to admit there is a moral component to this -- but it definitely require a bit more than the fuzzy statement given above.
Third, evolution is also pretty much a clear-cut case: we have evidence of evolution happening right now, under our very noses. Evolution has been proven true, again and again, since Darmin formulated it in the 19th century, and only the brainwashed religious masses still contest it. There are even 'sophisticated' theologians who are perfectly willing to admit that evolution and the existence of God are perfectly compatible, for Pete sake!
Fourth, pretty much everything I said about evolution is also true about global warming: this is not a scientific problem: it is a political problem and a problem of corporate propaganda (meaning: there are some very very rich, powerful and influential people who still want to pollute unhindered by rules and regulations). Period.
Generally I choose respected scientists, but its still faith on my part because I haven't done the research myself.
No, you are just propagating Republican talking points. if you have nothing to offer to this discussion, please, by all means remain silent and let other debate with more ideas and facts on both sides.
There, i have finished my rant, feel free to mod me down to the center of the Earth...
The only problem is: enterprise application does not manage database very well, and leaves zombie processes on the database server. After a while, the database server just crashes (hard) and takes down the application server with it.
Did I mention the application ... runs 24x7
So which is it, it crashes "often" enough to be a problem, or it never crashes ever?
It runs 24x7... until it crashes. And that's often enough that it is fast becoming a huge problem.
The obvious solution is to reload it every day at the least inconvenient time.
Easier said than done: we have users in (almost) every time zone under the sun. The only time for our (regular) interventions is on Saturday and Sunday. And said "enterprise" application is bad enough that it takes litterally hours to restart. And that is on top-of-the-line major vendor iron too -- we are talking about dozens of CPUs and GB of memory here.
The next "solution" is a (caching?) sql proxy server in the middle, no one will notice if the reboot is fast.
That is, perhaps, one solution. On the other hand, I am not really sure this would work with said application.
Is the upgrade suggested by the admins themselves whom have tested it under load on a test server so they know it'll work, or suggested by the vendor dazzled by the vision of fat commission checks? "It'll work great, sure, it'll work great, great at paying for my sports car, yeah it'll work great"
Trust me on this one: this was born out of desperation, knowing full well the management would not allow the upgrade to be budgeted. And, no, no one in the admin group actually got any "fat commision checks" from any vendor -- as a matter of fact, the only people who are wined and dined by the vendors are the top management, way, way way up above your truly and the rest of his team (aka "the peons").
Many times, what I hear as "solutions" are simply variations on the theme: "Why can't we reboot the server?" or "Why can't we reinstall the server from scratch?".
And my answer usually was: "Listen, I don't care how many times you do this on a Windows machine, but this is UNIX - I'll only reboot this machine if I absolutely need to. In the meantime, watch and learn as I kill the offending processes. Oh, and re-installing the machine means 24h of downtime".
These days, I help run a (very) large application, which runs on top of a (very) large "enterprise" SQL database for a (very) large company. The only problem is: enterprise application does not manage database very well, and leaves zombie processes on the database server. After a while, the database server just crashes (hard) and takes down the application server with it. Logical solution (and the one recommended by sysadmins): upgrade application to version X, which is supposed to have a much better database management.
What do you think the PHB/management solution is? Ask the DBAs to write a script that will monitor zombie processes, so the sysadmins will be warned in advance... Like, around 20 minutes before the application crashes. Just enough time to tell all users to save their work, because we need to reboot everything. Just like under Windows.
Did I mention the application is considered mission-critical and runs 24x7? And that downtime can cost more than 6 figures to said (nameless) company?
And, since you asked, yes, I am looking for another job. (Clueless admins and pointy-haired bosses: a match made in...)
Wasn't there a hack, published recently, that allowed a user to bypass all security & protections on an IOS device, simply through the standard connector?
I just don't understand how you can seriously evaluate the security of a mainstream COTS OS and expect it to survive more than 5 minutes versus a dedicated attack, not to mention an attack financed by a rogue state. Even industrial controls are becoming more and more endangered -- see stuxnet.
Other devices, such as the Blackberry, should be banned as well, as the French intelligence has been requesting for quite some time now. And don't even mention the words "Windows", "Mobile" and "Security" in the same sentence, please.
Yes, my dear A.C.: just google "morano linux hadopi open office" and enjoy the links.
Of course, it requires a minimum of knowledge of the french language. Once again, Google (Translate) is your friend.