I don't know what you mean by "core OS design" but to me it looks like the package management system is usually well integrated into the OS that uses it: Debian wouldn't be Debian without dpkg and apt, Red Hat wouldn't be Red Hat without rpm and so on. As someone already said, it wouldn't make any sense to put that into the kernel or the C lib.
You can do that with most programs in Unix (and even whith some programs in Windows). However this make programs unable to depend on other programs/libs and you need to download/install a lot of redundant stuff every time (unless I missed something: I have never used OS X).
With Unix, you usually know where to search for something (executables are in/usr/bin/, libs are in/usr/lib/,...). It's true that sometimes some things are not where you would expect them but with the "install each program in a different directory" method (and that's also what Windows do somehow: each program has a directory inside "C:\Program Files\"), you usually have no idea where are things inside the program's directory: each program do it its own way.
The problem of the Unix's method is that you quickly run into dependency hell and you are never sure that you removed all files related to a program when uninstalling it. This is solved by package management systems and/or Stow.
You might be interested in Stow. The idea is to install each program in its own directory then create symlinks in/usr/(local/)?(bin|lib|share|whatever)/. When you want to remove a package, just remove its directory then remove broken symlinks.
I don't know for other unices but Linux's ext2/3 let you set attributes to files so that you can only append to them (see chattr(1)). However it can't be set on a per-user basis. I think even root need to reset the "append mode" before being able to truncate it.
Notice that there is also an English version of Framasoft. It's really a nice website for Windows users and it replaced telecharger.com for most of my friends who are still using Windows.
AFAIK there is nothing in the ISO C99 standard that says all valid pointers should be > 0. n869 page 58:
Any pointer type may be converted to an integer type. Except as previously specified, the result is implementation-defined. If the result cannot be represented in the integer type, the behaviour is undefined. The result need not be in the range of values of any integer type.
Of course most archs don't use negative pointers but one could invent some weird platform which use pointers that cast to negative integers.
Nice try but if malloc(3) is not too buggy (if it is, you have other problems) it will only return NULL or a valid pointer. If it never supposed to return -1 (unless -1 is a valid pointer) or some value larger than MAX_MEMORY_ADDRESS (from where does this macro come anyway?).
What do you mean ? Your distro doesn't provide digitally signed upgrades ? (well Debian doesn't really sign packages but they do sign the list of packages wich contains md5sums of said packages which are checked at installation)
That's easy:/bin is for user (no need to be root) programs needed for system rescue (when/usr can't be mounted),/usr/bin is for all user programs installed by the OS and/usr/local/bin is for locally installed (not with apt/urmpi/...) user programs. I don't know a recent Linux distro that doesn't follow this convention. However it's true there is some real issue with filesystem hierarchy and not all distro do it the same way but/bin,/usr/bin,/usr/local/bin is usually not a problem.
I just got a Soekris and it's a fine box but yesterday I realised that an Xbox is cheaper, more powerfull and it has a hard drive (but only one NIC). It's bigger and not as quiet as a Soekris but it's probably still better than a standard PC. I don't know about FreeBSD but it can run Linux without hardware modification.
A better comparison would probably be the libpng flaw (also seen on Slashdot). However it has nothing to do with Linux itself but most (all?) Linux distros use it as well as some Windows and Mac programs (Mozilla is one of them).
It would be interesting to incorporate the drivers onto the pice of hardware. I mean what if insead of including a CD [that these days are filled with crap] with the hardware, that they just put a small flash memory onto the item, and stored the drivers there.
I think there was a previous Ask Slashdot about this several months ago but I can't find it right now.
While I agree that running a single OS can make the admins' life much easier, if you really put security as #1 priority you should better not run the same software everywhere.
Isn't there a "rescue mode" or something that let you boot DOS before you start Windows ? Anyway the smart admin doesn't run Windows and he keeps all the data on a physically inaccessible files server.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what you mean by "core OS design" but to me it looks like the package management system is usually well integrated into the OS that uses it: Debian wouldn't be Debian without dpkg and apt, Red Hat wouldn't be Red Hat without rpm and so on. As someone already said, it wouldn't make any sense to put that into the kernel or the C lib.
You can do that with most programs in Unix (and even whith some programs in Windows). However this make programs unable to depend on other programs/libs and you need to download/install a lot of redundant stuff every time (unless I missed something: I have never used OS X).
/usr/bin/, libs are in /usr/lib/,...). It's true that sometimes some things are not where you would expect them but with the "install each program in a different directory" method (and that's also what Windows do somehow: each program has a directory inside "C:\Program Files\"), you usually have no idea where are things inside the program's directory: each program do it its own way.
With Unix, you usually know where to search for something (executables are in
The problem of the Unix's method is that you quickly run into dependency hell and you are never sure that you removed all files related to a program when uninstalling it. This is solved by package management systems and/or Stow.
You might be interested in Stow. The idea is to install each program in its own directory then create symlinks in /usr/(local/)?(bin|lib|share|whatever)/. When you want to remove a package, just remove its directory then remove broken symlinks.
I don't know for other unices but Linux's ext2/3 let you set attributes to files so that you can only append to them (see chattr(1)). However it can't be set on a per-user basis. I think even root need to reset the "append mode" before being able to truncate it.
Notice that there is also an English version of Framasoft. It's really a nice website for Windows users and it replaced telecharger.com for most of my friends who are still using Windows.
Nice try but if malloc(3) is not too buggy (if it is, you have other problems) it will only return NULL or a valid pointer. If it never supposed to return -1 (unless -1 is a valid pointer) or some value larger than MAX_MEMORY_ADDRESS (from where does this macro come anyway?).
What do you mean ? Your distro doesn't provide digitally signed upgrades ? (well Debian doesn't really sign packages but they do sign the list of packages wich contains md5sums of said packages which are checked at installation)
For French-speaking users, there is also this nice document.
Here it is. However it seems down for now but you can still grab it from archive.org.
And it fits on a floppy so you can boot it on your CD reader-less computers too.
I just got a Soekris and it's a fine box but yesterday I realised that an Xbox is cheaper, more powerfull and it has a hard drive (but only one NIC). It's bigger and not as quiet as a Soekris but it's probably still better than a standard PC. I don't know about FreeBSD but it can run Linux without hardware modification.
A better comparison would probably be the libpng flaw (also seen on Slashdot). However it has nothing to do with Linux itself but most (all?) Linux distros use it as well as some Windows and Mac programs (Mozilla is one of them).
While I agree that running a single OS can make the admins' life much easier, if you really put security as #1 priority you should better not run the same software everywhere.
Fans (and the noise they make) are a disease too but it's another problem.
AFAIK Google's software isn't free. The service is.
Here is a link to a previous Slashdot article about FreeNX (without the IT theme).
LAN party
It run Linux you insensitive clod !
Seriously this as been possible for years now, the news is that a company is selling it.
Isn't there a "rescue mode" or something that let you boot DOS before you start Windows ? Anyway the smart admin doesn't run Windows and he keeps all the data on a physically inaccessible files server.