Ximian is asking you to pay $119.40 per year for software that is functionally on par with Microsoft Windows. I wouldn't pay $120 per year for Windows, and I'm not going to pay $120 for Ximian GNOME, either.
No they're not. GNOME is Free. So are the patches that Ximian uses. All the source is available. They're not asking you to pay for the software, they're asking you to help recoup some of their bandwidth costs.
There is no Internet Tree of ethernet branches, router fruits and electricity roots. Bandwidth is EXPENSIVE. You may not pay by the byte, but almost all companies and individuals running server do.
Re:Value added or just paying for bandwidth?
on
Ximian Adds Subscription
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Your entire argument seems to rest on the fact that you believe bandwidth is free.
BANDWIDTH IS EXPENSIVE.
Okay? Hope that clears everything up:) You may not pay by the byte, but Ximian does, as does almost every other company and individual running a server.
By allowing people to download stuff for free(although relatively slowly), they're still basically giving you money from their pockets.
So please, until you start providing servers with a 100Mbit connection to a good backbone, and provide all the bandwidth fees(thousands of dollars per month), then please don't bitch.
Yes, you're right, for local browing, most browsers on most platforms rely on file extensions, not on a Content-Type header.
Still, what's the relevance? This story isn't about how IE is a total piece of crap because it uses local file extensions to figure out what to do with them. It's a story about how a) this bug has existed for almost a *month*, and absolutely every computer running any of the affected versions(and we're talking, what, three, four years worth of affected versions) are totally WIDE OPEN. And HAVE BEEN FOR A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME:)
And, b) these are *remote* files they're dealing with, not local files. So, yeah, *nix browsers and pretty much every other browser looks at file extension on local files, but relies on Content-Type headers for remote files. Well, here's news; IE will use file extension on *remote* files:) Anyways, those browsers are smart enough not to execute untrusted code, even if they do run across it(JavaScript, Java, whatever). They do what's called "sandboxing". Something that is/sorely/ lacking from MS's vocabulary.
The reason apt-get can keep things so incredibly up to date on a Debian system is because, ``incredibly up to date'' in Debian-speak means circa 1998 applications and libraries.
You obviously don't use Debian. If you did, you'd be aware that "Debian" is really three distributions; Debian/stable, Debian/testing, and Debian/unstable. All of them are present on almost all mirrors, they're the exact same thing, except for the age of the packages.
Debian/unstable is where new packages go. Here, packages are often built right from CVS. Yes, if you track Debian/unstable, you might get burnt every now and then from bugs. But on the whole, it's very good; everything is up to date, and it's about as stable and bug-free as a Red Hat.2 release.
After two weeks(generally speaking), the package in Debian/unstable is migrated to Debian/testing. If a package has existed in Debian/unstable without being updated by the maintainer for two weeks, then it's "safe enough" to go into Debian/testing. While there are some caveats with Debian/testing right now, it's what most desktop users use, and many server admins use it as well.
Debian/stable is almost totally static. The only reasons a package in Debian/stable is updated is for security reasons. Even then, usually, the fix will be backported to the version of the app that's in Debian/stable. For instance, if a long-present security bug is fixed in BIND 9.2.0, but Debian/stable asdlfkjasdglakjsdf, then the fix will be backported to that version; the package won't be upgraded right to 9.2.0. Why do this? "Stable" doesn't just mean apps that don't crash. It also means a common platform. Debian/stable will change only very, very rarely. This makes it an ideal target for sysadmins who wish to use trusted software, and for developers who want to target the lowest common denominator.
Yes, all three Debian trees use apt-get; in fact, moving from Debian/stable to Debian/testing is a matter of two or three commands, usually(ditto for Debian/stable -> Debian/unstable, or Debian/testing -> Debian/unstable). Almost all Debian mirrors have all packages from all trees in all supported architectures.
First of all, this is oooold news. Connectiva has been around for a while, and they've used apt-get with RPM all that time. 'apt-get' was coded to be relatively package-manager-independant, so it's no surprise that another distribution has adopted its use.
Anyways, to my main point. You're *still* going to have dependency problems. This isn't a magic wand. It works well in Debian because a) there are hundreds of mirrors, they all carry the exact same packages, and they're all administered with a decent degree of competence. And b), the Debian packagers *care*. The packages install so easily because, generally speaking, Debian Developers arn't lazy. In fact, following the Debian Policy(a big reason why packages under Debian install and work so well) is actually kind of a pain in the ass. But it's still followed.
Yeah, apt-get is great. But it's just a tool to deal with packages. If the packages it's dealing with are crap, then it won't help you one lick. Most Debian Developers take care of a *single* package. There is a decent minority that takes care of a number of packages each, and there are a very very few that take care of dozens of packages each. And these people *use* their packages; they use the apps they package, they use Debian, they use their Debian packages.
Can you say all that about Red Hat? How many thousands of packages do they have, and how many package maintainers? A few dozen? Full-time? That's being optimistic. You're still looking at a stunning lack of man-power(when compared with the alternatives).
What probably happened was some dependency issues. You *were* using Sid, after all, so all bets are off;)
Anyways, that package you installed was the "desktop environment" package. It includes KDE, GNOME, and X. Unfortunatly, the "kde" metapackage(which is what the "desktop environment" metapackage tries to use) isn't currently installable due to some issues with KOffice.
So, in conclusion, had you installed and upgraded to Sid a week ago, you'd have gotten KDE:) The moral of the story? Don't use Sid and bitch - choose just one;)
Here are some benchmarks, run on a Celeron 300A(@450MHz), 224M of RAM, on an IBM-DJNA-371350. I booted into single-user mode, with absolutely no outside connections available whatsoever. I prepared the test partition with 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc4'. Then I created the FS, rebooted(single-user mode, as I mentioned), mounted the FS on/mnt, then ran bonnie++ without any parameters. Here are the results:
http://markybobdeb.sf.net/elf/tests.txt
Kernel used was 2.4.13; first compile without ext3 patch, second compile with ext3 patch and ext3 code hardlinked.
I'd just like to clarify some of this post's points:
From what I understand, ext3fs is just ext2 with journaling support, so in the (somewhat rare) event of a system crash you don't have to go through a time-consuming fsck during the next boot. Results in better data protection and more uptime.
That's not entirely true for a couple of reasons; first of all, the ext3 code *started* as an exact duplicate of ext2, then they added journalling support. A lot has changed since then(in both code bases), so they're not identical any more. Secondly, journalling does not mean that there's no fsck; it just means that it's an order of magnitute or four faster. This is because during the filesystem consistency check, we know *exactly* where to look for problems(thanks to the journal). This doesn't result in better data protection, but it does result in better availability(and hence uptime).
Why not push ReiserFS, XFS, etc? It seems that most of these are not very well proven yet. ext2 is tried and true, kernel support is good, and the new revision adds journaling, so why not stick with ext3?
It should be noted that XFS has been around for years. I think your basic premise is still correct, though - neither XFS(in the scope of the Linux kernel) nor ReiserFS have been tested as extensively as ext3. And since ext3's code base started as ext2's code base, it doesn't even need so much checking.
Re:Small Unix utilities written in assembly
on
Tiny Apps
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Interesting concept. Linux's standard utilities are unnecessarily bloated, replacing them with smallutils allows a respectable distribution to fit on a 1.44MB floppy. According to the documentation, these utilities are included:
No offense or anything, but I bet you've never played with making single-diskette Linux images.
Quite frankly, an app like busybox(which is written, for the most part, in C) does a *hell* of a lot more to conserve space by including a bunch of apps in one binary than by writing less than a dozen (extremely trivial) tools in ASM. Hell, almost all of those tools are basically wrappers for single kernel syscalls. The approach that fellow has taken may work for extraordinarily simple stuff like that, but as soon as you try to get into anything more complex(like, say, a #!/bin/sh implementation), you're pretty much out of luck.
I suggest you take a look at busybox(search Freshmeat) if you're interested in single-floppy Linux installs.
I am *all* for improving "look and feel". However, I really hate it when things are changed, but they make things worse;)
For instance, look at Linux.com. A good long while ago, they had a very neat, very clean layout. Everything was easily accessible.
Then they changed it:| It was horrible. Obviously it was - because they changed it AGAIN. And you know what? This most recent layout *still* isn't as good as the one that existed when I first started visiting the site.
Quite frankly, I only visit there very rarely. I think you can look at the number of non-staff submissions/comments and see that I'm not the only one.
Anyways, the moral? Come up with something better, then put it somewhere so that we can all poke and prod at it;)
Well, the EULA still applies:) You couldn't sue Microsoft, but you could sue the companies whos servers are infected(and hence spamming your box).
MS has absolutely no liability(legally) in this particular instance. Personally, I think it's gross negligence on their part, and I think some *severe* measures are in order.
Quite frankly, I don't give a shit that they're a monopoly. My local telephone monopoly is *wonderful*. Very nice, very courtesous. As a business owner and a consumer, I'm very happy with them. But Microsoft is just plain mean and negligent.
I don't see where that is on the referenced page(about the code being removed)... But if that's true...
Well... I dunno. I won't really comment on GNOME. I much prefer KDE's code, although not the desktop environment.
All I can say is that Ximian != GNOME; there are some pretty high-profile GNOME hackers working for Ximian, but they don't really control the direction GNOME as a whole goes(not really, anywas - look at the Bonobo thing). Ximian may implement Mono, but whether it will be adopted for use by GNOME, or just bundled with Ximian, we'll have to wait and see.
Damn, I need coffee.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
This was an honest response. The original poster bitches that a good idea comes along, but nobody implements it. But the page he himself referenced to actually *showed* that it had been implemented - by GNOME.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
If only a fraction of the effort that will be undertaken to make a clone of.Net were put toward researching new ideas and putting them into use, within 6 months Linux would be leaps and bounds ahead of anything Microsoft could come up with.
Actually read that page. There's an update:
Since I first wrote this article, GNOME Developer Eckehart Burns has developed a color-reactive Lamp/Beacon widget to the GNOME UI library which is currently part of the GNOME CVS tree. GNOME application coders now have the ability to incorporate CR into their applications at their discretion.
There, you happy?
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I think you fail to miss the context of the post you were replying to.
That fellow suggested a punishment for Microsoft severely abusing its monopoly. If Microsoft had been a good business, working within the law, such a suggestion would, indeed, be absurd. However, they have *NOT* worked within the law.
All the other possible examples you cited used companies that are not currently considered illegal monopolies - so damnit, yes, there IS a difference.
If Coca Cola went and gunned down all the employees of all their competitors, I think fair punishment would be for them to be forced to release their recipe; at that point, all they have is manufacturing ability. Anybody can reproduce their product, so they are no longer a monopoly. The punishment fits, since their crime was to become a monopoly(looking past the murders in this example:).
That is what the suggested punishment is for; they are not suggesting that "since Microsoft is a successful business, they should have all their code forced open", they are suggesting that "since Microsoft has repeatedly abused its monopoly in such a manner as to cause serious financial and personal damage, they should make amends by making the code for unsupported products available"
Personally, I think if such a thing were to happen, the code should be public domain, not GPL'd. That way anybody can do whatever they want with it.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
One thing that has always bothered me is this nasty attitude towards clock speed. This article isn't too bad, but I've seen worse(and many comments here count towards that).
Of course clock speed alone doesn't a benchmark make. It's just a number. But it STILL COUNTS. A 400MHz G4[e\+], even with its shallower architecture(accomplishing more work per clock) is *still* going to be a helluva lot slower than an insanely-clocked(4GHz) P4. And I mean a *lot* slower.
Yeah, you heard me. Amazing, isn't it? Even though the P4 does less per clock, it can actually be FASTER than another chip, if its clock speed is high enough.
Gee, do you think Intel's world-class design team might take that into account? You think that just *maybe* it might be more than a simple marketing gimmick?
Let's take a look at this. The Pentium Pro core(which is what the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II, and Pentium III were based on) was designed with a lot of clockspeed headroom in mind - and lo and behold, it actually worked. By the time that core is retired, it will be orders of magnitude faster than the original cores.
Can you say the same thing for the G4? No. Oh, sure, it might be two or three times faster than the original when it's retired. But nowhere near the improvement we saw with the PPro.
So, what's my point? Here it is: yeah, you can't go around buying processors based on clockspeed. But please take it into account. It's not like you can say "a 1MHz G4 is faster than a 1GHz P4, because the G4 does more work per clock cycle." Thanks for listening:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Anyways, you're partially correct. If you want to run Potato, don't put a Woody or Sid "deb" line in/etc/apt/sources.list . Putting a Woody or Sid "deb" line into your sources.list to get just one or two packages is fairly dangerous.
But I wasn't talking about a "deb" line:) Just a "deb-src" line. 'apt-get install', 'apt-get upgrade', and those, use "deb" lines. 'apt-get source', 'apt-get -b source', and those use "deb-src" lines.:)
Now, 'apt-get' always gets the newest version of a package available, *if* a newer version is available. It won't replace what you have on your drive with and older version. Simple as that:)
Have fun;)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Hehehe:) Well, at least part of your problem was unfamiliarity with the system you were using.
Firstly, there are currently three different official Debians:
Potato; this is the stable variant. Just like you described, very little is updated. If it has BIND 8.2.3, and a security hole is found, but a fix is only available in BIND 9, then it'll be backported to 8.2.3. You might think that's absurd. But in Debian, "stable" means that things won't change out from underneath you. Read on.
Woody; this is the "testing" variant. New packages are uploaded daily, and already-existing packages are upgraded. Packages in Woody have been around for a while, so you should have no problems. However, this isn't "stable", so don't expect everything to be absolutely perfect all the time no matter what.
Sid; this is the "unstable" variant. When an updated package is available, it goes here before it goes anywhere else. Eventually, it'll move into Woody, but not before it's been tested well. Personally, I find Sid about as stable as most end-user Red Hat boxes. However, accidents do happen, and you should *NOT* run Sid unless you know how to fix things. Yes, this includes having a boot/root rescue diskette, and knowing how to use it.:)
Now, if you run a server, you should run Potato. That's what it's meant for. But you need BIND 9? XFree86 4.x? No problem, there are several options. The first is to add a "deb-src" line pointing to Sid or Woody, in/etc/apt/sources.list . Then just 'apt-get -b source bind' or 'apt-get -b source xfree86'. That will download the source, (attempt) to compile it, and then give you.debs, ready for safe(ish) installation.
The other option is to get unoffical.debs. Many package maintainers will compile their packages for Potato, and place them in their home directory on http://people.debian.org for Potato users to download and install. For instance, XFree86 4.x for Potato is available at http://people.debian.org/~cpbotha/. Perl 5.6, and all the Debian build tools are also available. KDE2 packages are available from http://debian.kdyc.com . You get the idea. These are, of course, unofficial packages. So don't expect everything to work perfectly.
Frankly, if you're running a server, you probably shouldn't be using the latest version of BIND or Sendmail or Apache or whatever. You should probably be running a version that's older and more "secure". Like I said, any security fixes are backported to the version that's in Potato, and are installed when you 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade'.
Have a good day:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
When people say "apt-get" is best, they usually arn't referring to the tool itself. While it is a decent tool(as is dpkg, which is what does the actually package installation and maintenance), what really makes Debian so good is the packages themselves.
All Debian packages are put together by volounteers. Of course, some get paid. But I don't know of any that are currently getting paid, that wern't volounteers first. apt-get is just a tool. What *really* makes the difference is the time spent on the packages themselves. Mandrake, Red Hat, and the rest only have so many people. Each has to take care of dozens of packages. They just can't spend as much time on them. In Debian, most of the ~7000 current packages, most maintainers just take care of two or three related packages. They usually use them, too. So most maintainers take their time and do things right.
I'm not saying Red Hat or Mandrake arn't any good:) What I *am* saying is that the tool used to install the packages is a fairly minor issue. What's more important is the time the maintainers put into the packages themselves.
That being said, apt-get was written from the ground up with dpkg in mind. It can be ported to use rpm(obviously), but I don't doubt that urpmi works better(when it comes to dealing with rpms):)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Well, it said "royalty-free", not "condition-free". There's nothing in that little blurb that says that professors don't need to abide by the terms of the license; only that the license must allow use, be perpetual, and royalty-free.
Assuming the student submitted something under the GPL, it would be the professor's duty to provide source code(at request) for any compiled binaries he dstributed.
So, the upshot? Either the student's GPL'd work can't be used in the way you suggest, or the student licenses the source to the professor under a slightly modified GPL("if this Program is to be used as an academic example, the compiled Work may be distributed without source, so long as the Program and its source are made available after the course of study").
The point is that the student retains the copyright; he or she can do whatever they want.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
The minimum terms of such license shall grant the University the right to use the original work in its internally administered programs of teaching, research, and public service on a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis.
Yeah, according to that, the GPL would be acceptable... It gives the University the right to use the original work for anything, perpetually, without royalties. The non-exclusive bits means that the student could license the software to someone else, too, on completely different terms. Doesn't really apply to your question, since it's up to the student whether the University has an exclusive license or not. It's just saying that the University doesn't *require* an exclusive license.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Yes, I'd walk into a preschool class with an astrophysics book... The better I understand the fundamentals and the details, the better analogies I can make.
As for walking into a Roots concert with a Backstreet Boys T-shirt... Well, I dunno about that. I don't know who Roots are. But I know I wouldn't dress in any particular way. Well, if I thought it was going to be a randy concert, I probably wouldn't wear my best clothing. But if I felt like wearing my favorite T-shirt(it's actually just a plain blue T-shirt made of some rather nice cotton - but let's pretend it's a Back Street Boys T-shirt), then I would. Mine you, I'm a fairly big guy, and I've got fairly big friends, so I'm not worried about getting beaten up or anything. Not that I even think that would happen. Maybe it would where you come from, but any place I'm likely to go to would have plenty of people willing to defend someone if a situation arose.
But I think that's neither here nor there. I was trying to get across that the best teachers evaluated their students individual. Sure, they have to teach to the class - but that doesn't mean that they can't be aware of what each individual student is capable of, what their needs are, and how to best teach to them specifically. I don't know if it's the skill itself, or just the attitude though. I'd bet that it's the attitude. A teacher willing to really *look* at the individual is probably willing to put more effort into teaching in general. Who knows? I don't have a degree, but I'm a very, very good tutor. I dunno if I could do as well with a class of 30, but I betcha I could do just as well with a class of 10.
Anyways, have fun:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Everything you said applies to individuals. Good teachers evaluate their individual students, and act accordingly.
The point I was trying to get across was that the person in question needs to evaluate his students. He can't just get advice like "some old people can't hear well, so talk loudly". It has to be "be sure you teach appropriately for your students".
Now, you can assign people to groups all you want. Have fun. But unless you look at them individually, don't teach my kids:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm spending this summer teaching senior citizens how to use the Internet - specifically, email and the world wide web
Very commendable.
Is there anything in particular I should know about when tutoring the elderly?
No. Elderly people don't speak some alien language. They don't have green blood. They're just students. Teach them like you'd teach any student. Some will be faster than others. Some might have poor eyesight. Some might not hear well. Some might be a lot smarter than you(generally speaking). Just teach them like you'd teach other people.
I find analogies work best. Of course, you choose your analogies based on the audience. But that's an individual-student thing, not a generalization to be applied to differently-aged people.
Capiche?
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Slashdot Mirror
No they're not. GNOME is Free. So are the patches that Ximian uses. All the source is available. They're not asking you to pay for the software, they're asking you to help recoup some of their bandwidth costs.
There is no Internet Tree of ethernet branches, router fruits and electricity roots. Bandwidth is EXPENSIVE. You may not pay by the byte, but almost all companies and individuals running server do.
Your entire argument seems to rest on the fact that you believe bandwidth is free.
:) You may not pay by the byte, but Ximian does, as does almost every other company and individual running a server.
BANDWIDTH IS EXPENSIVE.
Okay? Hope that clears everything up
By allowing people to download stuff for free(although relatively slowly), they're still basically giving you money from their pockets.
So please, until you start providing servers with a 100Mbit connection to a good backbone, and provide all the bandwidth fees(thousands of dollars per month), then please don't bitch.
Yes, you're right, for local browing, most browsers on most platforms rely on file extensions, not on a Content-Type header.
:)
:) Anyways, those browsers are smart enough not to execute untrusted code, even if they do run across it(JavaScript, Java, whatever). They do what's called "sandboxing". Something that is /sorely/ lacking from MS's vocabulary.
Still, what's the relevance? This story isn't about how IE is a total piece of crap because it uses local file extensions to figure out what to do with them. It's a story about how a) this bug has existed for almost a *month*, and absolutely every computer running any of the affected versions(and we're talking, what, three, four years worth of affected versions) are totally WIDE OPEN. And HAVE BEEN FOR A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME
And, b) these are *remote* files they're dealing with, not local files. So, yeah, *nix browsers and pretty much every other browser looks at file extension on local files, but relies on Content-Type headers for remote files. Well, here's news; IE will use file extension on *remote* files
Debian/unstable is where new packages go. Here, packages are often built right from CVS. Yes, if you track Debian/unstable, you might get burnt every now and then from bugs. But on the whole, it's very good; everything is up to date, and it's about as stable and bug-free as a Red Hat
Debian/stable is almost totally static. The only reasons a package in Debian/stable is updated is for security reasons. Even then, usually, the fix will be backported to the version of the app that's in Debian/stable. For instance, if a long-present security bug is fixed in BIND 9.2.0, but Debian/stable asdlfkjasdglakjsdf, then the fix will be backported to that version; the package won't be upgraded right to 9.2.0. Why do this? "Stable" doesn't just mean apps that don't crash. It also means a common platform. Debian/stable will change only very, very rarely. This makes it an ideal target for sysadmins who wish to use trusted software, and for developers who want to target the lowest common denominator.
Yes, all three Debian trees use apt-get; in fact, moving from Debian/stable to Debian/testing is a matter of two or three commands, usually(ditto for Debian/stable -> Debian/unstable, or Debian/testing -> Debian/unstable). Almost all Debian mirrors have all packages from all trees in all supported architectures.
First of all, this is oooold news. Connectiva has been around for a while, and they've used apt-get with RPM all that time. 'apt-get' was coded to be relatively package-manager-independant, so it's no surprise that another distribution has adopted its use.
Anyways, to my main point. You're *still* going to have dependency problems. This isn't a magic wand. It works well in Debian because a) there are hundreds of mirrors, they all carry the exact same packages, and they're all administered with a decent degree of competence. And b), the Debian packagers *care*. The packages install so easily because, generally speaking, Debian Developers arn't lazy. In fact, following the Debian Policy(a big reason why packages under Debian install and work so well) is actually kind of a pain in the ass. But it's still followed.
Yeah, apt-get is great. But it's just a tool to deal with packages. If the packages it's dealing with are crap, then it won't help you one lick. Most Debian Developers take care of a *single* package. There is a decent minority that takes care of a number of packages each, and there are a very very few that take care of dozens of packages each. And these people *use* their packages; they use the apps they package, they use Debian, they use their Debian packages.
Can you say all that about Red Hat? How many thousands of packages do they have, and how many package maintainers? A few dozen? Full-time? That's being optimistic. You're still looking at a stunning lack of man-power(when compared with the alternatives).
Just to let you all know - as off press time for this posting, nobody knows whether this was an accident, or another terrorist attack.
Let's not jump to conclusions.
What probably happened was some dependency issues. You *were* using Sid, after all, so all bets are off ;)
:) The moral of the story? Don't use Sid and bitch - choose just one ;)
Anyways, that package you installed was the "desktop environment" package. It includes KDE, GNOME, and X. Unfortunatly, the "kde" metapackage(which is what the "desktop environment" metapackage tries to use) isn't currently installable due to some issues with KOffice.
So, in conclusion, had you installed and upgraded to Sid a week ago, you'd have gotten KDE
Here are some benchmarks, run on a Celeron 300A(@450MHz), 224M of RAM, on an IBM-DJNA-371350. I booted into single-user mode, with absolutely no outside connections available whatsoever. I prepared the test partition with 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc4'. Then I created the FS, rebooted(single-user mode, as I mentioned), mounted the FS on /mnt, then ran bonnie++ without any parameters. Here are the results:
http://markybobdeb.sf.net/elf/tests.txt
Kernel used was 2.4.13; first compile without ext3 patch, second compile with ext3 patch and ext3 code hardlinked.
I'd just like to clarify some of this post's points:
From what I understand, ext3fs is just ext2 with journaling support, so in the (somewhat rare) event of a system crash you don't have to go through a time-consuming fsck during the next boot. Results in better data protection and more uptime.
That's not entirely true for a couple of reasons; first of all, the ext3 code *started* as an exact duplicate of ext2, then they added journalling support. A lot has changed since then(in both code bases), so they're not identical any more. Secondly, journalling does not mean that there's no fsck; it just means that it's an order of magnitute or four faster. This is because during the filesystem consistency check, we know *exactly* where to look for problems(thanks to the journal). This doesn't result in better data protection, but it does result in better availability(and hence uptime).
Why not push ReiserFS, XFS, etc? It seems that most of these are not very well proven yet. ext2 is tried and true, kernel support is good, and the new revision adds journaling, so why not stick with ext3?
It should be noted that XFS has been around for years. I think your basic premise is still correct, though - neither XFS(in the scope of the Linux kernel) nor ReiserFS have been tested as extensively as ext3. And since ext3's code base started as ext2's code base, it doesn't even need so much checking.
Interesting concept. Linux's standard utilities are unnecessarily bloated, replacing them with smallutils allows a respectable distribution to fit on a 1.44MB floppy. According to the documentation, these utilities are included:
No offense or anything, but I bet you've never played with making single-diskette Linux images.
Quite frankly, an app like busybox(which is written, for the most part, in C) does a *hell* of a lot more to conserve space by including a bunch of apps in one binary than by writing less than a dozen (extremely trivial) tools in ASM. Hell, almost all of those tools are basically wrappers for single kernel syscalls. The approach that fellow has taken may work for extraordinarily simple stuff like that, but as soon as you try to get into anything more complex(like, say, a #!/bin/sh implementation), you're pretty much out of luck.
I suggest you take a look at busybox(search Freshmeat) if you're interested in single-floppy Linux installs.
I am *all* for improving "look and feel". However, I really hate it when things are changed, but they make things worse ;)
:| It was horrible. Obviously it was - because they changed it AGAIN. And you know what? This most recent layout *still* isn't as good as the one that existed when I first started visiting the site.
;)
For instance, look at Linux.com. A good long while ago, they had a very neat, very clean layout. Everything was easily accessible.
Then they changed it
Quite frankly, I only visit there very rarely. I think you can look at the number of non-staff submissions/comments and see that I'm not the only one.
Anyways, the moral? Come up with something better, then put it somewhere so that we can all poke and prod at it
Well, the EULA still applies :) You couldn't sue Microsoft, but you could sue the companies whos servers are infected(and hence spamming your box).
MS has absolutely no liability(legally) in this particular instance. Personally, I think it's gross negligence on their part, and I think some *severe* measures are in order.
Quite frankly, I don't give a shit that they're a monopoly. My local telephone monopoly is *wonderful*. Very nice, very courtesous. As a business owner and a consumer, I'm very happy with them. But Microsoft is just plain mean and negligent.
Dave
I don't see where that is on the referenced page(about the code being removed)... But if that's true...
... I dunno. I won't really comment on GNOME. I much prefer KDE's code, although not the desktop environment.
Well
All I can say is that Ximian != GNOME; there are some pretty high-profile GNOME hackers working for Ximian, but they don't really control the direction GNOME as a whole goes(not really, anywas - look at the Bonobo thing). Ximian may implement Mono, but whether it will be adopted for use by GNOME, or just bundled with Ximian, we'll have to wait and see.
Damn, I need coffee.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Flamebait? Are you nuts?
This was an honest response. The original poster bitches that a good idea comes along, but nobody implements it. But the page he himself referenced to actually *showed* that it had been implemented - by GNOME.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
If only a fraction of the effort that will be undertaken to make a clone of
Actually read that page. There's an update:
There, you happy?
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I think you fail to miss the context of the post you were replying to.
:).
That fellow suggested a punishment for Microsoft severely abusing its monopoly. If Microsoft had been a good business, working within the law, such a suggestion would, indeed, be absurd. However, they have *NOT* worked within the law.
All the other possible examples you cited used companies that are not currently considered illegal monopolies - so damnit, yes, there IS a difference.
If Coca Cola went and gunned down all the employees of all their competitors, I think fair punishment would be for them to be forced to release their recipe; at that point, all they have is manufacturing ability. Anybody can reproduce their product, so they are no longer a monopoly. The punishment fits, since their crime was to become a monopoly(looking past the murders in this example
That is what the suggested punishment is for; they are not suggesting that "since Microsoft is a successful business, they should have all their code forced open", they are suggesting that "since Microsoft has repeatedly abused its monopoly in such a manner as to cause serious financial and personal damage, they should make amends by making the code for unsupported products available"
Personally, I think if such a thing were to happen, the code should be public domain, not GPL'd. That way anybody can do whatever they want with it.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
One thing that has always bothered me is this nasty attitude towards clock speed. This article isn't too bad, but I've seen worse(and many comments here count towards that).
:)
Of course clock speed alone doesn't a benchmark make. It's just a number. But it STILL COUNTS. A 400MHz G4[e\+], even with its shallower architecture(accomplishing more work per clock) is *still* going to be a helluva lot slower than an insanely-clocked(4GHz) P4. And I mean a *lot* slower.
Yeah, you heard me. Amazing, isn't it? Even though the P4 does less per clock, it can actually be FASTER than another chip, if its clock speed is high enough.
Gee, do you think Intel's world-class design team might take that into account? You think that just *maybe* it might be more than a simple marketing gimmick?
Let's take a look at this. The Pentium Pro core(which is what the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II, and Pentium III were based on) was designed with a lot of clockspeed headroom in mind - and lo and behold, it actually worked. By the time that core is retired, it will be orders of magnitude faster than the original cores.
Can you say the same thing for the G4? No. Oh, sure, it might be two or three times faster than the original when it's retired. But nowhere near the improvement we saw with the PPro.
So, what's my point? Here it is: yeah, you can't go around buying processors based on clockspeed. But please take it into account. It's not like you can say "a 1MHz G4 is faster than a 1GHz P4, because the G4 does more work per clock cycle." Thanks for listening
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Don't listen to what other people have replied :)
/etc/apt/sources.list . Putting a Woody or Sid "deb" line into your sources.list to get just one or two packages is fairly dangerous.
:) Just a "deb-src" line. 'apt-get install', 'apt-get upgrade', and those, use "deb" lines. 'apt-get source', 'apt-get -b source', and those use "deb-src" lines. :)
:)
;)
Anyways, you're partially correct. If you want to run Potato, don't put a Woody or Sid "deb" line in
But I wasn't talking about a "deb" line
Now, 'apt-get' always gets the newest version of a package available, *if* a newer version is available. It won't replace what you have on your drive with and older version. Simple as that
Have fun
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Hehehe :) Well, at least part of your problem was unfamiliarity with the system you were using.
:)
/etc/apt/sources.list . Then just 'apt-get -b source bind' or 'apt-get -b source xfree86'. That will download the source, (attempt) to compile it, and then give you .debs, ready for safe(ish) installation.
.debs. Many package maintainers will compile their packages for Potato, and place them in their home directory on http://people.debian.org for Potato users to download and install. For instance, XFree86 4.x for Potato is available at http://people.debian.org/~cpbotha/. Perl 5.6, and all the Debian build tools are also available. KDE2 packages are available from http://debian.kdyc.com . You get the idea. These are, of course, unofficial packages. So don't expect everything to work perfectly.
:)
Firstly, there are currently three different official Debians:
Potato; this is the stable variant. Just like you described, very little is updated. If it has BIND 8.2.3, and a security hole is found, but a fix is only available in BIND 9, then it'll be backported to 8.2.3. You might think that's absurd. But in Debian, "stable" means that things won't change out from underneath you. Read on.
Woody; this is the "testing" variant. New packages are uploaded daily, and already-existing packages are upgraded. Packages in Woody have been around for a while, so you should have no problems. However, this isn't "stable", so don't expect everything to be absolutely perfect all the time no matter what.
Sid; this is the "unstable" variant. When an updated package is available, it goes here before it goes anywhere else. Eventually, it'll move into Woody, but not before it's been tested well. Personally, I find Sid about as stable as most end-user Red Hat boxes. However, accidents do happen, and you should *NOT* run Sid unless you know how to fix things. Yes, this includes having a boot/root rescue diskette, and knowing how to use it.
Now, if you run a server, you should run Potato. That's what it's meant for. But you need BIND 9? XFree86 4.x? No problem, there are several options. The first is to add a "deb-src" line pointing to Sid or Woody, in
The other option is to get unoffical
Frankly, if you're running a server, you probably shouldn't be using the latest version of BIND or Sendmail or Apache or whatever. You should probably be running a version that's older and more "secure". Like I said, any security fixes are backported to the version that's in Potato, and are installed when you 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade'.
Have a good day
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
When people say "apt-get" is best, they usually arn't referring to the tool itself. While it is a decent tool(as is dpkg, which is what does the actually package installation and maintenance), what really makes Debian so good is the packages themselves.
:) What I *am* saying is that the tool used to install the packages is a fairly minor issue. What's more important is the time the maintainers put into the packages themselves.
:)
All Debian packages are put together by volounteers. Of course, some get paid. But I don't know of any that are currently getting paid, that wern't volounteers first. apt-get is just a tool. What *really* makes the difference is the time spent on the packages themselves. Mandrake, Red Hat, and the rest only have so many people. Each has to take care of dozens of packages. They just can't spend as much time on them. In Debian, most of the ~7000 current packages, most maintainers just take care of two or three related packages. They usually use them, too. So most maintainers take their time and do things right.
I'm not saying Red Hat or Mandrake arn't any good
That being said, apt-get was written from the ground up with dpkg in mind. It can be ported to use rpm(obviously), but I don't doubt that urpmi works better(when it comes to dealing with rpms)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Well, it said "royalty-free", not "condition-free". There's nothing in that little blurb that says that professors don't need to abide by the terms of the license; only that the license must allow use, be perpetual, and royalty-free.
Assuming the student submitted something under the GPL, it would be the professor's duty to provide source code(at request) for any compiled binaries he dstributed.
So, the upshot? Either the student's GPL'd work can't be used in the way you suggest, or the student licenses the source to the professor under a slightly modified GPL("if this Program is to be used as an academic example, the compiled Work may be distributed without source, so long as the Program and its source are made available after the course of study").
The point is that the student retains the copyright; he or she can do whatever they want.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
From what you just said;
The minimum terms of such license shall grant the University the right to use the original work in its internally administered programs of teaching, research, and public service on a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis.
Yeah, according to that, the GPL would be acceptable... It gives the University the right to use the original work for anything, perpetually, without royalties. The non-exclusive bits means that the student could license the software to someone else, too, on completely different terms. Doesn't really apply to your question, since it's up to the student whether the University has an exclusive license or not. It's just saying that the University doesn't *require* an exclusive license.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Yes, I'd walk into a preschool class with an astrophysics book... The better I understand the fundamentals and the details, the better analogies I can make.
:)
As for walking into a Roots concert with a Backstreet Boys T-shirt... Well, I dunno about that. I don't know who Roots are. But I know I wouldn't dress in any particular way. Well, if I thought it was going to be a randy concert, I probably wouldn't wear my best clothing. But if I felt like wearing my favorite T-shirt(it's actually just a plain blue T-shirt made of some rather nice cotton - but let's pretend it's a Back Street Boys T-shirt), then I would. Mine you, I'm a fairly big guy, and I've got fairly big friends, so I'm not worried about getting beaten up or anything. Not that I even think that would happen. Maybe it would where you come from, but any place I'm likely to go to would have plenty of people willing to defend someone if a situation arose.
But I think that's neither here nor there. I was trying to get across that the best teachers evaluated their students individual. Sure, they have to teach to the class - but that doesn't mean that they can't be aware of what each individual student is capable of, what their needs are, and how to best teach to them specifically. I don't know if it's the skill itself, or just the attitude though. I'd bet that it's the attitude. A teacher willing to really *look* at the individual is probably willing to put more effort into teaching in general. Who knows? I don't have a degree, but I'm a very, very good tutor. I dunno if I could do as well with a class of 30, but I betcha I could do just as well with a class of 10.
Anyways, have fun
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Everything you said applies to individuals. Good teachers evaluate their individual students, and act accordingly.
:)
The point I was trying to get across was that the person in question needs to evaluate his students. He can't just get advice like "some old people can't hear well, so talk loudly". It has to be "be sure you teach appropriately for your students".
Now, you can assign people to groups all you want. Have fun. But unless you look at them individually, don't teach my kids
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm spending this summer teaching senior citizens how to use the Internet - specifically, email and the world wide web
Very commendable.
Is there anything in particular I should know about when tutoring the elderly?
No. Elderly people don't speak some alien language. They don't have green blood. They're just students. Teach them like you'd teach any student. Some will be faster than others. Some might have poor eyesight. Some might not hear well. Some might be a lot smarter than you(generally speaking). Just teach them like you'd teach other people.
I find analogies work best. Of course, you choose your analogies based on the audience. But that's an individual-student thing, not a generalization to be applied to differently-aged people.
Capiche?
DaveBarclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)