I do. I use NetBSD---one of the few organizations that had enough [of something] to import XFree 4.4. There's really nothing wrong with the license, despite what the GNU team thinks.
I'd have to disagree. Those distros don't ``hide'' shit. I learned how to use Linux well enough on Lycoris (yes, Lycoris) to make the switch to NetBSD only a few months later---with no help but manpages. You seem to falsely associate a nicely setup desktop environment with non-hacker types. What you fail to recognize is the fact that we appreciate style too...not that you would know.
That's not necessarily true. It's quite possible to design a system of GNU components that runs on a *BSD kernel, or port a set of *BSD components to a GNU kernel (GPL'd at least...you know what I mean---from ^that^ particular community). No one ever really does this, but it's not impossible.
What's even more sad is the people who call themselves (and I quote) ``133t h4x0r5.'' I take a networking class at my highschool and literally everyone does this, except me of course. What crap. All they do is (on WinBlows no less) play MUD, while I sit in the corner quitely hacking away on my NetBSD box and actually getting some work done in the mean time (I might even be the only one passing right now...yeah, it's that bad). Yet just because they picked up some (IMHO useless) leetspeak, they think they're more experienced. I don't usually say anything---I'm the only (and first) freshman in that class, surrounded by juniors and seniors who don't have a friggin' clue.
See also my sig---my Journal's worth a look too, but almost completely OT.
-Bruce
-----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
However, I don't think the issue is really in the development of the server/techie-centric Linux kernel, but rather in hardware vendors. Yes, still the hardware vendors. They may release specifications and hardware manuals, but very rarely will they actually make drivers. This is the one thing that sets Free operating system hardware support apart from the likes of Windows. Mod me down for being na\"ive if you must, but I really think that hardware manufacturers (and other such big faceless technology corporations altogether for that matter) really need to pay attention to this growing community. If they don't, Linux et al. will always be behind (which is, so far, something that's been dealt with by writing redundant code, unfortunately).
-Bruce
----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
For those who modded this down (eg. the unenlightened), CxC is a C-subset-ish language designed for scalable cluster programming.
Just thought I'd point that out.
---------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
Why is it that every time something happens in the FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, et al. communities (or, at least, when it gets on slashdot) some Linux zealot (AC) has to go touting the problems of FreeBSD (note only one)? ALL OSes have problems! IMHO, all of the BSD derivatives (NetBSD for me) suck less than any of the other 73(!) OSes I've ever tried. Also, this wasn't even about FreeBSD: I hate it when people like you treat the BSDs as if they're all the same, with FreeBSD being the ringleader and the only one with commercial support (ever hear of Wasabi Systems?). If you don't like the BSDs, why would you waste your time on BSD slashdot? Do you seriously think you're going to magically make us care?
Now, I, like most other hackers, am a libertarian in most ways: I believe you have the right to express an opinion. But seriously, what the hell are you trying to prove? Mod me flamebait if you will, but I for one am tired of all the supposedly-unbiased BSD-against-Linux crap. This is not meant to offent anyone (besides the parent AC), but really, why can't Linux and BSD users just stop pissing each other off?
*Storms away*
PS: I do use Linux (Debian and Slack at school, at home I run a multiboot system with 4 different Linuxes and 9 other systems) on occasion and find them nice for some things (like good binary packages).
PPS: Debian has many packages (and is a good all-around distro), but I'll need to see some lists *without* virtual packages, dummy packages, meta packages, stubs, and a zillion different libraries that are normally bundled with their respective reverse-dependancies before I will believe that FreeBSD's collection isn't larger. Also, Woody still has less than FreeBSD, and you really shouldn't (at least, I wouldn't) use Sid on a server
-Bruce
-----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133+ h4x0r5!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
There is no `root' in Cygwin. On Windows NT, the NT names are simply translated to a simple uid scheme (don't know about 9x). The names aren't even necessarily POSIX-compliant (eg. spaces are allowed). When the setuid(2) function is called, the DLL returns ENOSYS (not implemented). In short, Cygwin is pretty advanced (I almost got NetBSD cross-built on it one time, and I've been working to maybe get pkgsrc working, but that's another matter) but when it comes to security, well, the abstraction can only be as good as the underlying implementation. If a Windows box has tightened security, *cough*cough*choke*, then some operations may need the Cygwin1.dll run as ``Administrator,'' but default Windows installs give enough privilages to regular users that this is rarely a concern. Basically, programs aren't usually designed to check for `root', but rather for enough permissions to do whatever they need. If a cygwin binary cannot do something, like chdir'ing into an NT-restricted directory, it will just fail. MinGW does the exact same thing, but with no POSIX-esque layers, instead directly calling on msvcX.dll.
As was already said by someone, your school's tech department is run by morons. If they truly wanted security, they wouldn't be running Windows in the first place.
In one sentance: yes, everything in both MinGW and Cygwin is run as a `root'-ish user, but native programs have the exact same set of permissions. Running either is no more a security risk than is running Windows itself.
-Bruce
---------
|\|3+85D: f0r +3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
I tried that once upon a time. It turns out that the keys in the (vertical) middle of the keyboard are not as deep, resulting in a truly weird feel.
-Bruce
----------
|\|3+85D: f0r +3h r3a1 133+ h4x0r5!!!!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
True, very true. The only thing is, though, that without all the processor-specific security stuff, OpenBSD is basically just as portable as NetBSD. Granted, the codebase has changed since Theo split a while back, but I still see NetBSD code being regularly imported into OpenBSD (for features/bugfixes).
And as for NetBSD's portability, yeah, it's the most portable, but new platforms (and most especially new archetectures) do still require a ton of work. First, GCC and friends must be ported, stabilized, and set up for cross-compilation, then parts of libc need to be (re-)written, the kernel needs to be adapted, a bootloader needs to be written, wscons needs to be ported (gameboy would probably require a special framebuffer console), and so on. But, yes, it would be *much* easier than any other OS, and you'd have a complete library of working ``examples.''
As for the joke, well, I've heard worse:^)
-Bruce
----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133+ h4x0r5. Those who know will attest! They will Agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
Re:Don't let the religious zealots see this story.
on
Fish with Limbs
·
· Score: 1
Not to mention the fact that Darwinism and Creationism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There was an article here that gives some insight.
Note: I am not affiliated with the LW church.
-Bruce
---------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3al 133+ h4x0r5. Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
Have you tried the sushi tool that comes with the base system? Admittedly, it isn't in widespread use, but it's good for quick configuration changes (esp. with networking).
-Bruce
-----------
|\|3+85D: f0r +h3 r3a1 133+ h4x0r5. Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They won't use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
I actually run a ``native'' version of the jdk. The latest patches from eyesbeyond.com for jdk 1.4 allow it to be bootstrapped under NetBSD.
There was a recent post on the netbsd-current mailing list where some guy was even able to run eclipse with it, so I'd assume it's pretty good. Apparently the old SuSE 7.2 emulation (which might be something to update soon; I think Slackware with it's tgz packages would be more easily maintained) doesn't have GTK2, so pkgsrc has eclipse using motif bindings.
However, I'd have to disagree with FreeBSD being the technological leader of the bunch. It's an excellent system, and is the most widely used/commercially supported of the three (or six, with ekko, DFly, and Darwin). However, I see NetBSD being much more advanced for a few reasons:
It's more clean. ``It isn't done unless it's done right.'' As a result, it's much easier to extend (new drivers, new archetectures,...)
It is the first free unix-ish system to have many new features, like USB, IPV6, and crossbuilding support (ROCK is the only other one I can think of that has this) just to name a few.
As a result of #1, it can serve as an excellent resource (a reference platform or nice collection of example code to stare at when you're bored).
It's small, but generally highly scalable
...
I thought the very same way as most users at one time. I used to be a devout FreeBSD user. After buying a bit of HD space (bit=320GB), I decided to take on the multiboot challenge. I installed a total of thirteen different unixes (no windoze), telling myself to create the *exact* same environment on each. I decided to give NetBSD an OK-sized 10GB partition. The next day I swapped the 60G I gave to Slackware with it. It was faster and seemed, generally, a whole lot cooler. Within a week, I had a nice, stable NetBSD-current system up and running and found myself not being able to reboot to finish installing Solaris, OpenBSD, and Gentoo!
The point is this: NetBSD is the `forgotten' unix in many ways, and I, for one, find that sad. I think all the BSDs, along with Linux, will be around for some time. NetBSD, though, is simply the bliss that I, too, nearly overlooked.
Slashdot Mirror
I do. I use NetBSD---one of the few organizations that had enough [of something] to import XFree 4.4. There's really nothing wrong with the license, despite what the GNU team thinks.
A couple
Stop right there...she's already taken.
actually there is...sort of...I made this a batch file on my mom's desktop for when I need to change something:
/env /user:"Administrator"@BIGMO c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
runas
(slashcode probably screwed up something there...not verbatim)
YMMV. It works, thus far, on Win2K and XP.
Glad I gave it up early, then. (No, this is not a joke, but it's still funny).
PS: I do still have a cup every now and then. Odie well...
I'd have to disagree. Those distros don't ``hide'' shit. I learned how to use Linux well enough on Lycoris (yes, Lycoris) to make the switch to NetBSD only a few months later---with no help but manpages. You seem to falsely associate a nicely setup desktop environment with non-hacker types. What you fail to recognize is the fact that we appreciate style too...not that you would know.
For the unenlightened.
That's not necessarily true. It's quite possible to design a system of GNU components that runs on a *BSD kernel, or port a set of *BSD components to a GNU kernel (GPL'd at least...you know what I mean---from ^that^ particular community). No one ever really does this, but it's not impossible.
That's a GPL violation. Stallman's attack dogs are coming...RUN
*Ducks*
Don't blame me---it's my first Slashdot joke. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Is NetBSD a registered non- or not-for- profit organization?
Only recently was it announced, but, yes, it is 501(c)(3)-compliant.
MOD parent up!
What's even more sad is the people who call themselves (and I quote) ``133t h4x0r5.'' I take a networking class at my highschool and literally everyone does this, except me of course. What crap. All they do is (on WinBlows no less) play MUD, while I sit in the corner quitely hacking away on my NetBSD box and actually getting some work done in the mean time (I might even be the only one passing right now...yeah, it's that bad). Yet just because they picked up some (IMHO useless) leetspeak, they think they're more experienced. I don't usually say anything---I'm the only (and first) freshman in that class, surrounded by juniors and seniors who don't have a friggin' clue.
See also my sig---my Journal's worth a look too, but almost completely OT.
-Bruce
-----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
Good Point.
However, I don't think the issue is really in the development of the server/techie-centric Linux kernel, but rather in hardware vendors. Yes, still the hardware vendors. They may release specifications and hardware manuals, but very rarely will they actually make drivers. This is the one thing that sets Free operating system hardware support apart from the likes of Windows. Mod me down for being na\"ive if you must, but I really think that hardware manufacturers (and other such big faceless technology corporations altogether for that matter) really need to pay attention to this growing community. If they don't, Linux et al. will always be behind (which is, so far, something that's been dealt with by writing redundant code, unfortunately).
-Bruce
----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
For those who modded this down (eg. the unenlightened), CxC is a C-subset-ish language designed for scalable cluster programming.
Just thought I'd point that out.
---------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
Why is it that every time something happens in the FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, et al. communities (or, at least, when it gets on slashdot) some Linux zealot (AC) has to go touting the problems of FreeBSD (note only one)? ALL OSes have problems! IMHO, all of the BSD derivatives (NetBSD for me) suck less than any of the other 73(!) OSes I've ever tried. Also, this wasn't even about FreeBSD: I hate it when people like you treat the BSDs as if they're all the same, with FreeBSD being the ringleader and the only one with commercial support (ever hear of Wasabi Systems?). If you don't like the BSDs, why would you waste your time on BSD slashdot? Do you seriously think you're going to magically make us care?
Now, I, like most other hackers, am a libertarian in most ways: I believe you have the right to express an opinion. But seriously, what the hell are you trying to prove? Mod me flamebait if you will, but I for one am tired of all the supposedly-unbiased BSD-against-Linux crap. This is not meant to offent anyone (besides the parent AC), but really, why can't Linux and BSD users just stop pissing each other off?
*Storms away*
PS: I do use Linux (Debian and Slack at school, at home I run a multiboot system with 4 different Linuxes and 9 other systems) on occasion and find them nice for some things (like good binary packages).
PPS: Debian has many packages (and is a good all-around distro), but I'll need to see some lists *without* virtual packages, dummy packages, meta packages, stubs, and a zillion different libraries that are normally bundled with their respective reverse-dependancies before I will believe that FreeBSD's collection isn't larger. Also, Woody still has less than FreeBSD, and you really shouldn't (at least, I wouldn't) use Sid on a server
-Bruce
-----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133+ h4x0r5!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
There is no `root' in Cygwin. On Windows NT, the NT names are simply translated to a simple uid scheme (don't know about 9x). The names aren't even necessarily POSIX-compliant (eg. spaces are allowed). When the setuid(2) function is called, the DLL returns ENOSYS (not implemented). In short, Cygwin is pretty advanced (I almost got NetBSD cross-built on it one time, and I've been working to maybe get pkgsrc working, but that's another matter) but when it comes to security, well, the abstraction can only be as good as the underlying implementation. If a Windows box has tightened security, *cough*cough*choke*, then some operations may need the Cygwin1.dll run as ``Administrator,'' but default Windows installs give enough privilages to regular users that this is rarely a concern. Basically, programs aren't usually designed to check for `root', but rather for enough permissions to do whatever they need. If a cygwin binary cannot do something, like chdir'ing into an NT-restricted directory, it will just fail. MinGW does the exact same thing, but with no POSIX-esque layers, instead directly calling on msvcX.dll.
As was already said by someone, your school's tech department is run by morons. If they truly wanted security, they wouldn't be running Windows in the first place.
In one sentance: yes, everything in both MinGW and Cygwin is run as a `root'-ish user, but native programs have the exact same set of permissions. Running either is no more a security risk than is running Windows itself.
-Bruce
---------
|\|3+85D: f0r +3h r3a1 133t h4x0r5!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
I tried that once upon a time. It turns out that the keys in the (vertical) middle of the keyboard are not as deep, resulting in a truly weird feel.
-Bruce
----------
|\|3+85D: f0r +3h r3a1 133+ h4x0r5!!!!!!!!!1 Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
. . . without the ``process manager'' part, of course. ;)
True. The only DOS that was ever trademarked was PC-DOS . . . and IBM owned that one.
True, very true. The only thing is, though, that without all the processor-specific security stuff, OpenBSD is basically just as portable as NetBSD. Granted, the codebase has changed since Theo split a while back, but I still see NetBSD code being regularly imported into OpenBSD (for features/bugfixes).
And as for NetBSD's portability, yeah, it's the most portable, but new platforms (and most especially new archetectures) do still require a ton of work. First, GCC and friends must be ported, stabilized, and set up for cross-compilation, then parts of libc need to be (re-)written, the kernel needs to be adapted, a bootloader needs to be written, wscons needs to be ported (gameboy would probably require a special framebuffer console), and so on. But, yes, it would be *much* easier than any other OS, and you'd have a complete library of working ``examples.''
As for the joke, well, I've heard worse:^)
-Bruce
----------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3a1 133+ h4x0r5. Those who know will attest! They will Agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
I can vouch for that too (see profile)
Not to mention the fact that Darwinism and Creationism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There was an article here that gives some insight.
Note: I am not affiliated with the LW church.
-Bruce
---------
|\|3+85D: f0r t3h r3al 133+ h4x0r5. Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They will not use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
Have you tried the sushi tool that comes with the base system? Admittedly, it isn't in widespread use, but it's good for quick configuration changes (esp. with networking).
-Bruce
-----------
|\|3+85D: f0r +h3 r3a1 133+ h4x0r5. Those who know will attest! They will agree! They already use it! They won't use annoying hacker-esque stereotypes!
I actually run a ``native'' version of the jdk. The latest patches from eyesbeyond.com for jdk 1.4 allow it to be bootstrapped under NetBSD.
There was a recent post on the netbsd-current mailing list where some guy was even able to run eclipse with it, so I'd assume it's pretty good. Apparently the old SuSE 7.2 emulation (which might be something to update soon; I think Slackware with it's tgz packages would be more easily maintained) doesn't have GTK2, so pkgsrc has eclipse using motif bindings.
-Bruce
Actually, if you have a radeon or matrox card, you can get hardware acceleration. Just put
X11DRI=yes
-Bruce
Yeah, but I still think it would be better to teach them that it's mozilla. Joke all you want, but what if they go to windowsupdate.com et al?
However, I'd have to disagree with FreeBSD being the technological leader of the bunch. It's an excellent system, and is the most widely used/commercially supported of the three (or six, with ekko, DFly, and Darwin). However, I see NetBSD being much more advanced for a few reasons:
- It's more clean. ``It isn't done unless it's done right.'' As a result, it's much easier to extend (new drivers, new archetectures,
...)
- It is the first free unix-ish system to have many new features, like USB, IPV6, and crossbuilding support (ROCK is the only other one I can think of that has this) just to name a few.
- As a result of #1, it can serve as an excellent resource (a reference platform or nice collection of example code to stare at when you're bored).
- It's small, but generally highly scalable
...
I thought the very same way as most users at one time. I used to be a devout FreeBSD user. After buying a bit of HD space (bit=320GB), I decided to take on the multiboot challenge. I installed a total of thirteen different unixes (no windoze), telling myself to create the *exact* same environment on each. I decided to give NetBSD an OK-sized 10GB partition. The next day I swapped the 60G I gave to Slackware with it. It was faster and seemed, generally, a whole lot cooler. Within a week, I had a nice, stable NetBSD-current system up and running and found myself not being able to reboot to finish installing Solaris, OpenBSD, and Gentoo!The point is this: NetBSD is the `forgotten' unix in many ways, and I, for one, find that sad. I think all the BSDs, along with Linux, will be around for some time. NetBSD, though, is simply the bliss that I, too, nearly overlooked.