"I do program in C++, and I know that it's one of the most flexible, expressive, and efficient programming languages that you'll ever find."
Efficient? That should say "the inefficiency is explicit".
"It is a language for professional programmers who do not wish to be told how they must do something, in favor of being allowed to just do whatever it is that they're trying to do. So-called "ugly" languages (like Perl) share this philosophy. It's part of the reason that they're so widely used."
Perl and C++ aren't popular because they have any merit as languages. The property they share is that they were the only alternatives when they came out. Now that there are alternatives for both of them, both of them are correctly losing programmers and projects.
Python is a lot more restrictive than Perl, but it's cleaner. If you were correct, Python wouldn't be gaining ground like it is. C# and Java are both more restrictive than C++, but C++ is also losing ground (more quickly in this case).
"Coding in Java is a bit like trying to go through your life wearing nothing on your hands but Big Fluffy Mittens. There's nothing wrong with Big Fluffy Mittens, per se, and Big Fluffy Mittens are undeniably wonderful when you're making a snowman. Still, they kind of suck for brain surgery."
You would be correct if it were true that programmers that use Java can only use Java. I agree there are some things that Java isn't good for. That would be why I use other languages.
AFAIK they do charge for a source license, and it's probably a fair amount of work even though FreeBSD already has a 1.4.2 port.
However, as a user, it impacts me, weather not the reason is sound. I still have to keep a Linux box around despite the fact that they have a good justification.
PF alone is enough to keep me on OpenBSD, so I'm not getting rid of it, but it's irritating having to keep all these boxes around.
From what I can gather, it looks like FreeBSD is moving towards using PF as the default firewall (not sure about the timeframe), with IPF and IPFW retained for backwards compatability. It's available as a kernel module/port for NetBSD, and I believe DragonFly has imported it into the base system recently.
It can do some very spiffy things. It might be a good idea to try it out, particularly since you don't have to change OSes anymore.:)
"OpenBSD developers are really concerned about adding restrictions to existing licenses, and the effect this has on future free software. They really want to keep their OS free, and are making unpopular decisions based upon this. There are several recent examples, like the new license for XFree86 and the new Apache license. Both caused a fork."
While what you say is true, it doesn't have anything to do with what I said. XFree86 and Apache are both in the base system. Java is not. There's plenty of things in ports with licenses that would make them unacceptable for the base install. Java is one of them, it's already there. The only difference is that it's 1.3.1 instead of 1.4.2.
"As for Java on OpenBSD : In general it's a license problem. The Sun Java License are very onerous. The OpenBSD developers are very dedicated about keeping their OS free, and in this I happen to agree with them."
Well, from the perspective of a non-zealot, it means I have to keep another OS around, which is non-optimal.
In reality, the number of things I need non-OpenBSD for is large enough that this is not a waste, but it's just an example.
"To my astonishment, the user, who had to do a recompile just like myself, didn't share my exasperation. In fact, his reaction was: That's what I like about gentoo (referring to the use-flags, and ranting about the wonderful flexibility of the system!)."
This is true zealots of other OSes (languages, etc) too. They think it's great because it suits them, and they can't put themselves in the place of another user that has different resources and needs. This is often true of people that are otherwise brilliant. Unfortunately, they get mod points sometimes.
I try to learn a lot of OSes and languages for this reason. I don't have a problem with something being different, or unsuited for my purposes. What I have a problem with is people that think their tool of choice is good at something it's not, or alternatively, that the task being discussed is not important.
Gentoo zealots think Gentoo is reliable and easy to maintain. I don't know how they can think that, but they do. I'd just shrug my shoulders and forget about it if they wouldn't lay on the evangelism so thick. I keep getting told things which I know to be untrue.
"I only mention this because that somehow, modding your comment as troll reminded me of the absolute resistance to any kind of criticism (well, there are exceptions of course) on the part of the community. Saying anything against gentoo is dangerous indeed:)"
Well, I did use the phrase "beneath pathetic". That's a bit pajoritive.
It's a bit irritating that the zealots of my OS (OpenBSD) of choice do the same thing. They seem to think it's a good desktop OS, which it's not. They tell people not to use Java rather than address the sorry state of Java on OpenBSD.
This is how I convince myself I'm not a zealot... I have a favorite OS which I use whenever possible, but I recognize that it's not a good desktop OS and use something else. I have a favorite language that I use whenever possible (Python), but some problems just don't want to be solved in Python, so I use other languages a lot.
Being a zealot will only cause you to miss opportunities. Knowing Python makes me a better programmer in C and Java. I can't stand Lisp, but it has the same effect. Knowing BSD makes using Linux easier. Expand your horizons people. Try something else.
I know 8 OSes (counting Linux once), and 12 programming languages. I can't stand most of them, but I'm a better programmer for it. And I found the stuff that was right for me. Python and OpenBSD weren't the first stops, of that you can be sure.
"Also, dependency hell was changed to use-flag hell. When Midnight Commander installs (I don't know if it still does) XFree86 as a dependency, there is a problem."
You think that's bad. Earlier this year Xinerama changed from a default to a use flag option. My WORKING CONFIGURATION spontaneously stopped working after a rebuild with no changes to the configuration, and I couldn't get an answer until I gave up on Gentoo entirely and then tried it again later this year. Then, when I was doing a fresh install I noticed Xinerama had been added to possible flags.
Then there was a time KDE had a dependency that was masked. You couldn't use KDE on a Gentoo-stable system for over a week. This could only have happened if no one anywhere had tried the build on a stable system.
It's beneath pathetic. It's not a usable system unless you have the time to constantly tweak things and update things.
I cannot be more clear about what I'm about to say: I cannot and will not use a system that silently changes things required for satisfactory operation, and that requires me to figure out what's been changed to fix it. I cannot use a system that sometimes doesn't work with a standard configuration based on the state of things outside of my control. Because Gentoo does these things, I cannot use Gentoo. All of the wonderful things it does are irrelevant because it does not meet my basic requirements.
If you use Gentoo and you're happy with it, you either have way too much time or you've been very lucky.
"Simple, user-friendly, very fast Unix-like OS, which is easier to learn (because of the documantation AND its consistency) for a newbie like myself than any other linux distro I have tried."
I had the same experience with OpenBSD. The Linuxes either to so much handholding that you don't know what's going on or they do so little that you're lost. The BSDs have a big FAQ that says "If you want to do X, you must do Y. This is how you do Y." for basically everything you need to do. The concepts are simple, and they're easy to learn when they're laid out like that.
I actually do use Suse Linux and MacOS because they do so much handholding and do it sufficiently well that I don't need to worry about maintaining them. They're not adequate for the more complex things I do, but that's what my OpenBSD box is for.
I don't actually use FreeBSD right now, but I have as recently as 5.2.1. I would still use it if I had a spare computer.
"A lot of people say FreeBSD is better because "its more stable" or "it has a more mature kernel" I've seen little evidence to substantiate these common claims."
You'll see a Solaris there. Occasionally. I don't think I've ever seen a Linux. It's exclusively BSD/OS and FreeBSD most of the time.
"Apart from the cool things like the ports system and userland differences, licensing differences aside- At the core level of the kernel what makes a new FreeBSD kernel better than a new linux kernel?"
Focusing on the kernel differences misses the point. The only stuff you'll notice is that Linux supports more filesystems, and FreeBSD has PF imported from OpenBSD.
The key advantage of FreeBSD is a very well tested base system. The ports give you a convenient way to add to the base system, and they tend to be quite well tested as well, but I've not seen the same level of quality on any Linux, least of all Gentoo (which basically doesn't do any regression testing and therefore breaks a lot).
Oh yeah. And the documentation. Linux docs are pretty bad. BSD man pages are famous for quality.
I would think that some kinds of signs, such as "pointing at an event or object of interest", and "waving one's hands around due to excitement" are inevitable.
"NAT is just NAT, and you should be aiming to eliminate NAT where possible, not introduce more.
NAT alone doesn't provide that much security (it does provide some), but most NAT setups have a firewall, and that provides significant security. One shouldn't assume that the inner network will never be penetrated (eg, keep everyone patched, don't do idiotic things like opening.vbs e-mails), but an extra layer of protection is helpful.
Besides, no Windows computer should touch the Internet period. It should be behind a physically distinct firewall. Patching weekly on Windows computers is insufficient, 3rd party software firewalls have been known to introduce devestating vulnerabilities, and the Windows firewall is shit. A hardware router is the obvious answer, particularly for non-technical users. I suggest people use those broadband routers even with single computer configurations.
"Why do some of your IM clients not work or work inconsistently? NAT."
One of your arguments is correct, and I don't know much about VoIP so I can't speak to the other one. But IM clients... that's a bit of a strawman thing. The MSN protocol is the only one I know of that had a problem and it was modified in like 1999 or something to work behind NAT.
There is a problem with long standing connections and cheap routers timing them out too soon, but newer routers seem to be better about this and those of us with general purpose NAT boxes are fine. "set optimization conservative" on OpenBSD sets it to 5 days, which I've had no problems with. You can set it to even more, but I've never had a need.
"NAT was a hack introduced back in the dark days when "I'd like more IPs" said "I'm a sucker who wants to pay $50 per month extra service charges" to money-grubbing ISPs. Those days are more or less over, and NATs ought to be disappearing with them, instead of becoming part of a new wave of voodoo network security."
errrrr...
a) 32-bit address space. We'll run out even in North America long before IPv6 becomes prevelant.
b) Dialup users. Period. I've never seen an affordable dialup plan that gives you more than one IP.
c) 32-bit address space.
d) It still costs extra a lot of the time. Broadband routers pay themselves off in this case in about a year.
e) It's sometimes a PITA even when it doesn't cost extra. In my case, I have a SOHO cable modem that comes with 5 addresses at no extra cost, but the DHCP server will only assign one per MAC address, They might be on different subnets. Therefore, for reasons of security and performance I want all my internal traffic on a network I control and unless I get another NIC (not likely, as my laptop can't be upgraded) for all my computers, NAT is the only choice.
f) There's performance optimizations that require a single flow of traffic, which by (e) implies NAT. When I use bittorrent, the only way I can do it without killing performance for everyone is by tweaking the firewall to give bt traffic low priority. I don't think that's even possible on Windows or Mac, and it's harder on Linux than on OpenBSD (my firewall OS, but not desktop OS). There are other optimziations (priority to interactive and ACK packets, etc) that significantly impact performance, particularly with multiple concurrent users.
g) 32-bit address space. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
h) Sometimes there's more than 5 computers here. The cable modem won't assign more than 5 IPs. NAT is required.
i) 32-bit address space. There isn't even an ISP in my city (Calgary, which is ahead of the game in broadband) that offers IPv6 service.
j) New protocols behave well with NAT, and old protocols are getting updated to work with NAT. It's not perfect, but it's continually improving and most people are okay now.
Basically, the negatives of NAT are going down all the time, the benefits are increasing, and we have a constant number of IP addresses and an increasing number of users. NAT is here to stay. It's worth it right now for most people, and it will be more worth it later. Get used to it.
For example it seems to be standard practice to put a Linux router/firewall in front of a Microsoft Exchange server. When, and more importantly how, did solutions like this become acceptable?
When a surplus computer with a free OS could be set up to do the job in an afternoon.
True enough. It's one bunch of pirates locked in a battle of wills with another. Both have vast resources behind them, and neither is willing to be reasonable.
I'd agree that desktop machines are regularly shut down as a matter of course. I'm more "workstation" than "desktop", so my priorities are a bit skewed.
I'd also agree that an X crash is almost as bad as a reboot in desktop usage (unless you've got console stuff that's not attached to an xterm, which doesn't really count as desktop usage), however the only place I've had problems with these is Linux. I've never seen the Solaris boxen at work have an X crash and my OpenBSD box at home has never had one. I've only had 1 or 2 X crashes on Linux in the last few years.
Windows does have advantages, like better power management, and if someone wants to use it with good reasons, that's fine with me. Just don't get me involved. I'm tired of the one at work as it is.:)
I suppose it depends on what you run. At work, my 2k system needs a reboot every few weeks, and 2k is supposedly more stable than XP. Now, I'm not going to claim our software is "good" or "bug free" or "high quality" or "without memory and resource leaks", but the Solaris version doesn't bring down the Solaris boxes.
"needs a reboot" on a UNIX machine usually means "they released a security update for the kernel", or "the power went out". "needs a reboot" on a Windows machine (yes, I use one) usually means "it bluescreened", or "things are getting slow and weird". At work, it's a pain to get everything running again so I try to avoid it, but I still need to reboot about every 2 weeks or so.
To be fair, much of the instability is caused by shitty 3rd party drivers, but that still doesn't address the root problem of resource leaks and other bugs.
That's a good point. It basically requires broadband if you want to have fun with it. I've never used Debian off of CDs, so that distinction was lost on me.:)
I think you could do it with a modem, if your ISP didn't kick you off periodically and you had a second line.
You'd be amazed how many people start up with the Gentoo evangelism when they see me discuss how I like things to work. I thought a sig indicating that it's pointless might bypass that whole thing, but maybe not.
"I usually run mplayer, but sometimes xine is better suited to my tastes. Having both Firefox and Konqueror is pure gold, depending what kind of things are you browsing (casual browsing=Firefox , work browsing=lots of pdf docs+frequent interaction with my files=Konqueror). Even more than one text editor is ok, since I can use the fully featured Kate when programming and gvim as a "very advanced notepad" (Yes,I know both are not the true-geek-choices).
For me, OSS is choice and flexibility. Perhaps the monolithic approach of the BSD's is what is leaving them behind (of user base, not technically,where they're probably equal or superior) the confused,fat penguin."
It's pretty clear you haven't used a BSD... I've used a half dozen Linuxes, and you sacrifice none of the choice and flexibility when using a BSD, except for the rare case of software that's not portable (I've never personally had a problem with this).
The whole point is that the base system is small and well tested. Extras that haven't been as extensively tested are available but not essential to system operation. Debian-stable is the only Linux I've used that can keep up with this reliability, and it's pretty far behind in terms of recent versions of things.
There's a fine line between "laziness" and "efficiency". Only when you feel the flame clasping at your toes do you work to your full potential, finishing a project that might otherwise have taken weeks in one frenzied all nighter.
I learned this in university, I perfected it at work. I am laughing on the inside every time I get a good performance review, and I always pray they won't notice the SSH tunnel to my proxy server at home.
"There are ( surprise) dozens of email clients, text editors et al. for most OSes."
True. However, most OSes don't have them all installed by default.
"I think you'll find a large number of these programs are not linux-exclusive. vi and emacs can be found on almost any nix system, for example. Including several commercial ones."
Text editors are the classical example of Linux bloat because there's more overlap and redundancy than other examples. On a BSD (forgive me if this isn't true of the BSDs I haven't tried lately), you've got one editor: vi. You probably hate it so you install another one from ports. Now you've got two editors instead of dozens. It's more consistent, it's less confusing for newbies and less annoying for experienced users, it's more compact, and it's more reliable because there's better testing. The only thing you have to do is install the editor you like, and that's easy (particularly if you read the FAQ).
Because Linux is so modular, people forget that it's usually better to have something that's close to what you want that works properly than something that's exactly what you want but is unreliable.
If I were a student affected by this, I'd probably set up a system that's not trivial to detect (eg, a instead of b, SSID broadcast off, AP burried under clothes under my bed). It's hard to believe they'd have the resources to police this. Cables are a PITA to string from room to room, and at my university at least, explicitly not allowed (between different rooms). And they can regulate cables.
For those reasons and a great many others, I'm glad I live in an apartment that has nothing to do with my university.
"It did have it's problems in the past, but as far as things go now, it's pretty damn reliable."
Unless there's a portage branch that I don't know about that undergoes proper regression testing, or the breakage is focused in areas I used and you didn't, you and I differ greatly on our definition of "reliable".
"I'm not sure why the live CD's wouldn't boot, but thousands of other people have used them without error, the repeatability of your problem is clearly not universal, thus there must be something on your computer that isn't agreeing with it. Did you try any boot options? If it didn't boot, i can only think you didn't burn the disk right."
Given that I've spent the last few years experimenting with OSes installed from disks I burnt, and all of them have been able to boot that machine, I think this is unlikely. I don't recall what troubleshooting I did when attempting to boot the machine, but I do remember following the installation docs extensively (as they were/are quite good), and I probably checked the forums (I did that a lot, I don't remember one instance from the other). If that didn't turn it up... well, then it was too hard to find.
"These all sound like transition bugs that get hammered out as time goes by."
This, though, is the problem. "Transition bugs" are introduced every time anything major gets updated, which happens quite a bit with a distro like Gentoo. It goes live before it's undergone sufficient testing. This means you have to keep a very close watch on the forums and what emerge wants to do, and it also means you have reduced freedom to update when there's a security patch. I don't see how this can be done in the amount of time I'm willing to devote to it.
Gentoo does stuff that others can't. But it doesn't do what I need.
Slashdot Mirror
"I do program in C++, and I know that it's one of the most flexible, expressive, and efficient programming languages that you'll ever find."
Efficient? That should say "the inefficiency is explicit".
"It is a language for professional programmers who do not wish to be told how they must do something, in favor of being allowed to just do whatever it is that they're trying to do. So-called "ugly" languages (like Perl) share this philosophy. It's part of the reason that they're so widely used."
Perl and C++ aren't popular because they have any merit as languages. The property they share is that they were the only alternatives when they came out. Now that there are alternatives for both of them, both of them are correctly losing programmers and projects.
Python is a lot more restrictive than Perl, but it's cleaner. If you were correct, Python wouldn't be gaining ground like it is. C# and Java are both more restrictive than C++, but C++ is also losing ground (more quickly in this case).
"Coding in Java is a bit like trying to go through your life wearing nothing on your hands but Big Fluffy Mittens. There's nothing wrong with Big Fluffy Mittens, per se, and Big Fluffy Mittens are undeniably wonderful when you're making a snowman. Still, they kind of suck for brain surgery."
You would be correct if it were true that programmers that use Java can only use Java. I agree there are some things that Java isn't good for. That would be why I use other languages.
AFAIK they do charge for a source license, and it's probably a fair amount of work even though FreeBSD already has a 1.4.2 port.
However, as a user, it impacts me, weather not the reason is sound. I still have to keep a Linux box around despite the fact that they have a good justification.
PF alone is enough to keep me on OpenBSD, so I'm not getting rid of it, but it's irritating having to keep all these boxes around.
"firewall configuration"
:)
Status of PF on FreeBSD
From what I can gather, it looks like FreeBSD is moving towards using PF as the default firewall (not sure about the timeframe), with IPF and IPFW retained for backwards compatability. It's available as a kernel module/port for NetBSD, and I believe DragonFly has imported it into the base system recently.
It can do some very spiffy things. It might be a good idea to try it out, particularly since you don't have to change OSes anymore.
"OpenBSD developers are really concerned about adding restrictions to existing licenses, and the effect this has on future free software. They really want to keep their OS free, and are making unpopular decisions based upon this. There are several recent examples, like the new license for XFree86 and the new Apache license. Both caused a fork."
While what you say is true, it doesn't have anything to do with what I said. XFree86 and Apache are both in the base system. Java is not. There's plenty of things in ports with licenses that would make them unacceptable for the base install. Java is one of them, it's already there. The only difference is that it's 1.3.1 instead of 1.4.2.
"As for Java on OpenBSD : In general it's a license problem. The Sun Java License are very onerous. The OpenBSD developers are very dedicated about keeping their OS free, and in this I happen to agree with them."
Well, from the perspective of a non-zealot, it means I have to keep another OS around, which is non-optimal.
In reality, the number of things I need non-OpenBSD for is large enough that this is not a waste, but it's just an example.
"To my astonishment, the user, who had to do a recompile just like myself, didn't share my exasperation. In fact, his reaction was: That's what I like about gentoo (referring to the use-flags, and ranting about the wonderful flexibility of the system!)."
:)"
This is true zealots of other OSes (languages, etc) too. They think it's great because it suits them, and they can't put themselves in the place of another user that has different resources and needs. This is often true of people that are otherwise brilliant. Unfortunately, they get mod points sometimes.
I try to learn a lot of OSes and languages for this reason. I don't have a problem with something being different, or unsuited for my purposes. What I have a problem with is people that think their tool of choice is good at something it's not, or alternatively, that the task being discussed is not important.
Gentoo zealots think Gentoo is reliable and easy to maintain. I don't know how they can think that, but they do. I'd just shrug my shoulders and forget about it if they wouldn't lay on the evangelism so thick. I keep getting told things which I know to be untrue.
"I only mention this because that somehow, modding your comment as troll reminded me of the absolute resistance to any kind of criticism (well, there are exceptions of course) on the part of the community. Saying anything against gentoo is dangerous indeed
Well, I did use the phrase "beneath pathetic". That's a bit pajoritive.
It's a bit irritating that the zealots of my OS (OpenBSD) of choice do the same thing. They seem to think it's a good desktop OS, which it's not. They tell people not to use Java rather than address the sorry state of Java on OpenBSD.
This is how I convince myself I'm not a zealot... I have a favorite OS which I use whenever possible, but I recognize that it's not a good desktop OS and use something else. I have a favorite language that I use whenever possible (Python), but some problems just don't want to be solved in Python, so I use other languages a lot.
Being a zealot will only cause you to miss opportunities. Knowing Python makes me a better programmer in C and Java. I can't stand Lisp, but it has the same effect. Knowing BSD makes using Linux easier. Expand your horizons people. Try something else.
I know 8 OSes (counting Linux once), and 12 programming languages. I can't stand most of them, but I'm a better programmer for it. And I found the stuff that was right for me. Python and OpenBSD weren't the first stops, of that you can be sure.
"Also, dependency hell was changed to use-flag hell. When Midnight Commander installs (I don't know if it still does) XFree86 as a dependency, there is a problem."
You think that's bad. Earlier this year Xinerama changed from a default to a use flag option. My WORKING CONFIGURATION spontaneously stopped working after a rebuild with no changes to the configuration, and I couldn't get an answer until I gave up on Gentoo entirely and then tried it again later this year. Then, when I was doing a fresh install I noticed Xinerama had been added to possible flags.
Then there was a time KDE had a dependency that was masked. You couldn't use KDE on a Gentoo-stable system for over a week. This could only have happened if no one anywhere had tried the build on a stable system.
It's beneath pathetic. It's not a usable system unless you have the time to constantly tweak things and update things.
I cannot be more clear about what I'm about to say: I cannot and will not use a system that silently changes things required for satisfactory operation, and that requires me to figure out what's been changed to fix it. I cannot use a system that sometimes doesn't work with a standard configuration based on the state of things outside of my control. Because Gentoo does these things, I cannot use Gentoo. All of the wonderful things it does are irrelevant because it does not meet my basic requirements.
If you use Gentoo and you're happy with it, you either have way too much time or you've been very lucky.
"Simple, user-friendly, very fast Unix-like OS, which is easier to learn (because of the documantation AND its consistency) for a newbie like myself than any other linux distro I have tried."
I had the same experience with OpenBSD. The Linuxes either to so much handholding that you don't know what's going on or they do so little that you're lost. The BSDs have a big FAQ that says "If you want to do X, you must do Y. This is how you do Y." for basically everything you need to do. The concepts are simple, and they're easy to learn when they're laid out like that.
I actually do use Suse Linux and MacOS because they do so much handholding and do it sufficiently well that I don't need to worry about maintaining them. They're not adequate for the more complex things I do, but that's what my OpenBSD box is for.
I don't actually use FreeBSD right now, but I have as recently as 5.2.1. I would still use it if I had a spare computer.
"A lot of people say FreeBSD is better because "its more stable" or "it has a more mature kernel" I've seen little evidence to substantiate these common claims."
uptimes
You'll see a Solaris there. Occasionally. I don't think I've ever seen a Linux. It's exclusively BSD/OS and FreeBSD most of the time.
"Apart from the cool things like the ports system and userland differences, licensing differences aside- At the core level of the kernel what makes a new FreeBSD kernel better than a new linux kernel?"
Focusing on the kernel differences misses the point. The only stuff you'll notice is that Linux supports more filesystems, and FreeBSD has PF imported from OpenBSD.
The key advantage of FreeBSD is a very well tested base system. The ports give you a convenient way to add to the base system, and they tend to be quite well tested as well, but I've not seen the same level of quality on any Linux, least of all Gentoo (which basically doesn't do any regression testing and therefore breaks a lot).
Oh yeah. And the documentation. Linux docs are pretty bad. BSD man pages are famous for quality.
I would think that some kinds of signs, such as "pointing at an event or object of interest", and "waving one's hands around due to excitement" are inevitable.
"NAT is just NAT, and you should be aiming to eliminate NAT where possible, not introduce more.
.vbs e-mails), but an extra layer of protection is helpful.
NAT alone doesn't provide that much security (it does provide some), but most NAT setups have a firewall, and that provides significant security. One shouldn't assume that the inner network will never be penetrated (eg, keep everyone patched, don't do idiotic things like opening
Besides, no Windows computer should touch the Internet period. It should be behind a physically distinct firewall. Patching weekly on Windows computers is insufficient, 3rd party software firewalls have been known to introduce devestating vulnerabilities, and the Windows firewall is shit. A hardware router is the obvious answer, particularly for non-technical users. I suggest people use those broadband routers even with single computer configurations.
"Why do some of your IM clients not work or work inconsistently? NAT."
One of your arguments is correct, and I don't know much about VoIP so I can't speak to the other one. But IM clients... that's a bit of a strawman thing. The MSN protocol is the only one I know of that had a problem and it was modified in like 1999 or something to work behind NAT.
There is a problem with long standing connections and cheap routers timing them out too soon, but newer routers seem to be better about this and those of us with general purpose NAT boxes are fine. "set optimization conservative" on OpenBSD sets it to 5 days, which I've had no problems with. You can set it to even more, but I've never had a need.
"NAT was a hack introduced back in the dark days when "I'd like more IPs" said "I'm a sucker who wants to pay $50 per month extra service charges" to money-grubbing ISPs. Those days are more or less over, and NATs ought to be disappearing with them, instead of becoming part of a new wave of voodoo network security."
errrrr...
a) 32-bit address space. We'll run out even in North America long before IPv6 becomes prevelant.
b) Dialup users. Period. I've never seen an affordable dialup plan that gives you more than one IP.
c) 32-bit address space.
d) It still costs extra a lot of the time. Broadband routers pay themselves off in this case in about a year.
e) It's sometimes a PITA even when it doesn't cost extra. In my case, I have a SOHO cable modem that comes with 5 addresses at no extra cost, but the DHCP server will only assign one per MAC address, They might be on different subnets. Therefore, for reasons of security and performance I want all my internal traffic on a network I control and unless I get another NIC (not likely, as my laptop can't be upgraded) for all my computers, NAT is the only choice.
f) There's performance optimizations that require a single flow of traffic, which by (e) implies NAT. When I use bittorrent, the only way I can do it without killing performance for everyone is by tweaking the firewall to give bt traffic low priority. I don't think that's even possible on Windows or Mac, and it's harder on Linux than on OpenBSD (my firewall OS, but not desktop OS). There are other optimziations (priority to interactive and ACK packets, etc) that significantly impact performance, particularly with multiple concurrent users.
g) 32-bit address space. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
h) Sometimes there's more than 5 computers here. The cable modem won't assign more than 5 IPs. NAT is required.
i) 32-bit address space. There isn't even an ISP in my city (Calgary, which is ahead of the game in broadband) that offers IPv6 service.
j) New protocols behave well with NAT, and old protocols are getting updated to work with NAT. It's not perfect, but it's continually improving and most people are okay now.
Basically, the negatives of NAT are going down all the time, the benefits are increasing, and we have a constant number of IP addresses and an increasing number of users. NAT is here to stay. It's worth it right now for most people, and it will be more worth it later. Get used to it.
For example it seems to be standard practice to put a Linux router/firewall in front of a Microsoft Exchange server. When, and more importantly how, did solutions like this become acceptable?
When a surplus computer with a free OS could be set up to do the job in an afternoon.
True enough. It's one bunch of pirates locked in a battle of wills with another. Both have vast resources behind them, and neither is willing to be reasonable.
That's why it's so fun to watch.
I'd agree that desktop machines are regularly shut down as a matter of course. I'm more "workstation" than "desktop", so my priorities are a bit skewed.
:)
I'd also agree that an X crash is almost as bad as a reboot in desktop usage (unless you've got console stuff that's not attached to an xterm, which doesn't really count as desktop usage), however the only place I've had problems with these is Linux. I've never seen the Solaris boxen at work have an X crash and my OpenBSD box at home has never had one. I've only had 1 or 2 X crashes on Linux in the last few years.
Windows does have advantages, like better power management, and if someone wants to use it with good reasons, that's fine with me. Just don't get me involved. I'm tired of the one at work as it is.
I suppose it depends on what you run. At work, my 2k system needs a reboot every few weeks, and 2k is supposedly more stable than XP. Now, I'm not going to claim our software is "good" or "bug free" or "high quality" or "without memory and resource leaks", but the Solaris version doesn't bring down the Solaris boxes.
Blargh. This isn't insightful.
"needs a reboot" on a UNIX machine usually means "they released a security update for the kernel", or "the power went out". "needs a reboot" on a Windows machine (yes, I use one) usually means "it bluescreened", or "things are getting slow and weird". At work, it's a pain to get everything running again so I try to avoid it, but I still need to reboot about every 2 weeks or so.
To be fair, much of the instability is caused by shitty 3rd party drivers, but that still doesn't address the root problem of resource leaks and other bugs.
That's a good point. It basically requires broadband if you want to have fun with it. I've never used Debian off of CDs, so that distinction was lost on me. :)
I think you could do it with a modem, if your ISP didn't kick you off periodically and you had a second line.
You'd be amazed how many people start up with the Gentoo evangelism when they see me discuss how I like things to work. I thought a sig indicating that it's pointless might bypass that whole thing, but maybe not.
People don't make dogs. Dogs make dogs.
"I usually run mplayer, but sometimes xine is better suited to my tastes. Having both Firefox and Konqueror is pure gold, depending what kind of things are you browsing (casual browsing=Firefox , work browsing=lots of pdf docs+frequent interaction with my files=Konqueror). Even more than one text editor is ok, since I can use the fully featured Kate when programming and gvim as a "very advanced notepad" (Yes,I know both are not the true-geek-choices).
For me, OSS is choice and flexibility. Perhaps the monolithic approach of the BSD's is what is leaving them behind (of user base, not technically,where they're probably equal or superior) the confused,fat penguin."
It's pretty clear you haven't used a BSD... I've used a half dozen Linuxes, and you sacrifice none of the choice and flexibility when using a BSD, except for the rare case of software that's not portable (I've never personally had a problem with this).
The whole point is that the base system is small and well tested. Extras that haven't been as extensively tested are available but not essential to system operation. Debian-stable is the only Linux I've used that can keep up with this reliability, and it's pretty far behind in terms of recent versions of things.
There's a fine line between "laziness" and "efficiency". Only when you feel the flame clasping at your toes do you work to your full potential, finishing a project that might otherwise have taken weeks in one frenzied all nighter.
I learned this in university, I perfected it at work. I am laughing on the inside every time I get a good performance review, and I always pray they won't notice the SSH tunnel to my proxy server at home.
"There are ( surprise) dozens of email clients, text editors et al. for most OSes."
True. However, most OSes don't have them all installed by default.
"I think you'll find a large number of these programs are not linux-exclusive. vi and emacs can be found on almost any nix system, for example. Including several commercial ones."
Text editors are the classical example of Linux bloat because there's more overlap and redundancy than other examples. On a BSD (forgive me if this isn't true of the BSDs I haven't tried lately), you've got one editor: vi. You probably hate it so you install another one from ports. Now you've got two editors instead of dozens. It's more consistent, it's less confusing for newbies and less annoying for experienced users, it's more compact, and it's more reliable because there's better testing. The only thing you have to do is install the editor you like, and that's easy (particularly if you read the FAQ).
Because Linux is so modular, people forget that it's usually better to have something that's close to what you want that works properly than something that's exactly what you want but is unreliable.
If I were a student affected by this, I'd probably set up a system that's not trivial to detect (eg, a instead of b, SSID broadcast off, AP burried under clothes under my bed). It's hard to believe they'd have the resources to police this. Cables are a PITA to string from room to room, and at my university at least, explicitly not allowed (between different rooms). And they can regulate cables.
For those reasons and a great many others, I'm glad I live in an apartment that has nothing to do with my university.
I was under the impression -STABLE would have to wait for 5.4 because there were too many outstanding issues, and they would delay 5.3 too much.
I could be wrong, but this was my impression.
meh
Suse Pro is the only thing I've seen configure my Matrox G550 dual-head correctly.
That includes Gentoo pre and post X.org switch. And Windows XP, incidently.
"It did have it's problems in the past, but as far as things go now, it's pretty damn reliable."
Unless there's a portage branch that I don't know about that undergoes proper regression testing, or the breakage is focused in areas I used and you didn't, you and I differ greatly on our definition of "reliable".
"I'm not sure why the live CD's wouldn't boot, but thousands of other people have used them without error, the repeatability of your problem is clearly not universal, thus there must be something on your computer that isn't agreeing with it. Did you try any boot options? If it didn't boot, i can only think you didn't burn the disk right."
Given that I've spent the last few years experimenting with OSes installed from disks I burnt, and all of them have been able to boot that machine, I think this is unlikely. I don't recall what troubleshooting I did when attempting to boot the machine, but I do remember following the installation docs extensively (as they were/are quite good), and I probably checked the forums (I did that a lot, I don't remember one instance from the other). If that didn't turn it up... well, then it was too hard to find.
"These all sound like transition bugs that get hammered out as time goes by."
This, though, is the problem. "Transition bugs" are introduced every time anything major gets updated, which happens quite a bit with a distro like Gentoo. It goes live before it's undergone sufficient testing. This means you have to keep a very close watch on the forums and what emerge wants to do, and it also means you have reduced freedom to update when there's a security patch. I don't see how this can be done in the amount of time I'm willing to devote to it.
Gentoo does stuff that others can't. But it doesn't do what I need.