Skype on Android has this nasty "bug" (although people might be tempted to call it a feature): you can't really close it. Believe me, I have tried. I have all but given up on it. Even if you have all the notifications for it disabled and forcibly stop it, it will respawn automatically within a show period of time. Were it not for the fact that I need it for work, I would not allow an app like that to even be installed on my cellphone or my tablet.
With regard to systemd: if the only choices you have are broken ones, you don't really have a choice now, do you? On the one hand you have systemd, which is bloated beyond repair. On the other hand you have all those software packages that won't run otherwise because they depend on it.
I have no idea why Redhat made so many changes in their most recent release, but it is so vast that it may as well be a completely new distro. To name a FEW:
Anaconda RHEL installer completely redesigned
About time.
Legacy GRUB boot loader replaced by GRUB2
Adds a bit of complexity to it, but GRUB2 is much more versatile than old-fashioned GRUB. Besides, it's also much more mature now.
Procedure for bypassing root password prompt at boot completely different
As long as [sudo] su - still works (with any kind of password), I'm happy. It's root. You're not supposed to bypass the password prompt! But, if you really, really, want to, you could always issue init=/bin/bash at the kernel command line in grub[2]. Used to work with lilo, still works with grub[2] as well.
SysV init system and all related tools replaced by systemd
The sheer horror. Seriously, another reason NOT to use Red Shit.
ext4 replaced by xfs as default filesystem type
That, at least, is an improvement. Both ext3 and ext4 have fundamental design flaws (like kjournald (and alike) that pops up every five seconds and slows down your system to a grinding halt if you're especially unlucky because it fails to check if it's already running). XFS is a much more robust design in any case, and way, way faster to boot!
Directories/bin,/sbin,/liband/lib64are now all under the/usrdirectory
Not too sure what to think of this. On the other hand, Solaris does basically the same and has been doing that for a quite while.
Network interfaces have a new naming scheme based on physical device location (e.g., eth0might become enp0s3)
Not sure what to think of this either. On the other hand, various UNIX variants do more or less the same.
ntpdreplaced by chronydas the default network time protocol daemon
Hmm. Not familiar with that one. Is that the one that will absolutely refuse to update your time and date completely?
GNOME2 replaced by GNOME3 as default desktop environment
Arf. Gnome. Nuff said.
System registration and subscription now handled exclusively with Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM)
I blame Oracle for that.
MySQL replaced by Mariadb
I blame Oracle for that too.
tgtdreplaced by targetcli
What a shame. Last I checked, tgtd was just about the only ISCSI target daemon that made any kind of sense. But I admit, it's been a while.
High Availability Add-On: RGManager removed as resource-management option (in favor of Pacemaker)
Just a symptom. WIth systemd as the beating heart of your system, you'll need that Pacemaker. Especially if it's in the death throes of the log corruption you are bound to get.
ifconfigand routecommands are further deprecated in favor of ip
I love the 'ip' command. It's powerful. Still, for heaven's sake, let's keep the old commands?
netstatfurther deprecated in favor of ss
Stupid decision. Netstat is at the core of many a UNIX admin's skills.
System user UID range extended from 0-499 to 0-999
Couldn't care less. As long as I can reserve 1000 for myself (pun intended).
locateno longer available by default; (available as mlocatepackage)
Hmm. Why on earth would one want to do that?
nc(netcat) replaced by nmap-ncat
Well, nmap is a powerful tool. This, for once, makes sense to me.
You know. I could not care less about systemd, journald or wayland.
Wayland is just a piece of crap that supposedly should bring the desktop to Linux. Well, here's a reminder: the 'desktop' has been available for Unix like operating systems for the past 30 years or so. It's called X. But the developers of Wayland (or Mir) don't like X. The fact that it is a f****ng UNIX standard does not even come to mind! Instead, they decide to reinvent the wheel. Twice! But... Remote X sessions? No way José!
I have played around with systemd and journald. It's sort of fun. Until you realize it breaks the very thing that it is supposed to provide: a standardized way of booting up your system. Again, someone tried to reinvent the wheel. And now twice as well!
And why the hell do I need dbus? Come on, can't people invent an IPC mechanism that is even marginally more useful than that and at least more well-programmed and well-behaved? What do I need dbus for if all I am doing with my system is say, running sendmail?
Anyway, enough with the ranting. Uselessd is a fitting name. Even so, adopting it (or systemd) requires a change of philosophy, one that I am not willing to make. Linux (and UNIX in general) is supposed to be an open system with a intelligible interface. Hell, all init is supposed to do is run a shell script! It is not supposed to be this big binary blob that only takes up memory. Memory that I could be using for other things, like say, run sendmail...
With regards to editors. I used to -hate- vi. Passionately and with an almost religious fervor. To the extent that I renamed the vi binary to sucky-editor etc. For me, joe was the way to go. At university, on systems that were maintained by me, vi was usually a symlink to joe;-).
All those wordstar key combo's that I was used to from those days (and nights) that I spent writing my next C program were not lost to me. I could still use them in joe while I was writing my C programs for Linux. Them good ol' times...
Nowadays, there is a dichotomy of editors in my twisted brain. If it's flat text I use vi. Mainly because of it's powerful search and replace features. If it's something else, like a UNIX shell script or a SQL file, I still use joe.
Entire Operating Systems are written in it. Userland tools for those operating systems are usually written in it. Any self-respecting developer knows at least C. The rest is just like fashion tips: next year they're outdated.
Although, as much as I hate to admit it, the same could be said for Java...
In what way is it impossible for people to use GPL licensed software to develop commercial applications? Loads of companies do it and not every single one of them shares the source code of their product or products with their customers.
I tend to take a stance in the middle ground here. The GPL license and the BSD license serve different purposes, just like the rest of the plethora of licenses in existence do. It is up to the developers to decide which of those licenses suits them and their philosophy best.
I used to be a nearly religious advocate of the GPL v2.x licenses and their derivatives. In fact, in many ways I still am. The problem with the current incarnation, GPL v3, however, is that it contains more restrictions than freedoms. And while I am no fan of DRM of binary blobs in software, preventing them from being included in Free and Open Source software harms the cause of Free and Open Source Software more than it does it any good, to name an example. Add to that the fact that the legalese in general of the GPL v3 does not invite a sense of freedom (at least to me it doesn't) it could be argued that it actually foregoes its original goals, in favour of the licensing equivalent of hard marxism.
In other words, the GPL v3 doesn't suit me, so I tend to avoid it in my hobby projects. Fortunately for me (and the rest of the world) they're exactly that: hobby projects.
Texas also gave us Double Duh Bush. One of the least enlightened beings on this planet, as well as the one who put us in the international mess we're currently in.
"If you're not with us, you're against us."
Great way to sway everyone to your side - or theirs for that matter.
On topic: the problem between science and religion is not that they are mutually exclusive, but rather that science requires actual proof, whereas religion requires merely faith. One cannot prove the existence of god either way.
Even so, it seems silly to me to require the teaching of pseudoscience in school, merely to placate a couple of religious fanatics. I thought it was us who invented the polde model, but the Americans seem to have taken it to an entire new level.
That's a whole different story. See the remark later in my post.
Note that I said 'pretty much secure', not '100% secure'. Also, it seems logical to me that when you are so conscious about security, you would not necessarily trust a wifi network that is not secured with at least some sort of key.
Again, every encryption scheme can ultimately be broken. It is just a matter of computing power and patience.
I would not be surprised to see that the NSA - or any other nation's intelligence service - can devise ways to make you think (and take it for a fact) they are whoever they tell you they are.
As for certificates and CAs: certificates, keys and CAs are about building trust. Between the service provider on one end for example, and its customers on the other. The Certificate Authority asserts that the service provider is who it claims to be, and another Certificate Authority (or maybe even the same - the root CA is in many cases one of a very select few) asserts that about the customer(s). There is a bond of trust between the two parties that enables them to communicate freely, but in a (more or less) private manner.
If you want, you can be your own root CA, as long as you are your only service provider or can convince others you are trustworthy enough that they believe you are who you say you are. They, as the consumers of your public key, have to be trustworthy enough to you that you believe they are who they say they are and that you entrust them with your public key. By the way, while in theory that should provide an excellent basis for secure communications, in practice it turns out to be a rather awkward weakness. People are gullible. But more about that later.
Self-signed certificates are just that. Nothing more, nothing less. You are your own Certificate Authority. If it's just communications between the email server you host at your end of the internet and your smartphone, the connection between those two endpoints is pretty much secure and unless your suffering from severe paranoia, you obviously trust yourself. But then again, with email, you would worry less about other people accessing your emails in their central data store or intercepting them during your (secured) IMAP session than you would about the fact that SMTP is still, pretty much, plain text. Provided your own SMTP host is entrusted similarly to your IMAP host, with a self-signed key and secured through, e.g. SSL and some sort of authentication barrier, the emails you sent are secure until they reach your SMTP host. Everything beyond that is up to the next SMTP host in the chain.
No IP connection - even encrypted ones - is ever one hundred percent secure. It is a safe bet that someone with enough computing power (e.g. the NSA in any case) will always be able to crack whatever (published) encryption scheme you apply to your communications. Moreover, the weakest link in any so-called secure connection is always the user. He or she can be sloppy with regard to the choice of his or her passwords, or have noted them onto a post-it glued to his or her TFT screen, etc. He or she could also be the victim of a phishing event or of social engineering ("Hello? Am I speaking to this-and-this-person? Yes? My name is so-and-so and I've recently joined your company. Would you please be so kind as to reset my password? I seem to have forgotten it. Ah yes, thank you! Have a nice day!"). Did I mention that people are gullible?
To sum up: the concept of certificates and certificate authorities as a basis to build up trusts is in theory a very strong one. However, its strength is also its weakness. It can be subverted to its own antithesis: anyone convincing enough can abuse his position within the chain of trust to his own ends if he, she or it is clever enough.
Miscarriages of justice such as this one are a direct result of the fundamentally flawed system of jury trial and of flawed legislation.
Jurors are laymen and as such not suited for something as complicated as a criminal case and they are by definition susceptible to suggestion. A civil or criminal case brought before the court should always be handled by one ore more judges, people who are trained to be objective and to weigh the evidence, not by laymen.
That is entrapment and that is something that in Holland is technically still illegal, even for law enforcement agencies.
The reasoning behind it being illegal is that a person who is succesfully tempted into commiting a crime, could arguably be said not to have even considered committing that crime if not for the people having ensnared him into their trap.
Unfortunately, there are semi-governmental institutes that are very fond of that technique and make it into a civil case. An attorney presents you with the 'evidence' and you have the choice to either pay their 'fee' or turn it into a very expensive civil case. Where it is their word against your own and the one lawyer you can afford can never be as good as the team of lawyers they can afford...
The socialist utopia is a society that leaves everyone equally miserable.Granted, it is not what they strive for, but it is what would be the end result if they ever got their way.
Slashdot Mirror
Skype on Android has this nasty "bug" (although people might be tempted to call it a feature): you can't really close it. Believe me, I have tried. I have all but given up on it. Even if you have all the notifications for it disabled and forcibly stop it, it will respawn automatically within a show period of time. Were it not for the fact that I need it for work, I would not allow an app like that to even be installed on my cellphone or my tablet.
With regard to systemd: if the only choices you have are broken ones, you don't really have a choice now, do you? On the one hand you have systemd, which is bloated beyond repair. On the other hand you have all those software packages that won't run otherwise because they depend on it.
DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR TO ANYONE AT ALL?
You noticed that huh? ;-)
I have no idea why Redhat made so many changes in their most recent release, but it is so vast that it may as well be a completely new distro. To name a FEW:
Anaconda RHEL installer completely redesigned
About time.
Legacy GRUB boot loader replaced by GRUB2
Adds a bit of complexity to it, but GRUB2 is much more versatile than old-fashioned GRUB. Besides, it's also much more mature now.
Procedure for bypassing root password prompt at boot completely different
As long as [sudo] su - still works (with any kind of password), I'm happy. It's root. You're not supposed to bypass the password prompt! But, if you really, really, want to, you could always issue init=/bin/bash at the kernel command line in grub[2]. Used to work with lilo, still works with grub[2] as well.
SysV init system and all related tools replaced by systemd
The sheer horror. Seriously, another reason NOT to use Red Shit.
ext4 replaced by xfs as default filesystem type
That, at least, is an improvement. Both ext3 and ext4 have fundamental design flaws (like kjournald (and alike) that pops up every five seconds and slows down your system to a grinding halt if you're especially unlucky because it fails to check if it's already running). XFS is a much more robust design in any case, and way, way faster to boot!
Directories /bin, /sbin, /liband /lib64are now all under the /usrdirectory
Not too sure what to think of this. On the other hand, Solaris does basically the same and has been doing that for a quite while.
Network interfaces have a new naming scheme based on physical device location (e.g., eth0might become enp0s3)
Not sure what to think of this either. On the other hand, various UNIX variants do more or less the same.
ntpdreplaced by chronydas the default network time protocol daemon
Hmm. Not familiar with that one. Is that the one that will absolutely refuse to update your time and date completely?
GNOME2 replaced by GNOME3 as default desktop environment
Arf. Gnome. Nuff said.
System registration and subscription now handled exclusively with Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM)
I blame Oracle for that.
MySQL replaced by Mariadb
I blame Oracle for that too.
tgtdreplaced by targetcli
What a shame. Last I checked, tgtd was just about the only ISCSI target daemon that made any kind of sense. But I admit, it's been a while.
High Availability Add-On: RGManager removed as resource-management option (in favor of Pacemaker)
Just a symptom. WIth systemd as the beating heart of your system, you'll need that Pacemaker. Especially if it's in the death throes of the log corruption you are bound to get.
ifconfigand routecommands are further deprecated in favor of ip
I love the 'ip' command. It's powerful. Still, for heaven's sake, let's keep the old commands?
netstatfurther deprecated in favor of ss
Stupid decision. Netstat is at the core of many a UNIX admin's skills.
System user UID range extended from 0-499 to 0-999
Couldn't care less. As long as I can reserve 1000 for myself (pun intended).
locateno longer available by default; (available as mlocatepackage)
Hmm. Why on earth would one want to do that?
nc(netcat) replaced by nmap-ncat
Well, nmap is a powerful tool. This, for once, makes sense to me.
Systemd is pai
You know. I could not care less about systemd, journald or wayland.
Wayland is just a piece of crap that supposedly should bring the desktop to Linux. Well, here's a reminder: the 'desktop' has been available for Unix like operating systems for the past 30 years or so. It's called X. But the developers of Wayland (or Mir) don't like X. The fact that it is a f****ng UNIX standard does not even come to mind! Instead, they decide to reinvent the wheel. Twice! But... Remote X sessions? No way José!
I have played around with systemd and journald. It's sort of fun. Until you realize it breaks the very thing that it is supposed to provide: a standardized way of booting up your system. Again, someone tried to reinvent the wheel. And now twice as well!
And why the hell do I need dbus? Come on, can't people invent an IPC mechanism that is even marginally more useful than that and at least more well-programmed and well-behaved? What do I need dbus for if all I am doing with my system is say, running sendmail?
Anyway, enough with the ranting. Uselessd is a fitting name. Even so, adopting it (or systemd) requires a change of philosophy, one that I am not willing to make. Linux (and UNIX in general) is supposed to be an open system with a intelligible interface. Hell, all init is supposed to do is run a shell script! It is not supposed to be this big binary blob that only takes up memory. Memory that I could be using for other things, like say, run sendmail...
Hear hear.
With regards to editors. I used to -hate- vi. Passionately and with an almost religious fervor. To the extent that I renamed the vi binary to sucky-editor etc. For me, joe was the way to go. At university, on systems that were maintained by me, vi was usually a symlink to joe ;-).
All those wordstar key combo's that I was used to from those days (and nights) that I spent writing my next C program were not lost to me. I could still use them in joe while I was writing my C programs for Linux. Them good ol' times...
Nowadays, there is a dichotomy of editors in my twisted brain. If it's flat text I use vi. Mainly because of it's powerful search and replace features. If it's something else, like a UNIX shell script or a SQL file, I still use joe.
C. Plain old C.
Entire Operating Systems are written in it. Userland tools for those operating systems are usually written in it. Any self-respecting developer knows at least C. The rest is just like fashion tips: next year they're outdated.
Although, as much as I hate to admit it, the same could be said for Java...
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his dreams he reckons himself your master"
From a fabulous game I used to play :).
In what way is it impossible for people to use GPL licensed software to develop commercial applications? Loads of companies do it and not every single one of them shares the source code of their product or products with their customers.
I tend to take a stance in the middle ground here. The GPL license and the BSD license serve different purposes, just like the rest of the plethora of licenses in existence do. It is up to the developers to decide which of those licenses suits them and their philosophy best.
I used to be a nearly religious advocate of the GPL v2.x licenses and their derivatives. In fact, in many ways I still am. The problem with the current incarnation, GPL v3, however, is that it contains more restrictions than freedoms. And while I am no fan of DRM of binary blobs in software, preventing them from being included in Free and Open Source software harms the cause of Free and Open Source Software more than it does it any good, to name an example. Add to that the fact that the legalese in general of the GPL v3 does not invite a sense of freedom (at least to me it doesn't) it could be argued that it actually foregoes its original goals, in favour of the licensing equivalent of hard marxism.
In other words, the GPL v3 doesn't suit me, so I tend to avoid it in my hobby projects. Fortunately for me (and the rest of the world) they're exactly that: hobby projects.
There is a reason the Linux kernel is licensed under GPL v2.1, not whatever GPL version is the latest.
Actually, both are equally correct in Dutch.
4DWM for the win :)
Texas also gave us Double Duh Bush. One of the least enlightened beings on this planet, as well as the one who put us in the international mess we're currently in.
"If you're not with us, you're against us."
Great way to sway everyone to your side - or theirs for that matter.
On topic: the problem between science and religion is not that they are mutually exclusive, but rather that science requires actual proof, whereas religion requires merely faith. One cannot prove the existence of god either way.
Even so, it seems silly to me to require the teaching of pseudoscience in school, merely to placate a couple of religious fanatics. I thought it was us who invented the polde model, but the Americans seem to have taken it to an entire new level.
Assange can't be charged with treason in the USA, because he is not an American citizen.
Whatever the encryption is, you can bet your bottom dollar bill that the NSA is at least two decades ahead of it.
That's what it is. And it's time somebody stood up to these assholes and told them so.
You might as well try to tell the Sun not to set tonight.
Ginger?
For in his mind, he dreams himself your master.
That's a whole different story. See the remark later in my post.
Note that I said 'pretty much secure', not '100% secure'. Also, it seems logical to me that when you are so conscious about security, you would not necessarily trust a wifi network that is not secured with at least some sort of key.
Again, every encryption scheme can ultimately be broken. It is just a matter of computing power and patience.
I would not be surprised to see that the NSA - or any other nation's intelligence service - can devise ways to make you think (and take it for a fact) they are whoever they tell you they are.
As for certificates and CAs: certificates, keys and CAs are about building trust. Between the service provider on one end for example, and its customers on the other. The Certificate Authority asserts that the service provider is who it claims to be, and another Certificate Authority (or maybe even the same - the root CA is in many cases one of a very select few) asserts that about the customer(s). There is a bond of trust between the two parties that enables them to communicate freely, but in a (more or less) private manner.
If you want, you can be your own root CA, as long as you are your only service provider or can convince others you are trustworthy enough that they believe you are who you say you are. They, as the consumers of your public key, have to be trustworthy enough to you that you believe they are who they say they are and that you entrust them with your public key. By the way, while in theory that should provide an excellent basis for secure communications, in practice it turns out to be a rather awkward weakness. People are gullible. But more about that later.
Self-signed certificates are just that. Nothing more, nothing less. You are your own Certificate Authority. If it's just communications between the email server you host at your end of the internet and your smartphone, the connection between those two endpoints is pretty much secure and unless your suffering from severe paranoia, you obviously trust yourself. But then again, with email, you would worry less about other people accessing your emails in their central data store or intercepting them during your (secured) IMAP session than you would about the fact that SMTP is still, pretty much, plain text. Provided your own SMTP host is entrusted similarly to your IMAP host, with a self-signed key and secured through, e.g. SSL and some sort of authentication barrier, the emails you sent are secure until they reach your SMTP host. Everything beyond that is up to the next SMTP host in the chain.
No IP connection - even encrypted ones - is ever one hundred percent secure. It is a safe bet that someone with enough computing power (e.g. the NSA in any case) will always be able to crack whatever (published) encryption scheme you apply to your communications. Moreover, the weakest link in any so-called secure connection is always the user. He or she can be sloppy with regard to the choice of his or her passwords, or have noted them onto a post-it glued to his or her TFT screen, etc. He or she could also be the victim of a phishing event or of social engineering ("Hello? Am I speaking to this-and-this-person? Yes? My name is so-and-so and I've recently joined your company. Would you please be so kind as to reset my password? I seem to have forgotten it. Ah yes, thank you! Have a nice day!"). Did I mention that people are gullible?
To sum up: the concept of certificates and certificate authorities as a basis to build up trusts is in theory a very strong one. However, its strength is also its weakness. It can be subverted to its own antithesis: anyone convincing enough can abuse his position within the chain of trust to his own ends if he, she or it is clever enough.
Miscarriages of justice such as this one are a direct result of the fundamentally flawed system of jury trial and of flawed legislation.
Jurors are laymen and as such not suited for something as complicated as a criminal case and they are by definition susceptible to suggestion. A civil or criminal case brought before the court should always be handled by one ore more judges, people who are trained to be objective and to weigh the evidence, not by laymen.
Relieving yourself (as in 'number one' and 'number two') is also a very personal thing. It is nobody's business but your own.
Wrong.
The police are NOT avove the law. If anything, they are kept under even closer scrutiny than ordinary citizens.
That is entrapment and that is something that in Holland is technically still illegal, even for law enforcement agencies.
The reasoning behind it being illegal is that a person who is succesfully tempted into commiting a crime, could arguably be said not to have even considered committing that crime if not for the people having ensnared him into their trap.
Unfortunately, there are semi-governmental institutes that are very fond of that technique and make it into a civil case. An attorney presents you with the 'evidence' and you have the choice to either pay their 'fee' or turn it into a very expensive civil case. Where it is their word against your own and the one lawyer you can afford can never be as good as the team of lawyers they can afford...
The socialist utopia is a society that leaves everyone equally miserable.Granted, it is not what they strive for, but it is what would be the end result if they ever got their way.