Ummm no, Windows 2003 just has to be up 20% more then Redhat linux. So if Redhat is up for 1 hour, then Windows 2003 only has to be up for an extra 12 minutes to have an uptime 20% greater then Linux.
Ummm, what? The GP poster's point is that any competently administered linux server is going to be up nearly always. Your 1 hour point is, um, kinda dumb. Let me quote from the article:
Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime.
and
On average, individual enterprise Windows, Linux, and Unix servers experienced 3 to 5 failures per server per year in 2005, generating 10 to 19.5 hours of annual downtime for each server.
These two sentences don't play well together, do they? Perhaps the second sentence implies that perhaps the Yankee Group is aggregating servers to come up with 20%. But the first sentence I've quoted from the article just sounds stupid, especially in light of the second quoted sentence. (So that means RH servers average 364+ days of uptime, and Windows servers average 20% more? This is what GP was scoffing at.)
...so maybe it would have been better to use the more common "presque partout", and let people reach for their French dictionaries.
Maybe the French is more common in your part of the world, but around here (let's say USA and Ontario) people tend to use almost everywhere (or a.e.) almost everywhere. In the technical sense, I mean.
Thanks for redeeming my faith in the pseudo-anonymous slashdot user! Too often these discussions devolve into pointless screaming matches, and I was sure that this was where we were headed. But, really, you made my day. Thanks.
If i'm a moron then you can obviously install MythTv and get it going using synaptic....
if you cant, then you too are a MORON.
Well, I've never tried, and I'm not about to for someone yelling on slashdot. But I certainly *found* mythtv on synaptic, yes.
Can you add the universe and multiverse with synaptic also? i must have missed that option..
Of course you can. Like I said in the post you're responding to, click on Settings -> Repositories. Now click on Add -- it gives you options to add things like Community Maintained (Universe) and Non-free (Multiverse).
Also, when i first turned it on, THIS MORON, had never heard the terms universe and multiverse... i just wanted the apps listed and they werent.
See, this is what bothers me. You know enough to know the names of the apps you want, but you can't read very much about how to add packages with your new system? No, I shouldn't say that -- you clearly read something to figure out about universe / multiverse package installation. I'm guessing it wasn't just from browsing around http://www.ubuntu.com/ reading about your new system, because you'd hear about the GUI method quickly enough if you looked.
What the hell is with 'dependencies' i just want the thing to install the crap it needs., Synaptic says "certain dependencies are not available".. what then NON-MORON.
Well, then I'd try to figure out what's going on. But this has never happened to me. I'm sorry it apparently happened to you. But, you're not a moron, you ought to be able to make some sense of it.
I'm not an idiot. I just didnt like having to re-learn command line crapola.
Nuf said.
You know, I think I agree with you -- you're probably not an idiot. But you're bashing Ubuntu for making you do things using the command line when they've provided a nice GUI front-end and a large support web site. That's not a way to make friends, convince people you're rational; it is, dare I say it, kind of moronic. But I sympathize with you (to a point). I've used lots of linux before and my first instinct is to try to do things with the command line. Time and time again I've struggled with things in Ubuntu only to find that Ubuntu has provided a simple GUI for exactly what I'm trying to do. It's an embarassingly good distribution and wonderfully easy to use. Please don't blame it just because you've made it hard to use.
Sure, call him a moron, but I ask you in all seriousness, how is a user who is not already intimate with Ubuntu supposed to know this?
You're just not paying attention. Your grandparent said the following (bits removed):
Ive installed ubuntu on my 'old' machine...
Once you are able to install everything without having to use the command line it'll be great.
See? He is a moron! No, that's not fair -- he's just not using the big Add Applications item that's right there in the main system menu. How's he supposed to notice that?
I know some people like the command line, but I'm over it.
Oh, see, there's his problem. He's trying to do things the hard way because that's the way he knows. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!
Changing the sources.list thing was hard enough the first time. Its ok now i've done it a couple of times, but how about putting it in a front end with some preferences! Sheesh.
And now he's just making a fool of himself. You don't need to edit the sources.list anymore; just click on Settings -> Repositories if the GUI is your thing.
Anyway, you wrote:
This is the problem with most linux distros: they assume too much knowledge. Things that seem blindingly obvious once you know them, but have to be told to a person at least once before they can know.
No, the problem I've had with Ubuntu is that I know too much. I always assume that I'm going to have to do things the hard way (where's that config file?), but Ubuntu always has an easy route for me to take. Who knew Linux could be so easy? (Certainly not your grandparent poster...)
Ultimately, why go with a less compatible solution when you can have the mainstream one for pretty cheap? Also application support (Adobe, CAD software, Mathemtica, etc are all Windows)
I understand the point you're making, but I can't let this pass without comment. Linux (and in a broader sense Unix) are not outside the 'mainstream' (as you put it). They may be in a business environment, but in an academic environment they are most certainly not. You just have to look outside the English department (nothing against English departments, of course).
I'm a math professor at an officially all-Windows university, and at least 20% of my colleagues use Linux as their desktop of choice. And Mathematica, in particular, is certainly not a Windows-only piece of software. I have it here on my Ubuntu 5.10 desktop. My previous job came with a PC on my desk, running a shiny new version of Red Hat. I could get Windows, but I would have had to be difficult.
You know he's going to push the FDA to kill the drug if it works, because if it can cure HIV, there won't be any boogeymen left to scare people into not having sex with each other.
No he won't. If he does, only the hard-core "Christans" will support him for doing it.
You just haven't been paying attention, have you?
Right now, there is a debate going on about the availability (and FDA approval) of an HPV vaccine. It is almost 100% effective at stopping a virus that can cause cervical cancer in women. What's the problem? The "Christians" (to use your quotes) are concerned that this will promote teen sex.
Use google, read all about it, and then get back to us. I don't hear the "Rest of America" yelling and screaming about this one. (Maybe they're all still in a tizzy about those homosexuals wanting to get married.[/sarcasm])
Are you suggesting that Microsoft shouldn't implement anything that UNIX is already doing? If not, what the hell was the point of your post?
My sense is that the grandparent was a little snippy because the MS guy started it. The MS VP didn't say that they're emulating sudo, instead he said
this is more secure that SUPERUSR ON in Unix that elevates the entire session
I believe that the proper response is, indeed, to scoff. (And did anyone else get a Saturday morning flashback there? SUPERUSR....ON!!!! Where did he get that SUPERUSR ON bit anyway?)
Don't expect an official Ubuntu package right away - it's seen as a complicated upgrade:
Maybe it's just me, but this statement seems like a good demonstration of, shall we say, a weakness in "desktop Linux". Linux is going to have a real problem attracting people away from Windows or Mac OS X until the day we can tell someone to just download the "Linux version" of any particular software application.
It's just you. I run Ubuntu here at the office, and I'm waiting patiently for Firefox 1.5. Yes, it's supposed to be cool. Do I have to have it today? No, of course not. Neither do you. (And are my Windows-running friends gloating about how they have Firefox 1.5? No, of course not -- most of them don't know what Firefox is.)
This kind of super-integrated software management may be a great boon to servers and other managed systems, but on individual desktops it kind of sucks. People are going to want Firefox 1.5 as soon as it comes out
People might want that (and I'm willing to dispute that), but is that what Corporate wants? If you're savvy enough to know about the new Firefox, maybe you're savvy enough to figure out how to install it yourself. You just have to figure out how to make both the package management system and Corporate react well.
Sorry, but you got my goat. Saying that the weakness of the Linux desktop is that Ubuntu won't install the new Firefox the day it comes out (or even the month it comes out) seems a bit, well, silly.
I'm a math professor at a Windows-centric university. When I got my current job they let me have an old PC running (of all things) Windows 98. I struggled along with it for about a month until my boss (the chair) told me I could do anything I want with it. Soon I was a happy Debian user!
Since then I got a new PC (a real one this time), on which I'm running Ubuntu. I've converted at least 3 other people in the department to Ubuntu (from MS Windows -- there are a couple other Linux users around, too).
Sure there have been some issues. Exchange? Printing? Networking? Sound? Nah -- the biggest problem I've had is that LaTeX/dvips/etc were configured to use A4 paper rather than letter.
Back when I was coping with my old machine (450 MHz, some pittance of RAM), a new PC arrived in the department. It was either for me or for a grad student who needed to run Mathematica. The Chair called the IT department and asked if my old warhorse could handle this (of course I was running Mathematica under Debian, but...). He was told that this box could run Windows XP or Mathematica, but not both. The grad student got the machine and I had to wait another couple of months. Sigh.
If it's a flipped edge piece, then I can usually tell pretty quickly, too. Twisted (or even swapped) corners will take me a while to notice, as I worry about them last. Swapped edges are somewhere in the middle.
I was really taking issue with the after only a couple moves statement. For me, the top corners get ignored until I'm basically done, and I wouldn't call it only a couple moves. It doesn't take too long, but the original post made it seem like it was obvious. Sure, it becomes obvious, sometimes sooner than later, but it isn't immediate.
I guess we're just quibbling over what a couple moves means, which is pretty stupid and pointless. Forget I mentioned it.:) (And it's potato, dammit!:)
Even non-serious solvers who just solve using the simple method (which ANY serious slashdotter could easily learn in an hour or two) would recognize it as unsolvable after only a couple of moves.
Don't be silly. As people will have pointed out, the difference between a solvable and and unsolvable cube is a corner twist, an edge flip, a corner swap, or an edge swap. A typical solution will do one of these last; the solution I use twists the corners last. So if you give me an unsolvable cube, I'll be able to tell, but possibly only when it is almost solved. (Mind you, this would be after 45 seconds or so, which is pretty pathetic compared to 15.10 seconds....)
Put another way, there are 8! 12! 3^8 2^12 / (2*3*2) = 43252003274489856000 or about 4.3E19. [This is: 8! ways to position the corners, 3^8 ways to twist them; 12! ways to position the edges, 2^12 ways to flip them; well, we've overcounted by a factor of 2*3*2 because of the impossible positions described above.] Are you telling me that we can pick these 4.3E19 out of the 5.2E20 possible ways to assemble the cube after only a couple of moves?
And one of his platforms during the campaign was nominating solidly conservative justices. Additionally, the GOP gained seats in the Senate in the last election. Seems like the people have spoken.
Yes, because 51% percent of voters prefer Bush to Kerry, we should have an all-conservative-all-the-time goverrnment. I scoff.
While I'm scoffing, let me take up the senate. Do me a favor: go figure out what percentage of the population are represented by Republicans and Democrats in the senate. Okay, I'll give you the answer: you'll figure out that Democrats represent more than 50% of the population in the senate, even though they're in the minority.
This "up-or-down vote" is just a front for the Republicans' desire for a tyranny of the majority. Finally Democrats are standing up to them, and rightly so.
And you wouldn't mod me down just because you disagree with me, would you?
Well, no, I'd mod you down because you're a thoughtless shill.
The thing I found about most of my college math
profs is that they don't give a shit about anything but their pet research projects...
This is broadly true of all professors in all fields. I wouldn't put it so harshly, but you're essentially correct. The fault is the system's: at most elite universities, all that matters to a professor's career is research. Lip service is paid to teaching, but if the research is excellent then bad teaching can be overlooked.
...and regard non-grad level math as 'trivial' and not worth their time.
Well, "not worth their time" is, again, probably too harsh, but once again I'll agree with you. Most undergraduate mathematics is 'trivial' to a math professor, especially as professors are usually teaching in their field of expertise. Look at it from their perspective: undergrads are learning stuff that's 50-100 years old and missing out on the exciting recent developments! Yes, the old stuff can be cool, but it's not what's exciting the professor now.
Yes, I'm a math professor. I try to be excited in my calculus classes, but it's hard sometimes...
He struck me then as someone that falls into the category as a "Big Brain", esp wrt to training/educating on software programming. And a super nice (and patient) guy, to boot.
I went to graduate school briefly with Aaron. (He left soon after he started to pursue his NeXt / Apple / Cocoa interests.) He was indeed a super nice guy; he helped me through first year differential geometry (and now I think of myself as a differential geometer).
Go Aaron!
I'm gonna pick up this book asap.
Alas, I'm not his target audience anymore. (No C, C++, or Mac for me.) But he is a good guy.
Slashdot Mirror
- This Just In. Every week, Randy Cassingham rounds up the strangest news events he can find...
The name has changed to This Is True but it's still wonderful.- alt.fan.cecil-adams. Cecil Adams is an acerbic and funny know-it-all, and author of The Straight Dope....
Probably easier for all of us today at The Straight Dope, but still entertaining.Of course, I also still use pine (listed somewhere under Best workarounds for non-SLIP users) so what do I know?
Ummm, what? The GP poster's point is that any competently administered linux server is going to be up nearly always. Your 1 hour point is, um, kinda dumb. Let me quote from the article:
andThese two sentences don't play well together, do they? Perhaps the second sentence implies that perhaps the Yankee Group is aggregating servers to come up with 20%. But the first sentence I've quoted from the article just sounds stupid, especially in light of the second quoted sentence. (So that means RH servers average 364+ days of uptime, and Windows servers average 20% more? This is what GP was scoffing at.)Yeah. Okay, then.
Oh, it still cracks me up....
Best laugh I've had all day, thanks.
Maybe the French is more common in your part of the world, but around here (let's say USA and Ontario) people tend to use almost everywhere (or a.e.) almost everywhere. In the technical sense, I mean.
Thanks for redeeming my faith in the pseudo-anonymous slashdot user! Too often these discussions devolve into pointless screaming matches, and I was sure that this was where we were headed. But, really, you made my day. Thanks.
Well, I've never tried, and I'm not about to for someone yelling on slashdot. But I certainly *found* mythtv on synaptic, yes.
Of course you can. Like I said in the post you're responding to, click on Settings -> Repositories. Now click on Add -- it gives you options to add things like Community Maintained (Universe) and Non-free (Multiverse).
See, this is what bothers me. You know enough to know the names of the apps you want, but you can't read very much about how to add packages with your new system? No, I shouldn't say that -- you clearly read something to figure out about universe / multiverse package installation. I'm guessing it wasn't just from browsing around http://www.ubuntu.com/ reading about your new system, because you'd hear about the GUI method quickly enough if you looked.
Well, then I'd try to figure out what's going on. But this has never happened to me. I'm sorry it apparently happened to you. But, you're not a moron, you ought to be able to make some sense of it.
You know, I think I agree with you -- you're probably not an idiot. But you're bashing Ubuntu for making you do things using the command line when they've provided a nice GUI front-end and a large support web site. That's not a way to make friends, convince people you're rational; it is, dare I say it, kind of moronic. But I sympathize with you (to a point). I've used lots of linux before and my first instinct is to try to do things with the command line. Time and time again I've struggled with things in Ubuntu only to find that Ubuntu has provided a simple GUI for exactly what I'm trying to do. It's an embarassingly good distribution and wonderfully easy to use. Please don't blame it just because you've made it hard to use.
You're just not paying attention. Your grandparent said the following (bits removed):
See? He is a moron! No, that's not fair -- he's just not using the big Add Applications item that's right there in the main system menu. How's he supposed to notice that?
Oh, see, there's his problem. He's trying to do things the hard way because that's the way he knows. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!
And now he's just making a fool of himself. You don't need to edit the sources.list anymore; just click on Settings -> Repositories if the GUI is your thing.
Anyway, you wrote:
No, the problem I've had with Ubuntu is that I know too much. I always assume that I'm going to have to do things the hard way (where's that config file?), but Ubuntu always has an easy route for me to take. Who knew Linux could be so easy? (Certainly not your grandparent poster...)
If you're not using Linux, it's time to come back...
I'm a math professor at an officially all-Windows university, and at least 20% of my colleagues use Linux as their desktop of choice. And Mathematica, in particular, is certainly not a Windows-only piece of software. I have it here on my Ubuntu 5.10 desktop. My previous job came with a PC on my desk, running a shiny new version of Red Hat. I could get Windows, but I would have had to be difficult.
Right now, there is a debate going on about the availability (and FDA approval) of an HPV vaccine. It is almost 100% effective at stopping a virus that can cause cervical cancer in women. What's the problem? The "Christians" (to use your quotes) are concerned that this will promote teen sex.
Use google, read all about it, and then get back to us. I don't hear the "Rest of America" yelling and screaming about this one. (Maybe they're all still in a tizzy about those homosexuals wanting to get married.[/sarcasm])
My sense is that the grandparent was a little snippy because the MS guy started it. The MS VP didn't say that they're emulating sudo, instead he said
I believe that the proper response is, indeed, to scoff. (And did anyone else get a Saturday morning flashback there? SUPERUSR....ON!!!! Where did he get that SUPERUSR ON bit anyway?)Sorry, but you got my goat. Saying that the weakness of the Linux desktop is that Ubuntu won't install the new Firefox the day it comes out (or even the month it comes out) seems a bit, well, silly.
Since then I got a new PC (a real one this time), on which I'm running Ubuntu. I've converted at least 3 other people in the department to Ubuntu (from MS Windows -- there are a couple other Linux users around, too).
Sure there have been some issues. Exchange? Printing? Networking? Sound? Nah -- the biggest problem I've had is that LaTeX/dvips/etc were configured to use A4 paper rather than letter.
Back when I was coping with my old machine (450 MHz, some pittance of RAM), a new PC arrived in the department. It was either for me or for a grad student who needed to run Mathematica. The Chair called the IT department and asked if my old warhorse could handle this (of course I was running Mathematica under Debian, but...). He was told that this box could run Windows XP or Mathematica, but not both. The grad student got the machine and I had to wait another couple of months. Sigh.
I was really taking issue with the after only a couple moves statement. For me, the top corners get ignored until I'm basically done, and I wouldn't call it only a couple moves. It doesn't take too long, but the original post made it seem like it was obvious. Sure, it becomes obvious, sometimes sooner than later, but it isn't immediate.
I guess we're just quibbling over what a couple moves means, which is pretty stupid and pointless. Forget I mentioned it. :) (And it's potato, dammit! :)
Put another way, there are 8! 12! 3^8 2^12 / (2*3*2) = 43252003274489856000 or about 4.3E19. [This is: 8! ways to position the corners, 3^8 ways to twist them; 12! ways to position the edges, 2^12 ways to flip them; well, we've overcounted by a factor of 2*3*2 because of the impossible positions described above.] Are you telling me that we can pick these 4.3E19 out of the 5.2E20 possible ways to assemble the cube after only a couple of moves?
There's an article on MIMO in the latest physical issue of Technology Review magazine. Fortunately, the article's on-line.
While I'm scoffing, let me take up the senate. Do me a favor: go figure out what percentage of the population are represented by Republicans and Democrats in the senate. Okay, I'll give you the answer: you'll figure out that Democrats represent more than 50% of the population in the senate, even though they're in the minority.
This "up-or-down vote" is just a front for the Republicans' desire for a tyranny of the majority. Finally Democrats are standing up to them, and rightly so.
Well, no, I'd mod you down because you're a thoughtless shill.
This is broadly true of all professors in all fields. I wouldn't put it so harshly, but you're essentially correct. The fault is the system's: at most elite universities, all that matters to a professor's career is research. Lip service is paid to teaching, but if the research is excellent then bad teaching can be overlooked.
Well, "not worth their time" is, again, probably too harsh, but once again I'll agree with you. Most undergraduate mathematics is 'trivial' to a math professor, especially as professors are usually teaching in their field of expertise. Look at it from their perspective: undergrads are learning stuff that's 50-100 years old and missing out on the exciting recent developments! Yes, the old stuff can be cool, but it's not what's exciting the professor now.
Yes, I'm a math professor. I try to be excited in my calculus classes, but it's hard sometimes...
Go Aaron!
Alas, I'm not his target audience anymore. (No C, C++, or Mac for me.) But he is a good guy.