My girlfriend gave me her old Packard Bell "Multimedia D131" Pentium 133 computer. Yeah, it sucked, but I installed OpenBSD on it, and it's been my firewall / sendmail / apache server ever since, and holding up quite nicely, considering. I've upgraded it for a little money too, installing two nice PCI networking cards and more RAM. I'm probably going to slap a SCSI card and CD burner in there before too long.
Though I've only really worked with OpenBSD 2.5 for the last couple of days, I've really enjoyed it. Basically I just installed it on an old Packard Bell Pentium 133 (not a bad computer actually, though the memory is quite flaky. I've ordered new 32 mb simms.) Anyway.
Though my BSD experience is quite limited (I've piddled around with FreeBSD before) I am quite familiar with the GNU/Linux environment. The first thing I did after installing OpenBSD was lock down my system (as best I could, following the afterboot man page) and then install all the usual suspects from/usr/ports --- bash, egcs, python, emacs, etc. (I'm currently having a problem getting my favorite editor XEmacs to work correctly in console mode, but...)
The installation was slightly hairy. I especially found the disklabel software confusing, and I'm an old hand at linux fdsik. But the kernel / installer detected all of my hardware on the first try. It detected my modem but I couldn't get the PPP dialer to work (that's okay, I don't really need my modem now that I've got DSL.)
Since then I've found OpenBSD very pleasant to work with, and you do get the feeling that there is some proactive security going on. I'll probably sleep slightly better at night because OpenBSD is on the job and not, e.g., Red Hat Linux. For instance, I like the blowfish passwords and soon to be integrated OpenSSH (encrypted telnet.) Today I'm going to be disabling ports like telnet and installing apache. I don't like the default BSD/bin/sh but it was quite easy enough to install Bash 2.0 and all my favorite editors, scripting languages, etc.
I get the feeling overall that OpenBSD is a solid, mature, and quite useful system. I'm going to be using it as a firewall / NAT / email / web kind of box on my new DSL line. I recommend it to anyone who has any unix setup / admin experience.
The fun kind of nitrous oxide is actually NO2. I guess it should be called nitrous dioxide. Maybe you can think about that next time you're sucking down some hippie crack.
There is a service called Nobell in Austin, TX that offers 3 Mb/s wireless service to select areas in Austin for something like $45 a month for residential customers with 1 static IP.
I'm thinking about signing up myself, it was recommended on the local Linux mailing list.
I'm pretty sure it's only availible in Austin, but what do I know.
This seems like a much better deal than this story has, if the claims of Nobell are to be believed. What about the latency issue?
Anyone know anything about this? For me, it's a choice between this and jump.net's $45/month ADSL (384/128) service.
Umm, nope. Maybe compared to the Santa Clara, CA area, or downtown Manhattan, but compared to Anywhere Else, Austin is a very expensive town in which to live.
That said, UT Austin is a decent, and very inexpensive (in terms of tuition) university, with an above-average CS department.
I've been wondering about how to get my rc5des client logged in automatically on bootup for a while, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask.
I searched all the HOWTO's for similar information (how to log in a user on bootup) but evidently I did not find the information I needed.
My girlfriend often uses my laptop and can't be bothered to remember to switch to a virtual console and log in rc5. So how can I make rc5 login and begin work on bootup?
Security isn't *much* of an issue here, I've got a separate rc5 user, running in a restricted bash environment.
I'm no PETA nut, but I don't think any kind of animals, especially our beloved pengies, are toys or playthings for people. Whoever had the bright idea of bringing live penguins to LinuxWorld did not think this thing through. As another poster has suggested, humans in a penguin suit would have been much more appropriate.
The cage does look small, and I imagine the animals are subject to a lot of unhealthy stress being gawked at and handled by presumably hundreds of people. No, they probably won't die from it, but that's not the point. It simply was a bad idea and that is not an appropriate environment for wild animals.
Please afford our flightless feathered friends a small amount of respect.
Linux has needed something like this for a long time. I can't wait to dig my teeth into this one. Even more lovely will be when it is finally integrated into the mainline distributions (Debian, etc.)
Thank you SGI!
The choice of the GPL license is also another smart move. The GPL is a great license for this kind of technology, as it will ensure the freedom of the code for everyone and make it resistant to proprietary forking. I may not be an expert of license reconciliation but I don't see with the *BSD operating systems won't be able to use XFS? Is it simply impossible to include a GPL'ed filesystem with a BSD OS?
Just look at the mozilla binaries directory. Just for the x86, there's separate binaries for glibc and libc5 and libc4 systems. Plus there's the fact that none of those will run on old a.out systems.
Gee, that's funny. My Debian system can run libc6, libc5, and a.out binaries without any hassle. Mozilla provides these different binaries as a convenience more than anything.
The whole Linux libc "compatibility" situation is quite overblown. Usually it's a non-issue.
M$ can release all the crappy closed-source gratis web servers they like, and it won't change much. Who's using this or that server isn't the real issue at all.
The real issue is any company controlling proprietary document formats such as M$ Office. Because of network externalities, one is almost forced to have a copy of MS Office on hand to read documents sent to you by ninnies who don't understand that there is a world outside of Word.
This is Micros~1's true leverage and monopoly power, not browsers or operating systems or web servers. It's Office. I think the only remedy that should be imposed on M$ in their anti-trust trial should be to force M$ to release (and adhere to 100%) a completely open, Free, document specification.
Don't let MS co-opt XML, either.
This rant brought to you by your friends at the Microsoft Corporation.
One thing I noticed is the pronouncation used was "Lynn-ucks." I thought it was thought by most people that this was "incorrect", whatever that means. Linus says it as "Lee-nucks." That's probably the only truly 'correct' pronounciation.
However, isn't the accepted Americanized pronounciation "Lie-nucks?" This seems logical to me, as Linus' name is pronounced "Lie-nus" (though it's "Lee-nus" in Finland.) So doesn't "Lie-nus" become "Lie-nucks?" Why do so many people say "Lynn-ucks" then? Will you make fun of me and steal my lunch money if I say "Lie-nucks?"
Please dont' consider this a flame or "my-way-of-talking-is-better-than-yours." Have a nice day.:-)
The Eros Operating System may not be the actual system of the "next wave" but a lot of the ideas contained therein may be represented in the operating systems we use 10-20 years from now.
Cool stuff like complete object persistance integrated with capabilities, total virtualization of memory (no "file system" per se) and a sorta microkernel architecture.
Like I said, Eros itself may not be the OS of the future, but a lot of the ideas contained therein will be widely used.
It is wrong for a developer to force me to do that if I use their code.
That is the second most absurd thing I've heard today. (You don't want to know the first.)
If you use my code you play by my rules. Don't like the rules? Don't use the code. How is it wrong for a developer to set certain conditions (insuring freedom for the user) on use of their own code?
Some developers (including myself) actually like the GPL and use it as our liscense of choice. If don't like the GPL, then don't use our code! Develop your own damn code.
BSD liscense is fine for some people. Use it on your own code if you like. I personally don't like it because I like software to remain Libre in all cases. But you have no right to dictate the terms of usage for the code that I write.
This statement you made really fumes me and indicates you have a total lack of understanding about the whole Libre Software thing. So just go away before I taunt you a second time.
Hmm... I still get the same problem as the first time I clicked the link on/....
It looks like the frames are messed up. I see four Sierra logos and two toolbars and an 404 Not Found in the main window... strange. Might be a NS 4.51 problem...?
The Wookies are above and to the right of the E.T.'s (from the audience point of view.)
There's two or three of them, and they look pretty much just like Chewbacca, if I recall they even have bandoliers.
This is of course in the Senate just after Amidala calls for a No-Confidence.
So obviously Kashyyk is part of the Republic. I wonder what pretext Palpatine used to enslave them later. No doubt all will be explained in Episodes II and III, which I hope will feature Wookies prominently.
I also heard that Grim Fandango is in the pod race crowd. And probably a lot of other characters. Can't wait for the DVD version of this one.
According to the story, the entire 40 lb film was stolen, not just a single reel, which is only like 20 something minutes of film.
Yeah, it does make you wonder just how bad someone had to have their Jar-Jar fix. From the story it looks like it was an inside job, and I imagine the perpetrators will likely be caught, especially if they try to sell it.
Personally, if I were the one who stole it, I'd just set it up in my living room (not that I have THX sound or anything) and just run it continuously.;-) (I saw the film for the third time last night in case you can't tell. And it was better the third time than the second time.)
I just back from my second viewing, and I have an important new scientific finding to publish. Please forgive me if you are already aware of this magnificent fact, but I have not seen it reported nor did I notice it for the first time.
Not only were E.T.s sighteded in the Republic Senate (as reported in this forum), but it seems that most illustrious and accomplished of species, the indomidable Wookies, are indeed represented in the Senate and were in fact visible in several frames of the Phantom Menace. Needless to say this caused great rejoicing in our theatre.
The Wookies were definetely Wookies, and the E.T.s were... remarkably similar, but perhaps not 100% identical, to the Extra Terrestrials.
I'm refering of course to the Star Wars themed first-person-shooter availible for an obscure platform called Windows.
Well anyway, in this game, there was a "boss" called, simply, Maul. Anyone remember that? Anyone see any strange similarites to Darth Maul from Episode I?
In the game, Maul was an evil Jedi who happened to only have an upper body (with some kind of cybernetic attachment that allowed him to float. Or maybe it was the Force, I dunno.) Now, compare and contrast this to what happened to Darth Maul at the end of Episode I.
I thought Firaxis didn't have the rights to produce a game with the word "Civilization" in the title (hence Alpha Centauri, which is the true CivIII in my opinion.)
can anyone clarify this? Has Firaxis bought the rights back?
Comparing Emacs to Pico is kinda funny. And totally spurious.
I do understand that vi ships with virtually every system. I do know the basics but still find it purile and unneccesarily difficult. I mean, Emacs is no piece of cake, but at least there's no arbitrary difference between entering text and entering commands. (Basically Emacs is in command mode all the time, and keystrokes are mini-commands.)
This is not intended to start a stupid vi-vs-emacs flame war. I just wanted to point out that lumping pico in with emacs is pretty laughable.
I recently tried to install FreeBSD 3.1 on my laptop over my PCMCIA ethernet card. Then I found out my card, although not an uncommon model, was not supported in the stock install disks. Anyway, long story short, I finally got pointed to some folks in Japan who made a set of patches called PAO to support a wide variety of PCMCIA cards...
Only I still had problems. I got the system installed, but getting it to see my card after the first bootup was a nightmare. And I was not really equipped to patch and compile a kernel. Not to mention the fact that FreeBSD does not ship with Emacs and I haven't the foggiest idea how to use vi.
My question is, when is this vital laptop support going to be rolled into FreeBSD itself?
In the meantime, I'm quite happy with Linux. I just installed RedHat 6.0 on the same laptop, and everything was flawless... both the network interface and sound and everything was instantly recognized.
Do you really think that even with the closed-source version, a 'discovery' is going to accepted by the scientific establishment without a very thorough, independent investigation of the signal in question?
So even if someone hacks their SETI@home client to produce a false signal, it is going to be checked and rechecked by the seti folks before any kind of announcement is made.
Whether or not it is open source is irrelevant to any scientific value this project has.
Where is does matter is the fact that we can't compile an optimized version for our own platforms, we must rely on the seti@home people to do it when they feel good and ready.
Slashdot Mirror
My girlfriend gave me her old Packard Bell "Multimedia D131" Pentium 133 computer. Yeah, it sucked, but I installed OpenBSD on it, and it's been my firewall / sendmail / apache server ever since, and holding up quite nicely, considering. I've upgraded it for a little money too, installing two nice PCI networking cards and more RAM. I'm probably going to slap a SCSI card and CD burner in there before too long.
Though my BSD experience is quite limited (I've piddled around with FreeBSD before) I am quite familiar with the GNU/Linux environment. The first thing I did after installing OpenBSD was lock down my system (as best I could, following the afterboot man page) and then install all the usual suspects from /usr/ports --- bash, egcs, python, emacs, etc. (I'm currently having a problem getting my favorite editor XEmacs to work correctly in console mode, but...)
The installation was slightly hairy. I especially found the disklabel software confusing, and I'm an old hand at linux fdsik. But the kernel / installer detected all of my hardware on the first try. It detected my modem but I couldn't get the PPP dialer to work (that's okay, I don't really need my modem now that I've got DSL.)
Since then I've found OpenBSD very pleasant to work with, and you do get the feeling that there is some proactive security going on. I'll probably sleep slightly better at night because OpenBSD is on the job and not, e.g., Red Hat Linux. For instance, I like the blowfish passwords and soon to be integrated OpenSSH (encrypted telnet.) Today I'm going to be disabling ports like telnet and installing apache. I don't like the default BSD /bin/sh but it was quite easy enough to install Bash 2.0 and all my favorite editors, scripting languages, etc.
I get the feeling overall that OpenBSD is a solid, mature, and quite useful system. I'm going to be using it as a firewall / NAT / email / web kind of box on my new DSL line. I recommend it to anyone who has any unix setup / admin experience.
Don't you think nuclear weapons and nuclear processing plants and equipment are exciting? No? What about lightbulbs? Everybody likes lightbulbs.
The fun kind of nitrous oxide is actually NO2. I guess it should be called nitrous dioxide. Maybe you can think about that next time you're sucking down some hippie crack.
I'm thinking about signing up myself, it was recommended on the local Linux mailing list.
I'm pretty sure it's only availible in Austin, but what do I know.
This seems like a much better deal than this story has, if the claims of Nobell are to be believed. What about the latency issue?
Anyone know anything about this? For me, it's a choice between this and jump.net's $45/month ADSL (384/128) service.
Any clues? Thanks.
That said, UT Austin is a decent, and very inexpensive (in terms of tuition) university, with an above-average CS department.
And yes, Austin as a town is a lot of fun.
I've been wondering about how to get my rc5des client logged in automatically on bootup for a while, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask.
I searched all the HOWTO's for similar information (how to log in a user on bootup) but evidently I did not find the information I needed.
My girlfriend often uses my laptop and can't be bothered to remember to switch to a virtual console and log in rc5. So how can I make rc5 login and begin work on bootup?
Security isn't *much* of an issue here, I've got a separate rc5 user, running in a restricted bash environment.
Any pointers to documentation? Or free clues?
Muchos Gracias!
If any penguins ever shit on your car, I will personally come and clean it off.
The cage does look small, and I imagine the animals are subject to a lot of unhealthy stress being gawked at and handled by presumably hundreds of people. No, they probably won't die from it, but that's not the point. It simply was a bad idea and that is not an appropriate environment for wild animals.
Please afford our flightless feathered friends a small amount of respect.
Thank you SGI!
The choice of the GPL license is also another smart move. The GPL is a great license for this kind of technology, as it will ensure the freedom of the code for everyone and make it resistant to proprietary forking. I may not be an expert of license reconciliation but I don't see with the *BSD operating systems won't be able to use XFS? Is it simply impossible to include a GPL'ed filesystem with a BSD OS?
Gee, that's funny. My Debian system can run libc6, libc5, and a.out binaries without any hassle. Mozilla provides these different binaries as a convenience more than anything.
The whole Linux libc "compatibility" situation is quite overblown. Usually it's a non-issue.
The real issue is any company controlling proprietary document formats such as M$ Office. Because of network externalities, one is almost forced to have a copy of MS Office on hand to read documents sent to you by ninnies who don't understand that there is a world outside of Word.
This is Micros~1's true leverage and monopoly power, not browsers or operating systems or web servers. It's Office. I think the only remedy that should be imposed on M$ in their anti-trust trial should be to force M$ to release (and adhere to 100%) a completely open, Free, document specification.
Don't let MS co-opt XML, either.
This rant brought to you by your friends at the Microsoft Corporation.
However, isn't the accepted Americanized pronounciation "Lie-nucks?" This seems logical to me, as Linus' name is pronounced "Lie-nus" (though it's "Lee-nus" in Finland.) So doesn't "Lie-nus" become "Lie-nucks?" Why do so many people say "Lynn-ucks" then? Will you make fun of me and steal my lunch money if I say "Lie-nucks?"
Please dont' consider this a flame or "my-way-of-talking-is-better-than-yours." Have a nice day. :-)
Cool stuff like complete object persistance integrated with capabilities, total virtualization of memory (no "file system" per se) and a sorta microkernel architecture.
Like I said, Eros itself may not be the OS of the future, but a lot of the ideas contained therein will be widely used.
That is the second most absurd thing I've heard today. (You don't want to know the first.)
If you use my code you play by my rules. Don't like the rules? Don't use the code. How is it wrong for a developer to set certain conditions (insuring freedom for the user) on use of their own code?
Some developers (including myself) actually like the GPL and use it as our liscense of choice. If don't like the GPL, then don't use our code! Develop your own damn code.
BSD liscense is fine for some people. Use it on your own code if you like. I personally don't like it because I like software to remain Libre in all cases. But you have no right to dictate the terms of usage for the code that I write.
This statement you made really fumes me and indicates you have a total lack of understanding about the whole Libre Software thing. So just go away before I taunt you a second time.
It looks like the frames are messed up. I see four Sierra logos and two toolbars and an 404 Not Found in the main window... strange. Might be a NS 4.51 problem...?
Too bad, I would rush out to buy Half-Life if it was released for Linux. I very much enjoyed playing it on my roommate's Windows computer.
There's two or three of them, and they look pretty much just like Chewbacca, if I recall they even have bandoliers.
This is of course in the Senate just after Amidala calls for a No-Confidence.
So obviously Kashyyk is part of the Republic. I wonder what pretext Palpatine used to enslave them later. No doubt all will be explained in Episodes II and III, which I hope will feature Wookies prominently.
I also heard that Grim Fandango is in the pod race crowd. And probably a lot of other characters. Can't wait for the DVD version of this one.
Yeah, it does make you wonder just how bad someone had to have their Jar-Jar fix. From the story it looks like it was an inside job, and I imagine the perpetrators will likely be caught, especially if they try to sell it.
Personally, if I were the one who stole it, I'd just set it up in my living room (not that I have THX sound or anything) and just run it continuously. ;-) (I saw the film for the third time last night in case you can't tell. And it was better the third time than the second time.)
Boba Fett is in Episode I
So are E.T. and even better, Wookies!
Not only were E.T.s sighteded in the Republic Senate (as reported in this forum), but it seems that most illustrious and accomplished of species, the indomidable Wookies, are indeed represented in the Senate and were in fact visible in several frames of the Phantom Menace. Needless to say this caused great rejoicing in our theatre.
The Wookies were definetely Wookies, and the E.T.s were ... remarkably similar, but perhaps not 100% identical, to the Extra Terrestrials.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
A Wookie Admirer, Ret.
Well anyway, in this game, there was a "boss" called, simply, Maul. Anyone remember that? Anyone see any strange similarites to Darth Maul from Episode I?
In the game, Maul was an evil Jedi who happened to only have an upper body (with some kind of cybernetic attachment that allowed him to float. Or maybe it was the Force, I dunno.) Now, compare and contrast this to what happened to Darth Maul at the end of Episode I.
Coincidence? Discuss amongst yourselves.
can anyone clarify this? Has Firaxis bought the rights back?
Is Firaxis looking to hire a programmer? ;-)
I do understand that vi ships with virtually every system. I do know the basics but still find it purile and unneccesarily difficult. I mean, Emacs is no piece of cake, but at least there's no arbitrary difference between entering text and entering commands. (Basically Emacs is in command mode all the time, and keystrokes are mini-commands.)
This is not intended to start a stupid vi-vs-emacs flame war. I just wanted to point out that lumping pico in with emacs is pretty laughable.
Only I still had problems. I got the system installed, but getting it to see my card after the first bootup was a nightmare. And I was not really equipped to patch and compile a kernel. Not to mention the fact that FreeBSD does not ship with Emacs and I haven't the foggiest idea how to use vi.
My question is, when is this vital laptop support going to be rolled into FreeBSD itself?
In the meantime, I'm quite happy with Linux. I just installed RedHat 6.0 on the same laptop, and everything was flawless... both the network interface and sound and everything was instantly recognized.
This isn't a complaint, really. It's a question.
So even if someone hacks their SETI@home client to produce a false signal, it is going to be checked and rechecked by the seti folks before any kind of announcement is made.
Whether or not it is open source is irrelevant to any scientific value this project has.
Where is does matter is the fact that we can't compile an optimized version for our own platforms, we must rely on the seti@home people to do it when they feel good and ready.