Linux-Advocacy Digest #285, Volume #26 Thu, 27 Apr 00 12:13:10 EDT
Contents:
Re: Government to break up Microsoft (Darren Winsper)
Re: "Technical" vs. "Non-technical"... (was Re: Grasping perspective...) (Leslie
Mikesell)
Re: linux as Netscape platform (Donal K. Fellows)
Re: Where is PostScript support?? (Stephen Cornell)
Re: MS caught breaking web sites ("Christopher Smith")
Re: i cant blieve you people!! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY-LINUX IS CRAP-WIN2K RULEZ!!!!!!!!!
Re: What else is hidden in MS code??? ("Christopher Smith")
Re: "Technical" vs. "Non-technical"... (was Re: Grasping perspective...) (Leslie
Mikesell)
Re: What else is hidden in MS code??? ("Christopher Smith")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Darren Winsper)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Government to break up Microsoft
Date: 27 Apr 2000 15:12:52 GMT
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 23:25:07 GMT, Otto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Darren Winsper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
> message
> >
> > My mother is as average as they get, and she was perfectly happy with
> > Star Office. I only put her back on Word because the people at her
> > work kept on sending Word documents that Star Office wouldn't load.
>
> Star Office is a pretty good office suit. It is strange that she had
> problems opening up Word document. I've thrown all different Word version
> files to Star Office and it had no problem opening it. Some of the files
> didn't look like as they were formated originally, but nonetheless readable.
That's the problem, they had to be perfectly formatted.
> >
> > My father doesn't want to move his small business to Windows, but he's
> > having to in order to stay compatible. CLAIT courses no longer seem to
> > be about computer literacy, but about learning Microsoft Office.
>
> What is CLAIT?
Computer Literacy And Information Technology (I think). It's supposed
to be a general perpose course for computer newbies to learn the basics
of computer use, including managing files, using a word processor,
spreadsheet and database. However, in most cases, it's become a case
of "How to use Microsoft Office", which is why I quit after my college
forced me into it.
> > I have had *one* crash in longer than 6 months that can be attributed
> > to a kernel bug, and that was yesterday. It wasn't a pretty sight, but
> > it is to expected from a 2.3 kernel. Windows locks me out around once
> > a week, and I'm on Linux around 80% of the time I'm at this machine.
>
> I have different experiences with Win98 and Linux. In my home network there
> is two of them, they were installed sometimes at the end of the last year.
> My Linux box on the laptop was installed numerous times in the last month.
> It is not Linux, I just don't have time to figure out why it locks up on me.
I have had one major lock-up problem. It seems there is a bug with my
motherboard when both PS/2 ports were in use. It was causing lock-ups
at random times. Moving the mouse to USB solved the problem.
> Since there is nothing on it what needs to be saved, it's easier to start
> from scratch. What strange however, it could run for 7-10 days with no
> problems and then boom. Reset might or might not work, sometimes it gets
> trashed.
Very strange. The problem with those sorts of crashes is diagnosing
the problems is very difficult. Did you try the standard pull out all
but the minimum hardware and then re-adding them? With the laptop you
can sort of emulate that effect by compiling a kernel with minimal
drivers.
> > Consumers *put up* with Windows. They consider it a neccesary evil.
> >
>
> Hence the reference to the "good enough".
It's only good enough because MS stomped out the competition. It's
only now that things like Linux and BeOS are starting to sprout up.
> If it is the necessary evil, then it's just like taxes.
It's ironic you should describe it that way. IIRC that's what got them
into trouble in the first place.
> Complain all you want but it's here to stay.
We'll see.
--
Darren Winsper (El Capitano) - ICQ #8899775
Stellar Legacy project member - http://www.stellarlegacy.tsx.org
DVD boycotts. Are you doing your bit?
This message was typed before a live studio audience.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: "Technical" vs. "Non-technical"... (was Re: Grasping perspective...)
Date: 27 Apr 2000 10:21:36 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
s_Ea_DAag0n <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>What did you boot to install the thing in the first place, and why
>>can't you repeat with the 'upgrade' option to see if it finds
>>your partitions?
>
>I installed it as a floppy boot + LAN ftp install for the packages.
>
>Actually ... when I did re-install it did come up to fdisk eventually
>(obviously). Unfortunately I don't remember what the state of the disk
>was, if they were really non-mountable.
It only attempts to mount them if you choose upgrade instead of
install. If it succeeds, you can jump to a root shell with
alt-f2 (ctl-alt-f2 if you are in graphic mode) with the partitions
mounted under /mnt and at that point you can fix about anything.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Re: linux as Netscape platform
Date: 27 Apr 2000 15:28:08 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Yeoh Yiu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm thinking of setting up a web kiosk. (user accounts/security is
> not an issue)
>
> Is Netscape on linux as stable as Netscape on NT ?
Well, neither are absolutely stellar... :^)
> And do the minor usability issues alt-TAB between windows, TAB to
> URL entry box work reliably on Netscape Linux ?
I'm not sure that they matter too much in a web kiosk type
application. A lot of the general public prefer a keyboard in
alphabetical order since then they can find the key they're looking
for. Alt-Tab is probably not something they're going to try (it is
very much an expert-only interface.) However, support for that sort
of thing is window-manager dependent; some will support it (CDE in
click-to-focus mode for example) and some won't (twm doesn't do that
sort of thing at all.)
The good thing about Linux is the amount of flexibility available. If
you don't like the way it is by default, you can change it with
relatively little effort.
[F'ups set to *.advocacy only, as this is not network-related]
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- I may seem more arrogant, but I think that's just because you didn't
realize how arrogant I was before. :^)
-- Jeffrey Hobbs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: Stephen Cornell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where is PostScript support??
Date: 27 Apr 2000 16:30:38 +0100
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows) writes:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Stephen Cornell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > As I said in the original post, my next presentation will be done
> > using pdflatex/acrobat. It's not as fast, powerful, or easy to use as
> > Powerpoint, though I would agree that it looks better. Xdvi and
> > ghostscript are too slow.
>
> It depends a lot on what fonts you're using (xdvi is much faster if it
> doesn't have to rebuild the glyphs you're using :^) and modern systems
> are so beefy they can cope with running xdvi and gs at a reasonable
> speed.
I went back and tried it, and it wasn't as slow as I remember it.
There's still a slight delay before Postscript files are rendered,
though, and you're not in a position to do much about the
colour/texture of the background (beyond one uniform colour for the
whole presentation). My version of xdvi (tetex-xdvi-0.9-17) is also
rather buggy. Acroread/Pdflatex looks better and seems faster to me,
and with PPower4 it gives a pretty flexible package. Besides, in my
field it's regarded as curteous to include some photos of the
organisms under study, which is out of the question using xdvi.
> > However, LaTeX's forte is in producing paper documents with a uniform,
> > professional look, whereas the requirements for presentation slides
> > are somewhat different. Sometimes you want to add arrows between your
> > text and your graphics; sometimes you just want to resize the text box
> > so that the words wrap a little differently or to allow just a little
> > more text on one particular slide; sometimes you want to add a photo,
> > or position a picture or two by hand. Doing any of these things under
> > Latex has me reaching for the text book and spending the next half
> > hour or more tinkering.
>
> I've never felt it necessary to do such stuff. As far as I'm
> concerned, once the presentation has got the title slide and a few
> slides of bullet points and/or pictures, that's it. Fancy animated
> graphics add nothing worthwhile to any presentation I've seen, and
> random arrows just seem to make everything untidy.
I wasn't talking about animations, actually - merely the procedure you
need to go through to create the (static) slide in the first place.
The arrows I was talking about might be pointing out some feature of a
graph, say. It's difficult changing the size of a single page without
changing it for the rest of the presentation. The layout of a slide
does not need to be as uniform as the text in a printed article, and
occasionally you _do_ want to have the flexibility of positioning the
various elements by hand.
However, since you mention it, animations _do_ have their uses. When
I, as a listener, am presented with a graph, my concentration wanders
from the speaker's words while I read the legend and axes and figure
out what is being plotted. If the elements only appear at the moment
the speaker explains them, I'm not distracted. One also tends to read
ahead of the speaker, given the chance, so it's useful if lists of
bullet points build incrementally. There's a reason why people using
OHP slides tend to blank off material until they discuss it.
The trend in my subject is short, slick, punchy talks, and
people work very hard on the quality and accessibility of their
presentations.
> In fact, I've only ever seen one use of presentation graphics that was
> truly effective and that was very subtle. All it was was slightly
> toning down the bullet points that were not actively being discussed.
> It helped to keep both the talk and discussion focussed, and yet it
> didn't draw attention to itself. Very nice, very effective. And
> utterly the exception to the rule (misusing the phrase horribly. :^)
I agree, this is the proper way to use this type of software. The
good news is that there exist postprocessor packages that allow you to
do this sort of thing in Latex, if you use PDF/Acrobat.
--
Stephen Cornell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel/fax +44-1223-336644
University of Cambridge, Zoology Department, Downing Street, CAMBRIDGE CB2 3EJ
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.security,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,alt.conspiracy.area51
Subject: Re: MS caught breaking web sites
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 01:40:32 +1000
"Rasputin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Scott Zielinski wrote:
> > > If its a "NT replacement" is not on the desktop. In the real world,
NT is
> > > not a desktop OS.
> > That's absolutly, completely, untrue. Ever hear of "NT Workstation?" If
> > that isn't a desktop OS....
>
> A 'desktop OS' boots in less than 5 minutes. A 'desktop OS' takes less
> than 5 minutes to shut down. Nuff said.
Thus easily allowing NT to be a "desktop OS".
If you've got an NT *Workstation* install that's taking that long to boot
and shut down, you have serious problems.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: i cant blieve you people!!
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 27 Apr 2000 15:43:22 GMT
In <8e7m4j$n6v$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Brian Langenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
|In comp.os.linux.advocacy Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
|
|
|: "David D. Huff Jr." wrote:
|:|
|:| There should be parties in the streets! BillG should also be tried for
|:| crimes against humanity. Because of his blind ideology to put every one out
|:| of business with HIS vision of the future. Thank God, that this type of
|:| global tyranny was stopped!
|
|: Absolutely.
|
|: The nerd is a megalomaniac.
|
|True nerddom requires technical saavy.
|Linus and Alan can be nerds if they so desire.
|But Bill Gates? He's just a magalomaniac that *looks* like a nerd.
|
|Calling BillG a nerd is an insult to nerds everywhere...
Absolutely true; except, Gates doesn't look like a nerd, he looks
like some unwashed street people in an expensive suit.
Guido
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Subject: Re: YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY-LINUX IS CRAP-WIN2K RULEZ!!!!!!!!!
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 15:43:25 GMT
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 20:30:12 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>IBM DUMPS STOCK....SURPRIZE..THEY NO HOW STINKY LINUX IS..LINUX IS LIKE
>THE BUILD IT YOURSELF ARTIFICIAL HEART...YOU'LL BE DEAD BEFORE IT IS
>BUILT.
>
>WIN 2K IS GOING TO WALK ALL OVER STINK LINUX.
>
>YOU FOLKS ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE REAL LIFE. HEVEN NO'S WITH IDIOTS
>LIKE
>THE MISERABLE CLOWN TERRY RUNNING THE SHOW. HE SOUNDS LIKE HE NEEDS A
>CLUE STICK..
>
>LINUX SUCKS.
>
>LINUX KILLS HARD DRIVES.
>
>LINUX IS A CULT.
>
>LINUX HAS NO GRAPHICS.
>
>\LINUNX HAS NO APPLICATIONS.
>
>**********WARNING DONT RUN LINUX IT WILL KILL YOUR
>SYSTEM****************
>
>
>LINUX BLOWS THE BIG SNAKE....
>
>BILL GATES IS MY HERO.
>
Ignorant statements; like being a bad fuck you don't know any better;
all upper case; valleygirl vocabulary. Not bad. You get a trollscore of
6 out of 10.
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What else is hidden in MS code???
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 01:49:28 +1000
"Mr. Rupert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Christopher Smith wrote:
> >
> > "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > > >>Proof for this conclusion ?
> > >
> > > The issue here is probability. We know that Microsoft is fussy
> > > about piracy. We know that Microsoft reserves the right to legally
> > > check the license status via the internet. You wave your right
> > > to such privacy in the EULA.
> >
> > All companies are fussy about piracy.
> >
> > > In the last chapter of "the road ahead"
> > > Gates states empirically that "if you use a PC to access the Internet,
> > > you forfeit your right to privacy.
> >
> > If you buy goods using anything except cash, you also forfeit your right
to
> > privacy. Your point ?
>
>
> The point is very clear: with Open Source you can access the Internet and
still
> maintain your privacy; with Microsoft software you can access the Internet
and
> forfeit your privacy.
Please explain how "accessing the net and still maintaining privacy" is any
more possible with OSS.
> If I prefer privacy on the Internet then my choice of OSs and software is
clear.
To you maybe. Personally I can't see the difference.
> Call me old fashioned, but I still enjoy the concept of privacy.
I enjoy the concept of it as well. I'm not stupid enough to believe it
truly exists anymore, however.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: "Technical" vs. "Non-technical"... (was Re: Grasping perspective...)
Date: 27 Apr 2000 10:45:50 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 06:43:31 GMT, s_Ea_DAag0n <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>On 26 Apr 2000 11:19:12 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>According to Alan Cox:
>>>
>>> "All network I/O is asynchronously buffered. There is no need for
>>> asynchronous I/O in kernel space. glibc 2.1 provides the full POSIX
>>> real time asynchronous I/O API entirely in user space built on
>>> clone(). Thats another chunk of code we don't have to put in the OS
>>> kernel for no actual performance change."
>>
>>This API, though, is just that: an API. It implements the POSIX interface
>>for asynchronous I/O, as having a separate thread for each device. This
>>is not scalable as for a large number of devices as it is expensive to
>>have a large number of threads.
>
> ...that's really quite funny.
>
> Unix is BUILT on the notion of having an absurd number of process,
> a typically more expensive unit of concurrency than a thread. The
> notion that something wouldn't scale due to 'too many threads' is
> rather bizarre on it's face.
Actually it is correct, and posix threads only guarantees 64 threads
per process too. However, Linux process are fairly lightweight
anyway so it just doesn't become an issue for the typical
case where the machine can deal with a connection per user or
things like web servers where connections are made and broken
per hit (or time out on keepalives). The only time it becomes
an issue is when the machine is providing some extremely trivial
service (like a real-time chat) and wants to deal with thousands
of connected users. NT does have async i/o, but in fact what
they recommend instead (and use in sql server, etc.) is something
else called 'completion ports' which turns out to be, ummm, non-trivial
to make robust.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: What else is hidden in MS code???
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 01:54:29 +1000
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8e9jg9$p0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <8e8cbr$21m$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:8e89f6$jhk$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > In article <8e5msp$k22$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > > >>Proof for this conclusion ?
> > >
> > > The issue here is probability. We know that Microsoft is fussy
> > > about piracy. We know that Microsoft reserves the right to legally
> > > check the license status via the internet. You wave your right
> > > to such privacy in the EULA.
> >
> > All companies are fussy about piracy.
>
> It's just that Microsoft goes to some pretty unusual lengths.
Such as ?
> When you install Windows 9x, it asks you if you want free upgrade
> information - Microsoft can check the registrations and software
> serial numbers along with version numbers and tell you when you need
> to apply a patch. Even if you say NO, that you don't want upgrades,
> Microsoft can still read your hard drive. This "piracy checking"
> software has the capability to read any file and the registry.
Can != do. Do you have a point, or just more theories that belong in the X
files ?
Also please detail as to how a company like Redhat could not do the exact
same thing with any of the multitudes of services that are installed on
redhat systems.
Any piece of software *can* read details about your system and send them
back to whomever it pleases. Software that *actually* does this is far more
relevant.
> When Windows 95 first came out, engineers put sniffers on the
> net to figure out why desktops were sending traffic between 1:00 A.M.
> and 4:00 A.M. local time. Furthermore, this traffic was going
> via UDP (thus bypassing firewalls).
Oh, details please. *Verifiable* ones preferably.
> > > In the last chapter of "the road ahead"
> > > Gates states empirically that "if you use a PC
> > > to access the Internet,
> > > you forfeit your right to privacy.
> >
> > If you buy goods using anything except cash,
> > you also forfeit your right to
> > privacy. Your point ?
>
> But Bill went on to elaborate.
I'm sure he did, but it's a long time since I read the book and I don't
remember.
> Furthermore, Microsoft has
> reserved the right to any information contained on a Windows
> enabled PC. On the flip side, Microsoft insists on nondisclosure
> agreements whenever it discovers a pirate.
Again, details please.
> Microsoft has gained substantial equity interests in companies
> without giving anything of significant value (stock swaps, cash)
> using insider information that any broker would kill to get.
Details, once again.
Do you *ever* back up your claims with verifiable proof ? I ask only
because I've never actually seen you do it.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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