Article
As I was parusing Kero5hin, I came accross a great article. It is a public apology to the Linux world for getting RMS on the GNU/Linux kick. Funny read http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/8/1/04512/12614 C-Ya, Kenny -- Tact is just *not* saying true stuff -- Cordelia Chase Kenneth E. Lussier Sr. Systems Administrator Zuken, USA PGP KeyID CB254DD0 http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0xCB254DD0 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Article
Maybe we should call it: G/linl - Gnu/linux is not linux. That should clear up all the confusion ;) -Andy Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: As I was parusing Kero5hin, I came accross a great article. It is a public apology to the Linux world for getting RMS on the GNU/Linux kick. Funny read http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/8/1/04512/12614 C-Ya, Kenny -- Tact is just *not* saying true stuff -- Cordelia Chase Kenneth E. Lussier Sr. Systems Administrator Zuken, USA PGP KeyID CB254DD0 http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0xCB254DD0 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Article
Hi, When RMS started the campaign, I thought it was a big pain in the butt. On the other hand, I did agree that the work that the FSF and others (XFree86, KDE, etc.) was getting lost in the commotion about Linux. While I still tend to call the OS Linux, now I mention the FSF and the other groups much more than I used to mention them. So his campaign worked, to a large extent. GNU/maddog -- = Jon maddog Hall Executive Director Linux International(SM) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. (SM)Linux International is a service mark of Linux International, Inc. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Article
On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, at 4:26pm, Jon Hall wrote: So his campaign worked, to a large extent. Unfortunately, his campaign also alienated a lot of (potential) supporters. I have to wonder if he didn't end up with a net loss. -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Article on the Oregonian on schools moving to Linux
Aggressive 'random audits' during the sales process may be leading schools away from MS. :) http://makeashorterlink.com/?G1F5469E * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Help getting an IEEE article
Hi all, I need to get an article in the March, 2002, vol. 35 #3 issue of the IEEE Computer journal. The name of the article is: Self Organization and Identification of Web Communities authors: Flake, Lawrence, Giles, Coetzee My wife needs this for a paper she's writing, but neither of us have an IEEE membership. Would someone out there who does have an IEEE membership be able to provide me with this article in some electronic format? From the looks of the site, a PDF is available, but you must be a member. I'd (rather, my wife would) really appreciate any help. Thanks, -- Paul Lussier Senior Systems and Network Engineer Co-Chairman, Greater New Hampshire Linux User's Group (GNHLUG) Chairman, Nashua Chapter GNHLUG http://www.gnhlug.org Events: http://www.gnhlug.org/lug_cal/month.php * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
linux article
I love it when this type of thing shows up on MSnbc :) http://www.msnbc.com/news/718622.asp -- Seeya, Paul * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: linux article
It would be irresponsible to entrust the work of Parliament to closed-source software. Jorg Tauss, Deputy for the Social Democrats, when asked about switching the Parliments MS servers to Linux Nice quote! Rich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I love it when this type of thing shows up on MSnbc :) http://www.msnbc.com/news/718622.asp -- Seeya, Paul * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: linux article
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, [EMAIL PROTECTED] hath spake thusly: I love it when this type of thing shows up on MSnbc :) http://www.msnbc.com/news/718622.asp The thing that I find interesting is how many of the details they flubbed. For example, the K Desktop Environment will finally be released this spring... I guess that wasn't KDE that our users were using all along. Wonder what the hell it was... Also, Evidently Microsoft convinced the German Parliament to continue using Windows NE. I wasn't aware they had such a product. - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8hSLEdjdlQoHP510RAtTdAJ42THkcajyOazukcun+AYoxPNPtqQCgo/iR rgFK/aLrQH+WXnKOegP7Ypw= =rfor -END PGP SIGNATURE- * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: linux article
WINDOWS.NE - Windows Not Enough. On 5 Mar 2002 at 14:55, Derek D. Martin wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, [EMAIL PROTECTED] hath spake thusly: I love it when this type of thing shows up on MSnbc :) http://www.msnbc.com/news/718622.asp The thing that I find interesting is how many of the details they flubbed. For example, the K Desktop Environment will finally be released this spring... I guess that wasn't KDE that our users were using all along. Wonder what the hell it was... Also, Evidently Microsoft convinced the German Parliament to continue using Windows NE. I wasn't aware they had such a product. - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8hSLEdjdlQoHP510RAtTdAJ42THkcajyOazukcun+AYoxPNPtqQCgo/iR rgFK/aLrQH+WXnKOegP7Ypw= =rfor -END PGP SIGNATURE- * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Director Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: linux article
- Original Message - From: Derek D. Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 2:55 PM Subject: Re: linux article Also, Evidently Microsoft convinced the German Parliament to continue using Windows NE. I wasn't aware they had such a product. Yes, it's the Windows Nonexistent Edition. It doesn't do much, but they finally fixed all the security holes! Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: linux article
Good one! I like that... JFeole Yes, it's the Windows Nonexistent Edition. It doesn't do much, but they finally fixed all the security holes! Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Mike: Thanks for replying to this user while I've been busy. RABNUD: I'm sorry for taking so long to reply, but this is the first chance I've had to write a proper reponse. Also, it looks like Mike, (one of our more, ummm, shall we say direct members) has replied accurately and succinctly. I'm sorry if he offended you by the tone of his response - he probably places more importance in accurate speech than on being politically correct. However, please don't take this as GNHLUG leadership apologizing on behalf of a member - I'm not. We all have to stand by what we say and do, and if people don't like it, then the speaker/doer has a learning opportunity. But on to the substance of your message... The web site was created so that people who are more comfortable with the web than with mailing lists can participate in the group - an attempt to open a channel to a wider audience for promoting Linux in New Hampshire. Your difficulty with the web site (and the mailing list discussion) is making me re-think this approach. Perhaps the group isn't ready for public exposure, perhaps the audience isn't ready for the technical discussions (and attendent politics). I'm not yet ready to take the news site down, (a sample of just one isn't sufficient to make me do that), but I am now more enlightened as to the difficulties newbies have with Linux (and the culture that produced it). As to the deleted messages and censorship - I'm the only administrator for the news site, and I haven't deleted any of your comments. And I assure you that no one is censoring the site - let alone having permissions to! I am disturbed that content may be mysteriously disappearing and will continue keeping an eye out (both for a replacement package and for bugs in the existing package). There's also the possiblity that you merely haven't exposed all of the comments - use the Flat or Nested display of comments (instead of the default of Thread) - the selection box is at the end of the article when you click Read More. And remember to click Refresh. To address some of your issues: In the defense of fellow Newbies, though, we get easily led in a hundred directions by the various support avenues which come with Linux: Believe it or not - I, as a computer user having had way too much exposure to proprietary and closed support systems, prefer the Linux way much more than the alternatives. Granted, its frustrating for newbies, but its better than no answer or worse, the wrong answer. At least with several references and a bit of time, I can puzzle through things - and with access to the sources - I can determine exactly what the problem is. That is not possible with any proprietary system I've ever been exposed to (with the possible exception of some military systems). In short - I'd rather be deluged with vague information (and have the source handy) than be authoratively told the wrong thing. There's also a hidden benefit - one learns a lot on the way to figuring out how to make something work. If you don't like the hundred directions, then you can always buy support - just like with the Linux alternatives. But if you want all of your questions pre-answered then you're headed for disappointment - not just with Linux, but with any and all software products. Just keep in mind that Linux really doesn't make anyone much money - a lot of people do it just because they're so frustrated with the alternatives - and the price is right. Holding the hands of newbies cost money - and newbies are notorious for not wanting to pay - which is part of the reason there aren't many companies providing free software support for any software product! By the way, I don't mean to imply that Linux is perfect just as it is - far from it! But I know its not perfect and accept it. Just like people who buy used cars with dents in them - its worth the savings in money and aggravation of buying new cars (which I used to do). But I'm an old hand and young newbies never listen to us old-timers anyway... ;-) I guess the younger crowd just likes the pain of learning the same lessons we did :^| They get online and get into the forum and there they find fellow newbies posting forum answers!!! But you've considered this elsewhere, right? Right: the next avenue is/was to include HTML based help documents along with the distro. All is local, problem solved... Oops, dopey newbie... I forgot to install Lynx... and X is crashed ... That is what I and fellow newbies call no help. Ulitmately, this amounts to obfuscation! Humm. It sounds like you got lazy in doing installs, and probably started with a few of the cheaper Linux distros. Yes, its aggravating when an install fails - but you can't tell me you haven't had similar problems with the competition (unless you've never done an install or a major OS update before). But in your defense, I have to admit that even quality distros like RedHat, SuSE
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Err, there are no moderators on this mailing listmaking private replies impossibleShaheen''s email forgery law in NH made email without a valid reply address illegal in NH Sigh again, assumes I sent an email to someone/somelist, which I have already explained I did not: I posted via a web page comment section, the webmaster needs to address your concerns. Remember, I''m a newbie: quoting chapter and verse of the Local governmental legislation, omniscient tradition or staid unix law will serve only to instill fears - welcome to Linux, you good for nothing #$%. In fact, as I review the article, I see that many of my comments no longer remain (though a few do remain). I post, but they are removed by someone with administrative privileges. Mike: this does not alarm me very much: someone is interested in presenting a certain point of view with my words; that someone is not me, but someone else. As do you wish to present a certain view. I take the chance that my view gets through the editing process. Should you wish to offer a personal reply, one which is *relevant* to my initial post, I''ll make it plain and simple for you [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, that is correct and is not mangled in any fashion. Be kind: temper your emails, you already appear quite heavy handed. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
In a message dated: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 18:54:38 EST Ray Bowles said: Somebody keeps saying it's been done this way for 30 years...Well maybe it's time to update SOME things. Ray, you seem to have completely misunderstood everything everyone has said, at least on this side of the argument. This guy came saying he was looking for something which we told him doesn't exist. At no point did anyone say that This is the way it's been for 30 years, and that's the way it has to be forever! Not once! We have pointed out the long history of why Linux is the way it is, how it got to be that way, and pointed to several alternatives which fit *all* the criteria this person was asking for, just not necessarilly in the nice neat little package he requested it in. What he asked for just simply doesn't exist. That doesn't mean it can't or it won't, just that it doesn't now. And, chances are, you won't get many veteran UNIX users to work on such a project. Why? Because we don't need it and we have better things to do with our time. If this thing comes about at all, it will be because those who need it decide to band together and develop it themselves, just like everything else that already exists in the Free/Open Source software world. We are not at all against welcoming new people to the Linux community. Quite the contrary, we welcome with open arms. But we also warn them, this isn't Windows, this isn't point 'n' click, and you're likely to spend many hours with a computer that does nothing more than power on, so get ready for the learning roller-coaster ride of your life. What we do not welcome is people coming in and telling us that because something *they* want should be welcomed by everyone and that we should all get excited about *their* ideas because *they* want it! Sorry, life doesn't work that way. I'm sorry some people have a problem reading a book. I'm sorry some people get frustrated with the fact that Linux isn't as easy to use as Windows *appears* to be. But unless you're willing to learn using the *currently* available methods, then stop your whining. We've told you that what you're asking for doesn't exist, we've told you what *does* exist, and we've offered more than once to help you understand those things you're having trouble on. What more do you want? Sorry for the rant, but your stubborness and obtuseness are beginning to get to me. -- Seeya, Paul God Bless America! If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around, and we never stop trying to be better. Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Paul Lussier wrote: What he asked for just simply doesn't exist. That doesn't mean it can't or it won't, just that it doesn't now. [...] If this thing comes about at all, it will be because those who need it decide to band together and develop it themselves NOW we're getting somewhere... just like everything else that already exists in the Free/Open Source software world. Aha. Some Give to go with the Gimme. I'm sorry some people have a problem reading a book. [Yikes.] We've told you that what you're asking for doesn't exist, we've told you what *does* exist, and we've offered more than once to help you understand those things you're having trouble on. I was serious about being an Elmer, about receiving a telephone call and arranging to help out in person. (I suspect I could drag others in to help if necessary, too. Right?) This is something I believe the group is very good at, and is a primary reason for the group to exist. Linux IS too frustrating and time-consuming sometimes, and not just for newbies. The phone has been silent. What more do you want? Perhaps he wants to be a manager? :) -Bill * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Thanks for posting this Mike - I've been waiting for some of the regular
subscribers to at least mention the web site (visit and offering to
help maintain it would be nice too).
I just posted some FAQs to the news web site that might answer
some of your questions. (I chose to point out the reflection of mailing
list messages as a FAQ instead of a top message block.)
The duplicating quotes is the bain of my existence right now - If
someone can figure out how to stop is (and keep PHP's MagicQuotes off),
I'd sure like to know!
The 'outlook/AOL style' of enclosing quoted text between '' and
'' must be coming from the software that converts HTML to plain text.
(That people on the mailing list wanted). I haven't noticed it (or at
least am not annoyed by it) in the email messages I received.
I believe you might have some questions as to the definition of
valid reply address in NH's email forgery law - which I believe
isn't law yet. Because all the postings do have valid reply addresses -
but I suspect you want the reply address to go back to the original author.
I believe there's enough information in the site's database to do that
(and still protect us from spamming email harvesters), its just a matter
of writing the code to do it. I wrote the original mailing list
porting code, but I don't have time anymore to enhance it to provide
this feature. Either someone gets to relieve me of my GNHLUG duties to
free up some time to do this, or I can send someone the code and they
can work on it. Volunteers anyone?
--Bruce
mike ledoux wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
On Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 11:36:57AM -0500, RABNUD wrote:
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is:
Howdy!
Let me say right off that the moderators will certainly edit this post -
with a huge grin!!
Err, there are no moderators on this mailing list. The website you're
using to post is really a gateway to the existing mailing list for GNHLUG.
Perhaps this could be made more clear on the website? Right now there
seems to be no indication at all that posts to the website get gatewayed
to the mailing list.
There is no shortage of printed material at
any self respecting bookstore on any particular flavor/distro of LinuxIt
would certainly be nice if there was some magical place/programbut as
with all other things
in life, with knowledge comes power
would never have attempted to
change the head gasket in my father''s engine without some
understandingdigestabilityfine manuals can make all the difference
The web-mail gateway seems to be duplicating quotes (') again.
Also, this 'outlook/AOL style' of enclosing quoted text between ''
and '' is obnoxious. I can't tell if it is the web-mail gateway or
'RABNUD' that is doing it, since I've only noticed it in 'his' (wild
guess, since I don't have a name) messages. Whichever it is, please
switch to the standard method of leading quoted lines with ' '.
Last thing, these web-mail gateway posts are still all coming from the
same address, making private replies impossible. I seem to recall that
one of the provisions of Shaheen's email forgery law in NH made email
without a valid reply address illegal in NH, but I can't find a reference
for that at the moment. Finding information about NH laws online
is painful.
- --
[EMAIL PROTECTED] OpenPGP KeyID 0x57C3430B
Holder of Past Knowledge CS, O-
Put your wasted CPU cycles to use: http://www.distributed.net/
No, this was *designed* to move heavy things. Kenny Lussier
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Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
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Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
In a message dated: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 12:23:50 EST Derek D. Martin said: And how could I forget to mention Evi Nemeth's wonderful Unix System Administration Handbook which now covers Linux (but focuses on Red Hat). She will soon be releasing a Linux-specific version of the book as well, though it's still being reviewed now, so it may be a while before it's out. :) Actually they're pushing for a March release date. I have the last chapter for review in my hands, and it needs to go back tomorrow :) We'll see. It promises to be the best version to date of this age old favorite! -- Seeya, Paul God Bless America! If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around, and we never stop trying to be better. Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
*** On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 at 1:34pm RABNUD shared this with the class:: and he watches the gears spin. Psst: (whisper) they just learned something and quietly gained confidence in the cli aspect of Linux . I don't know you from a hole in the wall, but you have got to be the smartest person on this LUG right now. I completely agree with what you are saying and may it's a next generation (young) Linux user thing, but this is deffinately something that is needed. Gone are the days of sitting for hours trying to figure out everything on your own. Today people (and their kids) want things a bit quicker than that. Their not looking for people to do things for them but their looking to learn it faster than their elders. Somebody keeps saying it's been done this way for 30 years...Well maybe it's time to update SOME things. Not everythin! We're not Yoda and newbies aren't trying to learn how to control the force. This crap about 30 year old concepts need to change if we want more people to use linux and use it better than us. Think where you would be today if you had a P4 2GHZ machine running and distro and better help from people and some sort of help system like the one being described here. My 2 (canadian)cents Ray -- Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Howdy! Let me say right off that the moderators will certainly edit this post - with a huge grin!! (Hints of an online message forum leap to the fore) There is no shortage of printed material at any self respecting bookstore on any particular flavor/distro of LinuxIt would certainly be nice if there was some magical place/programbut as with all other things in life, with knowledge comes power would never have attempted to change the head gasket in my father''s engine without some understandingdigestabilityfine manuals can make all the difference Hmmm You seem pretty wise ;-), Which is the finest manual? * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Every manual is fine. Some are just finer than others ;) -Mike- --- RABNUD [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Howdy! Let me say right off that the moderators will certainly edit this post - with a huge grin!! (Hints of an online message forum leap to the fore) There is no shortage of printed material at any self respecting bookstore on any particular flavor/distro of LinuxIt would certainly be nice if there was some magical place/programbut as with all other things in life, with knowledge comes power would never have attempted to change the head gasket in my father''s engine without some understandingdigestabilityfine manuals can make all the difference Hmmm You seem pretty wise ;-), Which is the finest manual? * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * __ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, RABNUD hath spake thusly: Sheepishly I admit - I have taken a class in Intro to Unix - I can grep, after a limited fashion, but as a user I''m still a newbie. But lets not even talk about cron, at, cups, NICs etc. Well, good documentation abounds... You say you've taken an intro to Unix class, so you've no doubt been exposed to a variety of topics, such as file manipulation commands (cp, mv, ln, etc.), one or more of the most common editors (vi, emacs, ed/ex/sed), and probably at least introduced to some of the more useful utilities (mail, grep, awk, script, etc.), right? So, what is it exactly that you want to learn NEXT? I think we can probably help you better if you give us an idea of what you're looking for... Remember, we were all newbies once. :) I can tell you how I got started with Linux. I was taking Unix System Administration at U-Mass Lowell. The instructor mentioned Linux and FreeBSD as free Unixes that we might be interested in investigating. So I admit I had a head start, in that I was already learning about how to administer Unix systems when I first began mucking with Linux. However, there were a lot of great resources, even back then. linuxdoc.org is your friend. :) look in the Guides section... therein you should find a few of the books that got me started, including Lars Werzenius's Linux System Administrators' Guide, and Linux Network Administrator's Guide by Olaf Kirsch, which you can also get in print by O'Reilly Associates, if you can find it... It may be out of print. These books are old, and you should be forewarned that some of the information there may be a little out of date. For the most part though, administering Unix-like systems, Linux included, hasn't really changed all that much on a fundamental level, in the 30 years it's been around. There are a few other guides there that you might find helpful, though I'm not familiar with any of the others. In print, you might also look for I'Reilly's Running Linux and/or Linux Unleashed which I think is a SAMS publication, but I'm not sure. These are both pretty good, though in areas where they are distribution-specific, they tend to cover Red Hat. Since it sounds like you're running Mandrake, you might instead look for a Mandrake-oriented book. I don't run Mandrake, and haven't been in the market for a Linux system admin type book for quite some time, so I can't really comment on what might be more appropriate in that regard. Hope that helps. - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8aqAGdjdlQoHP510RAja9AJ9fCP+Yww3GLN3vJ6eFNZv02o94TQCeKRHt C4GlHBrxPQenmnZrifL6hpY= =hPLs -END PGP SIGNATURE- * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: you only type what they tell you toRunning a Linux box means you are your own sysadmin. This is something that you don''t get so much with some other operating systemsyou will inevitably have to understand the response from man tar.But I still think the attempt to assemble a document/executable program that goes over every fine detail of starting out in Linux is unreasonableWhereas books don''t require X or a mouse and you can access them offline 100% of the time. From what I recall of the article, they fit all of the author''s needs. I tried to include a controlled minimum CLI for the newbie to use to get it all started (wink wink)! Seriously, though, M$ hates giving PC users a choice, demonstrated many times over. That has both conditioned PC users and has restricted them from twiddling the clockworks - good and bad. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, Derek D. Martin hath spake thusly: I'm not familiar with any of the others. In print, you might also look for I'Reilly's Running Linux and/or Linux Unleashed which I think is a SAMS publication, but I'm not sure. And how could I forget to mention Evi Nemeth's wonderful Unix System Administration Handbook which now covers Linux (but focuses on Red Hat). She will soon be releasing a Linux-specific version of the book as well, though it's still being reviewed now, so it may be a while before it's out. :) - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8aqEldjdlQoHP510RAt4QAJ95dX19s6zc9btnw03U4YIWVffpagCeNFFt uwvUmKeXvKXKlRCrVsRq5eY= =WKKW -END PGP SIGNATURE- * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Installed Linuxes 40 times. Success (relative success) only came via GUI installs: Slackware once got to 640 x 480 1 bit color, and since I wasn''t already an X Expert Back to Mandrake 8.1 I went. Before I went back to Mandrake, no CLI help system was worth anything. Which man do I want? No index. Drat. man 8? man? man Xf86Config? man XF86config? MAN XFree86? man xf86Config? man XDM? then when I read whatever man was the right one... Huh, I wanted man S3Server? No index. No sensible structure. Obfuscation (sorry, thats my word of the day). By the time I got done reading the wrong man pages, I saw an hour had passed my install takes only 15 minutes more than that hour, and at least that was functional. You need to teach us administration and must wean us into it gently. The local folder/floppy concept could be very usefu, there. You think Windows Help system is useful? It may be THERE, but there''s nothing substantive in it, so what good is it?My solution: get someone to help you install the thing at least! President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES I am newbie - you are evidently not. Once you learn the cli, it''s all so very simple? Nah. The common home desktop PC user knows nothing about which man page tells them the solution to their problem. And they have not one single clue about cli. No knowledge. No clues. No indices. Really - is it that my request is out of line? A simple index browser? Or maybe a non gui based browser which can load rescue docs, or can surf linkable help structures.. But still a cli device. If RPM can have a dependancy tree, and HTML can link, make the dependancy tree concept linkable. Yeah, I know there are higher end apps for this, but we are crashed, remember? No X, no cli familiarity either. I know it can be done!! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Try launching a cli email client when you don''t know one exists, try connecting to a POP3 server when you think POP is a drink, try printing email messages when the xserver is down and you never printed from a DOS prompt most M$ people I know can''t run a cli. A minimal system should still provide help for a newbie, IMHO, but diffing anf grepping are learned skills; the wet-behind-the-ears newbie shouldn''t need to already know that when he needs help for the first crash. Yes, you can expect them to remember a certain directory (ahem Folder) and a certain command Helpcrashed. Something which tells them if you have crashed X, load this document (doc name here) and there you read: to reinstall X, you type: tar -xzvf X.3_22.tar Whatever - I''m a newbie.. Then the user drops to a cli or switches terminals and tar -xzvf X.3_22.tar and he watches the gears spin. Psst: (whisper) they just learned something and quietly gained confidence in the cli aspect of Linux . * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: They''ve worked great for over 30 yearsAt one time I was a newbie and didn''t have a clue about Unix, but I got through by reading man pages, asking questions on mailing lists and usenet, and surfing the web. And behind you there was a functional (not crashed) system!!! The common home desktop PC user has a crashed box when they need help!! These people are GUI only, and when the GUI is down, or the Internet access is trashed, what next? M$ says: Reinstall me!! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
RABNUD wrote: A minimal system should still provide help for a newbie The first time I surreptitiously sat down at a VMS screen, the only command I could think to type was 'help'. And the response was so complete that I instantly fell in love. Theretofore my experience with online assistants had been with those afforded by NOS and a lobotomised PDP-15. -- #kenP-)} Ken Coar, Sanagendamgagwedweinini http://Golux.Com/coar/ Author, developer, opinionist http://Apache-Server.Com/ Millennium hand and shrimp! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: I''ll toss around ideas with anyone, or walk them through an install or whatever ... but I won''t make it sound easy. It isn''t. But it''s doable, and it can become easier. It''s just more different than they expected - because it''s better. :) All this resistance to creating a cli based help/educate/rescue document browser? Never mind, I like the GUI idea better where is that Win98 install CD. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Ah! thats fine, I just got confused since the 2 LUGs webpages share a common GUI. Fortunately, I had registered here/there (where am I??) a few weeks ago, so I could also reply *there*. BTW: Newbies would know the difference between the 2 sites? Would not be confused by the common GUI? Would know that they had even switched sites??? One Logo is the whole visual difference! The things I gotta do to make the world safe and friendly for my beloved fellow newbies. LOL!! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: Getting warmer! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
I think you're missing the point. There are always people around to help out in a crisis (this list is a perfect example). If your system is crashed and you are a newbie, you're probably going to have to get an expert to help. I don't think that you will find that, for example, X will always crash for a single reason or that even reinstalling it will necessarily solve what is wrong. Therefore, even a command line help/educate/rescue document browser probably won't be the sort of help you seem to belive it to be because it would have to contain an IMMENSE amount of information that the new user would have to sift through, and then we're back to the man tar example - too much information. I just think premise behind your proposal has flaws, sorry. -Mike- --- RABNUD [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: I''ll toss around ideas with anyone, or walk them through an install or whatever ... but I won''t make it sound easy. It isn''t. But it''s doable, and it can become easier. It''s just more different than they expected - because it''s better. :) All this resistance to creating a cli based help/educate/rescue document browser? Never mind, I like the GUI idea better where is that Win98 install CD. = Michael Costolo - This New England email is brought to you by the letter R. __ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: what is it exactly that you want to learn NEXT?I can tell you how I got started with Linux. I was taking Unix System Administrationadministering Unix-like systems, Linux included, hasn''t really changed all that much on a fundamental level, in the 30 years it''s been around. And for the last 8 years, this (and other M$) newbie has seen only GUI, and only from M$. *nix vs M$ is 2 vastly different worlds, and admin is not allowed over there. Newbies do not know they need to read about something like this. Get my suggested help structure working teach us at the CLI, use brain dead launch commands... load a document, then first teach CLI skills, then load another document, teach rescue skills, then backup, then... All at a minimal kernel, floppy based level. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: This list is only accessed by a box which can surf, a crashed box usually requires expert skill to surf - you got that far... But lets not lose track of the goal because step 2 fails... we need only 2 more steps!! Where does this concept fail Is it off by megabytes or off by gigabytes? I''m thinking a few megabytes gets even X back to going, and as newbies expect reinstallation (as would I), then the megabytes of X resurrecting documents reduces to a few k bytes of backup/restore/ reinstall branching. That means we need to consider whether it would be better to teach us newbies (via the help/rescue/educate gizmo) how to backup critical config documents (to floppy) first, then teach us to rescue the crashed box based on restoring those dreaded backups. Yup, thats within *nix'' ability. And... that kind of help could take place without much effort on the help/rescue mechanism, surely! Admittedly, it requires diligence on the part of the newbie to even backup anything in the first place. but it might actually work! Making a tar or gzip of key config files, then saving them to floppies what a concept!!! First lesson in rescuing via backups would thus be to, um drive the point home when the newbie rescues their crashed OS on the very first restore! The help/rescue/educate mechanism whets their appetite with a few easy lessons in teaching them tarring or bzipping skills at the cli. I really like it! Good Idea! What would you suggest next?? Don''t let me scare you away!! I''ll trust a forum once more ;-) Gotta run. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Newbie article...
In a message dated: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 18:37:41 EST Bill Sconce said: Truly so. And the man pages have no index; Why do people keep saying this? Has no one ever used 'whatis', 'apropos', or 'man -k'? What more of an index do you need? I'm not trying to be a pain the butt, condescending, or arrogant, but everything you need for the most part is there in the man pages. If those don't do it for you, there are countless books out there, many of them on-line via the web, and almost as many on the very installation CDs for your distro (all viewable under ANY OS ). It's already been stated that Linux, as a UNIX variant, is not Windows or MacOS. It's not the good old days of DOS 2.0 where there were only a dozen or so commands. This is a real, live, honest to goodness, muti-tasking, mutli-user operating systems which has been developed over a period of 30 YEARS! How can anyone realisticly expect to wrap their head around all of that in a short period of time? I'm sorry, it can't be done. I feel your pain as a newbie or neophyte, or novice, or newcomer to Linux. But if don't want the thrill and excitement of constant learning and mastery of an OS, then don't use it, it's that simple. The media and a lot of individuals keep asking Doesn't Linux *want* to own the desktop? Don't they *want* people to use their system?, etc. Well let me break this you, we don't really care whether you do or not. If you do, great, we'll help you. If don't, great, have a nice life with your other OS and we'll see you around. See, for many of us, Linux already owns the only desktop that matters, our own. And much past that, we don't care. We're not out to conquer the world and beat Microsoft (contrary to what the media says), we're out to get a job done. That's it, end of story. Linux helps us get that job done, whatever it is, better than Microsoft does. So, the reason you find Linux, or any UNIX variant difficult to master is because is it is. It's a complex, convoluted, contradictory amalgamation of ideas, theories, and experiments, often times gone horribly awry. It's the absolute worst environment there is for computing, except for all the rest. And we love it! Thanks, I'm done ranting now :) -- Seeya, Paul * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
In a message dated: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 19:48:49 EST Greg Kettmann said: Sorry to pipe in, but I must. The fact is that the learning / use curve of Linux, particularly compared to Windows, is very high. Yes, that's absolutely true. But look at the reason why! What were they each designed to do? Windows designed from the outset to be a SINGLE user system primarily for office suite use. Every other use of Windows is a side benefit or add-on usage. UNIXdesigned from the outset to be a multi-tasking, multi-user SERVER that can do ANYTHING. By nature you ought to expect UNIX and by extension, Linux, to be more complicated. UNIX was never meant to be a desktop OS, it was designed in the days before anyone could ever conceive of such a thing! They often lack real world examples as well. Keep in mind, 'man' stands for 'manual', which is short for Reference Manual Show me any reference manual which contains a variety of real world examples. Does Gray's Anatomy have a real world example of how to remove a kidney? No, it's a reference, that's it, plain and simple. You want real world examples, you get a HOWTO book with pictures and explanations. This can be very imposing to the new user. They're not meant for the new user, they're meant for someone who knows what they're doing, but needs a quick reference. The response well they obviously didn't read the man man is just plain stupid and completely misses the point Why? The point was if they had read the man man page it clearly explains HOW to read man pages. Had they done this, they would clearly have understood that all the options to tar that were confusing them were in fact *all* the OPTIONS to tar. Their problem directly stemmed from the fact that they didn't know HOW to read a man page, and if they had read the man man page they would now know how! Once you know HOW to read the man pages, they suddenly become your best friend, and you suddenly realize you don't need to ask a lot of questions, because ultimately, the answers are right there waiting for you. Until you learn how to read them though, you're doomed to a life of confusion and frustration. the how-to's in the LDP. The point is the average newbie doesn't have a clue about these things. That's the definition of a newbie. And that's why this list exists. Newbies come to us, and we help explain. Sure, a lot of times we'll get questions and we'll answer with read the man page. A lot of people take exception to that answer, but IMO, there's nothing wrong with it. If you're not willing to learn, then why are you here and why are you trying to use Linux? Most of the time reading the man page will solve your problem. And you know, the funny thing is, I've never seen someone go away, read the man page, come back, say, Okay, RTFM'ed and still don't get it! and not end up getting helped. Never! That's the learning experience in action. Prove you're willing to try and we'll kill ourselves trying to help you. I can't count the number of times I've seen people submit scripts for some one that I know weren't whipped up in 20 seconds. Many of us have spent hours and hours of either our own time or even our employers time trying to help newbies. But we won't lift a finger if the person doesn't prove themselves worthy of that time and effort. We experts didn't get to be experts because it was easy, we got to be experts because we persevered. If a newbie wants to become an expert, they will have to persevere as well. Now, conversely I'm not suggesting that these newbies become instant sysadmins. Absolutely there is a place, and a need, for people and documentation for those well versed in Linux. So, I understand where those with a great deal of experience are coming from. However, I've got twenty books here. See that's the problem. You have 20 books. Why do you have 20 books? What are they all on? What do you need to know that requires 20 books? You know how many books I have on Linux System administration? 1. That's it. 1 small, concise book. I have lots of other books, but none of them are critical to the administration of the system. I have books on apache, probably 8 or so on perl, a few on C, 3 on Samba, and who knows what else. You know how many I ever look at on even a monthly basis? None of them. Every now and then I'll pull one down if I have a question on a specific subject matter, but for sysadmin stuff, I have 1. And that's all you need too. I'm only a casual user of Linux and I don't use it day in and day out but I use it as often as I can. Maybe you should use it more? Way back when someone told me I needed to use Emacs. I tried to use Emacs but couldn't figure it out. I would use 'vi' for almost everything, and when I had a spare moment, I'd try to use Emacs. I never learned
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
- Original Message - From: Ken D'Ambrosio [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Rich C [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: GNHLUG [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 5:53 PM Subject: Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org On Wed, 2002-02-13 at 17:45, Rich C wrote: Right, the man pages are a reference work. That's the way I have always considered them. You don't start reading the reference section of a programmers manual to learn a new language, do you? Of course not. Man pages are NOT a help system. For the CLI, there IS NO HELP SYSTEM. It's as simple as that. Okay, I'll bite: VMS's help was good, but it wasn't like it was amazing or anything. Fairly often, I had to hit the proverbial documentation wall: that stack o' VMS manuals that took up a whole damn table. If man pages == NO HELP SYSTEM, then what *WOULD* you consider a help system? I know that MS's help, as convenient as it may be to hit F1, rarely helps me... whereas man pages usually do, and almost always point me in the right direction -- something that MS rarely does. Bottom line: what do you want for help? An AI assistant to help you with everything? If so, I've got some bad news for you... You're right, VMS's help system wasn't amazing. The thing that VMS had going for it IMO is that it had, in addition to the help system, mostly english word commands. You could do help, see a list of commands, get a pretty good idea of which one you were looking for (COPY did copying, DIRectory did a directory, BACKUP did backups.) From there you could drill down to what you wanted. With UNIX, even if you got a list of commands, which one does backups? tar? how is a newbie supposed to know that? (So then why doesn't feather do restores?) What is needed in a help system is something like what VMS had, but for subject keywords like backup, restore, copy, directory, and stuff like that. The help system doesn't really have to do much more than reference the proper command to use, and say Oh, you want to copy something? Well, if it's just a file or two, see cp. If it's an entire directory structure, see tar. If you want to copy a partition or disk, see dd. Then the man page can take over. Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, RABNUD wrote: At http://news.gnhlug.org/article.php?sid=375 is: I''ll toss around ideas with anyone, or walk them through an install or whatever ... but I won''t make it sound easy. It isn''t. But it''s doable, and it can become easier. It''s just more different than they expected - because it''s better. :) All this resistance to creating a cli based help/educate/rescue document browser? Never mind, I like the GUI idea better where is that Win98 install CD. All this resistance to actually opening a book or asking for help before tackling a task in a completely unfamiliar environment? I can see you on Christmas Eve, fussing and cussing deep into the night while steadfastly refusing to look at the directions for the bike you're assembling ... Why doesn't this part tell me where it goes? It can't possibly need all these gears, can it? ... :) -- Bill Mullen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Feb 13, 2002 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, Rich C hath spake thusly: What is needed in a help system is something like what VMS had, but for subject keywords like backup, restore, copy, directory, and stuff like that. The help system doesn't really have to do much more than reference the proper command to use, and say Oh, you want to copy something? Well, if it's just a file or two, see cp. If it's an entire directory structure, see tar. If you want to copy a partition or disk, see dd. Then the man page can take over. Linux has many examples of such help systems... They're called books and you can get it for $40 at your local Barnes Noble. I named several examples of such help systems in earlier posts. And in most cases, they actually come with Linux on a CD insert. So you don't even need to pay extra for someone else's boxed set. And, as I also said, Red Hat has pretty good manuals that cover most of what is being discussed here, including where to get more help if needed. If you buy the boxed set, you get printed copies. If you don't, they are (or at least always were) on the install CD. Whaddaya want for nothing? Seriously... In my experience, NO ONE likes writing extensive documentation, unless they're getting paid to do it. If you want professional quality documentation for your FREE operating system, you're going to have to pay for it. I really don't think that's so unreasonable. I think it's unlikely that anyone will ever spend time on such a project, because there are already numerous voluminous references available. The free software community generally works on things when it perceives a need for them, and given all that is already available in print, and on linuxdoc.org, much of which also typically ships with the distro CDs, I just don't see this happening. The documentation whose absence everyone is complaining about DOES already exist. You just need to know where to find it, and/or be willing to shell out your $40 at the book store. As for finding it, that's why groups like this exist. When did the idea of reading books become so offensive? Hell, you can probably get some of these books at your local library, and not have to fork over the $40 to own it. I will also note that I believe the real problem is that people are trying to install Linux on their system before they really spend any time investigating how to do it, and what the options are. You should already have the appropriate documentation, and read through some of it, before you ever boot the install CD. It's like buying a VCR was back 15 years ago, before anyone had seen them... or any other new technology for that matter. Yes, you can figure out how to make it work by tinkering with it, but you'll probably get really frustrated a number of times, and miss out on a whole bunch of features it has, spend way more time on it that way, than you would have if you'd just taken the time to read the manual first... Would you plan a trip to another country before investigating what there is to do and where there is to stay? The automobile analogy applies here too... you don't go out and buy a car, get your license to drive, and THEN start learning how. You learn how first, then you do it. Why is installing Linux so different for people then? If you investigate your installation options before installing for the first time, you'll find out that you don't have to wipe out your Windows partition, and so when you have a problem getting stuff to work you can just reboot into Windows, and look at docs on-line. Print out anything you think you might need, and then have another go at fixing your Linux problems. Another thought that has occured to me is that what newbies really want is for Linux to be just like that other thing they are accustomed to (whatever it might be). Well, it isn't. And it never will be. That's the point. If you don't want to take the time to learn something new, then really Linux isn't for you. And that's ok. As is often the case with Linux, the horse that is being flogged to death here is a perception/awareness/mindset problem, not one of genuine lacking. Linux is what it is; if you want to use it successfully, and you're not familiar with it, you're probably going to have to be willing to think differently about it than you've thought about other operating systems. But the answers are all there already, for the most part. - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8awPydjdlQoHP510RAn5kAKC0KExCM081wfG29z5D6F1GKHA/AwCgvm76 7Iz6ebOXLd6/p3h2jT8Db9E= =eQoW -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
What appears to be a rather frustrated newbie posted the following article at the CentraLUG web site: http://www.centralug.org/article.php?sid=37 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
*** On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 at 3:30pm Bruce Dawson shared this with the class:: What appears to be a rather frustrated newbie posted the following article at the CentraLUG web site: http://www.centralug.org/article.php?sid=37 Anyone have ideas on how to help. I think he has a decent idea. Heck, if it came down to it and someone wrote the logic I would type the content. Ray -- Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
I'm not so sure I agree. I should preface the following with the fact that, although I am not newbie, I am certainly not an expert. I think that there is something to be said for arming yourself with as much book knowledge as possible, especially when experience is lacking *before* you take on something like a new operating system. There is no shortage of printed material at any self respecting bookstore on any particular flavor/distro of Linux. Personally, I picked up a 3 inch thick book on RH 6.0 a few years ago that is still the first place I turn when I have questions or problems (and find a surprising amount of answers). Amazingly enough, it has an index, as do the vast majority of the other books you may find on bookstore shelves. It would certainly be nice if there was some magical place/program that had all of the answers, but, as evidenced by posts to this group, not even very experienced users will ever know *everything* about even a single distribution. Consequently, I suppose such a project would always be lacking. What is feasible, however, is to suggest that new users spend some real time attempting to read and understand their new system instead of just brute-forcing their way through it. Publishers such as O'Reilly take great pains to make certain that the digestability of their books meet certain standards, all for this reason. I understand the frustration of the article's author, but as with all other things in life, with knowledge comes power. I certainly would never have attempted to change the head gasket in my father's engine without some understanding of what I would be facing (Honda never even attempted to provide any information in the owner's manual). If you want to do it yourself, whether you are attempting to be your own sysadmin or car mechanic, fine manuals can make all the difference. As long as you read them... -Mike- --- Ray Bowles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: *** On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 at 3:30pm Bruce Dawson shared this with the class:: What appears to be a rather frustrated newbie posted the following article at the CentraLUG web site: http://www.centralug.org/article.php?sid=37 Anyone have ideas on how to help. I think he has a decent idea. Heck, if it came down to it and someone wrote the logic I would type the content. Ray -- Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. __ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
*** On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 at 1:36pm Michael Costolo shared this with the class:: I think that there is something to be said for arming yourself with as much book knowledge as possible, especially when experience is lacking *before* you take on something like a new operating system. There is no shortage of printed material at any self respecting bookstore on any particular flavor/distro of Linux. Personally, I picked up a 3 inch thick book on RH 6.0 a few years ago that is still the first place I turn when I have questions or problems (and find a surprising amount of answers). Amazingly enough, it has an index, as do the vast majority of the other books you may find on bookstore shelves. True on book knowledge, but sometimes knowledge is like crack. ROFL :0 you need to give a newbie a couple of freebies and eventually they can't ask you 24/7 and a book is necessary. What is feasible, however, is to suggest that new users spend some real time attempting to read and understand their new system instead of just brute-forcing their way through it. Publishers such as O'Reilly take great pains to make certain Isn't that how we all got started as kids. breaking stuff and putting it back together with help from peers? Ray -- Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Yes, I think it is how we learn. Break things, try to figure them out, and get help when you need it. But when you break something and someone else fixes it for you (you only type what they tell you to), I think you miss out on the learning experience. Running a Linux box means you are your own sysadmin. This is something that you don't get so much with some other operating systems. It's the whole give a man a fish/teach a man to fish all over again. If you really want to learn how to run Linux, you will inevitably have to understand the response from man tar. Yes it's confusing, and perhaps understanding it at day 1 is silly, but it should be fairly high on the list. Somewhere after man man. But I still think the attempt to assemble a document/executable program that goes over every fine detail of starting out in Linux is unreasonable. Whereas books don't require X or a mouse and you can access them offline 100% of the time. From what I recall of the article, they fit all of the author's needs. -Mike- --- Ray Bowles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: *** On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 at 1:36pm Michael Costolo shared this with the class:: I think that there is something to be said for arming yourself with as much book knowledge as possible, especially when experience is lacking *before* you take on something like a new operating system. There is no shortage of printed material at any self respecting bookstore on any particular flavor/distro of Linux. Personally, I picked up a 3 inch thick book on RH 6.0 a few years ago that is still the first place I turn when I have questions or problems (and find a surprising amount of answers). Amazingly enough, it has an index, as do the vast majority of the other books you may find on bookstore shelves. True on book knowledge, but sometimes knowledge is like crack. ROFL :0 you need to give a newbie a couple of freebies and eventually they can't ask you 24/7 and a book is necessary. What is feasible, however, is to suggest that new users spend some real time attempting to read and understand their new system instead of just brute-forcing their way through it. Publishers such as O'Reilly take great pains to make certain Isn't that how we all got started as kids. breaking stuff and putting it back together with help from peers? Ray -- Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. __ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Interesting. Very common set of problems. The real problem is this: What the heck is a newbie doing attempting to install a complex operating system? Many new distros, particularly Red Hat and Mandrake, have very nice GUI installation programs that work wonderfully, and install automatically WHEN THEY WORK. The end result is a completely installed OS that can now be used by the newbie to learn Linux (Mandrake puts many links on the desktop to get help, from help files for the desktop environment, to help on the web, to browsers for man pages.) But when they DON'T work, you're screwed unless you know what you are doing. The real issue is that the newbie COULDN'T INSTALL the OS, not that he couldn't use it. What happens if a Windows installation bombs? Well, if the GUI doesn't work because of a bad configuration or screwy drivers, guess what? There IS NO COMMAND LINE to fall back on. He is dead in the water (maybe he starts in safe mode, which is a waste because NOTHING WORKS in safe mode and you can't see any of your configuration settings in safe mode.) OK, what if it boots, and you can actually see a desktop, but some piece of hardware like your modem or printer doesn't work? You think Windows Help system is useful? It may be THERE, but there's nothing substantive in it, so what good is it? You still either a) need to be an expert, or b) need a book, or c) need to call your computer geek friend to help you. If every computer came with Linux installed, and the Windows users had to wipe the disk and install their favorite OS, the tables would be turned, I assure you. My solution: get someone to help you install the thing at least! Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com - Original Message - From: Bruce Dawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 3:30 PM Subject: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org What appears to be a rather frustrated newbie posted the following article at the CentraLUG web site: http://www.centralug.org/article.php?sid=37 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, Mansur, Warren hath spake thusly: I was actually on a newsgroup where someone had never user tar before. They read the man page, and after trying and trying to understand all the options they just got frustrated and posted to the newsgroup asking how to make a simple tar file or expand a simple tar file. Here again, books are the answer. They generally show you how to perform the more common tasks, with fairly precise examples. A great book for this is Nemeth, et. al., Unix System Administrator's Handbook. It covers Linux, and they will soon be releasing a Linux-specific version of the book. :) Perhaps the most common uses could be displayed at the top and leave the more advanced uses for later on. I understand your point, but might be inclined to disagree. In my experience, the most common usage of man pages is to look up some option that you've forgotten. Having that information closest to the top is more efficient for finding it. True, if you're new to a particular command, the Synopsis section has a lot of information in it that will be meaningless to you unless the command has reletively few options which are perhaps somewhat self-explanatory, but if that's the case just ignore the Synopsis section altogether until you've read the rest of the man page. I usually read the description first, and then look for an examples section, if one exists. This section provides what you're talking about. Unfortunately, many man pages don't have such a section. This tends to be true of GNU software, which favors info over man pages (don't get me started). When I took my Intro to Unix course at UML, the instructor (Gerry Poulin, who I think some of the DECies might know) told us the trick to reading man pages is to learn how to read them. The key is understanding how the information is presented. Read the sections that are appropriate to what you're trying to learn, and skim (or ignore) the rest. One advantage of man pages is being able to pipe them into other commands such as grep, whereas interactive help doesn't allow for pipes. I'm not really sure this is an advantage... You don't need to pipe man pages into grep to search them. On most Linux systems, `less' is the default pager for man pages, and it is perfectly capable of searching man pages. For those who may not know, most of the vi key commands that deal with navigation and searching work in less. Of course, you do need to know about the feature before you can use it... This is where book learning (and reading man pages) comes in. I would also like to point out that many distributions, and Red Hat in particular, DO come with printed manuals that are aimed at the newbie. I don't have a copy of them handy, but I remember them as being oriented at the new user and fairly well done. And for those who didn't BUY Red Hat, the manuals are (or at least were at one time) included on the CD in a reasonably intuitive directory (cdroot/docs or some such, IIRC). They can also be installed as rpms. Or at least they could last I still cared to have them... back around RH 6.1 IIRC. - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8aZmtdjdlQoHP510RAgNXAJsGjI709kTRG0tuQLDwrMyFHAo7aQCfcfNA NH8OkyqEpXpS1fxx/eOoCF8= =wUCE -END PGP SIGNATURE- * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, Ray Bowles hath spake thusly: have walked at least 6 of my friends through Linux installs, Bind/Apache/Sendmail/MySQL and other installs and never once did I say RTFM. That's great! But it's really hard to do that in an e-mail... And of course they learn less by having you do it for them, if they are at all like most people. - -- Derek Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - I prefer mail encrypted with PGP/GPG! GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu Learn more about it at http://www.gnupg.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8aZqGdjdlQoHP510RApwQAJwKL7WCBgGZgZlepwg11o0xMvX9CQCePrjl fwiL79ZHX1f8q3hyElig4mY= =Rduj -END PGP SIGNATURE- * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Newbie article...
Well, as another newbie I guess I'll chime in here with a few lighthearted comments. Bottom line -- its not easy being a newbie ;0) Its fun to hear something of what's going on for the experts on this list, but most of the time I don't understand what is being discussed. That's okay, its still a great way to pick up details that DO matter to me as various threads develop. My situation seems a bit more complicated as I jumped into Linux on the Macintosh/PPC platform. I naively thought that Linux was Linux, the same no matter where you go and all would be well. It has been only by the help of a couple expert friends that I was able to get some basic things configured including screen res. And my friend tells me that after we've been through a bunch of hassles, I probably need to recompile X (or something) to get some essential research software to draw plots on the screen correctly. Well, since we all rely on *actual users* to figure out how to get things to work, this is not surprising -- BUT for 75 bucks SuSE claims to support my specific machine (PowerBook G3) for a relatively painless install, which it wasn't. Rich's comments ring true about getting help installing. As far as *free* is concerned, I have so far invested about $200 in SuSE 7.1, then 7.3, a book on some Unix user basics, and just this weekend a thick Que book on Using Linux. This is far more than I paid for the even high priced Mac OS X, which INCLUDED the latest OS 9. I'm not bitter about that, it is a fun learning experience but damn this learning curve is STEEP :0) To be fair, I also have about 11 years of Mac experience under the belt, and I can troubleshoot and fix almost anything on the Mac platform, but I never had to buy no $50 dam book to start getting work done on the mac! For me, the following Linux issues remain -- 1) I still am not able to just boot Linux up and start getting work done; too much of a paradigm shift. There must be some good tutorials on the web for new users , but of all the sites I've visited I havent found much that is explained in a way that makes sense to me. I keep thinking at some point things will begin to fit into some zenlike big picture, and then I think what if Linux is like some bizarro world from a Terry Gilliam film where no, dammit, it doesn't HAVE to make sense! (insert maniacal laughter here :0) 2) Still looking for some grand explanation to make sense of whats in all those directories, and where I go if I want to see how something is configured. This is where the concept of the installfest could be extended to something more like counseling for frustrated newbies! Haha! 3) Linux is not MacOS and its not Windows, and by the way its not your mother. I think its cool that Linux is wild and free and continually developing, and I have wanted to be a part of that ever since the development of some linux-only research software that I couldn't have published a paper without. I really hope Linux is the future. Its just been too difficult to master by fiddling around. Back to the books! --Michael -- ^^ Michael L. Bovee, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow University of Vermont Department of Biochemistry B403 Given Building Burlington, VT 05405-0068 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://biochem.uvm.edu Lab 802-656-0345 FAX 802-862-8229 ^^ * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Newbie article...
Michael, I would say that some of the challenges you face are arch specific (choosing to start on PPC). Now this isn't a criticism, but the problem you run into is that while there are probably a handleful of people on this list that can help you with doing X, booting a PPC machine is different from booting and i386, and anywhere you run into different hardware it gets difficult, if only because the number of people with the knowledge is less and the number of people developing for that arch is less. Now, having said that, if it makes you feel any better I'm composing this on an Alpha (in Linux), my main workstation is an Alpha, and there's a SPARC across the room happily running Debian. --rdp On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Michael Bovee wrote: Well, as another newbie I guess I'll chime in here with a few lighthearted comments. Bottom line -- its not easy being a newbie ;0) Its fun to hear something of what's going on for the experts on this list, but most of the time I don't understand what is being discussed. That's okay, its still a great way to pick up details that DO matter to me as various threads develop. My situation seems a bit more complicated as I jumped into Linux on the Macintosh/PPC platform. I naively thought that Linux was Linux, the same no matter where you go and all would be well. It has been only by the help of a couple expert friends that I was able to get some basic things configured including screen res. And my friend tells me that after we've been through a bunch of hassles, I probably need to recompile X (or something) to get some essential research software to draw plots on the screen correctly. Well, since we all rely on *actual users* to figure out how to get things to work, this is not surprising -- BUT for 75 bucks SuSE claims to support my specific machine (PowerBook G3) for a relatively painless install, which it wasn't. Rich's comments ring true about getting help installing. As far as *free* is concerned, I have so far invested about $200 in SuSE 7.1, then 7.3, a book on some Unix user basics, and just this weekend a thick Que book on Using Linux. This is far more than I paid for the even high priced Mac OS X, which INCLUDED the latest OS 9. I'm not bitter about that, it is a fun learning experience but damn this learning curve is STEEP :0) To be fair, I also have about 11 years of Mac experience under the belt, and I can troubleshoot and fix almost anything on the Mac platform, but I never had to buy no $50 dam book to start getting work done on the mac! For me, the following Linux issues remain -- 1) I still am not able to just boot Linux up and start getting work done; too much of a paradigm shift. There must be some good tutorials on the web for new users , but of all the sites I've visited I havent found much that is explained in a way that makes sense to me. I keep thinking at some point things will begin to fit into some zenlike big picture, and then I think what if Linux is like some bizarro world from a Terry Gilliam film where no, dammit, it doesn't HAVE to make sense! (insert maniacal laughter here :0) 2) Still looking for some grand explanation to make sense of whats in all those directories, and where I go if I want to see how something is configured. This is where the concept of the installfest could be extended to something more like counseling for frustrated newbies! Haha! 3) Linux is not MacOS and its not Windows, and by the way its not your mother. I think its cool that Linux is wild and free and continually developing, and I have wanted to be a part of that ever since the development of some linux-only research software that I couldn't have published a paper without. I really hope Linux is the future. Its just been too difficult to master by fiddling around. Back to the books! --Michael -- Rich Payne http://talisman.mv.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Newbie article...
I've been using Linux (with varying success, ya), since Yggdrasil days. Everything which has been written here seems valid to me. (Yes, including the post which is latest as I write this, which is essentially YARTFM (believe it or not.)) Among the sapient (IMO) comments: Michael Bovee wrote: 3) Linux is not MacOS and its not Windows, and by the way its not your mother. I think its cool that Linux is wild and free and continually developing, and I have wanted to be a part of that ever since the development of some linux-only research software that I couldn't have published a paper without. I really hope Linux is the future. Amen. Its just been too difficult to master by fiddling around. Truly so. And the man pages have no index; I still wouldn't be able to get a kernel to compile if not for Ben Scott's comments. --- In the ham radio world there is, and has been since the very earliest days, the concept of Elmer. Elmer is the older ham who takes the newcomer (the term newbie had yet to be invented, and besides, hams always prided themselves on avoiding condescension, whether in terminology or in practice) and shows him the ropes - how to cut an antenna, how to copy the code, how to solder,... and most importantly to a ham, how to make that first, terrifying contact on the air. I don't know as much as most posters on this list. But I've been an Elmer. I hereby offer to be an Elmer to some newbie: call me. An evening breaking through the code of man pages (ugh) will do us both good. Can't be any tougher than Morse Code. Perhaps I'm not the only one who would be willing to be an Elmer to some newbie(*), either. BTW, where is Center Barnstead? Bill N1BFK 603 654-2254 -- (*) It's not as though a newbie was just some customer at CompUSA, needing Revelation. For example, the signature of the original poster included: I'm a Linux Newbie, but I'm not a PC nor GUI newbie. M$ has forgotten about the user in graphical user interface. Fair enough: In return, I choose to forget M$. She deserves better than RTFM. Doesn't she? * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Newbie article...
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Bill Sconce [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Truly so. And the man pages have no index; Not a full index, but man -k keyword (aka apropos(1)) and whatis(1) are fairly useful for this. No? The gnu special: man -K keyword is slow (at least on my old HW) but I guess technically acts as an index... * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
Sorry to pipe in, but I must. The fact is that the learning / use curve of Linux, particularly compared to Windows, is very high. I completely agree that the man pages are confusing. They often lack real world examples as well. This can be very imposing to the new user. The response well they obviously didn't read the man man is just plain stupid and completely misses the point (sorry, no offense to whomever posted that remark, it's very a very typical response). It's as far off base as they didn't read the how-to's in the LDP. The point is the average newbie doesn't have a clue about these things. That's the definition of a newbie. Now, conversely I'm not suggesting that these newbies become instant sysadmins. Absolutely there is a place, and a need, for people and documentation for those well versed in Linux. So, I understand where those with a great deal of experience are coming from. However, I've got twenty books here. I'm only a casual user of Linux and I don't use it day in and day out but I use it as often as I can. It can be very, very difficult to remember exact commands and syntax and most of the time the man pages do little to clear things up. They do an excellent job of giving me the full breadth of a command but are far weaker for telling me how to make something work. The books do a far better job but it's awkward and difficult to always have the books around. Also, although man pages are in the same general format some are pretty good. Some are... ummm, not as good :-) It has always amazed me just how recalcitrant the Linux community is about making the system easier to use. Note that I didn't say less complex. Just some way to lower the entry bar. Many people, such as myself, learn by getting their hands dirty. If I screw it up too badly I just reinstall. Despite a great deal of reading I've found very little in the way of good beginners guides (I've read quite a few weak or poor beginners guides) and certainly nothing built into the system. So, any newbies out there just keep reading and learning. This list gets fairly interesting sometimes but I don't think I've ever seen a question go by without someone answering it, no matter how difficult or simple. In fact I've seen some pretty amazing problems and concepts batted around here. Some of the people on this list are really, really good. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:08:21 EST Mansur, Warren said: One problem I see with man pages is that they throw off the newbie user by putting every possible option at the top. If a new user sees this, they will probably be as confused as ever: Well, yes, but I often find that people's problems with reading man pages is that they don't know how. Why? They never ran 'man man' which clearly states: The following conventions apply to the SYNOPSIS section and can be used as a guide in other sections. bold text type exactly as shown. italic textreplace with appropriate argument. [-abc] any or all arguments within [ ] are optional. So, for this one person reading the tar man page, all they needed to know was that all those things at the top were *options*. Every now and then I hear this argument that man pages stink and there must be a better way! Why? They've worked great for over 30 years. At one time I was a newbie and didn't have a clue about Unix, but I got through by reading man pages, asking questions on mailing lists and usenet, and surfing the web. If I can do it, anyone can, as long as they're patient and willing to roll up their sleeves and read! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
*** On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 at 5:43pm Derek D. Martin shared this with the class:: That's great! But it's really hard to do that in an e-mail... And of course they learn less by having you do it for them, if they are at all like most people. I find that not to be the case. In my example of the kid that moved to FL and helped someelse install a box. The kid that moved was a musican by trade and in no way would qualify as a PC geek. But he got it installed and then began learning about whatever app it was he was most interested in to begin with and eventually absorbed enough knowlege to do an install himself. Once people gain a little confidence their outlook and determination levels change dramatically. Ray -- Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Derek D. Martin wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At some point hitherto, Greg Kettmann hath spake thusly: It has always amazed me just how recalcitrant the Linux community is about making the system easier to use. Note that I didn't say less complex. Just some way to lower the entry bar. I agree to some degree, and I think it wouldn't be that hard to pull off either. I think all that's really needed is some nice GUI for installing applications and (this part's key, IMO) automatically creating desktop menus/shortcuts for both KDE and Gnome, when it's clear that one or both of those are available. Mandrake has focused on this very thing in recent distro development: their GUI install routinely wins over reviewers that compare it to the other distros for newbie-friendliness, their GUI RPM manager (rpmdrake) is reasonably easy to get the hang of, especially for security updates, and their shared menu system is available in every WM/desktop environment on the box - most all of the Mandrake-specific RPMs (*mdk.rpm) update this, and you can add to it using menudrake. Do any of these enhancements obviate the need for picking up a good Linux book at some point, and/or keeping a Linux veteran/sensei near at hand at install time? No. Nor will next year's versions. That's just the way it is. The analogy to auto mechanics has been made, but how many of us actually taught ourselves how to drive the car in the first place? And despite the manufacturer's best efforts at making cars as easy to control as possible, this won't change soon either. Nor should it. The problem seems to me to be that while we all see the value in getting some outside assistance/advice with things like learning how to drive, or to fill out tax returns, or to perform any other routine task whose initial complexity and learning curve are well known, many people seem to approach installing and using Linux for the first time as if their vast, hard-won experience in the use of (Windows/Macs/Playstations/Garage Door Openers) has utterly prepared them for all they could encounter. And, sooner or later, this blind faith is found to be insufficient. As Ben Scott pointed out in a recent post, *NIX is by design a different approach to computing as well as an o/s, and those of us who sing its praises to all who will listen - and in that department, just call me Johnny Kernelseed :) - must not fail to make clear that it will require some measure of effort at the outset, and to explain what human and printed resources are available ... and *strongly* encourage their use. Of those who come to Linux from a commercial GUI o/s, most have installed and uninstalled many programs, and often a device or three along the way, in the other o/s; with this they are already comfortable. They fancy the transition to doing all the same things in Linux as being merely an exotic little challenge on the order of renting a car in England and driving on the left for a while. Well, it ain't, that's for sure. Now if you went over there and rented a Gulfstream, on the other hand ... :) While distros such as Mandrake are to be lauded for their efforts at lowering the bar for the novice, it is incumbent upon us to explain why the bar's height is necessary, and to be there to give the needed leg up. As Bill Sconce pointed out, we need more Elmers. Newbies can call me if they want; I'll toss around ideas with anyone, or walk them through an install or whatever ... but I won't make it sound easy. It isn't. But it's doable, and it can become easier. It's just more different than they expected - because it's better. :) -- Bill Mullen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Feb 12, 2002 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: /. article
In a message dated: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 19:42:39 EST Jerry Feldman said: Robert Bork was never a Judge on The Supreme Court. He was nominated, but his nomination was not approved by the Senate. We was, however, US Solicitor General as well as a judge and did have a distinguished career. My mistake. Regardless, interesting and informative article :) * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
/. article
If you haven't already, read this article at Linux Planet. It's a discussion with form Supreme Court Justice Robert Bork about the PFJ in the Microsoft case: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/4020/1/ It's a very good read. -- Seeya, Paul God Bless America! If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around, and we never stop trying to be better. Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: /. article
Robert Bork was never a Judge on The Supreme Court. He was nominated, but his nomination was not approved by the Senate. We was, however, US Solicitor General as well as a judge and did have a distinguished career. Paul Lussier wrote: If you haven't already, read this article at Linux Planet. It's a discussion with form Supreme Court Justice Robert Bork about the PFJ in the Microsoft case: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/4020/1/ It's a very good read. -- Seeya, Paul God Bless America! If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around, and we never stop trying to be better. Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * -- Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Great quote from NYT article
Hop on over to the New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/07/technology/ebusiness/07GADG.html (free registration required -- ick) and scroll about 2/3 of the down for this classic quote: Mr. Perlman said that after Microsoft acquired WebTV for $425 million in April 1997 he had stayed and tried to refine the product until it became clear that Microsoft's principal interest was in ensuring that its Windows CE operating system was in the box rather than improving the consumer experience. I think that speaks for itself and requires no further comment. (Yeah, I know, I'm preaching to the choir.) -- -Paul Iadonisi Senior Systems Administrator Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist Ever see a penguin fly? -- Try Linux. GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Great quote from NYT article
Microsoft's principal interest was in ensuring that its Windows CE operating system was in the box rather than improving the consumer experience. Well, they had to make a choice, right? * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Interesting Article
Don't know if anyone read the article linked off of /. last night about How to make Software Projects fail, but it's quite interesting. Here's a choice quote: http://www.softwaremarketsolution.com/ Moore's law makes much of the whining about bloatware ridiculous. In 1993, Microsoft Excel 5.0 took up about $36 worth of hard drive space. In 2000, Microsoft Excel 2000 takes up about $1.03 in hard drive space. All adjusted for inflation. So stop whining about how bloated it is. (The guy being interviewed used to work at MS, in case that's not obvious :) The article is quite interesting, and he make some really good (business) points about software projects. -- Seeya, Paul God Bless America! ...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around, and we never stop trying to be better. Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Article
- Original Message - From: mike ledoux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 12:41 PM Subject: Re: Interesting Article -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 11:44:10AM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote: Don't know if anyone read the article linked off of /. last night about How to make Software Projects fail, but it's quite interesting. Here's a choice quote: http://www.softwaremarketsolution.com/ I hadn't seen this before, but this guy 'Joel' lost all credibility when he promised to commit ritual suicide via web cam if we discover any category one bugs in the product. If he's stupid enough to believe that his company has eliminated every bug in a content management system product, he's stupid enough that I probably shouldn't care about anything else he has to say. His comments on bloatware that you quote are particularly inane, as they completely ignore the other negative effects of bloatware to focus on how cheap disk space has become. He didn't say every bug, he said every category one bug. And I'm sure he's defining what category one is! :) It's a marketing ploy, pure and simple. I'm surprised you fell for it. That said, he does make at least one interesting point about Microsoft's success, that I think might be particularly discussion-worthy in relation to open-source and free software: Microsoft always figured that it's better to let the hardware catch up with the software rather than spending time writing code for old computers owned by people who aren't buying much software any more. I'm not saying that he's right, just that it might be worth discussing, particularly in light of the hardware demands of recent Linux distributions. Actually, I agree with most of what he said in the article except the bloatware thing. But he's focused on the wrong part of the problem. The SIZE of the bloatware is no longer the problem, what with cheap memory and hard drive space. The REAL problem is speed. People don't buy new computers any more to get more RAM or bigger hard drives. They get them to make their systems and programs boot and load FASTER. Having a 200 MB program is not a problem any more, as long as the first window is up and useable inside of 2 seconds. As far as the hardware demands of recent Linux systems, the reason they are so big is because there are: a) Driver Modules for EVERY piece of hardware under the sun. I am playing with the 2.4.14 kernel. I did my menuconfig, and burned my kernel. Took like 5 minutes to compile, and another 5 minutes for the modules. Well, I didn't get everything I wanted in there, so I used the default .config file from /usr/src/linux (mandrake 8.1 system.) The dang thing took almost an hour to build the modules!! When I looked at the .config file more closely, there were modules for EVERY disk controller, sound chip, ethernet chip, video chip, and peripheral device there is (well, almost.) b) Scores of different programs that do the same thing. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you've got Gnome, KDE, Sawmill, Sawfish, WindowMaker, IceWM, and FVWM(2) for desktops and Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, Mozilla, and Galeon for browsers (I know I've forgotten all the text browsers and probably a half a dozen others, but my point has been made, I think) you're going to have a darn big distribution. And I think that the whole VMM issue with the lower 2.4.x kernels has contributed to the perception that Linux is becoming bloated and slow. I disagree. If you take the above into consideration, and build a streamlined kernel that has only what you need (and SOME of what you MIGHT need) and strip away all the programs you don't use, you can have a small fast operating system that puts MS to shame. Still. Sure KDE2 sucks on my P166. But I don't USE KDE2 on my P166. I use WindowMaker. The right tool for the job. And it works great. And so does KDE2 on my dual PIII/1000! Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Interesting Article
- Original Message - From: mike ledoux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Rich C [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 3:19 PM Subject: Re: Interesting Article [snip] As far as the hardware demands of recent Linux systems, the reason they are so big is because there are: a) Driver Modules for EVERY piece of hardware under the sun. I am playing with the 2.4.14 kernel. I did my menuconfig, and burned my kernel. Took like 5 minutes to compile, and another 5 minutes for the modules. Well, I didn't get everything I wanted in there, so I used the default .config file from /usr/src/linux (mandrake 8.1 system.) The dang thing took almost an hour to build the modules!! When I looked at the .config file more closely, there were modules for EVERY disk controller, sound chip, ethernet chip, video chip, and peripheral device there is (well, almost.) This shouldn't impact the performance of the system at all--the whole point of using modules is that you aren't wasting resources to support hardware that isn't being used. Yes, it will take longer to build the kernel and modules, as you're building a lot of stuff that you don't need, but it shouldn't impact runtime performance, which is what is really important. No, but having all these on the disk sure adds to the space requirements. It was more of a recent observation of mine while building a variation of a stock kernel as opposed to one I configured from scratch. At any rate, my comment was more the demands of the recent distributions, not the kernel itself. If you take the time to build your own Linux system from the ground up, you can still make it run well on a 386 or 486. b) Scores of different programs that do the same thing. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you've got Gnome, KDE, Sawmill, Sawfish, WindowMaker, IceWM, and FVWM(2) for desktops and Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, Mozilla, and Galeon for browsers (I know I've forgotten all the text browsers and probably a half a dozen others, but my point has been made, I think) you're going to have a darn big distribution. This is where I thought the interesting discussion could come in. It used to be that you could take a RedHat distribution and install it on a low-spec machine (think 486, 8MB RAM, 500MB disk) with no problems. Try that with RH 6.x or 7.x--good luck. The sad part about all of this (to me, anyway) is that the big stumbling block here isn't the actual software, so much as the installation routines. But Red Hat and Mandrake and Debian too, as I recall, have options for standard text installs, like the old days. It's not the default, but you can do it. Same with the Init scripts. You don't HAVE to run Aurora (Mandrake) if you don't want to. And I think that the whole VMM issue with the lower 2.4.x kernels has contributed to the perception that Linux is becoming bloated and slow. I'll agree with that. I disagree. If you take the above into consideration, and build a streamlined kernel that has only what you need (and SOME of what you MIGHT need) and strip away all the programs you don't use, you can have a small fast operating system that puts MS to shame. Still. Right, but this is *way* beyond a new Linux user, who was probably told that Linux would make their old hardware useful again. Hell, this is probably beyond most people that have been using Linux for years. Good point. The new distros are solving the problems that new Linux users have traditionally had with Linux: it was just too foreign to them as it was. They are making 1) user-friendly point-and-click installation programs while AT THE SAME TIME doing 2) the automation tasks like hardware probing and auto configuration that are REALLY useful. So if I understand you right, you are saying that what we need for older systems is something that does #2 without necessarily doing #1? Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Interesting article on the encryption backdoor issue
I found this on securityfocus, it has some interesting points, maybe we should send it to someone who cares: http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/26 Derek _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Wired Magazine's article on SSSCA
See http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46655,00.html -- = Jon maddog Hall Executive Director Linux(R) International email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. -- = Jon maddog Hall Executive Director Linux(R) International email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Great article about civil liberties repercussions
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=14924 This article highlights some of the potential consequences of our own fear for our safety, after the events of last Tuesday. A must read for those of you who care about your freedom. -- --- Derek Martin | Unix/Linux geek [EMAIL PROTECTED]| GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Linux article in Nashua Telegraph
For those who missed it, there was a Linux article in the Nashua Telegraph this past Sunday (two days ago). The front page to the business section had a half-page graphic of Tux at his birthday party :-) The article references GNHLUG and few of our members. The two parts of the article can be found online at: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/main.asp?ArticleID=39023SectionID=27 http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/main.asp?ArticleID=39022SectionID=27 -- Bob Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] - We didn't go to the altar, never swore allegiance or anything like that. -- Andrew Grove, Intel chairman, regarding the Wintel duopoly ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Article: Trinity drinks deeply...
Hey all, Trinity drinks deeply at learning's open source http://it.mycareer.com.au/news/2001/06/05/FFX9ZT7UENC.html The above is an excellent article on Fairfax IT's website about one school's use of Linux, GNU, and other Open Source/Free Software. Describes how they replaced a Windows network with a faster, cheaper, and easier to manage network of Linux systems. Using Intel-based boxes from HP and Debian, I note. Includes a great quote: We're educating, not training. This one got saved in my propaganda files. -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
New Ballmer article
http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-micro01.html Besides calling Linux a cancer, he obviously has his licenses mixed up. I quote: Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. He is obviously talking about GPL. I think its unfair of him to make this gross generalization about open source licenses. I think the editor should've made a note to it's readers... the last thing we need is more FUD's on open source. --- Tony Lambiris [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] PC Support Specialist P: 603-324-3000 x 234 C: 603-759-8384 Microsoft doesn't believe in free() code.Besi ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: New Ballmer article
Actually, the GPL doesn't require you make all your software Open Source (GPL) - only stuff derived from the GPL'd code. Of course, the MPL also does that. And yes, Ballmer I'm certain knows this - they are very specifically confusing the issues. jeff Tony Lambiris said: http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-micro01.html Besides calling Linux a cancer, he obviously has his licenses mixed up. I quote: Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. He is obviously talking about GPL. I think its unfair of him to make this gross generalization about open source licenses. I think the editor should've made a note to it's readers... the last thing we need is more FUD's on open source. --- Tony Lambiris [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] PC Support Specialist P: 603-324-3000 x 234 C: 603-759-8384 Microsoft doesn't believe in free() code.Besi ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
May American Spectator article
The current (May) American Spectator magazine has an article by Andy Kessler arguing against the proposed breakup of M$ which some may enjoy reading. Some tidbits: Judge Judy, please don't break up Microsoft. We have them just where we want them, stuck in a corner with wet paint drying around them. ...a divided Microsoft is a dangerous, hungry beast, while an intact Microsoft is stuck in a position where it can do little harm and significant good. Kessler on NT: Unfortunately, it was as reliable as a Yugo. Once you go Linux, you never go back. I thought it was unusual to see this perpective in a political magazine; I'd link to the article but they don't have it up on their site; you gotta buy it at Mega-Books-R-Us. Regahds from Montpelier, Dave Dave Hardy Systems Manager/DBA Vermont Health Care Administration 89 Main Street Drawer 20 Montpelier, VT 05620-3101 802-828-2914 FAX: 802-828-2949 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Linux Journal Article
All, Since I didn't make it to tonights CNHLUG meeting, I'll mention this on the list instead. There is a great article in this months Linux Journal on Bastille-Linux. It steps through download, installation, and configuration. Anyone interested in securing a Linux system should take a look at the article, as well as the software itself. It's great for beginners because it explains what it does and why. For people that have been doing security for a while, it can be tweaked to speed up the process of locking down a box by setting up a non-interactive configuration and running it on several boxes. FYI, Kenny - Kenneth E. Lussier Geek by nature, Linux by choice PGP keyID: 0xD71DF198 Public key available @ http://pgp.mit.edu ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Thomas M. Albright wrote: On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: I found this to be a fairly good article. It's about the current trends in Linux companies, and what the future could hold for them. The one thing that I didn't like was that they completely ignored Debian. I assume this is because Debian isn't a company, but I find it hard to believe that 70% of all Linux systems are RedHat. Actually that's true. I don't remeber the study, but RedHat dominates the Commercial Linux market in the US, SuSE dominates the German Commercial market, but Debian dominates the non-commercial market, and in fact, more *people* use Debian. Wish I could figure out how... ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- --- Tom Rauschenbach[EMAIL PROTECTED] All your base are belong to us ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: I found this to be a fairly good article. It's about the current trends in Linux companies, and what the future could hold for them. The one thing that I didn't like was that they completely ignored Debian. I assume this is because Debian isn't a company, but I find it hard to believe that 70% of all Linux systems are RedHat. Actually that's true. I don't remeber the study, but RedHat dominates the Commercial Linux market in the US, SuSE dominates the German Commercial market, but Debian dominates the non-commercial market, and in fact, more *people* use Debian. Most likely, the author of the article was using sales numbers. They are alot eaiser to track than downloads... :) http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5112816.html?tag=tp_pr Kenny - Kenneth E. Lussier Geek by nature, Linux by choice PGP keyID: 0xD71DF198 Public key available @ http://pgp.mit.edu ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- Thomas M. Albright Albright Enterprises - The Small Business Solution http://www.albrightent.com/ ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
Well, it can't be too bad, because it mentions Mission Critical Linux ;-) Seriously, although in general it's OK, it does make some false assumptions, including that Red Hat has 70% of the market. Even IDC admits they can't figure out what the real market is (since everyone only counts licenses sold, and we all know what that means for Linux). I saw a survey recently that Mandrake is the best seller in the US right now. Of course, none of these things say anything about Debian, because they don't sell there distro! Also, although alluded to early in the article about Linux being around for the long haul, it misses the most important aspect of this: Because of the Open Source nature of it (the source is available, modifiable, and mods can be distributed along with the original source), Linux can never be killed. As long as anyone is willing to work on the code (pay or not), Linux will live. It's good that the distros/companies are focusing on profitability now (the failure of most of the dot-coms was any kind of business plan to actually make money). However, the article didn't go into enough about how a variety of distros is actually good, and not just because of competition. By specializing in various areas, the the distros allow you to get a version that matches your needs (and is why people should try multiple distros before choosing one). jeff --- Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9739 fax:978.446.9470 --- Thought for today: BQS /B-Q-S/ adj. Syn. Berkeley Quality Software. ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: I found this to be a fairly good article. It's about the current trends in Linux companies, and what the future could hold for them. The one thing that I didn't like was that they completely ignored Debian. I assume this is because Debian isn't a company, but I find it hard to believe that 70% of all Linux systems are RedHat. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5112816.html?tag=tp_pr Having read the artivle more closely, I can tell this guy didn't do a whole lot of research. Just as a f'rinstance: Linuxmall.com bout out Ebiz, not the other way around. Sorry. Little rant. I'm better now. -- Thomas M. Albright Albright Enterprises - The Small Business Solution http://www.albrightent.com/ ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
Wish I could figure out how... Didn't MS try something like this? They embedded stuff into their code that reported back to MS your configuration and system information. They didn't tell anyone about it and it caused an uproar when it was found. We *could* do something in an open source way (which means 'everyone would know') to 'register' linux use when there was an internet connection on the machine, but it seems like there are some serious privacy concerns. Rich Tom Rauschenbach wrote: On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Thomas M. Albright wrote: On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: I found this to be a fairly good article. It's about the current trends in Linux companies, and what the future could hold for them. The one thing that I didn't like was that they completely ignored Debian. I assume this is because Debian isn't a company, but I find it hard to believe that 70% of all Linux systems are RedHat. Actually that's true. I don't remeber the study, but RedHat dominates the Commercial Linux market in the US, SuSE dominates the German Commercial market, but Debian dominates the non-commercial market, and in fact, more *people* use Debian. Wish I could figure out how... ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- --- Tom Rauschenbach[EMAIL PROTECTED] All your base are belong to us ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Richard Soule wrote: Wish I could figure out how... Didn't MS try something like this? No, I meant I wish I could figure out they run Debian. I couldn't get it to work. (I'm running slackware now). And there is a website that tries to keep a count of Linux users. Checl out http://counter.li.org They embedded stuff into their code that reported back to MS your configuration and system information. They didn't tell anyone about it and it caused an uproar when it was found. We *could* do something in an open source way (which means 'everyone would know') to 'register' linux use when there was an internet connection on the machine, but it seems like there are some serious privacy concerns. Rich Tom Rauschenbach wrote: On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Thomas M. Albright wrote: On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: I found this to be a fairly good article. It's about the current trends in Linux companies, and what the future could hold for them. The one thing that I didn't like was that they completely ignored Debian. I assume this is because Debian isn't a company, but I find it hard to believe that 70% of all Linux systems are RedHat. Actually that's true. I don't remeber the study, but RedHat dominates the Commercial Linux market in the US, SuSE dominates the German Commercial market, but Debian dominates the non-commercial market, and in fact, more *people* use Debian. Wish I could figure out how... ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- --- Tom Rauschenbach[EMAIL PROTECTED] All your base are belong to us ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** -- --- Tom Rauschenbach[EMAIL PROTECTED] All your base are belong to us ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Good article
In a message dated: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 16:02:58 EST Thomas M. Albright said: Having read the artivle more closely, I can tell this guy didn't do a whole lot of research. Just as a f'rinstance: Linuxmall.com bout out Ebiz, not the other way around. Sorry. Little rant. I'm better now. Ahm, nope. Ebiz did buy Linuxmall. Ebiz also just bought JBSI. We buy a lot from Ebiz. Linuxmall no longer exists, neither does JBSI. Ebiz does. However, they do bill them as mergers not takeovers but let's call a spade a spade, shall we :) -- Seeya, Paul It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Good article
I found this to be a fairly good article. It's about the current trends in Linux companies, and what the future could hold for them. The one thing that I didn't like was that they completely ignored Debian. I assume this is because Debian isn't a company, but I find it hard to believe that 70% of all Linux systems are RedHat. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5112816.html?tag=tp_pr Kenny - Kenneth E. Lussier Geek by nature, Linux by choice PGP keyID: 0xD71DF198 Public key available @ http://pgp.mit.edu ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
DSL Article
There is a DSL article on zdnet today. It doesn't really say anything that hasn't gone across this newsgroup a couple weeks ago (big surprise) but it's interesting to see some of what was being said here "confirmed" by The Press. ;-) Basically restates that the baby-Bells are driving indy DSL providers out of business to make room for price hikes. Anyone who is surprised, please raise your hand. They justify this against the anti-monopoly voices by saying cable providers (as opposed to indy DSL providers) are their real competition, so crushing the indys is really no big deal. If I haven't ruined the plot for you and you want to check out the article... http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2C4586%2C2687148%2C00.html -Larry ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Great article on why Open Source
On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Jeffry Smith wrote: Are they getting behind linux, or are they getting behind "threat number one" for Microsoft? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend?" I don't think so. ;) -- Niall Kavanagh, [EMAIL PROTECTED] News, articles, and resources for web professionals and developers: http://www.kst.com ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Great article on why Open Source
mike ledoux wrote: My point exactly. If the community starts to expect support from these corporate entities, it will suffer when they inevitably withdraw that support. My point was that no matter how much they talk the talk, these corporate entities are not part of the Linux community in the same sense that any given individual could be, and that the community should keep that in mind. By all means, we should take advantage of any support these corporations might provide, but we should be careful not to compromise 'the cause' to fulfill some corporate agenda. Mike's point is well hightlighted in the most recent in a string of articles about how Linux needs "Corporate Guidence". This one is titled "Is Linus Killing Linux" (http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010126S0013). People like IBM, Compaq, et al. seem to think that one person controlling the kernel is bad (which shows that they just don't get it). They think that the kernel design should be controlled by a non-profit "Industry-funded" entity. That way, the kerel design can follow "customer demand". Plain and simple, the companies that claim to support Linux do *NOT* support Linux, they support something that can make them money. That's what companies are for. However, more and more large companies are jumping on the band-wagon, and once they are on, they realize that none of the rules that they used to dictate apply. So they do one of two things: 1) They publicly anounce what Linux "needs to become to be competitive" or 2) They publicly announce that they no longer support Linux. #1 is a poor attempt to force the community's hand into doing what they want. But again, the old rules don't apply. The Linux comunitee can not be threatened, blackmailed, or extorted into following suit(s) by virtue of the simple fact that we have absolutly nothing to lose. If every major company that claims to support Linux withdrew their support, and if every distro company filed for bankruptcy (like Stormix just did), what would we lose? Some pretty shrink-wraped boxes? Oh well. I for one would still be using it. And I am willing to bet that OSS would continue to be developed. Just Because (TM). Kenny PS This is the first e-mail in the thread that I have read, so excuse me if everything that I just said is completely off base ;-) ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Great article on why Open Source
My point exactly. If the community starts to expect support from these corporate entities, it will suffer when they inevitably withdraw that support. My point was that no matter how much they talk the talk, these corporate entities are not part of the Linux community in the same sense that any given individual could be, and that the community should keep that in mind. By all means, we should take advantage of any support these corporations might provide, but we should be careful not to compromise 'the cause' to fulfill some corporate agenda. Of course, thanks to the GPL, none of them can "take over" Linux or any other GPL'd code. We trust theircontributions, and use the GPL to verify their actions. And keep coding! -- jeff smith -- thought for the day: A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Great article on why Open Source
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4123037,00.html jeff --- Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9739 fax:978.446.9470 --- Thought for today: open switch n. [IBM: prob. from railroading] An unresolved question, issue, or problem. ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
RE: Great article on why Open Source
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's generally upbeat chief executive officer, publicly acknowledged this for the first time: "I'd put the Linux phenomenon really as threat number one," he said. har har har. But seriously, it's unfortunate they see it as a "threat". What they should be concerned with is all the big players (like Sun, IBM, SGI, etc..) getting behind Linux and supporting it. Hopefully it won't be too long before people like NVidia and ATi start shipping Linux drivers with their products. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jeffry Smith Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 1:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Great article on why Open Source http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4123037,00.html jeff --- Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9739 fax:978.446.9470 --- Thought for today: open switch n. [IBM: prob. from railroading] An unresolved question, issue, or problem. ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug ** ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Great article on why Open Source
In a message dated: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 13:21:10 EST Jeffry Smith said: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4123037,00.html Here's a *fantastic* quote: "One reason that few people are aware there are programs running the internet is that they never crash in any significant way: the free software underlying the internet is reliable to the point of invisibility" -- Seeya, Paul It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: Great article on why Open Source
On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are they getting behind linux, or are they getting behind "threat number one" for Microsoft? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend?" That kind of thinking has a nasty tendancy to backfire in the long run. The Linux community would be wise to avoid it. Maybe so, but we're talking about the likes of IBM, Sun, and Hewlett-Packard here... Corporate entities are not your typical members of the Linux community. Their motivations are entirely different from those of the typical Linux coder or hardcore Linux user. They're in it for the $$, no matter how friendly they may be to the community. As such, what applies to the Linux community as a whole doesn't necessarily apply to those corporate entities. -- Derek D. Martin Unix/Linux Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Article: Good show prep for LUGs
I thought this article might be relevant to the current discussion of LUG topics: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/06/1717257 -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] Net Technologies, Inc. http://www.ntisys.com Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839 ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Article about the home of the Itsy
A few months ago, Jim Gettys of our (Compaq's) Palo Alto Research Center, gave a talk to us (GNHLUG) at Martha's Exchange. I just stumbled over an e-zine article about that facility, in case any of you might be curious about it, the home of 'gatekeeper.dec.com'. http://www.upside.com/Ebiz/39bd37380_yahoo.html Bayard ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Jeffry Smith wrote:
1. The RH updates are total over a period of time, W2K is SP1.
I'm not really sure what proves. NT service packs are not cumulative; each
one superceeds the last.
2. RH updates are for lots of things besides the "OS" (even including
all the stuff MS calls OS that isn't)
Not really. Most of Red Hat's updates fix security holes and other failures
in critical services -- the same stuff MS considers "OS" level. RH usually
saves the "minor" stuff for new releases of the distro. (Of course, I would
consider the "sort -n" bug in 6.2 pretty critical, and it took them
*months* to fix it. *sigh* But I digress...)
RH does include an updated version of emacs in the 6.2 patch set, which I'm
sure helps explain why it is twice the size of the 6.1 patch set. ;)
3. RH updates are individual packages - you can update what you want
to, ignore updates for what you don't install (or don't want to update
because it's not security related you're stable). Try updating IIS
only with SP1
This is a good point, but has nothing to do with the size of the total patch
sets.
Which, really, is my point. The size of the patch sets available is not a
useful metric. It is the number of bugs, how serious they are, how quickly
they get fixed, and how hard it is to fix them.
With Red Hat Linux, it's usually just a matter of issuing a single command
("rpm -Uvh *.rpm") and sitting back and watching the fun. Services are only
interrupted when their package is being updated. Most of the updates can be
done remotely. The only time I have to reboot to install a patch is if it is
a kernel update. The only time I go single-user is for critical packages like
libc and init (and even those might be doable multi-user, I'm just cautious).
Compare that to NT where:
- The patch set is monolithic, as you noted
- It must be installed from the system console
- It requires at least one, and often multiple, reboots
- The system is often completely unavailable for almost an hour
- When things go wrong, you usually have to format the system disk and
start over from scratch
Kenny also makes a good point:
On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote:
But since we're talking about about M$ service packs, my personal
favorite was SP5. It introduced 13 security holes, 5 of which
were re-introductions, since SP4 had fixed them. Now *THAT* is
progress ;-)
So, I guess my point can be summed up as:
When it comes to patch sets, it isn't the size that matters. ;-)
--
Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Net Technologies, Inc. http://www.ntisys.com
Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839
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Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
On Thu, 3 Aug 2000, Benjamin Scott wrote: On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Jeffry Smith wrote: RH does include an updated version of emacs in the 6.2 patch set, which I'm sure helps explain why it is twice the size of the 6.1 patch set. ;) And don't forget the deluge of Netscape updates! I think (without looking) that's like 50MB or so right there. Kenny also makes a good point: On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: But since we're talking about about M$ service packs, my personal favorite was SP5. It introduced 13 security holes, 5 of which were re-introductions, since SP4 had fixed them. Now *THAT* is progress ;-) I really like that one, so I kept it... :) -- Derek Martin System Administrator Mission Critical Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
I found this article interesting. Misleading as hell, but interesting, nontheless.. I would like to see a site that publishes the Bugtraq lists to refute them, anyone have a URL? I think the biggest thing that is 'missing' here is that RedHat's bugs most probrably include all apps published *WITH* the operating system, versus NT's, which strickly list OS vulnerabilities.. http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/FredMoody/moody.html --- Thomas Charron Wanted: One decent sig Preferably litle used and stored in garage. ? ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Thomas Charron wrote: I found this article interesting. Misleading as hell, but interesting, nontheless.. I would like to see a site that publishes the Bugtraq lists to refute them, anyone have a URL? I think the biggest thing that is 'missing' here is that RedHat's bugs most probrably include all apps published *WITH* the operating system, versus NT's, which strickly list OS vulnerabilities.. One point I never see mentioned: Microsoft vulnerabilirties are just that -- Microsoft's. Any app that runs on on Linux or distributed with Redhat/Turbo etc. is counted as a "Linux vulnerabilty". If one were to lump in all the other Win32 apps with vulnerabilities I'm sure you'd come up with a greater number than 99 (number of reported Bugtraq MS vul) or even 122 (number for all linux apps). Bottom line, neither OS is inherently insecure, it's the apps and cruft on top of them, like Sendmail, IIS, ActiveX etc. -- Niall Kavanagh, [EMAIL PROTECTED] News, articles, and resources for web professionals and developers: http://www.kst.com ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
Niall Kavanagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] danced to the tune of: One point I never see mentioned: Microsoft vulnerabilirties are just that -- Microsoft's. One of Microsoft's vulnerabilities is the quality (or lack thereof) of their product. They recently released SP6a for Windows NT 4.0, which is a cumulative patch, incorporating all of the (still viable) patches for Windows NT 4.0. It's about 53MB IIRC. They just announced (and were so proud to have announced it "on time") their first patch kit for Windows 2000. It's 83MB. This is progress? Bayard --- Bayard R. Coolidge N1HODISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed are Compaq Computer Corp. solely those of the author, and not Nashua, New Hampshire, USA those of Compaq Computer Corporation [EMAIL PROTECTED] (DEC '77-'98) or any other entity. "Brake for Moose - It can save your life" - N.H. Fish Game Dept. -BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK- Version: 3.12 GCS/CC d+ s:+ a+ C+++$ UO++$L++$ P L++$ E-@ W+ N++ o- K? w--- O? M? V-- PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP- t++ 5? X? R* tv b++ DI+++ D? G e++ h+ r-- y-- -END GEEK CODE BLOCK- --- ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
Yep, it's interesting. One interesting part is the author's credential list at the end of the article: Fred Moody is the author of I Sing the Body Electronic: A Year with Microsoft on the Multimedia Frontier and of The Visionary Position: The Inside Story of the Digital Dreamers Who Made Virtual Reality a Reality. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays. A year with Microsoft, eh? Sure sign of an honest, fair and unbiased observer, right? More evidence that Gates co. are running scared - playing the FUD card for all it's worth. Another interesting bit is the sidebar list of related stories. That list shows why BG should worry. Thomas Charron wrote: I found this article interesting. Misleading as hell, but interesting, nontheless.. I would like to see a site that publishes the Bugtraq lists to refute them, anyone have a URL? I think the biggest thing that is 'missing' here is that RedHat's bugs most probrably include all apps published *WITH* the operating system, versus NT's, which strickly list OS vulnerabilities.. http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/FredMoody/moody.html --- Thomas Charron Wanted: One decent sig >> Preferably litle used >> and stored in garage. ?>> ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
First of all, congratulations to Mission Critical. According to the article, you folks are not only shipping a linux dist of your own, it's doing as well as Red Hat! Congrats! (*walks off grumbling about journalists who don't research before writing*) (*comes back after a minute*) Is there a source at ABC that can be written to so as to offer some corrected information? I didn't see anything in the article... -- If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why is it that they're still working? Cole Tuininga Network Admin Code Energy, Inc [EMAIL PROTECTED] (603) 766-2208 ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
Quoting Niall Kavanagh [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Thomas Charron wrote: One point I never see mentioned: Microsoft vulnerabilirties are just that -- Microsoft's. Any app that runs on on Linux or distributed with Redhat/Turbo etc. is counted as a "Linux vulnerabilty". If one were to lump in all the other Win32 apps with vulnerabilities I'm sure you'd come up with a greater number than 99 (number of reported Bugtraq MS vul) or even 122 (number for all linux apps). Bottom line, neither OS is inherently insecure, it's the apps and cruft on top of them, like Sendmail, IIS, ActiveX etc. I actually just noticed that MS actually has a seperate bugtraq catagory for IIS, while Linux is one general entry, including Apache bugs on Linux. ;-P --- Thomas Charron Wanted: One decent sig Preferably litle used and stored in garage. ? ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
Quoting Cole Tuininga [EMAIL PROTECTED]: First of all, congratulations to Mission Critical. According to the article, you folks are not only shipping a linux dist of your own, it's doing as well as Red Hat! Congrats! (*walks off grumbling about journalists who don't research before writing*) (*comes back after a minute*) Is there a source at ABC that can be written to so as to offer some corrected information? I didn't see anything in the article... I wasn't able to find one after preliminary searches of other articles, etc.. I personally wanted to point out the same thing that Niall had said earlier, in that many of the bugs in Microsoft based 'equivilent' products, such as IIS, etc, total many, MANY more then those of Linux. --- Thomas Charron Wanted: One decent sig Preferably litle used and stored in garage. ? ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
Bayard, Do you include bugs that are touted as "features" in your lack of quality? Or poor design or architecture? -- Bryan Williams Dominari Nolo "Light the Lamp - not the Rat!! Light the Lamp - not the Rat!!!" On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Bayard Coolidge USG ZKO3-3/S20 wrote: Niall Kavanagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] danced to the tune of: One point I never see mentioned: Microsoft vulnerabilirties are just that -- Microsoft's. One of Microsoft's vulnerabilities is the quality (or lack thereof) of their product. They recently released SP6a for Windows NT 4.0, which is a cumulative patch, incorporating all of the (still viable) patches for Windows NT 4.0. It's about 53MB IIRC. They just announced (and were so proud to have announced it "on time") their first patch kit for Windows 2000. It's 83MB. This is progress? Bayard ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
Re: ABC News article on Linux and Bugs..
On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Cole Tuininga wrote: Is there a source at ABC that can be written to so as to offer some corrected information? I didn't see anything in the article... Closest thing I found was: ABCNEWS.com Contact Page http://abcnews.go.com/service/help/abccontact.html Problem is, it's a form you fill out on their site, *not* an email address. Looking at the page source, however, I found some email addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Compliments [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Complaints [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Suggestions [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Opinions [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Factual Error HTH, Suzanne -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pubpages.unh.edu/~shillman ResNet Area Three Leader http://www.unh.edu/resnet Don't let fear of someone "knowing" something about you keep you from living your particular scandalous lifestyle. We'll regret our timidity most. -mike kindle ** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **
