Linux-Advocacy Digest #627, Volume #26 Sun, 21 May 00 10:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux (Richard Steiner)
Re: Hotmail still using FreeBSD & Solaris? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Microsoft W2K lack of goals. ("Otto")
Re: There is NO reason to use Linux...It just STINX (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux (Matthias Warkus)
Re: Things Linux can't do! (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: There is NO reason to use Linux...It just STINX ("Secretly Cruel")
Open source advocacy. (2:1)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Steiner)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 07:56:39 -0500
Here in comp.os.linux.misc, [EMAIL PROTECTED] spake unto us, saying:
>So, 60% of 5% of computer users is not a lot of people.
If you could get 60% of 5% of all computer users to send me a dollar, I
would be a very happy man. :-)
>On an unrelated note, is Apache really 60% of the WWW server market?
>Do you know how many of them are on Linux boxes? (I ask because I
>didn't think *Unix* had a 60% share of the WWW server (OS) market.)
http://www.netcraft.com has lots of information along those lines.
--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>---> Bloomington, MN
OS/2 + BeOS + Linux + Solaris + Win95 + WinNT4 + FreeBSD + DOS
+ VMWare + Fusion + vMac + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven! :-)
Cogito ergo spud: I think therefore I yam.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Hotmail still using FreeBSD & Solaris?
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:21:49 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on 21 May 2000 06:38:40 -0400 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Is Hotmail still using FreeBSD and Solaris?
bash$ telnet www.hotmail.com www
Trying 216.33.238.7...
Connected to www.hotmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:09:36 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b
Location: http://lc5.law5.hotmail.passport.com/cgi-bin/login
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
Connection closed by foreign host.
Dunno about FreeBSD, but it's still using Apache. Of course, this
is only one of their servers:
bash$ nslookup
Default Server: lexi.athghost7038suus.net
Address: 10.0.3.23
> www.hotmail.com
Server: lexi.athghost7038suus.net
Address: 10.0.3.23
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.hotmail.com
Addresses: 209.185.243.135, 64.4.10.7, 216.33.238.7, 209.185.243.7
216.32.243.7, 216.33.151.7
>
but I'd be surprised if the WebAdmin is playing "mix and match".
(It is admittedly possible, though -- just not IMO horribly probable.)
Note the "rotating DNS", BTW.
>I know NT 4.0 is being
>used in there someplace, but I don't know where. People who know me
>in here know that I love FreeBSD. Some people hate me because I am
>always trumpeting about how great FreeBSD is in COLA. Well, I love
>Linux also, because it is a great open source operating system. But,
>FreeBSD will always be my first love.
I for one have no problem with that. I find Linux (RedHat) quite
accessible, FreeBSD somewhat less so (mostly because I haven't
tried it :-) ), and NT workable, but slightly frustrating.
But I've heard good things about FreeBSD. And any operating system
that can handle very high throughput has to be a pretty good one
(if only for high throughput!); one other application that you probably
already are aware of is Walnut Creek's site, ftp.cdrom.com. It's
one of the highest traffic sites in the world, as I understand it,
and it runs BSD of some flavor.
>
>Although I love Linux "second best", it is my opionion that Linux is
>many times better than NT. Let's face it -- NT 4.0 is a joke compared
>to Linux. Linux is a great proof that Open Source is much better than
>the crappy development method that Microsoft is using. Bugs are found
>faster, and fixes can be distributed much faster using the open source
>OS model.
>
>I think Microsoft should leave Hotmail as is. If something isn't
>broken, why fix it? Of course, I suppose MS would be in a good
>position if they could use Windows 2000 for the entire Hotmail
>operation. But, they would risk having some potential serious
>problems just to make Win 2000 look good.
>
>The hell with it. Microsoft has shown that they have good taste by
>using FreeBSD. They know how good and how stable it is. Bill
>probably runs FreeBSD at home. I'll bet Bill is home right now as I'm
>typing this cvsup'ing some fixes for his 4.0-stable box right now.
I doubt that, somehow. I'll admit, I don't know if Bill uses
a computer at home at all (and am not sure I really care); it's
possible that he does not (unless one counts, say, the microwave,
which has to have some sort of processor in there to at least run
the clock :-) ).
>
>Congratulations, Microsoft, on realizing that FreeBSD is a good OS.
>If nothing else, this just proves that each operating system has its
>own strengths and weaknesses. For example, FreeBSD is good for
>server/network type applications. Come to think of it, FreeBSD, like
>Linux, does everything well; it's just that developers love
>concentrating all their time writing games and other software for
>Windows, because that's where the money is. FreeBSD and Linux are
>also good at multimedia apps, and indeed, my FreeBSD box (P166) plays
>mp3's much more solidly and glitch free than an equivalent Windows 98
>box with an AMD 450. If FreeBSD or Linux had more multimedia apps
>than Windows (NT or 98), there's no doubt in my mind that these two
>platforms would kick NT's ass in the use of multimedia.
You may have forgotten BeOS (so have I, for that matter; I haven't
tried it :-) ). However, I can't say more about it since I don't
use it; BeOS, however, is reputed to be very good at multimedia.
Unfortunately, it's also closed-source and proprietary. (This is
not necessarily a bad thing, mind you; NT is the same, but is still
a workable OS.)
[snip for brevity]
>Let's face it -- if there were better 3D graphics software packages
>out there for Linux, Linux would be kicking Windows NT in the ass
>right about now.
I'm curious as to what means "better", but I certainly wouldn't mind
writing one of my own :-).
One that I happen to know about -- being an old Amigaphile -- is
the NT Alpha variant of the famous rendering software for the Toaster
whose name escapes me (Lightwave?). Presumably, that software could
be ported to Linux/Alpha....?
>
>Long live FreeBSD and Linux! Together, we both kick Microsoft right
>in the ass! Yes, by recompiling your kernel, you can apply security
>fixes to your FreeBSD or Linux system faster or more efficiently than
>MS can get NT service packs out there.
>
>Keep Hotmail running FreeBSD, Microsoft, and take notes on how a REAL
>operating system does it! Keep those NT servers running so the
>hotmail administrators can play games while the unix servers are down!
I will merely note here that Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) does in
fact run IIS (on a webfarm, presumably), so the comparison isn't
black and white; it's more like shades of gray.
[judgemental comments snipped]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
------------------------------
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microsoft W2K lack of goals.
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:26:20 GMT
"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:KYGV4.2479$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
: > W2K is slower than NT as well as it still
: > blue screens.
:
: It's significantly faster than NT if it has it's minimum requirements.
10%
: faster on average.
On the same generic hardware, that's not really true. Especially if W2K has
only the minimum requirement, which is more than NT's minimum requirement.
It all depends on the drivers for the devices being used. Using the default
drivers for both versions does give an edge to W2K, since its drivers are
newer than NT's default drivers. However, one could replace those drivers
with the latest ones and then NT leaves Windows 2000 in the dust.
With that said, Windows 2000 does manage the available devices more
efficiently than NT does. Overall it is a great OS and I'm yet to see a BSOD
on it. I must be doing something wrong....
Otto
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: There is NO reason to use Linux...It just STINX
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:30:12 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Streamer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on Sat, 20 May 2000 22:45:44 -0500 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>mlw wrote:
>
>> (a) Stability
>> In the stability arena, Windows NT, 98SE, and 2K can't hold a candle to
>> Linux. Linux is vastly more reliable.
>
>Just curious....seeing that I will never upgrade to w2k, what is it's
>stability compared to NT and 98SE?
My understanding, such as it is, is that Win2K is effectively an
NT "next generation" product. (As if the userbase needs to be
any *more* confused).
Therefore, comparisons between Win2K and Win98SE aren't quite valid.
Possible, of course -- Linux can be compared to DOS just as well. :-)
>I know how 98SE justs gets slower &
>slower until you have to reboot. I also know that NT keeps running, except
>that one-by-one, explorer features and applications tend to break down
>(Applications suddenly don't launch, NT Explorer suddenly can't see all of
>the directories, etc.).
I have detailed some of the interesting behavior of NT in
other posts (interesting to me, anyway). I don't trust it.
>I've heard from others that w2k tends to run just
>fine for something like a week, then it just drops dead all at once. Is
>this true?
I guess we'll find out at work, since we're migrating our Webservers. :-)
I can't say that I know, at the moment.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- NT. Where did you *really* want to go today?
No, no, really. We'll tell you, since you don't
know. :-)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Warkus)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Need ideas for university funded project for linux
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 23:30:35 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was the Sat, 20 May 2000 20:12:48 GMT...
...and [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Warkus) writes:
>
> > > > : 3. A DirectX-like platform for hardware-accelerated devices, not
> > > > : necessarily at the kernel level;
>
> > > > Whats wrong with OpenGL?
>
> > > The fact that it's not hardware-accelerated?
>
> > Of course it is hardware accelerated.
>
> No. It isn't.
>
> It may have the potential to be accelerated at some point in the
> future, but, as of this writing, it is not. NVIDIA has flatly stated
> that they will not be doing hardware-accelerated OpenGL until XF86
> 4.0. As XF86 4.0 is not the official XF86 at this point, there is
> not, officially, any hardware-accelerated OpenGL at this point.
I've had hardware-accelerated OpenGL on my machine for months. Other
people have for years. Free OpenGL, that is (Mesa).
> > The entire idea of OpenGL is wrapping hardware
> > acceleration. Everything in the OpenGL API is centred around making
> > effective hardware accelerated implementations possible.
>
> Actually, I think the entire idea of OpenGL is making available a
> high-level 3D API to the user.
>
> It seems to me that if they were more interested in wrapping hardware
> acceleration, OpenGL would look more like Direct3D (which is
> considerably more minimalist).
Direct3D is not built around a single dogma at all (it's a kluge).
Anyway, it surprised me, too, that OpenGL's idea is to provide an API
that is as easy to implement in hardware as possible. The Red Book
(i.e. the official OpenGL manual) told me so.
mawa
--
blisteciosis, n.:
the condition of lips which have completely abandoned any attempt
to stay humid or supple on their own, instead settling for getting
addicted to Blistex(TM)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Things Linux can't do!
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:39:25 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on Sun, 21 May 2000 15:39:30 +1000 <8g7s9g$qgc$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>"The Ghost In The Machine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
>message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
>[Charlie's in my killfile, but it's a quiet day so I'll reply to his bit of
>the post]
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote on Sat, 20 May 2000 21:07:00 GMT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>> >Christopher Smith wrote:
>> >>
>> >> "abraxas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> >> news:8g6q6g$9im$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >> > My S.O.s laptop (running W2K professional as well) has now
>> >> > bluescreened 4 times, twice while trying to quite RealPlayer.
>> >> > (trying to quit IE was what did it the first time on my desktop
>> >> > machine). Luckily the last couple of bluescreens on that laptop
>> >> > havent been as bad as the first (when I horror of horrors, plugged
>> >> > a USB mouse into the machine) which resulted in a 'NO KERNEL FOUND'
>> >> > (or something very close to that) error apon reboot.
>> >>
>> >> I always find it amazing that this sort of thing:
>> >> a) *Never* happens to anyone I know
>> >> b) Always seems to happen to faceless people on usenet who spend most
>of
>> >> their time cursing Microsoft.
>> >>
>> >> I'm thinking my WindowsAI theory might be right :).
>> >
>> >If you've NEVER got a Microsoft product to blue screen then
>> >what are you doing with it?
>
>I never said that. I've had four BSODs with NT (since February '96), all
>driver or hardware related.
>
>#1 was a memory chip dying (literally, the smoke escaped).
>#2 was someone kicking a network cable attached to my machine. Since my
>machine at the time was basically just a motherboard sitting on a desk with
>a powersupply hooked up and a couple of hard disks, it sent the whole kit &
>kaboodle flying off the edge of the desk.
>#3 was a hard disk giving up the ghost. This wouldn't have hurt too much
>except it happened to the drive with my swap on it, and about 2 minutes
>after the disk died NT tried to swap and died.
>#4 was the SP2+McAfee virus scan+floppy disk access bug. (That was the last
>one, happened about a day after SP2 was released).
>
>> >We'd be curious?
>
>No, you wouldn't, because you won't believe me.
>
>> I've never seen a blue screen on my computer at work. However,
>> I have seen some strange behavior, both on my machine, and
>> on other machines.
>>
>> My favorite -- if one can call it that -- had to be the "gosh, you
>> don't like the icons for this file type, so I'll change them for you
>> before asking" syndrome. That one was just plain weird.
>
>That's the icon cache getting corrupted, I'd say. Look for the file
>"ShellIconCache" in the Windows directory and delete it.
Noted. Mind you, I've yet to see it do it again since.
(And how did it become corrupted in the first place? I don't
go around mangling files named "ShellIconCache", after all...??)
>
>> The more
>> normal one, which is mostly an annoyance, is the "oh, I forgot how
>> to do the tooltips across the bottom icon bar" (under normal operation,
>> NT (Explorer?) shows tooltips -- the full title of the iconified window
>> appears therein). This particular problem also afflicts my boss's (?)
>> machine. (I'm running SP5, in case it matters; I think he is, too.)
>
>Does it do this all the time, or is it fixed with a logout/login cycle ?
I think logging out and then back in "fixes" it. I suspect
memory corruption somewhere in the system.
>
>> I've also had at least one crash with Visual Studio (fortunately, I
>> save my work often!) and at one point my computer was working
>> v--e--r--y s--l--o--w--l--y so that I could see each and every
>> redraw of each and every polygon, line, and text string while it was
>> updating its display. (It also was very slow in responding to mouse
>> clicks.)
>
>Sounds like you were under a pretty heavy memory load :). What type of
>programming ?
Actually, none at all, in that instance. I had Outlook, Visual Studio,
and Explorer running, plus Network Associates' VirusShield, plus the
usual assortment of daemons (output by the Task Manager; who knows
what they do. I don't), and was attempting to install Cygwin 1.1.
I suspect a semaphore got confused. :-) It was amusing for the first
two minutes and annoying for the rest of the half-hour or so prior
to my pressing of the Big Button.
>
>> And then there was the peculiar problem with my disk drive.
>> (Or was it?) The disk drive, over the course of a week, suddenly
>> decided to develop some sort of a problem that would slow down
>> performance very noticeably, and I was getting time-out events,
>> (and in one case, "old firmware" notifications)!
>
>Sounds like a hard disk on its way out. Possibly heat related.
Sounded like it to me too. At least I got my data off of it
before it went belly-up. :-)
>
>> Funny thing, though -- after the machine was slated to be replaced
>> (my new machine's quite happy) I decided, out of desperation,
>> to shut it down (that took a good half-hour!) and power-cycle it.
>> Problem solved....maybe??? Bizarre! But the "ticking" and performance
>> problems stopped. I'll never know, now, whether it was a hardware
>> problem or a software one; the computer was duly replaced, and the
>> other one is now .... somewhere, probably back to the manufacturer
>> to be analyzed.
>>
>> Problems should be more obvious than that.
>>
>> Even HP-UX on an HPPA isn't this unreliable (and even during the bad
>> old days of 8.x, I at least could count on it 99.9% or so). HP-UX
>> occasionally gives me "dead" xterm windows in 10.20; I've had 1 panic
>> that I can count and today a problem where my screen lock (HP-UX has
>> CDE) wouldn't do anything intelligent with my password; I had to log
>> in on another machine and kill the session. There are also a number
>> of problems if the network goes bad (HP-UX's favorite behavior in that
>> case is "OK, my X server is going to freeze up now!"). I will admit,
>> to my employer's credit, that their network rarely has problems. :-)
>> And dead xterms I can just iconify out of the way. (Try that with
>> a hung process on Windows....)
>
>Well you can just kill its process :). That'll get rid of it.
Uh huh.
The Steve Gallagher Sledge-O-Matic School of Programming. :-)
Suppose that process were a ray-tracer just doing its thing?
(A bit contrived, perhaps -- any ray-tracer worth its salt
would run display and generation in two separate threads anyway,
IMO.)
>
>> And then there's Outlook, and its susceptibility to viruses
>> (mostly because apparently some people are dumb enough to click on
>> love letters :-) ). But that's a separate issue, and I for one
>> wasn't suckered. (Of course, enabling display of the suffixes
>> in the options of Internet Explorer may have had something to
>> do with that.)
>
>The setting makes no difference - extensions in outlook are always displayed
>in the little attachments list.
One hopes so; at least the clued-in can tell if it's a potential threat
or not. (I'm more worried about the ActiveX sneakies which get
"run" in the preview pane -- assuming that even happens, admittedly.
But we haven't gotten those in awhile; in fact, the last ones marked with
a "BioHazard" icon were supposed to be virus update patches, and I
inadvertantly deleted 'em! :-) )
>
>[chomp]
>
>
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
------------------------------
From: "Secretly Cruel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: There is NO reason to use Linux...It just STINX
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 09:30:27 -0500
On Sunday, May 21, 2000 3:10 AM, "Ferdinand V. Mendoza"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Try Linux, please try it. Decide for yourself. And then please come
>> back here and post your experiences with Linux.
>
> Man, I love it.
>
<aol>Mee tooo </aol>
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Open source advocacy.
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 15:06:48 +0100
For all of you whop claim that open source is a bad model, have you ever
had a *really* annoying bug in a program which prevented you from using
it, and there was nothing you could do?
I'm feeling very happy at the moment because I fixed a bug in a piece of
software (it was the bmptoppm program - with 24bpp bitmaps, it expected
a 67108864 byte palette in the bitmap file, which made it die horribly).
After a look at the source code, I fixed the bug to a suitable standard
and went about my work. In 2 hours I had a working piece of software
again. Have you ever had such quick response from a closed source
software company?
Long live open source
long live linux
-Ed
--
Did you know that the reason that windows steam up in cold weather is
because
of all the fish in the atmosphere?
-The Hackenthorpe Book Of Lies
------------------------------
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