Linux-Advocacy Digest #677, Volume #26 Thu, 25 May 00 03:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Advocacy or Mental Illness ? (Thomas Phipps)
Re: Linux will never progress beyond geekdome (Thomas Phipps)
Re: Why only Microsoft should be allowed to create software ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: how to enter a bug report against linux? ("Peter T. Breuer")
Wintrolls! M$ will get the blade. ("Ferdinand V. Mendoza")
Re: Installing Linux Mandrake 7.0 (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Windows by Day, Linux by Night (Peter Espen)
Re: Installing Linux Mandrake 7.0 (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Linux will never progress beyond geekdome (Pete Goodwin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Phipps)
Subject: Re: Advocacy or Mental Illness ?
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 06:13:17 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>It's amazing how twisted the folks around here are. Linux is a stone
>age system that quite frankly the public at large, at least in the
>USA, has ignored and continues to ignore.
>
Stone age? it's younger then microsuck ... and as far as the
USA ignoreing it ... then why is it one of the fastest
growing servers in the US?
>Think about it. Person goes into CompUSA with $100 and is confronted
>with Windows for $89.00 and Linux for $29.00 or better yet for free.
>Yet they go for Windows every time based on market share.
mostly cause they were there after windows in the first place
no one I know has ever just thought oh look is that a
operating system .. I think I"ll try it with knowing
nothing about it. ... then again 4 years ago how many
copys of linux were actualy on the selves compeared today?
>
>They can't even GIVE LINUX AWAY!!!!
they can't? says who? I"ve found people asking me about wanting
to buy it ... hell if I had the capital I would
open a linux only store just to reap the rewards of linux
>
>Linux is for lusers. It best serves folks who like to fiddle and fuss
>with their computers.
>I stopped that routine 10 years ago.
>
>
>When the Linux zealots start listening to what REAL people want(hint
>compilers and editor wars need not apply) maybe, just maybe they will
>gain market share, until then forget it
they are listening ... when are the windows Zealots going to learn that
prooganda doesn't work it only makes windows look like a chilish
operating system used by children
[snip snip snip *scream of extream pain*]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Phipps)
Subject: Re: Linux will never progress beyond geekdome
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 06:20:28 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Linux has the "suck-factor" to overcome.
>
just like you?
>Like the commercial says "Just one look, that's all it took"
>
and you'll never look back
[jsut a little snip here]
>
>The more folks that try it the more pissed off users there are, who
>tell other users, who tell other users and so forth.
pissed off? hell I havn't been this happy in a long time
my stress is down ... I have time to spend on other things
I don't hafta worry about virii as much as I did with windows
>
>Linux will be dead in 2 years unless it does something dramatic, and
>that is highly unlikely.
>I mean they can't even give the garbage away...
>
they said linux wouldn't ever compeate with mircosoft
they did ....
they said that Linux would never have over a 1,000,000 users
it's done that ten fold ... {probley 20 fold by now}
in the imortal words of Bill gates ... no one should ever need
more then 640k of ram {bill gates 1984}
my personaly fav.
the apple corperation was started april 1rst 1976
>
>
>
>On Thu, 25 May 2000 02:11:12 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (win4win)
>wrote:
>
>>Sorry Unix/Linux geeks.. but Windows Wins.. I just installed Red Splat
>>Linux and really had to brush the dust off the Unix memories to get it
>>running. I'm so sure that your average user can wade through a Linux
>>install and deal with all those Unix-ie messages! Not. Windows has
>>NOTHING to fear until Linux can overcome its Unix-ness.
>>
>>Phtttt.
>>
>
WhyteWolf
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why only Microsoft should be allowed to create software
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 01:23:34 -0500
On Wed, 24 May 2000 22:07:57 -0400, Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
>
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 25 May 2000 01:20:06 GMT, Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>
>> Except for the minor problem(which I spelled out above) that:
>>
>> To *get* the damned fixpack you've got to get to IBM's WWW site. To
>> get there, you need a modern browser,
>
>Like Netscape 2.02 or you can FTP into a public FTP server directly.
So NS2.02 doesn't require any fixpacks?
FTP to ... which server directly? These are things someone unfamiliar
with OS2 would never know....
>> because I had horrendous errors
>> and "Type .NSF isn't known; save to disk?" errors when I tried with
>> WebExplorer 1.2 (which IBM includes). However, to get that modern
>> browser (Netscape 4.61, which I could navigate to on IBM's WWW site,
>> after 5 minutes of searching - grumble)
>
>ha ha. It took you five minutes ha ha. The OS/2 default desktop is
>setup with a link to the netscape browser. But it gets even funnier.
>Search ALL of IBM http://www.ibm.com with these three words "OS/2 warp
>netscape" You get these two top hits:
Yes, now navigate around IBM's WWW site without getting ".NFS file is
unknown; save to disk?" errors every 20 seconds.
>1) Netscape Communicator 4.61 for OS/2 Warp
>IBM OS/2 Netscape Download Page
>
>2) IBM OS/2: Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 Warp
>IBM OS/2: Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 Warp
>
>If it also took you 5 minutes to find your way out of a closet - who
>would you blame for that problem?
Who do I blame for IBM's inability to package a decent browser with
their product, you mean?
>> you need FixPack 5. However,
>> to get FixPack 5, you need to be able to navigate on IBM's WWW site.
>>
>> Basically, if you have FP13 on a CDROM or locally, or know how to find
>> it on an FTP site, you're fine.
>
>Basically it is Very easy to find the FTP site - even when searhcing
>from the main IBM web page - You click on the URL and use the FTP site
>link. Or type it in.
>ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v4warp/english-us/
Yes, but how did you know to get there? By navigating around IBM's
web site. And to get around IBM's www site successfully, you need NS.
And to get NS, you need the fixpack. And to get the fixpack, you need
Netscape. etc....
------------------------------
From: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: how to enter a bug report against linux?
Date: 25 May 2000 06:39:05 GMT
In comp.os.linux.misc Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: In article <8ghmmi$ncg$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
: Peter T. Breuer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:>They would have cared if they had known what they were seeing or
:>even if they had seen it. Did any distro ship with 2.2.7? (I waited
:>till 2.2.10 before judging 2.2. was safe). If so, there's the distros
:>frontlining job ready and waiting to be done. If not, it's the experts
:>job, and they'll mail a bug report to the kernel list.
: I've forgotten which versions shipped with which kernel, but
: there were a lot of cases of lost data reported. Many people
: just assumed that was the nature of Linux filesystems. There
THey should have assumed it was in the nature of linux distros. It was
the distros decision to ship an untested kernel. I didn't even
consider the idea.
: open file descriptor limits. The 2.2.x series is supposed
: to be stable according to the numbering scheme - why should you
: expect it to be broken?
(a) it's not broken, (b) it's not bugfree. Stable means not subject
to wilful new brokenness every day, like devel kernels.
:>Note that "caring" is an idea introduced by you. I was talking
:>about noticing.
: Caring is is the issue when it comes to using Linux at all. Can
: someone intelligently make a decision to store files they
: care about on a Linux box? What basis do you have for the
: answer without someone tracking real problems?
SOmeone who cares will care to check the answer. Look at the driver
changelist. I do it by counting bug report frequencies on the kernel
list and seeing when they flatten. In the case of the 2.2.* series,
I actually made heavy use of the debian bug report logs .
Also with respect to glibc. (about 1 year ago the bug rate was
still increasing, and had tripled since deployment)
:>Why? How does having a central repository increase the number of bug
:>reports received by maintainers? I'd be interested to know, since
:>part of your argument seemed to be that it would reduce the number.
:>Are you shifting your accounting methods? That's OK, but make it plain.
: Having a central repository would make it possible to see if
: a bug had already been reported. If it hasn't, it would encourage
: people to take the trouble to report the new ones and they
: would be able to report any new unreported details about existing
: ones without a lot of duplication.
Kernel bugs are not of that kind. Bugs that can be replicated are
fixed.
Bugs that can be identified are fixed. Fixed bugs show up in the kernel
change logs.
That leaves all the generic bugs. E.g. "ntfs doesn't work on write".
Nobody will do anything about that. It's documented.
:>You are saying that no distro comes with NFS ready to go?
: VALinux is the only one I know of that interoperates more or
: less correctly with non-Linux systems, because they include
: H.J. Lu's patches in the kernel as shipped.
Are you talking about nfs v3? (userspace) nfs v2 has been OK for years.
: It has mostly worked OK with itself except for all_squash being
root_squash? Yes, that's standard.
: the default for at least several versions. The problem is with
: other systems. I had a disk go out on a Sun box holding a
: cvs repository and replaced it with an NFS mount from an
: early 2.2.x kernel. Cvs locking is about as conservative as
Sun's expect nfsv3 with statd and lockd and so on. Those
are now present in linux, but I wouldn't trust them. Tell
the sun it has a v2 server.
: you can get, using the creation of a directory as the lock.
Well, dot-locking is the standard "conservative" method.
: I ended up with frequent lock contention where the directory
: was actually gone, but still appeared in the client's view.
This is an nfs design bug. Directory handling is strange. You know
about the mkdir; cd, rmdir; trick, and the time-to-believe timeouts for
executable files (which a directory is).
: I fixed this by switching to cvs's client/server model, but
: then found that doing a 'cp -R' to copy a directory tree from
: a freebsd machine to a Linux-served NFS mount ended up with
: mostly 0-length files.
If they were read-only files, quite possibly. The order of transfer
of data and meta-data has to be carefully controlled!
:>: The usual practice is to build regression tests for as much as
:>: possible so you actually have an answer for this. The people
:>
:>Unfortunately that does not tell you anything. Change is often
:>what was intended. The previous behaviour of the kernel is not
:>the standard for the future behaviour. The kernel has started
:>downing the whole interface when you down an alias of a net
:>interface, for example. Is this a bug? (I have been dealing with
:>this heavily today). Not according to most people on the kernel
:>lists.
: Of course it is a bug - even NT can do better than that. If you
: change the behaviour you should change the test and document
: the difference.
It's sort of documented in the ifconfig specs. But I assure you
that it is not a bug but an intended feature according to the
authors of the kernel code concerned. In the last few days it
has been discovered that the new behaviour is dependent on
IPV6 in the kernel, which makes it more obviously a bug. But
until then most of the network code authors were saying it is
not a bug.
Try it on any 2.2. kernel with an ifconfig more recent than 1.35
while the IPV6 module is loaded. ifconfig lo:0 127.0.0.2 ; ifconfig
lo:0 down. You should find that your lo interface has disappeared.
Moreover, you can't get rid of the alias. ifconfig lo up will
bring back lo:0 too.
This is not a bug. And some of the upstream maintainers of nettools
say it is not a bug either. (most now say it is a bug, but the real bug
is a kernel bug, but the kernel authors don't agree, though alan has
agreed to take a patch, since the IPV6 thing is clearly out of line).
How is an end-user going to spot a kernel bug? In the case above
he will be told that ifconfig is deprecated in such situations.
A kernel bug is often a matter of opinion.
:>: I think you underestimate the number of people who need this kind
:>: of answer or the time it would take to supply the correct ones.
:>
:>I don't. I answer about 100 mails a day. Probably half of those dealing
:>directly with codes I maintain. Most of the rest are dealing with
:>conversations over other codes, other peoples bugs, projects past
:>and present, articles, etc. etc.
: How far can you scale this up? Can you double it every 6 months?
I don't have to. My share of the total burden halves every 6 months.
I'm not at the apex of the pyramid.
:>As you know, it's a very heavily supported system.
: In its own quirky way. What the developers accomplish is
: great, of course, but they have their limits. I just don't
: think the support system can sustain growth. Even without
: a flurry of new bugs (which we may get with 2.4) the number
: of new people hitting old bugs is bound to grow, and these
: people don't need developer attention at all.
Old bugs are either fixed or "not a bug but a feature". Stable
means you get what you got last time, just a bit better.
: Yes, this is nice sometimes, but generally not. Suppose the
: question was needing files bigger than 2 gigs on pentium
: machines. How much developer time does each end user need
: to burn on that question?
Very few people need 2GB files on ia32. The ones who do are
savvy enough to kow they need them ad savvy eough to figure that
2GB is 2^31.
:>It became known to those of us on the lists that the eepro100 has a
:>limit of three hardware-serviced addresses. Anything more needs
:>a firmware trick and there are firmware bugs connected with it.
:>I.e. you should limit the hardware filters to three by telling the
:>driver so. It took a looong time to discover the bug. And whose bug is
:>it? Intel's? Donald's?
: That's exactly my point. There were people who knew about it
: but going through all the channels I could find turned up
: nothing.
Why didn't you just post to the eepro100 list? It's low traffic. A
bug report would have been welcome. Clicking on the drivers web page
shows the list link (and archive!).
:>Sure, start one up, but don't expect it to be used exclusively. I don't
:>kow what the effect would be. I think it wouldn't catch on.
: The effect would be that people would know what to expect from
: a Linux machine. That's mostly the point of bug tracking systems
No .. they'd see the bugs on the tracking system. That's all. My
contention is that that would be about 1% of the real situation
kown to developers.
: although getting the bugs fixed eventually is sometimes a side
: effect. However, it would have to be used heavily enough to
: accumulate at least the mainstream bugs.
Mainstream bugs (interesting bugs) are fixed at once, if fixable.
"NFS doesn't work right" is a bug, but not a very interesting one.
It works well enough.
: I've only used solaris and freebsd against it, and both failed
: in various ways. I've seen reports of aix/hpux having
I've been using solaris and irix against linux NFS (in both directions)
for years with no identifiable unsolved problems.
: similar problems. H. J. Lu found enough wrong that he has
: gone to the trouble of assembling patches to the kernel
: and tools after about every release. Has it been tested at all
: in cross-platform situations - where would I find the results?
: It is hard to use the excuse of not knowing expected behaviour
: for nfs as a reason for not testing.
I have a huge book on NFS semantics and design open on my desk at the
moment. It makes it very plain that NFS canot be expected to work the
way you wish under countless circumstances. That said, protocol
mismatches have existed from time to time, and been corrected.
Whose bug it was is moot.
:>But these are not kernel "problems". They are simply characteristics of
:>the present linux behaviour. They have to be learned in the same way as
:>always.
: The way things stand, every user has to experience every problem.
Distros are expected to solve that.
: That is even worse than commercial systems where they may not
: let you see the real bug reports but will at least try to steer
: you away from them.
Distros are commercial systems.
:>Are you saying that the raw admin has no way of finding out that
:>the rest of the world doesn't trust knfsd?
: Yes, and when he loses data and tries to find the solution it still
: is not easy. And it isn't much consolation to see that all of
: the other admins who tried something similar have been having
: the same thing happen for a year now. Why was knfsd blessed
: into an even-number stable release if it isn't trusted anyway?
You're not obliged to use it. And frankly, anyone using NFS is
in the < 1% category. Also it had to be put in so linux could compete
on speed. That was important.
: Try it. If you do a search you'll find my questions and a bunch
: of others with a lot of wrong answers and no system to tie them
: to the right answer if there ever is one.
"as you know", there are no absolute answers in this world. There
are an awful lot of variable parameters.
:>Ask yourself "bugs known by WHOM"?
: That's the problem. If anyone knows, why doesn't everyone?
Because it makes not one bit of difference to fixing bugs. Millions of
people can know that netscape can run wild when detached from the
console or when deprived of DNS, and that the 2.2.* OOM system can then
take out your X server (wrongly). It won't change it. Bugs are fixed
by communication and contribution among the many many developers
involved. The kernel is too complex for most anyone to be able to
work on in isolation. It's an interacting system. It needs an
interacting medium as the conduit for work on it. A bugtrack system
is not that.
Sure, set up a bugtrack, scan the kernel digests for the reports and
solutions, and keep it up to date. Every one will thank you. But it's
a deadweight in a moving world: the internet.
Peter
------------------------------
From: "Ferdinand V. Mendoza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Wintrolls! M$ will get the blade.
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 10:53:28 +0400
Judge Jackson is considering the idea of chopping M$ into
three pieces -one more than the government's proposal of two.
Nice. The more the merrier.
Ferdinand
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Installing Linux Mandrake 7.0
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 06:59:14 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mig Mig) wrote in <8ghjlu$450$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>I dont believe you.. We have done a dusin or so installs of Mandrake,
>Redhat and Corel on different machines and never encountered a problem.
Why don't you believe me? Why should I lie about this?
Pete
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Espen)
Subject: Re: Windows by Day, Linux by Night
Date: 24 May 2000 13:57:30 -0600
I am still working on my book: "101 Pasta Recipes for Linux Users Who
Have to Make Their Own Dinner at Night". I am posting this in the
Linux Advocacy groups cause it's aimed at Linux users who are forced
to cook for themselves. I'll announce when the book is done and the
first 1000 people to try one of my recipes will get a great meal.
Peter
--
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Installing Linux Mandrake 7.0
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 07:05:52 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rich C) wrote in <392c73d4@news>:
>Try running sndconfig from an xterm. My legacy soundblaster did not work
>on initial installation (RH6.2, which is similar to Mandrake I believe)
>but running this utility afterwards made it work fine. If not, try this:
I tried this. Underneath the buzzing sound, I could hear the test sound. I
rebooted, and sound worked! Then shortly afterwards the annoying buzzing
sound came back and I lost sound again.
Interesting, this is a cheap PCI sound card that someone here kept prodding
me to buy, as my ISA SB16 wasn't working. It would seem PCI isn't enough to
make it work either.
>Define "does not work." Netgear products use the digital [forgot #]
>chipset, and the tulip driver. I've installed dozens of these and never
>had a problem. Since you say it is "configured", maybe you have another
>network problem, such as no DNS or hosts file, or if you're trying to
>talk to a windows box, maybe your samba is not set up properly.
I have two machines with identical NetGear cards. On one, Linux installed
and worked just fine, on the second, dead. ping does not work, I can't see
the other machine (can with Windows 98 SE).
>> Fonts look terrible (but they always did on X - where's font anti
>> aliasing?)
>
>http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU.html
I'll take a look at this.
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Linux will never progress beyond geekdome
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 07:08:15 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in <8gi6kl$ehv$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Yawn. Go home little boy. Or get a recient version of Linux. Or try
>Corel for ease of install. But hey, If you judge an OS by it's install,
>you are just being STUPID.
It's a good indicator of the horrors to come!
Pete
------------------------------
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