Linux-Advocacy Digest #459, Volume #29 Wed, 4 Oct 00 22:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively (Charlie Ebert)
Re: The real issue (Steve Mading)
Re: Migration --> NT costing please :-) ("Adam Warner")
Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively ("Chad Myers")
Re: What kind of WinTroll Idiot are you anyway? ("Chad Myers")
Re: Linux - - Troll (Dave Ratcliffe)
Re: Linux and Free Internet? (Bob Hauck)
Re: Migration --> NT costing please :-) ("Chad Myers")
Re: RAID on Win2k Pro ("Adam Warner")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:04:47 GMT
Chad Myers wrote:
> I said almost because their MIGHT be one or two
> pieces of software that weren't for Windows, but
> I couldn't find 'em.
>
> http://www.spaceref.com/shuttle/computer/spoc/
>
> (click on a few of the links/screenshots on the left)
>
> They even use Windows (NT apparently) to control
> life-support systems including warning and
> monitoring systems:
>
> http://www.spaceref.com/shuttle/computer/spoc/cautwarn.html
>
> Here's an example of one of the three network diagrams
> they have for the space shuttle and space station:
>
> http://www.spaceref.com/shuttle/computer/106.LAN.nominal.html
>
> At least a few of them are windows, but, judging by the
> software it says the no-named-OS computers are running,
> it appears they are Windows as well.
>
> No mention of Linux, MacOS, or *laf* OS/2
>
> Guess they actually want some productivity. They also
> trust their lives to it because they know that when it's
> properly set up, NT can be the most stable OS available
> (2nd only to Win2k, of course).
>
> -Chad
That being also the one which went poof.
The ones which went into Mars at 62 degree angles were W2k equipped.
Snikker.
Ah, Story uses Linux on his laptop. He took it with him on every
flight
as they needed to do some work.
Love
Charlie
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The real issue
Date: 5 Oct 2000 01:06:41 GMT
Kolbj�rn S. Br�nnick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Hi all!
: I just wanted to say that I am a bit fed up with some of the advocacy for
: Linux that I have seen here. People who say that Netscape haven't crashed
: at all, people who claim Linux is a good desktop OS, compared to W2K.
This depends largely on how you use Netscape. Netscape on Linux is
very crash-prone when visiting certain sites using Java, but not
at all if you have Java turned off. I used to crash Netscape about
once a day. Then I adopted a policy of leaving Java support turned
off until I hit a site where I knew I needed it, and turning it on
just while visiting that site only. That got rid of a lot of the
silly little "let's use an applet to make a stupid animation" stuff,
and consequently, the crash-prone java code that was behind it all.
I consider this a failing of Netscape's Linux support rather than a
failing of Linux itself, since Linux has several standalone java
implementations that work fine - its only the one built into Netscape
that seems so buggy. Now that I've adopted this policy, I haven't
crashed Netscape once in 6 months. So where am I going with this?
Simple: People who say "Netscape never crashes" might just happen to
be people who don't visit sites with Java applets, and so as far as
they know, it doesn't crash. They might not be liars, like you claim.
(Oh, and incedentally, the crashes from Java sites don't always happen
right away. Sometimes they just start a neverending loop in a thread
hidden away behind the scenes that doesn't go away. This sometimes
doesn't cause a crash until much later in the browsing session, after
the offending site is long forgotten. That's why it took me a very
long time to trace down the cause of it. The cause and the effect
were sometimes separated by more than 10 minutes of realtime.)
: These are not the important issues. It's obvious to me that Windows has the
: best desktop environment, the best applications and so-on.
: The important issues are: do we want to use proprietary office suites with
: proprietary unpublished file-formats? Do we want to use proprietary
: development languages and tools? Or, do we want free exchange of
: information and freedom from the immoral mafia that is Microsoft?
That's only an important issue to some. I'm not in a field where I
ever need to bother with office type applications, so I'm rather
ambivilent on that issue (until some moron sends me something in
Word format even though it's nothing more than dumb text with
paragraphs, and so could have been done in ascii without any loss of
formatting, then it becomes an issue.)
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Migration --> NT costing please :-)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 14:14:20 +1300
>> Hi Chad,
>
> Howdy from Texas!
<snip>
> Please keep your ignorant slants to yourself.
Gee, amazing how you can be so nice and so condescending all in the same
post.
I expressed myself wrongly when I posted "And won't be told to buy the
next version to get bug fixes."
I meant to say that I won't be told to buy the next version to get fixes
to functionality errors that are Microsoft's own fault, but could properly
be called bugs.
For example, I use Outlook 2000 + Word as text e-mail editor quite a lot.
If I save the email as a draft, open it, then send it all the line spacing
is messed up. I have to select all the text and convert it back to Normal.
MS thinks I should be Normal (Web).
There are other impairments in this "powerful" email combination
(including not being able to reply within the body of a message while
using Word as my email editor). Will Microsoft fix these before Office
2001? I very much doubt it.
I bet you in the Pronto mail client that I am using from Linux that an
unintended functionality impairment could be fixed within weeks. Users
post in bug reports and have discussions with developers because they know
the license provides security that the developer cannot turn around and
make them pay for the beta testing they have contributed.
Why should I continue making submissions to a MS web form where
submissions aren't even replied to? Take this for an ignorant slant: The
open source development process appears to be superior to the Microsoft
proprietary software development process.
Six months ago I couldn't find a stable enough graphical email client on
Linux that satisfied me. Now there is one and it is improving at an
incredibly rapid rate. There have been 8 new RPM releases since June. In
some aspects it is already superior to MS Outlook.
What will the mail client be like in 6 months? 12 months? Microsoft is not
up against a static target. It is "competing" against software that is
just getting better, and its traditional method of buying superior
technology and incorporating or shelving it just doesn't work.
Microsoft doesn't have to just try to be as good as open source software
development projects, it has to be better.
TCO is a difficult concept to compute. But we do know one component of TCO
is the cost of the software. MS is clearly at a disadvantage here, and has
to do better than OSS in other components of the measure.
If freedom and security is also a part of the total benefit of ownership
then Microsoft is also at a grave disadvantage.
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:13:53 GMT
"Charlie Ebert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Chad Myers wrote:
>
> > I said almost because their MIGHT be one or two
> > pieces of software that weren't for Windows, but
> > I couldn't find 'em.
> >
> > http://www.spaceref.com/shuttle/computer/spoc/
> >
> > (click on a few of the links/screenshots on the left)
> >
> > They even use Windows (NT apparently) to control
> > life-support systems including warning and
> > monitoring systems:
> >
> > http://www.spaceref.com/shuttle/computer/spoc/cautwarn.html
> >
> > Here's an example of one of the three network diagrams
> > they have for the space shuttle and space station:
> >
> > http://www.spaceref.com/shuttle/computer/106.LAN.nominal.html
> >
> > At least a few of them are windows, but, judging by the
> > software it says the no-named-OS computers are running,
> > it appears they are Windows as well.
> >
> > No mention of Linux, MacOS, or *laf* OS/2
> >
> > Guess they actually want some productivity. They also
> > trust their lives to it because they know that when it's
> > properly set up, NT can be the most stable OS available
> > (2nd only to Win2k, of course).
> >
> > -Chad
>
> That being also the one which went poof.
>
> The ones which went into Mars at 62 degree angles were W2k equipped.
>
> Snikker.
>
> Ah, Story uses Linux on his laptop. He took it with him on every
> flight
> as they needed to do some work.
Care to document anything you claim, or are you content in being
labelled "idiot with head in sand"?
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: What kind of WinTroll Idiot are you anyway?
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:18:36 GMT
"Steve Mading" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8rgigk$lg8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy . <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> :> PIII-666? How about 667 you
> :> yutz, no such thing as a PIII666
>
> : Clock the chip yourself. 2 third party applications were nice enough to
tell
> : me that it was running at 666mhz. Besides, its much more fun to type 666
> : instead of 667. Talking with the guy who sold me the video card (who used
to
> : work in R&D for motorola), it would seem that intel is pulling more of a
marketing
> : ploy than anything else.
>
> Probably more like an avoidance of bad marketting. Calling it a 666
> would cause agitation amongst certain religious yokels. Since the speed
> is some fraction between 666 and 667, and it varies a little from machine
> to machine, it's purely arbitrary whether to call it a 666 or a 667.
> This is probably the same reason that one chip was called "Pentuim II"
> instead of "Sexium" or "Hexium".
Sexium would sell more chips! =)
Why don't they call the 666mhz processor the Santanium or the Luciferium =)
-Chad
------------------------------
From: Dave Ratcliffe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk,alt.fan.karl-malden.nose,alt.support.cable-modem.kiddies,alt.usenet.kooks,uk.sport.football
Subject: Re: Linux - - Troll
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:35:50 GMT
In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Fecking
Hill) wrote:
>>>>>Flaagg escribi� en art�culo:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm downloading all 640 megs of the Linux Mandrake 7 ISO. I
>>>>>> just might install it, too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Don't ask me why.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'd reinstall on *this* computer, but that would mean losing
>>>>>my pr0n archive hard drive. Two gigs, daily downloads and
>>>>>I still haven't found any porn stars with clean fingernails.
>>>>>
>
>Unix suxks
Mose people without the capacity to understand things more difficult than
"pull this tab to open" say that.
>Gibber
You do it well.
--
Veteran: The Blacklist of Net.Nazis and Sandlot Bullies
CJ III's Net.Scum list, Tim Brown's Net Scum list
Member: Cabal #Za35CFK Level 2 -=- There IS no Cabal [tm]
Always mount a scratch monkey
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: Linux and Free Internet?
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:43:40 GMT
On Wed, 04 Oct 2000 18:30:18 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Would you pay $19.95 a month for nationwide numbers
>to internet access?
No, because I already pay $14.95 a month for that.
If you are willing to look around a bit, many local and regional ISP's
are actually reselling dialup from national providers like PSI, or else
belong to one of several roaming co-ops. The ISP I use has around 600
dialup numbers. If you generally travel to particular cities, and they
have numbers there this can work out quite well.
If you travel out in the sticks, well, then maybe not.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Migration --> NT costing please :-)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:42:11 GMT
"Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8rgkl7$d9d$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> Hi Chad,
> >
> > Howdy from Texas!
>
> <snip>
>
> > Please keep your ignorant slants to yourself.
>
> Gee, amazing how you can be so nice and so condescending all in the same
> post.
Same with you. Your post started out friendly and objective, but as it
progressed, it became apparent that you weren't interested in learning
anything, merely bashing Microsoft with misinformation.
> I expressed myself wrongly when I posted "And won't be told to buy the
> next version to get bug fixes."
>
> I meant to say that I won't be told to buy the next version to get fixes
> to functionality errors that are Microsoft's own fault, but could properly
> be called bugs.
Examples? You're still talking out of your ass. Both statements are crap.
I hear the same thing coming from penguinistas about the majestic Kernel 2.4
which will magically fix all of Linux's problems.
Show me a piece of software, and I'll show you one that has to be upgraded
to get the newest features.
> There are other impairments in this "powerful" email combination
> (including not being able to reply within the body of a message while
> using Word as my email editor). Will Microsoft fix these before Office
> 2001? I very much doubt it.
Don't use Word as your email editor.
And if you do, I never had a problem replying in-line. It always highlights
my text and prefaces it with [Chad Myers]stuff stuff stuff and highlights
it blue.
> I bet you in the Pronto mail client that I am using from Linux that an
> unintended functionality impairment could be fixed within weeks. Users
> post in bug reports and have discussions with developers because they know
> the license provides security that the developer cannot turn around and
> make them pay for the beta testing they have contributed.
Pronto also only does POP3 mail. Outlook is expected to, and does, do much
more, so you're comparing apples to Mac trucks. Outlook is designed to
be a client to Exchange. Period. It _HAS_ POP3 support only as a secondary
support, but it's sole purpose is to be a client to Exchange. If you want
a decent MS POP3 client, use Outlook Express. It has many more features
for Internet-only (POP3, NNTP, SMTP only) services. Outlook, for example,
doesn't even have NNTP support.
> Why should I continue making submissions to a MS web form where
> submissions aren't even replied to? Take this for an ignorant slant: The
> open source development process appears to be superior to the Microsoft
> proprietary software development process.
But the "bugs" you've mentioned aren't even bugs. No one else seems to
have this problem. I just said you can reply in-line even with Word as your
email editor. The fact that you can't figure out how to do it isn't
necessarily MS's problem. It's there you don't know how to use it, maybe
you should get a book or take a free CBT course on Outlook.
> Six months ago I couldn't find a stable enough graphical email client on
> Linux that satisfied me. Now there is one and it is improving at an
> incredibly rapid rate. There have been 8 new RPM releases since June. In
> some aspects it is already superior to MS Outlook.
Outlook Express has several features superior to Outlook. Like I said,
Outlook is a client to Exchange and should only be thought of as such.
Pronto probably doesn't do collaboration, PIM, scheduling, or any of
the things that Oulook does, above and beyond email, at all, or at least
better than Outlook.
> What will the mail client be like in 6 months? 12 months? Microsoft is not
> up against a static target. It is "competing" against software that is
> just getting better, and its traditional method of buying superior
> technology and incorporating or shelving it just doesn't work.
Outlook is competing against GroupWise and Lotus Notes in which every aspect
it's WAY better. It's not competing against POP3 clients because it's not
a POP3 client. You're frustrated at MS because you're using the product
incorrectly.
> Microsoft doesn't have to just try to be as good as open source software
> development projects, it has to be better.
It is, so why are we arguing. There is no decent collaboration and
enterprise information management solution for Linux. Exchange is lightyears
ahead of anything Linux has to offer in all areas of information management
and collaboration. Enterprises don't run on Email or POP3, they run on
the ability to collaborate and share their information and make it readily
available to decision makers.
> TCO is a difficult concept to compute. But we do know one component of TCO
> is the cost of the software. MS is clearly at a disadvantage here, and has
> to do better than OSS in other components of the measure.
Many studies by respected groups (including Gartner Group) showing that the
initial costs of the software (software itself, licensing, etc) is less
than 30 or 25% of the TCO of a software product or platform.
Training, workflow, ease of use, ease of administration, support and
maintenance costs, and performance of the platform are among the largest
expenses, all of which Linux falls flat except for performance, perhaps,
but it still isn't even on the map with the Big Boys(tm) (IBM, Sun, MS,etc)
No one's even attempted a TPC submission. However, if you look at the
TPC rosters, Windows ranks top in price/performance and in performance
beating out IBM big iron, Sun, and Fujitsu. In fact, IBM AS/400 is #5
and Sun falls flat on it's face at #7. Windows owns #1-4, and 6.
> If freedom and security is also a part of the total benefit of ownership
> then Microsoft is also at a grave disadvantage.
Microsoft's security implementation is far more advanced than the 30 year
old archaic Unix implementation in linux. Unfortunately, most people deploy
Windows and don't give enough consideration to security, this is a problem
in all platforms. If you look at Security Focus' cracks/platform you'll
notice NT and Linux are neck and neck in cracks each month. Sometimes
Linux has more, sometimes NT.
Windows has the potential, when configured properly to have a better, more
robust security implementation because it has concepts such as DAC with
explicit deny and inheritence, full auditing capabilities as required by
the DOD's trusted security evaluation council (TSEC), directory-based
enterprise-wide policy execution and auditing, and many more. These
concepts are foreign to Linux. You basically have Group/User/Everyone and
that's it. There are 3rd party add-ons to gain some or a fraction of the
implementations of security in Windows 2000, but they're risky and untested.
If half of the people who use Windows 2000 got serious about security, the
number of cracks would drop considerably.
On the contrary, people installing Linux are generally more aware of these
solutions as you have to be a Unix expert to even consider deploying
Linux in a production system that the Linux numbers are unlikely to take
a down-turn anytime soon.
Windows is so easy to install and configure (lessening the TCO) that sometimes
less-educated administrators don't consider all the factors, such as security.
This has been addressed, and yes, Microsoft can do way more on that front.
The capability is there, just not the mindset. MS is trying to educate people
but many have expectations of Windows, so it's hard to get it into their heads.
Linux is still immature. It's not enterprise ready, nor is it suitable for
many production environments. It's good enough to be a DNS server and maybe
a mail server, but has yet to prove itself effectively in any other area.
Web serving is an up-and-coming strength of Linux and my hats off to the
developers, but it still needs a ton of work; they'll probably be the
first to tell you this.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: RAID on Win2k Pro
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 14:50:04 +1300
Hi Drestin and Chad,
> Actually, you need only two copies of Windows 2000 professional - this
> will provide you with the RAID...
I thought you were both wrong about this but I didn't want to contradict
you before I got the answer from Microsoft's web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS2000/library/resources/reskit/samplechapters/fncb/fncb_dis_gxih.asp
(NB: FT stands for fault tolerant)
"Creating new FT sets, such as mirrored and RAID-5 volumes, is only
available on computers running Windows 2000 Server. The disk must be
upgraded to dynamic disk before these volumes can be created. You can,
however, use a computer running Windows 2000 Professional to create
mirrored and RAID-5 volumes on a remote computer running Windows 2000
Server."
Any response?
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
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