Linux-Advocacy Digest #628, Volume #31 Sun, 21 Jan 01 00:13:05 EST
Contents:
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant. ("Kyle Jacobs")
Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant. ("Kyle Jacobs")
Why "uptime" is important. (mlw)
Re: A salutary lesson about open source (Bob Hauck)
Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant ("Kyle Jacobs")
Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant. (T. Max Devlin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:29:01 GMT
References: trimmed back.
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chad Myers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:00:09 GMT
<twqa6.6281$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>"The Ghost In The Machine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
>in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Kevin Ford
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote
>> on Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:58:32 +0000
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>> >Ayende Rahien once wrote:
>> >>
>> >>"." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> >>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >>> > 2.) We weren't distributing "consumer digital" products, we
>> >>> > were making videos. Breaking up the already whole videos is
>> >>> > just ANOTHER step we'd have to go through to reach the final product.
>> >>> > All because of Linux's poor design. That's not a valid excuse
>> >>> > when there are plenty of better choices out there.
>> >>>
>> >>> Linux is not at all at fault in this scenario. You have issues with the
>> >>> limitations of one filesystem. Exactly like the limitations of FAT or
>> >>> NTFS (I know NTFS can handle larger files than ext2, but that doesn't
>> >>> mean it doesn't have its limits).
>> >>
>> >>The only real limitation of NTFS I'm aware of is slow new-file
>> >>creation when dealing with orders of tens of millions of files.
>> >>
>> >
>> >Apart from the 18 month self destruct cycle.
>>
>> Probably caused by that absolutely horrid Master File Table, that
>> never goes down in size, but always goes up, fragments like
>> crazy, and generally is a pain in the you know very well where.
>
>I've never had a problem with it. Nor have I heard of anyone having
>a problem with it except in pre SP4 days when 4+million files would
>cause it problems.
>
>I'd take this non-problem over a retarded and elementary design
>flaw that prevents ext2fs from handling larger than 2GB files.
It's not ext2fs's fault, actually. Turns out it's the apps' fault
for not being written properly -- assuming that even makes sense
(more pedantically, it's the apps' author's (authors'?) fault).
Proper is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but, if an app
religiously used off_t, a simple reocmpile would make it 64-bit
compliant on modern Linux distributions [*]. I've already posted
the options, but I'll post them again here:
g++ -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D__USE_FILE_OFFSET64 ...
However, if an app does not religiously use off_t, it's going to
be a bit of a job porting it -- and for a large application, that
can be a real pain.
Obviously, there's enough blame to pass around, but there are also
ways to fix it, or get around it.
(Apologies to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for failing to credit him with
pointing me at these options the first time. At least, that's the
mail addy I've recorded in my test Build script.)
Just as yet another point of pedantry: the design of PostgreSQL, as
I understand it, doesn't require one monster database file, but
instead splits the problem up if it gets too big. However, I
have not had a chance to test this -- and it's not clear it would
have the performance you require anyway, since it's not going
to help you in video processing; that's not its job.
It fell down badly compared to my employer's Oracle database, anyway.
Of course, to be fair, said Oracle database is running on a monster
30 (?) CPU SPARC machine with gigabytes of RAM and a fair number of
spindles, consuming 30 megarows a day, each row containing
about 100 or so bytes (and this with other processes querying
it for various things, as well!). My dinky Pentium Pro 200 with
a couple of 8 gigabyte SCSI drives and a PCI bus, while good
for me, isn't going to come even close.
But I was hoping... :-)
(Also, my understanding is that this SPARC, big as it is, is tiny
compared to some installations.)
I'd have to rerun the benchmark, and my system's in a sorry state
at the moment because of an outage related to the California power
crisis, blowing away my system disk. Sigh.
I'm curious as to how well a 32-node Win2k cluster could handle
that load. Isn't that the market Microsoft's aiming for?
>
>-Chad
>
[*] there are some issues regarding libc that may be a problem on
older distributions. I don't know the specifics, admittedly,
but lseek() mutates into lseek64@@GLIBC_2.1(), for example, or
something like that -- this according to the 'nm' utility.
I do know that I can't compile it now, on my Redhat 5.2-based
emergency system -- the header files simply don't have lseek64()
in them.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 1d:15h:37m actually running Linux.
The Usenet channel. All messages, all the time.
------------------------------
From: "Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant.
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:26:24 GMT
"Pete Goodwin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:gAba6.47952
> > This is possible; "jedi" likes to obsessively and routinely call
> > "Swango,Flatfish,Claire," a liar whenever s/he brings up issues
reguarding
> > Linux's imperfection. Rather than admit to problems, or just not saying
> > anything, there is old, reliable "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with a post that
> > can
> > be summed up in four, simple words: "I think your lying". I could have
> > mistaken his words for yours, and for that, I'm sorry.
>
> How true. That seems to be ol' jedi's way of not hearing things.
>
> > > >The point-clicky thing works just fine for Windows,
> > >
> > > Oh, p'shaw, if it didn't suck balls, we wouldn't want to get rid of
the
> > > shit, y'know? ;-)
> >
> > Except the mentality of this is to throw the baby out with the
bathwater.
> > All the "innovations" in the Linux GUI front are coming at the expense
of
> > a
> > very obvious, underlying problem; functionality. Sure, there are good
> > looking interfaces, but when things like GNOME programs have no ability
to
> > recognize KDE associations, and KDE menu's aren't GNOME menu's, and the
K
> > control panel has no ability to configure real system wide settings
(like
> > administrative level settings), this is where we hit a problem, caused
by
> > the STRUCTURE of Linux.
>
> In Linux Mandrake if you want a KDE desktop, you still need some Gtk tools
> in order to configure the system. It's this combination of KDE/Qt and Gtk
> that makes the desktop on Linux an incoherent mess.
Rather than "fixing the mess" by integrating the projects, OR having the
XFree86 team work on some unifying standards for itself, the Linvocates
decide that "GUI's are just evil, and will never be perfect".
GUI's are a mess under Linux, and this is what pisses me off the most about
it. Putting the idiotic ideology garbage behind the KDE & GNOME teams and
working to make the Linux desktop better through fixing the obvious problems
would be an excellent start.
After all, we're hearing rumors that the Linux kernel (2.4) has "scared
Microsoft", I think it's time to make the rest of the platform scary.
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4 Major Advance
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:33:23 GMT
Said [EMAIL PROTECTED] in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sun, 21 Jan 2001
>On 21 Jan 2001 00:45:15 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cliff Wagner)
>wrote:
>
>>Let's see....I haven't had any major problems with konqueror. I
>>mostly use it because it's just plain fast. I sometimes use
>>netscape (since some people like to do all sorts of fancy things
>>with their web sites which aren't standards based and
>>end up looking like crap in konq or opera).
>
>Since you seem to like looking things up on the net, a must when
>running Linux, try google and "konqueror+certificate" and see what
>happens.
Using the ever-ready WebFerret (another investment I'll miss) a boolean
expression "konqueror and certificate" took no less than thirty seconds
(a great bit of time, indicating no huge flood of pages referencing
this) brought up this as the third real hit:
#16758: Konqueror doesn't warn sufficiently strong when it can't verify
an SSL server certificate
Package: kio-http; Severity: critical; Reported by: "Ivan E Moore
II" <rkrusty at tdyc com>; merged with
#11406; 42 days old.
Its from http://buglist.kde.org/db/ix/full.html
"Doesn't warn sufficiently strong?" That couldn't possibly be the one
you were talking about, could it? Still, its listed as 'critical'.
>> I have no idea
>>what problem you have with your wheel mouse. Mine behaves
>>exactly like, well, a wheel mouse should.
>
>Under Windows In a split pane Window [...]
Whatever.
[...]
>You're doing something wrong with IE if you can't d/l files.
"Doing something wrong?"
(GoZilla; another investment I'll miss.)
[...]
>I have a Playstation II.
Gee.
>>Ahead? It might have better application support, but that
>>isn't anything more then developers developing for a
>>monopoly desktop environment.
>
>Applications are everything to a desktop user.
>That is why Linux isn't making a dent in that area.
No, that's why Microsoft uses an application barrier to prevent anyone
from making any dents, dings, or scratches in the OS area. But their
OSes are frankly so crappy that its getting to the point where its not
worth it. I'll just have to manage until ACDSee and GoZilla and
WebFerret and all those games and utilities and other apps get ported.
I don't expect it will take more than a year or two.
I really loved your whining about the 'floods' of complaints or messages
or whatever about fonts. It reminded me of back in the early-90s.
MILLIONS upon millions of people all grappling with the same monopoly
crapware and the grossly disfunctional problems with fonts. (Most of
which were ultimately caused by Microsoft trying to abscond with
TrueType.)
>> That doesn't have anything
>>to do necessarily with merits. MusicMatch, ACDSee, DiabloII,
>>UltraDev....good applications...none of which written by
>>Microsoft.
>
>None of which run under native Linux and to which there are no Linux
>equivalents even in the same ballpark.
Indeed. I'm looking forward greatly to the improvement (and lower
price) which will be caused by a return to free market development.
[...]
>Even "if" Joe Six pack manages to get Linux installed he will look at
>it once and unless he has a very specific need to run it, it will be
>tossed into the trash can because it has absolutely no curb appeal.
Now, that's what I call foot-stomping.
>Joe will be pissed off and frustrated and unless he is some geek with
>nothing better to do, will not stay with Linux very long because he is
>going to find that the applications are crude and silly looking
>compared to what he most likely already has with his pre-load Windows
>machine.
You really seem to have a bit of anger coming from somewhere. Have you
talked to somebody about that? Does it piss you off that there are
people using Linux on the desktop? Does it upset you that they learned
a different OS than you did? Are you frustrated by the realization that
you might have to someday learn something new?
>You think he is going to dump Lotus Organizer (a typical pre-load
>program) for that silly looking kde organizer?
> I don't think so.
I don't know of anyone who uses simplistic crap like that for very long.
But it won't be surprising when kde, unlike the Win32 crap, adds the
ability to actually interoperate with my Palm.
>>I'd say "fonts" is pretty intuitive to most users.
>
>Nope.
Well, duh-hee, if you say so, boss.
[...]
>Problem is it isn't a LITTLE reading it is constant, never ending
>reading to accomplish what will be easy for him under Windows.
All the READING... its driving me MAD! LOL!
[...]
>I'd be more sorry that the idiots packaging these distributions don't
>have the brains to swap the 75dpi and 100dpi lines in the config file.
Well, shit, if that's all it takes, what's the big deal?
>But, I guess they are to busy designing yet another editor for Linux
>or maybe a compiler or some new library for geeks or something.
Actually, they're too busy scraping for loose change to care about
minuscule details, I would expect. But perhaps if you called their
tech-support, they'd happily write down your suggestion for changing the
default config.
>Chances are good it will be something totally useless to average Joe
>though.
>Joe would rather have a native version of MusicMatch Jukebox that is
>the current version shipping with Windows.
Funny, my Windows didn't ship with a Jukebox. Not that I'd have wanted
to install it if it did. Not that I'd have a choice, if it was shipping
with Windows.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
------------------------------
From: "Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant.
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:30:53 GMT
"Charlie Ebert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Debian is much easier to RUN and UPGRADE.
>
> Instead of starting a WAR here, I would like to propose the following
> RADICALLY DOOABLE idea!
>
> Why don't RedHat MERGE with Debian?
>
> Redhat has the marketing venues and the support, Debian has the better
> software.
>
> Redhat is currently building THEIR version of apt-get for .rpm.
>
> Why not just solve the rest of the problems and MERGE.
>
> Let Debian develop the OS and release it to Redhat. RedHat can
> contribute to the unstable tree as they see fit. Debian will still
> release and sell stable, Redhat can cut from unstable at 3-4 month
> intervals.
>
> And switch to .deb's.
>
>
> This will get Mandrake off their backs and Suse too.
>
> And it will make for a much more powerful Linux organization.
>
> A more mobile organization as RedHat will be able to support Sparc
> customers again.
>
> I like this IDEA! What do you think?
You need to get in touch with some of the folks at the LSB.
http://www.linuxbase.org
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Why "uptime" is important.
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 23:38:54 -0500
At eastern bank, in Massachusetts, today. There was a teller trying to
get information to a customer. Just as she was looking up the info,
(remember their is a line of people waiting) she says to the customer,
"I'm sorry, can you wait until I reboot my machine? It always does
this."
I asked what they used and the teller told me "Windows." I dropped my
head in disgust.
The world has been sold a bill of goods that is a fraud. Windows isn't
usable. It is not a viable platform for any purpose for which you would
use a computer.
If you had a VCR that had to be rebooted half way through a movie, you'd
return it.
If you had a Microwave that stopped at 1 minute instead of 2 and a half,
and needed to be reset, you'd return it.
If you had a car that stopped in the middle of the highway, and had to
be restarted, you'd have it fixed.
Now, why during the middle of a work day, a teller has to restart her
computer, and keep customers waiting, does this seem acceptable?
It really is time to expose the all powerful wizard of Gates to be the
side show huckster that he is.
Whilst the Winvocates defend the horrible MTTF numbers on all windows
platforms, I think the real core issue needs to be addressed. If you
want to play games on your computer, it doesn't really matter much what
you use. If you use your computer for work. You should hold it and the
operating system which it runs under the same scrutiny as you would any
office equipment, such as a fax machine or a copier.
This information must be made public, not just to the techies, but
everyone. People that don't want to know about cars, still know about
anti-lock brakes and fuel injection, because it is important for their
purchasing decisions.
Understanding "quality" as it applies to operating systems is just as
important for purchasing decisions on computers as understanding
anti-lock brakes, fuel injection, and vehicle warrantees are for cars.
An educated customer would choose anything but Windows.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A salutary lesson about open source
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:43:43 GMT
On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 00:49:43 GMT, Chad Myers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"Cliff Wagner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 19:43:52 GMT, Bob Hauck typed something like:
>> >Please name one Fortune 500 whose business depends on their web site.
>> Aww, c'mon Bob, everyone knows that if Boeing didn't sell their
>> quota of 777s off their website, they'd go bankrupt.
>(Bob Hauck is on my killfile for just those type of ignorant statements)
Yeah, I'm ignorant yet you are the one spouting nonsense fresh from your
ass. You put me in your killfile because I annoyed you by debunking
your made-up "facts".
>Notice I said, "or a significant part".
Meaning, you get to redifine "significant" to suit your need of the
moment.
That aside, out of all the ones you cite below, only Dell really gets a
significant portion of their revenue from the web by any reasonable
definition. By that I mean that it would affect their bottom line if
the site was down for a couple of days. They also happen to have a
well-known "special relationship" with MS.
>IBM's web site is crucial to customer support and public relations.
>If IBM didn't have a web site, they wouldn't have as many customers as
>they did now. Customers rely on finding information on IBM's web site.
Yes, but IBM isn't going to go broke if their web site is down for a day
or two. And it isn't IIS either. IBM _sells_ Apache and Domino Go you
nitwit. Without even looking at Netcraft I'll wager they don't use
either iPlanet or IIS.
>Let's go through a list of Fortune 500 customers, rather than just
>a handful of straw-men that Bob picked out and Cliff blind-eyed followed,
>shall we?
Yes, lets do. To recap, your argument is that "it is IIS and iPlanet
now, Apache is fading". I took your list and looked 'em up on Netcraft.
>- Wall Mart (rank 2) has a large on-line store which conducts significant
The site www.wallmart.com runs Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) (Red Hat/Linux)
PHP/4.0.3pl1 on Linux. Oops, how'd that get in here? And to start off
your list too.
>- IBM (rank 6) as we discussed
The site www.ibm.com runs IBM-Planetwide/10.45 Domino-Go-Webserver/4.6 on
AIX. Guess I got that one right in my stupidity.
>- Citigroup (rank 7) on-line banking is becoming bigger and bigger.
The site www.citibank.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP2 on Solaris.
>- AT&T (rank 8) sells a large portion of their cellular phones on-line and
The site www.att.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris.
>- Bank of America (11) see Citigroup
The site www.bankofamerica.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on
Solaris.
>- HP (rank 13) the web is huge for them. Software, drivers, as well as
The site www.hp.com runs Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) mod_fastcgi/2.2.2 on HP-UX.
>- Compaq (rank 20) obvious
The site www.compaq.com runs Apache/1.3.11 (Unix) on Compaq Tru64.
>- Home Depot (21) has an ever-increasing web store presence.
The site www.homedepot.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/4.1 on HP-UX.
But they just signed a deal to buy 90,000 Linux-based point-of-sale
terminals from IBM. That's where the real money comes from. It is hard
to buy wallboard over the web.
>- MCI WorldCom (25) sells internet connections as well as
The site www.mci.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.5.1 on Solaris.
>- Merrill-Lynch (29) conducts a significant amount of business
The site www.ml.com runs Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98.
>- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (30) see Merrill Lynch
The site www.morganstanley.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.5.1G on
Solaris.
>- Target (32) conducts significant amounts of business on-line
The site www.target.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris.
>- Motorol (37) obvious
The site www.motorola.com runs Apache/1.3.12 on Solaris. Not sure
what's "obvious: here or with Intel. They mainly have lots of tech
support documents and downloads but not much in the way of e-commerce.
>- Intel (39) obvious
The site www.intel.com runs Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on unknown. Oh, you
finally got one.
>- Ingram Micro (41) maintains retailer relations and ordering
The site www.ingrammicro.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on
Solaris.
>- Allstate, Prudential, Aetna (47,48,49) conduct significant
The site www.prudential.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on AIX.
The site www.aetna.com runs Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP2 on unknown.
Allstate is "unknown on unknown". They recently took six months to fix
my car after some lady had a medical episode in my lane. I'd say they
deserve to be unknown. But I digress.
>- Dell Computer (56) obvious
The site www.dell.com runs Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000. Well, no
kidding. The only one on W2K too, I wonder why? Maybe that "special
relationship" has something to do with it.
>Shall I continue?
Please do. The results are:
Netscape (iPlanet): 10
Apache: 4
IIS: 3
It looks to me as if iPlanet on Solaris is king of this sample of the
F-500. You got that part right. But of those you cited I count four
Apache sites and only 3 IIS, two of which owe significant allegance to
Microsoft for non-technical reasons (i.e. they can't afford to piss off
Bill) and one in a sector that MS is trying to buy their way into
(Banking). HP, Compaq, and Motorola all run Apache...hmm...wonder what
that means.
Looks to me like it is iPlanet and iPlanet in the F-500. Saying "and
IIS" is just as valid as saying "and Apache".
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: "Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:42:56 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >Um, because 2000 supports a hell of a lot more hardware than NT. 2000 is
a
> >lot more stable than NT. 2000 has more tools than NT.
>
> It also supports less hardware than Win9x.
>
> It also supports less software than Win9x.
>
> I've had desktop applications choke during Win2k installs.
> Some older and newer hardware is not supported by Win2k
> (voodoo rush, logitech quickcam).
Well, you have a point here.
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux is crude and inconsistant.
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:47:10 GMT
Said Stephen Cornell in comp.os.linux.advocacy on 20 Jan 2001 20:04:45
[...]
>I collaborate with a number of people who use Word. They send me
>documents in Word, with figures included. I open them with
>Staroffice, and the figures are often completely garbled. The
>equations are also often mis-rendered, and of course they can't be
>edited.
I'm very sorry to hear that. But I am not really surprised.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
------------------------------
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