Linux-Advocacy Digest #744, Volume #32 Sat, 10 Mar 01 17:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: What does IQ measure? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: What Linux MUST DO! - Comments anyone? (Bloody Viking)
Re: What Linux MUST DO! - Comments anyone? (Bloody Viking)
Re: Computing Power to Peak SOON! (WAS: Moore's Law, continued...) (Bloody Viking)
Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your (J Sloan)
Re: Linux Joke (J Sloan)
Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your computer")
(Johan Kullstam)
Re: definition of "free" for N-millionth time (J Sloan)
Re: Sun Blade 100 (J Sloan)
Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your computer")
("Ayende Rahien")
Dividing OS to groups. ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Linux Joke ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your computer")
("GreyCloud")
Re: Mircosoft Tax (Salvador Peralta)
Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your computer")
("Masha Ku'Inanna")
Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your computer")
(Johan Kullstam)
Re: Linux and QA (Stuart Krivis)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,soc.singles
Subject: Re: What does IQ measure?
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:11:08 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chris Ahlstrom
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sat, 10 Mar 2001 19:33:28 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>>
>> But yes, I've seen Plan 9. It was terrible.
>
>Hey! Plan 9 is a /nifty/ OS!
*chuckles*
Um...sorry, I meant the movie. I haven't used the OS. :-)
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- but it probably has more than one directory
EAC code #191 33d:10h:43m actually running Linux.
The EAC doesn't exist, but they're still watching you.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: What Linux MUST DO! - Comments anyone?
Date: 10 Mar 2001 20:14:18 GMT
Aaron Kulkis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: > The beauty of simple open file formats is that ANYONE can code a util for it
: > without undue hardship.
: Which is PRECISELY why Microsoft hates open file formats.
I can rest assured that Microshit will NEVER accept my personal .dta file
format. It's too obvious how it works. Anyone who has a fairly hard time with
C will appreciate a supersimple file format. It makes the job of coding easier
by far.
A really simple file format opens up programming to more people as it makes
things all the easier. I'm self-taught at coding in C (as I was with BASIC)
and I admit I'm not the greatest coder in the world. In any case, over time,
any time I made a programme that messes with files, I would look for the
absolute easiest file format to use. The .dta extension is my own invention,
invented when I used Winblows 3.11 and Works to keep a database of beer
proliferation. I had no idea of the ".dat" extension when I made the file.
Recently I found a CLI spreadsheet and its file format is almost as easy to
hack as my own homebrew .dta files. But the format is easy to read plaintext,
so it qualifies for my standard. About the easiest file format for a
spreadsheet would be something like this:
a1 2
a2 2
a3 a1+a2
The hack would simply use a 2-D string array like this:
(string[number_of_strings][string_length]
And you'd use scanf() to input it and printf() to output it. The CLI
spreadsheet is with an additional item on a line but would be an easy hack.
And of course, the file can be hacked with a text editor.
Anyone with even minimal programming expierence can appreciate simple file
formats. While I went extreme with the idea of a matrix of plaintext hex for a
.pic format, the easiest .pic file format would be a bit map binary that can
be read with any hex editor.
With what we see with .HTML illustrates that a markup-language plaintext file
format for a word processor would work just fine.
The deal with file formats is intentional obfuscation to cause needless
upgrading as we see with MS-Office(tm). There is no need for file formats that
are as uncrackable as a PGP-encode, which I recognise as the standard for
intentional encryption.
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: What Linux MUST DO! - Comments anyone?
Date: 10 Mar 2001 20:27:34 GMT
defeated ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: I find the whole rant baffling. Yeah, I ftp'ed Slackware in the early
: days (386 with 4mb ram and 40mb harddrive and a 486 with 4mb ram and
: whopping 253 mb harddrive) and it was a glorious bitch to install and
: configure and a challenge to run, especially for a newbie without the
: resources to run X. But when CD ROM drives became common enough for
: even me to have one, I bought SuSE 6.3 on CD at a local computer store
: and had Linux up and running complete with X in less than an hour. I
My first install was quite the adventure too. I had that Wearnes CDD-110 CD
drive, but a computer with a VESA Local Bus motherboard. While that CD drive
was supported, it only worked on a PCI motherboard. Of course, I didn't know
it at the time.
Worse, the distro I had was Slackware 2.2, a bad distro. After much moaning
and bitching (and ranting in newsgroups) I finally installed it using the
album and a lot of AOL Disks(tm) reformatted to use as the install disks. I
had to switch from Linux to DOS and back, as my pile of AOL Disks(tm) could
only install one package set at a time.
The glorious night came around on July 10 1994 when I first lit off a Linux
box with a reasonable functioning system. I was hooked ever since.
My motive at the time was becuse software prices started to escalate and of
course my wages didn't. I found out about Linux from one of those at the time
"internet roadmap" type books and I thought about the idea of a freeware OS
with the UNIX mystique. The idea of a mainframe style OS for free was great.
So, I bought the book with the bad distro and the adventure began. To
paraphrase an old Navy advert:
Linux. It's not just an OS. It's an adventure!
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.microsoft.sucks,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Computing Power to Peak SOON! (WAS: Moore's Law, continued...)
Date: 10 Mar 2001 20:38:21 GMT
The Ghost In The Machine ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: As another dumb question: I take it the alcohol doesn't change physical
: state while warming up (cooling down the chip), unlike, say, ammonia
: or other such refrigerants. (The thought of a computer having a noisy
: compressor doesn't really thrill me, admittedly... :-) ) Or does it?
: Alcohol evaporates rather rapidly...
A booze cool system would be like the water cool system in that no phase
change occurs during normal operation. Why I'd choose a booze cool system is
becuse booze will be less ruinous in a leak than water. As far as the booze
tax, I would pay up in a case like this. Actually, you would not want
denaturants in a CPU cooling system as they could make a leak more ruinous
than already the case.
If you want phase change refrigeration, butane is easy to get as well as
R-134a as used aboard cars now. For non-phase-change, booze can be cooled
below 32F by whatever external refrigeration mechanism. The only hazard of
booze cool is that booze is flammable.
--
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: J Sloan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:42:29 GMT
Ayende Rahien wrote:
> Actually, BSD is not unix.
BSD is certainly Unix, as any Unix savvy admin would know.
> It's like Linux, a look-alike.
This is just lawyer talk, not technical information.
There is the rather obscure, very narrowly defined "Unix"
brand name, but there is also in general usage a word
called "Unix" which refers to a certain type of OS lineage.
Clear examples of Unix OSes:
==================
Solaris, Linux, *BSD, HP-UX, AIX, Irix, Unicos, etc.
Clear examples of NON Unix OSes:
=====================
VMS, CP/M, MacOS 9, msdos, win 3.x, win 9x, winnt/2k, etc.
jjs
------------------------------
From: J Sloan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Linux Joke
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:45:59 GMT
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> I can get the page now. Yes, the alpha compiler has some features that might
> make it more standards compliant.
You call it an alpha compiler, I call it supported by the vendor, 24x7.
> Link everything statically ? Is this some kind of joke ? This gets messier
> when you use a mix of static and dynamic linking (think about a program
> that needs a bunch of dl modules, my head hurts just thinking about this
> and statically linking everything to libstdc++)
Well, remember, this is only for c++
Programs and libraries that use only c are unaffected.
jjs
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your
computer")
From: Johan Kullstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:47:13 GMT
"Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Of course, but since you can download both for free, I would rather get a
> real Unix than a Linux.
why? the only difference between "a unix" and linux is a legal one
about rights to a rightmark. solaris may have some nice features, but
those features are useful as part of solaris, not because sun paid
money to some standards organization to use the name.
--
J o h a n K u l l s t a m
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Don't Fear the Penguin!
------------------------------
From: J Sloan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,misc.int-property
Subject: Re: definition of "free" for N-millionth time
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:56:31 GMT
Ayende Rahien wrote:
> "J Sloan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Austin Ziegler wrote:
> >
> > > Sorry, but Netscape gets that honour first -- and the stuff that I've
> > > been reading says that IE is still more compatible than Netscape -- but
> > > not necessarily Mozilla.
> >
> > More compatible with what?
> >
> > In any case, what good is ie to someone who doesn't
> > use ms windows?
>
> Solaris? Mac? HP-UX (?) ?
Surely you're joking about the Solaris and HP-UX "ports".
First off, there are about 500,000 regular users of Linux
as a workstation for every HPUX workstation user, so it's
clear the HPUX port was nothing more than a political
stunt, not an attempt to provide useful software for some
appreciable market.
Secondly, have you ever tried the Solaris or HPUX ports,
or are you just ticking off checklist items?
Unilke netscape, microsoft is completely clueless about writing
Unix software, and IIRC the Unix ports of IE were done using
some commercial windows-to-unix application porting tool,
with much less than optimum results.
Everyone I know who has tried any UNIX port of IE has wiped
it off their hard drive after a brief, unpleasant tryout. It's not
really usable, in contrast to netscape which works pretty well.
Now, if there were fully functional native ports of ie to Linux and
FreeBSD, and not just x86, we might have something
to discuss.
jjs
------------------------------
From: J Sloan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Sun Blade 100
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 21:03:44 GMT
Matthew Gardiner wrote:
> yeap, probably self-ricious dick heads who use Linux over Solaris, not
> because is is better, but because it is not proprietry!
Sorry to break in with a reality check here, but the CS department
already had Solaris licenses - they went to Linux to get better
performance out of older hardware, better managability of all
the core systems, and to get 64-bit performance at a time when
Sun did not even offer a 64-bit version of Solaris.
> geeze, get a fucking
> life, its like running NT on a Alpha box, a 32bit os on a 64bit box, what a
> fucking waste! its like getting a BMW and putting a Lada motor into it!
Well that is a bit clueless - it's nothing like running nt on alpha,
a 32-bit PC os on a 64 bit hardware platform.
It's like running Linux on an alpha, a modern 64 bit Unix OS on
64-bit hardware, which folks in the film fx industry or other places
with supercomputing needs turn to quite often.
jjs
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your
computer")
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:51:01 +0200
"Johan Kullstam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > Of course, but since you can download both for free, I would rather get
a
> > real Unix than a Linux.
>
> why? the only difference between "a unix" and linux is a legal one
> about rights to a rightmark. solaris may have some nice features, but
> those features are useful as part of solaris, not because sun paid
> money to some standards organization to use the name.
Exactly because of those features. Most (all?) unixes ship with those.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Dividing OS to groups.
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:58:43 +0200
"J Sloan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
<Snipped because I tend to be overly pedantic sometimes >
I'm interested in the division that you did.
Anyone care to help me complete a list of OS with groups?
Unix-based:
Solaris, Linux, *BSD, HP-UX, AIX, Irix, Unicos, Unixware, MacOSX
VMS based:
VMS
WinNT line.
Dos based:
Ms-Dos
Dr-Dos
Win1.0 - 3.11
Win9x line
CP/M?
What design principals are behind Mac OS (9 and down, OSX is BSD, so it's a
unix based) ?
For that matter, what are the main differences between VMS & Unixes?
Hurd?
Plan9?
Where does BeOS belong?
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Linux Joke
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 23:02:06 +0200
"J Sloan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>
> > I can get the page now. Yes, the alpha compiler has some features that
might
> > make it more standards compliant.
>
> You call it an alpha compiler, I call it supported by the vendor, 24x7.
>
> > Link everything statically ? Is this some kind of joke ? This gets
messier
> > when you use a mix of static and dynamic linking (think about a program
> > that needs a bunch of dl modules, my head hurts just thinking about this
> > and statically linking everything to libstdc++)
>
> Well, remember, this is only for c++
>
> Programs and libraries that use only c are unaffected.
I program almost everything in C++ ( it makes it so much easier to write OS
independent stuff. )
A lot of other people does the same.
Releasing an alpha compiler for an obscure/rarely used language is okay,
releasing an alpha compiler for a language as important as C++ ...
------------------------------
From: "GreyCloud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your
computer")
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:10:28 -0800
"Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:98e12p$h58$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> "Bloody Viking" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:98dv2q$ma2$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > The Ghost In The Machine ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> >
> > : Dunno if "mode co80" works anymore. :-)
> >
> > It works on Windows 95 just fine. Don't know about 98, ME, or other
newer
> > flavours of Winblows. What I do know is that it works on my dual-boot
box.
>
> It should work on all 9x versions.
> NT versions (at least AFAIK), has the startup/shutdown fixed.
>
> > : What's wrong with Linux? Solaris is good, admittedly, but there's
> > : nothing wrong with Linux, and it's probably more readily available.
>
> Solaris is better, YMMV, but that is what I think.
> > Linux is certainly more readily available than Solaris. You can buy
Linux
> at a
> > Best Buy, Red Hat of course. And now you can go to a computer store and
> buy
> > Slackware and other major distros. Nope, you don't see Solaris on the
> shelf.
>
> Not around here, at least.
> For several reasons, Linux isn't very popular here for just about anything
> but a server, and even then, commercial unixes are preffered.
>
> > In terms of "look and feel", Linux _IS_ UNIX.
>
> Of course, but since you can download both for free, I would rather get a
> real Unix than a Linux.
>
>
I'm using Solaris 8 x86. Its got one feature I don't like, and thats
multiple partitions known as disk slices that once you set their size and
later want to reduce their size ,... well you can't without re-installing
the software.
Linux doesn't suffer from this constraint. Its actually based in hardware
history. Back in the 80's you had to use
multiple hard drives to fit the o/s in. / (root slice) where all the system
programs are, and export/home/username is where your user accounts are setup
(another slice). I know that in solaris you really should log in as a
regular user to connect to the internet. Thats what the unix community
decided on. In Linux it you could download into a subdirectory in root (/)
with no consequences. If you do that in Solaris eventually the o/s will bug
you to death saying that mqueue is full, UFS file system is full. You have
to move that file over to another slice. They call it security. I got
flamed badly for suggesting that it was done from a long time ago and is now
not necessary to isolate root from the rest of the system. I wish I could
find that web page that claimed that these security issues are now myths,
considering the large hard drives now available. I'm sure I've left some
other details out, but I have to regularly do house cleaning of the system
logs which are in the root slice. If I didn't root would eventually fill
up.
------------------------------
From: Salvador Peralta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mircosoft Tax
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:42:21 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Donovan Rebbechi quoth:
> On Sat, 10 Mar 2001 08:09:04 -0800, Salvador Peralta wrote:
>>T. Max Devlin quoth:
> I haven't done a default install of Linux for years, I always choose
> "expert" mode, I suspect the default install is pretty easy. But
> configuration is not so easy. For example, font management is still
> a problem (though it's becoming slightly less of a problem)
I've never done a default installation. Call me crazy, but I like
knowing what packages are being installed on my system, especially when
there are thousands of packages to choose from. But even in expert
mode, you don't need to know very much. Certainly not the number of
disk cylinders et al that one used to have to worry about. usually not
even what devices you have on your system if you let the scanners pick
up your hardware.
As for fonts... I'm a little surprised to hear you say that font
management is a problem. I've never had a problem installing fonts on
linux. Once they are installed, I ususally just leave it alone and
forget about it.
One huge edge for linux, IMHO, is the ease with which major portions of
the system can be updated, and files removed with RPM. Another edge is
the pace with which the OS and its application set is improving.
> I agree about the Windoze documentation being a joke. You can't learn
> anything useful from their docs, you really need to buy a book (as
> opposed to the Linux HOWTOs and guides which are very instructive)
Well, what I was taking issue with were some of the dated comments on
your site where you said that most applications don't have hypertext
docs. between info, man, and the hypertext docs which are now widely
available to the point of being nearly universal, plus the work that
has gone into the ldp and howto's, I think that the beginner is pretty
well covered.
--
Salvador Peralta -o)
Programmer/Analyst, Webmaster / \
[EMAIL PROTECTED] _\_v
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
------------------------------
From: "Masha Ku'Inanna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your
computer")
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 16:42:06 -0500
Reply-To: "Masha Ku'Inanna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Actually, BSD is not unix.
> It's like Linux, a look-alike.
>
No, Gnu's not UNIX.. *ducks quickly*
If "Unix" implies that one can claim descendancy from the original AT&T
Unix, then BSD is more Unix than Linux.
But these days it really does not matter, nor should not matter. If one acts
like "Unix", feels like "Unix" and runs like "Unix" can't it then be called
Unix, legal BS aside?
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Customising Wrap-Up Screen. (WAS: "It is now safe to shut off your
computer")
From: Johan Kullstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 21:42:25 GMT
"Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Johan Kullstam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > > Of course, but since you can download both for free, I would rather get
> a
> > > real Unix than a Linux.
> >
> > why? the only difference between "a unix" and linux is a legal one
> > about rights to a rightmark. solaris may have some nice features, but
> > those features are useful as part of solaris, not because sun paid
> > money to some standards organization to use the name.
>
> Exactly because of those features. Most (all?) unixes ship with
> those.
give a few examples of these features which solaris and most unixes
have but which linux does not.
--
J o h a n K u l l s t a m
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Don't Fear the Penguin!
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stuart Krivis)
Subject: Re: Linux and QA
Date: 10 Mar 2001 17:08:34 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 20 Feb 2001 05:28:15 GMT, Fred K Ollinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>: Yes I know. Why do you think I'm trying Linux? I've just ordered SuSE 7.1,
>: let's see how I get on with that.
>
>this is not to be mean, but to help you. If you were meant to use linux,
>you would have fixed mandrake. reinstalling will just give you headaches.
>Better to install and fix troubles, if you do you will have a stable install.
It is also part of the learning curve. Unix tends to require that you
understand a bit more of how things work. Once you do, then you will
find your own personal ways of doing things.
I'm sure that I could find some auto or mechanical analogy that wouldn't
really fit, but that's too easy.
Windows tends to mold your thinking into: Here's an end result. To get
there I click this, do this, do that.
Unix helps you think about what the process is to get a result, then you
can figure out what you need to do to get there. And there is almost
always more than one way to do it. (Gee, that sounds familiar :-)
You can also use someone else's idea of how to do something, but unix
is not as restrictive about this as some other OSs.
>If you buy and install all distros, you will constantly bitch about the
>install process. It _is_ hard. MS only products (win modems) make it harder.
I never found installs to be that hard. Some made me scratch my head,
but there was usually a solution. Windows installs _are_ hard. If
something doesn't work, it seems like nobody knows what to do.
>linux. Step one would be to forget about windows. Reinstalling can help
>windows troubles, but I think it tends to make things worse in linux, not
>inherently but b/c it gives you a bad attitude and a poor state of mind.
It seems like a bad joke, but I hear a lot of Windows solutions that
involve re-installing. It's the black box mentality. If it doesn't work,
try getting a new box and see if that one works.
--
Stuart Krivis
------------------------------
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