Linux-Misc Digest #514, Volume #18 Fri, 8 Jan 99 12:13:08 EST
Contents:
Re: Consumer Poll Says Microsoft Is Good For Consumers (Steven C. Den Beste)
Re: Linux v2.1.132 and 2940U/UW Scsi boot problems? (David T. Blake)
Re: Help : red hat root password (DaZZa)
LILO/NTLDR and >8.4G hard disk =death (Chetan Ahuja)
IBCS & kernel 2.2 -- is it built in? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
too much work at interrupt (David Henry)
Re: Consumer Poll Says Microsoft Is Good For Consumers ("Brent Metzler")
Re: Consumer Poll Says Microsoft Is Good For Consumers (David Fox)
Re: LILO 3 way boot (Chris Welch)
Re: Linux: Fight for survival or on victory march? (Larry)
Re: automatic startx under SuSE 5.3? (steve mcadams)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steven C. Den Beste)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Consumer Poll Says Microsoft Is Good For Consumers
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 07:24:11 -0800
On 08 Jan 1999 16:04:59 +0100, David Kastrup graced us with this wisdom:
>"Netnerd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> David Kastrup wrote in message ...
>> >"Netnerd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> >
>> >> The latest consumer poll shows that 81 percent of consumers think
>> >> Microsoft has been good for consumers, and 52 percent think the case
>> >> was brought to help Microsoft's rivals.
>> >
>> >Microsoft is not under accusation because of being bad to customers,
>> >but because of illegal means for fighting competition. And of course
>> >the case was brought to help Microsoft's rivals. They are the damaged
>> >party of the alleged business practices. Of course it helps them if
>> >Microsoft is restricted to fighting them by legal means.
>>
>> The US antitrust laws are designed to protect consumers, not competitors.
>> Has the consumer been harmed? Of course not.
>
>Why then is the consumer putting up with an operating system that
>crashes several orders of magnitudes more than other offers?
Perhaps because they're not? Perhaps because the rumor about instability is
an urban legend based on anecdotal evidence, and not grounded on anything
statistically valid?
> Why is
>the consumer putting up with applications that force him to pay loads
>of money for upgrading everything to the newest incompatible file
>format?
Perhaps because they're not? Perhaps because no-one is actually forcing
anyone to upgrade? Perhaps because they're upgrading to get new features?
> Why is he putting up with operating systems that will
>configure themselves unusable if you happen to switch your modem on
>before your computer as opposed to afterwards?
Perhaps because they're not? Perhaps because you're basing this on anecdotal
evidence and that many other people have found that nothing like this
happens?
>In what way is the consumer benefiting when Microsoft comes up all the
>time with new "standards" which have the sole advantage over existing
>ones that they are incompatible with them?
Because they truly are standards. Because the customers know that Microsoft
is the 600 pound canary, and that when MS declares something to be a
standard, the industry will adopt it. MS's participation in something pretty
much guarantees industry buy-in.
>In the long run, the customer is taken advantage off if competition
>gets obliterated.
Except that there's no evidence that competition IS being obliterated. In
some areas concentration and shakeout have happened. That's happened in
product areas where Microsoft doesn't compete; it's not a function of
Microsoft being present, but rather of the fact that those market areas are
mature.
In other areas there's enormous competition.
>Yes, of course the average consumer is glad that there is something
>like Windows, or he would not have bought it. But this does not mean
>that it is in the consumers interest if competition gets killed by
>unfair means. The consumer will rather put up with Microsoft than not
>to have any workable software for his specific purposes at all.
Who are you to decide what's better for "the consumer"? Why shouldn't they
decide for themselves?
========
Steven C. Den Beste [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"True expertise on a subject is demonstrated by
the ability to win a series of wagers on that subject."
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David T. Blake)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Linux v2.1.132 and 2940U/UW Scsi boot problems?
Date: 08 Jan 1999 07:20:46 -0800
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (M Sweger) writes:
>
> I see the Adapatec has agreed to help the Linux driver people out
>developing SCSI drivers for Linux. How is this going, particularly
>in resolving problems?
That is not really how it works. The Adaptec drivers, after the support
period started, were updated furiously. The newest 2.0.* series
drivers support all but the most recent BIOS from Adaptec. The
2.1.* kernel series is close behind. My stuff all works fine
on a 1-2 year old 2940 U2W card.
--
Dave Blake
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: DaZZa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.setup,linux.redhat.install,linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Re: Help : red hat root password
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 09:16:17 +1100
On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Billy Bob wrote:
> I changed the root password for the red hat 5.2 and now I can't get into
> root. I am able to edit /etc/password and remove the password string
> but when I boot the system it gets over written. What can I do to stop it
> from doing so. Any help would be highly appreciated.
If you can't login as root, how are you editing /etc/passwd?
Are you certain whichever editor you are using is actually SAVING the
results of your editing?
DaZZa
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Chetan Ahuja)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: LILO/NTLDR and >8.4G hard disk =death
Date: 7 Jan 1999 21:16:29 GMT
Hi,
I have an apparently unsolvable problem but I will state it
here and see if anybody else has any ideas.
I described my problem earlier in the article titles "LILO: NTLDR
not found... Tough problem!!" (only in comp.os.linux.misc.. my
fault) Here it is in short again:
I have two hard disks. call them hda and hdc.
The disk hda is an 8.3 GB disk containing two ntfs partitions te
first of which is the C: of my NT4 installation.
The disk hdc is a 10.1 GB IBM disk containing my 2 linux
partitions. There is a small 10 MB boot partition with lilo map
files and the boot image under it...( to beat the 1024
cylinder restriction according to a LILO how-to), the second
partition is the root partition and the third partition is the swap
partition.
I have tried various different configurations , IDE assignments,
NTLDR/LILO conbinations etc to make this a successful dual boot
system but to no avail because of the following contraints:
1) NTLDR wants to be on the Primary IDE channel so the NT disk has
to be hda.
2) LILO apprently has problems with >8.4 GB disks if they are not on
the primary channel. ( that's my deduction from what I have seen so
far)
3) I must have the two disks as masters on two different IDE
channels because they both are UDMA/33 disks and I want them both to
take advantage of this feature to the full extent ( right??). At the
very least, the linux disk MUST be able to take advantage of the UDMA
feature because I have to run I/O intensive computations on that.
After giving up on LILO to be able to do the booting by itself, I
tried the NTLDR according the Linux+NT-Loader miini-how-to.
so I installed LILO on hdc1 ( which is entirely within the 1024
cylinder limit to ease things for LILO ) and then copied the boot
sector of hdc1 on C:\ of the NT disk and told NTLDR to load that oot
sector as linux ( all according to instructions.) That should start
LILO right? But it stops after showing "LI" which I gather is a
sign that LILO is having problems with the partition table of a
large disk.
NOTE: LILO load linux properly *IF* I put the linux disk on the
first IDE channel. So apparently LILO has problems with the large
disk ONLY IF ITS ON THE SECONDARY IDE CHANNEL. But if I do that, I
can't boot into NT ( on choosing NT I get the message "NTLDR not
found" apparently becasue NTLDR is searched for on the first IDE
channel ONLY even if my lilo.conf says otherwise ( and yes I did
remember to run lilo everytime I changed lilo.conf))
So in short I am at my wits end. If you have managed to read
though upto here, please suggest anything that comes to your
mind. Also, in all of my trials, I don't think I have left any of
the MBR's or partition BR's qith their original contents. So
anything I do will have to take care of each boot racord once again
( though I can repair NT boot record from repair disk)
( BTW, my BIOS is fairly recent and does recognize the larger hard
disks. As I said, I CAN make lilo work for linux IF linux hard disk
is on the first IDE channel)
Please please help...
Thank you
Chetan Ahuja
--
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: IBCS & kernel 2.2 -- is it built in?
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 22:24:50 GMT
Is IBCS built-in to kernel 2.2? Is it a package I need to
download from somewhere. I need to get sco binaries from
a work machine up and running on my home machine, so I can
do development.
Thanks!
--
patowic jurai net PH #3 1989 Honda VTR250
DoD # WildCard BNASPAM #3 1971 Honda CL350
"It's the internet, there doesn't need to be a point."
--Donald Deasy
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Henry)
Subject: too much work at interrupt
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 21:03:22 GMT
A few times a day I get a burst of messages
kernel: eth0: Too much work at interrupt, status 0x40 (or sometimes
0x01)
Any idea what this implies?
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ 23144758
------------------------------
From: "Brent Metzler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Consumer Poll Says Microsoft Is Good For Consumers
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 09:04:52 -0600
Up here in Minnesota a poll of 81 people "proved" the election results.
What a hoax. Polls are not meant to disseminate accurate information, but
to campaign and promote.
The American Dairy Association finds that 76% of the people like milk. Who
cares? The ADA uses that poll to get people to drink milk.
The Media talks a poll of 142 people to find out if they think Clinton
should be impeached. 94% say no. The media uses this poll to say that
Clinton isn't impeachable.
A poll is taken among 40 consumers who all use Windows and finds that 63%
think that BillG does a good job. Judge now can't rule against MS.
Anyone who believes polls is screwed.
1. Polls are fictitious and made up. I just took a completely impartial
poll and found the moon is indeed made of green cheese.
2. Polls only purpose is to promote. I sell widgets, therefore I take polls
to prove that widgets are believed to be the best. I would not take a poll
to find that widgets are bad.
3. People that are polled generally do not know anything about the subject
being polled. Out the 82% that didn't think Clinton should be impeached,
72% responded that they didn't know what impeachment meant. The people who
think MS is good for consumers, most likely have no idea of law. IE, they
are idiots.
--
Brent Metzler
Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:7746b0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>: > The latest consumer poll shows that 81 percent of consumers think
Microsoft
>: > has been good for consumers, and 52 percent think the case was brought
to
>: > help Microsoft's rivals.
>
>: Polls also show that Bill Clinton is a good president. Is public opinion
>: more valid than the facts? I think not.
>
>A more accurate complaint would be to say that these polls don't
>actually reflect public opinion at all.
------------------------------
From: d s f o x @ c o g s c i . u c s d . e d u (David Fox)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Consumer Poll Says Microsoft Is Good For Consumers
Date: 08 Jan 1999 08:40:51 -0800
Andreas Schwab <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Mading) writes:
>
> |> Jeff Read ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> |> : Netnerd wrote:
> |> : >
> |> : > The latest consumer poll shows that 81 percent of consumers think Microsoft
> |> : > has been good for consumers, and 52 percent think the case was brought to
> |> : > help Microsoft's rivals.
> |>
> |> : Polls also show that Bill Clinton is a good president. Is public opinion
> |> : more valid than the facts? I think not.
> |>
> |> A more accurate complaint would be to say that these polls don't
> |> actually reflect public opinion at all. I do *NOT* find a high
> |> approval percentage of Clinton amongst the people I talk to on a
> |> daily basis, and neither do most people talking on-line either.
> |> This is a mix from across the whole political spectrum from left-wing,
> |> to right-wing, and even some various "third wing" parties like
> |> libertarians. I have no idea how these "polls" are being conducted,
> |> but they don't reflect reality.
>
> Why do you believe that your poll is closer to public opinion than any
> other one?
This is such a standard crackpot rant. "Everyone I talk to agrees
with me, these polls must be full of it." I think it was invented by
Rush Limbaugh. Its a convenient way to get people to ignore facts.
--
David Fox http://hci.ucsd.edu/dsf xoF divaD
UCSD HCI Lab baL ICH DSCU
------------------------------
From: Chris Welch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LILO 3 way boot
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 22:49:32 +0000
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to get linux (redhat 5), Dos, and windows 95 all bootable on the
> same machine.
>
> I don't care quite how I do it, but LILO (version 20) seems to be the nearest
> I've been so far. The partition magic boot loader will only boot the DOS
> partition and reckons the other two are not formatted. The partitions I want
> to boot are :-
>
> /dev/hda1 (dos)
> /dev/hda3 (win95)
> /dev/hda6 (redhat 5)
>
> I installed Linux with hda3 as the bootable partition, but when it set up
> LILO, it seems to have stopped looking for DOS partitions as soon as it saw
> hda1. This meant that LILO now offers to boot either hda1 or hda6, both
> successfully.
>
> I can fdisk between the win95 partition and the dos one with LILO on it, and
> all the partitions still work.
>
> I've tried to follow the mini-HOWTO on this, but when I try to run /sbin/lilo
> after changing /etc/lilo.conf as it says, the system says something like
> 'Error around line 14'. This line is the start of the second 'other'
> section, saying 'other=/dev/hda3'.
image=/dev/hda6
label=linux
other=/dev/hda3
label=dos
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/hda1
label=win
table=/dev/hda
Thing is, I don't know if DOS has to be on hda1. Windows does, and I
think DOS does too, but I'm not sure. Try that though.
--
/----------------------------------------------------------\
| http://www.chaotic42.cx |
| |
| Brain: It must be inordinately taxing to be such a boob. |
| Pinky: You have no idea. |
\----------------------------------------------------------/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Larry)
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux: Fight for survival or on victory march?
Date: 8 Jan 1999 16:53:50 GMT
On Tue, 05 Jan 1999 20:45:54 GMT, Verbal Kent <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Linux rules, Linux Sucks,
>
>>that! On the otherhand, if your writing perl programs, or running a web
>>server, and such Linux kicks ass! For those of you who need a finally
>>tuned machine, of course, Linux is the move, but if you want to Play
>>Games and AOL is your bag, I'd pick Win98 hands down!
That's the whole thing in a nutshell.
If you want a game machine, then winbloze is the ticket.
But for serious use, Linux has all the important business apps
you'll ever need. Plus, for stability in a corporate environment,
Linux can't be beat. No crashes, no blue screen of death, no losing
important information that you have spent hours typing in because
you left the computer and the screen saver started up. This
happened to me a couple times at work, I walked away from the macine,
the screen saver activated and locked the machine up. I had to
hit the happy button to to get out of the lockup.
I admit that playing games on Linux is less than exciting.
With the tiny x-screens that most games play in, or the slowness
of the games, or the just plain agrivation of trying to get them
installed properly.
I don't understand why most Linux apps can run at blazing speed
and be fairly easy to install (I use Slackware), while the games are a
totally different story.
Most games I play are dos based and I just boot to dos to play.
But I wouldn't change os's for any reason now. The speed and dependability
of Linux is just too great to live without these days.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (steve mcadams)
Subject: Re: automatic startx under SuSE 5.3?
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 23:03:53 GMT
[Snipped for brevity, quoted material marked with ">"]
On Thu, 07 Jan 1999 18:33:14 +0100, Martin Beier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>.profile is not a good choice for a startx because .profile is executed
>anytime
>you start an xterm when running X! This leeds to the described error!
>You can use the <ctrl>+<alt>+<F7> key combination, to switch to the X
>screen. If you do not get there, look for a /tmp/.X0-lock file! If it
>exists and
>X is definitly not running, you may remove it. If you still want to startx
>from
>the .profile, ensure that the command is executed only if the shell is
>started
>on a text terminal! You can use something similar like
>
>[ -z "`tty | grep '/dev/tty[1-9]'`" ] || startx
Thanks for your explanation of what was happening; I hadn't realized
.profile was run every time an xterm opened, I thought it just ran at
login. I'll try your method and see how it works; I'm not quite sure
where I find out what that line means, but I expect the bash doc is a
good place to start. -steve
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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