Linux-Misc Digest #203, Volume #20 Fri, 14 May 99 13:13:07 EDT
Contents:
Re: GNU reeks of Communism (Marco Anglesio)
Re: GNU reeks of Communism (returning to %252522GNU Communism%252522) (Walter Tice
USG)
Re: [?] problem w/ TeX under RH 6.0 (Francisco Cribari)
Re: Computer virus threat to Linux? (Tom Christiansen)
Re: Samba & Win 9x clients: automatically mapping drives ("Richard Pecl")
SETI@Home release version slow??? (Charles H. Chapman)
Re: Debian: still viable? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: General.NFS.Questions ("mmanfre")
Re: Debian: still viable? (Marco Anglesio)
Re: Pro-Unix vs anti-WinTel (was: Re: Is Unix a single user operating system?) (John
S. Dyson)
Re: Is Unix a single user operating system? (was: Wanted: Database/Contact mgr with
backend on Linux/FreeBSD, web frontend) (Kenneth P. Turvey)
Re: PI in C (Lew Pitcher)
Cron Daemon messages ("S Holtgrewe")
Re: Pro-Unix vs anti-WinTel (Steve Lamb)
Re: GNU reeks of Communism (returning to %252522GNU Communism%252522) (Peter Seebach)
Re: What is /sbin for? (Was: Proper use of /usr/local) (J.M. Paden)
Optimum Online Cable Modem Service (Peter Rivera Jr)
Re: Pro-Unix vs anti-WinTel (Steve Lamb)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco Anglesio)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: GNU reeks of Communism
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 15:08:54 GMT
On Fri, 14 May 1999 00:21:01 GMT, Peter Seebach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>As you note, productivity is high. Wealth is high, too; our standard of
>"poverty" is a moving target, but last I heard, an awful lot of the people
>living "in poverty" had color televisions.
Interesting point; it doesn't seem like you've considered the conception
of poverty overly much. Consider Adam Smith's description: "[Poverty is
the lack of those necessities that] the custom of the country renders it
indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without."
A colour TV is one of those things - formerly a luxury, it is now a
standard. It is assumed that all but the poorest will have either a
television or access to one; it is the medium of choice for communication
of all kinds.
This is relevant to the "printing aces" discussion elsewhere in the
thread. Let's say you have one ace and I have none: I'm poor. Let's say
you print aces and you have eighty and I have five - more than I would
have possibly received in a fair deal. Well, I'm still poor.
Note that I'm not railing against capitalism; I'm a beneficiary.
Capitalism does a great job of accumulating and creating wealth.
Distributing wealth - much less good a job.
Marco
--
,--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
> | We know what causes violence: poverty, <
> Marco Anglesio | discrimination, the failure of the <
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] | educational system. It's not the genes <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | that cause violence in our society. <
> | --Paul Billings. <
`--------------------------------------------------------------------------'
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Walter Tice USG)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: GNU reeks of Communism (returning to %252522GNU Communism%252522)
Date: 12 May 1999 10:59:44 GMT
In article <7h8d6e$8eu$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "FM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Mike Coffin wrote:
>Anarchy naturally begs for dictatorship. That's what history
>lessons are for. Why do you think the French Revolution and
>the Russian Revolution both resulted (one temporarily and on
>more or less permanently) in totalitarian regimes? Even Hitler's
>rise to power can be attributed to political and economic
>anarchy in Germany.
You forgot Mussolini.
Also anarchy is a political dimension. In this century do not
underestimate the impact of the economic dimension. In Russia,
Germany, and Italy during these times of political anarchy there
was also hyperinflation. I'm afraid our next history lesson
will again be in Russia. We may find ourselves wishing for the
days of Breshnev and Andropov before too long.
W
------------------------------
From: Francisco Cribari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [?] problem w/ TeX under RH 6.0
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 10:26:37 -0500
Tom,
That does not solve the problem. Pointers are welcome. Thanks.
FC.
On 14 May 1999, Tom Fawcett wrote:
>
> Francisco Cribari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > I have just upgraded from Red Hat 5.2 to version 6.0 (intel). I am
> > having a few problems. One of them is that I can no longer compile
> > a number of TeX files. Here is what happens (e.g.):
> >
> > [cribari@edgeworth texfiles]$ pwd
> > /home/cribari/projects/white/texfiles
> > [cribari@edgeworth texfiles]$ tex white
> > This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3)
> > (white.tex (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/misc/psfig.tex
> > psfig/tex 1.9
> > ) (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/misc/17point.tex
> > (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/misc/10point.tex)kpathsea: Running mktextfm cmr17
> > mktextfm: Running mf \mode:=ljfour; mag:=1; nonstopmode; input cmr17
> > This is METAFONT, Version 2.7182 (Web2C 7.3)
> >
> > (/usr/share/texmf/fonts/source/jknappen/sauter/cmr17.mf
> > (/usr/share/texmf/fonts/source/jknappen/sauter/b-cmr.mfkpathsea: Running mktexmf
>cmbase
> >
> > ! I can't find file `cmbase'.
> >[etc]
>
> The first thing I'd try is to run texconfig and reinitialize the
> installation (or perhaps it was never initialized in the first place).
> At least reinitialize the ls-lR database and font paths.
> AFAIK you have to do this when upgrading since there are aspects of
> the installation that can't be set up automatically by RPM.
>
> -Tom
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
Francisco Cribari-Neto voice: +55-81-2718420
Departamento de Estatistica fax: +55-81-2718422
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Recife/PE, 50740-540, Brazil web: www.de.ufpe.br/~cribari/
IBM: It is slow, but at least it's expensive.
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------
From: Tom Christiansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Computer virus threat to Linux?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Christiansen)
Date: 10 May 1999 06:04:19 -0700
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In comp.os.linux.misc,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Chapman) writes:
:Just so. The bogus word "virii" would be the plural of another bogus word
:"virius". And, in any event, the English plural of "virus" is "viruses".
:Fowler is seldom wrong :-)
Thank you.
--tom
PS: No comment on Birchfield, though. :-)
--
double value; /* or your money back! */
short changed; /* so triple your money back! */
--Larry Wall in cons.c from the 4.0 perl source code
------------------------------
From: "Richard Pecl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Re: Samba & Win 9x clients: automatically mapping drives
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 14:44:10 +0200
>
>How can we avoid this problem? Is there some script capability in Win
>9x that remap the drives for us?
>
Hi.
Of course, there is a script capability on Samba.
All is desribed in DOMAIN.TXT in Samba doc.
The first thing you have to do is to create a public share named netlogon.
In this directory you can place a startup script (usually *.bat - e.g.
startup.bat)
Then, in smb.conf, you'll set:
logon script=startup.bat
domain logons=yes
workgroup=mydomain (for example)
And on W98 machine, in config. of MS network client, set Logon to domain and
in array "name of domain" write mydomain.
On the next logon, the startup script should be ran.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charles H. Chapman)
Subject: SETI@Home release version slow???
Date: 14 May 1999 14:40:14 GMT
Hi,
Has anyone noticed that the release version of the SETI at Home
program is -much- slower than the beta version. I was running
version 0.46 before and it would complete the number crunching
on a work unit in about two hours. Version 1.1 looks like it's
going to take 15-20 hours (it hasn't finished the first one
yet). Also, email to Berkeley's bug-reporting address bounces
with an "Unknown user" message.
Chuck
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Debian: still viable?
Date: 14 May 1999 14:59:15 GMT
In his obvious haste, Marco Anglesio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled
thusly:
: What alien does is unpackage the rpm, then repackage it as a deb. However,
: dpkg has and enforces dependencies; rpm->deb conversions are merely built
: with nothing by way of dependencies.
Wouldn't it be possible to translate RPM dependencies into debian
dependencies?
--
______________________________________________________________________________
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]| |
| Andrew Halliwell | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!" |
| Finalist in:- | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
| Computer Science | - Father Jack in "Father Ted" |
==============================================================================
|GCv3.12 GCS>$ d-(dpu) s+/- a C++ US++ P L/L+ E-- W+ N++ o+ K PS+ w-- M+/++ |
|PS+++ PE- Y t+ 5++ X+/X++ R+ tv+ b+ DI+ D+ G e>e++ h/h+ !r!| Space for hire |
==============================================================================
------------------------------
From: "mmanfre" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.protocols.nfs,comp.os.linux.help,alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: General.NFS.Questions
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 11:19:00 -0400
> > 3. Is there a way to override a programs file I/O in Linux and NSF?
>
> In MVS we have a "DD" statement, in DOS we have "DLBL", and in MPE we have
> "FILE:=" these are able to override the programs open statement ie: if a
> program is written to create a file and then write to it sequentially, you
> can usually override it and tell it to use a different file name and
append
> to it. How is this done with Linux and NFS ie: the program writes to a
file
> and not stdout or stderr ? Is this done in the shell with &2>>&1? How do I
> know which number a "filename" has?
>
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE A FILE OUTPUTTED BY A PROGRAM:
In UNIX type systems you can change the file descriptors. 0 is standard
input, 1 is standard output, and 2 is standard error. When the program
needs to write to a file another descriptor is opened. The only way I see
is to guess which one the file has. Just start at a descriptor higher than
2.
">&n" changes the output for descriptor #n
IF YOU ARE TRYING TO OUTPUT STDOUT AND STDERR INTO A FILE:
prog >&2 >> file
I am not sure if you need to use a >> for >&2.
Manfre
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco Anglesio)
Subject: Re: Debian: still viable?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 15:36:28 GMT
On 14 May 1999 14:59:15 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In his obvious haste, Marco Anglesio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled
>thusly:
>: What alien does is unpackage the rpm, then repackage it as a deb. However,
>: dpkg has and enforces dependencies; rpm->deb conversions are merely built
>: with nothing by way of dependencies.
>
>Wouldn't it be possible to translate RPM dependencies into debian
>dependencies?
I'm sure it would, but you'd have to have consistent version numbering and
suchlike between distributions. Which is, IMHO, a dangerous assumption in
the absence of a formal agreement between debian and Red Hat.
Alien also ignores differences in setup between distributions - the file
setup in the rpm is the setup in the deb, and Debian does do things
differently than Redhat in some instances, so you can wind up in trouble.
Setup scripts are not properly converted in any case, so you will have to
poke around to set things up correctly. Etc.
I've run into some significant problems because of this (in the
codeforge-1.2 commercial rpms) where I had to purge the debianized rpm and
install directly from tarball to get it to work correctly.
marco
--
,--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
> Marco Anglesio | Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, <
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] | strychnine are weak dilutions. <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | The surest poison is time. <
> | --Ralph Waldo Emerson <
`--------------------------------------------------------------------------'
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John S. Dyson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Pro-Unix vs anti-WinTel (was: Re: Is Unix a single user operating system?)
Date: 14 May 1999 14:43:25 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Michael Powe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Mutsaers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Peter> FreeBSD's more conservative and ordered approach used to
> Peter> make its slower than Linux, but I think that Linux's
> Peter> relative chaos is beginning to reverse this. It would be
> Peter> good for Linux to also start using a single CVS tree with a
> Peter> -current and -stable branch and a core team instead of a
> Peter> single individual that needs to approve everything.
>
> Well, I've been reading FreeBSD'ers predictions of linux's imminent
> demise for a year and a half. We seem to be progressing in the market
> while FBSD just hangs around where it's always been.
>
> Linux development is driven by user demand.
>
FreeBSD is driven by user demand (partially.)
>
> FBSD development is
> driven by the agenda of its development team.
>
FreeBSD development is driven by the agenda of the development
team (partially.)
>
> Linux development is
> oriented toward the individual user.
>
There is no centralized Linux-based OS development organization actually
controlling Linux kernel based OS distributions. The Linux kernel
part is controlled by a single czar. It is by that czar's whims that
features get included (e.g. delayed inclusion of the raw disk mechanisms,
which are quite advantageous for commercial database work.) If
anything, Linux development is much more dependent on BOTH the whims
of an individual kernel hacker AND the various somewhat incompatible
distributions. This makes Linux fundamentally much more fragile from
a project standpoint.
>
> FBSD development is oriented
> toward the business user.
>
FreeBSD development is oriented towards the users who contribute, either
in the sense of positive criticism, or code contribution. Alot of
FreeBSD work is embedded, alot is inter-networking, and some is
office-networking.
>
> I don't know what Linus' plans are, but I surely do hope he does not
> adopt the `ignore the individual user' philosophy of FBSD.
>
Linus is the czar of the kernel only. His decisions don't necessarily
show sensitivity to the needs of at least one large class of users
(out of psuedo-asthetic reasoning.) Give me a *competent* committee
with a structured organization for an entire OS, over a single kernel
hacker's control -- anyday.
Linux seems to be mostly (apparently) anti-Microsoft driven, and
something like that based upon hate and revolution seems to be very
uncaring to the userbase. GPL is also (in itself) a hate filled
document with an agenda that doesn't effectively economically support
the developers of code (including those who add to the code)
themselves. In order for this revolution to survive, it needs people
inexperienced in life (the trekkie set) to promulgate FUD against all
other alternatives. Those using and manipulating that set of individuals,
get to profit from (and stay above) the mess that the hacker revolt
causes (both in a macro sense, and in the micro sense.) (The micro
sense being the waste of otherwise brilliant programmers spending
their potentially profitable time on GPLed works.)
The key for general economic success is to USE GPLed works when it
is appropriate, but work towards free software. As a developer,
almost all GPLed works are a licensing curiousity, and interesting
reimplementations of work already done by creative people who spend
time inventing and making money on new ideas.
--
John | Never try to teach a pig to sing,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | it makes one look stupid
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | and it irritates the pig.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kenneth P. Turvey)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Is Unix a single user operating system? (was: Wanted: Database/Contact
mgr with backend on Linux/FreeBSD, web frontend)
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 09:04:12 -0500
On Wed, 12 May 1999 02:52:13 GMT, Stephen E. Halpin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[Snip]
>This is a document titled "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System"
>by Dennis Ritchie himself. From this text you will find the quote:
>
> Processes (independently executing entities) existed very early
> in PDP-7 Unix. There were in fact precisely two of them, one for
> each of the two terminals attached to the machine.
>
>Its clear from that and the text that followed that the early PDP-7
>versions of the system could support multiple users. Other texts off
>his home page also refer to the PDP-7 version as a timeshare system
>and talk about how it evolved. Its definitely worth reading through..
Apparently I was misinformed. My appologies. Thanks for the education.
I read through the document you referenced (and I intend to give it a
closer reading at a later date) and enjoyed the history.
--
Kenneth P. Turvey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and
bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny
in government. -- Thomas jefferson
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lew Pitcher)
Subject: Re: PI in C
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 12:14:10 GMT
On Sat, 08 May 1999 00:59:43 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (William Adderholdt) wrote:
>In article <7gtb88$dbc$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Scott Lanning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>mark ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>>: How do I get the value (approximation) of pi in a C program?
>
>[snip description of Monte Carlo method]
>
>>There is online a booked called Numerical Recipes in C; it was free to
>>download last time I looked. Maybe it has other methods in there (e.g.,
>>numerical integration).
>
>In fact, Cambridge's Numerical Recipes uses the example of computing
>pi as an exercise in arbitrary precision arithmetic. It's rather involved,
>though, using FFT's and such. The Monte Carlo method is much easier to
>program.
It shouldn't be too hard to compose a program that uses some
arbitrary-precision math (say, the bigint package), and an
expansion of MacLauren's series (spelling?) to derive a large
precision value for Pi.
My Natlog program does similar for 'e'
(the base of natural logarithms, 2.71828...).
Lew Pitcher
System Consultant, Integration Solutions Architecture
Toronto Dominion Bank
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employer's.)
------------------------------
From: "S Holtgrewe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Cron Daemon messages
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 11:18:34 -0500
I received 2 messages from 'Cron Daemon' on my linux server. I am using Red
Hat 4.0.
Message #1:
The subject of the message is as follows:
Cron <root@www> /usr/sbin/tmpwatch 240 /var/lib/texmf
The body of the message is as follows:
error: lstat() of directory /var/lib/texmf failed: No such file or
directory
Message #2:
The subject of the message is as follows:
Cron <root@www> find /var/log/wtmp -size +32 -exec cp /dev/null {}\;
The body of the message is as follows:
find: /var/log/wtmp: No such file or directory
Can anyone explain why I would get these messages?
Thanks,
Steve
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Lamb)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Pro-Unix vs anti-WinTel
Date: 14 May 1999 16:13:21 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 14 May 1999 10:39:23 -0400, Davis Doherty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>And this was written back around FreeBSD 2.2.5, so it is definitely not a
>new thing.
Whoa, someone who has a level head. I think I was a 2.2.2 system at the
time and it moer certainly did not check for dependencies and compile them for
me. Then you for being lucid and telling me what I experienced didn't happen.
>Perhaps you had difficulties on time. But this does not necessarily mean
>that the problem was in the ports system. Perhaps it was one particular
>port. Or perhaps the tree was not up-to-date. Or perhaps a million other
>things. One experience is no basis on which to start spouting out how the
>ports tree is a piece of crap.
That is my point though, the tree is, by design, out of date. The last
time I checked the ports tree FTPs the source directly from the author's site.
With a few thousand programs in the ports tree all it takes is one author to
release a new version, change the name of his archive and the MD5 sum of said
archive and you've got problems. Now whomever maintains the ports tree needs
to notice that and fix it, by which time another package has changed, etc,
etc. That may have changed recently, I'm not sure. But that has been my
experience.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
===============================+=============================================
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: GNU reeks of Communism (returning to %252522GNU Communism%252522)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Seebach)
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 16:25:12 GMT
In article <MPG.11a5dee1991008eb989849@news>,
Jon Skeet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'd rather have that than people dying because they simply can't afford
>to buy food.
I would agree - but I think that we don't have to take either.
>To me, the definition of civilisation is that instead of being survival
>of the fittest, it's survival of as many people as possible - even if the
>*average* living condition suffers slightly.
Then you have to start thinking about quality of life, length of life, and
it gets very complicated.
-s
--
Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (J.M. Paden)
Subject: Re: What is /sbin for? (Was: Proper use of /usr/local)
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 13:37:28 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> Tor Slettnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> >Now, the difference between ../bin and ../sbin is a little more
>> >unclear. It used to be that static binaries went into sbin, and
>> >binaries linked against a library in ../lib went into ../bin.
>
>That doesn't sound right. To my knowledge, such things as sh and ls
>have always been static binaries, and have always resided in /bin. In
>fact, a quick scan of my /bin directory shows only one dynamically
>linked binary [and the contents of /bin haven't changed in quite some
>time, so I can be reasonably sure that these files were always
>statically linked].
>
>> >Nowadays, however, more and more people seem to have the idea that
>> >'sbin' is for system administration utilities.
>
>I don't know... that actually sounds like a more reasonable explanation
>to me. This should be a known historical fact, since the naming
>convention was obviously invented by *somebody* for *some* reason.
>
>Pointers, anyone?
/ -- the root directory
|
+-bin Essential command binaries
+-boot Static files of the boot loader
+-dev Device files
+-etc Host-specific system configuration
+-home User home directories
+-lib Essential shared libraries and kernel modules
+-mnt Mount point of temporary partitions
+-opt Add-on application software packages
+-root Home directory for the root user
+-sbin Essential system binaries
+-tmp Temporary files
+-usr Secondary hierarchy
+-var Variable data
For more details on the file system do a search for :
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard -- Version 2.0 (There may
be a more recent version)
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Group
edited by Daniel Quinlan
Regards,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
--T.S. Eliot
------------------------------
From: Peter Rivera Jr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Optimum Online Cable Modem Service
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 10:22:18 -0400
Has anyone got Redhat 6.0 up and running with the Optimum Online Cable
modem service Here on Long Island?
Help would be greatly appreciated!
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve Lamb)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Pro-Unix vs anti-WinTel
Date: 14 May 1999 16:24:15 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 14 May 1999 13:56:12 +0100, Richard Caley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>So, to be clear, you're happier downloading some pre-compiled binary
>from god knows what teenaged hackers jokeshop than getting the sources
>for what you want from wherever it officially lives, and patches for
>FBSD from FBSD? Boy you love to live dangerously.
No. I doubt you'll find that any of the Debian developers would consider
themselves a "teenaged hackers jokeshop." Many of the developers work closely
with the authors of said programs going so far as to forward on patches for
bugs they and Debian have fixed or reports of bugs they cannot from Debian's
BTS. Each developer is required to have a PGP key, has gone through a mild
check to make sure they are who they say they are, and all archives must be
signed by the maintainer who submits it.
I'd rather download the binaries in that setting then go through the ports
tree because, as I've stated before, the ports tree is too fragile for my
tastes. What happens when an author releases a new version of his software?
Your ports tree is out of date until whomever maintains it, fixes it. Except,
while they are fixing it, some other author releases something new and the
ports tree, again, is broken.
In the Debian model, if I follow stable, I know that the archives will
always be there regardless of what the individual authors do. I also know
that a team of several hundred volunteers (which is no less than what the
FreeBSD team is, so don't give me this "teenaged hacker jokeshop" shit) have
chosen a set of packages and have done their damned best to make sure that
they *ALL* work well together. Not just the "core" OS, but *EVERYTHING* works
together. They ensure no show-stopping bugs get out and if any do, fix them
immediately. If any package causes severe problems, they pull it from the
distribution. Further, as I said, they work closely with the upstream authors
to fix the bugs they have identified.
Given that model, you bet your bippy I'd rather have the binaries than
rely on a tenious thread of where things are SUPPOSED to be. Furthermore, if
I so choose I could get the source for nearly everything Debian packages and
build it myself as they keep the source on hand, not on the author's site.
Add to that the fact that one of apt's planned features is to allow people to
download the source from their local Debian FTP site and compile it locally
and you have FreeBSD, 'cept better, because, again, there is not hoping that
sources are where you last left them.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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