Linux-Misc Digest #432, Volume #20 Mon, 31 May 99 14:13:13 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linux Winzip utility (David Goldstein)
Re: help with fdisk ("Charles Sullivan")
Re: SETI comparisons (Bill McClain)
lp: driver loaded but no devices found (Georg Schwarz)
Re: Linux 2.2.X with only 4 MB RAM? (Georg Schwarz)
How do I compile ncurses? ("Chris Fanning")
Superblock & inode ("Tom")
Re: telnet in as root? (Giandomenico De Tullio)
Re: Help with Masquerading. (Luca - De Whiskey's - De Vitis)
Re: first/second/third world (Richard Kulisz)
Re: ppp-2.3.7 and RH6 ("Christopher Brown")
Re: Netscrape Plugins (Jimmy Navarro)
Re: Anybody using NTFS write support? ("John Burton")
Re: Alpha, PowerPC, Intel, and Sparc (Christopher B. Browne)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Goldstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux Winzip utility
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 21:32:21 +0200
Kevin Scott wrote:
>
> Is anyone aware of a utility for linux which understands ".zip" files?
> It would be awfully convienent if I could unzip files created by Winzip
> (in WinX environment of course) in linux.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kevin
All you need to do is unzip the file with--unzip :) Winzip makes it
convenient to unzip files and to view them before they are unzipped.
There is; however, nothing proprietary about the zipped files
themselves.
David
------------------------------
From: "Charles Sullivan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: help with fdisk
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 11:34:57 -0400
The simplest thing to do is to entirely delete hdb3 and recreate it with
Linux
fdisk as a native Linux partition. You can create it either as a Primary
partition
hdb3 or as a Logical partition hdb7 within the Extended partition hdb2.
In the latter case hdb2 should automatically expand to contain it.
Bill Damon wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>O.K. here is where I am ... I need help so I don't wipe out something
>important...
>
>I have 2 IDE drives; the C Drive is all WIN98 FAT 32.
>
>The D Drive is a 3.6 GB IDE drive that was orginally all WIN98 FAT32. I
>cleared some space, defragmented the disk, and then set up an 800
>MB partition for Linux. That is not going to be enough.
>
>So I cleaned off a lot more space on the D: Drive and now have the
>following:
>
>One WIN98 FAT32 partition of about 1.6 GB
>One WIN98 FAT32 partition of about 1.2 GB (This is now empty and is
>what I want to use for Linux)
>One Linux Native partition of about 732 MB
>One Linux SWAP partition of about 64 MB
>
>When I run fdisk it shows the following:
>
>Device Start End Size ID Type
>
>hdb1 1 406 1636960 b WIN95 FAT32
>hdb2 2 731 826560 5 Linux Extended
>hdb3 407 730 1306368 b WIN95 FAT32
>hdb5 731 918 757984 83 Linux Native
>hdb6 919 935 68512 82 Linux Swap
>
>I read somewhere that a Linux Extended Partition had to be bigger than
>all the parts it is made up of. And I confused about Linux Extended
>Partitions anyway...
>
>In this case I originally set up the Linux stuff on an 800 MB partition,
>so what is showing as hdb2 is really the "Parent" partition for hdb5 and
>hdb6, I think...
>
>hdb3 is currently empty and is formatted as a WIN95 FAT32 partition.
>
>What I want to do is convert hdb3 to a Linux partition.
>
>My question is: Do I (a) delete the WIN95 FAT32 hdb3 partition, and
>then create a new Linux partition? If so, what type of partition do I
>create? Linux Extended or Linux Native?
>
>Then how do I format the partition so Linux can use it?
>
>And, finally, how do I move /home and /usr over to it so I can get some
>room on my original linux partition?
>
>fdisk is a bit scary and I don't want to do something that will wipe out
>my current Linux system because it took a while to get it working.
>don't want to go thru that again...
>
>thanks...
>
>Bill Damon, Salem, VA
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bill McClain)
Subject: Re: SETI comparisons
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 11:06:19 -0600
Jeff Grossman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What does the nice setting do?
It gives a process a low priority so it does not interfere with more
important tasks. But even low priority tasks can get +99% of the cpu
when nothing else is running at that moment.
This is perfect for background tasks like setathome. My machine shows
100% cpu utilization, but the interactive tasks I do during the day are
not slowed down at all.
Setiathome has a "nice" switch built in, but Unix supports it for the
general case also. Look at "man nice".
-Bill
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Georg Schwarz)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware
Subject: lp: driver loaded but no devices found
Date: 31 May 1999 16:06:44 GMT
When I boot Linux I get the following message:
lp: driver loaded but no devices found
This happens both on an IBM PS/2 Model 70 as well as on an IBM PS/2 Model
55 SX with both Linux 2.0.35 and 2.2.9.
Why doesn't it see the parallel port? Does it parallel port have to be
specifically enabled? Do I need a special driver?
--
Georg Schwarz ([EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], PGP 2.6ui)
Institut f�r Theoretische Physik +49 30 314-24254 FAX -21130 IRC kuroi
Technische Universit�t Berlin http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Georg Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Linux 2.2.X with only 4 MB RAM?
Date: 31 May 1999 09:41:44 GMT
"D. Vrabel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Your kernel is only about 1 MB and that's about as small as it gets.
>What's eating up all the RAM is bash I suspect. Find a smaller more
>lightweight shell (ash, esh (?)) or something like that. Trim out as many
>of the daemons as you can.
since I'm maitaining a douzend or so PCs I would like to keep them as
identical as possible (I'm using NFS and rdist via ssh for maintenance).
So before I start tweaking shells and daemons, which should use the
same binaries and config files for all machines, I think it's still easier
to go to kernel 2.0.X for that machine.
--
Georg Schwarz ([EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], PGP 2.6ui)
Institut f�r Theoretische Physik +49 30 314-24254 FAX -21130 IRC kuroi
Technische Universit�t Berlin http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
------------------------------
From: "Chris Fanning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: How do I compile ncurses?
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 10:25:28 +0200
Hi,
I'm new at this and have got a question.
How do I compile ncurses?
Thanks for your help.
Chris.
------------------------------
From: "Tom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Superblock & inode
Date: 31 May 1999 08:58:13 GMT
Where can I get the format about superblock and inode?
Thanks in advance.
Tom
------------------------------
From: Giandomenico De Tullio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: telnet in as root?
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 18:43:24 +0200
Jm wrote:
>
> What about RH6.0 ?
>
> Jm
>
> > >
> > >
> > Need to modify your /etc/securetty file by adding ttyp0 to allow you to
> > telnet in as root
REMOVE /etc/securetty ... or install SSH! :)
I prefer ssh ! :)
--
Windows98: Plug (lo scanner USB) and Pray (che non crashi il sistema)
Microsoft Outlook : dove vuoi vuoi vuoi vuoi vuoi postare oggi?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Luca - De Whiskey's - De Vitis )
Crossposted-To:
alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: Help with Masquerading.
Date: 31 May 1999 08:54:04 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <7ipade$k5e$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, jimlynn wrote:
>Hi,
> I have a linux box setup to run IP Masquerading for my home network. I
>find that some applications no longer work with this in place. Does anyone
>know how to make certain applications like live updates for software (e.g.
>Norton's live-update feature) work correctly? Any help is greatly
>appreciated.
When i made my first experiments with IP Masquerading, i've noticed that some
network services as ftp didn't work properly with it. This appened bcause with
IP Masquerading it is necessary to load some appropriated kernel modules:
I was not successful to make them be loaded automatically (I needed to look
into the kernel to know why... but time isn't so mutch :), so i made a small
function in a bash script that load/unload them when i star up/shut down my
firewall; i hope it will be usefull.
modules ()
{
FLAGS=""
un=" "
if [ "$1" = "remove" ]
then
FLAGS="-r"
un="un"
fi
cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/ipv4/
for mod in ip_masq_*
do
echo -ne "\t$un"
echo -ne "loading modules `echo $mod | sed 's/\.o//'`... "
if modprobe $FLAGS $mod
then echo -e "\tdone"
else echo -e "\tfailed"
fi
done
cd -
}
Luca De Vitis
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Kulisz)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: first/second/third world
Date: 31 May 1999 09:54:19 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
The Ghost In The Machine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>- what are the objectives that should go into the design of a modern
> computing system (which includes the operating system(s), but which also
> includes such things as applications which many people are going to
> be interested in, such as spreadsheets, games/game support, and
> word processing/typesetting)?
I was going to get into it but I didn't know how much ranting you
would tolerate. :-)
NO SYNTAX!
You want uniform name spaces. Every possible interface of your OS
has to look exactly the same as every other interface. You should
be able to create a process the same way you create a file, the
same way you create a network connection, the same way you create
a window; it all depends on which object you're talking to.
In order to achieve this, you must carefully design your uber-
interface so that every imaginable and unimaginable device on the
planet can be modeled using it. Naturally, your interface must be
supremely obvious (in retrospect) so you'll never get any credit
for the years of effort that went into it unless you're a shame-
less self-promoter.
Microkernels are obsolete
Instead of providing a minimal set of abstractions which other people
can use to create even more abstractions, provide a /complete/ set of
abstractions (the uber-interface) and make sure they can be adapted
to any situation.
Structure is Good
The namespaces should have structure. Like a filesystem, not like the
space of IP addresses.
Private doesn't mean Disconnected
Files in a directory are local to it, but they're not disconnected from
every other directory of the world. Avoid Plan 9's idea of disconnected
name spaces at all cost. In fact, the more connected the better.
Allow multiple parents
Countless ugly kludges (eg, symbolic links, union directories) have been
invented to make up for the lack of multiple containment. Don't bother;
do it the Right Way.
Who owns a File?
Directories own files. Oh wait, /users/ own files. But that must mean
that users are directories. Bingo you have capabilities!
>- what are the tradeoffs that go into a modern operating system,
> and which branches are optimized for? For example, one rather
> notable tradeoff might be ease of use versus raw performance,
> or maybe ease of porting versus raw performance. I don't know for
> sure.
A lot of OSes have optimized for raw performance so don't bother;
it's like reinventing the wheel.
A lot of ease of use and ease of porting has to do with elegance and
modularity. Let the compiler break the modules, or if it doesn't then
write a translator that does, but do *not* do it by hand.
>- same question, except for the whole modern computing system.
>
>Some examples of criteria that may be of interest. These objectives are
>not simultaneously achievable -- the idea is to pick the ones that are
>most important. (It's also possible that these are better addressed
>by specific applications, anyway -- the OS in that case shouldn't
>get in the way, and, in the best case, help by providing hooks to
>allow an application to do things quickly, safely, and simply.)
>
>- ease of use
> * graphical user interface
> * commands that make sense, and options that make sense
> * command line editing
> * graphical / command line mapping that makes sense
> * other interfaces, such as a "brain plug-in", an eye position
> reader, sound recognition, and foot pedals
You seem to be thinking in terms of features.
> * disk
> > backup and restore
Persistence is the way to go.
You didn't mention;
run-time kernel upgrades!
>- reliability
> * internal consistency, so that it doesn't crash
> * defense against external hack attempts
> * defense against hardware failures, unexpected hardware behavior,
> and hardware changes
>- privacy
> * private data should remain private
> * multiuser data system that allows for retrieval and modification of
> only that data for which the user is authorized
You mention security issues a lot, but what about shareability issues?
Too often, some twit will use security as an excuse for a fascist policy
the users don't want. It shouldn't even be possible for the syadmin to
prevent the sharing of data.
The system shouldn't just protect users from each other, it should
allow consenting users to do whatever they want with each other.
> * techniques that allow the private data to remain private even if
> the disk is physically removed from the computer and examined in
> another computer unit
This is not even possible unless the disk contains only a part of the
software.
>>Unix is a very old and obsolete design.
>
>How is it obsolete, exactly?
Not persistent, not OO, not uniform, not comprehensible, doesn't allow
multiple logical containment. That last may seem like a small thing but
only because you get used to the restriction. I've looked for ways that
multiple containment could help me and there are just so *many* that
it's pissing me off to no end.
>It certainly is a quirky, but very reliable design; can't find much
The implementation is reliable. The design, not at all so. Lose your
power, lose your data; what's reliable about that?
>fault with that. And it's very object oriented, if you think about it;
<hysterical, maniacal laughter>
>when a program opens a pathname, the program doesn't particularly care
>whether it's a file, a tape device, a CD-ROM, or a teletype/serial device,
>at least for the open and read. (It's not a perfect OO, though.)
It's all a matter of perspective; how high your bullshit threshold has
been set by experience. My first language was Smalltalk (and this choice
of a first language was deliberate) so my bullshit threshold is very,
*very* low.
Also, just opening a file is not very OO. It has to do with the fact
that if you're walking a filesystem with an fid (the Plan 9 scheme)
then you can only talk to one class of object; an fid. What you /want/
to talk to is files, directories and whatever subclasses someone has
made in their filesystem implementation. But to do that you have to
junk the concept of fids and thus of opening a file. Instead of giving
messages to an object that walks the filesystem (very imperative), you
give a message to an object within the filesystem and tell that object
to pass the message along to your intended recipient.
>So what would be the ideal paradigm?
I'm a big fan of OOP and Smalltalk so my answer is predictable. :-)
> (And I'm not even all that sure
>that software engineers -- I have been in the field for about 17 years --
>understand OO design! I certainly can't say that I understand all of
>its nuances, either, but I will state that C++ STL is a nice step forward.
Hummm, C++ is not OO. Neither is Java.
>And, as a reminder...the perfect O/S doesn't exist anyway. Look at
>Windows NT. It's won. Look at Windows 95, 98, and the about-to-be
Actually, it's lost. There is no market for Windows NT. High end
servers? Unix. Web servers? Linux. Games? Windows 95. What's left?
>Linux looks hopeful, and it's getting there. But it is obsolete as
>it stands -- at least according to you. (I'm not sure at this point.)
Obsolete (Linux) is better than actively harmful (Windows).
>>The big problem is that in order to make a novel design, you have to be
>>a complete neophyte about implementation details; so you don't come to
>>the job with any preconceptions limiting your vision of what's desirable.
>OK. Are you a neophyte? :-) Let us see the objectives for an ideal OS,
>IMO.
I am a /complete/ neophyte as far as implementation details go. I
finished all the high-level design before I picked up my first book
on OSes. I'm learning about implementation now but the project is
already slowly heading out of the design phase; just a wee problem
in how to best exploit virtual memory.
>An ideal OS would be completely transparent to the user and
>would do away with almost all limitations (e.g., "256 character filename
>limit") and probably with filenames proper as well, or at least make
>filenames merely an option; it would be fast, fast, fast in retrieval
>and update of data (and metadata), and would allow for queries such as
>"give me the file describing back in ... oh, about March... what my
>financial status and/or plans were, and then update it". This is of
>course an extremely vague specification -- and yet the computer
>should be able to handle it without difficulty!
Sorry to disappoint you but my design doesn't deal with anything of
the kind. Besides, I don't think AI has to be built into the OS proper.
>It should also be able to update from other computers outside of itself,
>and transmit selected information based on user-given critera to
>requesting computers.
>
>Definitely blue-sky!
>
>I'm not sure if the Hamilton 95 thread which wandered through a newsgroup
>or two is still available on DejaNews, but it might -- in a very
>tongue-in-cheek manner -- specify what we are most fed up with in
>so-called "modern" ("obsolete") operating systems, and indicate what
>we desire in the next generation or the generation+2 of operating systems.
>
>I do have to agree that the state of the art IMO is about as elegant with
>respect to operating systems (and computer software development in general)
>as leather belts and steam engines were some 100-150 years ago in
>durable goods manufacturing. I'm not at all sure on how to improve
>it yet. C++/STL is a good start, but we've a long way to go.
>Java might even be better...I don't know yet, but there was one
>testimonial which suggested that a traditional C++ solution would have
>taken 4 times as long.
That isn't saying much. :-)
> Python? Eiffel? Even good old Prolog?
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ppp-2.3.7 and RH6
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 16:43:51 GMT
You are not alone. I've seen posts from several other people about this and
I'm experiencing it on two of my machines (both upgrades from RH5.2->RH6.0)
Wish I could give you some answers. The compress problem is not related.
You can fix that by going to /etc/conf.modules and adding:
alias ppp-compress-21 bsd_comp
alias ppp-compress-24 ppp_deflate
alias ppp-compress-26 ppp_deflate
so that modprobe picks these modules up correctly.
Believe me, my symptoms are exactly the same as yours. I connect, I ping
ok, route -n shows that I have a defauteroute, traceroute -d <some site>
shows me a long lists of routes, as does traceroute -I.
I wish someone knowledgeable would jump in and help here.
Christopher Brown
Joost Evertse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:7ito13$k4l$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hello,
>
> I've bought redhat 6 and now i have a little problem. With 5.2 i could get
a
> ppp connection working in two seconds. With RH6 everything seems to go ok,
> but when browsing with netscape i get the error: tcp error, no route to
> host. Lynx says: Alert! unable to connect!. When i do nslookup, i get in,
> when i do ls -d XXdomainXX, i says: a critical error ha occured while
> connecting. Ping works ok, but a lot of latency.
>
> Then when i examing /var/log/messages, i see that modprobe misses "module
> compress........", three lines of this.
>
> I did a standard install, so what am i doing wrong?
>
> Joost Evertse
>
>
>
------------------------------
From: Jimmy Navarro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Netscrape Plugins
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 03:01:34 -0700
==============7877144C727A7F67490AE5E3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I posted the same question "Subject: Linux Sound" somebody replied
it... Yes RealPlayer can be plugin. At "| Preferences | Netscape |
Application" the RealPlayer is set as "Unknown:User Prompt" by default.
Change RealAudio to "Handled by" as "Application" and fill in "rvplayer
%s" to automatically load the *.ram.
Michael Powe wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Is it possible to use RealPlayer for a plugin in Netscrape in linux?
> I tried to follow the instructions for setting it up but they are not
> accurate, as they seem to be written for an earlier version of NS.
> However, I did put the class files & the .so file in the "plugins"
> directory as the directions indicate. When I put the RA entry into
> the Applications box, there's no "plugin" option -- it's grayed out.
>
> At any rate, all I get when I go to a page like www.spinner.com is a
> pop-up that says I need a plugin. Duh! NS 4.6, the full package. I
> had the same behavior with Navigator 4.08.
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> mp
>
> - --
> Michael Powe [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Portland, Oregon USA http://www.trollope.org
> "There are certain rights that a woman loses when she becomes a
> wife." -- Farrah Fawcett
That applies also to men. It's mutual.
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--
.--.
|o_o |
|:_/ |
// \ \
(| | )
/'\_ _/`\
\___)=(___/
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
I posted the same question "Subject: Linux Sound" somebody replied it...
Yes RealPlayer can be plugin. At "| Preferences | Netscape | Application"
the RealPlayer is set as "Unknown:User Prompt" by default. Change
RealAudio to "Handled by" as "Application" and fill in "rvplayer %s" to
automatically load the *.ram.
<P>Michael Powe wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
<BR>Hash: SHA1
<P>Is it possible to use RealPlayer for a plugin in Netscrape in linux?
<BR>I tried to follow the instructions for setting it up but they are not
<BR>accurate, as they seem to be written for an earlier version of NS.
<BR>However, I did put the class files & the .so file in the "plugins"
<BR>directory as the directions indicate. When I put the RA entry
into
<BR>the Applications box, there's no "plugin" option -- it's grayed out.
<P>At any rate, all I get when I go to a page like www.spinner.com is a
<BR>pop-up that says I need a plugin. Duh! NS 4.6, the full
package. I
<BR>had the same behavior with Navigator 4.08.
<P>Thanks for any help.
<P>mp
<P>- --
<BR>Michael
Powe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<BR>Portland, Oregon
USA
<A HREF="http://www.trollope.org">http://www.trollope.org</A>
<BR>"There are certain rights that a woman loses when she becomes a
<BR>wife." -- Farrah Fawcett</BLOCKQUOTE>
That applies also to men. It's mutual.
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<BR>j5mcOYYSfSx+KpbWAGg7tXc=
<BR>=tV9t
<BR>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----</BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE>--
.--.
|o_o |
|:_/ |
// \ \
(| | )
/'\_ _/`\
\___)=(___/</PRE>
</HTML>
==============7877144C727A7F67490AE5E3==
------------------------------
From: "John Burton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody using NTFS write support?
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 17:42:00 +0100
I tried it and it broke my NTFS partition after about 1 hour. Maybe
that was a conincidence, but I won't try it again for a while.
Thomas R. Shannon wrote in message ...
>I recently recompiled my kernel to include read-only NTFS support.
>The data on that partition is rather important and I didn't have the
>intestinal fortitude to try the experimental write support. Has
>anyone tried it? How stable is it?
>
>Tom
>
>Quote of the day for Monday, 31 May, 1999:
>
>"The mind is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows
>not discreetly how to use it."
>
> - Micel De Montaigne
>
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher B. Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.alpha,comp.os.linux.powerpc,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Alpha, PowerPC, Intel, and Sparc
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 10:18:32 GMT
On Sun, 30 May 1999 17:22:12 -0500, B. J. Rowland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted:
>Ben
>
>Robert Harley wrote:
>
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne) writes:
>> >>> Compare to the virtual nonexistence of motherboards for MIPS and StrongARM;
>> >>Try:
>> >> http://www.chaltech.com/products.html
>> > Whoa! 350 UK Pounds for a motherboard, and L700 for a system?!?
>> >
>> > The L350 figure translates to a sum of close to $800 USD for a
>> > motherboard and CPU.
>>
>> Yeah, the boards certainly exist but the pricing is nuts.
>>
>> Netwinder is similar: last year I bought one (complete machine with
>> 275 MHz StrongArm, 64 MB RAM, 3 GB disk, 2 MB video, ethernet,
>> shipping to Europe etc) for under $800. Now the same Netwinder would
>> cost something like $1200 or $1300. What's up with that???
>>
>The NetWinder was made by Corel. As any Corel (COSFF) shareholder knows, Corel has
>not been doing well lately. They recently sold the NetWinder (corelcomputer.com)
>to another company which now calls itself Rebel.com. I imagine this explains the
>price increase.
Seeing as how hardware has had the tradition of getting *cheaper* over time,
the result is pretty nonsensical. Furthermore, it's going to scare people
off of using 'em, if they're so expensive, and that's not how you get
Economies of Scale so as to pull down the cost per unit.
That being said, the counterargument is *probably* that the pricing a year
ago was "beta" pricing, where early adoptors got a "discount" to encorage
them to experiment with 'em.
My suspicion is that NetWinders are likely to wind up like BeBoxes,
discontinued due to a vast lack of interest.
They have only two chances to survive:
a) Find corporate types jumping on the "Linux bandwagon," and get them to
pay inflated prices for these boxes.
b) Cut the prices to $500, and hope that they sell enough of 'em to get
those "economies of scale" and make money despite the dramatic reduction in
profits-per-unit.
Corel doesn't have the *cash* to fund the latter approach; I expect that
they'd have to stock up with on the order of $100M in parts in order to get
the economies of scale. With their troubles with Corel Office not making as
much money as "needed," they can't have that kind of cash sitting around
available to be committed on such a speculative venture.
But that's only one problem; the other problem is that they need to have
channels to sell the product. It does little good to have a warehouse in
Ottawa filled with NetWinders if nobody is out there selling them.
The problem of "having to push the product" essentially *mandates* taking
the first approach. Corel/Rebel will obviously not be selling many of these
boxes to home users until they can get the price to well under $800. That
certainly leaves the boxes irrelevant to many.
--
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
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