Linux-Misc Digest #261, Volume #26 Tue, 7 Nov 00 22:13:01 EST
Contents:
Re: IM, Canna ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: boot problems after moving HD (Victor Rajewski)
Re: [finger] wont show .plan nor .project remotely -- why? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: rpm catch-22 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: CPU Design HOWTO version 4.0 released ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: printing to from linux to win98 (Victor Rajewski)
Re: smb vs nfs (Victor Rajewski)
Re: XDM CUSTOMIZATION (Victor Rajewski)
Free ISP? - How about Capitol One? (Kevin E Cosgrove)
Re: compression with error correction? (Mandrake 7 User)
Re: How to compile wi/ optimization? (Nathan Weston)
Re: Where to place IDE tape drive? (bullwinkle)
Re: Video Driver (bullwinkle)
Re: Sorry, your terminal can't do absolute cursor positioning. ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Trying to download symbolic links. (Mark Post)
Re: smb vs nfs (Mark Post)
Re: Scanning for shared drive on a windows machine? (Mark Post)
Re: Linux/UNIX=Windows ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: IM, Canna
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 01:10:22 GMT
I have been trying to get gjiten (a Kanji
dictionary) intsalled and running. In my efforts
I found a japanese locale at
http://www.linuxi18n.org/locales/
So far I can see kanji in kterm and can get the
korean and chinese wnn servers running but have
yet to get the wnn server up. I also am having
problems getting kinput2-v3 compiled. If you have
any suggestions they would help. If not I hope
this helps in some way.
In article
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Matthew Boyce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Jim Young wrote:
> >
> > Hi. i've been searching for an Input method
for Japanese. I found some
> > info on the net about the Canna package. Yet,
i can't get any slakware
> > distro's for it. i tried installing the RPM
but it needed some redhat
> > libraries. any ideas?
> >
> > Thanks, Jim
> Canna comes from
>
http://www.nec.co.jp/japanese/product/computerssoft/canna/c-down.html
>
> But I'll warn you, you're going to have a really
hard time of it if you
> happen to be using a new glibc2.1 Slackware. A
better idea would be to
> see if you can find source packages from Plamo
Linux, which is a
> Japanese Slackware-based distribution.
Alternatively, you could get a
> source RPM from TurboLinux and apply the patches
yourself.
>
> The other thing is that even after you manage to
get kinput2 and canna
> installed and working properly, they are only
going to operate in kterm.
> As for other applications, they will complain
about being unable to set
> the locale and stubbornly continue to behave
according to the C locale,
> ignoring all input methods.
>
> Quite frankly, I have no idea how to make a
Japanese locale work
> properly on an English Slackware. You can change
the LANG variable until
> your keyboard wears out, but programs continue
to whine. I can only
> conclude that the C library is misconfigured for
proper locale support,
> but having reconfigured and recompiled it
multiple times to no effect, I
> for one have conceded defeat.
>
> And don't even ask about Japanese Pine mail...
>
> --
> Matthew Boyce
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> $B<7m[$SH,5/$- (B
> Fall seven times, get up eight.
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Victor Rajewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: boot problems after moving HD
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 12:30:47 +1100
> > I've just put a whopping big new HD in my debian 2.2 system, and copied
> > all of my system from my older HD onto the new one, now I got this wierd
> > problem with LILO:
> <snip>
> > LILO boots the system fine. but if I remove (physically) hdc, lilo stops
> > on the `L'. With hdc removed, I can boot to hda from a kernel image on a
> > floppy. I have tried recompiling the kernel, recreating the system map,
> > and rerunning lilo, all pointing to hda, but nothing wants to give
> >
> > any ideas?
>
> Sure. Did you make sure that your boot partition on the new whopping
> huge drive is within the first 1023 cylinders of the drive? That was my
> problem when I got (what sounds like) the same error you have here. I
> bought a new big drive, replaced my old teeny drive, completely forgot
> about that 1023 cylinder thing, and didn't specify a separate /boot
> partition when I ran fdisk. Tried to boot, lilo got stuck. It took me
> about 5 more failed installations before I remembered the cylinder
> limitation. On the 7th (:<) install, I used fdisk to create a /boot
> partition located entirely below cylinder 1023 and was trouble free
> thereafter. At least with respect to lilo and boot issues, that is...
I have a 200M root partition at the start of the drive which contains the
kernel etc. I'm assuming that this is within 1023 cylinders (drive is
15Gig). from previous experiences, the 1023 limit can be gotten around
using linear (or lba32) mode in lilo, and when it is a problem, lilo
prints "LI" to the screen. I'm only gettting to "L"
> It mentions that just getting the "l" can be a sign of a geometry
> mismatch, which I _think_ may be a function of this /boot partition
> thing I'm talking about above.
yeah - I read that in the lilo docs, but they do say that if only "L" is
displayed, an error code should follow. maybe the docs r
outdated. Geometry mismatch is correct. I have a feeling its because my
partitions don't end on cylinder boundaries. But I would have thought that
this would only matter once we need to look at the second and subsequent
partitions, which doesn;t happen until after the kernel is loaded (I
think)
chow
vik
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik
PGP: http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik/pgp.txt
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [finger] wont show .plan nor .project remotely -- why?
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 01:31:26 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Bacalle) writes:
> This is weird, I notice that when I perform a finger locally I get a
> different result then when I do it from a remote machine. Locally I can
> see my .plan and .project files, from outside these are not shown, no
> matter what options I use.
>
> I was going to include my GnuPG key via .plan, but as things are no one
> will see it on the Net. *harrumph!*
..
> So, why do they show up locally, but, not remotely?
You may remember a bit of ancient history surrounding the "Morris
Internet Worm" back in the 1980s.
That "worm" was propagated by a common security hole in finger [one of
the classic "buffer overflow" issues] that allowed pushing code onto
the server.
At the time, many, many Unix hosts decided to stop accepting "finger"
requests from outside their subnet. This has since loosely codified
itself into the "Unix Services You Should Secure Against Outside
Access."
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@hex.net") <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/>
Multics is security spelled sideways.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: rpm catch-22
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 01:31:32 GMT
"Gerald Pollack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I have a Mandrake 7.0 system. I'm attempting to upgrade printtool; I
> currently have printtool-3.44-mdk. I've downloaded
> printtool-3.55-1.noarch.rpm from rpmfind. When I give the command rpm -U
> printtool-3.55-1.noarch.rpm I get:
>
> only packages with major numbers <= 3 are supported by this version of RPM
> error: printtool-3.55-1.noarch.rpm cannot be installed
>
> My current version of rpm is 3.03-43mdk. The most recent version of rpm
> listed on rpmfind is 4.04, but of course I get the same message when
> trying to upgrade to it! Any suggestions?
This has been a not-overly-surprising but also _rather disappointing_
thing that has often come up when Red Hat has done major upgrades to
their RPM tool.
You wind up having to install the new version straight from a TAR
file.
You may find a TARred "and feathered" version at
<ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/rpm-4.0.x/>
It is fairly likely in source code form, so you'd have to compile it.
You might also try the alternative of downloading "rpm2cpio"
<http://www.iagora.com/~espel/rpm2cpio>
This utility is written in Perl, and knows how to pull data out of an
RPM file.
You could thereby take the 4.04 RPM file, extract it (using cpio),
drop the files into place by hand, and thereby have RPM 4.04 up and
running.
[After that, I'd suggest using it to "install itself," perhaps forcing
the matter using "force codes," so that your system knows that the new
version is in place there...]
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@hex.net")
<http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/>
"I don't well know whether to go back and strike him, or--what's
that?--down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the
thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever *did*
pray. It's queer; very queer [...]" -- Moby Dick, Ch 29
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: CPU Design HOWTO version 4.0 released
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 01:31:33 GMT
alavoor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> CPU Design HOWTO v4.0 is released.
>
> The documents "tells" you how to design, test, build
> and manufacture CPUs (32-bit, 64-bit) for servers,
> workstations and embedded systems.
Ah, for some entertainingly different meaning of the word "tells."
> It has valuable time saving pointers and URLS. It is expected that
> work on OpenRISC 2000 and 64-bit F-CPU will proceed with
> "break-neck" speed and will be compeleted in about 8 to 9 months.
Doubtless. But I'd be willing to hazard a small wager that I _won't_
be able to place an order for an "F-CPU system" 9 months from now.
Probably about as likely as the chances that Oracle will go out of
business in the next 9 months since ONLY PostgreSQL is the MOST
mature, most widely used and robust RDBMS SQL free database (object
relational) in the world.
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@hex.net") <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/>
Rules of the Evil Overlord #90. "I will not design my Main Control
Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
------------------------------
From: Victor Rajewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: printing to from linux to win98
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 12:37:18 +1100
something to do with carriage returns/linefeeds. Unices usually store text
with linefeeds (I think - or is it the other one?) at the end of each
line, but no carriage return. MS products , and most printers require both
CR and LF - u need to put the files thru another filter to change
LF -> CR LF. the unix2dos prog does exactly this, but smbprint might be
able to do it, or set up magicfilter (or other automagic print filter) to
do the same. Actually, I had to play with the smbprint file on my puter to
get it to go thru the magicfilter, then go to the printer thru smb. mail
me back if u want more info.
> I have samba setup. I have set up a printcap entry that will print to
> the samba server and I am using the smbprint script that came with
> redhat 6.2. Now the problem. What ever I print I only get the first
> line of the file and then it steps down towards the end
> of the
> page
> like
> this.
>
> What's happening and how do I fix it?
I assume u r only printing raw text?
chow
vik
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik
PGP: http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik/pgp.txt
------------------------------
From: Victor Rajewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: smb vs nfs
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 12:40:01 +1100
> this isnt the problem really...unless i'm mistaken about your setup,
> samba and nfs are two different things. samba allows file/printer sharing
> between windows machines and linux machine(s).
> nfs mounts network shares between linux machines only.
both allow file sharing between computers. MS happened to use the smb
protocol for their filesharing. NFS tends to be more traditional for
unices, but I was just wondering why, as I've heard smb is generally
better. but it seems that smb doesn't handle permissions well.
> > I have a small LAN at home (3 computers) in which I want to set up my
> > fast(ish) linux box as a fileserver for the other two to run linux off
> > (basically I want to export the /usr and /home dirs). in terms of speed
> > and reliability, is smb or nfs a better option? security is not much of
> > an issue as I trust my housemates (and they have physical access to the
> > computer anyway).
vik
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik
PGP: http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik/pgp.txt
------------------------------
From: Victor Rajewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: XDM CUSTOMIZATION
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 12:46:43 +1100
> I've discovered that it's possible to configure XDM with a more
> atractive look, and I've downloaded a couple of themes from
> x.themes.org.
> I've also downloaded XV to make bitmaps visible and moved the theme
> files into /etc/X11/xdm but when I reboot my PC I only get one
> photograph and I can't login.
> Does anybody know what I did wrong and what do I have to correct ?
xdm runs a login program, specified somewhere in its config files. I am
guessing he login prog either doesn't exist, has been overwritten by
something which doesn't work, or its entry ion the config has been
screwed. go to a console (Crtl-Atl-F1) and play around with the config
files and docs/howtos (if u can handle text-only - if not, kill xdm from
the console (killall xdm), then startx will get u back into X
without xdm.
chow
vik
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik
PGP: http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~vik/pgp.txt
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.mandrake
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kevin E Cosgrove)
Subject: Free ISP? - How about Capitol One?
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 01:59:38 GMT
I got some paper junk mail from Capital One, the credit card
company. In it they said that they offer free internet service.
Well, that would be great for me and my Linux box. Looking a
little further, I noticed that it was WinXX only at this time.
So, I emailed them and found out that they ARE considering adding
Linux support in the near future. I suspect that we as a
community could have an effect on this, no? Isn't there even a
Linux credit card somewhere that makes FSF donations based on
spending?
Just some thoughts....
--
Unless otherwise noted, the statements herein reflect my personal
opinions and not those of any organization with which I may be affiliated.
------------------------------
From: Mandrake 7 User <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: compression with error correction?
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:18:36 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
ELevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Mandrake 7 User wrote:
>
> > Is there a program for Linux that compresses files (or drives, or
what
> > ever) and that features ERROR CORRECTION? So that it can be used
with
> > cheap tape drives, etc.
> >
> > --
> > Interested in Linux-Mandrake on laptops? Mail me!
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
>
> The archiving command is tar and the compression program is gzip.
>
> In order to be able to do error correction, any program has to use
> redundancy. On the other side, any compression program removes
> redundancy in order to reduce the size of files. The gzip program
uses a
> CRC32 - according to what is written in the documentation - to do
error
> checking.
>
> E Levac
>
>
I hate to offend you, but that is total nonsense. Error correction is
quite different from redundancy. E.g. ASCII text has lots of redundancy
and no error correction. Also, even the dumbest engeneer can tell you
of 10 different methods of error correction in data. So can I, and I
wonder if any of them are programmed.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Nathan Weston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to compile wi/ optimization?
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:17:10 GMT
What options are recognized by -march and -mcpu?
Is it i6868, or pentiumII, or what?
Thanks,
Nathan
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Juergen Heinzl) wrote:
> In article <8u81gr$l58$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Nathan Weston wrote:
> >I am a relative newbie to linux, and have mostly been installing things from
> >rpms, but I am hearing a lot of "compile yourself, it will be faster,
> >optimized for your machine, etc" I have been building a few things from
> >source lately, mostly Qt and KDE, but I am wondering how I can make sure that
> >everything is being optimized properly. Do the configure scripts bundled wi/
> >most software automatically detect what architecture I am using and turn on
> >the right optimizations, or do I have to go through and do this myself? What
> >compiler or configure options are used to turn on optimizations?
> [-]
> Some optimisations may make things slower or even generate bad code, beware,
> but pretty much all installation scripts I've seen so far use some defaults.
>
> Out of experience:
>
> -O0 .. -O1 :: You don't trust the compiler
> -O2 :: Usual the default
> -O3 :: Sometimes the default
> -Os :: Bad code when compiling glibc-2.1.97, *ouch*
> -march :: Optimise for a specific CPU
> -mcpu :: Optimise for a specific CPU *and* generate CPU specific code
>
> General question is now whether you're not going to spend more time with
> optimising than you can win by optimising ;)
>
> You may avoid -fstrict-aliasing as the developer of the code then *really*
> had to know what the code does and you may or may not use -fno-strength-reduce
> as from some profiling (Intel) it mostly resulted in larger code while often
> there was an actual loss in execution speed, so I decided the gain would not
> be worth the pain.
>
> All that for gcc of course and yes, often you may "see" an increase in speed,
> even though I dare say this does not mean there is one, actually.
>
> Anyway, this is a (nowadays) slow machine (PIII) but all SCSI and very good
> hardware. All software compiled by myself and I've never used anything
> higher than -O2 .. cannot complain at all.
>
> If you run memory hogs like KDE or some other desktop then adding some
> memory may be the best idea to start with.
>
> Cheers,
> Juergen
>
> --
> \ Real name : J�rgen Heinzl \ no flames /
> \ EMail Private : [EMAIL PROTECTED] \ send money instead /
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: bullwinkle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Where to place IDE tape drive?
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:30:09 -0000
Paul Steckler wrote:
>
>
> I have two PC's connected via Ethernet,
> a Win98 box and a RedHat 6.2 box. I'd like
> to back up both of them with an IDE tape drive.
>
> Of course, I don't want to have to get two tape
> drives. Using Samba, I think I can mount the volumes
> from one machine on the other, and backup both
> machines with a single drive.
>
> Samba will let me do the mounting in either direction.
> I can Linux drives visible on the Win98 box, or
> vice-versa (at least this is what I'm told).
>
> So is there any reason to prefer having the tape drive
> on one machine vs. the other?
>
> A conjecture: The backup software for Windows may
> be easier to use, hence it might be nicer to have the
> drive there. Also, installation on Windows may be
> more straightforward.
>
> Any help on this appreciated.
>
> -- Paul
>
>
>
>
>
I don't have any experience with tape drives on a windows system, but
you can do backups with the "dump" and "restore" commands or the "tar"
command under linux. Under the "Thats nice, but is it worth the money?"
catagory, there is BRU. It is the easy to install, easy to use GUI for
backups. See http://www.bru.com/ for more info on BRU. Use the "man"
command for more on dump, restore, and tar.
--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/
------------------------------
From: bullwinkle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Video Driver
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:30:13 -0000
K wrote:
>
>
> Has anyone got a clue on how to make a generic AGP video card with an
> SIS6326 chip. It's not a new card. The closest I can get is getting
xwindows
> up to what is a blank screen, usually blue or green, and sometimes with a
> vertical line from top to bottom for the mouse.
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
I have a Diamond Speedstar A50 (SiS 6326, 8 meg, AGP) working with Red Hat
6.1. I added options "no_accel" and "no_bitblt" to /etc/X11/XFConfig.
You may need different options with other cards and SiS 6326 chipsets.
See http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/SiS.html for more options.
--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Sorry, your terminal can't do absolute cursor positioning.
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:34:11 GMT
Martin Wilber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I'm getting the following error when I try to utilize the editor "joe"
> from a remote pc using a telnet program "Sorry, your terminal can't do
> absolute cursor positioning." This error does not occur when I work
> directly on the linux box. I get the same error with both the windows
> telnet program and the telnet program - "CRT". I'm using VT100
> emulation, but also tried VT220 with no luck. This used to work
> previously.
Type into your terminal:
echo $TERM
It is fairly likely that when you log in, the session is either:
- Setting an inappropriate value to the TERM environment variable, or
- Setting a value for which termcap does not have a suitable terminal
definition.
The likely solution is to either do:
setenv TERM vt100
or
export TERM=vt100
[or try vt220, if that seems more suitable]
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@hex.net")
<http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/> Coming Soon to a Mainframe Near You!
MICROS~1 Windows NT 6.0, complete with VISUAL JCL...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark Post)
Subject: Re: Trying to download symbolic links.
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:38:58 GMT
On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 10:02:09 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Hello
>
>I am trying to download the files on the directory:
>ftp://ftp.mvista.com/pub/CDK/1.2/cd/PowerPC/install/rpxlite/
>
>All the included files are symbolic links. I need the links, not the
>files linked. I tried with several browsers and ftp programs (on
>Windows and Linux) and I can no get the files: one program hung,
>another lists but not download, other downloads the file linked... No
>one download the link.
>
>Can it be done?
Some ftp servers will allow you to request a tarball of a directory. So,
you could try this:
ftp ftp.mvista.com
cd /pub/CDK/1.2/cd/PowerPC/install
binary
get rpxlite.tar
If the server supports it, you will get a file named rpxlite.tar that will
contain all the symbolic links, etc. If the server does not support it, you
will get an error message about rpxlite.tar not being found.
Mark Post
Postmodern Consulting
Information Technology and Systems Management Consulting
To send me email, replace 'nospam' with 'home'.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark Post)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: smb vs nfs
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:43:06 GMT
On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 22:08:34 +1100, Victor Rajewski
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>heyheyhey
hohoho
>I have a small LAN at home (3 computers) in which I want to set up my
>fast(ish) linux box as a fileserver for the other two to run linux off
>(basically I want to export the /usr and /home dirs). in terms of speed
>and reliability, is smb or nfs a better option? security is not much of an
>issue as I trust my housemates (and they have physical access to the
>computer anyway).
In a homogenous environment (all Linux/Unix) I would recommend using NFS.
It is a _lot_ less hassle in the long run.
Mark Post
Postmodern Consulting
Information Technology and Systems Management Consulting
To send me email, replace 'nospam' with 'home'.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark Post)
Subject: Re: Scanning for shared drive on a windows machine?
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:51:03 GMT
On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 21:03:43 GMT, Showson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hi all!
>Is there a console program out there that will list the shared drives of
> a specific Windows machine.. either by Samba name or IP address?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. Is this program to be run on a
Linux machine (I'm assuming so, since this is a Linux newsgroup)?
Also, do you want to know what _shares_ have been created on a Windows
machine, or what drives/folders have had shares created for them? If all
you want to know is what shares are available, the smbclient command from
Samba will do that (smbclient -L windowssystemname). If you want the other,
I am not aware of anything that will do that from a Linux command line.
Mark Post
Postmodern Consulting
Information Technology and Systems Management Consulting
To send me email, replace 'nospam' with 'home'.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux/UNIX=Windows
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 02:55:06 GMT
"Mats Pettersson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Peter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> skrev i meddelandet
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> > Linux will start winning the big race when a company can take one CD
> > and roll out 1,000 workstations complete with GUI, StarOffice, a
> > database, PHP, something equivalent to MS's Personal Webserver and
> > something compatible with Powerpoint.
>
> As i work partly with system administration myself, i see a trend
> back to client/server based applications like "Terminal server" for
> Win.
>
> Run the software on a server and display it on the client. This way
> you only have one computer to fiddle with when upgrading installing
> software.
>
> Here Linux (and other UNIXes) should have a big advantage through
> the X-windows system.
Alternatively, if the _user_ environment at least sits in one place,
and it's straightforward to "push" global application and
configuration out using tools like RPM, apt-get, and cfengine, it's OK
for there to be lots of hosts involved.
> However, i don't know how much "new" development and optimization
> that is done with this. X-windows is a bit slow over modems. Feel
> free to enlighten me about this.
There's an X extension that provides a "low bandwidth" proxy that
compresses the data going across connections. It's not clear that
this is _ultimately_ vastly usable. Mind you, a lot of applications
have been moving to being networked via "the web"...
> > I use Solaris and Linux for web servers. Considering each server is
> > serving around 80,000 workstations, the workstation market is far
> > larger and more influential.
> >
> > The mass market, the user of the future, works at about the level of
> > PHP/Visual Basic/Excel macros so will not be able to resort to reading
> > C code.
>
> The ideal would be to make som sort of a "easy to use/implement"
> x-windows API to support different highlevel-languages such as
> Perl,Python and others.
>
> I know there already are things like this out there but they are not
> "standardised" for all languages. The Perl API is not equal to
> Pythons and so on.
>
> As a side note. (not as harsh as it may sound :)
>
> I think GUI is highly underestimated in this newsgroup.
>
> As i see it, a GUI is not for stupid people not wanting to learn
> about computers. It's for doing a job (mostly computer unrelated) as
> fast and effeciantly as possibly.
The problem is that this _isn't true_.
There are a whole lot of perspectives on what the priority of GUIs
are, and there most certainly _is_ a whole lot of attention that goes
into the goal of making GUIs essentially a tool "for ignorant people
who don't want to learn."
Furthermore, it is _absolutely_ not true that the purpose of GUIs is
to accomplish jobs as "fast and efficient as possible"; were that
true, people would be spending their time counting Therbligs in
classic Taylorian fashion.
To the contrary, the hefty requirements of GUIed systems to shift
around big bitmaps tend to result in them being slower than text-based
systems.
The other _benefit_ of GUIs is supposed to be in the fact that they
commonly provide more direct and immediate feedback, diminishing the
risks of error by providing discrete choices as when you get radio
buttons and such rather than a more `open' "fill-in-the-blank."
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@hex.net") <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/>
Coming Soon to a Mainframe Near You! MICROS~1 Windows NT 6.0,
complete with VISUAL JCL...
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