On Mon, November 7, 2005 1:16 pm, John Carter wrote: > On Fri, 4 Nov 2005, Steve Holdoway wrote: > >> Ah, the "I'm right, and everyone else is wrong" argument! You can be >> almost certain the developers have weeks and weeks of in-depth *nix >> admin >> experience between them when you hear this! >> >> I've heard this quite a few times in my career, but there aren't too >> many >> still around. I think the last one that stuck was splitting /usr into >> /usr >> and /var... and that was a while ago! >> >> Why do people want to fix what ain't broke? > > Ah but it _is_ broke. What is broke? And how will moving all the files round fix it? Sure, there's a million ways to skin a cat, but how on earth will renaming and redesigning the directory tree do anything to improve security? Especially when you then have to bodge it all together with thousands of symlinks to get it to work at all! After all, we're talking about a system that still uses $LD_LIBRARY_PATH... security conscious???
And are they dropping case sensitivity as well? In my eyes, it's just a gimmick. > > If version N.M+1 of _every_ package was always better than version N.M > I would agree with you. > > But, as my .sig explains, quite likely version N.M+1 has some really > nifty and useful features that, ah, unfortunately borked a real nifty > old feature you can't live without. > > If every one did Test Driven Development, that wouldn't happen, but > the silly buggers don't. Without any level of accountability, why should they? And yes, I am being a devils advocate here, as this is the thing that hacks me off more than anything - like the Oracle installer that won't even run when you patch to current levels of Linux ( now fixed ) just proves that it's not just the small projects that suffer from that. > > At least with Gobo you will be able to live in the best of both worlds. > > But where Gobo really is heading in the right direction is on the > security front. > > It disturbs me that with _every_ package I install I have to > > su > make install No you don't, lower down, you mention one of the plethora of package handlers that manage binary installations. If you're downloading the source ( as implied above ), then you have the ability to check every line of code that's run to prove to yourself that it's ok. So if you run into mischief, then you've only got yourself to blame (: > > That leaves such a vast amount of room for mischief. > > I love Linux, I'm proud of the fact it is so Virus free, but I'm not > complacent. That's a gaping security hole that really does need to be > plugged. Don't forget that the original worm ran on Unix! > > Sorry, I use Debian myself, but Gobo is right about his file system > layout. > > (Gentoo is right about building from source :-) and Debian is right > about the social contract and APT. Only time will tell. Let's make a date to review this in 2010? > > > > > > > John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 > Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 > PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] > New Zealand > > Carter's Clarification of Murphy's Law. > > "Things only ever go right so that they may go more spectacularly wrong > later." > > From this principle, all of life and physics may be deduced. > $0.02, Steve -- Work like you don't need the money, Love like your heart has never been broken and Dance like no one can see you.
