Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
The 2 systems, Windows or FreeBSD, cost the same. That is, assuming that time=money. Which everyone does, except for those who have so much money they don't have to work for a living, or those who have nothing and are perectly content to live with - nothing. But I am not comparing Windoze with FreeBSD. I am comparing FreeBSD on a pre-owned box with FreeBSD on a brand-new box. The software install costs about the same; probably a bit less on average for an older box since it is less likely to have some new- fangled net or RAID chip that wastes time finding out that FreeBSD doesn't have a driver for it yet -- or that the driver only works on CURRENT. Then, add in the difference in the cost of the hardware, which in the brand-new case has the cost of the pre-loaded OS bundled in -- even though that OS is worth nothing to me since I plan to run a different one. Bottom line: a FreeBSD box built on older hardware is cheaper than a FreeBSD box built on brand new hardware. One tradeoff: the CPU in the older box most likely isn't as fast as the one in a new box; that's critical for some uses but not for mine. Another tradeoff: unless I get *really* lucky, and happen upon an outfit that has just swapped out a bunch of identical boxes, no two of my pre-owned boxes are going to be alike. That doesn't matter to me, but it would be a very big deal if I were building a server farm. It is like owning property. One person can have a plot he bought 40 years ago for $5000 Right next to it another person can have the same size plot that's similar features he bought for $100K a week ago. The tax man is not going to say to the first person that your plot is only worth $5K The plot has equity in it that makes it just as expensive as the $100K plot. Granted the current property taxes are the same, but the situation changes when they sell their respective properties. The old-timer is going to get socked for capital gains on $95K (unless it qualifies for the personal-residence exemption, or he does a 1031 exchange, or some such). big snip If a guy buys a DSL account from DSL Only for $30 a month and 2 months later DSL Only decides they are going to lower their price in leu of advertising to get more customers, what do you think said guy is going to do if one day he sees the price on DSL Only website to be lower? I'll tell you, he and all DSL Only other customers are going to call in and demand the special deal, and all the sudden the DSL plan to get more customers has just blown up in their face. And the same can't happen by word of mouth/email/etc? I don't believe there's an ISP in Portland that has current pricing on their site. I found several just now, including DSL Only; most quoting the ISP and telco charges separately but a couple providing a single combined quote. One linked off to a separate page for the telco charges. Surely you don't mean that the charges they are quoting are *not* their current rates? I have also got the notes from my previous research somewhere, but it would take a while to figure out where. I do remember that there were plenty who *appeared* to have then-current pricing -- including both their own charge and the line charge -- and that only one was anywhere near cost-competitive with Verizon; and I presume that the costs shown on such sites were the lowest available at the time. (It seems pretty obvious that advertising a price that is not your lowest then available, and that is clearly not competitive, is not a terribly effective way to attract business.) It may be a little less obvious that failing to advertise costs at all -- or advertising only the ISP charge and leaving the reader to guess at the line charge -- is not an effective way to generate calls from those who are comparison-shopping and for whom cost is a consideration. I for one won't *bother* with calling someone who doesn't disclose costs up front. I figure, if they were truly competitive, they would make a point of letting the public know about it. ... Qwest does not stick it in pricing to the independent ISPs the way that Verizon does ... It is very much a chicken and egg problem. No ISP is going to spend the money to interconnect with Verizon, sign a wholesale agreement, and all of that, until they have sufficient Verizon customers to have a business justification to do it. But, in order to get that sufficient Verizon customer base, they have to have a wholesale agreement!!! This is precisely the kind of thing I am referring to when I accuse Verizon of violating the INTENT of the antitrust laws, even if they manage to stay within the letter or convince the authorities to look the other way. It is one reason why I don't want to pay them any more than necessary, and that includes paying their surcharge to use a different ISP. It would be a point in favor of an ISP with a wholesale account. And last but not least is the ATM vs Frame thing. Verizon initally deployed
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:40 AM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap ... The most expensive system around here is a Mac Sawtooth that cost $225 -- including a 17 monitor -- last September. The (Dell) FreeBSD box I'm using at the moment cost $10 at a flea market, ... This is a totally unfair comparison. They guy dropping $1K on a Mac is walking out with a machine that is fully configured and ready to run. As was the Sawtooth. Hmm - Mac Sawtooth to me is a circa 1999 Power Mac G4. I think we are talking about something different since you couldn't possibly be just buying used devices and -not- nuking and repaving.. or could you? The seller wiped the drives and reloaded the OS. When I turned it on, I got the new MacOS sequence -- or whatever it might officially be called -- just as if it had been brand-new from Apple. I suppose the seller figured that the $225 he charged was sufficient to cover both the value of the hardware and his time reinitializing it. Well I'd have to say based on my experience with used gear that this was a rarity. When you get an old clunker by the time you tally up the time you have spent on getting it ready to run, your at the same amount. ... Skilled UNIX tech time is at min $95 an hour. Your talking a min of 4 hours to get a Goodwill find up and going on FreeBSD by the time you work out the quirks, assuming that the ram in it doesen't have a flaw and the disk is good, if you have to replace that stuff you count the hours it takes to drive to Fry's and back, buy the disk, etc.. well your getting pretty close to that $1K in my book. It took me *zero* more time to get this box (Dell #1) ready for FreeBSD than if it had come direct from Dell with Windoze preloaded. Not fair - you aren't including the time spent preloading FreeBSD. Totally fair, if the goal is to end up with a FreeBSD system. The 2 systems, Windows or FreeBSD, cost the same. That is, assuming that time=money. Which everyone does, except for those who have so much money they don't have to work for a living, or those who have nothing and are perectly content to live with - nothing. It is like owning property. One person can have a plot he bought 40 years ago for $5000 Right next to it another person can have the same size plot that's similar features he bought for $100K a week ago. The tax man is not going to say to the first person that your plot is only worth $5K The plot has equity in it that makes it just as expensive as the $100K plot. Sure, you can go pull an old system and load FreeBSD on it and pay maybe $50 out of pocket. But the running system that results cost nearly the same as the new Windows system because it has the equity in it that you built up over the years in learning about FreeBSD. To anyone that has no specialized FreeBSD experience, which is 99.9% of the population, to obtain that running FreeBSD system they either have to pay the time/money to learn how to build it, or pay someone to build it for them. I can flip this the other way. I've been doing FreeBSD and Windows for years and have a big collection of install CDs and floppies for each. I can take that same old clunker you got for $20 and build a complete Windows system plus Microsoft Office on it, that will work perfectly well. Sure, it might be Windows 98 since that runs on the old clunker and Win XP doesen't. Sure it is pirated software rather than freeware (since Win98 isn't available anymore) but the market doesen't give a crap about that as long as they seem to be sucking down used Macs with upgraded MacOS on them that come without install CD's and old PC clones with Windows on them that come without Windows install CD's. (not that I'm saying your Sawtooth didn't come with install CD's but you know perfectly well most of the used computers out there do not come with install CDs for the version of operating system that is running on them when they are sold.) The entire point is of the labor to get it to where you can start the userland configuration. Not to get it to where you can insert the operating system install CD and boot it. When you buy them new, the windows is already loaded and ready to start the userland configuration (which in my experience mainly consists of uninstalling all the trialware and crap on them) Yeah, if you want a !!@@##$$ Windoze box, but AFAIK you can't go out and buy a box with FreeBSD preloaded and ready for userland configuration (and kernel hacking :) Linux, maybe, but not any of the *BSD. It takes *zero* longer to wipe the existing Windoze off a pre-owned box than to wipe the preloaded Windoze off a new Dell/Compaq
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap ... The most expensive system around here is a Mac Sawtooth that cost $225 -- including a 17 monitor -- last September. The (Dell) FreeBSD box I'm using at the moment cost $10 at a flea market, ... This is a totally unfair comparison. They guy dropping $1K on a Mac is walking out with a machine that is fully configured and ready to run. As was the Sawtooth. Hmm - Mac Sawtooth to me is a circa 1999 Power Mac G4. I think we are talking about something different since you couldn't possibly be just buying used devices and -not- nuking and repaving.. or could you? The seller wiped the drives and reloaded the OS. When I turned it on, I got the new MacOS sequence -- or whatever it might officially be called -- just as if it had been brand-new from Apple. I suppose the seller figured that the $225 he charged was sufficient to cover both the value of the hardware and his time reinitializing it. When you get an old clunker by the time you tally up the time you have spent on getting it ready to run, your at the same amount. ... Skilled UNIX tech time is at min $95 an hour. Your talking a min of 4 hours to get a Goodwill find up and going on FreeBSD by the time you work out the quirks, assuming that the ram in it doesen't have a flaw and the disk is good, if you have to replace that stuff you count the hours it takes to drive to Fry's and back, buy the disk, etc.. well your getting pretty close to that $1K in my book. It took me *zero* more time to get this box (Dell #1) ready for FreeBSD than if it had come direct from Dell with Windoze preloaded. Not fair - you aren't including the time spent preloading FreeBSD. Totally fair, if the goal is to end up with a FreeBSD system. The entire point is of the labor to get it to where you can start the userland configuration. Not to get it to where you can insert the operating system install CD and boot it. When you buy them new, the windows is already loaded and ready to start the userland configuration (which in my experience mainly consists of uninstalling all the trialware and crap on them) Yeah, if you want a !!@@##$$ Windoze box, but AFAIK you can't go out and buy a box with FreeBSD preloaded and ready for userland configuration (and kernel hacking :) Linux, maybe, but not any of the *BSD. It takes *zero* longer to wipe the existing Windoze off a pre-owned box than to wipe the preloaded Windoze off a new Dell/Compaq/whatever. The point being that your bashing of an old clunker above just doesn't hold water. [re Comcast] They claim they are faster, but since I seldom see anywhere near rated speed on DSL I don't think the DSL line is the limiting factor. Given that, I would not expect cable to be any faster *in practice* than DSL ... I don't care for their TOS either -- as I understand it, I can't even leave an SSH port open to enable me to log in from the office because that would be considered running a server. Correct, they block all incoming ports for well known services. Obviously, people can and do run servers on ports above 1024. If so, they are violating the TOS as I understand it -- and you as an ISP employee could never countenance that :) The language was something along the lines of I agree not to run a server of any kind ... not I agree not to run servers on well-known ports or I agree not to make servers available to the public. What do you mean you seldom see rated speed on your DSL line? Are you talking from world to you, or are you talking from ISP to you? World, of course. DSL is a dedicated 2.5 fire hose to the ISP. Cable is a shared 5 supply line. When the source is a garden hose, or there is enough congestion that the path from the source to my ISP is effectively a booster line, the capacity from ISP to me doesn't affect matters very much at all. Anyway, I'm comparing the wire charges, not the ISP service ... as of when I looked into it -- Verizon was charging something like $5 or $10 *more* for the wire connection to a 3rd party ISP than for the equivalent connection to Verizon Online, and effectively throwing in the ISP service for free. Right, as I said, this is when the ISP sells DSL service over Verizon via retail. Not wholesale. You only talked to the ones at the time that were selling retail. When I checked, I looked at everyone I could find via Google. I think there was one quoting a package price that was competitive with Verizon's, and that one was out due to a co-worker's very bad past experience with them. Some didn't mention pricing at all, and they didn't get a second look. The rest quoted separately the wire charge to Verizon, and their own ISP charge, and all those wire charges were the same (and higher than Verizon's package price). Maybe *no one* had a wholesale deal then. ... most DSL ISPs in
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 12:24 AM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap ... The most expensive system around here is a Mac Sawtooth that cost $225 -- including a 17 monitor -- last September. The (Dell) FreeBSD box I'm using at the moment cost $10 at a flea market, ... This is a totally unfair comparison. They guy dropping $1K on a Mac is walking out with a machine that is fully configured and ready to run. As was the Sawtooth. Hmm - Mac Sawtooth to me is a circa 1999 Power Mac G4. I think we are talking about something different since you couldn't possibly be just buying used devices and -not- nuking and repaving.. or could you? When you get an old clunker by the time you tally up the time you have spent on getting it ready to run, your at the same amount. ... Skilled UNIX tech time is at min $95 an hour. Your talking a min of 4 hours to get a Goodwill find up and going on FreeBSD by the time you work out the quirks, assuming that the ram in it doesen't have a flaw and the disk is good, if you have to replace that stuff you count the hours it takes to drive to Fry's and back, buy the disk, etc.. well your getting pretty close to that $1K in my book. It took me *zero* more time to get this box (Dell #1) ready for FreeBSD than if it had come direct from Dell with Windoze preloaded. Not fair - you aren't including the time spent preloading FreeBSD. The entire point is of the labor to get it to where you can start the userland configuration. Not to get it to where you can insert the operating system install CD and boot it. When you buy them new, the windows is already loaded and ready to start the userland configuration (which in my experience mainly consists of uninstalling all the trialware and crap on them) Granted, you might have FBSD installs down pat and get a machine where you can just insert the CD, and 2 hours later your ready to start userland config. But, you had to spend time LEARNING HOW to do this, and typical L-user (Low level user) who bought a brand new box for a grand, DIDN'T. As a matter of fact they didn't even have to spend time learning how to use a screwdriver to open the case! So, in TOTAL time you have spent on these boxes, including all the time you have spent learning how to use the OS, L-User is still ahead of you in that they have spent a lot less time on the box in front of them. Remember, Windows preloads are designed so morons can get the machine working. You don't have to know -anything-, you don't even have to spend time learning how to use Windows. At least, I have to conclude this based on the actions of many many people I have dealt with, in corporations even, who are behind Windows boxes. Yes, the hard drive did fail after a while, but that is not unheard of with brand new boxes either. I'm not convinced that a trip to Fry's for a new drive takes any longer than packing up a dead drive and taking it to the post office to ship back for warranty replacement. If you're an L-User, when this happens you don't save files, take disk out, ship it back, get new disk, install, test. You take it back to store where you bought it under the extended warranty, give it to them, say fix it, and come back a week later. It isn't necessary to actually spend time learning how to fix your system or how to unscrew the case for that matter Sure, some tech is going to spend time fixing the 'doze box. But, said tech -isn't- the person who -paid- for the box. In any case I was really speaking about the delta in a more general sense. I see a lot of folks going to comcast - who as I understand their pricing, for Internet service only over comcast, you pay more too. You really shouldn't have given me an excuse to bash Comcast :) They claim they are faster, but since I seldom see anywhere near rated speed on DSL I don't think the DSL line is the limiting factor. Given that, I would not expect cable to be any faster *in practice* than DSL. When I tried to explain this to the door-to-door droid who was trying to sell me Comcast a while back, it was completely beyond his comprehension. I don't care for their TOS either -- as I understand it, I can't even leave an SSH port open to enable me to log in from the office because that would be considered running a server. Correct, they block all incoming ports for well known services. Obviously, people can and do run servers on ports above 1024. What do you mean you seldom see rated speed on your DSL line? Are you talking from world to you, or are you talking from ISP to you? The real point is how much do you value something? Are you going to say that PPP-only DSL service from an ISP (verizon.net) that does not give you a static IP
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap ... The most expensive system around here is a Mac Sawtooth that cost $225 -- including a 17 monitor -- last September. The (Dell) FreeBSD box I'm using at the moment cost $10 at a flea market, ... This is a totally unfair comparison. They guy dropping $1K on a Mac is walking out with a machine that is fully configured and ready to run. As was the Sawtooth. When you get an old clunker by the time you tally up the time you have spent on getting it ready to run, your at the same amount. ... Skilled UNIX tech time is at min $95 an hour. Your talking a min of 4 hours to get a Goodwill find up and going on FreeBSD by the time you work out the quirks, assuming that the ram in it doesen't have a flaw and the disk is good, if you have to replace that stuff you count the hours it takes to drive to Fry's and back, buy the disk, etc.. well your getting pretty close to that $1K in my book. It took me *zero* more time to get this box (Dell #1) ready for FreeBSD than if it had come direct from Dell with Windoze preloaded. Yes, the hard drive did fail after a while, but that is not unheard of with brand new boxes either. I'm not convinced that a trip to Fry's for a new drive takes any longer than packing up a dead drive and taking it to the post office to ship back for warranty replacement. In any case I was really speaking about the delta in a more general sense. I see a lot of folks going to comcast - who as I understand their pricing, for Internet service only over comcast, you pay more too. You really shouldn't have given me an excuse to bash Comcast :) They claim they are faster, but since I seldom see anywhere near rated speed on DSL I don't think the DSL line is the limiting factor. Given that, I would not expect cable to be any faster *in practice* than DSL. When I tried to explain this to the door-to-door droid who was trying to sell me Comcast a while back, it was completely beyond his comprehension. I don't care for their TOS either -- as I understand it, I can't even leave an SSH port open to enable me to log in from the office because that would be considered running a server. The real point is how much do you value something? Are you going to say that PPP-only DSL service from an ISP (verizon.net) that does not give you a static IP number, and has a support desk that is based in India and only speaks Windowease (and does a poor job of that) is worth the same as all-the-time-on fully bridged DSL service with a static IP and no goofy MTU size restrictions and is supported by the same people that built the system and who run Windows, FreeBSD and Linux both on their desktops and servers? I could get a static IP from Verizon if I wanted to pay extra for it, but so far I haven't seen the need; my Netgear* firewall gets its IP address etc. via DHCP AFAIK. As to PPP vs bridged, that is taken care of somehow between some Verizon server and the firewall. I only know that I haven't had to program any username or password into the firewall, which I think would have been needed for PPP. * Keeping this marginally on-topic, I was originally using a GNATbox, which is based on FreeBSD. I switched to the Netgear after the GNATbox couldn't handle a Verizon system upgrade a while back. Anyway, I'm comparing the wire charges, not the ISP service. The DSL modem, pair to the CO, and whatever transport from there to the ISP are presumably the same in either case; if anything connecting to a local ISP should be cheaper than having to send the bits all the way to Verizon Online on the east coast. Yet -- as of when I looked into it -- Verizon was charging something like $5 or $10 *more* for the wire connection to a 3rd party ISP than for the equivalent connection to Verizon Online, and effectively throwing in the ISP service for free. ... 40 years ago you went to the grocery store and bought bread and all they had was Wonder air bread. You went to the bar and bought a beer and all they had was Bud. Restaurants either came in Burger, Steak, or American Menu ... I have been around long enough to have had personal experience with 40 years ago, and I can assure you that, at least in central Iowa, the food situation was a whole lot better than that. I can't speak to the beer, for which I was underage, although not by a lot :) Today, you go to the grocery store and sure you can still get the air-bread. But for more money you can get bread that tastes far, far better, and was baked locally. I don't think local is relevant to your argument. Franz' version of what you call air-bread is baked in Portland. You go to the bar and sure you can still get the cheap Bud that was peed out of some horse back in the Midwest and carried in 1000 gallon tank trucks, or you can pay more money and get the better tasting microbrewed stuff that someone brewed in small batches right
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 3:51 PM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet What really grates is that I have to pay Verizon *more* if I want *less* from them! Would you pay $40K for a pickup, if you could get the same truck, from the same dealer, for $35K including a camper? That sort of pricing, by a monopoly, is supposed to be illegal (at least in the U.S.). That's $5K difference not $10. Thieves can get away with a lot if they steal it in small bits. What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap without blinking, then they squawk about paying an additional $9 a month on DSL? That grand on Mac crap will pay for 9 years of DSL at this so-called unreasonable rate. The most expensive system around here is a Mac Sawtooth that cost $225 -- including a 17 monitor -- last September. The (Dell) FreeBSD box I'm using at the moment cost $10 at a flea market, plus something like $40 for a 160GB hard drive to replace the original 10GB that failed after a few months. The one I'm going to be installing 6.2 on -- also a Dell -- was less than $5 at a yard sale. This is a totally unfair comparison. They guy dropping $1K on a Mac is walking out with a machine that is fully configured and ready to run. When you get an old clunker by the time you tally up the time you have spent on getting it ready to run, your at the same amount. Cheap independent desktop support goes for about $35-$50 and hour, and none of those guys could load an Open Source OS and do any serious configuration on it if their lives depended on it. Skilled UNIX tech time is at min $95 an hour. Your talking a min of 4 hours to get a Goodwill find up and going on FreeBSD by the time you work out the quirks, assuming that the ram in it doesen't have a flaw and the disk is good, if you have to replace that stuff you count the hours it takes to drive to Fry's and back, buy the disk, etc.. well your getting pretty close to that $1K in my book. Of course, I understand you might be regarding that time as free but it's only free to you - not to anyone else who can't do this - they have to pay for it. Thus, you have to factor it in when making comparisons. In any case I was really speaking about the delta in a more general sense. I see a lot of folks going to comcast - who as I understand their pricing, for Internet service only over comcast, you pay more too. The real point is how much do you value something? Are you going to say that PPP-only DSL service from an ISP (verizon.net) that does not give you a static IP number, and has a support desk that is based in India and only speaks Windowease (and does a poor job of that) is worth the same as all-the-time-on fully bridged DSL service with a static IP and no goofy MTU size restrictions and is supported by the same people that built the system and who run Windows, FreeBSD and Linux both on their desktops and servers? Naturally, as an ISP employee this is my personal soapbox, but let me put it another way. Right now there is a revolution going on with food. 40 years ago you went to the grocery store and bought bread and all they had was Wonder air bread. You went to the bar and bought a beer and all they had was Bud. Restaurants either came in Burger, Steak, or American Menu. In short, the quality of food had descended into the toilet as a result of the constant push to sell it cheaper that started in the late 1940's. (epomized by Brother McDonald) Today, you go to the grocery store and sure you can still get the air-bread. But for more money you can get bread that tastes far, far better, and was baked locally. You go to the bar and sure you can still get the cheap Bud that was peed out of some horse back in the Midwest and carried in 1000 gallon tank trucks, or you can pay more money and get the better tasting microbrewed stuff that someone brewed in small batches right there. What has happened is that people stopped comparing food based solely on price and started looking for quality, and when that happened, all the sudden companies appeared that supplied the better quality, albet at a bit higher price. I'd rather drink a milkshake from a place like Baskin Robbins and pay more for it than a cheaper milkshake at McDonalds. Lots of people would rather pay more for the better tasting coffee at Starbucks than the cheap stuff out of the office vending machine. Why is it OK for the food industry to be like this, and it's not OK for the Internet Service industry to be like this? It seems like everyone only wants Internet Service to be as cheap as possible and couldn't give a damn about quality. When I was looking, I couldn't find any for much less than double, but it has been a while. Do you happen to know of any low-cost DSL providers who offer service in Washington County, Oregon, and who
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 03:45:27 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: That's $5K difference not $10. Thieves can get away with a lot if they steal it in small bits. So if I steal $1 from every account of New York's biggest bank they would smile and see that as a sporting achievement? Somehow I doubt that. SCNR Chris ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 12:47 AM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet I doubt there is any reasonably priced ISP that will help in troubleshooting a problem that's not reproducible on Windows. $19.95 a month for DSL (ISP charges) is not reasonably priced? WTF? Dunno about your neck of the woods, but last time I checked around here Verizon was charging something like $5 or $10 a month more for just the DSL line to connect to a third-party ISP than for the whole package using their own ISP. Makes it difficult for independents to compete, at least on price :( Well, if your not willing to pay the extra $5 or $10 a month to connect your FreeBSD system to DSL then I have to seriously question your leel of commitment to decent Internet service. What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap without blinking, then they squawk about paying an additional $9 a month on DSL? That grand on Mac crap will pay for 9 years of DSL at this so-called unreasonable rate. In any case, that pricing delta only exists if the independent hasn't signed a wholesale agreement with Verizon. If the independent has, it's a whole different ball game, pricing is completely different and quite a bit less. Basically IMHO the Verizon pricing program was designed to push the really tiny independents, ie: the guys that might have a grand total of 5 or 10 Verizon DSL customers, off of their network. (and it worked well I think) Verizon didn't want independent ISPs that wern't willing to put investment dollars into their interconnect to stay on their network. And I really can't say I blame them to be perfectly honest. The days of a guy starting an ISP in his garage for $500 and a pile of old networking gear he pulled out of a Dumpster behind some tech corporation are over. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
I doubt there is any reasonably priced ISP that will help in troubleshooting a problem that's not reproducible on Windows. $19.95 a month for DSL (ISP charges) is not reasonably priced? WTF? Dunno about your neck of the woods, but last time I checked around here Verizon was charging something like $5 or $10 a month more for just the DSL line to connect to a third-party ISP than for the whole package using their own ISP. Makes it difficult for independents to compete, at least on price :( Well, if your not willing to pay the extra $5 or $10 a month to connect your FreeBSD system to DSL then I have to seriously question your leel of commitment to decent Internet service. It was an extra $5 or $10 to Verizon, *plus* the otherwise-reasonable $20 (or whatever) to the third-party ISP. Overall, about double the cost. What really grates is that I have to pay Verizon *more* if I want *less* from them! Would you pay $40K for a pickup, if you could get the same truck, from the same dealer, for $35K including a camper? That sort of pricing, by a monopoly, is supposed to be illegal (at least in the U.S.). What I don't get is I see guys walking in dropping $1000 on associated Mac hardware crap without blinking, then they squawk about paying an additional $9 a month on DSL? That grand on Mac crap will pay for 9 years of DSL at this so-called unreasonable rate. The most expensive system around here is a Mac Sawtooth that cost $225 -- including a 17 monitor -- last September. The (Dell) FreeBSD box I'm using at the moment cost $10 at a flea market, plus something like $40 for a 160GB hard drive to replace the original 10GB that failed after a few months. The one I'm going to be installing 6.2 on -- also a Dell -- was less than $5 at a yard sale. In any case, that pricing delta only exists if the independent hasn't signed a wholesale agreement with Verizon. If the independent has, it's a whole different ball game, pricing is completely different and quite a bit less. When I was looking, I couldn't find any for much less than double, but it has been a while. Do you happen to know of any low-cost DSL providers who offer service in Washington County, Oregon, and who will actually support (as opposed to tolerate) FreeBSD and/or Linux? It would also be good if they knew what a firewall is -- last time I had a problem after a Verizon system upgrade the only arrangement that Verizon was willing to troubleshoot was a Windoze box connected directly to the DSL modem. This does not strike me as an acceptable level of security. Basically IMHO the Verizon pricing program was designed to push the really tiny independents, ie: the guys that might have a grand total of 5 or 10 Verizon DSL customers, off of their network. That would have violated at least the intent, if not the letter, of the antitrust laws. My suspicion is that they wanted no competition whatsoever (also an antitrust violation). ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
I doubt there is any reasonably priced ISP that will help in troubleshooting a problem that's not reproducible on Windows. $19.95 a month for DSL (ISP charges) is not reasonably priced? WTF? Dunno about your neck of the woods, but last time I checked around here Verizon was charging something like $5 or $10 a month more for just the DSL line to connect to a third-party ISP than for the whole package using their own ISP. Makes it difficult for independents to compete, at least on price :( ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:14:33 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: RW [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:43 AM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:43:02 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The OP said that there was no problem with linux and windows, and that's consistent with what I saw on my d-link ADSL router. Presumably FreeBSD is doing something slightly different. Yes, it is, it's making IPv6 DNS queries. In my case, compiling-out IPv6 support from the kernel was the first thing I tried, and it didn't make much difference. The DNS proxy worked properly with Windows, but not FreeBSD. These problems is particularly acute in countries where PPPoA is the norm. And the other thing is that just about all the DSL setups I've seen in bridging mode do the PPPoE/PPPoA conversion automagically. There's a history of PPPoE in the US, so people expect to have it, even over ATM. In the UK BT turned-on PPPoEoA a few years ago, but didn't really tell anyone, BT resellers generally don't provide much support for it. LLU operators haven't bothered, because there's no real demand. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
RW wrote: On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:14:33 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: RW [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:43 AM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:43:02 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The OP said that there was no problem with linux and windows, and that's consistent with what I saw on my d-link ADSL router. Presumably FreeBSD is doing something slightly different. Yes, it is, it's making IPv6 DNS queries. In my case, compiling-out IPv6 support from the kernel was the first thing I tried, and it didn't make much difference. The DNS proxy worked properly with Windows, but not FreeBSD. These problems is particularly acute in countries where PPPoA is the norm. And the other thing is that just about all the DSL setups I've seen in bridging mode do the PPPoE/PPPoA conversion automagically. There's a history of PPPoE in the US, so people expect to have it, even over ATM. In the UK BT turned-on PPPoEoA a few years ago, but didn't really tell anyone, BT resellers generally don't provide much support for it. LLU operators haven't bothered, because there's no real demand. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Careful if you say no to IPv6 in make.conf, my sendmail server wouldnt start after I did that until I commented out the IPv6 stuff from sendmail.cf. Bri ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
Hi Bob, As I am ad administrator of an ISP that is a DSL ISP that offers DSL, and also runs FreeBSD on it's servers, I am going to address your point. The problem your having is present on MANY of these some box(s) which connects me to to net Generally, it's older Linksys and Netgear routers that are the worst offenders. The newer devices don't generally have this problem - the manufacturers aren't completely stupid, and do learn from their mistakes - bot not always. I'm still seeing stupid crap like this in even the latest boxes. Now, here's where I'm going to take you somewhat to task. You have to understand some things about marketing these boxes. When a company like Airlink101 produces a cable/DSL ethernet router and sells it for $30, or a company like 2 Wire, or Westell, or ActionTec, produces a DSL modem/router combo that sells for $60, it is absolutely impossible for them to make a profit doing this unless they configure their support offering so that the quality of technical support you get is on the level of that which would be provided by your average 6 year old. Also, these companies simply cannot afford to put their best programming and design talent on solving things like slow DNS resolver queries through their proxy, when these problems are reported. Instead when they get these problems, they spend the RD money and talent they have building next year's model - which is then sold for another $30, next year. Slow DNS queries are just one of the problems on a very long, long, long laundry list of problems with these small cheapo routers. Yet, do the customers that actually have these devices, after going through 2 or 3 of them in that many years, actually stop one day and say Gee, I'm really stupid to keep urinating my money away on these cheezy little routers when I could spend $600 on a nice new Cisco 800 series and get expert Cisco support on it, and it would work and I could then just forget about it Of course not. So, who do you think ends up picking up the slack? I'll tell you, it's us ISP's that's who. If you were our DSL customer and you called in with this problem, we would have known immediately what it was, and instructed you in how to correct the configuration. In your case the absolute best way is to ditch your router and turn on pppoe on your BSD box and config your DSL modem out of routing mode and into bridging mode. Or your cable modem, or whatever. You wouldn't get that as a response if you were running Windows - since Windows attracts security crackers like dog shit attracts flies - but any UNIX - be it Linux, MacOS X or whatever, you would get that response. Anyway, I think you should have availed yourself of your ISP's tech support department first. And if your ISP's support department stinks - some unfortunately do - then drop service and get a better one. There's plenty more ISP's in the phone book. Ted - Original Message - From: Bob McIsaac [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 10:32 PM Subject: FreeBSD challenged by Internet Hi: This is not exactly a question rather it is wrapup for a series of questions. I had a tricky, confusing problem getting FreeBSD on the net but I was able to solve it with help from this list.. Ian Smith in particular. The DHCP lease from my ISP set the nameserver address as being 192.168.1.254, the IP of some box which connects me to to net. Correct me if wrong, but whois would not reveal a nameserver IP in this form for a net host. Linux accepted this but FreeBSD-6.1 had 10 second delays in TCP connects for mail and web pages. This does not imply a problem with BSD. It probably implies that Linux is more tolerant of loosely configured web services. But in the world of security it's casual configuration considered harmful. I spent many hours reading and testing before hitting on a solution in dhclient.conf. I think this would be discouraging for most FreeBSD newbies. But making setup a no-brainer does not seem possible. It is difficult to provide a quality, standards-compliant OS unless all net-citizens share that focus on quality. Just my 2cents. Cheers, -Bob- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:43:02 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also, these companies simply cannot afford to put their best programming and design talent on solving things like slow DNS resolver queries through their proxy, when these problems are reported. The OP said that there was no problem with linux and windows, and that's consistent with what I saw on my d-link ADSL router. Presumably FreeBSD is doing something slightly different. I wouldn't have expected these things to be tested against *BSD, but you would think that OS-X would behave like FreeBSD. Yet, do the customers that actually have these devices, after going through 2 or 3 of them in that many years, actually stop one day and say Gee, I'm really stupid to keep urinating my money away on these cheezy little routers when I could spend $600 on a nice new Cisco 800 series and get expert Cisco support on it, and it would work and I could then just forget about it Draytek is a useful halfway house for domestic and soho use - I've never heard anyone have a bad word to say about their wired dsl-routers. Cisco is overkill for most people. config your DSL modem out of routing mode and into bridging mode. That's doesn't really buy you all that much, cheap hardware isn't going to be more reliable in bridged-mode. DNS proxy problems are not a big deal since it's easy to manually configure servers, or turn-on recursive lookups. It does eliminate the problems that some NAT routers have with large numbers of simultaneous connections though. These problems is particularly acute in countries where PPPoA is the norm. FreeBSD has no significant support for usb or pci PPPoA modems, that leaves us with routers, half-bridge modems, and full-bridging (where the ISP supports PPPoE over atm). And these bridged modems are really just adapted nat-routers. I do envy Linux's support for pci PPPoA modems. Anyway, I think you should have availed yourself of your ISP's tech support department first. And if your ISP's support department stinks - some unfortunately do - then drop service and get a better one. There's plenty more ISP's in the phone book. I doubt there is any reasonably priced ISP that will help in troubleshooting a problem that's not reproducible on Windows. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:43:49 + RW [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The OP said that there was no problem with linux and windows, Correction: the OP said that there was no problem with linux ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: Hi Bob, As I am ad administrator of an ISP that is a DSL ISP that offers DSL, and also runs FreeBSD on it's servers, I am going to address your point. The problem your having is present on MANY of these some box(s) which connects me to to net Generally, it's older Linksys and Netgear routers that are the worst offenders. The newer devices don't generally have this problem - the manufacturers aren't completely stupid, and do learn from their mistakes - bot not always. I'm still seeing stupid crap like this in even the latest boxes. Now, here's where I'm going to take you somewhat to task. You have to understand some things about marketing these boxes. When a company like Airlink101 produces a cable/DSL ethernet router and sells it for $30, or a company like 2 Wire, or Westell, or ActionTec, produces a DSL modem/router combo that sells for $60, it is absolutely impossible for them to make a profit doing this unless they configure their support offering so that the quality of technical support you get is on the level of that which would be provided by your average 6 year old. Also, these companies simply cannot afford to put their best programming and design talent on solving things like slow DNS resolver queries through their proxy, when these problems are reported. Instead when they get these problems, they spend the RD money and talent they have building next year's model - which is then sold for another $30, next year. Slow DNS queries are just one of the problems on a very long, long, long laundry list of problems with these small cheapo routers. Yet, do the customers that actually have these devices, after going through 2 or 3 of them in that many years, actually stop one day and say Gee, I'm really stupid to keep urinating my money away on these cheezy little routers when I could spend $600 on a nice new Cisco 800 series and get expert Cisco support on it, and it would work and I could then just forget about it Of course not. So, who do you think ends up picking up the slack? I'll tell you, it's us ISP's that's who. If you were our DSL customer and you called in with this problem, we would have known immediately what it was, and instructed you in how to correct the configuration. In your case the absolute best way is to ditch your router and turn on pppoe on your BSD box and config your DSL modem out of routing mode and into bridging mode. Or your cable modem, or whatever. You wouldn't get that as a response if you were running Windows - since Windows attracts security crackers like dog shit attracts flies - but any UNIX - be it Linux, MacOS X or whatever, you would get that response. Anyway, I think you should have availed yourself of your ISP's tech support department first. And if your ISP's support department stinks - some unfortunately do - then drop service and get a better one. There's plenty more ISP's in the phone book. Ted - Original Message - From: Bob McIsaac [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 10:32 PM Subject: FreeBSD challenged by Internet Hi: This is not exactly a question rather it is wrapup for a series of questions. I had a tricky, confusing problem getting FreeBSD on the net but I was able to solve it with help from this list.. Ian Smith in particular. blah,blah. Hi Ted: Thanks for your thoughtful reply. My ISP has or used to have some kind of optical modem in the basement. There was a direct RJ45 LAN cable from there to my condo. Two years ago they provided a Cayman 3300 Broadband Gateway modem for my computer jack. So they probably swapped other equipment between me and the 'net. But this setup worked the same with Linux and old win98. But FreeBSD was not pleased with this setup. Perhaps it was ISP hardware, ISP configuration, or some error within BSD. But I cannot determine root cause. I just know that BSD does not accept a private IP as being from a nameserver. So DNS requests must be routed to an actual nameserver. And that requires altering the DHCP lease in my case. My setup works but it is still outputting IPv6 packets. The logic expressed within /etc says that IPv6 is disabled by default. Another mystery. Cheers, -Bob- PS: You top-poster... how did you get away with it? :-) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
- Original Message - From: RW [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:43 AM Subject: Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:43:02 -0800 Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also, these companies simply cannot afford to put their best programming and design talent on solving things like slow DNS resolver queries through their proxy, when these problems are reported. The OP said that there was no problem with linux and windows, and that's consistent with what I saw on my d-link ADSL router. Presumably FreeBSD is doing something slightly different. Yes, it is, it's making IPv6 DNS queries. There's a long story to this that started a couple years ago when the roots inserted (against a number of people's recommendations) records Things are fine if a downstream nameserver only speaks ipv4. The problem is the newer versions of bind have been coming with IPv6 transition support. If they are run on hosts that have IPv6 support that are connected to IPv4 networks, your supposed to run named with the -4 option. Unfortunately this isn't widely known. As a result when a resolver like FreeBSD's that is IPv6 compliant makes a DNS lookup it will often make a IPv6 lookup, and this trashes the DNS caches in these little routers. If you recompile the kernel with INET6 removed from the config I think it will fix the problem. Not an obvious or easy solution for a lot of people. Or you can contact all the hosts you lookup and tell them to have the admins check their nameservers. ;-) I wouldn't have expected these things to be tested against *BSD, but you would think that OS-X would behave like FreeBSD. Well, Windows Vista will probably do this too so a lot more folks are going to piss and moan I think before too long. Yet, do the customers that actually have these devices, after going through 2 or 3 of them in that many years, actually stop one day and say Gee, I'm really stupid to keep urinating my money away on these cheezy little routers when I could spend $600 on a nice new Cisco 800 series and get expert Cisco support on it, and it would work and I could then just forget about it Draytek is a useful halfway house for domestic and soho use - I've never heard anyone have a bad word to say about their wired dsl-routers. Cisco is overkill for most people. There's others. Your local ISP will have their favorites. config your DSL modem out of routing mode and into bridging mode. That's doesn't really buy you all that much, cheap hardware isn't going to be more reliable in bridged-mode. DNS proxy problems are not a big deal since it's easy to manually configure servers, or turn-on recursive lookups. It does eliminate the problems that some NAT routers have with large numbers of simultaneous connections though. These problems is particularly acute in countries where PPPoA is the norm. FreeBSD has no significant support for usb or pci PPPoA modems, that leaves us with routers, half-bridge modems, and full-bridging (where the ISP supports PPPoE over atm). And these bridged modems are really just adapted nat-routers. Not true. For example the Westell 36R 516 series are true bridges. They are DMT devices and have worked on every DMT ADSL line I've tried. Of course, you have to firmware update them (not obvious) and configure the vpi/vci in them (also not obvious, and requires windows 98 and their program to do it) And they are cheap as dirt on Ebay. And the other thing is that just about all the DSL setups I've seen in bridging mode do the PPPoE/PPPoA conversion automagically. You plug in your PC to the modem, send it PPPoE frames, the modem encapsulates the PPPoE frames in PPPoA packets, sends them out to the DSLAM, the DSLAM strips off the PPPoA header and forwards the PPPoE packets onward to the BRAS/LNS (the PPP server) at the ISP. If you have an internal PPPoA card, all that happens is when the recieving DSLAM gets the pure PPPoA frames from your DSL modem over the DSL line, it adds a PPPoE header before sending it onwards (over ethernet) to the BRAS/LNS (the PPP server) So the ISP's PPP server sees PPPoE in either case. I do envy Linux's support for pci PPPoA modems. If they are implemented like winmodems where most of the work is offloaded to the CPU then you should be thankful FreeBSD doesen't support them. I think there's a lot of confusion out there over this PPPoE/PPPoA thing. ADSL is a layer 1 protocol. ATM runs over ADSL as a layer 2 protocol (as is Ethernet) PPP is a layer 3 protocol. PPPoA is PPP over an ATM network. PPPoE is PPP over an Ethernet network. When you do PPPoE over a DSL network it's effectively PPPoEoA. Anyway, I think you should have availed yourself of your ISP's tech support department first. And if your ISP's support department stinks - some unfortunately do - then drop service and get a better one
Re: FreeBSD challenged by Internet
On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:32:58 -0500 Bob McIsaac [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi: This is not exactly a question rather it is wrapup for a series of questions. I had a tricky, confusing problem getting FreeBSD on the net but I was able to solve it with help from this list.. Ian Smith in particular. The DHCP lease from my ISP set the nameserver address as being 192.168.1.254, the IP of some box which connects me to to net. Correct me if wrong, but whois would not reveal a nameserver IP in this form for a net host. Linux accepted this but FreeBSD-6.1 had 10 second delays in TCP connects for mail and web pages. This does not imply a problem with BSD. It probably implies that Linux is more tolerant of loosely configured web services. But in the world of security it's casual configuration considered harmful. No, you have misunderstood the problem. 192.168.1.254 is presumably the address of your NAT router. It's using its own DHCP server to give you its own address as a nameserver because it's running a DNS proxy. My D-Link ADSL-router has a similar problem, its DNS proxy was very unreliable with FreeBSD, much worse than 10 second delays, many lookups didn't resolve at all. Disabling IPv6 did help speed things up, but didn't cure the problem entirely. I spent many hours reading and testing before hitting on a solution in dhclient.conf. If you have a fixed location (i.e. it's not a laptop that connects elsewhere), it's probably better and easier to avoid DHCP altogether, since you are not getting any dynamic configuration from it. I setup my desktop PC like this: ifconfig_vr0=inet 192.168.1.201 netmask 255.255.255.0 this gives me a fixed private ip address, instead of one that depends on what else is plugged into the router. The address is reserved in the router. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FreeBSD challenged by Internet
Hi: This is not exactly a question rather it is wrapup for a series of questions. I had a tricky, confusing problem getting FreeBSD on the net but I was able to solve it with help from this list.. Ian Smith in particular. The DHCP lease from my ISP set the nameserver address as being 192.168.1.254, the IP of some box which connects me to to net. Correct me if wrong, but whois would not reveal a nameserver IP in this form for a net host. Linux accepted this but FreeBSD-6.1 had 10 second delays in TCP connects for mail and web pages. This does not imply a problem with BSD. It probably implies that Linux is more tolerant of loosely configured web services. But in the world of security it's casual configuration considered harmful. I spent many hours reading and testing before hitting on a solution in dhclient.conf. I think this would be discouraging for most FreeBSD newbies. But making setup a no-brainer does not seem possible. It is difficult to provide a quality, standards-compliant OS unless all net-citizens share that focus on quality. Just my 2cents. Cheers, -Bob- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
