MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-09-04 |
| FROM | From: "Steve Milo"
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] Re: Advocacy vs. Zealotry vs. Who Cares?!?
|
Depending on the distribution you run you can compare GNU/Linux to ms products
in general.
Like I said before for 80 bucks Suse 9.1 Pro gives you just about everything a
person needs to run their enterprise IT stuff. Try doing that with ms, try
getting the same level of support on a intellectually mature level compared to
ms. Yes mature, there are flame wars and stuff on mailing list but that comes
with the territory anywhere you go.
Did you even try Suse 9.1 yet? A guy who works with me at the lab does ms
network support. I never had to set up network printing I didnt know how to
do it. That guy who never touched a Linux machine but was curious to know
about it set the thing up in about 20 minutes.
By the same token he started saying how 'cool it would be if Suse could run ms
office'. I said it wouldnt be cool and that he missed the entire point.
Why limit yourself was his reply. We got into an argument about this, but
later he was setting up printing and impressed with how Suse immediately
recognized the network.
So I learned two valuable lessons on this. The first hurdle is the hardest
and dont turn over because someone else thinks something is cool.
You say you get it for free but you dont, you still donate, you still spend
time installing it and fiddling around with it.
By the way he wants to come to tech-nite, I told him we always have people
there.
Steve M
On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 14:37:14 -0400, Billy wrote
> On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 02:15:05PM -0400, Ruben Safir Secretary
> NYLXS wrote:
> > > > Actually it is. Even Visual Basic applications which leverage heavely
> > > > the MSFT installs new DLL's and replaces old ones willie nillie.
> > >
> > > Yeah, people get away with murder writing apps on Windows.
> > > There are so many bad Windows programmers.
> > >
> > > This isn't a fundamental weakness of Windows, is it?
> >
> > Yes - IT IS.
> >
> > The Kernel in Free Software has protections built into it to
> > prevent the loading and execution of a wide variety of
> > problems.
>
> There are plenty of Free Software kernels that don't.
> If you're talking about Linux, talk about Linux.
> This isn't about free software. Sheesh!
>
> > It will flat out restrict access of users to a large
> > number of network and memory resources.
> > You actually have to use a programming exploit, or a bug.
>
> Now look here, Windows provides the SAME PROTECTIONS.
> This is ridiculous. I don't feel like you're listening to me.
> You just keep repeating the same FUD.
>
> > With MS products, you can just exploit the functionality intentionally
> > built into the OS and the applications.
>
> This is nonsense. 'MS products' are not the topic of discussion.
> Windows is, specifically. You can compare IE and Mozilla,
> SQLServer and Postgresql, Windows and Linux, MFC and gtk, or Excel
> and gnumeric (or whatever), or Evolution and Outlook. Fine. But
> you can't compare EVERYTHING MICROSOFT MAKES on one side of the
> scale to the Linux kernel on the other side. It's just nonsensical.
>
> Talk about the OS, or talk about the applications, but this thread is
> too thin to discuss both at once.
>
> > > > and XP. All processes are considered threads by the operating system. This
> > > > makes the process context slightly lighter than the traditional
> > > > heavyweight process model used in UNIX-like operating systems. As a
> > > > consequence of this everything-is-a-thread model, however, everything
> > > > sits in global memory address space. With the correct permissions and
> > > > the correct address, one program could twiddle another program's bits.
> > >
> > > This is total nonsense! Who wrote this?
> >
> > Someone named Beagel, I believe...
>
> He's named after a windows worm?
> Not someone I'd trust.
>
> > > > Another consequence of this is data structures created by the kernel don't
> > > > sit at any fixed address. This means it is up to the user program to lock
> > > > down the associated memory before using any global data structures, such
> > > > as graphic contexts. You also must remember to unlock these structures
> > > > once you are done with them, or they may help cause memory fragmentation.
> > >
> > > This is fine. The alternative is memory fragmentation, as he said. I
> > > don't think Linux is any different in this regard. In fact, I can't
> > > think of an instance where you even GET ACCESS to any kernel structures
> > > in Linux.
> >
> > Right - because these memory blocks on in users space limited in access to
> > processes, or you get a segmentation fault.
>
> Yeah, this happens on Windows, too... I've seen this more than a
> few times on windows:
>
> The program "Mozilla" has attempted unauthorized read
> access to memory location 0x00000001, press 'Ok' to
> terminate, and 'Cancel' to debug.
>
> The "Lock" and "Unlock" functions he's referring to can expose and hide
> a single data structure from the kernel to the user program. Linux
> doesn't do this. It isn't a security feature or a bug or anything.
> It's just a different way to do the job of setting up a drawing context
>
> (in his example). On Windows, drawing contexts are kernel objects,
> and on Linux, they are part of the X server (which runs suid root).
> This is a big architectural difference, but doesn't make Windows
> worse, per se, does it?
>
> > > So this is really not an apples-to-apples comparison.
> >
> > Apple - we're not getting into Apple as well :-|
>
> Let's not.
> ____________________________
> NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
> Fair Use -
> because it's either fair use or useless....
> NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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