Linux Void my warantee Make tech support impossible 8

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, TokaMundo wrote on Mon, 11 Jul 2005 18:19:53 GMT

I'm old enough to remember SASI, though I can't say I've ever had a machine therewith. (I do have an old 7300 with an RLL drive, though.)

Which regrettably died. Did look promising, though, at one point.

Oh great, you're one of *those*. Well, you be the judge of which NSA secrets you keep; I'm not going to pry.

Much. :-)

(ObLinux: selinux looks interesting; I'll admit I'm wondering how much of it is going back into 2.6. Probably quite a bit.)

I'd quibble on that -- mostly because someone else will probably bring up such things as FreeBSD, and even DOS can be very stable if one doesn't juice it up to where it falls over with extra drivers that start colliding with each other. (Of course DOS doesn't do all that much to begin with.)

But I do have to agree that it's a lot more stable than a certain offering from Microsoft, though Windows XP is an improvement over Win95 or 98. But Linux is still better.

It says the Unix vendors may be in trouble. :-) But it is a tribute to Linux's stability, not to mention cost.

No system is totally safe, but Linux is inherently compartmentalized, borrowing from Unix in that regard. With proper system management techniques Linux attacks at most wipe out the compromised account. Since this is not root the system isn't jeopardized -- as much, anyway.

It's a bit like a submarine with proper bulkheads versus a metal box one sits in to submerge. Which one's safer if a hole develops? Linux is a bit like the sub, as are Unix and FreeBSD, for that matter.

(Windows does have bulkheads but they're harder to locate.)

Andrew Schullman's Unauthorized Windows 95 has some interesting takes on the marketing angle -- apparently Win95 was sold at one point as "getting rid of DOS", for example, despite the copious evidence presented in the book that Win95 and DOS are codependent. Dry but informative.

Kernel? Duh? What's a kernel? Is that one of the avatars one can pick from the selection menu, right next to the doggy? :-)

Well...it's integrated (or was in Win95) to the point where one doesn't have to futz around with DOS protocol stacks. Yuck. Of course it's not all that great a stack, even now -- and the good bits were apparently borrowed from BSD code.

After *how* many years of litigation? It's almost as disgusting to watch as the machinations of Congress. :-)

Probably because no one really cared -- or knew. The cognoscenti can pontificate but people do have to get their work done, and if all they're familiar with is the tattered flag product, then that's the one they'll probably use.

Until we can get into the mainstream consciousness -- and it's getting there; asking a sand dune, tsunami, or a snail to move faster is ridiculous but one will get the effect eventually. Of course a sand dune or tsunami are a *lot* more destructive but it's the metaphors coming to mind.

Watch out, Microsoft. :-) The world is about to be flooded with cheap, reliable applications.

Suffering shouldn't be the objective here. Ideally, one wouldn't have to kill the enemy in a war, but neutralize him. Of course, there's a few issues here probably not worth going into, but at some point Linux's tidal wave may very well accomplish what all the verbiage written by Microsoft does not: convince the business community and then the people that there is a better way.

Remember IBM, and the march of the clones. IBM was unhappy (because they got undercut) but the most prevalent desktop is now an Intel-based beastie...and it's *still* got the INT2-9 issue, 640K conventional memory, and the A20 hack.

And because the issue is slightly confused. Time was that an OS was merely the kernel; one accessed the OS through API calls that went through a "firewall" (in Intel there's a callgate and a trapgate concept, if memory serves; in the old PDP-11 hardware they were simply called "traps"). Linux still has this, of course -- the x86 variant uses int $0x80. (Don't use this in programs unless you know what you're doing -- but it's not that hard to figure it out, if one looks at the source and is competent in buttembly. But mixing this with libc calls should be done with some care.)

I'm not entirely sure about that, though it's clear that he's at least partially responsible by suckering the populace.

However, it's also clear that we're willing to pay, if only through silent buttent. Perhaps we need to be more vociferous, and complain to such notables as Dell. (Don't complain too loudly; Dell already has an "alternative workstation" program that sells high-end Linux workstations. To some extent they've addressed the issue, though I'm not sure how well.)

Well, the military always did value security over functionality or comfort. :-) So would I were I in their shoes.

Linux per se ... no. But like the grit in a pearl, it's been wrapped to make it very usable in a host of applications.

I'm not sure one sees Linux in many jet fighters, even if it's the underpinnings of the HUD therein. Ideally, one just sees the HUD doing its thing, displaying the info the fighter pilot needs to make critical decisions like when to bank the plane, when to drop his ordinance, when to twist like hell and dump chaff and flares to avoid the missile(s) on his six, etc.

One might say Linux is well-nigh invisible in that case -- and it's a good thing, too. Windows tends to be very noisy...

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.