>> I keep forgetting that other people actually work in teams.
>>
>> If I were to ask someone from my team for a solution, their first answer
>> would be "did you try rebooting it?", followed by "hold on, let me check
>> Google..."
>
> Which also is perfectly fine.  As I mentioned elsewhere, people tend now
> to learn how to find things rather than how to do things.

The point being, *I* could do that myself. I was asking somebody else 
hoping that they might know something I don't. Actually it seems most of 
the guys in our IT department don't understand long words like 
"registry" or "SCSI controller"...

>> I couldn't get anybody to tell me the command name to turn off the
>> firewall [which would have taken then 3 to 4 seconds], and you expect
>> that somebody is going to build a custom package just for me? [Which
>> would presumably take several hours if not days.]
>
> If it was openSUSE, then it's
>
> /etc/init.d/SuSEfirewall2_setup stop; /etc/init.d/SuSEfirewall2_init stop

OK, I would literally never have guessed that. o_O

> And yes, if you had a package that wasn't in the standard repositories,
> malcolmlewis would likely build it for you using the build service,
> because it *doesn't* actually take hours/days to do so for someone versed
> in how OBS works.

 From what I've observed, compiling anything nontrivial that's written 
in C takes hours and hours. And that's assuming it doesn't fail half way 
through, demanding many hours of fruitless tweaking...

>> OK, so how the heck does the debugger know which chunk of unformatted
>> data is the stack?
>
> Various and sundry registers contain that information.  The debugger can
> ask the kernel for information about that - after all, the kernel *must*
> know these things in order to actually execute the program.
>
> So finding these things out is a matter of asking the kernel what it
> knows about the running processes.

OK. So I see how that can work for a running process. I'm not sure how 
it's possible from a memory dump.

>> I don't follow. What do you mean by "structural elements"?
>
> A program follows a certain structure.  When compiled, a program stores
> variable data in a certain space, code in a certain space, and the
> references to those addresses are all known to the kernel, and a debugger
> can learn them by asking the kernel.

I thought the compiled binary is just a flat file containing a list of 
machine opcodes?

>> I can see how that might be possible for a live debugger session. (I
>> mean, assuming the debugger can take over control of the CPU somehow.)
>> I'm not sure how that would be possible for a raw memory dump.
>
> You've used virtual machines and emulators, haven't you?  Similar
> principles are at play in a debugger.

Yeah, but a VM doesn't just save the contents of memory, it saves a 
whole bunch of metadata too.

>> Managing packages in Linux has *always* been a pain. It's gradually
>> improved over the years, but sometimes it still falls down. What I can't
>> figure out is why you seem to be denying that there's anything wrong
>> with it.
>
> Sometimes managing packages on Windows also falls down.<shrug>

Windows doesn't really "manage" packages. It just runs installers and 
uninstallers, and keeps track of what's installed.

>> I would have presumed that building POV-Ray from source would simply be
>> intractably difficult. It would probably be simpler to find a binary
>> package from somewhere else and try to convince that to install somehow.
>
> Yeah, because nobody on the planet can build POV-Ray or any other
> software package.  Ever.  It's just impossible. *sigh*

Well presumably the POV-Ray developers have all the necessary tools, 
libraries and build environment set up to do this. But trying to guess 
what that is by following the build errors is a very time consuming and 
difficult process.

>> (I seem to recall POV-Ray doesn't comply with Debian's definition of
>> "free" either, so it's in non-free or something...)
>
> Right.  It's not GPL or under a OSI-approved license, which makes it "non-
> free" according to the FSF.  I gather that's supposed to change in POV-
> Ray 4.0, or it's planned to.

Does POV-Ray actually have more than 1 person working on it any more?

>> Did you know I used to be a member of the local Linux User Group? Went
>> to all the physical meetings and everything. I even brought my Amiga
>> 1200 with me, running Debian "potato". I was rather surprised that this
>> turned out to be *drastically* slower than AmigaOS. Like, it took 20
>> minutes for GNOME to start. (!!)
>
> So you were a member in what, 1957?  ;)

Yep, that's right. ;-) I may only have been a twinkle in my 
grandfather's eye, but I was sure as heck a LUG member. :-P

> So if you were a member of a LUG in 1957, it's possible, just possible,
> that things have changed since then.

My point is that you make it sound like I tried Linux for 10 minutes, 
couldn't figure it out, and just gave up. That isn't true. And my more 
recent interactions with the so-called "Linux community" haven't lead me 
to change my opinion.

>> I'm just wondering if anybody has packaged up a set of stuff more
>> appropriate to running a VM. But yeah, I guess it's going to vary
>> depending on what you want the VM for...
>
> Just like a real machine.  Check out Studio, lots of customisation
> options there.

Where do I find that?

>> Replies to specific issues that I desperately want to fix tend to be
>> less helpful. It seems the experts have no more idea what to try than I
>> do.
>
> I find it does depend on how one asks the question, too.

Well, true. You do see a lot of posts in broken English saying something 
hysterical about "we have major issue with we demand fix immediate, how 
to be making printer to print again??!!!!! ugency!" It always surprises 
me that anybody bothers replying to those.

>>> Of course, going in there and saying "this piece of crap just sucks and
>>> doesn't work right" isn't likely to get you an answer, either.
>>
>> Sure. But "this one specific printer doesn't print through Terminal
>> Services" got me little to no replies either.
>
> Then it might be worth generalising the question.  Try with a different
> kind of printer, if that doesn't work, then it's not that specific
> printer, but a more general issue.  If it does work, then it may be
> necessary to - instead of talking to Microsoft or MVPs about it - ask the
> printer manufacturer.

As I recall, the exact problem was that a certain printer *was* working, 
and then on a particular day, that specific printer [and no other] 
simple stopped working, for no defined reason. I was hoping to get some 
troubleshooting tips... but I got nothing.

Still, it least it's *possible* to ask questions about MS products. How 
many printer manufacturers offer any kind of product support of any 
description? Exactly.

>> As it happens, I've just upgraded my work PC, and I was just about to
>> set up a couple of Linux VMs. One of them will probably be OpenSUSE. I
>> may or may not be able to get VMware Tools to work on it... so I may
>> have to take you up on that one.
>
> Feel free to.  There are some existing discussions over on
> forums.opensuse.org about using VMware and openSUSE together.

Well, the first problem is that if I enable USB in VMware, the mouse 
pointer doesn't work properly. If you move the mouse an inch, the 
pointer moves an inch, but if you click, it clicks on something two 
inches away. WTF? o_O

No, wait - the *first* problem is that 50% of the time when I boot the 
live GNOME CD, the GNOME toolbar doesn't appear. And the other 50% of 
the time it does. Damned strange...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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