On 08/10/2011 05:34 PM, Darren New wrote:

> Why do you think the initial install of Windows takes so long and
> reboots so often? It's installing a bunch of stuff that you'd otherwise
> have to grab from a repository during installs of other stuff. You get
> .NET even if you're not going to use it, because you might in the future.

On which version of Windows?

(I ask because of the amount of time I've spent installing .NET because 
it wasn't already there...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
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On 10/8/2011 4:08, Jim Henderson wrote:
> I have yet to see a text file change on a Linux system that can hork the
> system up as badly as Microsoft wants you to believe Windows can be
> messed up with a single registry change.

echo > /etc/fstab

> Because with Linux it's pretty rare to have to reboot to affect the
> change.  It's sometimes easier, but to this day, I continue to be amazed
> at how frequently a Windows system has to be restarted.  Twice during
> installation, and if you're applying system updates, sometimes multiple
> times to get everything current (certainly with XP, later versions are
> somewhat better).

Because nobody but Linux weenies care whether they have to reboot their 
system to upgrade their software?

> Trivial.  No scripting required.

These are relatively recent tools in Linux, you must admit. UNIX went 40 
years before getting such support, and only because it started to get 
targeted at less tech-savvy people.

>> If you wanted to do any of this with Linux, you would have a whole bunch
>> of scripting ahead of you. Under Windows, it just takes a few button
>> presses to set up. You just can't do it from the end-user versions of
>> Windows; it requires a server OS. (Three guesses why those cost so much
>> more.)
>
> Wrong, again on the Linux front.  I personally know people who administer
> *thousands* of Linux servers.  I worked for a company that has a product
> to apply updates on a schedule to remote Linux systems.

Is it included standard in Linux? ;-)

But yeah, this stuff happens fine in Linux. Probably easier in Linux than 
Windows, actually. I can't imagine the kind of operations Google does in 
their data centers working on something proprietary like Windows.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/8/2011 5:40, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Well, in the days before computer networks, security was pretty much a moot
> point.

Except Windows always had security for network connections. Heck, MS network 
connections had security before Windows was even around. It's just the local 
machine that didn't have security, because it was a *personal* computer.

> What's UAC? Is that new in Windows 7 or something? (I've only used Vista.)

It's the box that pops up and says "you're trying to run this as an 
administrator. Are you sure?"

> It's all too easy to break them though, or to end up with cryptic
> error messages and need to look under the hood to find the "real" error and
> how to fix it.

I never had YaST break something, or mess up manual configurations when I 
invoke the GUI.

> whereas the registry typically doesn't.

*Because* you're supposed to be using the GUI. :-)

> Ubuntu seems to contantly want me to reboot when I install updates too. I
> think the problem is more that Windows requires updating more often.

There's more stuff that's "always running" and can't easily be shut down 
programmatically under Windows.  If you have some COM server dealing with 
some background job that needs to be updated, there's no clean interface to 
ask it to exit and restart itself with a new version. UNIX, always having 
had background services, tends to make it easier to figure out what needs to 
get restarted and what doesn't.

> That's just it. Windows is one product, with one set of management tools.

Well, XP, Vista, and Win7 are all quite different management-wise, methinks. :-)

> The original Unix, as best as I can tell, has almost no management features
> at all. You're supposed to roll your own. So every major distro builder has
> built their own independent system of management tools.

Yes.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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>> What's UAC? Is that new in Windows 7 or something? (I've only used
>> Vista.)
>
> It's the box that pops up and says "you're trying to run this as an
> administrator. Are you sure?"

Oh. What, you mean EXACTLY LIKE LINUX? Yeah, I can see how that's such 
an annoying Windows feature. :-P

Far more amusing is the fact that if you take, say, Notepad.exe and 
rename it to Setup.exe, suddenly Vista thinks it needs elevated 
privilages to run...

>> It's all too easy to break them though, or to end up with cryptic
>> error messages and need to look under the hood to find the "real"
>> error and
>> how to fix it.
>
> I never had YaST break something, or mess up manual configurations when
> I invoke the GUI.

Really? That's impressive. I've lost count of how many times the nice 
shine GUI for something or other has got confused or crashed or whatever 
and I had to spend an hour or two reading manpages to figure out where 
the *real* configuration files are and how to edit them to achieve what 
I actually wanted...

>> whereas the registry typically doesn't.
>
> *Because* you're supposed to be using the GUI. :-)

That was my point, yes.

>> Ubuntu seems to contantly want me to reboot when I install updates too. I
>> think the problem is more that Windows requires updating more often.
>
> There's more stuff that's "always running" and can't easily be shut down
> programmatically under Windows.

RPC.

I have no idea what this service does, but if you ever try to restart 
it, Windows crashes. No idea why. (One wonders why they even gave you 
the option to restart it in the first place...)

>> That's just it. Windows is one product, with one set of management tools.
>
> Well, XP, Vista, and Win7 are all quite different management-wise,
> methinks. :-)

Really? I haven't used Vista or 7 extensively, but I wasn't aware that 
anything had changed...

Regardless, *every* copy of (say) Vista has the same management 
capabilities. It's a "standard" part of a Windows system. Which I guess 
is just another way of saying "there's more than one Linux distro"...

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

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On 10/8/2011 9:47, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>> or cooperative shared editting.
>>>
>>> It's news to me that /any/ version of Office has that.
>>
>> That's kind of my point.
>
> So... how do you do that?

You stick it on a share and you go to the menu that says something like 
"cooperative editing" or some such. You're sitting in front of a 
google-enabled computer just like I am. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/8/2011 7:32, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Just like on Windows it used to depend on whether the developer wrote an
> INI file or used the registry.

More precisely, it's a question of whether the developer wrote his own code 
to frob INI files, or whether he used the Windows API to do so. Because when 
the registry came out, the Windows API was later changed to stor INI files 
in the registry.

>> [Let's not even get into the fact that the registry is transactional,
>> while text files aren't. Or that it supports storing binary blobs
>> relatively efficiently...]
>
> Transactionality is a function of the filesystem, and I use a journaled
> filesystem.

The Linux file system isn't transactional. It's just journaled. There's no 
way to update three files at once and ensure nobody sees only one of them 
updated. There's no way to save six files full of Apache config and ensure 
the backup program running in the background hasn't backed up three of the 
new ones and three of the old ones.

> And I've yet to see anything more effective than a binary blob as a
> file.

I'm curious what this sentence is supposed to mean. Binary blobs are the 
lowest common denominator, but almost no files actually store a binary blob.

> Sometimes distros choose that route because it's just easier than
> educating the user.  I would prefer if they educated the user instead.

Or because it's more reliable.  If you update half an installation without 
actually restarting the programs using the DLLs and config files you just 
updated, you could be pretty screwed down the line.  Happened all the time 
to me when (for example) the sys admin would update a running server but not 
save the configuration to outlast a reboot, and then the machine would get 
rebooted and all the software depending on that new configuration would fail.

> Doing the same on my openSUSE boxes, it's one reboot.  Period.  *If*
> there's a kernel update.

Out of curiosity, why would you care how many boots it takes to install the 
OS? It's not like there's other things running while you're trying to 
install, right?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/8/2011 10:09, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Regardless, *every* copy of (say) Vista has the same management
> capabilities.

Nonsense. The home versions can't even log into a domain.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/8/2011 2:41, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I bought some hardware that lets me remotely connect to my grandparent's PC.

Why do you need that? All that sort of thing is built into Windows.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:10:16 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Try installing Notepad on Windows without installing Windows
>> Networking.
>>
>> Oh, you can't do that.  Why?  Because Windows Networking is an
>> integrated component of the operating system.
>>
>> Guess what - it's also an integrated component of GNOME, because
>> interoperability matters.
> 
> The irony is, you actually /can/ uninstall Windows networking (and even
> the TCP/IP protocol). And Notepad still works. :-P

Not if you try to save to a networked drive.

> Plus, installing Windows isn't a 4GB download. Honestly, I can remember
> a time when all the Linux fanboys used to shout about how much leaner
> Linux is than Windows. Today a default install of most distros either
> involves DVDs or multi-GB downloads. It installs everything *and* the
> kitchen sink, and when I want to use a different text editor it *still*
> wants to download another couple of GB of data. ENOUGH ALREADY! >_<

Installing Windows + applications is a lot more than 4 GB.  With the 
caching done on my Win7 VM, it sure seems to have downloaded 4+ GB of 
updates since installed, too.

>>> Me and my dad tried updating OpenSUSE one time. After several days of
>>> hell, we decided never to attempt this ever again.
>>
>> It's a shame you didn't come over to the forums and ask for some help.
> 
> Wouldn't that require me to figure out how to display IPv6 so that
> Firefox works again?

No.

You have a Windows machine, do you not?  It's not uncommon for people to 
use one OS to ask questions about another, especially when they're having 
networking issues.

>>> Uh, yeah. Updating Windows in-place isn't something I'd recommend
>>> *either*...
>>
>> I generally wouldn't recommend it for any OS, but it can be a bit
>> easier with Linux if your /home partition is separate from the rest of
>> the system.  Worst case, you do a fresh install of the root partition
>> and leave the /home data alone.
> 
> Same works for any OS.

True enough.

>>>> RPM does a pretty good job of dependency management
>>>
>>> Well, some distros use RPM, some use .deb, some use something else
>>> entirely. I've yet to see a package manager where it's entirely clear
>>> what the heck is going on, or why selecting one small application
>>> requires a 2GB download.
>>
>> Well, again, it comes down to understanding the interdependencies,
>> rather than throwing your hands up in the air and saying "it's too
>> damned complex for anyone to understand."
> 
> How about spending several years working with Linux and still not being
> able to get it to work right. Does that count? :-P
> 
>>>> but you have to take care not to add too many repositories
>>>
>>> I don't even know how to do that.
>>
>> In openSUSE: sudo yast2 repositories
> 
> OK. But the fact that I don't know how to do it demonstrates fairly
> conclusively that that isn't the problem I had.

Your problem is a lack of knowledge.  That can be corrected.  If you go 
into using Linux thinking it's going to be exactly like Windows, you're 
doomed to fail before you even boot the machine.

Newsflash:  Linux is NOT Windows.  It doesn't work like Windows.  It 
doesn't feel like Windows.  Why?  BECAUSE IT ISN'T FREAKING WINDOWS!!!

>>> Last time I tried this with VMware tools, it went something like this:
>>> - Where are the kernel headers?
>>> - No, the headers for the *running* kernel? - OK, now install gcc
>>> please.
>>> - No, the version of gcc that the kernel was compiled with. At that
>>> point, I discovered that the version of gcc in question isn't
>>> available for this release of Ubuntu. WTF?
>>
>> I can't speak to Ubuntu.  openSUSE has a pretty strict "no kernel
>> upgrades" policy within a particular version.  (That doesn't mean "no
>> updates" - security updates are backported by the openSUSE kernel team,
>> and important enhancements frequently are as well AFAIK).  That means
>> it's incredibly rare to have to deal with something like that with
>> VMware once it's working.
> 
> I think I tried it with Debian and Fedora as well. Can't remember if I
> tried OpenSUSE.
> 
> This sort of thing tends to be typical of /any/ attempt to install
> something that isn't packaged. And even if the website has an RPM or a
> .deb, usually that just flips the package manager out because all the
> dependencies are wrong...

Which is why having a community to ask questions of (including 'is there 
a pre-built package for 'x'', surprisingly enough) is a good thing.

>> It's a shame you don't ask questions in the Linux forums related to the
>> distribution you use.  Those issues are often easily resolved, and
>> novices can get help instead of just bitching "this damned stuff never
>> works right!"
> 
> Yes, because I want to sign up to /yet another/ online forum just to
> make one piece of software install cleanly...

If you're using Fedora, go to fedoraforums.  If you're using Ubuntu, go 
to ubuntuforums.  If you use openSUSE, go to the openSUSE forums.

Chances are you're not going to get sent to a forum for Photivo (for 
example), unless you're having a problem specific to Photivo.  Just like 
with Windows apps, you're not going to go to the Microsoft forums to ask  
a question about issues installing Peachtree Accounting.

> As I say, I generally just stick to Windows. When you install stuff, it
> just works.
> 
> (Not that I'm completely unsympathetic, you understand. "Linux" is one
> hell of a big moving target to try to hit...)
> 
> I love how I'm the biggest Microsoft-hater ever, and I've ended up
> defending Windows. When Linux came out, I really thought it was going to
> be the answer. Turns out it just brought a different set of problems...

Software isn't perfect.  No matter which platform it is, it isn't going 
to be perfect.  You have to be willing to take some time to learn how the 
system works, rather than just try it and lament "it's hard".

Linux is not hard.  It requires some dedication to learn in order to use 
it effectively, just as Windows does.  If you doubt that, look at any 
user on your network who hasn't taken the time to figure out how to use 
Windows effectively.

Everyone's a new user at least once.

Jim

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On Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:42:26 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/8/2011 5:40, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> It's hard to understand why people have trouble affording a single hard
>> drive when you buy in such bulk quantities.
> 
> And remember that you're not really their big customer. When 85% of your
> sales go to the OEMs, worrying about whether this one guy can afford to
> upgrade his disk doesn't really make sense. Especially since if you
> can't afford a $50 disk, you can't afford a $200 OS. :-)

That's certainly true.  But chances are if you bought the machine, 
Windows was included.

>> After all, on Windows, you have CIFS/SMB available on all systems by
>> default.  You take it for granted on Windows, but for the rest of the
>> world, there is a choice.
> 
> Actually, it's there by default, but it doesn't have to be. You don't
> need to have any networking installed at all if you don't want. Not even
> TCP/IP.

I guess that's true, but kinda beside the point.  The point is there's an 
entire ecosystem of DLLs and system drivers/files that are necessary for 
Windows to run if you want to run Notepad or Word.  Just because on 
Windows there's exactly one option means that all that stuff is installed 
by default.

Linux brings a number of choices - for better or for worse - and bitching 
about having to install the entirety of the KDE libraries to run k3b (for 
example) because it's a better disc burning tool than brasero (which is 
the GNOME utility) is kinda disingenuous.

>> upgraded to each incremental pre-release alpha, beta, and release
>> candidate on several of their internal servers.
> 
> I can imagine that would screw stuff up. Most people don't design
> upgrades to deal with every intermediate release of the software.

The guys at Microsoft I talked to (this was back in 2002/2003) said it 
was a complete nightmare.

>> RPM does a pretty good job of dependency management,
> 
> I think it's more that the programmers don't. They assume you have
> enough disk space, a fast connection, and etc.  I bet the people writing
> the editors would avoid the need to include SAMBA if you said "we'll
> give you $1000 for every package you don't depend on."

True, and it does come down to developers identifying the prerequisites 
appropriately.  There are sloppy coders in both OSS and closed source 
development, so that's not really a problem unique to Linux.

It is perhaps more common in Linux than it should be, though.

Jim

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