Slashback: Intentia, Ephemera, Restoration 164
With a baby and some makeup you can add in some aliens.
Docrobot writes "NASA is obviously tired of the recent fanatical conspiracy claims dealing with 'faked' Apollo Moon Landings, the 'Face on Mars,' and most recently EuroSeti's claim that enhanced SOHO satellite images show UFOs.
NASA debunks EuroSeti's resent image enhanced SOHO satellite UFO photos covered by us here with this snappy and smug how-to article entitled: How to Make Your Own UFO.
It looks like Euroseti should to go back to the drawing board, or up their meds..."
At least use a security envelope next time. mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, Reuters will not be prosecuted due to the alleged hack of Intentia's web server. Intentia did not clearly state that the information was secret, nor did Intentia try protecting it. Intentia stated that the report would be available at a certain time, and you only had to slightly change the URL from the report of the previous quarter in order to obtain the current report. Hence, the prosecutor will not initiate proceedings against Reuters or any of its reporters."
(Here is Slashdot's previous story on this affair.)
A happy turn in the PCI list saga. DieNadel writes "I've received an email today from PCI-SIG regarding the End of the Free PCI Device List, that says:
'Dear PCI Community,The PCI Vendor and Device Lists located at http://www.yourvote.com/pci/ have been restored. The PCI-SIG recognizes the value of Jim Boemler's Web site and our officers have worked with him to restore it.
We are committed to working with Jim and the rest of the community to ensure this service is not interrupted in the future.
Thank you for your continued support of our technologies. We will keep you informed with any other updates.
Best Regards,
Tony Pierce
PCI-SIG Chairman.'
I think it's a nice move from PCI-SIG!"
Making money with Free software, explained. Yesterday, we posted a link to an article explaining Red Hat's new EOL schedule for various versions of its operating system. Red Hat's decision drew a lot of flak in the comments attached to that story; not that it won't again, but over on NewsForge, Red Hat's Jeremy Hogan has a reaction-to-the-reaction (not just on Slashdot) which the new EOL schedule drew.
Add an alien to your UFO (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Add an alien to your UFO (Score:5, Interesting)
> Seriously, this is a fun read by some FX experts that really destroys that alien autopsy stuff.
The most damning criticism I've heard of the "autopsy" is that the doctor's goal seemed to be to see how fast he could shovel out the alien's innards. An autopsy is an investigation, not an emptying of the slop bucket.
Most damning criticism? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Add an alien to your UFO (Score:5, Interesting)
Your comment reminded me of something I caught on TV once. Evidentally, there's startling video evidence of a UFO over earth (shot from a shuttle) moving slowly just above the upper atmosphere, then suddenly darting the other way at surprising speeds. This 'proof' of alien technology supposedly raised a huge stir.
The video was played again, only zoomed out a bit. (they zoomed in so you could see the moving pixel...) This time, when the UFO darted off, you could see a subtle flash eminating from the shuttle. It's hard for me to explain in text, so I'll have to paint you a picture: An ice crystal fell off the shuttle and slowly moved away from the window. When a navigation jet (RCS thruster? heh) fired to stabilize the shuttle, it pushed the ice crystal away rather rapidly.
This crystal only really showed up as a point of light, so they really had no idea what they were seeing on the video. But they were ready to believe it was an ET even though it was pretty obvious what happened.
How about a slashback about what's going on w /.? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about a slashback about what's going on w / (Score:1)
I certainly have noticed a _major_ slowdown over the last week though.
-Ben
Taco's Journal (Score:5, Informative)
Super Bowl was pretty fun. I didn't see no stinkin' X-Men 2 commercial, but dammit it I'm so stoked for The Matrix.
Lots of stuff going on in the code lately, and I'm getting more than the usual amount of flame bitching about it. Since I'm back from New York (pretty busy week all things considered, but I had a better time than I was expecting) I actually have some time to address a few things. This weekend has been loaded with heaping flames (relating to someone who spoofed my email on their web page) and a number of people bitching about me not staying on top of alerting people to changes on Slashdot.
First up, its worth noting that the last couple weeks have been somewhat hellish. Over Christmas we had some robot attacks, and some pretty serious hardware and software issues. Because of these things, and of course the shortened holiday schedules, we weren't able to do our usual wed. night code refresh. For those of you who don't pay attention, jamie usually syncs Slashdot to the latest tagged release on CVS every wed. Normally our code syncs are a few hundred lines of random stuff, but since this one was nearly a month worth of code and bug fixes held back because of the serious performance issues, this one was a doozy.
So there have been lots of fun little buglets to contend with. Some of them have been fixed, but here are a few: I'm pretty sure the comments on users.pl have the proper score now, and I'm pretty sure there are no more Score:6 comments. The reason for this is that we finally broke the Karma Bonus out into a user preference. For nearly 4 years now, the karma bonus was essentially hard coded to the users comment. But now it's actually a user preference. So if you're sick of karma whoring Score:2 default posters, you can disable the karma bonus. Honestly it would make more sense to set them as a Foe and and set the Foe penalty to -1, because a good number of Karma Bonus posters are fine, but if you wanna throw the baby out with the bathwater, thats cool with us.
Also worth noting is that a comment that gets 2 down mods loses the Karma bonus. The reason for this is that a comment with the bonus by default can't go lower than 0. Even if 3 people try to mod it down, the 3rd will have no real affect because of the bonus. This means that moderators use points on a Score:0 comment thinking that it can go to Score:-1, but the +1 default karma bonus prevents it. It creates a whole nasty cycle. The solution was simply to disable the Karma Bonus for any comment modded down twice. It's important that Karma Bonus users use their bonus wisely. Someday perhaps I'd like to enforce a stronger penalty for using the bonus to post a comment that ultimately drops to -1. Not a steep one, but that should definately be a consideration if the user is to continue to have access to the Bonus.
You've probably noticed a fair number of changes to users.pl. The layout of the user info pages is in serious flux. And by flux, I mean, Fucked Up. There are a few browser incompatibilities, and general layout screwups that really are making the users stuff hard to user. That will be cleaned up over the next couple of code refreshes.
We changed the moderation display on comments page. Originally we displayed them as a hard number (eg, Insightful=5, Offtopic=3....). And I had several issues with this. Mainly it was just hard to read on those comments that had many different moderation categories active, what with the word wrapping and all. So I changed it to be a percentage, and to only display the top 3. I find this display a much more simple and elegant view. Much more useful since for comments with few mods, its irrelevant, and with many mods, I really only want to know what the dominant couple of mods are. Especially since those are the ones that ultimately become the comment label and affect the score's comments.
The second half of this change is to add a second batch of labels that will show a user what other point modifiers are active on any given comment. The goal is eventually to make it clear what comments are triggering the long comment bonus, or the Karma Bonus, or, say the Friend of Friend bonus, and all according to your user preferences.
As you imagine, this data will greatly clarify the scores of comments for users, but it will also require some sacrifices in screen real estate to keep the whole thing understandable. So hang in there while we sort it out. This stuff is all a serious work in progress.
These changes have been some what controversial, and it will only get more controversial I promise. We've had a long standing feature request to revamp the scoring system. The existing system essentially is +1 for good, -1 for bad, and a handful of modifiers decided upon by the poster, and the reader. This is of course not a really scalable solution.
Dammit. The batteries in my wireless keyboard just died. It's 5 degrees out. I don't want to get new ones
Where was I. Scalable solutions. Historically, you could look at a Score:3 comment and kind fudge together that 1-3 moderators liked it (depending on whatever obvious factors existed like AC/Logged in you saw). This creates a lot of limits on the system, most substantially is that it enforces some sort of maximum number of moderators the system can have. Once 5 or so moderators have had their say on a given comment, what more needs to be done?
What do I mean? Well, the point of moderation is to filter cruft, and to let users control how many comments they read, and have some sort of quality level associated with that number. In other words, that there will be a pyramid of comments, and if you only wanna read 10 comments, you can be reasonably assured that the 10 or so score:5 comments are the best. The problem is that if we put in double the moderators, we start getting more and more Score:5 comments. We learned that a few months ago when we doubled the number of mod points in the system. THere was a substantial increase in Score:5, but I don't think that necessarily meant that we had a better discussion- comments posted later in the discussion are still kinda ignored by moderators.
One group of people just says "Add Score:6!" but I don't really want to do that. Instead I want to redesign how scoring works. There are hundreds of ways that this could be done, and I'm certainly open to suggestions (my inbox is always available, and I'm on irc.slashnet.org much of the time). This is still very much in the conceptual stages, but I'd like to factor in many components into computing the score of the comment.
A few examples (these are all just vague ideas, nothing concrete, no flames!)
Time since discussion creation: A comment posted 24 hours after a discussion was created, and moderated 36 hours after creation has something unique to it. Since most comments are posted & moderated in the first 12 hours, the fact that this comment bubbled up so late means perhaps it has a bit more value than a comment posted in the initial burst of discussion. Perhaps a scoring boost will help that. Part of this would be to encourage discussion to continue. And part of this would be to improve the value of moderation to those comments that number 1000+ in a discussion. Those big discussions really take a hit at some point.
User factors: we have countless factors that we could use. UID? Activity levels? Historical Moderation Fairness? Mod points used? If UID 2,000 is a constant reader, historically moderates 98% fairly, and never lets his 5 mod points expire, perhaps this could be rewarded.
Moderation Types: I think that the 5th 'Insightful' mod shouldn't mean as much as the first 'Insightful' mod. Some sort of diminished return. Also, I'd like to account for the number of mods in each category. I think that 6 insightfuls, 3 trolls, and 3 offtopics should have a net result of maybe +1, even tho the sum of the values of these moderations are 0, I think that the dominant moderation should have a stronger affect on the final score of the comment.
Capping Moderation: At some point a comment needs to be done being moderated just to encourage moderation points to be spent elsewhere. As I mentioned above, it only takes 5 moderators to get an AC comment from 0 to 5. So what is the point to the 20th moderator throwing his 2 bits in? I'd much rather encourage a moderator to look at some other comment more deserving of attention? So I don't know if my best bet is to explicitly disallow moderation of comments after a certain number of moderations have been used, or to have each moderation value successively less. Either essentially has the same result.
;)
We've also been slowly slapping in a few additional plums for Subscribers. One of them is to allow them to scroll back through comments. Currently we only let people see their last 24 comments (this is to prevent robots from crawling us, and to keep the db load down). We're letting subscribers have the next/prev links so they can browse more easily into history. Viewing those pages of course counts towards your subscription page count.
We've also set it so that subscribers can have double the friends in the Zoo system. This so far hasn't affected a lot of users, but there have been just enough people hitting the limits that we'd like to let them continue to befriend more people.
Future subscriber plums will be listed in the subscriber section of the FAQ. There are a couple of good ones coming that we're testing now. I think you'll like them. ANd as always, you can send ideas to me. IRC. Email. SourceForge. I'm usually fairly on top of all three.
That about wraps it up for me today. SimCity 4 is out, and I'm really hoping to have a few hours today to try to get a city with actual skyscrapers. So far I've not been lucky in this. And I still have friday's Farscape on the Tivo to enjoy. Also, that should give the complainers enough information to write derogatory discussions of the Slashdot Conspiracy in their journals explaining how the Slashdot Janitors are fascist demon children bent on destroying the world somehow or other
Re:Taco's Journal (Score:3, Funny)
wtf? (Score:1, Funny)
Right now listed as +2 Informative. That's confusing.
Slashdot Math Returns! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Remember everybody's favorite signature? Slashdot Math: 50+1-1 = 49. Taco was so incensed about that he decided to hide Karma from everyone so they couldn't criticize his math skills. This was a good idea, and one he should have stuck with.
Recently, Slashteam decided that printing moderation totals was a bad idea. It's part of a continuing development trend of hiding the Slash backend from the users (not a bad idea). Maybe Krow has been playing an audio version of Chromatic's O'Reilly article [oreillynet.com] to Taco while he sleeps. Maybe Taco's pride has finally yielded enough that he's willing to listen to someone else. Who knows. For whatever reason, someone's trying to make it harder to game the Slash system by removing anything that could be construed as "points" (I'm wondering how they plan to make it impossible to count your friends, but that's another story).Personally, I like to think that Trollback was responsible. But that's just ego talking.
In any event, moderation totals are now shown as percentages in an attempt to hide the number of times a post has been moderated. While it's pretty simple to reverse-engineer this number, you now need a calculator, which raises the bar a bit.
The funny thing, however, is that Taco has once again exposed his math skills to the world. So, once again, we get to put "Slashdot Math" in our .sigs. Are you ready?
Slashdot Math: 30+40+10 = 100 [slashdot.org]
Enjoy,
Update: As many have pointed out in the comments, it is true that this change has a few side affects. One is that editors can now disguise their modbombing activity a little easier. The second is that by activating a division-based mod system, SlashTeam has proven that all its protestations about K5's moderation not scaling are a bogus. Of course, if you haven't accepted the fact that modbombing and handwaving are a way of life around here, you're blind, and you don't read my journal.
HAHAHAHAHAH (Score:1, Offtopic)
UFOs (Score:5, Interesting)
There are, its a real phenomenon, and nobody knows what they are. 95% of the cases may be solar flares and whatnot, but there are cases where trained pilots chase things which show up on radar going at supersonic speeds making hairpin turns. There are UFO sightings with craft doing these things recorded by witnesses over large areas from many different perspectives.
They could all be fake. But this doesn't mean they do not warrant investigation. A few shitty UFO pictures which can be duplicated easily doesn't make the interesting accounts and evidence any less interesting.
Re:UFOs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:UFOs? Maybe not (Score:5, Interesting)
You wanna know why in recent times these cases have become so rare? It's because the software for radar tracking has been improved to the point where it won't link spurious signals together and assume that these must be a continuous track. Now when such systems do find something making hairpin turns (doesn't have to be supersonic) or travelling at 10K+ MPH, then the software will filter out such tracks.
Now a true believer's reaction might be "OH!MY!GOD! THEY (MIBs, the Fed, whatever) are stopping the information at the source! How can we protect ourselves if we don't even know if the UFOs are there!"
Or you might figure that the older radar systems simply were faulty.
UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:5, Insightful)
From what we know about the vastness of space and the immense distances that UFOs would have to travel to get here, it would take some pretty amazing technology, especially if it was transporting biological entities.
Any civilization with that kind of technology:
(a) wouldn't care a whole lot about Earth, we're one foot out of the ectoplasm. We haven't done anything interesting that a highly evolved civilization hasn't already done.
(b) and if they did (hey, I still look at ant hills), why wouldn't their technology enable them to remain completely undetected? Or gather their information via remote sensing?
I just can't get past these things. I'd like someone to tell me why I should.
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:1)
They didn't get highly evolved and develop superluminal travel by watching our tv. They did it to find a quiet neighborhood where they could confuse natives with their interstellar graffity, and turn herbivours inside out.
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:1)
A more interesting question (Score:4, Interesting)
If it isn't possible then there is little chance of finding intelligent life in the universe. It's taken billions of years to develop intelligent life on this planet. Humans have been around for about a million years or so. 10 thousands years ago we started farming. 5 thousand years ago civilisations sprung up. 100 years ago the industrial age started. Now the way we are going the industrial age could last as little as 30 years and that's provided we don't wipe ourselves out with a super virus, nuclear war or Steve Irwin like disregard for dangerous animals first.
Now if we do the maths, assuming other human like species have developed in much the same way we did, the chances of any two species developing at about the same time so that they can actually detect the other one is there is very small. Each species has a window of a couple of hundred years in the billions it takes for them to develop to make enough noise to be detectable by another species on a planet far far away.
Harmony with the environment? (Score:1)
Where is the limit? Was it ok for American Indians to drive big land animals to extinction when they first arrived here from Siberia, but not current humans? Is it ok for birds to shit all over islands and pollute them to hell and back, we think it cute and call it guano and harvest it for fertilizer. But if humans shit too much, that's pollution!
Bah.
Re:Harmony with the environment? (Score:2)
But just because our effects on our environment are simply "more of the same" doesn't mean they aren't incredibly destructive and possibly irrevocable.
Note that many groups of humans, not just modern Western civilization, have been responsible for environmental devastation, but again, it's the scale that matters now.
Re:A more interesting question (Score:1)
Re:A more interesting question (Score:2)
That is the more interesting question, and it's one I think about several times a day (yes, really), but I still think about sex 10 times more often. :-)
Don't be so sure. The Technological Singularity [caltech.edu] is only a few decades away. Evolution is exponential [kurzweilai.net], and we're currently on the sharp knee of that curve after having been in the flatlands for millenia.
--
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:3, Interesting)
The second assumption has the same problems. Perhaps they come from a world in which stealth technology, for some reason, has no purpose. Therefore, they would have not had any reason to develop it until they came here.
Unless they tell us their intents, if they are visiting, we can't even know for sure that their intentions are peaceful or hostile.
Who knows? Maybe haven't been visited. Maybe we have, and they have taken great interest in our ability to create art.
One thing I'm sure of is that humans can be rather myopic, intellectually. Science is overturning many assumptions about the human sexes that have been held on to for centuries. When viruses were discovered in the early part of the last century, people were shocked. No one could conceive of something possibly alive (or at least behaved in life-like manners) that could be smaller than bacteria.
What makes us so sure that we can intuit the intents and motivations of an intelligent species that's not our own?
I would say that if extra-terrestrials have visited us, that they would be quite afraid of us. We are quite a violent species, and I'm sure that that's something that would not escape the attention of any non-Earthly visitors.
To assume puts you between me and my...err, perhaps not...
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:2)
Kinda like we aren't interested in the ancient Egyptians? People all over the world (universe) come up with creative ways of solving problems. You can learn tons of stuff from studying other cultures. Advanced algorithms and next-gen spacecraft don't change the fact that studying simple things is cool.
>why wouldn't their technology enable them to remain completely undetected
Do you never have hardware failures? Does software/firmware tend to fail at the most inopertune time. Have you never worked in a place where human error caused an incident? Shit happens.
Vast distances and their lack of real contact could be explained by them not wanting to disrupt our progress. Just like *nix geeks, they want us to RTFM.
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:1)
I want to believe. But I can't make myself believe.
I know what you mean... I once saw a UFO myself. The person who was with me is convinced that we saw an alien spacecraft that night, but I'm a good deal more skeptical. To this day I still have no idea what in the hell could have moved and turned that fast, but I'm happy to just accept it as "unidentified" and leave it at that.
So at a tech conference about a year ago, I met this guy working for the company formerly known as Bell Labs. He claims that it's common insider knowledge there that the transistor wasn't actually invented by them; it was reverse-engineered from some transistors that were found in the wreckage of that crashed UFO at Roswell NM!
Uh... ri-i-i-i-ght.... Funny how I can all of a sudden hear the notes to the theme song of the "Twilight Zone" TV show playing in my head.... It takes all kinds to make a world, I guess.
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:2)
I wonder if the guy really believed what he was saying or if he just had a dry sense of humor and was trying to mess with your head.
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:2)
(a) wouldn't care a whole lot about Earth, we're one foot out of the ectoplasm. We haven't done anything interesting that a highly evolved civilization hasn't already done.
So why do scientists here on Earth travel long distances, cram themselves into tiny bathyspheres, sink great depths into the oceans and risk possible death just to study a few microbes that are still in the ectoplasm that live around a volcanic vent?
Re:UFO -- I can't believe, faked or not (Score:2)
Not only wouldn't care, probably wouldn't know...
If there is other life in the universe (which I believe there is, simply based on probability) then what are the odds that it would be able to get to Earth, let alone FIND it? To put it in perspective, finding the Earth in the universe would be like finding a specific grain of sand on a beach.
What cracks me up is that anything not immediately explained is assumed to be life from another planet. Where do people come up with this stuff?
Trained Pilot (Score:5, Informative)
What I do know is that it is not possible for a pilot to determine the trajectory of another object in the air for certain. A gust of wind can pitch or yaw the plane that I am in, making it appear that objects outside my craft have made sudden jumps across the sky. Human inner-ear is not capable of adapting to some sorts of disorientation. Pilots are trained to not trust inner-ear orientation, and use other cues instead. A radar is not immune to this problem either; in fact radar's have more problems than you can shake a stick at, even ground based ones.
Ideally pilots would attribute apparent strange motion of flying objects to his own craft's instability. However, older pilots were not trained to distrust the inner ear; and many pilots are just plain stubborn and still try to fly 'by the seat of their pants'. This is to detriment of their own safety and credibility as well.
Bottom line is that pilots chasing strange things in the air is not cause for belief in aliens, but rather cause for reflection on human error.
Re:Trained Pilot (Score:1)
Could be. But it's obtuse to assume so. Just because you can't explain it doesn't mean it couldn't possibly be there.
Say this phenomenon of silver discs performing aerodynamic feats un-doable by any aircraft were real -- what evidence would it take for you to conclude this is what is happening, and it isn't merely a fault of human judgement? It seems like no evidence would be sufficient for you if this phenomenon alone were actually occuring.
Re:Trained Pilot (Score:1)
Re:Trained Pilot (Score:1)
If this is a real phenomenon (I am not going to speculate on its origins,) what possible evidence would you expect to see that we don't already have tons of now? Say there are flying discs that we didn't make flying around performing impossible feats in the air that the government, for whatever reason, doesn't want you to know about. All you would get are third party accounts, video tapes, and similar things which are out there if you look for more than 2 minutes instead of just saying "bah, couldn't be" and deciding not to. The first website that comes to mind is The Disclosure Project [disclosureproject.com], but there are plenty of books and websites with similar stuff. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it's out there.
Not as good as it first seems (Score:5, Interesting)
It probably would have been better if the prosecutor had initiated proceedings, and then lost. It would set a favorable precedent.
Re:Not as good as it first seems (Score:1, Redundant)
Darn NASA (Score:5, Funny)
Guess this Raelian thing just isn't for me.
How to Make Your Own UFO... (Score:2, Funny)
NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
However from a very young age the one thing I've consistently liked is NASA. Yeah I know they have problems, but they represent a lot of dreams
About half a year ago I posted a comment saying I couldn't work out how to apply to NASA. A few people posted links, but they were all for things like biochemists and managers and stuff.
How do I get to do mad-scientist kinda stuff? Work on rockets and spaceships?
I worked at BAe Systems for a while hoping to get in via that route, but only one person had done it before me, and that was through creating better missiles to kill people with - not a route I wanted to go.
Re:NASA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NASA (Score:2)
Re:NASA (Score:4, Informative)
This link [nasa.gov] will let you apply to most nasa jobs, including the aerospace engineering jobs. The company I work for [wftech.com] built most of this site.
This link [nasa.gov] will let you apply to become an astronaut.
Re:NASA (Score:2)
They do, however, let ONE person out of the WHOLE of Europe become an astronaut! Woohoo.
I worked in aerospace at BAe... Wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. I think for now I'll stick with my degree, and try again in 5 or 10 years time
Re:NASA (Score:2)
But there are no turf wars and other silly things going on, so whether it is NASA, ESA, US or Norway or whatever, people don't care who gets the credit. It's only about popularizing science.
As for mad scientists... I don't know, but I'm doing stuff like firewalking, got a world record. I think the best thing is to look around and jump on things that look cool.
Re:NASA (Score:2)
Likewise for the european space agency. How do I get a space-related job there?
I'd love to fly to the stars, but know that I do not have the physic nor mental capability. But I want to at least be a stepping stone for someone else to get there.
RE: How to Make Your Own UFO (Score:3, Funny)
I rest my case.
Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S. Microsoft just had to restate their EOL on NT 4.0. Will you be doing the same in a couple of months?
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:4, Funny)
# ssh headless-machine
# apt-get dist-upgrade
Oh wait, first you have to install Debian.
Actually, no. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Actually, no. (Score:2, Funny)
just so happens (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:just so happens (Score:2)
what you have to do is read the list of things that would have been upgraded, and try to apt-get install a bunch of them... It may work, in which case repeat
If it comes back with dependency issues, then rpm -e the old software that's causing it to fail, then retry the apt-get install. The reason this works is because the old package name has been replaced with a different one and the package maintainers didn't label the upgrade path appropriately. It will grab the new version as a dependency for the install.
After enough repetitions of that, you'll have an upgraded system. Be prepared to spend an afternoon or so doing it.
Re:just so happens (Score:2)
As to the time, we're talking SLOW-MO here on my rural dialup and coal-fired modem, it's like weeks or at least many solid days, not an afternoon, heh. I actually have a set of cloned 8.0 disks but I didn't like the install so I went back to my (full price boxed set) 7.2 disks, from there to go the 7.3 upgrade path. 8.0 I could never get to even dialout, and without that, it was worthless to me. I might try to snag some of the progs off those disks later, especially open office and maybe gnome 2.
rpm -e, OK, I'll remember that and try it, thanks again
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:3, Insightful)
install new machine with new distro
test
switch DNS
no downtime.
otherwise, you have downtime. How can you afford downtime?
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:3, Informative)
Instead, swap IP addresses.
If they're on the same network segment, that's all you need to do.
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:1)
The trick is a combination of the -Uvh (update/install packages) and -Fvh (update packages only if older version is installed) switches to RPM. Along with removing some old packages that conflict, installing some new packages that are required by the new version, and, changing some config files (Which you have to do after an upgrade anyway).
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:2)
At least that's how I do it.
Re:Here's my question for Red Hat. (Score:1)
I've also built a kickstart floppy which activates and installs using a serial console. Also works like a charm.
IMHO Remote install/admin is mostly solved...
Typo (Freudian?): (Score:3, Funny)
I'm pretty sure that that should be recent, but resented would work pretty well, too.
Confusion about RedHat (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this somehow no longer allowed, or do things change too much?
Re:Confusion about RedHat (Score:3, Informative)
Update feature is nice for home system but for 24/7 shop you must came up with much more robust solution.
How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoze (Score:5, Funny)
I've always used Windowz and I consider myself an exceptional Visual
Basic programmer, so I know computers pretty good. In fact I got an A-
in my programming class last term. But I'm a little wary of how much
power Microsoft has in the computer field. Many of my friends use
RedHat and I've recently installed it on my machine at home. Although
I haven't had as much chance to play with it as I'd like, I've been
greatly impressed.
This weekend I gave some thoughts to the things that are wrong with
Linux. I hope no one minds having some flaws pointed out. I'd like to
help make RedHat stronger so it can conquer MS. Hopefully RedHat will
hear this (crossing fingers) and address these. I think with a little
effort, RedHat's Linux can defeat Microsoft's Windows!
To begin with, there are too many different flavors of RedHat.
Browsing a list on Amazon, I saw they made varients under the
codenames of Mandrake, Debian and Slackware, just to name a few. I
know that I'm very new to RedHat so maybe this is obvious but it seems
like RedHat should just sell a few different flavors of its operating
system. Perhaps one for the desktop and one for a server? Could
someone explain why RedHat produces dozens of different versions of
Linux?
Secondly did you know that anyone can view the source code to Linux! I
think that RedHat shouldn't make its code available. After all, what
keeps Microsoft from stealing RedHat's ideas and putting it into
Windows? My friend says that FreeBSD stole the TCP/IP stack from DOS a
long time ago and Microsoft is always looking for revenge for that.
Plus it seems to me like RedHat is just giving away its ideas for
free. And what keeps hackers or terrorists from tampering with the
code and putting a virus in every computer?
On a related note, why doesn't RedHat write Linux in assembly? My
friend says that's what Microsoft does for Windows, and that's why
Windows is faster and more stable than Linux.
Next RedHat definitely should kill -9 (ha, ha!) the command line.
Microsoft finally gave up DOS when Windows 2000 came out. I'm suprised
that RedHat hasn't migrated away from...whatever its version of DOS is
called (Bash, I think?) But maybe this is planned for a future
release?
Finally Linux needs games! RedHat will never be successful in the home
without games. They should also tell M$ to release a version of Office
for Linux too. And Internet Explorer!
Have a nice day! Go Linux!!
Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz (Score:2, Informative)
1) Red Hat linux is only one distribution. Mandrake is, yes, based on Red Hat, but they aren't the same company. Red Hat does not *own* linux, nor did they even create it. Search for "Linus Torvalds" on google. Red Hat was merely one of the first companies to package it and sell it for money. I consider them the AOL of linux: They make it easier for idiots to use this operating system, what with their packagae manager.
Debian and Slackware have absolutely nothing to do with Red Hat, except providing a copy of the rpm software (mainly because it's so easy most people use it. I refuse to, I like to compile my own). Each distro has its own list of software packages that they include, and THAT'S what separates them. Each incremented version (Red Hat 7.0 vs Red Hat 8.0, or Slackware 8.0) only means there are more recent versions of the programs included, maybe some programs added or removed. I believe they all use the kernels available at kernel.org [kernel.org], but I could be wrong.
I personally don't think Red Hat themselves are going to get anywhere *near* as large as microsoft, but I'm sure they're trying.
2) The GPL (open-source license) is the reason linux is as big as it is today: It allows people the ability to acquire this and LEARN it, without having to shell out too much money-- Even better, it allows them to take the software and modify it, making it better or adapting it to their purpose. This is what the linux community is all about. Microsoft taking the code and changing it, and then *charging* for it (which you know they ain't gonna give nothing for free) would go against that license, and they could be sued.
What's to keep hackers from creating virii to specifically target this OS? Nothing. Except that then *they* become susceptible to this virus as well. Personal opinion, most hackers use some flavor of *nix.
3) Kill the command line? The *reason* *nix is as powerful as it is? When was the last time you were able to modify *every* one of your 1,421 mp3 files with a single command? Windows has NOT eliminated the command line. Every single version of windows (excepting maybe CE, perhaps) comes with what they call "Command Prompt" or "MS-DOS Shell". What do you think this program is? it's like the joke "Windows 98 is a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit overlay on an 8-bit operating system created by a 2-bit company." (Isn't there a "4-bit" in there?)
4) I totally agree on the games. I'd like to see linux surpass Mac on game availability. I *would* purchase games for linux that were not released under the GPL. Close-source that crap, I don't care, just don't make me boot into windows to play games! Especially you, Blizzard!
Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz (Score:2)
Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz (Score:1)
At the time, however, I had classified it as "sarcasm", but I suppose satire fits better. It *did* make me laugh. But then again, isn't that what satire is? Humorous sarcasm?
Besides, how do you know there aren't linux-disabled people reading these posts? Perhaps it answered some of their questions. How do you think I learned what I know? Precisely because of posts like this.
Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz (Score:2)
it wasnt meant as an attack =) no harm intended, so i offer my apologies
Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz (Score:2)
I beleive it's a 4 bit processor
Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz (Score:5, Funny)
A recent spell of bad whether (Score:4, Funny)
Euroseti's not the only group needing meds (Score:5, Insightful)
>drawing board, or up their meds..."
Not to mention the Slashdot editors who posted this crap as a Science story in the first place.
PCI-SIG - what's the story (Score:5, Insightful)
Was the Lawyer acting on his own?
Did the PCI-SIG brass sick him on poor Jim on purpose, then realize their mistake?
Was it (my favorite) a marketing exec run amok?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Probably just use of the logo itself. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably just use of the logo itself. (Score:4, Informative)
If I'd been him, I would have just removed the logos and pasted a big "This website is not affiliated with PCI-SIG in any way, shape, or form." disclaimer. I still think his use of the logos was their main complaint, however. And before you go thinking that PCI-SIG is a big evil company bent on mass domination because they didn't want any possible confusion, the first communication directly says "request that you work through IBM to investigate the possibility of creaing a similar database of PCI(r) Vendor ID numbers..."
My immediate thought when I saw the first slashdot post [slashdot.org], saw that Mr. Boemler had taken down the site, and read the general
Re:PCI-SIG - what's the story (Score:2)
And yes, this is a good thing in both cases. But not *quite* as good as same thing happening without the public outrage. I wonder how many stories like that go unnoticed and thus unchanged...?
The problem with RedHat's EOL scheme... (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux needs to play to it's own strength (Score:4, Insightful)
Thirdly by having such an aggressive EOL policy is will force a much smoother upgrade process, being it via physical media or Internet upgrades.
Why should RH commit themselves to be held back whenits clearly not in their own interst, not the interest of the "desktop" users, Incl. Jane Sixpack.
Re:Linux needs to play to it's own strength (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, I have a RH 7.2 box at the office running some network tools (MRTG, BB, etc). We use Compaq Insight Manager for hardware monitoring. The new monitoring agents released by Compaq only want RH 8.0. The installer won't run on 7.2. If I don't upgrade the agents that box is flagged as running old software in the management tool.
So, I'll either end up going to RH 8.0 to get them on, or forcing them on to a 7.2 box, which means Compaq won't support them (should I need it).
Desktop (Score:1)
Sorry, but I think you have to get over it or stay with windows. (Bear in mind I am talking about Desktop not Server / Mission critical stuff) Looks like Compaq is getting with the "program" of quick upgrade cycle. This needs to continue and commercial SW vendors needs to incorporate this in their offering.
There was a very interesting Keynote a few days ago (can't remember by whom) the point the guy was making was that 85% of IT expenses was spend for keeping the "Status quo" only 15% was spend on development. This celarly needs to change and one way to do this is thru program like RH's steeper improvement rate.
Re:The problem with RedHat's EOL scheme... (Score:2)
The thing I love most about all of the *NIX variations is the wonderful way that UNIX was built to address file storage devices. I'm not the least bit concerned by Red Hat's EOL cycle because I know that I can mount a partition where I keep non-redundant data and just leave that partition alone whenever I load the next GNU/Linux or *BSD distro. The thought of teaching GNU/Linux "newbies" how this works is a bit daunting...but I'm willing to do it.
--K.
The Truth is Out There (Score:5, Funny)
How bad is the Red Hat EOL? (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that "if it ain't broke, don't touch it" is a good rule for IT. But Red Hat won't be forcing you to upgrade all your machines, it just will be refusing to support old installs. If it ain't broke, you don't need support, right?
The other thing is that Microsoft upgrades often come with serious changes: you can't just install the new version, you have to change your whole setup. Isn't it true that Linux server software is generally backwards-compatible, and you can upgrade your packages to the latest stuff without changing the way the servers are set up?
Finally, I run Debian, and it's easy for me to upgrade a system with just an ssh connection. Can Red Hat admins remotely upgrade packages over ssh, without having to install APT for Red Hat? (And if not, how do real sysadmins feel about APT for Red Hat?)
steveha
Re:How bad is the Red Hat EOL? (Score:2, Interesting)
Right now, I just log into the Red Hat Network page, which costs $100/yr/machine, and push a few buttons to upgrade all machines. I can also install new software remotely, though I'm not sure this is going away.
Red Hat does basic QA on each package, and they keep version numbers stable by back-porting fixes from new versions. This is GREAT because it means you can drop in the new package without having to update config files, etc.
Once the system reaches end of life, this happy arrangement IS GONE. If a huge security bug is found in Apache, that $100/yr does me absolutely nothing because Red Hat will not release a new package for my 7.2 or 7.3 system.
I have to go in and compile from scratch, or port the newer RPM. Kinda tough to do with 100+ systems, or even 10+ systems. Clients are counting on me to keep the machines up to date every day.
Basically, Red Hat does nothing to help me once the product is EOL'd.
Alternatively, I can upgrade to the new version of Red Hat every year. Which means:
1) Old hardware has to be upgraded. I have a 486 running 7.0 and that's about all it can run. Come March, I have to replace it. Not a big deal, right, but the machine was working fine! Why should I replace it.
2) I have to go from machine to machine and upgrade the entire OS. This is a huge expense in terms of hours. For machines that are off-site in client's facilities, this is almost impossible without a few plane tickets or long distance phone calls. There doesn't seem to be any easy way to upgrade the entire OS from the command line as you can do in FreeBSD or Debian.
3) New OS setup has to be tested. Every year. This is simply more and more expense. For instance, we would have to switch from Apache 1.3 to 2.0, which is not stable with PHP or mod_perl last I checked.
Or alternatively: I'll just switch all those machines to another OS like Debian, and cancel all my $100/yr Red Hat subscriptions.
It's a pain in the ass no matter what. I'm here with money in hand, willing to pay a few hundred/yr (NOT $800) and Red Hat offers me nothing.
bitch, moan, etc.
Re:How bad is the Red Hat EOL? (Score:4, Informative)
Historically, it has taken two years or more for Debian to release, so there are at least two years where any particular version is the official stable version. I think Debian doesn't keep officially supporting old releases very long after a new "stable" release happens... but again, Debian systems are very easy to upgrade.
If you want to try Debian, I say go for it. Of course you should start out small and make sure it works for you, with just one or two servers. I suggest you start out with that 486. See how it likes Debian.
steveha
Re:How bad is the Red Hat EOL? (Score:1)
Re:How bad is the Red Hat EOL? - Not very really. (Score:4, Informative)
I understand that "if it ain't broke, don't touch it" is a good rule for IT.
Of course this is very true.
If it ain't broke, you don't need support, right?
Unfortunately, new exploits for software (such as sql, ssh, web, ftp and dns servers) come out all the time, and these programs need to be patched. The situation is even worse if you have users logging in and/or executing programs on the server.
While possible, installing programs without using 'official' packages throws away the benefits of using a RPM system in the first place, particularly it's ability to verify the integrity and compatibility of installed programs (which it's main point of superiority over Debian's package management system).
Fortunately having done this for various versions of Red Hat on many systems, I can say it's a complete breeze to upgrade Red Hat systems (and as such it's hard to criticise Red Hat for EOL'ing these old distributions). You only need to pop in a CD of the latest version of Red Hat and select 'Upgrade'. It does an excellent job of not screwing up your system configuration or other data, while still upgrading all your applications.
It's quite possible to let someone who's never run Linux in their life and doesn't know a single UNIX command to upgrade a Red Hat system, as it only requires clicking through the graphical installation wizard, selecting 'Upgrade' where appropriate. The only downside is having to hook up an interface (i.e. keyboard/monitor) to the server, and that it requires downtime.
Finally, I run Debian, and it's easy for me to upgrade a system with just an ssh connection. Can Red Hat admins remotely upgrade packages over ssh, without having to install APT for Red Hat?
You can upgrade packages over ssh, Red Hat systems are even capable of being updated with a single click over the web or 'pushed' signed updates by Red Hat's central server, if you register with the Red Hat Network (IIRC you may register 1 system with them for free, or pay ~$65 a year for each system, it's a genuinely excellent server management system and well worth it IMO). However this does not help when said system is running a version of the distribution that has been EOL'd, as there will be no official packages to patch the bugs which are subsequently found.
Additionally, the features of RPM which make it better in ensuring a high level of compatibility and allow it, unlike Debian, to offer package integrity checking also make it awkward to use in many cases (and not nearly as pleasant as Debian!), which of course would be cured by APT-GET for RPM, which brings us on to...
(And if not, how do real sysadmins feel about APT for Red Hat?)
I love APT. I use Debian on all my home systems, and I even use apt on my OS X based PowerBook. (Though I admit I have reservations about using APT on production servers).
Sadly, however, all implementations of APT for RPM that I have tried have been dreadful and hideously bug ridden, and I have only heard of the same poor experiences from friends and colleagues. I think a workable version of APT for RPM would require active effort by Red Hat, but I do not see that happening any time soon as they have other priorities (and the corporate market they are targeting does not bemoan the lack of APT, the existing RPM system adequately meets their needs).
Re:How bad is the Red Hat EOL? - Not very really. (Score:2)
There are two answers I'd like to give to this:
(1) Red Hat have always provided better quality packages (by which I mean they are more polished, with much more accurate meta data). Additionaly, in actuality, I belive that debsum -ca is no where near as useful as rpm -Va. If your a Debian user too I don't need to point that 'stable' is wildly out of date and that 'un-stable' is, as the name implies, often wildly unstable.
2) The idea that the only difference factor is simply the quality of the package and that there is no significant differnce in the package management systems is false. Crucialy, Debian lacks anything which matches the power of rpmlib [rpm.org].
In summary, while Debian manages to be much easier to maintain and use for personal desktop systems, it does not have the professional level of polish and intergrity that is required by most corporate (server) environments - partly due the the package management system (and rpmlib) and partly due to the quality of Red Hat's packages. As the forcus of Debian's maintainers is primarily users and developers, rather than the servers of large corporations, I think this situation is unlikely to change in immediate future.
Redhat 'penetration' (Score:3, Funny)
sounds very uncomfortable.
Re:Redhat 'penetration' (Score:2)
T
Redhat created their support problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with a RedHat release is that there's no way to update it to the latest version without a reinstall. RPM as implemented by RedHat is good for maintaining a single version of the software but isn't good for maintaining and upgrading it. The "updates" Redhat produce don't change the version of the package, they just fix bugs. Updating to the latest version of a package is a nightmare of dependency problems. RPMs offered by vendors are pretty much only good for a single RedHat release (making life difficult for pretty much everyone).
Debian on the other hand allows you to get the latest version of the software and everything it needs in a single command. Upgrading is usually pretty painless.
Same problem with SuSE (Score:2)
Re:Same problem with SuSE (Score:1)
Re:Redhat created their support problem (Score:2)
The fundamental flaw in the way RPM works (or worked, I like many had my first Linux experience on a RH system.. 5.0, I think, but I dropped it for Gentoo nearly a year ago) is that RPMs seem to state their dependencies in terms of particular files that they depend on, whilst Gentoo (and Debian)'s packages depend on packages that contain those files.
In theory both systems would seem valid, but in practice one seems to work much better than the other. I could grab an ebuild from the oldest release of Gentoo and install it on my bleeding edge installation and it would work. Equally I could install a brand new ebuild on a very old installation and (after upgrading the necessary) it would work too.
In my experience that just isn't the case with Redhat's RPM system.
Let's talk ET (Score:4, Insightful)
However (I'm playing the devil's advocate here), a lot of people make nothing more than assumptions about ETs not visiting us. Unfortunately, there really isn't any evidence against ET visiting us. Of course, there isn't any strong evidence for it.
All the assumptions that people use in arguments against ET visits seem, to me anyway, like nothing more than a projection of our own technological progress upon a possibly existent or non-existent non-earthly species. Could it be that skeptics are more ranting about the little amount of technological progress we've hitherto made?
We've had widely accepted assumptions in the past that have been hugely mistaken (e.g. the Sun orbiting the Earth.) Why is this any different? Sure, we don't have any evidence for it, but that only means that we can only say, "We don't know."
Re:Let's talk ET (Score:2)
This is kind of backwards. In most cases, the burden of proof is on the person making the somewhat outlandish claim. For instance: If I say that I have a purple elephant living in my colon, you would say "No way! Prove it!" (that and "Ouch!"). If I replied with "Prove that I don't!", you'd call me an idiot.
And, if you are enough of a doubter, it is impossible to prove anything except your own existance (just ask Descartes...)
T
'A dose of your own medicine' (Score:1)
I hate it when other people say it, and saying this now is leaving a bitter taste in my mouth(?), but..
If you don't like RedHat's EOL policy, choose a different distro or maintain it yourself etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda
I chose Debian [debian.org] ages ago anyway so naaaaaaaa :p
Re:Slashdot Problems (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdot Problems (Score:1)
There are people who subscribe to this site. I'm sure they're getting the downtime, too.
Re:Slashdot Problems (Score:1)
Here I found a reasonable reference to tell me why I can't "get there from here" [internetpulse.net].
It may not be /.'s fault...
Re:I REALLY SAW A UFO!!!! (Score:1)
Re:Why does NASA care? (Score:2)
- NASA is funded by the US Congress
- Congress is voted for by "The People"
- "The People" get silly ideas
So when enough folks get the idea that NASA is lying to them, they are willing to vote for people who advocate shutting down NASA.The frightening part is that it doesn't neccesarily need to be that *many* people who believe in the issue -- we have an almost exclusively two-party system here, which makes "swing voters" very powerful -- folks who will pick one candidate over another based entirely on one issue -- in other words "fanatics".
So most people could not care less what your position on NASA is as a Congressional candidate. It doesn't even make the list, next to health care, economic policy, and whether you sleep around (sigh). But if a small group of fanatics will vote based on your position on NASA, and the election is close, voila, you the polititcian now have a position on NASA that helps get you elected...
I suspect in Germany, which has a healthy multi-party system, these swing-voter effects are much weaker. But here in the USA, these relatively small groups who will vote entirely on single issues (abortion policy springs to mind as a good example...) get the major parties to take positions on that issue even though the swing-vote group is a single-digit percentage of the populace.
Re:Why does NASA care? (Score:2)
Why does NASA care what these people are quacking about? Don't they have anything better to do?
Put it another way. Why should the nutters have it all their own way? What we need on the web are more sites saying that all this UFO, face on mars, crop circle, dowsing stuff is a load of old cobblers, to redress the balance in the name of science, sanity and common sense.
For every Bad Astronomy [badastronomy.com] or James Randi [randi.org] there are dozens of web-enabled nutcases spouting the most insane bollocks, and where this concerns something NASA is involved with I think they've got a perfect right to put the case straight.
Good for them.