Text 8225, 281 rader
Skriven 2006-11-29 21:25:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MAURICE KINAL
Ärende: of ethics and hard drives
=================================
-=> MAURICE KINAL wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 MK> Hey WAYNE!

 MK> Nov 29 15:21 06, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote to MAURICE KINAL:

 WC>  Hey now I was talkin hardware not software.
 
 MK> So was I.  If there is a need for drivers they should be willing to let
 MK> the kernel people know and let them take care of it the way it is
 MK> currently being done.  That way we all benefit from it rather then just
 MK> a few distributions who fall for the stunt of proprietary crap.  I
 MK> think that is the best idea all the way around.

OK, i get your meaning now and concur.

 WC>  I made plain I'm Debian and Slackware exclusive as of recently.

 MK> Understood.

 MK> The thing about the Gateway I saw was that all that was onboard was
 MK> supported in a modern Linux kernel already so there isn't really too
 MK> much to sweat other then to insure that the kernel you boot up on there
 MK> has the right stuff either built in, as in the case of whatever drive
 MK> you plan to mount on /, or as modules where and when applicable.
 MK> Sometimes things are better modularized.

This sucker is wide open, standard and ready to rock out of the box.
I plugged it in after putting in the hard drive.
The CMOS battery died but even that was easy to access and the holder
better than usual quality.
Nothing else needed done and zero problems.
Found the USB 1.1 ports work fine last night.
Already backed up.
Futzed the backup once so I ran rm -u /home/wchirnside/* /mnt/archive
putting it all on /dev/sda1

Hmm, proof reading reveals that would have been better rm -u ~/*
Yesterdays habits.

 WC>  Not to mention rock solid standard electronics and chipsets.

 MK> From what I saw, yes.
 Wonder what they put out today not that that's likely to be required.
 I may look just to find out.

 MK>> I do. I got a kick about what Linus had to say about Intel in the
 MK>> latest rc patch.  :-)

 WC>  Missed that one but got a hoot out of an introduction to Linux
 WC>  guide recently read.

 MK> That too.  I've seen comments in Unixie documentation that brings a
 MK> smile to my face every now and then.  Same with 'fortune'

 WC>  May google for it Linus recent BIOS

 MK> I forget offhand the url but the sponsors are out of California, the
 MK> clustering people in Livermore <sp?> if I am not mistaken.  I haven't
 MK> been there for a spell now.

 No problem, I'm pretty much the ace of keyword searches going off the main
page
 but employing quotes, plus or minus signs to include or exclude items matched.

 WC>  For some odd reason they seemed to think Linux superior to to
 WC> Microsoft
 WC> Windows.

 MK> Geez, I wonder why?  ;-)

Once I got past the intimidation factor I was sold.
Microsoft exists only to provide me with inexpensive quality 
computer hardware that won't run their latest release.
You know, life is good.

I had a neighbor who worked with Microsoft OS for both private and high
security
government offices that absolutely loved Microsoft but not for the reason most
might anticipate.
He hated Linux, it didn't break and he couldn't make lots of money
on such contracts.
So he specialized in a crap operating system to get rich.
Sounds like a government job to me.
He routinely upgraded perfectly working SCUSI drives just for capacity as well
but unfortunately
was forced to destroy them for security reasons.

I find this odd when the U.S. government put up plans on how to build nuclear 
weapons on a web site in arabic no less but I'm rather ignorant of the working
of the intelligence 
community.
What do I know of its workings?

 Re: windows
 MK> I never did like it from the moment I first saw it (Win 2.0 on a 5.25"
 MK> floppy targetting 286's).  My first thought was that nobody will buy
 MK> that!!!  Just goes to show how wrong one can be eh?

I got Windows 3.1 to work reliably much of the time using lots of added in
after market drivers
alterations in ini files, adding RAM caching utilities and so very much much
more
and it only took me about 5 years at which time it was obsoleted.
Shoot, you'd almost think it was planned to _work_ that way if that's the right
word.

I could wipe this drive with Linux on it and be up, secure and fully restored
customized
to what I've now with only 1/2 meg of files saved to floppy as well
as stored on my ISP mail server in two days.
Actually a good deal less time since last nights backup.
Basically compile mplayer and LAME and a couple of other trivial file tweaks.

 MK> Anyhow I never bought it and after Win 3.1 took off I managed to ditch
 MK> anything stamped with the Microsoft brand off ye' ol' 386 I had at the
 MK> time.  That was the best thing I ever did in DOS.  Wasn't too long
 MK> after that when I finally bit the bullet and installed my first Linux.
 MK> Haven't regretted that move.

I never went beyond 3.1 either except for the H.P. dumped on my doorstep dead
by someone disgusted with problems and the need to upgrade.
Had all Win 98 disks, docs and registration numbers.
Nothing but trouble and never did get it going reliably.
Prompted my switch to Linux it did and I can't say I miss it.

 WC> Don't feel the need to keep apace my posting.

 MK> You either.  :-)

 been notified email I go long so shortly shall trim back but I enjoy talking
 Linux here with you and others..

 MK> less is great, even zless.  I doubt I could live without it anymore.

Who could. think I discovered it a couple of weeks back.
Don't think about taking it away from me.

 WC> Hey is their an bzip2 equivelent?

 MK> bzless.  Also a bzmore and a bzcat while we're at it.  I use bzcat
 MK> quite a bit as well as zcat and plain ordinary cat.  cat is my friend
 MK> even without compression but even moreso with it.

Youch, inudated, figures.
Well I can save this packet as I just deleted a whole lot of saved senseless
nonsense QWK packets.

 WC> Once again we're on the same page.

 MK> Yeah those were great.  There are still server boards being made with
 MK> ATI chips onboard.  They work.  :-)

 WC> Lot's of arrogant people talking down to newbies in the Linux echo
 WC> and making
 WC> fun
 WC> and taking shots at them.

 MK> Oh yeah.  Never did like newsgroups even before there was public access
 MK> on the internet.  Same with chat though.  Other then the stinkin'
 MK> headers, Fido is best but I wish I could have stayed an ordinary user.
 
Never done chat but I seem to recall gaim is it, something like that here.
I've got Skypee saved in download.
Need to find some Linux user overseas who wants to chat linux on the internet
phone
just it check it out.
 
 MK> Sysoping and being responsible for stupid formats is far too annoying
 MK> but I still like Fido in spite of that.  If there was a decent BBS in
 MK> these parts I'd opt out to become a user again and let the sysop there
 MK> deal with the silliness.  <EG>

Yeah all the local bords here crashed nad burned yuears back all but Doc's
Place.
The Apparatus used to keep deep, deep archives and you could reset pointers a
couple years
in many cases even though drives were expensive then.
Best Buy has a Western Digital 80 Gig HD for 61 dollars today no rebate.

 WC> There's no need for any of that IMO
 WC> You, Paul, James, Martin and one or two others didn't talk down to me
 WC> or lord yourself over me with airs of arrogant superiority.

 MK> Yep.  We're the good guys!!!  ;-)

No arguement.

 MK> There used to be more.  :::sigh:::

Yeah, Rick Collins comes to mind, many, many more.
Good thing Roy T. isn't here to read what I wrote about the government
trashing good SCUSI drives

 WC> You  helped me to get to a foundation of knowledge to where I could
 WC> learn and
 WC> operate independently on my own.

 MK> That is definetly the way it used to be.  Fido lost too many of those
 MK> types along the way for whatever reason.  Good thing there are still a
 MK> couple really stubborn old coots still hanging in out of spite (<- my
 MK> best guess as to why).

I think things are getting worse for the most part.
I much prefer how it used to be as well.

 WC> Lynx another day when once again feeling bold and less likely to be
 WC> intimidated
 WC> by the unfamiliar.

 MK> It is really easy.  Far better and easier then it used to be before
 MK> there was a www and I first stumbled on it.  I think it was Netscape
 MK> that really screwed things up in httpd world although IE didn't help
 MK> matters any.

Good enough for me.
I'll be checking it out sooner than I'd expected.

 WC> Hey anyway it was a great awakening that /dev/sda came right up into
 WC> play.

 MK> Yep.  Works great for hotswapping.

Glad you brought that up, snip the rest and reply if USB 1 and 1.1
are hot swapable.
I need to recheck my docs but was unclear on if that capability dates to
USB 1.0

I've all the Gateway docs local in HTML as Gateways support has it all on web 
site retreivable with serial number.
Quite detailed and extensive too.

 WC > 
 WC> BIOS
 WC> dependent
 WC> perhaps GRUB will facilitate that?

 MK> I doubt it.  From my experience it is a bios problem as to bootability
 MK> from the mbr.  You could boot it from a existing bootable drive's mbr
 MK> though but the boot kernel will have to reside on that drive rather
 MK> then on the usb one.  If the usb interface is indeed bootable then all
 MK> is the same as any regular drive other the the need for sg (scsi
 MK> generic).

I sort of question it also however the one boot option reads
"removable device" rather than floppy thus I'm thinking
it just may fly.
What else could it be for but zip drive or USB?
I'm rather certain not a flash RAM.
It's got CD, removable and hard disk boot options
but a drawback of not having windows on the machine is I don't get
the opportunity to reboot every 12 minutes so I don't recall if it has network 
boot available as an option.
The BIOS release on it is the last for the box after it shipped
as the numbers match to the flash upgrades docs I downloaded from Gateway.

 MK> Soon.  I am still putting the final touches on my next attempt at a
 MK> development system.  Didn't care too much for the kernel headers I used
 MK> on my previous attempt and reverted back to a prior version except
 MK> upgraded everything else to more recent versions.  So far it looks to
 MK> be a keeper.  I like when that happens although I'd have preferred if
 MK> the kernel headers could have been upgraded.  Next time.  ;-)

For a while there I was enjoying trashing my system considering it rote
learning
and an avenue to better standardizing  of my file system however I'm quite
comfortable with 
the way it is now. 

Finally ready to play around with su.
Before judged it too easy to mess up but now a nice shortcut.
Previouly made myself log in as root to give a moment pause to think it
through.
Now to work on that rsync backup cron job in the next few days.
If a typical Linux chore it'll be a snap.
As I said, slash cut any reply for length but hit  points of interest.
I find it ever so hard to edit down your informative posts

 
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.47
 * Origin: Try Our Web Based QWK: DOCSPLACE.ORG (1:123/140)