Linux.ie

shamrock

linux.ie anybody intrested in *nix stuff might find it interesting.

sisob

Originally posted by shamrock
linux.ie anybody intrested in *nix stuff might find it interesting.

yes - it is the home of the ILUG (irish linux users group) and their mailinglist

most useful

dahamsta

dahamsta is omnipresent!

adam

EDIT: Course, what I should have said was:

THERE'S NO JUSTICE. THERE'S JUST ME.

logic1

Which is why I stuck a link for it in announcements ages ago

.logic.

Typedef

Originally posted by dahamsta
dahamsta is omnipresent!

adam

EDIT: Course, what I should have said was:

THERE'S NO JUSTICE. THERE'S JUST ME.

Clearly using an rpm based distro has gone to dahamsta's head, I rekomend a dose of Slackware followed by a long stay in FreeBSD land and possibly some supplementary treatments of setting up X86 on Solaris intel, so that we might wean some of the more eccentric.... members back to the land of reality.

dahamsta

Clearly using an rpm based distro has gone to dahamsta's head

<CUTTING SARCASM>
Yeah, convenience has always been a right pain in the arse for me. You know me, I like to spend hours farting about with obscure, complex ./configure arguments that invariably result in make errors and entirely the wrong configurations. Binaries suck, hence the complete failure of Microsoft to gain an unprecedented market share in the operating system market, and the enormous popularity of Linux From Scratch.
</CUTTING SARCASM>

I rekomend a dose of Slackware followed by a long stay in FreeBSD land and possibly some supplementary treatments of setting up X86 on Solaris intel, so that we might wean some of the more eccentric.... members back to the land of reality.

Ha! If you were a proper purist, you'd be using Linux From Scratch, man, or some obcure yoke we've never even heard of before, man. You're just quoting trademarks man, you're nothin' man, nuthin'!

Oh yes, you're the great pretender (ooh ooh ooh).

heh

/adam cues the flame war

Typedef

Originally posted by dahamsta
<CUTTING SARCASM>Binaries suck, hence the complete failure of Microsoft to gain an unprecedented market share in the operating system market, and the enormous popularity of Linux From Scratch.
</CUTTING SARCASM>

Linux fron scratch website
One of the key benefits of LFS is that you are in control over your system without having to rely on somebody else's Linux implementation like Debian. You are in the driver's seat now and are able to dictate every single thing such as the directory layout and boot script setup

Hmm I would have thought that dictating the configuration of a linux distro would have appealed to certain unamed moderators.

I seem to remember a conversation between an iofline moderator lets call him cain and a certain member lets call him Typedef, no wait thats too obvious lets call the mod dahamsta and the member mr_x in which a certain besandled mod had a version of OpenBSD 2.8 and was extolling his happiness with OpenBSD and all things OpenBSD and how a certain member should move his server away from slackware in favor of BSD, not that that proves anything per-say, but I'm sure someone who is omnipresent can sense a certain dicotomy in extollation of all things binary and all things OpenBSD. Clearly bearded, sandled people can sometimes become mad and egomanical, but with regards unix people this normally comes from overuse of the rpm. J'accuse.

Back on topic, I seem to have been told by a little bird that someone has a soft spot for RedHat, last time I checked a binary based distro that does not currently hold a monopoly over 95% of desktop pcs, now either the end is nigh, or some unnamed moderators have gone off the deep end, probably due to prolonged exposure to binary distrobutions.

dahamsta

I would have thought that dictating the configuration of a linux distro would have appealed to certain unamed moderators. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Et. Cetera. Ad. Nauseum.

As a wise man once said, "it depends"[1].

Take this unnamed mod as an example, who runs a couple of live, quite heavily trafficked, dedicated servers; and a couple of wee boxes at home for storage, and the craic. In the dedicated enviroment, interruptions must be kept to a minimum, but more importantly, custom-configured setups can be problematical and difficult to manage. Say for example that the user configured PHP --with-trans-sid[2]. The user then develops webapps for both himself and his clients that take advantage of this handy little option, uploads them to his server, and sits back to enjoy a can of Pepsi Max, at the expense of his clients, patting himself on the back for a job well done.

However, when the wonderful PHP developers grace said mod with the next release of PHP, with some new, fantastic option that the mod gets positively orgasmic over, he forgets to configure PHP --with-trans-sid, and, horror of horrors, finds several hundred emails in his Inbox threatening legal action and actual bodily harm, because his clients websites have stopped working. Said mod quite literally drops a log at this stage, and has to scramble to correct the situation pretty quicksmart, if he wants to retain the use of his legs. With the Red Hat Network - and its binaries - this would be a very unlikely turn of events.

Conversely, when the mod in question is working at home, on his dinky little Red Hat 7.2 box, which he uses for compiling, storing his email, and quite often breaking, he doesn't particularly care if something goes wrong, unless the screw-up involves an rm -fR[3]. A slightly different situation will occur with his OpenBSD gateway and firewall, when he finally gets it, because he will not be required to be "bang up to date" on that machine, and will only have to custom configure when serious flaws are found with the distribution - which doesn't happen all that often.

I seem to have been told by a little bird that someone has a soft spot for RedHat, last time I checked a binary based distro that does not currently hold a monopoly over 95% of desktop pcs, now either the end is nigh, or some unnamed moderators have gone off the deep end, probably due to prolonged exposure to binary distrobutions.

Ah, but now one is making an impossible comparison, apples and oranges, chalk and cheese! It is illogical, nay silly, nay positively idiotic to compare Linux and Windows at this time. They are as alike as Heineken and Beamish, Babycham and Aftershock, the sun and the moon. I hasten to add though, that it may not be for too much longer. And it may be sooner than we are happy with, if the rumours of AOL and Red Hat are true. This fictional mod can but hope they are not, or he will be faced with seeking a new distro whose merits he can extoll. And it won't be Debian or Slack, he would probably say...

adam

PS. I have never, ever, in my life, worn sandals. Flip-flops when I was young and innocent, I will concede, but never sandals. I will confess to having a duffle coat when I was eight though. I'm not proud of it.

[1] Actually, it was some old loony I never met that used to get slagged on the CB, but that's neither here nor there.

[2] Which is a topic that is particularly close to his heart, because said user has been upset for quite some time that Red Hat supplies RPM's without that particular configuration option.

[3] Which, I might note, happens all too often in this mods house, and is almost fully responsible for the too-regular temper tantrums, and the cat's otherwise unexplainable fear of Pepsi Max.

Typedef

Originally posted by dahamsta
Take this unnamed mod as an example, who runs a couple of live, quite heavily trafficked, dedicated servers; and a couple of wee boxes at home for storage, and the craic. In the dedicated enviroment, interruptions must be kept to a minimum, but more importantly, custom-configured setups can be problematical and difficult to manage. Say for example that the user configured PHP --with-trans-sid[2]. The user then develops webapps for both himself and his clients that take advantage of this handy little option, uploads them to his server, and sits back to enjoy a can of Pepsi Max, at the expense of his clients, patting himself on the back for a job well done.

This is the fallacy though, it's not Red-Head Linux that is the source of goodness in this setup, it's the linux you see? The fallacy is further extended when the admin who is running the Red-Head boxes starts to snort the cocaine that comes gratis with the Red-Head distro. This leads to cocaine induced delusions such as dahamsta is omnipresent! and usually prompts otherwise 'normal' people to insist that people call him 'Mr the plague'.

However, when the wonderful PHP developers grace said mod with the next release of PHP, with some new, fantastic option that the mod gets positively orgasmic over, he forgets to configure PHP --with-trans-sid, and, horror of horrors, finds several hundred emails in his Inbox threatening legal action and actual bodily harm, because his clients websites have stopped working.

Hmm ok, however what do you do when the useability starts getting in the way? Like when you want Mandrake or Red-Hat or SuSE to do something and something goes wrong with the nice gui and you have to start grep -l -r -s ing your way through obscure scripts and uncommenting or commenting lines of shell script in a vain attempt to work around the failure of a gui? I'll elaborate, try telling SuSE 7.0 that you have a winmodem working under linux. Nine, because YaST was designed to look for isdn or /dev/ttyS* entries when looking for a ptp dial in device, therefore when you try to configure the chap-secrets and pap-secrets and some other attached and pertinant files SuSE claps out because it has some kind of paranoid (someone is going to hack the chap-secrets file ethos) shock horror. My solution? rm -rf /etc/ppp on the SuSE partition and mount Slack partition and simply cp -R -v -f /mnt/etc/ppp /etc/ppp, so much for a big brother distro. QED.

Said mod quite literally drops a log at this stage, and has to scramble to correct the situation pretty quicksmart, if he wants to retain the use of his legs.

Then said mod should lay off the coke that comes with his Red-Hat distro, this would also presumably make a 'certain' unnamed and prominent moderator less likely to think himself omnipresent.

A slightly different situation will occur with his OpenBSD gateway and firewall, when he finally gets it, because he will not be required to be "bang up to date" on that machine, and will only have to custom configure when serious flaws are found with the distribution - which doesn't happen all that often.

So move your servers to OpenBSD.

I hasten to add though, that it may not be for too much longer. And it may be sooner than we are happy with, if the rumours of AOL and Red Hat are true.

Could be good for getting Linux into the desktop market if AOL/Timewarner have business interests in proliferating their new investment?

This fictional mod can but hope they are not, or he will be faced with seeking a new distro whose merits he can extoll. And it won't be Debian or Slack, he would probably say...

It'll be OpenBSD apparently, though you'll have to find a new coke connection hahaha.

: _Use of Slackware Linux increases your IQ.

dahamsta

This is the fallacy though, it's not Red-Head Linux that is the source of goodness in this setup, it's the linux you see?

But it's not. Red Hat's Package Manager is the source of sweetness and light, because said user doesn't have to fart about with configure and make for four (apache, openssl, mod_ssl, mod_php) packages, neither does he have to read installation instructions for same, which are quite often painfully out of date. The only disadvantage, is of course the example I have given - that it's possible some packages may not be exactly configured as required. This is more down to third-party software developers though, who require uncommon environments. Still though, I wish Red Hat would add trans-sid to PHP. It's not as if it can't be disabled by default, for chrissakes! mutter moan

Hmm ok, however what do you do when the useability starts getting in the way? Like when you want Mandrake or Red-Hat or SuSE to do something and something goes wrong with the nice gui...

I'll stop you there. Who on god's earth runs a gui on servers? (Windows administrators need not apply.)

Then said mod should lay off the coke that comes with his Red-Hat distro

Dahamsta Doesn't Do Drugs. And if Red Hat were to bundle anything with their distros, it should be Jolt Cola and Penguin Mints. (Dahamsta pops over to bugzilla.rehat.com...)

this would also presumably make a 'certain' unnamed and prominent moderator less likely to think himself omnipresent.

Dahamsta strikes Typedef down from on high.

So move your servers to OpenBSD.

Why? Red Hat is an excellent solution for servers. It's easy to deploy, easy to maintain, and because it's so widely used, it's the distribution that gets most attention in the community, and therefore is easier to find solutions for. OpenBSD is for gateways, firewalls, and paranoid delusionaries, always has been.

Could be good for getting Linux into the desktop market if AOL/Timewarner have business interests in proliferating their new investment?

Nah, I don't think so. I can't see AOL having any interest in supplying or supporting the desktop market, I think it more likely they would use it for appliances, and of course to get their hands on Red Hat's worthy assets. But they wouldn't get good value on those assets as it stands - their market cap is enormous, and their earnings ratio is ludicrous. I still reckon a cleverly managed Star Office rollout will be a major step on the road to general acceptance. Course, I could be wrong, no-one seems to know what AOL are thinking, and everyone involved is keeping their mouth shut. It could just be a hoax and a half.

It'll be OpenBSD apparently, though you'll have to find a new coke connection hahaha.

Mandrake is my second favourite distro, although that's more for the workstation. That said, they do appear to want to move more into the server side of things. And Coke is gross. Pepsi Max rots your teeth much more evenly.

adam

moist

*thwaps Typedef with a large trout*

Originally posted by dahamsta


But it's not. Red Hat's Package Manager is the source of sweetness and light, because said user doesn't have to fart about with configure and make for four (apache, openssl, mod_ssl, mod_php) packages, neither does he have to read installation instructions for same, which are quite often painfully out of date.

I don't particularly want to get into this os/distro tripe.
However...

I havn't really used rpm to any great extent since about RH6.1
at that time I found it rather flakey, at times dependencies went _way_ outa whack.
They never really endeered themselves to me.
I've even had debians apparently wonderful package management to totally pear shaped on me.

Perhaps I'm just jinxed with binary package management as I have never had troubles with
the FreeBSD ports

Anyhoo, my point...
Regardless of weather I'm using a binary distro or one built from source
I will _always_ build apache/ssl/php by hand, that way I have it exactly the way I want it.
However, I always keep known working versions completly seperate to the new install.
i.e. The current version might be in /usr/local/apache_1.3.19/ and I install the new one in /usr/local/apache_1.3.22/
with all binaries and libs under that directory structure.

That way, I can install the new version, run it on a different port, check everything is working
properly and then switch over, still in the knowledge that I can switch back in an instant.

Like yourself I have been bitten in the backside installing a new version
that was missing a particular feature, however in this case it was a binary package.
Granted in this case it was a mistake on my part but I was still left with a krippled server even though I, at that stage, went the binary route.

- Just saying loike, theres pitfalls either way,
at least my there is an easy fallback.


<edit> dang tpyo's</edit>

scojones

linux.ie sucks, *.linux.ie are wide open and just need some script kiddie to figure out how to use [ edit: Forgive me father for I have much yet to learn at Tralee IT] and they'll be owned. I really shouldn't post this to the board. oh well i don't like alan cox.

dahamsta

And of course you reported this alleged security weakness to the administrators of linux.ie before you posted here, yes?

And what precisely has Alan Cox got to do with it?

adam