On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 14:29:15 -0600 "Brian Kelsay" writes: > from: > http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/13/121205&mode=thread&tid=126&ti d=152&tid=163&tid=185 > post#: 7466332 or > http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=85746&cid=7466332 > To sum up: > > AT&T: Sauron. They created The One Ring (Unix), tried to use it to > exert a hold over thousands of licensees, but lost it inadvertently > (to the public domain and the valiant Berkeley). But Berkeley, according to this definition, are the DWARVES! The dwarves weren't involved in the first great war against Sauron! If we took it from a Tolkien purist viewpoint, then what you're saying is that the valiant folks at *RedHat* and *IBM was what brought down AT&T, and that isn't true to the UNIX history at all! Ahhh, you all are just totally ignorant of the classics! > SCO: Gollum. They got a hold of the Ring, they're convinced it's > "My Preciousss..." and will make their lives wonderful, yet they > are essentially unable to do anything powerful with it. They are > also schizophrenic, having one happy Caldera personality that > wants to be friends with Linux users and one evil The SCO > Group personality that wants to kill them all. Novell (The Kings Of Gondor) think that Gollum's (SCO) claim is a load of meadow muffins, because while he might own all the coding rights, they own the original patents, having acquired them in a "hostile takeover" of AT&T (Sauron). :) > Torvalds: Wizard. RMS would fit here too- Perhaps Linus as > Gandalf and RMS as Radaghast the Brown- equally powerful, > but one concentrating on hobbits and the other on birdies. Ironically, Bill Gates fits in here perfectly as Saruman, the "White Wizard" who took computing away from the folks in the white coats and gave it to the masses, spawning a Computing Order which encouraged individuals to take up computing for the Good Of The Masses. Saruman used to be good, remember. Then Bill Gates (Saruman) was enticed into joining the ranks of the powerful Monopolists (and AT&T (Sauron), was among those ranks). He wasn't directly in league with AT&T, but he did steal a lot of power from AT&T (DOS incorporated a lot of UNIX stuff when users complained that their IBM PCs couldn't do everything that their UNIX shell accounts could). Linus Torvalds (Gandalf) wouldn't have gotten into attempting to port UNIX to x86 architecture without the groundwork Bill Gates laid to make x86 architecture the most popular non-mainframe hardware around. Then Linus Torvalds (Gandalf) left college (fell into a pit) while battling a giant BSD Demon (Balrog). The Balrog was defeated and Linus Torvalds' OS rose to become the more popular OS. And while GNUs can't fly, one rescued Linus Torvalds from Saruman's Tower. :) > Red Hat: Humans you aren't sure you can trust. > > BSD: Dwarves that can kick anyone's ass but are more content > with chillin' in the mountains. > > Ibm: Elves that you're pretty sure are on your side... > > Mac OS: Hobbits. You think that you know them, that they're > "mostly harmless" cuddly and cute, and serves no real purpose; > but then, one day one goes off and steals from a dragon. > > I humbly submit that this be called the XaoRoyMne Theory > of Unix Races. It needs a little work to be pure Tolkien. ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:39:22 -0800 Rick Franklin writes: > A few questions from a "newbie". Linux and peripheral software change so frequently that in some way, we're all "newbies". But none of us will admit that we are, and I never said that. :) > Question #1: What is a good source for a new user to > learn how to properly install rpm's? Ouch. I don't like RPMs and avoid them like the plague (Slackware's package manager is good enough for anyone! ANYONE! hahahahahaha!). Having said that, find books on RedHat. RedHat having invented the RPM package manager, they naturally have the most information on RPM. A good place to go for computer books which are slightly outdated but still useful is MicroCenter at about 93rd & Metcalf (Kansas side). They have a book section with a large subsection (five whole shelves) of "bargain books" ranging from $1.99 to $5.99 in price (original prices between $19.99 to $60). Now, probably the best RedHat book you'll find is for RedHat 7.1 but you'll get more reference material for learning RPMs without spending much money. If you have a bigger disposable income than I do, buy something more current on the topic of the current RedHat distros. That kind of book you can get anywhere. > #2: What is a good CD burning program? ... Kb3 and > cdbakeoven are not friendly to me, and I did not want to > just give up and flip back to Nero. Well if Nero is what you want, you might want to try Arson. I've never used it myself, but all the documentation suggests it works very similar to Nero. If all you want to do is burn data CDs (Intel-only or PC/Mac hybrid) and burn audio CDs, installing GNOME and selecting "install cd-burning packages" will install a nice little program called gcombust. I've been using it for years and gcombust does a decent data CD and audio CD. All it does is provide a front-end to mkisofs (creates a ISO9660 CD ISO Image) and cdrecord (burns ISO images onto CDs), but it does it in a fairly straightforward fashion without confusing instructions, checkboxes, or buttons. And if you really want to have total control, just use mkisofs and cdrecord from the command line interface. Learn how you like it, and type it in the same way each time (or write your own shell script to automate the CD burns). But that is probably something for later, as you are a beginner at Linux. > and 3: Are these typical issues addressed in your meetings, > or are the meetings devoted to deeper subjects only? Of the few meetings I've been able to attend, the subjects range from programming projects to cable colors. If you ask a question, it will be answered. There are no "newbie snobs" at these meetings (and if there are, they hide their true colors). Now, they might make fun of your hardware, if its really old, but otherwise you're going to enjoy yourself and get questions answered. ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! > From: "Matt G" > > > Hey Guys: > > > > I've never been good at knowing how much hard drive > > a motherboard can handle. I know there were limits on > > older motherboards, but not so many limits on newer ones. > > > > I just purchased a new 80gb hdd, and I know it'll go in > > my PIII box just fine (I has a PCI ata/100 controller card.) > > But, I'm not sure what'll fit in my old AMDK6 233 box. > > Currently, there is a 4gb, and a 15gb in there. I'd really like > > to put the 40gb in there that I'll take out of my PIII, but > > I'm having trouble finding info on what will fit. > > > > I'm not sure the exactly make/modle of the motherboard in > > the K6 box. > > > > I'll investigate. But if anyone knows any general rules on > > this stuff, I'd love to hear. Linux tends to ignore hardware BIOS limits, but the consideration is at boot time. I think that there's a 160GB limit on some of the older motherboards. One trick I've done in the past, and I have an AMD K6 233 too that I've used this trick on, is to put a hard drive which does work, such as an old 1GB drive, into the system as /dev/hda (master device on primary IDE channel). Then stick the /boot partition onto that drive. Once you've made certain that your Linux box will get past boot time, you can stick just about any other hard drive into the system on any of the other IDE channel positions. With the above trick, I managed to get a 40GB hard drive onto the same AMD K6 233, on which the old OS Windows 98 refused to accept anything bigger than the standard 8.4GB hard drive limit on older motherboards. The configuration was, as I remember it: /dev/hda: 1GB. /boot (50MB), /var (rest of the drive). /dev/hdb: 40GB. /, /usr, /home /dev/hdc: CDROM /dev/hdd: CDROM ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!