On Fri, 07 May 2010 07:54:46 +0000, Bob Martin wrote:

in 735370 20100507 004157 Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 06 May 2010 23:05:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I've only been programming under *nix for 25 years.

Newbie...!

Yep, 46 years since I wrote my first 1401 program.

34 years since my first Unix program!



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 11:53

Tim Watts wrote:
Mike Clarke
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 09:58

Bob Eager wrote:

We always believed that sh was for scripting, and csh for interactive
work. Which is what I still do.
Same here except that I prefer perl for scripting.


Perl rules. Though I can see the merits of Python for the same basic
reasons. AFAIAC, shell (any traditional flavour) stinks for more than the
most trivial scripting. The fact is though that every system has a shell
of some short, but not every system has perl (embedded for example) so it
is ubiquitous.

But I don't see why that non embedded systems don't switch to using perl
- it would probably be more efficient as you wouldn't be spawning
hundreds of processes running cut and grep and so on during system
startup.

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

Real programmers use a compiler.

Don't be silly. Are you going to write sysadmin scripts in
C/C++/Java/Go/D/FORTRAN/whatever then compile them evertime you need to
tweak something?

I've written a whole server applications set (several daemons) in perl. The
CPU spent about 1% of its time running these despite them being in heavy
use processing lots of network data from dozens of clients. Most of the
load was in the RDBMS as I expected. Why would I torture myself with, say
C, when I can get regex, memory management and proper arrays and
associative arrays for free, and without the need to bother compiling?

Not to mention a comprehensive set of libraries (CPAN). Hell of a lot easier
to drop a quick print statement in here and there for debugging too.


--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...

But I don't see why that non embedded systems don't switch to using perl -
it would probably be more efficient as you wouldn't be spawning hundreds
of
processes running cut and grep and so on during system startup.

We saved 50% of the boot time for unix by taking the bits of source from
the various startup programs that were run and compiling it into one
process. Not bad for a couple of hours work.

On 07/05/2010 11:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Perl is great. It's possible to use it in a foul manner, but it's also
possible to use sensibly.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

It's a great tool for programmers doing sysadmin type tasks, as well as
little problems.

Real programmers use a compiler.

http://xkcd.com/378/
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

Professional programmers use the appropriate tool for the job.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Huge wrote:
On 2010-05-07, Bob Martin wrote:
in 735370 20100507 004157 Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 06 May 2010 23:05:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I've only been programming under *nix for 25 years.
Newbie...!
Yep, 46 years since I wrote my first 1401 program.

Well, that sure beats me, since it was ~1970 when I wrote my first
program. In FORTRAN.

1968 FORTRAN

But not under *nix, cos it didnt exist!

I wrote my first FORTRAN program in primary school.
Square roots by successive approximation not "hello world".
It was run on a cdc machine (IIRC) at Imperial college after sending the
cards in the post.
That would be sometime around 1966.
I still remember the porta punches we had to use.

On 06/05/2010 22:14, Adrian wrote:
Another gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

The OP is talking about a 9 year old. You are talking about a
"terminal". What does that mean?

Applications - Accessories - Terminal.

This is clearly an irony-free zone; I'm well aware what a terminal is.

All this talk about sudo this and sudo that is simply proving my point
that recent versions of Ubuntu are as user-friendly as a cornered rat
and that Mint has taken over the niche that Ubuntu used to grace until
the Taliban took over.

Another Dave

Another Dave gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

The OP is talking about a 9 year old. You are talking about a
"terminal". What does that mean?

Applications - Accessories - Terminal.

This is clearly an irony-free zone; I'm well aware what a terminal is.

Yet you don't think that a kid who's clearly interested will find it...?

All this talk about sudo this and sudo that is simply proving my point
that recent versions of Ubuntu are as user-friendly as a cornered rat
and that Mint has taken over the niche that Ubuntu used to grace until
the Taliban took over.

Not sure about that. TBH, I don't know why any of the suggested "just dip
to terminal" stuff actually needs to - it's all available through GUI,
for the point-and-drool brigade who can't think beyond a nice friendly
wizard that'll let you do things this way, this way, or this way. But if
you want to do it THAT way, you're SoL.

On 06/05/10 16:00, Graeme wrote:

The problem. A nine year old son who is *desperate* to download and play
with Ubantu, for reasons unknown. Posts here suggest that Ubantu may not
be the best choice for someone who is keen to learn, but a complete
novice (with a Father who knows a little about DOS and Windows but
nothing of Linux).

Which flavour would you recommend?

We have a spare PC that he can use, without the risk of doing anything
terminal to the main PC. He talks about Linux and dual booting, but
doesn't really know much about the subject. I have a two port KVM switch
box, the idea being that he can run two PCs at once, using Linux on one,
then switching to the other standard Windows PC, to find help, etc.

Words of wisdom will be appreciated :-)

Although it looks confusing to an outsider you shouldn't worry too much
about which version. Ubuntu is the latest mainstream distro to release a
new version and that's as good as any other criterion for choosing. It
helps that it's also a relatively newbie-friendly system. You should
encourage him to try several others in due course.

Running Linux in a separate machine is preferable to dual-booting
because that's a bit complicated to fix if it goes pear-shaped.

The other criterion that I might consider using is the availability of a
local expert who would be available to help out. If you have one of
those available then choosing whatever system they are familiar with
could be a good choice.


--
Bernard Peek

On 7 May, 09:55, Huge wrote:
On 2010-05-07, Bob Martin wrote:

in 735370 20100507 004157 Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 06 May 2010 23:05:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I've only been programming under *nix for 25 years.

Newbie...!

Yep, 46 years since I wrote my first 1401 program.

Well, that sure beats me, since it was ~1970 when I wrote my first
program. In FORTRAN.

--
Today is Boomtime, the 54th day of Discord in the YOLD 3176

FORTRAN IV

On Fri, 07 May 2010 12:46:41 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...

But I don't see why that non embedded systems don't switch to using
perl - it would probably be more efficient as you wouldn't be spawning
hundreds of
processes running cut and grep and so on during system startup.

We saved 50% of the boot time for unix by taking the bits of source
from the various startup programs that were run and compiling it into
one process. Not bad for a couple of hours work.

Would be a waste of effort here, given the infrequent reboots.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On Thu, 06 May 2010 16:00:59 +0100, Graeme wrote:

The problem. A nine year old son who is *desperate* to download and
play with Ubantu, for reasons unknown.

Find out.

Does he want to learn how Linux works, or does he want to just dive in
and use something that's relatively painless to get up and running but
isn't Windows?

If the former, something like Slackware. If the latter, something like
Ubuntu.

(with a Father who knows a little about DOS and Windows but nothing
of Linux).

It all depends on your type of mind, I think. I tend to like stuff that's
clear and concise and just does one task rather than trying to do a
million things at once; I got started with SLS in 1993 (which later
became Slackware) and it all just Made Sense - all the various bits had
well-defined jobs, configuration was quick and easy and not at all
confusing.

These days I look at something like Ubuntu, and I just don't get on with
it - everything seems unwieldy and bloated and confusing to me (in other
words, it retains many of the faults of MS Windows). It's the wrong
choice for me, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad...

We have a spare PC that he can use, without the risk of doing anything
terminal to the main PC. He talks about Linux and dual booting, but
doesn't really know much about the subject. I have a two port KVM
switch box, the idea being that he can run two PCs at once, using Linux
on one, then switching to the other standard Windows PC, to find help,
etc.

Other options are to use the windows box as a remote GUI - or, if he just
wants to learn Linux/UNIX, don't even bother with the GUI at all and just
telnet or ssh to the Linux machine from the windows one via a DOS window.

cheers

Jules

Tim Watts wrote:
The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 11:53

Tim Watts wrote:
Mike Clarke
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 09:58

Bob Eager wrote:

We always believed that sh was for scripting, and csh for interactive
work. Which is what I still do.
Same here except that I prefer perl for scripting.

Perl rules. Though I can see the merits of Python for the same basic
reasons. AFAIAC, shell (any traditional flavour) stinks for more than the
most trivial scripting. The fact is though that every system has a shell
of some short, but not every system has perl (embedded for example) so it
is ubiquitous.

But I don't see why that non embedded systems don't switch to using perl
- it would probably be more efficient as you wouldn't be spawning
hundreds of processes running cut and grep and so on during system
startup.

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

Real programmers use a compiler.

Don't be silly. Are you going to write sysadmin scripts in
C/C++/Java/Go/D/FORTRAN/whatever then compile them evertime you need to
tweak something?


see. Sysdamin scripts are not programs. Just crap hacks.

And yes, why not?

editing and typing 'make' is not actually very hard...

I've written a whole server applications set (several daemons) in perl.

Shudder. I've seen scripts like that. you need to buy a new CPU just to
run them.


The
CPU spent about 1% of its time running these despite them being in heavy
use processing lots of network data from dozens of clients. Most of the
load was in the RDBMS as I expected. Why would I torture myself with, say
C, when I can get regex, memory management and proper arrays and
associative arrays for free, and without the need to bother compiling?


Why indeed. Obviously you haven't seen the reasons.

Not to mention a comprehensive set of libraries (CPAN). Hell of a lot easier
to drop a quick print statement in here and there for debugging too.

Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 11:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Perl is great. It's possible to use it in a foul manner, but it's also
possible to use sensibly.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

It's a great tool for programmers doing sysadmin type tasks, as well as
little problems.

Real programmers use a compiler.

http://xkcd.com/378/
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

Professional programmers use the appropriate tool for the job.

Which is almost never PERL.

On Fri, 7 May 2010 12:56:05 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson
wrote:


These days I look at something like Ubuntu, and I just don't get on with
it - everything seems unwieldy and bloated and confusing to me (in other
words, it retains many of the faults of MS Windows). It's the wrong
choice for me, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad...


It's funny, I installed the Mint flavour of Ubuntu yesterday and
whilst it all worked fairly well it seems more confusing than Ubuntu.

Maybe it's because I'm more used to the layout of Ubuntu and when I'm
in Liniux I'm not thinking Windows / OSXand Mint seems / looks more
like Windows than Ubuntu does.

However, when it comes to connecting to stuff and making it work it
(or more probably I) don't seem to have that much luck.

Like, I've spent a couple of days trying to get a Freecom USB DTV
stick working under Ubuntu / Mint and so far have failed. It works on
the same machine under X?/Vista 'easily'. Same with my new Fuji Z53
camera. Plug it into Windows and it 'just works', Linux can't even see
it?

This was a similar experience with OSX. It generally works well
enough, if it works at all. If it doesn't my only reliable way out has
been to go out and buy expressly OSX / Linux friendly kit. Not always
possible or affordable.

For yer typical 'youth' user Ubuntu does Facebook, general IM, plays
music and can sync with yer iPod (if not the Apple iTunes store) and
isn't typically the same risk to bad things as an unprotected Windows
machine (often unprotected because they can't be bothered to do the
updates nor pay to have it fixed when it goes belly up).

So, whilst I keep giving this Linux stuff a go (and think it's really
coming along now) it's not yet a Windows replacement for me.

Cheers, T i m

On 07/05/2010 14:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 11:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Perl is great. It's possible to use it in a foul manner, but it's also
possible to use sensibly.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

It's a great tool for programmers doing sysadmin type tasks, as well
as little problems.

Real programmers use a compiler.

http://xkcd.com/378/
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

Professional programmers use the appropriate tool for the job.

Which is almost never PERL.

A comment indicating an almost dennis-like level of cluelessness.

Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 14:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 11:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Perl is great. It's possible to use it in a foul manner, but it's also
possible to use sensibly.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

It's a great tool for programmers doing sysadmin type tasks, as well
as little problems.

Real programmers use a compiler.

http://xkcd.com/378/
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

Professional programmers use the appropriate tool for the job.

Which is almost never PERL.

A comment indicating an almost dennis-like level of cluelessness.

A comment indication a large and unsatisfactory exposure to PERL
programmers who said it was better, and failed to achieve speed, CPU or
RAM efficiency or largely to make the programs work at all.

Maybe I've been unlucky, but PERL programmers in my experience are
almost always bad programmers

T i m wrote:
On Fri, 7 May 2010 12:56:05 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson
wrote:


These days I look at something like Ubuntu, and I just don't get on with
it - everything seems unwieldy and bloated and confusing to me (in other
words, it retains many of the faults of MS Windows). It's the wrong
choice for me, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad...


It's funny, I installed the Mint flavour of Ubuntu yesterday and
whilst it all worked fairly well it seems more confusing than Ubuntu.

Maybe it's because I'm more used to the layout of Ubuntu and when I'm
in Liniux I'm not thinking Windows / OSXand Mint seems / looks more
like Windows than Ubuntu does.

However, when it comes to connecting to stuff and making it work it
(or more probably I) don't seem to have that much luck.

Like, I've spent a couple of days trying to get a Freecom USB DTV
stick working under Ubuntu / Mint and so far have failed. It works on
the same machine under X?/Vista 'easily'. Same with my new Fuji Z53
camera. Plug it into Windows and it 'just works', Linux can't even see
it?


That's slightly non trivial.

I've got a Happauge in mine, and it does work, but only with totem-xine
... but the latest kernels did include drivers that understood it.



This was a similar experience with OSX. It generally works well
enough, if it works at all. If it doesn't my only reliable way out has
been to go out and buy expressly OSX / Linux friendly kit. Not always
possible or affordable.


Its a bit better with Linux. Sometimes a limited functionality is
achievable.

For yer typical 'youth' user Ubuntu does Facebook, general IM, plays
music and can sync with yer iPod (if not the Apple iTunes store) and
isn't typically the same risk to bad things as an unprotected Windows
machine (often unprotected because they can't be bothered to do the
updates nor pay to have it fixed when it goes belly up).

So, whilst I keep giving this Linux stuff a go (and think it's really
coming along now) it's not yet a Windows replacement for me.


It never will be if you want latest hardware plug and play. However that
card SHOULD work.

if you want to try, switch the problem to comp.os.linux.misc, and lets
see what may be done.

Or have a look here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=990998

Cheers, T i m

On 07/05/2010 14:35, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 14:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 11:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Perl is great. It's possible to use it in a foul manner, but it's also
possible to use sensibly.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

It's a great tool for programmers doing sysadmin type tasks, as well
as little problems.

Real programmers use a compiler.

http://xkcd.com/378/
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

Professional programmers use the appropriate tool for the job.

Which is almost never PERL.

A comment indicating an almost dennis-like level of cluelessness.

A comment indication a large and unsatisfactory exposure to PERL
programmers who said it was better, and failed to achieve speed, CPU or
RAM efficiency or largely to make the programs work at all.

Maybe I've been unlucky, but PERL programmers in my experience are
almost always bad programmers

I'm not a perl programmer, but I will program in perl when appropriate.
Speed, CPU and ram efficiency have never been a problem with my perl
programs, unlike in certain other compiled languages - the perl stuff
has always been surprisingly fast and never made a dent on memory.

Depressingly though, in real life CPU and ram efficiency aren't nearly
as important as they once were. You can get away with a hell of a lot
when your limiting factors are database and network - my app servers
mostly sit there doing bugger all, and the database server does the real
work. And we pay database vendors to get the CPU and ram efficiency they
need - they're not my problem.

On 06/05/2010 19:33, Graeme wrote:

One small problem. I have a KVM switch box, but had forgotten that the
Windows PC is fairly new, and only has USB for mouse and keyboard. Drat.

Not a problem. Use one of these connected between that PC and the KVM
switch.

USB TO PS/2 PS2 CABLE MOUSE KEYBOARD CONVERTER ADAPTER
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/370352606138 £1.39 inc. post

Mine (not the above but similar) works faultlessly with a Dell Dimension
3100 & Belkin Omni 4-port PS/2 KVM.

--
Adrian C

The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 14:06

Tim Watts wrote:
The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 11:53

Tim Watts wrote:
Mike Clarke
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 09:58

Bob Eager wrote:

We always believed that sh was for scripting, and csh for interactive
work. Which is what I still do.
Same here except that I prefer perl for scripting.

Perl rules. Though I can see the merits of Python for the same basic
reasons. AFAIAC, shell (any traditional flavour) stinks for more than
the most trivial scripting. The fact is though that every system has a
shell of some short, but not every system has perl (embedded for
example) so it is ubiquitous.

But I don't see why that non embedded systems don't switch to using
perl - it would probably be more efficient as you wouldn't be spawning
hundreds of processes running cut and grep and so on during system
startup.

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

Real programmers use a compiler.

Don't be silly. Are you going to write sysadmin scripts in
C/C++/Java/Go/D/FORTRAN/whatever then compile them evertime you need to
tweak something?


see. Sysdamin scripts are not programs. Just crap hacks.

Rubbish. 23,000 lines of perl at Imperial (DoC) looking after both the
installation and day to day maintenance (anything from user accounts, files
updates, package management and server management) says you're wrong.
17,000 lines are common modules reused several dozen times typically.

That's not some ugly monolith either - it is a well structured set of
modular "applets" that each do one small job and do it well. The
installation system (completely replaces the native distribution installer)
and the maint stuff have survived a transition from managing 2 versions of
Mandriva to various versions of Ubuntu (excepting the package management
module, which was rewritten to handle debs rather than rpms).


And yes, why not?

editing and typing 'make' is not actually very hard...

No it isn't. But writing in C is if the task might be done with 1/4 of the
code in a higher level language.


I've written a whole server applications set (several daemons) in perl.

Shudder. I've seen scripts like that. you need to buy a new CPU just to
run them.

Which bit of 1% did you miss?


The
CPU spent about 1% of its time running these despite them being in heavy
use processing lots of network data from dozens of clients. Most of the
load was in the RDBMS as I expected. Why would I torture myself with, say
C, when I can get regex, memory management and proper arrays and
associative arrays for free, and without the need to bother compiling?


Why indeed. Obviously you haven't seen the reasons.

That's because the code architecture was sane. Anyone can write crap code in
any language.


Not to mention a comprehensive set of libraries (CPAN). Hell of a lot
easier to drop a quick print statement in here and there for debugging
too.



--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 14:07

Clive George wrote:
On 07/05/2010 11:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

Perl is great. It's possible to use it in a foul manner, but it's also
possible to use sensibly.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

It's a great tool for programmers doing sysadmin type tasks, as well as
little problems.

Real programmers use a compiler.

http://xkcd.com/378/
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

Professional programmers use the appropriate tool for the job.

Which is almost never PERL.

Back in the real world of sysadmin and web applications....

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 14:35


A comment indication a large and unsatisfactory exposure to PERL
programmers who said it was better, and failed to achieve speed, CPU or
RAM efficiency or largely to make the programs work at all.

Maybe I've been unlucky, but PERL programmers in my experience are
almost always bad programmers

I've seen several clueless examples of Java - does that make Java a bad
language?

Lots of web pages are the offspring of satan - is XHTML and CSS that bad?

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

Huge wrote:
On 2010-05-07, Tim Watts wrote:
The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Friday 07 May 2010 11:53


PERL is neither fish nor fowl nor fresh red herring. Just foul.

TNP confirms that there is indeed no area of "expertise" in which he
isn't prepared to demonstrate that he's a drooling retard and that
his killfile entry is well deserved.


WEll I made more money out of IT than you ever did, so whether or not I
am a drooling retard, at least I am a rich drooling retard thanks to my
understanding of computer and networking hardware and software.

Its a tool for sysadmins with pretensions towards programing.

Real programmers use a compiler.
Don't be silly.

Quite.

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 06 May 2010 23:21:31 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

And you get a choice of shells. Bash is the most common default, but
religious wars exists over tcsh. And for people like me, you can get a
perl shell.

We always believed that sh was for scripting, and csh for interactive
work. Which is what I still do.

Although I lean towards REXX for many scripting solutions now...

I have always considered csh the work of the devil ;-)

"Huge" wrote in message
...
On 2010-05-07, David WE Roberts wrote:

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 06 May 2010 23:21:31 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

And you get a choice of shells. Bash is the most common default, but
religious wars exists over tcsh. And for people like me, you can get a
perl shell.

We always believed that sh was for scripting, and csh for interactive
work. Which is what I still do.

Although I lean towards REXX for many scripting solutions now...

I have always considered csh the work of the devil ;-)

I used it for years, despite it being "flakier than a snowstorm" but
switched to bash a couple of years ago and am perfectly happy with it.

For writing scripts I use perl.

Are you a Perl Monk?

On Fri, 07 May 2010 16:10:54 +0100, David WE Roberts wrote:

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 06 May 2010 23:21:31 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

And you get a choice of shells. Bash is the most common default, but
religious wars exists over tcsh. And for people like me, you can get a
perl shell.

We always believed that sh was for scripting, and csh for interactive
work. Which is what I still do.

Although I lean towards REXX for many scripting solutions now...

I have always considered csh the work of the devil ;-)

I couldn't do without the programmed command completion (copied, but not
equalled, now by bash).



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 07 May 2010 12:46:41 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...

But I don't see why that non embedded systems don't switch to using
perl - it would probably be more efficient as you wouldn't be spawning
hundreds of
processes running cut and grep and so on during system startup.

We saved 50% of the boot time for unix by taking the bits of source
from the various startup programs that were run and compiling it into
one process. Not bad for a couple of hours work.

Would be a waste of effort here, given the infrequent reboots.

Its a waste of time for 99.999% of users, but not when you have system
availability requirements that allow a few seconds a year downtime.

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...


Depressingly though, in real life CPU and ram efficiency aren't nearly as
important as they once were. You can get away with a hell of a lot when
your limiting factors are database and network - my app servers mostly sit
there doing bugger all, and the database server does the real work. And we
pay database vendors to get the CPU and ram efficiency they need - they're
not my problem.

It sounds like it is your problem.
I had to have Informix changed to get reasonable performance from it.
It was fairly obvious why it was very slow but they didn't appear to know
why?
I don't know what happened after IBM acquired it.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...


WEll I made more money out of IT than you ever did, so whether or not I am
a drooling retard, at least I am a rich drooling retard thanks to my
understanding of computer and networking hardware and software.

ITYM other people lack of understanding.

Graeme wrote:
The problem. A nine year old son who is *desperate* to download and
play with Ubantu, for reasons unknown. Posts here suggest that Ubantu
may not be the best choice for someone who is keen to learn,

Ubuntu will be fine - get a corporate surplus desktop for £50 and let him
play.

On Fri, 07 May 2010 14:43:31 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


Like, I've spent a couple of days trying to get a Freecom USB DTV
stick working under Ubuntu / Mint and so far have failed. It works on
the same machine under X?/Vista 'easily'. Same with my new Fuji Z53
camera. Plug it into Windows and it 'just works', Linux can't even see
it?


That's slightly non trivial.

It is.

I've got a Happauge in mine, and it does work, but only with totem-xine
.. but the latest kernels did include drivers that understood it.

I think this (Ubuntu) sees the dongle as the LED only went on after it
had downloaded the restricted drivers and a channel scan does bring up
a batch of progs. It's just when I start Kaffeine Digital TV it
gives me a:

Cannot find demux plugin for MRL
"fifo:/home/tim/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine/dvbpipe.m2t"

whatever that means.


This was a similar experience with OSX. It generally works well
enough, if it works at all. If it doesn't my only reliable way out has
been to go out and buy expressly OSX / Linux friendly kit. Not always
possible or affordable.


Its a bit better with Linux. Sometimes a limited functionality is
achievable.

This Mac Mini is mainly running XP and all my (sometimes old /
bizarre) hardware works. The same machine booted into OSX and I have
to miss out on some hardware and software (like my Voda Mobile BB
dongle 'works' under OSX but because I don't think there is an app for
that I can't just click on a 'Check Credit' button. Same with Linux of
course.


So, whilst I keep giving this Linux stuff a go (and think it's really
coming along now) it's not yet a Windows replacement for me.


It never will be if you want latest hardware plug and play. However that
card SHOULD work.

I'm sure it's partly my lack of Linux experience but it *is*
frustrating when I can boot my Tosh A300 Lappy in XP or (even!) Vista
and everything works. All starts well with (say) Ubuntu, it sees all
the built in hardware (better than Windows in fact) then fails by not
(easily) working this tuner or seeing a 'digital camera' (of all
things). Then I can get my WHS to run backups, can't print to my Samba
print server, etc etc. I can't even use XP under VirtualBox because I
can't get it to see the USB devices. ;-(

Now I dare say that is this was 100% OSX or Linux then I wouldn't have
many of those inter connectivity issues but there is a good reason
I've been running Windows for the last 20 years (even if it is as the
LCD).

if you want to try, switch the problem to comp.os.linux.misc, and lets
see what may be done.

Ok, thanks, I may well do.

Or have a look here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=990998

That looked interesting as well, thanks. However (because I don't know
enough) I'm always a bit worried when stuff doesn't explicitly mention
my OS version and hardware (the hardware looks right on the link
though). I say that because it's quite possible a later release of the
OS already caters for my hardware but something else is wrong (it
could be simple / trivial) and my blind stumbled attempts to 'fix' a
problem stand a good chance of making things worse. Luckily, when this
happens (and it often does) I have no data on the Linux installs so
I'm happy to use a sledge-hammer to crack the nut and re-install from
scratch.

He trouble with many 'linux people' is they have forgotten what it's
like to be a total noob and even the most simple and basic instruction
can fail at the first attempt. A classic example of that being told to
exit a particular file and I've actually found, opened and edited the
file but can't save it because I don't have the right 'permissions'.

And not all of us want to 'learn_all_about' this sort of thing. We
just want to try something else and at a level we are used to (ie, via
a GUI and with most stuff working / being supported directly). The fun
being 'a change is as good as a rest'. Most of us don't mind getting
the jack out now and again but don't expect to have to re-weld it just
to make it work! ;-)

Cheers, T i m

T i m wrote:
On Fri, 07 May 2010 14:43:31 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


Like, I've spent a couple of days trying to get a Freecom USB DTV
stick working under Ubuntu / Mint and so far have failed. It works on
the same machine under X?/Vista 'easily'. Same with my new Fuji Z53
camera. Plug it into Windows and it 'just works', Linux can't even see
it?

That's slightly non trivial.

It is.
I've got a Happauge in mine, and it does work, but only with totem-xine
.. but the latest kernels did include drivers that understood it.

I think this (Ubuntu) sees the dongle as the LED only went on after it
had downloaded the restricted drivers and a channel scan does bring up
a batch of progs. It's just when I start Kaffeine Digital TV it
gives me a:

Cannot find demux plugin for MRL
"fifo:/home/tim/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine/dvbpipe.m2t"

whatever that means.


Try totem-xine media player.

Worked for me.


I'm sure it's partly my lack of Linux experience but it *is*
frustrating when I can boot my Tosh A300 Lappy in XP or (even!) Vista
and everything works. All starts well with (say) Ubuntu, it sees all
the built in hardware (better than Windows in fact) then fails by not
(easily) working this tuner or seeing a 'digital camera' (of all
things).

Odd. USB camareas usually 'just work' - they are, after all simply USB
disk drives as far as teh computer is concerned.


Then I can get my WHS to run backups, can't print to my Samba
print server, etc etc.


Why use a samba print server at all? That's a windows hack.

If you have a printer attached to a linux server, then use CUPS to talk
to CUPS direct.




I can't even use XP under VirtualBox because I
can't get it to see the USB devices. ;-(


Download the proper version from Sun. The open source doesn't have USB
enabled.

Now I dare say that is this was 100% OSX or Linux then I wouldn't have
many of those inter connectivity issues but there is a good reason
I've been running Windows for the last 20 years (even if it is as the
LCD).
if you want to try, switch the problem to comp.os.linux.misc, and lets
see what may be done.

Ok, thanks, I may well do.
Or have a look here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=990998

That looked interesting as well, thanks. However (because I don't know
enough) I'm always a bit worried when stuff doesn't explicitly mention
my OS version and hardware (the hardware looks right on the link
though). I say that because it's quite possible a later release of the
OS already caters for my hardware but something else is wrong (it
could be simple / trivial) and my blind stumbled attempts to 'fix' a
problem stand a good chance of making things worse. Luckily, when this
happens (and it often does) I have no data on the Linux installs so
I'm happy to use a sledge-hammer to crack the nut and re-install from
scratch.

He trouble with many 'linux people' is they have forgotten what it's
like to be a total noob and even the most simple and basic instruction
can fail at the first attempt. A classic example of that being told to
exit a particular file and I've actually found, opened and edited the
file but can't save it because I don't have the right 'permissions'.


Yes. But these things can be tackled slowly and carefully. Its not a
reason to not use the stuff.


And not all of us want to 'learn_all_about' this sort of thing. We
just want to try something else and at a level we are used to (ie, via
a GUI and with most stuff working / being supported directly). The fun
being 'a change is as good as a rest'. Most of us don't mind getting
the jack out now and again but don't expect to have to re-weld it just
to make it work! ;-)


Point accepted. Despite having used *nix for years, I never wanted it on
my desktop, until really I got fed up with windows and decided to take
the plunge. The fact that its taken me about 2 years to get to 90% of
what I want, with a few issues I can live with, is the downside...Linux
is not as plug and play as one could like, and, indeed, making it that
way is to an extent destroying some of what makes it good.

However, it keeps on getting better.

And I have to say, going back to windows feels like a backward step
these days.

I tried OS-X and Mac, but the cost..the cost..everything costs, and
there is almost no free software. And when it breaks, it breaks badly -
beyond repair sometimes.

Cheers, T i m

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

And I have to say, going back to windows feels like a backward step these
days.

Some (most?) people just can't get on with linux, I removed ubuntu from an
machine yesterday, win 7 runs much better on it.
I didn't charge much as its a five minute job once you have manually removed
the linux partitions.
Windows wont just remove linux, like linux will remove windows without any
proper warnings.

On May 8, 3:43*am, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
T i m wrote:
On Fri, 07 May 2010 14:43:31 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Like, I've spent a couple of days trying to get a Freecom USB DTV
stick working under Ubuntu / Mint and so far have failed. It works on
the same machine under X?/Vista 'easily'. Same with my new Fuji Z53
camera. Plug it into Windows and it 'just works', Linux can't even see
it?

That's slightly non trivial.

It is.
I've got a Happauge in mine, and it does work, but only with totem-xine
.. but the latest kernels did include drivers that understood it.

I think this (Ubuntu) sees the dongle as the LED only went on after it
had downloaded the restricted drivers and a channel scan does bring up
a batch of progs. It's just when I start Kaffeine Digital TV it
gives me a:

Cannot find demux plugin for MRL
"fifo:/home/tim/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine/dvbpipe.m2t"

whatever that means.

Try totem-xine media player.

Worked for me.

I'm sure it's partly my lack of Linux experience but it *is*
frustrating when I can boot my Tosh A300 Lappy in XP or (even!) Vista
and everything works. All starts well with (say) Ubuntu, it sees all
the built in hardware (better than Windows in fact) then fails by not
(easily) working this tuner or seeing a 'digital camera' (of all
things).

Odd. USB camareas usually 'just work' - they are, after all simply USB
disk drives as far as teh computer is concerned.

Then I can get my WHS to run backups, can't print to my Samba
print server, etc etc.

Why use a samba print server at all? That's a windows hack.

If you have a printer attached to a linux server, then use CUPS to talk
to CUPS direct.

I can't even use XP under VirtualBox because I

can't get it to see the USB devices. ;-(

Download the proper version from Sun. The open source doesn't have USB
enabled.



Now I dare say that is this was 100% OSX or Linux then I wouldn't have
many of those inter connectivity issues but there is a good reason
I've been running Windows for the last 20 years (even if it is as the
LCD).
if you want to try, switch the problem to comp.os.linux.misc, and lets
see what may be done.

Ok, thanks, I may well do.
Or have a look here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=990998

That looked interesting as well, thanks. However (because I don't know
enough) I'm always a bit worried when stuff doesn't explicitly mention
my OS version and hardware (the hardware looks right on the link
though). I say that because it's quite possible a later release of the
OS already caters for my hardware but something else is wrong (it
could be simple / trivial) and my blind stumbled attempts to 'fix' a
problem stand a good chance of making things worse. Luckily, when this
happens (and it often does) I have no data on the Linux installs so
I'm happy to use a sledge-hammer to crack the nut and re-install from
scratch.

He trouble with many 'linux people' is they have forgotten what it's
like to be a total noob and even the most simple and basic instruction
can fail at the first attempt. A classic example of that being told to
exit a particular file and I've actually found, opened and edited the
file but can't save it because I don't have the right 'permissions'.

Yes. But these things can be tackled slowly and carefully. *Its not a
reason to not use the stuff.

And not all of us want to 'learn_all_about' this sort of thing. We
just want to try something else and at a level we are used to (ie, via
a GUI and with most stuff working / being supported directly). The fun
being 'a change is as good as a rest'. *Most of us don't mind getting
the jack out now and again but don't expect to have to re-weld it just
to make it work! ;-)

Point accepted. Despite having used *nix for years, I never wanted it on
my desktop, until really I got fed up with windows and decided to take
the plunge. The fact that its taken me about 2 years to get to 90% of
what I want, with a few issues I can live with, is the downside...Linux
is not as plug and play as one could like, and, indeed, making it that
way is to an extent destroying some of what makes it good.

However, it keeps on getting better.

And I have to say, going back to windows feels like a backward step
these days.

I tried OS-X and Mac, but the cost..the cost..everything costs, and
there is almost no free software. And when it breaks, it breaks badly -
beyond repair sometimes.

Cheers, T i m


Linux has its issues, so does windows. Playing some video content
under recent versions of win is a nightmare, and linux is generally a
lot more stable. Then you've got the security problems with windows,
license restrictions & cost, and the vast library of windows bugs is
something I dont minss.


NT

On Fri, 07 May 2010 23:12:04 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Adrian wrote:
Tim Watts gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

So? Back in the 80's, 9 year olds could hack around with far more basic
kit.

I had a ZX80 at that age...

I was probably about 11 or 12 when I built mine....

I only built ZX81s. I built my first as a project in 'elctronics' at
college and repaired the other 17 students machines (that didn't work
from the off) during my second term.

I probably built (assembled) another 5 for other mates when the kit
was £19.99.

I also designed (with a mate) a joystick interface for the ZX81 and
made quite a few of them.

Fun times.

Cheers, T i m

On Sat, 08 May 2010 03:43:37 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


Try totem-xine media player.

Worked for me.

File TV Open Digital TV .... nothing? (And I can't see anywhere
to add / change / tune etc).

I'm sure it's partly my lack of Linux experience but it *is*
frustrating when I can boot my Tosh A300 Lappy in XP or (even!) Vista
and everything works. All starts well with (say) Ubuntu, it sees all
the built in hardware (better than Windows in fact) then fails by not
(easily) working this tuner or seeing a 'digital camera' (of all
things).

Odd. USB camareas usually 'just work' - they are, after all simply USB
disk drives as far as teh computer is concerned.

You'd think. And this 'basic hardware may not work' isn't unique to
Linux as I have similar issues with OSX. In fat it was a bit of an eye
opener. Because I'd been happily plodding away with Windows for all
those years I didn't really realise how complicated it could all get.
Like, someone on the Mac group found a cheap OSX compatible web cam in
Argos. I bought one and it worked fine. A bit later someone else
bought one from Argos, same model etc and it didn't work under OSX (so
he took it back). I believe it was fine under windows.

The big killer atm for Linux is this Fuji Camera. I didn't even think
it would be an issue when I brought it and it isn't under XP / Vista.


Then I can get my WHS to run backups, can't print to my Samba
print server, etc etc.


Why use a samba print server at all? That's a windows hack.

Because the main printer here (a Canon ip4000) happens to hang off the
back of this Mac Mini / XP. I do have a ip5200r (network printer) that
I had to buy to be able to print from OSX but the carts aren't as
cheap as they are on this ip4000. I was considering plugging theip4000
into the WHS but could well have the same issues with OSX / Linux
(Linux has printed to it previously so there may be other issues. Mrs
can and does print to it all the time from her XP box).

If you have a printer attached to a linux server, then use CUPS to talk
to CUPS direct.

I don't have a Linux server because I couldn't get one working and
doing the range of things this WHS does (and I tried a few server
distros and soft NAS's).



I can't even use XP under VirtualBox because I
can't get it to see the USB devices. ;-(


Download the proper version from Sun.

Is that also free?

The open source doesn't have USB
enabled.

It suggests it does?


He trouble with many 'linux people' is they have forgotten what it's
like to be a total noob and even the most simple and basic instruction
can fail at the first attempt. A classic example of that being told to
exit a particular file and I've actually found, opened and edited the
file but can't save it because I don't have the right 'permissions'.


Yes. But these things can be tackled slowly and carefully. Its not a
reason to not use the stuff.

Indeed and why I've been dabbling with Linux since I installed it from
3 floppies. Whilst it's now getting very close to being useable (and
is useable as is for many of course), I need a complete solution and
have no axe to grind against Windows. I have installed Ubuntu as a
dual boot solution for a few friends and family they still need
Windows to do some stuff. So, they could live without Linux but
couldn't live without Windows. If I said thy could only keep one,
needs rather than choice would determine the outcome.


And not all of us want to 'learn_all_about' this sort of thing. We
just want to try something else and at a level we are used to (ie, via
a GUI and with most stuff working / being supported directly). The fun
being 'a change is as good as a rest'. Most of us don't mind getting
the jack out now and again but don't expect to have to re-weld it just
to make it work! ;-)


Point accepted. Despite having used *nix for years, I never wanted it on
my desktop, until really I got fed up with windows and decided to take
the plunge.

Understood. As much as I can be frustrated by Windows at times
(generally only Vista) I don't generally have any problems with it.
The first time I had anything funny happen (and it's on most the day
every day) is yesterday when I plugged an external DVDRW (because the
built in drive on this Mini isn't a DVDRW and would cost a fortune to
upgrade) and it killed the box dead (I think the USB socket is worn
and it could have shorted summat). Switched it off (stupid button
round the back) and back on again and XP was fine.

The fact that its taken me about 2 years to get to 90% of
what I want, with a few issues I can live with, is the downside...

OK.

Linux
is not as plug and play as one could like,

However I'd say it's better than Windows / OSX in many cases, it's
just when it doesn't work (on it's own) you could be in trouble (well,
most people would).

and, indeed, making it that
way is to an extent destroying some of what makes it good.

Good for me is no more than 'working' and being reliable.

However, it keeps on getting better.

For sure and why I'm still (after all these years) wasting time (as
the Mrs sees it) on Linux.

And I have to say, going back to windows feels like a backward step
these days.

I've not felt that yet. There are some things that I'm reminded of,
like the start up speed, however as I generally turn my PC on once a
day it's not really an issue.

I tried OS-X and Mac, but the cost..the cost..everything costs, and
there is almost no free software.

And the acceptance of that ethic seems to be ingrained in those who
follow the Brand. 'We know it costs more but it's better ..." (when it
often isn't).

And when it breaks, it breaks badly -
beyond repair sometimes.

Yup, the fact that you can't build_your_own and cant buy spares as
easily and cheaply as you can with PC's is mostly why I never got into
Macs in the first place. I'm petrified this Mini might die one day and
whilst I'm happy I have a rsestorable backup on th WHS I'm not sure it
would work on this Mini. I will replace it with something more PC
based when I get round to it.

Saying that I have about 8 Macs ranging from an SE, PB170 to a C2D
Mini (and this solo). There are some things I've only been able to do
on OSX but it turns out they aren't things I need regularly and
because it only (officially) runs on Apple hardware it doesn't get
fired up very often. If it did run on non Apple hardware I would
happily have a copy on a partition just for the crack.

Cheers, T i m

On Sat, 8 May 2010 08:18:58 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

And I have to say, going back to windows feels like a backward step these
days.

Some (most?) people just can't get on with linux, I removed ubuntu from an
machine yesterday, win 7 runs much better on it.

I found XP ran quicker on an eeePC netbook than Ubuntu (netbook
version).

I didn't charge much as its a five minute job once you have manually removed
the linux partitions.

?

Windows wont just remove linux,

Hmm, I think both can remove both?

like linux will remove windows without any
proper warnings.

Other than 'Warning, you will lose all your data' you mean (which is
what Ubuntu / Mint said the 20 times I installed it recently).

Cheers, T i m

On Sat, 8 May 2010 00:35:06 -0700 (PDT), NT
wrote:

big trim


Linux has its issues, so does windows.

Indeed.

Playing some video content
under recent versions of win is a nightmare,

Ok (not tried much under Vista or & I admit).

and linux is generally a
lot more stable.

For many people it could well be. Windows is equally stable here (and
does everything I want / need).

Then you've got the security problems with windows,

shrug

license restrictions & cost,

Yup. That can be an issue.

and the vast library of windows bugs is
something I dont minss.

I can't say I've noticed any but then I don't look for them (meaning
there is nothing that comes up that means stuff doesn't 'just work'
(as it should) for me). I'm not saying such doesn't exist of course.
;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. One biggie for me is not being able to have Agent News reader.
There is nothing even workable for me under OSX (and I've tried most
of them) and I tried Pan again under Ubuntu. Ok, it looks very
Agent-like and I got it working easy enough but when I open / switch
between locally saved / subscribed groups it seems to take an age.
Something that is instant with Agent under XP? ;-(

Tim Watts wrote:

Perl rules.

Perl used to rule. Now Python rules. (Not me, I use compilers.)

dennis@home wrote:

I wrote my first FORTRAN program in primary school.
Square roots by successive approximation not "hello world".
It was run on a cdc machine (IIRC) at Imperial college after sending the
cards in the post.
That would be sometime around 1966.
I still remember the porta punches we had to use.

Primary school? Gee. My first foray into programming (with FORTRAN IV, of
course) was about the same time - but I was in my first year of university.