Linux progress

QBasicer · Post by **QBasicer** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:15 pm

What funny Mac video? Where?

EDIT: Found it!!! HAHAHA! TRUE!

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:34 pm

charris wrote:The longest uptime on record is 4 years by FreeBSD, which is still the *nix family.

Statements like that are pure bullshit. Not because they're not true, but because they conveniently ignore the circumstances.

Linux is a command-line based OS, similar to DOS. As such, anything can be loaded or unloaded while it is running, save the very core kernal files (and even those could probably be refreshed while the OS is running). By contrast, Windows is a UI-based OS, and at any time has countless files open and being used by an unknown number of programs. If Windows were to suddenly upgrade a DLL being used by other programs, chances are those programs wouldn't like it. Hence, some patches require a restart of Windows. Many of these restarts don't involve the system -- Windows unloads itself, applies the updates, and restarts. Yet that's considered a break in the "uptime" record. When Linux updates, it doesn't need to unload anything because it runs on next to nothing.

In fact, these boxes you hear about with their "incredible" uptime record aren't doing anything particularly spectacular. Hosting the same software package for a year straight with no interruptions isn't particularly impressive. Try stepping into the shoes of the average Windows installation -- games being installed and upgraded, devices being switched in and out, constant changes to the screen resolution and usage of advanced 3D-accelleration or sound features. Linux might find that road a bit more challenging.

The real question you need to ask is "How long has it been since the last crash", because -- let's face it -- that's what you're really accusing Windows of doing. Since installing XP, I have had very few full-system crashes. XP typically manages to handle program faults and freezes with grace and without destabilizing the system; something that's pretty impressive given that it's such a complex operating system with any number of threads and processes running at a given time.

Personally, I'd like to compare the crash rate of something equivalent, not a DOS prompt. I don't know about you guys, but my DOS prompt has never BSOD'd on me. I'm kind of curious to know how often Wine or other similarly complex UI's have problems, so maybe some of this bullshit could be put to rest.

Cyb · Post by **Cyb** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:57 pm

Replying to a bunch of posts without quotes!

Re: admin privs: Jim, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't linux have a user named 'games' which is used for the very things you just said, having what amounts to root privs so you can play games, most of which require some sort of deeper system access than normal users are allowed for whatever reason.

Re: Uptime. Hotwax is correct. My linux router is pretty bare bones, just running a basic console and a couple daemons (apache, proftp and the like) so the only time I ever have to reboot it is when I install a new kernel or there's some kind of module dependancy update. My linux desktop (without working sound, even though I DO have alsa, and I DO have the proper modules) on the flipside, I have to reboot once in a while. Not because of the linux kernel, but because of KDE or Gnome crashing or X doing something funky. I know those aren't part of linux, or whatever, but comparing straight console linux with windows is insanely unfair because windows is much, much more complex with everything integrated into the OS.

As has been said both have their advantages and disadvantages, and personally I think linux is a nice OS, and I'd sooner use it for a server than windows, but from my experience windows (I'm speaking of NT here of course, 9x is a nightmare) is much, much less of a headache and once you change some of the settings it's very quick and very solid.

Post by **randi** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:11 pm

charris wrote:Unix is 1970ish, which Winders is the 1980s

It's not fair to make comparisons like this, since the versions of Windows that evolved from 3.0 have been officially obsoleted since the release of Windows XP. Windows NT has VMS roots, which has also been around since the '70s and was used in many high-end servers and workstations. Windows NT (and thus 2000 and XP) are not based on Windows 3.0.

The other flaw with this comparison is that NT was actually developed by many of the same people who developed VMS. Linux wasn't developed by the people who developed Unix. It is an independant implementation of Unix system calls that does not actually contain any Unix code (unless you believe SCO), so it doesn't matter how long Unix has been around when determining how "good" Linux is.

Cyb wrote:I know those aren't part of linux, or whatever, but comparing straight console linux with windows is insanely unfair because windows is much, much more complex with everything integrated into the OS.

Boot from the XP CD and start the recovery console. Then all you'll have running is the NT executive without all the other stuff on top of it. That ought to be more fair, right?

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:37 am

Cyb wrote:Re: admin privs: Jim, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't linux have a user named 'games' which is used for the very things you just said, having what amounts to root privs so you can play games, most of which require some sort of deeper system access than normal users are allowed for whatever reason.

Yes, some linux distributions have such a user 'games'. However, almost no games actually use this user. In fact, the only game that I know of that uses it is nethack. (For those of you who don't know, nethack is an ascii art display Dungeons & Dragons-like game). Besides this, the games user does not even have any special privileges. This user simply owns the saved games and high scores list. The executable is suid games, so it isn't even possible to delete the few files owned by user 'games' unless someone finds a buffer overflow in one of these games. Who is going to waste their time looking for a buffer overflow so that they can edit their name into the nethack hi scores list? The only reason it was even done this way was to have a common hi scores list for all users on a system.

None of the commercial games run as another user and neither do modern graphical open source games (except for the graphical front-ends for nethack). The configuration and other user-specific application data area are stored in the home directory, just like any other Linux or Unix application.

Cyb wrote:Re: Uptime. Hotwax is correct. My linux router is pretty bare bones, just running a basic console and a couple daemons (apache, proftp and the like) so the only time I ever have to reboot it is when I install a new kernel or there's some kind of module dependancy update. My linux desktop (without working sound, even though I DO have alsa, and I DO have the proper modules) on the flipside, I have to reboot once in a while. Not because of the linux kernel, but because of KDE or Gnome crashing or X doing something funky. I know those aren't part of linux, or whatever, but comparing straight console linux with windows is insanely unfair because windows is much, much more complex with everything integrated into the OS.

Hmm... You should not really reboot your computer just because KDE, GNOME, or X crash (at least not as a knowledgable user). You can simply go to runlevel 1 and then back to runlevel 5, rather than rebooting.

How to do this "soft reboot": Switch to one of the first six virtual consoles. For example, CTRL-ALT-F1. Now, login as root. Type "init 1 && init 5". Wait for everything except the kernel to shutdown and then restart again.

Before certain people give me guff about my simple procedure not being that simple. It is simple for a knowledgable user. You can get by without doing things on the command line, but it is often a far more efficient way to get things done. (This coming from someone who's first computer had Windows 95)!

Cyb wrote:As has been said both have their advantages and disadvantages, and personally I think linux is a nice OS, and I'd sooner use it for a server than windows, but from my experience windows (I'm speaking of NT here of course, 9x is a nightmare) is much, much less of a headache and once you change some of the settings it's very quick and very solid.

Windows is currently more suitable for people who must play the latest and greatest computer games. However, Linux, in and of itself, is more suitable for a multiuser office or education environment. This is due to its better remote administration, better multiuser support, price, and the superficial similarity of KDE (and to a lesser extent, of GNOME) to Windows (that is the UI is very similar). As more businesses adopt Linux, is quite possible that people will want to use what they use at the office (Linux), the same as happened with Windows. Greater numbers of users would attract better hardware support and more application development, including games with the additional home users.

Obviously, that is merely one possibility. It remains to be seen what will happen in the future, though overall Linux use has been growing very quickly for a while (maybe not quite exponentially or anything).

ducon · Post by **ducon** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 5:27 am

Whoah, what a troll!

Jim wrote: Hmm... You should not really reboot your computer just because KDE, GNOME, or X crash (at least not as a knowledgable user). You can simply go to runlevel 1 and then back to runlevel 5, rather than rebooting.

Eh, sorry, I had to reboot my Debian last monday (46 days uptime) because X crashed (and oopsed the kernel). And xmule crashes X sometimes. Bah, nevermind.

Jim wrote: How to do this "soft reboot": Switch to one of the first six virtual consoles. For example, CTRL-ALT-F1. Now, login as root. Type "init 1 && init 5". Wait for everything except the kernel to shutdown and then restart again.

You can't do that if you own a single machine and if X grabs the keyboard.
All right, ext3 is faster than fdisk to recover a crash!

_orb_ · Post by **_orb_** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 8:56 am

Randy, which gcc version do you use?

there is a really BIG troubles with gcc 3.3.x
i comile zdaemon with gcc 3.2.3 - all ok it's working
with gcc 3.3.x - it's compiling, but hangs , after fixed hanging it's dump core...
well, im talking about it becouse it does matter for zdoom too. you'll see troubles when you choose gcc 3.3.x or even gcc 3.4.0.

ps. zdaemon based on zdoom, so it's a zdoom trouble too, i guess.

pps. wtf is that flame ?

Post by **randi** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 10:12 am

I am using GCC 3.3.3, and I bet your problem is that zero-initialized variables now get moved to the .bss section instead of being left in the .data section, which messes up the default initializer lists.

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 11:24 am

By contrast, Windows is a UI-based OS, and at any time has countless files open

In contrary to that, X11 doesnot have that much files open. In fact, only its network sockets, mouse driver (/dev/misc/psaux), control terminal (/dev/vc/7), and of course /dev/nvidia0 and /dev/nvidiactl. Right now that is 17 files.

If Windows were to suddenly upgrade a DLL being used by other programs, chances are those programs wouldn't like it.

Quite right. And there is a reason to like Linux because it allows to update a DLL/SO whenever it is used (even if it has the same filename).

In fact, these boxes you hear about with their "incredible" uptime record aren't doing anything particularly spectacular.

Seconded. College server:

Code: Select all

19:25:22 up 40 days, 10:17,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

However, almost no games actually use this user.

Confirmed, the "bsdgames" package from SuSE has some programs that will SUID to 'games' to write a global score table.

How to do this "soft reboot": Switch to one of the first six virtual consoles. For example, CTRL-ALT-F1. Now, login as root. Type "init 1 && init 5". Wait for everything except the kernel to shutdown and then restart again.

That won't work, as first "init" is executed which will -- I think but not sure -- talk to PID 1 (the real init, not this instance) to switch to runlevel 1. By that time, the shell that runs "init 1 && init 5" is already dead so there is no possibility to switch back like you want. Or, the second possibility: the forked "init" sends "I want runlevel 1" to PID 1, and since init is finished then, shell processes "init 5" next, which will send "I want runlevel 1" to PID 1. Since PID 1 (real init) waits about 1 sec or so, doing so has no effect.
What you could do is: init 1, and when it prompts for the password, hit ctrl+d a few times until it changes back to the runlevel before.

and the superficial similarity of KDE

which BTW is the only thing I consider more bloated than Windows (or: than Windows is said to be)
ext3? We're over that. Reiser, JFS, and XFS.

Randy: What do you think of MinGW?

QBasicer · Post by **QBasicer** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:32 pm

You can also restart X by pressing CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. Also, some distros in the X11runlevel (#4 for Slackware) only keep CTRL+ALT+F6 open with agetty.

It's nice how you can delete and/or replace files while they're in use. It's also possible to do minor kernel upgrades without restarting....

Oh, I forgot, in Windows it always wants you to restart to finish installing or whatnot. The only thing i've had to restart for in Linux is to upgrade from 2.4.22 to 2.6.5. Everything else i've done live.

EDIT: The worst thing I hate in XP how the CTRL+ALT+DELETE menu (Task Manager) is actually a program, and if your system is either going really slowly, or frozen, it will either take a LONG time to start, and cointrinue being slow, or not show up at all, unlike Windows9x where everything else freezes and the Manager can do whatever it wants.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:46 pm

charris: Agreed on the Task Manager point. That was probably the only thing about Win 9x I liked better. For one, it does take forever to come up. For another, pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL a second time won't reboot, and pressing Enter on the default program (the one that currently has focus) doesn't perform End Task, so if a fullscreen program has frozen and isn't letting you see the box, your only course is to hit the reset button, even if only that program is being affected. Quite obnoxious.

Also, I don't know if this is just my system or not, but every so often XP's task manager will be unable to close a program. I can't imagine what it's waiting for, since obviously the program that's no longer responding isn't going to respond, but once in awhile I'll choose to End Task on a program, wait a good 30 seconds and absolutely nothing happens. Choosing End Task again brings back up the "Do you want to force this program to close?" dialog. In such cases the only way to get rid of the program is a restart. Very very annoying.

Luckily XP's general stability and ability to cope with naughty programs makes up for the quirky Task Manager IMO.

Post by **Kate** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 1:00 pm

HotWax wrote:I don't know if this is just my system or not, but every so often XP's task manager will be unable to close a program. I can't imagine what it's waiting for, since obviously the program that's no longer responding isn't going to respond, but once in awhile I'll choose to End Task on a program, wait a good 30 seconds and absolutely nothing happens.

That 30 second wait, I think, is actually being caused by a process called "dumpreg" which dumps program error information to a report file, which would be sent to Microsoft if you click "Send" when it asks you if you want to send an error report. I found this out when I end-tasked a stalled program, then went into the processes list, found said process(which was using 99% of my cpu at the time), and ended it, resulting in the send error report dialog appearing.

_orb_ · Post by **_orb_** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 2:08 pm

randy wrote:I am using GCC 3.3.3, and I bet your problem is that zero-initialized variables now get moved to the .bss section instead of being left in the .data section, which messes up the default initializer lists.

you mean that trouble with in m_options.c {NULL} ? (i changed it to just NULL and it compiles...)

QBasicer · Post by **QBasicer** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 2:59 pm

I don't like it, and i don't like the stupid error report thing either.

Another aspect I don't like is how some programs MUST have focus, like MSN. You're logging in, you're lets say typing a post, MSN logs in, focuses, and you end up spilling a few letters into the MSN screen.

Another thing I like about KDE is the multiple desktops. I know you can get NView to do this, but it's just not the same.

I do have to say the printing in Windows is better then my CUPS. It will all improve in the comping years.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 3:21 pm

Destroyer: When this occurs (and it's not often), the computer is doing absolutely nothing that I can see -- no hard drive access at all. And I've waited longer than 30 seconds for it to do something before trying again.

charris: The actual error reporting system has never delayed the action of closing a program, at least on my system. If you don't want to use it, just click Don't Send. I'm pretty sure there's also a way to disable it. If you're referring to the memory dump that occurs on a crash, it too can be disabled.

Sometimes you actually have to change some options before your OS behaves the way you like it. Imagine that.