* Steve Kratz <steve@townnews.com> [10-06-04 10:08]:

Does SuSE have any sort of upgrade policy? It seems like I just got my official 9.1 set last month...

http://www.suse.com/ http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/index.html http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ Normally, but it is not presently advertised. ps: You can find this information for yourself with little effort via google.com/linux, novell.com and/or suse.com. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/photos

On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 00:27, doc wrote:

Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Steve Kratz <steve@townnews.com> [10-06-04 10:08]:

...

Does SuSE have any sort of upgrade policy? It seems like I just got my official 9.1 set last month...

I prefer to buy the full version because I want to support the distro even though I'd love to save the money on an upgrade-only.

Question: If I place an order for the boxed set and pay for it with my credit card may I also download it so I don't have to wait for the boxed set to arrive?

Yes, you can but.... The downloads are usually available a couple months later, so you'll get your boxed set ahead of the download anyway... Jerry

-- Thanks! & 73, doc kd4e West Central Florida 100% Linux. Suse 9.1 Drake, Hallicrafters, Heathkit, TenTec, Yaesu Radio Life: http://www.gospelcom.net/twr/ Linux-Incompatible hardware is defective! USA Pres. Election 2004: http://www.rnc.org/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dylan wrote:

...

Question: If I place an order for the boxed set and pay for it with my credit card may I also download it so I don't have to wait for the boxed set to arrive? If you wait until the ftp version is up, yes, of course

Isn't the FTP version withheld for many weeks after the boxed version release? What I am seeking is an immediate download of the version for which I would have just paid in full. That seems a totally different transaction for SuSE than those who want the freebie download. Perhaps they might consider providing a download option for those who buy the boxed version with a credit card so that those paying customers do not have to wait for shipping and delivery to enjoy their new SuSE toys! ;-) -- Thanks! & 73, doc kd4e West Central Florida 100% Linux. Suse 9.1 Drake, Hallicrafters, Heathkit, TenTec, Yaesu Radio Life: http://www.gospelcom.net/twr/ Linux-Incompatible hardware is defective! USA Pres. Election 2004: http://www.rnc.org/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 12:37 +0200, Patriiiiiiiiiick wrote:

I totally agree with that. I would even suggest to have an "online version only" option. It might be a bit cheaper because you don't get CD's/DVD and books.

I don't want to have any material. I've always made ftp installs and I don't care about having the media.

I would like to have a "download immediately at release" option and I am ready to pay for that.

I suppose, then, that it would depend on the costs of bandwidth. Is it, indeed, actually cheaper for SuSE to host 7-8 GB of an OS for download than it is to box it up on a couple DVD's and some CD's. And throw in a manual. My guess is that, in volume, the box sets are actually cheaper than what they pay in ISP fees. Eight gigabytes is actually a ton on bandwidth, you know? Sure, you can let your cable modem run all week and get it, but actual, dedicated, guaranteed bandwidth is expensive. I don't know. Maybe I'm way off base here. But if it were cheaper for them, I'd think they'd be doing it already. Regards, dk

On Thursday 07 October 2004 4:34 am, Ken Schneider wrote:

The cost of a large pipe to the internet is expensive but if you provide a site available to people that bought the product the cost gets spread amongst the purchasers and it then becomes a cost effective means of getting the product to your customers. And it also eliminates some of the distribution costs. It also provides a effective place to put update media, such as the XFS install problem we had with 9.1. The fixed install CD/DVD could have been put on the purchase download site.

When 9.2 is first released it would take a 'huge' pipe or snail mail will be quicker. I ordered 9.1 Pro upgrade, it was back ordered two or three weeks and then they sent me the full set, with apologies for the delay. Any bandwidth will be swamped the first few weeks. Rich

-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989 SuSE since 1998 * Only reply to the list please*

-- Rich Matson Reno, Nv. USA

On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 08:56:07AM -0500, Steve Kratz wrote:

...

When 9.2 is first released it would take a 'huge' pipe or snail mail will be quicker. I ordered 9.1 Pro upgrade, it was back ordered two or three weeks and then they sent me the full set, with apologies for the delay. Any bandwidth will be swamped the first few weeks. Rich

Or.... One torrent with a huge number of seeders...

Personally, I'm going to wait for it to hit stores, or at least hit the SUSE store. I actually WANT too pay for it. I always get a very nice box (Hey, don't laugh, you could sell poop if you package it nice) and I love the manuals, they are always very good. And of course, having the DVDs and CDs right there, and a beautiful install... Yea, I pay for SUSE and will still do that. Holidays are coming up very soon, and if I get low on funds, I'll just ask for SUSE 9.2 Professional for Christmas from someone :)

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

torsdag 07 oktober 2004 04:04 skrev James Knott:

You could always download it, without paying anything.

I've supported SuSE by buying their version ever since 6.2 ... and I think it's a good decision. I like to think, that I'm one of those who helped making SuSE Linux a great product. And, I'll continue with that ... personally, I hope to see some more of Novell in Linux. To those, that know ... I've noticed some changes in YaST ldap schema ... does 9.2 use ldap in a similar way as windows/netware ... and when will we be seeing Novell networking security/abilities in SuSE Linux? When that occurs, will some networking server ability be available in the Pro version or will that require the Enterprise version?

Don't know Steve, but I am sure it will be announced. Perhaps you can email them for policy clarification.

May not even be of interest to me, after all - /. has mentions of 9.2 not installing on systems with <256mb RAM. Guess that rules out my laptop that's stuck at 192...

On Wed, 2004-10-06 at 16:27, Johan Nielsen wrote:

Onsdag den 6. oktober 2004 17:01 skrev Steve Kratz:

...

...

-----Original Message----- From: Gary [mailto:not-valid@mygirlfriday.info] Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 9:41 AM To: Suse Subject: [SLE] new v9.2 is out

Just announced on /.

Hopefully they'll release packages for Gnome 2.8 fairly quickly... Anyone knows about the availability of a Live CD? Thanks. -- Frederic Soulier <frederic@wallaby.uklinux.net>

On 6 Oct 2004, at 18:56, David Robertson wrote:

On Wed, 2004-10-06 at 16:34 +0100, Frederic Soulier wrote:

...

Hopefully they'll release packages for Gnome 2.8 fairly quickly...

You can already get ulb-gnome 2.8 via the usr-local-bin repository on apt.

As much as I appreciate the stuff coming from ulb it's not official SuSE/Novell approved packages. Anyway, I can't install SuSE 9.1 on my sata drive... So hopefully 9.2 will work. The chipsets SiS180/SiS964 on the Asus P4SP800D-E Deluxe which use the sata_sis module are proving to be difficult beasts. /Fred

I just hope it has some kick ass stickers. And maybe a new calender like 8.1 Professional had. I don't worry about the books, they both are always good reads, and maybe they will add AMSN or something to it and the new Gaim. I have a month to put 90 dollars together, bring it on, I want it! SUSE always made a mark for me with good books, lots of toys by default, and cool stickers. I'd like to see it come with some new versions of Gaim, XMMS, and MP3 players all around. I love those. More Enlightenment themes and more tools for Enlightenment, like "Evidence" would be awesome. Hopefully it comes with all of that. I'm ready and waiting for it. Can hardly wait. And of course, too see how YAST looks now. I've seen it improve with every version since my first Linux, SUSE 8.1 Professional. One thing I'd like to see, is the same Apache RedHat and Fedora come with. I can set up Apache with those easy on my LAN, and it won't try loading my hostname when the page have running has a link to something in the index.html directory. I'm not sure what it is but RedHat and Fedora are then only two that seem to allow me to set up Apache like that. Slackware and SUSE, my two favs, when I click on Links on my page, it tries loading the hostname. Hopefully they will change soon, I really don't want to read Apache manuals heh. I never have yet but I figured out how to set it up and make sure it's got basic security.

On Wednesday 06 October 2004 16:33, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22.24, Allen wrote:

...

I just hope it has some kick ass stickers. And maybe a new calender like 8.1 Professional had.

Wow, it must have come in a mighty large box

It wasn't a BIG Calender, it was a cool one though.

...

One thing I'd like to see, is the same Apache RedHat and Fedora come with. I can set up Apache with those easy on my LAN, and it won't try loading my hostname when the page have running has a link to something in the index.html directory. I'm not sure what it is but RedHat and Fedora are then only two that seem to allow me to set up Apache like that. Slackware and SUSE, my two favs, when I click on Links on my page, it tries loading the hostname.

I'm pretty sure it's the browser that decides how a link is handled, based on what it says in the html

The HTML doesn't have anything to do with it. I've used the same browser to test my pages as I always do, (Links and Galeon), and it works different on RedHat, it's how they have Apache set up.

It's only for Apache, Apache 2 seems to have no problems with a few tweaks. On Wednesday 06 October 2004 19:41, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday, 7 October 2004 01.27, Allen wrote:

...

...

...

One thing I'd like to see, is the same Apache RedHat and Fedora come with. I can set up Apache with those easy on my LAN, and it won't try loading my hostname when the page have running has a link to something in the index.html directory. I'm not sure what it is but RedHat and Fedora are then only two that seem to allow me to set up Apache like that. Slackware and SUSE, my two favs, when I click on Links on my page, it tries loading the hostname.

I'm pretty sure it's the browser that decides how a link is handled, based on what it says in the html

The HTML doesn't have anything to do with it. I've used the same browser to test my pages as I always do, (Links and Galeon), and it works different on RedHat, it's how they have Apache set up.

Well perhaps you could explain what you mean by "loading my hostname" then? As far as I know, there are three types of links, relative, absolute and URL. if you have a relative link (one that doesn't start with a /) the browser will prepend the current URL up to the last / and submit the request. If you have an absolute link (one that starts with a /) then the browser will prepend the current hostname up to the first / and submit the request. And if you have an URL (a link that starts with http:// or other protocol) then the browser won't alter it at all, it will just open it. Maybe I've missed something, but I really don't see where the web server comes into all this.

On Friday 08 October 2004 12:51, Danny Sauer wrote:

Anders wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Wed, Oct 06 at 18:44:

...

On Thursday, 7 October 2004 01.27, Allen wrote:

...

...

...

One thing I'd like to see, is the same Apache RedHat and Fedora come with. I can set up Apache with those easy on my LAN, and it won't try loading my hostname when the page have running has a link to something in the index.html directory. I'm not sure what it is but RedHat and Fedora are then only two that seem to allow me to set up Apache like that. Slackware and SUSE, my two favs, when I click on Links on my page, it tries loading the hostname.

I'm pretty sure it's the browser that decides how a link is handled, based on what it says in the html

The HTML doesn't have anything to do with it. I've used the same browser to test my pages as I always do, (Links and Galeon), and it works different on RedHat, it's how they have Apache set up.

Well perhaps you could explain what you mean by "loading my hostname" then? As far as I know, there are three types of links, relative, absolute and URL. if you have a relative link (one that doesn't start with a /) the browser will prepend the current URL up to the last / and submit the request. If you have an absolute link (one that starts with a /) then the browser will prepend the current hostname up to the first / and submit the request. And if you have an URL (a link that starts with http:// or other protocol) then the browser won't alter it at all, it will just open it. Maybe I've missed something, but I really don't see where the web server comes into all this.

It's just a guess, but he's probably referring to the hostname set in httpd.conf. It'd be relevent when you go to a URL that's actually a directory, and the server generates a redirect to the index document. Apache can be set to either use the servername/client-provided host header to generate a "real" redirect, or just do the redirect internally (like it does with the ProxyPass directive). If it's doesn't do the redirect internally, or if ServerName is set, then the client can request http://alias/path/ but get redirected to http://realname/path/index.html. The browser will display the new URL in that case, wich will lead to a situation similar to what Allen's describing.

Allen - it'll take some time, but you'll probably benefit from reading up the description of all the stuff Apache can do. Just go to apache.org, click on "HTTP Server", and start reading documentation for the version you prefer to run (which should really be 2.0 unless you *have* to use 1.x). Knowledge is power, and Apache takes lots of power to use effectively.

:)

Heh, I got it now. I used Apache 2 and it worked fine. I don't like reading manuals for server software, it makes me feel weak and un-adventure style. I'm testing t for now, and if it passes I'll put one on my FTP server. which is another server I never read documentation for. ;)

On Thursday 07 October 2004 10:27, Greg Wallace wrote:

Yeah. It seems like you barely get one installed before the next one is out. I guess they're continuing to push for Windows competitiveness by adding enhancements and releasing them as fast as they can. I can see why you would want to do that, long term goal wise, and I'm all for making Linux the desktop of choice, but it does tend to get a bit tiresome for those of us trying to keep up with the constant upgrading!

Take your point, but in fact there's no pressure to upgrade for a year or two. The main aim is that new buyers get the red-hot new stuff. I've only just upgraded my workstation 8.2 install, and that's only because I felt like it. 8.2 and no doubt earlier still work, and continue to be provided with official patches for a decent interval after they are replaced. Can you imagine the whining and wailing on this list if they *didn't* do regular latest-and-greatest releases? Bit more fun than 'clinging on for dear life till Longhorn arrives' as one win tech described his position to me the other day. Just skip a release or two - you're not going to lose out on anything big unless there's something highly specific you need to get running that's only covered in a later version. As ever, though, I'll be splashing out the moolah on 9.2 as soon as I get the chance to order it ... Cheers Fergus

Greg W. -----Original Message----- From: Steve Kratz [mailto:steve@townnews.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 7:01 AM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: RE: [SLE] new v9.2 is out

...

-----Original Message----- From: Gary [mailto:not-valid@mygirlfriday.info] Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 9:41 AM To: Suse Subject: [SLE] new v9.2 is out

Just announced on /.

Does SuSE have any sort of upgrade policy? It seems like I just got my official 9.1 set last month...

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

-- Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB Tel: 0161 834 7961 Fax: 0161 839 5797 http://www.chethams.org.uk

On Thursday 07 October 2004 07:31, David Krider wrote:

On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 11:09 +0100, Fergus Wilde wrote:

...

On Thursday 07 October 2004 10:27, Greg Wallace wrote:

...

Yeah. It seems like you barely get one installed before the next one is out.

Take your point, but in fact there's no pressure to upgrade for a year or two. The main aim is that new buyers get the red-hot new stuff.

I've only just upgraded my workstation 8.2 install, and that's only because I felt like it. 8.2 and no doubt earlier still work, and continue to be provided with official patches for a decent interval after they are replaced. Can you imagine the whining and wailing on this list if they *didn't* do regular latest-and-greatest releases?

According to SuSE's normal policy, 8.2 should be getting end-of-life'd in the near future. It's been 2 years since it's release, and I'm sure they're just waiting for the natural uptake on 9.2 to make the announcement.

8.1 still works, I think that would go before 8.2 does. I just installed 8.1 on a machine of mine and updated it, so now I have 8.1 8.2 and 9.1 installed.

I hit upon SuSE at just the right time, after getting disgusted with Red Hat's direction. I started with 8.2, which is a great distro all the way around. But now that it's been a couple years, I'd been planning on upgrading all my servers to 9.2, to keep current with patches. (Unfortunately, this means testing the lower limitations of memory on at least one machine.)

In the process of waiting, I finally installed ULB Gnome, just to get some new eye candy. I like having the new stuff on my desktop. Enough so, that I've tried Gentoo a couple times, but it always hangs up somewhere in the process, and I don't want to fool with it enough to work through those situations. So, I buy every new version of SuSE to keep as current as possible. Even though just buying the "upgrade" versions works out to a total cost greater than Windows over the life of the product (not "of ownership" - that's a different discussion), that money is worthwhile to me so that I can 1) keep fairly current with FOSS in general, and 2) have someone else do the difficult work of getting it all to play nice together (for the great majority of the time).

Regards, dk

On Friday, 8 October 2004 06.26, John Andersen wrote:

On Thursday 07 October 2004 02:09 am, Fergus Wilde wrote:

...

Just skip a release or two - you're not going to lose out on anything big unless there's something highly specific you need to get running that's only covered in a later version.  As ever, though, I'll be splashing out the moolah on 9.2 as soon as I get the chance to order it ...

Actually, the .2 releases have proven to be the best.

I don't know, I preferred 7.3 to 7.2, and 6.4 to both 6.3, 6.2 and 7.0

On Friday 08 October 2004 02:54, Jim Sabatke wrote:

John Andersen wrote: I always look at the list volumes around release time. It usually is very high with X.0, less with X.1, etc. So I generally agree. I think this time the 9.1 seemed more problemetic than 9.0, probably due to the Novel buyout.

This is usually not the case though, and have been burned, and had more hours burned with X.0 releases of big software like Oracle and various UNIX operating systems.

I haven't had a Problem with 9.1. 36 days uptime, FTP server that gets about 3 GB of traffic at a time, and nothing wrong. One thing I would LOVE in SUSE though, is the ability to play DVDs I own without having to download anything, and it would be cool to have like 8.2 had where I can play video without downloading more codecs.

On Friday, 8 October 2004 08.04, Dana J. Laude wrote:

I'd have to agree. I would even pay a few extra dollars for this feature. Just toss in a dvd movie and away you go.

Some day they'll include LinDVD or PowerDVD, just like Mandrake and turbolinux. But it's not really hard to install the packages from packman.links2linux.org, it's not even that big a download

Now what would be really nice is the ability to actually burn dvd's.

That should be there. Burning data dvds and unencrypted movie dvds is possible out of the box using k3b

On Friday 08 October 2004 06:35, Allen wrote:

On Friday 08 October 2004 02:54, Jim Sabatke wrote:

...

John Andersen wrote: I always look at the list volumes around release time. It usually is very high with X.0, less with X.1, etc. So I generally agree. I think this time the 9.1 seemed more problemetic than 9.0, probably due to the Novel buyout.

This is usually not the case though, and have been burned, and had more hours burned with X.0 releases of big software like Oracle and various UNIX operating systems.

I haven't had a Problem with 9.1. 36 days uptime, FTP server that gets about 3 GB of traffic at a time, and nothing wrong.

One thing I would LOVE in SUSE though, is the ability to play DVDs I own without having to download anything, and it would be cool to have like 8.2 had where I can play video without downloading more codecs.

Perhaps the statesiders on the list can gradually get the Hollywood cartel to drop their hostility - AFAIK it's legal, not technical issues that are the big worry. I don't think there's a lot that can be done politically here in UK, as our IP laws etc. appear, like our foreign policy, welded to US developments. I don't suppose people easily forget the dawn raid that arrested the Norwegian (I think) schoolboy for watching a DVD on Linux. Same goes for the RIAA. There may be some hope that, like the cryptography thing, it can be solved, but I am inclined to doubt it as the lawyers and the industry both believe they make more money with the current set up. My guess would be that their ultimate aim is make everything pay-per-view/listen, so they will dislike any system that prevents or undermines the kind of 'rights management' software you now see in things like Acrobat Reader 6. May be just my paranoia, though Cheers Fergus -- Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB Tel: 0161 834 7961 Fax: 0161 839 5797 http://www.chethams.org.uk

On Friday 08 October 2004 06:35, Allen wrote:

On Friday 08 October 2004 02:54, Jim Sabatke wrote:

...

John Andersen wrote: I always look at the list volumes around release time. It usually is very high with X.0, less with X.1, etc. So I generally agree. I think this time the 9.1 seemed more problemetic than 9.0, probably due to the Novel buyout.

This is usually not the case though, and have been burned, and had more hours burned with X.0 releases of big software like Oracle and various UNIX operating systems.

I haven't had a Problem with 9.1. 36 days uptime, FTP server that gets about 3 GB of traffic at a time, and nothing wrong.

One thing I would LOVE in SUSE though, is the ability to play DVDs I own without having to download anything, and it would be cool to have like 8.2 had where I can play video without downloading more codecs.

I like the way you think, I think Suse should start thinking of a way to legally do this. All other bought distros do it. -- Chadley Wilson Redhat Certified Technician Cert Number: 603004708291270 Pinnacle Micro Manufacturers of Proline Computers ==================================== Exercise freedom, Use LINUX =====================================

Fergus Wilde wrote:

I'm more inclined to believe it was the 2.6 kernel than the buyout, there is just so much to get right that it's impossible to make a new kernel version as glitch-proof as one that has been refined for years. So far, I've been rather heartened that the buyout seems not to have changed the user's experience of SuSE much if at all, though obviously I can't hazard a guess at what it's like to work there now.

Cheers Fergus

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable. I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished. Jim

But one question... from where did you get suse 9.2 ? is there any site to download it from ? Thanks

On Fri, 2004-10-08 at 17:12, Jim Sabatke wrote:

...

Fergus Wilde wrote:

...

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable.

I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished.

Jim

Check the latest copy of Linux Magazine, there is a good article on the kernel status and where it is going.

-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989 SuSE since 1998 * Only reply to the list please*

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

--ed Inside your PC is a daemon waiting to be unleashed. Free it with FreeBSD.

Eduardo J. Vega A wrote:

But one question... from where did you get suse 9.2 ? is there any site to download it from ?

Thanks

I think at this point, we were discussing the difficulties of introducing a new kernel, 2.6, which shipped with 9.1. Jim

On Friday 08 October 2004 17:12, Jim Sabatke wrote:

Fergus Wilde wrote:

...

I'm more inclined to believe it was the 2.6 kernel than the buyout, there is just so much to get right that it's impossible to make a new kernel version as glitch-proof as one that has been refined for years. So far, I've been rather heartened that the buyout seems not to have changed the user's experience of SuSE much if at all, though obviously I can't hazard a guess at what it's like to work there now.

Cheers Fergus

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable.

I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished.

It's stable. I use it every day and so far it's been up over a month without a lag.

Jim wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Fri, Oct 08 at 14:06: [...]

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable.

I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished.

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE? --Danny, noting what happened to Netscape *again*, just in case the SuSE folks are listening.

On Friday 08 October 2004 21:09, John Boyle wrote:

Danny Sauer wrote:

...

Jim wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Fri, Oct 08 at 14:06: [...]

...

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable.

I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished.

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE?

--Danny, noting what happened to Netscape *again*, just in case the SuSE folks are listening.

To ALL: If Netscape's dead, then what am I replying to you on? Secondly, you cannot use IE on Linux, so which is it that is dead? I wish you people that keep on lying about Netscape or Mozilla, would just go away to stay on MSFT!!! >:o

Actually, you can use IE on Linux with WINE. I've seen it.

Randall R Schulz wrote:

John,

On Friday 08 October 2004 18:15, Allen wrote:

...

On Friday 08 October 2004 21:09, John Boyle wrote:

...

....

...

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE?

...

To ALL: If Netscape's dead, then what am I replying to you on? Secondly, you cannot use IE on Linux, so which is it that is dead? I wish you people that keep on lying about Netscape or Mozilla, would just go away to stay on MSFT!!! >:o

Actually, you can use IE on Linux with WINE. I've seen it.

And actually, Netscape _is_ dead. Just 'cause Netscape (i.e., AOL) puts its name on Mozilla doesn't mean it's a distinct piece of software.

Randall Schulz

To Randall Schulz et al: AOL dropped out of Mozilla/Netscape a long time ago, that is why the overal organization is called "Mozilla.org"! Why not search for that sometime before any flame wars start? Which I hope they have not, and I can say I use Netscape on both WIN98SE and SuSe Linux 9.0! I have nothing with AOL associated with it! :-D

On Saturday 09 October 2004 01:43, Randall R Schulz wrote:

On Friday 08 October 2004 20:56, you wrote:

...

...

...

And actually, Netscape _is_ dead. Just 'cause Netscape (i.e., AOL) puts its name on Mozilla doesn't mean it's a distinct piece of software.

Randall Schulz

To Randall Schulz et al: AOL dropped out of Mozilla/Netscape a long time ago, that is why the overal organization is called "Mozilla.org"! Why not search for that sometime before any flame wars start? Which I hope they have not, and I can say I use Netscape on both WIN98SE and SuSe Linux 9.0! I have nothing with AOL associated with it! :-D

Wow. How'd I miss that?

Nonetheless, Netscape is a modified Mozilla, not a truly separate program.

RRS

Actually, Netscape was out before Mozilla, Mozilla was the code name for a new version of Netscape according to The development team I saw speak.

Lørdag den 9. oktober 2004 09:11 skrev peter Nikolic:

On Saturday 09 Oct 2004 04:56, John Boyle wrote:

...

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

John,

On Friday 08 October 2004 18:15, Allen wrote:

...

On Friday 08 October 2004 21:09, John Boyle wrote:

...

....

...

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE?

...

To ALL: If Netscape's dead, then what am I replying to you on? Secondly, you cannot use IE on Linux, so which is it that is dead? I wish you people that keep on lying about Netscape or Mozilla, would just go away to stay on MSFT!!! >:o

Actually, you can use IE on Linux with WINE. I've seen it.

And actually, Netscape _is_ dead. Just 'cause Netscape (i.e., AOL) puts its name on Mozilla doesn't mean it's a distinct piece of software.

Randall Schulz

To Randall Schulz et al: AOL dropped out of Mozilla/Netscape a long time ago, that is why the overal organization is called "Mozilla.org"! Why not search for that sometime before any flame wars start? Which I hope they have not, and I can say I use Netscape on both WIN98SE and SuSe Linux 9.0! I have nothing with AOL associated with it! :-D

Never mind all the argy bargy arguments folks how many have actuall committed to purchasing 9.2 in november ..?.

I'll pay my Linux "development tax" with a smile on my face. As you'd probably know "nothing comes from nothing" @ SuSE That smile btw got a little to challenged with the 9.1 release :-\

pete.

-- Linux user No: 256242 Machine No: 139931 G6NJR Pete also MSA registered "Quinton 11" A Linux Only area Happy bug hunting M$ clan, The time is here to FORGET that M$ Corp ever existed the world does not NEED M$ Corp the world has NO USE for M$ Corp it is time to END M$ Corp , Play time is over folks time for action approaches at an alarming pace the death knell for M$ Copr has been sounded . Termination time is around the corner ..

On Sat, 2004-10-09 at 09:11, peter Nikolic wrote:

On Saturday 09 Oct 2004 04:56, John Boyle wrote:

...

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

John,

On Friday 08 October 2004 18:15, Allen wrote:

...

On Friday 08 October 2004 21:09, John Boyle wrote:

...

....

...

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE?

...

To ALL: If Netscape's dead, then what am I replying to you on? Secondly, you cannot use IE on Linux, so which is it that is dead? I wish you people that keep on lying about Netscape or Mozilla, would just go away to stay on MSFT!!! >:o

Actually, you can use IE on Linux with WINE. I've seen it.

And actually, Netscape _is_ dead. Just 'cause Netscape (i.e., AOL) puts its name on Mozilla doesn't mean it's a distinct piece of software.

Randall Schulz

To Randall Schulz et al: AOL dropped out of Mozilla/Netscape a long time ago, that is why the overal organization is called "Mozilla.org"! Why not search for that sometime before any flame wars start? Which I hope they have not, and I can say I use Netscape on both WIN98SE and SuSe Linux 9.0! I have nothing with AOL associated with it! :-D

Never mind all the argy bargy arguments folks how many have actuall committed to purchasing 9.2 in november ..?.

pete.

I buy a full version of Pro, every release (2 times year). I like Suse, cause they straddle the very fine line between the bleeding edge and stability. It's not an easy balancing act, and some releases are more problematicall than others. Here some facts as I see them: - 9.1 was the first release to include the 2.6 kernel. - 9.1 was the most problematical release in a long long time. - I have 1 production server using 9.1, and 3 using 9.0 - SuSE includes over 1000 programs preconfigured - SuSE updates these packages with security updates, for 2 years. - SuSE provides me with automatic update tools (YOU). Some things SuSE cannot do: SuSE cannot reconfigure/test every Beta and/or release of every opensource project in the world. SuSE cannot support each version indefinatetly. Now if you find SuSE too close to the bleeding edge, (the jist of this thread), you got a couple of choices: 1- Go buy SLES. That is what it is there for, stability! 2- Stay away from initial releases. 3- Use another Distro that is more conservative. If you find SuSE to conservative, you probably don't need a Distro! Now I think SuSE is doing a great Job. I think the *only* mistake they did in 9.1 was to call it <dot>1 the release is definatetly a <dot>0 release as the first with the new kernel, with all of the new kernel problems. Every thing else SuSE cleaned out with the wash. Now, what SuSE alloed me to do was install 2.6 kernel and KDE 3.2 in production which I feel is important, (since I can leave it there longer than if I had installed 2.4 and KDE 3.1). I have a client already asking about KDE 3.3! Now I realise that some people have had alot of problems with 9.1. I had enough of them my self, that is what the bleeding Edge is about. If I didn't want the problems I would have waited for the <dot>2 release, if my clients and I didn't want all the new features and advantages. IMHO SuSE has been doing a great job, is doing great job, and I hope they will continue to do so... Jerry BTW. Chalking the 9.1 release problems to the Novel buy out is really unfair. SuSE is always the first Distro out with the new kernels, and this whole situation is not new. And to say that SuSE rushed it is also unfair, 9.0 was supposed have the 2.6 kernel, but SuSE decided it had too many problems and released 9.0 with a 2.4 kernel, and an experimental 2.6 kernel. (this is where the <dot>0 went).

-- Linux user No: 256242 Machine No: 139931 G6NJR Pete also MSA registered "Quinton 11" A Linux Only area Happy bug hunting M$ clan, The time is here to FORGET that M$ Corp ever existed the world does not NEED M$ Corp the world has NO USE for M$ Corp it is time to END M$ Corp , Play time is over folks time for action approaches at an alarming pace the death knell for M$ Copr has been sounded . Termination time is around the corner ..

On Saturday 09 Oct 2004 02:09, John Boyle wrote:

Danny Sauer wrote:

...

Jim wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Fri, Oct 08 at 14:06: [...]

...

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable.

I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished.

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE?

--Danny, noting what happened to Netscape *again*, just in case the SuSE folks are listening.

To ALL: If Netscape's dead, then what am I replying to you on? Secondly, you cannot use IE on Linux, so which is it that is dead? I wish you people that keep on lying about Netscape or Mozilla, would just go away to stay on MSFT!!! >:o

Ouchhhhhhhh Hark at herrrr .. :-).... cheers Pete . -- Linux user No: 256242 Machine No: 139931 G6NJR Pete also MSA registered "Quinton 11" A Linux Only area Happy bug hunting M$ clan, The time is here to FORGET that M$ Corp ever existed the world does not NEED M$ Corp the world has NO USE for M$ Corp it is time to END M$ Corp , Play time is over folks time for action approaches at an alarming pace the death knell for M$ Copr has been sounded . Termination time is around the corner ..

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:42:02 -0500 Danny Sauer <suse-linux-e.suselists@danny.teleologic.net> wrote:

accounts, though. :) Netscape Communicator is even less of a contender than Opera, though, despite the 9 people who use those two browsers. It's effectively dead.

Hmmnn. Well on my amd64, Opera regularly causes a complete freeze on my system, while Netscape at worst just crashes. Netscape 7.1 seems pretty good, whatever its provenance. - Richard. -- Richard Kimber http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/

On Tuesday, 12 October 2004 22.17, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Richard,

On Tuesday 12 October 2004 10:31, rkimber@ntlworld.com wrote:

...

...

Hmmnn. Well on my amd64, Opera regularly causes a complete freeze on my system, while Netscape at worst just crashes. Netscape 7.1 seems pretty good, whatever its provenance.

I hope you realize that symptoms of this sort (system freeze) cannot be pinned on Opera or on any user-level code. When a system with protected memory exhibits gross, system-wide failures, it is by definition a bug in some privileged code (kernel or driver, e.g.) or a failure of some hardware component.

It depends. Since X controls all input devices and output when it's active, a total X freeze can be indistinguishable from a total system freeze. For all practical purposes, it *is* a total system freeze, unless you can reach the system through ssh or similar, or can use a magic sysrq to kill it or something. This is the most common "system crash" in linux.

Anders, On Tuesday 12 October 2004 13:27, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Tuesday, 12 October 2004 22.17, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Richard,

On Tuesday 12 October 2004 10:31, rkimber@ntlworld.com wrote:

...

...

Hmmnn. Well on my amd64, Opera regularly causes a complete freeze on my system, while Netscape at worst just crashes. Netscape 7.1 seems pretty good, whatever its provenance.

I hope you realize that symptoms of this sort (system freeze) cannot be pinned on Opera or on any user-level code. When a system with protected memory exhibits gross, system-wide failures, it is by definition a bug in some privileged code (kernel or driver, e.g.) or a failure of some hardware component.

It depends. Since X controls all input devices and output when it's active, a total X freeze can be indistinguishable from a total system freeze. For all practical purposes, it *is* a total system freeze, unless you can reach the system through ssh or similar, or can use a magic sysrq to kill it or something. This is the most common "system crash" in linux.

True. In a sense, it's a matter of semantics. Or, more precisely. of the limits of observation. I would not call an X lock-up a "system freeze," even though I might not be able to distinguish the two. If CTRL-ALT-F1 doesn't get me to a console because of an X problem and I have no serial terminal with which to attempt a login and can get to no other computer from which to attempt network access of some sort, then to all available external appearances, the system as a whole has locked up. Randall Schulz

Richard, On Tuesday 12 October 2004 14:42, rkimber@ntlworld.com wrote:

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:17:41 -0700

Randall R Schulz <rschulz@sonic.net> wrote:

...

I hope you realize that symptoms of this sort (system freeze) cannot be pinned on Opera or on any user-level code. When a system with protected memory exhibits gross, system-wide failures, it is by definition a bug in some privileged code (kernel or driver, e.g.) or a failure of some hardware component.

Actually I was using 'system' to mean my PC. I can't tell whether it's a 'system freeze' in your sense.

But, OK, I can live with the fact that a bug-free Opera is the only app that ever triggers whatever badness there is, over a period of nearly 5 months continuous general use.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but ... Wait a minute. I do mean to be pedantic! I'm a big raving pedant!! Anyway, I am most surely _not_ asserting Opera (or any other given piece of software) is "bug free," since for all practical purposes today, any non-trivial piece of software cannot be made bug-free. Nonetheless, there is a rather strict division of labor, responsibility and authority (if you will) among different classes of software (kernel, drivers, file systems, libraries, applications, servers, etc.) and most of those classes of software cannot undermine the system as a whole. And of course, if there's a hardware issue, all bets are off. There can be anywhere from complete predictability to total randomness of occurrence and manifestation from the myriad of conceivable (or even likely) hardware failures.

- Richard. -- Richard Kimber

Randall Schulz

On Tuesday, 12 October 2004 19.35, Allen wrote:

Mosaic.... That thing Microsoft stole and made into IE.

No, they bought Spyglass and renamed it

Allen wrote:

On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 07:44:32PM +0200, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

On Tuesday, 12 October 2004 19.35, Allen wrote:

...

Mosaic.... That thing Microsoft stole and made into IE.

No, they bought Spyglass and renamed it

The thing I read showed Mosaic too. I'll see if I can dig it up and I'll give a link. I knew about spyglass but there was more than them involved when I checked.

The following (for what it's worth) is clipped directly from the Help/About box for IE v6: Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc. Microsoft may have stolen it, but at least they acknowledge the theft. Cheers, Gordon Keehn

Trey Gruel wrote:

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004, Gordon Keehn wrote:

...

The following (for what it's worth) is clipped directly from the Help/About box for IE v6:

Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.

Microsoft may have stolen it, but at least they acknowledge the theft.

iirc, they licensed it for a percentage of the revenue. spyglass was all excited about this because it was ms and they could expect it to sell a lot of copies.

then ms gave it away..

10% (random percent as i don't know all the details) of 0 is still 0.. spyglass got nothing..

Isn't this a lawsuit waiting to happen????? Just thinking out aloud. IE6 is derived from IE1.... According MS IE can't be separated from the Windows OS.... The IE7 incarnation is only sold with Longhorn.... Ergo they are selling NCSA Mosaic technologie.... 10% from Windows OS is still 30 to 60 US Dollars..... Stefan.

onsdag 13 oktober 2004 18:34 skrev Trey Gruel:

too bad spyglass settled before ms started claiming that..

I've never seen Bill Gates as a software guru, but he's one hell of a buisness man.

-- trey

torsdag 14 oktober 2004 01:13 skrev Allen:

Saying the hell with morals will do that.

Morals is not an absolute, nor are ethics ... it changes with every civilization, and sometimes faster than that. Of course, fanatics want morals to be absolute ... but my favorite is Johny Depp as the Pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean: "The only limit is what a man, can or cannot do". Bill Gates, is a good buisness man ...

tisdag 12 oktober 2004 21:40 skrev Trey Gruel:

10% (random percent as i don't know all the details) of 0 is still 0.. spyglass got nothing..

They should've asked themselves, where MicroSoft was going to use this SpyGlass and anticipated it. That's what seperates good buisness men and poor ones, how they are able to get the greatest amount of cash, for the least amount of cost.

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:40:22 -0400 Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> wrote: This proves you can poo in a box, make it look pretty, and sell it and become rich.

This is what makes fertiliser companies rich... Terence

* Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> [10-12-04 12:39]:

Mosaic.... That thing Microsoft stole and made into IE.

definitely not. Mosaic was better programmed than IE ever will be. http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/photos

Danny Sauer wrote:

John wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Fri, Oct 08 at 20:08:

...

Danny Sauer wrote:

...

Jim wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Fri, Oct 08 at 14:06: [...]

...

I understand that a new kernel is difficult and risky to introduce. On the other hand, I've heard enough credible (to me anyway) stories that 9.1 was pushed to release before it was really stable.

I hope if that problem exists, that it is fixed before a fine product's name is tarnished.

Too late - Netscape's dead. Oh, were we talking about SuSE?

--Danny, noting what happened to Netscape *again*, just in case the SuSE folks are listening.

To ALL: If Netscape's dead, then what am I replying to you on? Secondly, you cannot use IE on Linux, so which is it that is dead? I wish you people that keep on lying about Netscape or Mozilla, would just go away to stay on MSFT!!! >:o

In the news: AOL building new browser based on IE. AOL owns Netscape, FYI, and Netscape is just a theme on top of Mozilla 1.7.

Also of note, Mozilla is not Netscape. Firefox is not Netscape. While it's true that the Mozilla effort was originally founded by Netscape in 1998, the Mozilla Foundation was established in July 2003 with *support* from AOL's Netscpe devision. The gecko rendering engine, which was the heart of the Netscape-branded browsers, is a project of the Mozilla Foundation. Sure, Netscape The Company does occasionally take an open source browser, stick a skin on and tie AIM in - but they're dead as far as anyone realistic is concerned. They're not making a browser or providing competition to IE, they're making a skin for Mozilla.

Now, Firefox (and Mozilla, to a lesser extent) is finally presenting a real competitor to IE. They are not Netscape, though. They are products of the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation is an independent organization, incorporated in CA as a not-for-profit. Netscape is a company that almost killed themselves by releasing a new browser a few months before it was good enough to *actually* release to the public.

Do bear in mind the separation bewteen Mozilla and Netscape before lumping them together, eh?

I'll concede that the Netscape Network isn't dead, though. That's just because all of those AOL, Compuserve, and AIM users automatically have accounts, though. :) Netscape Communicator is even less of a contender than Opera, though, despite the 9 people who use those two browsers. It's effectively dead.

--Danny, who was at UIUC (home of NCSA, home of Mosaic) when the graphical web browser was essentially invented...

To Danny Sauer,et al: Your credentials are not in question, only the fact that ALL versions of Mozilla/Netscape/Firebird and others are very, very related in the code used to compile them! That cannot be denied, but AOL, if it even contributes to the Mozilla.org, is only one of many companies that do, and I wonder why you did not mention them? If you use Linux, the Mozilla based browsers are the only real secure way to go. Sure you could use Wine and a MSFT product, but why? When you do so, all you are doing is using up cpu overhead you could have used for something else, plus you open yourself to all kinds of viruses and hackers!! If you use a laptop, this is even more pronounced a problem! Danny Sauer, I had hoped to ask you for some help on Linux, but it is obvious that is a waste of time, and I can guarantee you there are thousands of people on Linux that use Mozilla based products! Your credentials, obviously, do not cover accounting for total use of a product! :-(

On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 01:32:17PM -0500, Danny Sauer wrote:

Last off-topic post here (sorry to those who don't care):

John wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Tue, Oct 12 at 12:51: [...]

...

To Danny Sauer,et al: Your credentials are not in question, only the fact that ALL versions of Mozilla/Netscape/Firebird and others are very, very related in the code used to compile them! That cannot be denied,

And it's not denied. In fact, it's explicitly listed several times in the message that you replied to.

...

but AOL, if it even contributes to the Mozilla.org, is only one of many companies that do, and I wonder why you did not mention them?

If you go to mozilla.org, click "about", and read about the mozilla foundation, you'll see that AOL's Netscape division is the only contributor listed. I wonder why they don't list the other 500+ contributors?

...

If you use Linux, the Mozilla based browsers are the only real secure way to go. Sure you could use Wine and a MSFT product, but why?

I don't know. You're the only one suggesting that. I merely mentioned that Netscape is dead. Netscape is a company that makes a browser suite called Communicator. The current release of Communicator is little more than a skin on top of a browser that's made by a different company - The Mozilla Foundation. Netscape is not literally dead, but they're effectively irrelevant, because all of the useful development is happening at The Mozilla Foundation.

...

When you do so, all you are doing is using up cpu overhead you could have used for something else, plus you open yourself to all kinds of viruses and hackers!! If you use a laptop, this is even more pronounced a problem! Danny Sauer, I had hoped to ask you for some help on Linux, but it is obvious that is a waste of time, and I can guarantee you there are thousands of people on Linux that use Mozilla based products! Your credentials, obviously, do not cover accounting for total use of a product! :-(

If you had read my message, you would have noticed that I use Firefox on a daily basis. I'm the reason that Firefox is the standard browser on each and every Windows, Mac, and Linux workstation at my place of employ. I have personally installed mozilla-based browsers on hundreds of machines. "Creating Applications with Mozilla" is open on my desk right now. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who pushes Mozilla more than me. My love and respect for the gecko rendering engine + mozilla application platform in no way relates to the viability of the Netscape division of AOL, though. Not that I expect you to understand, but I figured I'd give you another chance. Everyone gets confused once in a while.

As this has regressed into little more than a flame, though, this marks the end of my participation in this discussion. If you, John, still have a Linux question that you think I'd specifically be of help with, do feel free to ask. I will not hold earlier confusions against you.

--Danny, who's exclusively used mozilla, on Linux, since the early beta versions (before Netscape Communicator 6 was released)

Heh, a good flame war once in a while is OK, it's good for letting it out as long as it doesn't get to serious. Anyway, I'm not trying to be a jack ass as some fo you are probably thinking, but good discussion is hard to come by sometimes. NP: KMFDM - WW3 Good album.

On Tuesday October 12 2004 4:16 pm, Terence McCarthy wrote:

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:42:02 -0500

Danny Sauer <suse-linux-e.suselists@danny.teleologic.net> wrote:

...

--Danny, who was at UIUC (home of NCSA, home of Mosaic) when the graphical web browser was essentially invented...

You're as old as that, huh?

'Don't know why you're bragging, as you taught us all. :) :) Fred -- "Running Windows on a Pentium is like getting a Porsche but only being able to drive it in reverse with the handbrake on."

On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 03:32:27PM -0500, Danny Sauer wrote:

Terence wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Tue, Oct 12 at 15:07:

...

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:42:02 -0500 Danny Sauer <suse-linux-e.suselists@danny.teleologic.net> wrote:

...

--Danny, who was at UIUC (home of NCSA, home of Mosaic) when the graphical web browser was essentially invented...

You're as old as that, huh?

Yeah, not very old. :)

--Danny, trying no tto date himself *too* accurately

I'll be 22 in a month if anyone cares :) Blah, I'm getting old. Next I'll be getting a hip replacement, and talking about the old days when UNIX was able to fit on a single floppy, and you wrote your own damned device drivers....Days I was never apart of lol. I don't think I'm doing TOO bad, considering I just got into this a year ago.

On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 11:37:18PM +0200, Örn Hansen wrote:

tisdag 12 oktober 2004 22:37 skrev Allen:

...

I'll be 22 in a month if anyone cares :) Blah, I'm getting old. Next I'll be getting a hip replacement, and talking about the old days when UNIX was able to fit on a single floppy, and you wrote your own damned device drivers....Days I was never apart of lol. I don't think I'm doing TOO bad, considering I just got into this a year ago.

I'm 20 years older than you are, and I started with computers in 1980 ... so, I've been around computers longer than you've been around. :-) The thing that I've experienced, is that in my first year I didn't have time to socialize ... it was all computers 24/7. Now, I grant myself the privelege of reading a mail or two, and browsing the internet :-)

Too me, I think people using computers now are spoiled. You have pretty GUIs, a mouse for everything, and NO ONE actually HAS to learn coding to use one. I like using a GUI, becaue well, text pron sucks, and I like watching video, and being on Gaim, and Kopete, but as for right now, I have Amarok playing a play list and I'm on Gaim and Kopete, but I'm in a VC text only checking my E-Mail. Do you agree that kids now have it easy? Including me of course, I got my first computer 5 years ago and just started using UNIX based OSs a year ago. I don't have to learna nything, I can just click and drool on the keyboard. I'm quite tired of it really. I feel I've missed out on the golden days of PCs because of a GUI. People who have beeb on computers longer have it better, you guys know how to code, you know networking inside and out and your OS inside and out. I had to force myself to learn all that. I still can't program for crap, and I'll blame that on GUIs too, because lookign at older computers and thwe web pages that talk about them, everyone knew how to code in at least basic, and in the 70s, even Macs came with Hex. I feel like a GUI is nothing more than a bondage instrument to hold you down. SUSE finds a good mix of both, and yes it looks beautiful, so I'll actually use X in SUSE, but I still shut X down when I'm not using something that needs it. A goal of mine: Too become one of those UNIX Wizards who sit there for ours on end hacking away at their Console/ Terminal. I want that, as it just,... I'm not sure how to explain it, but I just want to be able to be a UNIX Wizard. The guys who have been at this for a long time know what I mean. You don't have a GUI loaded, and you're sitting there re-writing your OS. Heh, I actually started designing an OS not long ago. OSs are something I'm good with and I know how they work OK, and so I wanted to design one for me, and started it. I've had good, and very good responces. People love it, and think ti's a great idea, but again I don't code. Woops, LONG Email.

On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 09:26:07PM -0400, James Knott wrote:

Allen wrote:

...

Too me, I think people using computers now are spoiled. You have pretty GUIs, a mouse for everything, and NO ONE actually HAS to learn coding to use one.

I like using a GUI, becaue well, text pron sucks, and I like watching video, and being on Gaim, and Kopete, but as for right now, I have Amarok playing a play list and I'm on Gaim and Kopete, but I'm in a VC text only checking my E-Mail.

Do you agree that kids now have it easy? Including me of course, I got my first computer 5 years ago and just started using UNIX based OSs a year ago. I don't have to learna nything, I can just click and drool on the keyboard. I'm quite tired of it really.

I feel I've missed out on the golden days of PCs because of a GUI. People who have beeb on computers longer have it better, you guys know how to code, you know networking inside and out and your OS inside and out. I had to force myself to learn all that. I still can't program for crap, and I'll blame that on GUIs too, because lookign at older computers and thwe web pages that talk about them, everyone knew how to code in at least basic, and in the 70s, even Macs came with Hex. I feel like a GUI is nothing more than a bondage instrument to hold you down.

I bought my first computer, an IMSAI 8080, in Nov. 1976. This was a kit, where the components came in plastic bags and had to be soldered onto the circuit boards etc. It came with no software and even memory was an extra cost option. I had to write my own device drivers to get the hardware to work. At one point I even designed and built from scratch, and 8 port serial I/O card. There were no disk drives, just a couple of audio cassette drives, which could zip along at 300 bits/second. Back in those days, you really knew your computer, inside out.

See, you had to work at it and actually learn too use it. Now like these drooling half wits called The Great Unwashed that buy a Gateway at the store, plug it in and still complain it's too hard.

Also, back in those days, we had to whittle our own chips from wood... ;-)

Heh, my LAN class teacher was an Assembler coder for 22 years. He would write code for Motorola 68K Processors and do it all on UNIX Terminals. Bastard, he actually got to do those things. Not that writing Assembler is something I'm thinking about doing, I hate coding, but spending all nighters with your friends coding and having fun, It's something I'll probably never do. And now a question: Why is an Xterm called that after a Terminal when a Terminal is where something ends.... What were they thinking calling it that. Isn't it properly called a console? Or what? What do you call a box that's only using a command line, like run level 3....That's not a Terminal is it? I have no idea what to call these things, because I've been told Terminal is where something ends, so it would be console, but... OK I've confused myself.... I think I'm going to run too the store and get a pack of smokes heh. So what is a Terminal, and what is a console? Someone help! ;)

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 01:08:08AM -0500, Danny Sauer wrote:

Allen wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Wed, Oct 13 at 23:00:

...

On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 09:26:07PM -0400, James Knott wrote:

...

I bought my first computer, an IMSAI 8080, in Nov. 1976. This was a

I was born in Nov, 1976. :) You had it easy - do you know how hard I've had to look to find Heathkit stuff, decades after they stopped making anything? And here, you could just go to a store or mail-order parts!

Luckily, we had to build small computers as part of that whole Computer Engineering thing. Hooray for school teaching practical skills. Heh. Yah, "useful". Sigh.

I was born in November of 1982. I'm going to be 22 :(

...

Heh, my LAN class teacher was an Assembler coder for 22 years. He would write code for Motorola 68K Processors and do it all on UNIX Terminals. Bastard, he actually got to do those things. Not that writing Assembler is something I'm thinking about doing, I hate coding, but spending all nighters with your friends coding and having fun, It's something I'll probably never do.

Pic Micro chips are kinda fun to play with, and you can make them do actual useful stuff. If you wanna play with assembler in a semi-instant gratification way, check them out.

Cool, I'll look it up. I like Assmebler for some reaosn. I've writtena program in C, C++, Java, Jva script, PERL, VB, QBASIC, and I have looked over Assembler code before. Looks like it would take a little work, but I have NO coding skills. I made myself write one program in those languages, mainly so I could have a basic understanding of them. I know Binary and Hex too ;)

...

And now a question:

Why is an Xterm called that after a Terminal when a Terminal is where something ends.... What were they thinking calling it that. Isn't it properly called a console? [...]

If you have a "terminal server" with a bunch of serial lines running from the server to workstations, the "terminals" are indeed at the end of the line. A console is an arbitrary display, IMHO. In X, your console is where the logs go (no interaction), and the terminal is the thing you interact with.

--Danny, accurately dating himself, now

Ahhh! Now I see it. So I'm playing at my terminal then? lol.

On Thursday 14 October 2004 14:13, James Knott wrote:

Allen wrote:

...

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 01:08:08AM -0500, Danny Sauer wrote:

Please correct your computer clock, so that your replies don't appear before the message you're replying to. You apparently posted your message at 6:42 AM yesterday, or more than 18 hours, before Danny posted his.

In this day & age, with ntp, rdate etc., there is no reason for a computer clock to be wrong. Funny you mention it I have been trying for three days to figure out why if I set it to utc it reports the correct time but like t hours ahead, and if I set it to local time it is two hours behind, and if I reboot it has a mind of its own. I have physically set the time to what it is now, if I open the "adjust date and time " option off the clock the time is correct. I have checked my BIOS and there too it is correct.

In a nutshell it is just not a priority on my list right now but I will try figure it out this weekend. I must apologise for any inconvenience caused! :-) -- Chadley Wilson Redhat Certified Technician Cert Number: 603004708291270 Pinnacle Micro Manufacturers of Proline Computers ==================================== Exercise freedom, Use LINUX =====================================

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 02:56:33PM -0400, James Knott wrote:

Chadley Wilson wrote:

...

On Thursday 14 October 2004 14:13, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 01:08:08AM -0500, Danny Sauer wrote:

Please correct your computer clock, so that your replies don't appear before the message you're replying to. You apparently posted your message at 6:42 AM yesterday, or more than 18 hours, before Danny posted his.

In this day & age, with ntp, rdate etc., there is no reason for a computer clock to be wrong.

Funny you mention it I have been trying for three days to figure out why if I set it to utc it reports the correct time but like t hours ahead, and if I set it to local time it is two hours behind, and if I reboot it has a mind of its own. I have physically set the time to what it is now, if I open the "adjust date and time " option off the clock the time is correct. I have checked my BIOS and there too it is correct.

In a nutshell it is just not a priority on my list right now but I will try figure it out this weekend. I must apologise for any inconvenience caused! :-)

I thought I had sent that to Allen. However, you can set your computer clock to either UTC or local time. In addition, there's also a setting for your time zone, which many people forget about. Once you have that sorted out, you can use ntp to keep your clock accurate. Failing that, I suppose you could always buy a cesium clock and plug it into your USB port. ;-)

I haven't set my cloick yet, it happens on Slackware and I have to set it by hand. I'll do that in a bit here, I just woke up.

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Allen wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Thu, Oct 14 at 03:03:

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 01:08:08AM -0500, Danny Sauer wrote: [...]

...

Pic Micro chips are kinda fun to play with, and you can make them do actual useful stuff. If you wanna play with assembler in a semi-instant gratification way, check them out.

Cool, I'll look it up. I like Assmebler for some reaosn. I've writtena [...]

http://www.microchip.com/ They have the some kick-butt documentation. If you play it right, you can get set up with a programmer for under $50, and get a few engineering samples of some flash-based chips for free. You'll be making overly-complicated LED blinkers in no time. :) --Danny, who just can't get this stupid iButton to communicate with the PIC chip. Argh, debugging is so much easier with a monitor...

On Oct 13, 2004, at 11:08 PM, Danny Sauer wrote:

Pic Micro chips are kinda fun to play with, and you can make them do actual useful stuff. If you wanna play with assembler in a semi-instant gratification way, check them out.

From time to time I've thought about playing with pics. I've used the popular, though limited, Basic Stamps from Parallax and gotten some use out of them as embedded sensor pollers in a PV power system for my house. They're really toys though (programmed in basic, no interrupts, etc.), and unfortunately until relatively recently they needed Windows to download the firmware to them. On top of that they're kind of expensive - not to mention proprietary - compared to the pic chips themselves. I've often thought that getting a gcc-based setup on linux for programming pic (or Atmel's AVR) chips directly would be so much better, but I've never had the time to do the research and pull everything together. (Yes Novell, that's a hint.) Do you have a working setup? If so, I'd like to hear about it. Oh, and just to stay on-topic(?).. anyone ever heard of 1108s, 1802s? Cosmac VIP ring a bell? -John (-really- dating himself)

* John Grant <jmgrant@adsl-63-194-251-2.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net> [2004.10.15 06:42]:

Oh, and just to stay on-topic(?).. anyone ever heard of 1108s, 1802s? Cosmac VIP ring a bell?

[peeking head out of the woodwork ...] Yup! While at JPL around 1984, messed about some with the Galileo flight software which ran on a redundant multi-cpu 1802 based system. I was on the Magellan (then was Venus Radar Mapper) project which, being a low budget project, was using as much of the Galileo project development as possible. The Cosmac development system was quite primitive, so I used to download the code to an IBM PC/AT (orig, with 10 MB disk drive) so I could edit it under WordStar then upload it back into the development system. Ah, those were the days ... NOT! They were hard, though very interesting. I did learn quite a bit then. Phil [slinking back into the woodwork ...] -- Philip Amadeo Saeli SuSE Linux 8.2 psaeli@zorodyne.com

* James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> [2004.10.15 12:08]:

Philip Amadeo Saeli wrote:

...

* John Grant <jmgrant@adsl-63-194-251-2.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net> [2004.10.15 06:42]:

...

Oh, and just to stay on-topic(?).. anyone ever heard of 1108s, 1802s? Cosmac VIP ring a bell?

[peeking head out of the woodwork ...]

Yup! While at JPL around 1984, messed about some with the Galileo flight software which ran on a redundant multi-cpu 1802 based system. I was on the Magellan (then was Venus Radar Mapper) project which, being a low budget project, was using as much of the Galileo project development as possible.

As I recall, one reason for going with the 1802, was that being CMOS, it was less sensitive to radiation, than the other NMOS CPUs.

Exactly right. I believe this was the main reason, though power consumption was also very important, given that (for Galileo, at least) all power was generated from the heat of nuclear decay (Magellan could use solar power due to Venus' close position to the sun). It wasn't until some time later that processors with more modern architectures (and better performance) became available in rad-hard (generally CMOS) versions. That occurred, however, after my stay at JPL had ended. Phil -- Philip Amadeo Saeli SuSE Linux 8.2 psaeli@zorodyne.com

John wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] new v9.2 is out' on Fri, Oct 15 at 01:42:

I've often thought that getting a gcc-based setup on linux for programming pic (or Atmel's AVR) chips directly would be so much better, but I've never had the time to do the research and pull everything together. (Yes Novell, that's a hint.) Do you have a working setup? If so, I'd like to hear about it.

I've done a few projects with AVR and I find them much superior to PIC's; modern core, one assembly language and plenty of features. GCC was ported a while back and plenty of linux based dev tools can be found here: http://www.openavr.org/ AVRFreaks is also a great resource which saved me several times when I was a R&D Engineer. Regards, Ben

Allen wrote:

And now a question:

Why is an Xterm called that after a Terminal when a Terminal is where something ends.... What were they thinking calling it that. Isn't it properly called a console? Or what? What do you call a box that's only using a command line, like run level 3....That's not a Terminal is it? I have no idea what to call these things, because I've been told Terminal is where something ends, so it would be console, but... OK I've confused myself.... I think I'm going to run too the store and get a pack of smokes heh.

So what is a Terminal, and what is a console? Someone help! ;)

A computer "terminal" has long been known as the device someone would sit at, to use the computer. Years ago, it was a mechanical printer & keyboard and later a video display & keyboard. A console is a terminal that's primarily used for controlling or operating the computer and was commonly used back in the days of mainframe and mini computers. These days, with personal computers, the one keyboard & diplay does both. Later on, "terminal" programs were created, to emulate the services of a computer terminal.

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 05:44:50PM +0200, Örn Hansen wrote:

onsdag 13 oktober 2004 10:00 skrev Allen:

...

Why is an Xterm called that after a Terminal when a Terminal is where something ends.... What were they thinking calling it that. Isn't it properly called a console? Or what? What do you call a box that's only using a command line, like run level 3....That's not a Terminal is it? I have no idea what to call these things, because I've been told Terminal is where something ends, so it would be console, but... OK I've confused myself.... I think I'm going to run too the store and get a pack of smokes heh.

So what is a Terminal, and what is a console? Someone help! ;)

A bus terminal, is not only where the journey ends ... it's also where it begins. If you think of it in terms of a Mainframe system, you have your central processing unit ... which needs data. The data begins its journey at a terminal, which functions as a gateway to the Central Processing Unit (Today called a processor, in the old days it took an entire floor). The data is processed, stored ... and then at some point, it is a part of another journey to another terminal, for display. So, a terminal marks an entry and exit point, for information for a central processing.

A console ... once upon a time, you had these huge computers ... like the VAX. It didn't have any visual terminal, all it had was a numic pad. This is where you had to key in the bood sequence, for the computer to actually boot the operating system. At those times, a terminal was a tele typewriter. A console, is the interface that is directly connected to the central processing system. Taking it directly from a dictionary:

1. A central control panel for a mechanical, electrical, or electronic system. 2. An instrument panel.

Then, at some point we needed to be able to view more than one data at a time. We didn't have Graphical User Interfaces then, but we did have simple terminal based interfaces to home computers, like Commodore Pet, or Apple. All basic variants, came up with extensions that included the statement WINDOW X1,Y1,X2,Y2 ... which meaning was siilar to Terminal above. Except, that we now think of it as a Window into the Central Processing Unit or the Information Processing. Before the GUI ever came, text based interfaces were capable of displaying windows ... there's even an old library, from the old unix systems ... called curses, now it's known as ncurses. Of course, this was way before Microsoft claimed they invented Windows :-) ... ahh, sorry Microsoft Windows (R) :-)

Hope that helps, :-) Örn Thanks man! That was good! Ncurses rocks, I use it when I set up Free BSD boxes, and of course, YAST2 in Run Level 2. Awesome man.

At 12:59 AM 10/22/2004 +0200, you wrote:

Wed, 13 Oct 2004, by gorebofh@comcast.net: [..]

...

Why is an Xterm called that after a Terminal when a Terminal is where something ends.... What were they thinking calling it that. Isn't it properly called a console? Or what? What do you call a box that's only using a command line, like run level 3....That's not a Terminal is it? I have no idea what to call these things, because I've been told Terminal is where something ends, so it would be console, but... OK I've confused myself.... I think I'm going to run too the store and get a pack of smokes heh.

So what is a Terminal, and what is a console? Someone help! ;)

/snip/ I don't know if this is a troll, but if not, then this: When computers were, sometimes, thousands of miles away, and connected by a telephone line--at perhaps 120 Baud--the device at the operator's end of the line, connected by a physical modem, which is to say a physical microphone and speaker into a telephone handset--the gadget that you used to access the computer--usually a Teletype machine--was called a terminal. You wrote your code onto punched paper tape, and fed it into the TT machine, and via the telephone into the computer, wherever it was. The computer would figure out what you wanted, and answer, via TT. The computer understood a version of Fortran, and BASIC. Most of us wrote our code in BASIC, except those few of us who had just graduated from engineering school and had been taught Fortran in school. There were no programs, in the modern sense, altho the computer that I could access in the mid 60's could play Tic-Tac-Toe, and, I think, Black Jack. Anything else, you wrote yourself. And of course, we did. Tons of stuff in BASIC (mostly) to solve engineering problems. I suppose others wrote stuff to solve--medical problems? --highway problems? --who knows? The input, as I have said, was either from keyboard or from paper tape, the output was on 8-1/2" wide yellow paper rolls out of the TT machine. The "console" was a somewhat later version of the TT machine, and was not in use for very long, IIRC. It was just a CRT, either green screen or black/white, which replaced the TT machine. It had a keyboard and a CRT. Some early computers had a "console" and an audio tape storage unit, and may not have connected to a mainframe a thousand miles away, but actually had local computing power. HP made one, as I remember, and they had their own version of BASIC, which was somewhat more powerful, but not really compatible. Radio Shack made a computer that had a console, and it did word-processing. Apple also had one: its screen was only 40 characters wide, and it drove anybody that used it crazy. You could actually consider that the ATARI and Commodore computers used a "console," which was comprised of a keyboard and a TV set. The ATARI was much more like a modern computer than the Commodore, since it had an actual operating system, but both could do real computing in BASIC, and could control external devices via rudimentary I/O ports. Naturally, all the I/O was in text format, except for early pictorial output from the ATARI and Commodore machines, which displayed on a TV screen. Control I/O had to be formatted like BASIC I/O code. been there--doug

On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 09:22:16AM -0400, Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 01:16:30 -0400, Doug McGarrett <dmcgarrett@optonline.net> wrote:

...

At 12:59 AM 10/22/2004 +0200, you wrote:

...

Wed, 13 Oct 2004, by gorebofh@comcast.net: [..]

...

I don't know if this is a troll, but if not, then this:

Wait, you think I'm a Troll??? Heh, dude, I've made more people switch from XP, RedHat, and other OSs over too SUSE than any marketing company could dream of, and I don't get paid for it. Hell, anyone on http://www.antionline.com knows me and knows how I feel about SUSE

connected terminals. (VT100/Wyse50/etc.) They were referred to as time-sharing computers by some.

Man, you guys got too play with all kinds of cool toys :( Heh, I've never used a Terminal like that.

Typically the console is a directly connected keyboard/monitor like most PC's have, but it can also be a serially connected terminal. ie. the words are not incompatible. Heh, I'm not green, but you have too realise I've only had a computer for 5 years, so my experience is limited on older hardware. I think I got too use a 486 once. Something all of you have probably used.

The key things is that with Linux, the console is where certain system level errors go by default. (think oops, etc.)

I think that's what I see when I am on VC1 and keep on going back farther, it shows me messages, just not errors. I found that by accident one day, I held the ALT and <-- button down too long by accident.

significant output before they crash. I don't know if it is even possible to capture this output with a directly connected console. Using the laptop/terminal emulator/serial console function, you can enable logging in the terminal emulator and save the oops to a disk file on the laptop.

People doing kernel development are particularily found of serial consoles.

Can you give some detail on this? I've never talked too any Kernel developers, but why are they fond of those?

On Monday 25 October 2004 05:50 pm, Allen wrote:

I've read about these things! Dude these were AWESOME! http://www.oldcomputer.net or oldhardware or one of those. It has a list of older hardware. Ahh! http://www.oldcomputers.net   <--- awesome site if you guys have never went there.

They don't go back that far...... but I guess they aren't interested in the mainframes. Too bad. My first computer experience was with a IBM 650. The memory was on a rotating belt-driven drum. Sometimes with a power spike, the belt would snap..... :-) -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 10/25/04 18:29 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Every creature has within itself the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt."

James, On Monday 25 October 2004 18:52, James Knott wrote:

...

Take a look at the IMSAI 8080. That was my first computer, which I bought in Nov 1976.

Lucky you! All I could do was read the article in Electronics Illustrated ... Or was it Popular Electronics? Yeah, I think it was Popular Electronics. I was hooked on both of 'em when I was a kid. RRS

On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 10:08:30AM -0400, James Knott wrote:

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

James,

On Monday 25 October 2004 18:52, James Knott wrote:

...

...

Take a look at the IMSAI 8080. That was my first computer, which I bought in Nov 1976.

Lucky you! All I could do was read the article in Electronics Illustrated ... Or was it Popular Electronics? Yeah, I think it was Popular Electronics. I was hooked on both of 'em when I was a kid.

There was an article in the (IIRC) Jan 1974 issue of Popular Electronics about the Altair 8800. The IMSAI was an Altair clone. Of course, back in those days, computer hardware was far more expensive than now, and couldn't do anywhere near as much. For example 4 Kbytes of memory ran about $200. Almost all hardware came in kit form, consisting of a bare board and a bag of parts. So we did a lot of soldering back in those days. For example, each connector on the mother board required 100 solder connections. Also, in order to do anything, I first had to load in a monitor program, using the front panel and then save it to cassette. I also had to write my own device drivers in assembler and then hand assemble the code, which was then entered using the front panel. However, back in those days you also knew your computer inside

Heh, see that's whatwas cool, back then you HAD too know, and that brings me too my last point; People today are spoiled and don't know nearly enough about the machines they spend money on. They just want too download MP3s, and that would mean me too, as I grew up a spoiled by Windows computer user too heh.

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On Wednesday 27 October 2004 12:26 pm, Robert A. Rawlinson wrote:

James Knott wrote:

...

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

James,

On Monday 25 October 2004 18:52, James Knott wrote:

...

...

Take a look at the IMSAI 8080. That was my first computer, which I bought in Nov 1976.

Lucky you! All I could do was read the article in Electronics Illustrated ... Or was it Popular Electronics? Yeah, I think it was Popular Electronics. I was hooked on both of 'em when I was a kid.

<snip>

I built one that was before the altar and imsai. It used the 8008 chip. I had 2k memory and tiny basic. Could still do a lot with it. Other wise it was the same. Bob

Just curious if any of you have every worked with a machine that used core memory. If I remember correctly you basically had a cage of "boards". Each board was an x-y grid of fine wire and around each intersection of the wires was a ring of some ferrous oxide material. A current was applied to a certain x-y coordinate to charge the ring thus representing a binary 1. This was a system that had a destructive read which required you to write back what you just read. I have never used one myself but one of my college instructors had one of these cages of core memory modules from a machine he had used in his youth. Quite interesting. Darrell C.

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 01:20 pm, Darrell Cormier wrote:

...

Just curious if any of you have every worked with a machine that used core memory.  If I remember correctly you basically had a cage of "boards". Each board was an x-y grid of fine wire and around each intersection of the wires was a ring of some ferrous oxide material.  A current was applied to a certain x-y coordinate to charge the ring thus representing a binary 1. This was a system that had a destructive read which required you to write back what you just read.

I have never used one myself but one of my college instructors had one of these cages of core memory modules from a machine he had used in his youth. Quite interesting.

Yep, worked on a lot of them between '60 to '74. Neatest one was a drum/core machine which was actually dc digital as opposed to ac digital. DC used flip-flops which gave a 1 when low and a 0 when hi. With ac you had to use a strobe to see what the state was at any particular time. The innards of hard drives use the same methods to read data off the heads before they are convertted to dc levels. The drum/core machine used 16k of core and had drum storage up to 500 megs or so. One of those machines was the first Timeshare used by NASDAQ back in the late 60's early 70's. It had an exec routine, now they are called an OS, that broke the core into several sections and could run multiple programs by swapping segments out to dedicated parts of the drum. In the late 70's someone, IBM I think, reinvented that wheel and called it virtual memory which is now used in all ps systems. BTW, the 16k referred to the number of 32 bit words it could handle. MOst of the stuff we played with was done in octal cause it was so easy to translate from decimal. Hex was pretty much an IBM thing. I guess the point of all this is that there isn't anything really new under the sun, just different ways of packaging and naming. Of course modern computers have much more speed and capacity but still can only add and subtract, and there are those that will make an argument that they can only add since the other functions are successive additions. Most mini and scientific computers into the late 70's used core and various forms of mass storage such as tape and drum and disc. Regarding the use of Fortran, it was still being used in the Simulation industry into the 90's when I left that field. Since simulation is nothing more than a lot of math calculations, Fortran was an excellent choice of languages. If anyone is curious about the foregoing I'd be happy to discuss this off the list or on the OT list. Regards, Richard -- Old age ain't for Sissies!

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 16:59, JAMES KNOTT wrote:

--- Darrell Cormier <linuxdev@sptc.net> wrote:

...

Sorry, I forgot to include the link.

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/core.html

The core plane I have, from the Collins computer, looks very similar to the one in "Figure 4. Magnetic core plane".

Incidentally, back in the late '50s, IBM was able to reduce the cost of core memory to $1 per byte. There's a good description of the development of core memory, in the book "IBM's Early Computers".

=o Was that a thousand dollars for a Meg of RAM???

______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

--- Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> wrote:

...

Was that a thousand dollars for a Meg of RAM???

No, it was $1 million!!! To get what's common in today's computers, you'd be spending around a half a billion dollars!

______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca Very True. Also input was usually card reader or magtape. Papertape was

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 02:19 pm, JAMES KNOTT wrote: popular in the process control area. Ever hear of an Alwac (better system than IBM at the time, all vacuum tube, what fun we had at night testing tubes. -- Russ

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 05:06 pm, Allen wrote:

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 16:59, JAMES KNOTT wrote:

...

--- Darrell Cormier <linuxdev@sptc.net> wrote:

...

Sorry, I forgot to include the link.

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/core.html

The core plane I have, from the Collins computer, looks very similar to the one in "Figure 4. Magnetic core plane".

Incidentally, back in the late '50s, IBM was able to reduce the cost of core memory to $1 per byte. There's a good description of the development of core memory, in the book "IBM's Early Computers".

=o

Was that a thousand dollars for a Meg of RAM???

No, it would be a million..... per year.... (but I'm not quite sure it was that high but it was mighty expensive.) But one day one of the IBM PC (Aug 1981), it *was* $1,000 for a meg of PC ram. I remember paying $640 for an add-on memory board of 640K. (or was it 64K? which would make it $10,000 per megabyte)

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 5:28 pm, Bruce Marshall wrote:

I remember paying $640 for an add-on memory board of 640K. (or was it 64K? which would make it $10,000 per megabyte)

In the early-70s I was a programmer on the Burger King point of sale system which was a 4K (12 bit words) DEC PDP8M. If I recall, a single memory board was $5000. The system was replaced with an 8080 based system. -- Jerry Feldman <gerald.feldman@hp.com> Partner Technology Access Center (contractor) (PTAC-MA) Hewlett-Packard Co. 550 King Street LKG2a-X2 Littleton, Ma. 01460 (978)506-5243

* Patrick Shanahan <paka@wahoo.no-ip.org> [10-27-04 17:00]:

* Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> [10-27-04 16:09]:

...

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 16:59, JAMES KNOTT wrote:

...

Incidentally, back in the late '50s, IBM was able to reduce the cost of core memory to $1 per byte. There's a good description of the development of core memory, in the book "IBM's Early Computers".

Was that a thousand dollars for a Meg of RAM???

Yes, and a 1950's us$1.00 was probably worth us$4.00+ today.

Million, not thousand -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/photos

--- Patrick Shanahan <paka@wahoo.no-ip.org> wrote:

* Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> [10-27-04 16:09]:

...

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 16:59, JAMES KNOTT wrote:

...

Incidentally, back in the late '50s, IBM was

able to

...

reduce the cost of core memory to $1 per byte. There's a good description of the development of core memory, in the book "IBM's Early Computers".

Was that a thousand dollars for a Meg of RAM???

Yes, and a 1950's us$1.00 was probably worth us$4.00+ today.

$1 per byte = $1,000,000 per megabyte. Also, I believe the ratio is a bit higher than 4:1. ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 15:09, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Darrell,

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 11:16, Darrell Cormier wrote:

...

...

Just curious if any of you have every worked with a machine that used core memory. If I remember correctly you basically had a cage of "boards". Each board was an x-y grid of fine wire and around each intersection of the wires was a ring of some ferrous oxide material. A current was applied to a certain x-y coordinate to charge the ring thus representing a binary 1. This was a system that had a destructive read which required you to write back what you just read.

I have never used one myself but one of my college instructors had one of these cages of core memory modules from a machine he had used in his youth. Quite interesting.

We had such a museum-piece in the Computer System Lab at the University of Wisconsin when I worked there in the late 70s and early 80s, but no computers that used it. The oldest computer we had was a PDP-11/20 equipped with a fixed-head hard drive, a card reader and a very low-resolution CRT monitor.

Core memory was interesting in a lot of ways. It was horribly slow by today's standards and likewise the density was abysmal by comparison with any kind of solid state RAM. Reading it destroys the stored memory, so the controller always had to write the value back. On the other hand, real core memory is non-volatile, so you could power the machine down and when you next turned it on, the contents of main store would be what they were when you shut it down.

...

Darrell C.

Randall Schulz

My old boss (this was circa '89-'90) had worked at IBM in the 60's when toroidal core memory -- hand sewn in India, btw -- was leased (not sold) to the Wall Street crowd for $250,000 a year per MB. He described having to duck his head while walking through the mass storage rooms with machinery whirring and media reels screaming past overhead on tracks. He said if you got hit with one of those things it'd plant you on the "far wall." Now you can't give a 1 MB SIMM away and you can barely squeeze your fingers into a pc case to do any work! Just my 2 cents on this one... regards, - Carl

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 02:16 pm, Darrell Cormier wrote:

Just curious if any of you have every worked with a machine that used core memory. If I remember correctly you basically had a cage of "boards". Each board was an x-y grid of fine wire and around each intersection of the wires was a ring of some ferrous oxide material. A current was applied to a certain x-y coordinate to charge the ring thus representing a binary 1. This was a system that had a destructive read which required you to write back what you just read.

I have never used one myself but one of my college instructors had one of these cages of core memory modules from a machine he had used in his youth. Quite interesting.

Most mainframes had core memory until the early 70's. Worked on a lot of them.

--- Darrell Cormier <linuxdev@sptc.net> wrote:

...

Just curious if any of you have every worked with a machine that used core memory. If I remember correctly you basically had a cage of "boards". Each board was an x-y grid of fine wire and around each intersection of the wires was a ring of some ferrous oxide material. A current was applied to a certain x-y coordinate to charge the ring thus representing a binary 1. This was a system that had a destructive read which required you to write back what you just read.

I have never used one myself but one of my college instructors had one of these cages of core memory modules from a machine he had used in his youth. Quite interesting.

Yes, I've worked on a few models that used core, including Data General Nova & Eclipse, DEC PDP-8i & PDP-11/24, Collins 8500C. I also have a core plane (4K x 1 bit), from a Colins 8400B here. I also worked on some Phillips terminals that used core memory.

______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca I worked on or sold all of the machines you mentioned except the Collins. Sold

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 01:53 pm, JAMES KNOTT wrote: the first Eclipse Computer in Oklahoma. Worked on PDP 7. 9. 8 and 11's. Used in Process Control. Great machines but my PC is more powerful but I miss being able to control a whole plant in 16KB of memory and 256 KB of disk. -- Russ

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 19:48, Allen wrote:

...

I worked on or sold all of the machines you mentioned except the Collins. Sold the first Eclipse Computer in Oklahoma. Worked on PDP 7. 9. 8 and 11's. Used in Process Control. Great machines but my PC is more powerful but I miss being able to control a whole plant in 16KB of memory and 256 KB of disk. -- Russ

GUI and Memory hogging kernels made this thing happen, kill those and you're set.

Right. Toss that kernel and you're set. What's more, you won't have to worry about viruses, worms, ad-ward or other malware. No bugs, either, other than the ones in the machine code you write yourself. Oh, yeah. Kill those memory hogging kernels and GUIs and life will be grand. It's easy to criticize, but not so easy to create useful software. Software now does more than it used to. It has to be bigger. Software engineering is like any other kind of engineering--it's all about trade-offs. Furthermore, optimization of any kind requires effort from an engineer, and that effort costs. Memory, on the other hand, keeps getting cheaper. It makes perfect sense to allow programs to become larger when the alternative would cost more than the RAM that could be saved by making them smaller. And users continue to demand more from the software they use. More functions, more capacity and more speed. Those things cannot be achieved without consuming more computational resources, including faster CPUs, larger disks and more RAM. If it's more important to you to keep from buying more capacious computing hardware, then you'll have to do with the software of yesterday. RRS

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 20:28, Allen wrote:

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 23:22, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

If it's more important to you to keep from buying more capacious computing hardware, then you'll have to do with the software of yesterday.

RRS

I use Vi, Mutt, and links. And sometimes X. None of these are new.

Good for you. You can write plain text files, read and send plain text mail and sometimes see graphic images. Woo-Hoo! Is there an actual reason you even own a computer? RRS

On Thursday, 28 October 2004 06.22, Allen wrote:

I'm sure you know that admins rarely have a GUI for everything.

Admins rarely work directly on the servers, I have yet to see an admin that didn't work from a desktop workstation, and it's possible to do command line stuff from X. Virtual terminals are *so* much nicer Command line administration is good to know, but there's no need to be a masochist

and XMMS playing my play list.

do admins have sound cards? Most servers don't

--- Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> wrote:

...

do admins have sound cards? Most servers don't

I know an admin who has a sound card in his workstation ;) I know Servers don't really have a use for them.... But then again, wouldn't it be good for debug sounds or something similar?

That Phillips DS 714 computer I mentioned earlier, had a speaker on the operators console, that could be used to monitor the "sound" of various points in the computer. If you heard a change in the sound pattern, there was likely a problem. Incidentally, here's a picture of a DS 714 http://www.prx205.org/images/ds714.jpg ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

On Thursday 28 October 2004 09:07, Jeffrey Laramie wrote:

You know, I know better than to add to this OT thread, but this old computer stuff is just so damn interesting I can't help myself. Please, someone stop me before I post again! :-o Jeff

Buahahahahahahaha, all part of my plan ;)

--- Allen <gorebofh@comcast.net> wrote:

...

I worked on or sold all of the machines you

mentioned except the Collins.

...

Sold the first Eclipse Computer in Oklahoma. Worked on PDP 7. 9. 8 and 11's. Used in Process Control. Great machines but my PC is more powerful but I miss being able to control a whole plant in 16KB of memory and 256 KB of disk. -- Russ

GUI and Memory hogging kernels made this thing happen, kill those and you're set.

It'd take a lot more than that. Today's computers do far more than even the supercomputers, of not that many years ago. Many of those older computers were running one program only and often without benefit of an OS. You'd boot right into the program. No multi-tasking etc. ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

JAMES KNOTT wrote:

--- "Robert A. Rawlinson" <rarawlinson@rvwifi.com> wrote:

...

I built one that was before the altar and imsai. It used the 8008 chip. I had 2k memory and tiny basic. Could still do a lot with it. Other wise it was the same.

Was that the Mark 8, which (IIRC) was a construction article, in Radio Electronic magazine?

______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

Come to think of it I believe it was. Bob

1984 Radio Shack Model 4p low density single sided 5.25 disks, unless you used a disk notcher. No hard drive and a 64K memory upgradable to 128. External hard drive available for $500 all of ten meg the size of a breifcase. -- _______ _______ _______ __ / ____\ \ / / ____|_ _\ \ / / | | \ \ /\ / / (___ | | \ \ / / | | \ \/ \/ / \___ \ | | \ \/ / | |____ \ /\ / ____) |_| |_ \ / \_____| \/ \/ |_____/|_____| \/ | \ /|\ || |\ / |~~\ /~~\ /~~| //~~\ | \ / | \ || | X |__/| || |( `--. |__ | | \| \_/ / \ | \ \__/ \__| \\__/

On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 10:03, Philipp Thomas wrote:

Carl William Spitzer IV <cwsiv@myrealbox.com> [26 Oct 2004 16:17]:

Wow, 4 lines of mail and 12 lines of signature :-( I've seldom seen such ignorance of common netiquette.

Philipp

Rarely Have I seen anyone so willing to gloat. I am expermenting with a few things. -- cwsiv <cwsiv@juno.com> Linuxmail

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, Bruce Marshall wrote:

On Monday 25 October 2004 05:50 pm, Allen wrote:

...

I've read about these things! Dude these were AWESOME! http://www.oldcomputer.net or oldhardware or one of those. It has a list of older hardware. Ahh! http://www.oldcomputers.net   <--- awesome site if you guys have never went there.

They don't go back that far...... but I guess they aren't interested in the mainframes. Too bad.

My first computer experience was with a IBM 650. The memory was on a rotating belt-driven drum. Sometimes with a power spike, the belt would snap..... :-)