On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:47:40 +0000, Guy Macon <http> wrote:>AZ Nomad wrote:>>Oh yeah, and if it gets corrupted, you lose your entire system. >>Fucking wonderful.>Do the smart thing. Set up an automated backup system that does >a full unattended restore with one command. then try it on a >new blank hard disk. If I lose my entire sytem (Windows and Linux >partitions both hosed) I can be up and running in less time than >it takes to get a cup of coffee.It doesn't work with something as primitive as the registry. If you have executables that require one version of their registry components and you go back to a old version, you'll fuck everything up. Having a single monolythin registry is pure insanity.
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Started by ●July 30, 2008
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:51:37 +0000, Guy Macon <http> wrote:>AZ Nomad wrote:>>And linux doesn't have those maddening delays and lockups that windows has where >>the desktop will freeze, or be unable to display stuff like the >>desktop/new/folder command in under 10 seconds.>Perhaps it's just me, but i expect a quad-core 3GHz machine to >be able to keep up with my typing as well as my Commodore 128 does.The joy of microsoft operating systems that have consistently stayed two steps ahead of available hardware. Requiring 3 BILLION bytes of memory just to draw a desktop and run a few relatively simply low performance applications like a word processor and web browser is an incredible feat. Just think. In ten years will have 200ghz machines and microsoft will still make them dog slow.
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
AZ Nomad <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote in news:slrngb7slo.a7u.aznomad.3@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net:> The joy of microsoft operating systems that have consistently stayed > two steps ahead of available hardware. Requiring 3 BILLION bytes of > memory just to draw a desktop and run a few relatively simply low > performance applications like a word processor and web browser is an > incredible feat. > > Just think. In ten years will have 200ghz machines and microsoft will > still make them dog slow.That's not (only) Microsoft. That's Software Engineer and OO programming. Bye Jack -- Eroi non si nasce, ti incastrano - Jim Belushi
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
Mark Borgerson <mborgerson@comcast.net> writes:> > And my Linux DVD player has a "menu" button that *always* brings you > > to the menu, even if the DVD author doesn't want you to skip the > > commercials. > > > I hope it does so in reasonably prompt fashion. > I think my Motorola cable box/DVR runs embedded linux.It's not embedded linux, it's a dual core desktop. It responds as fast as the DVD drive can.> > Even my furnace runs Linux :-) > > > Cool---but hopefully not when it's supposed to be warm!Cool in the summer, warm in the winter ;-) http://www.delorie.com/house/furnace/
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
JosephKK schreef:> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:04:20 -0500, AZ Nomad > <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote: > >> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:49:35 -0700, Joel Koltner <zapwireDASHgroups@yahoo.com> wrote: >>> "Michael N. Moran" <mnmoran@bellsouth.net> wrote in message >>> news:%aBsk.16396$kh2.13295@bignews3.bellsouth.net... >>>> Like the registry, which is *so* much better ;) >>> It's better than the *NIX approach in that there are standard tools and APIs >>> for creating, editing, and saving individual entries, branchs, etc. Is it >>> great? No. But I haven't seen any "great" answers to the problem -- storing >>> configuration settings is such a general problem that there really aren't any >>> great one-size-fits-all solutions, I expect. >>>> Fortunately, the Windoze registry is intuitive *and* robust. >>> Actually, yes -- the arrangement is reasonably intuitive, and it keeps backup >>> copies of itself around to provide some degree of robustness. (And as with >>> *NIX text configuration files, you can certainly make as many manual backups >>> as you feel like.) >>>> As opposed to the years that it took Mirco$oft to figure out >>>> how to do preemptive multi-tasking? >>> No one considered Windows 3.1/95/98 to be in the same class of operating >>> systems as *NIX, you know. :-) That started with Windows NT, which had plenty >>> of "real OS" programmers on the team (including David Cutler, who had done >>> plenty of VMS development... and one might argue he learned from many of his >>> mistakes there? :-) ). >> Oh yeah, and if it gets corrupted, you lose your entire system. >> Fucking wonderful. > > Since MSwin 2000 the tools are reasonably reliable, though well short > of good. One of the biggest problems is doofii getting into the > registry with regedit and mangling their system (often without > protecting themselves nor learning diddly from their misadventures).The problem with Windows is that out of the box it is pretty easy to screw it up because for user convenience everyone gets administrative privileges. You could solve that problem by removing administrative privileges for those users that are too smart for their own good. With proper user rights it can be pretty hard to screw up a Windows installation.
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
On Aug 26, 5:49 pm, David Brown <david.br...@hesbynett.removethisbit.no> wrote: [....]> Although there are no official standards for /etc configuration files > (or user configuration files in hidden directories or files in the home > directory), there are a number of conventions that are used regularly. > For example, lines starting with # are almost invariably comment lines. > Programs with larger configurations have their own directory under > /etc, while smaller configurations have a simple /etc/prog.conf file. > Programs that need hierarchical settings typically use an apache-style > configuration format. > > You are correct that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. That's > why on *nix, appropriate sizes are used as needed, unlike the windows > registry. > > Oh, and one more thing - *nix configuration files are almost always well > documented. How much windows software comes with documentation for the > registry settings?You missed an item here. Most *nix applications are reasonably robust against errors in the configuration. They generally will give you a hint about where the problem in the xxx.conf is. This is because it is much easier and natural to print something meaningful when the file being read is plain ascii.> There is certainly room for improvement in *nix configuration files - a > little more consistency would not do any harm. And while some default > configuration files come with clear comments allowing you to make simple > changes without R'ing TFM, others are much less obvious. But the *nix > system is still decades more advanced than the windows registry - the > move away from .ini files (which had a nice consistent syntax, but had > no good way of storing hierarchical data) was a big step backwards.Many years back I wrote a DOS application that needed to store a fairly complex configuration into an INI. My solution was, I though at the time a good one: The program was object oriented and the objects may point to each other etc. Each object needed to be stored and loaded and have the pointers restored without forcing fixed addresses. I turned the pointers into "name tags" for the objects as I stored them. Each object grew a "store()" method to do the write and a "load()" method for the read. The type of the each object was written as a text string. The result looked like this: TheObjectType AB_CD_EF_GH ( Item1=12345 Item2="this is some string" ) ... etc ... [....]> > Actually, yes -- the arrangement is reasonably intuitive, and it keeps backup > > copies of itself around to provide some degree of robustness. (And as with > > *NIX text configuration files, you can certainly make as many manual backups > > as you feel like.) > > "Some degree of robustness" - yes, the backups can help a bit, unless > things have gone badly wrong. Then your windows installation is hosed. > You can't keep backups externally - there is no way to restore the > registry using a live boot CD if it gets trashed.Yes you can do that. If you keep a Puppy Linux live CD on hand. Puppy will back up a XP system and a good 50% of the time, you can put back the damaged files. and get it working again. It is fairly amazing that they were able to reverse engineer the NTFS file system. Microsoft hasn't published a standard for it. You can even back up and restore a password protected file system. You can take a snapshot of the whole system and put it back to that point. If some fool sets it up as a "domain log in" machine. It is harder to get it going again. You have to put back the local disk and the directory on the server at the same time. [....]> I have a W2K installation on a PC that got its registry corrupted - no > amount of "repair" from the installation CD helped. The registry is so > fubar that the W2K installation disk refuses even to install a fresh > windows installation to the partition (same directory or another directory).Make a backup of the disk. Delete the *.reg and try it. Put back *.reg and instead delete /windows and try it. By trying with random collections of the existing files I have managed to get the Windows repair to put basically an whole new install in place. [.. Microsoft..]> They are certainly good at making the appearance of their software nice. > And they are good at making the easy stuff easy (for users). But they > are *not* good at the engineering and plumbing that lies underneath.I have never found Windows easy to use. For some reason I can almost never double click.
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
In article <xnfxos6ipy.fsf@delorie.com>, dj@delorie.com says...> > Mark Borgerson <mborgerson@comcast.net> writes: > > > And my Linux DVD player has a "menu" button that *always* brings you > > > to the menu, even if the DVD author doesn't want you to skip the > > > commercials. > > > > > I hope it does so in reasonably prompt fashion. > > I think my Motorola cable box/DVR runs embedded linux. > > It's not embedded linux, it's a dual core desktop. It responds as > fast as the DVD drive can.Did I miss something here? There's no DVD drive in my cable box. I've seen several references to embedded Linux in Motorola DCT6412 cable boxes.> > > > Even my furnace runs Linux :-) > > > > > Cool---but hopefully not when it's supposed to be warm! > > Cool in the summer, warm in the winter ;-) > http://www.delorie.com/house/furnace/ >Mark Borgerson
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
"AZ Nomad" <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote in message news:slrngb60hk.i6f.aznomad.3@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net...> Oh yeah, and if it gets corrupted, you lose your entire system.Same thing happens if your configuration files get corrupted on *NIX systems and, as I mentioned, often far lesser corruption leads to far greater loss of functionality (e.g., Xorg.conf being a little corrupted completely removes your ability to get to a GUI desktop.)
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
"Dombo" <dombo@disposable.invalid> wrote in message news:48b40cb4$0$24404$5fc3050@news.tiscali.nl...> The problem with Windows is that out of the box it is pretty easy to screw > it up because for user convenience everyone gets administrative privileges.Every *NIX OS I've ever installed requires you to set up an administrative account too, you know? :-) That being said, it was of course poor that it wasn't until Windows XP that the default install didn't make some effort to *not* have you "sign yourself up" as an administrator, and that until Vista operating as a regular or "power" user and then occassionally needing to perform administrative actions was rather klunky; many *NIX distributions (including the Mac's OS X) were well ahead of Microsoft in this area. That being said, you have to keep in mind that the "computer model" for *NIX was always that you'd have multiple users with various skill levels/needs and therefore it was obvious that a system providing different capabilities to different users was necessary. With Windows, the model started with "there is one person using this machine, and they're user, administer, everything" -- and even today this is probably true for 75+% of PCs. Hence, it took time to get all those "single users" used to the idea of needing too different "access levels" on their PC, educating them about how always running as an administrator is a real risk they may very well not want to take. I just can't imagine that back in 1995 the whole, e.g., Vista user authentication control (UAC) system would have been successful at all -- look how many people still bitch about it today. (Granted, Microsoft did go a little too far in UAC, IMO -- I remember one of the Vista service pack 1 "improvements" was something like, "only requires 1 UAC activation rather than 4 to rename a file residing in a system directly." Uggh!)> With proper user rights it can be pretty hard to screw up a Windows > installation.Yes, although poor administrators can and do cause plenty of problems and lost productivity for regular employees as well... and poor administrators seem a lot more common in the Windows world than the *NIX world. ---Joel
Reply by ●August 26, 20082008-08-26
"AZ Nomad" <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote in message news:slrngb7sh8.a7u.aznomad.3@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net...> If you have > executables that require one version of their registry components and > you go back to a old version, you'll fuck everything up.So re-install the software. *NIX has the exact same problem -- if you restore configuration files for a different version of some applicaiton, it's a toss up as to whether or not the software will still work.> Having a single > monolythin registry is pure insanity.One monolithic registry, one monolithic file system storing all your configuration files -- it's really not much different. The registry is just a database optimized for storing program settings... heck, some *NIX programs use, e.g., SQLLite these days for their configuration settings...