Post #70,457
12/22/02 11:43:47 PM
12/22/02 11:58:25 PM
|
MacOS X is NeXTStep (and they can keep it, thanks)
OS X is very nice for a proprietary Unix. But Apple Computer, Inc. didn't write it, really. NeXT, Inc. did: It's NeXTStep with a gaudy, rather tasteless paint job. In effect, it's NeXTStep 5.0, with 4.0's elegance somewhat... impaired.
I liked NeXTStep a great deal -- rather more than I do OS X, actually. I think it'll be a fine day when the GNUStep Project's framework implementing the OpenStep specification is mature enough, and has a good enough Display Ghostscript graphics engine, that we can finally jettison the X11 graphics protocol, which is a bit horrid (if tolerable with recent toolkits).
(As an aside, NeXTStep's Display PostScript system supported remote networked graphics analogous to X11's. In Apple's hands, it switched from Display PostScript to Display PDF, which is understandable because PDF is royalty-free while PostScript is not -- but it's also lost the remote graphics capability. Maybe they need to hire some engineers?)
Doug asked:
does anyone know if OS X is still based on the MACH microKernel or is it a BSD monolithic kernel.
The Darwin xnu kernel that underlies OS X is a custom variant of Carnegie-Mellon Mach 3.0(?) that's been so heavily interconnected to BSD-emulation layers above it that, as configured, it no longer has the abstraction characteristic of microkernels. In effect, it's a monolithic BSD kernel welded together from a Mach variant and a bunch of glue code. Practically all of that work was performed before Apple Computer bought the copyright. Does that answer your question?
Please note that this is not the answer you will get from most MacOS users. Unfortunately, they tend to know quite a few things that, as Artemus Ward said, ain't so.
If so then why didn't Apple use Linux kernel?
Mu. The question cannot be answered as posed, because it seems to make some inapplicable assumption or other, though which assumption is unclear. Perhaps you're assuming that OS X is a new Unix-variant operating system that Apple Computer wrote. As noted, this is untrue.
When Apple acquired NeXT, Inc., it acquired the copyrights to all of NeXT's codebases, and also hired a large amount of expertise concerning it. That was essentially what they paid for: the right to produce new versions of NeXTStep under their sole ownership, and the expertise to do so.
So: They bought NeXT in order to do more NeXTStep. They wanted to do that because Steve Jobs ordered them to, after he came back replacing Sculley. He had founded NeXT after leaving Apple. Apple called him back from exile, so his first step was to arrange purchase of NeXT so he could put his people in charge. And continue producing his firm's product, just with a name change, an emulation layer for Mac OS v. <10 code ("classic.app"), some code updates, a change to Display PDF instead of Display PostScript, and an HFS+ filesystem driver.
They didn't do a Linux distribution because they preferred improving what they already had. Does that answer your second question?
if Apple were to make OS X available for Intel platforms, that plus Linux (with IBM push) would seriously kick MS ass - anyone agree diagree?.
1. This is a rather unlikely scenario ab initio, as it would tend to kill Apple Computer's market for its hardware, which is where it makes its money.
2. OK, another proprietary Unix[1] for x86. {yawn} How nice. As Mr. Lincoln said, it's the kind of thing that would be enjoyed by those who enjoy that kind of thing. Even as relatively slow and inflexible as it is.
(Actually, somewhere, I probably have a CD and licence for NeXTStep 4.0 for Intel Platform. It's a little antique, but at least it doesn't look like NeXTStep with multicolour paint and glossy lipstick smeared all over it. But of course you can't get NeXTStep 4.0 any more, because it's a proprietary OS that's been withdrawn from the market. We'll get back to that point again, below.)
The day that RedHat etc: can match the OS X desktop for simplicity, ease of use & practicality, will be a day to reckon with.
Today, I have the Window Maker window manager on X11, which is about as close to genuine NeXTStep as one can get in an X11 environment. Window Maker is, as you'll see at the GNUStep site, the official window manager of GNUStep, and should properly support all GNUStep libs and tools, thus making feasible migration to Display Ghostscript, when/if that software becomes mature enough.
And, whether it does or not, it and almost everything else on this laptop in front of me are open source -- which ensures that I or anyone else may sell or give it to others, or contribute to or take over code maintenance, and that nobody can cause it to go away: Not "discontinued", not "no longer available", none of that. Always present and usable, as long as anyone remains interested (or resumes being interested).
Apple doesn't offer that (any more than NeXT did), and probably they never will. I wish them the best of luck, but I'm just not willing to try kicking that proprietary-OS football any more, thanks.
[1] For quibblers: After purchasing NeXT, Apple issued an instance of most of the NeXTStep codebase under various open-source licences, with the ensemble of those pieces dubbed "Apple Darwin". Darwin is available in source form, or in binary form compiled for either x86 or PPC. Omitted from Darwin are OS X's proprietary Quartz graphics engine (i.e., Display PDF), its proprietary print engine, the Classic.app emulation app, various multimedia apps, the graphical administration tools, and a few other things I can't recall at the moment. Add XFree86 to Darwin, and you get what amounts to a slightly funky NetBSD. So, in describing OS X as yet another proprietary Unix, I'm in no way indicating ignorance of most of its codebase being open source. The point is that the key components, and the ones you admire, are strictly Apple-proprietary and very likely to remain so.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
Edited by rickmoen
Dec. 22, 2002, 11:58:25 PM EST
|
Post #70,460
12/22/02 11:49:38 PM
|
I guess this is what we get
for bringing this discussion into the Linux forum.
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
|
Post #70,462
12/22/02 11:55:38 PM
|
Well, no, it's not a Linux thing at all
Tom Sinclair wrote:
I guess this is what we get for bringing this discussion into the Linux forum.
I would have given you the same answer in the BSD forum. ;->
In fact, I also like Window Maker running on top of Apple Darwin with the XFree86 PPC port -- although it's a lot more straightforward to get it going with NetBSD. Or FreeBSD.
Pity there's not a NeXTStep forum, since I'd definitely have given you the same answer there. If I'm going to run a proprietary Unix, I'd much, much rather have NeXTStep than what Apple's made it into.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,469
12/23/02 1:09:54 AM
|
Re: Well, no, it's not a Linux thing at all
Thanks for the many insights - I find them interesting because at one time I was going to be the Country Product manager for Workplace OS that was to run on the PowerPC CHRP architecture.
We had prototypes & even did demos at trade shows then the CHRP plug got pulled by Lou Gerstner.
I also worked with a whole variety of Unix species that IBM had at different times. One included Mach 3.
Also most people won't know that the first highly scalable Unix was ported by Bell Labs & IBM folk (at Piscataway NJ - sp) to a system 360/MP config machine. Some IBM folk did a Virtual Machine component that this Unix ver7 variant ran on. IBM mainframers killed the project in fear it would be successful & canabalise OS/360 sales. DEC then garnered that business.
One other Unix variant we had on mainframes was from another US university & it was called AIX/370 which in reality was just a name - it supported a distributed filesystem & could handle multiple server architectures but at IBM we were only interested in the System/370 version. It supported so called AIX on both PCs and RT/PC computers. I demoed that software on mainframes at UNIX UserGroup tradeshows on the exhibition floor in 1989 in SFO, & 1990 in Sydney & Wellington NZ. It was demoed in NYC in 1990 but I didn't make it to that show.
Mach was of great interest to me because it underpinned WorkplaceOS which was going to be a multi-personality OS. (Win, Mac & Nix).
Cheers
Doug
PS my wife doesn't care a hoot about all this lovely stuff as she just wants simplicity & consistency & Mac OS X delivers to her great satisfaction.
|
Post #70,473
12/23/02 2:28:17 AM
|
Workplace OS rocked
Hi, Doug.
I remember Workplace OS well, and am glad to encounter people who were involved with it, again. I used to talk about in my editor's columns, when I ran the 40-page monthly newsletter of the San Francisco PC Users Group. Damn shame that it never was released.
NeXT probably encountered exactly the same engineering problems that the Workplace OS team did -- locking and scheduling bottlenecks. Reportedly, that's why they fused the BSD and Mach layers.
Yes, IBM to this day remains really good at virtual-Unix implementations. One of my former firms worked with them to get massively parallel virtualised Linux sessions running on System/370 machines. They're able to run some absurd number of virtual sessions -- like several thousand.
My wife and mother-in-law both like MacOS X for the same reason your wife does (and my wife is the real coder of the family). It's a pity that almost all of its users have basically zero comprehension of it as a Unix platform: I'm a little underwhelmed by people thinking it's great running a Unix OS so they can do MS-Word, MSIE, and MS-Outlook. To their credit, Apple Computer at least do an excellent job of making it difficult for their predominantly technophobe userbase to hurt themselves.
A brief story:
During OS X's beta cycle and for most of a year afterwards, I participated on one of the main non-Apple-run OS X mailing lists. (We ran the beta on a G4 cube, and I admined it, mostly via ssh.) Many of the people there were relatively new to Unix platforms, but technically clueful (being early adopters), so we had a good time figuring out technical problems and helping one another.
Then came the week of OS X's public release, and the list was flooded with traditional MacOS users. The problem wasn't the inevitable decline in technical content, but rather the severe intolerance that arrived with them: Suddenly, I got anonymous hatemail every few days, demanding that I unsubscribe because Unix users have no business on a Mac mailing list. Also, one list-member kept trying to pick fights with me about alleged superiority of Apple operating systems and software for MacOS over anything Linux (his topic, not mine), which he justified (solely) by pointing to my domain name. Nobody else on the mailing list seemed to consider this unusual or unacceptable behaviour -- and several informed me that my presenting command-line solutions to questions was unwelcome, because it was "non-Mac" and because they felt somehow threatened by such.
I mentioned the problem of MacOS users knowing things that aren't so: I kept pointing out that it was in the interest of OS X users to install their systems on mostly "UFS" (which is actually FFS), rather than Apple's rather slow and fragile legacy HFS+ filesystem -- and I was able to describe in detail why. But the longtime MacOS people would nonetheless pronounce that this was completely wrong. Why? Because Apple Computer's MacOS X hard-drive preloads used 100% HFS+ filesystems. For them, that was absolutely the end of the discussion: UFS was just not Cupertino-blessed; therefore, it was bad.
There is an operational problem with some software when it is installed on UFS, but it's a problem with the software, rather than UFS: MacOS application coders have tended to depend on sloppy filesystem semantics characteristic of prior MacOS versions, in which filenames are case-preserving but not case-sensitive. (Such an app might create filename "Preferences" but read back "preferences": On HFS+, the original file is still returned. On UFS, those would be different files.) For example, Lexmark's MacOS X printer drivers have that HFS+ dependency.
The logical response would be to install those slightly-defective apps on one's small HFS+ "legacy" partition, while having the bulk of one's file on UFS. And file a bug with the slobs who wrote that code.
But the orthodox Church of Steve answer was "UFS is bad. It must be too Unixey, which is why it creates problems. If it were any good, Apple would preload onto it."
You remember all the people who insisted on installing OS/2 on FAT, because HPFS was obviously too complex? Same technopeasant faith, different denomination. (They never checked to see if their answers actually worked or made sense, either: The sole test of merit was whether an Apple-blessed authority said it or not.)
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,506
12/23/02 10:57:59 AM
|
good criticism, but only half right (re. filesystems)
It doesn't matter where the problem lies -- if UFS is a superior filesystem but the sloppy programs you rely on don't like, then you'll gravitate towards the filesystem that the sloppy programs you rely on will use. It doesn't necessarily matter if the new tool is a thousand times better: if you still need to use your old software, especially if its software you've made a significant investment on, you'll resist the change, because why go through all the headache?
This doesn't mean I disagree with your comments regarding the dangers of the "technopeasant faith" (though I do find that term more than a little arrogant) but there's no point in using the better technology if you can't run anything on it.
I never ran into the FAT v. HPFS problem in the OS/2 world, but that may have been a bit before my time. I loved HPFS. There was a similar furor over the latest filesystem, but there was a more significant problem there -- occasionally all your files would up and disappear due to some weird filesystem/kernel incompatibility (this was fixed in an update). At any rate, because of that a lot people stayed away from it for quite a while.
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
|
Post #70,508
12/23/02 11:11:45 AM
|
On FAT vs HPFS
I agree with your sentiments. A newer FS may be better, but if it causes more pain than a user's willing to tolerate, it'll have slow adoption.
I used OS/2 on FAT for quite a while. I started with 2.0 in May 1992. I used FAT because I didn't want to spend the $ on Gammatech's HPFS tools while Norton was a known quantity (and handled .EAs properly). There were occasional HPFS horror stories on USENET - critical bugs that needed to be fixed quickly, etc. For most users, it was a great FS from the get-go. But it made me a little nervous.
After eventually developing trust in HPFS on a test 2.1 partition, I only used FAT for a common partition with DOS. Now I wouldn't use anything other than HPFS for OS/2 - it's a great filesystem.
Similarly, when I first used Win95 I used FAT16 partitions until I developed confidence in FAT32.
I'd act the same way in moving to Linux - I'd start with ext2 before using JFS or ext3 or ReiserFS. While the latter FS are no doubt better, I feel it's better to start with an older FS and develop confidence before moving on.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
|
Post #70,529
12/23/02 2:45:45 PM
|
Re: On FAT vs HPFS
Another Scott wrote:
After eventually developing trust in HPFS on a test 2.1 partition, I only used FAT for a common partition with DOS.
Makes sense.
Now I wouldn't use anything other than HPFS for OS/2 - it's a great filesystem.
It really is. Did you know: For a very long time, technical users of MS-Windows NT continued to embarrass Microsoft Corporation by finding inventive ways to keep NT's HPFS support working on NT workstations. Microsoft created that support in order to try to migrate over OS/2 users, but was continually embarrassed by users continuing to use that filesystem by preference on new workstations, as it was/is self-defragmenting (unlike FAT and NTFS) and provides many times faster file access. Microsoft has made it progressively more difficult, of late requiring you to hand-edit Registry keys and copy over system libraries from old NT versions. I don't know if it's still possible, not having any Win32 systems to play with.
I'd act the same way in moving to Linux - I'd start with ext2 before using JFS or ext3 or ReiserFS.
Yes. During the California power shortages of a year ago, many people suddenly developed a liking for journaling filesystems. I rebuild my server on SGI's XFS filesystem at the time, even though my distribution lacked support for it. (I [link|http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/xfs-conversion|wrote up the process], to help others.)
Of late, after initially being very skeptical about ext3's overhead, I've found it to be so low (in all circumstances I've tested) as to be negligible, and therefore find ext3 really useful -- because it's so very easy to convert any ext2 filesystem to it. With the nice advantage that ext2 remains available as a fallback: Just remount as ext2, and you're done. Journal corruption is a non-issue. Just delete and remake it: No risk to data.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,762
12/25/02 6:55:44 AM
|
Re: On FAT vs HPFS
Yes - pinball.sys - was a reghack on 3.51 - and it still worked on NT 4.0 - although "this is not supported" yada yada. I had a machine that quintuple booted various Windows and OS/2 versions - HPFS always impressed me with its speed.
One of our old and missed members, Brad Barclay (aka Yazstromo, OS/2 god), wrote a nice summary of HPFS here some years ago.
-drl
|
Post #70,859
12/25/02 11:20:32 PM
|
Re: On FAT vs HPFS
FYI.. Yaz is a pretty regular poster to the mail list, if you're wanting to get in touch :)
-----
Steve
|
Post #70,922
12/26/02 12:02:03 PM
|
Re: On FAT vs HPFS
I wish I could buy a copy of Warp 4 -grumble-
Say hi to Yaz and bid him drop by here :)
-drl
|
Post #70,926
12/26/02 1:01:04 PM
|
3 copies now on eBay. IBM has it too for $180.
|
Post #72,155
1/3/03 1:54:53 AM
|
consider picking up eCS
it is more up to date than Warp 4. [link|http://www.ecomstation.com/template.phtml?url=automated/news/eCS%201.1%20Release%20Candadite%20[lb]1%20being%20uploaded%20for%20UP%20subscribers.html&title=eCS%201.1%20Release%20Candadite%20#1%20being%20uploaded%20for%20UP%20subscribers|Release Candidate 1] of version 1.1 was recently put online for "upgrade protection customers".
Darrell Spice, Jr.
[link|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
|
Post #70,526
12/23/02 2:32:37 PM
|
Er, I did say two volumes...
cwbrenn wrote:
if UFS is a superior filesystem but the sloppy programs you rely on don't like, then you'll gravitate towards the filesystem that the sloppy programs you rely on will use.
When you're preparing the hard drive for installation, you create a small HFS+ volume and a large UFS one. Subsequently, in the rare event of your installing something to the UFS one and it not working, you install it over again to HFS+ and file a bug report.
I believe I've now said that twice. The reasons should be apparent.
I loved HPFS.
Then, if you dual-booted, then you had both HPFS and FAT. If you didn't, it was silly to keep much of your hard drive as FAT.
This doesn't mean I disagree with your comments regarding the dangers of the "technopeasant faith" (though I do find that term more than a little arrogant).
Remember: A gentleman tries to never give offence accidentally. ;->
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,520
12/23/02 12:52:09 PM
|
Partial agreement here
There are a lot of clueless, non-technical Mac users. After all, this was the market the Apple sold into, the folks who didn't like to fiddle with their computers.
With the advent of OS X, these folks have become very obnoxious and seem to fall into two camps:
- The ones who hate OS X, because it's 'not Mac-like' and 'UNIX sucks' and so on and on...
- The ones who like OS X, but think since it's Apple and UNIX-compatible it must be the 'One True UNIX'.
Fortunately, OS X has drawn in new users who would have never even glanced in Apple's direction before. These also seem to fall into two camps:
- Ex-Windows users who are tired of fussing with their computers and just want stuff to work (and are the major target of the 'Switch' ads)
- Technical folks, like scientists and coders, who previously had to have two computers (or a single, dual-booting computer) running *NIX and Windows because their employers had standardized on tools like Office.
I thought I knew where I was going with this, but my wife interrupted me in mid-thought...
Anyway, there *are* a lot of assholes out there and zealotry (of any stripe) seems to be the trait they hold in common.
I appreciate your further explanation of the UFS vs. HFS+ issue, by the way. You explained it quite clearly and simply.
At some point, I hope OS X will have the same choice of filesystems that a Linux system does.
In the meantime, Apple is at least beginning to shed some of their legacy cruft. The 'proprietary printing architecture' you referred to in a previous response has been replaced by CUPS as of OS X 10.2.
Good discussion so far. Lots of light, very little heat.
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
|
Post #70,617
12/24/02 1:26:36 AM
|
Thanks for that
Tom wrote:
Good discussion so far. Lots of light, very little heat.
Thank you for reading it in the spirit intended. I admit to harbouring some lingering resentment at some of the treatment I received on the aforementioned OS X mailing list ("x4u"), what with the anonymous hatemail and gratuitous Church of Steve "witnessings" I kept being subjected to, on grounds of insufficient ideological purity and excessive technical aptitude. But of course that wasn't anybody here, doing that.
The worst aspect of that treatment was that it was willfully unclear on the basic concept of why I was (and wasn't) participating, there. I mentioned the guy who incessantly tried to troll me into MacOS vs. Linux advocacy debates (in which I had no interest). Since he kept trying nonetheless, I tried to explain to him that, because of their different licence model, Linux users had no stake in his choice of operating system: Their core interests were simply not subject to zero-sum popularity contests with other OS environments. I suggested that, if it really bothered him that much that I was posting (useful, correct) OS X technical answers from "rick@linuxmafia.com" using Linux console mailers, he should seek some more private form of therapy, as the barrage of non-sequitur OS advocacy was both clueless and annoying.
And, of course, he didn't listen. I quietly killfiled him, which removed the problem from my view, at least.
That gentleman was hardly alone in attributing imaginary, fanatical nag-people-style OS advocacy to Linux users who've merely answered technical questions and sport X-Mailer headers and .signature blocks to match. Sam Varghese, an excellent Australian IT industry analyst and reporter, recently interviewed me for an upcoming series of articles in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Here's part of my interview:
You've been described as a rabble rouser. True? False?
The rumours are true, but I raise only top-quality rabble.
We have a saying in the Linux community: "If you don't like the news, make some of your own." Here in the San Francisco / Silicon Valley area, a number of us found to our surprise that we're pretty good at Linux publicity events, and have done a number of them. We had a huge summer picnic in celebration of Linux's 10th birthday in 2001, and had such a good time that we repeated it this past summer, too. In 1998, we had several PR events where we good-naturedly capitalised on Microsoft marketing efforts to show up in public and on-camera, such as during the product launch of Windows 98, where we gave out hundreds of Linux CD-ROMs to people interested in installing them (and pointing out where the stores were also selling Linux boxed sets).
One of the surprises of those years was that we seemed to be significantly more effective at marketing than Microsoft Corporation was, and with no funding at all.
How many people have you converted to Linux? Take the case of any one individual you've converted to Linux. Let's have a rundown of the process.
This is my golden opportunity to embarrass my friend Bill Schoolcraft, so I'm going to run with it. Bill was a professional industrial welder with no particular computer expertise, when he noticed Linux gatherings and started attending them to see what it was about. I was one of the old-timers he learned from, and I successfully badgered him to take extensive notes. I think it was when I kept using the metaphor of software as tools, and stressing the difference good tools and mastery of them can make, that he really "got" the point of the Unix way of thinking. Now, six years later, he's a senior Linux and (Sun Microsystems) Solaris administrator, and earns a good living at it.
But I don't seek to "convert" people in the sense of trying to interest those who prefer something else. Why would I? More about that, below.
Do you think you could achieve more if your advocacy was a little less strident?
I'm reminded of a story about the 19th century US public speaker and political figure Robert G. Ingersoll, who was wildly popular with the public but inspired influential "establishment" detractors by being openly non-religious: Some reporters came to visit, and asked him about the rumours that his son had gotten drunk during a wild party and fell unconscious under the table. Ingersoll paused for effect, then started: "Well, first of all, he didn't fall under the table. And he wasn't actually unconscious. For that matter, he didn't fall. And there wasn't any party, and he didn't have anything to drink.... And, by the way, I don't have a son."
So: It's not what I'd call strident, and I don't do advocacy. At least, not in the usual sense of the term.
The usual sort of OS advocacy is what the "Team OS/2" crowd used to do: They knew that their favourite software would live or die by the level of corporate acceptance and release/maintenance of proprietary shrink-wrapped OS/2 applications. They lobbied, they lost, IBM lost interest, and now their favourite OS is effectively dead.
But Linux is fundamentally different because it and all key applications are open source: The programmer community that maintains it is self-supporting, and would keep it advancing and healthy regardless of whether the business world and general public uses it with wild abandon, only a little, or not at all. Because of its open-source licence terms, its raw source code is permanently available. Linux cannot be "withdrawn from the market" at the whim of some company -- as is slowly happening to OS/2.
Therefore, Linux users are not in a zero-sum competition for popularity with proponents of other operating systems (unlike, say, OS/2, MS-Windows, and Mac OS users). I can honestly wish Apple Computer well with their eye-pleasing and well-made (if a bit slow and inflexible) Mac OS X operating system: Wishing them well doesn't mean wishing Linux ill.
Note that all of the identifiable "Linux companies" could blow away in the breeze like just so much Enron stock, and the advance of Linux would not be materially impaired, because what matters is source code and the licensing thereof, which has rather little to do with any of those firms' fortunes.
Further, and getting back to your original point, I honestly don't care if you or anyone else gets "converted" to Linux. I don't have to. I'm no better off if you do; I'm no worse off if you don't.
What I do care about is giving making useful information and help available to people using Linux or interested in it. Why? Partly to redeem the trust shown by others when they helped me. Partly because it's interesting. Partly because researching and then teaching things I usually start knowing little about is the best way I know to learn. And partly out of pure, unadulterated self-interest: People knowing your name is at least a foot in the door, in the IT business.
As to stridency, there is a well-known problem of all on-line discussion media: Some people become emotionally invested in positions they've taken in technical arguments, and gratuituously turn technical disagreements into verbal brawls. And unfortunately they tend to be drawn to people like me who attempt to state their views clearly and forcefully. It's as if you were to say "I like herring" and thereby summon every dedicated herring-hater within a hundred-mile radius. The problem comes with the territory.
But that causes occasional unpleasantness and back-biting among some on-line Linux users, not an aspect of "advocacy", which isn't something we have much use for, generally -- especially where the term refers to convincing the unwilling.
What do you hope to achieve by this advocacy?
I hope to have fun, to learn, to help those willing to "help themselves" by learning about their systems, to become qualified to work professionally with better and more-interesting technology, to spend more of my time around people I enjoy, and to improve my quality of life by improving the grade of tools I work with.
Please note that "converting users to Linux" is nowhere on that list.
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,630
12/24/02 7:59:39 AM
|
Very True (TANGENT)
The license model Linux uses makes almost bulletproof for the kind of lousy stuff that happened to OS/2. That said, it's the "almost" that I believe creates the worst part of the Linux community.
Linux will live or die by two things:
1. The sanctity of its licenses, and
2. The presence of effective developers within the community
The second point sort of hinges on the first. As long as the GNU and other licenses in a Linux distro remain enforceable, you can't have a company like IBM or Microsoft bury the software. Even if no commercial entity on earth wanted to touch it, so long as the source remains accessible it can continue to be developed... which is NOT the case with OS/2, even though some people have managed to do some amazing things for it despite that fact.
This creates most of the rabid paranoia surrounding all of the "what license do you use" debtes.
The second point is a bit more psychological, though. The more people who are new to linux who show up on the scene, the larger and louder the nutjob community is going to get... because Linux is a community-developed effort, and new users will initially have nothing to contribute. And those of us who have no programming skills will have nothing substantial at all to contribute to Linux in any way, shape or form. Thus, newbies will be seen as "freeloaders" by parts of the Linux community, and ranks of the nutjob elite will swell.
Why? Because while Linux is almost bulletproof, those two points (the sanctity of the license and the presence of developers in the community) need to be protected, and protected viciously. If a law like the DMCA suddenly makes the GPL illegal, Linux is screwed. If there are so many unskilled newbies (like me) using Linux that it's impossible to FIND the developers (i.e., terrible signal to noise ratio) then Linux development will founder.
Alas, the necessity of both makes the Linux world seem almost alien to a lot of people...
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
|
Post #70,694
12/24/02 1:53:08 PM
|
Proprietary forks and threat models
cwbrenn wrote:
As long as the GNU and other licenses in a Linux distro remain enforceable, you can't have a company like IBM or Microsoft bury the software.
I'm not sure you've thought this through, thoroughly: As we say in the security field, have you considered what's the threat model? What do you feel that threat model is? You didn't specify.
It sounds like you're saying the obligation to release source changes (when people distribute modified binaries) might prove legally unenforceable. If so, then the only consequence would be that people could lawfully distribute proprietary forks.
Wow, that's what killed FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, right?
Oops.
If a law like the DMCA suddenly makes the GPL illegal....
OK, the Anti-Commie-Pinko Statute of 2003 comes into force, providing that mandatory source-code disclosure provisions are unenforceable and that those who attempt to use them are to be publicly impaled. People who have been producing GPLed codebases fork their own codebases, issuing new instances under two-clause BSD licences. Curse their devilish cleverness!
The Anti-Commie-Pinko Statute of 2004 follows that, stating that all software licences that don't require payment of money are unenforceable. The aforementioned malefactors continue to distribute their software anyway, and just don't seek to enforce their terms.
The Anti-Commie-Pinko Statute of 2005 comes last, and bans copyright law's applicability to software that is distributed without an obligation to pay money for it. The aforementioned malefactors declare their works to be in the public domain.
We could go on, I suppose.
As I was saying to Todd, the essential characteristic of open-source software isn't any specific licence, but rather the right to fork. You're going to have a difficult time concocting a credible dystopia where that's barred by law.
...Thus, newbies will be seen as "freeloaders" by parts of the Linux community, and ranks of the nutjob elite will swell.
Again, and the consequence is...?
The Linux coder community has been self-sustaining for a decade. And they're really, really good at filtering out noise. Increase the irrelevant noise by a factor of ten, and they'll still filter it out.
Experiment: Join LKML (the Linux kernel mailing list), and start deliberately posting random crap about how Linux distributions aren't friendly enough and that developers need to add binary handlers for VBA, and things like that. Attempt to do that for a week.
It'll come as no surprise that you'd be pretty much universally killfiled, right? However, it might surprise you that you'd be silently removed from the subscriber roster in fairly short order, and find that pretty much all subsequent subscription attempts would mysteriously fail.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,899
12/26/02 7:01:53 AM
|
Dystopian Vision
Uh... you'll recall I was talking about the reasons why there are nutjobs in the Linux community right? My entire "if the DMCA makes the GPL illegal then Linux is doomed" scenario is taken from a "nutjob raving" I've seen posted fairly regularly. Since when did logic ever enter into the equation when dealing with the lunatic fringe, especially when dealing with operating systems?
As my second comment, well you're right -- the chance of the unwashed masses ever drowning out a developers mailing list is very, very small. However, when it reaches the point where developers have to sequester themselves into tiny rooms to hide from the keening of the great clueless throngs of their userbase, you can go ahead and torch that bazaar and build another cathedral, because you've effectively lost the open development model.
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
|
Post #70,957
12/26/02 4:34:53 PM
|
Re: Dystopian Vision
cwbrenn wrote:
However, when it reaches the point where developers have to sequester themselves into tiny rooms to hide from the keening of the great clueless throngs of their userbase, you can go ahead and torch that bazaar and build another cathedral, because you've effectively lost the open development model.
The hypothetical keening masses would be seeking handholding technical support, which the developers would not be offering. Fortunately for both parties, (1) the former don't even know where to find the latter, and (2) other people entirely tend to see this situation as a business opportunity, and advertise exactly those services.
I've often really liked the "a la carte" model for support/training/administration, especially when I was operating a consulting business. ;->
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,724
12/24/02 7:15:12 PM
|
Accident waiting to happen
Look, I'll start out by pointing out that I hate HFS+. Its a lame file system.
But it supports resource forks. UFS doesn't. You set up two volumes, one UFS and one HFS+ and you're quite likely to screw up and try to put a file with a resource fork on the UFS drive and it will get broken.
I run all HFS+ drives. Not my pref - I wish they would move the whole mess to UFS but the fact is that I (and most long time mac users) have a bunch of old files that have interesting data in the resource forks (like old Quicken files).
So from a safety standpoint, its a bad idea to have a UFS drive on your machine for general data storage.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,742
12/24/02 11:03:53 PM
|
You found a way to break your files? Sorry to hear.
ToddBlanchard wrote:
But [HFS+] supports resource forks. UFS doesn't.
It does here, and everywhere else I've used it. Sorry to hear about your problem.
I think NeXT, Inc.'s UFS "bundles" solution is brilliant, in fact, and adapted very cleanly to handling resource forks (as resources files with prefix "._" to the regular file's name, rather than forks). It's proven very reliable. I'm curious about which method you found to damage such files. Possibly, you tried to move base data files without the matching dotfiles?
I'm really not sure how you're managing to "get broken" your file resources in just "putting them" on the UFS filesystem, but personally think your solution of avoiding the superior filesystem option entirely is about as pitful as not reading e-mail from strangers because of the alleged threat from file attachments. Whatever works for you<tm>, though.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,757
12/25/02 5:29:55 AM
|
You're wrong again as usual - stick to Linux
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,764
12/25/02 7:05:12 AM
|
Verily, the technopeasant priesthood has spoken
ToddBlanchard wrote:
You're wrong again as usual - stick to Linux.
And here we have the Cupertino religion in a nutshell, folks.
But, for the benefit of those who actually aspire to understand technology, rather than just parrot views popular in some tight little community, here's how to carelessly screw up your resource forks on UFS:
Simple, just forget what you know about how they're stored. And then shoot yourself in the foot, accordingly. E.g., move filenames using cp, mv, rsync, tar, cpio, etc., without bothering to grab and move the ._filenames that go with them (in the minority of cases where files on MacOS X still use resource forks).
On the other hand, if you handle such files in a clueful fashion, reflecting understanding of how they're stored, you won't shoot those holes in your foot. E.g., tar up the directory containing the files to be copied, rather than just grabbing the file (data fork) and stupidly leaving the related dotfile (resource fork) behind.
But if the concept of getting the entire file and not leaving half of it behind sounds too difficult to deal with, go back to your MS-Outlook on HFS+ and switch your brain off. It's a whole lot easier than thinking.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,772
12/25/02 9:10:39 AM
|
You don't actually *use* the system, do you.
You must have awful self esteem to put so much effort into trying to make other people feel small. Should I conclude you to be a typical linux advocate, I'd want nothing to do with the thing.
Anyhow, you're still wrong. I mean, - you did go on an on about not using "proprietary" systems. So why you feel qualified to pontificate on a system you don't use daily is beyond me.
I don't use linux much. Not often enough to feel qualified to give advice on best practices for setting it up. So if asked about best practices on linux - I'd likely say "I don't know".
I'm guessing you've never uttered those words in your life.
Anyhow, there are a lot of holes in your knowledge here.
One, tar (the one that comes with OS X) doesn't grab resource forks - you need to use hfstar - available from [link|http://www.metaobject.com|http://www.metaobject.com]
Two, I didn't see the bit about preserving the type and creator codes - wanna cover that again? Because a file without extension, type, and creator, is pretty much useless - no application will open it unless you assign one from the finder and its quite possible you don't know either.
Three, it is in copying files from HFS+ volumes to UFS volumes using the supplied command line tools that they get broken (the finder I think does the conversions but who uses the finder?).
Sure, you can - with care - use both kinds of volumes. But accidents can happen. In my experience, if they can, they do. Best not to take chances.
If you really want to understand how this works - here's a good paper.
[link|http://www.mit.edu/people/wsanchez/papers/USENIX_2000/|http://www.mit.edu/p...pers/USENIX_2000/]
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,815
12/25/02 3:34:31 PM
|
Unix file basics
Sure, you can - with care - use both kinds of volumes
Care is also known as "technical competence". Quite a few MacOS people tend not to esteem it very highly, I've noticed.
No, I don't use Mac OS X "daily", because our Mac OS X boxes are primarily my wife's systems, not mine. I used them more frequently during earlier beta cycles, when they were more interesting.
tar (the one that comes with OS X) doesn't grab resource forks
Allow me to introduce you to Unix, where everything is a file. Resources on UFS are thus stored as dotfiles as adjuncts to the regular file (the former "data fork"), rather than as HFS-type forks. Therefore, if you wish to use tools like tar, you need to do so in such a way as to ensure that you get all of the file, and not leave part on the floor.
If you can't figure out how to do that correctly, my condolences, and you might be better off sticking with your MacOS ghetto stuff's lack of sharp edges.
Should I conclude you to be a typical linux advocate
I'm not a "Linux advocate" in the sense of attempting to convince anyone else to use it, who doesn't wish to. You could have read that fact earlier. Should I have used fewer syllables, or perhaps pictograms?
So if asked about best practices on linux...
I would say "Hire someone who actually wants you as a customer, and the best of luck to you, elsewhere."
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,828
12/25/02 5:48:00 PM
|
HFS File basics
"Care is also known as "technical competence". Quite a few MacOS people tend not to esteem it very highly, I've noticed."
Apparently neither do so-called unix people who think they understand all *nix's because they understand one. Because you're not competent on this OS and you're giving out bad advice - which is really irresponsible. Because while I can tell its crap advice, others less competent might make the mistake of taking your fantasy posts as facts and suffer data loss.
"Resources on UFS are thus stored as dotfiles as adjuncts to the regular file (the former "data fork")"
Yes this is what the Finder does when its asked to move an HFS file to a UFS volume. Its in the paper I cited above. But the command line tools don't do this.
Allow me to introduce you to HFS+ where, if you have had a Mac for any period of time, most of your files are located.
Should you do the typical unix users thing - grab a terminal window and begin rearranging things with your favorite old tools, you stand a better than even chance of fucking up some of your important historical data (old Macintax or Quicken files for instance). Technical competence? Everything you think you know about the behvaior of mv, cp, and tar, is not quite right.
Let me also point out that should you desire to move them to UFS (which on OS X is actually not as cool of a file system in a lot of respects - lack of journaling for one, the fact that the rest of the OS is actually tuned for HFS+ another) you'll find that a lot interesting meta information about your file will be lost forever - like type and creator code. You'll find that the tar command on MacOS X that ships with the system does not properly add resource forks to files. Because on HFS+, they're not just files with name extensions.
So for the lurkers - this guy is giving out bad advice on a system he doesn't even use regularly. Ask someone else.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,875
12/26/02 1:00:34 AM
|
Envoi
You know, Todd or whoever/whatever you are, I simply have no interest in arguing with you. But in your spare time, you could try making a tarball of an entire directory (including dotfiles) on your (Mac OS 10-dot-whatever host's) UFS filesystem, and then untarring it into somewhere else on the same filesystem.
Gosh, what a surprise! All metadata are intact. I just ssh'd into my wife's iBook and [re-]tested that, and of course it (still) works fine. You'd almost think that understanding what your tools do, rather than indulging religious faith, is a reasonable strategy.
Whatever makes you happy, though; go crazy with it. But I believe we're now done. Time for you to go back to whatever it is that you do.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,890
12/26/02 3:04:16 AM
|
You could run the correct test
I don't use OS X, so I don't know what will or won't happen. But the fact is that you didn't test the scenario that Todd was complaining about.
Take files on an HFS filesystem. Tar them using standard unix tools. Untar them on a UFS filesystem. See if they are left intact.
Todd's claim is that they won't be, and the reason that Todd offers for why they won't be seems rather reasonable to me. Which suggests that you misunderstood what he was saying, and suggests that he actually does understand how the filesystems and associated filesystem tools work.
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
|
Post #70,896
12/26/02 3:54:27 AM
|
This would be my cue to ask this: (new thread)
Created as new thread #70895 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=70895|This would be my cue to ask this:]
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
|
Post #70,897
12/26/02 5:45:35 AM
|
Exactly - thanks
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,925
12/26/02 12:24:36 PM
|
I am understanding unix&tar has different capabilities?
Depending on the file system and on HFS it cannot traverse directories and files in the same fashion as UFS? If I have a NTFS directory using "crappy file name conventions.doc" when I tar it up it is fine but untarring it under unix would get several file not found messages?
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #70,962
12/26/02 4:40:42 PM
|
Not sure what you are asking
I don't know much about NTFS.
But I wouldn't try to tar up any classic style mac files and expect them to come out OK anywhere. Untarring on the mac is generally fine though.
You want to get a copy of hfstar for your OS X boxes. [link|http://www.metaobject.com|http://www.metaobject.com] has one (maybe look in community).
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #71,064
12/27/02 7:39:16 AM
|
No
I am saying that the behaviour that Todd is talking about is that standard Unix tools know nothing about turning metadata which is part of HFS into extra files that will be interpreted on other filesystems as that metadata. That is it turns one HFS file to one UFS file, which means that you lose all associated metadata that the HFS filesystem stores directly and UFS does not.
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
|
Post #71,073
12/27/02 10:32:17 AM
|
my point was Nix tools do not understand all file systems
so do not use where not applicable.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,079
12/27/02 11:39:27 AM
|
You understand wrong
tar will create and extract archives in which filenames have embedded spaces. No problems. \r\n\r\n Where you may run into problems is with processing that uses " " as an inter-file seperator (man $( basename $SHELL) & search for IFS). Generally this situation is encountered in the form of a processing list, or with find / xargs process pipes: \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nfor file in *\r\ndo\r\n echo "Now I'm going to do something with $file"\r\ndone\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n ...tends to turn "My Documents" into "My" and "Documents". \r\n\r\n For find & xargs, the solution is to generate and expect null seperators: \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nfind . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 foo\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n I'm not quite sure where Todd's going with his explanation, but if Mac OS X is storing metadata in some form of file and .file, both extant in the same directory, tar should pick these up just fine. My understanding is that the filesystem is being used to store information in "special" files, but these files don't have other unusual characteristics other than their significance to the user shell. The trick is to use, say, "." (PWD) rather than "*" (glob of all files matching anything, so long as it's not a leading "."). But I freely admit a virtually complete lack of exposure to OS X. --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
|
Post #71,091
12/27/02 1:03:47 PM
|
well lets try it out
[105-112:~] boxley% mkdir foo
[105-112:~] boxley% cd foo
[105-112:~/foo] boxley% cat /dev/null > foo at bar
cat: at: No such file or directory
cat: bar: No such file or directory
[105-112:~/foo] boxley% ls
foo
[105-112:~/foo] boxley%
[105-112:~/foo] boxley% cat /dev/null >"foo at bar"
[105-112:~/foo] boxley% ls
foo foo at bar
[105-112:~/foo] boxley% ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 boxley staff 0 Dec 27 13:00 foo
-rw-r--r-- 1 boxley staff 0 Dec 27 13:02 foo at bar
when the nix os tries to untar the files with embedded spaces it cannot write the file to the disk because the OS does not recognise embedded spaces unless quoted which is a problem to untar unless you specifically know what file you need. That is why using a snmp notation in file names fooAtBar is a useful practice.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,095
12/27/02 1:37:05 PM
|
You know dam well...
Box, You know dam well UNIX "sees" spaces as delimiters... you have to "backslash" them to take away the special meaning. You are really a Joker man... This issue has nothing to do with wether or not TAR can deal with embedded spaces... watch this... [gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cat /dev/null > foo bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cat /dev/null > foo\\ at\\ bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cat /dev/null > "foo not bar"\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ You see the equivalence... now for tar[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ tar cvf demo.tar foo*\nfoo\nfoo at bar\nfoo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ ls -l\ntotal 12\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 10240 Dec 27 13:30 demo.tar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ tar tvf demo.tar\n-rw-r--r-- gfolkert/users 0 2002-12-27 13:29:40 foo\n-rw-r--r-- gfolkert/users 0 2002-12-27 13:29:40 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- gfolkert/users 0 2002-12-27 13:29:40 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ mkdir test\n[gfolkert@paladin demo]$ cd test/\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ tar -xvf ../demo.tar foo\\ at\\ bar\nfoo at bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ tar -xvf ../demo.tar "foo not bar"\nfoo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$tar -xvf ../demo.tar foo bar\nfoo\ntar: bar: Not found in archive\ntar: Error exit delayed from previous errors\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ ls -l\ntotal 0\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo at bar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 gfolkert users 0 Dec 27 13:29 foo not bar\n[gfolkert@paladin test]$ See that... THAT is what you are talking about not being supported. Bah...
[link|mailto:curley95@attbi.com|greg] - Grand-Master Artist in IT
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!]
[link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@kQMsmc74S0Tw3KHQiRQmDem0gAIPAgM/edcurry/1//|ED'S GHOST SPEAKS!] | Your friendly Geheime Staatspolizei reminds:
[link|http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56742,00.html| Wi-Fi Terrorism] comes with an all inclusive
free trip to the local Hoosegow! | | I'll never tell, my *overly-red* lips are sealed! *wink* *wink* |
|
Post #71,105
12/27/02 3:53:29 PM
|
point==missed
If you know the file name you can sort it out by calling for it in a manner the os will understand. If you are moving a huge subdir and you have a couple of badly named files in there they will not get moved over at the command line, you will have to parse it which is a little more tedious than tar this and untar this. That was the point I was trying to make.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,107
12/27/02 4:03:58 PM
|
Windows, MAC OSX, MacOS9.x, *NIX
All have that same tendancy.
Try and move a file under windows that is named screwy... like "*A* Stoopid question\\answer/session? Me & Him .umx"
There isn't single OS barring VMS or OS400 that could address it easily.
[link|mailto:curley95@attbi.com|greg] - Grand-Master Artist in IT
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!]
[link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@kQMsmc74S0Tw3KHQiRQmDem0gAIPAgM/edcurry/1//|ED'S GHOST SPEAKS!] | Your friendly Geheime Staatspolizei reminds:
[link|http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56742,00.html| Wi-Fi Terrorism] comes with an all inclusive
free trip to the local Hoosegow! | | I'll never tell, my *overly-red* lips are sealed! *wink* *wink* |
|
Post #71,145
12/27/02 6:56:50 PM
|
ed zachery
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,148
12/27/02 7:46:43 PM
|
Windows has the bigger problem...
...in that those configuration parameters and file attributes and can't be copied by way of the standard utilities because they are in the Registry.
|
Post #71,146
12/27/02 7:05:36 PM
|
Wrong
You're confusing IFS with the OS's inherent ability to manipulate files with spaces. When working through the shell, these names need to be quoted. Tar handles 'em fine: \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[karsten@academy:karsten]$ cd tmp\r\n[karsten@academy:tmp]$ mkdir boxley\r\n[karsten@academy:tmp]$ cd boxley\r\n[karsten@academy:boxley]$ touch "a file with spaces"\r\n[karsten@academy:boxley]$ touch "another of the same"\r\n[karsten@academy:boxley]$ ls \r\na file with spaces another of the same\r\n[karsten@academy:boxley]$ cd ..\r\n[karsten@academy:tmp]$ tar czvf boxley.tar.gz boxley/\r\nboxley/\r\nboxley/a file with spaces\r\nboxley/another of the same\r\n[karsten@academy:tmp]$ mkdir untar\r\n[karsten@academy:tmp]$ cd untar \r\n[karsten@academy:untar]$ tar xzvf ../boxley.tar.gz \r\nboxley/\r\nboxley/a file with spaces\r\nboxley/another of the same\r\n[karsten@academy:untar]$ ll\r\ntotal 1\r\ndrwxr-sr-x 2 karsten karsten 128 Dec 27 18:02 boxley\r\n[karsten@academy:untar]$ ll boxley/\r\ntotal 0\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 karsten karsten 0 Dec 27 18:02 a file with spaces\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 karsten karsten 0 Dec 27 18:02 another of the same\r\n \r\n --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
|
Post #71,152
12/27/02 8:09:51 PM
|
The reason I brought this upo was recovering files from a
doze box to a linux box running rhat 7.0. Mounted a NT drive from the linux box and tarred about a gig onto the linux box tarball.tar. I ftp'd the file to a second linux box running 7.0 and untarred the file. On extraction it had problems with the type of file naming convention with spaces. I manually had to crawl thru the doze box directory by directory to get the files. That is why I brought it up. It appears to not be a problem as shown by your post.
hanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,167
12/27/02 10:15:59 PM
|
Two possible issues I can think of...
...barring your posting commands used. \r\n\r\n Some tars have an absolute cap on filename length. I'm not sure what this is with GNU tar, but recursing long names into a directory should identify whether this exists at any of the likely intervals (256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 characters, etc.). I have encountered this problem, possibly on either tar, CD ROM (the iso9660 format also has a total name length cap), or NTFS. \r\n\r\n Depending on how you were selecting files for inclusion in your tar archive, you may have run into the shell quoting issues mentioned earlier. You'll find that GNU tar does allow for null-terminated filenames, to work around the problem of embedded whitespace. Some folks feed find output to tar, in which case the problem can crop up. One of the reasons I prefer tar over such alternatives as cpio and afio is that tar will handle directory recursion itself while the other tools want input fed from stdin, by means that always require heavy manpage decoding by me. Note that there are some commendable advantages to the filestructures used by cpio & afio, I'm not criticising these. \r\n\r\n Bill, you made an absolute statement of what tar could or couldn't do. It's demonstrably wrong for GNU tar. If you care to show methods, we might be able to identify the source of the problem. It's not what you've represented it to be. --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
|
Post #71,180
12/27/02 10:43:35 PM
|
It was over a year ago so bear with me
had a NTFS box with a crossover cable connected to a linux laptop. The Drive was mounted via NFS to the /mnt mount point. Used SOSNT (son of sam nt a nfs server for nt) at the command line in bsh from the root directory used "tar cvf tarball.tar mnt" . after creating the file I disconnected the NT box and using the regular network ftp'd the tar file to a third linux box. Ran the command
"tar xvf tarball.tar" I noticed the ocassional error at that point "foo file name"
cannot extract file cannot extract name. So assumed it had a problem writing so went back to the source to get the files that wernt untarred manually. Now from your example it works just fine. I was using ext2 file systems on both linux boxes and RH 7.0 . Apparently what I saw belonged to another issue because as you have shown he it works just fine. Also works on darwin when I retested after your post. So I saw an abberation?
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,246
12/28/02 5:01:08 PM
12/28/02 5:02:03 PM
|
Once again, Todd's explanation
You are halfway to the problem. The problem is that sometimes MacOS uses special files, and sometimes not. tar does not understand this.
We have two filesystems. One of which (HFS) stores a file with lots of hooks for metadata. One of which (UFS) only directly supports the metadata that any Unix system has.
Going from HFS to UFS, what do you do with the important metadata? Apple decided to create new files for it. Therefore you cannot move a file from HFS to UFS without creating extra files.
The tar shipped with OS X doesn't understand this. And therefore does not create the needed extra files, and loses important metadata moving from HFS to UFS.
Personally (admittedly without much serious thought) what I would have been inclined to do in Apple's situation is have 2 sets of APIs for accessing files. One of which sees a traditional HFS file with metadata (on either system). The other of which sees the associated collection of files that are needed in UFS. Yes, there are problems with that as well. But then you would at least find it easy to get the appropriate consistent behaviour across filesystems.
BTW Linux may have a similar problem some day. (May already have in fact...) There is exploration of the idea of supporting streams within files in some filesystems. Copying a file with streams to a filesystem without streams has to be done...how? I haven't exactly been following discussion on this, but the following old post illustrates the issues that have to be thought through:
[link|http://web.gnu.walfield.org/mail-archive/linux-kernel/2000-August/1275.html|http://web.gnu.walfi...-August/1275.html]
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
Edited by ben_tilly
Dec. 28, 2002, 05:02:03 PM EST
|
Post #71,269
12/28/02 8:05:12 PM
|
Using a hammer to drive screws will hurt
Ben wrote:
The tar shipped with OS X doesn't understand this. And therefore does not create the needed extra files, and loses important metadata moving from HFS to UFS.
If you understand how files are stored, then you immediately realise why GNU tar is an inappropriate tool for such operations. A "problem" exists only if you're part of a funky computer religion that implicitly assumes you shouldn't have to understand the fundamentals of what you're doing.
BTW Linux may have a similar problem some day. (May already have in fact...)
That wouldn't be a "problem" any more than the ability to overwrite files with the "cat" utility is a "problem": Using an obviously unsuitable tool for a particular task, or otherwise aiming a gun at your foot and pulling the trigger, will inevitably have suboptimal results or worse.
So Don't Do That, Then.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,338
12/29/02 5:23:15 PM
|
I understand your position perfectly
You believe that all abstractions should be useless, and that nobody should be able to trust in anything without knowing the whole system perfectly.
There is a name for code produced by programmers who think like that. That name is spaghetti. And systems that are built like that inevitably become a [link|http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html|Big Ball of Mud].
Yes, I am part of a funky computer religion that implicitly assumes that you shouldn't have to understand the fundamentals of what you're doing - at least not all of the time. Abstractions like files and directories serve an important purpose, and the abstractions should not be broken lightly. And I am proud to say that that is a Good Thing.
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
|
Post #71,362
12/29/02 7:17:38 PM
|
Re: I understand your position perfectly
Ben wrote:
I understand your position perfectly. You believe that all abstractions should be useless, and that nobody should be able to trust in anything without knowing the whole system perfectly.
What an absolutely fabulous straw man you have there. May I take a whack at it, too, or do you have proprietary rights?
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,572
12/30/02 6:16:31 PM
|
If it is not a straw man...
Then please explain how your position differs appreciably from what I described.
Regards,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
|
Post #71,811
12/31/02 10:14:16 PM
|
Re: If it is not a straw man...
Ben wrote:
If it is not a straw man, then please explain how your position differs appreciably from what I described.
If I could figure out how you derived the extremely strange view you described immediately before attributing it to me, and then went on to draw even more peculiar conclusions from it, I'd gladly tell you which wrong turn you took on that road. But it's way too damn bizarre for my tastes, and it should suffice to say "No, I most certainly don't believe that, nor does anyone, actually."
I'm willing to believe that you honestly thought that. I guess. But I'm not going to try to prove to you that I don't hold a rather odd and silly view that strike me as nothing at all like what I said.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,962
1/2/03 4:55:17 AM
|
Funny, I concluded the same as Ben
YTF should I have to understand how the file system works to use it?
Do I also need to know the voltages in my ram chips to make proper use of memory in my software?
And of course, I mustn't write anything using sockets unless I clearly understand the inner workings of the entire communications stack and what is actually happening on the wires.
Better not drive a car without being able to calculate the thermal energy per unit of fuel - otherwise you'll probably run out someplace. You certainly can't trust that little needle - especially if you don't know how it works.
At some point, you have to use *abstractions* in order to move forwards or you will never transcend your current level of minutiae.
Your assertion that you must know the inner workings of the file system in order to use it is stupid.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #71,970
1/2/03 5:31:20 AM
|
Re: Funny, I concluded the same as Ben
ToddBlanchard wrote:
YTF should I have to understand how the file system works to use it?
Well, you needn't, of course. Just concentrate on watching the pretty pictures. Don't worry; be happy. Other people will take care of the technical stuff, and you can just wait for it to be delivered in idiotproofed form.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #72,164
1/3/03 4:27:19 AM
|
Little story - you might find it entertaining
I've been an avid skydiver since 1983. I've got over 24 hours of free fall time and over 1000 jumps (which means I've fallen something like 1500 miles).
When I started in the sport, before standardization of equipment, the number one cause of deaths wasn't "failed parachutes" (which was maybe 5% of problems - and today its less than a whole percent). It was "borrowed gear".
Every month I would eagerly rip open my new issue of Parachutist to read the accident reports - because its valuable (and safer) to learn from other people's mistakes.
In the early 80's skydiving was going through a transition period from outlaw practice to viable busineess. While lots of military surplus gear was still common, the first gear created strictly for pleasure jumping was beginning to appear on the market from a half dozen different companies.
The result was stuff shipped with a wide variety of "user interfaces" (handle placements). Some put the main deployment handle on a band crossing the belly. Other s on the left hip, or the right hip. The bottom of the pack was a common place while older gear had the main rip cord on the chest. Reserve ripcords were typically on the chest next to the cutaway handle for separating from the main parachute (if its trash you want it gone before opening old faithful) but left and right placement varied. Handle appearance varied as well. So you couldn't just grab a rig and know whats what. You had to ask the owner. I mean, if you don't know what it is, maybe you shouldn't jump it.
But people sometimes borrow gear because their stuff isn't packed when the plane is ready to go. So very knowledgeable skydivers would borrow something, get a quick explanation for what was where, (there's only 3 handles on a parachute, main, reserve, cutaway), and go make a jump.
And then they'd hit the ground pulling on the wrong thing. Lots of them. Gurus. Guys who had jumped everything under the sun and were as comfortable freefalling as lying in a hammock would bounce. The investigation would typically find that the guy was jumping something he had borrowed on the spur of the moment.
This cycle is repeating among the BASE jumping community as BASE gear evolves. You may remember the news story from a couple years ago of Jan Davis - one of the best and brightest - very publicly bouncing during a protest jump at Yosemite in 1999. The park officials were going to arrest the participants and confiscate their gear - so she borrowed something less nice than her regular rig. The unfamiliarity killed her (it wasn't lack of knowledge - she knew how it worked - she had hundreds of jumps on it).
The moral of this story is that variety kills. Today every single rig on the market has the handles laid out in exactly the same way and we don't have those kinds of accidents anymore. So for the same reason, I think its dangerous to mix file system types on a computer. At least until the tools evolve to properly handle the issues.
If the handles on the different file systems are different, accidents will happen.
Better knowledge is not the answer. Standardizing the interfaces is. All tools must become multi-file sytem aware or as Arkadiy says - we might as well keep sector maps on a pad of paper by our desk.
Of course, you seem to think you're bulletproof and your "knowledge" will protect you. It won't. You'll forget what file system you're on one day and slip. Like all those former skygods I used to know.
The dead ones.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #72,212
1/3/03 10:21:21 AM
|
Excellent story. Going on the wall.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
|
Post #72,237
1/3/03 11:59:25 AM
|
This my dear friend... (new thread)
Created as new thread #72236 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=72236|This my dear friend...]
[link|mailto:curley95@attbi.com|greg] - Grand-Master Artist in IT
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!]
[link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@kQMsmc74S0Tw3KHQiRQmDem0gAIPAgM/edcurry/1//|ED'S GHOST SPEAKS!] | The Heimatland Geheime Staatspolizei reminds:
[link|http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56742,00.html| Wi-Fi Terrorism] comes with an all inclusive
free trip to the local Hoosegow! | Please visit [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/board/show?boardid=1|iwethey.anti.anti++], providing
*THE* alternative to iwethey.anti-- since
June 18, 2001 22:00EST | | I'll never tell, my *overly-red* lips are sealed! *wink* *wink* |
|
Post #72,456
1/4/03 12:43:54 PM
|
Since you seem to be missing the point...
Here it is again.
Your attitude is that people should not use tools unless they know everything relevant to its proper usage. Your definition of what is relevant seems to be that if it might come up, then they need to know it. This is a circular definition of relevancy that justifies any particular dependency in hindsight as the user's fault for not knowing better.
Now I know that [link|http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html|abstractions leak]. (That is one of the few articles by Joel that I agree with incidentally.) Furthermore I often find myself being in the position of being the person around who understands what abstractions leak, and why. There is no fundamental solution to that problem. Shit happens, and plumbers are needed for it.
However one mark of a programmer that you want to have around is the ability to see shit and recognize it for what it is. Leaking abstractions are signs of shit. While they may be inevitable, they are not something that you want to take lightly. Because a system built by people with too much tolerance for that inevitably degrades into a complete mess.
In this case the leaking abstraction is one of the worst kinds to have. Different filesystems use the same words for subtly different abstractions. This makes it hard for most people to even verbalize that there is a difference, let alone what it is. (When the same thing happens in speech you get classic threads where people talk past each other at length.) And when you try to combine them into one abstraction, the gaps keep on leaking past.
So yes, it happens for good reason. But it is a basic design flaw in the system. And it is not one to belittle people for getting tripped up by, nor is it one that has a simple right answer.
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
|
Post #74,798
1/16/03 4:13:56 AM
|
Re: Since you seem to be missing the point...
Ben Tilly wrote:
Your attitude is that people should not use tools unless they know everything relevant to its proper usage.
Not quite. Rather: I mildly (and not at all insistently, given that it's really not my problem) suggest that people should take responsibility for what they do. If you choose to use tools without adequately understanding them, you can pound your thumb with a misaimed hammer. The choice of taking that risk may be reasonable; the point is to not expect pity when you screw up and hurt yourself.
Personally, I prefer education over "learning experiences". Less painful.
Remainder of your post duly ignored as furious and tedious pummeling of an irrelevant straw man. Therapeutic though, I'm sure.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,434
12/30/02 5:21:30 AM
12/30/02 7:52:16 AM
|
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
"Using an obviously unsuitable tool for a particular task"
One day you will have to perhaps define your version of this word.
Firing up a terminal on OS X and navigating to an HFS file system, I find that I can:
ls
cat
mv
cp
chown
chgrp
chmod
ln
rm
Within an HFS volume and across HFS volumes just fine.
IOW, it appears that the developers of OS X have taken some pains to make sure that these tools work as expected on both UFS and HFS volumes. I fact, in the Fred Sanchez paper I cited awhile back, it describes the interesting strategies used to emulate hard links, soft links, file ownership, etc, that were taken to make the system behave as expected.
Its unfortunate that the illusion is incomplete (though I remain hopeful that this will be rectified with a future release).
But sometime you are going to have to share your definition of obvious with us.
Because what is clearly obvious to me is that what you claim to be obvious is not at all obvious to a daily user of the system.
It had been some months of daily command line development (I generally use vi and makefiles when I work - so is all in the shell) before I was bitten by the tar/cp/mv issue.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #71,440
12/30/02 8:21:08 AM
|
Hello, you must be going.
Hi there! I said we were done, and I meant that.
However, on your way back to whatever it is that you do, you might consider the merits of consulting manpages before just blithely assuming that someone has custom-modified a standard tool like GNU tar and GNU cpio/afio to perform operations they do nowhere else on the planet.
Or, if you prefer, you can ignore such considerations and bitch when reality bites you in the ass. Feel free to work out your options, somewhere.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,534
12/30/02 3:47:08 PM
|
This is obvious?
You wanna point out the obvious part?
Yeah, right. I don't see the letters UFS in there anywhere.
I don't see the letters HFS in there anywhere.
I imagine what you meant by "man" must have been the source code, eh?
>man tar
TAR(1) System General Commands Manual TAR(1)
NAME
tar - tape archiver
SYNOPSIS
tar [-]{crtux}[befhmopvwzHLPXZ014578] [archive] [blocksize] [-C directory
] [-s replstr ] file1 [file2...]
DESCRIPTION
The tar command creates, adds files to, or extracts files from an archive
file in tar format. A tar archive is often stored on a magnetic tape,
but can be a floppy or a regular disk file.
One of the following flags must be present:
-c Create new archive, or overwrite an existing archive,
adding the specified files to it.
-r Append the named new files to existing archive. Note that
this will only work on media on which an end-of-file mark
can be overwritten.
-t List contents of archive. If any files are named on the
command line, only those files will be listed.
-u Alias for -r
-x Extract files from archive. If any files are named on the
command line, only those files will be extracted from the
archive. If more than one copy of a file exists in the
archive, later copies will overwrite earlier copies during
extration.
In addition to the flags mentioned above, any of the following flags may
be used:
-b blocking factor
Set blocking factor to use for the archive, tar uses 512
byte blocks. The default is 20, the maximum is 126.
Archives with a blocking factor larger 63 violate the POSIX
standard and will not be portable to all systems.
-e Stop after first error.
-f archive Filename where the archive is stored. Defaults to
/dev/rst0
-h Follow symbolic links as if they were normal files or
directories.
-m Do not preserve modification time.
-O Write old-style (non-POSIX) archives.
-o Don't write directory information that the older (V7) style
tar is unable to decode. This implies the -O flag.
-p Preserve user id, group id, file mode, access and modifica-
tion times if possible. The user id and group id will only
be set if the user is the superuser (unless these values
correspond to the user's user and group ids).
-s replstr Modify the file or archive member names specified by the
pattern or file operands according to the substitution
expression replstr, using the syntax of the ed(1) utility
regular expressions. The format of these regular expres-
sions are:
/old/new/[gp]
As in ed(1), old is a basic regular expression and new can
contain an ampersand (&), \\n (where n is a digit) back-ref-
erences, or subexpression matching. The old string may
also contain <newline> characters. Any non-null character
can be used as a delimiter (/ is shown here). Multiple -s
expressions can be specified. The expressions are applied
in the order they are specified on the command line, termi-
nating with the first successful substitution. The
optional trailing g continues to apply the substitution
expression to the pathname substring which starts with the
first character following the end of the last successful
substitution. The first unsuccessful substitution stops the
operation of the g option. The optional trailing p will
cause the final result of a successful substitution to be
written to standard error in the following format:
<original pathname> >> <new pathname>
File or archive member names that substitute to the empty
string are not selected and will be skipped.
-v Verbose operation mode.
-w Interactively rename files. This option causes tar to
prompt the user for the filename to use when storing or
extracting files in an archive.
-z Compress archive using gzip.
-C directory This is a positional argument which sets the working direc-
tory for the following files. When extracting, files will
be extracted into the specified directory; when creating,
the specified files will be matched from the directory.
-H Follow symlinks given on command line only.
-L Follow all symlinks.
-P Do not strip leading slashes (``/'') from pathnames. The
default is to strip leading slashes.
-X Do not cross mount points in the file system.
-Z Compress archive using compress.
The options [-014578] can be used to select one of the compiled-in backup
devices, /dev/rstN.
FILES
/dev/rst0 The default archive name
SEE ALSO
pax(1), cpio(1)
AUTHOR
Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego
ERRORS
tar will exit with one of the following values:
0 All files were processed successfully.
1 An error occured.
Whenever tar cannot create a file or a link when extracting an archive or
cannot find a file while writing an archive, or cannot preserve the user
ID, group ID, file mode or access and modification times when the -p
options is specified, a diagnostic message is written to standard error
and a non-zero exit value will be returned, but processing will continue.
In the case where tar cannot create a link to a file, tar will not create
a second copy of the file.
If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated by
a signal or error, tar may have only partially extracted the file the
user wanted. Additionally, the file modes of extracted files and direc-
tories may have incorrect file bits, and the modification and access
times may be wrong.
If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or
error, tar may have only partially created the archive which may violate
the specific archive format specification.
BSD June 11, 1996 BSD
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #71,812
12/31/02 10:20:55 PM
|
Re: This is obvious?
ToddBlanchard wrote:
You wanna point out the obvious part?
It's the part where you understand the basics of how files are stored on your filesystems, understand how GNU tar / GNU cpio work, and avoid assuming (without confirmation) that those tools perform special functions, there, that they carry out nowhere else on the planet.
Khendon's Law duly invoked. Va t'en.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,868
1/1/03 3:14:02 PM
|
At no time did you utter the word "obvious" - nice dodge
thus you did not answer the question.
What is obvious to me is your lack of knowledge and use of bluster to compensate.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #71,891
1/1/03 5:34:29 PM
|
Re: At no time did you utter the word "obvious" - nice dodge
ToddBlanchard wrote, before reverting to argumentum ad hominem:
thus you did not answer the question.
Indeed, Chuckles. I was addressing the UFS/FFS topic at hand, which does not necessarily mean "answering your questions". You have perhaps confused me with some paid sidekick.
Now, run along.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,965
1/2/03 5:02:05 AM
|
Topic at hand - point out what you claim is "obvious" (new thread)
Created as new thread #71964 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71964|Topic at hand - point out what you claim is "obvious"]
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,950
12/26/02 4:10:28 PM
12/26/02 4:13:21 PM
|
Basic point seems to have been missed
Ben wrote:
Take files on an HFS filesystem. Tar them using standard unix tools.
That would be an obvious error, right there, and implies being clueless about how file storage works. The quoted suggestion is -- for anyone who understands how file storage works on MacOS X -- a bad idea regardless of whether you're going to untar them onto UFS or HFS+.
So, as the old joke goes, Don't Do That, Then. Part of the point of having most of your filesystem space be UFS is so that you can use standard Unix tools within the UFS majority storage (provided that you transport resources dotfiles with the related regular files). Saying that you can't reliably use such tools to move files onto HFS+ misses the point: You can't reliably use them within HFS+, either.
The Church of Steve solution is to use solely the worse filesystem, and deprive yourself completely of standard Unix filehandling tools, "because they're dangerous, and those recommending them are irresponsible".
"Fire bad, burn Lorto's finger, cause disharmony among tribe. No future in it. Stick to drawing icons on cave wall."
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
Edited by rickmoen
Dec. 26, 2002, 04:13:21 PM EST
|
Post #70,956
12/26/02 4:33:37 PM
|
Yes you have missed it
every time. You can't seem to follow the thread. Ben exactly nailed it.
"Take files on an HFS filesystem. Tar them using standard unix tools."
Can you manage to follow those directions? Apparently not. I believe cp and mv has similar issues BTW.
You say:
"That would be an obvious error, right there, and implies being clueless about how file storage works."
That would be perhaps one of the more pompous and idiotic things you've ever said. Which is saying a lot.
What exactly is *obvious* about that error?
I have a commercial unix, with command line tools, that has a proprietary file system. For the most part the command line tools behave exactly as they do on any other unix. cat, mv, cp, ls, ln, all work like you would expect despite the underlying file system being HFS.
And I should obviously expect that with these tools all working as expected that the tar implementation that ships with that system would have issues with the files? Pray tell why? Clearly, the other tools have been modified to work on HFS.
It seems to me the very height of reasonable for a vendor shipping an OS with a set of file manipulation utilities would go to a bit of work to extend the utilities to work properly on their file system. The fact that they didn't is what I found really very surprising.
Fortunately, the community has answered and some extended utilities have been developed like the aforementioned hfstar, which works exactly like tar - because it is - only on hfs systems it converts the resource forks to the directory wrapper format you keep harping about on your wife's system.
Which is basically what I expected Apple would have shipped with the system and called "tar".
So shame on Apple for shipping lame assed tools like this.
But to imply that this is obvious is - well - really quite stupid.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,964
12/26/02 4:48:39 PM
|
I see so to use OSX effectively
blow away your 9.x partition with all those legacy apps and data. Reformat to UFS so unix tools will work. Sounds like a winblows solution to me.
Use the tool that does the job and have the wisdom to know the difference.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #71,529
12/30/02 3:10:18 PM
|
Never used Apple OSes in my life,
but if you need "technical competence" to copy files from one directory to another, you've got a lousy system. Better off not using it.
--
We have only 2 things to worry about: That
things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.
|
Post #71,813
12/31/02 10:24:41 PM
|
Re: Never used Apple OSes in my life,
Arkadiy wrote:
Never used Apple OSes in my life, but if you need "technical competence" to copy files from one directory to another, you've got a lousy system. Better off not using it.
Yeah, don't use GNU cp; it'll allow you to accidentally overwrite valuable files 'n' stuff. People who recommend it are irresponsible. WebTV for everyone!
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,864
1/1/03 2:50:31 PM
|
For certain kind of user
(for root by default), cp is indeed set up to confirm file overwrite. But that's besides the point. There is a difference between faithfully executing what you're told to do and corrupting data. If I can't rely on my tools to do what I tell them too, if I have to keep in mind details like filesystems - the abstraction has been breached. I might as well have a list of disk sector allocation on paper somewhere. Ben Tilly already addressed it better than I ever could.
Think of all the scripts that use cp hoping that it works... Your /tmp uses new FS, so copying file there and back corrupts it. How many scripts keep copies of files in tmp?
--
We have only 2 things to worry about: That
things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.
|
Post #71,889
1/1/03 5:28:32 PM
|
Re: For certain kind of user
Arkadiy wrote:
For certain kind of user (for root by default), cp is indeed set up to confirm file overwrite.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader, to determine why this is a strategic error. Shouldn't be difficult; the question comes up frequently.
But that's besides the point.
Well, no, it's not, actually.
There is a difference between faithfully executing what you're told to do and corrupting data.
ObVious: Not when faithfully executing what you're told to do corrupts data. (I'd say deletion is the extreme form of corruption, nicht wahr?)
Anyhow, this has long exceeded the point of silliness. I'll leave you with an apposite quotation from the Scary Devil Monastery, which I just ran across and found amusing:
DON'T MAKE THAT FACE WHEN I TELL YOU TO READ THE F*CKING MANUAL! IT'S GOOD
FOR YOU I SAY! READ THE F*CKING MANUAL! How do you think I found out how
the machine works? DID I SIT AROUND ASKING SOMEBODY FOR A FEW MONTHS??
-- Beable van Polasm
(Ya wanna argue? Fine, go find van Polasm.)
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #71,966
1/2/03 5:07:06 AM
|
Gee - got an ISBN for that manual?
Or maybe a command I can execute?
It can't be "man".
Because when I gave you the results of that, you could't point anything useful out.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #71,969
1/2/03 5:27:29 AM
|
Re: Gee - got an ISBN for that manual?
Gee, I'm sorry, if you're having that much difficulty figuring out how to understand how files are stored on your OS of choice and how your software tools work, you'll have to find someone as a tutor, as evidently some fairly detailed explanations here are not sufficing. You'll have to see someone in your local vicinity. Good luck to you.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #72,462
1/4/03 12:58:00 PM
|
He had no difficulty in figuring out how the system works
In fact his description was good enough for me to understand exactly what the problem was and why it happens.
His difficulty is in figuring out where and when most users should learn that this is obvious. You tell him that he should RTFM. He is asking you which M is TFM to R. You have so far failed to come up with a shorter answer than, Become a guru first, then it will be obvious. Which seriously begs the question.
Frankly I am having the same difficulty that Todd is. I see the problem. I see why it is a problem. I see problems with virtually any attempted solution. However I also don't see any documentation that most users - even more competent technical users - would see that says this.
Let me put this another way. If I explain this problem to someone with a moderately strong technical inclination who did not know it, what can I tell them that they should learn about (short of "everything") to make this kind of thing obvious to them in the future?
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
|
Post #72,048
1/2/03 12:53:27 PM
|
rm - the ultimate corruptor
--
We have only 2 things to worry about: That
things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.
|
Post #72,224
1/3/03 11:09:42 AM
|
ouch! R.M. - the ultimate corruptor.
--
We have only 2 things to worry about: That
things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.
|
Post #72,535
1/4/03 5:34:25 PM
|
rm -rf /
The TRUE ultimate corruptor.
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.
|
Post #72,343
1/3/03 6:17:33 PM
|
isnt that the beauty of nix? It does what it is commanded to
its up to the user to determine if that is what they wanted.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #72,375
1/3/03 9:15:50 PM
|
Well, personally..
..I'd been involved with UNIX for about 20 minutes, learning redirection, when I realized that everything in UNIX was a file - I was blown away when this hit me. I remember my co-worker root had this peculiar glow in his eye when I was freaking out about having "discovered" this :)
-drl
|
Post #72,384
1/3/03 10:00:52 PM
|
yup my intro to unix
was with a genius named tom giving me a 6 weeks course of hardcore nix and hardware. He was one of the builders of the original livermore supercomputer and has an awesome brain.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #70,519
12/23/02 12:35:20 PM
|
Understood, I just meant
that this discussion was kind of like somebody coming into the Macintosh forum yapping about how cool Windows XP is. Whether they're right or wrong, it's not the right place for that and it annoys the residents.
I said this by way of an apology, not as a slam to OSS folk.
(I use Linux as well as OS X and hand out Linux/OSS CDs to my students at the slightest excuse.)
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
|
Post #70,497
12/23/02 10:05:25 AM
|
So where exactly IS NeXT Step in the mix?
I used NextStep for a bit when I was a government contractor... It was ok, but the UI, while attractive, seemed somewhat superfluous. But my question is, where exactly will you find NeXT Step in OSX?
You've got "Darwin" at the core, which is a BSD variant, so I was led to believe. You've got the OS X UI at the top, which is very little like NeXT Step's UI (not that I can recall, at any rate. The toolbar that NeXT Step had was nothing like that odd bouncing thing at the bottom of the OS X desktop). The display technology is different...
... I'm not saying NeXT Step isn't there, I'm just saying I don't know where it is, exactly. Is it some kind of middle layer?
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
|
Post #70,521
12/23/02 12:54:44 PM
|
I believe it's the Cocoa API + Objective C
Tom Sinclair
"Everybody is someone else's weirdo."
- E. Dijkstra
|
Post #70,532
12/23/02 3:25:34 PM
|
As I said.
cwbrenn wrote:
So where exactly IS NeXT Step in the mix?
Right in the middle and throughout.
You've got "Darwin" at the core, which is a BSD variant, so I was led to believe.
That's the bulk of NeXTSTep, which was an early BSD fork.
You've got the OS X UI at the top, which is very little like NeXT Step's UI.
Yes, they hid it very thoroughly under all the tacky, glossy makeover stuff. One can find instructions on the Net to restore as much as possible of the original classic desktop appearance, but I don't have hyperlinks handy.
The toolbar that NeXT Step had was nothing like that odd bouncing thing at the bottom of the OS X desktop).
That's the NeXTStep Wharf, badly mangled and junked up at Apple's hands.
The display technology is different.
Not very. A PDF stream is really just a slightly rearranged, compressed PostScript stream. As mentioned, the change was made because of the stark difference in Adobe's patent-licensing terms.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,547
12/23/02 5:40:10 PM
|
Its the GUI lib
Basically - and the rest of the standard API - file system interfaces, network, etc, basically the ObjectiveC standard lib plus windowing and access to OS facilities. You know, the GUI.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,545
12/23/02 5:36:30 PM
|
Who is Apple Computer?
"OS X is very nice for a proprietary Unix. But Apple Computer, Inc. didn't write it, really. NeXT, Inc. did"
Uh, they is them. Apple Computer *is* Next. So Apple Computer (the current one) wrote NextStep. Its a question of labels really.
Anyhow, as you note, darwin is essentially chunks of FreeBSD on Avi's Mach kernel. The *OS* is open source.
The *application* api *implementation* is not open. Although the api specification (and older one - OpenStep) is. The only bits of the thing not open are the cocoa apis - basically NextStep - an insanely portable UI layer. There has been an attempt to clone it - GnuStep. But those people are mentally ill and completely impractical. Their insistence on living on DisplayGhostscript is obsessive and crippling. Suggest that maybe they ought to rewrite the graphics prims using OpenGL (at least its pretty much everywhere) and they freak.
Incidentally, the OpenStep apis have an implementation that runs on Windows. Its how they supply the WebObjects dev tools to Windows victims.
Anyhow, everything is proprietary. Even Linux. And everything is hackable. Even Cocoa. So you pick your poison and live with it.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,576
12/23/02 8:19:06 PM
|
Pin terpsichory
ToddBlanchard wrote:
Uh, they is them. Apple Computer *is* Next. So Apple Computer (the current one) wrote NextStep. Its a question of labels really.
Nice dance. Nice angels. Nice pin.
I think my explanation was a good bit less tortured and misleading. But have fun, and spin merrily.
Anyhow, as you note, darwin is essentially chunks of FreeBSD on Avi's Mach kernel.
I did not "note" that, and that's one of the bits of not-entirely-accurate, fluffy marketing department factoids that many MacOS users are fond of hurling about, these days.
xnu is converging somewhat on FreeBSD's kernel, thanks to recent borrowings and staff hires (Jordan et al.), and the userspace code more so. But this was not traditionally the case, Apple revisionism notwithstanding.
Anyhow, everything is proprietary. Even Linux.
Only for deliberately misleading values of the term "proprietary". In the software context, the term means unavailable under OSD-compliant terms, and thus not lawful to [link|http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/essays/forking.html|fork] under such terms. But you knew that.
My late maternal grandfather had a rather rudely profane saying about how people shouldn't micturate down his leg and try to convince him it's raining. It seems somehow appropriate, here.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,619
12/24/02 2:23:32 AM
|
Legal matters, GNUStep
ToddBlanchard wrote:
The only bits of the thing not open are the cocoa apis - basically NextStep - an insanely portable UI layer.
The word "open" is basically vague, vapid, and meaningless, in this context. Let's talk concepts of business law, as they concern software.
copyrights: Any significant creative work, such as a software codebase, gives rise to a bundle of abstract legal rights called "copyright", inherent in the act of creation. A copyright is a limited monopoly over possession, use, redistribution, and creation of derivative works based on any instance of the covered creative work. Copyright may be transferred or sold to another person through a specific type of written conveyance. Lawful receipt of an instance of the creative work (e.g., purchase or download of a copy of a piece of software) doesn't give you ownership of the abstract property right (the copyright), but rather a licence to certain rights but not others. Absent an explicit licence grant (which by the Copyright Act may be oral, in writing, or by the conduct of the parties), a default licensing provison (per statute) applies. The default licence for software is of the sort software people term "proprietary", i.e., it includes no right to redistribute or create derivative works.
Apple Computer, Inc. owns copyright over a number of codebases that implement its version (descended from NeXT's) of the OpenStep application interface. (I note with amusement that your term for this, "API", is a Microsoft-ism.) Unlike patents, discussed next, copyrights do not stand in the way of independent third-party implementations of a given technique. In theory, copyrights expire after a certain number of years (and might again, if Congress stops taking all of its orders from Hollywood).
patents: A patent is another bundle of abstract legal rights, covering not a creative work but rather am invention/technique/algorithm. Thus, during its term it bars deployment or even development of artifacts that use the covered technique in any way, regardless of who created them or how independent they might be of prior implementations. Accordingly, patent terms are relatively short (since their effect is so broad). Apple Computer, Inc. is known to own quite a few patents over software techniques related to program interfaces and imaging algorithms used in OS X. I believe it is on record as granting royalty-free rights to its patents for any implementation of the OpenStep specification published late in the history of NeXT, Inc.
trade secrets: Inventions kept confidential within a business may be privileged against disclosure by knowledgeable insiders if they meet certain criteria about its nature (exclusivity of knowledge, degree of caution against disclosure, effort/money spent developing it, ease by which outsiders might independently discover it). The information must also provably have either actual or potential commercial value. The (state only) law covering trade secrets covers misappropriation only, making it a serious tort.
I mention trade secret law only for completeness: It's probably relevant only to Apple insiders of various sorts.
trademarks: Trademarks are a different category, and are an abstract, limited legal monopoly over words, names, symbols, or devices used by manufacturers of goods and providers of services to identify their goods and services, and to distinguish their goods and services from goods manufactured and sold by others. The monopoly must be paid for (unlike copyrights, but like patents). It can be renewed. The trademark must be continually used integrally to a business, and the monopoly extends only within the same industry or class of goods. Unlike copyright or patents, it covers only the name or characteristic appearance of the covered product (being a monopoly over commercial product identity, only). Goods that for whatever reason can be readily distinguished from the covered goods are not encumbered.
So, getting back to your intellectually sloppy bit about things being "open" or not: Quite a number of pieces of OS X (and NeXTStep before it) are implemented under copyright licences that make that particular software proprietary. (Please see my other post for the approximate meaning of the word "proprietary" in the software context.) Many of the algorithms thus implemented are also encumbered by Apple patents, which are as noted a more-significant obstacle: If, hypothetically, Apple were to issue an instance of those codebases under an open-source licence (say, the BSD licence), the end-result would still be proprietary as long as the patent restrictions prevented free exercise of the rights granted in that licence.
There has been an attempt to clone it - GnuStep. But those people are mentally ill and completely impractical. Their insistence on living on DisplayGhostscript is obsessive and crippling. Suggest that maybe they ought to rewrite the graphics prims using OpenGL (at least its pretty much everywhere) and they freak.
Not being completely ignorant in such matters, I'm acutely aware that OpenGL is heavily covered by patents registered by SGI, which were recently purchased from SGI by one Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington. Were you ignorant of this rather crucial fact, or were you merely choosing to not mention it for some reason?
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,634
12/24/02 8:35:17 AM
|
Did you take a pendantic pill this morning or what?
Lets define what I meant when I said "open" - source available for inspection. Fair enough? Having license to said software and access to said source for said platform I have the ability to *patch* personal licensed copies of said platform. Should said platform evaporate from said marketplace, I can reasonably manage to continue personal copies of said platform and share work with others. IOW, I'm not too terribly worried about the evaporation from the marketplace - a common bit of the Linux fud machine.
WRT to that, Darwin is pretty much the source for the entire OS minus the GUI and a few device drivers. It has a nice ecosystem about like the Linux/Free/OpenBSD world and has been ported to Intel by its enthusiasts without explicit permission by Apple as far as I know. From this standpoint - I consider Linux and Darwin to be more or less Coke and Pepsi.
"I note with amusement that your term for this, "API", is a Microsoft-ism."
You are easily amused.
API apparently has crept into common use to mean any set of callable interfaces that make up a package. Your paintbrush is too wide. I've never actually written a line of code on any MS platform (I'm sort of a conscientious objector).
"Quite a number of pieces of OS X (and NeXTStep before it) are implemented under copyright licences that make that particular software proprietary. "
OK, lets just talk Darwin for a second - because thats the OS. The rest of it is application libraries. The OS source (minus as mentioned before certain device drivers and such) is completely available - even the once jealously guarded ObjectiveC runtime has been released in source code form. If you dig around in this code, you'll find large (really very large) chunks of it were lifed wholesale from FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and various other open source non-GPL projects. The compiler is gcc. The debugger is gdb. The MACH kernel is CMU with enhancements. This is no proprietary system - its a Frankenstein job out of the best bits available. Those bits are available under the BSD style licenses as well as the Apple license - pick one. In fact, Apple developers have been giving much of the changes back to the projects they lifted them from: [link|http://www.advogato.org/person/wsanchez/|http://www.advogato.org/person/wsanchez/] [link|http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Stan+Shebs+gcc|http://www.google.co...&q=Stan+Shebs+gcc]
"Not being completely ignorant in such matters, I'm acutely aware that OpenGL is heavily covered by patents registered by SGI, which were recently purchased from SGI by one Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington. Were you ignorant of this rather crucial fact, or were you merely choosing to not mention it for some reason?"
More fud. I'm not appreciating the shill treatment BTW. Your innuendos are both transparent and juvenile. This isn't politics.
Wondering about the licensability of OpenGL? Why not read the acutal terms?
[link|http://www.sgi.com/software/opengl/license.html|http://www.sgi.com/s...engl/license.html]
Or from the FAQ page:
"Applications developers DO NOT need to license OpenGL.
Generally, hardware vendors that are creating binaries to ship with their hardware are the only developers that need to have a license. If an application developer wants to use the OpenGL API, the developer needs to obtain copies of a linkable OpenGL library for a particular hardware device or machine. Those OpenGL libraries may be bundled with the development and/or run-time options or may be purchased from a third-party software vendor without licensing the source code or use of the OpenGL trademark. "
So tell me again why this is a liability for the GnuStep people. I don't see it. In fact, the reason Apple dumped DPS is because Adobe refused to give them decent licensing terms. Meanwhile, Ghostscript remains pretty much unusably buggy, DGS moreso. And they've only been working on it for what - 7 years or so? There's a lot more heat in the OGL world they could take advantage of. But they are utterly UN-pragmatic.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,650
12/24/02 9:40:57 AM
|
Rick get his pedantic in suppository form ;-)
===
Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
|
Post #70,696
12/24/02 2:06:16 PM
|
We have a suppository forum?
:-P
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,701
12/24/02 2:40:03 PM
|
flame and politics, the suppositories post there :-)
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #70,697
12/24/02 2:29:42 PM
|
But they're only application libraries!
ToddBlanchard wrote:
Did you take a pendantic pill this morning or what?
Ad-hominem much? Well, so much for trying to put the discussion on a meaningful basis of business law.
Lets define what I meant when I said "open" - source available for inspection. Fair enough?
OK, so you mean both source-available software, including proprietary codebases. Wow, big fscking deal. Be still, my beating heart. We should care? Who are you, Dan Bernstein?
Having license to said software and access to said source for said platform I have the ability to *patch* personal licensed copies of said platform.
Yeah, that's what the Bernstein cult says, too. But dealing in patches is only a jokeshop substitute for the right to fork, and isn't over the long term a feasible way to maintain a project.
Feel free to prove me wrong. Fork off your own copy of qmail 2.03, call your version something else, and maintain it solely via distribution of patches against the fixed qmail 2.03 codebase, so that DJB can't go mediaeval on you. Repeat 'til you urp, and then come back and try to tell me again with a straight face that this is a feasible substitute for the right to fork.
And then you'll have to find someone who cares. We already have open source. Viewable-source proprietary licensing can go hang, in my view and that of pretty much everyone who's been down that road often enough to finally say "Thanks but not again."
And finally, the relevance of your hypothetical is unclear, unless Apple Computer has suddenly started granting public source code access to its proprietary pieces -- a point we'll return to, below.
Should said platform evaporate from said marketplace, I can reasonably manage to continue personal copies of said platform and share work with others. IOW, I'm not too terribly worried about the evaporation from the marketplace - a common bit of the Linux fud machine.
Oh really? Pray do explain how you intend to apply your patches to the Quartz engine and Web Objects. Are you intending to do binary patching? Is the Stevester suddenly including viewable source code to his proprietary pieces on the developer CD?
WRT to that, Darwin is pretty much the source for the entire OS minus the GUI and a few device drivers. It has a nice ecosystem about like the Linux/Free/OpenBSD world and has been ported to Intel by its enthusiasts without explicit permission by Apple as far as I know.
Well, duh. I maintain copies of both ports in my installfest kit, and have installed it quite a few times. As I've said earlier in this thread, the experience is rather like a funky NetBSD, once you've retrofitted the XFree86 port as well. And that's OK -- even though on the whole I'd rather have NetBSD itself, in such circumstances.
By the way, before I forget to mention it, Apple Computer not only has an excellent recent record as a good citizen in contributing back code contributions under the various upstream licences, but also is currently doing an excellent job participating in developing improvements to gcc. It's doing this because it wants faster compile times for its own reasons, but that's fine: The result is still benevolent.
OK, lets just talk Darwin for a second - because thats the OS. The rest of it is application libraries.
Angel. Pin. Dance.
We get the open-source dance when it's convenient: Ignore the proprietary code behind the curtain! Kernelspace is where it's at, man!
Yeah, Quartz is a mere application library. Right.
[Table-pounding where you rather cheekily complain about "innuendos" snipped.]
Wondering about the licensability of OpenGL?
Subject to change at the option of the new owners. Obviously. Why do you think they bought the patents?
[Display Ghostscript:]
And they've only been working on it for what - 7 years or so?
Yeah, they don't have much mindshare, and are horribly understaffed, but it's a shame. I hope it picks up momentum, as sometimes happens with open-source projects. But if it doesn't, we can limp along with X11, I guess.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,706
12/24/02 3:11:43 PM
|
You're a loony. (new thread)
Created as new thread #70705 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=70705|You're a loony.]
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #70,582
12/23/02 8:29:26 PM
|
I thought Sun bought NextStep
and merged a lot of it with Solaris. Or was Sun just a licensee? I thought those NeXT machines were great but ahead of their time.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #70,615
12/24/02 12:47:55 AM
|
You're probably thinking of NeWS
Bill wrote:
I thought Sun bought NextStep and merged a lot of it with Solaris.
Gosh, I wish. You might be thinking of an advanced windowing system Sun invented called [link|http://www.phoenix.volant.org/NeWS/|NeWS (Network-extensible Window System)], which it proposed at the same time that some MIT grad students produced the X Window System. (I usually call the latter's current implementations "X11", to avert confusion with OS X.) NeWS was much, much better than the X Window System, but was never adopted anywhere but at Sun (where SunOS supported it), partly because of higher licensing costs, and partly for industry-political reasons: If you were a commercial rival of Sun Microsystems, you didn't want to support its initiatives and probably wanted to actively sabotage them, regardless of merit, in order to avoid conceding leadership to them.
The proprietary Unix world had all the politics of Renaissance Italy, in that regard. Fortunately, the rise of open-source has as a major force in the Unix world has tended to impose meaningful standards (even where, like X11 and NFS, those standards suck a fair amount) and consequent interoperability.
I thought those NeXT machines were great but ahead of their time.
I had friends who had the NeXT black cubes, and they were indeed very slick. I was able to buy an external flat-black NeXT-branded CD-ROM case when they were remaindered, and I still use it. Being from Steve Jobs's firm, it of course has no fan in it (and fortunately doesn't need one).
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #70,636
12/24/02 8:39:12 AM
|
Nope this is what I remembered Jobs and Sun, OpenStep
[link|http://www.cube-zero.net/NeXT/?main=history|http://www.cube-zero...eXT/?main=history] To this end, NeXT released NEXTSTEP for Intel, Sparc, and HP which allowed the software to run on Intel 486 and Pentium processors, as well as Sun SPARC-based computers and Hewlett-Packard HP-UX workstations. NeXT continued to produce the NEXTSTEP operating system until release version 3.3 and created the OpenStep API specification for operating systems in conjunction with Sun Microsystems. thanx, bill will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
|
Post #70,637
12/24/02 9:02:07 AM
|
No, he's thinking of NextStep
Which was also licensed by IBM for the RS6k workstations at one point - but immediately after they licensed it, Next released a new version and demanded IBM repurchase to get it. IBM was not pleased and abandoned plans to make it the default on the RS6k. Similar issues occurred with Sun - they didn't get in the end what they thought they were getting.
From here: [link|http://www.objectfarm.org/Activities/Publications/TheMerger/OpenstepConfusion.html|http://www.objectfar...tepConfusion.html]
You can get the whole explanation. Excerpt:
OpenStep
... was born as part of the deal with Sun. OpenStep stands for an API specifications which was based on an evolution of the existing NEXTSTEP APIs. Most of the new technology already was available inside NeXT's labs but needed a renewed system to get integrated. OpenStep does not refer to any "real" implementation. It stands for the abstract API definitions which a vendor has to support in order to call his system "OpenStep compliant". OpenStep consists of the AppKit, FoundationKit and the Display PostScript layer. The name is a mix of OpenLook and NextStep.
OPENSTEP
... is NeXT's specific implementation of the OpenStep specification, and basically represents NEXTSTEP 4.0. This was yet another marketing move to get rid of the old name. OPENSTEP is a dual personality which still provides the NEXTSTEP compatibility libraries to run applications which are based on the old APIs. Additionally it has the new OpenStep compliant frameworks. The look & feel remained the same, and so users hardly can tell the difference between both worlds.
The full naming is OPENSTEP for MachOS/[NeXT Computers, Intel, SPARC].
OpenStep for Solaris
... is what Sun calls their implementation of the OpenStep standard. While based on source code which Sun bought from NeXT, this package runs on the Solaris operating system and uses the X Window system. This makes it considerable different from NeXTs implementation of the OpenStep specification. Still both companies managed to provide a very high level of source code portability (not compiled binaries!).
OPENSTEP for Windows
... stands for a package, developed by NeXT, which puts OPENSTEP functionality on top of Windows NT. Obviously it does not include the MachOS layer but being derived from "OPENSTEP for MachOS" frameworks it offers considerably more then the OpenStep specification requires.
Incidentally, I write code on this OS every day, supplementing missing capabilities with opensource libs wherever necessary and I'm intimately familiar with where many of the components come from. OSX, apart from the Carbon libs, Drivers, Graphics engine, AppKit and Foundation (of which there are at least 3 open source versions floating around) its mostly been taken from free sources.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
|
Post #82,984
2/20/03 3:54:51 PM
|
Re: MacOS X is NeXTStep (and they can keep it, thanks)
Do you know if it is possible to install OpenStep 4.2 on a new high powered Intel machine to speed up it's processing? Or is it a situation were OS4.2 is so old that it has factors built in which now cannot take advantage of much faster processors, graphics, etc.?
Conversely, I just saw this system on comp.sys.next.marketplace and was wondering if there is anything that can be done to those old NeXTcubes to radically speed them up, or again, does the OS4.2 have some structure which was advanced for the era, but now would prevent it from in anyway significant speed increase.
[link|http://homepage.mac.com/xaxax/|http://homepage.mac.com/xaxax/]
Thanks
|
Post #83,225
2/21/03 4:05:54 PM
|
Re: MacOS X is NeXTStep (and they can keep it, thanks)
karnak wrote:
Do you know if it is possible to install OpenStep 4.2 on a new high powered Intel machine to speed up it's processing? Or is it a situation were OS4.2 is so old that it has factors built in which now cannot take advantage of much faster processors, graphics, etc.?
Not a compliant, but you're a little late to this party.
Um, OPENSTEP isn't an operating system, but rather an architecture specification, abstracted out from NeXTStep.
Presumably, you're talking about NeXTStep 4.2. Which I ran, back in the day. And no, it was never available for x86.
If you like, you can install Linux or {Free|Net|Open}BSD, and use the Window Maker window manager. (Every time I have to switch from that to Mac OSX 10.2.4 on the iBook, the latter pisses me off at just how badly NeXTStep has been mangled in the process of turning it into an OS for Mac users. Window Maker is clean and pleasant by comparison, even given the funkiness of X11. My view, yours for a small fee and disclaimer of reverse-engineering rights.)
Conversely, I just saw this system on comp.sys.next.marketplace and was wondering if there is anything that can be done to those old NeXTcubes to radically speed them up, or again, does the OS4.2 have some structure which was advanced for the era, but now would prevent it from in anyway significant speed increase.
[link|http://homepage.mac.com/xaxax/|http://homepage.mac.com/xaxax/]
Sad to say, it'll keep on running like a well-built 68040, and there's not a lot you can do about that. Sweet old machines, though. Cheaper than buying and maintaining a Studebaker, anyway. ;->
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #83,229
2/21/03 4:15:11 PM
|
Nothing wrong with a 68040.
Or a 68030 for that matter. In fact, I still use [link|http://markn.users.netlink.co.uk/16Bit/tt030.html|one] for a MIDI sequencing computer.
Mine only has 2M of RAM, and an 80M hdd, but that's more than enough for sequencing.
One of these days I might just try turning it into a Linux/m68k box.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
|
Post #83,418
2/22/03 4:49:01 PM
|
Semi-OT: Fatboy Slim still does all his work on an Atari ST
John. Busy lad.
|
Post #83,427
2/22/03 6:58:43 PM
|
That's what I used originally
A 1040ST, like Cook has. The TT030 has a nice SCSI interface, though.
I also have a set of Mac ROMs and a Spectre cartridge. :-)
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
|
Post #83,495
2/23/03 6:01:03 AM
|
Do you sound as bad?
/me hides behind Astral Projection.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
|
Post #83,505
2/23/03 9:46:33 AM
|
Worse.
But then, I don't have to live on the results. ;-)
FBS has some good stuff. Not all of it, but some of it.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
|
Post #83,343
2/21/03 11:55:44 PM
|
Re: MacOS X is NeXTStep (and they can keep it, thanks)
There was no version of NeXTSTEP above 3.3, NeXT changed NeXTSTEP's name to OpenStep and briefly put out versions 4.0 and 4.1 before its widespread release of 4.2, the last release. OpenStep was always available for x86, HP, Sun and it's own Mach; that's why they changed the name to "Open"Step in an effort to make it less associated with NeXT hardware and more "open" to other platforms. I have never seen an OpenStep install CD that didn't have all four versions on it. On that website I referenced they list on their Inventory page several Intel based product brochures - Canon, Intel, some laptop and maybe another x86 machine that all came with OpenStep 4.2 preinstalled.
I already know that it will run on older x86 and Pentium machines. My question is whether it can take advantage of all the speed improvements over the last decade or if the OS is written in such a manner that it cannot process above a certain speed or recognize any RAM above a certain specification.
|
Post #83,395
2/22/03 12:13:13 PM
|
Comparison of OpenStep & WindowMaker?
How close is WindowMaker to being a NeXTStep / OpenStep\r\nimplementation? I'm mostly a fan of the clean UI, but understand that\r\nNeXTStep offered other featurwes, most of which have never been clearly\r\narticulated to me. \r\n --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
|
Post #83,424
2/22/03 6:35:47 PM
|
Re: MacOS X is NeXTStep (and they can keep it, thanks)
karnak wrote:
There was no version of NeXTSTEP above 3.3, NeXT changed NeXTSTEP's name to OpenStep and briefly put out versions 4.0 and 4.1 before its widespread release of 4.2, the last release.
If you say so. It's been a hell of a long time, but I assembled a fairly high-end machine for a former employer to run a very late version of the Intel port, about a decade and a half ago. My recollection is that it still said NeXTStep on the box (I declined then, and still do, to keep up with their goofy periodic capitalisation changes), but I could well be misremembering. I remember that it had an incredibly thin hardware compatibility list, such that I had to fall back to an ISA ATI Mach64 video card, there being no reasonable options for anything better.
When I left that firm in 1994, that was the last I saw of the OS, except on rare occasions when I use my friend David Burrowes's black-cube monochrome NeXT box.
My assumption is that that OS's time has come and gone. If you did find any leftover boxes of the x86 port -- and I haven't seen one in a decade -- trying to find hardware for which it has drivers would be an exercise in frustration, and just not worth it.
The OPENSTEP spec, now, that lives on.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
|
Post #84,462
2/26/03 8:44:31 PM
|
Have you considered GNUStep?
Install Linux or *BSD, and then visit this web site:
[link|http://www.gnustep.org/|http://www.gnustep.org/]
Last I checked it wasn't ready for prime time yet, but it may have enough of an OpenStep compliance to work for you.
I remember getting an offer from Next to run OpenStep on my Intel system. I turned them down. Later Apple bought them out, and I don't think it is offered anymore. No more improvements, support for P4 chips, etc.
You could; however, download Darwin instead of Linux or *BSD. :) Get the core of OSX for WINTEL systems. [link|http://developer.apple.com/darwin/|http://developer.apple.com/darwin/]
[link|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey|
New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
|
