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Re: Shutdown and Root
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 06:31:04meone out there kn!--====================================================================-->
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:30:29 -0600 (MDT)
From: Dale K. Hawkins,
dhawkins@teton.Mines.EDU
Subject: Bazaar ISP...
Hello, I was wondering if anyone has ever considered the idea of a bazaar model for running an ISP. By a Bazaar model, I of caurse refer to the infamous Cathedral vs. Bazaar model for software development. So what do I really mean. I mean an ISP by the people for the people. I have found that most ISP's are very restrictive in how things are run, i.e., many of the interesting utilities are strictly off limits. For example, I was recently trying to setup cvs to work as a server. The normal way to do this is by adding a line to inetd.conf. However, being only a "user" on my ISP, I had no way to accomplish this. So I though of a more complex way to set this up, but that method require the use of crontab. Again this service is not available to Joe User.
I am very aware of the obvious security issues, but surely there must be a way to improve the situation in someway. I cannot but think about rms (Richard Stallman) and some of his lestures on the evils of a sysadmin and thinking, "how true". But how can one deal with the open system issue, while still maintain a certain level of system security. I would be very pleased to see this erupt into a deep and lengthy thread somewhere. Just my 2 cents.
-Dale
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 21:12:00 +0100
From: William Chesters,
williamc@dai.ed.ac.uk
Subject: Linux is not ready for the desktop
David Wagle ("Evangelism: A Unix Bigot and Linux Advocate's Spewings", Linux Gazette #27) points out some good reasons why converting people to Linux can be harder than we expect.
But he seems to shy away from the natural conclusion. It is not currently possible to put together a setup which makes it possible for people to do normal day-to-day work and simple admin without serious trouble---whether or not they care about abandoning their existing Windows software. Ergo, Linux is simply not, in all conscience, a suitable platform for unsupported users who just want to get their jobs done.
It very nearly is. I run the maximally friendly Linux installation with Red Hat, linuxconf, KDE, Netscape and Word Perfect; my experience is that intelligent non-Unix users can manage fine 90% of the time. The remaining problems are very obvious, but here there are anyway spelt out in order of seriousness:
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