1. Backups
-------Phoenix-Boundary-07081998-
Backups are for wimps! 
I thought it might amuse you folks to hear that I am a
long-term programmer who does not use backups.
I don't use an autosaving editor or a UPS. The rare backups
that I have made have never been used.
I do save my edit files frequently, and on the rare times
that Windows crashes, I might lose as much as 20 minutes
of edits, but I find they are so fresh in my mind that I can
recreate them in 5 minutes (and do them more cleanly besides).
I also use Qwin to create an audit trail of software versions
and this has enabled me to back out of an ill-advised change,
but has never been used to recover from a system failure.
I guess it helps to be on friendly terms with the hardware
Karl Bochert
-------Phoenix-Boundary-07081998---
2. Re: Backups
- Posted by euman at bellsouth.net
Mar 25, 2002
----- Original Message -----
From: <kbochert at ix.netcom.com>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
>Backups are for wimps!
>I thought it might amuse you folks to hear that I am a
>long-term programmer who does not use backups.
>I don't use an autosaving editor or a UPS. The rare backups
>that I have made have never been used.
>I do save my edit files frequently, and on the rare times
>that Windows crashes,
I have to say that recently when I updated my Win98 box to IE6
I havent seen a crash in several months.
LINUX RANT:
I can tell you that anyone who thinks Linux is faster and safer than
Windows has been brain washed by someone.
Try running Linux on a i486 processor.
* SLOW, SLOW and way SLOW *
Not to mention you have to keep recompiling the kernel
for everychange you make to your system.
Some people say that Linux is more stable and hardly crashes and I
say that when it does make a mistake it doesnt let you know until you
cant boot the O/S anymore.
Linux Black-Hats chew on those words.
> I might lose as much as 20 minutes
>of edits, but I find they are so fresh in my mind that I can
>recreate them in 5 minutes (and do them more cleanly besides).
>I also use Qwin to create an audit trail of software versions
>and this has enabled me to back out of an ill-advised change,
>but has never been used to recover from a system failure.
>I guess it helps to be on friendly terms with the hardware
>Karl Bochert
3. Re: Backups
On 25 Mar 2002, at 16:26, kbochert at ix.netcom.com wrote:
<snip>
> I guess it helps to be on friendly terms with the hardware
It would also help if the power here didn't trip out every other day! Really,
that
often!, i hear the UPS beep, and that's only the times i am in the same room
to hear it. That's enough of a dropout to kill the puter, blank the tv screen,
reset the CD player, make all the clocks start blinking, make the power saw
jam in the cut, etc.. Trust me, Alabama sucks.
Kat
4. Re: Backups
Hi Euman,
At 20:04 25/03/02 -0500, you wrote:
<snip>
>I have to say that recently when I updated my Win98 box to IE6
>I havent seen a crash in several months.
<snip>
I might bump up my Windows 98 SE machine from IE5.5 to IE6 but as it's only
a 450 Mhz AMD with 128 meg of RAM I'm worried IE6 will be too much of a
resource hog. Any thoughts?
<snip>
>LINUX RANT:
<snip>
You know how to make me bite 
<snip>
>I can tell you that anyone who thinks Linux is faster and safer than
>Windows has been brain washed by someone.
<snip>
I don't run a desktop on my Linux machine. It's more of a server. Backups
via FTP, system snapshots using a large Samba share, email gateway using
sendmail, web proxy using squid. Those sorts of things so I have no need
for a graphical user interface. The good old command line works for me on
this system. Hence I can't comment on whether a Linux GUI is faster than
the Windows one.
As for safer you'll have to clarify what safer means for you. Perhaps
defining dangerous instead might help.
<snip>
>Try running Linux on a i486 processor.
> * SLOW, SLOW and way SLOW *
<snip>
Try running Windows 95 on a i486 processor - that is also slow. I get just
passable performance running Windows 95 (OSRB) on a Pentium 75 with 48
megabytes of RAM. Then again all I do on that system is surf the net and
search/download MP3 files
<snip>
>Not to mention you have to keep recompiling the kernel
>for everychange you make to your system.
<snip>
Now not every change surely The up side is that you have precise
control over the changes.
<snip>
>Some people say that Linux is more stable and hardly crashes and I
>say that when it does make a mistake it doesnt let you know until you
>cant boot the O/S anymore.
<snip>
Linux, like most UNIX implementations, is generally very good at allowing
you to backout your changes as long as you have taken the correct steps
beforehand to do so (recent recovery diskettes, copies of previous config
files etc). Also good systems management practice is to not perform many
changes at once. If you have two changes to make and both require a reboot
then do the first change, reboot, do the second change and reboot a second
time. Don't do change one followed by change two and then a single reboot.
It might work but then again it might not. If possible do the first
change and run the system for a while to check it is still stable before
applying the second change. Thay way if one of the changes does cause
unstable behaviour you have a better chance of guessing which one (and
hence which change to backout/reverse).
Now consider this: if upgrading from IE5.5 to IE6 made your Windows machine
more unstable how would you backout that change? It's difficult because
you have no idea what the upgrade changed in the first place because Mr.
Gates and his microsoftees won't tell you. If you had the time,
inclination and patience you could maybe work out what the changes were but
I wouldn't fancy this sort of reverse engineering task.
My experience with Linux is that it is more stable - uptimes in Linux out
perform those on Windows - YMMV.
<snip>
>Linux Black-Hats chew on those words.
<snip>
I'm no Linux "black-hat" I've just decided to use Linux as an appropriate
tool for some of my needs (FTP server, Samba, sendmail, etc) and also use
Windows 98 SE for my other computing needs (web surfing, email, digital
photography, document scanning, CD writing, etc).
So I don't see this (and other issues) as "this is better than that"
because it is rarely such a clear cut situation. Choosing an OS for a task
or range of tasks is just the same as choosing a motor vehicle. A town
dweller might choose something small that is easy to park. A farmer might
choose a large four wheel drive. Others might buy one of each.
Regards,
Andy Cranston.
5. Re: Backups
- Posted by euman at bellsouth.net
Mar 26, 2002
----- Original Message -----
From: "Irv Mullins" <irvm at ellijay.com>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
> euman at bellsouth.net wrote:
> >
> > Not to mention you have to keep recompiling the kernel
> > for everychange you make to your system.
>
> Gee, the things you learn on this list.
> If I had known this, I wouldn't have changed motherboards
> 3 times, hard-drives twice, 3 different NIC's, and video cards twice.
> All without recompiling anything.
>
> I guess ignorance "is" bliss. Just load and run, don't know
> no different:)
>
> > Some people say that Linux is more stable and hardly crashes and I
> > say that when it does make a mistake it doesnt let you know until > you
> > cant boot the O/S anymore.
>
> IOW, it doesn't stop someone with root priviledges from
> mucking around with stuff they shouldn't be mucking around
> in? How's that different from Windows or DOS?
>
> Regards,
> Irv
The only reason I took my time to write the post was for you Irv. ;)
Nothing wrong with Linux or Windows it really matters how good
you know them and can set them up.
Euman
6. Re: Backups
On Tue, 26 Mar 2002 11:24:30 +0000, acran at readout.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
>You know how to make me bite
Ditto.
I love the concept of Linux, but I don't have the luxury of owning a
PC on which it supports:
My graphics card
My printer
My CD drive
My sound card
My (now unused) Winmodem
So I shouldn't complain 'cos it's free. DUH!!!
OK, graphics works, but at lower resolution than W98, Printer ditto &
then some, CD not "copy at will", sound not at all in Linux, & you've
guessed winmodem.
And don't you dare suggest I spend £600 or more so I can use a free
operating system!
I absolutely f****** hate Windows. But tough.
Pete
7. Re: Backups
Euman wrote:
> Try running Linux on a i486 processor.
> * SLOW, SLOW and way SLOW *
It depends on how clever are you with configuring...
yes I've seen 486/25 webserver booting in several mins, but
Win NT/2000 wouldn't be any faster - Linux has better caching
etc. I agree that is difficult to configure all the daemons etc.
> Not to mention you have to keep recompiling the kernel
> for everychange you make to your system.
Not everytime - if you compile the drivers as modules, you
can even put them in/out during run of the system.
> Some people say that Linux is more stable and hardly crashes and I
> say that when it does make a mistake it doesnt let you know until you
> cant boot the O/S anymore.
Watch logs - I redirected kernel messages to /dev/tty12 so I can see them
easily...
It is generally good idea to not use the hottest kernel version because
of possible bugs (currently the 2.5.x tree) - recently 2.4.11 and 2.4.14
had some filesystem Oopses (I like the name - better than Windows'
"Possibly you might continue properly" [Cz->En]), but the kernels put
into distributions are well tested (Debian is usually the most conservative)
Martin
(I am not a Linux GURU at all, but my dream is to once have a line in the
kernel,
difficult to do with Euphoria, isn't it? Oh, EuOS)
