Author: Scott Gasch
Date: 11:12:44 09/17/02
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It should be easy to do easy things under linux/freebsd/netbsd. For example, my gateway machine (NAT/DHCP/packet filter) is running NetBSD and needs to be on at all times to route traffic. But it's also in my bedroom. So I would appreciate it if the thing would spin down disks it is not using. I realize that the disk that houses /var/log is not going to spin down. But the other two surely can. I have a ton of memory in the machine and don't use X so it is not in swap at all (0%). You would think it would be a trivial thing to get this to work... and yet it is not. There seems to be no way to do it that I can find. Why is this so hard? Has no one in the free OS world ever wanted to quiet down a machine? Want another example? Network time protocol. To set it up under windows I click the clock and say "synchronize with this time server every N days". Read the man page related to time protocol under your favorite unix and see what you think. I spent hours configuring my gateway machine's NAT server and packet filter. Now the reason it is my NAT server and not an XP box is because I trust this more -- less people are trying to find exploits and netbsd has a great trackrecord for security. Another benefit is the packet filter gives you better control than the XP packet filter. But that said, to set this up on windows would have taken me 30 seconds -- "share this network connection". To get it running on netbsd took hours for someone who: knows unix, understands NAT, understand packet filtering, etc. God help a beginner who knows nothing except "I want to share my internet connection". And the typical answer to this newbie who cries out for help (if he's one of the 10% who figure out how to use Usenet or post to a mailing list)? "Piss off, bastard, go read the manual. What? You already did? You must be an utter moron then. Go to college, study CS, and get a clue. Lusers like you should not be messing with this stuff, it's too complicated". This is that attitude of 80% of experienced unix people. And finally, to the drivers. 1. there are about 10x more drivers for win32 than linux so yes, you can find some really bad ones. The good news is your <random hardware> is way more likely to have a driver. 2. if you install signed drivers you know what you are getting -- ones that Microsoft tested and code reviewed. 3. if you install joe blow's driver then you are trusting that joe blow is a good programmer. Maybe the joe blow drivers for linux are stellar or maybe the code review process at redhat.com is better than at <insert your favorite hardware vendor who writes unsigned win32 drivers>.com. But I maintain that if you are careful about what software you run you will have much fewer problems with "damn windows crashes". Scott
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