The Comms Room - 2011-01-26 (page 2 of 3)

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4:00 PM

@Chopper3 silver is cheap to begin with, and sterling silver is only 92% pure, and the other 8% can be quite a few different things, like copper, which will cause your skin to turn green after prolonged contact.

@Chopper3 16, wow, that is impressive. I could use one of those for transcoding files.

@ChrisS I did not know that - although I did find out something related the other day - my father-in-law died last february and my wife has recently done through the big pile of his belongings that we kept deciding what she wanted to keep and what she didn't - some of it was gold stuff (rings etc.) I wasn't aware of how much the cost of gold has gone up recently - 3 times what it was a year ago!

@ChrisS I think nickel is a common component these days to avoid the green bit, that's probably what "high qualiy" means :-)

@ChrisS the codec's not ratified/finished though and not many current encoders can use cuda/opencl anyway - more of a shape of things to come really

@voretaq7 At the prices they want "probably" doesn't cut it, but you're correct, tin and nickel are commonly used. Nickel not as much as it gives the silver a yellowish tint (your grandma's fine silver utensils probably have this).

@ChrisS ayup :-)

4:06 PM

@ChrisS I don't own ANY jewellry - nothing, is that odd?

@Chopper3 Jewelry can be used to identify you, so no.

@Chopper3 I don't think that's odd. Jewelry conducts electricity - why make it easier to fry yourself?

@Chopper3 Over $1300 USD / troy ounce currently. That's for 24K in GoldMoney form (bricks or standardized coins that can easily be traded).

@Chopper3 No wedding ring? Mine's carbon tungsten with a epoxy inlay. Nothing very fancy but it looks nice and is one of the more indestructible metals.

@ChrisS nah, had one, got fat, stopped fitting, put it somewhere, decades passed

@ChrisS I hear those people, you know, Brits, don't wear them.

4:10 PM

it's not very common for men over here no

@packs: Or perhaps VRF would be more suitable..

@pauska VRF?

@packs: cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3750/software/release/…

Spoke before reading the full history. ;) Interesting that wedding rings are uncommon for men there.

@Chopper3 I get shit all the time because I take mine off at work; that tungsten is heavy as heck and is quite noticeable when typing.

4:12 PM

I don't know much about the cultural significance and history there but most married men wear them in the US.

@Warner My understanding is that they were uncommon in the US until WW2

First impression for many women would be offense if their husband didn't wear one.

@packs It definitely developed a lot around the WW1 to WW2 timeframe.

I suspect my wife might not like it considering my active social life. ;) I don't mind the ring though now that I'm used to it.

What was the significance of WW2 to rings?

@Warner Less men running around, lots of lonely women.

4:14 PM

Ha, interesting. Save a conversation.

@Warner My understanding is that they were originally intended to show society that the woman had been given over to somebody and was 'unavailable'. But then the realities of years in the trenches gave the men a comfort of having that physical connection.

@Warner fair enough, my wife knows I don't like that sort of thing, don't wear a watch, door key is a RFID inside my car key (which is remote too) - so I just have my wallet, phone and car key - it's all I like on me

@Chopper3 I'm jealous of your RFID door key

quite cheap

@Chopper3 I count to 4 before leaving home or work: 1. Wallet 2. Phone 3. Ring 4. Keys. That's all I carry.

4:15 PM

Nice, I can appreciate that @Chopper3. I know a couple people who have a similar understanding with their wives. They lost theirs and never replaced them.

been trying to get my building to spring for them, at least for the outsie doors

don't have one on the garage door though

What RFID solution do you have for your home?

when we moved in we had a new alarm, CCTV DVR thing and some other stuff done so they fitted them at the time - think they're quite common

@pauska I would have to really dig into that. I would say that 90% of my Cisco experience was with firewalls, and that has rather degraded over time.

4:17 PM

yeah, just googled and got lots of hits, no expert though

they come as credit-card things which wife/kids/housekeeper has but I got a spare one, put it in 'thinners' which desolved the plastic then folder the electronics bit up and fitted inside the remote key thing for my car - works out ok

@Warner I found a small prototyping kit on eBay a few years back, RFID via RS232; too easy to rig something up to resist. I'd like to get rid of the normal locks all together, but they tend to work even when the power is out. Not terrible professional looking... One of my many projects to work on when I have time.

@ChrisS That has always been my concern as well. Even professionally, I've been pushing towards electronic door access (keypad, card swipe, whatever) for a long time, but always push back when people talk about removing the physical key locks entirely.

That's cool, @ChrisS. I've looked at some home automation solutions and many things seem novel at best. I am always on the lookout for something both practical and cutting edge.

Out to lunch.

@packs I'm planning on building a house in a few years, I'll probably only put normal locks on a single door... The rest will be RFID. I do very much prefer them just for the simplicity of deactivating a lost/stolen key; and temporary guest access is trivial. The building I currently work in, everyone gets a copy of the outside door keys (and are supposed to turn them back in when they discontinue being employed); no incidents yet...

@ChrisS I manage physical access control for IT, so I totally get how that works out.

About 1.5 years ago our building was completely rekeyed top to bottom. So that helped level set everything. Then a few months ago due to an instance of alleged "terroristic threatening" the exterior doors were changed again, only this time the keys were not distributed, and we use electronic access. That made me happy.

4:28 PM

@ChrisS we had the same basic setup at my last place -- physical keys on one exterior door and all datacenter/critical area doors (in addition to RFID), with emergency keys in a break-open lockbox. They also hooked the doors into the generator

@voretaq7 The building with our DC is pretty similar.

@packs Only thing I didn't like about their system is they started getting cheap and using mag-locks on datacenter doors (so for about 30-60 seconds in the event of a power failure all DC doors were unlocked and anyone could get in)

Egads

Granted, that's a small time frame, but it's still an opening.

That's not their worst sin: They used motion sensors to disable the mag lock for exiting (over my strong objections of "Seriously? There's a release button already!") so if you walked near the door on the inside the lock would open.

They did finally remove those about a month before I left b/c I casually mentioned it during our audit ::innocent face::

@voretaq7 What? There's a release button for casual exits? I hope there's an alarm on that.

4:32 PM

@Iszi don't get me started on the "Shouldn't people be swiping out of the zones" part - I didn't win that battle before I left :-/

Bart Silverstrim

@iszi: no, but there's an app for that!

@voretaq7 If we "crash out" of our datacenter, the physical security guys (guns, badges, and all) pay a visit to our desk in short order.

@BartSilverstrim I'm waiting for an iPhone with RFID in it -- so many things I could convince this company to do if our phones would also be our key fobs...

Bart Silverstrim

There's an app for certain cars that lets you remote start/unlock/etc...

@Iszi as it should be. You swipe in, you swipe out. If you're trapped and have to use the panic button I'd say it's almost as big a deal as discharging the fire suppression system. But that's just me.

Bart Silverstrim

4:34 PM

saw ads for it, don't remember if it was chevy or what.

@voretaq7 I don't disagree.

@Iszi Nothing like a 6'2" guy with gun, extra clips, taser, pepper spray, and flack jacket to cause a scene :)

@BartSilverstrim Dodge Viper.

Bart Silverstrim

The ad had a guy call his wife while she was at the airport getting ready to board or something like that. She remotely unlocked and locked his car for him.

@voretaq7 requiring people to use iphones is crap IMHO

4:35 PM

@BartSilverstrim GM Vehicles with OnStar there's an app now.

Bart Silverstrim

BLASPHEMY!

Bad Zypher.

@Zypher Agreed. Then you have the issue of multi-vendor lock-in for a single system.

@Zypher I agree, but the entire C-level wing here has them, and new employees who get company phones get 'em

Not to mention how much Apple's...dedication to customers scares me :)

@voretaq7 uhg ... can't stand those things

4:36 PM

@Zypher Droid man, or crackberry? :)

Bart Silverstrim

It's a toy in my opinion...if you don't want to use the app, don't lose your keys :-p

@BartSilverstrim The remote start from a long distance would be pretty nice, but otherwise, yeah.

Bart Silverstrim

If I could I'd put a camera in my car that could be viewed from the phone.

Crackberry right now, but really interested in the droids that have real keyboards

be careful with slider keyboards

4:39 PM

yea, was looking closely at the Droid Pro

non slider

both guys here with droid sliders have had either half the screen or half the keyboard stop working this month

alhtough now i'm waiting for 4G phones

like literally within a week of eachother

Bart Silverstrim

I hate the droid's interface...sorry for fans of multiple buttons, but there's something about the interface on the moto droid that just keeps tripping me up.

yea ... i really have 3 requirements - 1) on VZW 2) Has a REAL F'IN keyboard 3) works as a phone ... the last one being the most imporatant

4:42 PM

@BartSilverstrim The droid interface might not be perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than the Windows Mobile I use now.

Bart Silverstrim

I have no interest in Windows Mobile.

@Zypher 1)Works as a phone ; 2) email and browser that don't suck too much ; 3) at least 2 days of moderate use between charges. Bonus for a decent SSH app :-)

sounds like you want a crackberry ;)

Bart Silverstrim

I love my iPod for what i use it for, it's first gen and I want to replace it, and my current cellphone is a dumb Samsung phone several years old now.

RIM is losing market share fast. They're really taking a beating lately.

As soon as the HTC Evo Shift is affordable I'm getting a pair for the wife and I.

4:43 PM

@BartSilverstrim i just replaced my gen 1 iPod

am happy though the battery life went down the crapper

@Zypher I had one actually, but it was years ago. The browser was pretty lousy :-/

Bart Silverstrim

I figure I'll replace my iPod and cellphone at the same time.

I have a Desire myself. ConnectBot is quite a nice ssh client.

part of why I like the iphone is I don't need to carry an ipod anymore - I went from 2 devices to 1

Yea that's been their thing - i've had a cell card in my laptop for ~5 years now so browser on the phone is a "meh" for me

4:44 PM

Also, with a Custom ROM, I can use openvpn and remote desktop on it :D

Bart Silverstrim

Some say the iPhone 5 will be out in summer so people should wait until then to get the verizon phone. i don't know...figured I'd wait and see what the mad rush levels are in February.

I have a Droid Global as of a month ago. Hardware keyboard!

although the BBOS6 webkit based browser has some really good reveiws

@sysadmin1138 carrier ? 4G?

@BartSilverstrim I'm waiting until after the iPhone 5 to decide which carrier I go with

Verizon

Bart Silverstrim

4:45 PM

Verizon.

No LTE, but I don't live in a market that'll likely see LTE before 2013.

ahh

Bart Silverstrim

Unless they have an epic infrastructure meltdown,...

I'm expecting that there will be a mass exodus of iphone users to VZW, and aside from pockets of crap data speed AT&T has been good to me

yea i'm in either philly or ny

4:46 PM

You'll get LTE w-a-y before I do.

so LTE is imporatant to me :)

@BartSilverstrim the iphone 5 IS out in summer (june 22nd iirc) - I know they're playing with remote pay interfaces on them

Bart Silverstrim

Boss has AT&T...sometimes he even gets my text messages the same day I send them.

it's already here

just need the damn phones to come out

@BartSilverstrim HAHA yeeaaa BTDT

I can buy LTE cell-modems, not that I can use one up here.

4:47 PM

get a reply 4 days after i send something to a friend

really? that sucks

@BartSilverstrim In-network I have a 5 second delay on txt, out-of-network I see like 5-10 minutes -- I may just be lucky tho

Bart Silverstrim

@chopper3: remote pay interface?

@voretaq7: Some texts go right through. Other times he gets delays on the order of hours.

AT&T is crap tho - no denying that.

Bart Silverstrim

There's a reason their logo looks like the deathstar.

4:49 PM

@BartSilverstrim It doesn't anymore :'(

you know .. they wouldn't be so bad if they had taken their iphone windfall and actually re-invested in infrastructure hardcore

I miss the deathstar logo

that has never been their way though

@Zypher in...vest? What is this in...vest of which you speak? The CEO is in a nice black vest with charcoal pinstripes....

hmm i gotta find that article i read a while ago that had stats on carrier data capacity

basically VZW was currently pushing 2-3x the amount of data AT&T was and they wheren't feeling any strain at all

Bart Silverstrim

4:52 PM

/whistles nonchalantly... youtube.com/watch?v=HuNvUkr9ITM

@BartSilverstrim how have I not seen that?

THe one down-side to a Droid Global is that I strongly suspect it has the 'eFuse' that prevents me from running a custom ROM on it.

Bart Silverstrim

@voretaq7: Never? it's a clip from a Supernews skit. A tiny skit. There's a whole long sequence that has them fighting it out...

I miss all the good shit on the internet

Bart Silverstrim

Including a part where Steve sends the Finder to find where Bill is hiding.

4:57 PM

Anybody know what technology ATT is going to use for 4G?

@ChrisS I'm not even sure ATT knows ter

yet*

Bart Silverstrim

@ChrisS: LAZERS!

RFC1947?

lol; I wouldn't doubt that at this point.

watch it not be LTE like everyone else :)

Bart Silverstrim

4:58 PM

@zypher: yeah, everyone else's will work.

well then ... no change :)

@SmallClanger You mean RFC 1149?

Bart Silverstrim

Hello, IT...did you turn it off and back on?

@Zypher Sprint is using WiMax.

And I think T-Mobile is using something else too.

@ChrisS you sure was pretty sure they decided on LTE

4:59 PM

Near field communication

Near field communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard (proximity card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC device can communicate with both existing ISO/IEC 14443 smartcards and readers, as well as with other NFC devices, and is thereby compatible with existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation and pay...

Bart Silverstrim

@chopper3 too long with lots of big words, but it sounds like voodoo. Is that what they're using?

@Zypher Just reading up a bit... looks like they're doing both for the near term. Guess I shouldn't be surprised given it's Sprint.

Bart this is what I was talking about, in the UK we use it for paying for things, getting the tube, as tickets etc.

ahh yea, looks like they rolled out WiMax in 08 to be first to market

The HTC Evo phones are WiMax, not LTE.

Bart Silverstrim

5:01 PM

OH! That's what you mean. So the iPhone5 is supposed to have a feature they were talking about "would be neat" over here a few years ago.

bart it's basically secure RFID with an auto-payment backend - applie obvioulsy want you to use your idevice to pay for stuff and they do a richard prior job again

@BartSilverstrim yes, basically, they had it running in august when I was out there but I guess they need a lot of banking buy in

Microsoft Technet

Today's News
Microsoft IT Showcase Video: Initial Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Microsoft's SharePoint 2010 Upgrade
Jeannine Dealy, MSFT
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Gg552996

Bart Silverstrim

Starbucks I think lets you pay for stuff with an iphone. Something with a barcode on the screen or something like that.

ibuy.com is parked I notice

@BartSilverstrim yeah, but that's pretty ghetto - contactless secure RFID seems like a better way to go

5:04 PM

@Zypher, T-Mobil is currently using HSPA+, but may switch to LTE... Sounds like they're doing the Sprint thing too.

@voretaq7 like I say it's what 98% of london tube/bus etc users use, you just hold your wallet to the reader and bing! you're x pounds down

@Chopper3 NY MTA is finally implementing that for our subway turnstiles at a few stations (credit card RFID payments)

@voretaq7 ... i read the ads as just using your Credit card to swipe through instead of an MTA card

could be way off though

the ads on the subway really suck though

apple-esque in their lack of info

@Zypher they learned from the best :-)

@ChrisS: Yes RFC1149 - Not sure why I misremembered it as 1947. :)

5:12 PM

@Zypher yeah, that's what you can do over here if you're with certain banks - just use your card, the london transport this is JUST for transport though

@Zypher mta.info/news/stories/?story=70 -- that's the one I'm talking about. they may be doing one with CC swipe too but I hope they get away from swipe cards. They keep having problems with the MSR readers :(

ahh nifty ...

@Chopper3: Some guy dissolved his oyster card in acetone and hid the antenna+tag in a big magic wand...

Can't find the original video now., but it spawned a lot of imitations.

I'd like not having to remember to get a new metro card every month

Yeah, saw that, that's how I got my 'gubbins' out and fitted it inside my car key

5:17 PM

@Zypher I'd like a dedicated RFID key fob personally, like ezpass

I've been saying that since the bastards took away my tokens tho :P

@voretaq7 Got Har-Mar Superstar on my IJ now :)

yea dedicated RFID would be cool

@Chopper3 oh dear :)

@voretaq7 great live

5:34 PM

Has there been some kind of security token change with SF or at least SF chat? I have a pinned tab in Chrome for this room, and for weeks I would just launch chrome and be automagically logged into the room. Now I open Chrome and decide to amble over to chat only to find out that the chat room wants me to log in.

@WesleyDavid i think they expire authentication at some point - but i'm not sure about that

That seems likely, I have had to re-authenticate occasionally also.

@Zypher Okay, I figured it had to expire at some point, but it seems that it's happenign quicker than it may have in the past. Also I thought simply showing up to a page and being auto logged in would renew.

BTW, you didn't navigate here in an incognito window did you? I have also done that unintentionally on occasion.

Come to think of it, I've noticed that I've had to manually log into ServerFault a few times in the last month or so and wondered why.

5:37 PM

they do have to occationally clear all authentication due to code updates, etc

And no on the incognito window. ServerFault is rarely mixed with content that I need an incognito window for; that is, testing cookie issues on websites.

7 days to election stops.. I'm quite excited :)

I noticed that superuser has upvotes and downvotes on their primary candidate's messages. It's brutal over there.

One guy has like 40 downvotes... but then again, reading his nomination text, I can understand why.

@WesleyDavid check stackoverflow.com/election

last I looked some guy had like -110

I don't see any upvotes or down votes. Perhaps I need a certain rep to see that?

5:41 PM

@WesleyDavid Fortunately our candidates are of a caliber where we don't need to downvote them :-)

I rarely go over there except to search out some CSS things.

@voretaq7 True. It's a win-win situation for us.

Today, I came home to find a sock I previously used to whack off on my bed with googly eyes and a mouth drawn on it with a note that read "Because you can't find a real girl, I made your current one prettier, Love Mom." FML

7

bwahahah

Wow, I managed to have an answer posted in duplicate. I hardly ever see that.

awkward silence

@pauska will ever after be known as "The Sock Guy"

Everyone star that line.

erm, its not me

fmylife.com/tops

5:43 PM

@pauska I know, but I'm great at taking things out of context.

Indeed you are!

@pauska And what have we learned? (Never give a room full of sysadmins ammo!)

and staring it makes it worse :)

@Zypher Worse... or better? :-D

there .. pinnned

much better

5:46 PM

@Zypher Nice.

I love you too..............

@pauska Remember, anything you say can and will be misquoted and used against you.

yea .. but it's better here than the MSO tavern!

ohhh man

@Zypher hah

6:05 PM

Hey guys, anyone else have issues with the moderator voting? I've cast three votes but the site keeps telling me I've one left :o|

@Griffo Uh oh. I haven't had an issue. Bring it up on Meta.

@Griffo Does it show your first, second, and third votes marked on three users (after refreshing the page)?

Getting the same, myself. 3 votes cast (and all 3 show in the candidate list) but I still see the reminder.

Yeah it shows all three votes but tells me I've one left. Even if I select another and then reselect it. I get the popup on the vote to say I have 0 votes left but the page shows a banner telling me to cast my final vote. I'll open a meta Q for it, thanks

Well shoot, I see that it says "cast your final vote" for me too. =|

6:16 PM

it only does if that if you're in the 'ignore user' group

haha

Here you go meta.serverfault.com/questions/1166/moderator-elections-bug

/me cuts and pastes...

I thought that was just a "don't forget to vote" type message?

@Ben Saw your answer, you might be right. Like you said though, wording could be better if that's the case

@Ben GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!

6:24 PM

But it's so cosy

And get your feet off of my axons.

@WesleyDavid did you get my messages about the 10k challenge stats aggregator thingy? (It was buried in chat days ago, so you might not have seen it)

@Ben Yes, I got it and copied it into a OneNote page for further investigation, but I've been so swamped with stupid stuff the last few days that I haven't had a chance to do anything with it. =(

Thanks for doing that

It's cool, just making sure you saw it. Was an interesting excercise for myself, so I thought why not

@Ben Ben, I have to say that you flag more than your fair-share of mod-alerts - thank you for that.

6:28 PM

@Chopper3 heh sometimes I run out of spam flags, so I have to use up regular flags with a "sorry, I ran out of spam flags!" comment :P

Perhaps I have too much of a light touch or I'm blind because I rarely see anything that's worth flagging. @Ben teach me your ways. =)

@WesleyDavid there are tricks to finding the bullshit posts - "crapola-fu" I guess

@Chopper3 Are we talking blatant V1@gr@ posts or just the "please to give teh codes" posts?

I think one of the biggest tell-tale signs is a question with 5k views and the last post is a 1-50 rep user. Nearly always trouble

Ohhh, posts, not questions.

derp

6:30 PM

both

There's an awful lot of "I have this problem too, please help" type "answers"

I see virtuall all questions in a several hour period each day and have seen only one blatant spam post, I think. Maybe I live a charmed life.

@Ben - people are used to doing that in forums to bump a post

we're probably just too quick

well i'm trialing crashplan for my online backup thing

6:39 PM

@RobertMoir have you heard about the patch to FIFA2012 for xbox? it uses Kinect to tell if a woman's picked up the controller, if so Andy Gray shouts at them to get in the kitchen :)

3

heh

that would be about right...

we were talking about that today at work... just like everyone else in the UK I expect. He really is a dinosaur

@RobertMoir Perhaps there should be a message for low rep users posting a very short answer reminding them that 'this is not a forum'.

@pauska Why the hell do you still have that sock.

Or maybe there is already... I haven't been low rep for a while....

@packs LOLOLOLOLO

6:42 PM

@Chriss - I think they're working on a filter for that, for questions at least. As for telling people that we're not a forum, I can't think of a good way to do that without them mis-understanding it. I think to most people the distinction between a "forum" and a "question and answer site" is going to be meaningless...

7:01 PM

@RobertMoir Really the distinction isn't that strong -- comments often become a limited, informal discussion & lead to clarifying comments or edited answers

Can I use a nagios plugin for cacti?

@Dan in what context? :)

Sorry, meant template

I need an Exchange 2007 one for cacti

forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?t=22887 <- something like that? (never tried it, but came up in a quick forum search)

I've been searching with little luck, but let me try that one.

No, I get an XML parse error when trying to import the template

same as another i tried

7:13 PM

hmm

well you can certainly hack a working template, it's just a pain in the ass

<- has no fond memories of cacti :P

feels like ages since I answered some questions - nice to get back into the flow :)

docs.cacti.net/…

seems as though i need a template that has been exported from the same version i'm on, which both of the ones I downloaded are not

7:31 PM

I'm stuck guys, using vmware grub can't quit, i don't know how to get the kernel path

@Chopper3 It's been a little while since I've answered a question without the urge to berate them for not Googling first.

:)

@ChrisS I try to gently clobber rather than actively bludgeoning :)

@Marin we're going to need more details - for a start vmware is a company not a product

I just came across a question where changing to CW was suggested, then agreed with by the original asker. Is changing that something we should rely on the asker to do, or do you mods want a flag so you can whack it?

7:32 PM

@Chopp

thanks VMWare player

I'm using Windows 7 , and I have Fedora 12 installed using iso

@voretaq7 My answer tend to be edited from "How do you remember to breathe?" to "You're dumb, go Google" to "Here's the answer, you're a *****" to "Here's the answer", post, then edit some more to explain it (if I'm in a good mood).

@packs There's no CW option for the asker anymore, a mod has to do it (or it can be done by editing the question too much...)

@ChrisS Mine tend to be "You want some-utility ; See man some-utility for more information"

or "You're on the right track but you forgot to think about [really long list of shit that can go wrong that the original question didn't consider]"

@ChrisS orly? I missed that change.

@ChrisS when did that happen? ::grumble::

Heh, it was you @voretaq7 who suggested it.

7:39 PM

@voretaq7 Month or two ago.

@packs really? which question? Anything that happened before breakfast may as well have been done by someone else :-P

@ChrisS damn, what rock have I been living under?

@voretaq7 It was back on the 20th, I've already moved on.

@packs your memory is longer than mine. By "Before Breakfast" I mean "Before Breakfast *today*" -- since I don't eat breakfast that means lunch, so anything more than about 2 hours old I've forgotten already :P

Any tips on how to get grub to quit ?

@Marin Not tempted in any way to use the site as designed and explained in the FAQ?

7:42 PM

@voretaq7 Not really, I had the page up when I was asking about it.

It's my first time so you have to pardon me

@Marin, you should open a question, rather than jumping in here and looking for a quick fix.

@Marin the basic idea is that there's a chance someone's had the same problem as you before, so search first, then if not write a question as not only might someone answer your question (there are 30k users on SF, about 50 have ever come on this chat thing), but someone else in the future might find that answer - kind of a pay-it-forward thing - it's all in the FAQ and other stuff you blindly clicked past

@Chopp I did search it but wasn't able to find it. Anyhow since I notice chat is used differently from the q&a format I'll excuse myself.

Isn't Grub a bootloader? If you're at it's prompt shouldn't you be looking to boot the computer rather than quit?? (I really don't know, I dislike Linux...)

7:50 PM

@ChrisS You can also enter the grub shell to do configuration tasks.

Or if you're really unlucky, something got all kinds of borked and you get dumped into the grub shell at boot time.

@ChrisS Grub can charitably be described as a boot mangler. As with so many things the Linux world has done they looked at something, understood it poorly & built a brain-damaged knock-off

4

I see we have the BSD group in here.

@WesleyDavid Careful, you don't want to get tangled up in all that beard.

I like the BSD vs Linux rants. I learn more than listening to the circlejerking that each group does amongst themselves.

@voretaq7 - you're right the distinction is not that strong... which is why its dangerous to use it

7:57 PM

@WesleyDavid I have no problem with Linux, I have a problem with bad design. It's just that (IMHO) there is so much bad design in Linux that it's tainted for me.

@WesleyDavid I subscribe to this because it's funny to watch people froth -- linuxhaters.blogspot.com

boot mangler - I like it. A colleague at MS described the first beta of IE4 as a GUI for fdisk...

2

Grub is a favorite example: It should be a straightforward clone of the Sun/OpenFirmware boot monitor, with a friendly menu added on. Instead it's this elephantine monstrosity that requires google searching to use :(

@WesleyDavid I used RHL back in the day, like 12-14 years ago.. About 10 years ago I found FreeBSD have haven't looked back, so my knowledge is somewhat lacking...

@voretaq7 I'm not intimately familiar with either to see the differences, so watching the flamewars helps me in that regard.

All I know is that I was looking at making a SpamAssassin cluster on BSD and now have more grey hairs than I wanted. I know someone who's done it for a hosting providor, but it was apparently significantly customized.

7:59 PM

@ChrisS I tried to use Slackware back in the day (around the same time ago actually). It destroyed my partition table. When I reinstalled I found FreeBSD (2.2.something), which installed with no problems :)

@ChrisS Gotcha. As I've considered my options for diving into a NIX based world, BSD keeps tugging on my sleeve.

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