Author Topic: The Problem With Linux  (Read 27659 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Fury

  • The Curmudgeon
  • 213
How trustworthy is linux kernel's support for reading and writing NTFS partitions these days? I'd really like to dual-boot as to keep WinXP for gaming purposes, but I have one hard drive which I need to have fully usable from both OS'es. FAT32 is prone to errors and is quite inefficient for single 250GB partition, so it is not really an option.

 

Offline WMCoolmon

  • Purveyor of space crack
  • 213
It can read reliably, but basically can't write (Only if you save the file with the same space as it originally had.

However, there is an ext3 driver for Windows 2000 (prolly works on XP too). I've found it to be able to read it fairly reliably, I don't think it wrote too well, on Win2k SP4. The biggest problem was that it froze explorer whenever I clicked on one item, or tried to copy one item. Multiple items worked fine though.
-C

 

Offline karajorma

  • King Louie - Jungle VIP
  • Administrator
  • 214
    • Karajorma's Freespace FAQ
Can someone explain why NTFS support is such a big problem for Linux anyway?

It's the main reason I haven't tried out a flavour of unix at the moment (All my data is on NTFS drives and I have no intention of going back to FAT just to try out an OS).
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Fury

  • The Curmudgeon
  • 213
Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
Can someone explain why NTFS support is such a big problem for Linux anyway?

AFAIK it is because sourcecode of NTFS is closed and M$ has not made any of it public. Which is why current NTFS support in other operating systems have been developed by trial and error.

 

Offline karajorma

  • King Louie - Jungle VIP
  • Administrator
  • 214
    • Karajorma's Freespace FAQ
That's what I thought it might be. I guess people who make low level tools must be signing licence agreements with MS then.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Sandwich

  • Got Screen?
  • 213
    • Skype
    • Steam
    • Twitter
    • Brainzipper
*bump*

http://spaces.msn.com/members/bryanstarbuck/Blog/cns!1psJjwgBAsV-Ph1H_Wpa4AUg!248.entry

Note the quote he includes in point 3 towards the bottom. Kinda reinforces my point, that while the diversity of Linux may be it's greatest strength, it is also its greatest weakness.
SERIOUSLY...! | {The Sandvich Bar} - Rhino-FS2 Tutorial | CapShip Turret Upgrade | The Complete FS2 Ship List | System Background Package

"...The quintessential quality of our age is that of dreams coming true. Just think of it. For centuries we have dreamt of flying; recently we made that come true: we have always hankered for speed; now we have speeds greater than we can stand: we wanted to speak to far parts of the Earth; we can: we wanted to explore the sea bottom; we have: and so  on, and so on: and, too, we wanted the power to smash our enemies utterly; we have it. If we had truly wanted peace, we should have had that as well. But true peace has never been one of the genuine dreams - we have got little further than preaching against war in order to appease our consciences. The truly wishful dreams, the many-minded dreams are now irresistible - they become facts." - 'The Outward Urge' by John Wyndham

"The very essence of tolerance rests on the fact that we have to be intolerant of intolerance. Stretching right back to Kant, through the Frankfurt School and up to today, liberalism means that we can do anything we like as long as we don't hurt others. This means that if we are tolerant of others' intolerance - especially when that intolerance is a call for genocide - then all we are doing is allowing that intolerance to flourish, and allowing the violence that will spring from that intolerance to continue unabated." - Bren Carlill

 

Offline Martinus

  • Aka Maeglamor
  • 210
    • Hard Light Productions
[color=66ff00]I can understand that you have beef with Linux but can I ask you something; does one person leaving the linux community outweigh the increasing numbers of people using linux?

I just don't think linux is for you.
[/color]

 

Offline mikhael

  • Back to skool
  • 211
  • Fnord!
    • http://www.google.com/search?q=404error.com
Quote
Originally posted by Sandwich
Note the quote he includes in point 3 towards the bottom. Kinda reinforces my point, that while the diversity of Linux may be it's greatest strength, it is also its greatest weakness.

I'm reminded once again about the car dealership.

That raw diversity in cars just absolutely MUST be their greatest weakness.
[I am not really here. This post is entirely a figment of your imagination.]

 

Offline Kamikaze

  • A Complacent Wind
  • 29
    • http://www.nodewar.com
Speaking of cars...

From Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning was the Commandline

Quote

The analogy between cars and operating systems is not half bad, and so let me run with it for a moment, as a way of giving an executive summary of our situation today.

Imagine a crossroads where four competing auto dealerships are situated. One of them (Microsoft) is much, much bigger than the others. It started out years ago selling three-speed bicycles (MS-DOS); these were not perfect, but they worked, and when they broke you could easily fix them.

There was a competing bicycle dealership next door (Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive but attractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, so that how they worked was something of a mystery.

The big dealership responded by rushing a moped upgrade kit (the original Windows) onto the market. This was a Rube Goldberg contraption that, when bolted onto a three-speed bicycle, enabled it to keep up, just barely, with Apple-cars. The users had to wear goggles and were always picking bugs out of their teeth while Apple owners sped along in hermetically sealed comfort, sneering out the windows. But the Micro-mopeds were cheap, and easy to fix compared with the Apple-cars, and their market share waxed.

Eventually the big dealership came out with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). It had all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, it leaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A little later, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended for industrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than the station wagon, and only a little more reliable.

Since then there has been a lot of noise and shouting, but little has changed. The smaller dealership continues to sell sleek Euro-styled sedans and to spend a lot of money on advertising campaigns. They have had GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! signs taped up in their windows for so long that they have gotten all yellow and curly. The big one keeps making bigger and bigger station wagons and ORVs.

On the other side of the road are two competitors that have come along more recently.

One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the others.

With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free.

Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships.

Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits.

The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player.

The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this:

Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"

Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"

Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"

Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."

Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"

Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"

Bullhorn: "But..."

Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation . . .Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. - Richard Feynman

 

Offline Sandwich

  • Got Screen?
  • 213
    • Skype
    • Steam
    • Twitter
    • Brainzipper
To make that analogy more precise, the dozens of volunteer groups are each making a different tank, each with its own quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. All of the tanks being constructed can fire 7.62mm rounds, but their main cannon size varies... 70mm, 90mm, 105mm, and 120mm. The physical sizes of the tanks differ... some are Western tanks, while others are Russian. Some use a Vickers tread system, others use the Christie system. Additionally, learning to drive one tank fully does not grant you equal mastery over any other tank; the size, bulkiness, handling are similar, but the control mechanisms are completely different: some have a single joystick, some have steering wheels, some have dual steering shafts. Some drive-by-wire, others are more manual.

Additionally, aside from the fact that all these volunteer groups are working on a tank, there is little-to-no cooperation between them. Instead of collaborating and making one "supertank" that does everything anyone could ever want, they decided to specialize. Some tanks are fast, some have incredible passability, some are heavily armored... the list goes on.

So when someone comes to this intersection, if they happen to glance at the volunteer tank engineer corner, all the see or hear is dozens of different tanks, in various stages of readiness, and hundreds of bullhorn-abusing people, their amplified voices joined into one cacophony of accoustic mud.

So these people, who merely want something to drive around, look anywhere but the tank corner.

Granted, people coming for a tank will go get a tank. But if the volunteers want others to buy tanks as well, something needs to be done.
SERIOUSLY...! | {The Sandvich Bar} - Rhino-FS2 Tutorial | CapShip Turret Upgrade | The Complete FS2 Ship List | System Background Package

"...The quintessential quality of our age is that of dreams coming true. Just think of it. For centuries we have dreamt of flying; recently we made that come true: we have always hankered for speed; now we have speeds greater than we can stand: we wanted to speak to far parts of the Earth; we can: we wanted to explore the sea bottom; we have: and so  on, and so on: and, too, we wanted the power to smash our enemies utterly; we have it. If we had truly wanted peace, we should have had that as well. But true peace has never been one of the genuine dreams - we have got little further than preaching against war in order to appease our consciences. The truly wishful dreams, the many-minded dreams are now irresistible - they become facts." - 'The Outward Urge' by John Wyndham

"The very essence of tolerance rests on the fact that we have to be intolerant of intolerance. Stretching right back to Kant, through the Frankfurt School and up to today, liberalism means that we can do anything we like as long as we don't hurt others. This means that if we are tolerant of others' intolerance - especially when that intolerance is a call for genocide - then all we are doing is allowing that intolerance to flourish, and allowing the violence that will spring from that intolerance to continue unabated." - Bren Carlill

 

Offline Grey Wolf

This is the thread that will never die. You know you will never convince each other, right?
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline Zarax

  • 210
*sounds hazzard fanfare from his so-called station wagon*

This is a religion thread, steer away from here if you want to keep your sanity...
The Best is Yet to Come

 

Offline Sandwich

  • Got Screen?
  • 213
    • Skype
    • Steam
    • Twitter
    • Brainzipper
SERIOUSLY...! | {The Sandvich Bar} - Rhino-FS2 Tutorial | CapShip Turret Upgrade | The Complete FS2 Ship List | System Background Package

"...The quintessential quality of our age is that of dreams coming true. Just think of it. For centuries we have dreamt of flying; recently we made that come true: we have always hankered for speed; now we have speeds greater than we can stand: we wanted to speak to far parts of the Earth; we can: we wanted to explore the sea bottom; we have: and so  on, and so on: and, too, we wanted the power to smash our enemies utterly; we have it. If we had truly wanted peace, we should have had that as well. But true peace has never been one of the genuine dreams - we have got little further than preaching against war in order to appease our consciences. The truly wishful dreams, the many-minded dreams are now irresistible - they become facts." - 'The Outward Urge' by John Wyndham

"The very essence of tolerance rests on the fact that we have to be intolerant of intolerance. Stretching right back to Kant, through the Frankfurt School and up to today, liberalism means that we can do anything we like as long as we don't hurt others. This means that if we are tolerant of others' intolerance - especially when that intolerance is a call for genocide - then all we are doing is allowing that intolerance to flourish, and allowing the violence that will spring from that intolerance to continue unabated." - Bren Carlill

 

Offline Kamikaze

  • A Complacent Wind
  • 29
    • http://www.nodewar.com
Quote
Originally posted by Grey Wolf
This is the thread that will never die. You know you will never convince each other, right?


Well, duh. What Sandwich wants will never happen because it can't happen. Linus, who is strongly distro neutral, holds the Linux trademark. The Linux kernel is licensed under the GPL and will be forever. There's no way there will ever be the "one Linux distro".
Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation . . .Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. - Richard Feynman

 

Offline WMCoolmon

  • Purveyor of space crack
  • 213
One Linux Distro to rule them all...
-C

 

Offline Grey Wolf

One Linux Distro to find them...
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline Zarax

  • 210
And the IBM trademark to enslave them all...
The Best is Yet to Come

 

Offline Grey Wolf

You were supposed to say "bind them", not "enslave them all". What kind of nerd are you?
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline Clave

  • Myrmidon
    Get Firefox!
  • 23
    • Home of the Random Graphic
I thought Linux was free?

If is IS free, then everyone should stop moaning about it like a bunch of babies...

If it's NOT free, ask for your money back...
altgame - a site about something: http://www.altgame.net/
Mr Sparkle!  I disrespect dirt!  Join me or die!  Could you do any less?

 

Offline Grey Wolf

It is. It's just support that isn't.

EDIT: Let me rephrase that. Enterprise support isn't usually free.
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw