Loki Harfagr wrote:

>
> I'd say you missed a somewhat hidden, but real, point in 'rm's post,
> that when you start giving 'sudo' accounts to any user there's not much
> advantage to make them use Linux, they will suffer the disadvantage of
> using a system they probably don't know yet and the other admins/users
> will suffer the same problems the ~OS has.
>

I see what you mean but I think in practice the opposite is true. The vast
majority of the population have zero experience of system administration.
Learning ANY form of sys admin will be a significant learning curve for
them. IMHO it would profit them more if they learned Linux.

Ian

Le Mon, 25 Dec 2006 23:36:57 +0000, Ian Bell a écrit*:

> Loki Harfagr wrote:
>
>>
>> I'd say you missed a somewhat hidden, but real, point in 'rm's post,
>> that when you start giving 'sudo' accounts to any user there's not much
>> advantage to make them use Linux, they will suffer the disadvantage of
>> using a system they probably don't know yet and the other admins/users
>> will suffer the same problems the ~OS has.
>>
>
> I see what you mean but I think in practice the opposite is true.

Well, yes, it seems I wasn't clear enough -- it happens ;-) -- I said
that this was "a point in 'rm's post" that had been omitted by Ray.
Though, I didn't say I agreed with this view :-)

> The vast
> majority of the population have zero experience of system administration.
> Learning ANY form of sys admin will be a significant learning curve for
> them. IMHO it would profit them more if they learned Linux.

I'd be inclined to say so, especially now I've seen so many people
having problems using the ~OS though it had Playmobile colors and shiny
borders. The most people I installed a Linux to finally kept it after
some days (some weeks for a few) to get used to setup the click to
fold the window or max it out, this is usually the biggest problem
they had. The ones that gave up where the ones having Linmodems and
b0rken stuff like these.

> Nope. If you want kids to do web-browsing and wordprocessing you
> want them to be using the same stuff they see at school. You don't
> want kids running a primitive OS modeled after something that is
> older than their parents.
>
You'd think so, but both kids and teachers seem to be fairly flexible
as long as the interface is reasonably consistent. At various times we
had Netscape, IE, Firefox, and/or Opera on the School machines. No one
had much trouble switching between them. (Now the Word 97 menus OTOH
....) What they had problems with was Mac software badly ported (the
industry standard, but some of the ports are OK) to the PC. I don't
think Firefox, Abiword, Open Office et al under KDE would be a big
problem. Could be wrong.

>
> What is Windows 9? Do you mean 95 or 98? In our opinion, the
> minimum M$ OS that should be installed is M$ 2000.
>
Whatever is on the machine. Most older machines will have one or the
other. I certainly would NOT recommend upgrading an older machine to
W2K. My experience with W2K was not a happy one. Slow. Applications
crashed a lot. MORE vulnerable to malware than Windows 9 because it
exposes a wider variety of vulnerable code to the internet. Harder to
delouse. Apparently the miserable thing works better for some folks.
(I'm OK with XP incidentally, but only with SP2 and not on an old
machine). Another advantage to Windows 95-98 is that removing IE --
which I would suggest for security reasons -- is relatively easy.
Win9x Lite (my preference) seems not to be available anymore, but
Mozilla's Revenge worked for me on this machine.

On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 20:29:40 +0100, Loki Harfagr wrote:

> Le Sun, 24 Dec 2006 18:50:07 -0700, ray a écritÂ*:
>
>> On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 03:53:09 +0000, rm wrote:
>>
>>> notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an old
>>>> PIII with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids games, no
>>>> network capability for now. Naturally, I want it to be a Slack
>>>> box, that being the easiest for me to admin.
>>>
>>> And making it impossible for anyone else in the family to admin,
>>> right, asshole? Naturally.
>>
>> Why is that? All that is needed for other family members to do admin
>> functions is a 'sudo' account.
>
> I'd say you missed a somewhat hidden, but real, point in 'rm's post,
> that when you start giving 'sudo' accounts to any user there's not much
> advantage to make them use Linux, they will suffer the disadvantage of
> using a system they probably don't know yet and the other admins/users
> will suffer the same problems the ~OS has.

Actually, there is an advantage. With sudo you can give them exactly the
power they need.

As to 'using a system they probably don't know yet' - so no one should
ever upgrade or change OS??

>
> Some of the ~OS hitorical glitches include these samples :
>
> W9x gave the ability to anyone to kill directly the OS, the HD and
> play interesting games with user data.
> W2K did the best to persuade people they needed 4 successive 6 week
> 8 dishes of pseudo formation in Redmonders documentation reading
> distortion effects.
> WXP added a kiddy interface so that the next generation won't get
> lost a minute when they put the GB in the attic.
> SP2 achieved the ideal defense wall, now most programs have to
> run as "'`Administrator`'" if they need any access to any device
> like screeen rez, CD, DVD, well, I admit they still can't block a
> USB thumbdrive, that'll come ;D)
>
>
> Now...
>
> Happy new year to anyone, any old time :-) (put the CapsOn when needed)

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:57:07 -0500
"mr.b" <mist@b.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:18:51 -0600, notbob wrote:
>
> > My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an old PIII
> > with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids games, no network
> > capability for now. Naturally, I want it to be a Slack box, that being
> > the easiest for me to admin. But, I was thinking maybe going with
> > edubuntu, at least until I can see what it has to offer and then maybe
> > getting the apps, games, etc, and setting up a slack equivalent. Anyone
> > with kid/slack experience/advice?
>
> Notbob,
> Personal practical knowledge. I teach a gr. 7/8 class and I have had a 23
> machine linux lan set up in my room for the last 8 years. Currently all
> but 2 machines are Slack 11. 2 XP machines were donations so I've kept
> those as is. The kids pay as much attention to the OS as we did to the
> pencil and paper we used as young students i.e., they don't. The machine,
> like the pencil and paper, is a tool to get things done. Work is emailed
> back and forth to themselves and me in html format ergo no compatibility
> problems between home and school -just the way Berners-Lee intended. And
> when it's time to play during rainy recesses, they love the games that are
> available to them. My life as sysadmin is simple. No viruses. No
> downloading and installing WinCrap. Hell I've even set up a Slack 11 box
> for my 70 year old mother-in-law and the phone hasn't rung for a service
> call for months now. Previously if I saw her number on the call display
> I'd answer "Micro---t help line. What's broken today?"
>
> Be bold. Do it. Slack just works and the kids just get it.

IMHO, this is a great answer. I can only suggest installing kdeedu,
kdegames, kdetoys and pointing the girls to http://www.kde-look.org/
if they get interested in eye-candies. Some more games can be found
at http://www.kde-apps.org/

Regards,
Mikhail

Le Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:41:19 -0700, ray a écrit*:

>> I'd say you missed a somewhat hidden, but real, point in 'rm's post,
>> that when you start giving 'sudo' accounts to any user there's not much
>> advantage to make them use Linux, they will suffer the disadvantage of
>> using a system they probably don't know yet and the other admins/users
>> will suffer the same problems the ~OS has.
>
> Actually, there is an advantage. With sudo you can give them exactly the
> power they need.

Sort of, and anyway if you end up giving them an
'ALL ALL ALL NOPASSWD' that'd be the same than previous case :-)
(and if you don't you'd better have a very hidden phone number :-)

> As to 'using a system they probably don't know yet' - so no one should
> ever upgrade or change OS??

In "a system they probably don't know yet" I was talking about
the one ~OS they already didn't know how to use !-)
(I thought the small samples of "some ~OS historical glitches"
made it clear enough )

I sincerely believe that using Windows is harder on the nerves than
using a system that has logic built in. (besides the facts that you
absolutely need a hi bandwidth connection to keep up with the
updates upgrades and all the 3d party tools that may help you to
protect a little bit what you're working on while you're not
giving head to the M$oft models.

vtcodger <Donald.Kenney@gmail.com> wrote:

> Whatever is on the machine. Most older machines will have one or the
> other. I certainly would NOT recommend upgrading an older machine to
> W2K. My experience with W2K was not a happy one. Slow. Applications
> crashed a lot. MORE vulnerable to malware than Windows 9 because it

What is "Windows 9?" Are you lumping together 95, 98 and 98se?

> exposes a wider variety of vulnerable code to the internet.
> Harder to delouse. Apparently the miserable thing works better
> for some folks. (I'm OK with XP incidentally, but only with SP2
> and not on an old machine). Another advantage to Windows 95-98 is
> that removing IE -- which I would suggest for security reasons --
> is relatively easy. Win9x Lite (my preference) seems not to be
> available anymore, but Mozilla's Revenge worked for me on this
> machine.

WTF is Win9x Lite?

cordially, as always,

rm

rm@biteme.org wrote:

> WTF is Win9x Lite?
>
> cordially, as always,
>
> rm


You'd think an MS fanboy like rm would know this...

On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 03:08:05 +0000, Andy wrote:

>> WTF is Win9x Lite?

> You'd think an MS fanboy like rm would know this...

You'd think so, but then again..... we are talking about rm.....

He's dumber than you think.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

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Andy <thereverend@orange.net> wrote:
> rm@biteme.org wrote:
>
>> WTF is Win9x Lite?
>>
>> cordially, as always,
>>
>> rm
>
>
> You'd think an MS fanboy like rm would know this...

You would, but this, along with a plethora of other things, are
well beyond his comprehension.

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email: tyketto@sbcglobal.net
Unix Systems Administrator, | tyketto@ozemail.com.au
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

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