Re: Weird situation

On 15 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.security, in article
<1166198111.502553.319600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Andy C.(never #) wrote:

Moe Trin wrote:

(DOS 5 had 68 commands - there are over 1350 in my user path, and over
1650 as root)

Yes, but that means we have more choices. More different ways to
accomplish the same thing. Sometimes one way is not "better" than
another, it's just different. Maybe windows users think that's wasteful
or confusing, but I think you're more likely to be successful at
solving a problem if you have more ways available to you to solve that
problem.

What I usually show people is the output of the history command, parsed
to sort what I've been doing. This tends to show I'm constantly re-using
70 to 100 commands. I'm sure there are scores (probably hundreds) of
commands on this system that I've never used. I am a command line
dinosaur, and tell people to use what-ever works for them. Get the
results you need - pretty can come later if needed.

You probably won't find *nix applications that look/feel exactly like
their windoze counterparts, but you probably _will_ find ones that are
close.

I'm trying to get my wife used to using OpenOffice. I like it better
than the MS equivalent and not just because the MS product costs $500
more.

I understand that's why the company where my wife works went to FOSS.
Even with a site license from microsoft, the costs were outrageous.

So far she hasn't run into any word docs or xl spreadsheets that
she can't open and edit. I know that will be a problem if she ever
does.

My wife hasn't mentioned the problem either. I know that microsoft
intentionally makes new "standards" that are incompatible with older
stuff. Case in point - their MS-CHAP Version 1 authentication protocol
(documented in RFC2433) is intentionally incompatible with Version 2
(documented in RFC2759). It backfired on the Internet, as neither
protocol is used any more (few ISPs even use the original CHAP-MD5
authentication from RFC1994 - but default to PAP documented in RFC1334
from 1992). Should someone supply you with a document in a new
(and incompatible) format, it's usually possible to request that person
to supply it in an older microsoft format that OO can handle. For web
sites that demand the latest microsoft whizzy stuff, I simply go
elsewhere - they obviously don't want my business.

I can't be specific, NDA and all that, but they are trying to develop a
suite of cross-platform applications using Perl, C/C++ and Java to move
and map huge amounts of data between different networks and platforms.

Ack the NDA - I have the same limitation. C and C++ are obviously
much more dependent on the O/S, but perl and Java _should_ be free of
most O/S constraints.

Since most of the existing developers come from windows, the majority
of the compromises made to make this cross-platform have been on the
Unix/Linux side.

-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 642561 Mar 10 2003 Secure-Programs-HOWTO
-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 155096 Jan 23 2004 Security-HOWTO

If you are in to dead trees, http://www.ora.com and see

[_] Practical UNIX and Internet Security, Third Edition Feb 2003 $54.95
Read it on online with Safari View a sample

Yellow binding, front cover is an olde fashioned floor safe. 984 pages.
There is also

[_] Secure Coding: Principles and Practices Jun 2003 $29.95 Read it on
online with Safari View a sample
[_] Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++ Jul 2003 $49.95 Read it
on online with Safari View a sample Download examples

Old guy
.