Differences in installation between FreeBSD and Linux:
During installation the differences between FreeBSD and Linux are not particularily pronounced: the installer's interface and usage bear quite a significant resemblence to those used in many Linux distributions, Debian and Slackware being two particularly notable examples. While the overall experience is quite similar to installing one of these distributions of Linux, there are a few particular areas that are clearly a little bit different.
The first difference one is likely to notice is that the FreeBSD version of the fdisk utility uses some terminology that may be unfamiliar - instead of referring to primary partitions, it refers to slices - in fact, they are the same thing, and merely the terminology has been changed. FreeBSD requires one slice on which to be installed. Meanwhile, after the boot manager has been installed, the FreeBSD DiskLabel Editor will launch, and you may notice that the word 'parititons' has been repurposed - in FreeBSD, the word 'partition' is used not to refer to physical disk partitions , but rather refers to an additional layer of storage abstraction implemented on top of the physical slices on may create on their storage devices (e.g., harddrives, flash media, etc). Many configuration files found in /etc look quite similar to their Linux counterparts, such as fstab, while a few, such as freebsd-update.conf, are clearly new. Additionally, the structure of the rc files is significantly different, with all startup script code contained in a small set of rc.* files located in the /etc/ directory itself, rather than a distinct folder for each level -- indeed, runlevels themselves are absent!
Things I liked about the FreeBSD installer:
The installation experience was simple, to the point, and straightforwards, while providing a fairly wide set of options to customize your installation. The straightforwards, simple user interface was refreshingly uncluttered compared to the GUI installers that have grown popular in some distributions, and I must confess it elicited some nostalgia with the memory of installing Slackware many times (though never more than once on a given machine! How's that for stable?) back in the good old days.
Things I did not like about the FreeBSD installer:
So far, I haven't really found anything to dislike - maybe something will come up later on, during use, but I have no issues with the installer.
Showing posts with label lux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lux. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
NAD710 Lab #2 Reflections
Lab two for this course was at least a little more interesting, as I got to encounter at least one new tool this time. While a lot of the tools used, like ifconfig, the arp commands, etc., were already familiar to me due to either personal use or previous experience in other courses, the 'ip' tool for configuring the network card was something I hadn't used before. The 'ip' tool's syntax reminds me of the style of syntax used for configuring network interfaces on Cisco router's, though it's not quite identical in a few places. 'tcpdump' was also new - I've used tools with similar functionality from the GUI, but it's always preferable to have a command-line version if possible, so I'll probably be playing with this tool a bit more in my spare time.
Friday, September 12, 2008
SYA710 Lab 01 Thoughts
SYA710 Lab 01 has been submitted, and mostly felt like review for me. A lot of the material covered in this particular lab bears a good resemblence to things I've done in some other classes, and I'd encountered most of the more basic file and disk utilities shown for several years on my home systems even before then. While I don't have quite as much experience with LVM as with the other tools listed, I'm pretty confident with that toolset as well -- it's always good to review though. Most of my multi-disk setups at home revolve around the md raid system rather than LVM, and learning alternative/complimentary tools is always useful -- maybe next time one of the home servers gets rebuilt I'll layer LVM with md, just for fun.
LPT730 Lab01
Software Patents
I do not believe that software patents are a good idea in general, at least not in the form in which they currently exist in most countries.
A large part of the dificulty comes from the fact that software patents are dificult for usual patent office employees to evaluate effectively, and as such a disturbingly high number of approved patents have been granted that, most likely, should not have been. When evaluating a patent application for a software practice, patent reviewers do not have time to learn an entire new discipline, and patent reviewers are typically not software developers and are unlikely to fully understand the material contained within the patent application. As such, many 'bad' software patents exist. Usually, the element making these patents 'bad' is that many times patents have been granted for broadly defined techniques or strategies, rather than merely for a particular specific implementation -- and, as per normal practices in the granting of patents, patents are intended to apply only to particular implementations or methods of accomplishing a goal.
While I don't necessarily see anything wrong with patenting a particular, specific implementation for achieving a particular goal in software, the cost of the patent office retaining evaluators knowledgeable enough to effectively evaluate these patens is one that most governments are unlikely to be willing to pay. Needless to say, if the patent office was handling the granting of software patents in an effective manner, these patents would become far less valuable to companies, as the chances of recieving a broad patent that one could use to litigate their way to riches would be far less likely.
Bill C-61
While the odds of Bill C-61 becoming law in Canada currently appear to be low, I would still be in favour of such a law, if not for the reasons one might think.
Bill C-61 would, if passed, imply many onerous new restrictions on how an end user may make use of copyrighted content they own, mostly in the area of making the circumvention of technical measures intended to prevent the copying of data an illegal act.
Many in the open source community are up in arms over the restrictions on users' freedom that this bill would imply, being as usual all for the freedom to do what they wish with information in their posesssion. I would suggesst, however, that they look at things in a different light: what Bill C-61 really does is make using, posessing, or acquiring copyrighted content distributed under a proprietary liscence far less attractive than it was previously. The more careful the user has to be with handling the information, the more they have to worry about accidentally doing something illegal with it and not realizing it until it is too late, the less they will want to have anything to do with this dangerous, legally risky proprietary media.
I do not believe that software patents are a good idea in general, at least not in the form in which they currently exist in most countries.
A large part of the dificulty comes from the fact that software patents are dificult for usual patent office employees to evaluate effectively, and as such a disturbingly high number of approved patents have been granted that, most likely, should not have been. When evaluating a patent application for a software practice, patent reviewers do not have time to learn an entire new discipline, and patent reviewers are typically not software developers and are unlikely to fully understand the material contained within the patent application. As such, many 'bad' software patents exist. Usually, the element making these patents 'bad' is that many times patents have been granted for broadly defined techniques or strategies, rather than merely for a particular specific implementation -- and, as per normal practices in the granting of patents, patents are intended to apply only to particular implementations or methods of accomplishing a goal.
While I don't necessarily see anything wrong with patenting a particular, specific implementation for achieving a particular goal in software, the cost of the patent office retaining evaluators knowledgeable enough to effectively evaluate these patens is one that most governments are unlikely to be willing to pay. Needless to say, if the patent office was handling the granting of software patents in an effective manner, these patents would become far less valuable to companies, as the chances of recieving a broad patent that one could use to litigate their way to riches would be far less likely.
Bill C-61
While the odds of Bill C-61 becoming law in Canada currently appear to be low, I would still be in favour of such a law, if not for the reasons one might think.
Bill C-61 would, if passed, imply many onerous new restrictions on how an end user may make use of copyrighted content they own, mostly in the area of making the circumvention of technical measures intended to prevent the copying of data an illegal act.
Many in the open source community are up in arms over the restrictions on users' freedom that this bill would imply, being as usual all for the freedom to do what they wish with information in their posesssion. I would suggesst, however, that they look at things in a different light: what Bill C-61 really does is make using, posessing, or acquiring copyrighted content distributed under a proprietary liscence far less attractive than it was previously. The more careful the user has to be with handling the information, the more they have to worry about accidentally doing something illegal with it and not realizing it until it is too late, the less they will want to have anything to do with this dangerous, legally risky proprietary media.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Interesting thoughts...
Listening to the netradio show FLOSS Weekly episode 39, in which Simon Phipps from Sun is being interviewed by Randall Schwartz and Leo Laporte, and Simon has some interesting thoughts when asked a question regarding his use of a Mac and how that relates to his evangelism of open source software -- the bit that interested me went as follows:
SP: 'This is a pretty tough world if you decide to become an absolutist -'
LL: 'Yes, I guess so... Would you prefer a world where it was all open?'
SP: 'I absolutely would. I think to reach that world we have to be pragmatic with urgency. You know, I'm more than happy to use tools that work. What I'm not happy with is to use tools that work, but in such a way that I have no other options in the future. You know, the key thought for me is substitutability. I don't want to use any tool that couldn't be substituted for another tool in the future.'
SP: 'This is a pretty tough world if you decide to become an absolutist -'
LL: 'Yes, I guess so... Would you prefer a world where it was all open?'
SP: 'I absolutely would. I think to reach that world we have to be pragmatic with urgency. You know, I'm more than happy to use tools that work. What I'm not happy with is to use tools that work, but in such a way that I have no other options in the future. You know, the key thought for me is substitutability. I don't want to use any tool that couldn't be substituted for another tool in the future.'
Thursday, September 4, 2008
SYA710 Lab #00
SYA710 Lab #00:
#1. What is your full name?
My full name is Gregory John Masseau. Suppose you're no longer requesting student numbers in this question this semester?
#2. What is the output in steps 3 and 8?
'fdisk -l' on Ubuntu 8.04:
Disk /dev/sda: 10.2 GB, 10200547328 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1240 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008edf2
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1181 9486351 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1182 1240 473917+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdb: 62.0 GB, 62014404096 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7539 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6ab1bd22
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 609 4891761 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 610 1826 9775552+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 1827 3651 14659312+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 3652 7539 31230360 83 Linux
'fdisk -l' on Fedora 8:
Disk /dev/sda: 10.2 GB, 10200547328 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1240 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00058f46
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 51 409626 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 52 688 5116702+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 689 752 514080 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdb: 62.0 GB, 62014404096 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7539 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6ab1bd22
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 609 4891761 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 610 1826 9775552+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 1827 3651 14659312+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 3652 7539 31230360 83 Linux
Disk /dev/dm-0: 16.1 GB, 16106127360 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1958 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
#3. What is the purpose of the sudo command?
The sudo command allows you to execute a command as another user. If no user is specified (which can be
done with the '-u username' switch), sudo will attempt to execute the command as the root user.
Depending on the configuration (generally configured using the '/etc/sudoers' file) a password (or other form of authentication) may be required, and the ability to masquerade as particular users or execute particular commands as a substitute user may be limited based on the user or group IDs of the user executing the sudo command.
#4. What is the purpose of the minus sign (-) when using the su command?
The dash signifies that su should simulate a full login by discarding the current environment and loading the substituted user's shell environment configuration in it's place.
#5. Explain how you deleted the partition table with fdisk.
I deleted the partition table using fdisk by way of cfdisk, a Curses library based interface to the fdisk utility. Within the cfdisk program, I highlighted each partition in turn using the vertical arrows keys, selected the 'Delete' option with the horizontal arrow keys, and hit enter. After all partitions were removed, and the partition list displays only a single entry whose FS Type field reads 'Free Space', I selected the 'Write' option, and hit enter to execute it. After exiting cfdisk, the 'partprobe' command was invoked to inform the kernel of the changes to the partition table.
#6. What is the purpose of the partprobe command?
The 'partprobe' command causes the kernel to re-read the partition table to reflect changes since the partition table was last read by the kernel, this time generally being the last time the machine in question was booted. This has surprisingly little effect on system behavior as the Linux kernel does not make much use of the partition table for normal operations once it has completed booting.
#7. Write the complete mail command you would use to email a copy of lab00 to your LEARN account from MATRIX.
I would invoke the mail command using the following form:
'mail -s "ops335-lab00" john.selmys@senecac.on.ca < lab00.txt
#8. What is the function of the -s option to the mail command?
The '-s' switch of the mail causes the mail command to make use of the argument following the '-s' switch as the subject line of the email being sent.
#1. What is your full name?
My full name is Gregory John Masseau. Suppose you're no longer requesting student numbers in this question this semester?
#2. What is the output in steps 3 and 8?
'fdisk -l' on Ubuntu 8.04:
Disk /dev/sda: 10.2 GB, 10200547328 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1240 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008edf2
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1181 9486351 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1182 1240 473917+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdb: 62.0 GB, 62014404096 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7539 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6ab1bd22
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 609 4891761 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 610 1826 9775552+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 1827 3651 14659312+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 3652 7539 31230360 83 Linux
'fdisk -l' on Fedora 8:
Disk /dev/sda: 10.2 GB, 10200547328 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1240 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00058f46
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 51 409626 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 52 688 5116702+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 689 752 514080 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdb: 62.0 GB, 62014404096 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7539 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6ab1bd22
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 609 4891761 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 610 1826 9775552+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 1827 3651 14659312+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 3652 7539 31230360 83 Linux
Disk /dev/dm-0: 16.1 GB, 16106127360 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1958 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
#3. What is the purpose of the sudo command?
The sudo command allows you to execute a command as another user. If no user is specified (which can be
done with the '-u username' switch), sudo will attempt to execute the command as the root user.
Depending on the configuration (generally configured using the '/etc/sudoers' file) a password (or other form of authentication) may be required, and the ability to masquerade as particular users or execute particular commands as a substitute user may be limited based on the user or group IDs of the user executing the sudo command.
#4. What is the purpose of the minus sign (-) when using the su command?
The dash signifies that su should simulate a full login by discarding the current environment and loading the substituted user's shell environment configuration in it's place.
#5. Explain how you deleted the partition table with fdisk.
I deleted the partition table using fdisk by way of cfdisk, a Curses library based interface to the fdisk utility. Within the cfdisk program, I highlighted each partition in turn using the vertical arrows keys, selected the 'Delete' option with the horizontal arrow keys, and hit enter. After all partitions were removed, and the partition list displays only a single entry whose FS Type field reads 'Free Space', I selected the 'Write' option, and hit enter to execute it. After exiting cfdisk, the 'partprobe' command was invoked to inform the kernel of the changes to the partition table.
#6. What is the purpose of the partprobe command?
The 'partprobe' command causes the kernel to re-read the partition table to reflect changes since the partition table was last read by the kernel, this time generally being the last time the machine in question was booted. This has surprisingly little effect on system behavior as the Linux kernel does not make much use of the partition table for normal operations once it has completed booting.
#7. Write the complete mail command you would use to email a copy of lab00 to your LEARN account from MATRIX.
I would invoke the mail command using the following form:
'mail -s "ops335-lab00" john.selmys@senecac.on.ca < lab00.txt
#8. What is the function of the -s option to the mail command?
The '-s' switch of the mail causes the mail command to make use of the argument following the '-s' switch as the subject line of the email being sent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)