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On Aug 21, 7:20pm, Jeff Warnica wrote:
}
} > Granted, but we're not there yet. And, even once high-end 486's /
} > low-end Pentiums become give away items, it will still take a couple of
} > years for them to get into the hands of the majority of people that
} > can't afford to buy them. Also, given that these machines are still
} > useful for many things, some people may keep them as a second machine.
}
} 386s and C=64s are also still useful for many things. The QNX demo disk only
} needs a 386, a modem, and a vga card and it gives you a ppp dialer and a web
} browser.
Yes, they are. I'm just not sure that they are useful for web
browsing or heavy Internet activity. I haven't seen the QNX demo disk,
but I do have a few questions/issues about it:
- some people may find it a pain to reboot all the time
- which VGA cards are supported?
- how much memory does it require?
- can it do anything besides browse?
- how good of a browser is it?
You could easily get something like Netscape Navigator 1.x on a floppy, but
most people don't consider that to be particularly useful. Since, the QNX
demo disk is only one floppy, I would assume it doesn't do anything besides
browsing (which means that you would have to use some kind of webmail thing
to do e-mail) and that it doesn't support scripting (Java, Javascript, etc.).
Does it supports frames, style sheets, or any of the other more advanced
HTML stuff? What image formats are supported. Are plugins (i.e. Acroread)
included?
} > Then why do you bother? Anyways, I'm going to have to disagree.
} > Community nets provide several things, including local content, a way
}
} You can access that from elsewhere.
Sure. But, what about hosting for non-profits that have almost no
budget?
} > to associate with local users (i.e. strictly local newsgroups), a
}
} That proably are not on your machine. You can access them from elsewhere.
Actually, the one's I was thinking about are. We run our own news
server. Be careful about the assumptions you make. BTW, we are willing
to share our local groups with other community nets, but they can't end
up on Usenet proper.
Of course, we also carry a full range of regional newsgroups,
i.e. vic.*, van.*, nanaimo.*, bc.*, ca.*, etc. But, many of these
regional newsgroups leak well outside their particular region and hence
aren't truely local. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with
global groups, just that it's nice to have truely local groups as
well. A mixture of both is needed.
} > gentle introduction to the Internet, amongst other things. Many people
}
} I dont think so. Scrool, point a the underlined word and click. Lynx is not
} gentle.
A link in a graphical browser could be an image, an imagemap, a
different colour, a different font size, or just about anything else
the creator of the page wants it to be (especially when you throw
scripting languages into the mix). It could also be very difficult to
see if the creator chose poor colours or used a heavy background. In
Lynx, a link always looks the same. Lynx really isn't that hard to
use. Also, graphical browsers can be a nightmare for people with
visual or motor control disabilities.
} > } More complex? SQL would be far less complex, and more easily
} > expanded on.
} >
} > A real database program is more complex to setup and maintain then
} > a bunch of text files.
}
} I supose it depends on how you look at it. With a SQL database, thats some
} one elses problem, to a programer it may as whell just be a magic box.
So, are text files. We are talking about programmer's here, or
people taking on a programming role. If you want to change things, you
have to figure out how to use the back-end regardless of what it is, or
the interface to it. I really don't see the point of this statement.
} > If they don't have at least some technical experience, they aren't
} > going to be doing this no matter how easy we make it. For most
} > community nets the capability just simply isn't there. That's why
} > CSuite is designed to be turnkey installation and easy administration
} > via things like web forms. Only the larger sites need to do custom
} > programming, and they are the only ones that will be doing it.
}
} Unfortunatly attempts to keep everything as a part of csuite makes things
} slighty more difficult to maintain. Today if you want to upgrade apache you
} just get the rpm and install it. Not so if everything is hidden under
} $csroot.
This has been addressed in another thread, and I really don't wish to
get into another debate over it, but just to recap... Using rpm's is out
of the question for several reasons:
- RedHat Linux is not the only supported system
- it would be pretty much impossible to produce a turnkey system which is
easy to administer
- it would be a support nightmare
- most CSuite sites wouldn't know where to get an rpm or what to do with it
For similar types of things, take a look at the Winddance Breeze (
http://www.winddance.net/breeze/ ) which is based on NetBSD or the
Cobalt Qube ( http://noram.cobaltnet.com/products/ ) which is based on
Linux. Both of these are turnkey internet servers/gateways in a box.
They face the same problems that CSuite does with ease of use issues.
You won't find them, or any other turnkey system, using off the shelf
rpm's. It just isn't feasible.
} > } Well, if your not having logins (and prehaps even then) the only extra
} > } administration would be exporting some filesystems, and then spending a
} > } little longer setting up the new machine. After day one there is nothing
} > } eles to do. Nobody has one machine, its farms of clones everywhere.
} >
} > Apparently, you don't have much experience administering multi
} > machine sites (or single machines for that matter, even with all the
} > advances in automation, machines still don't administrate themselves).
} > As somebody that does regular administration of several multi machine
} > sites, I will say that this statement definitely isn't true. Alos,
} > large sites don't use clones since they want reliable hardware. Very
} > small sites (i.e. most community nets) don't use multiple machines,
} > because they really don't have the knowledge to administrate one
} > machine never mind multiple machines. And, yes I'm aware of things
} > like the Linux phenonom, but there is a big difference between playing
} > with Linux on your home machine, and running mission critical 24x7
} > servers.
}
} Clones in "exactly the same as the next" not crappy pc hardware. I dont mean
} mutiple machine networks, I mean mutiple machines that are exactly the same
} (less MAC and IP #'s). Reverse proxys. Heartbeats over serial.
There are very few situations where you will find this. Just as a
couple of examples... In the case of VTN, we run all Sun servers, but
we have different models running both SunOS 4.x and 5.x (these are very
different since t