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<li><A HREF="#/1"
><strong>Comments on: Play with the Lovely NetCat</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#/3"
><strong>LLG #74 Mailbag: Desktop Support</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#/5"
><strong>Good attitude!</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#/6"
><strong>Mountpoint permissions</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#/8"
><strong>Sorry / Saludos</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#/10"
><strong>attn: Ben Okopnik et al</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#/11"
><strong>Tux' Gender</strong></a>
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<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Comments on: Play with the lovely netcat</FONT></H3>
Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:11:53 +0800
<BR>zhaoway (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=zw@debian.org"
>zw from debian.org</a>)
<P>I've forwarded these comments about my Jan article in Linux Gazette:
<em>Play with the lovely netcat</em>.
Could you post it in your Mailbag? Thanks!
</P>
<P>
zw
</P>
<hr width="40%" align="center">
<h3>The purpose of yes</h3>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:05:19 -0700 (MST)
<br><strong>From:</strong> Bruno Melli &lt;<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=bruno@fc.hp.com?cc=zw@debian.org"
>bruno from fc.hp.com</A>&gt;
</P>
<P>
Hi zhaoway,
</P>
<P>
I was enjoying your column in the latest Linux Gazette and came upon
your description of <TT>/usr/bin/yes</TT>. I'm by no mean a Unix historian, but
from what I understand the yes command had a very basic purpose:
</P>
<P><BLOCKQuote>
The original rm command didn't have a -f option.
So if you did
<tt>rm -r /some/dir</TT> (or rm * where the current dir had lots of files)
and if the permissions weren't set right you ended up having to
type in a bunch of 'y' because rm asked you if you wanted to overwrite
the permission.
</BLOCKQuote></P>
<P>
Try it:</p>
<pre>
touch /tmp/haha
chmod 000 /tmp/haha
rm /tmp/haha
</Pre>
<P>
Imagine how annoying that becomes if you tried to rm hundreds of files
at once.
</P>
<P>
The solution, if you didn't have access to the rm source, (or took the
basic philosophy of Unix to the extreme):
</P>
<P><CODE>
yes | rm -r
</CODE></P>
<P>
bruno.
</P>
<P><HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<h3>Author of Netcat</h3>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> Wed, 2 Jan 2002 16:21:27 -0800
<br><strong>From:</strong> "Golden_Eternity"
&lt;<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=zw@debian.org?cc=bhodi_jabir@yahoo.com"
>bhodi_jabir from yahoo.com</A>&gt;
</P>
<P>
In your article "Play with the Lovely Netcat: Reinvent <TT>/usr/bin/yes</TT>" you
comment on the anonymity of the author of Netcat.
</P>
<P>
I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that the author is Hobbit of the
l0pht (currently @stake). There's a Win32 version by Chris Wysopal, as well.
</P>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.atstake.com/research/tools/index.html#network_utilities"
>http://www.atstake.com/research/tools/index.html#network_utilities</A>
</P>
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<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">LG #74 Mailbag: Desktop support</FONT></H3>
<p>We got two messages on this topic.</p>
<P> <HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"> <P>
<H3>pls pass this onto Dennis Field - his email doesn't work</H3>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> Fri, 28 Dec 2001 20:23:50 +0000
<BR>Luke Worthy (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=lukew@linuxmail.org">lukew from linuxmail.org</a>)
<P>
re: Winning the Battle for the Desktop
</P>
<P>
Dude - quit you're Linux laptop whining...heh - jk
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=";)"
height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</P>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.linux-laptop.net"
>http://www.linux-laptop.net</A>
</P>
<P>
and btw: try Mandrake, it has excellent PnP - they at least have a chat-style site for support, and it's all pretty good - just make sure you're winmodem is supported:
</P>
<P><BLOCKQuote>
<A HREF="http://www.linmodems.org"
>http://www.linmodems.org</A>
</BLOCKQuote></P>
<P>
That's usually the most important thing.
</P>
<P>
Luke
</P>
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<h3>
Regarding all these comments about desktop support ---
</h3>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> Thu, 17 Jan 2002 02:54:19 -0800
<BR>Iron (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">LG Editor</a>)
</p>
<P>
There are two major classes of desktop: home and office. The former is
novices and hobbyists (who help the novices). The latter has help desks.
</P>
<P>
Linux's economics have little chance of winning over novice desktops.
That's because the cost of tech support for the few is borne by everyone
who buys the software. Thus, a $50 package can afford to bear a 15 minute
tech support phone call, and still turn a profit.
</p>
<em>
<P>
Actually, they cannot. The retailer and distributor will take 20-50% off
the top. That leaves $25. Even with low-paid support staff, a 15-minute
call can't cost less than $5 unless it's a simple answer (in which case
the call would have taken one minute) and all the infrastructure costs
to main the help desk and its resources are externalized as overhead.
If they sell one copy, they would not have enough profit to take the call,
unless the company was tiny and had a tiny customer base (in which case
the customer-service staff or other staff would double as tech-support
staff, so they would have to be employed anyway).
</P>
<P>
If they sell a hundred copies (or whatever the number is), they can take
that 15-minute call. If the person calls back, they will have lost all
of their profit on those hundred copies. If another of those hundred
customers also calls in, the company will lose money.
</P>
<P>
That's why unlimited free tech support has disappeared, why limited
free tech support has long been in danger, and why so many companies have
put their knowledge bases online and run product newsgroups. It's much
cheaper to have support staff monitor a newsgroup two hours a day than to
wait by the phone, in terms of the number of customers that will be helped
during that time, because others with the same question (or who may have the
same question in the future), will see the answer. Actually, that's how The
Answer Gang works too....
</P>
<P>
There are exceptions. The author of MetaKit
(<A HREF="http://http"
>http://http</A>://www.equi4.com/metakit/index.html), a non-SQL database server,
offered unlimited free technical support, although I assume it was e-mail
support rather than phone support. He did it because he wanted to hear
how clients were using the product and what kinds of problems they encountered:
he considered that his payment because it helped him improve the product.
I'm not sure whether he still offers this--the web page now points users with
questions to a mailing list. But there's obviously an upper limit on the number
of customers you can offer "free unlimited support" to.
</P>
</em>
<p>
Linux is complex enough
that the price really needs to be higher to support all the included
software.
</P>
<em>
<BR>John Kawakami (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=johnkk@woodstock.com">johnk from woodstock.com</a>)
<P>
True, although this is more a responsibility of the distributions that market
to newbies than a responsibility of the Linux community as a whole.
</P></em>
<P>
On the other hand, Linux could do okay in the corporate desktop, where
in-house helpdesks keep people away from the "free" tech support you get
from the vendors. (It's not free if you're paying someone to wait on tech
support.) The simpler Linux apps are easier to "fix" when errant users
make mistakes, and with VNC, the service can be done remotely. Plus,
overall stability pays off with fewer internal support staff.
</P>
<P>
----
John Kawakami
</P>
<em>
<P>
If the in-house help desks know Linux. Often, the only people who know Linux
are the IT staff who run the servers. -- Iron
</P></em>
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<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Good attitude!</FONT></H3>
Tue, 1 Jan 2002 14:50:04 -0500
<BR>mike (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">mike from toadwart.darktech.org</a>)
<BR>linux-questions-only (linux-questions-only@ssc.com)
<p>
Regarding: LG 74, 2c Tips #26</p>
<P>
I really like the attitude expressed by the whole answer gang, and a subtle rtfm after the
question is answered is a good thing, I think. Before the answer it's a provocation, afterwards it
becomes good advice.
Happy New Year,
</P>
<P>
Mike List
</P>
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<FONT COLOR="navy">Mountpoint permissions</FONT></H3>
Thu, 03 Jan 2002 21:42:34 -0500
<BR>Rick Holbert (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=holbert.13@osu.edu">holbert.13 from osu.edu</a>)
<P>
Use chown, chgrp and chmod to change the owner, group and permissions on
the mount point.
</P>
<em>
<P>
Err, no. The querent actually stated that he tried those; I'm willing to
believe him (the same situation obtains when you mount a VFAT partition;
the owner/perms of the mount point are irrelevant.) I don't have a Samba
setup at hand right now, and it's been a while since I had to do one, but
I'm pretty certain that Mike Martin's suggestion - setting the "uid/gid"
parameters in the conffile - is the right thing to do. -- Ben
</P>
</em>
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<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Sorry / Saludos</FONT></H3>
Tue, 8 Jan 2002 08:44:56 +0100
<BR>Andres Legarra (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=alegarra@ikt.es">alegarra from ikt.es</a>)
<P>
Perdon!!
</p>
<p>
Me he confundido al pinchar el mensaje que queria responder.
</p<p>
Sorry, I mispelled when I picked the message to reply (This awful M$ Outllok
Express...)
By the way, I found some things on Linux Gazette very useful.
<br>Congratulations
</P>
<P>
Usted escribe un buen espa&ntilde;ol!!
<br>Saludos
</P>
<P>
Andres Legarra Albizu
</P>
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<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">attn: Ben Okopnik et al</FONT></H3>
Fri, 11 Jan 2002 22:33:00 -0800 (PST)
<BR>Mather Cotton (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=mathercotton@yahoo.com">mathercotton from yahoo.com</a>)
<P>
<A HREF="../issue63/okopnik.html"
>http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue63/okopnik.html</A>
</P>
<P>
That url saved my ass. Thank you so much!
</P>
<P>
Cotton
</P>
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<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Tux' Gender</FONT></H3>
<p>We got two messages on this topic.</p>
<hr width="40%" align="center">
<h3>re: Lady Penguins</h3>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> Wed, 02 Jan 2002 04:50:22 -0500
<BR>Rachel Rawlings (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=rrawlingsw@nyc.rr.com">rrawlingsw from nyc.rr.com</a>)
</p>
<P><em><font color="navy">
That might refer to Linus' original comment that penguins are happy
because they have just stuffed themselves full of herring or have been
hanging out with lady penguins. We only <strong>/know/</strong> that Tux is stuffed full
of herring, but we can assume Tux hangs out with lady penguins. -- Heather
</font></em></P>
<P>
Which actually doesn't get say definitively whether Tux is male. Tux
could hang out with lady penguins cf. Marlena Dietrich, or be a
high-class drag king.
<img src="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" alt=";&gt;" align="top">
</P>
<P>
However, speaking as a dyke with a largish stuffed animal collection
(one of whom is a female Peter Rabbit named Katja) my Tux is male. Other
users' Tuxen may vary according to the needs of the user, much like
their kernel configurations.
</P>
<em>
<P>
Interesting. I wonder if Eric Raymond's enhanced kernel configurator
will have a question for which sex your kernel should be built as. -- Mike
</P></em>
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<h3>All the Girls like him</h3>
<p><strong>Date:</strong> Fri, 18 Jan 2002 11:26:17 +0100
<BR>patrick.op.de.beeck (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?cc=patrick.op.de.beeck@belgacom.be">patrick.op.de.beeck from belgacom.be</a>)
</p>
<p><em>
But, we couldn't publish his very cute note because it was marked confidential. Sorry folks! -- Heather</em></p>
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