Re: Linux for Kids
From: Mxsmanic (mxsmanic_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/15/05
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Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 04:43:58 +0100
Ohmster writes:
> The garbage that they offer in the store is pathetic. All proprietary
> HP, Compaq, or Dell stuff. Everything is built in, nothing is up-gradable.
> They are loaded with "junk" software and advertising is built in
> everywhere, from the BIOS splash screen that "hides all of the good
> stuff" to AOL and Dell links all over the place. You get "MS Works",
> or worse, that Lotus Office crap. Nobody wants that stuff but newbies
> think that it is good.
I haven't bought any big-name machines lately, so I'll take your word
for it.
Budget constraints required that I buy my last server (not the current
one) at the lowest possible price, and it was a no-name desktop machine.
The CPU fan failed within a day or do, as did its replacement; only by
buying my own ball-bearing fan did I fix that. And there was no other
fan outside the power supply, so I added one. Even so, a year or two
later the fan failed again, silently, and I didn't discover it until the
system got stuck in a loop and overheated and damaged the processor.
The processor failed with increasing frequency after that (mysterious
segment violations in all sorts of programs that had never had them
before), until it faulted so frequently that it wouldn't boot.
I replaced the machine with a server built from scratch, using component
parts that I selected myself ... and six fans. Hopefully this new
machine will last for many years.
My high-end HP Vectra XU workstation still runs perfectly after eight
years ... but it cost $9000 new. Today the main problem is finding
software compatible with the hardware; I'm having trouble getting
FreeBSD to run reliably on the machine (the BIOS refuses to boot FreeBSD
except from diskette, and I get bizarre SCSI errors from time to time
that sometimes crash the system).
> Oooooo, it is getting really bad. They stick it everywhere, all the time.
> Try to visit and actually use the online TV listings at TV Guide. Now
> they don't stick you with malware, so far as I know, but the site is so
> crapped up in every nook and cranny, that you have to be Gandhi to have
> the patience to actually be able to view and use the listings. Now you
> get websites installing trackers, browser hijackers, and "toolbars" on
> your computer just because they figured out how to do this to almost
> every website visitor. This is "just plain wrong", dude. It used to be
> only those silly enough to download and install that "free screensaver".
> Not anymore
You have to use a browser that doesn't allow for any type of active
content to be downloaded. Firefox is a step in this direction, but even
Firefox has some vulnerabilities, as they couldn't resist the temptation
to allow some active content, and you cannot turn off Java or Javascript
except on a very coarsely-defined basis. I've already mentioned the
Flash vulnerability.
> Don't know yet. We will have to wait several more months to see if they
> get viruses again or if Nick is not able to use the computer effectively
> for school anymore because of the restricted account. I installed Max
> Payne 2 on the computer before giving it to them, so that they would have
> some kind of fun game to play and it sure looked good on that huge
> monitor and the FX5200 vid card did a really good job at 1024x768. You
> would think that a young teen aged boy would love this game and want
> more. Nah, I don't think he played other than at first. Shame really, I
> have just about every cool video game that comes out and would be happy
> to pass them along when I finish playing them. He don't care about that
> stuff or installing programs. He likes to download car wallpaper and
> things like that, he will be getting his driver's license in about a year
> or so. So we wait and see.
Games are some of the few applications that seriously tax computer
hardware. If he doesn't care for games, so much the better. Games and
stable systems tend to be mutually exclusive.
> Ohhhhhh, I did not even think of this! That is a very simple and helpful
> plan.
Do as I do: for the default Internet zone, I have EVERYTHING turned off,
even Javascript. I have another zone that allows just Javascript. With
Javascript enabled, you can accommodate just about anything; sites don't
depend on ActiveX content, and if they do, you can just leave them (for
example, if a site requires a Flash animation just to get in, I leave).
> He pays
> me to fix difficult things on Saturdays but he won't pay 2 cents on the
> computer unless a disaster strikes. He buys two computers for the
> business, wants them both connected to the DSL broadband, networked
> together, wants custom software installed for customer claims and
> telephone directory that are networked to use common databases, wants a
> backup system, etc., so on, and so forth. I tell him I will do it but
> need about $250 to do the job right, he says no it is too expensive,
> calls the Dell repairman for some fictitious warranty repair, and pays
> him a hundred dollars to hook this stuff up and make it work. The Dell
> guy gets a basic network going and leaves.
When he loses everything due to a lack of backups, he'll understand.
Unfortunately, from a statistical standpoint, most businesses that
suffer a massive computer failure tend to fold within six months.
> So I am not going to go and do advanced security on these computers
> because he won't pay for it. He will want you to do stuff for the
> computer in a small part of the 4 hours on Saturday that he does
> sometimes pay for, or take the stuff home, make everything work, and give
> him a nice, functional, and secure network for like $50-100. Not gonna
> happen by me, that would be extreme charity work and I don't do charity
> for business that is in business to make money.
That's logical.
> My friend with the small business is funny. I give him a very simple
> backup system, non automated (He won't pay for the software), and so uses
> MS Backup because it is free. I set it up so that with one click and a
> blank CD, he can backup all crucial directories for his business. Doncha
> know that his first old computer, the one with all of the important
> databases on it, is the one where the hard drive dies. I get him a new
> hard drive and ask for his backup CD. The thing is almost 3 months old
> since the last backup. He is screwed and lost all of his current customer
> information and is back to doing things by hand until the computer
> catches up again.
He's lucky he's still in business.
> Who knows what they do up there, all week long. They sit and they "play
> computer", while they act like they are working. Because my buddy the
> store owner is practically computer illiterate, he has no clue, other
> than all of these customers that are over 7 days late should be getting
> calls and why aren't they coming in to pickup their stuff, anyway? I
> don't work there during the week so I don't know. He gets mostly kids
> looking to earn a little extra money because the job won't pay for a
> real, adult salary. So the kids tend to do what they have to when they
> are there but don't really care about anything and use the computer as a
> great toy to pass the boring hours of the day.
You get what you pay for.
> The $149 is for the ERD Commander Emergency Workstation license. Server
> is $299. The $1,200 is for the whole administrator's package.
I could build a brand-new server for less. That would not be
cost-effective for me.
> But still, linux won't do NTFS reliably. It may read NTFS but I am not
> sure if Knoppix will, right out of the box. It sure can't write to NTFS
> and there is no Windows Registry Editor, nor Windows Password Recovery
> tool.
Then Knoppix wouldn't help me. For the FreeBSD machines I can just boot
FreeBSD off a CD.
> ERD Commander is the only product that I saw that will let you
> write a new password to a locked down NTFS machine. It cannot read the
> password, as we both know, it is one way encryption, but you can easily
> write a new one to the system. Another really good feature of ERD
> Commander is the System Restore utility. It will allow you to do a system
> restore on a non-booting machine and that sometimes is a lifesaver. Can
> do the entire Windows System Restore or just restore a backup copy of the
> registry. Pretty neat stuff. It is expensive but if you ever run across a
> copy somewhere, it is worth picking up.
No budget for such things right now. Maybe someday.
> Yeah that is a problem. If you cannot boot directly to the CD, then you
> don't get the nice GUI to work with. But then again, older PCs that won't
> boot to a CD are not usually powerful enough to run an OS where you might
> need some of these really advanced tools. Anything that old might just be
> worth replacing, put the old hard drive in the new machine and transfer
> important stuff over to the new drive, if possible.
The machine is more than powerful enough to run UNIX. Indeed, I'd
speculate that it could support several hundred users in a traditional
timesharing environment. It also ran Windows NT Server (as a PDC, no
less) for years with excellent performance. It's a lot slower with a
UNIX GUI, though, so I'm not running a GUI on the machine now.
-- Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.
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