Re: [cobalt-users] Re: Re: whois...'nt.

[Carrie Bartkowiak <ravencarrie@xxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2001 18:19:42 -0400, Charlie Summers mumbled something 
like:
>>  Sorry to all about being so seriously cranky on this subject...I
>>usually
>>have a curmudgeonly humorous style, and promise to revert to it
>>ASAP.
(snipped that out of order)
NO problem whatsoever. You've got a right to answer questions like 
this - and we're both Cobalt users, discussing Cobalts on the 
Cobalt-user's list - so if others don't like it they can delete. :)
You've also got a right to be cranky; because these are perfectly 
valid questions and opinions. A year ago I didn't know that, but now 
I do (a year ago I was the perfect target customer, but couldn't keep 
my nosy fingers out from under the hood.

>>  Irrelevant; the people who decided what would and would not be
>>part of the
>>RaQ operating system now work for Sun, and when one company
>>purchases
>>another, they must accept both the brilliance _and_ the stupidity
>>of the
>>company they purchase. 

I agree there, but I don't think it's irrelevant. Cobalt made a 
decision to exclude this and other little things for some reason; 
which the Sun people might not agree with. Sun is used to putting out 
the type of boxes that you're used to dealing with, and once things 
settle down and they've got a chance to look under the hood in their 
new playthings there might be some big changes going 'round.
We can hope, anyway...

<snipped heavily>
>> the /usr/bin/dig command _is_ available
>> The /usr/bin/locate command exists
>>The /usr/bin/which command exists, 
>> /usr/bin/fdformat? Should I list a bunch of other
>>examples of
>>commands in /usr/bin or /bin that make no sense for anything other
>>than the
>>cluefull on the command line?

Well, when the tech support guys go in there they do need to have 
some tools available. It's possible that they've been left there for 
their use - not for ours.
Two things you might not know, so forgive me if you do:
1. There is a backdoor in every Cobalt. Just ask Jeff Lasman - give 
him a normal shell and he'll have control of your box in less than 5 
minutes. If you've ever called tech support you'll know how quickly 
they can be right in the middle of the system with barely any 
information from you.
2. Cobalt could not build a GUI that worked with RedHat and call it 
their own; restricting other people from using it and expanding on it 
- because it's open source. If their GUI in any way relied on the 
RedHat files to interact with itself, then they'd have to make their 
GUI open source as well. So the way they get around this is the 
"Cobalt Sauce" that we so fondly rant about. 
I don't know *exactly* how they do it, but I've got an idea.
The GUI doesn't grep through the files and replace only what's 
necessary - it overwrites the files when you make a change (the only 
exception I've seen to this is httpd.conf - it just replaces a 
section rather than the entire file). It keeps its own copy of the 
information that's in the file and just makes a new one - and this 
way, it does not interact with the RedHat files whatsoever... it just 
replaces them (as many programs will do).
Webmin can get away with "working with" the files, because it's free; 
but in order to keep the Cobalt GUI *private* they had to replace 
files rather than work *with* files.

So make what you will of it, but maybe those two points explains some 
things. What is truly cumbersome to us - watching /etc/named/records 
wiping out our changes or httpd.conf erasing our tweaks - is 
necessary to keep the GUI from being forced into open source land.
And knowing that at times they'd need to get under the hood and find 
out what the heck their target users (us clueless people) had done, 
they'd need to leave some real tools there for their own use.

I'm strictly theorizing here. It could be that there was no rhyme nor 
reason to what they left in and what they took out. But I like to 
give the benefit of the doubt when I can, and I think that there's a 
plan to this somewhere. A twisted plan perhaps, but still a plan.  ;)

>>  They screwed up, plain and simple, and no other explaination
>>fits the
>>available evidence. 

You've got some new evidence here... thinking any differently?

>>The problem is, if they screwed up this badly on
>>something this important, what other boners did they make? 

I *really* don't even want to think about that.  :(

>>Good grief, some people
>>are
>>afraid to install the smallest .rpm because it isn't a .pkg file.

Well that's that "sauce" thing again... you never know what they've 
changed and what they haven't.

>>  I work with the RaQ...I do _not_ have to like the foolish
>>nonsense these
>>"programmers" have done in bastardizing the OS...

That's true - thinking of dumping your Cobalt blues?  ;)

--
CarrieB
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