Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2000:March:22 Wednesday <Tuesday, Thursday>
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2000/3/22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:17819 Activity:high
3/21    For those in the working world, do you care at all wanting to know
        what projects are in the pipeline, especially those you may
        be working on or those you are interested in?
        \_ Uhm.  What the hell are you talking about?
        \_ Mine more high school English.
        \_ Don't know, since I know about all projects that are in the
           pipeline.
        \_ I don't care at all about wasting my time trying to understand your
           mangled sentence.
                \_ for some reason, this all seems humorous
2000/3/22 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux] UID:17820 Activity:high
3/21    All my Redhat linux boxes say that it is 1996 and i'm too stupid
        to figure out how to fix 'em.  please help.
        \_ rdate -s {some machine that has the right time} or man date
           if you're not lazy.
        \_ man date
                \_ I prefer women.
                        \_ Hot asian women.
2000/3/22-23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:17821 Activity:very high
3/21    I've always built Intel but now I want Athlon.  Athlons and their
        motherboards are reliable right?  What specific CPU / motherboard
        would you recommend?  Pointer to performance comparison so people
        don't bonk me on the head would also be appreciated.  Thanks.
        \_ No.  Wait 2 months.
           \_ Agreed.  At the very least, do *not* buy a MB based on AMD's
              Irongate chipset.  Get one based on VIA's KX133 (such as the
              soon-to-be-out Asus K7V)
        \_ Any reason you want to buy Athlon?  -emarkp (Intel employee)
           \_ [Ignoring the drivel below]
              The Athlon is cheaper at the higher clock frequencies.
                \_ But the cache runs at 1/3rd speed.  The next ones out will
              low performance, kinda like a rice-boy who spends 15K
                   be faster, probably full speed.  That's why I said wait 2
                   months.  Also the MBs are kinda shitty.
                   \_ Most RISC CPUs have full or 1/2 speed caches, and 1 MB
              his civic even if he used his NO2s.
                      and 2 MB caches are pretty standard, rather than exotic
                      and "revolutionary" as they are advertised for older
                      CISC crap. Also buying Athlon means you have to deal
                      with sitty PC BIOSes and IRQ's and such. Sparc and PPC
                      mb's have all the latest stuff like USB, FireWire and
                      PCI while also giving you the advantages of OpenFirmware.
                      Buying a PC is just like buying a cheap car and then
                      tricking it. Its a waste of $s since what you end up
                      with underperforms the equivalent "professional"
                      version. Further more, clock speed is not everything.
                      Both PPC and Sparc execute 2 or 4 instructions per
                      clock cycle, thus at lower speeds they are more than
                      competetive.
                                        unlike the athlon?_/
                      clock cycle, thus at lower speeds they can outperform
                      the chips from Intel and AMD. Also RISC chips like
                      PPC generate less heat and use less power, so compared
                      to x86 or Athlon, its like buying a v8 that gives you
                      the gas milege of a v4.
                      \_ note how you can't drive a formula one on public
                         streets, also i have an athlon.  just got it and
                         it has 2 usb in the back besides RISC can't
                         optimize for crap anyway.
                      \_ Uhm yeah.  I'm specifically talking about the 1/3rd
                         Athlon cache speed on the 1 giga hz chip.  Not your
                         generic, knows-nothing-about-Athlons description.
                         Anyay, what the hell good is your Sparc or PPC or
                         whatever if it doesn't run my software?
                         \_ It's to impress all his geek friends. Geeks don't
                            run apps. They just like specs.
                                \_ Its more than specs. A Lose* machine
                                   couldn't handle the kind of things I
                                   ask my systems to do. A Linux/*BSD x86
                                   box might be able to, but by the time
                                   I added a decent nic, scsi etc they
                                   aren't all that cost effective. Also
                                   x86 based systems are saddled with
                                   the crappy pc bios and all of the other
                                   problems associated with it. I recently
                                   bought a laptop with USB, FireWire, VGA
                                   out, S-Video out, dvd a 5 hour battery
                                   life and wireless 11 Mbit ethernet (that
                                   has encryption enabled). Guess what, it
                                   isn't based on a x86 (or clone) chip. In
                                   fact most x86 vendors can't even match
                                   all these features.
                                   \_ What things do you ask of it?  The box
                                      you spec'd out is nothing special.  And
                                      what's wrong with the pc bios?  You
                                      tried out a pc bios written in the last
                                      15 years?
                                      \_ Yes. I have a pc bios for my x86 box
                                         that was written circa 1996. It is
                                         in no way as easy to use as open
                                         firmware on my mac and my sun. show-devs
                                         .properties, printenv and a full forth
                                         interpreter blows the crap out of a
                                         any bioses I've every seen.
                                         \_ That's nice.  And uhm exactly how
                                            much time do you spend in the bios
                                            writing forth code?  You're coming
                                            off sounding like a geek which is
                                            normally pretty hard to do on the
                                            motd, given the audience.  We're a
                                            long way from 1996 and thank god I
                                            don't have a stupid forth
                                            interpreter in my bios.  What next?
                                            MS Basic?  Get real.
                       an Athlon. PPC is much better.
           \_ Because he doesn't know anything about processors and wants
              to buy a CISC x86 clone instead of a modern RISC processor
              like Sparc, PPC (RS6000,Power4) or Alpha. He's all about
              low performance, probably a rice-boy who spends 15K
              tricking his 12K civic so its a rice-rocket civic racer.
              If he decides to put all is money together (27K) he could
              by a real man's car with at least a v6 that would trounce
              his civic even if he used his NO2s. -- driving American v8
              and computing with Dual PPC's and Dual UltraSparc 2's.
              \_ PPC's rock!  Down with Intel!
              \_ And how many miles per gallon do you get on your American v8?
                 \_ Roughly 23.  Depends on how fast I drive same as anyone
                    else.  Never below 20.  Never above 25.  Always have AC
                    on.
                    \_ Mine give 15 to 20. But I care about performance not
                       about fuel efficiency. If I wanted power/thermal
                       efficiency in a processor I wouldn't pick x86 or
                       an Athlon. PPC is much better and faster.
                        \_ Thermal efficiency is important for laptops.  I
                           don't care if my cpu will blacken an egg so long
                           as it doesn't burn itself up.  Heat the whole
                           damn building for all I care.  Power, baby!  Gimme
                           speed!
              \_ Or spend the $27K on a Prelude from the same manuf.
                 \_ A Civic weighs a lot less once you strip it. A lot of
                    racers then swap engines for a Prelude or Acura
                    engine. It makes for a fun hobby, I guess. --dim
                    \_ RICE BOY ALERT!
                       \_ Nah. My brother is into all of that shit. --dim
                          \_ Slap him awake.  Do him a favor.
              \_ And if the apps aren't available for the OSes that run on
                 those nifty processors, what's the point?
                 \_ QUAKE3!!!@!@!!11
2000/3/22-23 [Computer/SW/Compilers, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:17822 Activity:nil
3/21    Is there a gcc option to force labels to be outputed and to be
        included in the ELF symbol table.  I'm trying to profile this
        code:

        beginloop:
          for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            y[i] = a*x[i] + y[i];
          }
        endloop:

        and so I want gcc -S to produce those labels in the .s file and
        for the assembler/linker to add those to the symbol table.  I'm
        trying to profile this code using a machine simulator that looks
        at ELF symbol table code markers for performance simulations. -jefe
        \_ I suggest using gcc's extended asm. Say  __asm__("beginloop:\n");
           instead of  beginloop:  and then the assembler will add these labels
           to the symbol table. If you need them to be global symbols, it's
           easy enough to do: __asm__(".globl beginloop\n"); -brg
2000/3/22 [Uncategorized] UID:17823 Activity:nil
3/22    Does anyone know the proper technique for applying cunnilingus?
        my gf is too shy to talk about it with me.
2000/3/22-23 [Uncategorized] UID:17824 Activity:nil
3/21    Backstreet Boys "music" does serve a useful purpose!
        http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000322/re/life_backstreetboys_1.html
2000/3/22-23 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:17825 Activity:insanely high
3/22    SHIT!  My linux gateway running ipchains got cracked.
        How?  --PeterM
        \_ Run a BSD.  Any BSD.  No, really.  Linux sucks.
           \_ How about:
              BSD security >> Linux security, but Linux is getting there
                \- realistically i think there are just more linux
                root kits floating around. same reason more solaris
                boxes get cracked than say ultrix.irix machines. --psb
                \_ In my experience, VMS security >> HP security >>
                   SUN security >> IRIX security >> Linux security >>
                   Windows security. IRIX really sucks and SGI ships
                   the OS wide-open. --dim
                        \- i work in this area so my data is based on a lot
                        of machines and not just on my experience. most people
                        cracking systems are just trying a lot of doors and
                        arent picking locks. the doors the usually get into
                        arent necessarily the easiest ones to pick but the
                        ones with the most spare keys floating around or the
                        most likely to have been left unlocked. VMS machines
                        arent cracked because very few people have access
                        to them, or sources etc. i agree solaris security is
                        better than irix security but there are more suns
                        and more peopel have access to suns ... hence more
                        solaris root kits. --psb.
                        solaris root kits. a lot of the weeinie crackers
                        dont even know the difference ... you see people
                        using solaris eject cracks on irix machines all the
                        time. you know you are dealing with a clown when a
                        cracker's editor of choice is pico. [which it is
                        more and more often these days] --psb
                        \_ I agree completely. I just wanted to point out
                           how much IRIX sucks. --dim
                                \- back in the old days suns used to "ship"
                        with + in /etc/hosts.equiv. it only took a few years
                        for sun to admit they had their head up their ass on
                        on that one. SGI was even more intrasigent about the
                        lp/guest etc accounts. whenever you would complain to
                        SGI they would either point to "small print" or defend
                        what they did with "we know better" ... well apparently
                        "the market" knew better. --psb
        \_ sendmail, dns, irc, ftp, what else are you running?
           \_ no ftp, irc.  Running sendmail as an smtp server for
              the internal network, but blocking connections from
              outside.  Running DNS.  Nothing else that I know of
              offhand.
                \_ move DNS serving to an internal machine. This
                   will take some of the load off and also close
                   a potential security hole. I also switched to
                   to postfix which seems to be more secure than
                   sendmail.
                \_ In recent history, all of those other daemons have
                   had a lot more security problems than sendmail.
                                \_ I haven't seen as many CERT warnings
                                   about postfix as for sendmail and
                                   qmail.
                        \- what version of named? are you running named
                        unprivilaged and chrooted? this was a common attack
                        on freebsd. --psb
              \_ what are your rules?  wuftpd supposedly has some buffer
                 overflow exploits.
                 \_ "no ftp"?
        \_ RedHat 6.1?
        \_ an inside job?
                \_ a blown job?
2000/3/22-23 [Uncategorized] UID:17826 Activity:moderate
3/22    What do you think of Bud's "Whassup" commercials?
        \_ nothing.
        \_ frogs were better
        \_ You fucking stupid?  Who cares?
                \_ that's the point.  Its stupid.
                        \_ No.  I mean "Who cares if it's stupid?"  Why bother
                           mentioning yet another friggin' stupid commercial?
                           It's a commercial!  Of course it's stupid!
        \_ Ya know, this really shows me that my efforts to watch less TV are
           working -- the Boondocks (comic strip) mentioned these commercials
           too and I had no idea what it was talking about.
        \_  the superfriends remake of this as a .mov file is pretty funny.
Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2000:March:22 Wednesday <Tuesday, Thursday>