[LINK] Flaw puts Unix at risk from hackers

[Rachel Polanskis]

On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Danny Yee wrote:

> I've been using Unix/Linux since 1988, and I've never even *seen*
> a CDE desktop...

CDE is a right pain.  I install it for my own evil purposes
but use FVWM.   I have supported CDE since Solaris 2.5.1 and found it
pretty stable but only after lots of patching.

> > CDE common in the Linux space? I don't think so!

There is actually a Linux CDE out there as well as a lookalike
rendered in FVWM.

> P.S. Any hints on how to make GNOME run faster?  The machine with 64MB
> of memory I've set up for my mother is about as fast as an older 20MB
> machine was running Windows 3.1 :-( And the motherboard is crippled
> and won't take more than 64MB of memory :-( :-(

Time for a new computer.  64Mb is a minimal amount of RAM these days
and a typical recent Linux install is just as guilty of bloatitis as any
version of Windows.

As for the slow Gnome,  did you build it yourself or install a binary
package?   Gnome is quite resource hungry, as are most UNIX GUI's
(except FVWM and a few others).   Try reducing the screen colour depth
as a first thing.  You may also want to install less colour intensive
icon/pixmaps.   Last resort, compile it with very fast CPU specific
compiler and linker options.

I tried Gnome for the first time today - on Linux,
in my new part time job as a Linux wrangler.
I am not particularly impressed with it
either as it seems to be merely doing what all other Linux GUIs
do:  trying to out-windows windows.   Both CDE, Gnome and KDE are pretty
well just Windows wannabes and I find these sorts of GUIs add a lot
of cute but ultimately pointless dross that just gets in my way.

I have been using FVWM since 1994.   I have upgraded versions a few times
in that period but my actual config has barely changed in nearly 4 years.
Every workstation I use ends up getting my FVWM config on it at
some stage.   FVWM is very lightweight on memory and CPU and is only
a couple of megs in size.   I have a few pixmaps (icons) loaded for
colour but my desktop is extremely minimal.

CDE trivia:   The "dtmail" app which is an email program has MIME support.
When you attach a file, the MIME content boundaries, which are usually
some sort of not so random gibberish are replaced with collective names
for animals.   I have seen dtmail MIME content boundaries contain
things like "a murder of crows", "a pride of lions", "a school of dolphins"
and so on.  Running "strings" on the dtmail app is quite interesting
reading!

UNIX trivia:  The old SunOS 4 man page for the "tunefs" command
has a terrible pun at the end of it.  It says "You can tune a filesystem
but you can't tuna fish".   This is true!


rachel

-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove@zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
      "People don't say sorry in this country" - Max Connors (Seachange)