Re: IDS 2000 SOFTWARE
---- you wrote: > The fact that a program exists is not an excuse to use it. CPIO is the wrong media plain > and simple for software distribution. It is not in mainstream use, especially in LinuxLand, > where the de facto standard is gzipped tar files. In case anyone hadn't noticed Linux > was originally distributed this way in distributions like Slackware, which is still to this > day primarily .tgz files. A tar file is much easier to manage, and can easily be opened > in Windows98, or NT, after downloading it to make sure it is in good shape. Yes, but Linux is not a Microsoft product Dude. Not yet. In UNIX land the standard is compressed tar or compressed cpio files, and I mean 'compress'. If you want to open a file in NT, then you should have got the NT version, not the UNIX version. > Nope, in the course of my days and weeks day in and day out of whatever it is that I do, > I never EVER use CPIO. You can argue the merits of CPIO until you are blue in the face and > it will not convince me of its worth. DD on the other hand has merit, and quite useful for > a variety of tasks. Gzipped tar files are the standard plain and simple. They may be the standard you use, but that doesn't make them a UNIX standard Dude. Who do you think you are, Bill Gates? > But let me ask you Informix people, when your competition is keeping you down, don't you > think you owe it to yourself to keep from blundering too badly? All those lost opportunities, > all the kickings in the teeth from me, when is enough going to be enough for somebody with > some balls to stand up and show they have enough pride in Informix to stand up for the company? Okay Dude, they sell good products which I enjoy using. Admittedly they are not good at selling them, but hey, as long as they keep selling them, the users will be happy. If you have shares or something Dude, then dump them and go complain about another company. > It's very sad to see the spineless, lump of flesh Informix has become, rather than kicking ass > with some decent marketing, and some people to talk up the products. But hey, I guess I ask > too much. Well stop wasting your energy looking at it and go away. Dude, you have some serious negative energy. Did you recently lose a loved one or something? AB ---------------------------------------------------------------- Get your free email from AltaVista at http://altavista.iname.com
Ssssssssssssssssssssst..... <20 sec pause> ... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....whew..... Sorry, had to take a hit before we talked.... <cough cough> Loik Dued, I appreciate your comments. <cough> See my interspersed replies below.... a_blonde@mindless.com wrote: > > ---- you wrote: > > A tar file is much easier to manage, and can easily be opened > > in Windows98, or NT, after downloading it to make sure it is in good shape. > > Yes, but Linux is not a Microsoft product Dude. Not yet. In UNIX land the standard is compressed tar or compressed cpio files, and I mean 'compress'. If you want to open a file in NT, then you should have got the NT version, not the UNIX version. > Duded, You miss the reality of many enterprise computing environments, where there are Windows 9x and NT boxes, like them or not, as the client to UNIX. In the course of my little life I've used all the major UNIX platforms, including AIX, HP, Sun, Cray, Data General, Encore and a few other esoteric Digital boxes here and there. I am very familiar with UNIX. I am also forced like the majority of users out there to use Windows9x and NT. This is not the only reason to use tar instead of cpio, it's simply because TAR IS MAINSTREAM CPIO IS NOT. In the course of a day I can use Windows as a client or Linux or some UNIX, but it just so happens that downloading software is done on my Windows machine. It is very easy to pop a gzipped tar file open check the contents and then ftp it to whatever *NIX platform it belongs on. Also, did you happen to notice the inconsistencies in various Informix products? Some come as tar others as RPM and some as cpio and whatever else. Most if not all software downloaded for generic UNIX I've ever pulled in has been gzipped tar or compressed tar.Z files. Only recently has this problem really gone out of control, and the boys in the control room have not fully understood the issue of software release: It should be consistent, and easy to manage. > They may be the standard you use, but that doesn't make them a UNIX standard Dude. > Who do you think you are, Bill Gates? > Bill Gates doesn't do Linux or UNIX to the best of my knowledge base. :-) As I understand it, it's not about UNIX standards at this point, but simply about distribution consistency. If all Informix software for *NIX platforms were done as ONE format it would be a solution that I'm talking about. But let's say that cpio is done for ALL the software for *NIX. Who do you know out there in UNIX and Linux Land from other software companies that are distributing software in CPIO? None, if any at all. Solarious is using their pkgadd tool, but much of the after-market software for Sun is gzipped tar files. Same for AIX, HP, etc. If you knew anything about Linux, you would understand the issue for Linux as well. In fact if you're such a UNIX fan you should know about Linux. > > But let me ask you Informix people, when your competition is keeping you down, don't you > > think you owe it to yourself to keep from blundering too badly? All those lost opportunities, > > all the kickings in the teeth from me, when is enough going to be enough for somebody with > > some balls to stand up and show they have enough pride in Informix to stand up for the company? > > Okay Dude, they sell good products which I enjoy using. Admittedly they are not good at selling them, but hey, as long as they keep selling them, the users will be happy. If you have shares or something Dude, then dump them and go complain about another company. > Loik Dude, You bound two statements together that are not necessarily both true at the same time. Just because a company continues to sell products doesn't necessarily mean the end user is happy. I know of several situations where the customer continued to buy Informix, only to dump it all and buy the competition. Were they happy with Informix? No. Were they happy with the competition? No, but they had customers that insisted on using that software. My time is money. If I have to spend more time on a problem that should not exist, I get pissed off. Especially when I know the problem is one that should not have been created. Guys were mentioning dd. I use dd frequently, in tape backups or disk imaging, like what ghost does. Is this appropriate for software release? I don't know, ask the new-to-informix customers what they think when they get into a lurch with this while all the other players are using gzipped tar files. > > It's very sad to see the spineless, lump of flesh Informix has become, > > rather than kicking ass with some decent marketing, and some people to > > talk up the products. But hey, I guess I ask too much. > > Well stop wasting your energy looking at it and go away. This is indeed the solution. > Dude, you have some serious negative energy. Did you recently >lose a loved one or something? > Did you recently lose word-wrap? Actually I have some serious positive energy. Thanks to this little cpio problem, it delayed installing IDS.2000 enough that I couldn't demonstrate it at a local Linux User Group meeting. I simply didn't have the time to f*** with cpio. Had it been in gzipped tar files I could have allotted the time to setting up the engine and getting a demo ready for the meeting. Instead I demoed 7.30, and parts of OnWeb, which after doing its install, which failed on SuSE 6.2, then hacking the install to get it to work, it it still doesn't work right for some of the features. In the meantime Informix owes it to the end user to make the install as painless as possible. I gave a suggestion, and now Informix will do little if anything to fix it. Instead they will probably change the documentation and the "problem" will go away. > AB > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > Get your free email from AltaVista at http://altavista.iname.com -- . .- .-- .--- .---- Tim Schaefer .----- tschaefe@bellsouth.net .---- http://www.inxutil.com .--- http://www.datad.com .-- .- .