[ILUG] Naive ADSL/WiFi questions (long (sorry!))?

[Ian O'Connell]

On 22/06/07, Gavin McCullagh <gmccullagh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, Ian O'Connell wrote:
>
> > Despite the extreme unpopularity of Tim's view, for the average
> > scenario he's quite correct, and in all my systems which came
> > pre-installed with windows that partition is re-sized down and left
> > alone. Given the amount of software/companies in the world who insist
> > on Microsoft its the sensible option to have it to hand. Its just as
> > bad to be a linux zealot as a Microsoft one.
>
> Nobody gets tagged a Microsoft zealot for not having linux installed and
> ready to go at any moment, I don't see why not having windows makes you a
> linux zealot.  Actually, I don't think I've ever heard anyone called a
> Microsoft zealot, the word zealot only seems to get used in the other
> direction.  Perhaps it's only deserved by linux people?

Honistly, yeah generally it is linux people who deserve it. I've come
across MS zealots, but they are few and far between, most people use
windows because its all they know. Its not being a zealot, thats just
getting by..... Declaring to the world that you use linux and anything
else is inferior as alot of this list do is pretty zealotish. Though i
suppose most linux users do pale in comparason to mac users in the
zealot stakes.Thou shalt all be converted to the following of our
leader Steve Jobs.

>
> > If a service engineer comes and installs his dsl do you really want to
> > have to that conversation on linux?
>
> Personally I would, though I can imagine others might not and that's up to
> them.  Every ISP that I know of can be used from linux (or mac, solaris,
> etc. for that matter).

Of course they can, there is no such thing as an os restriction on an
isp, so you'd start argue'n the merits of linux with an install
technician who just wants the thing to be setup so he can move onto
his next job/goto lunch?

>
> Why would an ISP ever consider investing the slightest time on any other
> operating system or avoid creating a dependency on windows if experience
> shows them that "everyone always has windows anyway".
Huh? you presume the ISP's have a dependency, anyone on this list will
tell you they don't. Their customers are the ones who like windows and
use it everywhere. So why bother spending money to train technicians
on an OS which is used by a negligble fraction of your customer base?
if you ever had a support issue and got through to an engineer they
probably have a few unix heads lie'n about in any isp, but you won't
find those on the support phones.

>
> > to take an example of ones i've encountered :
> > 1) NTL installation , guy was required to test setup, required a
> > windows machine to do that, he had no idea how to do anything on
> > linux. Was i going to argue with him ? why bother?
>
> That's strange, I've had two NTL lines set up, configured and tested using
> Linux.  Apparently some web-based config tool runs on their modems.  I made
> a point of telling them in advance that I needed an ethernet modem to avoid
> needing windows, which I don't have.  There was never even a question of
> windows -- bizarrely, one NTL engineer complimented my girlfriend on using
> linux, he'd "heard it was very good".

Fortunate for you then, the NTL modems are just ethernet to coax
bridges, they don't require any configuring at all(they read configs
off the network, nothing is really available client side). Buuut, the
NTL engineer wanted to go off and do his thing, so windows laptop to
the rescue again. All NTL modems that i've seen are ethernet modems,
though alot of the new ones are ethernet/usb, and oddly enough i found
myself using the usb last time i had one.(slightly OT, but it works
seemless under linux, just shows up as another ethernet device)

>
> > 2) Eircom business DSL installations, similar.
>
> They don't use ethernet modem/routers with web-based configs any more?

That they do, but 2 i've delt with were a bit confused when they saw
linux on a screen, if your paying for an installation they want to go
off and configure network settings(horribly as they did it) and such,
windows laptop lie'n around covered that for me.

>
> > Whether its right or not is irrelevant, 99% of the worlds pc computers
> > are running windows,
>
> I think that's more like 90-92% but anyway.

Exactly, its pretty irrelevent the exact %, alot of the remainder of
that 10% is mac's or machines in datacentres, not home users running
linux.

> > when it comes to on site technicians or dealing with phone support
> > regarding hardware faults its only sensible if the machine came with
> > windows then keep it about and don't go causing agro that  benefits no
> > one......
>
> It's somewhat beside the point but I actually did this some time back.  I
> needed windows to run Irish Broadband's testing tool (which was actually
> written in java, but very awkward to get working on linux[1]).

While somewhat slightly OT, it does more or less validate my point for
your given senario...

> So, I plucked out a year-old Windows 2000 install on a laptop (this was
> late 2005).  I did indeed manage to get the tool started.  Shortly
> afterward, the laptop randomly rebooted.  Huh?  Of course, I hadn't been
> patching it so it almost immediately fell victim to a worm.  I don't regard
> this as being Microsoft's fault either.  If you keep an OS unbooted and
> therefore unpatched for a long time and then put it on the internet, you're
> liable to get in trouble.  I learnt a similar lesson with RedHat 6.2 some
> years ago.

No but even a NAT alone is enough protection for you to turn on an
archaic windows install and goto the ms update site and patch it.
While you have a valid point, and for most 'windows' style users it
would be a big issue... but i dunno i'd have hoped anyone who decided
that they wanted to spend their life in linux would have the common
sence to update their windows if they run it.


-- 


Ian.