Amusing story if it means what I think it does.
On Friday 07 May 2004 17:57, Alexander Henry wrote:
> On Fri, 7 May 2004 18:29:59 -0500, Jerry Davis <jfdecd@wi.rr.com> wrote:
> >> How does one truly utilize Linux in a multi-user configuration?
> >
> > In linux it is ALREADY there. I do it all the time.
> > And as usual there are several ways.
>
> War stories from when I was getting my BS in Computer Science (1992 thru
> 1997):
>
> There were Sparc stations, older DECs, and DECs with oooo... color
> monitors in the main lab, mixture of older Sparcs and 386's in another,
> and Sparcs and Macs in a distant one for more 'public' use, and dumb tty
> terminals in the library that were either open to the main accounts
> through telnet or hard-wired to run lynx in the library's search system.
> I got my first account for a CSC101 class, which I used for my entire
> accademic career. I could log in to any one of the Sparcs or decs, and
> start working. Any lab, any building, log in, 'cd homework5', and go.
> Actually, first thing I would do was an rwho, which would display everyone
> that was logged into the network. So if my friends jhantin or blondie
> were in another building, I could zwrite them a whassap, or send them a
> talk session. who would display just logins of people at my machine,
> which was useless. I could configure X with a certain window manager,
> these settings were preserved when I logged into a different machine. Now
> I know this is because each computer was linked to the same NFS server.
> They all knew to look at the NFS, find /home/a/h/ahenry, and hook me up.
> If I wanted to use a program that was only available, say from the
> engineering lab's server, I'd telnet to the server, xhost+, and when I ran
> the program on the foreign machine, the window would display on the
> machine at which I was physically sitting. Later, I learned about nohup.
> I exploited this in my advanced classes, say when I was learning about
> random number generators and how to test their effectiveness. I would
> compile several slightly different versions of a test, and at say 11pm
> telnet over to other machines and run one on each, nohupped, then logged
> off and went home to sleep. When I woke up, the results were there,
> except for maybe one or two instances when one of the Indians who
> frequented the labs from 12mid to 4am bumped into the power button. Oh
> ya, did I mention macs and pc's? Macs were there to run Wordperfect,
> Printshop, and paint programs. They did have NCSA Telnet, which gave you
> a dumb terminal into one of the 'real' computers, and you could do
> whatever work you could muster, as long as it only involved command line.
> PC's were toys. You'd learn how to write a terminate-stay-resident
> program, maybe write an assembly routine that did ray-tracing graphics,
> then move on for real work. In 1995, we got a donation from Silicon
> Graphics which included I think eight Indys and a $250,000 Onyx. We
> learned about 3D graphics in OpenGL. That was the first time I ever had
> do think about the physical computer at which I was sitting; 3D displays
> were 0.05 times the speed over the network than at the monitor physically
> hooked up to the screen.
>
> Then I went to work at Honeywell, 1997. First thing I wanted to do is get
> to know the system, where the apps were, which system I needed access to
> to get my apps, my co-worker's logins so I could send them whassaps and
> ask questions when I had problems and so I could cd over into their public
> directory into their account and share files. First roadblock... The
> entire system was... toys. PC's. I found the system admins, and asked
> them how I could get a UNIX prompt. They said the only way was with
> something called Exceed, which was $250/seat and managers didn't ever sign
> off on it. Okay... so how do I telnet to my co-workers' PC's and get
> their files? You don't... Oh... So where is the central NFS, where the
> work is done? What do you mean? I said the network? They went, oh,
> here, and showed me the Netscape icon in the start menu.
>
> Finally, in 2001, I FINALLY have all this functionality back. After they
> got rid of the X terminals in all labs at ASU, I was forced to install
> Mandrake on my PC, and did a ssh/xhost+ to ASU's research cluster to run
> Matlab. AHHHh..
>
> Linux hackers are not extremists. They're reactionaries. We're trying to
> get things BACK to where they were when real work was done.
--
<:-)Mike(-:>
This message has been scanned for viruses by the VEI Internet
Automatic Email Spam and Virus Scanner, and is believed to be free of spam or viruses.
Please report spam to
spamtrap@vei.net. If you would like 98.9 % spam blocked from your
E-mail then go to VEI Internet for details. Anti-spam/Anti-virus is FREE with every account.
http://www.vei.net/
mailtospamtrap@vei.net
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
(text/plain)