Subject: RE: [hackers-il] Re: Hacktivity: An Automatic Win32 Building Scri pt for Freecell Solver

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 15:52:26 +0200

> You still have to download and install it. So chances are it won't be
> inscluded in a typical winzip installation. And if extra download is
> needed, why not go for zip/unzip?
> 
> (yes: winzip may have some nice features, but those seem 
> unrelevant here,
> or at least: not worth the price)

I think I got the command-line interface with winzip (8.0).
In any case, it really doesn't matter. Winzip itself may not exist on all
windows systems, and curl won't be there either...

Its much easier to automate your own windows machine, than someone elses. 
Several important things that are missing from typical windows
installations:
1. Cron. The windows scheduler is similar to at, which isn't nearly enough.
2. wget. We don't even have a sucky replacement.
3. zip/unzip
4. sed, awk, cp... Our images contain something called Mks32, which gives us
most of the unix tools we need. These things should really be standard for
any server class OS.

Just to clarify things: I didn't say that windows is stable and easy to
admin out of the box. I just say that if you ever discover that you have no
choice but to admin 400 windows machines with 100% uptime, don't despair. It
is possible.

Thanks,
Chen.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 16:59:17 +0300 (IDT)

> windows systems, and curl won't be there either...

I specifically have to download curl.exe.

> 2. wget. We don't even have a sucky replacement.

curl works for what I have to do.

> 3. zip/unzip

zip and unzip are open-source and under a BSD-like license. Micrsooft
should have no problem distributing them with WinXP.

> most of the unix tools we need. These things should really be standard for

What's wrong with Interix?

> choice but to admin 400 windows machines with 100% uptime, don't despair. It

Maybe. But they have to be your custom boxes, not just random
hetrogenous boxes. Google operates on a hetrogenous cluster with standard
home-like hardware. NT has miles to go before it can reach this state.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> Thanks,
> Chen.
>
>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked]
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"

---

From: Omer Musaev <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 18:33:06 +0300

> home-like hardware. NT has miles to go before it can reach this state.

My windoze machine ( WinNT 4.0 sp 5 ) runs on a home-like hardware, assembled 
by Ligad. It has a decent board ( which, IMHO, every home user should have ), 
and it has 256 MB RAM ( which is not that much today ). 

It works flawlessly. 

On the other hand, I have a linux box in a server room which is the box I am 
toying with. It has a junk hardware. It crashes.

Dell and compaq boxes give you SCSI, better power supplies, smaller 
form-factor, known hardware etc. I am absolutely sure that NT will run better 
on those than on the junk linux box. However, the same is right for Linux 
too.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:52:24 +0300 (IDT)

> on those than on the junk linux box. However, the same is right for Linux

Yes, but how in the mother of all gods are you going to install Windows
across a thousand hetrogeneous computers?

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish