Operating System

[Xp0nential]

I would like to know what OS is each one using, and the reasons for their choice :D

I personally use OpenBSD , among the OSs I've tried till now I liked it most. Its robust and stable.
In addition the priority of the OpenBSD team is security, something I find important.

I've tried most major distributions of linux, Solaris. I am winhoes free by the way wooohooo!!!
And finally I settled on using BSD which I really prefer .

[converge]

xp on this box for now for test purposes and general use.
98se/slak7.1 on my laptop... linux on a laptop is almost a must for me... client + router + dev + http + ftp + etc.etc = portable power

- other oses at the moment include 98se, nt4s, win2ks, .net adv

- ditched oses include all versions of redhat, vms5 (bored for now), macos8, corel linux, mandrake, freebsd

i'm hearing good things about the newer version of slak (especially kde2 for the gui fr34ks... ).. also debian seems to be getting rave reviews from a few on the board and some friends

[Golden_Eternity]

I'm running win2k pro on my desktops and red hat as my server of choice. At work my system is a 2k/rh 7.1 dual boot because imo linux isn't ready to compete with windows as a workstation, but it blows it out of the water when it comes to functionality. Of course 7.1 auto-detected my sound card while 2k is convinced its an "Unknown PCI device" of some sort, so that's a point in anaconda's favor.

Why do I run them? Well, 2k because its actually stable... My god, a decent OS from microsoft... I wish I could su, though... (run as doesn't count)

RH because it annoys the hell out of people and because I know how to make it secure (see my dc8 ctf entry). I learned linux on rh, so I know it well. Also, that's what was running on the server when I started working there, so that's what it remains.

rpm makes it real easy to track some of the lower profile programs that make up your environment. Sure, I'll build apache from scratch, but when random package 0.93-1.tgz has a hole, its nice to be able to rpm -qa | grep "bleh" or hell even rpm -Fvh "fooblah".

OK, well, the booze is wearing off... time to go.

[Xp0nential]

It's funny but now that I remember.
Linux was a whore to install on my laptop. The one that went smoothly was Slackware.
And the best was OpenBSD , I actually was surprised :)
later
Xp0nential

[DrSuSE]

I'll give you just one guess

[converge]

Xp0.. What would you compare OpenBSD to? I haven't tried it. Probably mistakenly, I equated my experience with FreeBSD into not even bothering with OpenBSD. FreeBSD seemed interesting, but for some reason was being a real b1tch with my hardware...

[Xp0nential]

well good question heh.

Actually , to the ones I used before(i.e the OS i've listed them somewhere on this thread) I find it the best.

I've never used FreeBSD. I feel very comfortable with OpenBSD right now I like it.

Aside from hardware incompatibilities. What did you think about OBSD? cause you know the OS is not just about hardware drivers.

later
Xp0nential

[converge]

soon as I get a cdrom I'm gonna give it a try... my systems are in a slight state of stall, but I should be rolling again soon (hopefully a week or so)

[Pyr0]

Slackware, Winnt 4.0 sp6a, Win98se

Slackware: personal favorite for all except gaming
Winnt 4.0 : Server OS that majority of clients are using
Win98se : Gaming

[omega884]

Mac OS 9: Used on my desktop mac (old computer but still kicking for everyday use). I like the Mac OS, I jus find it easy to use and fast for gettign daily tasks done. Besides, the voice matching login is pretty damn cool!

Mac OS X: Used on my iBook. I love the interface, it's fast, stable and most of all, supports *NIX programs. It is Linux in a user friendly form, and it's the only version of Linux I can get to run on my iBook.

Win 2k: I know I know, evil windows, but hey, I need a gaming machine and the consoles get kinda dull after a while.

RedHat 7: I toy arround with this every once in a while, just for fun.

That's about it for me, I tried Turbo Linux but didn't like it.

[converge]

omega... hop oon irc and grab a copy of xp corp... you'll appreciate it if you run m$ for a game box... better game / hardware support than 2k... more stable than 98...

[omega884]

I would prefer to avoid XP, anything with that much integration with Microsoft's web servers scares me.

[converge]

?? what integration with m$ servers? I think your mistaking it for the .net based blackcomb that is in development... only thing that bugs me is the repeated loading of their chat software, that I can't quite get to stay disabled at startup... otherwise, the closing thing to integration with there servers is windowsupdate. site and or the default msn homepage in ie

[simon]

I run Debian GNU/Linux 2.2r4. XF86 4.1.0, Modified Ximian Gnome desktop environment, on a 2.4.9 main branch linux kernel (not an allen cox tree etc). And EPOC OS on my PDA.

I use Debian b/c I agree with the projects politics, their packaging system and great community. Infact this server is being hosted on Debian/Apache.

I would try a bsd except I like the packaging and dependency resolution of dpkg/apt-get, and the fact there are 10 developers developing for a linux project for every 1 bsd developer.

Although I would consider running bsd as a server for "security" sake. But generally I dont have random people on my boxes. Only invited ones that are "trusted"...


Here is a list of os's I've tried or tried to get working:
OpenBSD
FreeBSD
Debian GNU/Linux
Redhat
Mandrake
TurboLinux
SuSE
Slackware
Win3x
Win9x
Win2k pro/server
WinME
MS-DOS
PC-DOS
Plan9
MacOS 6-10

And Debian has been my favorite so far.

-simon

[Xp0nential]

I am curious about Plan9..
how would you rate that OS?

[simon]

Unusable =]

That one actually falls under the category of tried to get working. It didn't seem to support any piece of my hardware. Actually now that I think about it I am going to try it again... But with a different box. Man-o-Man-o.

simon

[omega884]

But could you tell me what Plan 9 is?

And also, has anyone out there used or have a copy of Microsoft Bob?

[astcell]

W2KP and NT4SP6a at work.
98SE and 98ME at home.
I have an XP disk I will use as a repair when SE gets hacked up.
Tried loading BeOS but it hates my laptop.

...and I can remember standing out in line for DOS 4.0....

[simon]

Originally posted by omega884
But could you tell me what Plan 9 is?

And also, has anyone out there used or have a copy of Microsoft Bob?


Plan 9 is an operating system that has come out of Bell Labs within the past 10 years I think... It was designed to out do UNIX due to some fundimental weaknesses in its design.

The home page for the 3rd release of Plan 9 is available here: http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/index.html
A search on google for "Plan 9 OS" with the quotes brings up some good links.

That is also one of the underlying ideas behind the GNU/Hurd project. The folks at debian are working on Hurd as well. Check the following links for mo' info.

GNU/Hurd Home Page
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html

Debian GNU/Hurd Website
>> http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/

Interview with a Hurd Kernel Hacker
>> http://kerneltrap.com/article.php?thold=0&mode=nested&order=2&sid=375

Hope that helps =]
simon

[192.168.0.101]

for right now it is:

2k/RH 7.3

this might sound bad but... i actually installed 2k because i like writing java code in a program called Kawa better than VA for java on my linux machine. (Forgive me father for i have sinned)
no, 2k is actually way more stable than i would have guessed.
Linux is where the heart is and i've historically always used suse, but i'm into "experimentation" so i try to keep with it fresh.

late,

.:192.168.0.101:.

[simon]

*nix's tend to be better for me and I would argue anyone (learning something new asside).

It's just important not to get stuck in ruts me thinks.

[Hex2ip]

My favorite is QNX. Real time operating system, perfect 4 home and work.

[octalpus]

I just downloaded the QNX demo disk. Doesn't look too terrible... I might have to try it out. Most of our boxes here run SuSE. I got hooked when it was the only thing that loaded without any special help on several of my boxes. I do have WinMe running on this one, because I can't quite get my tuner card to run under Linux. I hope to have that remedied soon. I also have some oddities around here, such as the Amiga 500 I salvaged from my mom's garage (wow, I forgot how much I loved that thing!).

[converge]

now that a friend lured me into vmware.. i dont think I'm ever going back.... just run any damn thing you want... then delete it if it doesn't serve a purpose

www.vmware.com

[opcom]

VMS is my first choice, for stuff that I care about.
I'm using 7.3 on an alphaserver 2000. It has pretty much everything I need, runs Apache, and has the CDE now instead of Motif or DECwindows.
The o/s and layered product licenses are free at
http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/

They've finally done it -changed the d|i|g|i|t|a|l logo to "Compaq" in 7.3

Otherwise,
NT 4.0 for the DEC Alpha.
LINUX RH6.2 -which besides being a great o/s, also makes a great xwindow server for VMS on older VAXen.

win98se ho hum -it came with a computer I got out of the trash.

RSX-11 (but only when the moon is full)

[converge]

compaq sucks! digital was the best...

my only experience with vms is on a microvax3300... with dssi

hehehe I use them as lamp posts right now... only wish bsd had ported for the dssi support (heard lack of tech info was the reason)

[simon]

Whats that satistic... 5-6 new os's come out of MIT a year? It would be cool to see what some rich kids can put together =P I"m guessing all micro or mach kernal based systems with no support except for ia32 and generic vga, pci stuff. oh wells. I'm rambling... WEEE!

[converge]

ud think these highcash geeks could pull together and make something worthwhile in their spare time

[windowsme]

WEll they aint got anoting int their hands except their <Beeps>
and playboy. so they should be able to come uo with a kick ass system is they all werent crack heads which parents paid them to go through school beggining in the 1st grade.

[skroo]

Here's a brief rundown of what I'm running on my network:

- Dual P-233: Slackware 8.
- Dual P3/550: BeOS R5, Win98SE.
- P2/350: Slackware 8.
- P-200: BeOS R5.
- BeBox (133MHz): BeOS R5.
- Mac SE/30 (two of them, in fact): MacOS 7.5.3.
- Power Computing PPC/180. MacOS 8, SuSEPPC.
- IBM RS/6000, Model 7011: AIX 4.3.3.
- IBM RS/6000, Model 7012: Was AIX 3.something, drive died.
- SGI Indy (R4400): Irix 6.5.13.
- Sun Sparc4: Solaris 7
- NeXTstation: Unknown (haven't booted it with monitor yet)

That's pretty much the majority side of things... From here, it descends into a sea of Kaypros, Osbornes, and Ataris, and just gets weird

[Drey]

I personally use SuSE.

I've tried FreeBSD, Debian, and Mandrake, (not to include the various Windows OS's I've seen)

and run a network at work of various Windows NT, 98, 2k, and Mandrake clients.

[simon]

Actually I think I just read somewhere that an MIT or maybe Harvard student got bust for pocession of heroin. He went to the police station to have it tested to see if it was legit stuff. It was and they busted his ass.

So HEH!#@

[Xp0nential]

Actually not all MIT students are rich as you portray.
A lot of them are funded by governments and a lot of them receive help from MIT.
I actually read somewhere on the MIT EE page, that if you get accepted to their college . If you have difficulty paying the tuition they will help you find money to pay it <-- I wouldn't find that weird.
later

[simon]

I think that goes without saying. Most all colleges will help you out. But MIT still cost a bazillion dollars. Literally.

[Xp0nential]

yes but still I wouldn't mind being there

[binarybandito]

I have been using FreeBSD for about a year, and I must say I love it beyond words. I had been using Linux for a few years before that, but I find that while using an almost entirely Monolithic kernel like FreeBSD does you will surely take a performance hit, I find that configuring said kernel was a breeze. It didn't "detect" all of my hardware on installation, but anything it didn't find I compiled into the kernel with no problem. I love the way the /etc and /dev are laid out, and I find the filesystem to be much more user friendly than any linux distro I've ever used.

One thing ive noticed is that FreeBSD (I'm using a year old 4.3, they have newer releases now) is not as stable as Linux, and although it has yet to crash on me, it does give me kernel error messages every now and then. If I was a security person (I don't do computers for a living) I would definitely go with Linux, but as an end user, I find FreeBSD beats Linux hands down (I'm sure all the defcon people are laughing at me now, fuck off).

I also have Plan9 on a partition, and admittedly I downloaded it, but from what I've seen, it sucks shit. It crashes on me a million times a day, I can't seem to make anything work, I can't even add new users, so I have to use the defaults. I'm sure if you actually bought a Plan9 distro it would be a lot better, and I'm sure if I knew more about it it would also be alot better, but I haven't found a single thing I like about Plan9, other than that certain horny feeling you get from using a new, fucked up OS and trying to figure it out.

I use win98 simply because my parents have an AOL account that I can use, and I couldn't afford internet access, but when I start going to school and they have their own network which is routed to the internet, you can be assured that every last trace of this piece of shit OS will be eliminated from my machine, which I treat as a holy shrine. My shrine is unpure, and needs to be cleansed, but for now I will wait.
Binary Bandito

[russ]

Are you serious? hahaha Unpure? Cleansed? heh

[binarybandito]

----Shadows creep into scene. Menacing music rises....---

Binary Bandito: "Oh I'm serious. More serious than you could ever know."

---In one swift, fluid motion the Binary Bandito presses non-descript looking button on the keyboard and russ explodes in a flurry of blood and tissue.---

Binary Bandito: "Mess with the best, die with the rest."

---Camera pans to mountain top, with Binary Bandito on the peak, sun setting in background.---

Binary Bandito: "m3 31337 H4x0r #1!!!!!!!."

---Fade to black with "Chariots of Fire" playing in background.---

Note from the Director-
This is just the beginning of a script for a movie I am writing about the battle between me and "russ" after his snotty little response. As you may remember, my post was about FreeBSD and my distaste for Windows. Anyway, the short answer to your question, russ, is yes. Very serious.
To view the rest of the script, visit
www.dontfuckwithboysfromnewhampshireyoubastards.ne t

[opcom]

is a VAX!

or maybe a pdp-8

here go d/l this 280MB avi file:

http://208.190.133.201/decimages/pdp8rescue.avi

but beware it's a 384K dsl, so there'll be a wait..

[russ]

Chariots of fire... nice touch.

[JonathanJames]

I used OpenBSD to set up a combined router/fw/portbouncer on my prior company's DMZ. Incredibly simple and speedy installation and maintainance, easy to strip down and very robust. I setup the system with strict fw-rules, denied all traffic except to BIND UDP, webtraffic (80) and SMTP. All of the service software was located on internally mapped servers (NAT) and strictly regulated so that only certified service traffic was allowed out.
I ran qmail as a mailprovider, a modified BIND as DNS, a stripped down Apache as a webprovider with no modules of any kind installed. I moved all the crucial binaries onto a CD and deleted them from the web/dns/mail and router. When needed I just inserted the CD and mounted it.
All traffic in and out of the system was also carefully monitored by a loganalyzer that we developed with a neurological IntrusionDetection Engine algorithm which also implemented blocking rules onto hosts that frequently tried to exploit/D.o.S our services.

We received about 500 intrusion attempts/D.oS'es per day for a period of approx. 1½ years. We nearly never rebooted the machines and never needed to either.

Just my $0.01...

Sincerely,
Jonathan