Re: Horrifying suggestion
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 06:04:52PM +0100, Peter Hugosson-Miller
> wrote:
>
> > That depends on whether you consider you can trust helixcode or
> > not. "arbitrary" to me means "selected at random", but that might
> > just be my bad English, I suppose.
>
> Actually, 'arbitrary' historically meant 'selected', usually by
> someone. So, if you said, "Use an arbitrary variable," you'd mean,
> "Use one you picked yourself, and not one of the system-defined
> ones."
Thanks, Andrew! Actually, the penny is beginning to drop for me now.
If I do as Ethan suggested and do a traceroute -n go-gnome, I see 23
hops between my computer and the intended destination. So it doesn't
really matter how much one might trust a particular site, at any one
of the sites on the way to go-gnome.com, Evil Q. Hacker could easily
intercept my http request, and send his own little trojan back to me.
Perhaps a better description of how to use go-gnome might look a bit
like this (just guessing - please don't try this unless Ethan says
it is OK!):
$ lynx -source http://go-gnome.com/ > /usr/bin/go-gnome
$ cksum /usr/bin/go-gnome
2779445806 34970 go-gnome
Now, look at the result above, compare with what the web site says it
ought to be (they would first have to add this information). If you're
still feeling cautious, then:
$ more /usr/bin/go-gnome
and look at the script. If all looks good then carry on:
& chmod +x /usr/bin/go-gnome
& su
Password: [Enter root's password here]
# /usr/bin/go-gnome
... helix gnome gets magically installed here ...
# <Ctrl>D
$
So now, thanks to Ethan, I've learned something, which is why I
subscribed to this list in the first place. I just hope that one day,
when I can stop calling myself a Linux Newbie, I'll remember just
how hard everything was in the beginning, and go easy on the whip
when I'm correcting the fresh newbies ;-).
> Still, you're close enough. I agree with you, by the way, that the
> Debian GNOME packages simply do not install as nicely as the Helix
> ones.
At least I'm not the only one who thinks so...
> The argument by the other poster that no-one on -devel could come
> up with a list of problems is completely spurious, because it's
> not like new Debian users are hanging out on the -devel list. (I
> would've thought that obvious, but apparently not.) Helix has gone
> to great lengths polishing the packages, and I think they've done a
> nice job. It's still GNOME (way buggier than I feel happy with),
> but it's better than the last time I looked at it.
The automatic bug-tracker is a really nice feature, for example.
I really have to admire Ethan for his loyalty to Debian, but he has
become such an expert that he's forgotten what it is to be a newbie.
It doesn't matter how many times one says "debian gnome works fine",
the fact is that, for a newbie, the debian gnome installation is
broken. If anyone disagrees with that statement, then please take
it off the list and send flames to hugge@slash_dev.slash_null.
So now, the score stands at 1 - 1. Let's call it a draw, and close
this thread ;-).
--
Best regards,
Peter Hugosson-Miller
"Linux - the choice of a GNU generation!"
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