kohlrak: Works more often with Linux than windows, yet your arguments here aren't about how you like windows, but instead how you don't like the FOSS movement and Linux. On linux you can copypasta and all that just like usual, except linux does have one cool feature that's left out, not that it's a big one or anything, but linux doesn't lock files from deletion like windows: so a file that's running can be deleted while it's running, which is an issue for virus removal in windows. If you try to disable the virus, it likes to run 2 or 3 copies at a time. If you can delete it before cutting it out of the system, you can knock it out entirely. Plus, it doesn't result in the need for tools like "unlocker" simply because a folder you're trying to delete was recently open in windows explorer, even if it isn't currently open. And this is ignoring the self-contained executable and save file potential.
However, that's a really obscure example, but it serves a point. What you're saying you want to be able to do that windows provides you with, those things are also in the alternatives. Your arguments are falling apart, and fast, and seem to be missing this quality of you performing self-analysis.
So, in order to solve that problem, I'd like to take a shot at guessing what your real issue is, if you don't mind. You admitted that it's personal with you, you admitted that you actually believed in Linux before. You admit that people in the linux community were giving certain unknown individuals a hard time due to elitism. I'm going to go out on a limb, and suggest that maybe you're just really sore at Linux and FOSS because of a loud minority, silent majority setup. You didn't like a change that was made when you were trying out linux, or maybe you wanted something to be different. You believed that in FOSS that it could or would be possible to simply request it and it would be, which was wrong. Perhaps you didn't like the move away from menu type interfaces to cellphone style interfaces (a major problem i had which is what had me leave ubuntu: there was talk about making their own new interface a mandatory standard, so i switched to Fedora), or maybe you don't like the issue with dependencies (which is a real problem all around, but you don't have this programmer vibe that would expose you to the reality of this), or who knows. When you suggested that efforts be focused on the problem you suggested, you got mocked, and hardcore mocked. With your ego bruised, and not being able to make or maintain the changes that you wanted, you got really sore really quick, and blamed the community as a whole for the actions of a few (as evidenced by the fact that you suggest I'm very, very different from the rest of the linux community, when in reality i am, but not for the reasons you describe). You've become too invested, by taking too bold of stances with those around you, people here, and elsewhere, for you to admit that maybe you were wrong, because that would be totally embarrassing. I'm probably not 100% right, but this is my working idea, right now. So, how'd i do?
TLDR Dude SHORTEN IT! Throwing bucket loads of text doesn't strengthen your argument. Too much is just as lazy as too little so get to the point and only stick to the impotent stuff. Try to keep your responses to one paragraph or five sentences.
Wasn't a problem until now (and you were writing nice long posts for a while, yourself), so it seems i'm right. I could make arguments on why longer arguments are more appropriate, but it's clear at this point.
dtgreene: I actually remember a compiler having an option to include an arbitrary DOS program of up to 64k as the stub, and I am wondering whether it's ever been used in interesting ways.
That's interesting. I've never seen that, but i believe it. I've seen quite a few strange compiler options before, but we know that such an option would not be strange in the least.
kohlrak: Works more often with Linux than windows, yet your arguments here aren't about how you like windows, but instead how you don't like the FOSS movement and Linux. On linux you can copypasta and all that just like usual, except linux does have one cool feature that's left out, not that it's a big one or anything, but linux doesn't lock files from deletion like windows: so a file that's running can be deleted while it's running, which is an issue for virus removal in windows. If you try to disable the virus, it likes to run 2 or 3 copies at a time. If you can delete it before cutting it out of the system, you can knock it out entirely. Plus, it doesn't result in the need for tools like "unlocker" simply because a folder you're trying to delete was recently open in windows explorer, even if it isn't currently open. And this is ignoring the self-contained executable and save file potential.
It's worth noting that what's going on (in Linux) isn't actaully a delete operation, but rather an unlink operation. When a file (that doesn't have any hardlinks to it) is opened by a process, it has a link count of 2. Use a program like "rm" (or "unlink", for that matter) to remove the file, and it will only remove the link; the link count will still be 1. As a result, while the program has the file open, it will still take up space on disk, though it can't be accessed by name. The disk space won't actually be freed until the process closes the file, reducing its link count to 0, and triggering the deletion of the file.
Not really different, actually. When you delete a file on Windows, it's actually still an unlink and in both scenarios the file takes up space after deletion, but it becomes uncounted, since the link is gone. As for it taking disk space while still open, this makes sense since it shouldn't just automatically cache the file to RAM/swap, if it's a large file. In all file systems, and this is probably to preserve the disk longer, they only delete the references to files, usually, and not actually zeroing the sectors that the file takes up, which really makes me wonder why windows takes so long to delete some files.
A hard link allows you to create a second link to the file on the filesystem. Note that this only works within the same finesystem; you can't link across filesystems. Changing a file will change the one its hardlinked to, but deleting one will not actually delete the file as its link count will still be positive.
Interesting. I've honestly always wondered why one would want to hard link, when softlinks seem to be available in more cases.
Incidentally, if you delete the last filesystem link to an open file, and the system then crashes unexpectedly, you will have a file sitting one the filesystem, but which can't be accessed, wasting space. Fortunately, tools like fsck can fix this, removing the unreferenced file from the system (or perhaps allowing recovery, typically by creating a link in the "lost+found" directory (ever wondered what that's for?), and journaling filesystems have journals that can be used to quickly correct the issue on mount.
This seems to be more of a EXT# weakness, rather than a quality of the OS. Have you ever tried this on linux working with an NTFS drive? It'd be interesting to experiment.
