[Linux&Gun Guy]

Im not sure if any of you guys know about Linux but its a free as in freedom and beer Operating System for computers. One of the main leaders in the Linux community is ESR. He is also pro gun and has a nice essay here at his site. (http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html) Hopfully this can act as a sort of bridge between the gun culture and the Open Source Software culture. Here is a link if your interested:

What is this Linux thing? (http://www.linux.org/info/index.html)

Its great that two cultures that share alot in comman (rights, freedoms) can benifite from each others knowledge. After all Linux is a tight-knit community all working together just like people hopfully work together in a small town if TSHTF. Try Linux and take a geek shooting - You'll both learn something. :)

[AZTOY]

Welcome to the THR

I have Suse linux personal 8.2 on a second hard drive. The problem i'm have is finding drivers for a Creative Blaster V-92 modem.:banghead:
I live in the sticks so no DSL or cable let. :(

So right now i'm stuck with windows:cuss:

[kenehsr]

Hi ya. I've never used linux. I'm still learning all the holes in windows. I guess thats y it's called windows in the first place.:neener:

[cordex]

Love toying around with Linux.

Very good essay too. Thanks for posting it.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

Welcome to THR.

I've seen Eric's pages before. I've exchanged emails and other pleasantries with him in years past and he's very Libertarian and pro2A as well as the other 9. Heck of a nice guy.

BTW, new guy buys the ammo and first round after he cleans everyone's weapons.

Regards,
Rabbit.

Learned on Bell Labs Unix with a PDP7.
AIX Certified.
Currently running Linux.
Likes FreeBeastie too.
Old BOFH.

[MrJones]

Being a Linux using gun nut, I find it odd how a lot of the people I know that are pro open source/pro filesharing/etc. are also anti-gun. If you believe in freedom of information, how hard is it to extend that to guns? I guess I'll never understand them.

[Dave Markowitz]

I'm yet another Linux geek who's heavily into guns. I'm currently using Red Hat 9 on my desktop and e-Smith 5.5 on my server, but I've also used SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, and Slackware. I've also played around with FreeBSD. I was a subject matter expert for the COMPTIA Linux+ certification, and ran into a few shooters in that group, too. :)

A few years ago I had some emails back and forth with ESR. I used to belong to the gun club he was joining at the time. He's good people and somebody we should be glad is on our side.

[Raistlin]

...I find it odd how a lot of the people I know that are pro open source/pro filesharing/etc. are also anti-gun.


Indeed. I've noticed on LinuxToday if ESR posts an article, someone simply has to post a talkback about Eric and his "evil" guns. :scrutiny:

--

Former TI System V admin
Former AIX admin
Linux user since RedHat 4.1
Distro of choice: Debian

[mattd]

I'd say alot of hackers are extreme pro 1st amendment because of source code and all and smart enough to support the other 9 amendments unlike most people.

[MrAcheson]

Open source zealotry tends to attract two types of ideologies. The first are the techno-libertarians and the second are the techno-hippies.

The first group likes ESR and tends to be pro-gun. The second dislikes ESR, loves Richard Stallman, and tend to be really liberal and anti-gun. Unfortunately there are few vocal techno-centrists for those of us who think both ideologies need work.

[foghornl]

Have poked around some with Caldera & Red Hat, but since my bread-winning life revolves around Win NT & MS Exchange, not much time for the Penguin.

Have looked at the semi-open source "office productivity" suite StarOffice a bit, too.

[Kris]

ESR is indirectly responsible for my gun ownership.

I read the gun information on his sight which started by interest in guns. I just bought my first gun last month...

[mtnbkr]

If you believe in freedom of information, how hard is it to extend that to guns? I guess I'll never understand them.

Because, to them, it's not about "freedom" for everyone, but "freebies" for themselves. When it comes down to brass tacks, many of the zealots would restrict any of your freedoms to secure their sacred cow (as witnessed by their support of the MS "anti-trust" litigation).

ex linux user...

Chris

[Silver Bullet]

Im not sure if any of you guys know about Linux
:(


We're not that single-minded. I've also heard of Starbucks and cell phones. :)

[garrettwc]

ESR is into guns, huh?! Very cool.

I see a lot to like with Linux. Especially since I am on critical update #39 for the year and #5 in the last 30 days on Windows. I tried an early (buggy) version of Mandrake and it was OK, but I didn't get to spend enough uptime with it to get real excited.

Lately, I've been thinking of trying it again. Maybe Xandros or one of the other easy transition versions.

[Orthonym]

If you read ESR's ENTIRE Website, as I did the other night, you'll find that there are seeds of conflict here. While Eric, like all right-thinking, normal, cool-headed people, prefers and carries a short-barrelled 1911, his wife is a GLOCK OWNER!:eek:

[blades67]

I guess she feels that guys with short barrels need love too.:neener: :evil:

[twoblink]

I went from Commodore 64 --> Dos --> Windoze --> Linux --> BSD.

:D

Went from 0 guns --> 1 --> 2 --> 4 --> 10...

:evil:

Went from thinking like a democrat --> registering republican --> voting libertarian.

WOW!! I've made so much progress in life!!

I find BSD to be much more libertarian than Linux. I find GPL to be communisum at it's very best, why I refuse to use linux now..

<begin flamewar>
Besides, BSD's much more stable and faster.
:evil:

[Orthonym]

nor is Open Source. There's a very old proverb operating here; Don't buy a pig in a poke! (id est, if you are not allowed to look at the source code, you really don't know what you're buying!)

[S_O_Laban]

Wow, a couple of "first posts" in this thread. I know very little about os software ect... but whatever your running, glad to welcome you to THR. :)

[mattd]

Went from thinking like a democrat --> registering republican --> voting libertarian.

I hope you're registered as a libertarian.

[Chris Rhines]

Sadly, my professional life right now is wrapped around Windows (and even worse, Exchange! Gag me with a spatula...) This, more than anything else, has been pushing me towards Linux...

- Chris

[PenHolder]

MrAcheson seems to be on the money with the "techno-libertarian and techno-hippie" observation. It's heartening to see the "gun debate" flare up often on Slashdot, a tech-oriented forum where ostensibly it has no place, since folks in society at large seem content to just ignore the Second Amendment. This makes sense; often, the nerds of today were the physically small kids of yesterday, harassed in school for entertainment (and other) purposes by the physically large.

However, whenever the "gun stuff" does come up, I'm always dismayed by the significant number of rabid "Moore-head" comments that appear and get peer-moderated way up: the "If only we could get rid of the guns..." types. Techno-hippies, I guess.

One of my favorite gun-quip exchanges from Slashdot was when one person posted, "I wish all you gun-toting ********* would just go create your own nation", to which another replied, "We did. Who the hell let you in here?"

AZTOY: The problem i'm have is finding drivers for a Creative Blaster V-92 modem.

I'm not familiar with your particular modem, but I'm guessing it's an internal (or built-in to the motherboard) "WinModem". While a handful of winmodem chipsets are supported on x86 machines through some kludgery, a sure solution is to get a real modem, be it internal or external, which has its own controller. Given how simple the AT command interface is, the notion that modems need drivers is almost comical: AT-over-RS232, while old school, is SO idiot-proof that I guess they had to go and fix it. While a non-win-modem will cost you a few bucks more, they'll work with everything from the hottest, latest computers, back to pre-Commodore-64 stuff. Data-over-analog voice-over-digital phone network is kinda silly anyway, and aside from some data encoding trickery, it hasn't signficantly changed since the 80s, so old stable interfaces to that old stable technology suit me just fine.


twoblink: I went from Commodore 64 --> Dos --> Windoze --> Linux --> BSD.

Holy moly! It's my twin! :D

-PH

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=474084

[Silver Bullet]

One of my favorite gun-quip exchanges from Slashdot was when one person posted, "I wish all you gun-toting ********* would just go create your own nation", to which another replied, "We did. Who the hell let you in here?"
Behold: the perfect comeback ! :cool:

[MarkScottShow.US]

Well the company that puts my show on the Internet uses Linux on most of their servers, for longer then they have been cyberbroadcasting my show (25 months), also IRIX for their SGI super computers, and they do have a few Cray super computers, running what I think is Unicos.......Linux/Unix same old same old.....

See their site at www.pioneertechnology.com if you want to see true hackers - white knights (white hats) if I remember what they joke about --- hacker - a expert engineer or expert Computer engineer, Jack of all trades, a person when the wolf's at your firewall you would want to take point in the counter attack.....<G>

[AZTOY]

PenHolder

You are right, it is a winmodem and plugs into a AMD-K6 mother board.


the notion that modems need drivers is almost comical:

Ok let me try this again.............

Linux is not picking up the modem or can't find the modem. Linux is saying i don't have a modem,but i do. So i thought i need drivers or something to make it work. :confused:

So, I need a non-win-modem for Lenux.
No problem i'm think about building a new computers anyway:neener: Well after Basic training.

I'm new to lenux so forgive me if i sound confused.:D

[Raistlin]

So, I need a non-win-modem for Lenux.


No problem - go to a Circuit City near you and get a Best Data external V.92 modem. Plugs into your COM port, no drivers required. Mine works just fine with Debian 3.

[voilsb]

Yet another linux/gun nut checking in.

Unfortunately, the motherboard on my l-box took a major dump so I'm stuck using a Win2k notebook (I've tried to put linux, freebsd, and qnx on it; all three failed).

[Silver Bullet]

I've tried to put linux, freebsd, and qnx on it; all three failed
Pssssst ... OS X.

[Don Gwinn]

Not Circuit City, Best Buy. They employ more actual tech-heads, often switching computer techs to sales. They don't pay commission. And they employ a surprising number of techie gun nuts. :D


And now you people have me reading about Linux, Halloween papers, and other stuff I don't have time to make a hobby of. Thanks a lot. :fire:

[voilsb]

Pssssst ... OS X.On a four year old AMD?

[Raistlin]

Not Circuit City, Best Buy.


To each his own, but you won't catch me buying computer gear in Best Buy. The one in Athens, GA has some of the most "yes-I'm-standing-here-talking-and-ignoring-you" help I've ever seen. :mad:

[fearlessrogue]

Go on ebay to get a real modem. It is much cheaper. While you are at why not create a voice mail system with it?

BTW I am posting this froma debian unstable system (which is more stable than windows xp, for me at least). Even if you do not like the politics of RMS you must give the man his due. He single handedly created the Gnu C Compiler, wrote most of emacs,and the whole Lisp vs Symatpic thing....

[Weaps]

Well, this thread is pretty long, but I have to weigh in since both guns and computers are major hobbies of mine, as well as the computers being the way I put food on the table.

I keep getting Raymond confused with Stallman since they are both controversial Open Source types, with one being the libertarian, and the other kind of a hippie.

I'm the only one at my place of employment who primarily uses a Linux workstation to get my work done. At home (where I'm posting this from now) I primarily run a built-it-myself PIII running RedHat 9. At work, I have a Dell PIII running the same, and have found most of the work-alikes (mozilla, gaim, etc.) work fine on our network. Our corporate email client is Lotus Notes, which is a Windows only client but with the help of Codeweavers Crossover Office I can run Notes, Office, Photoshop, and many other Windows apps directly in the Linux environment. I administer Windows Terminal Servers, Citrix servers, and a bunch of UNIX and Linux machines running Oracle RDBMS. The Citrix servers are accessed with a Citrix native Linux client, the Terminal Servers are accessed with rdesktop, and the UNIX and Linux machines work extremely well with the X desktop (xterms, dtterms, native X applications displaying on my X server.) For the few things I need to run a native Windows environment, I have this little Dell laptop running Windows 2000. About the only things I need to use that for is our Sametime instant message client, a few Oracle management apps, and to remotely access through our firewall (propietary VPN which only runs on Windows.) For everything else, I use my Linux workstation and while everyone is getting hit by viruses, strange lockups, etc. I'm happily working along using my four virtual desktops and a machine who's uptime is measured in months.

I know that Windows will always be a fact of life, and am by no means a zealot about Linux. It just works way better for me. Even now I'm involved in a project which is entirely run on Windows 2000, but I say give unto Microsoft that which is Microsoft. As long as it keeps putting food on the table, gas in the car, and ammo in my guns then so be it.

ESR has gone up a notch in my book with his stance on guns.

[Moparmike]

Computers also help me pay for my stuff too. I help their users though and monitor the labs. It will be helping me get more gun stuff too (to keep this thread on target...)

I have always been a Windows kind of guy. I prefer the more stable incarnations though. I liked 98se, NT4 (when I could get it to work right with 70 meddling kids {teens} ruining it*) and Win2kPro. I really like 2k. WinME has a deafening vacuous noise coming from it. However, everybody who knows anything knows that Win3.1 running on DOS 6.22 was the bomb. It kicked unparalled amounts of a$$. Still the most stable thing I have ever encountered, even after using Redhat. However, I fully know about the flaws of Microsoft and will not argue against them. I am still waiting for Outlook to start distributing the Common Cold.

*And their dog too....

http://comp.uark.edu/~dmgill/photoshoped/outlook.jpg