[Malvern] Permissions and Securing Data

[Keith Edmunds]

Hi Ian

> This all stemmed from a thread on another mailing list to do with
> running a server command at the CLI and the command stopping when the
> user logged out of that server.

That user may want to investigate the 'screen' command (although there are
other ways that can also overcome the problem described).

> Yes, I know it's nothing like my query, but that's the way my mind works
> - on tangents - and apart from which I was also curious about the
> different way Linux handles this to M$.

Linux was designed from the outset as a multiuser, multitasking operating
system. My route to Linux may be a little different to most: in the 1980s
I was working for Digital, a big American computer manufacturer. There I
used and worked with VMS, which was (and still is) a very good and
professional operating system. When I saw my first Windows PC, which was
relatively late in the day for an IT person, it was running Windows 3.0.
For those who don't remember it, Win 3.0 was essentially a single-user,
single-task graphical application (not really an OS) running under DOS. I
remember being gobsmacked: you couldn't even format a floppy and do
something else - anything else - at the same time. It was obvious to me
that there was no way this could survive while VMS, UNIX (which I also
worked on) and the like were around. Wrong. Soon after that I realised what
Microsoft's core strength was, and still is: marketing. Not long after
that (1981, I think) I faithfully downloaded, at probably 19200 baud (or
maybe even 9600) on my dialup line, an 'a1' floppy image, an 'a2' floppy
image, and so on. Then, using a new (to me, then) program called
rawrite.exe, I created a bootable Linux disk. Again gobsmacked, but this
time for good reasons. Here was an operating system that ran on a PC and
was a REAL operating system. Even back then Linux supported virtual
consoles, so you could log in once, Alt-F2 and log in again, and have jobs
running on both consoles. I remember being disappointed that this was only
a hobby operating system because it showed so much promise. Wrong again!
So, probably no good relying on me to predict the future of IT, although I
doubt my early repeated failures will stop me. The real point of all this
is that, since those early days for PC operating system, Windows has been
trying to get closer to being what I regard as a real OS, and Linux has
been trying to get closer to a desktop system. Both have succeeded to a
large degree, but there are still many, many signs that Linux has a 'real
OS' pedigree that Windows lacks. I'm rambling now, but it's hard to
describe how /exciting/ Linux was when it first appeared.

I'll shut up now.

-- 
Keith Edmunds

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