From: aragorn@chatfactory.invalid   
      
   J.O. Aho wrote:   
      
   > Aragorn wrote:   
   >   
   >> and all information on the subject I've managed to dig   
   >> up suggests that a PCI videocard will always take precedence over a   
   >> PCIe/AGP card as the primary video adapter.   
   >> I was told by someone who builds computers himself that it's got   
   >> something to do with the IRQ, in the sense that a lower IRQ number would   
   >> take precedence, but I don't consider myself tech-savvy enough to   
   >> corroborate or argue this statement.   
   >   
   > Ok, you could try to switch the IRQ numbering, if your BIOS has that   
   > option, used to be more common on those old PCI/ISA motherboards.   
      
   I'm not sure whether it does or doesn't, but it's largely irrelevant now.   
   The PCI card will be used for booting up the /dom0/ anyway - that's the   
   whole idea - and I intend to use the PCIe card for one /domU/ node only,   
   i.e. the X11 "workstation" virtual machine.   
      
   The motherboard is a Tyan Thunder n6650W (S2915) by the way, in case you're   
   interested.  It's got a Phoenix BIOS, but don't ask me what version. :p   
      
   >> nVidia has received an as yet still open invitation to collaborate with   
   >> the Xen developers, even without needing to open up their source code,   
   >> and to my knowledge they have totally consistently been ignoring this   
   >> invitation for over a year already so far.   
   >   
   > nVidia has been quite unhelpful, as I have understood they haven't helped   
   > anything with the nv driver (included in xorg/xfree) nor the new driver   
   > that will include 3D-support, compare with AMD (formerly ATi), who has   
   > given out information and code to the development of the xorg/xfree   
   > driver. They may even open up the code for the closed source driver.   
      
   That is indeed AMD's intent, or so I have read.  And this could seriously   
   shift the balance in videocard sales too.   
      
   >> nVidia has always had better drivers than ATI, but with ATI now being   
   >> owned by AMD and AMD opening up the driver code - including for older ATI   
   >> chipsets - this balance may soon find itself radically tipped over to the   
   >> ATI camp, and in that case, I will come to seriously regret that I opted   
   >> for an nVidia adapter and their proprietary drivers in the first place,   
   >> being a Free Software advocate myself.   
   >   
   > Yes, during the old ATi times I think there was kind of a small handful   
   > part time developers who worked with the driver, while there was closer to   
   > 100 people at nVidia who worked with the nVidia driver.   
      
   You can expect to see a major shift there once the code gets opened up to   
   the public.  As good as proprietary nVidia drivers may be, they still do   
   contain some serious bugs, and the opening up of the AMD/ATi driver code   
   will most definitely yield far superior drivers.  Hopefully, this will turn   
   out to be the lesson that nVidia needs to learn... :-/   
      
   > I have been using nVidia for the most of my x86 based machines, as the   
   > driver is better, but on all my other machines (Sparc and PowerPC), there   
   > hasn't been any support and nVidia dropped the PowerPC project when Apple   
   > dropped the PowerPC as the CPU in Macs, so I have gone with ATi cards on   
   > those, getting a soso hardware 3D support from the open source drivers.   
      
   With AMD now releasing their driver code as Open Source - including for   
   older ATi cards, or so they promised us - your 3D hardware acceleration   
   will gain a tremendous boost.  You'll go straight from barely usable to   
   high end performance. ;-)   
      
   >> (My motherboard has an nForce Professional chipset, but the specs for   
   >> those are open.)   
   >   
   > The forcedeth was developed without any help from nVidia, but nVidia did   
   > drop their own network driver when they thought the forcedeth driver was   
   > good enough. IMHO they haven't contributed much, they could do a lot more,   
   > but I guess they feel they are big enough to not care about 5% of the user   
   > market.   
      
   Indeed, they are behaving like monopolists on account of their drivers.   
   Inevitably, proprietary source code will run into a wall, when time and   
   time again it becomes proved that the open source development model yields   
   more performant and less buggy code.  More and more hardware vendors are   
   turning to GPL'ed software as the firmware for their devices, even now with   
   the stricter GPLv3 already in effect - the Linux kernel will of course   
   continue to be released under GPLv2 due to Linus's objections to v3.   
      
   >> Certain ports will have to be forwarded to designated virtual machines -   
   >> I will be running three or four of them, including /dom0/ - such as port   
   >> 22 for /ssh,/ port 80 for /http,/ the port range between 6660 and 6669   
   >> for an IRC server - there will also be additional needed ports for this   
   >> but I don't know them from memory right now - and then most of the   
   >> userspace ports will have to be forwarded to the X11 /domU/ machine.   
   >   
   > I would suggest you to not use the port 22 for ssh, while I did I had damn   
   > a lot of script kiddies trying to force them into my system using, even if   
   > it wasn't working, I didn't like the long log reports I had about these   
   > tries, so I switched to an alternative port.   
      
   Indeed, using non-standard ports for /ssh/ is something I'm already quite   
   accustomed to by now, even if only because it started out as a way to   
   circumvent my ISP's restrictions - they disallow access to ports beneath   
   1024 for end-users, although - as I've discovered only recently - this does   
   not apply to access to those ports from a machine within their own IP   
   range.  In other words, if my next door neighbor is with the same ISP as I   
   am, then he could log into my system via /ssh/ (on the standard port),   
   provided that he knows my IP address and has a user account on my machine.   
      
   I do however plan to switch my ISP contract once the new machine is   
   installed.  I'll be staying with the same ISP - out of necessity, as I'm on   
   cable internet and they have the monopoly on that over here - but I'll be   
   switching over to a professional-grade contract.  Instead of two   
   semi-dynamic IP addresses I will now have one static IP address and twice   
   the download speed, plus much broader traffic quota.  My upload speed will   
   unfortunately not go up, while they're planning on doubling the upload   
   speed for regular consumergrade connections during the first quarter of   
   this year. :-/   
      
   Another advice I offer to everyone - and which I've been implementing on my   
   own machines for years already as well - is to disable all root logins,   
   whether directly to the console or via /ssh./  Even though it is possible   
   to change the name for the root account, root is the login known to exist   
   on basically every UNIX-style machine, and thus the target login for brute   
   force break-in attempts.  Likewise for /ftp/ and likewise all possible   
   Administrator logins on MS Glassware - as we've come to see for ourselves   
   from our logs; we don't use Windows on our servers and I don't Windows at   
   all on any of my machines.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)