name resolution

[Liam Proven]

On 26 November 2017 at 15:28, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> wrote:
>
> Liam, it turned out at the end of the day, that we were closer than some
> might have thought from watching our exchanges on quite a few things. I
> like it that way. :)

Thanks for that!

I'd say it's like this.

I've been around a pretty long time in this business too. 30 years, very soon.

I've watched DOS 3.3 and 3+ Share over NetBEUI, with a side order of
Concurrent CP/M and Xenix, replaced with DOS 5 and Netware over IPX,
with a side-order of Concurrent DOS and Unix, replaced with Windows 3
for Workgroups and NT 3 Server, replaced with Win95, NT4, Win98,
WinME, Win2K and Win2K Server over TCP/IP, replaced by WinXP and
Windows Server 2003, replaced by Vista, then Win7 and Windows Server
2008 with IPv6, then Win8, then Win8.1, then Win10 against something
running inside VMware.

I've watched System 6 replaced by System 7 replaced by MacOS 8 and 9
and then Mac OS X 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, "Tiger", "Leopard", "Snow
Leopard", "Lion", "Mountain Lion", "Mavericks", "Yosemite" and now I'm
typing on "Sierra".

I've put in NetBEUI, HP DLC, DECnet, IPX/SPX, AppleTalk, EtherTalk,
and I've ripped it all out and replaced it with TCP/IP.

I've built and installed servers with 3Com 3+Share, 3Com 3+Open,
Netware 2, Netware 3, Netware 4 and Netware 5, and with NT 3.1 Server,
NT 3.5 Server, NT 3.51 Server, NT 4 Server, Windows 2000 Server,
Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

I started on SCO Xenix, then SCO Unix, then played a bit with IBM AIX
and Solaris, then Linux 1.0, 1.2, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6, 3.x and now 4.x.
I've also tried and failed to get far with FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
Minix3 and Plan 9 from Bell Labs.

I've used CP/M 3, CCP/M, CDOS, GEM, GEOS, EPOC16, EPOC32, Symbian,
Newton OS, iOS, Android, QNX, Blackberry 10, BeOS, Haiku, AmigaOS 2 &
3, ST TOS/GEM, QDOS, Afros, Acorn MOS + DFS, RISC OS 2 and 3 with
ADFS, DEC VAX/VMS, on brief occasions a PDP-11, an AS/400 and a
System/36.

So many OSes. So many networking systems. I'm sure I've forgotten some.

But it's all going away. Now there are so few, and there's so similar,
and it's very sad.

My early TCP/IP systems were statically-addressed. Then I learned DHCP
and WINS. Then I learned about hosts files and DNS cache. I added
proxy servers and had to have working internal DNS, via a caching
proxy server. Then the server was on a permanent link, not dial-up.
Then it was on a router. Then it was on Wifi, at first ad-hoc, later
based around access points. I've used Token Ring, Sage MainLAN, Thick
Ethernet, 10base-2, 10base-T, 100base-T and now gigabit.

Stuff keeps changing.

My attitude has been, be a reed, not a tree. Go with the flow. Use
what that customer wants, not the cool new thing. As standard change,
I change. I go with what is current and what works.

I didn't like Netware 4 and NDS. NDS did nothing I needed and got in
the way. I switched to NT4. That worked very well for me.

I didn't like Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory. It did nothing
I needed and got in the way. So I switched to Linux servers and
firewalls. That worked well for me too.

Windows XP was big and slow and complex. I didn't like it. I put it in
for my customers, sure, but I switched to Mac OS X, on an old free
unsupported Mac, installed with XPostFacto, heavily upgraded with
cheap 3rd party bits, because I couldn't afford new Macs.

When I got free cast-off Macs from customers that were new enough to
run OS X without hacks, I switched to them. And when they got too old
or too unreliable, I switched to Linux.

Every time there's a new version of Windows, I switch back to it for a
little while to get to know it, then go back to Linux.

And the Linux I've used since 2004 has been Ubuntu.

I wasn't wild about GNOME 2, but I tried all the competitors and they
were all worse.

So I went with it.

Then came Unity. That I liked. It looks like Mac OS X, and I like Mac OS X.

So many changes. So much new tech.

If you try to stand against it, go "no, I don't like this, I don't
want it", then you are lining yourself up for pain and suffering.

You have to go with the new, embrace it. That doesn't mean being
bleeding-edge, but trying to use 1995 or 2005 networking techniques in
2015 is not going to bring you happiness and a simple, clean working
system. It's going to mean hacking, kludging and forcing OSes to do
things they were never designed to do.

It's just bringing suffering upon yourself.

Life's too short. I just want it to work.

Now, Unity is going away, and instead, we get GNOME 3. I've been
experimenting with that since it shipped. I don't like it. It's pretty
but it doesn't work my way.

So I'm not going to force it. I'm not going to customise it with a
dozen extensions to work the way I like. That's standing in the path
of progress.

So I'll switch, sadly, again. Xfce, probably. It's not shiny or pretty
but it works.

In the past, we've clashed because you insist on doing 2 things that
in my extensive experience are *really bad ideas*.

[1] You use a special RT kernel and a very old version of Ubuntu, as I
recall, for CNC mills. That's fine. If that's what you need, fine. But
you also use these specialised machines for general Internet access.
That's a _disastrously_ bad idea. If it's Internet-facing, it _must_
be current or you're at risk. Using an old version or a special kernel
for a general-purpose PC is a terrible, bad, risky, dangerous idea.
For a happy, easy, safe life, you do the Internet on modern Ubuntu and
use the special version for its special job _and nothing else_.

I tried to tell you this. You shouted at me angrily.

All I was trying to do was save you pain and problems. You wouldn't listen.

[2] You have a 1990s style statically-addressed network, IIRC. You
raged about Network Manager and so on.

I suggested that the path of least pain, least trouble, was a standard
modern IP network. DHCP, static leases for machines you want on
unchanging IPs, and let the router/firewall do DNS so you can find
them by name.

You shouted at me angrily. You wanted it your way.

Again, all I was trying to do was save you pain and problems. You
wouldn't listen.

But I was only trying to help, but you didn't want advice about the
simple, no-fight, go-with-the-flow way of doing it. You wanted YOUR
WAY and nothing else.

That way means pain, misery, and fighting custom-modified OSes. That
means suffering. I wanted to save you that but you didn't want to hear
it.

I'm sorry we clashed. I really was only trying to help.

Now, this poor angry person Xen is shouting angrily at me, because
modern Internet standards don't work the way he wants, and he wants it
his way, and he can't have it, so he is spamming his ISP with DNS
requests for internal names that the external DNS can't resolve, and
it's my fault and Apple's fault and those hideous evil nasty bad tech
companies who BROKE HIS SYSTEM... because he doesn't really know what
he's doing, but he wants it his way, without learning to do it the
right way.

And because I do know how to do it, I am bad and evil and one of Them
and I keep using my age and knowledge to make him look bad.

All my fault.

Because for thirteen years, I've been hanging out on this mailing
list, giving free help and advice and trying to help people fix their
computers.

Even though that's what I do for a living. Even when I had so little
work I couldn't pay my mortgage and my bank confiscated my bank card.
I had to move country to get a new job in the end.

But still I stay here, offering guidance and advice when I can,
sometimes getting it wrong, but learning as well as trying to help.

I'm not a programmer. I can't provide code to Linux.

I could write documentation but that is my day job now and I don't
want to do it on my time off.

I no longer do tech support, which is great, except here, for nothing.

But some people will still write you 3 or 4 emails in a row, shouting
at you, cursing you, calling you names, saying you're cheating by
claiming special knowledge, or calling you a liar, for offering free
help.

*Sigh*

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
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