sokolov@alpha.CES.CWRU.Edu wrote:
> 
>    Jacob Suter <jsuter@intrastar.net> wrote:
> > > a 10000-user campus is just as demanding as a company, if not more.
> >
> > Plainly not true.  I've seen the most piss poor networks at local
> > schools.  Total network & server mismanagement (plus, who the hell would
> > run an Alpha 100 or 166 with VMS to support 400+ simultanious
> > connections and around 12,000 total users - its slow as dirt)
> 
>    The fact that many campus networks are slow doesn't mean that their
> users have no need for performance. As for mismanagement, that's what my

Not true.  The taxpayers are spending top dollar for that network to run
(its a state college), and those kids DON'T KNOW HOW A REAL NETWORK
WORKS.  Part of going to college is learning and seeing.  I've sat
waiting for a login prompt at sfasu.edu on their internal ethernetted
machines many times...  No excuse.  Hell the machine itself has 20-60%
packet loss itself, strangly enough when I could sit at an NT
Workstation box and have near-0%...

> project is all about! INS are running the network and their UNIX system in
> the most fascist and paranoid way, and I'm simply competing with them for
> users. As for the performance of our campus network (CWRUnet), I can assure
> you that it's not slow.

fascist system administration is a sign of a shitty system
administrator, usually scared out of his wits.  I'd put my carefully but
not facist 5x86/133 server against that AXP166 at titan.sfasu.edu (their
main server) any day, and I am sure I'd beat it in both functionality
and speed...

Its all in the expense and hassle of operation.  Vaxes are old, at least
any that you or I can reasonably afford of any speed.  They'll probably
run until the next ice age, but they cost a fortune to operate (just my
VS3100 eats a huge amount of power, at least 1.5A@120V), and the
availability of spare parts can be sparse and may take days/weeks to
find.  At best you could have a couple backups on hand, but geez, how
much space do you have?  

> > one porn pic would lag
> > out the whole network for 10+ seconds...
>    and
> > whats so fun about
> > telnet and ftp anyways?
> 
>    I was expecting you to ask "what's so fun about VAXen anyways?" What are
> you doing on this list? This is a place for the people who greatly miss the
> golden times when they were paid to work on 780s.

You can like playing with old hardware or possibly even like old
arpanet, but I would think most people actually like what the internet
has come to technically, but not the people (lusers) that have taken it
over.

JS