🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BzIuKw.Buy@dscomsa.desy.de> Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
> There is no way of making a UNIX machine look as if it configured in one way
> to one program but in quite a different way to another program.

That depends on where the program looks for the configuration, of course.
There are UNIX programs with hard-coded file names, just as there are DOS
programs that write direct to the screen. This has to do with how "virtual"
the execution environment is. UNIX does very well in this department compared
to other 20 year old operating systems, and it's quite easy to fake out an
application in all sorts of *other* ways.

But it sounds like what you really want here is Plan 9.

> If you have more
> than 20 people on a cluster you will realize why it is impossible to give root
> privs to everybody.

Why would you want to? We have about three people with root here, and when
more people want it we arrange things so they don't need it.

> Having beds for rent does not mean that a bordello is a hotel.

> A multiuser machine should be just that, it should allow multiple users to
> access it without interfering with each other.

Gee, I thought we were doing that quite well, apart from CPU speed degradation
and so far as I know only the DoD cares about that.

> In addition to this inadequate resource
> monitoring means that the scheduler is practicaly useless, any user can simply
> spawn tasks to increase the proportion of CPU alloted to their needs. 

Well, eventually they reach the per-user process limit. And antisocial
behaviour can be addressed outside the OS. Defending against every possible
resource starvation attack is damned hard, and I'd rather spend my personal
on more productive areas. Like the boot/configuration environment, for example.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                            `-_-'
Ferranti International Controls Corporation                'U` 
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012 USA
+1 713 274 5180                            "Zure otsoa besarkatu al duzu gaur?"