Taken from the CompTIA IT Fundamentals Exam Guide book (2nd edition, published 2021). I’m not sure if they fixed this in newer versions, if at all.

  • @[email protected]
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    552 years ago

    Gentlemen, a short view back to the past. Thirty years ago, Niki Lauda told us ‘take a monkey, place him into the chair and he is able to use the computer.’ Thirty years later, Sebastian told us ‘I had to start my computer like an F1 car, it’s very complicated.’ And Nico Rosberg said that during the compile – I don’t remember what compile – he pressed the wrong button on the keyboard. Question for you both: is Linux today too complicated with twenty and more buttons on the keyboard , are you too much under effort, under pressure? What are your wishes for the future concerning the technical programme during the development? Less buttons, more? Or less and more communication with Torvalds?

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      As a huge Formula 1 fan and daily Linux user for a few decades now, while also being quite stoned… this fusion broke my brain, haha, well written. I could hear the words in the voice of Lauda, Seb, and Rossberg.

      Pastor Maldonado I would assume is a windows user.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          A reporter asked a very very long question in a press conference 2-3 years ago. It has become a quaint F1 copypasta due to this. The author took that quote and replaced all of the Formula 1 references with Linux references.

          It’s obscure as hell but funny to encounter as a fan of both.

          I am pretty sure the long question is used in Netflix’s Drive to Survive series in one of the seasons with Sebastien Vettel. Good show even for a non-F1 fan, but I admit I am biased.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Sorry CompTIa is fucking garbage. In all my years at faangs, startups, Silicon Valley ycombinators, mid west tech, have I ever hired or worked with someone who has comptia certs.

    Is it a good start to level 1 help desk at a hospital? Maybe. But I feel like it’s a fucking scheme where the time to learn any language instead would make you leagues better. Or study and get Cisco certs instead for neteng.

    I’ll add it’s not that I chose not to hire CompTIa cert people. But I think in my 15 years I have never seen one come across the desk. The only time I saw it on a resume was level 1 help desk at a shop that thought Windows ME was the best release at the time and should be used in all rural hospitals and it was 2006 and anything beyond it was full of bloatware.

    His company went bankrupt. Fuck you Arco

    • Ocelot
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      2 years ago

      not entirely. It makes it easy to filter out the kind of applicants that would put that on their resume. Very useful for hiring managers. Saves lots of time.

    • PLAVAT🧿S
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      112 years ago

      Not disagreeing about it being a scam but the government uses Sec+ as an IAT level 2 requirement. Helps meet some contract requirements.

      • Ocelot
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        32 years ago

        have you… seen the state of IT and technology in general in the government? I mean actually that explains a lot.

        • PLAVAT🧿S
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          32 years ago

          I’m just saying that government contracts == money and so my point is that while Comptia may be (read: most definitely is) a scam/racket it can make a person eligible for a paycheck. Agreed that it doesn’t mean they’re competent.

  • @[email protected]
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    352 years ago

    Missed opportunity to talk about tar being a tape format that we just happen to use on disks too (so it’s accessed linearly, and in fact if you cat two tar files together they make a valid tar file… or you can create a multi volume tar file that’ll prompt you to change the tape).

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    So much to unpack here.

    GNU is not a Linux variant. It is a set of programs and shared libraries.

    ISO 9660 has nothing to do with compression. Just calling it ISO isn’t a good idea for an intro class like that because it is a set of MANY standards. They should have put a little side blurb and called it ISO 9660 in the table.

    tar is an archive tool. It has no compression.

    Why no mention of compression algorithms algorithms vs archive tools?

    Why not have different compression algorithms and their tradeoffs?

    ETA: jar files are just zip files for Java libs/programs. You can open them with zip file tools.

    • Aatube
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      102 years ago

      Just calling it ISO isn’t a good idea for an intro class like that because it is a set of MANY standards. They should have put a little side blurb and called it ISO 9660 in the table.

      This is the only thing here I disagree with. The table is quite clearly putting extensions on the left and intro classes do not need to know about the International Organization for Standardization.

    • NormalC
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      72 years ago

      GNU is not a set of programs or libraries, it’s an operating system.

      GNU packages is what you are referring to. But GNU itself is the name of the OS.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        It was intended to be an OS and is if you use the Hurd kernel. In practice, Hurd isn’t really used, so it is just a bunch of programs and libraries. I guess it can go either way.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          Agree. GNU Hurd is the OS. GNU Utils is a bunch of libre utilities that replicates the function of the UNIX utilities.

        • NormalC
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          12 years ago

          It is not “intended” to be an OS if you use GNU Hurd. That is literally the name of the operating system that launched the entire libre software movement. You don’t engage with it that way because linux comms don’t bother to educate their users at all.

          Rms was right, “linux” users don’t care about history and “linux” communties stopped giving a shit.

  • @[email protected]OP
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    472 years ago

    Here’s some more excerpts from the book that I found amusing:

    As you learned in Chapter 1, Linux is an open source operating system, meaning that anyone can download and modify it. Open source operating systems can benefit from improvements contributed by thousands of programmers. Some people choose open source operating systems out of an anti-establishment spirit; others choose them as a practical matter because they are free.

    “Anti-establishment” isn’t the word I’d use, but I guess that fits.

    One of the most popular distros for casual users, Ubuntu, comes with a DE called Unity (shown in Figure 5-16)

    That hasn’t been true since 2017.

    Be suspicious of free apps. In the best-case scenario, the app does what it says but installs ads or other software. In the worst-case scenario, the free app is, or contains, malware that might steal personal information from your device, encrypt your data files and demand a ransom for decryption, or monitor your device usage. Installing an app sometimes asks for specific permissions that the app will use. Be selective in allowing app privileges to items such as contact lists, GPS location, e-mail messages, and so on.

    Okay, I’ll admit this is good advice if we’re talking about “freeware”, but there’s also free/libre/open-source software, which has all of the benefits of freeware, and also gives you the freedom to read/mofify/share the source code, if you wish.

    As for that “malware” you speak of, you might as well be describing Google Chrome.

    No media player supports all formats, so it’s important to find one that supports the formats of the clips you want to play.

    Clearly, these people haven’t heard of VLC.

    Codec is short for “compressor-decompressor”

    It actually stands for “coder/decoder”.

    And that’s just one page…

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Paid apps can also steal user data and also I’d be way way more concerned about ‘free’ mobile apps than open source programs.

      Mobile apps can and will get a jarring amount of your data just for being installed.

      • Fedora
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        22 years ago

        Or the paid app doesn’t even exist. Carders now trade your credit card information. Achievement unlocked.

    • Dem Bosain
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      122 years ago

      The “best-case scenario” is adware or malware. Someone didn’t get hugged as a child.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      When I was a young 'un we learnt a lot of this basic stuff just by being interested in computers and using them. These formats are so ubiquitous that anyone who hasn’t come across them must have pretty limited experience using computers. So I guess this textbook is for people who want a job in IT but aren’t motivated enough to actually use computers? Seems like a bad formula for a career.

  • Cait
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    302 years ago

    GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix GNU is Not Unix

  • @[email protected]
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    652 years ago

    If someone send this to Stallman, he’ll write a stern email on emacs to the book’s author reminding them that gnu is not linux.