From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jan 15 14:31:19 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D767137B401 for ; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:31:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from rwcrmhc53.attbi.com (rwcrmhc53.attbi.com [204.127.198.39]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 198BD43F13 for ; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:31:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.no-ip.com) Received: from be-well.ilk.org (lowellg.ne.client2.attbi.com[24.147.188.198]) by rwcrmhc53.attbi.com (rwcrmhc53) with ESMTP id <2003011522311705300lgfjpe>; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 22:31:17 +0000 Received: from be-well.ilk.org (lowellg.ne.client2.attbi.com [24.147.188.198] (may be forged)) by be-well.ilk.org (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id h0FMVG8O025526; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:31:16 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.no-ip.com) Received: (from lowell@localhost) by be-well.ilk.org (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) id h0FMVCV8025523; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:31:12 -0500 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: be-well.ilk.org: lowell set sender to freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org using -f To: Alex.Wilkinson@dsto.defence.gov.au Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: entropy References: <20030115171523.P97610@squirm.dsto.defence.gov.au> From: Lowell Gilbert Date: 15 Jan 2003 17:31:12 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20030115171523.P97610@squirm.dsto.defence.gov.au> Message-ID: <441y3ehwpb.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> Lines: 13 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Wilkinson,Alex" writes: > Can someone recommend to me where I can read up on > entropy. > > ie what it is ? Why we have it ? etc etc The term "entropy" is often used (in rough analogy to its technical meaning in thermodynamics) in computer systems to describe the "amount" of "randomness" available to random-number functionality. What to read depends on why you need to know about it, but you could always refer to some manual pages, particularly rndcontrol(8). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message