"Greg Copeland" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 10:51:32 -0500, Bill Denton wrote:


Most of the time, when a shop has Linux boxes, it doesn't have techs, it
has
OS evangelists, who have a vested interest in insuring that Windows
boxes
fail. In most instances, if they would spend as much time learning how
to
administer Windows boxes as they do playing with Linux boxes they would
see
a marked decrease in their failure rate.


That's simply not true in least.

I have seen quite a few Linux admins who had to use cheat sheets for even
the most rudimentary Win server tasks. And during the dot.com bust I saw
more than one Linux admin deliberately allow their Windows boxes to
deteriorate so they couild make the Linux boxes look better, and thus
preserving their jobs.

Most Linux heads tend to be geeks, and they tend to put all kinds of
geek
crap on their computers. Of course, none of this geek crap is written to
Microsoft standards because geeks know much better ways to do things. If
you
put crappy, non-standard software on a machine, it will crash, no matter
what the underlying operating system.

That's simply not true in the least. Applications should not be able to
crash an OS. If it can, that's a serious OS bug. I would say that you've
been exposed to MS' OS a little too long without understanding what else
is out there.

I have seen applications crash NT workstation and server four or five times,
and I've crashed Win2K Professional twice; once with Flight Simulator. A
couple of years ago I worked for a software company, and a test suite run of
one of our applications brought down two Linux boxes and one Unix box.
Everything can crash.

And I saw a Win2K server mysteriously begin going BSOD, for no observable
reason. It looked just like a software crash. I worked in the IBM building
in downtown Chicago, where you would expect the power to be good, but it
turned out we were getting power sags which were crashing the machine. It
was plugged into the same outlet with a workstation which never had a
problem. I did some testing, and discovered that the sags were long enough
to drop the server, but not long enough to effect the workstation. I put in
a UPS; no problem. But as I said, it looked just like a software problem.
How many other hardware problems get blamed on the OS?


So, which is better: Windows or Linux? That's like asking which is
better:
hammers or screwdrivers. In both instances, you are looking at a tool,
and
for a given job one may be superior. But it won't be superior for all
jobs.

Not really. Both do the same roles. Thusly, it's fair to do a hammer to
hammer or screwdriver to screwdriver comparison.

It's not a matter of which will do the job, it's a matter of which will do
the job best. And there are things that Win will do better than Linux and
vice-versa. And better is not just a matter of benchmarking: in some small
towns you might find 10 Win administrators and zero Linux administrators. In
that case, Linux is totally worthless. It's all a matter of matching the OS
to the need.



And consider this: Do you send email? A large chunk of the recipients of
that email get it across networks that weren't set up by Phd/EE's, but
were
instead set up by a reasonably intelligent person who saw the need for a
network, read a couple of Windows books, and was able to set up a
Windows
network, thanks to the user-friendly Windows installation routines. If
they
had needed to rely on Netware, or Linux, or any of the other
non-Microsoft
systems those networks would never have been built.

Hate to tell you this, but the vast majority of the 'net is run on
Unix/Linux. It's considered to be the backbone of the 'net. Worse,
because the cost of entry to run windows is so low and they are commonly
used as endpoints on the 'net, windows computers are currently considered
the biggest threat and the greatest plague to date. As an example,
currently, the vast majority of spam actually originates from comprimised
win computers being used as open spam relays. These points have not been
lost in Washington either. Windows computers and their security are
considered a threat to national security. Feel free to check the
Department of Homeland security. Notice that the NSA is happy to develop
using Linux?

And I hate to tell you this, there were LAN's long before the Internet
became "prime time". I did my first Windows For Workgroups (NETBUI) network
in 1992, the Internet did not begin to achieve any sort of mass penetration
until 1996 or so. While the majority of the servers may run Unix/Linux, most
of the outbound data quickly goes through a router onto a Windows network,

I agree with you about the increased vulnerability of Windows, but a case
could also be made that the associated protocols, which were designed by
Unix guys, were poorly engineered. Had they been better designed the spam
problems would not exist. I don't make that argument, but if you talk about
Windows vulnerabilities, you also have to consider lacadasical engineering.

Long story short, friendly does not translate to reliability or any other
picture you're trying to paint.



And, in many instances, that's what counts...


You seriously should check your facts.

My facts are fine. I have made a decent living off Windows, so I don't see
it as the Devil incarnate. I know there are problems there. But there are
problems with every OS on some level or another. I don't have any problem
with Linux; one of these days I will probably get around to learning it.
Where I do have a problem is with people who aren't willing to understand
that both Win and Linux are viable operating systems. It's simply not an
either/or situation.




Cheers,

Greg Copeland