Glass panels: what OS?

snip
Hmmm...our WinXP workstations crash about twice a week. We (before I was
there) unloaded Win2000 servers for Linux when we had to shut down at least
twice monthly. Those Win2000 servers, BTW, we set up my Microsoft, so dont
say that we didn't do it right. The Linux servers were set up by our own
techs, though our #1 geek has an MasterSci EE
snip

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.

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.

When a new aircraft rolls out the door of the Cessna factory, it was "set
up" by Cessna technicians. But that doesn't mean someone who doesn't know
what they're doing couldn't crash it 15 minutes later.

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.

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.

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






"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

I thought Linux rarely ever crashes but that is only what I've heard.

Actually, I have a Red Hat Linux server. In the six months that I have
owned
it, it has crashed four times and had to be restarted. OTOH, the Windows
XP
Professional computers have not crashed even once during that time.

Hmmm...we're running Oracle on two Linux servers and they've not crashed
in
the 10 months I've been at the company. Before that, the company I was at
ran HP-Ux on HP-9000's and they didn't crash in the two years we had them
before the company went under. Well, they burped twice for seven or eight
minutes each time, but the failover was instantaneous.


I hear a lot about Windows' instability. I say it is crap. All I can go
on
is my own personal experience, but MS operating systems are the only
ones
that I have ever used that can go for more than a few weeks without
crashing.

Hmmm...our WinXP workstations crash about twice a week. We (before I was
there) unloaded Win2000 servers for Linux when we had to shut down at
least
twice monthly. Those Win2000 servers, BTW, we set up my Microsoft, so
don;t
say that we didn't do it right. The Linux servers were set up by our own
techs, though our #1 geek has an MasterSci EE


What am I supposed to do? Believe my own experience, or believe a
bunch of anti-social geeks who begin frothing at the mouth and chewing
the
carpet at the mere mention of Microsoft or Bill Gates?

Why should we believe you? :~)

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.

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.


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.



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?

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.


Cheers,

Greg Copeland

"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

In article , Bill Denton wrote:
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.

Which means the OS has some serious bugs. Either that or bad drivers
(I've come across some hideously bad - I mean really inexcusably bad
video drivers).

As for Windows being easy to set up (you cited WfWG), Macintosh networks
were that easy to set up in 1988 - we had a Mac network at school then.
It's hardly Windows that has made setting up LANs easy. Setting up the
LAN isn't even quarter of the battle - keeping it up *and secure* is a
much bigger chunk of it. An easy GUI setup and few scripting tools, and
an insecure default configuration means that the easy set up has a
really nasty sting in the tail, as evidenced by the hundreds of
thousands of hosts listed in Spamhaus's XBL (Exploits Blacklist). You
need proper admins (i.e. ones you'll have to pay well) to keep your
network secure even if it runs Windows. Admins who know how to write
scripts to automate jobs. That kind of thing. Having some non-admin set
it up with the easy-to-use GUI is just a malware breeding ground.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article , Bill Denton wrote:
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.

Which means the OS has some serious bugs. Either that or bad drivers
(I've come across some hideously bad - I mean really inexcusably bad
video drivers).

As for Windows being easy to set up (you cited WfWG), Macintosh networks
were that easy to set up in 1988 - we had a Mac network at school then.
It's hardly Windows that has made setting up LANs easy. Setting up the
LAN isn't even quarter of the battle - keeping it up *and secure* is a
much bigger chunk of it. An easy GUI setup and few scripting tools, and
an insecure default configuration means that the easy set up has a
really nasty sting in the tail, as evidenced by the hundreds of
thousands of hosts listed in Spamhaus's XBL (Exploits Blacklist). You
need proper admins (i.e. ones you'll have to pay well) to keep your
network secure even if it runs Windows. Admins who know how to write
scripts to automate jobs. That kind of thing. Having some non-admin set
it up with the easy-to-use GUI is just a malware breeding ground.

Fine, if you have a huge corporation that can afford a bunch of well-paid
admins. Your argument is beginning to sound an awful lot like you don't
think most people should have computers and that you think that the general
public is a menace. That isn't the fault of Windows. You know, the Internet
would not be nearly so big today if it weren't for all of those incompetent
Windows users that are able to access it. Get rid of them and you dry up 80%
of the business base. The rest would not be worth keeping the Internet
running. You could not even go back to the days when only research
facilities and the military had Internet access. It would be gone,
completely. So, although you think that the public are a threat, maybe you
might start asking yourself what would happen if you really got your way.
Maybe you are a bigger threat than the public you despise.

C J Campbell wrote:

You could not even go back to the days when only
research facilities and the military had Internet access.

Considering the economic damages caused by each major worm run, that might
not be a Bad Thing. We'd lose a *lot*. But it might be better, in the
long run.

Still, there's a third alternative: safe computing. Unfortunately, the idea
that anyone can run a computer network has already been sold to an
unsuspecting public. While this might be true in an ideal world (and we
are getting closer to that over time), the fact is that networks require
maintenance and tuning and the occasional safety fix just like aircraft and
automobiles do.

People don't mind using mechanics or A&Ps because we're told it's necessary.
Had people not been sold the aforementioned lie, then perhaps this wouldn't
be a problem. Unfortunately, this idea has settled in and taken root.

- Andrew

People don't mind using mechanics or A&Ps because we're told it's necessary.

The difference is, anybody with a nearby library can learn how to fix a car or
an airplane. This is not true of Windows, or any closed source software. The
innards of windows are a secret. You cannot be sure of what the operating
system (or any commercial program) is =really= doing. I find that scary. With
open source, even if I personally don't want to open the hood, so to speak, I
know that there are lots of geeks who have already looked under the hood, and
any nefarious stuff would have already been publicized in a place I could look.

Imagine having a new aircraft come on the market, but nobody is allowed to do a
preflight. The mechanism for rasing the gear is a secret. The avionics are
coupled to the autopilot, but you are not permitted to know how. And you may
not fly without the transponde operating in mode Q.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
C J Campbell wrote:

You could not even go back to the days when only
research facilities and the military had Internet access.

Considering the economic damages caused by each major worm run, that might
not be a Bad Thing. We'd lose a *lot*. But it might be better, in the
long run.


Better for whom? I submit that your protests are essentially the same as
those of the priests when Gutenberg started printing Bibles. Your high
priesthood is threatened now that the unanointed masses have access to
computers and networks. The reaction was violent when personal computers
were first introduced. The IT priesthood constantly warned of the dangers of
personal computing. Most big corporations and government agencies adopted
policies prohibiting employees from using anything but the company
mainframe. Never mind that the IT priests could not deliver what people
wanted: their own spreadsheets and word processors. Employees had to meet
off site in secret to get real work done on their personal computers.

After thirty plus years, nothing has changed. The ancient priesthood still
tries to hold onto its power, railing against the dangers of Microsoft and
Windows and, yes, personal computing. The days of the priests are numbered.
I think that is a Good Thing.

Still, there's a third alternative: safe computing.

Again, safe for whom? Apparently the high priests are concerned only for
their own safety, ie, jobs.


People don't mind using mechanics or A&Ps because we're told it's
necessary.

As a matter of fact, many people do mind.

In article , C J Campbell wrote:
Fine, if you have a huge corporation that can afford a bunch of well-paid
admins. Your argument is beginning to sound an awful lot like you don't
think most people should have computers and that you think that the general
public is a menace.

No, I think Windows as it currently stands is unsuitable for the general
public. Windows as it stands is fine in an environment where a corporate
admin can look after the network. It's not the users fault, it's the
fault of Microsoft because the configuration is insecure by default.

Windows as it stands should have at
least the software firewall on *by default* and almost all services
(most services which home users will never use) *off* by default.
Finally, MS has decided to listen and will have the firewall on by
default in Service Pack 2. Security researchers have been saying this
for *years*, and only now is it being done.

In this instance, Windows 98 is better than Windows XP. The real
problems didn't start happening until XP came out. Windows XP was a
retrograde step for home users on the internet - it just allowed them to
be 0wn3d because of all the additional potentially exploitable (and as
it happens, actually exploitable) services that were running.

It's not a problem with the users. It's entirely a problem with Windows.
The users are essentially decieved - it's a nice easy to set up system,
but they've been tricked into having a system that claims to be easy to
use and maintain, but really requires an expert system administrator to
make secure.

That isn't the fault of Windows.

But it IS the fault of Windows. Having a number of insecure services
turned on by default which the vast majority of home users will *never*
use on a network is purely the fault of Microsoft. The PC manufacturers
also have some responsibility to bear - they could have at least thought
about it and set up a reasonably secure disk image when they duplicated
the hard disk loads for their PCs.

In any case, the Macintosh has been easy to set up since the 1980s
(including setting up a Mac LAN) so ease-of-use is hardly a Microsoft
innovation. It's just a pity that the hardware platform wasn't open.

might start asking yourself what would happen if you really got your way.
Maybe you are a bigger threat than the public you despise.

Gosh, you're reading an awful lot into my post that I didn't write. I
don't think I've seen a non-sequitur like that since Lord Tebbit managed
to turn a radio interview on obesity into how the Government was
encouraging buggery!

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
[...]
Finally, MS has decided to listen and will have the firewall on by
default in Service Pack 2.

Yes, they have. And it will cost them a lot of money, because now every
user that winds up wanting to do something that the firewall won't allow by
default (because it locks down the system by default) will cost Microsoft
money so that they can have their questions answered because they can't be
bothered to RTFM.

Online gaming will be a big area of support, but there are plenty of other
applications that look like end-user client applications but which wind up
hosting at least one "server" port.

By blaming Microsoft only, you are starting to sound like those rabid
anti-Microsoft people CJ was talking about. Microsoft had genuine economic
motivation to make their operating system easier for dumb people to get
working and it's unreasonable to lay all (or even most) of the blame at
their feet for catering to their audience.

In this instance, Windows 98 is better than Windows XP.

That's like saying "in respect to high-speed crashes, the Ford Model A is
better than the 67' Mustang".

Windows 98 was insecure in plenty of other ways, and since the vast majority
of computer security problems have more to do with social engineering than
software engineering, those insecurities in Win98 more than trump XP's
issues.

As long as you allow a human being access to the operating system, there
will be problems. Windows had a very specific, and very different set of
requirements from any other operating system on the market today, and it
evolved in a very predictable way. Sure, there's room for improvement, but
the blame game doesn't help anyone, and frankly, because the anti-Windows
rhetoric has always been so blatantly religious, with little rational
justification, it's not surprising that tiny nuggets of truth have been
ignored for so long.

I know if I had some zealot in my face all the time about my unholy
lifestyle choices, I probably wouldn't pay much attention to him if he told
me my zipper was down.

Pete