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How Do Linux and Windows 2000 Compare?
fialar asks: "There seem to be plenty of older web articles comparing Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with Linux, but there do not seem to be any out there that have fully explored Windows 2000 and do a feature by feature comparison or a chart. Does anyone know where one could find such a beast? John Kirsch's Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 versus UNIX is an excellent document, but it hasn't been updated in over a year. I know that Windows 2000 offers many new features over NT 4.0, but not having fully explored it, I don't know what Linux has that is comparable."
I decided to wait to see if any of the dire predictions (Win2000 == DOA) would come true, e.g., from Scott McNeally or Eric Raymond. They didn't. Win2000 isn't DOA, instead it's the next step in serious computing. Linux v. NT4.0 was a fair fight, but Win2000 blows Linux's doors off. The careful propaganda mix of "older is sure-footed" has faded to "antiquated is just tired", at least for me. Had Win2000 faltered, then Linux would truly be in the passing lane, but it hasn't and probably won't. Sorry, but it's only a matter of time (2 or 3 years) before the Linux phenom is rolled up (just like the better OS/2). The one good thing Linux/Open Source has done for Microsoft was to provide a decent sparring partner. I'm sure the "old" Microsoft would have released Win2000 buggier than crap, but they didn't and the game's up, children. Time's a'wast'n'. Better get on the Win32....
From what I gather, the networking code in W2K has been rewritten and allows much faster db access.
Again, haven't tested this, but I would believe it. The jump from 6.5 to 7.0 was pretty big, and if they made that same jump going to 2000, then look out.
Please feel free to write back about how much better Linux is if it will make you feel better, but W2K is pretty good. It will make the 'Linux is so much better than NT' argument a lot harder to sustain.
"It's unstable as hell, and doesn't run all that well for me"
Win2k with service pack 1:
28 days 15:13 Reboots(3) Crashes(0) Span(29 days) Longest(28 days)
The reboots were on initially setting it up. No crashes or problems since. I'm pretty sure I can get it to 100.
This is with moderate load.
'nuff said
I guess you have never played with fork bombs.
start of code block
Fork
If child
allocate 10k memory
open a file
call the code block 10 times
end if
die
Run code that does this as a normal user, and the process table fills up so quickly that in less than a second, Root can't even execute a command.
You gotta be objective and legal about these things. I would not want to deprive MS of revenue by installing some pirate software. So send me that money, or send me a sealed box. No cheating!
>That all being said, its a wonderful improvement over NT Workstation - USB support, IRQ sharing,
>multiple monitors, FAT32 support, while still retaining the NT-style security and full 32bitness.
And don't neglect to add that all that could have been easily added to NT4.0, except that MS wants to keep you on the forced upgrade treadmill so they can help poor Bill improve his meager cash flow.
In a nutshell, Win2k is a *great* client OS, probably the best I've seen --and I am counting about 10 Unixes under my belt, I ain't a Windows weenie. I still prefer Linux as a server OS, but that's more because of habit and cost: I know I can put a Linux box on a rack somewhere, configure it the way I need it, and forget about it. Win2k may prove itself as reliable eventually. Also, remote administration on Linux still kicks ass, but Win2k might get there...
Linux is dead as a client OS, unless:
Gets rid of the configuration/installation headaches. If linuxconf messes up my settings one more time, I will sue RH's ass (yes this was a commercial copy of RH 6.x). RPMs and debs are about as good a solution as the registry is in Windows; /etc and /var are kludges that are entrenched in a legacy far worse than DOS's. If you don't see that, you're biased, plain and simple.
Gets decent documentation. Man pages SUCK! Texinfo was great when a vt100 was a state of the art display. Get with the program, move the documentation to HTML, and make man an alias for lynx file://usr/doc/index.html.
Becomes *pretty*. Prettiness isn't some c00l graphics that look like they were designed by a 13year old with CTS. It means anti-aliased fonts, color coordination, consistent icons and graphics that don't scream out "LOOK AT ME", but blend into the GUI. Look at IE 5; now look at Nautilus. Nautilus could do more (actually it really doesn't. Explorer on Win2k kicks ass) but it looks so butt ugly, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
Linux needs *design and engineering*. Which means corporations, that would share their code, but should be allowed to make money somehow. But the screaming 13yr olds around here want everything free, free, free. Fuck that. The best engineers I know make shitloads of money writing code. They will not volunteer their knowledge for free so some shithead 13yr old can cry "mommy! ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^RMS!" when they try to make a dime from their talent and hard-earned experience.
There, I said it. And yes I am posting as an AC, although my carma is way up there in untouchable territory and my uid# is way down there, because I don't want to get in a "discussion" with the 13yr olds that have taken over (!?!?!?!) Linux/Unix advocacy and evangelism, making me reluctant to even proclaim an affinity for Linux among grown-ups...
BS. MS products are single-user and insecure by design. How else could you explain how a user app can destroy system files? Or even more to the point, how the "solution" is simply to disable the (insecure) "feature." Get a clue please.
Sorry this took so long to post, I was sleeping. Perfect Linux? That's easy - just get rid of the "Linux" part and it'll be perfect. You want to hear about why Linux sucks? Please, sit down. This could take a while.... I must begin with my own pet hate - the command line. I abhor it. It sucks more than pathetic hardware support; more than the Xwindow which manages to slow down not only your own PC, but your entire network; it sucks almost as much as the zealots who attempt to defend it in the name of geekdom. I hate the command line. I hate typing things in. I hate not knowing the system is capable of something unless you know the exact command. I hate having to read man pages just to find out that you need to use the '-wibble' parameter. I hate the fact that, unless you are a geek, you can never know what your computer can and can't do. I can't even get Linux to tell me how much disk space it uses. And trying to defrag it? Ha! I hate the command line. What's the point of a command line anyway? What can you get done at a command line that you can't get done in a GUI? Answer: nothing. At least, nothing worth doing. Text editing? Sure. Let's all write in ASCII text using one font. And no graphics. Hell, let's publish entire novels using vi! Shit - what's the key combination for spell-checking? (Nope, no handy tools menu. No menus!) File manipulation? Ok, then. As we all know that Xwindow will never get drag-and-drop working. I hate the command line. The gimp - now that's quite a nice piece of software. Hang on - it needs a GUI to run. How the hell are the Linux zealots going to use that? Maybe they'll actually have to learn to use a mouse. Saying that, they probably have learned how use a mouse. At least basically. How else would you get around in KDE? "Keyboard shortcuts? What are they? The alt key brings up the menu? Really? But all I have to do in to do that is press ". I hate the command line. I don't want to spend days looking "cat pci" or whatever just so I can get my computer to play sound files. It does that already. I don't want to learn the ppp protocol just so I can connect to the internet. It does that already. And I don't want to know how the Content-Scrambling-System works just so I can watch a DVD. It does that already. Why would I want to use an OS that would take weeks to configure - just to do exactly what it can already do? Why must I be made out to be an idiot if I don't want to spend weeks configuring an OS? Why can't I just get my work done without the unrelenting cries of "M$ Windoze 15 3\/1L"? Next, the GUI. Xwindow. It has been described as "using a hammer to crack a nut". Well, only if your hammer is made of solid gold and your nut is an egg. It's a hugely expensive (in terms of not only code, but cost of hardware to make it run half-way decent) solution to a fairly simple idea - a graphics program on top of your OS. Apple did it. IBM did it. Microsoft did it. But Xwindow did it in a way that would be more whizzy than any other, and in a way that would be more power-hungry than any other. And would be less consistent than any other. The initial concept of it was pointless. It wasn't even writtent to handle graphics. It was written to run multiple command lines. And I hate the command line. X was written to run three apps. Xterm, Xclock and another one (I forget). So someone decided that a GUI would be nice to run those. And after perverting the client-server model, the originator decided that ALL input data must be sent to the Xclient (the application server - the remote computer) to tell it that your mouse has moved, say three pixels in the last five minutes. The Xclient then tells the Xserver (the local computer) exactly what to do with that. The Xserver then tells it EXACTLY WHAT IT CAN DO WITH THAT, and makes up own god-damned mind, making sure to misinterpret every default it finds scattered around a dozen or so different config files. All the while, huge amounts of bandwidth is being wasted by two computers talking about nothing. I am a Computer Science student - I know what I'm talking about. And I love programming. But I also know how to design usable user interfaces. At University, we use Delphi (a GUI based IDE) to write software with decent GUI's. My own monitor is capable of only 640*480 pixels. Yet I see people in my class designing UI's which barely fit on a 1024*768 screen. Obviously, as the work of students, they don't really know any better yet. But it seems to me that the people who write for Linux haven't even mastered the concept of screen resolution. The authors of Linux (well, the GUI - I'm aware that Linux is just a kernel) don't seem to care. I see programs as simple as Snake being too big for 640*480. The default for any program seems to be "just bigger than the users maximum resolution, and don't let it resize smaller without hiding such things as the Ok button". And these people claim to be better than Microsoft. They claim to be making "better" software. But honestly, have you ever seen a Microsoft program which DIDN'T fit at 640*480? I thought not. Maybe in an ideal world we'd all have 21" monitors. I know I'd like one. But I don't. And neither do most users who run Linux. Especially those who run it on old hardware. Or those who use it as servers. Why buy an expensive new monitor which you'll never look at? And afterwards, when you realise that no-one has bothered to write a decent configuration editor, you'll have to resort to the command line. And lo, your huge monitor, capable of 1900*1200 in 32bit colour at 120Hz, is reduced to a nice monochrome 640*480. And I hate the command line. [sarcasm] Yes, let's all use text only. Why use a GUI? I mean, all you can really use it for is graphics, web browsing, word processing, email, games... None of the REALLY important stuff. Like compiling a kernel. In c++. Yes, I just LOVE compiling. It's why I use a computer! What do you mean everyone uses a GUI? No, people don't need a gooey except to play games. Well they aint getting one from me. They can get on with their work instead! [/sarcasm] And I suppose computer generated artwork is done at the command line? I hate the command line. I hate Linux. I like Apple. I like Windows. Aaarrrggghhh!!!! Heresy! "Thou shalt dare not speak those words! Or thou shalt be cast out of the programming community, for thee be not of the true flock; for thee do not heed the words of the penguin! Thou must not listen to the lies of the one who calls himself Gates. The one who purports to be both Micro and Soft. For his words are evil. He talks of compatibility! He talks of users! He talks of games! He talks not merely of windows made of X, but whole boxes made of X! For he is the true evil one, the purveyor of the gee-you-eye. The one who believes that all things start at 'C:\', when all know they are rooted at '/'. The harbinger of the backslash, when all true devotees know that the forward slash is the true delimiter of the path. That path which shall lead us to wisdom, stability, and /usr/fortune!" Linus - 3:16.
I want to help. I want Open source to succeed. But not at the expense of usability. I don't use Linux, because I don't write c++. So until Borland finally release Delphi for Linux, I won't use it. And even then I'll probably find that Linux gives you API's which are all but useless. Whereas in Windows, I'm learning to use OpenGL using WGL - the Windows GL.
Which is another thing - the only way to program in Linux is in C or C++. Yes it gives you compilers. But quite frankly I don't like C. I like Pascal. I like JavaScript. I like Visual Basic. I'd sure like to see an open source version of Visual Basic!!
Finally, games. Will there ever be decent games on Linux? No because, as one game developer said on a recent posting at slashdot.org, "Right now, open source developers are about 1/4 of the way through whatever game is hottest title at the moment. In a years time, open source developers will be about 1/4 of the way through whatever game is hottest title at the time. In two years time, open source developers will be about 1/4 of the way through whatever game is hottest title at the time. In three years time, open source developers will be about 1/4 of the way through whatever game is hottest title at the time. In four years time, open source developers will be about 1/4 of the way through whatever game is hottest title at the time."
Calls to the windowing system for IPC? What about named pipes? Mailslots? or TCP/IP? Or shared memory? You don't need the windowing system for those (and there are others). If you're using window messages to communicate between processes, you need to rethink stuff...
This was edited from the final version of the press release:
Reporters noted that a several boxcars fulls of large server machines were seen being unloaded during the upgrade, and that the power requirements for the local area have increased by 150% percent. "Fortunately," said on utilities representative, "the heatwave season is over. Otherwise we would be looking at a potential brown-out or backout crisis."
"who cares".
Seriously, what difference does it make? I have made a personal decision to not use Windows- and Microsoft-related products in my home computer. If it means I have to give up some games or some other programs, so be it. It crashed on me one time too many, and I'm not going back. Ever.
Who would want to use an OS that doesn't support that games you want to play?
Imagine that linux were not as good as NT? It still wouldn't make a difference to me.
Using stuff like NT will lead to a society run by the BSA (Business Software Alliance), MPAA, RCAA and other extortion mafias.
They will constantly snoop on you and use that information to exact money from you; and the cash that they collect will be used to pay off politicians to create even more laws like the DMCA and UCITA. And then they will send Mickey Cantor around the globe to extort cash from every country that is too scared to stand up, because it does not want to get nuked by the extortionists.
All of which can only lead to a new Boston Tea Party and burning down of the Bastille; it will lead to the most violent confrontations in the history of mankind.
We have to stop it now, before it is too late.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
I agree, NFS is great.
Look, you can disagree with me if you want, but I know what I'm talking about here. We just went through a multi-week conversion from NT to 2k. While I was only responsible for the Unix side of things - I refuse to work on anything from Microsoft - I saw it all. I know what broke. I know what OSs are being used, and what applications. And I'm telling you that it doesn't work. While you may well be right about different registry branches, it seems like none of the apps out there are aware of it. And yes, that's the app vendors' fault. But it's also Microsoft's fault, for a) building a system that tries by default to do the wrong thing, b) maintaining back-compatibility (mostly) with a 100% single-user system, and c) botching the implementation of whatever ideas, good or bad, they may have had.
Nope, it's not intentional. They really just don't understand how a multiuser system is supposed to work. Which is bizarre, given that there's 40 years worth of experience to examine. Sounds to me like a case of extreme pride and "not invented here" syndrome.
Even /. has this vengeance (as seen by the Gates of Borg picture).
It's called "Gates Bashing." It's not that fun anymore, since MS and Bill Gates III has made it so easy. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.
I've crashed a fresh install of W2k before it was 30 minutes old. There was nothing but stock W2k on a single processor machine (PII-200, 128M RAM, yada yada yada). I was browsing the web. It crashed on msnbc.com, of all places-- froze, and no amount of shaking would bring it back.
This really impressed my friend, since it was his machine and he had been bragging W2k's stability. It was his install, so he couldn't even accuse me of sabotaging the system.
On a counter note, my brother told me about a Linux-based web server he has at work. He wanted to update the site over the weekend, but kept getting errors on login. It would site for 10 minutes between commands, and he couldn't update anything. When he got to work on Monday, he asked coworkers if they'd had problems with the web server. They reported it had worked just fine. He went back to the cold room, and heard a grand and frightening grinding. The hard drive had crashed on Friday, and the server had worked out of cache all weekend.
People who brag about the stability of W2k amuse me. I can crash any system-- it's just easier to crash windows. I've found there are two types of people in the world-- those who believe the hype, and those who don't. (Really, you can find ambivilent people as well, so perhaps there are three types.)
I'm just one who doesn't buy the hype, I guess.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
This is fun, can we play some more how-to's?
In Win2K, I have access to multiple PostScript printers that can scale the output. For source code, I like to print with a 50% scaling. But to do this, I have to do Print->Setup...->Advanced..., click on scaling, enter 50, click ok, click ok, click ok. Too many steps. How can I set things up (a virtual printer driver, perhaps?) so I can have this happen automagically in MSVC? (This is a serious question, I'd be very happy if you do have an answer.) I have used specialized code output filters many times in Unix.
re: Freshmeat: agreed, Freshmeat needs a "moderation" system, where packages get their usefulness voted on. The more votes, the earlier an app shows up in searches, and the default probably shouldn't show anything below a certain level.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It is just flamebait. I wouldn't let it bother you. On the other hand, Win2000 works perfectly well in what Microsoft SHOULD be marketing it as. A nice replacement for Win98 and the crappy legacy Win9x line on home systems. It is great for all the games I've tried while still being stable. Now, I wouldn't run a server on it of course but it works perfectly well as a desktop environment. In fact, it is wonderful for that!
Grab the FrontPage Extensions for Linux, and try to use FPExec for security--that way people who want FrontPage can use it there. If that's all you're using the Win2K box for, then format it, and install Linux, too. Once you get it working smoothly, you'll be so much happier. :)
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How much RAM do you have?
NT loves to chew up RAM, and this isn't fixed decently yet in 2000...
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WHAT???
Your solution here is "Don't use UNIX, just buy another Workstation"?
The original point was, you could get a big workstation, and have everyone run the apps they need off of that. It's cost-effective, and works great at Universities. There's a product like this for Windows too, that actually works decently: Citrix Metaframe. But X has done this on Unix, and so has telnet, for basically as long as they've been around. And if I wanted to use a real copy of VisualAge for Java at my University, that's what I'd use. If I were under Windows, I'd have to install a free X-server, too.
Just because you don't use it or understand it doesn't mean other people don't want it or need it.
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Umm... Linux has support for quite a few processors out of the box, including 8, and you don't have to pay more for it. If you want a RAID card for Linux, look at the supported hardware list, just like you do when you want a RAID card for NT. If you want to test them, see where the two lists intersect. That is all.
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First, one question: do you think BeOS has great multimedia support? Heck, it doesn't even play DVD's! ;)
Windows and Linux and MacOS all have SDL. It supports DirectX on Windows, and DGA on X, which is the equivalent. The tests I saw for 3D acceleration didn't differ by much; it's way fast for me, even for Q3A. My speakers can't even take advantage of 3D sound decently, and I think I saw patches for all that stuff, but I really don't care yet. However, Linux *does* have great 3D acceleration, and the audio stuff is in hardware! Maybe our definitions of great differ, but the actual performance I'm seeing is pretty impressive. And I'm not saddened that I don't have 'force-feedback' on my Gravis Gamepad, I don't know of any games that support it, and I thought it was a dumb idea on the Playstation!
Yeah, Windows has more hardware support; that's because Microsoft doesn't have to write *ALL* the drivers. This situation is changing of course, and I like being able to poke around with the source code, but it'll take a while for this one to change--the corporate culture can be pretty entrenched about these things.
There are many different limited versions of Win2K. I don't care if it supports 2 processors out of the box, or what the configuration-of-the-week is; the bottom line is, Microsoft will always sell you the same product for much more by just making a minor registry tweak so you get the "new features", and I'm fundamentally opposed to that, because it's stupid; just as stupid as CPUs and overclocking, nowadays.
Well, I'd like to see the results of the tests before I draw my conclusions; you may be right. But if I did the tests, and one platform consistently crashed under certain conditions, I'd note that and put it in my review; that's NOT a feature.
Another benefit of Linux is the multitude of configuration options. Given the time and resources, I'd love to just benchmark Linux against itself! That is to say, configure one box with a standard kernel, OSS, ext2, XFree86 3.3.6, and a couple of IDE drives, and then configure another box with an optimized kernel, ALSA, reiserfs, XFree86 4.0.1, software RAID... well, in any case benchmark all the components against each other, and find out what the fastest, most stable Linux configuration is for a given hardware configuration. That isn't as straightforward in NT, because there aren't that many configuration options, and many of them aren't obvious or readily available.
Also, X has DGA, which allows direct video access. X has hardware acceleration, and there are third-party drivers that implement *better* acceleration. (I compiled UTAH-GLX for my Matrox card, and it's pretty impressive; I'm going to try the new drivers from Matrox if I try XFree86 4.0.1 again; the DRI project for it doesn't look mature yet) I realize that the way Windows does it is probably closer to the bare metal, but that way lies madness; you might as well just write a protected-mode DOS app to do it, 'cause it's about the same, except it's hooked into Windows.
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SDL is a wrapper, and it does some other stuff all by itself, but it's a standardized, platform-independent implementation for media stuff. I've messed with that a little, and even less with actual X internals, but I know it's possible to change the resolution on the fly, even as a regular user; I just don't know if it requires DGA. For a good example, fire up Heroes III for Linux. Also, that should give you an idea as to my gaming needs; 3D audio really is wasted there.
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Actually, I think what I meant to say was, SDL is about equivalent to Direct X, and DGA lets you do some things like DirectDraw, or for that matter, SVGALib. (that is, get a full-screen console in a different graphics mode) If I missed anything, there's always OpenAL and OpenGL, but that should about cover it for multimedia APIs.
You're right; in this case, my argument is "I see no need for it, therefore it's not important". In fact, personally, that's generally my opinion on things. If, on the other hand, I think that it would be a really cool feature to have, well, then I'd want it. Example: The Office Assistant in Microsoft Office. I really see no need for it; therefore, I don't want it.
I couldn't tell you anything about NVIDIA benchmarks; I can tell you that I'm happy with my real-world performance with my Matrox G400. I'll happily run benchmarks between my Linux box and Windows '98; do you know of a good 3D benchmark suite? However, in any case, I don't think it's that big of a difference. When I find something I want to do that's noticably slower, I'll worry about it. Heck, I can load up an arcade game in MAME with GL support at 1280x1024x32, and it's smooth! That amazes me. Also, Q3A is pretty.
Is there a port of Half-Life to Linux? More to the point, do you know of any really good 3D role-playing games that I might be able to use? I couldn't get FF7 to work under Wine so far, and that's about it. I think the software-porting issue is more worrisome than the drivers, personally. And although I don't care about it, it looks like OpenAL supports 3D sound, or plans to. I haven't tried it, and don't know how mature it is yet, but I'm sure Loki will use it in a game sometime.
I don't play racing games; what about role-playing games? It's quite possible that I'm not enough of a gamer at heart to get it in the first place, unless side-scrollers count too...
The fact that manufacturers can sell identical products at vastly different prices based on a little configuration tweaking is pathetic. However, I didn't overclock my 800Mhz Thunderbird just because I wouldn't want to screw something up, or void the warranty. Even if it is trivially easy to do, I don't even have my box cooled very well, and I'm not much of a hardware hacker, either...
Well, sometimes NT can handle a week or two of uptime; even in a stable configuration, it still leaks memory. And if for some reason it isn't stable, well, then you're really in trouble. My Linux box isn't incredibly stable yet, either, but that's my problem; I'm trying out new stuff that probably isn't supported and recommended, and that's my fault. Most notably, I had to tweak arla a bit to get it to compile under kernel 2.4, and sometimes that module will die, but it doesn't bring down the whole system (it encounters a 'BUG()' in the kernel when it messes up, generally.) If I needed it for production, I'd be running kernel 2.2 and whatnot.
I just got a new computer, and I have an Abit KT7 board, an 800Mhz Athlon 'Thunderbird', a Matrox G400 DualHead 32MB, and an SB Live! Value... The DVD drive is a 12x Toshiba SD-M1402, and that's the only piece of hardware that isn't supported under linux. I installed Windows "Do You Want To Restart Your Computer?" '98 to test it out, and it seems to work just fine, though.
Incidentally, do you know of a good shell replacement in Win '98? I quickly tried a few of them last night, and they looked pretty unstable, or useless in the default configuration. I found a pager for Windows that's really cool, though; it's called DeskWin.
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It's called SDL; there's also OpenGL and OpenAL; that should be more than enough. Don't forget to thank Loki! :)
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Well, maybe it's less useful now, but it made a lot more sense when computers were more expensive, and not everyone necessarily had one. However, I think it provides a great environment for people--like a BBS where you can get all your work done! :)
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Oh, come on now... where there's easy money to be made you can be sure to find brown nosing PhDs..
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
I don't.
Are you saying that a 8-way Intel box with Win2k ran that job nearly twice as fast as a Sparc E-10k w/24 processors?!
Sure. He only ran 8 jobs, so 16 of the sparc processors were just sitting there. However, that's not the key point. The E10000 is designed to be able to handle massive I/O, which is very expensive and hard to do well. His jobs were all CPU bound, so he was wasting most of the resources that the E10000 has.
Actually, even using an 8-way multi-processor for W2K is probably a waste. There are no interactions between the processors, so having all 8 processors in the same box just leads to memory contention and such. Again, a waste of resources.
I almost hate to say this, but the "right" solution would be a beowolf cluster of maybe dual processors machines.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
FYI...
QWERTY was not meant to slow anyone down. The first typewriters had arms that struck the paper to print the letters. When the keys were arranged alphabetically, so were the arms and they kept getting jammed because commonly used letters were close to each other. So they devised a new layout that separated the commonly used letters to stop the arms from getting jammed up so much. Wish I could remember where I read this, so I could point people in that direction, but I can't, so you'll just have to take my word for it!
HR directors really don't get any blame when someone "dorks" a server. At any company that I have interviewed with, the HR people didn't do the technical portion of the interview. That is left to the manager/peers in the department that is hiring.
Check out the Resource Kit. I'd say you should consider it as a necessary part of the OS for any real work, ESPESCIALLY adminstering via the commandline. It comes with commandline utilites for admistering services, etc. And you can always run regedit via the commandline to change things, if you know the registry key you want to change.
My research indicates that over 80% of the posts to any /. article are AC spam.
Most people very deliberately don't even come close to having something intelligent to say...
t_t_b
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I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
You'll never see me advocate Windows 2000 over GNU/Linux. But don't lie.
Windows 2000: Designed for the Internet. The Internet: Designed for UNIX.
but as a user of OS/2 during the OS wars of the old days when MS openly sabotaged "OS/2 for Windows" (lets not forget the special DR-DOS will break your computer messages), I have to openly ponder the following...
Is Real locking up your Windows2000 machine because it is poor software, or is Windows locking up because Real is not the Windows Media Player?
Why would anyone want to use an OS where you shouldn't install software because of fear of crashing the OS?
I agree with you.
Maybe we can say it even in other words:
Why would anyone want to call an OS 'stable' when it is possible to crash the OS with installing application software?
hany
every other command is 'ls' as they have to manually refresh information... with a GUI, refresh is free, automatic, and fast. It frees you to think about the problem itself,and not makeing sure you've got the latest info. And that's just a very tiny example.
Tiny, but rubbish.
When ever I use a command line I often find myself doing an 'ls' or similar almost on automatic while I think about what to do next. It is sort of a 'busy signal' for me. Odd, but true.
No one is saying that a unix command line is easier to learn than a GUI, but I for one find it immensely more powerful.
Every time I try to do anything even remotely complicated with Windows Explorer I find myself cursing the way it asks me to confirm everything, the pointless 'flying files' animation that serves no purpose other then to tick me off and waste cpu time and the godawful slowness of the whole caboodle.
The problem with the command line is that it requires the user to learn and to think - is this really so hard?
-- Stu
is it faster to use another machine to SSH in and kill X or is it faster to reboot and let fsck do its work?
well, there's the thing... you at least have the option of an SSH/Telnet or VNC connection. In the situation you describe, the computer isnt trashed - it is only the GUI or some process within it which has gone arse-upwards.
When explorer crashes on my NT 4.0 box and locks up the console I am basically forced to hit the power switch and suffer the trials of the NT boot sequence. There is no other way in (at least, not without third party tools).
-- Stu
I work in the architecture area of a large telco. We have 30,000 desktops to manage. Every time we need a change, the lack of desktop scalability bites us every time.
The registry is per machine. Windows 2000 makes that accessible via the Network, using Group Policy.
Therefore anything that allows administrators to look after a 30,000 desktop change in one to two days is a major win.
Andrew van der Stock
For a start, Win2K's kernel bears no resemblance to the DOS kernel. The 16 bit command interpreter is not present.
/* or chown -R nobody.users /* administrators can make the security a whole bunch worse if they DO NOT HAVE A CLUE.
The registry (as with all other objects, including files, mutexs, memory sections, etc) is protected via the Object Manager, which calls the Security Reference Monitor to check validation.
If the programs have the Win2K logo, they have the correct permissions for TS and use the registry properly (per machine settings go in HKLM and per user settings are in HKCU, which in Win2K hangs out in the Active Directory in a domain environment).
Security is moderately tight, but just like a chmod -R ugo=rwX
Better not tell the guys doing KDE and Gnome that a single centralized place to do administration is a bad idea. Administrators looking after 30,000 desktops can't work any other way. It's not a flawed architecture - it's the ONLY scalable model to move us forward from the each system is an island in the sea of machines.
Andrew van der Stock
Or you could just write server side java, which is MUCH easier to develop than windows code and work with both of them. Ease of development is a strawman argument.
Agreed -- I don't really understand the multi-user OS mantra, when more often than not the clients to the multi-user host are fully functional (and reasonably powerful) workstations anyway.
or by professional companies such as Red Hat, Caldera, Mission Critical Linux, etc. (I leave the web searches to you).
As far as security, shall we compare the virii alerts? Linux is as secure as any competent system admin makes it.
In terms of release dates, you prefer "when marketing says so, regardless of status" to "no release before its time?"
Well, I hope you can trust it more than the previous version. The problem being that any kind of an upgrade (of OS level, or even an SP) would cause the machine to forget about the stripe/mirror disks. We first found out about this on a big server - it lost all the important "mirrored" (hah!) disks but the other disks (containing unimportant stuff) were just fine.
All your ghosts are just false positives.
Explorer has crashed on me several times, and depending on hardware configurations, Win2k Professional has frozen up on me as well with no additional software installed.
Just because you have not had any problems does not mean that other people that are having problems are doing something wrong, believe me. I have gotten into this argument many times, and I have taken your position in the past, but as I have learned, it is just plain wrong.
Yes. It worked just great, even when one terminal was displaying EUC and one terminal was displaying Shift-JIS encoded text.
--
>Doesn't the SVGA xserver for 3.3.6 support those nvidia chipsets?
If you call what looks like 320x??? counts as supports. I can't get any workable res.
I use Windows 2000 as my desktop at work and, as far as I recall, I have only had to reboot it in anger once. Outlook crashes a lot on it though, but I just end task it, no affect on the rest of the system at all. One or two font problems with 16 bit progs though...
:-(
I have Linux and Windows at home and we use Unix on two of our main servers at work, as well as Linux on a small box for a french program.
Using Win2k at home however showed a problem - trying to use the Win 2000 drivers for my GForce 256 causes it to freeze up completely. Not even the three fingered salute causes a reaction. Linux won't support it either, at least not until I get XFree86 4.0 working on it...
>Really, I'd love to see you change your kernel
>without rebooting!
I can't verify this, but I heard that a guy running a small ISP managed this.
I guess you could do something in the same way that loadlin overlays the memory in dos?
Anyone else got any ideas?
>In terms of release dates, you prefer "when
>marketing says so, regardless of status" to "no
>release before its time?"
I think MS has wised up a bit, why do you think W2K was late, and Windows DataCenter doubly so?
I had one customer plug in a Mandrake install CD, click on the "Server" button and stand back. The only configuring he did was to use LinuxConf to set up the modem and DNS for his machine, then he went online hosting his own website over a modem. Delegated his own domain name and all. He'd never touched anything but Windows 98 before, and was using Linux because he'd read somewhere that it made a great server.
He contected me to make the redial sequence a bit more intelligent and while I was there I added a network card so he could stop dialling out on another line to give his Windows box internet access and told him which services he could do without.
How hard is that?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Instead of allowing each user to customize various aspects of application behaviour with small text files in their home directory, much system behaviour is controlled instead by a single central repository. Fundamentally flawed design, plain and simple.
/var/spool/mail/$USER files; one monolithic config versus little ~/.forward and friends; one directory and one name for about twenty different flavours of system library; one indivisible world-writeable repository versus ~/.$APPNAME shadowing /etc/$APPNAME... one globe-spanning company versus millions of users... one death-star versus hundreds of X-wings... one reactor tunnel, one blank MS-SQL default, it seems to match up well for me!
Now here's a familiar theme! One massive world-writable database versus many
What can I say? "Use the flaws, Luke!" (-:
Microsoft has conclusively demonstrated that the only sane upgrade from NT4 is Unix.
It has always been this way... (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I think the facts will probably point towards Linux, but I encourage you to take a look, try both, and then join most of us in hating Microsoft. :-)
Couldn't agree more! I'll bring the rope... no, wait, Microsoft have enough rope already...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It has much less backward compatibility than any other version of Windows I've used, but the stability has definitely increased.
Sorry, are you talking about W2k or Linux in this sentence? (-:
Using Windows 2000 carries risks of being incompatible with the rest of your network.
Deja vu again, this reads just like Microsoft anti-Linux propaganda but you seem to be applying it to W2k...
The only compelling reason I can think of to go with Windows is speed of application development, both on web and desktop based applications.
This I will give you, but with significant reservations. The first is that tools like wxPython and Boa Constructor erase a lot of the differences for the desktop; the second is that snippets of PHP, Python etc seem to be a lot more reuseable in practice than chunks of ASPness, meaning that reaching for PHP templates for a new website is generally at least as productive as starting a new ASP; the third is that using tools lke Word and Frontpage for web design should be a hanging offense.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If you are Alex/Drestin, then this...
I sent him several emails when he first put it up, but none of the comments were included in the site.
...is hardly surprising, given the complete lack of reality and often even relevence in your lines of argument. And really, given that this is an AC posting, saying that...
When his site first appeared he had a resume posted as well
...is serious chutzpah. Go back to flattening your forehead on the ground before Bill.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
This is a good example of what holds back Unix in the marketplace. This is simply biased garbage.
You are of course referring to your own post?
NT4 is far more advanced than Unix when it comes to having embeddable components in the operating system.
Are we referring to kernel modules here, or individual services like khttpd? Either way, NT loses out by being late to market with the concept, and by not implementing it as safely or as cleanly.
When these documents are unable to give credit where credit is due, it casts doubt on ALL comparison studies. Those of you who would write these sort of documents should keep that in mind.
Oh, I understand, you have the wrong page open in your browser. You want this one instead.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Microsoft Myths Made Manifest
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
From what I gather, the networking code in W2K has been rewritten and allows much faster db access.
The last rewrite (for NT) threw ethernet and TCP timing into the bushes and jumped in after it. I wonder what they brutalised for this one? I mean, aside from obvious things like Active De-rectum-y?(*)
I'm going to wait for others to discover it, thank you, W2k is not for this little black duck, certainly not now and maybe not ever.
(*) "Rectum" as in "Rectum?" "Sure did!"
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm in Western Australia, happy to provide Linux knowledge (not a guru but good).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
easy re-imageing
What for? A Linux client never needs reimaging. (-:
The way I remotely reimage Wndows drives is by having the things reboot into Linux (net boot cards), then I just dd from an NFS drive onto the Win partition, mount it and make the necessary adjustments with a script, reboot into Windows. Fully automagic. What's so hard about that?
remote control capablity
Remote control under Windows sucks. I can run one (or one thousand) command(s) securely and remotely on one or one thousand Linux [or insert favored Unix implementation here] clients, or any reasonable subset, together or separately, by hand or automagically, copy files around (including between remotes without touching my machines) and stuff, and remoteing "by hand" is bearable on a heavily loaded modem line. None of this is so for any version of Windows.
As for Terminal Services, doing the same thing with Linux boxes (any Unix, for that matter) is no software, no licences, almost no config. It's exactly the kind of thing that Unix was born doing. Doing this with Windows is like foot-racing against a cheetah: it can be done, you won't win, you will look silly, you might get eaten. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
How many /.ers were "raised" on Linux? *BSD? Any other non-M$ environment?
I was raised on CP/M, then DOS, then Windows. I ain't going back to any of them.
Let's face it, the money in Linux comes from the support.
And face it again, the money in Windows comes from everything. You pay for the product, maybe pay to have it installed, maybe pay to have it reinstalled a few times, maybe pay a reimaging fee on the reinstall because the original was OEM-only, pay per CPU, pay per seat, pay for support, pay for upgrades and in some cases for security/bugfix updates, pay for separate expensive machines for each service (since Exchange is a hog, Proxy a security colander and FrontPage another one, and anything from Microsoft just chugs down resources like they had a hardware franchise), not to mention pay for coffee and aspirin after the silly thing elects to grind to a halt at 2AM occasionally.
How many ISPs that use Linux can do so with off-the-shelf or downloadable software and not a year of developing your own scripts and playing jigsaw-puzzle to put it together?
An awful lot of them, including me.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I guess getting a whole pile of other people's email isn't a disruption, as such, but... I do wonder if I got all of my email...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
How about microsoftrecovery.org?
I'll happily donate of my nonexistent time for editing etc... sometimes you need to plow the ground before you plant.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I did the same thing. Installed Pc Anywhere and killed Win2000. This was only a few days after I install Win2000. It made me VERY gunshy about installing apps on the Win2k box.
I'm still not sure what killed the machine and why just installing a simple app on the software would trash the OS like that. Seems fairly retarded to me.
I'm not sure what else will kill Win2000. It will be interesting to see over time.
But, that said. It's seems backwards to have to have two Win2000 machines running. One to do the job and the other to use as a test base to install your apps on (just to make sure it won't kill your server)
My studio - www.graylands.ca
I don't think that the desktop is likely to be
taken over by Linux anywhere in the near future.
Before you start flaming me take note that I
rarely ever use winblows on my computer. I have
reserved 3G out of 30G for times that I need
to use my scanner (Mustek 600CP) which is not
likely to be supported by Linux before hell
freezes over.
I do think though that NT and that includes
winblows 2000 will have a rocky road to ride
in the next few years. Two of my brothers who
work for big (huge) multinationals are telling
me that their companies who recently got taken
over by bigger fishes are switching to Linux
across the board to save money. One CEO in
particular hates to have to pay for a per computer
fee and when he heard the unlimited allowed use of
Linux, he gave the order to do the switch. Whithin
two to three years NT and Winblows 95-98 are
expected to be flushed in those two companies.
As for Joe Blow, I doubt very much that the
switch is likely to be made anytime soon as
you have to realize that software companies
will fight this to the end. It doesn't really
make much sense to support a system where you
can't force the customer to update regularly.
It is ridiculous to let a customer use the same
damm program for years when he should be upgrading
to something new.
>Linux is Open Source which probably means it has
>a virus and it is piracy so company's should not
>use it! Linux is stealing from the pokcet of
>Miscorfoft employees!
Either you are being sarcastic or have manure for
brain.
Open source means that anyone can see the source
so if indeed a virus is present it would stay
there very long. As for piracy, you might want
to check the warez sites to see for which OS
those sites are.
I've heard people say (about woody, the next Debian) that an "unstable" development version can actually be quite sound and usable. Should I, as someone fairly new to Linux (comfortable with basic commands, but new to system administration), only try stable releases (such as RH 6.2), or would I do just as well to grab the latest dev? This would be running on my home computer, so it should at least be well-behaved enough to not hose my Windows partitions. Any further input is appreciated.
I use Windows 2000 Professional (the non-server version of the OS) regularly. It is, AFAICT, far and away the best version of Windows yet. It is trivial to install, easy to use and administrate, and is more stable and secure than any previous version of Windows. Windows 2000 offers a huge improvement over outdated NT4 and unstable Win9x. Its system requirements are really steep for legacy equipment, but that will be a non-issue within a year or two, as hardware continues to progress.
My experience with Linux has been challenging yet enticing. I've dabbled with Debian, which I like for its freedom and easy updatability. I recognize and appreciate the vast array of free software that comes with Linux distributions, which Windows can't hold a candle to. I am enthusiastic about learning to use Linux, but at the same time have found it to be much less intuitive than what I'm used to, so the going is slow. Just configuring X to start under Debian 2.1 was quite an exercise. I just got potato (2.2) the other day, but did not complete the installation because somehow it couldn't make the required boot floppy. I still didn't get around to establishing PPP connections with my ISP (admittedly because I haven't yet read the in-depth howtos on the subject, and it seems there may be problems with my cheap old Atlas 33.6k modem).
I truly intend to gain proficiency in Linux and use it as my primary OS. This will clearly require a significant investment in time, even to get up to the usability level where Windows automatically starts me. I'm sure it will be worth it in the long run, as I'll be running a powerful, scalable, open OS. For the next few months, though, I'll mostly be studying for my Win2K MCSE. (I know that much of the Slashdot community takes a dim view of MCSEs, but I'm just trying to leverage my existing Windows knowledge to get my foot in the door as an assistant network administrator. Despite my initial difficulties with Linux, I think it's great, and I'll likely followup my MCSE with a Linux+ cert.) As other people have pointed out, making Linux a more friendly desktop OS could draw a huge chunk of the potentially clueful (and not so clueful) Windows user base.
Just to clear up any confusion, Win2K and W2K are short for Windows 2000. It is not Windows Millennium Edition.
I find that hard to believe Fervent!
Are you saying that a 8-way Intel box with Win2k ran that job nearly twice as fast as a Sparc E-10k w/24 processors?!
The E10k is the flagship of all sun hardware, it's hard to fathom that a 'puny' intel box would beat it at batch-file processing!
For the record, I run a both a linux box and a win2k box and use both for whatever the situation demands. Like political parties, I don't believe in blindly following one and only one (linux or win2k) like a sheep. If only some of the people here would get a clue, we wouldn't have such a bad reputation as rabid linux zealots.
Start->Settings->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Telnet Server Administration
If it's not there, you've prolly not installed it.
--
Peter
W2K Workstation comes with a telnet server.
--
Peter
NT did not evolve in any way from Windows 3.1. If it's said to have a design parent, that would to VMS (at the time Microsoft notoriously bought the people who designed VMS - but the design is similar in that there is a kernel with an API that runs in protected mode and several Application interfaces (virtual machines) that sit on top of that API - the Win32 subsystem is the most extensive such API and lives in such DLLs as Kernel32.dll, Advapi32.dll) - but the actual design was done from the ground up and incoporates features not found in a VMS kernel (ACLs, unicode, loadable driver model immediately come to mind). NT was not designed specifically for use as a client - it was designed to be a server (where MS did not have a good product - people were running OS/2 as a server if that tells you the benchmark they had to beat).
The window manager (User32.dll) does not run in kernel space - it runs in user mode. This is a minsconception created when the GDI was moved into Kernel Mode. This is now consistant with other drivers but the point of the move was to increase the granularity of the calls to Kernel mode. The drivers for the actual video cards (called miniport drivers because they implement a simpler subset of the graphics API) already ran in Kernel mode. So the change was to move complex GDI calls that resolved in multiple mini-port graphics driver calls into the kernel (reducing the number as expensive (10k-100k instructions) kernel mode switches - hench improving drawing performance).
The assertion that window messages must be used for IPCs is false. There do exist several mechanisms where this is the case (applications posting private window messages, clipboard transfers, DDE, and COM when used with single threaded apartments). However, you should note that all of these mechanisms are intended for use by use applications - and all of these mechanisms run in user mode (along with the window manager). For service applications there exist kernel event, mutexes, semaphores, memory mapped files, sockets and named pipes. For *real* IPC you can use COM in multi-threaded mode (where calls come in on kernel allocated threads for maximum concurrency). There also exist kernel objects designed for high-throughput servers like jobs, thread-pool managers (you give it tasks and the kernel manages a thread pool based on current server load), and IO completion ports (similar to a thread pool but thread list is user managed).
For Win2k - any server now integrates terminal services (previously found only on NT4.0 terminal server edition - the technology was merged forwards since the changes were too extensive to be a mere service pack). Effectively every server is now multiuser and supports remote applications like X does. Some other changes are a bit more difficult: like COM+ which integrates transaction processing, events, asynchronous IPC, object pooling (features previously in MTS) natively into the COM object model; NTFS reparse points let you create virtual directory trees (mounting volumes in a a tree just like UNIX), Dfs aggregates network shares into a single tree, hardware support for NT should increase since now it uses the same driver model as Win98/ME, Offline/Hierarchical storage.
The *massive* change that everyone's talking about is AD (Active Directory) - if any feature could be termed a Linux killer this is it. Any organization over a couple hundred people can benefit a lot from a directory service because they will surely have multiple domains by that point. AD also throws in replication of accounts, shares, mailboxes (Exchange 2k is implemented entirely in terms of AD) and files (you can create a domain share where the files are replicated among all the servers in that domain for maximum uptime).
All this is nice, but if you want to see the full extent of the vision at MS you have to watch the NT, IIS, VS, SQL Server axis. They put a lot of effort into larger scale design creating a lot of integration among their own products.
In keeping with the "its not our fault" ethic, there seem to be no real tools for hardware debugging. I encountered this in a W2k/Dell laptop, which seems to have a faulty PCMCIA card, controller, or driver (can't tell which). I was very suprised, that under such harsh conditions, it managed to stay alive for as long as it did, and rarely locked totally: it tried very, very hard to stay alive, and sometimes succeeded. My Debian laptop is the same way.
I also noticed that when IE dies, it tends to bring things down, depending on what you were doing. I can only assume this is due to the high level of integration.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
HTH, HAND
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
Patenting software.
So nobody else could possibly market something similar... What a great way to stifle innovation and screw the user.
Now your system is so hermetic that anyone trying to ride your bicle has to wear your shoes.
I'll walk thank you. At least my pants won't get dirty when the chain come off.
You just don't get it do you?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Definitly.. It looks like linux/open source has 'won' at a bunch of big computer companies. Next target: Provo.
Extending you argument - look at Mozilla. Hackers generaly either have, or are working on, a university education, and ever CS program Iv ever heard of includes OS deisgn, and proably specific coursed on UNIX. ie, university educated programers are, by definition, UNIX hackers - or course there going to beable to implement the UNIX/POSIX API. However, since there arent uni courses in Web Browser Layout Engines, hackers generaly have avoided Mozilla, not only because its not fun, they dont know how to do it.
Microsoft has leigons of university educated programers, who assumably could build from the ground up a stable OS with all the services generaly acknolaged to be necessary - can they 'fix' Windows? Given enough time, proably.
If MS is broken up, and no longer 'evil', and finish 'fixing' windows, then they proably will have the best desktop OS. Bind it, Windows 2020, with Linux v6.2, and NDS v20.. Well, Then Well Be Getting Somewhere.
Then you don't use it too much. If you run 5 windows open and active all the time, Netscape 4.7X WILL CRASH. I have never met someone who uses Netscape this way who hasn't had a darned lot of crashes. Mozilla M17 is better, but not much.
This isn't flaimbait, but to say that NS under Linux is stable is sort of silly.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
which begs the question: "is there such a thing as an unbiased comment"
/. is) will probably be in line with the views and ideals expressed by the oss/gnu-type movements.
i'll answer with a no.
charging right ahead, for some reason you feel the need to express that the comments in an oss/gnu-centric discussion group (which
gee...i never would have thought...
i'll just wait patiently for your discourse on the fact that trees are (strangely) mostly comprised of wood.
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
With all its supposed zealotry , /. is still an infinitely superior source of meaningful technical information and debate than ZDnet, CNet, MSNBC and ABCNews put together.
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
There, I just about detroyed my reputation as a Un*x zealot by defending NT <g> !
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
And they will have to do it, be the solution adopted Linux or Windows. The only way to forfeit paying someone is if the owner's daughter is a computer geek, but then guess what system she's more likely to tinker with <g> ?
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
I like the Internet Connector License introduced in SQL 7.0. Actually, that release had several "innovations". Per CPU Licensing AND Internet Connection Licensing (which I believe was $3700, for a piece of paper that resided ultimately on our office fridge).
Mmmmm, exploiterific.
I like music
yeah... I've been wondering about two in particular: Redhat's "Oracle optimized" linux distro and their "High availability" distro, both of which are $2500, and there's not even a whisper of either of those on their FTP site. Just for the sake of it, i'd kick in $1 if 2499 other people would too, so we could post the sucker Tucows, LinuxISO.org, and whereever else it wanted to go...
$2500 for linux... yeah... free as in beer it's not.
Further down the page - it's $20,000.
But we're talking apples and oranges here, when you drag apps into the equation. Except you show that the cost of the OS really just a small portion of a systems overall cost.
Witness the iPlanet application server, which runs (I believe) $35,000 a processor. So if you've got two quad xeon machine, one running linux and one running W2K, the software costs for one will be $140,000 and the other will be $142,500, or so.
But for the same equivalent license on 1 GHz Athlon/Linux machine to run Oracle, the final price would be $26,250.00 (same as for Win2K) - risc licensing is 1.5 times as much...
So i don't see what your'e griping about in this conversation about OS's. The end result is that in the server world, all OSes are cheap compared to the hardware they run on and the applications they run...
The $173 version is for Win2000 professional, a more or less desktop oriented OS, not Win2000 Server. Joe user isn't administering servers, he's just using his computer.
Having spent 3 days re-installing 3 machines (each with identical hardware and different symptoms!) I have to say I prefer the Linux solution. At least the "components" in Linux behave in a predictable manner. I have yet to find that in any windows system!
Physicists get Hadrons!
"Windows is pretty so it's better".
No. Enough said.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
win 2k as a client system is just unstoppable its very stable and it can do all the great stuff the 9x os's can, but if I was running a heavy duty server for mission critical stuff I would go with unix. But for my home pc right now I am loving win 2k. But i still got my slack :0.
The beauty of unix: No quickrestore cd - because it isn't needed. Setup is a one-time thing, buy preloaded or hire a consultant if you don't want to know.
The unix computer simply don't crash after saving a file.
I have been testing windows 2000 and the first thing is how much slower it is on older hardware. You definitely need a lot of memory and more than one processer for this platform!
The stability has much improved! It's slow as hell but I don't see the blue screens that often. It still tends to run out of virtual memory which was always the trait of NT 4.
The network communication is NOT faster.
If linux or any unix that has good scalability I'm sure it will beat windows2000 on high end servers.
I can't wait for the release of FreeBSD 5.0 and Linux kernel 2.4. They are supposed to have better SMP support. Unix is going to level windows again. Sorry.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
Hear, Hear!
I cut my teeth on Netware back in the 2.somthingorother days, and I still think its a great NOS. I am a firm believer in use the tool that suits, and I think Netware works great for what it was designed for.
(fyi, Right now i used Win2k on my desktop, cuz its more stable then NT, I dual boot Yellowdog linux/MacOS 8.5 on my PPC for cd burning and general mayhem, and use NT4/SQL7 for my databases (and there is a very good yet long reason why I don't use Linux for my databases, but I don't want to go into it) and Slackware and Mandrake for my email boxen and firewalls)
Run. I like water. Push My rutabaga.
The billions lost number come from pritty much the same people who say Microsoft is good.
I'm willing to discount the billions lost becouse of the source.. For you to do the same would mean dumpping tons of AntiLinux nonsence..
Note: Nobody is byond FUD.. those that clame FUD immunity are those most likely to FUD...
One must watch ones self or one will become a source of propaganda...
Years before the e-mail virus was ever made posable.. long before IloveU.. or Malisa.. we had "Good Times" the hoax...
There was a long debate about this... could it ever happen... 'No' e-mail is text it is not executable..
But if it ever contained macros or scripting it could happen yes yes?
Yeah but no body is stupid enough to do that.. If anything this hoax reminds us of the kind of damage an e-mail virus could cause and how one could happen.
Even if it wasn't automatic.. that it required you to click on something before it ran.. and announced itself with red flags... we know better...
So no one is that stupid.......
years later.... someone was that stupid....
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity..
(And don't excuse them for being stupid)
Ok give them a break with Maliasa... a small one... they got slopy careless and dumb...
Remove the feature....
Right?
Yes it might have happend on Linux had it not happend on Windows first...
Then it would go away... lesson learnned... feature removed... problem solved...
But it wasn't Linux.. Microsoft didn't learn.. they didn't remove the feature.. they made it worse...
It's not a macro anymore.. it's not really a virus BTW just a worm...
Look back a few years... Someone wrote an Internet worm that exployted a bug that let the worm transport itself to a new computer...
It worked so well it nearly took out the Internet...
Unix... how long before it was repaired?
years? Decades? no... weeks.. days...
With Linux occasionally thies problems get fixed in hours.. thow thats the best posable time it's been known to take longer...
It happend on Windows first becouse Microsoft made it posable first...
I think thats really less importent than the fact that Microsoft never did anything to fix it.
The feature remains... the bug is still there...
Anyone else would have removed the defective feature... Linux, Sun, Apple, IBM, Atari, Sega, Sony.. etc etc etc...
With Linux ANYONE can remove the defective feature...
And in record many such features have been pulled long before they were ever implemented becouse someone noticed a potental problem.
It's not so specal that a bug happends... it matters that Microsoft has desided you don't care if your computer is infected with 'IloveU'
I don't actually exist.
I don't have windows leftover on my system...
I don't know why it took so long. I installed Slackware back in 1995 in about 5 hours. Not a month, not weeks...5 hours. I had never tried a *nix operating system other than telneting into a VMS multicluster to check email.
What did you do wrong? Read folks, even in 1995 it was pretty easy to find information.
Who would be that fucking stupid?
DL Slackware 7.x and you get a system
with 100x the stability and 100x the security.
Looks like 2000 can't take the load.
I'm currently running 2K Professional on a Celeron 300 with 128 MB and it runs fine. Even with Dreamweaver 3, Photoshop 5.5, and Visual Studio 6 running at once, and frequent task switching between them. (heck, not to mention the mp3s I play while I work :-)
I have to say that Win2K as a desktop OS is pretty solid. I don't trust it to act as my server though. That's a job that is currently being done by a 200 MHz/32MB OpenBSD box running Apache, BIND, Qmail, and Samba. I don't see any version of windows being as efficient as any UNIX on such modest hardware with lots 'o services. Hell, not to mention that if something ever actually goes wrong with the OpenBSD box I can fix it, and I can't say enough about the security peace of mind I feel with it.
I have no great love of MS, but I have to give Win2K some credit. Since moving to it, all my probs with Win98 are a thing of the past. I still don't see why they think a server needs to run all the flashy GUI overhead though. Anyone admining a server ought to have enough skills to handle a command line or they need a new job.
-Wintermute, Wow that was kinda rambling. Oh well.
Uses OpenBSD/samba as the PDC and BIND as the nameserver. In this case, Win2K Professional will authenticate off samba just fine with a default install. Notice the no Active Directory. If you want directory services (I don't use them) use NDS. It's more functional than AD and interoperable between OS'es.
If you are heterogeneous *at all* stay away from AD. I'm convinced the whole purpose of AD is to kill the heterogeneous network and force everyone to become all-MS shops.
-Wintermute
Why would anyone with any kind of engineering or science degree want to be an MCSE? That would be like going to grade school after college.
Any Unix sysadm will tell you to that Bind is a big security hole. Got to watch the box it is running on all the time for crackers.
I'm still upset that I can't find out how Windows NT or Windows 2000 can be administered with a simple vt100 or similar terminal. I have no problems on my unix boxes of telnetting (or ssh'ing) and updating the server configuration.
Maybe there's a way with windows that I just don't know. ControlIt, PCAnywhere, and VNC are nice, but they are not "real" ways to administer a server since they require one to be logged on to the console of the box!!!!!!
end of line
In Germany one webserver out of two runs Linux. And in other modern countries the numbers aren't quite different. NT serves an astonishing 19%. Astonishing? Yes, because NT or Win2000 still costs triple in maintenance and managers still haven't understood the difference between bloatware and software that actually WORKS.
No other OS is gaining faster market share than Linux. So how could you talk about "soon to disappear Linux"?
ms
Pirates know good software! NU is one of my favourite programs (or groups of programs I guess) ever since way back in the day when I was running dos 2.11 It's never failed me. I wish they'd port it to linux though.
You might want to investigate the use of an AT command from either the local machine, or from another user on the network that has domain admin.
/?" at a command prompt.
It could actually be a *malicious user* (LOL) on the network that is remotely rebooting your collegues machine, at least part of the time.
try "shutdown
.
Win2000 finally adds a command prompt only mode. It's more like the Win95 "safe mode", but it's better than nothing.
Right after Win2000 came out we were moving out stuff from an NT4 workstation to a Win2000 Professional machine. We made a huge mistake by installing PC Anywhere on it (what dummies!). This brought the whole machine down (The auto fixing DLLs didn't help or anything). We ended up using the command prompt to try to get it uninstalled, but it woudln't go away. I had to laugh that installing an application can actually destroy a Win2000 install. What a joke. That must be one of those 63K bugs or something. We ended up reformating and using VNC instead.
The moral of the story is that Win2000 has a command prompt only mode. I don't think it's very useful, but YMMV.
You summed it up right there when you said "tech support is as close as any browser." I can't deploy an operating system on my remote users' laptops and branch offices when there's only one or two computers in the office. If the system goes down, they can't get to a browser - and where do you turn for Linux help? You can pay a company like Linuxcare, but when push comes to shove, you still can't get local help for Linux in most small cities.
I live in one of the biggest cities in the US, and I'm blessed with living less than three miles from our local user's group headquarters. I can get great support for Linux when it divebombs, but I wouldn't dream of doing it on my only home computer if I was living in Bucktooth, Arkansas or something.
What's your damage, Heather?
if that person doesn't say "os/2" somewhere. Burbling on about the relative merits of NT/Gnome/KDE GUIs is comparing cars in a junkyard.
I use them all and the killer GUI is the Presentation Manager (TM).
Select the university carefully or you may encounter complications...
Sort of an ambiguous question.
--------------------
Um, if a userland program can take down the machine through normal operation, its the kernel's fault for letting it happen.
And if third party applications that work fine in NT/98 break in 2k, it is not the applications' fault unless they are using undocumented functions, functions deprecated in 2k, or using the API incorrectly. Seeing as how Microsoft applications use undocumented functions out the wazoo, and the Win32 API is sloppy crap, the only real thing you can blame third parties for is not reading the new documentation.
Control-Alt-F2 and the crashed machine is running just fine. On Linux.
Human nature? Right.
In part, the sunk-cost falacy. That something is worth what you paid for it.
To demonstrate the force behind it, after buying a new car, carefully read the ads and other promotional literature for for competing models, and just try to keep any sense of objectivity.
Single-user makes some convenient assumptions about the one-to-one relation between user (singular) and computer (singular). The unix multi-user paradigm translates much better into a single-user (me), multiple-machine scenario.
Another bad decision from the past. "One objective of the Windows NT security model is to ensure that the programs a user runs don't have greater access to object than the user does." Sounds good at first, but it implies that if I can change my password, I can change anyone else's. More importantly, it means that I cannot programmatically protect access to data. If the user can access information through a program, he/she can access the underlying data directly.
But how do I install a group with the same name as a user?
Umm just a quick note about getting FF7 to work under Wine... I wouldn't hold your breath too much (although kudos if you get it to work!) It was mega flaky in the 3d-card arena, I had to d/l the latest bleeding-edge drivers to get it to work. Most other RPG's should work ok though (Baldur's Gate, IWD, DII(?), etc..) HTH,
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
- Dave
I think I'd almost be happy with w2k, if it wasn't for WMP 7, avoid this piece of shit at all costs.
--
+&x
I also do a lot of work for the free software foundation and know many people in the GNU\Linux camp.
with that preface this is the real world I can tell you about. In our organization our HEAD NT gurus are pulling down nearly six figures. The people under them around 45k. They all have no degrees and MCSE certification.
For the most part they are competent on keeping things up and running(amazing in NT). However they know nothing about programming (script or otherwise) their knowledge is that only of NT and TCP/IP.
I know several admins of Solaris/GNU/Linux. I will say that the people I know not only know their OS but also are forced to fully know NT (they never cop out, its not *nix I wont deal with it), but amazingly, they are ALL compentent programmers. Not only bash, but most even perl, php, C or C++. When I say compentent I mean better than most of our windows programmers. Add to that most have Computer Science degrees.
Out of this group the avg salary is under $55k. So if you ask me, its not about just salary its what you get. This is not meant to knock NT admins I have met SEVERAL very good ones.
However when you get a unix admin you usually are getting much more than what you get in a windows admin. I believe its the *nix philosphy. One can not admin unix without learning the tools. Learning the tools makes you have to understand internals and programming. NT doesnt force that on you.
Some say that is what makes *nix bad, some say its what makes it good. I agree witht he latter, I would rather have the mechanic working on my car understands how it runs than simply install parts at random under the advice of the dealer. : )
As for GNU\Linux sucking without support contract. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Being "corporate" I have a Dell Laptop that SUPPORTS GNU\Linux. EVERY problem I have had, I called Dell support and spent two hours on the phone, only to get a we dont get it. In each case 20 minutes on the net or IRC not only solved my problem, but made me understand WHY!
So support is relative my friend. Having it packaged and paid for doesnt make it better. Support or software.
Our beautiful unified dos/unix print quota system broke because w2k refuses to authenticate for samba (as usual, another release from Microsoft containing enough changes to intentionally break competitors' products). Active Directory trashes our DNS zone files, making them unmaintainable and routinely breaking mail and NFS. The list of problems goes on and on...
<p>
Oh man, tell me about it!! I had to have a PDC for a server domain so I pick one of the MS SQL servers we are using. Before putting allow it to become an active directory PDC, it never crash, and beheaved it self perfectly. Once I made it a AD PDC, NetLogin was sucking up memory becuase it couldn't find a DNS server. So I installed the MS DNS server on the same machine. Did it want to work with my Bind DNS server? hell no! So after all this bs I pretty much told netlogin to suck it self. But At least I had a PDC for the server network, right? Wrong, like you said it doesn't like samba, so I had to authenticate to the NT4 PDC in the client domain, along with setting up a VPN with a OpenBSD machine.
<p>
After alot of headaches I got it to work, but since microsoft want to be such nazi bastards I can't even untilize AD without distroying my whole network and switching everything to Win2k, something I will not do. When the PDC code is some what stable for samba, this AD crap is gone.
<p>
I feel win2k is great for running apps becuase it's fast and stable, but I would try to stay fifty miles from AD, and NEVER make a win2k a PDC if you want to keep your network "sane".
<p>
MarNuke
MarNuke
Show up at the local university at 3am on a Sunday Morning, (with a pizza and a case of beer), and you'll have all the support staff you need!
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
I've got a PII-350 OCed to 392 with a 2-year-old install of 98 and it usually stays up for weeks at a time. The Half-Life server-select screen is the only thing that ever takes it down. Try Norton Utilities for the dll problem, it's not that expensive and extremely prevalent on warez sites.
--
Win98 sux without these 1337 toolz !!
Why would you use a window handle to receive messages? Actually...perhaps you were using Async mode, in which case yes, it needs to send a message somewhere...but, eww comes to mind. I've done a lot of TCP/IP work (mainly in NT) and I never have to use windows / window handles. Use select if you want non-blocking sockets...it's better for the mind.
Hm. I had a somewhat similar experience yesterday:
A friend had formatted his harddrive, since his win95 installation had turned ugly.
He then tried to get the pci NIC working again, but had no luck. Then I came, but even though I tried every trick I know of: (3 different ways to install the different incarnations of the driver, switching between pci-slots, tweaking the bios, reinstalling win95, then win98, then win98se), but the pc wouldn't see the network.
Tested the NIC on my own machine; It worked like a charm. Grabbed a spare hd with Dead Rat Linux 6.1, and slipped it into the machine; Linux detected the new hardware, and would ping and ftp the network, seconds later.
There we were; Windows claimed, that everything was OK, though it was not.
The NIC and pc worked with Linux, but not with 3 different versions of Windows (though it had worked before his reinstall.)
Now, this was probably a subtle (Punt & Pray) conflict between the bios, NIC and Windows, that was particular for his machine. But how I really, really hate those kind of debugging sessions, since they turn out to be more like exorcism, than rational problem debugging.
Had I been at a paying costumer, I would have declared the NIC dead (even though it was working) within the first 15 min (=3 reboots), and slipped another brand of NIC in. (and prayed that would work;-)
BTW, the NIC was a well known brand, with a decent chipset, neither the shipped driver, or the newest downloaded drivers made a difference.
I say, that it definitly wasn't a IRQ problem: But I did try:
1. Manual assignment of irq's (bios)
2. Automatic assignment of irq's (bios
3. Switching the NIC between different PCI slots
(yes, the order of pci-cards, do matter, e.g. when having both a normal scsi, and a hardware raid-scsi card).
4. forcing ESCD updates.
5. Edge or level pci triggering
There where only one other card in the pc (the graphic adapter).
In short, I did all the usual stuff, when something gets tricky.
At no point did Win9x complain about irq, i/o or memory allocation errors. (errors that are usually associated with lock-ups)
It also claimed, that the drivers were perfectly installed. (to different versions)
I also tried some of the more arcane stuff, like checking the "System" panel for redundant stuff while in "safe mode", or installing the driver in different ways (mostly a solution from early win95 releases). Of course, fdisk, format and a fresh install of 3 different flavours of win9x made no difference.
Forcing the NIC to use irq 9 (I have yet to see a pci graphic adapter using this irq, and both the bios boot-up message, and win9x claimed that the GA used irq 10, and the NIC irq 9). didn't help.
Put a Linux harddisk in the machine, and it would work.
Put the NIC in a another win98 box, and it would work.
No, a simple resource conflict it wasn't.
Regards
Peter H.S.
He he he... Title says it all... Its pretty funny I can make slashdot my wallpaper and a little script gets it to resync every couple of minutes.
To get straight to the point, I have never, in spite of years of using Linux, managed to get it to lock up to the point where I needed to reboot.
A lot of people here seem to be going a little too far in their eagerness to prove that they are impartial in the battle of the OSes and only want the best OS be it Win2K or *nix. SO WHAT if "only crap applications" lock up Win2K. There are a lot of crap applications out there for Win32, and believe it or not there are also crap apps for Linux. The difference is, if I install unstable software in Linux and it screws up, there is a VASTLY higher chance that I will be able to recover from it without a reboot, than there would be if I was running any MS Windows environment.
There is also the fact that any piece of software, server or userspace, can become unstable given the right circumstances, so saying that only crap software will crash Win2K just doesn't cut it for a serious sysadmin.
*nix are purpose-built multiuser OSes with all the advantages and power that brings. NT and it's derivatives do not IMO provide sufficient facilities for recovery from an application crash without the dreaded reboot, a fact that makes Win* unsuitable for use as a server in a serious computing environment.
People, try to look at things from a pragmatic point of view here. It may be fashionable to say nice things about Win2K, but lets at least try to keep it realistic shall we?
Bzzzzzt..."AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!" Thud.
Come on here. Kirsch's document is full of blatant bias, misleading references, unverifiable statistics and even blatant lies. This has been debated before and stating it as anything other than an opinionated rant is just fooling yourself.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Yes, if the whole sales department was axed because the dot.company is running out of capital. ha ha :)
BTW, think of how many programmers in developing countries $10k USD can feed.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Unless you create separate root DNs for each subdomain, you'd have a flat namespace for all of your domain.
Of course, no one is stopping you from using a system like hesiod.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
http://www.kegel.com/nt-linux-benchmarks.html has a summary of the recent SPECweb99 benchmarks comparing Linux and Windows 2000. I should have database benchmarks for Win2k there soon, too.
The most advanced feature on Windows 2000 is it's amazing fading menus feature. Menus fade like never before, and it only takes an average of 20MB of RAM to accomplish this amazing feat!
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
My point is that although multiple simultaneous users support is very useful in certain situations, it's absolutely irrelevant in 95% of OS installations.
MSK
If it helps, think of the Registry as a virtual file system, that happens to reside in a single file on disk.
I must say, though, Win2K is not a multi-user OS in the UNIX sense. I don't know why people make such a big deal out of that. It was not designed to be a multi-user OS (excluding the Terminal Server hack), and it is not marketed as such. How many people really need a multiple-simultaneous-user OS, anyway? Workstations are cheap.
MSK
All I'm claiming is that that sort of multi-user capability is realy not all that important, and if you need that functionality for some reason (i.e. to offer shell accounts,) then you probably should be running UNIX anyway.
MSK
My God - I never saw this before. I guess it has probably been discussed to death previously, but have you checked out the nutter spin doctoring on this page??
Like "it's important to note that Linux uses the same security model as the original UNIX implementations--a model that was not designed from the ground up to be secure. " and totally disregarding questions about windows security. Or "how many certified engineers are there for Linux? How easy is it to find skilled development and support people for Linux?"
Most of my team are MCSE - and they run Linux at home:) Although they all agree W2k is a massive step in the right direction.
Frog51
The vast majority of people who are NT sysadmins ? is there such things? I thought they were just button clickers. How much intelligence does it take to be a NT admin? I mean lets get real. can they write scripts? can they hack a config file? would they know what a text editor is? Most of them, NO. FSCK NO. cause NT is a llamas OS. People who need real OS and like to do real admin work use a unix of some sort.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
Comparing Windows 2000 and Linux from the gamers position is like
arguing the merits of fleas and lice: both are dreadful. Win98 is the
target OS of almost all PC games.
I guess my experiences are out of date, but I had found games support
for NT lagged far behind that for Win98. I also saw a lot of whining
on Ars Tech. about poor gaming support for Win2k.
If the MCSE certification is meant to be a proof of competence, it is not a good one. Think of the number of competent senior administrators who choose not to become MCSEs. Similarly there are a apparently a number of MCSEs who are not competent. If the certificate is neither sensitive nor specific for competence, of what value can it be to potential employers in screening administrators? If it is of questionable value to employers, why should an administrator bother with the certification?
My guess is that HR directors like MCSEs because when they get some stunad who dorks a server, the HR director can effortlessly shift the blame for the hiring blunder from self to the MCSE certificate.
Considering SQL Server is the fastest database solution on the planet next to IBM's DB2, it's worth the money. DB2 costs nearl 11 times what SQL Server costs, and it sure as hell doesn't perform 11 times better.
I am assuming you haven't turned on any services yet then... It can consume up to about 150 MB of RAM if you turn on some services. And after it's been running for a while, it will more than likely be using around 180-190 MB of memory. That is with no apps running either! Give us hardware or give us Death! That should be MS's new slogan.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
You have to treat it properly. I.E. Not installing shit software.
What do you consider "shit software" anything NON-Microsoft?
If M$ would get their Sh*t together and open up their damn API's and quit hiding crap from developers third party software just might be a little better and stable. And you know damn good and well M$ is hiding stuff ON PURPOSE to make other peoples code crash and burn. That way they can point the finger to other peoples programs and the reason why peoples Windows systems crash. I do, yes - gasp! Windows - development at work and I see how silly and unstable programming for windows really is. I have done programming on IBM AS/400's and have no problems with ANY program I write on it. I have written programs under linux and have had better results there too than with windows. The difference is windows is bloated, unstable, has hidden API functions/features - thanx to M$. Heck even IBM broke down and released the MI (Machine Inerface) manual so regular everyday programmers could code at the MI level. This use to be kept in the domain of the IBM developers only. MI was verboten for anyone outside of IBM at one time - not aynmore.
Personally I would like to see an underground group reverse-engineer/Disassemble windows and quietly release the source on the Internet - even in ASM code would be fine. Yes I know this is only a pipe dream, but hey I think it would wake up M$ and maybe they would do something about their GD monopolistic bullsh*t!
Really Mr. Gates and all at M$ how much is enough. I know you want world domination but guess what - YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! I mean all it would take is to release 10,000 new viruses simultanously on a single day at a specific time. All manner of viruses, MS scripting, macro, worm, trojan, ones with mutation engines and M$ would fall flat on their faces. Corporations, individuals would scream to high heaven. Think about it, this could really happen. By no means am I advocating this type of thing, but I seee that this could happen. And guess what only M$ would proably really be hit the hardest and the worst.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
In unix, the "everything is file" model accomplishes this too. Permissions in the /dev/ directory,
for example, can be changed to allow/restrict users access to particular devices (floppy, serial
port, soundcard, etc.).
Too bad parallel ports aren't included in that in 2.2.x. At least 2.4 finally introduces userspace parallel port drivers.
---
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However, things Win2K has that Linux really should have include having to press control alt delete to log on (it stops people putting fake logon screens) and the hibernate function. I use hibernate as it allows me to get back into my machine at the point I left off, quickly. Okay, I can't leave Outlook 2000 running, unless I want some really weird bugs to occur, but it still boots up fast. If only I were a proficient enough coder, I'd add the features. I presume the control-alt-delete login function can be added without too much effort.
That page has no links (that I could see) that were dated after June 1999. Links to links to articles over a year old is hardly worthy of "+3 informative"...
> No apps.....
:-)
Obvious Be doesn't have near the number of apps that Linux has, but please don't spread FUD and say Be has no apps.
You did check Be Bits,, before posting, right?
I was running NT4 w/ SP6 on a Cel366 O/C 550, with 128 megs of ram. It was nice and snappy.
Win2K is not any faster. At times it "stalls" for a good 2 second, when you click on menu. My work computer does the same thing. It is just not responsive at times.
I would love to go back to NT4 but stupid M$ won't release DX > 3 support for it.
Win2k is more stable. I was getting about 1 crash a month with NT4 (hardware problem I think), but Win2K has only crashed twice in the last 6 months.
They definately are "easier" to install, allthough after being spoiled by Be OS, I'm rather tempted to ditch both Windows and Linux for desktops.
> Waiting for something better...
Be OS
> have not checked out the game support yet.
Game support is good, as long as you don't have a SB Live on a SMP system. The bastards at Creative won't release working smp drivers until late Oct. (SMP didn't work on NT4 either at first, but they did a quick hack to get it to work, which doesn't work uner NT5.)
Other then that, Win2K is stable. Quake 3 in SMP, mmmmm.
> enough to give Quake 3 a 200MB hunk
What setting was that?
> My 2.5 yr old laptop running linux took less time to boot up and log in than the local uni's brand new win 2000 machines took just to log in!
And Be OS boots to the gui in 3 seconds.
Everything else feels "dog slow" compared to it.
My Zircom PCMCIA cards work just fine. One of the cqards w2k does not support the built in modem but Linux works with it just fine. So what's your point?
GPL=Freedom Communism!=freedom Simple as that. I can say that since I'm a MCSE (On W2K) , RHCE, CCIE, and CSE (Certfiied Security Expert) and that I work in one of the largest Data centers in the wourld, that when it comes to this Linux vs. MS W*, Linux beats it hands down. Linux saved our company over 2 million US dollars and provided us with almost 1.25 times more the performance.
I have never had Netscape crash Linux. Not ever.
Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to say whether the application or MS is at fault. It is a fact that in the past they have purposefully booby-trapped their OS against certain competitors products. So it is difficult to claim you can just blame the application. Also, since many needed details are not always forthcoming from MS it is difficult if not impossible for an external app to guarantee it will not blow up on the latest Windoze "upgrade".
Just not a vacuum cleaner...
As a partner in a networking business and administrator for several school districts and ISP's, I can say that we use all of them (including the new MAC OS-X). They all have their uses and their pitfalls but if you are careful and pay attention to details and don't try to do too much on one box, any of them will work.
The school districts which are rural and poor like it when we put Linux to use because of the money they save in original costs and then in admin costs. A mail server and squid server in one farming community nearby have been working continuously for two years; only going down for power problems which lasted longer than the UPS.
This same school district has a brand new computer center in the elementary school with Apple iMACS for workstations and a G4 running OS-X as a server. Runs great.
There are three NT boxes running Novell for their administration and grade accounting.
An ISP uses an NT4 server for their client accounting and authentication and another NT4 server for web-based email. They all run fine but they all run only one thing. The same ISP has a Linux box for an IRC server and a freeBSD box to host backup services for that IRC network.
In our office we use an Alpha Multia as a firewall, Linux on a dual Pentium Pro 200 as our file server (Samba). I have a KVM switch to go between a WIN98 desktop and a Linux desktop. I just installed Linux (SuSE) on an old Fujitsu laptop my wife gave me when we bought her new HP (running Win98). A (now former) partner uses win2k on his desktop and in his new job as IS director.
We have a MicroVax 3400 we got in trade that we want to put BSD on just for kicks.
Essentially, we don't impose our ideas of what works onto our clients. We give them what they want on a platform they don't have to retrain everyone on. If they need to retrain anyway, then we can move them to a more suitable platform (assuming the one they are on isn't).
The only problem I had with win2k is that it wouldn't see the 3com 3c503 NIC on the older desktop box I tried to put it on so I had to shift to win98 since I didn't have another NIC handy.
I have no problems with Linux or BSD and we plan to experiment with a port of OpenMail to see how that works with Outlook. We are also experimenting with locally-hosted ASPs in an effort to help clients with the cross-platform problems.
Be nimble and be of service to your clients and use the best OS for their needs and you will hardly go wrong.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Oops!
Linux NIC Comparison, using something a little more modern [Redhat's kudzu]...
/opt rather than /usr. AOL wants to install apps, libs, and icons in /usr/lib/aol. All of Corel wants to live in /lib/corel. StarOffice wants to live in /root/office52 [a home directory is shitty place to put it, there's a stack of apps called `office' and the version number in the location makes upgrades a pain].
/etc is.
* Linux will find it and install a driver automatically if it exists
* Linux will ask for an IP address or DHCP
* Linux will bring the interface up
Linux's USB also works quite well. Installing Windows ME took three reboots, one of which I was completely without a mouse [incredibly annoying to modify the installed software list]. Mandrake 7.1 got the mouse about three seconds into the install and left it there. The mouse is an MS Intellimouse Explorer.
-----------
Annoying things about Linux:
Most package updating utilities [GNORPM, KPackage, and apt-get] are either very difficult to use or CLI.
Red Hat can't wrap their dumb skulls around timestamps for countries that are ahead of GMT. Ie, using Linuxconf for the first twelve hours on a new install will pop up a stack of error messages whevenver you try and do anything.
Netscape doesn't do fonts properly, but Mozilla will fix that.
Menu arrangement in most Linux distributions currently sucks. Mandrake and HelixGNOME seem to be fixing it.
Linux lacks a good comprehensive set of administration tools. Linuxconf doesn't work properly [yes, I'm using the latest stable release]. KDE's stuff isn't very comprehensive, and Helix's stuff isn't out yet. There's no simple UI for sudo, or other simple utilities, out of the box on most distributions.
Linux's permission system is very inflexible, and there are many times when ACLs would be extremely desirable.
Linux documentation is highly technical and frequently out of date.
Linux does not have a standard UI structure.
Linux isn't expensive, but nobody gives a damn about this. Where it saves vast money is stability - minimising the cost of staff paid to do nothing, investment in equipment which isn't being used, interruption to business processes and more while `the server goes down'. The server must NEVER, EVER `go down'. I have no statistics to back it up, but I most certainly believe downtime is the largest part of TCO.
Motif apps [eg, Adobe Framemaker] often have unusable UIs, but with the move to GTK / GNOME by the older players, these should dissappear.
X currently does not do anti-aliasing or transparency well. But Peter from the XFree86 group is working on these features.
Linux still lacks many desktop apps. StarOffice and Wordperfect office are good, but GNUCash ain't Quicken [no local business rules] and there's no DreamWeaver equivalent AFAIK. This will change with time. Server side, its just a little less supported as Windows.
Linux Java is much slower than Windows. This will change with time.
Linux filesystem layout is not always adhered to. Shitty apps which don't understand the concept that there's no official Linux [and therefore no optional components] still want to install in
-----------------------------
Windows criticisms:
Windows has only semi-journalling file systems that do not post user writes to the journal. This means agonizingly long fdisk times, wheras ReiserFS [and likely Ext3] take around half a second for 46Gb of storage.
Windows documentation is near non-esistant, but like Linux has third party [MS Press and others] avaliable for a fee.
Windows does not have a standard UI structure [check out where you modify file locations in Word vs Excel vs Outlook].
Windows certification is easier than Linux.
Windows registry isn't commented within itself.
Windows does not have a cutomizable GUI.
Windows roadmap is often focused more around leveraging Microsoft than simple improvmenet.
You obviously don't understand how:
/usr/lib (or equivalent) and/or /etc
1) Access to the registry works
2) Linux applications frequently update stuff in
The registry is basically a databse. It's optimized for the type of access that you are speaking of and it really won't slow down unless it becomes fragmented.
IMHO, one of the largest problems with Windows is a lack of a coherent versioning system for shared libs. Shared libs are often overwritten ad hoc causing failures in seemingly unrelated applications. *NIX's method of version numbering the file name (eg libc.x.y.z) seems to be quite sufficient.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
. There is definitely an overhead premium - I wouldn't consider running any version with less than a 300 MHz processor with 128 MB of RAM.
You've bought into the Microsoft "upgrade" hype as well i see.
I don't know how many times i have to tell people, that I had Windows 2000 running on a P166 with 50 megs of ram, and it was FINE for non-gaming applications.
Office Suites, Internet apps (Ftp, Irc, instant messanging suites, etc) and more.
Don't believe the upgrade hype. Your older system can be put to good use if you want to use Windows 2000.
Of course, Linux is another great OS to have on your older system =)
> My PIII-500...smokes under Win2K
:-(
Well, we've just moved from NT4 sp5 to W2K on most of our personal or portable machines.
Executive summary:
unless you _need_ USB, don't bother.
Summary:
- W2K needs twice the memory of NT4
- only one machine (out of a dozen) behaves better under W2K.
- unless you need USB, there's nothing that's an improvement over the tweaked NT we were using, and plenty of downside in the added "features".
- the _real_ (ie. 3rd party) apps are not ready for W2K. Work perfectly on NT.
- the MS apps are not ready. Office 2K is still a debacle. And, of course, Offic 97 doesn't properly on W2K & the file format interworking doesn't.
I guess we need to wait for SP5 and the various O'Rielly books explaining the work-arounds for all the "fixes" to the OS.
At the end of the day, I cannot trust MS.
I am now considering wasting a huge amount of time and money trying to get our 3rd party apps running on Wine/Linux. Yuck. What a waste of effort
<troll>
So, which registry bits turn on W2K server?
</troll>
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
"Doing something wrong"? You mean like not waiting for your hard drive to quiet down after booting before launching any applications?
--
The shareholder is always right.
No multiuser capabilities advancement?
Isn't a built-in telnet daemon and built-in terminal services (on all Server flavors) good enough for advancement?
Incidentally I have never seen any software that can take down win2k. One or two programs do appear to have memory and resource holes that drain the systems power away slowly but if you restart those apps then it springs back.
I run Windows 2000. Want to crash your system? Watch two Real Video movies under Real Player 7 without restarting RP between them. It'd reset my system every time. Nowe, after installing SP1 and removing the offending RP the only thing that crashes my system is WinOnCD 3.7 and my Hollywood+ MPEG decoding card software.
On the other hand, Win98SE will lock up afterbeing on over the weekend while Win98 has been up on my home DVD/MP3/scanner machine for the past couple of weeks without a reset.
Blabber, blabber, blabber.
Jay
-- polish ccs mirror
That makes zero sense. Money is not an absolute; along with just about everything else, it's relative. I'd guess that you're paying at least USD$20 (or equivalent) per month for Internet access, and that you consider it a reasonable expense. Billions of people in the world couldn't even remotely afford that.
That version of SQL Server is for use on gigantic, far-over-$10K computers with obscene numbers of drives. Microsoft is getting what they think they can afford; the fact that companies do buy it means that the price isn't that outrageous.
I'm not sure who will wind up being more influential in getting Linux into businesses - Dell or Loki.
I'd say Micro$oft have been more influential than either of them. Check out those licencing fees for Win2k (esp server-side) alone and you'll know why...
Erm... isn't this the whole point of COM+? Or have I missed your point entirely?
--
Cheers
Cheers
Jon
hell no college?
Are you saying that a real sysadmin is someone who is:
not certified
not MSCE
and didn't attend college?
I can see how the first two may apply, but the third?
and you dont have to wait for sysv scripts to run on a linux machine? both do it in different ways, but both do it.
actually its for specific hardware, and for a server.
why do i use windows? compatibility, it works great when used properly, and i have no reason to switch. i am perfectly happy. and no, its not lined with windows propoganda, i am definetly pro-linux/bsd, but everything has its place, and its my belief (and not trying to propogate this) that linux is NOT ready for the desktop.
I am sorry about upsetting those who disagee with comments i made, mainly not to install "crap".
.doc files, i need games, and i need photoshop, and i need vc++. do i like purchasing ms products? not by far! do i wish there were an equally productive GNU alternative? of course!
And as far as this goes, you are misunderstanding one thing. Netscape, Realplayer, ETC do crash THEMSELVES on win2k machines i have seen. They do NOT crash the OS itself.
I wish i could truly sit in front of an audience of anyone who rebutts this, as they would be proved wrong. I have had my Windows 2000 pro machine up and logged in since (ctrl+alt+del's to see) 7/6/00. This is a dual celeron 366 processor machine with a geforce2 and 512mb memory.
I am in NO WAY advocating microsoft, as i wish they didnt exist as well. I would LOVE!!!! to switch to X, given the fact i could play counterstrike, as well as use many of the tools i currently do.
IMO (and take it as an opinion only, not that im pushing it upon others) Linux is NOT ready for the desktop. I need
as long as linux progresses as it has, these things should be avaliable relatively soon, at which time ill give it a switch.
Just because you have not had any problems does not mean that other people that are having problems are doing something wrong, believe me. .
I agree, i guess i didnt get this across in my message, and i should have. I know it doesent run perfectly on every machine. Personally i havent had troubles with it, others may, ok, whatever. Im voicing my opinion.
the same with win2k, netscape crashes. woop. you restart it. it does nothing to explorer/X or either kernel.
Or click here to avoid having to copy and paste.
i have misplaced my signature.
"A Billion here, a Billion there, sooner or later, that's real money."
The point behind the statement is that each dollar is just as "real" regardless of zeros next to it.
If you really believe that 10k is nothing then you won't mind taking the money out of your own sallary to make the purchase. If this price is really nothing, then I'm sure ms will have no problem waiving it. Wha?? what's that you say? "But that is real money to ms, and they won't sell it without payment!". It's real money when it comes from their pocket? then it's real money when it comes from mine. End of argument.
Not only that, but the continues to persist is at least 8 mutations that the operating system doesn't stop. In case your selective ms memory has faded, allow me to quote the headline again:
Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 5, 2000, 11:55 a.m. PT
"The "Love Bug" computer virus has caused an estimated billions of dollars in damage and has disabled tens of millions of computers.
How you can watch all of this happen say that it's the mailservers fault for forwarding the virus is just beyond me.
Read this and tell me you still stand bhind your belief that ms doesn't deserve to take ( I believe all) some of the blame for the billions in lost productivity.
Not one US Dollar
Not one Afghanistan Afghani
Not one Albanian Lek
Not one Algerian Dinar
Not one Andorran Franc
Not one Andorran Peseta
Not one Angolan New Kwanza
Not one Argentine Peso
Not one Aruban Florin
Not one Australian Dollar
Not one Austrian Schilling
Not one Bahamanian Dollar
Not one Bahraini Dinar
Not one Bangladeshi Taka
Not one Barbados Dollar
Not one Belgian Franc
Not one Belize Dollar
Not one Bermudian Dollar
Not one Bhutan Ngultrum
Not one Bolivian Boliviano
Not one Botswana Pula
Not one Brazilian Real
Not one British Pound
Not one Brunei Dollar
Not one Bulgarian Lev
Not one Burundi Franc
Not one CFA Franc BCEAO
Not one CFA Franc BEAC
Not one Cambodian Riel
Not one Canadian Dollar
Not one Cape Verde Escudo
Not one Cayman Islands Dollar
Not one Chilean Peso
Not one Chinese Yuan Renminbi
Not one Colombian Peso
Not one Comoros Franc
Not one Costa Rican Colon
Not one Croatian Kuna
Not one Cuban Peso
Not one Cyprus Pound
Not one Czech Koruna
Not one Danish Krone
Not one Djibouti Frac
Not one Dominican R. Peso
Not one Dutch Guilder
Not one ECU
Not one Ecuador Sucre
Not one Egyptian Pound
Not one El Salvador Colon
Not one Estonian Kroon
Not one Ethiopian Birr
Not one Euro
Not one Falkland Islands Pound
Not one Fiji Dollar
Not one Finnish Markka
Not one French Franc
Not one Gambian Dalasi
Not one German Mark
Not one Ghanaian Cedi
Not one Gibraltar Pound
Not one Greek Drachma
Not one Guatemalan Quetzal
Not one Guinea Franc
Not one Guyanese Dollar
Not one Haitian Gourde
Not one Honduran Lempira
Not one Hong Kong Dollar
Not one Hungarian Forint
Not one Iceland Krona
Not one Indian Rupee
Not one Indonesian Rupiah
Not one Iranian Rial
Not one Iraqi Dinar
Not one Irish Punt
I said it's free, go ahead and take it.
Not one Israeli New Shekel
Not one Italian Lira
Not one Jamaican Dollar
Not one Japanese Yen
Not one Jordanian Dinar
Not one Kazakhstan Tenge
Not one Kenyan Shilling
Not one Kuwaiti Dinar
Not one Lao Kip
Not one Latvian Lats
Not one Lebanese Pound
Not one Lesotho Loti
Not one Liberian Dollar
Not one Libyan Dinar
Not one Lithuanian Litas
Not one Luxembourg Franc
Not one Macau Pataca
Not one Malagasy Franc
Not one Malawi Kwacha
Not one Malaysian Ringgit
Not one Maldive Rufiyaa
Not one Maltese Lira
Not one Mauritanian Ouguiya
Not one Mauritius Rupee
Not one Mexican Peso
Not one Mongolian Tugrik
Not one Moroccan Dirham
Not one Mozambique Metical
Not one Myanmar Kyat
Not one NL Antillian Guilder
Not one Namibia Dollar
Not one Nepalese Rupee
Not one New Zealand Dollar
Not one Nicaraguan Cordoba Oro
Not one Nigerian Naira
Not one North Korean Won
Not one Norwegian Kroner
Not one Omani Rial
Not one Pakistan Rupee
Not one Panamanian Balboa
Not one Papua New Guinea Kina
Not one Paraguay Guarani
Not one Peruvian Nuevo Sol
Not one Philippine Peso
Not one Polish Zloty
Not one Portuguese Escudo
Not one Qatari Rial
Not one Romanian Leu
Not one Russian Rouble
Not one Samoan Tala
Not one Sao Tome/Principe Dobra
Not one Saudi Riyal
Not one Seychelles Rupee
Not one Sierra Leone Leone
Not one Singapore Dollar
Not one Slovak Koruna
Not one Slovenian Tolar
Not one Solomon Islands Dollar
Not one Somali Shilling
Not one South African Rand
Not one South-Korean Won
Not one Spanish Peseta
Not one Sri Lanka Rupee
Not one St. Helena Pound
Not one Sudanese Dinar
Not one Sudanese Pound
Not one Suriname Guilder
Not one Swaziland Lilangeni
Not one Swedish Krona
Not one Swiss Franc
Not one Syrian Pound
Not one Taiwan Dollar
Not one Tanzanian Shilling
Not one Thai Baht
Not one Tonga Pa'anga
Not one Trinidad/Tobago Dollar
Not one Tunisian Dinar
Not one Turkish Lira
Not one Uganda Shilling
Not one Ukraine Hryvnia
Not one Uruguayan Peso
Not one Utd. Arab Emir. Dirham
Not one Vanuatu Vatu
Not one Venezuelan Bolivar
Not one Vietnamese Dong
Not one Yugoslav Dinar
Not one Zambian Kwacha
Not one Zimbabwe Dollar
Let's not forget that this is the price BEFORE you add on all the apps and devel.
The latest kernel is 2.4 test7
RTFM. You "lost" your data because you didn't read the helpfile. Let me guess: you did a full repair because you didn't know what else to do? RTFM. It still could be recovered very easily. You can't expect to power linux without reading *something* either.
"My God, this must be a truly remarkable corn chip, to be so widely and confidently touted."
The linux kernel can be customized to optimize the OS for your particular hardware/needs.
Oh yeah - there is a big cost difference too.
Not true at all. Windows behaves very differently on different sets of hardware. For some people, it hardly ever crashes, and for others it's unbearable. In other words, YMMV. When Windows does decide to act up, though, you're screwed. I would have to replace my BIOS in order for Windows to run properly, but Linux has no problem.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
significant experience with Windows 2000?
significant experience with quake, you mean; obviously you prefer to use the keyboard because you like to sit on the joystick.
cheers,
p/g
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
...HELL NO COLLEGE
um, yeah, no kidding...
cheers,
p/g
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
No, you are flouting it.
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
Ten to one they hacked the web servers up so they would report false information.........
I'll have to agree with you. Setting RRAS up downstairs on Win2K was abysmal, and finding information to help me along was hairy as hell.
:-)
However, I'm not a Linux geek (nyet) so I stuck with it. End result is I'm extremely satisfied with the performance and stability.
I've had four machines running Win2K for roughly three months now. No reboots. Only powerdowns was power loss. (Damn St. Louis storms.) *shrug*
Works for me.
--Talonius
My reality check bounced.
Hardware specs aren't that bad. I have Server (no, it's not AS, but it's damned close) running downstairs on an AMD K6-2 300 with 64MB of RAM. Yea, it was a long time to install, but it runs fairly well now acting as my SMTP server and my web host.
-- Talonius
My reality check bounced.
"How many people really need a multiple-simultaneous-user OS, anyway?"
Example: our labs here (at my university) have a site license for Mathematica. Not having the cash to afford buying Mathematica for myself, and not wanting to walk 2 miles to the lab that actually hosts the program, I know that I can ssh into the lab's machines under my account and run Mathematica in an x session from my dorm.
I'm sure that similar stuff is possible in windows, but not built into the OS and windowing system by default.
The Microsoft apps people who inflicted ILU on us deserve to be gibbeted in a server cage. OutHouse, the mail client written by people who don't use the Net, for people who have their secretaries print their email out before reading it.
But are these the same people, or even the same company, who gave us Win2K ? Microsoft might not be broken up yet, but there have been visible cracks for a long time. The culture and cluefulness level between M$oft divisions is quite variable. I spend much of my time inside SQL7, and you'd hardly realise it was a M$oft product ! 8-)
If he's choosing eCommerce products on the basis of their happy, smiley GUI, then he's stuffed already.
Time to upgrade the user.
MINIX is 100% microkernel, NT is not, becouse it has drivers and more things in ring 0 (executive layer, etc). Neither NT nor UNIX is object oriented. Both OS have plenty of code in pure C and even in assembler that does not match to the object definition of the rest of the OS. So, technically, MINIX is far more advance than W2K or whatever Microsoft OS you want (Windows 9X, Pocket PC, etc). There's only one comercial 100% Object oriented OS in the world, and it is the now dead Newton OS from Apple.
In a nutshell: Administrating an O/S is not for the faint of heart. And I encourage to lawmakers worldwide to issue an operator's license, prerequisite to buying a server operating system.
If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker that came along would have destroyed civilisation.
Use The Source, Luke!
Thank you for elaborating; that was exactly my point.
i.e., you don't have to use bad hardware.
And if you use Debian, it'll look exactly the same on the outside for a good number of supported platforms.
ssh:
apt-get install ssh
Works a lot better when you have Debian.
Perl can be cryptic (and so can C), but in a lot of cases it's much easier to understand. You can do high-level stuff easily. But I won't get into the language war here.
apt-get install task-samba
Took me about a half an hour to get it running, but 95% of that time was spent downloading it and then reading the documentation. A lot of distros give you decent defaults for Samba, or graphical config utilities to keep you out of the text files.
Can't comment on sendmail, but qmail was a PITA to set up (though worth the effort). The only reason it was such a pain, though, is because the defaults are set to work out of the box with what it was really designed for (big Internet mail servers). Again, a good dig into the documentation (or, lacking that, source code) gets you what you need 95% of the time.
Yes, I agree -- it's hard to find an OS that doesn't suck. But in the words of Michael Elkins, mutt author, "All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.". The same can be applied to operating systems.
But what other hardware does Linux run on? And then what other hardware does Win2k run on? Need I say more?
I've crashed a Linux system with:
#include
void main (void) { while (1) fork(); }
Big deal; you don't even need a C compiler to crash Win2k.
Oops (HTML globbed my include):
#include <unistd.h>
void main (void) { while (1) fork(); }
Okay?
Hey, Hey, HEY... you want it to keep working don't you? C'mon, I reload linux about once a year. Easiest way to upgrade RedHat. :-)
We "Linux lusers" are not particularly against the idea of knowing why it is we are wrong, could you kindly inform us, I know I'm curious.
Kool! This is actually pretty enternatining. Nothing that I didn't already know to some extent, but engaging just the same. Good work.
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
In order to rip, you have to install ASPI support. The help for AudioCatalyst tells you where to download it from (NT4 has the same problem). I also noticed that installing Cyberlink PowerDVD fixes that problem too, since it installs an ASPI driver.
-- The ballad of arrivederci
W2k by default only uses 128K of secondary cache, set a tweak, to fix that, and you'll get 75fps.
Nice idea.
.*n.x you can do those, and more, with the standard command-line utilities. There is no need for 3rd party binaries written by some random hacker you've never met who might very well be a cracker.
And as a sysadmin you routinely download and run binaries from internet servers?
Can you say 'trojan'
Hope you don't end up admining my network anytime soon. What _will_ you do if you're on a closed intranet with no internet access for security reasons? Bring it in on a floppy? Oh, great.
Point being, with
Still, at least it easy under NT to run those programs as a user with zero privs who can fuck up nothing. Much easier than "su nobody[enter] password[enter] some_command_here[enter] exit[enter]" I'll bet.
K.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
No, I don't have any specific examples of Trojans from Windows shareware sites, because I don't use them. :)
The point is, just because the shareware _site_ is well established, do they in fact check all the _programs_ on it for all known virii & trojan signatures _themselves_, _regularly_? Because the trojan (or virus) may be unknown at the time of initial upload if it's one the author has just written.
As for the 'standard command-line apps' - OK, gif2jpg isn't standard on unix, so you can't do that one.
/me looks silly.
However, the point I was making in that the tools you _do_ get allow you to do a _lot_ more (such as the bulk renaming) than the default Windows tools. Administering a UNIX system, and doing complex things with it that the designers never explicitly planned for is a viable option out of the box. I don't think the same could be said for Windows.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
As a user, NT's SMS has been dissapointing. It takes forever to load up and it does not change much other than Outlook settings. I don't see my shortcuts and book marks on other machines. What the hell does it do with all that disk thrashing?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't administer networks, but user control under *nix seems trivial. Just don't grant anyone but yourself root access. It's hard to see how your users could dirty up anything that way. Also, I've read that Debian has great tools for softare control and updating. Script on.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
hehehe. built in or integrated? are they part of IE? tickle me!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I laughed when I saw this article title Highly Tuned NT Whips Barely Tuned Linux in MS-backed Test (reffering of course to the mindcraft fiasco from a while back). If only they had said this from the beginning.
You seem to use Windows 2000 and Win2k (Millenium?) interchangebly (sp?) and may be confused.
Windows 2000 is the Next NT, the "business" version of windows, it is basicly a complete rewrite, and consequently, compatability will not be total with win98 et al.
You seem to be talking about Windows Millenium, but correct me if I'm wrong, as you say it runs "a majority of software and games".
Sorry, but linux users usually only have to reboot for HARDWARE upgrades, not software.
skiy. www.Smokedot.org Drug Info, Rights, Laws, and Discussion
That's a load of BS. A reasonably knowledgeable person is as likely to be good managing a Windows-based than a **nix-based small infrastructure. One might look simpler from the outside, but pretty GUIs do not make an environment any easier. I know that this is just my opinion, but what you say is also just yours. If we provide no facts, studies, or whatever that all these are.
ummm then get a nic with good drivers?! in win2k / nt4 all I have to do is select my driver (from a handy floppy) then choose ip etc etc. simple.
I've found that nt/2k administration is pretty easy not just because of gui (as some tweaking is handled by registry editting) but also due to the fact that it's a centralised gui, ie everything is in the one place, or has a standardised approach.
ZDNet's comparison wasn't half bad... http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,41 61,401917,00.html
. at my signal -- unleash hell .
You're trying to compare apples and orangutans.
How many /.ers were "raised" on Linux? *BSD? Any other non-M$ environment? (counting hands) Yeah, I thought so.
I looked at Mandrake 6.0, Red Hat 6.1, and have a copy of Red Hat 6.2 I haven't yet touched. But since about August 1995 I worked with NT 3.51. In all this time I was able to feel my way through Win32 and know most of its nooks and crannies, how to turn off unneeded stuff to improve performance, even how to build an ISP with it. With NT 3.51, not NT 4.0. I look at any one of these three Linux distros and, well, I have no clue where everything is, nor how to turn off unneeded or insecure stuff.
By comparison, all the "bible thumpers" (my favorite name to date for Linux fanatics), who probably know two or three Linux distros inside-out and know how to turn off unneeded stuff, would feel just as scared to tread through NT land. This I know because the ISP that I built and the boss sold at a profit was systematically dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up by "bible thumpers."
That aside, the two don't compare. Win2K Professional for instance was designed for a very different purpose than most Linux distros are - a desktop OS with both a productivity and an entertainment platform and surprising stability. I could finally remove Win95 after two years of dual booting. Most Linux distros try to be both a desktop OS and a server OS, and often lose much in both directions. Before XFree 4.0 it wasn't an easy game platform either (has it gotten any easier?) If we had a Linux distro that tried to only be a desktop OS, that stuck with one desktop environment and apps to match, and a decent game platform, we could compare it to Win2K Pro. "Service packs" would help, too.
As for the C$300 price tag I paid, compare it to C$75.00/hr for the typical consulting firm. Let's face it, the money in Linux comes from the support.
As for a server OS, while I used NT as a platform to build an ISP on top of, I didn't use MS server software except what came with the OS (NT 3.51 I mean). I used all free stuff and one commercial web server. How many ISPs that use Linux can do so with off-the-shelf or downloadable software and not a year of developing your own scripts and playing jigsaw-puzzle to put it together? Again, if we had a Linux distro that only tried to be a server OS, with only server software and admin tools, preferably admin tools that could install on a desktop-only distro, we could compare it to Win2K Server.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
You can configure Security on each registry key and hive, use regedt32.
Most people should expect that 90% of the POSTERS will be biased toward linux. The rest will show real proof and use logic to express their points of view. Browsing at +1 you get alot of linux bias. Browsing at +2 you get even more. Most people here should stop posting unless they have something intelligent to post.
Well, OK, but at least when I looked at the registry for the first it was immediately obvious what went where.
A program has to go out of its way, store its data unlike any other normal app, in both Unix and Windows.
Ohh come on, you really are out of your field
the different branches for different users deal is transparent to applications!
evidently you don't know what you are talking about
actually, no Application Data directory has nothing to do with the registry, no substantial connection
Once lilo has loaded the kernel, doesn't Linux chuck the BIOS out, and use bios32.c ?
Unlike Microsoft's Wintendo
Lars -
Window Maker doesn't look anything like the klunky Windows 95 interface, what the fuck are you talking about?
Lars -
Enter one Corporation which makes Windows 2000 Operating system.
Enter manufacturer of many printing devices, Lexmark.
Add Service Pack one, and watch your printers that worked fine, take over 20 minutes to print one page of black text.
Simmer to rage, and serve.
Isn't Microsoft supposed to work with OEM's with driver issues and inform them of major changes to subsystems, such as printing.
Oh, and SP1 won't uninstall on my clients' computers now either, even when make a backup was selected, the error it generates when I go to uninstall the SP1 is: "Windows will uninstall the SP1 but will not uninstall the SP1"
And it doesn't uninstall it.
And they said Win2k was going to be so well regression tested that it won't even need a service pack. Fuck you Windows 2000 Team
Lars -
-------
-------
"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
Exactly! But then why to do virtual file system on top of file system? One can control file access by file level too. Why not simply use each key as directory and each value as text file (key=filename, value=file contents)? Think about /proc. My guess is that MS tried this and noticed that their file system was that poor they had to try another (IMHO unsuccessful) way.
We could implement registry like system in unix(/Linux) if we want using way described above - just save that registry under ~/.registry and it's done. Works over NFS and all. And you have all bells and whistles of unix fs also - including symbolic links. No more wondering about different config file syntax (xf86config anyone?). Everything is a file...
[File not found: ~/.registry/mail/signature]_ ____
____________________
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
Um. Just to complain on one point. The Registry IS set up like you suggest. All of the keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER (or HKEY_USERS/) should store all of the application-specific user data. The data in these keys is kept in a separate USER registry file that is parsed when they log in. It only appears to be in the same place in REGEDIT. Now, for my two cents: The only time I've crashed W2K was while playing games. Now, before you complain that W2K shouldn't allow that, let's all ask ourselves "Who do I log in as to play DOOM?" Gotcha. I do NT administration for, well, some web company I won't give the name of. I work with 4 Unix admins, and the sites break up in a similar manner, 4 unix sites for every 1 NT site. NT is cake. Once a month, I reboot things when they break. Sure, I use PCAnywhere to do it, or VNC when I'm away from my desk, which is an "additional product" I suppose, but all in all, I don't see a difference between the two. Java kills their systems, the occasional ODBC-using program kills mine. I've seen development from both ends, and on NT it seems to go faster and be more stable. Sure, it might not be as fast, but the recent changes to IIS 5 change that.
I hate to say it, but W2K is every bit as reliable as unix. The only bad things? There's no cron-like functionality (I'd like to run things more than once a day, Bill) And scripting support is god-awful (WSH? [and not that thing you use in IRIX] HAHAH! I wouldn't trust the scripting host alone with my grandmother, much less my web site) But to be honest, I don't need them unless something's broken.
Now, don't get me wrong... I use linux every day, and am fairly familiar with unix system administration, and to be perfectly honest, if there was "Adobe Photoshop for Linux" [shut up! gimp isn't the same- it is a hideous example of "commiteeware"], if Tribes2 ran on linux, and if Mozilla was DONE, then I would have a linux desktop, no problem. But until then, too bad. My main workstation is W2K. Despite what the AlphaServer and the Indigo behind me want. [note: okay, the indigo runs IRIX, but that's NMF]
>>Sure you have to know SOMETHING with a GUI, but the knowledge is much simpler, easier, and you don't need to commit it to absolute memory, as you can remember the generic stuff and then discover the rest.
:-).
The GUI may make certain features accessible to people who don't know exactly what they are doing, but it also means they can very easily BREAK things they do not intent to break. Uncheck a little checkbox, or change one little number that kinda looks right to you, and you can kill the whole thing. And what's worse, until NT came out ANY user on a Windows machine could do this.
Consider the example of the POS Compaq machine I have. When I first bought it, I was trying to see what bloatware was installed and see what I could get rid of. I absent-mindedly click on one little executable to see what it is, and it instantly killed my entire file system. It turned out it was the restore "feature" Compaq uses to make sure all of their extra crap (mostly advertisements) gets installed and takes up HDD space (the very feature I was trying to undo).
It's not that hard to learn to administer a system if you have a good book. Just take a little time to learn the thing before you try to administer it (or you end up doing what I did
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
So how much does a full version cost? Or is that even an option, cuz i sure as hell don't see it.
That's like saying "I read your post about how a volkswagon bug isn't suitable for carrying large loads, so I got my Ford 1-ton pickup truck, and guess what, I loaded lots of stuff into it! You're wrong! PCMCIA is not PCI. Go try it again, after re-reading the preceeding article.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
See, now that's one of the great fallacies of Linux. Here's why. Linux primarily runs on Intel hardware. Intel hardware is not designed for fault tolerence. Pretty much nothing on it is properly hot-swappable. I'm not worried about Linux rolling over, that's not the issue. It's the hardware. Big Iron UNIX boxes, on the other hand, ARE properly hot-swappable. The really good ones even let you yank a processor. Running everything on one box, is fine, until a SIMM fries. Sure, it might be 10 minutes downtime, while you power down, yank it, put in a new one, and reboot. But that's still twice your 99.999 percent uptime target. :-)
IOW, with x86 Linux, it's not the software I fear, but the hardware.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Windows is NOT an object oriented OS. It's written in C. COM is a disgusting HACK. JavaBeans are a wee bit cooler.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Now yank the card and stick it in a different slot.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
What other hardware does Linux run on? Lets see. PowerPC. Motorola 68K. Sun SPARC, UltraSPARC, and so on. MIPS, Alpha, VAXen, blah blah blah. IBM's big iron, like AS/400s and S/390s. All sorts of smaller bits, like ARM, StrongARM, hell, Commodore 64, 3Coms, Palm computing stuff, etc etc. Now. What other hardware does NT5 run on? None. NT 3 ran on Intel, PowerPC, Alpha and MIPS. NT4 dropped, I think, MIPS, then PowerPC. NT5, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't run on Alphas. Intel hardware was designed to be desktop PC grade, and later had Server level bits bolted on. That's fine, but it's still a single point of failure if you're running a lot of different services on a box. Something to think about.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Go read a book on programming Windows without using API calls.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
On a sidenote, I don't know what you people do to your poor computers, but it's not normal for any incarnation of windows to crash 3-5 times a day. I have a old PII-350 with faulty ram and an extremely dll-rotted install, and it crashes maybe 2-3 times a day. The Athlon next to it almost never crashes (less than once a day.) They're both running 98.
If the original AC poster of this is still listening, I'd like to talk to you about your experience. You can contact me at d_w_toone@hotmail.com. Thanks.
Wait, try uptime again :)
:)
0.01% cpu usage? Ohh I see, an idle box. Makes sense!
Those idle calls keep it nice and stable
Ever need an online dictionary?
Hahaha, i use W2K every day and it hasnt crashed on me once. Then again, im running a K6-3 with 320 MB RAM. Heheh if your running a 486 with 20 mb i can see why your windows is crashing so much. Maybe you should get a job and try upgrading your puter.
I have my degree in physics, and I have over five years of professional experience writing software. However, as a consultant, I was still getting passed up on contracts as "too expensive." After going through the certification process, not only did I find no trouble getting contracts, but I raised my required wages.
I've worked with PhD's in computer science that couldn't write software worth squat. They were mathematicians, not programmers. Just because someone has a degree doesn't make them a god in all fields related to their degree.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
You don't *need* to use windows to do this but it can be a better way to do things (the WSAsyncSelect call, for example) in the windoze environment. And at the client level this is almost always the best thing to do.
:wq
I think if you have to reinstall once a year to keep it working is hilarious
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
I've been using *NIX for years, and about 3 years ago I decided to add NT support to our NOC.
Having never used NT before, I decided to dive right in. An hour later, I had a well running NT server w/ all Serv packs. I said to myself.."people take 6 month COURSES on this thing?" I found it simple as hell, yet it pissed me off. To do anything it felt like I had to jump thry hoops to do what was insanely easy with *NIX.
Now we begrudgingly have NT servers in our NOC.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
My Personal OS is a Mandrake Linux 7.1 system on a 600 MHZ 128 MB of ram..and this baby SMOKES!
I installed Win2k pro before Linux as a test..it moved slow as hell (in comparison) with NOTHING running in the background. My Linux machine has ftp, Apache, Samba, and about 20 other crond stuff..and it's faster..
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Pathetic interface? Its the same interface as netscape except without the shop button. You have the forward/back buttons and right click menus. Whats pathetic about that? IE didn't render the page correctly? Hit reload *poof* its fixed. Had you been using netscape it would have segfaulted.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Uhhh win2k professional has support for two processors out of the box. You don't pay anything for adding a second cpu. But win2k server is good for 8 or 16, and advanced server should handle up to 32.
When someone tries to test like an 8 way xeon box with an adaptec raid card people will bitch because linux doesn't support 8 cpus or ANY adaptec raid card. The only supported raid cards in linux are older models, while adaptec is the industry standard and yet has no support at all.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
He better keep up on bugtraq, having a default redhat install is just bait for script kiddies.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The thing is, I personally think you're falling into that same stupid-hole that you're saying he's in right now.
He was making the point that if you don't install software that was written well, something is going to go wrong. Same effect if you try running applications that weren't designed for the platform.
Ever tried running something that's only for NT in Win9x? It just won't work.
The same is true in *nix. If you run a BSD-compiled binary, chances are it's not going to run very well in Linux or AIX or HP-UX or Irix or whatever you're running.
Software crashes and instability are caused by several things: Code error, hardware problems, system misconfiguration (including permissions errors, incorrect settings, missing files, etc.), end user error, and the occasional exploit (initiated by remote user).
Note: All of these things are prevalent in all operating systems, from the various *nix flavors to MacOS to BeOS to Windows to DOS to PalmOS.
So don't pretend all third-party software is infallible simply because it's not Microsoft. Not all Windows crashes are the fault of poor Windows code.
And to people saying Windows 2000 crashes for them, your either doing something wrong, or your installing "crap" (i.e. netscape, realplayer, etc.).
This not only makes me even more suspect of Win2K brain damage but also ruined what otherwise would have been a plausible comment--deserves no more than a zero for irresponsibility.
...is that MSWindows2000 is controlled by a monopolistic company located at the address 1 Microsoft Way in Redmond, WA, whereas Linux is controlled by its community of users and developers.
Now even those who do not mind being spoonfed by a single company must realize that greater technical merit will be found on the side of something such as GNU/Linux, and that this imbalance will only increase over time.
Even this corrupt corporation admitted as much in its leaked "Halloween" memo.
"Total cost of ownership" for a small network providing basic (and a few other) services over the net and a LAN: ZERO.
That is a fairly bogus statement if I ever saw one. There is absolutely a cost: downtime and your own time. If you are incompetent, and you are down for 24 hours because you are trying to figure your problem out by talking to people on IRC, then you just in excess of one day's downtime. Incompetence costs money, and you can save it by having a talanted system engineer. I can understand where you are coming from--as a hacker and enthusiast. However, a company that depends on their information systems to do business can not afford to wait til 1337h4x0r on #linux gets back from lunch.
-k
My favorite Win2k feature that one of my colleagues experienced was the "auto reboot" feature.
Right in the middle of work, his computer with
Win2k professional would reboot itself. It did this a couple of times a week. No rhyme or reason, it would just reboot itself.
I personally think this "feature" was installed so we would not see it crash.
Just my 2 cents.
--Doug
Just installed service pack 1... so far so good
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
People who need real OS and like to do real admin work use... Novell Netware!
Novell is true network operating system. It easily squashes NT and *nix in networking ease, flexibility, and power. Does NT and *nix nativly support global networking solutions? NO. Novell does. Novell provides a centralized, but distributed, system for resource management on a global level.
While all the rooky sys-admins are busy scurying about trying to decide whether to run a NT or *nix box, the Netware gurus are waiting to plug that server into the larger, NDS controlled, network.
Sure, there are users who are totally clueless. But we're not talking about those users, we're talking about people who are competent enough to get hired as a sysadmin. And in this context, Linux isn't really much more difficult to admin than NT. Easier in my opinion, but that depends on how you look at it.
Admining *nix or NT are both a pain in the a$$ compared to managing a Novell system. Novell Netware is a purpose built product. Built solely as a network operating system. With the new 5.x releases it just got a whole lot better on the server side.
w2k does allow u to do this. You just need to make sure that nt 4.0 is at least on sp 4.
Has it ever occured to anyone just how unobjective Kirch was when he set out to write his Kirch Paper. I mean the guy wanted to prove a point, he found facts that backed up his point (ignoring the others) and wrote it up. Sounds pretty much like propaganda to me, nothing objective there at all.
... oh yeah Linux's PCMCIA card support is lousy to non-existent.
Anyone who has used Windows knows damn well that Linux has light years to catch up in terms of usability as compared to Windows. Suck it up and admit it. I've tried Linux myself, all I wanted to do was to get my PCMCIA LAN card to work, but
Win2000 drivers are good for the NVIDIA series of cards, and I haven't heard any complaints from the 3dfx crowd. Matrox is getting there, as I hear, and ATI is doing alright from my experiences with a friend's Rage 128.
In short, the drivers for Win2000 are just fine.
Sure win2k has not been properly thought out as a platform. Slashdot will gleefully tell us the details. But there's one area that (any modern version of) Windows beats pretty much every other OS - drivers.
When I install win2k, I can use the default drivers. Practically every piece of hardware has drivers on the win2k CD, or easily available for download. (Though some drivers took a while to appear - I had a couple of totally useless printers sitting around for a few months after the move to win2k.)
I don't know much about BSD, and I do know that the driver situation for Linux is better than it used to be (at least we can all use Creative sound cards now) but Microsoft knows very well that the next OS war will be fought over drivers. Note their strategic partnerships with big hardware manufacturers, and the lack of alternative OS drivers for that hardware.
What's the point in a well-designed, secure, powerful, open source, free OS if I can't use it on my hardware?
-type2
No. Not unless they fix their dain bramage of treating stdio differently between DOS and Windows apps (what is a command line windows app anyway?). It is next to impossible to tell a DOS command from an NT command remotely.
A very enthusiastic NT admin once demonstrated the telnet daemon he got from MS. I said, "hmmm, last time I checked I had to reboot the workstation I tried it on". Well, no problem, the admin even insisted on demoing the telnetd on a remote site. I asked him to edit a file with EDIT, warning him that my station was in need of a reboot after that, to get rid of the dangling telnet session.
Fortunately, neither digging in with regedit nor reinstalling was necessary, a simple reboot fixed it (but it involved calling the admin in the other end of the globe to do the reboot).
Listen carefully when you talk to NT experts. When you ask them how they deal with certain problems, they will usually sneak a re-install between "Easy" and "and that's all there is to it". Nothing inherently wrong with that by the way, "us" UNIX nerds do have a tendency to go too far wanting to find the root cause of a problem where a simple re-install would've resulted in less downtime.
Sigh. Off topic: I'm typing this from a Windows box, just to see what it's like. Or actually, I'm retyping it. I'm retyping it again. IE discarded my first two versions of this text. Technically, I asked for it, by hitting the ALT key accidentally and continuing typing, but does anyone know how I can turn the misfeature off that causes a lone ALT keypress to "stick" and cause the next character to be interpreted as a command (in this case "Close")? That's probably what I hate most about Windows: it looks so userfriendly on the surface, but the user interface is such a huge gun waiting for the hair trigger to go off, and no end user (well, not the 99% majority) even knows of the weird UI features like the sticky ALT.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Maybe I'm overestimating the good folks in Redmond, but I sure as hell would hope they learned from some bad press they've gotten recently not to pull a stunt like that. As someone else pointed out, no one knows if they threw extra hardware at it (even though I can guess), and the biggest unknown factors are the staffing level, ease of staff acquisition, and the staff retention. Very hard to measure, very important for real life benchmarks.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
So you don't want X because it is 'unsafe', 'un-efficient' and 'unreliable' but instead want to use the great OS from M$????????
I sincerly hope you were trolling.....
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I can see the trend of discussion on this article already...
::: sigh and sweatdrop :::
200 posts stating "w1nD0wZ sUx n lInUx r0x!!!!!!"
Actually, this is an interesting and important question that I'd like to see the serious answer to as well. Not that I'm an advocate of either OS, but because it'll probably help many among us who aren't fully up on the differences between them get a better frame of reference for the Windows vs. Linux debate.
For the businesses with full-time sys admins Win2k has become so bloated with features ease-of-use issues died with NT 4.0 ... might as well take advantage of Linux's cost benefits.
For businesses without on-staff techies, you're screwed. Win2k is 50x harder to install and configure correctly [ I know ] and you're going to burn more cash and time gettting it right.
For high tech recruiters (one of which I play CIO for) it means we can finally collect fees for Windows Sys Admins... they'll finally have to know something of value.
And dare I say it, but for Apple and Novell -- the ease-of-use segment is open again if you'd care to chase that market... but do offer internet application services with decent performance of don't bother.
www.hiredinsight.com
2000 is NOT an improvement over NT4 for everyone. If you're an org or bus without a full-time sys admin you can forget about administering W2K with the same ease provided by NT4. W2K has added so many features (and buried a good number of them) that there's a gaping whole in the easy-to-use server market.
www.hiredinsight.com
I have not found any such shallow posts; while what I have read so far has not been the hight of insight, it has mostly been fairly honest assesments of personal experience. Anecdotal, but undeniable. Depressing, but true.
He who fights and runs away,
...the idea of an application server. Archaic, a pain in the neck, I'll admit, but cost effective. Something I've yet to see MS talk abvout. Any takers? BTW, if you're reading this, "The Man", can you post under me IF you use an Apple LaserWriter...
He who fights and runs away,
Yeah right. They are not called religious wars for nothing.
Did you see the "honest" reaction to Miguel de Icaza's criticism of Linux? The juvenile puns on M$ that quickly get moderated to 4 Funny? How long did it take to the Linux community to admit that its UI sucks (thus LUIGI)? How much longer before they dump the retarded X-windows architecture?
So how did you find this out? Was it handed to you on a plate or did you have to dig into the internals, did you have to read manuals, did you have to ask questions of other users? Or was it all delivered via telepathic transfer from Redmond? What's your argument? A server OS is complicated to a new user? And to answer the 'bible-thumpers' jibe, do Microsoft never mention the benefits of their product to the detriment of competitors at every given opportunity. Just because the MS-zealots wear expensive suits and throw buzzwords around, doesn't mean they are any less committed to their cause than the fuzziest-bearded, rabidest-dog Linux zealot. I happen to find Linux better than any flavour of Windows because it's quiet. It doesn't crash, it never requires a reboot and it doesn't pop up stupid and uninformative messages at unnecessary intervals, it just works, and I know how to admin it because I took the time to find out, just like you did with NT.
Just for the record, I was raised on the Amiga, earn a living supporting monstrous mainframe legacy systems, and started using Linux last year when Win95 crashed and burned for what seemed like the millionth time (irrelevant but just so you know)
Haven't heard of any good comparisons yet, but we could start an opensource project to put comparisons on the web! It could a slashcode site with all the comments being potential contributions to the main essay.
I think it would be a great idea, and a great resource.
Daniel
for who?
Personally, I have a lot easier time configuring my system the way I want via text files than I ever did trying to get inefficient point-and-click dialogues to work.
If "easily" means that you don't have to understand what you're doing, then you're damn right Windows is easy to configure.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
The Win32 API basically is the operating system. So of course you need to access the Operating System for an application to work.
Whether you need to go through the overhead of a windowing system and message dispatch queue just to ping another machine(as the original poster implied) is another story.
- My password is slashdot
Enterprise Edition is the High End do-everything version. Standard Edition is a fraction of the price.
:)
Even still, $10,000 is nothing compared to the hardware and staff to run it. There are plenty of companies that spend more than $10,000 a month on their help desk.
I just wish I knew how much our companies subscription to the Burgandy CD's cost
- My password is slashdot
There are tasks wherein point and click is acceptable. Administration really isn't one of them, not in all its gory details.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
as a client, not a server. read what he said.
Linux
stable
# uptime
5:16am up 97 days, 11:11, 2 users, load average: 0.33, 0.17, 0.11
# ppptime
Online for 48 days 1 hours 57 minutes and 54 seconds
secure
mwahahaha, don't even go there.
supported
by ameteurs
Win2k
uptime approaching 2 days
try 2 months and counting..
a script kiddy's dream
My Linux box is the only machine I've ever had h4x0r3d (via DNS server). Luckily I was playing with my firewall rules at the time so I caught the bastard.
backed by the world class "we'll fix that when we feel like it" ms support model
as opposed to "we'll release it as stable when we feel like it"
of course. you just watch those comment counters (and therefore ad view counters) tick over on any MS/flame war article.
I disagree...
If you have win2k / nt4 set up properly from a clean install, it can be very stable. I've had a win2k box for 2 months.
uptime: 60 days, 4 hours, 48 minutes.
Certainly linux is better for a lot of things, namely as a programming environment; as far as server functionality is concerned, it's a matter of preference-- especially if you're not paying the bills.
-bennyk
A polar bear is just a rectangular bear that has undergone a coordinate transform.
Netscape doesnt even really crash the X session .. most times Netscape itself just dies.
..no crashes nothing ..
I have been using Mozilla mostly and so far
Now, let's at least be fair. I ran NT4 for a month without rebooting. Of course, the os was really struggling by that point. Fullscreen apps were not restoring the resolution, the mouse had been reset and slowed down, one cd-rom drive was gone, and the zip drive wouldn't read, write, or eject, but it was still running. The cd-rom came back on reboot, I can't imagine what could have caused that. Win2k, however, has yet to show me more than 9 days of uptime without either a BSOD or something else requiring a reboot. They should have realized that win9x and NT were seperate for a reason, but oh well.
I know it seems crazy but true. Even Merlin doesn't crash. I am not going to knock W2K because it really has a whole lot fo potential. I mean a whole lot. If W2K is this good I am afraid to see what their next version will be like. Oh here is a cute little fact for you too that you might get a kick out of... are you ready?
Windows 2000 Advanced Server takes up 111 megs of Ram in idle without any third party applications running or installed. That is just the straight OS! Can you belive that!? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS IT DOING WITH 111 MEGS OF RAM!!!!
~BHM
"Join me on the nail side of the thumb!"
I am not going to argue that W2K is bad because if those results are true then I am wowed. However, I do believe that just because it can network fast doesn't mean it is all that great. What about stability? What about reliability?
I do admit I am an MS-Bitch but only for another week. (Contract working has its ups and downs) However, I remember reading an internal MS magazine compairing W2K to Linux. In this article it talked about three things W2K cannot do. I don't remember the 2nd or 3rd but the very first thing MS admitted to was this:
Linux is better in the aspect at you can run a server by command prompt only
W2K is nice. I won't argue but could you run it on 32 megs of Ram? I hardly think so... You can't barely run the Professional version on 64. Server/AS Needs 128 just to run well and 256 to actually have a true server. If one wanted to they could run Linux on 16 megs alone.
It all comes down to what suits your needs. Reliability, stability, use-ability and raw power. W2K does have power, but at the price of hardware. It is easy to use but I still wouldn't let my mom touch it. You just can't number the days of Unix/Linux right yet. You can't because you have a ton of users keeping the OPenSource dream alive. That can't be crushed by a corporation. In the end I am sure MS will always be on top but, it will never have complete control. For one reason, when a group of people believe in somthing so much as OpenSource, it won't be stopped. They will continue to program and recompile and MS will try they hardest to stop it. But in the end it is not going to benefit to anything but a waste of time on a movement that won't stop.
~BHM
"Join me on the nail side of the thumb!"
Well this is obiously a easy question to answer. Windows 2000 is far more suppior to linux and is a better choice.
...whats that mister gates? no i wont do it nooooo!!!
I lied, Linux is the better choice. Software is open source, it cost less, its more reliable, its more secure, and many other things
...no mr gates you dont want to do that
damnit!
True, you do have to be careful about what you install and use with win2K. Choose hardware that works with Microsoft standard drivers, and Microsoft software, and its rock solid. But if you want to run something else, there are bugs galore.
Actually, I believe the Pentium has many RISC concepts at the core. Above that is a microcode layer that provides the somewhat antiquated CISC command set.
I think that is insightful of what will happen to our beloved operating systems. Linux, Windows, and other flavors will steal elements from each other and turn into something new.
I'm using Linux for the first time in many many years. It boots up into KDE and looks an awful lot like Windows.
Win2K has added elements that smell like Unix as other posters have pointed out.
Imagine years ago if you told the CISC guys that they'd embrace RISC. What if you then told the RISC guys that they'd start to implement some CISC ideals?
I run a dual celeron box... and I've managed to crash both windows2000 pro and debian (full crash, complete lockup, now that takes talent)...while I agree with you that an operating system can make a huge difference, I think the bottom line in stability is the hardware running the code...but it should also be noted that when running on a normal hardware configuration, I was able to keep win2k up for three months without rebooting, and that string was ended by a power outage beyond MS control... the point to my ranting: sure, windows might be unstable, but provide it with realistic/reasonable hardware and it can rival most **nix boxes.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Four little words:
Internet Protocol Version Six!
The guy you are responding to is right. In AD, OUs were a later add-on to meet some feature checklist. (They weren't in the early whitepapers.) The only thing they allow is the devolution of some administrative powers to departmental admins, and they are probably only useful in the short term while you move from the One Big Domain LanMan model to the Many Small Domains ActiveDirectory model.
You obviously can't have 2 rmalda@slashdot.org. You can make sales.slashdot.org a seperate domain and have rmalda@sales.slashdot.org. Sure, in other systems, OUs segregate the namespace, but nobody really wants an UID of "CN=rmalda/OU=sales"@slashdot.org (See some malimplemented Lotus Notes sites that actually use addresses like that.)
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Try ulimit -n and -u.
To my way of thinking, this is where *BSD/Linux acceptance and inroads will make it's largest gains. Company XYZ decides it's not paying the licencing costs for $commercial_OS anymore, does some research and finds that it might actually be feasible to switch to *BSD/Linux and gives it a try, possibly in one department first to see how the users manage (this is on the desktop, users rarely know or care what's on the servers). If the experience is positive, the whole company switches.
Even if they have to hire a consultant to set up the guinea pig department or hire a reasonably decent sysadmin (assuming a small company that has done mostly it's own IT stuff using MS) to get everything in place and answer the inevitable questions during the transition, the cost savings should be there. I know a few people who wouldn't mind being a part-time sysadmin for several companies and charging each of them a portion of a decent yearly salary, if the small companies really felt they didn't need a fulltime admin.
And as the users became comfortable exploring and learning *BSD/Linux they would become more open to installing and using it at home.
It seems that what most commercial OS'es have going for them are a large number of applications that users are familiar with and the inertia the apps and the data associated with them create. It can be fairly easy to change the OS behind the scenes, but a huge pain in the ass to change your apps, especially if you have mountains of data that would be unusable or incompatible with the new OS & apps and have to retrain users to a completely new interface and process to perform their job. This is one reason why big shops still run all manner of legacy systems. If it ain't broke don't fix it, right? Especially when you have thousands of home-grown programs (and business process surrounding them) that produce exactly the reports that your employees require to perform their duties etc.But as the business case for *BSD/Linux in terms of cost becomes stronger and as the base of apps & usability increase, it will be harder and harder for corps to ignore their attractiveness, especially with the commercial support that Linux is enjoying and the evidence of scalability and reliability that huge sites like Yahoo, Hotmail and Slashdot provide.
Just my 1.4 cents worth (Canadian eh?).----
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Slán leat agus go n'eirí an bóthar leat
X-Windows isn't installed on my computer for the fact it doesn't exist. this may sound like nit-picking but it really pisses me off that people put the s there. it's just wrong. Slashdot should use it's massive power as the center of propaganda in the free software world to like, make people stop this. it's just wrong
William D. Freeman http://members.xoom.com/EvilGNU -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d- s+:++ a---
Umm, stream of consciousness, and stuff, and probably should have put an extra line break between those 2 of course i know realplayer is an application and the video standard of choice for people distributing low bandwith clunky postage stamp size video and dont want anyone to be able to edit it or convert it to another format.
but the blame belonging to 3rd parties still stands.
On the matter of drivers, warning messages are even bigger and longer and you have to be "Really Sure" before it lets you shoot yourself in the foot by installing a totally dodgy unapproved driver.
(Take your head out of your own ass and Repeat 100 time: i promise i wont be so pedantic in future.
Can you pronounce "Internet" and "InnerNet" with out them both sounding like the same word? Bill G cant.)
Its been said before and i'll say it again:
The right tool for the right job.
It makes perfect sense not to put X on a box that is going to be remotely administered. Remote administration continues to be one of windows weaknesses.
Not everyone appreciates being forced to use the command line, choice is good. Desktops dont NEED to be stable (not that they dont deserve to be).
Security does not matter (much) if you are sandboxed inside a well secured network.
Telnet and FTP are as insecure on linux as they are on Windows, if you take the right precautions (ssh2 and scp) why not have give in too good looks and style over substance?
(Cmon, Tell me you dont have windows still leftover somewhere in your system?)
But seriously, use the newly GPL'ed KDE and a nice Redmond style theme and you might be able to convince yourself that your not even using windows.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think the "apples-and-oranges dept." says it all. I would imagine (for lack of experience with either,) that Win2k would toast Linuxes at FPS counts in 3d games.
Conversely, I would imagine that Linux makes a much better web server.
Personally, I'd rather have a Linux server, a Win2k workstation (but only for lack of BeOS software!), and a Win95 OSR2 desktop. Which OS is better all comes down to what it's better FOR.
From Kirch's document: "Technically, Windows NT Server 4.0 is no match for any UNIX operating system, not even the non-commercial BSDs or Linux."
This is a good example of what holds back Unix in the marketplace. This is simply biased garbage.
An example? OK, there is the fact that NT4 is far more advanced than Unix when it comes to having embeddable components in the operating system. Now, you can debate the relative merits of a monolithic system versus reusable and embeddable components, but there is no question from a technology standpoint, Window's object oriented nature is far more advanced in this area.
Not to mention that I don't see anywhere in that document that discusses how much easier it is to configure an NT system than, say, Linux. (Yes, 'linuxconf' is complete piece of garbage).
When these documents are unable to give credit where credit is due, it casts doubt on ALL comparison studies. Those of you who would write these sort of documents should keep that in mind.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
There weren't many Windows boxes around, we were pretty much a straight IRIX school. But even as far as teaching UNIX, all they told me was how to use the basic features of vi, nothing about basic system admin stuff like user/groups, permissions, services, etc. We took a little C, but no OO stuff. We have co-op students all the time, and I'm amazed at how little they know. Installing a printer is challenging, let alone doing any hardware swaps. They have little or no concept of what a network is, let alone managing user accounts.
If I were in a position to do hiring, the degree from this university,and other nearby schools, count for almost zip. Not that an MCSE counts for much more, but at least you'd know they have some understanding of the basic concepts.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Linux, and don't much care for NT. I run Linux at home for most things, except gaming. I have to run NT at work since you can't manage Banyan Vines stuff through Linux.
I wish I had moderator points left. BTW, the "underlying structure" bit is what makes Linux PERFECT for small ISPs/content-providers. I can tell you that from firsthand experience.
At the ISP I used to work for, all servers were Linux, and all user machines were Win9x (except the techies who dual-booted). With the current state of the art in Gnome and KDE, this might have changed now.
Realplayer 7, and the RP8 betas had huge problems under Win2k.. RealPlayer 8 Final works like a charm, as I have been running for a few months now without problems..
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
give me root on a linux box and i'll do the same. win2k will try to fix most accidental deletes for you. However, if you say "Yes" to installing crap software from 3rd parties you're asking for it. /lib/modules, you'd be screwed. You'd probably blame the RPM producer, too. Or maybe you'd blame linux for letting you do that. Or maybe you'd just think for a moment before thinking you had a clue about what you're talking about.
If you installed an RPM whose setup included the step rm -fr
Hence the exchange war-stories.
Any integrated groupware opensource projects out there?
The number of legacy sections is unfortunate, but the the lack of documentation for the non-legacy sections are my real complaint here. Linux kernel recompilation and module configuration isn't entirely transparent, but if you understand it, and understand rc scripts you can track down any such error. Sendmail might not work without a bit more education, but at least you have tools to find what is complaining.
Ever try to 'fix' Word when it crashes every time you go to add anotations? I found that saving after every annotation seemed to prevent the crashing (Murphy's law, that is, but the crashing was consistant untill I got in the habit of saving every line or so).
Ever get 'license key invalid' every time you login after reboot to a w2k system - with no way to tell what piece of bloatware left this lying around in your registry?
For the routine stuff you'll learn the routine through the emacs tutorial or through random guesses at word menu functions. For the tight situations, a gui doesn't fundamentally change the situation, and can hide important details.
In unix land, anything equivalent to that 'license key invalid' dialog would be trackable back to a particular line in an rc file, or to a kernel configuration file. I checked the standard system startup registry hooks, I also disabled services left behind by various wares. My best guess is that NTS PPPoE, VMware, or ZoneAlarm left something in device driver land, but I couldn't find a list of what was supposed to be there :-/. Anyway, that was a reformat ago, and so I'll never know for certain.
A gui makes it easier to find specific functionality. You pay for it with less obvious/convenient scriptability. You pay for it with less effeciency once you know the features (unless there is a keyboard shortcut). You pay for it with code bloat. Many people are willing to pay these prices. You may be one of them.
I find it interesting how Windows keeps looking more and more like UNIX.
Just like how Linux desktop managers (eg KDE and Gnome) keep looking more and more like Windows.
It's simple. Windows has the better GUI, so Gnome & KDE will try to imitate it more. Linux has a better underlying structure, so Windows will try to imitate it more.
--
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The real Captain Derivative has a Slashdot ID.
Well, Linux has diff. With Windows, I guess you can see if the files are the same size, but there is no real good way to do a more detailed compare...
___
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Well, yeah. I know there are various Windows apps that have the same functionality (or more) than those that come with the various Unices. I was pretty much focusing on what came with the OSes in my (very very) little joke.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
"First, I saw Windows 2000 Beta 3"
Beta? Worse yet, a Microsoft beta? 'Nuff said.
-aardvarko
webmaster at aardvarko dot com
Difference being - you access to the manual in linux
Microsoft(tm) - a particular virulent virus that has infected most Pc's.
NT faster - I ust get a new watch for y dual boots
Microsoft(tm) - a particular virulent virus that has infected most Pc's.
Example running access2000 and 97 together - not fun
Microsoft(tm) - a particular virulent virus that has infected most Pc's.
Since wwhen do beginners administer NT or Linu boxen?
Microsoft(tm) - a particular virulent virus that has infected most Pc's.
must have been imagining gmc , kfm or even the venerable xfm then
Microsoft(tm) - a particular virulent virus that has infected most Pc's.
Less than once a day?????
not quite my definition of almost never
Microsoft(tm) - a particular virulent virus that has infected most Pc's.
"Oh please! You can't be serious. Talking about FUD. You should spend some time with real users, the type that does not even know how to handle a mouse."
Yes, the more there are users, the more ignorant users there are. imho, if one has never used computer, it makes no different which OS this person learns. they are all equally hard.
"Or do you really think joe average will be compiling his kernel soon?"
it's not very complicated. of course, it is not necessary for long time after first time introduced to new system - it requires quite a lot of information and understanding how the computer works.
but my main point here is that as windows is more used platform, it is more easy to adapt than *nix. almost where ever you go, there's windows. if this was case with unix, you would be learning that rather than windows.
ound the message used repetitively over and over still nothing grows silen
Karma whore.
I wouldn't compare 2.2 against Win2K for one reason...Linus doesn't think it was good enough to beat NT4 due to misc. bottlenecks in the 2.2 kernel. From what I understand, they have fixed these constraints in 2.4 and things are feeling much better now. Linus says he will never go back to 2.2 because it was too slow. I will follow Linus on this on...compare NT4 AND Win2K against 2.4.
Dynoman7
Blarf.
Actually, that's required to keep backward compatability with Linux Samba servers. The namespace IS flat, because everything is stored in a flat directory for more effecient searching. I believe the actual namespace (the GUID) is about 23 trillion entries max. Usernames COULD be reused, but a check is implemented to prevent security issues when accessing third-party resources (eg linux samba). Note that if you have your AD set up right, all you need to provide is distinctly identifying information, like your full name, or initials (if unique).
funny munging
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Microsoft BSD, Microsoft BSOD, I don't think there would be much difference. Microsoft could make anything suck.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Using Linux as my main workstation OS is not an option. There are too many applications and features that I can't (or can't get with the quality I like). Windows is very polished in this regard and I enjoy not having to hack (much) the OS to get every little thing done. I imagine this is the case for a lot of people.
Using Windows (2000 frex) as a server (which I just so happen to do also :P ) is very "non optimal" especially compared to Linux / unix. It's not too difficult to get some pretty spiffy servers running (for example, WarFTP, Apache + ActivePerl +PHP...), but the same thing that favors Windows as a desktop favors linux as a server, namely software support. Most server-ish programs are optimized for a unixoid environment (database apps, scripting apps etc.) and sometimes contain very little help (or software support) for the Windows platform. Additionally, Linux / unixes have many excellent features that facilitate serving (for example, easy / consistent user account creation and usage, straightforward file permissions, low OS overhead, etc.)
When configuring a windows box as a server you can setup a lot of services but you quickly start running into problems / high levels of complexity and difficulties of administration when you get a lot of things running (especially if you want to use free software). However, configuring a linux box, you can easily pile on new services and not even flinch. It's a simple matter (for a semi-trained semi-expert) to setup DNS, FTP, IRC, WWW, Routing, Telnet and/or SSH, a Database (or three), PHP, Perl, Python, SMTP (and just about whatever else you want to throw in) running on linux / unix without too much trouble in either setup or continued operation. And, of course, you can do all of this on linux with free apps quite easily. It's also a lot easier to use different configurations (for example, for security purposes) under linux than it is on windows. Plus, all the information on setting up linux services is readily available in fairly easy to follow howto's / tutorials. To attempt to setup a server of the same functional complexity of a moderately tweaked / filled out linux system using Windows requires a lot more effort (read pain).
AOL: I'll get you and your little dog too! (oh yeah and it's so easy no wonder yadda yadda)
Reasons why you might want to support a large number of users.
There are many other examples of why you might want to have multiple simultaneous-users on a system. The fact is that multi-user functionality in an OS is still important for many tasks. Unix does this very well (since it has about 3 decades of experience) whereas windows does not, which is why you don't see Windows being used in situations where you need multi-user capabilities.
a good browser would at least render something usable when faced with crappy HTML! So, you're saying Netscape isn't a good browser? After all, it's even less tolerant of crappy HTML than IE is. :P
way to go man, WindowMaker is elegant, clean, and really comfortable to use. And it's fast even on modest hardware Once I got used to it I'm not willing to go back to crappy "Desktop" metaphors. Of course I do all file management in CLI
As for the C$300 price tag I paid, compare it to C$75.00/hr for the typical consulting firm. Let's face it, the money in Linux comes from the support.
The last thing I would do is get a consultant. You can try #linux on EFNet, irc.linpeople.org, attend a local Linux Users Group Meeting, or contact the programmer if none of the other avenues work.
There is a LUG (Linux Users Group) in every geographic area, usually full of enthusiasts, professionals, and coders who want nothing more than to teach you for free.
I used to use NT, but moved to linux mainly because it was so easy to obtain help and documentation for complex tasks, and also to use a system where I was only limited by my own knowledge. If you want to learn *nix admin, I would reccomend slackware, as redhat distros try and configure everything for you, and the slack init scripts are much easier to configure. The difficulty of UNIX is mainly due to its flexibility, but once you learn the syntax of a few scripting languages, everything begins to fall into place. After that you can learn bash to the point that it outperforms any GUI in terms of speed of operation.
You can also pay to wait on hold
I know that 2.4 is not "official" yet, but that hasnt stopped many from using the new OS. I would like to see some charts between NT4, win2000, linux 2.2, and linux 2.4
So an OS should be able to guard itself even from its own trusted administrator making even the most utterly stupid of errors? If I ever delete /etc/fstab, I have a damn good reason for it. (well, once it did get deleted (I forgot how) and I just stuck a disk in and replaced it..big deal) This is the same sort of assinine behavior word often exhibits when I try to get my work done and I have to filter through a bunch of autocorrect rules to figure out which one to delete.
If I put my car in drive in the garage, it goes into the wall. This is not a design flaw of the car, it is my own stupid fault. If I willingly take the engine out of my car, I dont expect the car to put it back in. If I remove the kernel from my OS, I probably wanted a different kernel to begin with, and I certainly dont want the OS trying to replace it before shutdown. How come it knows that I deleted it? It doesnt need to know that unless I tell it. That is SICK.
As I said, some companies (*cough*NETSCAPE*cough*) would do anything to Windows to make Microsoft look bad. It's unfortunate that so many people and companies have succumbed to this BillVengeance.
That is crazy. Netscape wants to produce a viable browser, not sabotage windows. It is destroying win32 out of its own buggy code, which should NOT be possible. That is conspiracy theory. Netscape is a buggy browser, not a virus, and it was not designed to be a piece of bad PR for MS.
...is actually not in Windows, but in a separate program (albeit installed with Windows) that allows people to write scripts to run in windows (appropriately named Windows Scripting Host). It gives access to the file system and mailing capabilities amoung other things. It's been awhile since I've used a Unix system, but I believe they have similar capabilities (albiet with better permissions cabalilities than Win9x I'm guessing).
[shameless plug]
Of course, you could use my free Watchdog program to trap the WSH scripts before they do any damage.
[/shameless plug]
MS would be smart to make this type of protection standard in Windows Scripting Host.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
since when?!?
I was amused to recently have problems connecting to my Linux (web server & net gateway) box and after some investigation decided it had become unstable (don't flame me I can't remember what made me think that).
Anyway so after 101 days uptime I rebooted it and promptly realised it was the network on my windows 2000 box that was (and still is) well and truly shagged.
I guess this will finally teach me that rebooting to fix something is best left to the realm of Microsoft operating systems.
no sig.
Yeah I've heard this before. When I complain that my windows PC at work crashes while i'm working on massive databases and programming and a guy nearby who only ever uses email and Word says "I can't understand why you say your PC crashes so often - mine is fine.".
no sig.
Try admining several dozen servers in a corporate environment, and you'll soon learn to love that 'gui overhead'. I understand exactly what each click of my mouse does in my network (and if I wanted to, I could type cmd...), all that gui does is save me time. When you run quad xeon servers with gigs of ram, the 'gui overhead' is minimal. On security, most windows boxes aren't secure because the admins don't know what they're doing, or they don't have enough resources to implement their network correctly. I'll admit, however, that if I was running one or two servers from home, or from a small business, I'd pick a linux flavor. Win2k is best for large corporations, and as such, its going to dominate the market via trickle down serving. Linux has great potential, but the open source people need a concerted effort to make it ready for enterprise level computting.
"Good for ISPs" Amazon helpfully adds....
I don't know about all the AD/DNS stuff, but I believe you. Sounds very Microsoft.
However, it is possible in the NT model to have apps "customize various aspects of [their] behavior" on a per-user basis. Under "winroot, Profiles, username, Application Data" progs can save settings that get merged into the registry (I think) when the user logs in. That being said, almost no windows apps take advantage, possibly for the sake of running on 95/8. As I check my system, only Microsoft, Rational, and MKS put anything there, and I have the whole world installed.
BTW, is the "Active" part of AD the dynamic DNS? It seems so useful where everything is increasingly distributed and DHCPed. Did you find a way to make it interoperate?
Kill, Tux, kill!
I'd use Win2K.
Ok, its not *actual* fork, its 'interpreter threads', but it does the same job. And it means you can share data in the process space. If you're mental..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
It is extremely disturbing to see Kirch's several "papers" referenced many times regarding NT : Despite Kirch's MCP status he has shown AMAZING ignorance several times regarding Windows NT. Just glancing through the piece of tripe linked in the article and I see this gem:
This single difference between the UNIX and Windows operating systems further underscores the original intentions of their respective designers: UNIX was conceived as a client/server operating system for professional use, whereas Windows and its descendents sprang from DOS, an operating system that was never intended to be a player in a client/server environment, much less a server.To put it bluntly: WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT. Zealotry disturbs me. Seeing people yap nonsense because they think they are forwarding some sacred cause is the bane of mankind and has led to many wars and persecutions. To give Kirch a clue : If you don't know what you're talking about, shut the hell up. When I read another of his disertations extolling Linux and "revealing" the flaws of NT I was AMAZED that it was going over so smoothly to the Slashdot crowd who I assumed must know more. If he's an MCP (a nonsense designation anyways. MCPs are weenies who couldn't manage to get their MCSE : BTW if you are going to discredit it and you don't have it then you have no credibility) then he must have gotten his Windows For Workgroups 3.11 designation or something because he certainly knows very, very little about Windows NT.
Further proof of the complete SHIT worthiness of that article is the foundation that all that counts for NT is what comes on the CD. Who cares if you can download just about anything you can get for Linux for NT, Redhat RVL3Z because they stuck tonnes and tonnes of crap on the CD, therefore it's more full featured. How utterly absurd.
Just to clarify my position : I believe you should use whatever best achieves your purpose, however zealotry has no place in IT or software development. I personally love FreeBSD and it has a place in my systems as well as NT/2000, but I still consider Linux to be subpar: a decision that goes along with my absolute disgust at the communist manifesto nonsense that goes along with the whole GPL religion.
Have a good day
Soooooo...IF it takes more work to get something done, it must be better? What kind of logic is that? You shouldn't HAVE to hack a config file to make something work, Windows or otherwise. Nothing against Linux, but your version of a 'real' OS sounds more like a masochist OS. And about as useful. Please - let other people do the convincing around here.
The Game Guy
I have a dual ppro box with 200 mhz on each procesor and 500 megs ram....
I tried this:
Did a netbios copy of a 1000 meg directory from the win2k (the dual ppro) server box to my laptop over a 100 mps ethernet.
Played a Pink Floyd mp3 at the same time....
The mp3 actually started going like a scrached LP disk. The damn files came from an ntfs partition on the win2k and were being copied to a fat32 partition on the laptop... so why did the final copy had fat16 names on it? (explorer did something funny with the filenames because I copyed win2k to win32??).
Since windows is a must for my roomate we just went back to nt4.0 sp5 that does the job much better than win2k....exept being able to serve webpages and databases at the same time....
And on and on.....
All in favor of making a www.cryaboutmicrosoft.com slashdot backed site especially made for reporting stupid bugs on stupid software from $tupid MS say YAY.
Ill even host the damned thing.
Alex.
Kiss My Butt
Stop looking at me.
] NT's security pervades the whole OS
Yes, but NT takes the granularity and flexibility much much further than Unix's rather primitive user/group protection. You can add any number of users or groups -- or deny any number of users or groups -- access to any specific OS object. Administrators can also easily take ownership of objects or entire hierarchies. There are many more levels than just 'read/write/execute', and several special privileges that can be applied.
Now if only the APIs and UIs for dealing with all this cool power weren't so gawd-awful. The Win32 Security APIs are a freakin' nightmare to use, and the UIs (User Manager for Domains, as an example) are frequently obsecure or counter-intuitive. It's a great underlying security system. The design of the interfaces sucks.
Universities: the user's files are stored in a central location, so no matter which workstation they log into their files (and hence their app settings) are there. In addition, The IT people only need to worry about installing software on one machine, instead of 50-100 (with the exception of the OS of course).
Win2K can do all this. Admins can load software on to the server once. When users log into any given workstation, their desktop appears, and as they use applications they are transparently installed (and then they run with that specific user's preferences). However, this is done in a MUCH different way than Unix. The registry and settings for every user are stored on the server, and the local workstation has to have a lot of disk space as each users settings are copied down for that user's session on that workstation. But the 'roaming desktop' feature does work if it's set up properly, and you use the cheap CPU power at each station rather than clogging the network with lots of GUI interactions (though if you're running 100Mb ethernet, that's not THAT much of an issue).
And Win2K finally added support for per-user disk quotas, so that using this system in academic environments is finally feasable.
Where I work, when I go into the lab, it bothers me that they use windows machines there. I can't check my email, my files appear as the F:, H:, G: or I: drive (why can't my "mydocuments" be mounted as the local "mydocuments"?).
Again, Win2k alleviates this. You still have to deal with at least one drive letter, but you can mount any other server's hierarchy to any directory you wish. So you can have your local disk be C:, yet C:\public can point to your public directory over on the main server, and c:\myarchive can be yet another directory on yet another server's drive. You can have three physical drives in your local system, and have them all mapped to the logical C: drive (different drives being different directory hierarchies). Read up on the implementation of 'mount points'... they look to be pretty powerful, actually. And if you want to have multiple drives, as stated above, all those settings would migrate with you. Just log on to any Win2k desktop as your domain account, and voila!
The obvious fly in the ointment is that the sysadmin has to be up to date on all the latest stuff to ensure that desktop roaming and install-on-demand is all properly active. I've met few NT admins who are currently up to that task...
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
No one is saying that a unix command line is easier to learn than a GUI, but I for one find it immensely more powerful.
/usr/bin (or even that /usr/bin exists). I really WISH users could learn and think more, but most don't care, and frankly, many don't have the capacity even if they did care or did have the time.
Actually, that's exactly what someone was saying, and I was refuting it. And I agree the command line *can* be immensely more powerful (at the cost of learning curve), but I won't say it's *necessarily* more powerful in *all* cases.
A GUI makes simple/trivial things (copy a file, move a file, rename a file, run a program, very simple options and configurations) very easy. The more difficult stuff (rename 1000 files from a*.gif to b*.gif) are certainly possible if you dig deeper, spend time to learn more, and augment your GUI tool-set, but it's still possible. However, it's frustrating to a command line user for the same reason that command lines are frustrating to a GUI user -- lack of familiarity and experience.
And as for the flying files animation... one of the key tennants of a GUI is to always give constant (and consistant) feedback to the user about what is going on during lengthy operations. Windows hardly excels at this, but it at least makes good attempts most of time time. What may seem like CPU wasting crap to you is very reassuring to a lot of end-users that they didn't screw up or that something is actually happening. Nothing is more unsettling to a standard end-user than pressing return after typing in a command only to have it just sit there for several seconds (or potentially minutes).
The problem with the command line is that it requires the user to learn and to think - is this really so hard?
As much as want to agree with you, this view really is elitist and unrealistic. Tons of people use computers solely as TOOLS. Most drivers don't know how their carburrators work, or how their distributors work, or even that they have these components. Computer *USERS* shouldn't have to know all the ins and outs of NFS mounted file systems and all the utilities and parameters for every last thing in
It's for this reason that Linux will never catch on in any general way, given its present form. Apple is doing some interesting things to hide all the unix 'crap' from users (making installs and uninstalls as simple as drag and drop, which is very cool) while not making all the guts inaccessable to the more knowledgable user, developer, or sysadmin. And trust me, I'm not generally an Apple proponent by any means (I wouldn't own a current Apple machine if you paid me... well, maybe if you paid me, I could use a new door stop), but still. They definitely understand the general populace and how to tailor computers to meet their needs.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Well, I'd certainly argue that pretty GUIs make an environmnet easier. It's much more "discoverable", with much more visible at one time across many actions.
With a console UNIX system, whatever you did last is constantly scrolling up and off the screen. I swear, watching some Unix developers work in the file system, every other command is 'ls' as they have to manually refresh information... with a GUI, refresh is free, automatic, and fast. It frees you to think about the problem itself, and not makeing sure you've got the latest info. And that's just a very tiny example.
Nobody can tell me that very long command lines with half a dozen switches and arguments (especially taking into account one simple typo either renders the command invalid or worse can do serious damage) is easier than pointing and clicking. It may be more POWERFUL, but it aint' EASIER.
I mean, consider the amount of background knowledge you need just to work in a command line window on a unix environment... you need to know which shell you're in (and if you want to do command editing, you need to know a subset of emacs or vi commands too -- gee, THOSE are obvious and discoverable, NOT), about nfs volumes and file systems, the unix io system, dozens of commands and utilities... there's a LOT of learning curve there.
Sure you have to know SOMETHING with a GUI, but the knowledge is much simpler, easier, and you don't need to commit it to absolute memory, as you can remember the generic stuff and then discover the rest.
Besides, the MS Help system (which will even walk you through some steps) is a hell of a lot easier to use (and more powerful by lightyears) than man pages.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
I have to agree with the other poster. I've had an NT4 SP4 system up and running for a good length of time now. I've done development on it, I've run open GL games, office apps, you name it. The only time I ever had BSOD issues (one very bad) was in the early days when I didn't know the SBLive had a patch to coexist with my TNT. Once I had the right patches installed, it has been rock stable - I can blow down DevStudio with a nasty bit of coding, but the OS is rock-solid. I'd heard that the step to W2K was like cutting 300 Mhz off your processor (according to one of my consultant buddies) but another who develops regularly in a heterogeneous Linux/Windoze environment says it isn't that bad. I'd like to get USB and Direct X for NT... but I suspect Win2K is my only real choice. Linux would be okay if it'd support all the stuff to make direct X games and the standard use office apps run on it. Otherwise, it'll just stay as the cheap-ass firewall/masquerading box and maybe a place to play around.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aris
It just locked up, no reason
After reading this ridiculous statement, I have decided to Troll you relentlessly.
I will begin next week.
--
You are a fucking moron.
I like linux and earn a living doing unix administration. I also do a little microsoft admin and recently I went on an Win2000 course. Nothing in these courses gives you any real idea of server performance but there is a lot in 2000 that should be looked at by the linux community. Active directory, secure dynamic DNS updates and the degree of integration of security. Unix in general has had a long time to get these features right and the results are NIS+ (vomitus muchus) DCE etc. What is wanted is a great kerberos or better authentification implimentation that can use a variety of encryptional algorithms (heimdal(?)), a secure directory server architecture openldap2.0(?) and office applications that run from the server so we don't have any of this client configuration bullshit and all personal config is pulled from a directory service. The inability to break away from client has made microsoft pursue extremely complex solutions when very simple solutions will do. Client config and applications should be kept to a minimum it should be just a grunt bucket with lots of ram.
But now, I have a technical drawing course on AutoCAD plus digital circuit course using Xilinx Foundation software (stuff for FPGA programing).
When I'll find a use for Linux, I'll reinstall it. Right now, I'm happy with Win2k
But so do PHP 4.0 and (say) Interbase running on WinNT 4.0. And then you can run the same apps on Win with IIS or Linux with Apache. I find PHP's cleaner style faster to code than VBScript's ugly bloated syntax. EG. want a newline?
VBScript: "Hello"&vbCrLfPHP: "Hello\n"
Why do you have to write 7 characters in VBS to accomplish what PHP does in 2? Of course, there is an alternative in VBS: &chr(10) .. but that takes 8 characters!
Moral: I have switched from ASP to PHP for my web development, even on NT boxes. And I am loving it.I am anarch of all I survey.
Explorer has crashed on me several times, and depending on hardware configurations, Win2k Professional has frozen up on me as well with no additional software installed. Just because you have not had any problems does not mean that other people that are having problems are doing something wrong, believe me. I have gotten into this argument many times, and I have taken your position in the past, but as I have learned, it is just plain wrong.
It's an old story - I've been hearing it for years - "Windows is too, stable! It never crashes for me, you must be doing something wrong or installing crappy software'. I used to think people saying that were just plain evil, because I'd had plenty of experience to the contrary. But once I happened to be visiting, and I saw Windows crash right there, and get rebooted. I said, 'uh, didn't you just reboot Windows?' And he said, oh yeah, but believe me, but that was an exception, normally it never crashes.
Now I realize that these people aren't really evil, they're just lying to themselves. Human nature?
--
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Really? I haven't needed to change anything...
I lost me sig.
W2k still has lots of program crashes (netscape for example) just they dont take the whole operation system with them and so its not windows fault. You get to blame the specific program, much the way you hear Linux users complain about X or Netscape but rarely do they blame the OS.
I'm definitely one of the people who blames the app when it crashes and the OS goes on apparently untouched. Why is that wrong? (That's a sincere question, not a retort.) What is an example of a platform (in real-world use) where you don't see application crashes?
Three additional minor points: 1) For desktop users in particular, application crashes are vastly preferable to system crashes. 2) X probably ought to be considered a platform on its own, in this context. 3) When particular apps (e.g. Netscape) crash more than all others put together, is it still so unreasonable to blame its developers?
---------
*shudder*
;-)
I know you're right, but you're scaring me with this "Never taking my hand off the mouse" part. Mommy, please make him stop!
Really, there are quite a few apps out there for both. I mostly use Delphi, so, for right now, my apps are mostly for Windows.
Of course, I appreciate keyboard control instead of all mouse control when I can get it.
This'll crash NT waaay before a similar linux box.
Besides, normally linux will only allow so many
processes per user, # open files per user.. etc.
The ulimit -a command will list the current
upper limits.
e.g. On my machine
>ulimit -a
core file size (blocks) 1000000
data seg size (kbytes) unlimited
file size (blocks) unlimited
max memory size (kbytes) unlimited
stack size (kbytes) 8192
cpu time (seconds) unlimited
max user processes 2048
pipe size (512 bytes) 8
open files 1024
virtual memory (kbytes) 2105343
So, once I hit the 2048th process, the call to fork will fail, etc.
A properly configured linux box should have a far lower max process count than mine. In fact, I should lower all these limits right now..
I'd hate to tell you this, but your system is not the kind of system designed to handle Windows 2000, and vice versa. The "K-Sucks" series was strictly designed for the consumer market which didn't want to spend money on a truly powerful system (don't bother to argue this; your complaints of sluggish performance only validate my point). My system loves Windows 2000: here are the specs
Intel Pentium III 500
320 MB PC100 SDRAM
GeForce 2 GTS
50 GB total Hard Drive space, etc., etc.
With these specs, I have enough room to open 256MB files, enough to give Quake 3 a 200MB hunk (reminds me, gotta tweak the cvars to do that). Just remember, AMD is not concerned with true performance; they only want to build a processor that does a slapdash job, and they reap the revenue from under your butt cheek (your wallet, you easily offendable Linux gnome).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Heh, you're slurring. You're still drunk. Nothing you say will be true (or even coherent) until tomorrow morning, when you inevitably vomit on the side of the bed, dress yourself, and return to your thankless job which caused the drinking fit in the first place.
Sorry, but I'm majoring in Computer Engineering, and I can see the ultra-virtualized hell that is Linux. However, who am I to listen further to a moron who doesn't even use HTML in his posts?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Like I always say, there's four things that are guaranteed to crash Windows 2000:
Badly written software,
Badly written drivers,
All Netscape products (including AOL),
All RealNetworks products.
I can definetly testify to this, as I have significant experience with Windows 2000.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If you're so good at Linux, could you be so kind as to recompile libidcin.so into a Winamp-ready input plugin?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Ouch man, go have some ice cream or something. Seriously, I think that last line of slurs just caused that vein on your forehead to bulge.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
...thinking with the organ between his legs instead of the one atop his neck.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Look who's talking (and losing karma at the same time!)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
My opinion is: if you can get the staff/knowledge to run linux to its fullest, then give it a go. Otherwise, Win2K is the way to go. It is much more simpler to learn the many undiscovered features of Win2K as you go along, as opposed to Linux, which never gives you any hint to its hidden butt-savers.
I tried to get Quake 3 running on Linux, but I gave up once I read the readme. The readme stated that a 2.9 kernel is required. The kernel in my system was 2.2.14 (Yes, call me a Linux nerd, I know my kernel version by heart). Sure, Linus has been hinting at a 4.0 kernel, but as far as I've found out, 2.2.16 is the latest stablebuild. Also, the OpenGL code for the Voodoo 2 is messed up seriously, with color abberations during light intensity changes (Come on! Even the Linux coders couldn't get the drivers to the venerable V2 correct? That's PATHETIC!!)
In at least 2 days, I will be re-installing Windows 2000 on my Linux box. I think that when a linux distribution goes gold and STILL has nagging bugs, there's a serious problem. (Yes, it was RedHat 6.2, that may have been part of it, but admit it, Slackware would still have those segmentation faults as well.)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Yes. That's exactly the case with RealPlayer, Creative's drivers, and other programs written by overstressed software engineers.
Garbage, you say? I saw the Microsoft regional rep delete his NTOSKRNL.EXE off of his laptop. Windows 2000 promptly extracted it from the driver cab back into \WINNT\system32. Also, Windows guards DLLs with its life with the driver signing process (unless, of course, you're sure of the driver's quality [or are willing to take the risk] and you say, "Yes, install this driver). After seeing the demonstration of Win2K's protection of system files, I decided to shun Linux, since you could delete /etc/fstab without any action taken by Linux to correct this.
Sorry to tell you this, but as far as overwriting drivers, DLLs and registry entries, sh*t happens. There are two companies notorious for overwriting system resources and effectively wrecking the registry: these two companies are Netscape and Real Networks.
As I said, some companies (*cough*NETSCAPE*cough*) would do anything to Windows to make Microsoft look bad. It's unfortunate that so many people and companies have succumbed to this BillVengeance. Even /. has this vengeance (as seen by the Gates of Borg picture).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
oh yeah, use seta com_hunkmegs X. Either in config.cfg or as a commandline parameter (+ after quake3.exe)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
As for your comment, I think the fact that your drunk and vulgar nullifies all of it.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I then removed the NIC card in another Win2k Pro Box and installed another vendor's card - same slot. Showed dialogs that the driver was loading and as it was dhcp, had an address assigned and was ready to go with no intervention or reboots. Moved this card from slot 0 to slot 1 (regular PC - no hotswap slots, so it was powered down) - when it came back up, original driver was applied as a new instance (#2), dhcp worked fine - no intervention, no reboots. What am I doing wrong?
But I won't be so closed-minded as to tell you to use Linux without looking at the facts. I think the facts will probably point towards Linux, but I encourage you to take a look, try both, and then join most of us in hating Microsoft. :-)
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
I do find it interesting that the applications you mentioned are ones which MS is interested in getting a complete monolopy hold on by bundling comparable services in Windows. Can someone say sabatoge?
Burn Hollywood Burn
Often in the IT industry, decisions are not based solely on the quality/price of the products, but on the ongoing maintenance and continuing development of the systems. I believe this is an issue for linux and its propagation into the business world. It is more difficult to hire people with linux/mysql skills.
We all know that Linux is a much more stable Operating System than Windows, in nearly every sense, but for the most part Windows is probably more practical for average computer users. I mean, if we switched everybodys computer to Linux here, people wouldn't get any work done because theyde be asking themselves "What does 'login:' mean?" and my job as an IT professional would be busier than ever. I do believe (I could be wrong) that Windows2000 is a lot more expensive than NT4 was. It costed us 270 dollars for a full version of that, and it would have costed us like 200 for an NT-to-2000 upgrade. If we would have gone with Linux it would have been 0! I guess it depends on what the business is doing and how bad you need a stable OS.
Windows 2000 definately seems stable to me, nearly as stable as nt4, with many of the features of 98.
bah get openbsd for everyone
These comparisons are worthless. In the end the number of people who will change their minds adds up to zero. Most commenters here use the tools of politicians to denigrate, ridicule, denounce and discredit that which isn't their own, instead of using facts to support their positions.
In the end the differences between two well managed, well designed, well resourced data centers running different OS' and applications amount to near zero (cost of the OS+tools+app licenses are probably less than the cost of a T1 line, never mind administrators & developers).
Never bet against trained, talented, and experienced administrators, designers and developers regardless of what operating system they are running.
True, especially if all the people on the NT network are responsible users, and do not try and make it do all kinds of nasty things or change the user config 30 times a week.
However, in my case, I was referring to a NT network that over 200 students had access to. From that standpoint, the stability of NT does fall a little bit short, while the Linux network (and the BSD network) worked fine, with even more users.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I work at a company where we used mixed NT4, W2K and Linux boxes, but all the sysadmins (and servers) are linux or solaris. Every argument against Windows basically breaks down into:
What I can't seem to explain to Linux users is that in Windows, you don't NEED any of those, so it makes not one bit of difference if they are not implemented in the same way as in linux. I could very well come back and say: "But Linux sux because it doesn't have a visual file explorer tool!" Of course, the answer is that it doesn't need it, the command line tools are sufficient. However, I still prefer to shift-select 100 files and drag them with the mouse to writing a ten mile long command to select those (and only those!) files I want copied.
The moral of the story: Windows (especially 2k, the previous versions just sucked), can do everything Linux can in the abstract sense, but don't expect it to have the same command line options for the "cp/copy" command!
Enter an open source project called AutoDeFrag. Basically, it is C++ code written to pop-up the right windows at the right time and to kill them at the right time (not to take anything away from the authors, if I am trivializing their development effort. I am sure there was a learning curve).
I hope Linux distros never get to the point where their internals are hidden to that extent.
Rant mode off!!!
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
Most new games I've seen claim to work with 2000 right on the box. Every one I've tried works. Some older games won't install on 2000 (C&C Red Alert is one that comes to mind). It says I need 95 or NT 4.0, strangely enough (I guess it doesn't like the response it gets when it queries the OS name). In spite of this, I've only booted into my Win98 partition once since the install. Windows 2000 gaming support can only get better, and it's pretty close to 98 right now (plus, no crashes!).
Linux has a way to go as far as gaming goes, but that's more of a developer problem than anything (or lack of). I suppose as it continues to gain acceptance as a desktop OS, this will take care of itself.
A clever sig would prove nothing.
You're right. I'm using a Number Nine video card though, so support for Windows 2000 drivers is non-existent for me. :(
DirectX acceleration works with the Windows 2000 drivers, but I also get occasional freezes and lockups.
OpenGL works great with the NT 4.0 drivers, however.
A clever sig would prove nothing.
My guess is that somebody is looking for key words like "computer" and "IT" on the résumé.
<<< CmdrTHAC0 >>>
__CmdrTHAC0__
In Soviet Russia, Spanish Inquisition doesn't expect YOU!!
Ever since the media reported that negative incident with NT, I have had a hard time believing that we have all the facts we need to make a good judgement.
I can tell about it. I DO program on it. Try debugging an application (VisualCrap, VisualBS or whatever) and not crashing. Something that eventually will make you run out of resources. But hey, I'm happily moving to Linux.
-------------------------------------
I see 57005 people
I had this situation to solve with an NT server: My customer has an IDE zip for backup purposes. The GUI tools from Iomega were neat and all, but then he asks for automatic backup. "Ok, I'll add it to scheduled tasks" Right? Wrong! It needs YOU to nod at it each time you are to backup. So, by separate another field servoid and I sought for a command line utility that could backup and compress on the fly. He found PZIP 2.04g for DOS. And worse, he installed it and left a scheduled task running.
Guess where I found what I was searching for?. Yes, in GNU. Tar combined with gzip (hadn't checked out whether there was bzip compiled for DOS family). I removed it tranquilly, worked around the complaints NT throws when you ask for a tar cz bla_bla_bla.tar.z and there it was! No need for anyone to know a process was running nor to nod everytime it ran. There was, though, something I didn't like about tar working in NT (runs finely in W98): shortened long filenames. Even so, I don't think working around this would be too hard.
Find something similar, non GNU. Oh, no matter interfaces, just results.
-------------------------------------
I see 57005 people
It was so bad that I had to boot the machine with shift held down, getting rid of all extensions and patches. Various attempts at moving stuff around (like removing CarbonLib) weren't effective and it eventually proved necessary to reinstall ALL the third party control panels having to do with the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB- wacom tablet, Gravis joystick). Upon doing this, the machine booted happily again with no other changes, but an attempt to run Macster returned the error that the (still present!) CarbonLib library wasn't available! At this point I ditched the new version of Macster _and_ the CarbonLib extension that had caused so much trouble.
'nevermind!' ;)
One question for you, please.
WHY should email be executable?
If you can't answer that you aren't even acknowledging the problem, and that's not good.
Everything was tried. It just doesn't work. The only solution is to put in an smbpasswd file that contains all the users with empty passwords. Not very good but the only way to do it. Trust me on this one. We spent DAYS.
Unfortunately if you unify things in this way, you a) break every existing application, and more importantly b) apply a one-size-fits-all solution. Sorry, not the Unix way. What form do you pick for this? The obvious one is that each file is named for an attribute, and contains the attribute's value. But unfortunately not everything is best expressed as attribute=value.
The current system already has everything as a file - in a format and in locations that the application(s) using it understand. While I'd agree that having lots of different config file formats is annoying, forcing the solution into kernel space isn't the answer - nor is applying the one-size-fits-all solution, whatever it might be. We don't more more damn pseudo-filesystems; there are way too many already. We've got stuff like pipefs now that are really invisible for example. Try and explain to me how that's any less magical and obscure than the registry. It's not the right solution. Besides, how is it an operating system's responsibility to manage configuration of applications anyway? As far as the OS is concerned, an application consists of one or more completely opaque processes. It doesn't know or care what they do. If you start blurring the lines, you end up with an OS that looks like Microsoft's - and works about as well.
Firstly, I should point out that KDE and gnome are both giant leaps in the wrong direction, dead away from what has made Unix so durable. But that's not really the key issue here.
No one person actually supports 30k desktop systems. Only a small handful of the largest magacorporations even have that many computers. And they have huge teams, managing small chunks of those systems, usually in geographically diverse locations. So it's not like there's a giant warehouse somewhere filled bottom to top with desktop computers all run by one caffeine-filled sysadmin. Please. This job is challenging, but it's not that bad.
There's a difference between having a centralised method of maintaining systems and having a centralised place on each machine where every instance of every application wants to write each user's settings. If the gnome and/or kde people are doing that, then I'm genuinely shocked at their bad judgment and lack of common sense. Systems like kickstart, jumpstart, and roboinst make installation of systems easy. Systems like cron jobs, automated log filters, and global site-specific default configurations make managing systems scalable. But systems like the registry make scalability a pipe dream.
What I can't seem to explain to Linux users is that in Windows, you don't NEED any of those, so it makes not one bit of difference if they are not implemented in the same way as in linux.
../ego/src
In MS-Windows, you don't have them, you mean. I don't know how many times I've tried to do simple things in MS-Windows, and been stymied, and had to do it the tedious CTRL-click selection route.
I could very well come back and say: "But Linux sux because it doesn't have a visual file explorer tool!"
Really, I've not found any tool that comes with MS-Windows that doesn't have an equivelent graphical tool for Linux over this last year. KFM is a damned fine browser every bit as capable as MS-Explorer.
Of course, the answer is that it doesn't need it, the command line tools are sufficient. However, I still prefer to shift-select 100 files and drag them with the mouse to writing a ten mile long command to select those (and only those!) files I want copied.
What's so hard about
cp *ego*.c
In a directory of mixed names in which you only want to move certain types of files, the command line is 100000 times faster than a graphical tool.
Now, suppose you wish to move all your mp3s, which are scattered all through your various subdirectories, into a common directory. You could go hunting for them with a graphical find tool, and moving them one at a time, or you can just type:
find . -name \*.mp3 -exec mv {} ~/music \;
Granted, that requires a bit of knowledge of your tools. But I will pit myself at a command line (which MS-Windows does not even have to any great extent) to someone running a graphical browser, for any but the most trivial file manipulation tasks.
MS-Windows makes the job prettier. It doesn't make it easier. I know. I've used both extensively.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
With ext2fs (and nearly all other Unix filesystems I know about) even the smallest file consumes at least 512 bytes of storage, so using them to implement a registry is horrendously inefficient.
This is why ReiserFS is such a nice idea: it scales down to the smallest files smoothly, so lots of small files can be stored efficiently. I think if something like that gains widespread use, we may see big trees of small files for configuration and other tasks become much more common.
--
Xenu loves you!
Okay, I was with you for about the first half of that, but then your advocacy started overshadowing your facts.
:)
:)
:)
First, I saw Windows 2000 Beta 3 crash on INSTALLATION, something that should never happen. The only time I've seen anything like that on Linux... well, the media was physically corrupted, and it still tried to install.
Linux and Windows can run each other's binaries perfectly; the problem is finding a program that completely emulates or virtualizes the x86. At the moment, I know that VMWare does a good job, and Bochs does too if you can live with how slow it is. Plex86 is in the works, and is showing promise, since it can run DOS now...
I agree about Netscape, it isn't terribly stable; however, most graphical browsers aren't, for one reason or another, *including* IE, in my experience. But Netscape has the potential to be downright horrible about it. However, X has been pretty good to me, and in my experience I've had much more trouble with gdm. (which is a reason to use xdm...)
BTW, Linux has great multimedia support. Okay, okay, let me explain. I have a Matrox G400, and the hardware acceleration is *sweet*. Also, my SB Live Value is just excellent, I love the hardware mixing, the multiple DSP's... I installed ALSA and now the MIDI patches ("soundfonts") work too, and they sound good.
It's all about picking supported hardware, though, which you still have to do for Win2K, as well. My DVD drive isn't supported, because I (a) couldn't find much information about that on the net, and (b) just bought it first, figuring I'd test it out later. I'll probably ask the developers about this, since it works under Windows. I've heard it can be made to work under VMWare too, so all I really need is some debugging info.
Plus support for multi-processing makes it even better. Now, I don't have more than one processor, but I might set up a dual-proc test box if I can ever find an old board for it. However, I've seen it done on Linux, and it is sweet. No paying extra for a different version that just consists of a stupid registry hack, either. It has decent multi-processing support out of the box. And I'd love to see a comparison to Win2K here, since that's one thing that's supposed to be better in 2.4.
How about that, eh, guys? Something based around Linux Kernel 2.4.0 with a bunch of stable stuff, vs. Win2KSP1, or whatever is current and patched by then. Test multi-processing, test well-supported hardware, RAID, whatever. Just test the hell out of it.
Being a real system administrator is based on experience. Now, I won't be one, because I'm going to graduate from college with a CSC major, and I'd rather be coding, but just because I *went* to college doesn't mean I've been idle, or don't know my stuff. Maybe not about Win2K, but I haven't really wanted to use it a whole lot.
And no, you don't have to do anything *wrong* for Win2K to crash on you. Sometimes you don't have to do anything. It's better, but it isn't perfect yet. And Microsoft has been that arrogant about it from Day 1; I don't know why they even pretend to have tech support. And how is realplayer crap? Is it just not Windows Media Player? Was it not written for Windows Internals, but instead cross-platform? As for Netscape, I'd rather run Mozilla; IE is not cross-platform, and it shouldn't be integrated into the OS file browser, and it annoys the hell out of me. I haven't tested rendering yet, but I'd want to test two equivalently dated versions. (IE 4, NS4; Current IE, Current Mozilla...)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The only true way to get an unbiased view of things is to try both, and see for yourself.
Good point, but given history and the cost to try, a cartoon keeps running through my head:
Come on Charlie Brown, I won't pull it away this time. Really?! Bill, do you really promise?...
It makes perfect sense not to put X on a box that is going to be remotely administered. Remote administration continues to be one of windows weaknesses.
I disagree.
I've started installing some X apps on remote machines just to ease administration... I can call up the X app from within my session and it is as if the machine is my own.
Don't get me wrong, I love the CLI... but just as some things are easier with the CLI, some things are just easier from a GUI perspective.
What I'd like is a good repository of X securifying documentation.
I wouldn't say that is true at all. I along with those I work with are very harsh critics of Microsoft.
It's just that we see the real problems, not the FUD that is spread by the Linux zealots.
Just because we don't agree with the FUD doesn't mean we don't have issues.
Although to be honest, Windows 2000 has addressed nearly every major issue I had with NT 4.0, including some really annoying UI problems. Proof that Microsoft is listening.
Do you people even read documentation? Sheesh.
Most of your problems are discussed in great detail from a variety of locations. For BIND integration, check Microsoft. For Samba, check samba.org...
sheesh
Still trying to figure out why someone thought it was a bright idea to put SQL Server and PDC on the same machine.
Because Win32 doesn't have fork(). :)
Actually, trusts in AD are transitive by default. It's the NT4-style one-way non-transitive trusts that would need to be implemented manually.
It's been done; NDS 8 can already use Linux as a server platform. I have no idea what Linux client support Novell offers or intends to offer.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
I think you'll find that it is also required for backward-compatibility with all non-Windows 2000 Microsoft operating systems, too. I doubt that retaining compatibility with Samba (which runs on a hell of a lot more operating systems than Linux, remember) was a major consideration when Active Directory was designed. Please don't blame Samba for AD's design.
This was done purely for backward compatibility reasons. It is not an efficiency measure; they could easily have keys like "rmalda.sales" and "rmalda.geeks" to avoid collisions for users in the same domain but different containers. In fact, containers in AD are purely eye-candy. They're not security principals; only users and groups are.
An AD domain could only hold significantly fewer than 23 trillion users, even given unlimited memory, disk and network bandwidth. You can't take the largest number AD can use as an index and call that the maximum capacity.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
It is not. What it is is Microsoft's preferred and best-documented interface to NT. Any Win32 API that deals with a kernel object uses native APIs (e.g. ones beginning with Nt, Ke, Ki, etc.) to do the actual dirty work.
The original poster implied no such thing.
CSRSS.EXE is currently required to be loaded and running to even use an app that does no GUI stuff at all. This is unnecessary overhead. The poster did not imply that one needs to use the windows system's messaging facilities to do IPC or networking.
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"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
> Calls to the windowing system for IPC? What
> about named pipes? Mailslots? or TCP/IP?
> Or shared memory?
All of those features are accessed using calls to the Win32 API (bar TCP/IP, which is accessed via the WinSock libraries). Therefore, the Win32 subsystem has to be running for those facilities to be available to the application programmer.
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"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
RealPlayer is an application, not a kernel-level driver. If an application locks your operating system hard, your operating system has a problem.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
According to this book, Windows 2000 Server Architecture and Planning, "OUs are container objects than can be used to organize objects within a domain into logical groups".
I've been using the incorrect syntaxes. The two user objects I refer to would have the DNs CN=rmalda/OU=sales/DC=slashdot/DC=org and CN=rmalda/OU=geeks/DC=slashdot/DC=org; however, because of the flat nature of the domain database, they would both map to a UPN of rmalda@slashdot.org, which is where we get into trouble.
Now, I believe it is possible to have objects with the DNs I have given, but to set things up so that they have different UPNs, but that would cause headaches of its own.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
Well, I don't want to start a flame-fest, but I think it's very clear that Windows 2000 is obviously superior. Here's a list of reasons why:
Well, there's lots more wonderful features in Windows 2000 that you won't find in Linux, but I think I've made my point.
I agree totally here.
It took me roughly a month to install Slackware back in 1995. I didn't have the internet to help me, and I had some pretty unusual hardware, but DOS and Windows didn't have any trouble at all.
Windows 3.1 was by far more memory efficient and faster. X was unusable on an unaccellerated 640x480 ISA VGA adapter... unlike Win3.1.
I did some Fortran programming under the environment, which I found useful... but it was easier to dial into the VAX. The fonts were terrible, printer support was almost nonexistant, so for me it was effectively a bloated programming environment.
I administered a small dial up ISP for a short period in 1997. They were running NT3.51, and were scrambling to try to put together a decent system for software development... I put the whole operation under Linux. No big deal. Everything was completely free and worked flawlessly.
Since 1995, I've tried many times to establish a reasonable user environment under Linux. I've tried Gnome and KDE, and they haven't done anything other than to promise me what I had on a 386 running Win3.1... that is to say a reasonable printing architecture, some decent fonts, some standard keystrokes and cut-and-paste. I've tried simplifying things... for some time I ran ICEWM (which I really do like) and then proceeded to try to set up an email client.
There isn't anything but promises here too. Netscape appears to be the best choice... unless I go back to PINE. So I tried to configure Netscape... it crashes. I try some more, it crashes again... infact it crashes quite reliably under many different scenarios... none of which are preventable. So I give up. I tried Spruce, which though promising, was simply incomplete.
I then try to hear multiple audio streams simultaneously. After installing ALSA, reading many FAQs and getting it running, I learn that the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture doesn't support multiple simultaneous streams... like Win3.1 did. So I installed ESD, then I installed Real Player. After a week of applying various binary patches, reinstalling, reading reams of documentation describing how Real Inc. depended upon undocumented features and broke in V5, I finally got some alpha version of the player working and started listening to some Internet radio broadcasts.
So I began working on tracking down another email client. Inches from headed back to PINE, reading up on fetchmail and procmail, Real Player freezes.
Many other experiments revealed that it always would do this some 15 minutes into the broadcast.
On another forray into the Linux world, I installed Gnomehack... it worked fine for a while, and I reminisced about playing hack for long hours ... When I went to restore a game one day, X crashed.
It was remarkable. I launch the game, Gnomehack and X crashes, taking down all my other applications, loosing all my data, reliably, reproducably, and inexplicably. It obviously is a bug in my X server.
After many forrays, and certainly many more to come, I have come to the conclusion that the best server OS for a small company or even for a home user is Linux. It is stable, not price prohibative, will teach you a lot about how computers work, and has many other bennefits. The best GUI for that operating system is either Windows, MacOS, OS/2 or just about anything else you can think of. Linux handles itself so well in a networked environment that there is no reason to put a keyboard or monitor on the device.
I can use Pine just as well on my remote linux box as I can locally, and I'll even be able to fill the fonts crisply out to the edge of the screen, and even cut and paste from it.... while listening to radio broadcasts, and chatting on that whore of a program called ICQ... and I will spend less time reinstalling the operating system for the life of the hardware than I will configuring Linux to do the same.
To Linux's credit, Linux is closer to a good UI than Microsoft is to a robust multiuser operating system.
In many a third-world country, where a copy of a 5-client Win2000 cost almost the same as the annual salary of a general manager in a middle-size company - and we aren't counting the cost of all the apps.
So, in this context, if we have to do a comparison between Win2000 and open-source OS such as Linux, it'd surely be having a running title such as "To Be A Pirate, Or Not To Be ?"
And if _that's_ not enough, if you use Win2000 without any legal license - ie. to behave like a eye-patch wearing pirate - you run the risk of being prosecuted, and the fine would be at least TEN TIMES THE COST OF THE SOFTWARES you pirate.
That essentially means, in a third world country, if you run Win2000, you either look at forking a sum of money where you can pay a general manager for ONE WHOLE YEAR up front (to buy a legal copy), or, you run the risk of having your company computer confiscated (thus disrupting your company's day-to-day business activities), PLUS you'd be fined an amount that you could've hired TEN GENERAL MANAGERS FOR ONE WHOLE YEAR, at least.
Does _that_ count as a valid yardstick of comparing Win2000 vs. Linux ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The important question here is, how much RAM did each box have, and what speed? And how loaded was each box besides the test being run?
These are IMPORTANT points, but EASY to miss. RAM is extremely important for caching when you're manipulating large files.
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you're plainly admitting here that your management is just being obtuse, over-conservative, and that you *know* it would work. in other words, it's your management's problem. not linux's problem, and certainly not the problem of every other management on earth. and btw I can point you to more than a few production linux or bsd-based boxes that don't have a support contract from anyone. guess who's saving money and making smart decisions, and who isn't.
How could a PhD in computer science want to be an MCSE????
I think it was Miguel de Icaza who said it best - in *nix no one takes the blame for anything. He was talking about a user friendly / programer friendly desktop enviroment (kernel hackers: "not my problem / falt", X/MIT/xFree: "We do protocolols, not our problem", wm programers: "not my problem" etc, etc.
And we all accept this, more or less. If netscape crashes, its netscapes fault. If the Gimp crashes, its the Gimps fault. If a window manager crashes, its the wms fault. And if linux crashes, its the kernel hackers fault.
However, if anything crashes on Windows, we prehaps unfairly blame microsoft. Now, it may be true that application crashes are far more likely to down the OS in Windows land then in *nix, but, MS is getting better in this respect. We wouldnt shit on Redhat if a module in there kernel was flakey and crashed, would we?
I can remember back in the MS-DOS days, and mis behaving TSRs, and crappy apps would lock up the system compleatly - DOS itself never crashed, and I remember Windows 3.1, which itself crashed a lot, and bad apps downed it too. 95 was better, and 98 was better still, and from what Ive seen at my new job for a week, w2k is excelent in this respect. *nix is not the best here, and windows is not the worst - MVS/OS/390 is proably on top, and MacOS on the bottom (of OSs in use today), so everything is relative
Yes, I use win98 on the desktop at home, and will proably use w2k on the desktop at work, where there are w2k servers (primarly because ColdFusion wasent aviable for linux until recently, and because customers have Access db's). But primarly linux on the servers (and with fridays install of CF4linux, we may ditch w2k servers...) But at my last job (well mainly volunteer), it was solaris and linux on the servers, and linux on all but 1 desktop.
The windows/linux race is to catch up to each other in the opposits strong point, linux to get to the UI of Windows, and Windows to get to the stability of *nix.
I dont know: whats easier, adding stability to Windows, or adding hardware support and UI to linux?
Ok, here is my experience:
Open top of Compaq Proliant 6500 with HotPlug PCI slots. Insert DualNic, close PCI slot cover. 2000 Advanced server pops up the new driver window, installs just fine, and brings both ports online. Open Network properties, set IP's staticially, and go. No reboots at all.
Same process repeated in many other servers, with the only difference being the non HotPlug ones requiring a shutdown to install the card.
2000 shouldn't need a reboot ever when dealing with the network. If it does, you did something wrong.
AFAIK, the software volume management (RAID/ mirroring etc) in Win2K is a (cut down) version of Veritas Volume manager (vxvm). VxVM (via the GUI frontend vmsa) is equally easy under Unix systems, and also has a full command line interface. I'm not sure that the command line functions are there in Win2K.
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"I am not a nut-bag." Millroy the Magician
Win 2000 is used only in rabid Windows zealot shops yet. It has not been put to the test anywhere where the question of using UNIX actually stands.
And even most of rabid Windows zealot shops have not gone through a complete server deployment as quite a lot of things still do not work or outright break.
If used anywhere it is used for a client now. Especially for a laptop it is better than NT. It still does not even compare to Linux or BSD but some people are required to use M$ware due to company policy you know...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
There are two things to point out about my 650 mhz Win2K Professional system:
;)
- Its mostly stable, good enough to be given the name as a decent OS.
- Its about as slow as my 300mhz Win98 machine at home.
I see it that we've sacrificed speed for stability. Of course I hardly boot to windows anyways, so none of this really matters to me
I've got 256MB ram on my work PC (Win2K, 650) and 128 on my home pc (Win98/RH, Dual 300).
As far as servers, at work we run 3x(dual 500 xeon 1GB RAM) one for pdc, bdc, and exchange
This is just the point: You have to have unique servers for anything in Windows. One server for IIS, one for MSQL, one for Exchange... Blah, blah...
Unix can handle all of these reliably on one box. And you don't reboot if you want to install a new component/modify a configuration. It just works!
The time this saves me alone makes it worthwhile. Add the cost of the hardware not required, and even my boss is convinced.
Well, let's add another perspective of this. At General Motors, we've used a traditionally Unix-based CAD/CAM/CAE system known as Unigraphics
:).
:)
Recently Unigraphics Solutions ported UG to Win32. Thus, there has been a recent move, both internally and externally to GM, to move to Windows NT and Windows 2000 as the CAD/CAM/CAE platform of choice.
Why? #1 reason is that it is supposed to be somehow "cheaper." Sure, an average Unix CAD workstation costs, what? $30-40K (U.S.)? Versus a Wintel CAD workstation of about $10-15K. Sounds good right?
Wrong. GM is learning the Total Cost of Ownership lesson the hard way. Sure, the workstation is cheaper. Is the software license cheaper? No. Is the cost of UG designer any cheaper? Of course not. Is the cost of system administration cheaper? Not at first...while NT sysadmins typically make less than their Unix counterparts, until the system is completely migrated over (which will take AT LEAST 3-5 years), GM and its suppliers have to have BOTH types of admins. And they have to support Unix-NT connectivity issues, such as the above mentioned Samba issues (they call it "CIFS" because they don't want nnyone to know they're violating their own systems administration policy by using "freeware"! )
First off, we're in the middle of porting GM's customizations to Unigraphics (known internally as the PDL or externally as the "GM Supplier Toolkit"). This has costed HUNDREDS, possibly THOUSANDS of man-hours. And now they're doing pilots. And in the pilots the designers are finding Windows 2000 to be far less stable than Unix (we're talking HP-UX 10.20 and Slowlaris 7 here), having to reboot the stupid things AT LEAST daily. If a guy decides he's going to save once and hour, and 59 minutes into the job he crashes, that's nearly an hour's worth of work he has lost! I've witnessed this phenomenon personally. Windows 2000 crashes more than HP-UX or Slowlaris. I can't REMEMBER the last time any of the Unix boxes were booted in my building (I could always issue an uptime command to find out, I suppose
(BTW--we didn't experience the printing problems with samba, because we are going with Unix servers, running Windows 2000 clients for our pilot...samba seems to work great if it is acting as the PDC).
Fortunately, there are rumours flying around about a Linux port of unigraphics. Maybe GM management will use the same logic (cheaper is better) and invest in Linux.
My journal has hot
Mate, you should be forced to print this out and shove it up your arse. Let's have a look at this, shall we?
Badly written software crashes Win2k? Badly written software should crash itself. If I fsck up on FreeBSD I get a core dump I can trawl through at the exact moment of the crash. Nothing else notices. NOTHING. I run through a secure terminal to a remote machine all the time. No problem. I write network software that runs in the background at ~40Mbit/s. No problem. An operating system's job is to protect all the other stuff from fsck ups.
With the possible exception of Win3.1
Badly written drivers? Yeah, there's not a lot you can do about this. The stock MS CD driver is what causes our win2k box to bin out.
All Netscape/Real products? HELLO?? Do you not, maybe, think that these people are competitors to Microsoft? Perhaps, perchance, this is a deliberate ploy... Do you really thing Microsoft got to be this much of a monopoly by playing fair?
And finally, "significant experience with Windows 2000". I saw it was a microsoft.com link and was expecting maybe an MVP? Perhaps one of the development team? At very least a marketroid pretending to be a sysadmin? No. A twat. Playing games. At 45FPS on a GeForce. Using 340 Meg.
Unfortuately ShootOnSight.com appears to be taken, or the world would be blessed with a new website.
Seriously. Post it again. The whole post. Put it in the root thread to see what happens.
Just don't go near any computer networks.
Dave
Hang on, is this a troll? Nah.
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
An Ultra-virtualized hell? WTF is one of those then?
:)
Hell is COM in MFC. Don't believe me? Try it.
Dave
Mind you, "code for X - envy the dead" still has a certain ring to it.
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
.doc -> StarOffice5.2. Surprisingly good (disclaim: only use windows version).
:)
Photoshop -> will gimp do it? Otherwise, fair enough.
VC++ -> Kdevelop rocks. Give it a go.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
The only serious thing I have used Win2k for was an MP3 player at work. Bitch to install. Completely failed to recognise an s3 videocard. 95% of ripping software wouldn't run (complaining about ATAPI or something). The network browser thing doesn't appear to browse the lan correctly. It has blue screened twice in a month and then shown some dire warning about how the drive may have shit it.
:)
Apart from that, yeah, I guess it's pretty.
For my stuff I use NT4 workstation and run the excellent finnish X server on it (http://www.labf.com/) that costs but is worth every penny. Then real work can take place on three FreeBSD4 boxen.
And this whole 'crap' software thing, by which I take it you mean stuff that doesn't come with a holographic label and draconian licencing agreement. For gods' sake. The entire mission statement for Win2k is to further leverage the microsoft monopoly into selling other products - office, IE, media player, IM, some shit we haven't though of yet... You're just falling for it, man.
Best tool for the job. Speech-free, beer-free or for pay, just get on with your work.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Hrm.. And lets think where all these not-so-rocket-scientists have gotten us.. Wander around Attrition.org and check out the defacement mirrors. Then look at the stats. These stats are the product, not of an insecure OS, but of the bootcamp MCSE's and generally undereducated people running them.
Both BSD/*nix and NT get compromised. And it's almost always the administrators fault. Unless some new cracker group has discovered a sploit and you're the guinea pig, every sploit is documented. Every one has either a solution or a workaround. It's in the administrators hands.
And we see what happens when we try to say "Oh, we don't need to spend a lot on a sysadmin, we have an easy OS with low TCO." Well, lets take a look at where it got us.
I installed Windows 2000 Professional about 2 months ago, and it worked fine for awhile. It was as stable as NT4.0, but recently it's started crapping out on me, just like every other version of Windows. So nothing has changed. And nothing will change as long as they keep building more crap on top of an unstable base.
In case you're wondering, the only reason I have Win2k installed at all is for 3D Studio, Painter, etc.
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How do you force non-ACPI on install? I really don't like 6 devices sharing the one interrupt, especially considering one of those devices is the MPG decoder card, and another is the SCSI drive hosting the DVD...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
"From a user's stand point Linux is now no more difficult to get around in than windows" Oh please! You can't be serious. Talking about FUD. You should spend some time with real users, the type that does not even know how to handle a mouse.
...and if my employees are going to find any games to play on the install, I'd rather it be nethack than Solitaire.
From the implied strawman that linux users in business are just going to be handed a Slackware 7 CD and be told "go to it", sure. This isn't the case with windows in that market. All computers need initial set-up, and if your linux (or windows) sysadmin isn't smart enough to make a template user system and clone it at setup, then you hired the wrong guy.
I challenge anyone to provide evidence that Windows 2K is any more user friendly for what Joe End User needs, which is e-mail and web browsing, and in some cases perhaps one specific other application, than is a cluefully set up Gnome/KDE environment. (No, I don't think they're equivalent either, but I want to avoid making coals for people to walk on -ed)
-- -mrex
There are plenty of young Unix/Linux techies also. The six-digit income staff are managing larger facilities -- and if those larger facilities happen to be running Unix, maybe there's a reason for it. I'm also aware of large facilities using MS products, but they require much larger support staff than a Unix facility -- if nothing else, the MS staff are kept busy pointing, clicking, and reloading machines.
Less than once a day is almost never? *boggle*
IHBT? Oops.
However, it is possible in the NT model to have apps "customize various aspects of [their] behavior" on a per-user basis. Under "winroot, Profiles, username, Application Data" progs can save settings that get merged into the registry (I think) when the user logs in. That being said, almost no windows apps take advantage, possibly for the sake of running on 95/8. As I check my system, only Microsoft, Rational, and MKS put anything there, and I have the whole world installed.
Try looking under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ for the user-specific section of the registry. User-specific data storage is a different (and much newer) mechanism, so it hasn't garnered much 3rd party support yet.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I dont' recall saying he was a friend. :)
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Both win2k and Linux are operating systems. They provide services and run software. Which one is better depends entirely upon which services you want to provide and what software you want to run.
In general, if you're setting up a server, go with Linux or *BSD. If you're setting up a desktop/workstation, go with Win2k. Linux and the BSD's are excellent server OS's, win2k is an excellent desktop OS.
There are of course situations where you'd want a win2k server or a linux/BSD desktop. But you're going to have to know something about all these systems and know what you're trying to accomplish before you can evaluate which one would do the better job in that situation. In short, there are no simple answers except "It depends."
Someone mentioned not running Netscape on win2k. Netscape is all I run. Has it crashed? Of course. Has it crashed the OS, no. If it did that would be an indication of a problem in win2k, not netscape. Everyone knows that netscape crashes. Why it crashes is another question.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bull. They may feel like that when they buy the license, but they quickly find that the phone support is useless and Microsoft is just as hard as everthing else. It may have a pretty GUI to point-n-click through, but a fat lot of good that does when clicking Okay causes "VBScript Error 10234: Expected CallScratchMyButtWithAStick and saw CallGagMeWithASpoon at line 143." I did a lot of work with these small companies once upon a time, and I might still be interested in doing it if they were running Linux and I could reach their boxes by modem or SSH in the event of most problems.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
And don't even get me started on sendmail: its configuration files look more cryptic than perl. Trying to get things to work properly, I ended up with a hack that accidentally caused cron to send its messages to the admin of my ISP rather than me.
If w2k has similar problems, that just goes to confirm the theory that All OSes Suck. I'm all for complaining about windows, but I wouldn't hold up linux as a beacon of non-suckiness.
s/useless/not usable/g
For the purposes of this discussion, they're exactly the same. Linux could probably serve most, if not all, of the functions of our SCO server, yeah. I know that, you guys know that, and our support guys probably know that too. But, as hard as it is for you to grasp, newsgroups and mailing lists just don't cut it for "support options" in the Real World, and maybe where you work it's different, but in most places, there is no such thing as a vital system without a support contract.
I can maintain it, yes. And any yahoo who's hacked together a linux box before could support anything I implement. Hell, if I documented it correctly and had all the right tools installed, my boss could do it. (And she's not even a techie, she's just the treasurer.)
As I said before, if I could get away with it, I'd have our firewall up and running on one of the spare 486's and an install of BSD in maybe a week. It just won't get past a single level of review without any real support.
You can sit and whine all day "You can too use linux!" like a 5-year-old who isn't getting things exactly the way he wants. That doesn't change the fact that there are situations where you just plain can't use it, even if -- technically speaking -- it is, indeed, a viable solution.
P.S. Yeah, I know I haven't really explained *why*. There is no why. If there was, I'd gladly write volumes about it. This is one of those things that you (and I and everyone else) just has to accept. You and I know that email and usenet support would be just fine, but management will never believe it. Management needs to pay for things to feel secure about it, and above all, they need to be able to point their fingers at something.
Disclaimer: My views are not necessarily the views of my employer. (In fact, it looks like they're the opposite here)
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Linux is useless without a support contract. Examples: We're going to put a firewall in shortly to guard our main server from the rest of the WAN (specifically, the high school, but everywhere else too). I'd love to do this with a 486 running linux or BSD, as we can get both easily and/or freely. But if I can't get outside support for it, it'll be *really* hard for me to get that approved. Sure, maybe *I* can support it, but what if it's still there when I leave? Then what?
Or another example: We need to implement some central file storage in my building. There's only 50 or so users, so frankly, an old box running Win95 could do the job if it had a big enough hard drive. We've got plenty of space on the (SCO Unix) server, though, so I figure I'll use that. But will I be doing it with Samba? Nope. Much as I'd love to, I'm going with one of SCO's tools instead. Why? Well, we can get support for that. (Okay, so it makes my job easier too...but my original plan *was* Samba)
One thing's for sure, though. There will never be an NT box in my building as long as I'm here. I share duties with the town's other sysadmins sometimes, and they all run NT...I'm not gonna deal with their headaches. Whatever NT can do, my SCO box can do better =)
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--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
As for those production Linux/BSD boxes...mind giving me some company names? I'd be making a hell of a lot more working for them than I do now, and from the sounds of it, I'd like it better.
--
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
I use it because it's just good enough is the excuse people use to run Windows 95. Why bother with an OS that doesn't take full advantage of your hardware? Why pay $200 for a graphics card and be limited to the $170 that your OS uses? SDL isn't comparable to DirectX (I've used both, trust me)(SVGAlib isn't even in the same league given that it doesn't offer hardware acceleration) OpenGL is falling behind Direct3D, OpenAL isn't even ready yet, and nobody uses it yet. Overall, multimedia on Linux is pretty pathetic. I mean you can say, "ok, it's good enough for me," but I judge the quality of something benchmarked against the best product available in that catagory. Right now, NT is the best product available in the multimedia OS catagory. Sure you may be able to run MAME in Linux, but the point is that you'll be able to run it FASTER in NT.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
NT may take longer to boot (not appriably though) but it runs faster. DirectX blits faster than SDL, windows scroll smoother in NT than in KDE2 or GNOME, menus pop up faster, apps take less time to load (than in KDE2 and GNOME at least, regular X apps are pretty fast) and 3D runs faster.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Netscape's code is sh*t on every platform!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
TW, Linux has great multimedia support. Okay, okay, let me explain. I have a Matrox G400, and the hardware
:)
acceleration is *sweet*. Also, my SB Live Value is just excellent, I love the hardware mixing, the multiple DSP's... I
installed ALSA and now the MIDI patches ("soundfonts") work too, and they sound good.
>>>>>>
Wrong. Linux doesn't have DirectX, as such, it's multimedia support by definition cannot compare with that of Windows. Not a flame, think about it. Most consumer hardware is designed for DirectX. Aside from idiot companies (ATI!) most manufacturers expose all the hardware's features through DirectX. While alternative APIs can take advantage of these features, rarely-used, or difficult to implement things always get left behind. Right now, Windows still has the fastest 3D hardware acceleration, and on NVIDIA cards (the only ones that offer competitive Linux drivers) Windows is still a good bit faster than Windows. In the tests where Linux was close to Windows, Linux had an unfair advantage. Apparently, the cool new speed-ups in the Detonator3 drivers were already in the Linux/X4 drivers. Thus, Linux 3D is close, but on cigar. As for sound, Linux is a distant second to Windows. ALSA still doesn't offer as many features as DirectSound, and all transistors on your EMU10K1 chip used for 3D sound are totally wasted in Linux. So, Linux lacks great 3D acceleration, great audio acceleration, and lacks 3D sound and force-feedback all together. How can it possibly have "great multimedia support?"
It's all about picking supported hardware, though, which you still have to do for Win2K, as well. My DVD drive isn't supported, because I (a) couldn't find much information about that on the net, and (b) just bought it first, figuring I'd test it out later. I'll probably ask the developers about this, since it works under Windows. I've heard it can be made to work under VMWare too, so all I really need is some debugging info.
>>>>>>>>
You have to choose the correct HW on Windows as well, but you've got more to choose from. On Windows, if I want great 3D acceleration, I can pick any number of cards from ATI to Matrox to NVIDIA to 3DFX (ugh!) On Linux, I'm pretty much limited to Matrox and NVIDIA (not 3DFx with X4.0)
Plus support for multi-processing makes it even better. Now, I don't have more than one processor, but I might set up
a dual-proc test box if I can ever find an old board for it. However, I've seen it done on Linux, and it is sweet. No paying extra for a different version that just consists of a stupid registry hack, either. It has decent multi-processing support out of the box. And I'd love to see a comparison to Win2K here, since that's one thing that's supposed to be
better in 2.4.
>>>>>>>>>
Huh? Win2K Pro has SMP out of box. There IS no single proc limited version of Win2K.
How about that, eh, guys? Something based around Linux Kernel 2.4.0 with a bunch of stable stuff, vs. Win2KSP1, or whatever is current and patched by then. Test multi-processing, test well-supported hardware, RAID, whatever. Just test the hell out of it.
>>>>>>
Windows would win a lot of the tests. The benefits of Linux aren't so much in raw benchmarks but in overall quality. Sure Windows may win total TCP/IP throughput scores, but it will probably crash under high load. Sure the FS may be able to transfer more date through the system (though I don't think NTFS is faster than ext2) but will it do that consistantly, or in spurts? Also, anything that taps DirectX will totally blow Linux away, since a DirectX application can for the most part be considered seperate from the underlying OS. (Especially since Win2K allows DirectX direct hardware access.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
First, one question: do you think BeOS has great multimedia support? Heck, it doesn't even play ;)
DVD's!
>>>>
I never said it did. I don't have a DVD drive, so what do I care? When I go trumpeting BeOS as the be-all end-all multimedia OS, then take me to task for it. However, In Be's defense, I have to say the MediaKit blows away anything I've ever seen in the multi-media arena.
Windows and Linux and MacOS all have SDL.
>>>>>
SDL is just a wrapper.
It supports DirectX on Windows, and DGA on X,
which is the equivalent.
>>>>
DGA on X is equivalent to DirectX? Where's the 3D Audio API in DGA? Or maybe you mean DGA is comparable to DirectDraw? (Which still isn't totally true, show me the DGA API that allows me to change the screen-res.) DirectDraw is just a small part of DirectX.
The tests I saw for 3D acceleration didn't differ by much; it's way fast for me, even for Q3A. My speakers can't even take advantage of 3D sound decently, and I think I saw patches for all that stuff, but I really don't care yet. However, Linux *does* have great 3D
acceleration, and the audio stuff is in hardware! Maybe our definitions of great differ, but the actual
performance I'm seeing is pretty impressive. And I'm not saddened that I don't have 'force-feedback' on my Gravis Gamepad, I don't know of any games that support it, and I thought it was a dumb idea on the Playstation!
>>>>
Your arguement boils down to "I see no need for it so It's not important."
Fact> Linux 3D is slower than WindowsNT 3D. The tests showed it close (but significantly slower at high res) but they were skewed due to driver differences (I'm talking about the NVIDIA drivers.)
Fact> My speakers, and many other people's DO support 3D sound well. For these people, Linux multi-media is sub-par. Fire up Half-Life with an A3D card. It totally kicks ass and the 3D sound adds a lot to the game.
Fact> Half the hardware on my sound card goes wasted when I'm in Linux.
Fact> If you're impressed with Linux audio, take a look at DirectSound. You'd faint.
Fact> Force feedback is a dumb idea. The mere fact that you're comparing it to PS (which is just a vibrator) shows you've never used it. For certain games (racing games) it's awesome. And a LOT of game support force-feedback.
Yeah, Windows has more hardware support; that's because Microsoft doesn't have to write *ALL*
the drivers. This situation is changing of course, and I like being able to poke around with the
source code, but it'll take a while for this one to change--the corporate culture can be pretty
entrenched about these things.
>>>>>
Corporate culture aside, MS still does have more hardware support. Excuses are excuses, and drivers are actual stuff that you can base an arguement on.
There are many different limited versions of Win2K. I don't care if it supports 2 processors out of
the box, or what the configuration-of-the-week is; the bottom line is, Microsoft will always sell you
the same product for much more by just making a minor registry tweak so you get the "new
features", and I'm fundamentally opposed to that, because it's stupid; just as stupid as CPUs and
overclocking, nowadays.
>>>>>>>>>>.
Overlocking is not stupid if the consumer is the one doing it. Getting 100MHz for free by doing a little jumper manipulation? Adjusting voltages to get that perfect stability plateu? Hacking at it's finest!
Well, I'd like to see the results of the tests before I draw my conclusions; you may be right. But if I
did the tests, and one platform consistently crashed under certain conditions, I'd note that and put
it in my review; that's NOT a feature.
>>>>>>>>>
Windows is unstable compared to Linux. True. However, WindowsNT easily has a week or two of uptime, and for most gamers or multimedia people that's enough. They reboot their machines every night (Unless they're doing a rendering or something, and WindowsNT can usually handle that.) They don't install wierd software. (Hell RealPlayer flaky on BeOS and Linux too, it's not a Windows-specific problem.) For the average gamer, crashing is not an issue. A game being playable at one res setting higher on one OS (generally, you can play Quake on Windows at one res higher than you can in Linux) IS an issue.
Another benefit of Linux is the multitude of configuration options. Given the time and resources,
I'd love to just benchmark Linux against itself! That is to say, configure one box with a standard
kernel, OSS, ext2, XFree86 3.3.6, and a couple of IDE drives, and then configure another box with
an optimized kernel, ALSA, reiserfs, XFree86 4.0.1, software RAID... well, in any case benchmark
all the components against each other, and find out what the fastest, most stable Linux
configuration is for a given hardware configuration. That isn't as straightforward in NT, because
there aren't that many configuration options, and many of them aren't obvious or readily available.
>>>>>
Huh?
A) DGA is nothing compared to DirectDraw.
B) Given good driver writers (and Matrox ain't one of them) a Windows driver is rock solid. My system has a NVIDIA card and NT 4. I started out with the Detonator drivers months ago and it has yet to crash. In fact, my life in Windows-land has been pretty happy. If your Windows system is all buggy and crashy, get some NVIDIA and Creative-Labs hardware, an Intel, Asus, or Abit mobo, and a K7 or Intel chip and everything should be peachy. The idea is to be quality hardware from quality manufacturers. If you do, you enjoy not only good stability, but the increased performance of drivers that are "closer to the metal."
---
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Maybe because the only decent OS for 3D is Windows? Maybe because he does Windows development. Maybe he is a DTP guy and needs Photoshop and Quark XPress. (though you'd probably use a Mac in that case.) Maybe he likes having a stable web-browser. Maybe he is an AOL user? Being smart does mean hating Windows. If you're smart, you use what suits you best, not what you need to feel elite. Linux is good, but there are many tasks for which Windows is just better suited, and to think otherwise is just deluding yourself.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If anyone is looking for a really perplexing challenge, try to set up a really useful 2000 server for routing and remote access. I don't honestly think it could be any more of a nonsensical process. If you would like to use it for NAT, I hope you are prepared to rip every last hair out of your head. On the other hand, you could probably accomplish the same task with a floppy disk install of linux in about five minutes. My point? Just as you probably should use a crow bar instead of a big flat head screwdriver to pull boards from a floor, you should probably use the right tools for the job at hand. Basically, what MS has done with 2000 server routing and remote access is tried to make it simple enough that anyone could set it up... Yet they have tried to put so many features into a GUI that is just obscenely complex and proves to be an extreme task to make it work right. (My opinion) You should probably know what you are doing anyhow before you attempt to set up a router. Or at least be willing to learn. Windows 2000 server DNS is about the same, although I did actually manage to get that one working... Once again, a Unix DNS would have been simpler. This is my contribution to a comprehensive comparison...
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Actually we can't format it, MS won't let us.. It was part of the agreement.. =] We agreed upon, for a free version of Win2kAS, we'd run it on one of our machines, and put 2 MS logo's on our main webpage. It's amusing, our Linux/PHP machine says the site was created by and maintained in Front Page.. =]
We do use FP for our BSD box we have at an APT complex, and that is good to us. The setup was much easier and the administration was part of the setup, so I don't mind. I also don't have to fight with file permissions that Win2k seems to mysteriously change on us. That causes problems with people 1.) Trying to connect to the FP web, and 2.) people trying to overwrite files when they update them. Give me Unix file permissions anyday...
Just a few comments, I'd like to make on your good points:
I didn't mean to come off as saying FP needs to be installed use to FP Extensions. I just don't understand why I can't administer the FP extensions right inside IIS with a FP-enabled web. That's the main reason I think the FP admin tool included with 2000 is silly. No real other reason.. =]
As for AD, you are correct, but lucky I can say I didn't origionally setup the box, I just had to make it work.. =] AD isn't setup by default, and many people won't need it, as it's a bit of overkill for internet server applications.
I'm actually not inexperienced with 2000, I've been running it for over 6 months now (Okay, so that's not *really* a long time =]) and I've used and abused Professional, Server, and Advanced Server. I'd also be interested in knowing about your drive config. We have a RAID/Mirror setup, on some old old SCSI drives which aren't the fastest things in the world.
I tried to make my post unbiased, and I see that I have failed, but I didn't mean to come off sounding like Win2k is crap. It's far from being crap, but it's not my cup of tea. And that's my opinion, which I don't believe I gave until my physical analysis was complete.
While it's true that there are a lot of paper MCSEs out there, not all MCSEs are idiots, and it's not fair to say that they are. I HATE windows - if I use windows, I start getting this deep frustration... yet I will soon be an MCSE. Computers are more than a hobby to me, I'd like to make it my profession. Does MCSE certification invalidate a PhD in computer science? Stop being so silly - Windows is popular with business, and if you're going to work in the technology industry, although not all jobs require it, it helps to know what you're working with, even if you hate it.
I realize that the original poster made only a slight anti-mcse comment, but already there are responces reinforcing it. It's counter productive.
I wrote an Opinion piece on the great Windows 2000 versus Linux debate a couple of months ago. Basically, for those who don't want to follow the link, I said that Microsoft has for the first time in its existence actually released an operating system. Everything that preceded W2K (with the possible exception of SCO Xenix, to which Microsoft made a significant contribution) has been a hack upon a bogosity upon a program loader--albeit, one that captured the market needs, and which has been wildly successful. As someone who has worked professionally with computer operating systems since 1978, I have seen that there are certain fundamental requirements within data center operations for stability, security, reliability, manageability flexibility and maintainability. In fact, the key word here is "ability"-- and without those abilities, IT professionals are prevented from delivering a high standard of service to end-users. For the first time, Microsoft has really come out with a product that meets those needs, and for that I applaud them. Fore more, follow the link.
--
Paul Gillingwater
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
If you go in to buy a car, and the salesman adds an extra $1000 to the price, and proceeds to spout "it's nothing compared to yada yada yada" . . ask him to give it up. Point out that if he/she really thinks the price differance is "nothing" then he/she won't mind removing it from the purchase price.
It will force said person to conceed that it IS real money when it's coming out of HIS pocket, and he/she will be forced to conceed that it's just a s real when it's coming out of MINE.
If an MS rep. who is trying to tell you his ms solution is better and starts spouting "but that price differance is nothing compared to TCO" ask him to put his money where his argument is. Point out that THE BUYER is the one making the larger investment in paying skilled people to deploy and maintain the system, and if THE BUYER is making the sizable investment, and that the purchase price is really nothing, then he won't mind waiving it.
If he is willing to put his money where his argument is, continue to listen to the argument. If not, thank him for his time, and move on to another solution.
from this shop.ms site: .and it's an Upgrade? They want me to buy and older version that THEN pay them another 10 grand for *this???
Microsoft® SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition English Competitive Version Product Upgrade North America CD 1 Processor License CD-ROM $9,999.00 .
Zero dollars.
0.
Null set.
Not even one Franc.
Zilch.
Not one thin dime.
Bupkiss.
Not one Dinar.
Zippo.
No charge.
Not even one Kuna.
Like sex, it's better when it's free.
No cost.
Not one Krone.
Just take it.
Not one Punt.
Deploy it on an many boxes as you want.
No jack.
Bukoo nada.
Not one Rupiah.
I said, you can just take it.
Not one Shilling.
Not one Kroner.
Sure, there are users who are totally clueless. But we're not talking about those users, we're talking about people who are competent enough to get hired as a sysadmin. And in this context, Linux isn't really much more difficult to admin than NT. Easier in my opinion, but that depends on how you look at it.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
It's not about the new features of W2K (those are client programs that can be add to any OS), it is about OS architecture, and that hasn't change much since NT 4.0 NT has evolved from a WINDOWING ENVIRONMENT for CLIENT devices. Even the latest and greatest NT "server" uses calls to the windowing system for inter-process communication. This is why it is often lagging in the area of scalability. The windowing system is an embedded part of NT. It gets in the way of server-oriented processes, as would be found with HNM.
That's not the case. It's like a config file on Unix: if you have the discipline to sort out what needs to be in /etc and what needs to be in ~/.appconfig it all works fine.
KEY_CURRENT_USER is equivalent to ~, in the virtual file system analogy.
There was a case where a compiler vendor got it wrong, and the result was you had to be in the Local Administrators group to change the compiler options.
They refused to accept a bug report on this: "why would anyone other than an administrator need a compiler anyway?"
>or TCP/IP?
Are you sure? I just wrote a win32 TCP/IP app on Win2000 and had to use window handles and recieve messages.
I'm not sure it is a reason for bad performance (if indeed the performance is bad), but the windows and message queue model definitely permeates all of Win32 programming.
"I dont know: whats easier, adding stability to Windows, or adding hardware support and UI to linux?"
I'll counter this with a Pearl Of Wisdom (tm) I heard about optimisations.
"It's easier to make a correct program run quick, than it is to make a quick program run correctly"
Ditto the story about the shop with the in-house misson-critical app that would crash on occasion. Despite having the source, they couldn't fix it & hired an external consultant to help. He was given the original code, went through it and rewrote it from scratch over the weekend. When showing it to the other developers who were unable to get the original version to work, the head developer said "But your program takes a second per transaction, while mine only takes one one hundredth of a second." To which the consultant replied "Yes, but my program works. If it doesn't have to work, I can get it to run in zero time and take up zero resources"
Two points being:
1) I think GNU/Linux (plus the other free OSs) have the easier task.
2) I think they did the right thing from the beginning anyway. I'd rather have something that does a few things well that something else that does a lot of things poorly.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Beautiful! Use the negative eperiences of bogus upgrades and feature adds of Microsoft to scare people. It's so bogus. Linux will be, if it is not already, easier to administer. From a user's stand point Linux is now no more difficult to get around in than windows. The only thing you've got right is the pain that's been inflicted on MS users and administrators.
Sorry bud, the days of shrink wraped software are numbered. People are tired of getting burnt by the whole MS set up where IT really can't fix the problem because they don't have the source. Open Source software prommises to be more stable, easier to fix and honest. The model of real consultants selling their time and knowledge to solve real problems is just better.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The software is targeted at businesses and vs. Oracle 8i and IBM's DB2, Microsoft SQL Server not only is much cheaper but according to the Transaction Processing Performance Council tests performs comparably.
This software is targeted at businesses that routinely pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for software. Not college kids who want a DB to host their guestbook application.
What was the purpose of your post besides displaying your ignorance?
(-1 Troll)
Does a company who cares so very little about security belong in your server room?
And I thought Linux fanatics were beyond FUD.
Stop blaming Microsoft for your virus woes. If ILoveYou came into your computer and trashed it - too bad, that's not M$'s fault.
And billions were not lost to ILoveYou or any other program like it.
The only reason this hasn't yet happened with Linux desktops is, well, there aren't nearly as many Linux desktops because there's no standardized desktop distro (see prior post) and no common e-mail software for any desktop environment. OK, Netscape 4.7 maybe. But the guys at DigiCrime could show you how to do these things to Netscape and maybe write a Javascript trojan, and even circumvent the "sandbox".
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
Linux already supports power management. I have it working on both of my IBM thinkpad laptops. I haven't bothered to get it working on my desktop, because it is running Linux...so why would I turn it off...but I do have it shut down the video and hard disks to save power.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
What about if you're a small startup, and should be spending money on other things than a big pile of servers? Or a nonprofit organization, which REALLY has better ways to spend their money?
Conversely, I could argue that I can buy 2 machines, one a little overpowered for the job, one a little underpowered (in the interests of budgetary concerns). I set up mon, fake, etc., and run all my services on the better machine...the smaller machine automatically takes over for it if it goes down, and sends me an email.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
#2 -- Use a journaling filesystem. I think that NT has one of those, while Linux does not use one by default (yet!). There are, however, no less than 4 available.
#3 -- When I install an application, I want to type "apt-get install foo", and have it check for dependencies, automatically fetch everything, and install it (as long as I OK any extra stuff that it finds it needs). I do not want to have to find the app, download it, unzip it, install it, reboot, remove the icons that it placed uninvited all over my menus and desktop...
#4 -- Yuck. Sorry, but I prefer E to everything else...more below...
#5 -- My roomates and I have rather large MP3 collections (yes, legal!), and we export them via NFS (behind a firewall!), so that we don't have to have any duplicates, and can play anything from anywhere in the house, any time. The machines need to be up for that...not to mention the web/mail servers we run.
#7 -- I grew up on Windows...I was excited when '98 was announced, and, umm, "aquired" Beta3 and sung it's praises to all my friends. But after using Linux for a while, there's no contest in my mind any more. I simply find that I can have the environment set up much more to my liking, and get things done more quickly and easily.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Windows 2000 ... delivers the same level of DirectX support.
Windows 2000 simply does not yet have the quality of video drivers that Windows 98 has. Its video drivers run in kernelspace (rather than rootspace/userspace as on *N?X) and can bring down the system, and many display adapters are not yet supported at all higher than 16 colors.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, wait a minute. I said it had a "real" directory service, not a "good" one.
... what? Yp? NIS?
There are severe limitations with AD, which I guess I should have pointed out. But the bottom line is that it 1) uses DNS as its naming scheme, and 2) does away with the crazy transitive trust issues that plagued NT 4 (yes, you can still implement transitive trusts with AD if you are a masochist, but they are not required in most normal situations... unlike NT 4, which more or less mandated them for 3+ domains).
The flat namespace is a backwards compatibility thing, and ugly. But I would still rather manage 60,000 users on 500 servers using Win2K + AD than Linux +
(not that I'd want to manage that scale of a W2K implementation, anyway, for other reasons... but at least it's not unthinkable, like NT4 was, due to lack of directory services).
NDS is still better. Heck, Banyan is better. But in the context of the original question, W2K is better than Linux here (today! No fair posting "But someone will port NDS...". This is a real-time question, not an ideal-world question).
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
My main gripe with M$ isn't overall stability of their OS, or their tendency to gouge (both of which are gripes, just not the main one..), but rather their apps' tendency to dictate style and content of what I try to do with them.
.. ;-)
..
I am forced to use an NT workstation at my day job, and every once in a while I have to try and type something up in Word. What I end up with is a constant battle with Word over how I should spell words (excuse me, Microsoft, but my *brain* has a larger dictionary than your spell checker does, and it's context sensitive and more fun to use..) or whether or not I want list items auto-numbered, or whether I can change margins, or a number of other little stylistic things. I know M$ likes to make their apps 'smart', but sometimes I think 'smart-assed' is more appropriate.
I think this is the real reason for a lot of the animosity towards Microsoft. There may be people out there clueless enough to need that much help, but I haven't met any yet. I'm sure I'm not the only person who really doesn't appreciate M$ apps nagging us about not conforming to their idea of the look and feel of a business letter, especially when we're typing up something other than a business letter. In some ways it even makes me miss vi
Seriously, though, stop telling the people who *know* how to use a computer how to use their computer, and don't force us to conform to your assumptions about what we're doing. Look around and you'll find Linux (and Mac OS, for that matter) are way ahead of you there
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
I find it interesting how Windows keeps looking more and more like UNIX. What I mean by this is that Windows 2000 Server comes with a telnet server (does workstation? I haven't used it) a new telnet client that is much more like the telnet found on UNIX boxes. Other things like being able to mount partitions to directories rather than c:, d:, etc. too me just seem like they are trying to mimic UNIX functionality while still keeping the awkward administration interface. Maybe this is just their way to slowly change over to MicrosoftBSD? (I would have said Linux, but then they'd have to give away the source!)
I agree that Windows 2000 is vastly improved over it's predecessor, but it still should always boil down to what is the right tool for the job! If UNIX is what is right, use it. If Windows does a better job for something then use it.
I just set up software mirroring with Win2K server. Just click to make the disk dynamic, and then click again to add a mirror. I'd still never use Win2K as a real server though. I like to know everything that's running on a system, Windows has too much backdoor and hidden crap in it.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I'd love to use Windows to administrate a large array of unix servers. Similarly to having checkpoint running on a freebsd box, with a windows administration tool, but wouldn't it be great to have a nice clean gui (no X-windows crap), which can add users, set file permissions, administrate webservers, etc. When I deploy my unix servers, X-windows isn't even installed on the boxes, for efficiency, security, and reliability. Now if we could get Windows and unix to work hand in hand... Ok, ok, I know it'll never happen.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Sorry. I'll go now.
not_cub.
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
Even in the very first section about cost, he point to "NT Lies: Lie #6 " to suggest that NT is overpriced. The NT article simply (and honestly) takes issue with the fact that NT server and workstation are virtually identical. There is no cost/benefit analysis.
His next sentence suggests NT is lacking because is doesn't provide features common in unix systems, but they're not the things Microsoft's customers have been missing.
Then he points to a cost analysis by BSDI, hardly an objective source. You won't find him pointing to similar (yet somehow opposite) viewpoints on Microsoft's web server, like this page, and certainly not their imfamous linux myths page.
At least he points to an independent opinion of Maggie Biggs in his next sentence, but upon reading her article, it's obvious that she's comparing a (then unreleased redhat 5.0) to an unspecified NT system, for a fictional installation. Nothing more than guesswork, reporting that Redhat's new product might be. Maggie's opinion is shear speculation, and she doesn't hide that, but it's credible information when linked from John's paper?
I could go on and on, but one paragraph is plenty.
Well, I've been pretty critical of John Kirch's paper, even though I agree more or less with what it says. I like Linux and I've been using it regularily since 1994, shortly before the 1.0 kernel release, and I've used BSD, Sunos, and HPUX for years before that. I'm certainly biased towards unix/linux, and if I can get the impression the John's writing is heavily biased towards unix, it's gotta be pretty obvious!
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I dont know: whats easier, adding stability to Windows, or adding hardware support and UI to linux?
Good question. The UI is something built into the system at a much higher level. This means that, programming-wise, a UI is far easier. However, hackers tend to have problems doing the part of the UI you actualy see, at least as far as your average users is concerned. This is why corperate funding thourgh the Gnome Foundation is very important to the future of Linux on the desktop: It gets rid of that achillies heal.
On the other hand, stability is something you have to deal with at a very low level; right down to places where you're using ASM in your kernel and libraries. This is a place where hackers rule. Microsoft started with a base system (DOS) that was OK for simple, single-user, single-tasking jobs at a command line. Then they started adding a GUI on top . . .
WinNT/Win2000 got rid of the DOS core. There was still some DOS functionality as of NT 4.0, but I beleive it was mostly removed for Win2000. In any case, it was put in more for backwards-compatibilty then anything else.
NT is also a microkernel, which means it naturaly has some extra overhead in it that Linux's monolithic kernel does not. The still-mostly-vapor GNU HURD is also a microkernel. If done properly, the extra overhead isn't that much. The question is, did Microsoft do it properly? I don't really know.
In any case, its much easier for hackers to create a stable and speedy core system, while difficult for them to make a good UI. On the other hand, its far easier for a corperate project to make a reasonably good UI, but diffcult to make a stable and speedy core system.
The good news for Linux is that we're not limited to using the hacker-meathod. Alredy the Gnome Foundation has been formed to make a great UI with lots of corperate funding. Also, don't forget Eazel, with some of the orginal MacOS UI guys working on a Gnome project. Whatever else you say about MacOS, it has a great UI.
This is very bad news for Microsoft, which is fine by me. Without turning entirely in the other direction, Microsoft has no way of harnessing the power of hackers to create a good core system, while the hackers have a way of harnessing the corperate-backed projects to create a good UI.
------
Not a typewriter
Before I even get into replying to this post of yours... Love the Sig! :)
Moving on to the subject at hand, let's get into the notion of what a Linux distro is. I'd hardly think of it as a set of standardized or even default tools. Heck, even the command line is a 3rd party add on (prefer Bash myself). Linux as an OS is a collection of these tools brought together to form a sum greater than it's parts. I'm not arguing if this is a good or bad thing, just attempting to describe what it is.
The point I was trying to get at is that all to often folks look at a default, straight off the CD installation as a criteria for comparison when talking about NT or Windows in general. In truth, you can no more do this with Windows then you can with Linux.
Administering a UNIX system, and doing complex things with it that the designers never explicitly planned for is a viable option out of the box. I don't think the same could be said for Windows.
This line starts into opening the door to a debate over which is more effecient: a monolithic or micorkernel approach to OS design. Even still, keeping this within the realms of this conversation I believe that Windows has done quite well in supporting all kinds of solutions that may very well not have been part of the MS master plan. For example, going back to Win 3.1 we can see all kinds of 3rd party support for providing Internet access to these boxes long before MS ever even got around to thinking TCP/IP. In all fairness, perhaps the weakest aspect to MS products in this regard is the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) for NT which didn't provide much growth room as we've seen.
The shareware and freeware community supporting the Windows platform is massive, and they are providing tons of really outstanding tools both for the desktops and the servers. Writing them off as trojan filled apps that you'd be insane to run is missing a far larger picture.
In comparison, the Unix community has a larger set of quality server side tools coming out of there. On the other hand, the desktop apps coming out of the shareware folks for Windows have been of much higher quality than what I've seen to date for the Unix boxes. Certainly the efforts going into KDE and Gnome development are looking to turn that tide. When or if that happens, I'll gladly change my views on this to fit what is going on, or at least my perception of it.
In the mean time, I'll continue to argue for fair and honest comparisons of OS merit. UI, kernel, networking, drivers, applications and tools should all be taken into account. If not, how else is Linux going to make a serious run at the desktop market?
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Try renaming 1000 files of the sort a001.blah to b001.blah,...
...or converting 1000 GIFs to JPEGs, using point-and-click
Oooo, fun stuff. I've got on my NT system now a wonderful little shareware app called ReNameIt that handles just the kind of thing you're talking about. All GUI start to finish.
Once again to the shareware bin, right off the net and still warm PicaView from the folks that make ACDSee. PicaView is a really cool little add-on extension to File Explorer that provides a quick thumbnail of an image when right clicked on. In addition, it also has some cool features like image conversion.
To get this to play I start out in Explorer (the file one, not in ANY freaking way "enhanced" to be a freaking web browser) and select the parent dir of interest. Right click on it and do a find all in that dir and subs with a *.gif extension. Never taking my hand off the mouse, I select Edit-Select All which goes and hi-lites all the results. At this point I can review which files are to be affected, no matter how long the list. Once satisfied with my selections I right click again to bring up PicaView and tweak it's GUI settings. Click OK and it be off and running.
This is fun, can we play some more how-to's?
The thing that seems to get lost on folks heavily focused on the Unix world is that there is a wonderful set of tools out there for Windows in the free and shareware lands. Folks blast Windows and the larger companies that support it as "bloatware" because they're easy visible targets. What gets missed is all the very specific tools that are also out there to deal with specialized problems, just like with Linux.
To compare and contrast, take a tour of the NT and 98 regions of some of the major shareware sites out there as opposed to a site like Freshmeat. How many 0.1 versions of stuff do you suppose you'll find in one or the other? I've lost count of the times I got interested in a description of a Unix app, only to find that the feature points haven't been implemented past making an empty window for version 0.0.3 over a year ago. You just don't see that kinda stuff when out and about looking for Windows tools.
Take this as a troll if you wish, but from an end users perspective the shareware tools out there are some powerful stuff that should not be discounted simply because MS doesn't directly provide them.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
In unix land, anything equivalent to that 'license key invalid' dialog would be trackable back to a particular line in an rc file
r rentVersion\Run
u rrentVersion\Run
So what you're saying here is that you'd go and look in the various locations for where programs start up on boot. Fair enough. Why not do the same with that Windows install?
Places to look:
Legacy from DOS...
autoexec.bat
config.sys
Legacy from Win 3.1
win.ini
system.ini
Might be in the start menu
Programs-Startup
How about in the registry
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cu
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\C
If this is NT, it might have gone in as a service, which is maintained from the Control Panel. On Win2k you get to it from the MMC.
Yes, I realize this doesn't help you any longer, but I wanted to get the point across here that things really can be tracked down under Windows. No, not all of these items are especially obvious without a healthy bit of prior knowledge. You could say the same for them rc scripts as well.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
What are you doing with the system?
Do you have any applications that you can only get on NT?
Do you have the staff to support the os of your choose?
As a webmaster who handles both the graphics and programming of the sites I work on I run a mixed NT and FreeBSD environment for development. These are on two PC's, not dual booting. Additionally, the FreeBSD box is not serving live to the Internet. Here's the breakdown.
NT: (only listing my web critical stuff)
HomeSite
DreamWeaver
PhotoShop
ImageReady
Illustrator
FTP Voyager
WinAmp (yes it's critical damn it!)
FreeBSD:
Apache
Samba
MySQL
PHP
Each and every app on the platform they perfom best on. Not a one of them is improved in any way shape or form by Win2k. No upgrades planned here, and still waiting for NT 5.0.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
And as a sysadmin you routinely download and run binaries from internet servers?
.*n.x you can do those, and more, with the standard command-line utilities.
Eeeyup.
Can you say 'trojan'
Can you say "trusted sources"? Yeah, if I was trying to pull warez down from binary newsgroups, than yeah I'd be in for some nasties. As it is, I'm sure you'll be able to provide many examples of trojaned software found at Tucows, CW Stroud, Winfiles, or any of the other established shareware sites.
Point being, with
Care to explain to me just what exactly those "standard" command line utilities are for Unix? Standard, as in gif-jpg conversion? Isn't the very concept behind Unix to bring together a variety tools by 3rd party tools together under one roof?
For the record, in all the software I have ever downloaded for Windows (which I might add has been a LOT of stuff over the years) I have only ever encountered one piece of software that messed up my system. Of course, now that I know to NEVER let Internet Explorer freaking optimize a desktop even that app is finally under control. Eeeck!
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
I have fairly regularly used Realproducer and Realplayer since version 5. Never had any particualrly serious crashes from them.
I can easily get 3 or 4 days uptime from my Win2k system which is permanantly connected to the net, handling email, icq, my own custom written webcam software, quite often realproducer streaming audio and video (which it's also capturing).
I've got two usb webcams, usb scanner, usb printer, bt848 based videocapture, a celeron clocked to within an inch of it's life. My memory is running at over 100mhz which is it's max rating.
I'm running software raid, I burn cds, *constantly* decode mp3s (usually from network volumes or shoutcast servers), surf the web, develop websites, program in delphi, design stuff in flash.
I change my hardware round regularly - adding or upgrading peripherals at least monthly if not weekly.
I've never had a workstation as stable as mine is now doing as much as mine does now, and if any one out there can suggest a better platform for me then go for it!!!
(i run solaris at work and linux at home too though - i'm just not keen on them as workstation os's)
Given that there is all this typical argument for and against operating systems I just thought i'd shed a little light on my first perceptions of operating systems.
:)
:) I know linux is fast at a lot of things... but when it comes to graphics it generally sucks. Try scrolling down a web page with a couple of java applets and maybe some dhtml animation... it's slow on linux - then try it in IE5.5 and you really will feel the difference.
I first came into contact with MacOS in 1986 (aged 6) and found it a dream to use and everything fell easily into place. Certainly it was missing multitasking (and still to some extent is) but for me it set my definition of what easy to use should be.
I came into contact with dos about 2 years later and despite having to learn a few simple commands on the whole it was pretty damn easy.
Until Win95 came along I largely avoided windows (mainly cos of the hefty boot up times). I did use Win31 to do some programming in Delphi but that was about it.
Win95 however really did impress me. It felt fast, responsive, crashed less than 3.1 did and had an impeccable user interface. Against all my expectations it did detect all my hardware (except for my EEProm burner but that was no surprise).
Then in early 1996 I encountered linux. Slackware. It was nothing short of appaling.
The installation process was difficult and obscure, the hardware support was miserable. The documentation was crap.
I gave up.
It was another 3 years before I got linux functioning to any real extend and only now do I feel comfortable configuring it.
My experience with it is that it is pretty damn easy to break. When it comes to installing new hardware in Win2k I plug it in, turn on, and in most cases it's there and working on the first boot. With linux I seem to have to mess about recompiling the kernel (especially if it's for anything strange like sound, videocapture or usb support). And linux seems to be a lot less forgiving than windows of crap drivers.
Incidentally I have never seen any software that can take down win2k. One or two programs do appear to have memory and resource holes that drain the systems power away slowly but if you restart those apps then it springs back.
Equally to be fair to linux it very rarely crashes. When we stepped back down to a single cpu our uptimes went from about 2 hours -> 2 months which is pretty impressive. However Win2k supports dual cpu arrangements out of the box... no problems there (unless u have an aureal vortex
Curiously as testament to Windows 95 I have a laptop here running winroute (didn't have time to set linux up on it) and that has only crashed once in 17 weeks now. That's running a stock Win95 Original Release, Netgear FA410 Drivers and Webgear Aviator 2.4 drivers (along with the usual graphics ones), and Winroute as well... and it is stable as a rock.
Perhaps this really does give credit to the fact that Win95 itself is pretty stable and that applications and drivers drag it down.
And why doesn't windows execute things with the same level of protection that linux does.... because most users would rather the speed of windows to the stability of linux.
Put the flamethrowers down tho
And i'm not running win2k on any dream machine - just a celeron 300 cranked to 464mhz, 128 mb ram, 40gb disk and a v5500.
And running linux on a pii450, 192mb ram, 90gb disk and a tnt.
Seems like a pretty fair test to me.
This page at about.com lists all sorts of comparisons between Linux, 2000 and NT.
My experiences with Win2K - its been very stable. W2k won't let rogue applications install. It has much less backward compatibility than any other version of Windows I've used, but the stability has definitely increased. There is definitely an overhead premium - I wouldn't consider running any version with less than a 300 MHz processor with 128 MB of RAM. As a comparison, Linux generally uses much less resources to perform the same tasks.
Using Windows 2000 carries risks of being incompatible with the rest of your network. If you want to authenticate with kerberos, and you have both Linux and Win2k boxen, you'll most likely have to have a Win2K server. Other "improvements" to standard TCP/IP programs, like their dynamic DNS may create compatibility issues as well. Samba still works well with Linux servers and Windows clients for basic file and print services.
The only compelling reason I can think of to go with Windows is speed of application development, both on web and desktop based applications. ASP with SQL Server on IIS allows you to knock out web applications very rapidly. And of course if you sell Windows applications you will need to have Windows somewhere. But other than that I can't think of much reason to go with Win2K on a server level. I used to use Windows for everything - now I'm using Linux for file and print services, Apache, planning to move to qmail eventually, and I have an OpenBSD firewall. So far, there is nothing available on Win2k that would make me want to switch back.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I have been messing with 2000 for about four months now and I must say it is one hell of an operating system. There are a total of four versions if no one knew...
Professional, Server, Advanced Server and Data Base
It has some really good features like Dynamic Hardrives, Server Wizards, Windows Media Encoder, an integrated task manager, encrypted file system and much much more.
I wouldn't hold your breath though... I crashed it 7 times already. Four crashes in result to Explorer giving up but later recovering. (Which still requires a system reboot to make everything run just right) The other three crashes were due to my Nvidia TNT2 Ultra card. There isnt' one driver that works for it with out having a kernel dump and an eventual system reboot. It really sucked so I am forced to use my VooDoo 3 3000. This crash is due to any reason... one time it was when I clicked on the screensaver tab... another when I opened a webpage. Didn't take much for the driver to go nuts.
By the way I have a copy of all these OS's except Database. I even have the 25 client version of Advanced Server! He he he!
~BHM
"Join me on the nail side of the thumb!"
You need better friends; or at least smarter ones.
They compare the different aspects like Multimedia, Network and Home PC, and depending on what they find important come to different conclusions...
maol
--
Du Deutsch -> Du gehe Symlink
The whole point of the previous post is that small and medium sized business cannot afford to run Linux in production, not big businesses.
A small factory or farm or retail shot or whatever cannot afford to have a $35+k/year sysadmin or mcse wannabe on staff. With windows, however, a resonably knowledgeable non-computer person can fix most problems with tech support.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Personally, I like Windows 2000. I think it's a very capable system. But getting an honest answer here is like going to a Microsoft convention and saying "What do you think of Linux?"
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Yes. I made a copy for a friend a couple of days ago. Grab a serial off the web and you're all set.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I say if you're used to Linux stability, but still want to run Windows 98 software and games, jump up to Windows 2000. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
(And if you hear any naysayers out there, chances are they've never tried it and are only working off a Linux box.)
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Databases are not magical - a large database takes longer to search than a small one. Granted, a well designed database is faster than a linear search - but they do slow down as they increase in size. A full install of Visual basic 6.0 pro added one megabyte to the registry on my NT 4.0 box.
Considering how often a MS OS does registry operations even a small increase in search time can be a significant overhead. In any case Microsoft has admitted that registry bloat does slow down system operation. Sorry, I don't have the URL.
Registry bloat slowdown problems are not due to bad coding - they are an inevitable result of the basic DESIGN of the system.
UNIX style systems only access the files in /etc when a process requests the access. If program A has large file in /etc it doesn't affect the speed of the rest of the system.
The Microsoft philosophy toward application installation is to allow the new ap to modify core operating system files: The registry. On a UNIX style OS each program can have its own file which it gets modify - but they don't get to modify a core OS file.
This means that installing a program on a MS OS is like performing minor surgery on the system. While installing a program in a UNIX style system is more like buying a new suit of clothes.
This means that program installation under a MS OS is a riskier proposition than it is under a UNIX style OS. Mostly minor surgery goes well - but occasionally complications occur.
In essence, under the Microsoft philosophy, each program becomes an integrated part of the operating system, under the UNIX philosophy there is a much greater distinction between the OS and the application.
Because of the integration that the registry creates under a Microsoft OS, a Microsoft system tends to slow down and lose stability over time as more and more applications are installed. (The MS way of doing things means that the registry soon becomes both the largest and the most changed files on the system. The largest and the most changed files on the system are naturally the most likely ones to become corrupted.)
The only effect on system speed that adding applications has on UNIX style systems is that they cause directories to grow in size - meaning that they take longer to scan looking for a file. (This also happens under Microsoft style operating systems.)
Under the Microsoft philosophy, installing a new program will slow down every other program on the system (sometimes dramatically) - even if the new program is never run. This is because adding a new program increases the size of the registry. Because so many operations on a Microsoft OS require a registry operation - and a larger registry means a slower registry scan time the Microsoft philosophy results in a system which slows down with each addition to the system.
If both systems start out with the same speed and reliability, the UNIX philosophy will result in a system which is faster and more stable after extensive use.
The example from my work is compiling and simulation. If I have to perform some task that is too big for my workstation to efficiently handle, I can use a server that has much more memory. I don't need to walk over to the server room (I don't even know where it is, and I don't care), I don't need to have 2 or more computers crammed in my office. I just have to ssh to the server and it acts just like I'm there. I can use dozens of servers at once without having to get up from my chair. Since this is a CLI, I can even automate the whole thing. I'm sure that windows has a way to do something similar if you bought the right 3rd party software package, but I'm sure it would be less powerful than what comes with UNIX as default.
The other way this feature is handy is when I'm working on something with another person and I need them to access something for me. Let's say that a file of theirs isn't group readable and we need to use it. I don't have to logout, I don't have to wait while they run back and fix it, they just type su and fix the problem.
I can ssh from home to work and have an identical environment to the one that I have at work.
The last reason is kind of a UNIX thing, so it really doesn't apply to NT, but I bet NT would benefit from this if it's graphics weren't in the kernel. 90% of the time, if a UNIX system is frozen it is X and not the OS that is locked. Fixing this problem is possible with a telnet to the frozen machine. On NT you would just give up.
Windows NT security may be fine-grained, but it's CPU resource allocation is not. It basically gives the user in front of it the whole thing, whether they need it or not. NT's ability to switch between users seems to be more a limitation of it's GUI and registry rather than the kernel itself. I've used Terminal Server. I was impressed and disappointed at the same time. It is a step in the right direction, but it is hampered by the need to retain compatibility with poor decisions from the past.
You can get Linux for free...
I've also done some crash-testing on Windows 2000
and NT 4.0, and they are remarkably easy to break, even moreso when they are 'crippled' by being the student copies available to Comp. Sci. students. (Seems they don't want us to have full access for _some_ reason.)
Whereas, I've never been able to crash Linux at all. Mind you, I've tried a few things that did crash NT, but Linux seemed to have no problems with spawning multiple copies of the same app, running 12 different graphics apps, etc. (Yes, I was using the University resources... I don't have that much computer of my own...)
All in all, Linux is preferable simply for uptime between crashes, which unless you do something evil to Linux, can be years between crashes. NT lasts, what, a couple of days before the GPFs hit?
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
If you want to play DirectX games, you need a M$ OS. Windows 2000 Pro is far more stable than 95/98, and delivers the same level of DirectX support. But then again, there is the monetary cost involved, right?
As a desktop OS, I'd say Windows 2000 delivers, but then again, Linux does everything else you can ask it to (and more), and at a much lower price tag. Plus, you can get all the services, development software, and applications you need at no additional cost. I don't even want to try adding up the cost of Windows 2000 Advanced Server + Developer Studio + Office 2000 + whatever else you need to get the equivalent of everthing you would from get with most flavors of Linux.
Looking at it from a student's point of view who wants to learn about C++, SQL and whatnot, Linux is a far better choice. Looking at it from a student's point of view who likes to play Half-life and Diablo II without rebooting every 20 minutes, Windows 2000 does the job. :)
I realize I didn't compare the two as production server OSes. I'm sure there's plenty of people willing to debate on that.
A clever sig would prove nothing.
Is this a fault of the Third pary App or more a fault of the "Almighty ones" Failings in releasing the full API details???
This space intentionally blank
For me, nothing beats the Linux community's best support model: free E-Mail lists. Have a problem? Ask a question on the right list, and odds are you'll get several good responses in just a few moments that start out
"No problem. I just worked through this problem last week...here's what I did..."
Beats paid, per-incident-charge phone-support monkeys hands down every time.
Windows 2000's Active Directory is a candy-coated shell over a reworking of the old NT4-style domain system.
An example:
Suppose you create an AD domain called "slashdot.org". You then create two OUs, so you have sales.slashdot.org and geeks.slashdot.org. Being a hardcore geek, Rob Malda will of course be rmalda in the OU geeks.slashdot.org. His username in the underlying domain datanase will also be rmalda.
When Richard Malda join sales, of course you will want to add a user rmalda to sales.slashnet.org. But you can't. Why? Because even if you have objects in separate OUs, their names must still be uniqiue in the domain, because the underlying domain database has a flat namespace.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
I would have to admit that 2000 is an improvement over NT 4. The answer is still it depends.
What are you doing with the system?
Do you have any applications that you can only get on NT?
Do you have the staff to support the os of your choose?
Add your question here.
NT, Linux, BSD, Solaris, MacOS these are only tools. Rememeber it not a war of OS here it is about getting the job done the best way possible.
Besides that, I have run Windows 2000 and Linux side-by-side for a few months. Windows 2000 is a bit more stable than Windows NT 4.0, has more up-to-date Win32 APIs, runs better on laptops, and the UI is a bit more consistent. The server edition comes with more software. Other than that, I think most users won't see a lot of difference.
The biggest thing about Windows 2000 from my point of view is the Active Directory stuff, and that's an unmitigated disaster: not only does it play havoc with mixed UNIX/Windows installations, I think its directory model is poorly suited to non-hierarchical management structures.
Don't underestimate the marketing value of Windows, though: on the surface, it looks like a coherent solution of integrated technologies that address most of a business's needs. It's only after a company has committed to it that they discover that actually deploying and maintaining it probably requires a bigger hodgepodge of local hacks and third party tools than Linux would, and at a much higher cost. Let's hope that there will be more Linux and BSD distributions that target the Microsoft client and server market more directly. In particular, on the server side, something like RedHat isn't streamlined enough yet to have the same appeal as Windows 2000 to non-technical business folks.
DirectX - Love it or hate it, it does the job. While some areas (like DirectInput and DirectMusic) are still queezy at best, you can't beat DirectDraw's flexibility.
UI - The 2D GUI is pretty hot. Font smoothing and color management. Solid control designs and IMEs. Try and write a multilingual application and see how far you get. Ever try and copy and paste multibyte characters in X? Oops.
COM - I've tried working with CORBA, and so far it can't cut it. COM is an incredible piece of engineering, and it shows. If I had one wish for Unix, it would be a COM implementation that could rival Windows. COM+ looks good too. Too bad it uses the registry - most of the time. We shall see what happens with SOAP.
MS Office - Sorry, but it's got to be said. Nothing beats Office - yet. Why does office work so well? COM. It will take many a manhours to raise Koffice/Openparts to that level. Well, if we had COM for Unix, and a lightweight VM, then maybe we could 'borrow' some of the more interesting pieces...
Yeah, the rest of Windows is crap, but you get what you pay for - DirectX, the UI, COM and Office. Everthing else is just one of those four things. Oh yeah, and IE thrown in just for fun.
According to the latest Netcraft report, Hotmail.com now runs Windows 2000:
" Hotmail Windows 2000 migration completes without incident The migration of the www.hotmail.com front end from FreeBSD to Windows 2000 seems to be complete with all recent requests from the site served from Windows 2000 machines and no evidence of any FreeBSD/Apache machines remaining in the load balancing pool. Microsoft will be pleased with this as the migration was completed inless than a month, without any reports of service disruption, and the site has previously been a beacon for open source evangelism."
All you are going to hear here is hype, and bible
thumping. The only true way to get an unbiased
view of things is to try both, and see for yourself.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
And lets not forget that it's peanuts compared to the money you lose on support staff. Better spend some extra money on software rather than 100K$/year on a good system administrator.
Companies don't care to spend 30K or so on a good server. Especially if it comes with userfriendly software and good support. Linux is free but useless without a good support contract. Of course such support is available, at roughly the same price as for commercial software. The impact of license fees can be neglected when you bring in support cost and staff cost.
Especially for small businesses, it is not affordable to have a knowledgable sysadmin around. They have to put up with the less educated sysadmins and therefore have to make investments in usable software instead.
Windows 2000 is ideal for this kind of companies. You don't need a rocket scientist to operate it, it supports a lot of stuff out of the box, most of which is easy to configure. If you have educated staff though, linux/unix is the best way to go.
Jilles
Of course, trying it yourself is always the best way to learn about anything. Ignore the millions of hours of collective experience out there, if you spend a few hours with the products, you'll learn much more about subtle incompatabilities and transient, but catastrophic, bugs.
It's also much more economical for you to duplicate all your services, train all your personnel in both systems, and see for yourself, rather than asking some questions and hearing what other people have to say about it.
And, of course, it's totally worth buying as many copies of W2K, and the applications you intend to run on it, as you need to test them.
Therefore, I obviously also must heartily recommend that you go out and try both yourself. It's not like you can save lots of time, effort, and money just by asking people who already know.
--------
You're missing several points in your oversimplification of OSs to include only Windows and UNIX.
There was still some DOS functionality as of NT 4.0, but I beleive it was mostly removed for Win2000.
>>>>>>
There is no DOS functionality in NT. All DOS programs are run in a virtual machine. That virtual machine is more or less unchanged in Win2K.
NT is also a microkernel, which means it naturaly has some extra overhead in it that Linux's monolithic
kernel does not. The still-mostly-vapor GNU HURD is also a microkernel. If done properly, the extra
overhead isn't that much. The question is, did Microsoft do it properly? I don't really know.
>>>>>
Yes MS did it properly. The things holding back NT don't tend to be core system related at all. It's all the stuff MS added on top that sucks. NT4 for example is a good bit faster than Linux for most desktop-type operations. However, when you look at Windows2000 with all the crap they added (active desktop and all) you notice it's much slower. NT doesn't suffer so much from core-system bloat and bugs, but stuff-added-on-top bloat and bugs.
In any case, its much easier for hackers to create a stable and speedy core system, while difficult for them to make a good UI.
>>>>>>>
Just plain wrong. BeOS: Fast stable, good UI. QNX: Fast, stable, decent UI. There are a whole bunch of systems out there that are fast and stable, and have good UIs to boot. Even Quartz seems to be pretty fast (in so far as a DPDF system can be.)
On the other hand, its far easier for a corperate project to make a reasonably good UI, but
diffcult to make a stable and speedy core system.
>>>>>
Again, not true. QNX is probably more stable than Linux and a more stable to boot (at least according to those who've used it.) Again, BeOS is managed by a corporation, and stability and speed aren't exactly high on Be users' lists of complaints.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Okay...fair enough. It doesn't seem at all unreasonable that an 8-way Intel box can beat a Sun or HP box for speed on a CPU-intensive task. I just don't see what the OS has to do with it, really. Beyond handling SMP, the OS's job, in this case, is really just to get the hell out of the way. More relevant considerations might be: is it stable? Does it play well with others? Can I administer it remotely? Sure, W2K comes with a telnet server built in. But Windows isn't and has never been command-line oriented. When I can add a new vhost to IIS via the command line, I'll be impressed.
It's well written, but will it change any I/T manager's mind? A lot of the reason why people choose NT as their server is because they're used to windows as their desktop, so they understand "how to drive it". People who aren't familiar with Unix will find setting up a Linux box with apache to be more intimidating than simply clicking a few buttons using NT. And, of course, these folks also don't know what they're missing in terms of reliability. We can try to tell them all this, of course --- and we should continue the efforts to do so. But ultimately, they need to experience Linux/Unix's reliability before they really get it. This is why efforts to retake the desktop are so important, in the long run. We need to make sure that it's not only just the elite technologists who can set up a web server or a print server. We need to be able to make it easy even for a MSCE to do it.....
you're dead wrong, and the guy you replied to was right on. Linux is useless without a support contract.
.
No. Your evidence does not support your argument.
Your first point is that your PHB won't approve use of Linux without a support contract. That goes to show that your boss is an idiot, but it says nothing about the utility of Linux
Your other point is (or at least appears to be) that the system won't work if the only Linux-knowledgeable employee leaves. That also doesn't show that Linux is "useless without a support contract". A boss less idiotic than yours would insist that the system is documented and handed over properly in the event that you depart.
I sympathize with anyone who works for a PHB, but "Linux is useless without a support contract" remains complete BS that shouldn't be seen outside the M$ FUD file whence it came.
Does a company who cares so very little about security belong in your server room?
In Linux, to add an ethernet card, and assign it an IP address, you have to either recompile the kernel or modules, then:
- insmod
- ifconfig eth0 ip.address up
Because Linux doesn't care about PnP-esque things, you can then move that NIC anywhere in the system and it will still work.If you install a NIC in Win2000 (Professional),
But, since WinX tracks PCI devices, if you MOVE that NIC, it suddenly gets ugly. You have to re-add the driver and re-configure the card, with the appropriate reboots. Then you get a message like "The IP address you assigned conflicts with the IP address assigned to another card. If that card is ever reinserted, a conflict will occur. Do you want to continue?" So Win2000 has some sort of configuration memory, and its waiting for the NIC to "come back" into the old PCI slot, at which point it will "remember" the old configuration."
This is all a pain, IMO. I prefer Linux because the OS is almost completely decoupled from the daemons (services) you're running, so that if you need to upgrade your SMB and NMB servers or their configurations, you simply restart them. IANAWin2000 Server guy, but I can't imagine that you can simply change your workgroup name, WINS server info, or heck, the actual SMB server code, without a reboot. The same goes for Apache/IIS.
Under WinX, all the system services are too integrated with the system itself. No wonder that my Win2000 Professional system is using 60MB at startup, without any apps running. Linux provides more of a "base platform" to run stuff ON, while Win2000 seems to assimilate your environment and daemons into one sort of ueber-OS.
That all being said, its a wonderful improvement over NT Workstation - USB support, IRQ sharing, multiple monitors, FAT32 support, while still retaining the NT-style security and full 32bitness.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I have win2k on my laptop, an IBM thinkpad 600, runs very nice. As far as servers, at work we run 3x(dual 500 xeon 1GB RAM) one for pdc, bdc, and exchange. all running NT 4 with SP 5. It is amazing that they run. no crashes. But i am scared as hell to touch them. I was going to upgrade to SP6, but then I said NO. good think I didn't. hell know if it would survive? One think I don't like about NT4 is all the silly permition crap. you have a permition for every damn thing. and to get something to work you have to play with it for an entire day just to get your ftp or www server up with authentication. Thanks why I don't like NT. Yes - I am an MCSE.....
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I'm sure there are other differences, but that one sort of jumps out at ya...
I've used 2k pro since about mid-jan 00. I've also used (in the last year or so) rh 6.1. suse 6.3, caldera "e-desktop" (is this a *real* linux distro?) and turbolinux 6.0. Here are my observations and conclusions.
1:) 2K seems to crash more often than any of the nix distros i have installed, though it doesnt take out the whole OS, which is a refreshing change in a m$ environment. This may well have a lot do do with all the crap i install though.
2:) If my house experiences a power cut, and my UPS fails, 2K can be rebooted without any heartache. IME, Linux (any distro) tends to fall on its arse. This will be disputed I am sure, but as I said, its all IME.
3:) When I download a file, I want to click it, and it installs. I don't want to have to type "gcc etc" or "tar -xvf etc", then make etc. Especially when I come home from the pub.
4:) As a server 0S, yes, I see the advantage of a nix distro. It is efficient and stable, and will run on most "old" hardware, without too much trouble. However, as a workstation environment, I prefer 2K tbh. It "feels" softer, more malliable. I *know* it isn't in real terms, but no matter how much I tweak Gnome or KDE, the "feel" isn't quite there.
5:) It's nice when my box stays up for months at a time. But as a workstation environment, it's not critical to be honest. 2K on this box stays up for weeks at a time without hassle, and that satisfies my needs. I guess if I was running a leet 0-day juarez ftp, I would want the box to be up for years on end, but i'm not.
6:)Quake 3 Arena runs better under 2K (with the latest voodoo drivers) than it does on my nix distros. Perhaps it's me being lame, but thats what i have observed.
7:) Having grown up to use the paradigm of the win(32) environment, 2K feels natural and familiar to use. This, I should imagine, is part of the reason many sysadmins choose the win* route over *nix. It's comfortable, point-and-click computing.
I suppose a direct comparison between the two OS's is a bit ambiguous; it depends on what you use it for (or what your users demand) in a real-life situation. Also, are we comparing 2k adv serv as a web server against nix/apache?; 2k pro against say redhat 6.2 as a dtop OS? Both are scaleable, to a degree, and both depend on how *you* set them up, with regards to stability and security.
I have no loyalties to either camp. If it's not broken, don't break it, i reckon, which is why I will stick to 2K as a workstation environment. cheers :::: /////NOMEX flame retardant posting pants \\\\\ = ON
Super Awesome Broadband
I have been using Linux since '96 and love it. Just recently I bought Win2k, with some extra cash, for my wife to have something to use at home that she can understand (She hates Linux. But she loves ;O) fetchmail). Well I got it home and started the install. It was brainless. No problems. So far so good. (Oh, I guess you wonder about my home system. Dual Celeron 366 (OC>450) 160MB;8.4GBhd;Voodoo 3 3000;BP6 Motherboard) After the install I was suprised to find that a stripped down version of IIS comes with it. (FTP,SMTP,e.t.c) I then configured it for my home network (PMFirewall/MASQ/PORTFW/e.t.c running on RH6.2 and various other Linux workstations). I got it to work with Samba, at this point I am hating myself for having pleasant feelings for M$. I grab some games I run on my work laptop (WIN98) and installed them thinking that this would BSOD it, worked just fine? I have had the system running for the past 5 days know problems, yet. Wife has been check her e-mail (manually ;O)), surfing internet, and various other tasks just fine. I took my Linux Q3A and used the hack from Loki's website and got it to run on WIN2K just fine. The graphics were ten times better than in Linux on the same machine (Linux needs better drivers). I hate to say it guys I am very impressed, so far.
Bottomline: WIN2K kinda OK. Hate the price.
Still love Linux and all of it's beautiful free complexities. Linux is still a better tool by a million miles.
--mayneMC
Here's the setup:
RedHat 6.0 on a Sparc 10 (That's a single 50mhz(?) processor) with 64 megs of RAM.
Win2k Adv Server on a Compaq dual P-Pro 166 with 128 megs of RAM.
On the Win2k machine, we *only* do web. Therefor there are no sharing, F&P is removed. Active Directory is removed, and 99% of the sites have Front Page installed. We also have PHP installed for one website, and perl available to all. There is a total of about 50 sites, all being very small, 2 - 3 pages, 1 to 5 pics.
On the Linux machine, we do web, mail, shells, and other management stuff. There are about a hundred personal websites, and about 75 more commercial sites. None of the sites on here are small, per say. For example, we host the official Camaro SS website, some government websites, and many normal business sites. Most sites are 20+ pages, with over 30 pics to play with. To me, that's decient size, maybe not to everyone. PHP and perl are, of course, available and widly used.
On to performance:
How about initial connect time. The Win2k box literally takes up to 3 seconds to start sending you data, while the linux box takes 1 - 2 seconds (Mail beats up this little machine =])
Response time, post initial connection: Win2k box and linux box are pretty quick, usually being next to instant, though the Win box seems to take a slight more time.
Stability: Not bad at all. We had inital problems with the Win2k box, but that was from Active Directory and that 50+ IP bug. We removed AD and have the latest patches/updates and now the box is firm. The linux box is the same, all the latest RH updates, and it never goes down, nor have real problems.
Annoyances in Win2k: Not having a decient way to admin FP-enabled webs without the Front Page program installed, or using the silly CLI util. MMC likes to quit responding, and lock. Easy to fix, but really annoying.
Annoyances in Linux: Er..Uhm..*thinks*..I kinda like Linux, no complaints.. =] Then again, it'd be *really* annoying if you didn't like the CLI.
Conclusion: If we didn't get Win2kAS for free, I wouldn't of considered running it. After using it and learning about it, I still wouldn't consider running it if I had to buy it. I like the low-overhead Linux can offer, and I feel it offers better bang for the lack-of-a-buck. I can't comment on how Win2k would be on a nice fast, expensive machine, but ISPs aren't the best place to go for the latest and greatest machines. I'll stick with my linux machines, thank you. Win2k was interesting to play with though, but so is everything new. =]
Linux is free but useless without a good support contract
Excuse me, but this statement is absolute BS. (and I won't even get started on how nonsense like this gets moderated as "informative").
I've never paid a penny on Linux support, much less "100K$/year" to hire a sysadmin. The few problems I had that couldn't be solved by RTFM'ing and checking HOWTOs were quickly fixed by asking questions of Linux users, whether in person, on newsgroups or in IRC.
"Total cost of ownership" for a small network providing basic (and a few other) services over the net and a LAN: ZERO.
Cost if I'd had to pay M$ prices, plus hire some M$CE to figure it our for me: several thousand dollars more.
...Linux is simpler and cleaner, and does what it does better and with fewer bugs and generally less weirdness.
...W2K is bigger, has a ton more features, and suffers from the usual microsoft "better to have a feature with bugs than to not have the feature at all" philosophy.
In particular, W2K finally has real directory services (which Linux lacks), better management instrumentation from WMI, better hot-plug PCI and disk support.
As usual, the real answer to these comparitive questions is "they have different strengths; it depends what you want to do." My rule of thumb: if it can be done easily and "normally" (ie no kernal hacking) on Linux, do it that way. If you have to use something else, use something else.
But remember, these are operating systems. Nobody in their right mind buys/installs operating systems; in the real world, people need applications, and operating systems are just there to support applications.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
i hope we can manage some sensible discussion on this, dont be surprised if the posts contain a Linux bias (but you would not have posted on Slashdot if you did not expect as much).
I can only say i have crashed windows 2000 serveral times but Microsoft have implemented "the not my fault system" so prevelant in Linux.
W2k still has lots of program crashes (netscape for example) just they dont take the whole operation system with them and so its not windows fault. You get to blame the specific program, much the way you hear Linux users complain about X or Netscape but rarely do they blame the OS.
Win2k adds all the annoying advertising and stupid frilly waste of space animations and effects of win98 and office 2000 (thankfully they can be turned off, but i cant seem to change the defaults).
RealPlayer however has repeatedly caused my Win2k to totally lock up, never to recover. I geuss what MS always said about 3rd party drivers being at fault actaully has an element of truth.
have not checked out the game support yet.
And to people saying Windows 2000 crashes for them, your either doing something wrong, or your installing "crap"
Why would anyone want to use an OS where you shouldn't install software because of fear of crashing the OS?
The single biggest headache regarding w2k is that its multiuser capabilities have not advanced one iota since DOS 1.0. While Terminal Server is included, and provides the necessary core functionality to allow multiple users on a single server, thus earning the check mark, the actual implementation is a nightmare. Why? Simple - the evil all-consuming Registry. Everything wants to touch it, but if you allow it then you lose 100% of whatever security you may have had. Security vs functionality is a traditional tradeoff, but this is insane. You can have a little of either, but none of the other. The simple fact is that Microsoft has no concept of how to design a multiuser system. Instead of allowing each user to customize various aspects of application behaviour with small text files in their home directory, much system behaviour is controlled instead by a single central repository. Fundamentally flawed design, plain and simple.
The 40 systems in our lab that don't run Unix converted from using NT server to w2k server over the summer break. It's been nothing short of a nightmare. Half the applications used are either broken or spew errors. Our beautiful unified dos/unix print quota system broke because w2k refuses to authenticate for samba (as usual, another release from Microsoft containing enough changes to intentionally break competitors' products). Active Directory trashes our DNS zone files, making them unmaintainable and routinely breaking mail and NFS. The list of problems goes on and on...
Microsoft has conclusively demonstrated that the only sane upgrade from NT4 is Unix. Don't buy the hype. w2k may crash less than its predecessors, but the headaches involved with it are no less numerous or severe. If you don't like Linux, use one of the BSD flavours. Microsoft is just not an option.
Believe it or not, but Windows 2000 also needs skilled administrators. Believe or not, but Linux (or Un*x in general) sysadmins are not rocket scientists. Believe it or not, both the Windows and the Linux sysadmin earn more or less the same amount of money (close enough as to be irrelevant for a large company).
So, in the end what's left is marketing perception, or that warm, fuzzy feeling inside that some IT managers get from having all their IT solutions coming from a single vendor (be it Microsoft, Sun, IBM or Unisys). It's not economical, but rather psychological. And it is this perception that Linux companies have to tackle in order to gain marketshare. And believe it, that's what they're doing, albeit with very small strides.
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
This may be a bit off topic, but it does fall into the windows vs. linux debate as far as ease of use is considered.
An aquantaince of mine is starting an online e-commerce site and decided to use win2k over linux since "its a naturally graphical envionment and therefore he can use it, whereas he simply CAN'T use anything with a text interface". Of course, linux has GUI capabilities, but lets assume for a moment that it didn't.
For an entire month, he spent every spare waking moment trying to get several e-commerce packages working on win2k, spending many hundreds of dollars in the process and spending many hours on phone with tech support. He even got so desparate he came to my house and banged on my door at 3 am screaming for help because he couldn't get it working (I couldn't either for that matter, but I wasnt' foolish enough to spend a month trying).
What I find somewhat depressing in this regard is he had also obtained a linux based e-commerce package, managed to install redhat all by himself and install the software and get it working without ANY problems, but chose instead to run win2k because he didn't know enough about linux and didn't want to spend the time learning it.
I find it quite humorous that he could have learned quite a lot in those 30 days. I really think this is the mentality that pervades many people in a position to choose between the two.
Pity.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I have worked with both VERY extensively, from playing with every gadget Win2k server offers, to making my own linux distrobution for a standalone product (to be revieled in the future).
:)
Windows is meant to be pretty. It accomplishes it. And its meant to use **the right software**. I run windows 2000 professional on my home machine, have been so since the early beta days, and it HAS NOT CRASHED. You have to treat it properly. I.E. Not installing shit software. When you take the NT kernel and play the game the way it likes, you will be successful.
I guess its possible to say roughly the same thing for linux, except that things are more clearcut. Linux/BSD (dont forget about bsd) can do everything that win2k can do, with the exception of running windows binaries perfectly (by perfectly i mean executing the code as it was meant by the developer).
Personally, my servers are linux and bsd, and my workstations are win2k. Its all about the sysadmin creating a solution to mold the two, which i have found to be extrordinarily easy and fruitful. Why not Linux/X on the workstations? Why the hell is that a good idea? X Crashes, netscape crashes. In win2k using it over a year, my explorer has NOT crashes, and IE has NOT crashed. Ive used both extensively, and its much better to pay for win2k (150 for oem client). Its chumpchange compared to how much you will save in support costs.
BTW, Windows 2000 has great multimedia support. Plus support for dual processors makes it even better.
in recap, I am basically saying that when you have a REAL system administrator (NOT MCSE, NOT CERTIFIED, HELL NO COLLEGE), someone that knows things in and out, and can get things done, either solution works. Its all about the needs, and what OS 3rd party applications are made to run on.
And to people saying Windows 2000 crashes for them, your either doing something wrong, or your installing "crap" (i.e. netscape, realplayer, etc.). Yes, theres no point in netscape when IE Renders better, renders faster, is built for the OS, and does NOT crash in Win2k. The only reason to run netscape is to show your support for it, and its too bad nobody cares anymore
I agree - I am nothing but impressed with W2K Advanced Server. I have extensive experience with Solaris/HP/AIX in a production environment, and we have been playing with W2K recently.
I decided to port some production solaris code to W32 to do some 'real world' tests. These apps take large (12+ GB) files from a mainframe and process them for a datawarehouse. They are C++ programs that do file processing --- file in (read) --- manipulate the data (process) --- and file out (write) (the port was simple - no code changes). They are very processor intensive (not so much disk).
We have an 8 way P800 (for W2K AS) and a 24x E10000 and several K class HP's. I moved the data files to the W2K box and ran the fileproc app 8 times at low priority each working on a different file at the same time. This used 100% of the box. Because it was running at low priority, all other box functions worked beautifully. You could not tell they were running from a system perspective. So far just like HPUX or Solaris from a scheduling perspective. A single file test on NT4 Server has same result - the scheduling piece is not new...
The good news is that the W2K box ran all 8 programs in 2 hr 47 minutes. The same result took 5 hr 56 min on the E10000 (6 mths old - 100% of 8 procs) and 14 hr 45 min on HP UX 11 on a 6 way K. Couldn't test AIX box :( I am predicting the results would be similar to the K
Pretty telling - we are now in the process of moving all our mainframe file manipulation software and reporting to W32. The current plan is to sell the 10000 and buy another 8 way or possibly Datacenter. The money saved on hardware is incredible.
BTW - for fun I tried this on Linux box (RH6.1), but the SMP and filesystem (can't handle file's that big) problems prevented any sort of real tests to work. Did work on a 2 way box, but the results were uninspiring (1 program took 4:23) on a cut 2 gb file. Same code - all optimized for the platform and processor.
And for those that haven't used Winders since 3.1 (most of slashdot) - I can have a terminal from anywhere in the world to do remote admin. All the arguments are gone guys - I seriously believe the days of UNIX are numbered. Please check your own facts - ours are strong enough to phase unix out of our shops in the next 12 months.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.