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SuSE 7.3 vs XP
rutledjw writes: "This should be good for some flame wars. A story on HPWorld that I read about on NewsForge gives an interesting comparison between XP and Linux. I personally think the story wanders a little and wouldn't call it comprehensive, but it is interesting. It does point out a particular bottleneck in how the 2.4.x kernels handle asynchronous IO. Apparently this is being addressed in the 2.5 kernels..." It actually appears quite low-flame and balanced, and unlike some Linux vs. Windows comparisons, goes into decent detail rather than just glib generalizations.
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a lot of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, ext2fs, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other UNIX file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows ext2fs out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to ext2fs would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
The other proposed 'solution', ext3fs, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient ext2fs file system remain in ext3fs, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
jezus fucking christ dude... re-read this thread and get a clue.. think VERSIONS... remember.. VERSIONS.... just a friendly tip..
It'd be like comparing....Mac OS X and Windows XP, or OS 9 and Windows 2000.....
Or a Ferrari and a Mercedes
Or a Honda Civic or a BMW
This should be good for some flame wars.
No it shouldn't. You suck!
;-)
Fuck you are so stupid.
Thank God MS is here, insted we woulbe forced to draw our diagrams and pictures with nothing but command line if people like you were running the show.
I are too old, you are Cobol dude, go away, your time is past.
I actually run XP and Suse 7.3. I use XP for actually doing things and Suse for playing. That way I dont get too upset when an app says " this is not yet implemented" i.e. what you thought was an application is really a bit of crap which doesn't work.I have yet to find anything on the XP CD that does not work. I use Star Office and MS Office and email stuff to and fro. I also use Emacs for coding and Komodo on Windows. Believe me, in the real world, on a home PC, ANY windows is better than ANY linux