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Microsoft To Start Running Anti-Unix Ads
PhreakinPenguin writes: "According to this article on News.com, Microsoft and Unisys are preparing to pay for a slew of ads to 'undermine' Unix with the theme of 'We have the way out.' They are apparently hyping that Unix is an expensive money trap. One ad states, 'No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system. It requires you to pay for expensive experts. It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever.' Unisys is apparently putting up $25 million and Microsoft won't say how much they're chipping in but you can bet it's more than Unisys." As the article notes, this comes after floundering attempts to sell (through Dell, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard) the high-end Unisys machines pushed by these ads.
Doesn't Microsoft already own enough of the world? You think they could leave UNIX geeks alone.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I'd rather pay for expensive experts than hand over $4 for a six pack of MCSEs.
Either you pay someone who really knows what they are doing well for the job, or you pay some jerk who only thinks he knows what he is doing next to nothing. Guess which one costs you more in the long run. Why don't businesses look to the long run? (I really want to know)
nahtanoj
Nice business practices, MS. You'd think you could prove that your product is superior through example, not slander. If these ads are half as bad as they seem, I say IBM starts making commercials full of BSoD's and says explicitly: "You will never see a blue screen of death with Unix".
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
It would be nice to see Sun and IBM, etc.. to start running some straight on anti-microsoft ads. I do like Sun's comment
"As for Unix being 'inflexible,' 'expensive,' and 'complex,' we feel those are terms much better suited to the closed and proprietary world of Windows."
Now if they will only put that into an ad of their own, that whole reply, sums up this marketing campaine very nicly.
Remember XENIX anyone? In fact, until Caldera bought out SCO, Microsoft used to own part of it. Does Microsoft own Caldera stock now? Wouldn't that be ironic.
Warren Postma
sed -e '/Unix/Microsoft/' < Microsoft.ad
If you're talking about an older version of UNIX tied to a specific vendor, Microsoft MAY have a point... but the little secret that Microsoft doesn't want you know is that Unix in general is becoming more open-source AND is becoming more of a commodity rather than a specific that runs only on specific hardware.
I guess what I'm saying is that Unix is losing more and more market share to operating systems like Linux. (Linux is NOT unix, although it's quite similar) This is especially true administrators (rather than corporate commitees) get to pick the operating system to use.
A good case in point is the market share and mind share of Solaris and Linux. Sun Microsystems just recently released the source code of Solaris under a "community license" (which is NOT the same thing as GPL, but it's the best we can expect from Sun Microsystems). Did Sun have to release the source code? Not really. But it knows it would lose MORE mind share to Linux if it didn't.
MS can crow all they want that Unix is hard to use - and I might have thought so, until I used OS X. Great GUI (needs some tweaking, but hell, what doesn't), start ssh, ftp, and Apache with a click of the mouse, and you can go configure the .conf files if you want - or if you don't want.
Yes, Unix is inflexible. That's why open source Linux runs on nearly every piece of hardware you can find. I use it for my Day Job web/general Unix servers, running on cheap desktops or expensive rack mount units.
Consultants are expensive. I can actually go out and buy a book on Unix, then look at the source code of FreeBSD, Linux, Darwin - and change things myself. Oh, good god, adduser is so hard to figure out.
Oh, yeah. Unix is so hard. Especially when those blue screens of death pop up that interfere with my work or those proprietary API's that I can't get all the info to, and - oh wait. Unix doesn't have that.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Let's face it, everyone wants to see the results now and get their work "done" - if that means having to scrap and rewrite a system 2 years from now, they don't want to hear it. We'll deal with it when that time comes in 2 years. And in 2 years, we'll again build a throw-away, far-from-good solution and start all over again.
And with the people controlling the money not listening to the whys and hows that get them into the predicament (and forgetting what they decided last WEEK, let alone last YEAR, that put them there), you're pretty much stuck dealing with the cheap route all the time.
I believe Unisys is one of the companies that sells the huge 64 way x86 boxes that Windows 2000 Datacenter runs on, and thus is directly competitive to UNIX big iron.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Between Intel and Microsoft, I'd have to say the two companies do more negative campaigning in the business world in one year than most local, state or federal politicians do throughout the course of an election.
So, what's the solution? 3 options.
If Unix sucks, I'll switch to Linux.
{{.sig}}
No, I heard they're courting a bunch of retired NFL stars for a football-themed commercial.
It hurts when I pee.
It shouldn't take IBM, et al, long to start running ads that show an MS-only shop having all the boxes go down simultaneously. Then, the CIO goes looking for who can get things fixed, he can only find clowns in the IT department saying "maybe we should just hit all the reset buttons." Maybe dressing the fools up like clowns would make the point that much better.
*sigh* Everyone knows you get what you pay for. Expensive employees generally pull their weight. A clown that only knows MS products isn't much better than a trained monkey.
Of course, I think MS has a place in businesses--just like *nix. Companies really should diversify their operationing systems so that they can take full advantages of each. MS Win2K just isn't as good of a webserver, for example, as many of the *nixes. And a Win2K Server is nice for tying together a bunch of Windows workstations. Exploit the advantages of each.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Netcraft says:
The site www.wehavethewayout.com is running Rapidsite/Apa-1.3.14 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.5a on FreeBSD.
I wonder, does this kind of ad really works?
I thought that it was generally believed that everyone immediately sees through "we-will-help-you-get-away-from-evil-competitor" ads. Giving the viewer the completely wrong impressions.
But on the other hand, Unisys and Microsoft. They are not exactly known for caring what the customer thinks as long as they pay.
-->> It requires you to pay for expensive experts. --
So MS would prefer the usual and currently employed monkeys run servers as opposed to an expensive expert.
It's expensive for any GOOD expert. It just happens cheap self made experts have read the windows help file and aren't familiar with the man command.
grrr
Oh, and if hiring a sysadmin is expensive, I guess they haven't taken a look at the going rate for MSCEs lately, have they? Just because a 15 year old kid could administer your machines for Mountain Dew and Pizza doesn't mean you should run your business like that.
I wish someone like IBM or Solaris would do a similar ad against Microsoft.
I know how much Unix paid for an anti M$ ad campaign.
$5 subscribtion to slashdot.
--
The thing that struck me most was this concept of "expensive experts." I could easily see them expanding this campaign by inserting adjectives like "condescending", "difficult to communicate with", "obnoxious", and even "completely other, alien, and kinda creepy." These are all representative of the impression regular folks seem to have of the sysadmin, from what I can tell. As opposed to the impression of your average MS-savvy (love those two words together) "computer guy" who helps get you back on the network or shows you where your downloads go.
Maybe the bearded ones need a PR campaign.
:wq
For Microsoft to build a campaign against UNIX would be like Coke or Pepsi promoting a campaign against the evils of water.
UNIX is the backbone of the Internet. It started with university and military computers, and is still based on these technologies. It has spawned many successful clones and variants, including BSD, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, IRIX, and many more. And virtually ALL of these versions work well together and can exchange code.
Not that this is surprising, but Microsoft is arrogant to point of giving the finger to God. This is really a sign is disrespect for everything built over the years by the blood, sweat and tears of the first network pioneers.
Unisys sounds like it has little to lose since it's been sitting on its corporate butt so long that even the oldest of us have forgotten what they've recently done in the computing world.
I'm not making a righteous stand for just the UNIX world. Microsoft is really a company with poor ethical practices and should be recognized as such.
Microsoft could have it all by realizing that practically all its major competitors have a UNIX base in their OS, even Apple. Instead of fighting the UNIX family, they could cash in simply and easily by moving the Windows NT/XP base to a true UNIX base, and create (the usual closed-source) apps in UNIX versions that can be compiled for virtually every UNIX family OS. (Not that everyone would want the apps, but at least it would be there..)
But NOOOOOO...
I was ranting on how OSS was too disorganized to fight MS in certain market attacks--that OSS lacks a defined leader. This instance is an exception. There are plenty of corporate makers and users of UNIX who might jump on the big MS "screw you" bandwagon and even pump up some cash in the corporate and legal system to get MS to shut their corporate pie hole.
Pissing off the U.S. Government is one thing. Pissing off other big businesses is quite another.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
my $bs = "No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system. It requires you to pay for expensive experts. It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever";
$bs =~ s/unix/microsoft/i;
$bs =~ s/complex/nonsense/i;
$bs =~ s/expensive/clueless/i;
print $bs;
Not only is it the wrong tactic, but it will hurt them in the enterprise services world. There's a reason the stock market uses Sybase ASE and not sql server. No matter how much money microsoft puts into getting high TCP numbers, real DBA's know the difference. Here's to hoping microsoft continues this line of advertising and continue to shoot themselves in the foot in the enterprise services world.
Has anyone seen those RoadRunner ads where the Internet is mad slow under dialup? Sun should have some kind of ad where some guy is really stressed and grabbing his hair and it zooms in on the screen saying "Your computer has crashed. Send $1000 to Bill Gates, 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond WA and we might consider fixing it in ten years."
Then again, to acknowledge M$ gives them a tint of credibility. Funny that MS can't compete on its own merits.
Large servers are where Windows has never done well; Wintel scales up to 4-way reasonably easily, 8-way at a push and 16-way is very rare. 32-way is only available from Unisys, and from what I've heard, there's some klunky stuff in the background to make it work.
Compare this to Sun/SGI who have had >=64-way for years without any kludges to make it that way. A Sunfire 15K with 72 processors handles pretty much like a 2-way E220R.
Because their investors, which generally include the upper management, don't intend to hold onto their stock for the long run. They want to make a quick buck selling it, or recover a quick profit from destroying the company. Obviously, this isn't always true - Microsoft looks to the long run, for example :(.
Personally, I think this is a really stupid ad campaign on MS' part. The only thing I can think is they've deluded themselves into believing their product is somehow superior. I suppose there are a few people, who think (or hell, maybe they can) that they could maintain an MS server themselves but couldn't maintain a Unix server, who might fall for the line, but not very many.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
"It requires you to pay for expensive experts."
I see, like those MCSE's that they claim earn an average of $80k a year. Hmmm. An AVERAGE of $80k doesn't sound that inexpensive to me.
Especially since most of the ones I've run into know little to nothing about computers. We actually hired one (don't ask me why) who didn't know you could hook up a printer thru a zip drive, I wish I were making this up.
Sounds like MS is experiencing a panic attack of some sort.
I think Microsoft has begun to learn a little about high end computing. Remember a few years ago when all the trade rags were writing Unix obit, claiming MS was going to eat their lunch with cheap high end WinTel boxes (of course, MS [like any other company] were feeding this line of bull to everyone).
Well it looks like MS have learned there's a reason that high end, rock solid industrial strength computing isn't cheap. You can't just bung Windows on commodity hardware and expect it to 24/7. So the advantage that MS had at the departmental level in the past (cheaper and easier to use than its competitors, lest we forget that that was a major selling point of Windows in the 90s) it doesn't have on the high end. Unix is entrentched and competative price wise. MS are going to have a VERY HARD time eeking out market share at the high end. They'll have some successes, but the world will not be running on MS Big Iron any time soon (if ever)
Apparently MS doesnt know thier own pricing for calling thier Tech Support with an incident?
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
Microsoft, previously, has been in the position that they didn't have to compete with anybody. In fact, if you look at all of their advertisements in magazines, you see that they only refer to themselves when trying to pump one product over another (NT vs 95). It seems that now they are facing competition that just isn't moving, and they are having to actually face that competition.
It puts them in a position of weakness, not of strength. This ad campaign will do more for UNIX than it does for Microsoft, because Microsoft will have to admit that it is facing competition, and UNIX is being chosen by experts. This will be the biggest blow to Microsoft's corporate image in many years.
Engineering and the Ultimate
as opposed to expensive idiots?
I drank what? -- Socrates
MS Marketer 1: Hmm we need to come up with lots of ideas that make UNIX look bad.
MS Marketer 2: I know, lets take all the customer complaints about Windows and replace any mention of Windows with UNIX.
MS Marketer 1: Brilliant! No wonder why we get 6 figure salaries.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Do you people honestly expect them to cheerlead for unix. They are a business for crissake and unix is their arh-nemesis.
And advertising does work. That is the only way for people to know you exist (at least in a competetive commercial environment).
The site has a couple of PDFs .. ahem, I think I will ;-)
need an hourly wget/cron job, ahem
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Check out www.wehavethewayout.com - the official campaign site. It runs FreeBSD!
According to netcraft
Check out the netcraft results here.
It seems to me the new free UNIX and UNIX-like OS's are the true way out. Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc. All run very well (arguably better than MS products) on inexpensive Intel x86 hardware. They also run on the current higher end 64 bit platforms (Sparc, Alpha, Itanium) and will run on the newer 64 bit procs from AMD. Incredibly flexible IMHO.
Sure, maybe proprietary UNIX on big iron is slowly being replaced, but free and open source UNIX/Linux will be there to take its place.
A lot of the selling points that MS is focusing on in the ad campaign actually speak better for the free/open UNIX and UNIX-like alternatives than of MS's own products.
"No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in (Microsoft licensing anyone?). It ties you to an inflexible system (ahem, Microsoft?!?). It requires you to pay for expensive experts (MCSE |= EXPERT). It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex (Microsoft - The epitome of complexity) than ever."
Well, they've sold me. I'm sticking with Linux!
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Is it just me or are some versions of Unix (or Unix like OSes) are free.
"One ad states, 'No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system..."
Unix (and Unix like OSes) run on just about every platform under the sun. Windows only runs on x86 and Alpha (didn't it used to run on PPC too?)
"...It requires you to pay for expensive experts..."
Why not look up the starting salary of an MCSE and tell me who's expensive.
"...It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever."
Windows seems to be getting more complex than ever to me. While at the same time, projects on Linux (easily portable to other Unicies if not there already) are making things easier than ever.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
But then again microsoft wants you to beleive that these idiots who can install MS Office and other software are IT experts. They spend an eternity filling in these forms, called configuration tools and have to wait for a service pack to secure a server. While it may work in some cases the time these individuals take to finish the job ends up costing you more than the true experts in the feild. Irrelavent which OS you use.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Don't forget last year, when MS sent out those "public service announcements" that touted the expiration date of NetWare! Novell was pissed about that, and got the ads pulled. (Rumor has it that NetWare 6 is the last one, but you didn't hear that from me.)
This ad campaign will probably backfire on them. Most smart IT people have had enough dealings with MS in the past to recognize marketing FUD when they see it.
I've adminned for several years in very diverse-OS environments (NT, 2000, NetWare, Unix, OS2, etc.) If (and only if) you truly know about the inner guts of NT/2000, you can build stable, secure environments with it. I've had uptimes of a year or so (not the norm, but it does happen!) Lots of "experts" think they're NT/2K wizards because it's got the same GUI that their desktop does. I've gone into environments with NT/2000 boxes several service packs out of date, missing all the security fixes, etc.
MS's ads state that Unix vendors lock you in. They do, but they're at least a little more reasonable than they have been in the past. Windows' main strength in this regard is that if you hate your server vendor, you can fire him and get a new server. Sun makes you buy Sun hardware. So does HP. Linux and freeBSD are some of the only remaining Intel choices, and most businesses aren't ready to give up tech support and easy availability of consulting help yet. MS also mentions expensive experts. Yes, Unix admins are expensive, but MS is probably assuming that its half-a-million MCSEs are all experts. As a holder of that certification, I can tell you that this is a falsehood. Even the MCSE/2K exams were easier than I had hoped they would be. You get what you pay for, as always!
(Scince I'm not sure whether those adds were used outside Germany: It showed four mutated penguins and stated that "an open system isn't always an advantage" or something like that - it basically dissed Linux' flexibility...)
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
And have you ever watched a Solaris server start refusing connections when the /tmp partition is full?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
At the risk of losing some Karma, wasn't it on this very site where I saw an ad at the top of the page depicting a giant penguin terrorizing Redmond? If the topic here is a company trashing a competing OS in their ads, it bears noting that this coin has two sides.
Based on what I can see about the Unisys systems being touted here (servers with 8-32 processors, costing six-digit dollar amounts), this is not an ad targetting Linux or MacOS X-style BSD. This is aiming squarely at the proprietary UNIX systems Unisys' servers would be competing against -- Sun, HP/UX and the like.
Of course, I've not touched base with the high-end UNIX server market in years. Can someone else fill me/us in on who Unisys' competitors are, and whether or not the ads have any foundation at all?
Sun responded to the campaign in a statement.
"Sun still does not see Microsoft as a real threat in
the datacenter market where reliability, availability,
serviceability and security are key," [snip]
"We are all about customer satisfactionability, system
uptimeability, and cracker stopability", added Scott McCowboyNeal.
--
I worked for a database company a number of years ago, whose product had to work on _everything_. I ran a build/test lab with probably 200 different combinations of Unix/hardware. I remember the Unisys boxes to be some of the nastiest, running a pretty much stock SVR4, IIRC. SVR4 without any embellishments is no fun at all.
It's only been in the last couple years that Intel CPUs have been able to run in the same league as SPARC/MIPS/PA-RISC/Power-whatever, but the surrounding hardware never kept up, which is why, other than the most bleeding edge/vaporware IA-64 machines (e.g., the IA-64 version of HP's Superdome), you don't see any 128-way partitionable HA Intel boxes.
There's only so much you can do with 15 IRQs.
A series of short shots of a number of people saying, "I believe in Unix." While this could include big companies which buy unix hardware, the add should also have these people: Jobs, McNeally, new guy at IBM, Linus. It'd be fun.
While this may seem like a gotcha, remember the fact that this ad push isn't intended to make people switch from apache to iis, it is intended for high server performing data crunching.
If anything, the site running on FreeBSD could be spun as Microsoft knowing the advantages of unices, having used the variants themselves, and still believing their high-end servers are better for more serious tasks.
Whatever, just playing devil's advocate.
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
Check out the "ecommunity" they want you to sign up for...
.jsp), no ASP/ASP.NET here...
1. it's using Java Server Pages (notice the
2. it's using IIS 4.0 on NT4....no W2K/IIS5....
This is entirely too funny.
Bugs Bunny was right.
"It ties you to an inflexible system"
Unix is an inflexible system? Let's see... it's totally modular (even more so in the case of Mach or the Hurd), Linux allows you to build literally any kind of system you want, and completely separates system from user processes to allow the kernel to be kept relatively small and tidy. Yup. That sounds *really* inflexible to me. Windows ties system and user processes together, ties the user to Microsoft programs for things as simple as text editing, has a registry system which invariably falls on it's face.. but it's flexible. That's really rich. Some Harvard MBA must've come up with this campaign.
I know this from dealing with them. It runs their whole business. It is even, as an earlier poster said, "an old Unix tied to a vendor". That makes me laugh...
we speak the way we breathe --Fugazi
check out the flying boy ad. i have no idea if they are going to air this or not, it was shown at their brain share conference last week.
h om e_video.jsp
http://www.novellbrainshare.com/portal/content/
ugh. if the preview function is to be believed, there is likely to be a space between the m and e in "home" in the url. be aware of that when you cut and paste the url into your browser.
It requires you to pay for expensive experts.
And the other side of that coin is, "If you get an MCSE, we're busy telling your boss that you should work cheap." How long can they get away with screwing over the people who support their products?
Nope, no sig
That a Unix bashing site hosted by Microsoft/Unisys is actually running on a Unix box.
A HTTP HEAD reveals the following:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 14:58:02 GMT
Server: Rapidsite/Apa-1.3.14 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.5a
Last-Modified: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 20:52:25 GMT
ETag: "11f79ad-2595-3ca38289"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 9621
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
And, just for the record, a 768-processor Origin 3000 from SGI works just like a 2-processor Origin 300. If you ignore little hardware differences that don't affect your apps, it also runs just like a 1-processor Origin 200 or Octane from five years ago.
I had the privilege of getting time on SGI's 768-processor system in Minnesota several months ago. It was... nice.
Bill Joy bashes Microsoft.
What did you expect? Ads from Ford promoting Chevy? Burger King touting Big Macs? Its business, and business is war. Get over it.
meh.
..noting some of the inherent weaknesses in MS products and point out the fact that mostly all modern services for the most part rely on unix systems?
You could start by showing ticketing systems, web servers, scientific computing, engineers hard at work on a complex design,... quick cuts with a cool fast paced music and a voiceover explaining what is happening..
..and then cut to a battleship in the water and show a computer inside the ship first showing a windows startup screen and then bluescreening(maybe with a flashing red "computer error" added for effect) with a sound of engines turning off and people running frantically around with a final voiceover: "would you want our nations future to depend on unsafe software and put our brave men in danger when fighting for our freedom.. choose right, choose the most trusted name in computing.. choose unix".
Yeah.. sounds corny, but it could be a powerful message if done right(not to imply that the above is "right").
Excuse me? Sounds like you know Unix better than you know Microsoft. BOTH factions can scale, BOTH factions are flexible. Get deep enough into either OS and you'll find they're pretty interchangable.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
This is a very dangerous strategy for Microsoft. Imagine that some PHB takes the ad seriously and starts checking to see what the costs are in their computing environment and what the "lock-in" issues are?
Gartner and other places will tell that PHB that Windows costs *more* than UNIX (licensing, support). And we all know about the "lock-in" of Windows software (*cough* Office, exchange, etc.) and file formats.
I think that anyone that does a serious analysis of the claims in the ad will come away with the opposite view than Microsoft wants them to have.
Something in my dinner must have been spoiled last night, becasue this dream isn't even funny.
Microsoft, the monopolist, the Marquis de "lock-in", the ace of audits, the prince of product activation, the squire of "We don't need no stinkin' interoperability", is running ads warning IT shops about painting themselves into corner?
Damn!
At least the whine about expensive experts makes sense. Anybody dumb enough to buy this pitch is sure to feel uncomfortable around people who know what they're doing.
Let's have a poll on this subject. Who can name the MS products that have produced the smallest revenue compared to the money that MS invested in development and marketing. Two of the biggest money pits at MS have been:
(1) Windows DataCenter. This product has thoroughly bombed. Last year it was rumored that only a couple dozen had made it out the door.
(2) MS BizTalk Server. Another "MS Enterprise" computing product that despite _immense_ marketing spend, is really sucking ass.
MS is doing this marketing campaign because their enterprise computing strategies have thus far fallen off a cliff. This is just more money thrown to the wind. People aren't buying MS enterprise computing product.
Oh, and give aways like IE don't count for this poll.
:-)
It appears that only Microsoft looks to the long run, because they nearly *always* make Microsoft products look like a good short-term decision.
I share your amazement that American business just hasn't managed to figure this out.
It's the same thing with adoption of Open Source. It seems more important to be able to play the blame game than to take matters into your own hands, and make sure your IT infrastructure stays up, though *you* might have to take some blame for an outage.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Both the Republican and Domocrat parties have announced their intention to run "anti-other-guy" ads during the upcoming election campaign process.
A spokesman for the Republican Party had this to say: "Microsoft is a well-known innovator, and the Republicans are going to follow their innowations and give them all the visible support we can. We're not sure how these "mud-slinging" ads will work, but hey, if Microsoft does it, it must be OK, right?"
Diane Feinstein issued this statement: "Fuck you! Fuck America! I piss on the Bill of Rights! What...Anti-Opponent Ads? Oh, yeah, well, we just want to point out how the Republicans are not as sensitive as we are to modern day issues. If you'd like more information, send your check to..."
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I love this quote:
Sun responded to the campaign in a statement. "Sun still does not see Microsoft as a real threat in the datacenter market where reliability, availability, serviceability and security are key," the company said. "As for Unix being 'inflexible,' 'expensive,' and 'complex,' we feel those are terms much better suited to the closed and proprietary world of Windows."
Like Solaris never had security holes, their source code is widely available for anyone to download, and their systems are made from standardized and off-the-self hardware components that don't cost a lot to replace. Oh yeah, and Solaris doesn't cost a lot, either.
Typewriters? Would you trust your valuable data to a typewriter company?
Actually, before 1873 Remington was (surprise, surprise) a gun company.
Time to bring back the How to shoot yourself in the foot with [insert-OS-here] thread? :-)
It ties you to an inflexible system.
I know you are but what am I?
It requires you to pay for expensive experts.
I know you are but what am I?
It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever
I know you are but what am I?
There really isn't anything Unix can do that Microsoft can't anymore
Can I use ssh to fully remotely administer my Microsoft platforms serving files, printers, http, databases and email/groupware?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I'm thinking of something similar to those car ads where owner one keeps asking owner two if the model he has, has same features.
They could have a purple Mercedes or some other obviously nice quality vehicle. standing next to a Yugo with all the body panels and doors in mismatched Microsoft colors. Even just a picture of the two vehicles in profile, side by side, with the line "which one would you want?"
for the extra twist of the knife the drivers in the Yugo can squeel that "you don't have to know what you're doing when you own one of these".
Heck I right now freely give Sun the permission to use this idea. No Cost. No such permission is granted to anyone promoting Microsoft.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
For the last 8 years, from a advertising POV, UNIX has been considered dead. Most 'small' computer shops (they sold NOVELL for years, now just Microsoft) had bought hook, line and sinker the Microsoft Mantra about the death of UNIX.
How many remember HP's announcements of 1994-95 that they were not going to do alot of development on HP-UX, but instead focus on NT?
What would be NICE is if the "This is a Linux program" software authors saw themselfs as UNIX coders - but rather than 'a rising tide floating all boats' you have press releases from (defunct) companies like Progeny Linux saying 'we are better because we are not unix.'
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Ok, find me a windows operating system that will scale to 64 procs and 128 gigs of memory....Now go find me one that scaled to 512 procs and 1 terrabyte of memory. I'm waiting as I'm dying to play return to castle wolfenstein on it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I didn't say they were illegal.
All I'm saying is this:
IBM has donated oodles of money to the OSS cause. However, all of their ads are rather modest. IBM has EVERY right to come out swinging with anti-microsoft ads. They could be bastards, too, but -- as always -- Microsoft beat them to the bastard boat.
What's happening is this:
Microsoft is getting the shit beat out of them in the server market (or, rather, they see the onslaught approaching) and they're floundering, doing anything they can to prolong the inevitable.
I agree, what they're doing isn't illegal.
It's just lame.
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
Oh how the memories are short lived
:
"Better UNIX than UNIX" anyone?
while trying to find a good attribution for this Bill Gates quote reputedly at an expo I found this little gem
http://www.adt.ru/~las/antims/UnixExpo/
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
No, but you can use MMC, or Remote Desktop in an equally secure and easy fashion.
Actually, now that I think about it, you CAN use ssh to removely administer the box. A great deal of the operating system is now exposed to CLI administration. Not that I'd want to. Terminal Server/Remote Desktop is a MUCH better experience.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
An MSCE is upposed to be someone well trained to use MS products. An RHCE is one that is supposed to be able to use RH servers.
Have you ben thorugh the process for a RHCE? Do you know what the test is like? I haven't done it personally, but I have talked with those who have.
You can't just regurgitate some book learning. You need to know how to setup servers and handle a computer. They actually have you troubleshoot a purposefully broken computer. If you can't diagnose it, you don't pass.
That sounds a bit of a more practical exam then: "what are seven layers of the OSDI model of networking?" Just because you know the answer to that, does not mean you can setup a DHCP network, let alone one that has NIS authentication on local clients.
Where I work, we have several MSCE's and MCP's. I wouldn't trust them to find thier own ass with two hands and a set of mirrors.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
At nasa we tried purchasing a NT cluster system. It absolutely sucked from the start. It is now a Scyld Beowulf cluster running PBS and it is doing data mining on atmospheric data in multi petabyte databases. Interchangeable? in your dreams.
Unix is dead. Linux, on the other hand, isn't unix.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Wait. What?
Oh, Unix.
Well, if that's the case, screw Gates and his flying monkeys.
I have to assume you either fell through a synchrotron beam this morning or your coffee pot was too close to the uranium plasma frabulator. Foo help us if you're serious. Unless you really like to watch a windows box try to count past 4.
Anyway, I view these ad's as Microsoft caving. They obviously trying to break into the "big iron" market. To bad M$! Unix will be pretty much impossible to replace.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
When the average consumer sees this ad, they'll say, "what's unix?", and probably think of neutered people. I'm glad that Microsoft has the way out... I don't want to lose my sexuality.
- passion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In a way, long duration space probes do work like that. If some RAM in one these probes goes bad, then the software in the probe marks it and uses other memory. Come to think of it, there is a BADRAM patch for the Linux kernel but I wouldn't use a thing like that unless it emailed me that it had to map out some RAM. For that matter, Big Iron tends to be massively redundant and rarely goes down all at once. You can repair the parts that are bad while the parts that are good have a higher load for awhile. That is a large part of why the Big Iron costs so much.
Is Windows flexible enough to run without the unnecessary overhead of a GUI on a server? No.
These are just two of many, many examples. Windows is an appropriate option as a desktop OS for people that are used to it (albeit a very expensive option). Outside of that, I can't think of a single application where I'd use it.
Advertising is very powerful. The effect of this advertising will be to more firmly establish in reader's minds that Microsoft people are liars.
Bush's education improvements were
There really isn't anything Unix can do that Microsoft can't anymore
What?!??!? This is a troll right? Have you ever spent any time with computationally intensive work? I'm talking calculations that take hours, days, weeks. Even W2k, while improved cannot work with 4GB or more of RAM, crunch on an algorhithm for two or three days, and not have problems. Hell the W98 box I replaced with our W2k 2.2Ghz box would crash multiple times a day.
The SGI Octane on the other hand can work for weeks at a time on a calculation and still be able to respond to queries, launch new processes etc... without ever becoming unstable. My OSX box (while not as fast as the Octane and not as much RAM as the Octane) will crunch happily on problems while letting me write papers in Word, surf the web, serve web pages, download new data and allow me to examine it, and plug in a Firewire hard drive to upload data to ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!! The W2k Dell box chokes badly every time attempting this sort of thing and there is no way you can say that Windows can compete here.
As for your argument about well-trained administrators familiar with MICROSOFT PRODUCTS. That's what we thought we were getting and paying for. The point is that Microsoft products are third rate. They don't scale, they are not as stable as other offerings, they do NOT have the same flexibility versus UNIX, and the ease of use of the OSX flavor of UNIX is unbeatable. This is the problem with people that have been raised on Microsofts nipple. They don't know anything else and they make assumptions about the rest of the computer world without having the appropriate knowledge. Try using other environments before saying that Microsoft can do anything UNIX can do.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Are these methods really much better than, say, PC Anywhere? I regularly administer two boxes parked next to each other at a colo, one a linux box via ssh, another an NT 4 box via PC Anywhere. Ssh has a little lag now and again, but for the most part it's like working on a local system. PC Anywhere, however, is all but unusable on the same connection - it takes forever for the thing to realize that you've moved the mouse over an icon, clicked on it, etc. It's not like I'm trying to work across the world, either - these systems are just a few miles away.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But Microsoft is being very hypocritical... The same (inflexible, expensive tech support, hard to run well) can all be said about Microsoft Server products.
And the election in the US was extremely questionable too.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Maybe MS thinks it can only compete against decade old masscomp, apollo, or other boxes.
:). Linux (and Mac
But I can see why they won't say "Linux"
1. Linux is flexible. It runs on everything from Tivos through mainframes.
2. Experts are available on newsgroups or IRC for free with possible delay, and each part is documented with plenty of howtos.
3. Windows is one huge complex blob. Their "Pocket guide" to W2K Systems administration is larger than most epic novels. You apparently need wide as well as deep pockets
OS X! and other BSDies) are componentized. Upgrading or completely changing the mail system doesn't require even one reboot, nor affects anything else. Any apparent complexity in Linux/BSD/etc is only because of the many parts, each of which is independent. Windows (the browser is part of the operating system) is worse because it is only one part - were it a car, the battery and transmission would be welded to the engine.
Finally, Unisys seems to have some very cool big-iron hardware. And it is even x86 based. Unisys could port Linux and probably have a very cool enterprise server. But instead they want to tout Windows (how much is Microsoft paying them? Is their balance sheet that bad so they would be a good short candidate).
Unisys - the power of two: Bill Gates and the CEO of Unisys.
Linux - the power of hundreds of thousands: on the internet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wow! That's an excellent argument! Too bad it doesn't apply to the original point of flexibility.
The point of the previos poster was that Windows couldn't adapt to their needs, while another system could. Ergo, evidence(not proof, admittedly) that Unix is more flexible.
Flexibility is being able to get a system to do what you want. Not what "most people" want.
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
Great! Where can I get the RPMs, or better yet, the source, so I can use the MMC on my Linux PC at home?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I'm an RHCE and have been an MCSE for about 8 years...well before the current flood of paper MCSEs using nothing but Transcenders to pass.
I took the RHCE last year and I was the only one out of 8 not to have taken the classes for it. There were several people there taking it for their 2nd or 3rd time. Bottom line, yes, it's a good lab exam but I could write up a study guide for it and have someone pass it in 2 weeks. That's exactly what will happen when the certification becomes valuable in the marketplace. It's not Microsoft's fault that a lot of MCSEs are clueless. It's the people writing get rich quick study guides and "sample" exams.
Now my disclaimer... I've written several study guides. One for the Linux LPIC and several MCSE tests. I write for the material and knowing that material well will get you through the exam. It annoys me to no end to see study guides that write just for the exam. It hurts everyone.
If you hire a MCSE because 'they are cheap' then you'll get what you deserve... I, for example, am a well qualified MCSE, but I don't come cheap.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
"what are seven layers of the OSDI model of networking?"
Tortilla, beans, lettuce, cheese, beef, sauce, sour cream. Or is that the seven layers of the Taco Bell model of networking?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If patches are released weekly, then shouldn't you be patching your servers that often? Even if you test the patches on another server for a week, you're still doing it weekly, right?
Are your servers patched?
What's your company's name? Server IPs?
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Yeah, but read the posts - it's about putting MS solutions where they fit - and quite frankly, I would kick any IT manager who would want a Unisys MS based solution instead of high end Sun server (or IBM, or ummm... SGI high end machine)
And as I've written - there is a reason why not a single company - Dell, Compaq, HP - wants to re-sell Unisys solution..
Hetz (Heunique)
As my sysAdmin puts it:
1
Security = -------------------
Convenience
There is just no such thing as a secure Windows box. Well, I take that back... Unplug it.
I don't know where there RPM's are, but the debs are here.
Because Cavaliers outsell Bentleys. The proper response to Microsoft is not Solaris on Sparc - this is a dead platform soon to enter an SGI-like state. The proper response is an open, effective and cheaper solution (guess).
Microsoft hyping Unix as a money trap?? I make my living as as MS-oriented web developer, and I still find their licensing models absurd. As is no surprise to peeps on /., MS calling anything a money trap is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Quick recent anecdote: my employer is looking to update their database from Oracle 5/6, or some version that was pre-RDMS...... the Powers-That-Be are hesitant to shell out $1m+ for an Oracle license, and SQL Server might have been our database of choice, except that it doesn't run on our VMS machine. And since the hardware has been rock-solid, we're loathe to adapt such a patch-happy OS (Windows 2000 Adv. Server). Maybe if MS didn't own the market, they might be inclined to make their apps more portable across OS's. But there's the money trap for you - as good as many of their applications are, they're all interlocking. Where Microsoft is concerned, it's impossible to take the "best-of-breed", where software and hardware are concerned. IMO, this marketing scheme is merely a campaign against common sense.... or at least, technicaly savvy.
Oh, and I don't claim to know a damned thing about the *nix flavor of OS's, but how the hell can Microsoft badmouth Unix?! It's been around since forever, I rarely hear *nix admins complain about stability or security issues / flaws........ rather amusing, methinks. As far as the "expensive experts" go, somebody already said it -- just because a person is MS-certified doesn't mean he's worth a red cent. In college, I always tested rather poorly, compared with the quality of material I wrote in CS labs or independent projects. As such, the material I developed when not under duress was always a poor indication of my knowledge of the subject matter. On the flip side, ALL (5 so far) of my previous employers have told me that the person I was replacing was MS-certified (I'm not yet, but I have 4+ yrs _experience_), but couldn't work independently, cranked out shoddy code (which I have to rewrite now anyway) and was a pain in the ass to deal with in terms of basic communications skills! And these guys were billing out at $30-$50/hr!!
As with all things, I have no problem spending money, as long as it's WELL SPENT. Developing and maintaining scalable, stable, complex business applications / systems will always be an expensive endeavor, as a lot of resources and effort are require to run such an operation. But you're throwing your money away if you think that hiring people with exorbitant rates, fluffy resumes, stamped certifications and even college degrees is the same as hiring talented, diligent, knowledgable individuals. One of my best friends dropped out of college to code, and despite the fact that I have a background/degree/honors in CS and have exactly the same amount of work experience has him, he's still every bit as good as I am as a developer.
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.
If you're going to repeat that old crap, make sure you get it right. Linux(tm) is not Unix(tm), because nobody has felt any need to pay for Unix(tm) certification for any Linux(tm) system.
The "Unix(tm)" name is now nothing more than marketing Jedi mind tricks. Do you insist your mouthwash contain T<sub>2</sub>5(tm) (otherwise known as water)? Of course not - for the stuff that really matters, all are pretty much the same. Ditto, what's important isn't the Unix(tm) label, it's compliance with POSIX standards.
If you get deep into the implementation details, it's true that Linux didn't fork from the original Unix source tree and like any "clean-room" implementation there are some significant differences. BFD. As long as the system stays close enough to the POSIX standards it's a moot point to everyone but kernel developers and marketing droids.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
"One World, One Web, One Program" -Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer" -Adolf Hitler
...be appearing on the "free" version of Slashdot?
...ow! ow! Why is everyone hitting me?
You're using her as bait, Master!
...to be the 4,374th person to say...
ROFL!!!!
The thing that riles me about this the most, is that Microsoft is such a hypocrite. They try and advertise Windows as a replacement for UNIX, yet the points they draw upon are even MORE obvious in a Windows based environment. Let me try, if I can, to explain myself..
"They are apparently hyping that Unix is an expensive money trap."
I got my copy of IRIX for free from SGI, simply by giving them my workstation MAC address - I didnt have to pay for postage or anything, yet the following day IRIX 6.5 and the most recent updates appeared on my desk, 'courtesy of SGI'. I also believe that Sun offer Solaris 8 for free on both SPARC and x86 platforms - you can either download the ISO's or pay for postage to get the full box set (and you get a LOT for your money).
"No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system."
Er - Unix is about the most flexible system I have ever known.. use it as a Firewall, Router, SQL server, Web server, Windows Domain Controller, NetWare Server, LDAP server.. even a COFFEE machine for heavens sake.. its all possible on UNIX. To get any kind of flexibility out of Windows, you have to keep forking $$$'s over to Bill & his buddies.
"It requires you to pay for expensive experts."
Oh - so that smarmy prick we have to keep getting down from , at a cost of £1000 per day ($1300'ish), to do work on our NT based Finance server, is not expensive? Purlease....
"It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever."
Oh - so Windows has got easier to use. Let me put it this way.. I learn what I do by experimenting. Install it, read about it, play around with it.. I managed to do this for a number of UNIX based applications & daemons - indeed for UNIX itself. Yet has anyone ever tried configuring a Windows 2000 Active Directory server, or tried installing their crappy ISA2000 server? Jesus - talk about overkill.. their old MS Proxy software was a doddle compared to their new generation.. nasty nasty.
Screw you Microsoft.. I hope you get screwed up the ass in court.. you and your little dog too.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Find a compact car someplace, and paint it all in mismatched panel colors using the Microsoft Color scheme. Stick a Microsoft Logo or Name plate back of the car.
Make sure the car is an older car. Drive it around Town. Everytime people see the car they think of MS. Everytime they think of MS, they see the car. I bet it would even make the Newspapers.
Guerilla marketing against MS at it's best.
Of Course, there would have to be a webpage dedicated to the MS Car Project.
The proper response is an open, effective and cheaper solution (guess).
Of course we would prefer to promote Linux. But why not help nail MS at the same time?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ok, but [a] that's still third party, not Apple (but it's still interesting to learn -- thanks), and [b] there's still a big difference between a G4 that might have a couple of CPUs on one hand, and the 16, 32, and 64 way high-end systems that this FUD campaign seems to really be about. As far as I know, OSX hasn't been ported to anything at all like this kind of hardware, and though it can do nice clean SMP across a couple of processors, I don't know if that translates to the ability to scale up to these much larger systems. Even beyond what the actual case looks like, *that* is what I'm saying is minimally a couple of years away...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Mod the parent up as FUNNY!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Wait a minute, doesn't Microsoft still use FreeBSD to run Hotmail.
Scene: Man teetering on an open window ledge, high up on a skyscraper, looking down at the parking lot, several hundred feet below.
Caption: Yes, Microsoft would be happy to show you "The Way Out," but are you really sure you want to take it?
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Their web site main page image seems to suggest the way out is to go throught the window... like burglars, eh?
MS does build versions of windows that scale to high numbers of processors but they are not available to the general consumer. They must be purchased under special contract from MS with a price tag well into the six figures (USD) per seat.
I know what I am doing, and I have personally crashed Win2k Server several times.
Regarless of who's fault it is (Microsoft, the hardware vendor, the driver, etc.) - a driver malfunction should not bring down the entire Windows 2000 Advanced Server. It should NOT bluescreen under any circumstance.
In my case, I think it it the printer driver crashing it. But, a flaky printer driver should not bring down an 'enterprise' server operating system.
Next time, please don't underestimate us so quickly. Some of us know what we are doing.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
UNIX is dead! Long live the POSIX!!
Heck, GNU's been bashing UNIX for years by its very name. Doesn't bother me any if M$ bashes proprietary commercial unixes. Linux and *BSD are the future anyways.
As for computations crashing a win2k machine:
Umm what?
all the while busy doing the sieving portion of a quadratic sieve. (no hard drive access)
Win2k is not a third rate product. It's simply one of the best general purpose desktop OSes today (I've not seen OSX, though I've heard good things). As stable (never goes down except for power outage) as my bsd machines, or any of the sun boxen at work. Despite being a windows admin by trade, windows is not, and should not be a server OS... Microsoft's other products (SQL, Exchange, IIS) are easily 3rd rate, but the OS itself is not nearly as bad as you make out.
Everything MS says about Unix is at least 95% true. Just because its MS saying it doesn't make it untrue.
....
Fair enough, but since when did advertising turn into this? It used to be "Buy our project, it's great!" or "Buy our product X, it's better than Y!". Now it's "Product Y sucks and here is why. The logical conclusion is to buy our product X".
This kind of advertising leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The criticisms that MS makes may be valid, but their biased presentation of fact still doesn't tell me why I should buy product X. In fact, I question why I'd want to buy from a company that advertises this way. Probably because I have no other choice
----- rL
Obviously the entire computer system marketing industry has become corrupted by "big money" and needs to be reformed immediately. Too many companies are choosing to install such-and-such a system just because they have the biggest advertising budget and the little guy has no say in the matter. To this end, I suggest we eleminate all 'hard money' from system advertising (no referances to specific vendors allowed), especially with 90 days of a large company making a purchsing decision, but allow limited amounts of 'soft money', that is, adverts that advocate competing styles of computing such as command line, gui, client/server vs standalone, etc.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I agree completely. MSFT has fooled numerous businesses by simply competing with themselves and ignoring the fact that there are actually others. I have seen many ads which trash Win95 to promote NT. That leaves the customer thinking that their only alternatives are Win95 or NT. Now that they are admitting that there are others out there, I think this will lend more credibility and recognition to their competition than it will convince people to switch.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Get deep enough into either OS and you'll find they're pretty interchangable.
While 2K and now .NET are getting more UNIX-like as time goes on, they really *aren't* interchangeable. For example, even though I am MS certified, I would strongly advise a company against setting up their Internet presence using IIS. Outsource it, baby. Let someone else have the headaches. Besides, do you really want to have those downtimes for patching, patching, patching?
Windows 2K shines as a departmental-level thing, not as a full-enterprise solution. However, Samba is getting so much better with each release that maybe more 2K Server boxen can be replaced with Linux boxen running Samba. I think that's why MS is really scared.
When the labs in your MOC don't work because of arcane Active Directory crap, then you know that something is very, very wrong. There is a reason why most NT4 shops aren't upgrading. There is a reason why there are lots of 2K networks not deploying AD. When Samba v3 does "AD" better than MS does (with REAL versions of LDAP and Kerberos 5 and DynamicDNS, not the neutered, embraced and extended MS versions) MS knows that its goose will be thoroughly cooked and force-fed to them.
However, there is one thing MS excels in that Linux needs to improve...the desktop. You install 2K Pro and *everything works as expected*. Sure, you have to patch and patch and patch but dammit, it runs out of the box. My Linux desktop experiences have been like rolling the dice...sometimes you get all 7s, sometimes you get hit with Snake Eyes. And you really do have to be a Linux guru to sort things out when something doesn't quite work after installation. This is where Linux people should be focusing their attention. When Linux+KDE *just works* and installs with no *special surprises* we can think of challenging MS at the desktop.
Needless to say, THIS year will be spent getting a lot of experience with Linux.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
remote desktop is to PCAnywhere as hammer is to air powered nail gun
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
"For all practical purposes, Windows is dead.
Fact: Windows is dead"
I don't agree with you. First off, what is there to replace Windows on all the millions of machines out there? Certainly not Linux. It will be at least a year or two before Linux can do, for the un-initiated new user, what Windows does for you.
I agree that MS will likely get bumped out of the Server Market. The reason for that is a server doesn't need programs like.... Outlook Express? Or 'Virus Propogater' as we call it around here.
In any case, Windows is far from dead. If somebody can take Linux and give it most of the good points that Windows has (ease of installation, better compatibility, GUI amdinistration instead of relying solely on command line...), then MS should feel quite threatened.
"Derp de derp."
Um, sorry, it's not "Free Software" or even "free", it comes with Windows 2000 pro. Life's a bitch. Some people actually expect to make money, not just fade away into bankruptcy!
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Linux doesn't have a BSOD because Microsoft has a patent on it.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
No, actually I am not. This is a major print vendor with a certified win2k driver.
it seems to happen randomly, and that is my best guess.
an no, drivers do not typically crash my linux systems. I have bad fibr channel HBA drivers go haywire, etc., and while there were massive errors, the kernel did not crash.
the one exception i can think of, (i like to be obejective) is the linux VM problem, but that seems to be much better now.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Sigh...Burroughs came up with some excellent designs for their time (the B5000 and its descendants, the B1700). I'm extremely depressed to think that they have come to this.
Well then you don't know what the hell you are doing. There is no reason in the world a W2K box should crash, especially several times a day, unless you have no idea how to set it up properly or you have a hardware problem. Don't try and blame MS for your own incompetence.
I immediately crashed our new Dell 2.2 Ghz W2k system right out of the box by simply plugging in a Firewire harddrive that worked just fine on other machines. This is not acceptable.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Look, buddy, for real, proprietary Unix is indeed dead. I guess Mac OS X is the exception that proves the rule, then. It's not Linux, it's not GPL, and it will soon be running on more machines than all other Un*x variants combined.
***
Actually, Darwin is open-source (not GPL, but open-source nonetheless).
Engineering and the Ultimate
Okay, I reproduced it. Simplicity itself, actually.
Just run the irdaping command provided by your favorite Linux distro while there's a Win2K system in range. Whatever it sends so horribly confuses the irda.sys program in Win2K that it crashes the whole system.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Because UNISYS makes "big iron" servers and they finally wised up about old UNIX vendors that all make MS look like a kitten? Besides. Why does anyone here care? Linux != UNIX remember?
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
"All your servers are belong to us"
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
I wanted to get my MCSE (MineSweeper Consultant, Solitarie Expert), but I sucked at MineSweeper..(Micro$oft should rename minsweeper to BSOD sweeper, hit a mine and "boom", BSOD..
Wow. Three whole days. Impressive.
I'm sorry but I guess I expect a little bit more than that. For goodness' sake, when I was in grad school, we were running a DEC 5100(?) using whatever bizarre version of Unix it had (Ultrix, I think). I worked on it for three years. My two office mates and my advisor worked on it as well. We were doing spectroscopic reduction, numerical simulation of black hole systems, and theoretical mapping of the magnetic field around pulsars rotating at 0.1c (retarded potentials, relativistic Doppler, the whole nine yards). All of these were processor-intense -- as was the constantly-running POV-Ray program making a movie of that magnetic map.
Oh, and it was our Web server for the group.
It failed precisely once during that three year period, when the internal fan froze and the chip overheated. We had program crashes -- our own and our vendors -- but we never had the OS get taken down. And that was ages ago in the Unix world.
Three days? Please.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In short retort:
It's all about the fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and Microsoft's firm belief that the decision makers in a company are the ones in air so rarified as to know little enough about technology to be brought in to Microsoft's folds by this bunch of crap.
Kevin Fox
I've yet to find any remote graphical terminal for NT5 that didn't make me want to rip it out and install an ssh daemon. Infact, if I could do remote admin of NT5 systems through an ssh daemon, I would be considerably less cranky.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
... here's the way to kill off Unix:
...
... if they support Unix we inflict financial pain on them. We also make applications and we are never going to make applications for Unix nor will we ever include Unix and mixed platform training in our certification programs. We own the future and our future does not include Unix. If you are not with us you are against us. Terrorists use Unix and we don't. We are an American corporation and not an un-American, piracy supporting, hacker terrorist, old-fashioned and expensive foreign command line corporation. And in conclusion:
"Unix is old and unreliable. If you can find a high-priced Unix expert to maintain your system you're in luck because thanks to our efforst there are practically *no Unix experts left*. Everyone has become expert in the low cost reliable and new systems offered by Microsoft. Have you ever seen an MCSE who konws anything about Unix?? Is there a USCE - no there isn't. And which is newer and has more graphics and buttons and stuff an MCSE manual or Unix expert manual? We rest our case
We make server OSes and dominate several large hardware makers
YOU ARE EITHER FOR US OR AGAINST US (AND AGAINST AMERICA AND FREEDOM). Oh yeah we are monopolists and we have decided Unix is dead - what more evidence do you need that it *is* dead?"
Thank you.
So Unix is inflexible. I take that to mean that Microsoft's products are incredibly flexible. So they'd have no problem disassociating Internet Explorer and all the other "value added" software, and releasing a lite version of Windows, right?
Right?
Hello?
SIGFEH
>> because you can just plug in a firewire
>> camera and it WORKS
...maybe?
Are you running Win2k? Then maybe the hardware vendor decided to "not bother". All you've demonstrated is that hardware manufacturers like to make drivers for the "market leader" platform.
This demonstrates no inherent quality of the OS.
Linux is no different than any other OS not Win9x. You simply have to be mindful of what is actually on the compatibility list.
However, all of this is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT for the domain of computing that we're discussing right now.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Interesting story about BOB. You every wonder where you got that paperclip in Word? BOB. Ever wonder who the project lead for BOB was? Bill Gates' wife was responsible for the paper clip. Really, it's true.
Melinda French Gates was a project lead on MS Bob (you have to remember MicroSoft Bob -- it was that cartoony software that slowed your machine to a crawl and insulted you while balancing your checkbook or reading email). When Bob was revealed to be the complete and utter turkey that it was always destined to be, guess what got some of the "usability and human interface" stuff? Office. Guess who happened to also be, ah, "seeing" The Boss? Melinda. Why wasn't Bob just canned, like any other project that wastes millions and failed completely? You have to wonder if Bill G wasn't getting pillow-talked into something. In fact, MS Bob was the first consumer product Bill Gates released personally. People do the strangest things for love.
Anyway, a lot of what Bob had to offer didn't get canned (as it should have). It got repuposed and wound up in other MS products. Take a look at the screenshot on this page. See that dog in the lower corner? That was Bob's dog Rex. (I wish they had a picture of the dragon named "Java"; I wonder if McNealy every knew about that?) Looks like that paper clip, eh? Bob's ghost is in other stuff, too. MS Agent had a re-incarnation.
Well this is all way OT. But I think the Bob fiasco sheds some light on what goes on at MS. There's really no reason to wonder about the pape clip. I'm sure Melinda will insist on touchy-feely stuff being included in every MS product. I love it when someone thinks for me...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
into a corner, make sure it's our corner.
"Hey, if Unix is too hard for us geniuses here at Microsoft, don't you think it's too hard for you, too."
I wish you weren't right, but you are. This is exactly the kind of fractured thinking that leads to things like the decimation of the dotcom economy, and I have seen it run rampant in the last few companies I have worked at (yep, they all failed).
The problem is, the equations they use to determine "shareholder value" in thier heads are all skewed. In thier world, the "value" of something goes down exponentially with time. If they can make $1 million dollars today, or $1 billion dollars in five years, they always chose the quick million becuase in thier tiny pea-heads, they think that every day that passes between now and when they get thier cash divides the value of their return by some arbitratily high number.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The problem isn't the OS it's the hardware. Try running those same problems with Linux on your x86 hardware and watch it choke to all hell. x86 architecture is crap, and the x86 chips have trouble when being given intense workloads 100% of the time.
That beeping sound you're hearing is my BS-o-meter going off its measurement scale. While I agree that x86 architecture is pretty much crap next to SPARC and PowerPC, it is nowhere near that unstable. If it was, I sincerely doubt that many Linux and *BSD boxen could chalk up such impressive uptimes. I myself have a few machines salvaged from my workplace scrappile that have been resurrected as general-purpose servers, with old Pentiums and minimal RAM, that have *never* had a hardware or OS failure. Never. And this system does quite a bit of real work; it's a development server for about five people, a web server, mail server, USENET cache, DNS server, FTP server, and used to hold a small SQL database.
I won't get into the details here but thats why things like the Unisys ES7000 are so difficult to make - you have to have 3rd level caches, you have to have on-board chips monitoring state so you can 'reboot' an x86 at times and keep it working.
If it's so lousy, why do they keep using it, then? More importantly, why should a company invest in x86 architecture if it's so crappy? Truth is, it really isn't. It's not the best architecture, but if it was as crash-prone as you claim, it would have been replaced years ago.
Windows is a pretty good system - run this stuff on you're ia64 and watch it not have troubles.
Sorry, but the platform is too new to have a proven track record of any sort, or would you care to provide data to back up your claims?
Besides, didn't Linux run on the IA64 before Win2K did?
There really isn't much Unix can't do that Microsoft can't, and there is a whole lot Microsoft can do, and a whole lot faster, than Unix.
This is such an obvious troll that I can't even think of a way to retort to it; and I needn't -- somebody else already did here.Why do you think a lot of image processing / computer vision / etc is done on windows - because you can just plug in a firewire camera and it WORKS, drivers from winupdate can automatically be installed, you can use the same API to grab and do your calculations, and MFC is a helluva lot easier to use than coding decent, high performance X apps. (High performance and X is a strange combination, considering X is a bigger memory hog than Explorer)
You don't know how wonderful it is when working on a project, having a camera fail on you, and just being able to go across the hall, borrow someone elses USB cam instead of firewire, plug it in, and have your program keep working. In linux you'd have to change your code and have a nightmare with drivers and the like.
Image processing -- you mean PhotoShop? Ok, I'll grant that. But on the side of UNIX, we can throw gene sequencing, designing aircraft, creating movies (Shrek or Monsters, Inc., anyone?), testing chemical models, modeling supernovae, handling massive bank transactions, and massive mathematical calculations that take months to finish.
The rest of your comment reeks of more of the same whining about USB camera compatibility, which is all desktop-centric (and handled just as well by a Mac, which is a much better desktop system). This article is about *datacenters* and *servers*, where things like X programming and USB cameras mean spit.
You are the one guilty of the logical fallacy here; it's called the "Straw Man" -- attacking the argument from a different angle that is unrelated to the main theme of the argument.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Dell doesn't sell a server with integrated Firewire.
Did I say server? No, I said W2k system. Specifically, it was ordered as a Dell P4 2.2 Ghz workstation with Ultra160 drives, dual LCD monitors AND Firewire. From Dell.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
We see a small datacenter, with a couple geeks staffing it. Two large Italian Tony-Soprano type men walk in.
Geek: Can I help you?
Guys: No, we was just admiring this fine setup youse has here.
Geek: OK...
Guys: You know, it would be a shame if anything was to happen to this place...youse has such nice computers here.
Geek: Um...are you threatening me? Because I can call Security if you are.
Guys: No, no, we was just observing what a shame it would be if something bad happened to this here datacenter. Of course, that would never happen...especially if youse guys upgrade to Windows XP.
Geek: Wait a minute...are you from Microsoft?
Guys: In fact, we have to report to Mr. Gates soon...we can tell him for you that youse wants to upgrade. How many licenses does youse guys need?
Geek: We don't need Windows XP. Our current setup runs fine and upgrading would cost an obscene amount of money.
Guys: (Crack knuckles) Yeah, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to youse guys and these fine computers...
Fade to black, displaying text on the screen:
Tired of strong-arm upgrade tactics?
Step out of the dark, seedy world of Microsoft and into the light.
UNIX. The friendly alternative.
And of course, there's potential for a whole series of ads here...
They are really barking in the wrong forrest with this one. If they want to nail a competitor for being EXPENSIVE, they should squarely target Oracle. Their licences are more expensive than SUN SERVER HARDWARE.
1CPU Oracle 8iEE licence versus a 4CPU/8G V880...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You need to know how to setup servers and handle a computer. They actually have you troubleshoot a purposefully broken computer. If you can't diagnose it, you don't pass
You have to do that **four** times. You also have to build a system from scratch which meets a list of required features and REQUIRES a kernel recompile. I watched a five-year AIX'er fail and a four year Solaris guy hack his way through. An MCSE was there "to see what Linux was all about" - um, FAIL.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Not that I'm a big fan of their software solutions, but Novell has a new video which may or may not (I don't know for sure either way) become a running commercial ad. It's very amusing and carries the sentiment of virtually every geek out there. Might be a nice thing to mention to the bosses next time they come up with the "great idea" of digging themselves further into Microsoft products.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Fun fun fun, here's my counter ad: Some guy is painting, painting painting with purple paint until he has painted himself into a corner. Then, all he does it step on to the WALL (defying gravity) and finish painting that corner while walking sideways on the wall.
Then flash some slogan like:
"We don't see problems, we see solutions"
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
My question is, are these really 32 processor machines running Windows or just multiple 4 way systems in the same box. Even the Unisys site isn't very clear.
I mean, using your logic, BSD is not UNIX. The commonly held belief is that it is UNIX.
Technically speaking, BSD is NOT UNIX. UNIX is (was?) an AT&T trademark and invention. BSD is a ground up re-write of the entire OS including the kernel. In the same way that Linux is a ground up re-write of the kernel. And, Linux has the GNU utilities on top of it. Utilities that pre-date Linux by a significant number of years. Utilities that ran under both BSD and AT&T UNIX years before the Linux kernel was born.
I think it's clear that UNIX can no longer be considered in terms of a trademark or invention by AT&T (or Berkeley).
UNIX is a philosophical standpoint, it's a BASE reference for building operating systems, it's a methodology, it's a paradigm. It's many things.
And finally, LINUX IS UNIX .
Linux is UNIX.
Your datacenter is the lifeblood of your company. And you don't want to hire an expensive expert to administer it? Fool!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The new marketing strategy mentions this quote:
"No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system. It requires you to pay for expensive experts. It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever,"
Now, replace Unix with "Windows", and what do you get? A quote that makes a lot more sense, that's what you get. Quick, what are some phrases that describes Windows servers? Inflexible, requires expensive MCSE people, simple to fuck up, complex to keep running right. Microsoft had better come up with something better than this if they want "big" system admins to migrate to Windows 2000 Datacenter, mainly because they trust Unix, and they know it works; when Microsoft tells these guys that there stuff doesn't work, and that Microsoft's stuff will, they aren't exactly gaining much trust. I say let Microsoft kill themselves; the more steps like this that they make, and it might just happen.
ehintz
Linux/free UNIX is big competition for Microsoft especially in the mid/low-end sever market. Microsoft definately have the right to advertise why their software is presumably better.
Any CTO that foolishly buy Microsoft software believing that there is a lower total cost of ownership or better security deserves what he/she gets.
It's not a bug it's a feature...
Rather than get a unix box with little or no features get a Microsoft operation system that is packed with an obscenely high number of features for you to work with!
I stole this Sig
Seriously, folks, we've all heard this before...
And where is VMS now?
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
So, what you're saying is that remote desktop doesn't require a source of compressed air?
I can't believe it's necessary to point this out.
The "giant penguin attacking Redmond" ad was humorous and ironic. (We all know who the 800-pound gorilla is around here.) Nobody looked at that banner ad and decided to eliminate MS products from consideration for a project out of fear that a giant rampaging penguin would lay waste to their town.
In contract, a lot of people still give a lot of weight to Microsoft's advertising. I guess they think it's one thing to damn near lie in a Federal criminal case, but MS would never lie to customers and potential customers.
So these comments have a real chance of causing people to back away from Unix.
Worse, and perhaps the real purpose of this campaign, the fact that their claims apply even more directly to MS products than Unix/Linux will provide an "innoculation" effect when the Unix/Linux people offer reasons for getting away from MS products. The poor victims of the Dark Jedi mind tricks will recognize the phrases and believe that everyone is equally guilty. Just like how "everyone" now knows that all software is buggy, that "configuration" only refers to trivialities like selecting the background image on your desktop, etc. That's a well-known technique for eliminating the ability of your critics to attack your own weaknesses.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
When I was working for Be, Inc. (RIP), I threw together a speculative ad promoting Be's Internet Appliance offering. With very little fiddling, I'm sure it could be repurposed as a pro-UNIX piece.
Offered herewith to seed new ideas.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I was thinking of using a yugo.
Now the interesthing thing on this is a thing called a "design patent"
As seen on the Patent Office Site:
This is a patent on things like the distinctive shape of a bottle, the grill of a car, etc. There is a whole art and legal science to this. It is used to keep designs unique between competitors.Apple could probably get a design patent on the look and feel of their OS, separate from the functionality. They are apparently relatively easy to get.
The real worry is if someone like Ford were to see something like this (if I used a Ford car) and got out the legal eagles for "degrading the reputation of their product" by depicting their car on the net with MS colors.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"It [Unix] requires you to pay for expensive experts..." So this means Windows experts are cheap? According to Microsoft's own logic, MCSE is a commodity (cheap labor) market. Attention Computer Science students: Adjust your course selection and career plans accordingly.
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When MS does it, it's Business.
When anybody else does it, it's zealotry and they should just GROW UP.
Typical MS apologia.
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Anyone remember NT 3.1 at 1,299 for 'unlimited users'? The claim it will be a 'better UNIX than UNIX?' Or other good MS claims?
Does anyone have a list of bookmarks to such info?
(and the same goes for Oracle...I smell blood in the water about Larry's yacht and wouldn't mind scraping together links to data about Oracle sticking it to its customers)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Come back when you understand why a 32-bit system can't address more than 4GB of memory.
36-bit addressing is possible with W2k you know. Virtual memory environments allow for much larger memory spaces than that allowed through simple 32-bit hard addressing.
Come back when you can contribute something to the discussion.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Yeah, winders can have some uptime now like it couldn't in the past.
It still flakes out pretty hard, though. For instance, unplugging by iPaq (on the serial port) causes Win2k to lose sight og my printer (on the USB port). I get a "Hey! Don't unplug shit!" warning from windows.
Coming out of DirectX leaves windows in a lovely black-on-black color scheme. I have to switch "appearances" while driving semi-blind (windows have borders still) to get something usable back.
Win2k will hang when trying to figure out what non-FAT, non-NTFS partitions on hard disks are. Stoopid.
Problems with the web browser (IE) crash or hang the whole UI shell (also IE).
Win2K uses more and more memory as its uptime increases. Invisible memory. No applications running -- ones were in the past, but Win2k's back down to the shell and that's it, and it chugs away at 310MB memory in use.
Unkillable processes, un-unlockable files: I think everyone's had to reboot because of these...
The OS isn't totally sucky, but it is not first rate.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
While you are at Netcraft also check out the info on uptime. Last time I checked M$ was not listed as running on any of the top 50 servers in order of longest uptime.
Windows zealots defend that by arguing that Windows 2000 with IIS hasn't been out as long as the current top 50. Fine. But Windows NT has been... too bad for them that every upgrade or patch requires a reboot... :)
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Proprietary unix may or may not be dying, but unix as a whole is alive and well. Linux is unix. It's rise is not most important because it's killing unixes but because it is enlarging the total unix pie. Unix server companies like IBM and Sun are setting up to smash Wintel ones. Linux on the fringe (or the mainframe if you're ibm) is a key tool to beating MS out of the datacenter and from there out of the workgroup.
The government of Canada and the State of Texas agrees with you and so do I. There was a period of time when Microsoft was going to change the word to "Expert" to placate the Canadians in particular, but they shelved those plans, unfortunately.
I would frankly be way more comfortable saying I'm a Microsoft Certified Systems Expert.
BTW the preparation you go through when the MCSE is taught CORRECTLY is a bit like a condensed version of an Associates in Information Systems. It's grueling stuff. You really DO learn Windows 2000 inside and out, or as much as you can learn an operating system that is Closed/Non-Free/Proprietary inside and out. You don't get the breadth of a 2-year degree, mind you, but you are preparing for seven very grueling tests. These are not the NT4 MCP tests, where a chimp pushing random buttons could pass. Some of the tests are based around case studies, and they are tough indeed. Only a simulations-based test or a live test with a proctor like the RHCE would beat the "design" exams.
I think the Engineer part of the title isn't worth the confusion it causes. MS should change the name. Microsoft Certified Systems Expert would be fine.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
MsGeek put it pretty much the way it is. My company uses Exchange, and I hate it with a vengeance, but it does the job and I'd hate to be tinkering with user administration all day. Meanwhile, I'm doing the Postfix border e-mail gateways, as a minor aside to my job.
/. article, the big danger is that managers believe NT is the easy solution. It is not. At one stage, my company needed an NT sysadmin for a remote location. Something like 20 people applied, most of the MCSE's, one a former taxi driver. We hired the taxi driver. He was the only one who, when confronted with a broken machine, asked the right questions and got the problem solved. If the MCSE's had their hearts in this business, they'd have gotten the MCSE because they had the experience and wanted to get proof of it. The ones we encountered in the job market approached it the other way around, had no innate interest in the field but believed getting certified would compensate for that.
The thing that gets on my nerves in this eternal Microsoft spin doctoring is the implicit denial of the simple fact that trained monkeys will not be able to run an all-Microsoft shop, and any company above mom-and-pop size will need to hire Really Good Geeks to get the work done. Learning Windows properly is at least as hard as learning Unix properly (screw user friendliness, a decent sized Windows shop needs folks who know what to tweak in the registry and what not to).
There is no amount of Microsoft support that will compensate for having experienced staff. Whatever OS you pick, there is no substitute for having employees who know their stuff. And that's the bottom line.
I'm blessed with a bunch of colleagues who know NT inside and out. They trust me to keep the border e-mail flowing, and I trust them to keep the users off my back. I don't want their jobs, not even if it could be moved to UNIX.
Now, back to the topic of this
In another few years, our guy will be as theoretically underpinned as the MCSE's are, but in the mean time, he's running the shop, and will move up or move on to another company where he can apply his talents and his experience. Those are the people you need, and they're hard to come by, and harder still to retain if they outgrow the position they were hired for.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Not sure of the implementation method, but whatever the case it definitely meets your requirements.
Quoted from Alan Cox's diary:
I suspect a Tux based server could do this too - the limitations on Tux are basically how much hardware you can throw at it.
Now it's your turn - show me a windows server that can handle the same kind of thing.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Yup, Tux runs in-kernel. Then again, most of the *nix nfs servers run in-kernel, too, for the same reason - a userspace server is generally limited by all the context switching and copying to and from userspace. You can work around it, but it's often harder than just writing kernel code. Not so good in the long run, of course, because you have to track kernel changes continually, but hey, it flies!
Are there any servers on *BSD that can handle that kind of load? How do they do it?
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
The press has picked up on this. CNET is running the story today, so I imagine MS/Unisys will have to issue a press release in response by COB today since they "weren't immediately available for comment" at the time the story was posted. Unless they are hoping that the CNET story gets written off as an April Fools joke.
FYI, per Netcraft Unisys does run most of the webservers I checked on an NT/2k platform, but doesn't seem particularly loyal to MS when it comes to Web Server software, using IIS occasionally but also Netscape and Lotus webserver SW. Also, at least one of the Unisys sites I checked (weather.unisys.com) runs Apache on Red Hat Linux.
Work for Change & GET PAID!