Slashdot Mirror
Why UNIX is better than Windows... By Microsoft
BenBenBen writes "According to a whitepaper found on "a fairly insecure server", UNIX not only is more reliable and easier to maintain than Windows (2000 in this case), it's cheaper too. These shock results are reported on both The Register and (the source) Security Office."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Agreed. Now, if they would just be a little more upfront about this sort of thing, I'd feel a little better.
It seems like most of what we have in this regard is leaked stuff, so internally MS knows, but their public face would never admit to it (IMHO).
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
...constitute some sort of business tort, like disclosing trade secrets? I'm not trying to give MS lawyers any ideas (like they need them) but I've certainly seen Apple goes nuts over this sort of thing.
:P
BTW, that it was on a "fairly insecure server" is as much a defense as "his house had cheap locks."
But Security Office wants us to believe that they hax0red some random MS Server and just happened to find a detailed analysis on Unix vs Windows? And this analysis happened to say "we should eat our own dog food"? Not one analysis I have ever read had such a ridiculous analogy in it.
And let's look at this:
The whitepaper, by MS Windows 2000 Server Product Group member David Brooks, has been posted on the Web by Security Office, which says it discovered the item and numerous other confidential MS documents on a poorly protected server.
So Security Office is admitting to criminal activity? Sorry, I call hoax.
This isn't news. It's business.
-
Read the paper - pretty reasonable stuff. The only thing that may raise eyebrows is the origin of the paper. Goes to show that Microsoft has some competent people working for them (did anybody doubt that, it's after all the company policy that is rotten) but also a horde of absolutely brilliant PR weasels which can turn black to white when you're not watching.
Existence usually comes as a surprise (Idem)
this seems to be a quite well written paper (as far as I can see from the Register's summary, the server is /.'ed).
Everything I read there points out things I don't like on windows, much better than I am capable of. While there exist many papers pointing out these things, they are often to "evangelistic" to be seriously considered for convincing management types.
I'm eager to get the whole document, it might have its worth even without mentioning the originaters (watch the copyright, though).
If Microsoft were to modify their configuration files to be more UNIX like, and offer a decent UNIX-like shell, most of the UNIX advantages would fall away. But this kind of modification would be difficult because of the way Windows is structured. UNIX, on the other hand, doesn't have this problem. It is much easier to build a decent GUI on top of a fundamentally sound architecture than it is to build a fundamentally sound architecture under a good GUI.
This represents a tremendous opportunity for UNIX. The UNIX world must develop GUIs to rival Windows' and make sure that the performance is equal to that of Windows. Then one can have the best of both worlds. And then nobody can argue that Windows is better.
I do not know what people are acting all surprised. What MS says and what MS knows are two very seperate things. Why do you think they say Linux is a competitor to be watched? Yea, they say 'MS software is better for xyz reasons, yatta yatta' but you better be damn sure that privately they are analyzing their competition inside and out. The first way to get raped by your competition is to ignore it. The second is to assume that you are automatically better than the competition, product quality wise. If a company is dishonest in its internal evaluations of its products against their competition, they will merely alienate their customers even more due to poor design decisions. Remember, MS has a shitload of investors, so going out publicly saying 'our product is subpar to unix' would result in their stocks playing a rollercoaster game. Never mistake self-honesty with PR.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Hmm, this explanation doesn't fit well with what I read at the Reg:
The whitepaper, by MS Windows 2000 Server Product Group member David Brooks,
Whereas in Win2K: "Some parameters that control the system's [...]
Cleary, the original hotmail guys wouldn't have thought about W2k, which was non-existant at that time.
The team was unable to reduce the size of the image below 900MB
Dito, I doubt any MS operating system's image at that time couldn't be reduced to less than 900MB.
They also mention Advanced Server, that "at" is deprecated, Interix 2.2 and so on.
No, I doubt your are right.
Sorry to bust your bubble. Most big corporations have intelligent technicians. However, the message gets lost somewhere between tech and management.
I am sure managements response to this letter was to start an 'investigation team.' Or send the techs to a '7 habits' seminar or 5S, QS9000, pokeyoke...
Years later nothing has changed I assure you. They are still using Windows Servers no?
...but being unrealistic isn't one of them. They know what their products are like and they know the golden rule, "You don't have to have the best product to win the product wars."
Beta vs. VHS...Zip drives vs. Jazz drives...etc, etc.
Why bother then? If Apple, with far less resources of any kind whatsoever, managed to plug a decent user interface on the top of a free UNIX-like layer, Microsoft could certainly do the same, only better and faster.
You have to remember that MS employees are real human beings. They aren't idiots for the most part. This guy was being very candid about the shortfalls of a windows server, perhaps with hopes of seeing it improved it in the future. It's the higher ups in the corporate ladder and the marketers that candy-coat all things windows and belittle all things *nix.
Ironically, many of those (perfectly valid) reasons that *nix can make a better server are the same reasons I don't like it on my desktop. Text configuration is a blessing for server farms but a nightmare for newbies with a fresh install.
Most big corporations have intelligent technicians. However, the message gets lost somewhere between tech and management.
This, of course, is the basis for the SNAFU principle:
In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification; And the plan was without form, and the specification was void. And darkness was on the faces of the implementors thereof; And they spake unto their leader, saying: "It is a crock of shit, and smells as of a sewer." And the leader took pity on them, and spoke to the project leader: "It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof." And the project leader spake unto his section head, saying: "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide it." The section head then hurried to his department manager, and informed him thus: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength." The department manager carried these words to his general manager, and spoke unto him saying: "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong." And so it was that the general manager rejoiced and delivered the good news unto the Vice President. "It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful." The Vice President rushed to the President's side, and joyously exclaimed: "This powerful new software product will promote the growth of the company!" And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good.In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Having read their section on Windows' Strengths, there are several bits that I disagree with, but really the hardware issue is the most annoying.
Better hardware detection. Setting up UNIX on a new PC is difficult, requiring a more intimate knowledge of how the hardware is built. That's an up-front cost; given the existence of multiple identically configured systems, cloning an established system doesn't present the same problems.
This I don't agree with. Granted that you need a little bit more knowledge to get hardware working, if you do know what you're doing (and this paper is aimed at people who do, or at least should know what they're doing), it is far more reliable. If something goes wrong, there is a reason it went wrong, and a way to fix it. In windows, even the biggest guru finds the hardware detection system to be black magic to say the least. At worst, it can be completely random!
Plus cloning a Linux is very easy and reliable, because as a general rule there are fewer driver dependencies. Think about a Slackware setup booting into console only server mode. How many hardware/module dependencies are there? All I can think of is the Ethernet card. Other than that, the image is completely transferrable.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
They don't have to.
They have been immune from market pressures since at least 1987.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I totally agree ... The Register is no more a credible source than Slashdot is. It is entertainment, though.
yes, instead of paying for an OS you can demand to get it for free, you can also see the development of said OS grind to a halt cause of lack of finances.
If you use it, pay for it and support OSS development.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
For example, TechNet assures us that, "administrators generally find benefit from porting 'cron' jobs to Windows Task Scheduler events. Both Microsoft Interix 2.2 and SFU allow administrators to port 'cron' files to Windows 2000 without any changes in most cases, allowing administrators to gradually transition scheduled events and scripts without impacting operations i.e. at migration scheduled events can still run as 'cron' jobs. After the migration, the 'cron' jobs can be migrated to Windows Task scheduler events. The Windows task scheduler has better integration with event logs."
Personally, I like consistancy. I use cron, WinCron, and WarpCron. That way, if you want to reschedule something on any OS in the building, you used the same format.
Easy, Simple, Effective.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Microsoft's "public" interface is constantly tearing at the bounds of credibility. Witness Balmer's talk about how they didn't adequately sell their customers on the benefits of Software Assurance:)
Internally, though, this shows that Microsoft is quite rational and realistic. As a company, they will survive and prosper a lot longer on that course than if too much of the internal management started to actually believe what is destined for external public consumption in the marketplace.
Let's all learn the good lesson from Microsoft here.
It should be obvious that if you're in a business that relies on evaluation of information technology that you should rely only very loosely upon what is presented to you publicly.
Second, keep your internal evaluations
Shoot, I knew years ago that BSD was a cheap solid workhorse after learning about ftp.cdrom.com
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You have to be joking. Have you ever tried to actually use the "cmd.exe" program? Are you familiar with the capabilities of even the simplest UNIX shell? The "cmd.exe" program seems to me as if it were written by somebody who overheard a brief conversation about what UNIX shells can do. Just about everything about it is inadequate by comparison: quoting syntax, wildcards, variable expansion, conditionals, iteration, redirection, etc. It's useless for all but the most absolutely basic launching of programs.
If W2000 is so fast and efficient why can't I run it on a P133 with 24MB of RAM like I can Linux?
If you want to be taken seriously, you have to compare like with like. For example, compare Windows 2000's hardware requirements to that of the complete KDE 2.
Because you can run MS-DOS on a 286 but you can't run even the earliest Linux on a 286, does that make MS-DOS a better operating system? No, of course not.
I don't use KDE on any of my machines, I hate it precisely because it repeats Window's bloat and design errors. I use WindowMaker on even my fastest machines and it will run fine on the P133 as well. Windows 2000 does not give you the choice which is why, if you want to be taken seriously, you would avoid using it.
Because you can run MS-DOS on a 286 but you can't run even the earliest Linux on a 286, does that make MS-DOS a better operating system? No, of course not.
But it might make it faster and more efficient (until you want a lot of memory or multi tasking etc), which was the original assertion. "Better" is a broader topic but, given two 32Bit, multi tasking OSes, faster and more efficent becomes a lot closer to meaning "better" than it does when comparing a 16bit single-tasker and a 32bit multi-tasker. Then there's security to consider; DOS and Windows are not secure systems.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The windows command line seems to be built as an emergency backup tool, for when it can't be done in a GUI for some reason. It is in no way intended for the system to be USED from the command line.
Modern unix shells however, are designed to be comfortable, and easy to use. (Easy as in, the lack of the amount of work required from a dos-style shell.)
No arguments here, however in my experience the FM is much easier to R in the Unix world than in the Microsoft world. Part of this is the differences in the API. The Unix API was very small and well designed, and while it's had some weird things added, it's still fairly compact. The Windows API tends to have a lot of different ways of doing basically the same thing. For example, under Unix, you have read() which will read a file. Under Windows, you have read() which is a ANSI C way of reading a file. You also have ReadFile(), ReadFileScatter(), and ReadFileEx, which are 3 different windows specific APIs. That means that if I want to do the same task under Unix and under Windows, I've got to read more documentation under Windows.
In fact, FreeBSD is Unix-like. Due to trademark protection, only products certified by the opengroup can bear the name "Unix". These include Solaris, SCO, Tru64, Irix and HP-UX. FreeBSD is based on the Unix BSD flavor and is a real Unix, but can't be named so.
Where have you been? There was the BSD vs. AT&T Unix compatibility issues, the OSF compatibility issues, and in Linux the switch to glibc5 was a major backwards compatibility breaker. Of course, these problems pale in comparison to the incompatibility problems caused by some new releases of windows, but Unix and Linux in particular have never been shy about breaking backwards compatibility in order to improve functionality.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
while it's right there under your nose...
. ht ml#_ftnref3
take a look at the footnotes, yeah, the footnotes, especially the 3rd one.
http://www.securityoffice.net/mssecrets/hotmail
[3] For example, there was a need to reduce the MTU parameter of the TCP/IP interface. There was no command available to make the change, but the code in the network stack was easy to find, modify (one line) and rebuild.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the WHOLE fuckin' point in OpenSource, so casually admitted in a MS Engineering Doc.
i had a sig, once..
Your observation holds true in a large number of cases.
But beware.
The technician/sergeant with the tactical view of things is not the manager/general with the strategic view.
The Big Picture and the Little Picture will remain in tension indefinitely.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Apparently you can't handle it either, or do more than skim TFA.
You:
"No scripting support in windows 2000 because it also includes a GUI? Are you fucking stupid or what?"
From the article:
"There are, indeed, many non-GUI administrative programs provided in the core Windows 2000 product and in the Resource Kit. The problem is that
the collection is somewhat arbitrary, incoherent and inconsistent. Programs seem to have been written to fill an immediate need and there
is stylistic inconsistency and poor feature coverage."
You:
"They moved because Windows 2000 was faster and more efficient."
Article:
"The conversion of the Hotmail web servers to Windows is an ongoing
project with several rationales. The team was hoping for better
utilization of the existing hardware resources. The superior development
and internationalization tools are important. A Microsoft property
should eat its own dogfood. Finally, we wished to use the conversion
experience as a model for other UNIX conversions that we hope to carry
out in the future."
You:
"It is obviously stable as any honest person running W2K/XP can tell you."
Article:
"2) Reputation for stability. Both the UNIX kernel, and the design
techniques it encourages, are renowned for stability. A system of
several thousand servers must run reliably and without intervention to
restart failed systems. For Windows 2000, we must first prove the
stability in the same environment, and we must then convince the rest of
the world."
If it's so obvious, to 'any honest person', why do they have to try and convince anyone at all?
You:
"That W2K is not utterly and totally flawed and that it actually is a real competitor for other Server OSes. Once you accept this you can drop the zealous approach and do things in a logic, calm and professional manner."
Getting people who have been repeatedly burned to accept this is a Microsoft problem, not mine. In the meantime, I will continue to use superior software in a quite logical, calm and professional manner.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Since when are results like these shocking? The only shock here is that Microsoft would publish the whitepaper.
Please don't take my phrases out of context. I was saying that a DOS or Windows system running _bash_, not _cmd.exe_ is effectively as powerful as the command line in Unix. That's right, bash, the Bourne Again SHell, featured in the GNU system. I agree with you that cmd.exe and command.com are horrible, although I have used them for years.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Why would Microsoft publicly state that UNIX makes a better server than Windows? Microsoft is in the business of selling desktop and server software. If they come to you with the sales pitch that "UNIX is better, but we cost more", I doubt that you would generate many sales for them. I highly suspect that Microsoft wishes this document had never been put in front of the public, as it really hurts their marketing.
It does mean that Linux is generally more configurable, though. If you don't want a KDE or Windows-like GUI, only one system will let you remove it. It's not a fair comparison of performance, but it is a fair comparison of customizability.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
in my eyes it's not that that MS sucks because their products are poorly written (even though they are). It's that they are able blatantly lie about their products (re: internal memo vs PR report) and still shovel those products down our collective throat that bothers me. I don't care if MS recognizes that their software sucks, I care that I have to deal with it.
Before you say "switch to linux" let me say that I am all linux at home, but at work it's a different story and a much more complicated battle.
Sorry charlie, but when you get 30 years of population, documentation, classes and sample applications flying around...sysadmins get to hone their techniques. And for FREE!
When you release a buggy OS every 2-5 years with only semi-backward compatability, and cram every feature into a single interdependent object tree, you get...forced newbies. And for COST!
Get over it, comparing a business product-for-profit and a public programming paradigm as functional system is absurd. These are two different creatures, which only incidentally can do most of the same things.
Only partially correct. You can run ELKS (Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset) on a 286. From their FAQ (elks.sourceforge.net):
"Q1.1. What is ELKS?
ELKS is the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset, a project to build a small kernel subset of Linux (which will provide more or less UNIX V7 functionality within the kernel) that can run on machines with limited processor and memory resources. More information on the background, goals and current status of the project can be found at the ELKS home page.
The initial proposed targets are the Intel 8086 and eventually the 286's 16-bit protected mode. A kernel that can run on this kind of hardware is useful for embedded systems projects, for third world deployment where 80x86 x>0 machines are not easily available, and for use on various palmtops.
Also, Minix will run on a 286, not quite Linux, but it was used to help develop Linux, much like DOS and its legacy in Win32 (OK, probably not that great an example, but hey...).
Do not think that any experience from working in any Institutional environment maps to the 'real world'.
They found the documents on a publicly announced ftp server. An ftp server that Microsoft links to, that their customers can download all kinds of stuff from. If you say I can take anything from your garage, and you place a stack of 100$ bills in there by accident - does that mean I can't take them? You just told me I could!
That's why I made the example of them handing out free newspapers and then accidently printing a confidential memo in the paper. That's not my fucking fault, and it has absolutely nothing to do with lousy protection. It does, however, have everything to do with the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
You can't give me a picture and then tell me I can't look at it when you find out that it's a pornographic picture of you and someone you wish you'd never had sex with. It doesn't work like that. You gave it to me - now it's mine. You still have copyright on it, but you can't claim that I was stealing something that you gave me.
Now
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.