Unreliable Linux Dumped from Crest Electronics

nri writes "The Age writes, Linux misses Windows of opportunity. Crest Electronics chose a Linux operating system, then seven months on, the company chose to abandon it for Windows. Mr Horton says. ".. the machine would basically, putting it in Windows terms, core dump or blue screen at random. It would run for weeks or so and then just bang, it would stop....I fully support Linux but if I had to make the decision again I'd pick Windows. A big reason is the fact Windows was up and running in two hours at all the right patch levels. The installation of SAP took two days on Windows, the installation on Linux Red Hat took two weeks. The total cost of ownership is actually lower in this case than with Linux because of the hidden costs of the support.""

Comments

What sort of moron was doing the RH install?

[Archeopteryx]

Maybe windows IS the best choice if your IQ would make a good temperature for beer.

Re:X11

[NutscrapeSucks]

> The protocol is great,

Naw, the protocol sucks. It's an order of magnitude slower than commercial solutions and the security is poop. Solutions to both these problems usually involve keeping X11 off the wire. And you are left with a situation where it's mediocre both locally and on the network.

> Your complaint is most likely with the toolkits

The only reason X11 exists is to run GUI toolkits. Since apparently the only toolkit that really is right for X11 after 20 years is Athena, that's a pretty damning indictment.

"Network Transparancy" and "Toolkits" are just the standard Linux-Zealot excuses for X11. At least you point out that the legacy compatibility issues run very very deep. And of course, it's usually very difficult and expensive to solve legacy issues while maintaining compatibility, compared to starting from a clean slate.

Ultimately, my prediction is that nothing much will be done with X11. Eventually a new windowing system will appear, and X11 will run in a "penalty box" much like classic applications under OS X or how X11 is handled under Windows.