No. They get criticized for not doing features properly. My iBook with a lowly 1.33GHz proc, a mere gig of RAM, and nothing more than a ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 with 32 megs of video memory looks *stunning* and does things that from what we have seen so far Vista can only dream about.
Ah, that would be the responsiveness and performance of a 4-5 year old Windows PC, right ?
I don't think many people are complaining about the moving of the UI layer from the kernel. Its more a complaint about Microsoft's inconsistency on the issue.
Where's the inconsistency ?
You do realise that the decision to move GDI into kernel space was made back around 1993-94, right ? You don't think 10+ years of technical advancement is a reasonable justification for a change of approach ?
This is *NOT* a new idea at all, even on the OS/2-WinNT kernel. (yes, WinNT is derived from OS/2.)
No, it is not. At least, not any product that was sold as OS/2 [0].
Even a brief examination of the architecture of OS/2 and NT should make it plainly obvious they have nothing of significance in common.
You are right that the idea of running the display system in userspace is not new - even NT did it pre-NT4. The reason it was moved into kernel space was performance - and now that hardware performace has improved enough, it can be moved back out.
It's also important to remember there's a difference between "in kernel space" and "in the kernel", for microkernel-ish OSes like NT.
[0] NT was, originally, going to be the newest version of OS/2. Then it got renamed to Windows NT. But NT is not a derivative of any actual OS/2 product or codebase.
There is no such thing a normal user space under windows.
Wrong.
Ask any Sony Music CD owners.
How many of them weren't running as admin ?
Security was an after thought on NT based systems. All Microsoft ever cared about was Lan/Share level security, not system level security once the user is logged on.
Wrong.
Want proof, delete iexplorer from your system. Windows won't boot. Why is that if its not an itegeral part of the OS? I can delete mozilla, galeon, etc from my Linux box and it works just fine.
Not only wrong, but stupid.
Your wrong.
Nope.
No matter what the browser hole is under Linux/OSX, when run as a normal user none have the ability to manipulate the kernel.
Just like Windows.
Thats not true under Windows/IE/ActiveX.
Wrong.
Go look up the group policy fixes in the latest IE patch release from Microsoft.
Which ones, in particular, are you thinking of ?
Its easy for a program to gain Admin rights under Windows.
Even if you weren't wrong again, there is a *vast gulf of difference* betweem "no normal user space" and local privilege escalation.
I can attest to that as well. Windows is fairly secure except MSFT made IE such an integral part of Windows. You end up with a situation where Windows is secure but the most accessible and vulnerable part of it can get you right past all those defense. It's akin to putting a screen door on a vault.
Bollocks. IE is normal user space code just like Firefox or Word. It can't do anything more than any other code running under that user account can.
The "integration" of IE - in and of itself - doesn't make Windows any less secure, any more than the equivalent functionality in KDE, GNOME or OS X does. The real problem is that IE is full of holes and most people run it as admin, not that IE is "integrated into the OS".
The root user on Un*x is more properly compared to the LocalSystem account on Windows.
There is no real comparison, because the security models are fundamentally different.
In unix, if you're root, you can do anything. "Security" checks basically start with an "if (UID != 0)".
In Windows, all accounts are subject to ACLs. Some accounts have more generous ACLs than others, but there is no equivalent to the "can do anything"-ness of a unix root account.
In fact, the restrictions on the default administrator account on Windows are weaker than those given to administrator accounts on Mac OS X -- a Windows admin can write to \Windows\System32 without elevated privileges, which pretty much means game over if the attacker can get the admin to execute a script (e.g. through a browser flaw) that puts DLL's into the directory. In contrast, a a Mac OS X admin needs to authenticate and temporarily gain elevated privileges to write to the equivalent location,/System/Library.
This comparison is flawed. An "Administrator" account in OS X is a completely different thing to an "Administrator" account in Windows - not only in concept, but also in execution. An OS X admin account is more properly compared to a "Power User" in Windows - but even then the two are still very different due to the different security models. An OS X "admin" account is simply one that can sudo to root - thus giving it complete control over the entire machine, with no further permissions checks performed at all. Since Windows has no equivalent of root, it has no equivalent to an OS X "Administrator" user. A "Power User" is similar in purpose (limited administrative abilities, but can't destroy the machine wantonly), but very different in execution.
Stop playing fan-boy and blaming pebkac when you know it's a shitty OS propped up with genious level marketing.
Yeah, because it's not like your anecdotes couldn't be recounted for every other OS in the world. Clearly the only one that ever had any troubles is Windows, and the rest of them are so perfect, even god is jealous.
I have been using Mac OS X and Windows simultaneously for 3 years now and have never had to restart the finder. I have to restart my Windows computers all the time!
I don't believe you.
Not about the Windows machines - they're probably all suffering instability from cheap-arse-itis and crappy parts, but to say you've been using OS X for *3 years* and never had to restart Finder is just bullshit. Unless your idea of "using" is never accessing network resources and only using the thing to fire up Word once a week.
Finder is notoriously unstable. It's without a doubt the crappiest part of OS X.
Of all the times I've heard about someone who knows someone whose iPod broke, I have yet to hear from anyone firsthand about their iPod breaking.
Well, mine did. Twice, in fact, within the twelve month warranty. First time the headphone socket stopped working (it would still play, etc, but no sound). Second time it would only turn on if it was plugged into a computer via Firewire. That last replacement was 6 weeks ago and I'm hoping to get at least 6 months out of it before it dies again.
This were, I might add, iPods that were only used for 1 - 2 hours per day, 4 - 5 days a week and *always* placed in protective cases (on both occasions the tech asked me if I'd ever even used the thing - not a scratch or scuff mark to be seen). I shudder to think how people who actually use them heavily (~5 hours/day, jogging, etc) fare.
If WordPerfect is so flawed, why does MS Office use the same interface?
Uh, it doesn't. *Particularly* if you want to go back to the old ("real") DOS versions of Wordperfect, the two were worlds apart in terms of interface. Wordperfect was more like vi or emacs than Word.
It would be more correct to say Wordperfect has become more like Word, than vice versa (even if the Office team did go to amazing lengths in the earlier versions to make Word respond identically to Wordperfect commands so people would switch).
Also, Word actually seems to resemble the old "WordPerfect for Windows" from before Word was popular.
Word (for Windows and particularly for MacOS) was around a helluva long time before "Wordperfect for Windows" was even released (the first version of which was mind-bogglingly sucky). Heck, it was the *lack* of "Wordperfect for Windows" that was one of the biggest reasons Word displaced Wordperfect.
So maybe they weren't emulating Word's look and feel at all and were going for WordPerfect's look and feel, which happened to be similar to Word.
Wordperfect and Word operated *very* differently. Had you ever actually experienced Wordperfect outside of reading about it, you'd know that.
And wasn't Win2k the one with the 60,000 bugs? No thanks to that - I'll stick with the Penguin.
Right. Because it's not like Linux hasn't gots tens of thousands of bugs. Particular when a "bug" in the context of that 60,000 number can be something like a spelling error.
anyways, it ain't the memory as i'm using her old computer right now, except it's running ubuntu and hasn't crashed once. same hardware, different OS. it ain't the chips. it's the piece of shit OS.
If it were the OS, it would happen to everyone. It doesn't, therefore the cause is something unique to your environment.
On the off chance you're actually interested, the problems you're having sound heat-related. There's a fairly high chance the machine isn't getting anything like the load with you running Ubuntu on it that your wife would have been generating with Photoshop. Alternatively it might have been the hard disk that was removed (or a combination of both).
This feature is completely independent of "browser integration". All four platforms have the same browser-as-a-shared-component style architecture (and of them, Windows had it first). That some choose to have a shell that loads various components as required (Windows and KDE) and some offer only a simple shell (OS X and GNOME) does not change the fundamentals. The browser is still "integrated" into the "OS" by being available as a reusable component.
Konqueror is more of a suite of programs (file manager + web browser), but it's also far more secure than IE.
Probably true, but that's got nothing to do with "browser integration".
There is nothing special about IE. It isn't part of the kernel. It doesn't run with special privileges. It runs in the same context as the user. It can't do anything a standalone browser application couldn't do. It's just another piece of user-space code.
Unless the laws in Australia are significantly different than in the U.S., it is illegal for minors to possess or view pornography. By creating a system in which a parent can control the content available to the household by means of an upstream valve (at the ISP), the government is helping parents exercise greater control over the content that is allowed into the household.
Australian law already dictates that all ISPs must provide, if requested, internet filtering software "free of charge".
IOW, our law already has a provision for a per-subscriber "upstream valve".
This dipshit is suggesting this "upstream valve" should be instigated for the *whole country*, not just on a per-subscriber basis. Thus making net-nannied internet access the default, rather than the exception.
Perhaps the culture is a little different in Australia, but I've never been locked out of a computer system just because I resigned. They've gotten every day's work out of me that they could - it was expected that I remain professional.
I have to agree, I think this is an American thing [0]. I've been through a few jobs and based on them, when I give notice I would expect to be working up until the very last day, spend most of that last day with my boss and replacement changing passwords/login details/security tokens, etc and then be taken to the pub with the boss paying.
Quite frankly, were my professionalism insulted in the way the article described, I would do everything within my power (legally) to get the word out "on the street" that my now-former-employer wouldn't extend their employees even the most basic level of respect, and that working for them would be a bad idea, because inevitably, they'll eventually screw any/all of their employees over _badly_ and hang them out to dry.
(I would also be sure to at least double my private consulting rates just for them, when they came asking to know where the chalk mark needed to be drawn, since they would have only themselves to blame for not knowing.)
Any employers knows when they hire me, that part and parcel of my job entails unfettered access to nearly all aspects of the company's IT infrastructure, and that one day I'm going to leave. They accept the former caveat because as a professional, it is expected that I will treat that level of access with the respect and responsibility it deserves. I see no reasonable justification for that professionalism to be expected to disappear when the latter issue is clarified.
[0] Having spent the last year or so working for a US company (in Australia), I've also discovered their corporate culture has *serious* issues about giving more than 4 consecutive weeks leave, and/or giving unpaid leave. My erroneous assumption about these two issues meant the holiday I was hoping to take next year had to be *seriously* curtailed, even after volunteering to work for a week from our European office while I was there. Truly, Australian and US working cultures are worlds apart.
Because limiting the speed can actually be dangerous in certain circumstances.
Lots of people are raising this obvious point (and personally, I agree - laws against "speeding" are nothing more than revenue raisers).
However, it's worth pointing out that the law doesn't recognise any legitimate reasons for exceeding the speed limit (at least here in Australia, I'd assume other countries were the same[0]). If you go over the limit by even 1km/h - and admit to it - you'll get a ticket. That's why when you get pulled over you *never* admit you were exceeding the limit, as any hope of a technicality, good lawyer, big boobs, crying or simple dumb luck getting you off the ticket goes down the drain.
[0] Although, that said, we are the draconian speed enforcement capital of the world, so maybe not.
Are you talking about "worse" in terms of some hand-waving "efficiency" perspective, or are you talking about "worse" from the consumer service perspective ? Because in my experience, at least, State-owned monopolies typically have a charter guaranteeing minimum levels of service for *all* customers, whereas private monopolies do not. I would expect a State monopoly to deliver better products, customer service and value for money than a private monopoly.
It would seem to me, from a consumer perspective, a private monopoly is far worse than a public one.
Private monopolies, on the other hand, can only exist without State assistance when a monopolistic solution is the most efficient way to serve the market, because otherwise additional private solutions would naturally be developed and there would no longer be a monopoly.
I would argue that a "privatised" monopoly is the only logical end result of a market *without* State intervention and regulation.
When a monopoly is developed through thoroughly private means, there is nothing preventing another from doing the same and thus breaking the monopoly.
I can't agree with that - any competitor entering a monopolised market will have a seriously higher barrier to entry. There's a vast difference between creating a monopolised market from nothing and bumping a monopolised market leader off their perch.
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You don't.
Running nothing but command-line configurable programs on windows...are there any Windows-only command-line server programs?
Remote management != command line.
Whose OS is so broken that an idle GUI actually _has_ any overhead on a (remotely modern) server ?
*With* the 3d-card MacOS X is damn slow...
Ah, that would be the responsiveness and performance of a 4-5 year old Windows PC, right ?
Where's the inconsistency ?
You do realise that the decision to move GDI into kernel space was made back around 1993-94, right ? You don't think 10+ years of technical advancement is a reasonable justification for a change of approach ?
No, for the *graphical workstation* market.
Windows NT (Workstation) was competing with Unix workstations at the time.
No, it is not. At least, not any product that was sold as OS/2 [0].
Even a brief examination of the architecture of OS/2 and NT should make it plainly obvious they have nothing of significance in common.
You are right that the idea of running the display system in userspace is not new - even NT did it pre-NT4. The reason it was moved into kernel space was performance - and now that hardware performace has improved enough, it can be moved back out.
It's also important to remember there's a difference between "in kernel space" and "in the kernel", for microkernel-ish OSes like NT.
[0] NT was, originally, going to be the newest version of OS/2. Then it got renamed to Windows NT. But NT is not a derivative of any actual OS/2 product or codebase.
Wrong.
Ask any Sony Music CD owners.
How many of them weren't running as admin ?
Security was an after thought on NT based systems. All Microsoft ever cared about was Lan/Share level security, not system level security once the user is logged on.
Wrong.
Want proof, delete iexplorer from your system. Windows won't boot. Why is that if its not an itegeral part of the OS? I can delete mozilla, galeon, etc from my Linux box and it works just fine.
Not only wrong, but stupid.
Your wrong.
Nope.
No matter what the browser hole is under Linux/OSX, when run as a normal user none have the ability to manipulate the kernel.
Just like Windows.
Thats not true under Windows/IE/ActiveX.
Wrong.
Go look up the group policy fixes in the latest IE patch release from Microsoft.
Which ones, in particular, are you thinking of ?
Its easy for a program to gain Admin rights under Windows.
Even if you weren't wrong again, there is a *vast gulf of difference* betweem "no normal user space" and local privilege escalation.
Bollocks. IE is normal user space code just like Firefox or Word. It can't do anything more than any other code running under that user account can.
The "integration" of IE - in and of itself - doesn't make Windows any less secure, any more than the equivalent functionality in KDE, GNOME or OS X does. The real problem is that IE is full of holes and most people run it as admin, not that IE is "integrated into the OS".
There is no real comparison, because the security models are fundamentally different.
In unix, if you're root, you can do anything. "Security" checks basically start with an "if (UID != 0)".
In Windows, all accounts are subject to ACLs. Some accounts have more generous ACLs than others, but there is no equivalent to the "can do anything"-ness of a unix root account.
In fact, the restrictions on the default administrator account on Windows are weaker than those given to administrator accounts on Mac OS X -- a Windows admin can write to \Windows\System32 without elevated privileges, which pretty much means game over if the attacker can get the admin to execute a script (e.g. through a browser flaw) that puts DLL's into the directory. In contrast, a a Mac OS X admin needs to authenticate and temporarily gain elevated privileges to write to the equivalent location, /System/Library.
This comparison is flawed. An "Administrator" account in OS X is a completely different thing to an "Administrator" account in Windows - not only in concept, but also in execution. An OS X admin account is more properly compared to a "Power User" in Windows - but even then the two are still very different due to the different security models. An OS X "admin" account is simply one that can sudo to root - thus giving it complete control over the entire machine, with no further permissions checks performed at all. Since Windows has no equivalent of root, it has no equivalent to an OS X "Administrator" user. A "Power User" is similar in purpose (limited administrative abilities, but can't destroy the machine wantonly), but very different in execution.
There are plenty of things that spreadsheets do very well, that chossing a database for would simply be a "0.o WTF !?" moment.
Yeah, because it's not like your anecdotes couldn't be recounted for every other OS in the world. Clearly the only one that ever had any troubles is Windows, and the rest of them are so perfect, even god is jealous.
I don't believe you.
Not about the Windows machines - they're probably all suffering instability from cheap-arse-itis and crappy parts, but to say you've been using OS X for *3 years* and never had to restart Finder is just bullshit. Unless your idea of "using" is never accessing network resources and only using the thing to fire up Word once a week.
Finder is notoriously unstable. It's without a doubt the crappiest part of OS X.
Well, mine did. Twice, in fact, within the twelve month warranty. First time the headphone socket stopped working (it would still play, etc, but no sound). Second time it would only turn on if it was plugged into a computer via Firewire. That last replacement was 6 weeks ago and I'm hoping to get at least 6 months out of it before it dies again.
This were, I might add, iPods that were only used for 1 - 2 hours per day, 4 - 5 days a week and *always* placed in protective cases (on both occasions the tech asked me if I'd ever even used the thing - not a scratch or scuff mark to be seen). I shudder to think how people who actually use them heavily (~5 hours/day, jogging, etc) fare.
Uh, it doesn't. *Particularly* if you want to go back to the old ("real") DOS versions of Wordperfect, the two were worlds apart in terms of interface. Wordperfect was more like vi or emacs than Word.
It would be more correct to say Wordperfect has become more like Word, than vice versa (even if the Office team did go to amazing lengths in the earlier versions to make Word respond identically to Wordperfect commands so people would switch).
Word (for Windows and particularly for MacOS) was around a helluva long time before "Wordperfect for Windows" was even released (the first version of which was mind-bogglingly sucky). Heck, it was the *lack* of "Wordperfect for Windows" that was one of the biggest reasons Word displaced Wordperfect.
So maybe they weren't emulating Word's look and feel at all and were going for WordPerfect's look and feel, which happened to be similar to Word.
Wordperfect and Word operated *very* differently. Had you ever actually experienced Wordperfect outside of reading about it, you'd know that.
And wasn't Win2k the one with the 60,000 bugs? No thanks to that - I'll stick with the Penguin.
Right. Because it's not like Linux hasn't gots tens of thousands of bugs. Particular when a "bug" in the context of that 60,000 number can be something like a spelling error.
If it were the OS, it would happen to everyone. It doesn't, therefore the cause is something unique to your environment.
On the off chance you're actually interested, the problems you're having sound heat-related. There's a fairly high chance the machine isn't getting anything like the load with you running Ubuntu on it that your wife would have been generating with Photoshop. Alternatively it might have been the hard disk that was removed (or a combination of both).
This feature is completely independent of "browser integration". All four platforms have the same browser-as-a-shared-component style architecture (and of them, Windows had it first). That some choose to have a shell that loads various components as required (Windows and KDE) and some offer only a simple shell (OS X and GNOME) does not change the fundamentals. The browser is still "integrated" into the "OS" by being available as a reusable component.
Konqueror is more of a suite of programs (file manager + web browser), but it's also far more secure than IE.
Probably true, but that's got nothing to do with "browser integration".
There is nothing special about IE. It isn't part of the kernel. It doesn't run with special privileges. It runs in the same context as the user. It can't do anything a standalone browser application couldn't do. It's just another piece of user-space code.
Amazing how such a "dumb idea" has since been copied by OS X, KDE and GNOME.
0. Performance optimisation.
1. Fix kernel/stability problems.
[...]
Personally, I'm pretty happy with OS X's stability. I can even handle the UI look differences, since at least the "feel" remains mostly consistent.
However, performance and responsiveness, while improving with every release, are still pretty dismal.
Australian law already dictates that all ISPs must provide, if requested, internet filtering software "free of charge".
IOW, our law already has a provision for a per-subscriber "upstream valve".
This dipshit is suggesting this "upstream valve" should be instigated for the *whole country*, not just on a per-subscriber basis. Thus making net-nannied internet access the default, rather than the exception.
I have to agree, I think this is an American thing [0]. I've been through a few jobs and based on them, when I give notice I would expect to be working up until the very last day, spend most of that last day with my boss and replacement changing passwords/login details/security tokens, etc and then be taken to the pub with the boss paying.
Quite frankly, were my professionalism insulted in the way the article described, I would do everything within my power (legally) to get the word out "on the street" that my now-former-employer wouldn't extend their employees even the most basic level of respect, and that working for them would be a bad idea, because inevitably, they'll eventually screw any/all of their employees over _badly_ and hang them out to dry.
(I would also be sure to at least double my private consulting rates just for them, when they came asking to know where the chalk mark needed to be drawn, since they would have only themselves to blame for not knowing.)
Any employers knows when they hire me, that part and parcel of my job entails unfettered access to nearly all aspects of the company's IT infrastructure, and that one day I'm going to leave. They accept the former caveat because as a professional, it is expected that I will treat that level of access with the respect and responsibility it deserves. I see no reasonable justification for that professionalism to be expected to disappear when the latter issue is clarified.
[0] Having spent the last year or so working for a US company (in Australia), I've also discovered their corporate culture has *serious* issues about giving more than 4 consecutive weeks leave, and/or giving unpaid leave. My erroneous assumption about these two issues meant the holiday I was hoping to take next year had to be *seriously* curtailed, even after volunteering to work for a week from our European office while I was there. Truly, Australian and US working cultures are worlds apart.
Lots of people are raising this obvious point (and personally, I agree - laws against "speeding" are nothing more than revenue raisers).
However, it's worth pointing out that the law doesn't recognise any legitimate reasons for exceeding the speed limit (at least here in Australia, I'd assume other countries were the same[0]). If you go over the limit by even 1km/h - and admit to it - you'll get a ticket. That's why when you get pulled over you *never* admit you were exceeding the limit, as any hope of a technicality, good lawyer, big boobs, crying or simple dumb luck getting you off the ticket goes down the drain.
[0] Although, that said, we are the draconian speed enforcement capital of the world, so maybe not.
Are you talking about "worse" in terms of some hand-waving "efficiency" perspective, or are you talking about "worse" from the consumer service perspective ? Because in my experience, at least, State-owned monopolies typically have a charter guaranteeing minimum levels of service for *all* customers, whereas private monopolies do not. I would expect a State monopoly to deliver better products, customer service and value for money than a private monopoly.
It would seem to me, from a consumer perspective, a private monopoly is far worse than a public one.
Private monopolies, on the other hand, can only exist without State assistance when a monopolistic solution is the most efficient way to serve the market, because otherwise additional private solutions would naturally be developed and there would no longer be a monopoly.
I would argue that a "privatised" monopoly is the only logical end result of a market *without* State intervention and regulation.
When a monopoly is developed through thoroughly private means, there is nothing preventing another from doing the same and thus breaking the monopoly.
I can't agree with that - any competitor entering a monopolised market will have a seriously higher barrier to entry. There's a vast difference between creating a monopolised market from nothing and bumping a monopolised market leader off their perch.
Because it makes deploying them easier, quicker, cheaper and less dependant on a particular individual's (or individuals') knowledge.