Another company that seems to have good customer service is Amazon.com. I saw this when a book was delayed in shipping and didn't arrive when I expected. They were very accomodating, sent me a duplicate book, and covered all shipping. No hangups at all.
Microsoft consistently releases buggy software and they publicly admit that yes, the UI experience comes before security.
Funny, I first "experienced" Windows XP this weekend, and the UI is nothing special. It was just the old Windows with some eye candy and CPU-sucking animated menus. I never saw a 900MHz PC react so slowly.
Their hardware is nice, but not so nice that is it needed for 90% of the applications on which it is used.
Their hardware is extremely nice, and is highly appropriate for the 90% of the applications on which it is used. (No, I am not a Sun employee or affiliate)
Frankly, without adding the GNU tools, Solaris is virtually unusable!
This is true only if you can't think outside of the GNU box. Solaris comes with a ton of software that compares well with what comes with Linux distros, and if you really need the GIMP or GCC, you can download a precompiled package for it (or use the bonus CD that comes with the Solaris media kit). No problem!
Linux on commodity hardware (Intel) is approching the power of Sun's products.
There is more to life than SPECint2000. Also, when you try to build a Linux system to match the features of a Sun box, 1) you can't match all the features, and 2) the prices don't look so competitive any more.
If Sun is having problems, it is not due to their hardware. Rather, it would be due to marketing. Sun hardware (and other companies' real hardware) can pay for itself over time (in time saved and sheer joy-of-use), but many suits and Linux-on-x86-zealots don't fully appreciate this.
This may all be very true, but, unfortunately, common sense is less common than it should be, even among very intelligent people. While books, such as the Mythical Man Month, are excellent, insightful, and inspiring, they are only part of the reciple for making good management. These books paired with someone who is predisposed to being a good manager makes for project heaven. Such books paired with Dilbert characters results in comedy only.
United States government, like many governments, is a function of culture. In the past, the United States did have slavery, American Indians were killed, and women could not vote. However, culture changed, and slaves were freed, American Indians were treated a little better, and women can vote. On a whole, the United States is better behaved, now, although there's still a lot of room for improvement.
A good example of graceful degradation is the behavior of a good UNIX kernel as virtual memory is exhausted. It still works, although slowly, since there are well-thought-out mechanisms to keep the system going.
Another example would be the Internet. It is designed to still work after much of it has been destroyed.
Let's all be thankful that the history of UNIX has prevented a true UNIX monopoly.
I don't know about all of Sun's business dealings, but it seems Sun just isn't seeking a monopoly of the sort Microsoft has. Otherwise, Sun wouldn't let other companies do the dirty work of providing J2EE implementations. Even IBM, one of Sun's biggest competitors, sells a J2EE server and other Java products!
I really hope those on the market for Itanium machines are smart enough to look beyond MHz. On the other hand, most of them will probably be looking to install Windows, so my optimism may be unfounded.
Also, keep in mind that some crashes are not due to the console, but due to the software (i.e., game). An infinite loop can appear to lock up a machine just as much as a hardware chip failing.
Those Windows-based consoles just have a lot more software (the "one bug per thousand lines of code" theory of Windows instability).
MIPS R5900 != x86 anything. Comparing these two is inaccurate.
Don't confuse Linux application performance with the overall performance of the machine. The PS2 CPU can do 6.4GFLOPS (rather impressive), while most user applications lie in the integer domain (something the PS2 does relatively weakly). The PS2 is a gaming machine first, a home PC second.
It would probably be true to say, though, that the need for (b) is dying out, and the need for (a) is growing.
The network transparency of X is immensely useful (and brilliant). I'd rather take the superior, albeit slower, architecture of X over any super-fast, yet functionally neutered, architecture.
Sometimes I wish all of those "web standards" were thrown out in favor of a newer better version of X. Imagine: web applications could be the real thing, and all that (MS)HTML/(MS)XHTML/(MS)XML/(MS)JavaScript cacaphony could be tossed.
Would http://docs.sun.com be helpful to anyone? It isn't Linux, but Solaris docs can be a starting point. This site has full Solaris documentation including sections 2 and 3 of the man pages.
Do many people really think Windows is an easy programmer-friendly platform?
If I want a simple programming model, standard APIs, mature development tools, good documentation, powerful scripting, and a choice of user interface toolkits, why shouldn't I just go with UNIX?
...just giving up because there's no good spell checker for Linux is silly.
I have had pretty good luck with ispell. It can quietly ignore LaTeX markup and can be invoked within Emacs. Most ftp sites that distribute Linux/BSD/etc. packages have it.
If your definition of "good" is something that is GUIfied, then perhaps StarOffice could satisfy you?
Full disclosure in security is based on the journalistic ideal that information should be shared openly. This is good and helps keep the big guys in check. It keeps them responsible.
Think about how bad things would be if nothing got fixed, because the big guys never took security bugs seriously. Consider UNIX. What would UNIX be like today if all of the security holes were never reported and fixed? It would be like the swiss-cheese it was twenty years ago. Fortunately, UNIX has had its major holes plugged, and the documentation of these holes has made all of us better administrators and programmers.
Slashdot Mirror
Another company that seems to have good customer service is Amazon.com. I saw this when a book was delayed in shipping and didn't arrive when I expected. They were very accomodating, sent me a duplicate book, and covered all shipping. No hangups at all.
Microsoft consistently releases buggy software and they publicly admit that yes, the UI experience comes before security.
Funny, I first "experienced" Windows XP this weekend, and the UI is nothing special. It was just the old Windows with some eye candy and CPU-sucking animated menus. I never saw a 900MHz PC react so slowly.
If you're selling a higher-price product you can't compete by matching the lower priced product, you have to be better.
Solaris is no more expensive than Linux. Period.
Their hardware is nice, but not so nice that is it needed for 90% of the applications on which it is used.
Their hardware is extremely nice, and is highly appropriate for the 90% of the applications on which it is used. (No, I am not a Sun employee or affiliate)
Frankly, without adding the GNU tools, Solaris is virtually unusable!
This is true only if you can't think outside of the GNU box. Solaris comes with a ton of software that compares well with what comes with Linux distros, and if you really need the GIMP or GCC, you can download a precompiled package for it (or use the bonus CD that comes with the Solaris media kit). No problem!
Linux on commodity hardware (Intel) is approching the power of Sun's products.
There is more to life than SPECint2000. Also, when you try to build a Linux system to match the features of a Sun box, 1) you can't match all the features, and 2) the prices don't look so competitive any more.
If Sun is having problems, it is not due to their hardware. Rather, it would be due to marketing. Sun hardware (and other companies' real hardware) can pay for itself over time (in time saved and sheer joy-of-use), but many suits and Linux-on-x86-zealots don't fully appreciate this.
The fact remains that Linux on an IBM mainframe does things...than [sic] makes Sun envious.
Please elaborate. I don't see any special features of new IBM servers that makes them really stand apart from the new Sun servers.
Proprietary UNIX is great in some niche markets, but it does not compete cost-effectively with Linux or Windows.
This is only partially true. For example, you can download Solaris for free right now.
I wonder if anyone truly prefers CDE.
I do. As long I still use the older 32-bit Sun workstations (SPARCstation 10, 20, etc.), I will use CDE (or at least something lighter than GNOME).
For example, I tried GNOME on an older SPARCstation model, and the CPU utilization meter alone utilized 50% of the CPU! Talk about irony.
most people dont post to slashdot with elements of style in hand
please be more forgiving as this isnt a forum for literature just conversation
This may all be very true, but, unfortunately, common sense is less common than it should be, even among very intelligent people. While books, such as the Mythical Man Month, are excellent, insightful, and inspiring, they are only part of the reciple for making good management. These books paired with someone who is predisposed to being a good manager makes for project heaven. Such books paired with Dilbert characters results in comedy only.
United States government, like many governments, is a function of culture. In the past, the United States did have slavery, American Indians were killed, and women could not vote. However, culture changed, and slaves were freed, American Indians were treated a little better, and women can vote. On a whole, the United States is better behaved, now, although there's still a lot of room for improvement.
A good example of graceful degradation is the behavior of a good UNIX kernel as virtual memory is exhausted. It still works, although slowly, since there are well-thought-out mechanisms to keep the system going.
Another example would be the Internet. It is designed to still work after much of it has been destroyed.
Let's all be thankful that the history of UNIX has prevented a true UNIX monopoly.
I don't know about all of Sun's business dealings, but it seems Sun just isn't seeking a monopoly of the sort Microsoft has. Otherwise, Sun wouldn't let other companies do the dirty work of providing J2EE implementations. Even IBM, one of Sun's biggest competitors, sells a J2EE server and other Java products!
Wow. Another person who thinks I must use Linux since I criticize Windows. There are more than two operating systems in this world.
I really hope those on the market for Itanium machines are smart enough to look beyond MHz. On the other hand, most of them will probably be looking to install Windows, so my optimism may be unfounded.
I did read, but you didn't cite the benchmarks in your original post. Without those, it is difficult to separate fact from opinion.
My PS2 has behaved well.
Also, keep in mind that some crashes are not due to the console, but due to the software (i.e., game). An infinite loop can appear to lock up a machine just as much as a hardware chip failing.
Those Windows-based consoles just have a lot more software (the "one bug per thousand lines of code" theory of Windows instability).
MIPS R5900 != x86 anything. Comparing these two is inaccurate.
Don't confuse Linux application performance with the overall performance of the machine. The PS2 CPU can do 6.4GFLOPS (rather impressive), while most user applications lie in the integer domain (something the PS2 does relatively weakly). The PS2 is a gaming machine first, a home PC second.
It would probably be true to say, though, that the need for (b) is dying out, and the need for (a) is growing.
The network transparency of X is immensely useful (and brilliant). I'd rather take the superior, albeit slower, architecture of X over any super-fast, yet functionally neutered, architecture.
Sometimes I wish all of those "web standards" were thrown out in favor of a newer better version of X. Imagine: web applications could be the real thing, and all that (MS)HTML/(MS)XHTML/(MS)XML/(MS)JavaScript cacaphony could be tossed.
If you aren't allowed to patch your server, then
you shouldn't have bought it in the first place. What's a system administrator good for if he/she can't administrate?
...is the complete lack of good documentation.
Would http://docs.sun.com be helpful to anyone? It isn't Linux, but Solaris docs can be a starting point. This site has full Solaris documentation including sections 2 and 3 of the man pages.
Do many people really think Windows is an easy programmer-friendly platform?
If I want a simple programming model, standard APIs, mature development tools, good documentation, powerful scripting, and a choice of user interface toolkits, why shouldn't I just go with UNIX?
Microsoft could just about to release a new OS, called M$ Shite - This will be worse than MSDOS
Microsoft has been doing this for years. They just didn't call it "shit".
Which OS spends millions on UI design?
A lot of money went into: MacOS, CDE, Openwindows, etc., and, now, GNOME. Microsoft isn't the only big player, here.
...just giving up because there's no good spell checker for Linux is silly.
I have had pretty good luck with ispell. It can quietly ignore LaTeX markup and can be invoked within Emacs. Most ftp sites that distribute Linux/BSD/etc. packages have it.
If your definition of "good" is something that is GUIfied, then perhaps StarOffice could satisfy you?
Full disclosure in security is based on the journalistic ideal that information should be shared openly. This is good and helps keep the big guys in check. It keeps them responsible.
Think about how bad things would be if nothing got fixed, because the big guys never took security bugs seriously. Consider UNIX. What would UNIX be like today if all of the security holes were never reported and fixed? It would be like the swiss-cheese it was twenty years ago. Fortunately, UNIX has had its major holes plugged, and the documentation of these holes has made all of us better administrators and programmers.