Why windows is not for large scale [Archive] - ShowEQ Open Source Project Message Forums

sam

02-12-2003, 03:51 PM

First off... let me get something straight... if you see any mispelled words, give yourself a cookie and keep reading... please dont think any less of me for cheating on my spelling tests when I was a kid.

There are only two pro's to using windows that I can think of at this moment. (Consider me biased or whatever, but I have used both for a long time)
1) easy to configure/admin
2) supports a lot of commercial software which a lot of companies would normally buy

Now 2 only applies when the software doesnt come on any better platform. As far as the *nix world is concerned, the number 1 Pro for the windows OS, is the Con for *nix. The pro's for *nix OSes are:
1) stability
2) scalability
3) flexibility
4) efficiency
5) cost
6) security

I will admit that if you take a winnt/2k box and brick it up in a closet with a power cord running to it, it will run rock solid till the end of time probably. When I say stability, I mean you can do pretty much anything, and have almost any part of the hardware fail for a *nix OS and keep running. If my video card pukes... screw it... I dont need it to be a web server. So I wait until its a great time for an outage and then shut things down to fix the video. In windows, pretty much anything that doesn't work perfect will cause the rest of the system to stop and require a reboot.

With scalability, you do some serious system structures of thousands of machines and they will scale better than any windows platform will. The only exception to this would be if a commercial company has a product for only the windows platform that works better than the products available for nix. This is unlikely but could happen.

Nix OSes are flexible because they can work with pretty much anything... any data from windows can be handled on a nix OS. There are so many times I have wanted to use something from the linux/unix world on my home windows box but nothing is available to do it... I could always write my own but thats not a viable solution.

Nix is MUCH more efficient than windows... why... because you only run what you want to run. I dont run internet explorer in the background on my linux FTP server... I dont cache my ram to hard drive even when I'm no where near low on ram in linux... but windows will cache to the drive no matter if you have 2 gig of ram and just running notepad. When I need to use a nice gui tool on my linux, I can run it remotely to keep the graphical cpu load off the server box... or just start up X on the server locally, run the app, and shut down X when I'm done. In windows, you're stuck with a large chunk of your ram and some cpu going to your useless gui.

Cost.. the majority of the linux world is completely free... and you are frowned upon if you charge for your linux based software. Unix is not free but it will run the free software. Lots of people argue that windows is cheaper overall because it requires fewer man hours to manage it compared to linux. That is true... if you are a windows monkey trying to admin linux. If you know your shit in linux and you know your shit in windows, you will take LESS time setting up your linux servers than you ever would your windows. Nix OSes are modular... so you can build the server using pre-configured pieces that you just slap together for the need of the server. Windows isn't like that.. you got two options in windows... you either do every step, or you take one step. So you can duplicate a windows server by ghosting the drive, but its only gonna do what the other did... in the nix world you build what you want.

The last pro of Nix is that it is secure. Security is always relative because nothing is truely secure. Windows has hole after hole and there is nothing you can do about it... you have to rely on one company to decide if they want to patch your hole... you have no say in the matter. In the nix world you see a hole, you fix it. This means as soon as you hear from your underground hacker friend that there is a way to gain root access to your box, you go and fix it. Microsoft will try to silence the press and things to try and keep the security hole a secret until they can get their slow gears turning and try to patch it. During this period, the hackers of the world are out there ripping windows servers apart while microsoft is just trying to keep its good image. All platforms can have security issues, but with nix, you have the source so YOU can fix it. And if you're thinking something like, "well if you got a good firewall setup then...", well then you are an idiot cause firewalls only keep out script kiddies.

At home I have a windows box setup for two reasons:
To run my limited software that requires windows (emule).
To act as my honeypot... people spend all their time beating and hacking at that box which I have blocked away from my linux machines for the day it gets hacked.

sam

02-12-2003, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by high_jeeves
With a good admin, windows can be as stable as unix.
You are limiting your view to running in a perfect world under perfect situations.. unix handles the imperfect and works as best it can around it... windows just stops with any error. Windows rolls everything up into one huge house of cards... and when that one card is pulled out, it all comes down... nix builds up a hundred little houses.

sam

02-12-2003, 04:15 PM

One thing I forgot to mention in my above post..
We just had a birthday yesterday for an HP-UX server that has hosted the entire comapny's email services. What was its age you ask... it was 1000 days of uptime. The box is still serving mail just fine. Lets see a windows box do that. We bought cake and threw a little party yesterday :)

Load averages: 11.73, 7.67, 8.77
124 processes: 120 sleeping, 4 running
Cpu states:
LOAD USER NICE SYS IDLE BLOCK SWAIT INTR SSYS
11.73 57.1% 0.0% 30.9% 12.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Look at that load the box has been running for basically the past 3 years.

high_jeeves

02-12-2003, 04:17 PM

Unfortunately, attitutes like this cost companies lots of money, and time.. most companies have that one guy that swears that unix/linux is the only alternative.. I've worked for those companies, I have seen the problems one sided views can cause... as was stated by don'tdoit above:

All I have to say is use the right tool for the job.

Its really just that simple.. there are jobs where Windows is the right tool.. there are environments, with thousands of users, where windows is perfectly stable..

A prime example: Vegas.. ever been to Vegas? Ever played a video poker/video slot machine.. most of those (all the ones I am aware of), and the server that run them, keep statistics, etc.. are windows based, some even DOS based.. do you see those crash? Could you think of a higer user load, or a more mission critical application?

At a previous job I had, we developed Java code. We had one developer that insisted that Linux was the way to go, and he did all of his development in Linux (even tho our production environment was Windows based)... So, what happened? Well, bugs in his JRE (which were bugs in the interpreter, NOT the code we were writing) caused him to report false bugs, modify code to work around JRE bugs that werent issues in production, and generally cost him time and energy. In addition, when we were looking for a more robust source control environment (we were using CVS, but wanted a more flexible tool), he was screwed.. why? Because the tool we evaluated as the best one out there had no linux client.. so, should the entire company go away from the best tool, because the one guy couldnt use it? No, we switched, and said to him: "Checking in your code is YOUR problem, if you want to run linux, fine, but you have to figure out some way to get it into source control".

So, the moral of the story here: Saying that OS A is always better than OS B is silly.. OS A has its uses, as does OS B.. hell, there are even people that still run OS/2, VMS, and others, because they are the best tool for the job.

Support is a huge issue.. An excellent windows admin is much cheaper than an excellent unix admin... When there are problems with the OS, you have a huge company, and installed user base to get support from.. on linux, you have groups.google.com... Application support is the same way.. free software support sucks.... these are things that companies must be concerned about..

Sales is another issue.. when selling expensive software solutions that are backended on a free operating system, clients can become nervous, because they understand (or atleast think they understand) the underlying support issues inherent with community supported software..

I use both OSs at home, for different things.. for basic office tasks, and web browsing, I use windows.. why? Its better at it.
I use Linux for my home theatre PC, my firewall, and one of my coding boxes.. why?

For the HTPC, I prefer the video configurations available with X, to make is easier for me to output various video modes to my HDTV..

For my firewall: Duh.. better software..

For one of my coding boxes: Cant very well code linux apps in Windows...

If I were to switch all of my machines to either operating system, SOMETHING I was doing would get MUCH more inefficiant, and NOTHING that I do would be more efficiant.. So, in closing, I use the best tool for the job, simple as that..

--Jeeves

sam

02-12-2003, 05:28 PM

You have some very good points about real world situations when it comes to using the best OS for the job. I am not fighting this... if you have a boss that says he'll fire you if you install linux on a server but will give you a raise for installing Win2k, then you install windows... it was the right OS for the "job".

Now... back to my arguement... which is the better OS? Lets say we drop the application part of the argument and stick to pure OS. Which OS is more stable, flexible, and efficient? If you say windows, I wanna hear why cause as far as an OS goes, windows is not that great. You are limited in so many ways by going with a windows OS its sad.

Your point about the unix admin and win admin are good real world example... the unix admin is more expensive at this time. The reason its more expensive is because unix is better solution for pretty much anything sort of server, and companies know this.

The CVS argument is one I overlooked because I'm sure it would be difficult to handle microsoft source safe with linux. But more than likely someone has made an MS SS client for linux so that this can be done. If it absolutely comes down to it, run a copy of MS SS using Wine.

As far as the application side is concerned, I dont think we'll ever come to an agreement, so lets just discuss the OS itself.

TDES

02-12-2003, 07:15 PM

A prime example: Vegas.. ever been to Vegas? Ever played a video poker/video slot machine.. most of those (all the ones I am aware of), and the server that run them, keep statistics, etc.. are windows based, some even DOS based.. do you see those crash? Could you think of a higer user load, or a more mission critical application?

I'd like to throw another one out there along those lines ... ever use an an ATM ?(other than at a bank) for USA and Canada, all transactions handled between the off premesis ATM and the financial network ... Win based.

throx

02-12-2003, 08:50 PM

Now... back to my arguement... which is the better OS? Lets say we drop the application part of the argument and stick to pure OS. Which OS is more stable, flexible, and efficient? If you say windows, I wanna hear why cause as far as an OS goes, windows is not that great. You are limited in so many ways by going with a windows OS its sad.

That's a retarded argument. An OS by itself does absolutely nothing. The entire purpose of an OS is to run applications so choosing an OS before you choose your apps is just dumb. You can't even define what is better because you have to choose a task and that involves applications...

Frankly, if I was recruiting and I came across someone with your "Unix is better than Windows" attitude, I'd turn down your app immediately because there really isn't time for that sort of bigotry in the industry. Pull your head out of your ass and be a bit more open minded in your thinking - you'll go a lot further.

Is *nix better than Windows (I assume you mean NT variants) - NO! It's different. The difference is good because it gives you the choice to do what you want with the apps you want.

As everyone else here has said, you choose the OS that fits the apps for the job you want. Something that will be *nix, sometimes Windows, sometimes DOS, sometimes something that your wrote yourself.

Resiliant

02-12-2003, 10:31 PM

I've been programming, doing system management, and administring systems since 1970. I have administered everything from 2nd generation TRANSISTOR based machines, to current state-of-the art x86 and RISC based hardware. High_Jeeves, as usual, is right on the money.

Sam, the very question you ask demonstrates that you are not really interested in solving problems, but in trying to argue that one system is better than another. You tout xnix as the 'better' operating system primarily because of up time. Want to know what OS holds the worlds record for up-time? Don't know? Look it up. Its 8 1/2 YEARS.. yes I said *YEARS*. Never crashed, banking application. Want to know what OS? It was VMS.

You ever heard of VMS? Know who wrote VMS? Well guess what? It's the same guy that wrote Windows NT.

HOWEVER, NT is not 'better' than AIX, Unix, or Linux. Nor is NT better, nor the Mac OS. Its all RELATIVE to the task you wish to perform. Arguing that one OS is 'better' than another is like arguing which is better.. a claw hammer or a ball-peen hammer. Absurd.

R

P.S. Doesn't eBay use NT? I believe so.

throx

02-12-2003, 10:44 PM

Look it up. Its 8 1/2 YEARS.. yes I said *YEARS*. Never crashed, banking application. Want to know what OS? It was VMS.

Actually, I was chatting with a sysadmin for a VMS system once that hadn't been rebooted in over 6 years (yep - banking application). He said he was actually quite worried that if they ever had to shut the machine down one day that the boot process may be borked - after all, it hadn't been given a real test for a long time.

compuboy86

02-12-2003, 10:48 PM

Feel free to skip this post seeing how some fine points have been argued (primarily by High_Jeeves and Resiliant) and that I only in high school- a far cry from a thousand+ networked enviornment. That being said:

As far as using OSs on a requirement/tool scale is by FAR a better method of doing ANY sort of job. Whether its carpentry or mission-critical applications. From personal experience, I had to make a DVD movie for a project and I chose to use our iMac downstairs. Why? It was the easiest to use, maintained high quality, and the one issue I had was solved with a single google search.

From what I've read/seen. It would appear that trying to argue one OS over another is simply trying to reduce the argument to a lets-smash-Microsoft party. Aside from being ruthless (IE sucks btw so what do I use? Mozillia- another example of the right tool) they provide incredibly stable applications in certain areas- Office for example. Granted you want to strangle the paper-clip, but aisde from that, I've never had any issues with.

Forseeing an argument against my post- yes, I KNOW that Office is not the same as running mission-critical web servers, however, that doesn't detract from the simple observation that jobs are done BETTER and more efficient with the right tools. Some Windows based, some *nix- each situation is different.

Just my 2 cents- cheers!

Compuboy86

bonkersbobcat

02-13-2003, 12:05 AM

Originally posted by sam
Now... back to my arguement... which is the better OS? Lets say we drop the application part of the argument and stick to pure OS. Which OS is more stable, flexible, and efficient? If you say windows, I wanna hear why cause as far as an OS goes, windows is not that great. You are limited in so many ways by going with a windows OS its sad.As has been pointed out the question is pretty stupid. The point of a computer system is to accomplish something.

But for the sake of argument lets talk about operating systems. To be fair we will disregard the GUI and only look at system level services provided by the operating system (the kernel).

Operating systems manage computing resources. When comparing just the OS you have to evaluate how a given operating system manages resources. In this vain you should look at what well documented, and supported APIs (OS provided system services) are there for managing memory, processes, threads, jobs, disk space, file systems, security, network communications, and diagnostic operations. (and probably a few other areas that don’t come to mind at the moment.)

I am not going to state which OS is better, because as I and others have said, it all depends on what you are doing. But if you want to evaluate, and you want me to respect your opinion, you had better be able to argue in all the above areas.

Ankan

02-13-2003, 04:36 AM

Facts about Linux vs Windows OS discussions:

1. Windows users often claim there is no software for Linux

2. Windows users often claim it is unstable.

3. Windows users often claim there are no games.

4. Windows users often claim it is too hard to operate.

5. Windows users often claim it is slow.

6. etc etc etc.

And then when asking them about what they done with the OS, they confess they read about it in a Windows magazine. They never used it, they never installed it, they never operated it.

I had the Linux vs Windows discussion when I started at my new work when I noticed how they wasted energy. I taught them about it, bought them Linux magazines I put out for display so they could read. Now our Server survey consists of 95 percent *nix/Linux. And why?

1. Stability
2. Security
3. Flexibility
4. Faster processing
5. Cost
6. Educational advantages. People that job for us learn a lot, and not just about the OS. Everyone of us is another ones student. That way everyone know a lot about everything and the system is extremely happy.

Even as we speaking, the staff is considering Linux workstations as well. There are too many problems with Windows systems. Companies don't have time to wait for a patch that take ages and ages again to be realeased. With Linux that is no problem, since the sourcecode is there, waiting to be touched and fixed.

Try get hold of the sourcecode for Windows OSes. Telling You Good Luck, but it is no use. You will not get hold of it.

/Ankan

sam

02-13-2003, 09:45 AM

Thank you Ankan.

In the current world, you do have to chose to run windows sometiems, but the only reason for this is either because you are ignorant and cant run anything else, or you are tied into some microsoft thing so you cant leave. Lets all remember to thank MS for their well designed business structure. They design everything they do to tie you in and try their best to make it so you cant leave unless you want to do a lot of work. So most companies stay with windows because its more expensive to change than to just keep using windows. Overall they'll pay out the ass using windows, but they are only looking at their yearly budget. Does this mean that windows is better since it was the cheaper/easier option at the time? No it doesn't. In a company, I would pick the best OS for the job, but if I have the choice of Windows or some Nix OS, and either one is going to cost about the same amount (like I dont have to go and convert my company's 1000 workstation machines to linux because they were so windows dependant) then I will be going with the Nix OS. The longer you wait and stick with windows, the more you give money to microsoft and the more you lock yourself into their world.

So next time you are trying to pick the best OS for the job, think long term. If you had a buld your own car, and you would have it for the next 20 years, would you build it with an old toyota four cylinder? Well if you would, I wouldn't want to ride in it. I would be building mine with whatever is the best engine (gas efficient, powerful, and requires the fewest repairs). Then once I have the best engine, I would start put on the best pieces to make the rest of the car. Everyone keeps giving the argument of, if there are cheap chinese parts available that you can easilly slap in, grease free, then you should go with those. Thats pathetic... get your hands dirty, build things the right way.

Someone mentioned VMS... vms is a great OS... dated now but still a very good OS with some really great ideas behind it. And yes, the same guy that worked on VMS worked on NT, but he did not make NT the way he wanted... microsoft said they wanted this and that and that and this... and the vms guy said, "yes mam", and out popped NT. For a windows OS, NT is very stable but has a LOT of flaws.

sam

02-13-2003, 09:53 AM

Have you guys seen the new Mac OS? They based it on freebsd and just from what I have seen with my limited use of it, it seems to be a great OS. The only bitching I can do about it is that it requires Apple hardware and it has an extremely bloated UI... but the UI can be turned off if you want to run it as a server.

This OS seems to blend the best of both worlds.. you have the ease of use, as well as the ability to get into the background and do things manual. I dont think its quite ready yet, but its close. Anyone else run into any problems with OSX?

Cryonic

02-13-2003, 10:28 AM

Darwin (the core of OSX) runs on x86 systems. Apple released it as Open Source.

wfj5444

02-13-2003, 10:34 AM

I have been an NT/Win2k Sys Admin for about 6 years now. I have some experience with Linux, Sun and HPUX.

In therory, Linux is better like stick shift is better for a car. More control. You can control what your application software does as well as your OS.

But.. I practice, like an automatic transmission(ok not talking about fun or about racecars ;) ) Windows is more practicle.

Do companies want to spend the man hours to convert all their applications over to *nix? Do they want to retrain all their support staff? What about developers. New hardware in some cases has to be purchaced. Support staff see that, Wow! Unix admins make a lot more money, another addtional cost.

For what? How much can you save using Unix really?

I have worked for a 5000+ user company with 400+ Win2k servers. They for the most part worked very well. Limited downtime and not extremely expensive.

Another issue is cost of hardware/software. Tell me that Sun is more cost effective than Windows/Intel platform. Not even close.
In TCO terms they are closer than on the surface but I still think Sun is much more expensive.

Also try selling to a Multibillion dollar company that they should use untested (basically) free software with limited support over tested software with a 24/7 phone support. (directed at Linux) Think of what it would cost in terms of administrators who wouldn't need to use the support. Your Sys Admins would have to be expert Unix admins as well as very good programmers. Can you say $100k a year + for every admin, even in the SouthEast where I am from.

*Hint* SE salaries are about 1/3 less than what they pay in California

70k a year is very good pay for a NT admin with my experience.

In essense you better have a really good reason to use *nix.

Flexibility sure again if your admins are all programmers and love spending all their freetime updating and expanding their tools. Or they have to try out free ware stuff that might or might not work. Back to that whole trusted software thing. As far as software goes. Any pretty good NT admin can administer Exchange. What about on the Unix side? You have to have dedicated people for Sendmail. Oh.. and those guys demand even higher salaries.

There is somthing else to look at in this whole argument. How long has *nix been around? Since 1969 ish? WinNT only what since 1992? Maybe a bit before that. Give NT 10 more years and then maybe you can really compare apples to apples in terms of stabiliy. But even now Win2k is VERY stable.

I like *nix. Its the mother of the modern OS. But that doesn't make it the best. I would suggest *nix in certain situations. Not on the desktop, not for everyday tasks.

high_jeeves

02-13-2003, 10:47 AM

Companies don't have time to wait for a patch that take ages and ages again to be realeased. With Linux that is no problem, since the sourcecode is there, waiting to be touched and fixed.

This is my favorite quote of all time.. This is clearly the difference between the thinking of somebody who is still a coder, and somebody that has moved into management.. What company, in their right mind, wants to have to edit the code of the operating system? I mean, lets not even get into the support issues, but now a company has to deal with QA'ing their operating system, as well as the software their are putting on it? You've got to be kidding me..

I spent a few years working on medical systems, liability is a huge issue, who is liable if there is a failure in the operating system? Well, using an OS written by an actual company, with actual legal agreements, liability is significantly mitigated... I would imagine that all high-liability industries deal with the same issues (Financial companies, etc..)

For a bit of perspective here, I have been running both windows, and unix/linux for 15+ years... I think I can comment on the two operating systems from experience..

1. Windows users often claim there is no software for Linux

2. Windows users often claim it is unstable.

3. Windows users often claim there are no games.

4. Windows users often claim it is too hard to operate.

5. Windows users often claim it is slow.

6. etc etc etc.

#1: You might be confused here.. in a real corporate environment, support is as important as software... if I find a peice of software for linux, what kind of support do I get? If I'm lucky, I get a message forum, if I'm not lucky, I get nothing except community involvement... in either case, we arent looking at an hour or two to get a peice of software back up and running, we are talking about days, or even weeks...

#2: Linux is stable... so is Windows.. I havnt reboot my main development box in almost 2 months.. last time it was rebooted was due to a power failure.. running XP here..

#3: Uh... there are very few high quality games for linux... this is changing slowly.. I can now play EQ on my linux box through winex, which is great... go to a game store, or website, and show me the "linux" section... Look at Loki, for an example..

#4: It is.. I do HCI, and usability work as a significant part of my last 3 or 4 jobs... Linux is far more difficult to use.. as much as geeks deny it, CLI is NOT a good interface for most people... you cant get much done in linux without using the CLI.

#5: To my experience, on equal hardware, the two run at roughly the same speeds... speed is such a bitch to measure, so its tough to say... Windows is better at 3D graphics, but that is probably caused by better drivers..

1. Stability
2. Security
3. Flexibility
4. Faster processing
5. Cost
6. Educational advantages. People that job for us learn a lot, and not just about the OS. Everyone of us is another ones student. That way everyone know a lot about everything and the system is extremely happy.

#1: I just dont agree here.. as has been said, a good admin can keep windows up as long as linux... I just chatted with the admin that I worked with at my last company, he said that our mail server (win2K & exchange) was up for over 300 days before we changed office space...

#2: Arguable.. windows does have some security issues..

#3: People keep saying flexibility... show me anything you can do with linux, that you cant do with windows.. show me a prime example of any case where linux is more flexible than windows...

#4: I dont buy this one at all..

#5: This one has been shown, over and over again, to be a red herring.. in a project of any reasonable size, the cost of the OS is pretty tiny, and the cost of admins and real support for unix/linux is higher than that for windows... Plus, if you are talking about a real Unix, the hardware costs are astronomical...

#6: Spoken like a true engineer.. This is not part of any responsible decision making process...

And then when asking them about what they done with the OS, they confess they read about it in a Windows magazine. They never used it, they never installed it, they never operated it.

The same goes the other way, it appears.. most linux zealots that I mean havent used windows in quite some time (and I define a zealot as anybody who will use any peice of technology without considering any alternative). Quite frankly, "better technology" is such a small part of any good decision... You think the current technology base is the best of breed of all invented technologies? Its not.. better technologies than what we currently use have been invented, and died... alot of it is ease of use, cost, ease of maintenance, and quite frankly, marketing.. (and I know the linux guys really hate this one).

From throx:

Frankly, if I was recruiting and I came across someone with your "Unix is better than Windows" attitude, I'd turn down your app immediately because there really isn't time for that sort of bigotry in the industry. Pull your head out of your ass and be a bit more open minded in your thinking - you'll go a lot further.

After getting burned by this, it is now one of the first questions I ask when interviewing people for my team... I dont like zealots, period.. they make crappy engineers, because they cant see the big picture...

I hired a guy once who loved XML.. he wanted to do everything in XML.. he wouldnt consider using anything else, anywhere... I finally had to fire him, after he yelled at our DBA, because she refused to let him store raw XML in the database, instead of (correctly) denormalizing to a few tables... He couldnt understand that there was a situation where his vaunted XML wasnt the best tool for the job...

--Jeeves

Raistlin

02-13-2003, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by throx

That's a retarded argument. An OS by itself does absolutely nothing. The entire purpose of an OS is to run applications so choosing an OS before you choose your apps is just dumb. You can't even define what is better because you have to choose a task and that involves applications...

Here here Throx. Actually I always have to laugh at the folks (i've got a good friend that fits right in here) that are like "Ok, lets ignore the application perspective for a second, unix is better than windows."

Ignore the application perspective? Are you kidding? The windowing system on any *nix box is not OS level, it's a bloody application running on top of *nix. Think windows 3.1 here.

You CANNOT remove the application from the equation. You want to refine "application" to mean "3rd party application" ok, fine. You can do ls on Unix and Dir on Windows. I've got a GUI, you've got a much more powerful command line. *shrug* neither of us can accomplish any real work. You can't read e-mail, I can't read e-mail, you can't hit the web, neither can I (tho if you talk to Bill Gates, he'll tell you that windows internet explorer is part of the OS, unless he's standing in front of a grand jury that day.) You can't write documents in anything but text format (VI, vs EDIT) and neither can I. The bottom line is if you take away applications, all you have left is an operating system. And an operating system's job is managing your hardware. That's all there is.

Please remember that Linux (and possibly other unix varients, it's been a LONG time since i've installed anything but linux) is shipped with litterally THOUSANDS of APPLICATION programs as part of the distribution. Depending on your definition of application program, even "login" could be considered an application program...delete that and you have a useless OS (Believe me, it's been done on one of my production boxes).

To answer your question? Asside from the applications which OS is better...the answer is neither, both are EQUALLY useless to me. Asside from the applications, give me a fricking type writer any day of the week...at least I can get SOME work done on that.

Raistlin

02-13-2003, 12:01 PM

*Playing Devil's Advocate here.*

Originally posted by wfj5444
Do companies want to spend the man hours to convert all their applications over to *nix? Do they want to retrain all their support staff? What about developers. New hardware in some cases has to be purchaced. Support staff see that, Wow! Unix admins make a lot more money, another addtional cost.

Many many large companies (Sprint PCS, IBM, Verizon for three examples) Use Unix platforms for some of their work, alot of it mission critical. Hell they even still use Mainframe technology (my company was recently asked to port our software (c/c++/java) over to a mainframe for use at Verizon...)

Originally posted by wfj5444
I have worked for a 5000+ user company with 400+ Win2k servers. They for the most part worked very well. Limited downtime and not extremely expensive.

And in any of the 20K+ user companies i've worked for (and there have been several) they ALWAYS have both Unix and windows implimentations...and alot of them have Linux implimentations in their infrastructure as well.

Originally posted by wfj5444
Also try selling to a Multibillion dollar company that they should use untested (basically) free software with limited support over tested software with a 24/7 phone support. (directed at Linux)
...
[/B]

Many do. Very few of them use it for Mission Critical applications, but there are enough "linux geeks" out on the market at this point that companies are starting to no longer shy away from Linux as a business platform. Hell, a few years ago IBM threw all their support behind Linux even in favor of their own AIX. IBM support were installing Linux and IBM's suites of software all over the place. And as to no support, where have you been for the last 10 years? There are many companies who's SOUL business is 24/7 support for the Linux operating system via agreements. Take IBM consulting services for example. They do ALOT of Linux administration...and they're probably one of the top 3 largest companies who take outsourced IT departments.

Originally posted by wfj5444
Any pretty good NT admin can administer Exchange. What about on the Unix side? You have to have dedicated people for Sendmail. Oh.. and those guys demand even higher salaries.
[/B]

Are you kidding? Of any program to pick Sendmail was NOT the one to pick on. You mean the program that is forwarding over 75% of all e-mail going across the world? You mean the program that to my knowledge once setup for your company NEVER has to be modified (I know i've not touched my sendmail implimentation in over 4 years)? Yea, it can be a pain in the ass to setup the first time (see linux geeks out on the market) but generally, 3 or 4 hours of work and you can **just about** forget about your e-mail send/receive client for the rest of your business's lifetime. Upgrade sendmail software periodically? Yes, but it's structured such that upgrading sendmail does NOT require you to re-configure sendmail for your company (try THAT with exchange).

Originally posted by wfj5444
I like *nix. Its the mother of the modern OS. But that doesn't make it the best. I would suggest *nix in certain situations. Not on the desktop, not for everyday tasks.
[/B]

Actually the mother of the modern OS (read Windows) was the Mac OS, but we won't go into THAT discussion here.

I would hope this thread didn't start as a "linux for the desktop" thread because that would just be laughable at best. I have to assume we're talking about server implimentations, not user implimentations.

And as a server implimentation, it's hard to argue against 54% of all web servers in the world run apache (as opposed to about 22% which run IIS), almost 100% of all the world's internet e-mail will pass through at least 1 sendmail/smtp server before reaching it's desired destination. At least 70% of the world's e-mail implimentations are done via sendmail (external, not internal).
And I don't know of too many Oracle (the largest used DB in the market right now) implimentations that are done on Windows (I could be wrong here, but all the ones i've seen are on some version of *NIX). Oh, and BTW, next time you sit down at your computer at work and pull up this web page (or any others) try taking a look at what proxy you're going through...i'm betting most of you will answer "SQUID"...yep, another unix program.

These numbers are all a few years old (last time my business required me to look into the statistics for marketing) but they do demonstrate that at least SOME functionality belongs on Unix. However, I can't imagine any major business without an exchange server for internal e-mail or without using MS Office for producing presentations and documents.

Use the right tool for the right job, get your heads out of your collective operating systems, and quite being eleteists...Bill Gates is NOT the anti-christ, Linus Torvaldas (SP?) Is not God's projeny, windows is useable, and full of content. On the flip side, Unix/Linux is not this big, clunky crappy OS without use, there are valid uses for a unix server, and it's security is night and day above that of Windows (for most things). There are good sides and bad sides to each of these OSs and reasonable uses for each...as is seen in almost every successful business in the world.

Make yourselves more marketable, learn the goods and bads of each of these OSs, learn to think in terms of what each OS brings to the business and to the application under development and be one of the few out there that is still useful to job market in which flexability is king.

/rant off

quackrabbit

02-13-2003, 12:47 PM

Originally posted by Raistlin
[BActually the mother of the modern OS (read Windows) was the Mac OS, but we won't go into THAT discussion here.[/B]I will never forget the first time I saw Windows 95. I was working for AT&T at the time and we got a couple of pre-release (non-beta) copies to Q/A for rollout (Win 3.11/WFW wasn't cutting it in our environment at the time).

After a few hours of formatting and installing we all anxiously waited for the system to boot up for the first time. After we logged in there was just silence amoung us.... After a few tense seconds we all looked at each other and said, almost simultaneously, "Looks like a fucking Mac".

:)

don'tdoit

02-13-2003, 12:54 PM

I'm glad there are others out there that agree with what I said... yes, zealots and 1-track minded people suck ass.

I just have to comment on the security and stability issue... I submit that the security and stability of any OS that you use will be completely dependant on the expertise and experience of the Administrator. You take a basic install of Redhat and put it up against a basic install of W2Ksp3 and there will be holes in both. And holes will continue to show up in both.

I know from experience that getting either of those OS's secure and stable requires extra effort on my part to patch, configure, etc just right and do this continuously on BOTH OS's. You can extend this to the Apache vs IIS debate too.

I'm sure alot could be said about the publicity of MS holes that cause people to actually believe the lie that Linux has no security problems. But I'll let others debate about that.

Raistlin

02-13-2003, 12:58 PM

Originally posted by quackrabbit
After a few hours of formatting and installing we all anxiously waited for the system to boot up for the first time. After we logged in there was just silence amoung us.... After a few tense seconds we all looked at each other and said, almost simultaneously, "Looks like a fucking Mac".
:)

So here we are, we have our brand new windows 95 operating system installed on a test computer in our test lab at the college (gives you some idea of my age I guess)...and the arguement starts:

<Mac Guy to PC Co-Worker of mine> Looks like a fucking mac...windows 95 = mac 85.
<PC Co-Worker> It does not...it looks NOTHING like a mac.
<ME to PC Co-Worker> Leave and give me 30 minutes, then come back.

I proceed to copy the drives out of the "my computer" to the right hand side of the screen, move the trash can down to the lower right corner of the screen, the start menu bar to the top (start menu = apple menu of old) and clean the rest of the icons off the desktop (as many as I could) hiding the rest of them on top of each other behind a folder on the desktop that I created.

I will NEVER forget the look on the guy's face when he walked back into that room and saw, what honestly appeard (outside of the big windows "START" on teh button) to be a mac.

I'm a PC guy, but I know where my roots are..:)

throx

02-13-2003, 01:08 PM

And as a server implimentation, it's hard to argue against 54% of all web servers in the world run apache (as opposed to about 22% which run IIS)

Actually it's a bit closer than that. You have to remember that the Netcraft surveys count by site and not by IP address so a server hosing 10,000 virtual web servers as domain placeholders gets counted a lot more.

The most recent "server" counting (as opposed to "site" counting) was September last year which had Apahce at 54% and IIS at 35%.

As an aside, thanks high_jeeves for saying everything I wanted to in your post and saving me the time of saying it.

wfj5444

02-13-2003, 01:26 PM

Originally posted by Raistlin
Actually the mother of the modern OS (read Windows) was the Mac OS, but we won't go into THAT discussion here.

Negative. Symetric Multi Processing, Preemtive Mutlitasking, Paging... etc.

Unix first used these. These more or less define modern OS's. There are other things to look at but those are some important ones.

Oh.. and until just I think OS X, Macs didn't do preemtive multitasking.. I don't think. I could be wrong here.

GUI != Modern OS. I am speaking of features that allow the OS to perform quickly, reliably and as designed.

PS.

How the hell do you use a windowed OS with only 1 button
;)

throx

02-13-2003, 03:14 PM

Negative. Symetric Multi Processing, Preemtive Mutlitasking, Paging... etc.

Unix first used these. These more or less define modern OS's. There are other things to look at but those are some important ones.

If I recall correctly SMP was first used with big-iron mainframes, Preemption existed before Unix and demand paging was introduced in 1960 with ATLAS running on an IBM 709. About the only thing I can think of that Unix brought to the table on it's own is the "everything is a file" concept which is arguably good and bad.

cbreaker

02-13-2003, 04:35 PM

In the arguement of "Linux vs. Windows" - right now it's not an easy question.

However, I think that in the future it will become easier and easier for people to think more on the Linux side of things.

Linux is free, it's open, it's stable and it's proven. It's only going to get better from here.

Af for the desktop, the folks on the windows side of things tend to believe that Linux is too difficult to use, there's no games for it, etc. They are correct. For the desktop, it's not viable for someone that isn't a computer hobbiest. Sure, for someone that JUST does web browsing and e-mail, it's great. And for someone that loves to tinker with computers, it's great. It's just not there yet for the masses.

Look at linux five years ago, and compare that to Windows five years ago. Linux for the Desktop has made leaps and bounds since then. In fact, ask the average Joe what Linux WAS five years ago, and he probably wouldn't know.

But, this thread was intended for the large scale arguement.

There's plenty of shops with huge windows environments. Hundreds of windows servers, doing this and that. Overall you can get a pretty stable environment out of Windows.. depending on what you are looking to do.

In my own personal experience, large databases, processing tons of e-mail, and heavy duty web serving, UNIX just does better. And yes, it's easy to maintain and administer. There's a lot to be said about the command-line interface. Sure, many times you can't click and make something happen, but overall a qualified administrator can do things extremely well in a UNIX environment. Not to mention they can write up some scripts to get things done exactly how they want them done.

One person agrued "What the hell company would want you modifying the OS?" I think that any smart company should see the benefit in this. Want something done YOUR way? Then make it happen. There's a bug and you can fix it yourself? Why not? Folks that are stuck in the Windows way of thinking believe these to be very poor ideas. They don't seem to realize that this type of thing is done in unix enviornments all the time. It's flexibility.

Another reason that Unix is big in the "large scale" market is it's portability. You can have very large SGI machines and very small x86 Linux boxes, and they are similar systems. In a shop that runs their own applications, they can fairly easily port their stuff back and forth with a minimal degree of effort.

One of the big things about Windows systems is that quite frankly you don't have to be very "good" at sysadmin to do it. I mean, you can get many things done without really knowing how things work. The interface is consistent. I've never met a seriously incompotent UNIX admin, but I've met scores of incompotent Windows admins. I do believe that a Unix admin is more expensive to hire then a Windows one, and it's usually because the Unix admin, as a general rule, is more interested in computing and more knowledgable then a windows admin. They charge more because of it, as they should.

Last but not least, when was the last time you saw a Windows box with 128 processors? Perhaps when Windows gets used on IA64 machines, we might see it. And at the same time, Linux will be there right beside it.

don'tdoit

02-13-2003, 04:57 PM

I hate to reply so soon, because this one might make me sound like a MS zealot while i'm not, but...

There's a lot to be said about the command-line interface. Sure, many times you can't click and make something happen, but overall a qualified administrator can do things extremely well in a UNIX environment. Not to mention they can write up some scripts to get things done exactly how they want them done. I will admit that *nix does have a much better cmd line, but most people don't realize that NT4/W2K have a pretty damn good one too. I'm a cmd line junky and I can do just about everything from the cmd line. And if I can't, then I can just whip up a script (perl, cmd, wmi) to do what I need. Just like in *nix, omg! I'm not saying you dont' recognize this cbreaker, just making sure the other side is known.

I've never met a seriously incompotent UNIX admin, but I've met scores of incompotent Windows admins. I have met both, personally. Hell, some of each work at my company. Just the other day I had to tell a Unix admin wtf rsh was. And had to write a shell script for her that would issue a particular rsh command depending on which day of the week it was. I will give you that the ratio is skewed in *nix's favor, but I couldn't put a number on it. But idiots are on both sides.

Oh, and I will also admit it's alot easier to fake it in windows. Meaning that if you aren't very good, you can just click around till you find/fix it, etc.

wfj5444

02-13-2003, 05:36 PM

Very good points Throx. I suppose I should have qualified that with something like

Unix was the first OS that is now availabe for the desktop or is the first mainstream OS that did those things.

Then my question is wasn't Unix was the first to bring them all together?

I think we can agree it comes down the the Administrator. Comparing Win2k vs Linux in the server market is like comparing a Ford and a Chevy, how much difference is there really? They do things differently but can they both be used and used well by competent people. Yes.

I think though most of us agree that the zealots are the worst of our kind. Those who think one way is the only way.

Each OS is better than the other at specific tasks. But you have to give Linux credit.. They make MS cringe like no one else has ever been able to do. Not Novell, not Apple, not Sun.

sam

02-13-2003, 06:07 PM

You guys probably think I'm a linux zealot or something, but I'm not. I have installed windows machines at work and for other companies, as well as linux machines. If they are small and dont plan on scaling up very fast, then I recomend windows. Its simple, does the basics with great ease, and doesn't require really anything special. If they are thinking they want to have a web server and maybe a mail server within the next year, and possibly an ftp server, and then some other stuff as they get larger, then I always recomend linux. If they say they want a desktop machine to do word documents I say, go with windows and install office.. if you dont have the money budgetted then install linux with open office.

It is very correct to say that you should go with the right OS for the job, but I'm not trying to argue that. I'm trying to argue which OS is better at being an OS.. and I probably should have clarified it earlier on and I probably still havn't clarified it to the extent that I should have. I labeled this thread with the text of, "large scale", thinking in terms that companies would want the most efficient OS, but I probably should have made the subject, "Windows Kernel vs Linux Kernel".

An OS's job is to run apps and manage hardware efficiently/reliably. So which OS does this the best, windows or *nix? Nix sure seems to be the correct one here. Windows is flaky... it does weird things without asking... it has a large, bloated gui attached to it... ts not modular in any way. I see nothing that windows does better when it comes down to being a simple OS (run apps and manage hardware efficiently/reliably). You may take a little longer to install some newer hardware drivers on linux than windows, but once done setting up your hardware and telling your OS what hardware you have, which one is going to use that hardware in the most efficient way? Windows is the king of bloat... it does extra trash that you dont want just because it has to watch out for the grandmothers of the world trying to accidentally delete system files and other stupid shit. Nix lets you do what you want and you save cpu time/memory.

So whether it be a desktop or a server, a nix OS is better than windows for doing OS tasks. A program that runs on windows may do something really nice, pretty, and wonderful for my grandmother, but its wasting a lot of resources to do it the windows way.

Yes I know that linux isn't redhat... linux is very small... its a 25meg or so compressed source file that you custom compile for your system/cpu and come out with a file around the size of 700K + 1meg or so of modules. The Linux OS is that 700K+1M set of files... you can't telnet with it... you cant do anything with it... but when you do, it does them better than windows ever could dream of doing them.

Now with windows, you don't get a nice small 700K file that is tailor made for your system(s), you get this nice standard block of pre-compiled shit that bundles your GUI and many other things all into one friendly package, which most of it you'll never use. Whats that?.. my OS was compiled on a 386?.. wasn't that back in 1990 or so? Oh.. look... its eating up 75 megs of ram with nothing else running... how efficient. Oh wait, its got 20 megs of that already cached to my hard drive... but I got 2gig of ram... why is it caching... oh well, at least I can use it since I'm a dumbass! Wow... EQ is using 300 megs of ram and 300 megs of virtual ram... back to my 2gig of ram question... oh thats right... I'm too stupid to know any better.

Technically the actual kernel for windows does not include the UI completely, but you cant load system drivers or run any apps without the UI in some basic form. The actual linux kernel can.

Here's another way of looking at it in terms of my arguement. Lets say we live in a fantasy world called, "Verant". In the verant world we only have to think of an application and it appears for us to use and does things as efficient and and flexible as it can on whatever OS we are using. Which OS would you be using? WIndows has a lot of useless overhead that you CAN NOT remove or work around.

So yes, when my grandmother comes asking for a computer to send those email things.. I'm gonna hand her a nice pretty windows/mac computer and sign her up for AOL... cause they are the right ones for the job. Now stop arguing this cause everyone knows it and if you truely think you can use a nix OS for a desktop machine without missing out on some things then you are living in Verant world. I know this, we all know this... but we all should also know that windows as a core OS piece sux some large monkey nuts that have been swelling with elephantitis of the nuts.

cbreaker

02-13-2003, 07:03 PM

Originally posted by sam
You guys probably think I'm a linux zealot or something, but I'm not.

[SNIP]

... but we all should also know that windows as a core OS piece sux some large monkey nuts that have been swelling with elephantitis of the nuts.

Uh huh.

I'm the first to admit that Linux isn't the Desktop OS for the masses. However, I recently set up a Gentoo box with all the bells and whistles. It's got KDE (Because I think Gnome is ugly and crap) and xine. I can play UT2003 and it runs great. There's plenty of nice free application for it, and I can also run Microsoft Office on it perfectly. It is an AthlonXP 1700+/1GB/SCSI/GF4-Ti4400. The machine is great!

Seriously, if the next generation of games I want to play has linux versions, I see no reason to run Windows XP on my faster machine. The only reason I can't switch to Linux now is because I still love to play BF1942, Army Ops, and EQ. (Yes, EQ can run in WineX, but there's issues with it that I can't accept.)

Linux is ready for the Desktop. What it needs for more people to accept it is easier driver installation (installing drivers *Can* be easy, it's just that nobody has really make it brainless yet. They will.) easier software adding/removal, and more games. Let's face it, when it comes to a Desktop OS, games drive the market. Faster, more powerful, more memory.. all these things are pushed by the game industry. It's a Good Thing =)

In the Linux vs. Windows arguement, there's one giant point of Linux. Even if linux were a "windows-like" system instead of a "unix-like" system, people would still use it. It's free, it's open, and it's vendor independant. These things are very important. I don't think enough people realize what a Good Thing this is.

Microsoft Windows is like a Tax to run your computer. You have to pay them in order to use it. Don't kid yourself into thinking that you don't; if you want to run all the new games and applications out there, you have to pay Microsoft for the OS to use them on. You might pirate your copy of Windows, but you've probably paid Microsoft for Windows in some other way shape or form.

When MS releases their new OS, you have to pay another Tax in order to run the new games and applications that will require it. You're at the mercy of one vendor to use your computer. Eventually (in my opinion) once everything is networked everywhere, if we're still forced to use Windows, we won't have the option to pirate it anymore. Every time you turn on your machine windows will "authenticate" you. Windows XP already has made steps in this direction.

Personally, I like the Windows interface. It's clean. It's very functional. I just don't like the cost. The cost is freedom.

sam

02-13-2003, 07:17 PM

cbreaker... isn't that quote taking things out of context or something?? Come on... give me a break :) I did point out the useful places for windows, and I did admit that I recomend windows machines to people that would benifit more from them than they would from something like Linux... see, I'm a good guy, I'm not a zealot. :)

high_jeeves

02-13-2003, 07:29 PM

I'm the first to admit that Linux isn't the Desktop OS for the masses.

Followed by:

Linux is ready for the Desktop. What it needs for more people to accept it is easier driver installation (installing drivers *Can* be easy, it's just that nobody has really make it brainless yet. They will.) easier software adding/removal, and more games. Let's face it, when it comes to a Desktop OS, games drive the market. Faster, more powerful, more memory.. all these things are pushed by the game industry. It's a Good Thing =)

First, huh?

I'm sorry, I actually beg to differ 100%.. Linux is not ready for the desktop. Can you, as a basic desktop user, manage, run, and administer your machine without ever using the CLI? No? Then it isnt ready for the desktop, period... Until Linux gets rid of its CLI dependance, it wont be ready for the desktop... Lets not even talk about my grandmother here, lets talk about my fiance.. she has been working in technology for > 5 years, she knows how to do just about anything in windows... She doesnt even know what the DOS prompt is, she never needs it. I recently build a HTPC to hook into my HDTV, running linux... she can do basic stuff, but most of the things I take for granted, she cant do, without me writing some basic UI scripts for her... a prime example: I use this system to run a number of console emulators (And AdvanceMAME)... AdvanceMAME is CLI based... you have to know the name of the game you want (their codename for it, actually).. this is NOT something that the average user can do.. As soon as you say "I can TEACH you how to use the CLI", people are disinterested...

It's free, it's open, and it's vendor independant. These things are very important. I don't think enough people realize what a Good Thing this is.

Yes, this is very important... to a large company, this means "DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION"... I now work for a very large company, a rival to MS, actually... what do we code on? Windows, what do we test on? Windows... We do web apps, what browser do we support? IE.. why? because developing linux apps, and supporting linux on the server side for our code, just isnt worth the money... Now, in larger installations (We are talking $10M+ installs) we use Unix (Solaris, usually) on the server side... Why? They just dont sell x86 boxes that can support the load we use. We ONLY support windows on the client? Why? Its the only reasonable choice for a client machine...

The bottom line is still simple.. best tool for the job.. linux is not, and never will be, the best tool for ALL jobs.. it is the best tool for some jobs, no doubt.. but so is windows... hell, people still install VMS, various mainframe OSs, and even OS/2 for that matter.. Why? Because they all serve their purpose...

One person agrued "What the hell company would want you modifying the OS?" I think that any smart company should see the benefit in this. Want something done YOUR way? Then make it happen. There's a bug and you can fix it yourself? Why not? Folks that are stuck in the Windows way of thinking believe these to be very poor ideas. They don't seem to realize that this type of thing is done in unix enviornments all the time. It's flexibility.

I've worked for alot of different companies, large, small, medium sized.. I have never seen a company that says "hey, we have this production box, lets edit the kernel code on it"... I mean, if it was somebody on my team, I would immediatly ban then from building the kernel on any box at the office... The last thing in the world I need, is to set up time to QA my OPERATING SYSTEM! Now, I can see people possibly wanted to make changes on an internal, non-mission-critical server, but any production manager that allows his OS kernel to be modified by some developer who likes to hack the kernel at home, is irresponsible at best... at many places I have worked, they would be liable within the company, if the machine failed in production..

I really think, that outside of the geek-elite, NOBODY wants to edit their own OS.. its too complicated of a system to just go screwing around with.. that is why lots of large companies would rather pay lots of money to other large companies, and let them deal with it..

--Jeeves

--Jeeves

sam

02-14-2003, 09:46 AM

Originally posted by high_jeeves
"It's free, it's open, and it's vendor independant." ... Yes, this is very important... to a large company, this means "DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION"

What are you smoking? Thousands of large companies use linux as production boxes. We use them where I work and we add more every year. What the hell is IBM doing? Maybe about 5 years ago a company would have said, "I dont trust something that is free and doesn't come with support", but since then, you can get guaranteed support from 3rd party companies that know how to admin linux, and they'll ssh into your "production" box if you let them and they'll fix your problem in a matter of minutes.

Originally posted by high_jeeves
I've worked for alot of different companies, large, small, medium sized.. I have never seen a company that says "hey, we have this production box, lets edit the kernel code on it"... I mean, if it was somebody on my team, I would immediatly ban then from building the kernel on any box at the office

I cant wait for that huge security hole to come along that possibly applies to all OS's tcp ip protocol so everyone is vulnerable. Yet later in the day after the hack is discovered, you see a post up on a redhat forum by a qualified linux kernel dev, which says all you have to do is change the number 1 at this line on this file to a 0 and then comment out this other line... and that will keep you from getting hacked until a new version of code is available. The next day you go log into your linux kernel cvs site and.. wow, look at that... its the new version... lets download that and compile it so we can keep from getting hacked. Poor window users probably got at least a month before windows could push out a patch... so those windows boxes out there are screwed.

There's a time to say, "no", to new and untested things, and there's a time to say, "roll with it", when it comes to things that have potential. I respect you for your experience, but there is a time when people go out of date... maybe you should consider looking at things outside the box again because you seem to think highly of an OS that has no business being in large business. But this is getting back onto the topic of the right tool for the job which is right, you and I just lean in different directions.

Next time you hear that new guy say he can make things more efficient by doing such and such... dont shoot him down without giving it some thought... he's younger than you are and he's thinking a little fresher/faster than you ever will from now on. I'm terrified of growing too old and becoming a dinosaur... like in my company, we have a ton of C programmers...C is great but java is taking over for large scale web development. But we can't move to Java because these older C guys we got here can't learn how to think more object oriented. Just remember, the internet is here... its not going away... things move faster now and if you don't move fast with them you'll stagnate and fall behind. Nothing wrong with being an inovator.

Dedpoet

02-14-2003, 09:50 AM

/em backs slowly away from this thread...

sam = Linus Torvalds? :-P

bonkersbobcat

02-14-2003, 11:31 AM

While keeping up with technology is important and so is being agile, staying in business is also important. Be careful about the young vs. old argument. Our industry has just completed a grand experement in young and new vs old tried and true. You have heard of the "dot com bubble" right? I hope you have noticed that a lot of people and companies who based their decisions solely on "being fresh and new", "being cool", and "being with it" are no longer employed or in business.

high_jeeves

02-14-2003, 12:00 PM

Here, here, bonkersbobcat.. I worked for a dotcom for a while.. we did all sorts of fun stuff.. we then went out of busines.. All those young guys that worked for me? Well, a few of them are re-employed (note, company went out of business 18 months ago).. quite a few of them have had to either move cross country, change fields, or take SIGNIFICANT paycuts (going from $100K to $40K..).. 3 people that used to work for me are now back in school, because they couldnt find any jobs...

Oh, and as for old vs. new.. I'm not even 30 yet.. not exactly a dinosaur...

I want to bring this thread back to the original statement:

Why windows is not for large scale

I think we can all agree now that this is total crap.. there are VERY large and succesfull companies that are 80%-100% windows shops... As much as this is gonna give you a heart attack, the most succesful software company of all time, is a 100% windows shop (Microsoft)...

At the dot-com I worked for, we used Windows (with Netscape Web Server) as our first tier.. we used Windows (with our Java App Server) as our second tier (because Java is slow as hell on any OS other than Windows... although linux is starting to catch up.. Solaris is the worst, tho).. we used Windows (And SQLServer) on our third tier...

We looked at upgrading our 3rd tier to a linux/unix system... First, we talked to sun.. They loaned us (for testing) a small server (8 processor, 8GB RAM, etc...) We got Oracle installed on it (although, that took our very qualified UNIX admin almost 2 weeks, before it worked correctly..) We saw a performance DROP when switching to this system (even with the sun guys coming out to help us tune..) AND, the system was going to cost us almost 10x what our Dell/SQLServer system costed... So, we tried linux, running on a similar box... we couldnt even get oracle to install correctly on linux, and the Oracle support team was approx 0 help... So, we said screw it...

The bottom line is, we can argue all day about whether an unsupported OS, or a internally hacked OS, is good for production... In my opinion its not worth the liability it exposes the company to (in mission-critical apps).... But, I think we have proven, beyond any doubt that:

Why windows is not for large scale

Is false, AND is a zealot point of view...

--Jeeves

cryptorad

02-14-2003, 01:17 PM

I still work in the medical field. And cover a rather broad range of imaging devices, all the newer expensive ones (millions $). We have evolved our OS's from VMS to Sun Solaris (Unix) to .. don't choke.. Windows NT.

We now use NT on almost all of our production systems (world's largest vendor for medical imaging equipment) and XP is in the pipeline for our systems in development.

If you don't think that medical images used to diagnose, treat and operate on patients is mission critical you should come visit me for an educational tour. ;)

Interestingly enough.. we still use Solaris as the second largest OS and that is found mostly on backend servers that support large scale integrations (multi campus type networks). I personally believe that is only to grandfather legacy code (and legacy code writers ;) ) and that at some point.. the break will be made here too.

We're not the only ones.. most of the industry has migrated to Windows platforms.

Liability and total unmitigated single source support are the reasons that caused this to occur. I can state this as a fact.

sauron

02-14-2003, 02:01 PM

Originally posted by Raistlin
[BActually the mother of the modern OS (read Windows) was the Mac OS, but we won't go into THAT discussion here.[/B]

Actually MAC stole the style from AMIGA (which was based on Unix),

EDIT--> Clarification: MAC stole GUI style from AMIGA -- and kernel OS was based on Unix.

The Amiga was quite a slick machine...

Cryonic

02-14-2003, 02:08 PM

throx

02-14-2003, 02:37 PM

Actually MAC stole the style from AMIGA (which was based on Unix),
The Amiga was based on Unix?

/boggle

throx

02-14-2003, 03:12 PM

Ok - scrolling back a ways:

Sam, you've really gotta back up your claims a little more. Everything you've said so far is based on your assertions that *nix is better than Windows rather than any factual proof.

You want an advocacy thread? Fine. I'll be a devil's advocate to your trolling.

Windows is flaky... it does weird things without asking... it has a large, bloated gui attached to it... ts not modular in any way.

Windows is *not* flaky. You just don't know how to admin it right if you are finding it is. That's your problem, not Windows.

Windows kernel is about the same size as the Linux kernel when loaded into memory. The GUI takes approximately 16k of physical memory once loaded because it just gets paged out and forgotten. The Windows kernel is far, far more modular than any *nix kernel I know. Please go read "Inside Windows 2000" and come back when you actually know something about Windows.

I see nothing that windows does better when it comes down to being a simple OS (run apps and manage hardware efficiently/reliably).
How about providing a stable driver API? How about having ACPI support? How about supporting PnP/hot swap devices far better than *nix? How about having ACLs built into the core system objects? Just because you don't "see" it doesn't mean it's not there.

You may take a little longer to install some newer hardware drivers on linux than windows, but once done setting up your hardware and telling your OS what hardware you have, which one is going to use that hardware in the most efficient way?
Probably Windows. If I recall correctly, Linux has only recently gotten zero-copy network drivers working. What evidence do you bring to the argument (other than pure assertion) that *nix is more efficient at talking to hardware than the NT kernel?

Windows is the king of bloat... it does extra trash that you dont want just because it has to watch out for the grandmothers of the world trying to accidentally delete system files and other stupid shit. Nix lets you do what you want and you save cpu time/memory.
No, Windows doesn't do that. The application level does that. Give me one example of the "extra trash" that Windows does you're talking about that applies to a large scale installation and is a good reason for the NT kernel to be considered worse than a *nix kernel?

So whether it be a desktop or a server, a nix OS is better than windows for doing OS tasks.
Unjustified, unprovable and just plain wrong.

The Linux OS is that 700K+1M set of files... you can't telnet with it... you cant do anything with it... but when you do, it does them better than windows ever could dream of doing them.
Prove it. I have my NT kernel here happily handing off sync objects, juggling VM and doing everything just as fast as a *nix kernel does. I'm wondering what exactly you think makes a *nix kernel better. I don't buy your hand-wavey "bloat" arguments - point out the specifics where you think this is actually affecting the machine's performance.

Now with windows, you don't get a nice small 700K file that is tailor made for your system(s), you get this nice standard block of pre-compiled shit that bundles your GUI and many other things all into one friendly package, which most of it you'll never use.
I'm only going to guess that you've heard of DLLs before and know that they don't get loaded (and therefore waste resources) if they aren't needed.

Whats that?.. my OS was compiled on a 386?.. wasn't that back in 1990 or so?
XP is compiled for P3/Athlons. It takes different code paths depending on the processor in use. In fact, it used the SYSENTER kernel calling routines long before Linux did.

Oh.. look... its eating up 75 megs of ram with nothing else running... how efficient.
Which it swaps out when it needs it. This is an example of the retarded arguments that zelots buy into. Memory is there to by *used*. An OS that doesn't take full advantage of all memory in the system is *bad*.

Oh wait, its got 20 megs of that already cached to my hard drive... but I got 2gig of ram... why is it caching... oh well, at least I can use it since I'm a dumbass!
You are a dumbass, but aside from that, the Windows kernel writes pages out to swap and leaves them in memory at the same time so it can free up RAM faster if it needs to. I thought this was a smart idea because it improves OS performance. Obviously you've bought the stupid zealot argument that it's something to laugh at.

Wow... EQ is using 300 megs of ram and 300 megs of virtual ram... back to my 2gig of ram question... oh thats right... I'm too stupid to know any better.
Why, yes you are. "Virtual Memory" doesn't mean the amount of memory paged out you retard. It means the total number of bytes allocated by that process. The "Virtual Memory" column is actually the "Private Bytes" performance counter. If you can't even use the diagnostic tools then how are we supposed to believe your lame-ass rants?

Technically the actual kernel for windows does not include the UI completely, but you cant load system drivers or run any apps without the UI in some basic form. The actual linux kernel can.
Bullshit. The emergency repair console runs on the NT kernel and runs just fine without a GUI. As a matter of fact, XP Embedded runs just fine without a GUI as well.

Poor window users probably got at least a month before windows could push out a patch... so those windows boxes out there are screwed.
Misinformed bullshit. Microsoft is very responsive to this sort of thing. As someone who has dealt with them directly on a number of bugs, I've had same-day turnarounds for security flaws. Even if you look at the public record, the length of time between a vulnerability being found in Linux and Windows to when it has been fixed is very comparable. Perhaps you have statistical data to the contrary (not just single instance data).

The worst companies at fixing security flaws are the commercial Unix vendors.

I'm terrified of growing too old and becoming a dinosaur...
You already have. Dinosaurs are people that are set in their ways and can't see alternatives. All your tirade has proven is that you aren't willing to see beyond the typical Linux-sheep response to anything that comes from Microsoft.

The fact remains that even in large scale systems, Windows is always a viable alternative to Unix and should be considered as such until the project constraints drive you one way or the other.

hackordie

02-14-2003, 05:06 PM

Originally posted by Cryonic
Since when is Microsoft 100% windows based? They use Unix systems at their main offices for development and other systems they own and run (hotmail, etc...) are not actually running windows, but are using Solaris/BSD.

Actually, only some of Hotmail is using Solaris/BSD. Connect to them and check yuor headers.

hackordie

02-14-2003, 05:14 PM

Throx;
Very nice post rebuffing the general hot air regarding the Windows vs. Unix debate. The bottom line is that there are places for both systems. There are things I like / dislike about both platforms. As an individual that has managed a couple of large data centers, I couldn't imagine doing that with *nix. Someone earlier posted that the cost of the OS was prohibitive. During the lifetime of a server, the OS cost is the cheapest thing, even for a product that isn't free. Make a poor choice of OS, staffing, applications, application downtime is what is costly. The OS cost will be a pitance compared with administrative overhead of running a datacenter.

I tip my hat to you.

HackorDie

Raistlin

02-14-2003, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by sam

Yet later in the day after the hack is discovered, you see a post up on a redhat forum by a qualified linux kernel dev, which says all you have to do is change the number 1 at this line on this file to a 0 and then comment out this other line... and that will keep you from getting hacked until a new version of code is available. The next day you go log into your linux kernel cvs site and.. wow, look at that... its the new version... lets download that and compile it so we can keep from getting hacked. Poor window users probably got at least a month before windows could push out a patch... so those windows boxes out there are screwed.

*sigh* It's this way with a good, small to medium sized business. I can gaurentee to you however that if you're going to work on a medical application (something that keeps people alive) or anything in the tech industry...or anywhere where 24/7 is a requirement (FYI, one minute of downtime to some companies are worth in the 100's of K of money)...I can pretty much guarentee to you that whether it's a bloody qualified linux kernel dev, the 15 year old son of a garbage collector, or God himself that says "Do this, do that, complile your kernel and you're good to go" it IS NOT going to happen without weeks of testing.

And the next day you go log into your cvs site and get a new version, download and compile it? *LAUGH* Do you realize that some companies are using 25 to 30 year old pieces of software? Why? BECAUSE THEY STILL WORK AND DON"T CAUSE PROBLEMS...download a new version? Yea, if you're ma and paw support. If you're a certain Telecom company that I won't mention, you put a team of experts together from 5 different consulting companies, plus the CIO/CTO plus his various aids in a room, hash out for a week the benifits/detriments of upgrading the system for this fix. In the mean time you contact some poor schmuck of an account manager at IBM or Anderson Consulting and put him through the wringer as to why you're bloody well going to be affected by this. You then have to put together half a dozen test boxes, pull out your 2K page document of regression tests, put together your 2 - 3 hundred testers, contact all 20 of your "strategic partners" to signoff their code with this fix...and each of the partners has to go through the same damn thing. Then, 4 to 6 weeks later, you get a signoff from all your various test groups and proceed to another 2 weeks of downtime scheduling and technical implimentation details (with another few teams of people involved) to make the change.

Then you report a 450 thousand dollar loss for the quarter in the books for spending all that time developing something THAT DOESN'T ENHANCE SALES OR SERVICE FOR YOUR COMPANY.

Yes, this is worst case senario, but guess what, at least some of the above happens EVERY time a change needs to be made that affects their production level software.

And it's the same for almost EVERY large, customer driven company.

You don't go modifying the kernel at a whim my friend. And you CERTAINLY don't go downloading from CVS some unknown entities kernel patch for the latest bug of the month.

high_jeeves

02-14-2003, 07:03 PM

Since when is Microsoft 100% windows based? They use Unix systems at their main offices for development and other systems they own and run (hotmail, etc...) are not actually running windows, but are using Solaris/BSD.

Ya, you are right.. 100% was an overstatement.. Perhaps we can agree on 90%? :D

Maybe this is a great argument for "Best tool for the job"?

Throx: great post!

--Jeeves

benjimouse

02-14-2003, 10:56 PM

Let me preface this by saying that I've been a Windows admin for about 8 years, and have been using Linux seriously for about 3.

At this point, my preferences are towards Linux, but mainly for political reasons (Have you read your EULA's lately? :eek: ). In most cases, I still agree with 'use the right tool for the job'.

My thoughts -

Stability

For the most part, I agree that a Windows system is just as stable as a *nix system, when the administrator is competent. But, I have had experiences that stop me from agreeing fully.

On a couple of occasions, I've seen borked applications screw Windows up bad enough that there was no way to fully recover without a reboot. (Side note - I'm not talking about 9x. These were NT4 and Win2k systems)

I may just be lucky, but I have never seen that happen on a Linux system.

Simply put, I don't think that a badly written application should be able to crash the OS.

Support

if I find a peice of software for linux, what kind of support do I get? If I'm lucky, I get a message forum, if I'm not lucky, I get nothing except community involvement... in either case, we arent looking at an hour or two to get a peice of software back up and running, we are talking about days, or even weeks

I have to disagree with this.

Support for the OS - There's support for Linux beyond the normal community, if someone wants to pay for it. There are companies that will provide Linux support for a fee (most notably, Red Hat), which I dare say isn't much different than calling Microsoft for $200 an incident (or whatever the rate is now).

Support for the apps - a lot of Linux apps have support available (also for a fee). Frequently, it's provided by the person or company that wrote the software. Sometimes, it's from a 3rd party support company. But it's there.

It can be argued that most of the major applications that companies run on Linux, are mature enough that they have support available, and that the rest of the apps don't really matter. Of course, it can also be argued that the only reason companies run the applications on Linux to begin with is because there is support available. The chicken or the egg?

As far as the unsupported apps go -
A lot of Windows apps don't have support worth a squat either. If it comes down to an app on Linux with no support vs. an app on Windows with GOOD support, then the choice is pretty clear unless there are other factors. But believe me, just because there's support available for a product (Windows or Linux) doesn't mean its quality support. My coworkers and myself have placed support calls to a certain software vendor and have gotten awful support almost every time. Bad enough that we try EXTRA hard to fix it before calling them (even though support is included in the price of our maintenance contract).

With that in mind, the choice between an app on Linux with no support vs. an app on Windows with BAD support becomes a little less cut and dry.

Not that the support argument really even matters in some environments -

At a few of the places I've worked, it was pretty hard to get approval for a call to a software vendor unless it was a super critical system. That defintely levels the playing field between support and lack thereof.