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Linux Software

Why Your Server Should be Running Linux 137

Posted by CmdrTaco from the big-honking-linux-features dept.
Peter Neves writes " There is a Linux story on the very front page of the MSNBC Technology Section, "the front slide" as they call it, on why Linux should be the OS running your server. While the story gives a technical overview on the features and performance of several distributions in comparison to NT, the summary says that Linux is not capable of "Competing with the 800 pound Gorilla" of the MS Marketing and distribtution channels. "
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Why Your Server Should be Running Linux More

Why Your Server Should be Running Linux

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  • In MS's limited way, you sort of can do this with roaming profiles. Of course, "your desktop" there is defined as, "All the icons you have" not the different window managers and all, Linux has.
  • 2;)new pentium350 only 7,000$

    You're not too far off. Where I work, we pay about $5000 for an IBM P2/400.

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by Micah ( 278 )
    Wow, he even confused 'their' with 'there'. I guess it really *is* Rob!
  • Trouble!"

    I stand corrected!

    I had thought it meant (even prior to its first release) as: N(ot) T(here) (Yet).
  • I went into this thread so I could mention the people who were thinking about computers on every desk and a global network that would connect them. I guess mdxi got there first.

    *But* you shouldn't pigeonhole this latest wave of marketroid hype and asian teen porn as being entirely bad. We do have computers on practically every desk, and thanks to many, many different individuals and companies, including people as revered as lick and bob taylor to people/companies as universally slammed as gates and AOL.

    As for signal/noise ratios... that's a function of the people, not the technology. Slashdot has a sometimes poor ratio itself, but it doesn't have to be that way.

    Without Microsoft, you're right, the internet would probably still be a place of intelligent discourse, but, the number of people using it would be far fewer. I think that was a good tradeoff.
  • For those of you who are, like me, too lazy to read through the entire set of comments on ZDNet, here are links to a few truly clueless ones - complete with the obligatory sarcastic comments. :)

    Can you say "syndrop?" [zdnet.com]
    Mmmm, FUD. [zdnet.com]
    Shutting up now, sir. [zdnet.com]
    "Complete package" like Web server, six different editors... [zdnet.com]
    Apache::ASP, perhaps. [zdnet.com]
    New technology...macro viruses, you mean? [zdnet.com]
    Gold Bar, WA...hmm, 36 miles from Redmond... [zdnet.com]
    "Lazy programmer's version" meaning that you don't have to pay $600 for the compiler? [zdnet.com]
    Yes, 400-1400 users are just so easy to simulate in a lab environment. [zdnet.com]

  • Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:

    Nope, at least not yet ( coming soon, unfortunatly ).

    However, I have pushed Win3.1/Win95 ( read: lose3.1/lose95 ) memory with the same effect.

    From lose95 onwards, Loseows is supposed to include a virtual memory manager with garbage collection when your apps terminate ( bwahahaha! - yes, this is normally in capitals to express humor. Lowercase is used to express borebom. ).

    In actual fact, this does not appear to be the case. Loseows95 and higher doesn't clean up all un-allocated resources at program termination. The result is a steady "leak" of system resouces until the machine crashes. Has anybody else had this problem?

    Note : my own area of experience is in data-communications ( which push Loseows to the limit ). Is there a problem in that stupid damn "OpenComm()" command that's supposed to set up a send/recieve queue that anyone else has hit? The memory allocated is supposed to be freed when you issue "CloseComm()", but I have my doubts on that point.
  • Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:

    Actually, no. As someone who has previously e-mailed Rob Malda over the issue of censorship, I can categorically state that

    1). If you have a genuine grip and you are prepared to point it out to Rob, he will normally fix it.

    2). If your just a lame AC who doesn't have the conviction to put your name to your words, he will ignore you.

    Grow up *jerk*. If you don't have the guts to put your name to your words, then your just whining. Get a valid nick and maybe then we might pay attention to you ( but not before then ).
  • Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:

    BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

    You poor idiot. You mean you can actually stomach all that stupid SQLConnect() and SQLSetColumns() lameness without throwing up?

    Gosh dude, you really aught to apply to "Madam Toni's house of Discipline and Bondage" for a discount rate. Your sure deserve it! If nothing else, youll get a *free* spanking!

    As to your post "disappearing", not likely. It's just too funny for the moderators to do that. If you want to go through life with a sign over your head that says "I'm a Masocist, please hit me!", well, you asked for it, you got it.
  • Ever tried images.altavista.com?
    Try searching for say, "Lizard" then click on one of the images, and see MS IIS choke!

    J.
  • ahem... sorry for the shouting.

    If you've got an idiot non-technical boss telling you what technology to use, get another job!

    There are plenty if IT jobs where you don't have to put up with this BS. There's no excuse for whining about something so easily fixed. Someday, the corporate world will recognize that they need to trust good it professionals, rather than hiring the same old point-click-and-reboot joe losers.
  • I find it amusing that this article was served by an ASP.
    "YOUR server should run Linux!" they say. Notice that they make no claims about their own servers.
    --
  • So we reprint an article from zd, then claim that this is proof that linux is a threat to close off our case. I'm curious how different the press would be without that case going on. The question is, how to we take advantage of this. I'm hoping for lots of new code, better installs, and a more unified interface. Of course all of this will happen, but it needs to happen before the anti-publicity hits (bound to happen after the case is over and after lots of inexperienced people with a large voice discover they don't understand it).
  • 1. It's demon.

    Actually wouldn't it be "daemon"? Since, in the original posters mind, Rob is forever lurking in the background waiting to censor anything that AC's post.


    Actually, I think we could usa a bit *more* moderation here. I hate wading through pages and pages of off-topic flamewars and rantings.


    Of course, that includes this post doesn't it? Doh! Please moderate this post too, Rob. =)

  • 1) MSNBC posting a ZDNet article that

    2) We've seen 3 times now (although it IS a good article), which

    3) is very good for Linux.
  • This article has actually been posted here on Slashdot before, and was originally written something like a month or more ago.

    However, it is as true now as it was then, and perhaps even more so, with the 2.2.x kernel release. Even if it's not new news, it being posted on the front of MSNBC's tech section is new. And very, very good. Linux is the way of the future.


    -- Toph

    "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.
    Then they fight you. Then you win." - Gandhi
  • I don't know if I am too critical but I am really sick of reading news articles that make different distributions seem like completly different operating systems. No matter the distribution you use you can get/use any GUI, database, office product, web browser/server, devel tools.

    Linux will run on (almost) anything. Can't we for once see a news site have an article that doesn't take sides on a distribution. Once you get past the package management, its *ALL* the same damn thing!

    The only reason MSNBC has that article on their news site is to try and make the DoJ/Judge think they don't have a monopoly. It would be better for the DoJ/Judge to drop the case and let nature (Linux, BSD, SUN, IBM, etc) take care of itself.

    Lastly why do they always have to inflate the minimum requirements to run Linux? Linux runs on my 386SX with 2mb ram, no harddrive, no video card or serial ports. And every damned news site always says 'Minimum requirement: 386DX 16 MB ram'!

    Okay enought ranting from me, someone else?
  • 1000 points for putting the image of Snoopy flying around on his doghouse. Nice relief from the monotany of work.
  • I am one exam away from becoming a mcse and these test have questions that have nothing to do with real world situations but rather insignificant phrases memorized int he NT server resource kit or silly word games. The test are very hard and now are adaptive, meaning that they test only asks you questions you can't answer. For some reason ms thinks this makes better support professionals. I am retakind the internet informaiton server exam v.4 and it is rediculous. They judge the test by how many mouse clicks I make in the mmc or "microsoft managemnet console". I was even asked to create a virtual directory and was not told what to name it (one character off or mouse click and oops its WRONG AND YOU DON"T KNOW IT!). I also have to pass 5 other exams for a total of six to even become an mcse. ITs a 6 month thing. With novel its jsut 3 exams and I think its onyl 2 with linux but I could be wrong.

    If thats not even more rediculous microsoft wants to make the minimum requirements for an mcse up to 9 exams and expect the students to pay up to 12,000-16,000$ to take classes and 900 for all the exams. I want to shoot them! Microsoft thinks it can do whatever it likes just because thewy claim to own 80% of the server market. They may not treat us like rats. I want to administer and support computers and not go back to a university type class so I can learn how many mouse clicks or answer microsoft specific questions.
  • I think slashdot serves up a half million pages a day to what, 50k, 100k (please up the number if i'm wrong :) users with a bloody freakin lot of perl and generated stuff.

    On about the same hardware AFAIK.

    And you can set up a site w/MySQL and SlashEngine pretty quick. A friend of mine once made a presentation on linux to a bunch of execs. He took a bare machine and had a web server up and running in 5 minutes flat.
  • I saw at least one guy who signed "MSCE & CNE"

    That's "MicroSoft Certefied Engineer & Certified NetWare Engineer".

    Linux actively destroys the diplomas this guy spent good money to buy. That wasn't very nice now was it :)

    -------------------
    SCORES
    -------------------
    The Server:
    Linux 1 NT 0

    coming soon to pay per view:
    THE DESKTOP
    can MS's interface from 1995 stand up to the latest from all over the world? Can the debate between KDE and GNOME finally solve the real question: Which is better, C or C++? What the hell crazy name will Miguel come up with for GNOME 1.0?

    Frankly i can't decide, i like them both. I figure I'll make a final decision on what's most key: games and coolness of themes.
  • > Without M$ "in-your-face" marketing this would
    > not have happend. The benefits of this
    > proliferation are enormus (and I don't have
    > either the time or space here to count them
    > all). I'm going to sum it up in one word.
    > Internet. Without ready access to computers that
    > are "user friendly" (sorry for the buzz word!!!)
    > we don't get all this communications stuff that
    > makes up the "Information Age".

    No internet without Microsoft, eh? I think not. Unix (and its precursors) built the internet starting in the late 1950s. Microsoft didn't even catch on until a few years ago, they were too busy working on "Bob" because computers still weren't stupid enough for them. Hundreds of thousands of morons using IE to download asian teen porn did not create "all this communications stuff that makes up the Information Age".

    However, without Microsoft, the internet *would* probably still be a place of intelligent discourse and high signal/noise ratios.

    *sigh*


    --
  • Someone mentioned not running X in ZDNet's discussion, too. I don't understand what the complaint is. You're comparing them under real-life conditions, and Linux servers rarely run X in real-life conditions. OTOH, you can't turn off NT's graphics under real-life situations.

  • Come on, give me a break NT whomps on Linux so bad it's not even funny I remember running Linux way back in 96 and it was crap I have a hard time believing it's improved much since then besides, that test was run with the Linux boxes not running X, so of course that helped speed up performance DUH!

    This is actually funny. In a sick, sad sorta way. You "remember Linux "way back" in 96" eh? Hmm, you don't think that with 3 years and...oh a couple hundred thousand hours of coding and debuggin it's gotten BETTER?

    Unlike NT (Never Trustworthy), Linux has been CONSTANTLY under revision. There isn't a day that goes by that new code is added to the Linux legacy.

    Unlike you, many of us don't REQUIRE a fulltime dummified P&C interface. And if turning it off helps improve performance of the machine while I'm not working on it, or even if I am, I'm ALL FOR IT. Pointing it out as a "cheat" is idiotic. It's a feature of the OS. The GUI is merely an app run on the system, not the system itself. Inevitably this IS going to mean more speed for the CLI. You're just peeved because you cannot turn off your butt-ugly NT interface.

    Face the facts, Unix is a dead and dying OS it'll never be anything worth looking at besides, the world uses NT so until Linux gets some good apps that will be compatable with NT's...forget it

    Unixen have been getting proclaimed "dead and dying" for YEARS. MS declared it so at one time. Now they're hustling to get NT certified as Unix. I'll believe Unix/Linux dead when I see it. Not because some kid who has trouble understanding what to do at a DOS prompt says so.

    The world uses NT? Even "I" am not THAT widely travelled that I can make that claim! Do a check of how many of the webservers on the internet are using some form of Apache or CERN or NCSA or other unixen-based webservers. The number FAR exceeds the pitiful market share that NT holds.

    I seem to also recall that NT handles threads better and also multitasks better than Linux plus NT security is way beyond Linux's how many NT exploits are there? no where near as many as Linux

    You SEEM to recall? Or you DO recall? Just because some mental defective's mind barfs out pseudofacts doesn't mean it's so. Do some RESEARCH and find out. Also, threading, while a nice addition, isn't necessary to achieve peak performance in Linux. You saw it for yourself in an article posted on a site owned by MS itself. Linux as a server runs at LEAST 200% better than an equivallent (what a misnomer) NT machine. Also, Linux can wring every last ounce of performance out of a machine that would otherwise choke on NT.

    Nowhere near as many NT exploits? MAYBE. Last time I checked the Symantec Antivirus Research Site [symantec.com] there were several tens of THOUSANDS of bugs, exploits, and virii available to foul an already foul operating system.

    In addition how many of the exploits in NT are fixed within 24-48 HOURS of notice. DAMN FEW (read ALMOST NONE). How many are fixed within a week? A month? A year?

    How many of them are just hushed up in hopes that nobody finds them? Try MOST.

    Now let's see. How is NT superior to Unixen?

    • It costs more. (NT=$x100 plus licenses, Linux=free).
    • It has to pay a mulitgazillion dollar marketing department. Linux is advertised mainly by word of mouth.
    • NT takes up 2x as much space on your HD.
    • NT has a higher number of days of downtime on average.
    • NT "security" is very good. So good in fact that it doesn't even let the system administrator configure the system properly.
    • NT sucks more system resources to maintain a barely functional state.

    You know? You're right. NT MUST be superior.

    .....Yeah, and Bill Gates might fly if we chucked him off the highest building we could find near Redmond.

    geez, next you'll be arguing MacOS is gonna steal back it's share of the market

    We're talking facts here. Not fantasies.


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • Man, this has been posted to /. like three times, I guess due to it's being carried by three different web sites. But, it's a good article.

  • Just take "useable" from "unstable" and "NT" is what is leftover

    -- heard somewhere on usenet

  • heh, I wrote that to be a devil's advocate. I must admit that if you can't install linux then you have no business being a net admin. But sometimes you want the same look-and-feel no matter where you go. That's why many are standardizing on MS products.
  • don't refer to the gimp and NT in the same sentence!
  • Someone besides me please check this page

    http://www.msnbc.com/news/195260.asp

    and tell me if box halfway down the page isn't using pictures of Tux as bullets.


  • Point #1:
    I want a file/print server.

    Point #2:
    Ah yes. That's good. Get your client to pay out the ass for a crappy server OS. Then, after you're gone, they have problems and come crying to you. Smart move. I hope it makes you look good in the eyes of your contractors and not like someone who's trying to scam them.

    Point #3:
    Use PHP. It is flat out better than ASP. And since your intelligence is only "marginal", you could even start out with the ASP2PHP converter.

    Point #4:
    A machine w/ a P6-200 and 96MB of RAM using Linux 2.2.2, Apache & mod_php, and the same SQL server setup you've described was set up by your most humble narrator in less than a day for a fraction of the cost for my employer.

    Point #5:
    They pay you too much.

    Have a nice day.

    --Simon Breakwater
    A hacker is a machine for turning caffeine into code.
  • I'll take your post as unexaggerated truth. My experience is that the vast majority of people can not set up an NT server that is reliable. So I would guess that you are either amazingly lucky or highly skilled and trained in the art of setting up reliable NT servers. Linux servers are reliable "out of the box." Red Hat servers are not overly secure out of the box (too many services running and anonymous FTP), but NT is neither secure nor stable in its default configuration. So my first point is that a moderately trained Linux administrator can set up a secure and reliable Linux box, whereas my experience suggests that it takes someone of extraordinary skill to set up a stable and secure NT box.

    I only dabble with web servers so I can't speak with a great deal of knowledge on the subject. I have seen a plenty of web sites created with PHP, mod_perl and Zope that seem pretty cool, although it may have taken longer for them to be developed, I don't know. But IBM is porting Web Sphere to Linux, a port of Cold Fusion is on the way and other vendors are porting tools to Linux practically everyday now. Therefore, my second point is that as far as RAD development is concerned, I don't imagine that NT will have much of an advantage in the future, assuming that it has an advantage now.

    The mere fact that you can run a Linux without a GUI gives a major performance boost as a server. Although I only dabble with web servers, I know operating systems. I started my career supporting a proprietary, multitasking operating system (CTOS) in the early 80s. I've written transport layers on top of DOS, multithreading toolkits for DOS and Windows 3.1 and device drivers for ISC Unix, Linux and (shudder) NT. I can say without any reservation that NT is incredibly inefficient. The number of "objects" that you need to pass around in a device driver is absurd, not to mention all the painful abstractions and IRQ layers that you need to worry about. The funny aspect is that all the inefficiencies do nothing to improve the stability of the OS. As a matter of fact, a bug in a device driver is guaranteed to BSOD the system. In Linux, there is at least a chance that a bad sound driver won't crash the entire system. Point number three, a Linux server will almost always be faster and more stable than an NT server.

    Now although you set up NT boxes for your clients that "never crash", what do you do something does go wrong? I'm assuming it's the client's fault, maybe they installed the latest Internet Explorer service pack and now their server is unstable (this really happened to me). For an NT machine, you drive to the client site and start mucking in the registry, checking DLL versions and pointing and clicking the night away. If they don't have a good disaster recover mechanism in place (including backing up the registry), you back up your software, format the hard drive, and reinstall everything from the ground up. What do you do with a Linux box? Well first of all, the latest web browser won't make a Linux server unstable (it may crash X, but it won't crash the system). But things can go wrong and when they do, you secure shell in, and go through a similar (but in my opinion, less painful) process. You can even reboot using a different kernel if you need to. All the while you're in your pajamas listening to your favorite CDs. Only if a Linux server is completely hosed do you need to be physically present. So the fourth point is that Linux is easier to support.

    Finally, scalability. If the customer's machine is under powered and needs to be upgraded, Linux scales better. On Alpha and UltraSparc hardware, Linux is 64-bit. IBM will be supporting Linux on RS/6000s in the very near future. Besides that, any solution you develop for Linux will easily port to any UNIX out there in case they really need a Sun Enterprise server with a ridiculous number of processors or an HP 9000. The customer with the NT solution is screwed until Merced and NT 6.0 (2005?) ship. Trust me, they won't be happy. Point five and game goes to Linux.

    Can you say Freedom? I hope you can.

    P.S. I just reread this and it seems a bit pompous. I didn't mean it to be, it must be that I watched "Pride and Prejudice" last night. Oh well, I'm too lazy to rewrite it.

  • ... the guy with the hotmail email address saying how much Linux sucks. I thought Hotmail was running on Linux... at least before Micro$oft bought it? Maybe not. Anyone know?
  • I seem to remember someone here posting that his Linux machine's uptime exceeded the Windows NT 4 release date.. ie, at the time of the posting, his Linux machine had been running since before NT4 hit the market..

    If that aint customer satisfaction, I dunno what is.
  • Has it been such a secret that Linux is a powerful server? That NT is inferior to Linux? No.

    I think it was the second Halloween document that tried to compare Linux to other Unixes and block it off as Merely a server OS, i.e. strictly not for the Desktop.

    MS could be trying to hype the server side of Linux to keep it from the desktop.
    "Servers are big and scary; Windows isn't."
    ..Yeah, right.
  • NT == Neandarthal Technology

    I saw this great homepage once, linked off
    of the window manager's page (http://www.plig.org/xwinman/). It was an enlightenment screen shot, in one of the windows there was a graphical image of what (at first) looked like the NT logo, with that Redmond 95 font and the crossed wires and all. But upon closer inspection, there were two cavemen trying to start a fire.

    ...And I can't find the link anymore. I'm so sad.

  • make, gdb, gcc, profile, etc., and a good shell are much more flexible, especially for large projects. It should be taught in school.
    gvim is a very nice text editor if you take the time to learn it... all Linux really needs is time for the toolkits to develop good GUI-building apps and a few good books to be written and real programmers will start to realize what a clean and efficient tool you have, especially when you have access to ALL the code :^D
    .
  • Can you supply concrete documentation on any of this, or is this just a 1:00am thing?
  • > 3) Patent every bit of functionality out from under it (this kills all unix as a side effect).

    Not like Unix OS's haven't accrued hundreds of patents. Hell, NT probably "violates" some. Good for MS if they do, software patents suck.
  • I rather imagine a lot of your work indeed involves going ON-SITE to fix NT servers because they have no remote accessability without "Remote Admin by SchmoeCorp" that only works with SchmoeCorp's client of course, and of course has to be installed physically, creating a nice bootstrap problem.

    It *IS* the tools that suck. NT on the whole is probably comparable with many commercial Unixen, but when you have to use blunt tools like User Manager and Server Manager, or when you have to go moving around the whole registry then remotely load a corrupted hive (which NT does its damndest to make inconvenient), that you really start itching to put a bullet through the thing.

    What is it about NT that makes otherwise perfectly good SA's so incompetent that they can't keep it running? Some kinda distortion vortex?
  • > (1) Telnet tools for adminning NT (add-on).

    Add on. And laughably unstable. It comes with warnings plastered all over it telling you how beta it is. God forbid they should try sshd. Fact: I cannot reinstall an NT machine over the network and telnet in to reconfigure it. This is SOP where I work, where we reinstall regularly because it guarantees standard configuration (every bit of user data is on NFS servers -- yes I hate NFS too)

    > (2) Web based tools for adminning NT (built-in).

    Not my area. I'm guessing regedit isn't one of those though. Correct me if I'm wrong.

    > (3) Windows-based remote tools for adminning NT.

    Unbundled. Defeats the purpose of standard admin tools.

    > I'm just saying that I personally don't have as much pain with NT as you all have. I don't know why.

    You've never had to limp over to the server room on a sprained ankle and bruised kneecap again and again to reboot the server because el bossman doesn't spring for remote admin tools? Remember this "it works out of the box, nothing extra needed" mentality is what sells NT in the first place, so most installations do NOT have all these wonderful third party tools. Or in the case of the telnetd, they're simply too unstable.
  • Microsoft couldn't begin to match something like slashdot and a userbase so fanatically loyal it makes Apple look mild. Many of the flamers here will grow up and settle down, but they'll *still* be loyal to Linux. Linux gets so much press coverage, one issue of Sun Weekly had more articles on Linux than Sun. If that's not visibility and mindshare, I don't know what is.
  • WinCE is correctly pronounced WINCE. Just thought you should know that. (I got peals of laughter calling it "wince" in the office once, but I always pronounce acronyms as a word so it seemed obvious to me....)

    Aptly named too. ;)

    _Deirdre
  • I guess I'm just stupid

    Yes, you are.

    Good whore makes more per hour then you do.
    Fucking with ugly, smelly drag dealers.

    Ability to make money off something does not imply it is a good technology.

    When Linux wins, you will be doing 10 projects per month.

    Of course you are just bragging. Stupid troll.

  • Our group converted to Linux from NT. How would they reverse it?
    Ahh, why I bother to answer to morons.
    Slow day
  • Send me the design spec

    Send you? What's your E-mail? Where did you install your bug-free solutions? Are you sure they will just upgrade your solution to Win2K and it will just work? Liar. Moron.

  • -- Maybe you forgot it is case sensitive?


  • no what? You did not forget, or it is not case sensitive..
    Man, you have too much free time I see, for all your bragging. (well, I have an excuse, my code is running in the background... third month of this debugging hell ;( )

    BTW, my NT boxes do not crush as well. Besides that horrible memory leak in SP4, but it was fixed, thank you MS. Until users decide to go and add/change anything. Then there applications screw up system libraries all over the place - and there is no fucking way, short of a clean uninstall/reinstall to fix the mess. Then it works again tip top, indeed. Sheesh. Ease of use, mother fuckers. Yeah, once my thesis is over I can go and earn some money for what I am volunteered here to do...(NT desktop and application support for a research group) - if I can not find a respectable job of course.. People pay for this crap. It is still crap.

    You asked for a database application example that NT cannot handle. Take a look at our stuff. (I am not with this directly, my friends are). If you say NT can handle that in any form - you are a bloody liar, who have no clue what he is talking about. Of course Linux is far from it as well, Solaris is used on mainframe level hardware. But Linux makes a good client. [stanford.edu]
  • no what? You did not forget, or it is not case sensitive..
    Man, you have too much free time I see, for all your bragging. (well, I have an excuse, my code is running in the background... third month of this debugging hell ;( )

    BTW, my NT boxes do not crush as well. Besides that horrible memory leak in SP4, but it was fixed, thank you MS. Until users decide to go and add/change anything. Then there applications screw up system libraries all over the place - and there is no fucking way, short of a clean uninstall/reinstall to fix the mess. Then it works again tip top, indeed. Sheesh. Ease of use, mother fuckers. Yeah, once my thesis is over I can go and earn some money for what I am volunteered here to do...(NT desktop and application support for a research group) - if I can not find a respectable job of course.. People pay for this crap. It is still crap.

    You asked for a database application example that NT cannot handle. Take a look at our stuff. [stanford.edu] (I am not with this directly, my friends are). If you say NT can handle that in any form - you are a bloody liar, who have no clue what he is talking about. Of course Linux is far from it as well, Solaris is used on mainframe level hardware. But Linux makes a good client.
  • You're being paranoid. I've been stomping on Microsoft products, when they deserve it, and praising non-Microsoft products, when they deserve it, for more than decade in the Ziff mags and other places.

    Sometimes Microsoft does something right--sue me I haven't seen anything in the same time zone as PowerPoint in years and although I keep trying the alternatives I always find Excel winning me back. But, when it comes to operating system fundamentals, give me Linux or BSD/OS any day of the week.

    Linux is getting solid praise in my book because it deserves it and that's all there is to it. Fair warning, if things start going wrong, we'll report that too.

    Steven, Senior Technology Editor, Sm@rt Reseller
  • >> next you'll be arguing MacOS is gonna steal back it's share of the market
    Check out the Apple sales numbers lately?

    The Mac is back.

    Steven, Senior Technology Editor, Sm@rt Reseller
  • Vote high for the story just to make it #1. If you think it's a great story, that's wonderful, if you don't, don't give it a 7.

    Thank you. The author.

    Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
    Senior Technology Editor, Sm@rt Reseller
    http://www.zdnet.com/sr

  • ...why zdnet is suddenly running "isn't linux cool" articles? Is it just me, or do they seem to have suddenly 'changed' their minds about a lot of this stuff? Could it be that microsoft had a little 'chat' with them and suggested it might simply be time to start painting 'that other OS' as a serious contender until the DOJ trial is over?

    Hopefully, I'm just being paranoid...

    CraigL->Thx();
    Be Developer ID: 5852

  • I had this vision...

    The 800 lb ( 360 kg ) gorilla perched on top of a building, with little biplanes flying around shooting at it. The likes of Linus and Alan at the stick, and hell, Snoopy ( aka the Red Baron ) too. All shooting at it with their latest 2.2 super-lazer-blasters. The gorilla swinging wildly, in all directions obviously dazed and stunned by the suddennes and fericity of the attack. And then, in the middle of a swing its eyes suddenly flash blue and the other arm forgets to hold on.... down it falls off the Empire State building...

    CraigL->Thx();
    Be Developer ID: 5852
  • I used to work in an industry that pushed computers to their limits- - Geographical Information Systems. The demands of processing spatial datasets are incredible in terms of memory, disk and CPU usage. We're talking about trying to analyse datasets in the order of 100MB+.

    My experiences with NT4 sp3 have been largely negative. While the Intel CPUs make light work of computation, if the application uses too much virtual memory the operating system goes into a kind of "seizure mode", even when the application is closed. It seldom recovers necessitating a reboot. I've observed this phenomenon with quite a few NT4 machines. On occasion, running out of VM will crash the machine entirely. I don't understand why closing an application shouldn't cause it's resources to be realeased fairly quickly in NT. I certainly never had this sort of problem running the same software, doing the same sorts of tasks on Solaris and Digital UNIX boxes.

    The machines were (in those days, top-spec) IBM things with Pentium Pro 200, 128MB RAM and SCSI hard disks.

    And another thing, try running a few Notepad, Calculator or Wordpad processes (say, 2 of each). These are seemingly light weight apps. Now, look at the task manager.

    These are just a user's observations who hasn't looked at the technical design of NT's memory manager - just used it, hard. And, yes, the cost advantage of choosing Wintel for our new machines was hard to argue especially as the rest of the office was a Wintel environment with a peanut sys admin. Sad, really.

    -t.
  • GNU Service Pack. I like that. I should install the GNU service pack on our systems at school. We are running a poorly configured netware server. Our "admin" doesn't know shit for netware and refuses to learn because "netware is dead". He's waiting till nt5/doze2000/whatever comes out because it will have disk quota support. I've tried to tell him 5000 times that Linux uses resources more effeciently; that samba runs faster than NT; that it does disk quotas NOW. Of course he's in the process of getting his MCSE and refuses to admit that NT is anything less than great. Actually now he will admit nt4 sucks rocks, but that's only cuz nt5 "is right around the corner." It's really sad to see such alegience to an OS that is made by a company that has no alegience to it's customers. What was really funny was to see him coming to me when he needed some email accounts setup. He didn't have m$ exchange server (or whatever it is) setup and he needed them done that day. In about 15 minutes i had created the accounts on the linux server I run and everyone was happy. Oh well, atleast it's nice to know that the revolution is taking place and that it WILL be televised.
  • This is hilarious. Whether MSNBS says
    Linux can compete or not, it is bad for
    Microsoft. After MS paid $$$ to make Linux
    look like competition, MSNBC wants to do
    something nice for them and stabs them
    in the back instead. These are funny times.
  • We geeks love Linux so much and revel in bashing Microsoft --- all the while this activity is creating what MS wants to see. With IBM, HP, Oracle and all the big boys jumping on the bandwagon, the only thing left for MS to sway is the press. Once the press is swayed (really it's there now) the public will once again side with Microsoft.

    I don't find it coincidence that these articles appear on news orginazations such as MSNBC. If Linux were really a threat, those articles would never get posted. A true threat would do more damage to the business. (would you talk yourself OUT of a dineer date with a pretty girl by telling her about some guy over in the corner?) As it is.....MS can post them and say "see...we are being objective....we report favorably on the competition when it warranted". Key word here is competition. Was competition in any articles prior to the Halloween document?

    Rant over...hehe
  • Hotmail runs a combination of Solaris and FreeBSD. They attempted a (mandated by MS) switch to NT soon after they were bought out by MS. After a couple of days of problems, and despite the best efforts of both the Hotmail and MS senior staffs, they switched back to Solaris and FreeBSD and have not attempted a switch again. This was a major black mark on MS's records, and one that has come back to haunt them every time they want to play in the enterprise world. NT just isn't capable of handling high demand, high volume applications. Worse than that, it appears that the reason why is due to fundamental design flaws down to the lowest levels of the kernel design.

    NT5/W2K is supposed to be an almost complete rewrite, so it may improve a little, but I personally find it hard to believe that they can overcome NT's scalability and performance problems without seriously compromising backward compatibility with previous versions.

  • If MS is trying to prove that they don't have a monopoly by boosting the image of the competetion (I even read a positive article about Boies on Slate.com!), they're doing a very bad job. No one has ever suggested that Microsoft has a monopoly in the server market. It's the desktop market that matters, and I haven't seen any mainstream media (especially ones owned by MS) saying that Linux is a worthwhile desktop OS replacement.
  • No, there's no censorship, just moderation. Slashdot has the best "censorship" system I've ever seen. If a moderator dislikes a post, he/she (well, he) makes it have a lower score. Thus you have to lower your threshold to see it. If you want, permanently set your threshold to -2 and you'll see it all. I just checked at -2 to see what you guys were complaining about, and the post was still there, for people like me, but it and the "1st post" post were downgraded, so that I didn't have to wade through them on my way to real, intelligent discussion. I really appreciate it. Remember, it's not censorship if you can still see it!
  • Good points. I was about to say that tech people would be the market for NT, not Joe User, but your example of your boss corrected me. But Microsofct isn't on trial for a server monopoly, becuase they don't have one. I'd be mighty impressed if they're preemptively boosting competitors for a trial they might face 5 years down the road!
  • Well, from what I remember, Mac OSX will pretty much be a "Unix" compatible machine, it will be incorporating a lot of the NeXT technologies, with the Mac OS GUI running on top of a new kernal (based on Mach like NeXTStep?).

    I am not sure of the details, but from what I recall reading about Apple's plans, within a year or so their OS will be very much Unix like, albiet with a Mac GUI sitting on top of it.

    What I suspect this means is that for most Mac users they will notice little difference, apart from much better multiprocessing, but if you need it (like on a server) much of the unix like functions will be there (perhaps even a command line?)
  • ...it is easy enough for the common "end user". That and the apps have to have been rubbed in their face. Unfortunatly "easy enough" is the cause of M$ stuff being bloatware.

    And as easy as it is to slam Gates/Microsoft I respect 2 things about it.

    #1) Gates had a vision of a computer in every home. Without M$ "in-your-face" marketing this would not have happend. The benefits of this proliferation are enormus (and I don't have either the time or space here to count them all). I'm going to sum it up in one word. Internet. Without ready access to computers that are "user friendly" (sorry for the buzz word!!!) we don't get all this communications stuff that makes up the "Information Age".

    #2) Gates has put the monopoly power of M$ to good use at least once. He has forced hardware standardization on some parts of the computer industry. And frankly, if I didn't want to go with standardized hardware I'd have gotten an Amiga in '91 instead of a clone.

    (Disclaimer: I am NOT a Microsheep) Do I hope that the DOJ trial breaks or regulates M$? You bet I do!!! IMHO the best possible result is for M$'s OS division to be split into a different company than the HW and Apps divisions.

    My point in all the above is that Linux might become a mainstream server in the readily forseeable future, but unless it takes on some of the attributes of Windoze it will probably never make it to mainstream desktops.

    Dissenting opinions welcome!

    David
  • I'm assuming this is a sick joke, NT could wish it was half as Linux. Obviously you havn't checked it out lately to see what an awesome OS it is..
  • First of all, who only wants a file and print
    server? Second, I don't know why I'm able to
    set up NT boxes for clients that never crash
    and never bottleneck. I don't know why I'm able
    to write Active Server Pages applications
    running against SQL server that support 400
    simultaneous users on a Pentium II/300 with
    128 megs of ram. I don't know why I'm able to
    start-to-finish 5 of these projects every month.
    I don't know why someone of marginal intelligence
    such as myself is able to charge $100 an hour
    to do this. I guess I'm just stupid.

    Can you say RAD people? I know that you can.
  • Yes, a good portion of my money is earned by going around and fixing crashed NT servers and putting out other fires. Other people's fires, not mine. The stuff I write, the servers I install, do not break. I'm starting to understand more and more the "Linux complaint." You guys are not upset at Microsoft technology per se. You're upset at poor execution of computer science techniques.

    You express frustration at Microsoft because YOU and YOU alone have had difficulty in getting it to operate without crashing. How much luck do you think you would have had with Linux with no help from the community?

    I've been working professionally with Windows NT since version 3.1, I started in 1993. I quit having the kinds of problems you guys are having when version 3.5 "Daytona" came out. Daytona was the same core technology as 4.0 without the 95 user interface. 4.0 suffered a stability problem, in that it took the general vendor population 2 years to write bug free drivers.

    It has *always* been possible to have a crash-free NT environment if you have good drivers. It has *never* been possible to avoid a BSOD with crappy drivers.

    The one design goal that NT strives for, and beats linux in, is usability by the general public, not just us geeks. See, guys, there's this strange beast called Business. Business, insanely, wants to retain the maximum value in their previous investments (call 'em nutty).

    Consider this: Client comes to you and says they want a super-cool way-new ultra-sophisticated app, oh, and by the way, can you make it work seamlessly with the Novell 3 and 4 servers, oh, and can you have the data be accessible by the boss who likes to use Quicken, oh, and can you pull the data file off the mainframe, oh, and are my secretaries gonna have to ask me 95,000 questions about how to use the mouse and launch programs, and oh, ..........

    You say, "sure boss. Lemme just fetch Linux, and the mainframe access program written by Joe Shmega at U. Berkeley, and the Quicken Conversion program maintained by Bill Frickenfrack out of Stockholm, and the Novell access program written by the Cult of the Dead Skunk. Okay secrataries, now remember, when the log device grows to maximum, start a console and go to /etc/log and chmod -r a3.log, and you won't have a problem. Okay boss, now you just have to remember to grep the quicken file using \n as the third replacable parameter..."

    It' just ain't gonna happen. Go try it.

    (1) Linux will start to win in an economic sense when/if they start bringing this wonderful awesome stability down to the point where the secretaries and the pointy-haired bosses can understand it, or at least think they can.

    (2) Once Linux tries to achieve this goal, they're gonna hit the same bug/bloat/goofiness wall that Microsoft has. Contrary to your 9000-pound brains, it is *harder* to write easier-to-use software for us metric morons than it is to write it for yourself, the genius.

    Now, ain't a thing inherently wrong with Linux. I just want you guys to recognize ain't a thing inherently wrong with Microsoft programs. There is *everything* wrong with poor usage of any tool. If you guys would spent 10% the energy bitching at piss-poor PEOPLE instead of lashing out at something that just happened to give YOU trouble, things would get better.

    -
    "A poor craftsman blames the tools."

    -
    "A man says to the universe, 'Sir, I exist!'
    The Universe replies, 'I am aware of that fact.'
    'However, it has not instilled in me a sense of obligation.'"
    (Stephen Crane)

    peace out you freaks
    love ya

    P.S. - Send me the design spec for any database application for it you want, and I'll email you back exact intructions on how to implement a bug-free Microsoft solution that I could build in about one day.

    P.P.S. - it is quite easy to charge more than $100 an hour if you only bill 17-22 hours per week, because you're not really billing for all your time. I bill 45 hours per week, every week, for the last 18 months.
  • The screen savers are awesome and they can cover what they want and they cover all OS's. On Fridays they do a alternitive os to windows tip. Throughout the week they cover all OS's. And ZD's publications can cover what they want. So be nicer!!

  • msnbc (Score:1)

    by taber ( 336433 )
    msnbc should do a story on airtoons i think.


    -taber

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