Ease of Use vs. Sweat Equity 235
Kelly McNeill pointed us over to a new article: "Browsing through ZDNet's feedback a while back, I lighted on the now standard debate on the merits of Linux and related Operating Systems versus those of Microsoft Windows NT. One thing eventually got me thinking. In every posting that claimed success with using NT, the factor that was claimed as guaranteeing success, was never NT's 'superior' technology, which has been Microsoft's line all along, but instead the time spent in doing things right. In other words, the reason why some companies could claim success with their deployment of NT was good old elbow-grease/sweat equity. "
Woooow ! (Score:1)
GREAT example of what people can do quickly with NT.
Familiarity (Score:4)
All the public machine use W9x (people need games and MS Word), and all the servers are Linux. I'm looking at putting a few Linux machines out for the masses to use becuase if you've never used a computer before Windows isn't easy to learn The web integration in 98 just makes things worse.
To be fair, Linux is almost as difficult. But for the absolute neophyte, I'd rather spend time showing them how to use Linux than have to go back time and again to explain what happens when the screen goes all blue.
Time (Score:3)
The Early Days (Score:2)
Sound familiar?
Mike Eckardt [geocities.com] meckardt@yahoo.spam.com
Excellent Article (Score:5)
- On the up side, that scares away the ludicrously incompetent
- Also on the up side, the expectation of difficulty/complexity means that people expect there to be some difficulty in figuring things out.
In contrast, those that expect hugs and kisses and simplicity because they're deploying NT run into opposite problems:When the situation (e.g. - independent of the OS in place) happens to be difficult/complex, this then doesn't phaze anybody, as they were prepared for there to be some difficulty.
As for the author's efforts at writing science fiction, it sounds like a case where you hope many of his neighbours are MSFT-critters, so that if his characters come for a meal, few will feel worried about it...
Some thoughts (Score:3)
Interesting opinion piece (Score:2)
Be that as it may, it was very clever for him to point out that Microsoft counts "X number of licenses purchased, ergo X number of licenses used" as a source of inflated Microsoft claims.
I don't think that this article will change any PHB's opinions vis-a-vis Linux vs Microsoft, but it is heartening to see such articles written that contain substance and not as much diatribe.
"All in all, I give it two thumbs up."
"All in all, I give Microsoft one finger up."
--
Is noone else... (Score:1)
They remind me of the ancient Amiga vs. Atari ST we used to have as kids.
Unfortunately this is surely going to spawn another "religious" debate about Microsoft vs. Linus.
So: "Get ready to rumble"
________________________________
If encryption is outlawed, only
WinNT and process control applications... (Score:1)
Startups... (Score:4)
Managers make the decisions about hardware/software and other business decisions and very often they are not in the 'know' about the arguments between opensource and closed source. They see a product that does 80% of what they want, and they will buy it because they *know* it will do what it says on the tin. They expect no more.
This is a standard thing, unless managers relinquish at least some of the responsibility to those in the 'know', then it's the way it stays.
To a non technical manager, paying $50,000 for a system that will do exactly what it says for minimal hassle then it's very tempting. Much more of a sure fire thing than spending half that on something which has the potential, but needs developing.
NT does to a greater or lesser extent do exactly what it says, as do the products that run on it. No they aren't great, and you can't always adapt them at all *because* they are proprietary, but most people (read managers) will settle for this.
That's why NT is here to stay.
Ease of use??? (Score:4)
The problem is, of course, remembering the right incantations and understanding what they actually do, rather than clicking a few buttons, selecting some radio-buttons and then rebooting.
What it comes down to really, is what you class as 'ease of use'. I find Unix much more natural to use than NT, but I'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to computers -- if it doesn't hurt you aren't doing it right
--
Re:Startups... (Score:2)
Anyway, as I was saying...
Small companies want/like to keep things 'known'. They want to be sure that their systems aren't going to fail and that they can develop things with relatively low investment in time and resources.
Yes, we all know the arguments about TCO and Opensource and all that, but at the end of the day it's the quick and easy (and yes sometimes dirty) fixes that work best, and they have their place.
It's the same at the company I work for, we are a linux house, we write our own stuff in mod_perl. Yet we put up a dual Piii500 server running NT4Server and purchased at quite a cost a piece of e-commerce software to run our e-commerce outfit precisely because it was quick (this is a matter of perceptions) and relatively easy. It was a managers choice, and perhaps in the long run the wrong choice, but it happened none the less.
Just like cars... (Score:2)
Sounds to me as if people were saying, "We bought this big, fancy luxury car -- NT. We've spent so much money on it at the local garage, just getting it to the point where we can actually drive the thing, that now that we can drive it, we going to drive it until the end of time!
In more corporate terms: "We in the I/T department have invested so much time and money in NT that if we just dumped it for Linux, we would look like idiots. After all, who would pour so much money into a product when a better (and free!) alternative exists? So, we're going to drive NT until the end of time!"
Cheers,
Tom
That's precisely my stance on the issue (Score:2)
B) BUT, if I have to spend hours grepping thru MSFT 'TechNet', smoozing with other McSE's trying to find out which registry edit needs to be done to get some tricky config running and workaround for this bug and that glitch and some other 'issue' then FAGHITABOUTIT. I'd rather spend the time to learn the gory details of some open industry standard system any day than what BG's favorite color or domain/directory scheme of the month is.
Bottom line - if it works (and so far it's usually embarrasing) I'd recommend it. If it takes learning something I'd rather use *nix.
Chuck
NT vs. Linux (Score:1)
The Enterprise Situation (Score:5)
And I've seen the way that management at big companies work. Once thay've decided on a "project" they pour resources into it like there's no tomorrow. You know, hire a few more NT sysadmins for good measure. Deploy random product X to a thousand machines because it's the flavour of the month.
Linux needs to get into the position where the same amount of resources get thrown at it. This is a big task, and it needs a concerted effort on the part of the open source community. Most corporations have a "better the devil you know" mentality, so some serious PR work needs to be done.
My number one hint:
Get a consortium of Linux consultants to put together a "showcase" 100% Linux enterprise system. Linux servers, email, e-commerce, intranet, security and desktops. Put up a top quality website showing how it was all done, the hardware chosen, the software used and the configuration steps taken.
This will give Linux some serious credibility. As a bonus, the partners in the venture will make a mint by helping out with implementations for companies that want a similar system. And it will show the commercial viability of supporting Linux to everyone else.
NT (Score:2)
The guys working on this are Microsoft certified.
The Unix and VMS installs I've done have gone without too much of a hitch. Hardware and software is easy to configure and install. Most things are picked up automatically, and if a bit of hardware is not quite up to spec it still runs.
We've had problems with NT because the new memory wasn't something NT knew about and it didn't like it and refused to use it - in Win 95 and Linux it worked fine. Same thing with a tape unit - I had to do a firmware upgrade on a tape unit before NT could be forced to use the damned thing.
NT is waaaay too choosy about the hardware it uses. its too choosy about the service packs it needs.
No other system I know causes as much sweat as NT.
Windows is just as tough as UNIX... (Score:2)
My house mate and myself have our rooms networked (the builders put 12 wires to each phone jack!) and all was good. About a month ago, we got DSL installed in the apartment. Now, we used to share a phone line for our dialup access (we had two different ISPs), and sharing a single 56K modem can be painful, so we never did connection sharing. With the DSL, however, we needed an internet connection sharing (masquerading) solution. So, I pulled out a dusty old 486DX2/50 (16MB) and started to experiment with connection sharing.
Unfortunately, one of the two NICs in the machine (a 3C507) never quite worked well under Linux in this box, so I figured I'd go buy another NE2000. In the meantime, however, my house mate (a Win98 user) decided that we should throw Win98 with internet connection sharing on the machine to get it going for now. Blasphemy, but I was interested anyway.
I spent all afternoon with that darn box trying to get Win98 to work on it. Granted a lot of problems were due to the old hardware (Win98 required a minimum of 66MHz := chip swap, Old SoundBlaster CD-ROM := driver hunt), but in the end the GUI didn't make things any easier, just prettier. I didn't need to configure chains or anything, but it still was tricky.
A week or so ago, I finally got another NE2000 and installed it in the box along with Linux. Since I haven't done MASQ before, I had to do some reading, but I got it done in the end. Works just fine now.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I had just as much work involved in getting a Windows box to do the masquerading job as I did with Linux. Granted once you've learned everything it's a breeze, but administrators are always learning how to do things. Yes, Win98 is a nice GUI and UNIX is command line, but it takes just as much to know that you open this control panel and click on this and check that to get a job done as it does to know that you edit rc.local and call ipchains.
Now what I'd really like to point out is the fact that I'm MUCH happier with the job that Linux is doing than Win98 was. The connection is faster, the machine has more resources available, and on top of all that, I can access the box from the outside world (I used VNC for Win98, BTW). While I had to reboot the Win98 box at least once every few days, the Linux box has been running without a hitch since I installed it.
It takes time for either Windows or UNIX. The end result, however, is that UNIX is just plain better; and that is from experience.
--
translation (Score:4)
-----------------------------------------------
Wesley Parish is a Linux user, and also plays around with Minix. He once tried to install a beta of Windows NT 3.51, but encountered a BSOD. He is still working on his anthropological SF novel, and has decided he would never invite his characters around for a meal, as they would eat the neighbors' dogs. Not such a bad idea, but if his neighbors came over to complain, his characters would eat his neighbors...
Translation: Wesley Parish is a college student studying computer science. He has never run the operating system he is criticising, nor has he even made the effort to obtain a retail copy of that software so that he might validate his journalistic credibility.
Please people, I realize this article is somewhat more rambling and pointless than most, but isn't it a little inappropriate to give a public forum to someone who self-confessedly doesn't know what he's talking about?
-konstant
The reason some companies claim success with NT. (Score:3)
Arguably, this must be true of any successful widely deployed solution. Since most people don't have the disposition or training to be an effective system admin, then they should be locked out of certain administrative functions. On the other hand, the standard policies of IT departments seems to be almost draconically restrictive -- for example no user installed applications (of course these days they should probably count any file with a ".doc" extension as as a user installed application).
This seems almost like a 19th century attitude towards workers -- like central planning or Taylor's discredited "Scientific Management" theories. Speaking as a former MIS director, I feel that users should on one hand not be required or in many cases allowed to perform many administrative functions, but on the other hand they should be free to customize their toolsets. It makes no sense to call somebody as "knowledge worker" and then dictate how they will do their work. A modicum of chaos is a healthy aspect of any complex adaptive system (e.g. an enterprise).
An ideal OS would provide a customizable mix of control and freedom. But both the control and freedom need to be targeted at freeing users to be as effective as possible. Maybe its just my personal disposition, but users of a system should feel free rather than restricted. What I question is whether an NT deployment can be both manageable and provide this sense of user empowerment.
NT can stump me quicker than Linux... (Score:2)
Hah!
It seems they start on opposite ends of the spectrum. Linux is stable by default, and you've got to pretty well screw it up to make it unstable. NT starts unstable, and you've got to add hotfixes and tweaks and service packs to make it stable. Then it's nice and stable... until you install another application.
Now, every day little tasks might actually be easier in NT than Linux... but troubleshooting is so much easier (and less necessary) in Linux than NT. Linux usually gives me a clue what the problem is. NT often gives a generic error, and leaves no trace of what the problem actually is.
Despite being a relative newbie to Linux, Linux has never left me scratching my head, completely clueless the way NT frequently does. Sometimes it seem like NT ought to have a "I just didn't feel like it" error.
NT is easier to use like an automatic transmission is easier to use than a manual.
Sure, you may not have to do as much, but you've
got less control, less flexibility, and you're never REALLY sure what's going on in there...
Jase
Re:Bullshit (Score:1)
Stated in the article, there are different reasons to set up a network. Where *nix will be better in one case and NT could be better in another.
I don't know what problems you had with Unix, but I never had any problem setting up networks for file servers, web servers, print servers, etc. In fact it takes but a day to do most. But what software you run does matter. The things I do can be accomplished mostly with Perl. I also write my own applications and have a suit of apps to choose from. It would probably take a lot longer for me to do the same on NT. That is because of experience or lack of. If you don't have good Unix admins, then it would be harder to do something with Unix. But same goes for NT.
You also can purchase several e-commerce appliations for Unix, you don't HAVE to always get the apps with the company you bought the OS from. There are better ways
Steven Rostedt
Ease of use as advertized by Microsoft (Score:2)
Also, when something breaks and all you can do is click 'OK' and 'Cancel', the so-called ease of use starts to feel like a curse from hell. Microsoft has been very good at touting their ease of use, but this is only half the truth. I equate their ease of use with 'limiting my options'; something I'm not interested in when using a computer
I think the best feature of the whole MS platform is the integration they provide: you can pretty much select any object and paste it into another application. That's pretty cool. Unfortunateley most other MS things I see, are like toys. Very nice looking but lacking in depth and flexibility
[OT] Renaissance Lute. (Score:1)
By an amazing coincidence, I started playing the Renaissance lute in July. (For real.) And I'm already just about as good at it as I am on the guitar, in spite of many years of half-hearted fiddling with the latter.
It's a lovely instrument; you should give it a try if you have the slightest inclination in that direction. Mine was made by Lawrence K. Brown, Luthier, and is very similar to the one shown on his home page [onr.com].
Oh, yeah. The numerous strings are pretty intimidating when you first pick it up, but all it takes is a bit of practice. (Kinda like learning the ins and outs of your favorite OS, if you want a segue back to the original topic.)
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Re:Familiarity (Score:1)
I'm looking at putting a few Linux machines out for the masses to use becuase if you've never used a computer before Windows isn't easy to learn
Agreed. I just sent a Linux system to my sister, and she didn't even ask why it was running Linux! She wants to browse the web, and play some games - and for that she thinks "the computer" is cool.
I benifit from being able to tend to the thing from half a country away - no fuss, no muss!
Re:Win 98? (Score:1)
Also my NT clients don't go blue, they just get slower and slower and slower, then they lock.
Ok my clients need to run for days as well as the servers. This is why most of my critical apps are written on Unix (Unix servers with Linux clients).
Steven Rostedt
Re:The Early Days (Score:2)
Ah, I remember the days of hacking away at my little Vic-20 in BASIC. Those were the days!
But, these days, I need to get work done, and have more need for a nice GUI and consistent interface (ie, my Mac) than I do to access the 'guts' of the OS.
Don't forget, today's home users are more interested in just buying a machine, installing some games/'net stuff/office xx, and using the machine, rather than learning what everything does and how it works.
There's room for both types of users. Anyone who says different is a technosnob.
(aside: I will agree with ANYONE who says that the "Joe Average" users should really get a clue about what they're buying, Mac, PeeCee, *NIX, whatever. Hell, I had to take a computer history lesson/quiz back in Grade 5 before they let me on the Apple ][. Educate!!)
Pope
Spoken Language vs. Pictures (UN*X vs. NT) (Score:1)
I find UN*X actually easier to use. Command line is unmatched in flexibility, as we know. A thing you can do with a keyboard shortcut (takes a fraction of a second) takes few seconds with a mouse. Shellscripts? NT is pitiful at scripts. How about changing registry (on NT) - do you call that 'easy'? Piping? There's no piping in NT (ok ok, the call it COM/DCOM and sell it).
Easy things are extremely easy in GUI and difficult things are impossible. If there's no OK button for that, you can't do that in NT.
When babies start to explore the world, it's big and bright picture books we supply them with. When they need to express more complicated concepts, they use LANGUAGE. NOT pictures. Pictures are not meant for that. (Can you see the analogy?)
"Me too" :-)
Who said it was easy? (Score:2)
Unix is configurable, has well defined layers, tons of documentation and if you have linux, you can look at the code. It might be more dificult to learn, but once you have learned it you can do more in less time and more easily.
Somehow the idea got widespread that computers should be easy to use, and it is possible that this myth is going to swamp NT. After all, what do you mean ''system administration for dummies'', ''c++ for dummies''? if you are a dummy keep off.
I don't think computers are easy to use. I like unix because it is honest on that point. On the long run you do not do a favor to serious users if you conceal the difficulties and pretend they are not there.
rm *
Re:NT (Score:1)
A place where I once worked bought a VAX 6xxx way back when. The DEC engineer set up the hardware and went home for the evening and I, being of the impatient persuasion, installed VMS 5.0 that evening, having never seen it before, from a reel of tape, and using only someone's verbal instructions about how to get it started (which instructions turned out to be incorrect, but close enough to get me started.)
Installing an OS is a BFD -- if it is made by someone who cares about quality. All the clickies in the world won't make buggy software easy.
Re:I like linux because.... (Score:1)
I like Linux because it's stable, i can easily configure it instead of running into "Damn that's not possible!" situations all the time. I do have a fulltime well paying job, a wonderful girlfriend and a great sex life. I don't think that they're related to my use of linux though.
Thank you very much for sharing some details of your life, it was most interesting.
Missed the Point (Score:2)
It seems something like this:
People expect Unix to be difficult, therefore they are more apt to work harder at it and be pleased with their results.
In contrast, people expect Windows NT to be easy and when it gets complicated they are more frustrated and discard the operating system.
The real truth is that Windows NT continues increase its market share despite:
1. Increased attention to Linux in the press
2. The underlying superiority and flexibility of Linux over NT.
The author of the article writes "So it would appear that Windows NT is a victim of Microsoft's considerable marketing muscle, along with OS/2, etc." Maybe I'm slow but I don't get the point. Windows NT, despite its faults is still thriving. OS/2 despite its strengths is yesterdays news.
I'm not advocating Window NT. I use Linux.
The author of the Excellent Article comment made some great points but I'd like to add a new twist. He said that Linux weeded out incompetent system administrators. True. But recognize there is a shortage of qualified and competent IT professionals. Many reasonably competent Windows NT sysadmins simply can't administer a Linux/Unix box. I'm not saying they're not trained, I'm saying they are so used to the window-based hand holding that mucking in the text based configuration files of Linux would blow some sort of fuse. With the shortages of good computer professionals, maybe its a good thing that those with lesser skills can still make a good living as an MCSE. At least for now
Dave
I know all about this... (Score:1)
- Install NT.
- Finish hardware setup, except for video.
- Install SP3.
- Install IE5.
- Install Option Pack 4
- Install video drivers.
- Re-install Option Pack 4.
I probably lost about 3 weeks of work on the damn box, but now it's as stable any NT box I've ever seen - it hasn't gone down in about 14 months. Note - I really do hate NT, but it can be a relatively good platform if you work out all the 8,000 kinks in getting it set up & deployed.Scott Severtson
Applications Developer
Same old argument... (Score:2)
MAC is to NT as NT is to Linux.
Mac users say to NT users that Mac is "easy to use". NT users say to Mac users, "Yeah, until it breaks, then try and fix it".
NT users say to Linux users that NT is "easy to use". Linux users say to NT users, "Yeah, until it BSOD's, then try and fix it"...
Re:translation (Score:2)
Whether or not Wesley's theories are "true" or not, they seem worthy of discussion.
Re:NT can stump me quicker than Linux... (Score:1)
Sure, you may not have to do as much, but you've
got less control, less flexibility, and you're never REALLY sure what's going on in there...
That should be on the outside of the Back Office box.
I just set up an FTP site under NT. I read the help files, did exactly what they said, tried to implement a little of my own security, read the help files again, again did exactly what they said and...
...nada.
I still need to work on the site and I need to read more, but the bottom line was -- use the defaults, don't try to change anything, just do as we say and everything will work.
I have an FTP site set up now, but it's not the way I want it, it's the M$ way. And I don't know WHY! *sob* I thought I was doing everything right.
Re:NT vs. Linux (Score:2)
Could some one moderate this up as "Funny"?
At least I hope Mr. Coward is aware that (Li)/(UN)ix is designed to make it very hard for a process to take down the operating system. And that the entire GUI infrastructure can crash, but every thing else will run... (Granted it _looks_ like a crash but the OS just keeps going and going and going...)
My favortie is the last two lines....
Like windows has a standard GUI.... or drivers that don't take the system down. [Don't try to argue that one, because I've had it happen with win95a and some funky video card.]
Mr. Coward I salute you! You are always so funny.
RobK
Re:translation (Score:2)
But I find the statement irrelevant. Working in the PC field now for 10 years (admittedly 4 in college), I find the author is pretty much correct.
There's plenty of anecdotal and direct evidence that NT is, in reality, hard to use and fully understand. Documentation is sparse and scattered (there's no NDP out there to help), MSFT doesn't like admitting to bugs, and bug fixes more often than not introduce new bugs. While BSOD is ready to be put into Webster's, when one says "kernel panic" the first thought to everyone's mind is "he burnt the popcorn again".
UNIX (Linux) was hard to learn. There was little documentation. There were few users. It was only used by engineers. The tide has turned. There is documentation, and lots of it. Millions of people are using UNIX at home and at work as part of their normal day, and by people who have a wide range of computer skills. All we need is to find those undocumented Win32 APIs and we'll have a system that anyone can install and use. And have enough resources to do it right.
Re:WinNT and process control applications... (Score:1)
We had workstations on DOS with DEC Pathworks and VAX's on the back end. It may not have been very pretty, but it worked reliably.
Then, in the name of "innovation" and "improvement" - we shelled out big $'s to migrate everything to NT 3.51 server and workstation. The custom application that tracks our customers, sales, and order info was rewritten as a GUI under NT that passes the data back to an Oracle database.
Ever since then, well - we've had pretty-looking screens and made everyone learn how to use a mouse, but it's never been as reliable or fast as it used to be. We finally had things reasonably stable by service pack 5 for NT 3.51 - but when NT 4 came along and we did that upgrade, things went downhill again.
All of the Pentium 100Mhz workstations with 32 megs. of RAM suddenly became obsolete, because while they worked reasonably well as NT 3.51 workstations, NT 4.0 proved too much for them.
From all of this, you'd think that they'd learn, but no.... When it came time to upgrade the Oracle database (last really "stable" thing we had around here), they moved it to a DEC Alpha running (gasp) NT. Funny how the database needs to be rebooted about once every couple weeks now. I don't remember that happening before.... hmm.
Kelly McNeill == Wesley Parish? (Score:1)
Does it bother anyone else that Kelly McNeill's e-mail to Slashdot, which says "I lighted" is identical to the opening of the piece to which she refers, which is written by someone else?
Or that Kelly McNeill's e-mail address is webmaster@osopinion.com? Or that this amounts to nothing but a Shameless Plug (TM) for OSOpinion?
-- Brian
Re:translation (Score:3)
Perhaps you're correct that the author doesn't deserve this public forum. OTOH, I really think the topic deserves some discussion.
I know Linux is better than NT because I've used them both for so long. But, though the technical reasons that Linux is better are still obvious, how hard or easy it is to use compared to NT just isn't clear to me anymore. I've spent so much time working on both which perhaps makes me too close to the issue to see it cleary, if that makes any sense.
For me they both have good and bad parts of the installation and configuration process. I find them both equally easy to set up (overall--it can go either way depending on the 'wierdness' of the hardware.) It's just much easier to set up something reliable and efficient using Linux no matter how I look at it.
numb
Re:I know all about this... (Score:1)
Finish hardware setup, except for video.
Install SP3.
Install IE5.
Install Option Pack 4
Install video drivers.
Re-install Option Pack 4.
You forgot all the reboots. Including the reboot when you installed the video driver and the reboot after you configured the video and the reboot after you installed the NIC driver and the reboot after you configured the bindings and the TCP/IP properties and the reboot after you sneezed on the keyboard and the reboot after the OS felt like it.
Re:Win 98? (Score:1)
Oh, was that a screen saver on that Compaq running NT 4, whenever I tried to surf (with Internet Exploder) and listen to CD's (with MS Media Player)?
I was impressed that the CD kept playing, even after the BSOD.
George
Re:Win 98? (Score:1)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:2)
Certainly, it's much easier to think of cases where it would be advantageous to use another UNIX variant. BSD has a better tcp/ip stack, so anything involving very heavy network loads, and/or very fast (gigabit) network access, any BSD derivative is going to have a marked edge.
For highly parallel arrays, Solaris is superior to Linux. Linux is good, but it's SMP still needs work. Also, for very large disk arrays, or very large memory architectures, "heavy-duty" Unix variants do have an edge over Linux.
In multimedia, BeOS and RiscOS beat Linux hands-down. RiscOS is, IMHO, the best non-free/non-Unix OS out there, and I'm trying to talk Acorn into releasing the source for early versions of it, as Open Source.
Certainly, then, it's the right tool for the right job, and Linux (for all that it's a swiss army knife of OS') isn't totally universal. (Well, not yet.)
Re:Win 98? (Score:2)
Re:NT vs. Linux (Score:2)
Microsoft loves to blame it all on the application developers - but no matter how poorly they write their app, the OS should not allow the app to clobber the entire system. In Java, everything runs in a "sandbox" so it can't run away and kill the whole system. Why can't NT seem to get this right?
Furthermore, I don't think most of us are trying to claim that Linux would be just as stable as it is today if people ran the same number of apps on it that are out there for NT. The real issue, though, is the frequency of crashes when you run the *same* apps on both platforms. Oracle database ran great on our old OpenVMS VAX, yet on a DEC Alpha running NT, it bombs regularly.
If I put up an ftp server in Linux, it just sits there and runs.... Same for an Apache web server. You do the same tasks on an NT box (say, with IIS for web and their built-in ftp server), and good luck keeping it going more than a month or two, tops.
It's not that NT is easy... (Score:1)
Slashdot readers tend to miss this because most of us learn a most of what we know on our own. But if you've ever worked in a big corporate help desk, you know that isn't true for most. Most people do their 9-to-5, and expect the company to provide training on new platforms.
Notice something important: NT is the market leader in the server market only when the server is tightly coupled with the desktop, for example File, print and login services for Windows desktop machines. When it's not (like for DB servers, or Web servers), NT never dominates the market.
Standardizing on a single platform is the big win for NT, and underlies most of their marketing statements about deployment and maintenance cost.
The important lesson here is just how important desktop apps are for Linux. Standardizing on a single platform is a major desire for a lot of companies.
Re:Win 98? (Score:1)
Re:WinNT and process control applications... (Score:1)
---
pb Reply or e-mail rather than vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
What my explorations of Linux have taught me (Score:1)
Personally I like Linux, I like it alot but it is no piece of cake to install for a novice. Honestly, how many of you ran the Xconfigurator 10 to 15 times on your first Linux distro install, trying to tweak the vid display just right so that you could even get into X-Windows. ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!!!!!!!
Unfortuanately Linux isn't ready for every PC on the market. So, tailor your PC to meet Linux hardware specs then jump in and start configuring it. If you are a recovering W9x user remember don't get fustrated. Just remember how it was when you first began to learn the Microsoft OS.
$nyper
"Linux is a completely different ball game, but don't be affraid to learn the rules and join the fun."
Re:Ease of use??? (Score:2)
Yep, I would agree with that, but there is one big BUT: this statement is true for system administering, not for normal user applications. Remember, the great majority of people do not deal directly with the operating system -- they deal with applications. The character of user's interaction with the computer is determined mostly by what his word processor/spreadsheet/file manager/mail program look like -- not by what's under the hood. And in that respect Linux (as all Unixes) is lacking. X Window has its advantages, but it's user interface is not standardized. For example, let's say you have a new unknown to you application. What would a middle mouse click do? Maybe paste, maybe pop up a menu, maybe close the window -- there is no way of knowing. I am not even going to get into the (slowly improving) lack of "normal" applications for Linux.
To summarize, if you are a (decent) sysadmin, handling a Linux system is much better than handling NT. But if you are a standard (l)user, Linux offers no advantages. If you spend all your time in Word with auto-save set to every five minutes -- what can Linux offer you?
Kaa
One minor beef: (Score:1)
However, we'd already been using Linux in production for some time, so it wasn't exactly a leap of faith. Besides which, that box had come with NT installed on it: the "Windows tax," so it wasn't like we set out to buy NT and then scrapped it.
I suspect that most people who have problems with NT will hire tech support/consultants, fire their IT department, or (in the case of hardware incompatibilities) go with a new OEM. But they're not likely to go with Linux.
Yet.
Re:Familiarity (Score:1)
Uh-oh. If playing game is going to be one of the major uses of the machines, Linux starts to suck very badly...
Kaa
Re:Win 98? (Score:1)
That's not a bug, that's the rap turntable feature.
George
Re:The reason to claim success with any OS. (Score:1)
Your role out of an OS needs to come from an experienced individual. The last thing you want is to turn your lively hood over to a bunch of glorified end users.
Don't bicker over the OS it doesn't matter that much. Run what suits your companies needs, only run it with pride and exoerience. Do not run it like you are blindly stumbling around in the dark.
Re:translation (Score:1)
Re:The reason some companies claim success with NT (Score:1)
Of course restrictions like this cause a problem - our policy is that if a user needs package X, and their manager is happy to say that they need it for a business reason, we'll get it and install it straight away. And standard things like mp3 players, browsers, plugins, etc are all standard on the user build, so most people don't need (or even want) additional apps.
Re:Missed the Point (Score:2)
1) Jobs that require people to use Windows NT for whatever task. This stops people from trying out anything else. Period. (unless they know better, and their boss doesn't mind / know)
2) Pre-existing bias. Specifically: absolute hatred of tweaking text files. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but how often do you read an article that pans Linux solely because the "techs" felt stupid not knowing what to edit in
Apparently, a binary registry with a lousy GUI interface is more appealing to a Windows "tech" than is a simple text file. Why? What spawns such masochism? Maybe they just like the apparent power of messing with the internals of their system, which they shouldn't normally be doing in the first place... Or maybe they don't realize that they're just editing yet another
3) Microsoft is running scared. I wouldn't normally put this in, but I've been watching for a while, and that's the only conclusion I can make. I think they'll try to never port Office to Linux and try to stick to the crappiest and least time-consuming methods for when they need to port Unix applications (MainWin). This way, they can give Unix a bad name, and say it's not ready for the desktop, and that's why they only port their real apps to the Mac, and look at how bad Internet Explorer runs on Unix anyhow why would you want to use it... However, Linux is changing that. As people increasingly see it as a desktop alternative, they also see how whacked out the Microsoft PR Machine is lately.
Especially as Microsoft pays "independent" companies into finding deceiving results for them, and then sneak these results into the press. (Mindcraft - sure, the benchmarks were real, but try them with one NIC, or especially with Gigabit ethernet; The Gartner Group - outright deception on the part of Microsoft, and don't piss off the people writing the reports the bosses read.
Don't get me wrong, Microsoft has always been cautious, but I've never seen them try to screw themselves into the ground the way Apple has until now. (Compare Copland or Taligent to Windows 95/98/2000; Closed hardware, no clones vs. irrational refusal to port application software to new OSes) And that scares me. I don't like Microsoft very much, and I don't know if they could redeem themselves now, but I have to thank them for introducing me to a commandline that was more functional than my C64's was. They couldn't keep that up, though, and they couldn't write a decent GUI Windowing System, (I liked GEOS on my C64 much better than Windows 3.1, and I didn't even like it all that much...)
However, I loved the author's characterizations of Microsoft, because they were humorous and right on the mark. All I can say is: "What has that customer got in his pocketsess? Give me..." (just picture salespeople, corrupted by the ring, hunched over...)
So, yes, some Windows users are stuck in the Windows world, and haven't seen the light. I, personally, never liked Windows, and when I found out about SunOS and later Linux, I never looked back. I grew up on DOS, basically, and Unix is so much better that... well, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to find an OS with a command line that has all the functionality I ever wanted and more... NT tried to hack that back in, but it's got lousy DOS compatibility baggage, and would make for really annoying, slow batch files.
---
pb Reply or e-mail rather than vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Re:Startups... (Score:1)
However, my consistent experience with propietary software is that, in fact, it doesn't really meet your needs, once your needs have any complexity. At that point, you start trying to adapt it, but you're crippled both because you don't have access to the source, and, more fundamentally, because the authors of the software never intended anyone to extend it.
Why is this such an emotional issue ? (Score:2)
It's almost like we tend to see our choice of our favorite OS as an extension of ourselves, therefore we take up arms and are ready to do battle at any moment. But why? Where does this come from?
Ah well... perhaps I'm feeling a bit to introspective today and I really should get to work. Opps... I just noticed my NT machine has been up for 3 hours... time to reboot it to freshen up the memory a bit
Win V Linux (Score:1)
Many users do not understand the idea of "root" users, file permissions or fstabs. They don't want to know why the must enter a root password every time they wish to dialup the Internet with kppp. They don`t want to configure their desktops with E themes, or choose between Gnome or KDE.
As it stands Linux is a great OS as a server OS, or a desktop OS for those that understand it. But trying to leverage Linux onto the current Joe User Win market is not going happen any time soon. Linux is just too damn powerful.
Think trying to crack an egg with a sledgehammer
Stop smoking that crack! (Score:1)
Re:Win 98? (Score:2)
That's because almost all CD-ROM drives have standalone audio CD player hardware in them. It's not like MP3, where the host CPU has to be alive to get a sound -- the CD player does all the work.
-lee
Re:Familiarity (Score:1)
Mine e.g. prefers to play such games as Tetris, Minesweeper and the like! Such games can easily be had on any Unix.
Re:Win 98? (Score:1)
Could you tell that to this computer (running NTWS 4.0 SP5) which just a few hours ago decided that it should tell me that it got a STOP in NTOSKRNL.EXE because some IRQ-list had a wrong count or somesuch?
*Adjusts screen colors* Oh, right, now the blue has gone away. I guess that's what you meant.
Biased issue (Score:4)
Unfortunately, it is exceedingly difficult to find any unbiased voices at /. anymore. With the whole WinNT vs Linux thing, all the posters here have presented anecdotal evidence as to why NT is so much worse than Linux. Very few people come to NT's defense, not because no one suports NT (they sell enough licenses) but because any NT users who might have been here have left.
You see, filled only with pro-Linux zealots, /. becomes little more than a group of the same people patting each other on the back. Very little is accomplished in saying "NT sucks, here's why" without having anyone here to defend it. Yet time after time, when someone jumps to NT - or any non-open source competing product for that matter - invariably they are pounced upon by fellow /.'ers.
It feels like its not really worth airing opposing opinions on this forum anymore. In this mob rule, one's dissenting voice gets lost in the incessant bickering that accomplishes very little. For those of you who have said that NT or whatever is difficult to use, ask yourself ... no, really ask yourself ... where the computer industry is heading and why.
I work for a small state agency where we have three people working in IT. Two people handle the network, servers, and workstations, and I handle the web servers. I manage content, program, handle security, and do a myriad of other tasks to keep my four servers up and running. Two of the web servers run WinNT, the third runs Luinx, as does the Database server. "But why would you run NT, when Linux is clearly superior?" I'll tell you. The linux box has been in this agency since about 95 or so. Its running whatever version of Slackware was out at that time. Its been patched along the way (I hope...), but was the baby of an employee who no longer works here. He didn't leave documentation. One of the two NT servers was also here when I got here and was also the toy of another employee. Which one was easier to take over? I hate to say it, but the NT server was, because it was easier to assess what was installed and what needed to be done with it. The Linux box is sitting there, waiting until I have a solid week or so to go through and see what needs to be done.
NT addrssses a very important issue with the people at my job. Because the IT staff is very small, and the network admin is a NetWare freak while the desktop person knows hardware much better than software, the systems have to easily transfer from one person to the next. I'd be doing a disservice in moving from an NT webserver because the next person they hire will need to quickly assess what they have/what they have to do. Or, because of budget cuts, they don't hire someone, they're going to have to train someone on the basics of how to handle a web server. I can't do that with a Linux box as well as with an NT solution.
Then why a Linux DB? First, it was cheap. Second, the interface for the DB resides on the Linux box. Third, I reason that if the person might as well learn simple linux stuff if they're going to administer a database.
Re:Windows is just as tough as UNIX... (Score:1)
Many games work flawlessly on the Internet through my Linux masq box. But some do need tweaking and port forwarding rules to be set up. And I don't think MS would forsake those games and not have any sort of rule system in the Internet sharing deal.
Re:Win 98? (Score:2)
Re:I know all about this... (Score:1)
Finish hardware setup, except for video.
Install SP3.
Install IE5.
Install Option Pack 4
Install video drivers.
Re-install Option Pack 4.
You forgot all the reboots. Including the reboot when you installed the video driver and the reboot after you configured the video and the reboot after you installed the NIC driver and the reboot after you configured the bindings and the TCP/IP properties and the reboot after you sneezed on the keyboard and the reboot after the OS felt like it.
I think you forgot a step. You should re-install the Service Pack after all that. Preferably SP4 or 5 at that . . .
Necessary Evil? (Score:1)
What utter BS! Call me an idealist but, IMHO, there's no such thing as a necessary evil. You either accept the evil or you turn away.
BTW, I have more applications installed on my Linux box at home than most people's PCs have here at work. The only time I've had problems is when I decide to delve into parts of the kernel or device drivers (neither of which is a specialty of mine) and do something experimental. I don't blame Linux for that; it was my mistake.
And I strongly disagree that it's ``not the operating system that crashes''. If I'm going into the NT tool to add a user and it locks the machine, then it's the OS that crashed, pal. I've yet to have any flavor of UNIX seize when editing /etc/passwd. I guess adding users to NT is something you should schedule downtime for since NT might lock up on you while you're performing such a simple task.
There is no such thing (at least I've not encountered one) as an unconditionally stable operating system. You can always do something to make even the most rock-solid of them tip over. My major beef with NT is that it claims that it's stable but, heck, just getting the damned thing installed can make it blue screen. It shouldn't take an MSCE to install the operating system. I never had to take a vendor course or be certified to install any of the DEC operating systems I used to use. All it took was reading the manual (you really haven't installed a real operating system until you've done a SYSGEN of RSX on a fully loaded PDP-11/70 :-). Hell, my first VMS install was done after reading a few magazine columns about the process. Just what the heck are they teaching in these certification classes, anyway?
Re:Some thoughts (Score:1)
The situation: Our administration wanted virus protection on our mail server to scan every message. Because of a poorly written but very popular application our Exchange server crashed, and consequently we removed this nasty program from our server. This same product has a version that can be placed on a proxy server. So guess what... we (not me) implemented an MS Proxy server just so we could scan out-going and in-coming e-mail. Our main firewall/proxy is not MS so we don't have to worry about all of those holes but it sure would be nice not to have another machine to maintain.
If you know of a product that would fit this need and runs on *nix platform please reply.
Re:Familiarity (Score:1)
Re:Familiarity (Score:1)
Oh, wait - that's my screensaver
Just like GUI verses command line (Score:3)
Reminds me Apple Inc in 1995 (Score:1)
Apple is back with superior Hardware IMO,and software seems to come along
these days they don't communicate on the ease of use anymore
Re:Bullshit (Score:5)
A problem I'm seeing more and more of as linux and nt become more widely used in our environment is that since most users' first experience with both of these OS's was on a home machine, they become extremely lazy in their sysadmin practices.
A sysadmin or developer who may be fairly clueful and careful normally, suddenly becomes a install-happy fool on a redhat or nt box. While previously they would have no problem spending a couple hours reading docs on new package, now suddenly they have no problem just running through the install wizard or installing the rpm, and calling it done.
While this isn't *too* bad on the linux side, because in the back of their mind they know they're being lazy, its devasting on the nt side because for many users, this is the only way of administering an NT box they've ever known. And since it seems to work for them at first only using the wizards, they keep doing it. And they get more comfortable with it, and keep doing it... even if it does catch up with them, and they trash the machine out of ignorance, they just chalk it up to NT's instability, because that's all they read about on slashdot. =)
This sounds ludicrous, perhaps, but how many production NT boxes out there do you still see %systemroot% still with everyone:f? Or how many nt admins give you a blank look when you ask what options permissions they assigned to that new service they just installed? Quite a few, I'm afraid.
NT definitely needs time to mature -- the fact the ms threw away nearly *all* the nt4 mgmt tools shows that even they realize this. But just as important, the sysadmin community needs time to mature with respect to NT and grow more clueful admins. Interns-turned-nt-admins, or unix guys who have a quake machine at home and bought a learn-nt-in-7-minutes book will probably be able to get an nt box installed and most of the services a company may need up and running, but when things go wrong, about all they'll be good for is to fetch the os media and reinstall, complaining about microsoft's evilness the whole time.
There is no replacement for a clueful sysadmin, on any platform. No matter what the little bullet points on the vendors web site say. The fact that NT has alot of vms-ness underneath really should drive this home -- if an admin can't tell an sid from a guid, or gives a blank look when you mention \??, then it's only a matter of time before they get knocked on their butt by this "simple-to-use" os.
Clueful admins aren't grown overnight, and they they don't pop straight out of msce's courses or trade schools, so I don't mean to criticize anyone who's struggling on this platform. But it's very easy platform to gain a false sense of confidence in your knowledge of it.
In my opinion, this is it's most fatal flaw, and this is an excellent article to point it out. Hopefully with microsoft improving the docs and adding obviosuly complex things like active directory to NT more admins will realize how deep they are in over their head and seek out deeper understanding of whats going.
Anyways, that's my rant for the morning. Time to go home and sleep.
-- Scott
Re:Time (Score:1)
For a lot of users they perform a lot of tasks occasionally, and for those tasks it's usually faster for them to learn a Windows-like interface. I work with UNIX much less than NT, and I always find it hard to look around and find the right text file to modify to do something in UNIX, but I can usually figure out how to do something in NT, unless I have to directly modify the NT registry. I'd rather search through text files in UNIX (which might even have comments in them if I'm lucky) than screw around in NT's registry.
I still think it's easier for the non-geek to learn to do things in Windows than on *NIX systems, but I also don't have any experience with Linux, and the Window managers I keep hearing are making it much more user friendly.
Re:?? Window's Blue Screen of Death under Linux? (Score:1)
I was unclear. If you're teaching someone how to use the computer you're going to have to answer a lot of questions. If you've a choice of OSs, you have to ask yourself which set of questions you prefer to answer: to you can listen to them asking why they can't play Tiberian Sun or use Microsoft Word, or you can explain why blue screens keep popping up and learn how to explain 'invalid page fault' in fifteen non-technical words.
So in answer to your question: no I don't.
100% Linux Enterprise system (Score:1)
Re:translation (Score:2)
PLEASE MODERATE THIS UP!!! (Score:1)
Steven Rostedt
Some people are just plain thick... (Score:1)
NT is most definitely not what M$ says it is, it will never be a viable alternative to any UNIX (or even Linux) for large scale server implementation. It only barely makes the cut as a workstation O/S!
The biggest problem is stability, NT servers fall over with monotonous regularity, and uptimes rarely exceed even a week. Even on a desktop machine it hardly makes it through a day without at least one reboot.
In all honesty most sysadmins would prefer the more simplistic Win9x variants to the overly convoluted and uninspired Win NT on their workstations, the help desk calls alone would be cut in half.
What makes me sad is that because the purchasing departments of many organisations are being influenced by the slick salesmanship and pricing tricks of M$, they are ignoring the experienced advice of their sysadmins and IT staff and moving over to NT anyway. People in the IT world are starting to accept unnecessary and regular server crashes and reboots, tremendous network lag, and NT's famous "it shouldn't do that!" capers as the norm, when at this level nothing less than rock stable servers should be tolerated.
Until organisations start to listen to and effectively use and trust their own IT professionals, after all, isn't that why they pay them??? then idiots in the purchasing departments who know nothing about IT will keep rolling out crap like NT, Terminal Server, M$ SQL Server et al, and we all have to suffer.
Ease of use is relative to the sysadmin (Score:3)
Microsoft will have a hard time ... (Score:2)
This is, however, not the last time that a new technology will suddenly surge and take over. As we are stretching the applicability of the current internet protocols to its limit and while we are slowly realizing that we will need something new and different to enable e-commerce massively, out there somewhere the next Tim Berners-Lee is writing the next hot thing that will take the world by storm. The next hot thing will not come from Microsoft, IBM, Sun, or any other vendor with an established customer base that they can continue milking. Hot things are more of a threat than an opportunity to these companies. But nonetheless, the next hot thing may eat well into Microsoft's desktop domination well before they have had the opportunity to re-organize and counterattack.
Bill Gates says himself "we are continuously only 2 years away from failure". And I think he's definitely right. But then it also testifies to the fact that he's a damn good player at these games.
Probably Obvious...(Re:Some thoughts) (Score:2)
I have a friend who is an admin who runs squid to do this very thing (sort of). Here's the deal: he runs squid on a box in front of the mail box. Since squid is a cache proxy, you can (and do) look at everything that passes through it. The mail is directed to the squid box. A few lines of perl look for attachments on the mail. If yes: delete/run as guest/send back/whatever; if no: put in the queue. The mailbox (the one that all of the users get their mail from) runs fetchmail. It wakes up periodically, looks in the queue, and pulls over any new mail. IIRC, you can set it up to deposit the mail on an NT box (if needed) so you can run Norton (or whatever). In this way, the mail is disinfected, the users run Win9X, you run *nix, and everyone is happy.
If you like, you can also use perl to pre-sort and filter the incoming mail:
Jedi Hacker (Apprentice) and Code Poet
To Be Fair... (Score:2)
Windows programmers tend to assume that their app is the only one running on the system. This is a direct throw-back to plain DOS days when that was the case. Even in 3.1 and 3.11 you could generally get away with assuming that yours was the only app running (Many more than that and the system would crash.) For that reason, they will very often pop up full screen windows without regard to whatever else you may be doing on the system. OS/2 had some neat options such as "start minimized" that you could select to keep such programs in the background until you were ready for them.
Windows programmers tend to overuse modal and system modal dialogs. Actually, modal and (especially) system modal dialogs are the work of the devil and should never be used. I could not name one application that was written natively in X11 that uses them. I might tolerate a modal dialog in X, but if an app ever popped up a system modal dialog in X, I'd rm it that very instant.
Windows programmers will commit an assortment of other atrocities as well (Again, to be fair, many UNIX programmers will, too) for the full list see http://www.iarchitect.com, which seems to have become a Slashdot favorite since it was carried here a while back.
To summarize, Windows would be a whole lot more usable if someone would take the bad programmers out back and shoot them.
GUI OK Button (Score:2)
The GUI has its benefits and its drawbacks. I used to have an OS/2 rexx program that would change all the icons on your desktop to the same image. Run that and then click "Arrange" and watch someone try to work with the system. It ain't pretty. If you have a layout that works for you, that's great, but the amount of mental gear shifting it takes to go to another system can lead to difficulties. One big problem with OS/2 was that its desktop could be corrupted very easily, forcing the user back to the basic layout. In some cases it could take weeks for the user to get comfortable with the system again.
Heh heh heh (Score:2)
I was most impressed with the RedHat 6.1 install. It detected all my hardware including my video card and monitor (Though my hand tuned XF86 modelines yield a better refresh rate) and seems to do a very good job of detecting and dealing with changes to the kernel and hardware.
TV Shows (Score:2)
That would just about rock, especially if the network made the theme available to the public. Think "Good Advertising."
"NT: Just As Tricky As Linux, But More Expensive"? (Score:2)
Re:The reason some companies claim success with NT (Score:2)
Security -- people downloading stuff: yep, absolutely it can be a problem. But you know what? You really can't stop them from doing that if the software is compact, self contained and doesn't need access to the system directory or the registry. And very determined people can always find a way -- there isn't an NT admin alive that could keep me out of a machine I have physical access to. Fortunately by nature I'm a cooperative chap,but others with similar or greater abilities aren't. Sometimes ineffectually enforced rules invite the very behavior they're supposed to prevent.
Legality: you need a policy that everyone understands and which is enforced. Everyone knows the ground rules, and there are disciplinary consequences. Usually putting offenders at the back of the upgrade queue is sufficient, but more drastic action could be taken.
Maintainability: Yep. That stupid screen saver could be a problem. But, if it makes somebody's job a little more fun, its worth at least a little hassle. I once made an executive secretary's day by showing her how to turn off the beep on her computer -- her PHB thought every time the computer beeped she was making a mistake. I always felt that optimizing the subjective experience of the user was an important goal.
Freeing the user is hard work. They will make mistakes. They'll be a pain in the a**. My problem with most IT departments is that they overreact at the prospect of users making more work for them -- if you're doing your job, it'll be hard work one way or the other.
By the way it sounds like you ended up with a pretty similar policy to the one I had. It means that you have to work extra hard so the user never ever feels like his request is being processed by an impossibly slow bureacracy. I think supplying things like the MP3 player is a nice touch.
Getting back to the topic at hand -- I agree there is no OS panacea, but NT does seem to be unreasonably fragile with respect to your choice of software to run on it. Bad software crashes (sometimes good software too). Bad OSs crash when bad software crashes (sometimes good ones too). The way I prefer to think of this is not that professional standards require maximal user restriction, but that NT simply makes more administrative work to create a IT service that is friendly and responsive.
Re:Just like GUI verses command line (Score:2)
For example, WinZip was always the coolest program to me... I could open Zip files, extract select files, drop all those into a directory easily... it just plain made it easier for me.
I don't, however, use a GUI file browser in general. Why? Well, it's easier for me to have a couple Xterms open, do the CD commands (I can type a path quicker than clicking through dialogs to get there), and issue arbitrary commands to manipulate the files (GUIs find it hard to offer this richness of possible manipulations, and are better at a small set of defineable tasks, like "Copy", "Edit", "Delete").
So, it all depends. Each approach has its benefits.
Re: Kiosk Config (Score:2)
coffeebars, etc.
"Sweat Equity" used incorrectly! (Score:2)
It involves hard work, but it is not at all synonymous with "elbow grease." This is yet another indication that this guy is blowing smoke.
Re:different view on where elbow grease (Score:2)
So, my staff can take a cryptic, unfriendly, (buggy?) UNIX software package and write scripts, wrappers, and web-based front ends to make it work like a dream in the enterprise.
On the windows side, things are different. Run installshield. Configure all the options. Test. If the software doesn't work exactly as required, then submit bug or feature request and wait for next version. Spin. repeat.
Unix users are used to customizing things to get exactly what they want. They accept cryptic, difficult installs of commercial unix software because they can customize it and make it do exactly what they want and it works.
Imagine windows software that required hand-editing of the registry or using edit to open config files and batch files. Image buying a windows program that had no GUI! Users would go nuts and slam the software into the ground as backwards, unfriendly, counter-intuitive, impossible-to-install, etc...
unix users just RTFM, install, configure, and run it. (and then start re-writing the scripts and customizing the solution).
And all management would hear is that the unix software upgrade/install was working great and went as planned and now we have this great web-based view of the data (hacked in perl by $SYSADMIN)
Which of the above statements would you rather report to your manager?
MORAL: There's no substiture for experienced IT staff.
Unix myths revealed (Score:2)
- UNIX (Linux) was hard to learn.
- There was little documentation.
- There were few users.
- It was only used by engineers.
This stuff I'm replying to should be labelled "mythology". No matter how often Microsoft tells you this story, it remains more lie than truth.Hard to learn compared with what? Compared with tying my shoe? Certainly. Compared with learning how to build a car? Hardly. Compared with learning what you have to learn to graduate from high school? Far, far from it. Hard compared to the vocational training needed in other jobs? The depends on the job. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
My goodness, whatever can you be talking about? Are you unaware of how revolution the Unix approach to documentation actually was? The BSD 4.4 documentation set, co-published by Usenix and O'Reilly, remains remarkably close to what we received in Version 7 [bell-labs.com], although admittedly better than what we got in First Edition [bell-labs.com]. I'm not talking about just manpages, either, essential though those are, but also the whole set of critical supplementary documents, all available on-line It's true that what some despectively refer to as "Winix" seems too often to have forgotten this lesson, but it was clearly present and revolutionary.
Again, there seems to be a difference of perspective here. Sure, maybe in the early 70s there weren't many, but by the early 80s, there were countless thousands upon thousands upon thousands of users. I remember putting 3,000 students per semester onto Unix systems, just as my university. There were scores of others across the world doing the same thing, but with higher numbers.
Not at all. It was used by huge numbers students, mathemeticians, programmers, scientists, and everybody else, even secretaries. At one point in time, the secretaries at very large institutions used vi to draft troff documents for all internal paperwork. They weren't idiots, but this is hardly rocket science.
Re:Familiarity - not (Score:2)
I can lock up a DOS/Win 3.1 box tighter than a drum. Lock out the F5/F8 keys using SWITCHES in CONFIG.SYS (I think - check MS-DOS help for CONFIG.SYS commands - it's in there). Put WIN in AUTOEXEC.BAT. In SYSTEM.INI, set SHELL=the custom app that the user sees. You're not running Program Mangler, which is what most people thought of as Windows, but you are running Windows. Win 95 is slightly harder but also very doable (ie I've done it but can't remember what exact steps to take off the top of my head).
This, of course, does not address issues of stability or anything like that. I think you're right overall; I just had to take issue with that one statement.
Troll (Score:2)
I am of the opinion that your comment was meant only to incite immature tempers
Re:Biased issue (Score:2)
i don't think much is getting accomplished. sure they're lots of good points. but you'll all forget them by the next time a MS vs. Linux article comes up.
two points that make me laugh:
1) search
2)
hehe, i logged into my roommates linux box at home today and chatted with him using 'talk'. sure it works. but reminds me a whole lot of 1970's. seems like we would have something better then that by now.
oh that's right, we have "Netmeeting", but that would be "evil"
-Jon
"shutup ya freaks"