Why do you put up with Windows?

[dduardo]

This article was just posted on slashdot:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/02/04/notes020405.DTL

With all the problems associated with windows why do you still use it?

 

[graphic7]

This article was just posted on slashdot:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/02/04/notes020405.DTL

With all the problems associated with windows why do you still use it?

At the moment I only have one Windows workstation. Thankfully, I'm not in possession of a Linux workstation. Windows allows me to play games, use my webcam, etc. Not to mention lots of other propiertary software, and my Matlab and Mathematica licenses are for Windows only.

I basically run Windows wherever Solaris or FreeBSD will not run or don't fit the job at hand.

And until another OS supports all the stuff I need to do, Windows will stay on that workstation. Linux is not a solution.

 

[dduardo]

What about OS X?

Are you sure you can't transfer those licenses to Unix? Matlab runs great on Linux.

 

[graphic7]

What about OS X?

Are you sure you can't transfer those licenses to Unix? Matlab runs great on Linux.

I have OS X on my Powerbook. I probably could transfer the licenses, but it sure wouldn't be to Linux.

 

[franznietzsche]

I use windows for games and that's about it.and i hate rebooting into it for that. Makes me feel dirty.

I would never switch to Mac though. No reason for it. Anything a mac can do i can do on Linux, for less.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

On a day to day basis I have very few problems with Windows and I'm a gamer, publisher, designer and developer.

 

[gazzo]

One word; vmware. :shy:

I feel so lonely without my webcam working on Linux =( But meh, small price to pay for the ultraultracoolestsuprimeuberelitenessuberstable feel of Linux.

 

[graphic7]

Modified my word

ultraultracoolestsuprimeuberelitenessuberstable feel of Linux.

You're joking, right?

I have a word for Linux:

akernelunderacommuninistlicensethatispoorlymaintainedthathardlyevergetsanyuptimeforptracevulerbilities

Cool - that's pretty relative and subjective
suprime - I guess you mean supreme, but no, Linux is not supreme when it comes to OSs.
elite - Only l33t hackers apply to this. Are you proud to be using that kind of OS?
stable - What makes you think this?

Yes, Linux is better than Windows. Does that mean Linux is the greatest OS? No. In fact, it's not much of a compliment to say Linux is better than Windows.

Psst, the Linux fanboyism is on a rise today.

 

[graphic7]

I use windows for games and that's about it.and i hate rebooting into it for that. Makes me feel dirty.

I would never switch to Mac though. No reason for it. Anything a mac can do i can do on Linux, for less.

You're comparing hardware to software, which you must know is not a valid argument. You are aware that you can run Linux on a PowerPC? You must mean that anything a PowerPC can do an x86 can do it for less?

 

[dduardo]

communist license? poorly maintained? hardly gets uptime? trusting windows more than Linux?

Who do you think you are? Scott McNealy? Bill Gates?

 

[dduardo]

Yes, Linux is better than Windows.

Now we have a flip-flopper?

 

[graphic7]

communist license? poorly maintained? hardly gets uptime? trusting windows more than Linux?

Who do you think you are? Scott McNealy? Bill Gates?

The GPL is rather controlling for developers, and the maintainers of the GPL (RMS, for one) aren't exactly role models. Poorly maintained? It is. Have you taken a look at the kernel mailing list ever? You have developers that can't integrate kernel patches correctly. Hardly gets uptime? Correct, you have to recompile the kernel every so-in-so months to fix a security vulerbility thanks to that professional development cycle the Linux kernel developers have. Trust Windows more than Linux? Yes, when something breaks in Linux I cannot cry to someone. And no, the hack-it-yourself-fixit-attitude will not prove very useful in a production environment.

 

[graphic7]

Misunderstanding of quote.

Now we have a flip-flopper?

You've taken that out of context.

 

[faust9]

The GPL is rather controlling for developers, and the maintainers of the GPL (RMS, for one) aren't exactly role models. Poorly maintained? It is. Have you taken a look at the kernel mailing list ever? You have developers that can't integrate kernel patches correctly. Hardly gets uptime? Correct, you have to recompile the kernel every so-in-so months to fix a security vulerbility thanks to that professional development cycle the Linux kernel developers have. Trust Windows more than Linux? Yes, when something breaks in Linux I cannot cry to someone. And no, the hack-it-yourself-fixit-attitude will not prove very useful in a production environment.

Rubbish! Plain and simple rubbish. You have to download windows updates and reboot every couple of weeks or so. My Gentoo box updates itself once a week without a problem.

When something breaks in Windows who do you wine too? Do you wine to Bill Gates who then responds "That's not a bug, that's a feature!"

Rubbish! How many windows flaws, buffer overflows, vulnerabilities and the like are there and least we forget the mall and spyware. How many virii are their for BSD systems? I wonder... Oh, no need to wonder there are none.

 

[graphic7]

Rubbish! Plain and simple rubbish. You have to download windows updates and reboot every couple of weeks or so. My Gentoo box updates itself once a week without a problem.

When something breaks in Windows who do you wine too? Do you wine to Bill Gates who then responds "That's not a bug, that's a feature!"

Rubbish! How many windows flaws, buffer overflows, vulnerabilities and the like are there and least we forget the mall and spyware. How many virii are their for BSD systems? I wonder... Oh, no need to wonder there are none.

This is Linux bigotry that I'm not going to even going to reply to.

My problem is that someone has the nerve to create a subjective thread about Windows when the moment someone replies back about Window superiority over a certain OS, they get more and more of this bigotry. I'm not even going to bother with the ad hominem attacks.

 

[dduardo]

The GPL is rather controlling for developers, and the maintainers of the GPL (RMS, for one) aren't exactly role models. Poorly maintained? It is. Have you taken a look at the kernel mailing list ever? You have developers that can't integrate kernel patches correctly. Hardly gets uptime? Correct, you have to recompile the kernel every so-in-so months to fix a security vulerbility thanks to that professional development cycle the Linux kernel developers have. Trust Windows more than Linux? Yes, when something breaks in Linux I cannot cry to someone. And no, the hack-it-yourself-fixit-attitude will not prove very useful in a production environment.

1. So is the BSD license any less communistic?
2. I'm sure there are just as many people on the bsd side having trouble merging patches into their kernel.
3. Redhat and others provide binary patches for the kernel
4. That is why you buy support from redhat, ibm, novell, etc.

Who do I go cry to if I have problems with openbsd?

From what I see, each has their own problems and it is the big companies like IBM that try to make the operating system(AIX, Linux, etc) cohesive.

 

[franznietzsche]

You're comparing hardware to software, which you must know is not a valid argument. You are aware that you can run Linux on a PowerPC? You must mean that anything a PowerPC can do an x86 can do it for less?

Its a perfectly valid argument. If running it costs me more to do something on a mac than it does on my x86 linux box, it costs more. There should be no doubt as to what i was talking about. Not very complicated to understand.

akernelunderacommuninistlicensethatispoorlymaintai nedthathardlyevergetsanyuptimeforptracevulerbiliti es

And you accuse me of OS bigotry?

Please, try to argue that I am communist because i use linux. I would love to hear that flawed logic. There is nothing communist about the GPL license. I noted nothing in there about equal pay for unequal work. I just noticed lots of things implying that there would be no overpriced software that isn't worth crap. Red Hat Enterprise charges for its distro, it does not realease a free one anymore, nothing communist there, is there?

GPL is controlling for developers? How? It says you can't take this source code that you didn't write, change it and sell it. Real controlling. Not anything like microsoft's licenses where you're paying out the arse to use anything.

communist license? poorly maintained? hardly gets uptime? trusting windows more than Linux?

Who do you think you are? Scott McNealy? Bill Gates?

QFE.

I use linux largely as a developmant platform for theoretical physics work (running computer simulations). Windows could never meet my needs on my budget. Just paying for the compiler's i would need would be prohibitively expensive. All i need is a command line compiler and simple text editor. That and an OS which does what i need it to and then gets the heck out of my way. Windows does everything it can to get in my way, including lending itself to getting diseased. Its wateful of system resources too. And it has to reboot FAR more often than linux (in my experience).

 

[Kerrie]

I want to use Linux over Windows actually, but I am not as savvy on how to load it or even use the two OS so that we can play games on it. I also do a lot with Word and Excel so it becomes necessary to use Windows for those applications unfortunately.

 

[dduardo]

Kerrie, have you tried to use Openoffice?

Main website: http://www.openoffice.org/

Download: http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.4/index.html

Give it a try and see how you like it. I no longer use MS Office since OO does everything I need and maybe it will do the same for you.

Also, what games to you play?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Give it a try and see how you like it. I no longer use MS Office since OO does everything I need and maybe it will do the same for you.

I used OO up until the time when I created a proposal doc for a client and when the client opened up the doc in ms word it didn't convert correctly and looked messed up, that was not a good impression.

For all those who think Linux doesn't have their fair share of vunerabilities, a few years ago I played around with red hat and would get patch/security alerts several times a day. Linux itself is very secure, however Linux is so dependant on 3rd party components and those components are usually not secure.

 

[dduardo]

I used OO up until the time when I created a proposal doc for a client and when the client opened up the doc in ms word it didn't convert correctly and looked messed up, that was not a good impression.

For all those who think Linux doesn't have their fair share of vunerabilities, a few years ago I played around with red hat and would get patch/security alerts several times a day. Linux itself is very secure, however Linux is so dependant on 3rd party components and those components are usually not secure.

1) Thats exactly why I export all my documents to pdf before giving them out. It is more portable that way.

2) 3rd party software for any other platform can be just as insecure. The problem with windows is that everytime you download a patch you have to reboot the machine. Everytime I download a patch for linux all I have to do is restart the process. This is of major importance in mission critical operations.

 

[graphic7]

2) 3rd party software for any other platform can be just as insecure. The problem with windows is that everytime you download a patch you have to reboot the machine. Everytime I download a patch for linux all I have to do is restart the process. This is of major importance in mission critical operations.

And when a kernel vulnerbility comes out, such as a ptrace one, what do you do? Last time I checked the procedure was 1) recompile the kernel and reboot or 2) apply the binary patch and reboot. Note that both of them have `reboot' in them.

I can understand why an Enterprise-level OS, like Windows would want to reboot after an upgrade. Most of the time when patching Solaris and AIX, they almost always ask you reboot even if it is a system service and not kernel level. The reason for this? Rebooting makes sure that nothing unexpected can happen or can keep happening. IBM, Sun, or Microsoft can't test every variable in an environment after a patch is applied. They ask you to reboot because they've tested it and they know what to expect, instead of what might not be expected.

If I were patching a critical system, I know I would follow the patch instructions to assure that the environment is clean. Doesn't SuSE or RedHat ask you to reboot after applying any sort of patch?

And no, rebooting is not highly important in a production environment. The objective of a production environment is to make sure everything works like it should. Losing 500 days of uptime on a critical system is not that big of a loss if it insures that a) the system should work better b) the system should get even higher uptime for the next reboot.

 

[dduardo]

I think they only ask to be rebooted after downloading kernel patches or major system upgrades. I actually find this is safer because if you install a patch and it messes up your services in such a way that you can boot again, then your in trouble. If you just restart the service and it doesn't work, then you can easily debug the problem on the fly without resorting to failsafe modes. Redhat also provides rollbacks, so if the patch goes bad you can easily go back to your previos system setup before the patch.

 

[graphic7]

And for me to be politically correct:

Solaris, AIX, etc. either ask you to go into single-user mode or single-user mode/reboot the system. I would expect the same from Linux. In FreeBSD, when remaking your world, you go into single-user mode. For those of you that don't know what single-user mode is: it shuts down all networking and the only processes that are allowed to run are owned by the user root. Basically, this renders the system as useless as it being down for a reboot.

Uptime is important in a mission critical environment; it's not highly important, though, and neither is patching. Most enterprise environments have regular patch intervals which range from 6 months to a year, in which patches are applied then. Only in extreme cases do you patch early and reboot the system.

If you have a few Windows systems behind a firewall do you have to patch immediately when a patch comes out? Of course not. And if you're just a typical home user, the last thing you should be concerned about is rebooting.

 

[graphic7]

I think they only ask to be rebooted after downloading kernel patches or major system upgrades. I actually find this is safer because if you install a patch and it messes up your services in such a way that you can boot again, then your in trouble. If you just restart the service and it doesn't work, then you can easily debug the problem on the fly without resorting to failsafe modes. Redhat also provides rollbacks, so if the patch goes bad you can easily go back to your previos system setup before the patch.

Is that a feature of RHEL and/or Fedora?

 

[dduardo]

It is part of the RHN, which can be used with both RHEL and Fedora. You can create a free account for personal use. On the client side this system is called up2date.

Suse has a similar system with YasT2

 

[BoulderHead]

This article was just posted on slashdot:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/02/04/notes020405.DTL

With all the problems associated with windows why do you still use it?

Because it's familiar, dear, and valuable. However, I do plan to stop using it in the near future.

 

[graphic7]

1. So is the BSD license any less communistic?

No, it's not. In fact, if I were to write any open-source software I would write it under the BSDL.

I do have a problem with the GPL, but the maintainers of it and most of the followers are the ones I really have a problem with. With each open-source license coming out, you can always find them creating a bunch of trouble over nothing.

Take the CDDL, which is essentially the same as the Mozilla/Firefox license. RMS comes out with an interview serveral days (possibly a day later) after the OpenSolaris dtrace release stating how Sun was not `being truthful' with the open-source community, when indeed the CDDL is the exact same thing as the Mozilla/Firefox license. Do you see the Linux zealots complaining about the Mozilla/Firefox license? No, of course not. Do you see them complaining about the CDDL? Yes, but why? Is it because OpenSolaris is going to give Linux a run for it's money? I'm not even going to bother answering that.

The BSDL allows anyone to take my code and do whatever they want to with it. That's true software freedom, but no, you have these GPL hypocrits running around and spewing their garbage. With the GPL, any software under the GPL must stay GPL'd. What's the point in that?

 

[graphic7]

Its a perfectly valid argument. If running it costs me more to do something on a mac than it does on my x86 linux box, it costs more. There should be no doubt as to what i was talking about. Not very complicated to understand.

It was not a valid arguement, and I pointed out why. I also understood your argument, however, the correction was needed.

And you accuse me of OS bigotry?

You're muttering this Linux garbage, therefore, I am.

GPL is controlling for developers? How? It says you can't take this source code that you didn't write, change it and sell it. Real controlling.

That is controlling. Read your statement a few times over and see if it dawns on you. Yes, the Microsoft license is more controlling than the GPL. Does that make the GPL anymore less controlling? No. Someone needs to read through the list of logical fallacies, but I'll spare the ad hominem attack.

Keep in mind we're talking about why people use Windows. Licensing/freedom != technical superiority. Linux could be under the BSDL and I still wouldn't use it.

 

[dduardo]

It doesn't have to stay GPL. The only requirement to change the license is consulting the orginal auther.

The reason why the GPL is this way is to encourage contribution to the orignal source code. Otherwise people will just take the code, make major improvements and give nothing back.

 

[graphic7]

The reason why the GPL is this way is to encourage contribution to the orignal source code. Otherwise people will just take the code, make major improvements and give nothing back.

In RMS's (and almost every other Linux zeoloat's) argument the other day he stated the CDDL was bad because it prevents people from ripping code out of OpenSolaris and reusing it (perhaps porting it to Linux). See something ironic here?

 

[dduardo]

Yeah, we all know linus wants to port dtrace.

 

[graphic7]

Yeah, we all know linus wants to port dtrace.

That just goes to show how ignorant the man is. There's a better technology out there, and he won't even take a look at it. In fact, he relies about "3rd party accounts" to tell him how good OpenSolaris is. It also shows that he's quite political/religious.

In fact, I'm sort of glad he isn't into porting dtrace. That just adds one more feature to Solaris to make it more superior to Linux.

 

[dduardo]

I would actually try OpenSolaris when it is released, but it has even worse driver support than Linux. Nvidia only supplies accelerated drivers for Linux and FreeBSD.

 

[faust9]

The BSDL allows anyone to take my code and do whatever they want to with it. That's true software freedom, but no, you have these GPL hypocrits running around and spewing their garbage. With the GPL, any software under the GPL must stay GPL'd. What's the point in that?

The point is to prevent company 'A' from simply taking code, modifying it and not returning the modifications to the code base to improve the original piece of work (Microsoft and the BSD IP stack for instance). Why not give the original creator of code freedom to do with the code as he/she see's fit? GPL does this while BSD simply says "hey you want it--take it. If you make it better, well then keep that secret so no one else can benefit."

If you are a developer and don't feel like writing a chunk of code and would rather cut and paste from a GPL'd piece of work then the original creator of the work should get credit should he/she not? GPL says develope your own code from scratch if you like. If you do then license it however you want. If you decide to use a piece of GPL'd code in your project though you must agree to abide by all of the terms of the GPL. Again, if you don't like it don't use GPL. Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?

If you don't like GPL don't use it. If you develope software and prefer BSD or any other IP scheme then feel free to use what you like.

Oh, RMS is not a Linux Zealot BTW. In fact I'd say he's the exact opposite of a Linux zealot. RMS only cares about the FSF and GNU. He harps about Linux as much as he does about plan 9 or solaris or aix.

 

[dduardo]

Just saw this on slashdot:

http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39127619,00.htm

Bill Gates talks about interoperability and open source.

Microsoft and interoperability is an oxymoron. Maybe if they helped out interoperate with other operating systems this wouldn't be an issue. It is always the open source projects reverse engineering the microsoft protocol.

 

[graphic7]

"hey you want it--take it. If you make it better, well then keep that secret so no one else can benefit."

This is a capitalist society. Software development is not some sort of pseudo-religious philosophy. It's about making money. When will the GPL nuts understand this?

If you are a developer and don't feel like writing a chunk of code and would rather cut and paste from a GPL'd piece of work then the original creator of the work should get credit should he/she not? GPL says develope your own code from scratch if you like. If you do then license it however you want. If you decide to use a piece of GPL'd code in your project though you must agree to abide by all of the terms of the GPL. Again, if you don't like it don't use GPL. Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?

Correct. This is why many software development teams are forbidden to look at or use GPL'd software during the software development process, because of the fear that the developers will be contaiminated, therefore, letting them possibly incorporate the GPL code into the propiertary software. If anyone finds out the software developers were contaminated and did in fact incorporate the code they could be sued the FSF, etc. That's very nice of them isn't it? With the BSD, the true open-source license, all of this is avoided.

Oh, RMS is not a Linux Zealot BTW. In fact I'd say he's the exact opposite of a Linux zealot. RMS only cares about the FSF and GNU. He harps about Linux as much as he does about plan 9 or solaris or aix.

This is for the most part incorrect. RMS loves IBM, therefore, he really has no beef with AIX (at least I haven't seen it). As for Solaris, I've made it apparent that he does not like Sun. Plan 9 is now under a BSD license. If he criticizes that, he's just making an even larger mockery of the open-source movement. I haven't seen him criticize Linux lately; however, I believe I've seen it before. To criticize your own followers is pretty stupid. He wouldn't make a very good politician/businessman would he?

 

[faust9]

That just goes to show how ignorant the man is. There's a better technology out there, and he won't even take a look at it. In fact, he relies about "3rd party accounts" to tell him how good OpenSolaris is. It also shows that he's quite political/religious.

In fact, I'm sort of glad he isn't into porting dtrace. That just adds one more feature to Solaris to make it more superior to Linux.

Please feel free to list the superior aspects of Solaris over Linux. I use both(Red Hat and Solaris) plus XP plus OS X on a daily basis. I've yet to see superior aspects in Solaris over any other *nix. Unigraphics runs better on XP, Most engineering software available for *nix's run better on Red Hat(Matlab runs much much better on Linux as does Maple and Mathematica than on Solaris). Graphics applications run much better on a G5. The superiority of Solaris is not present in by dealings with it IMO.

 

[graphic7]

Please feel free to list the superior aspects of Solaris over Linux. I use both(Red Hat and Solaris) plus XP plus OS X on a daily basis. I've yet to see superior aspects in Solaris over any other *nix. Unigraphics runs better on XP, Most engineering software available for *nix's run better on Red Hat(Matlab runs much much better on Linux as does Maple and Mathematica than on Solaris). Graphics applications run much better on a G5. The superiority of Solaris is not present in by dealings with it IMO.

You've failed to mention what version of Solaris you are using. dtrace is a feature of Solaris 10. Keep in mind that Solaris 8 is over 6 years old, and Solaris 9 is around 4 years old.

You've also neglected to mentioned what hardware platforms you're comparing them against. Were you running Solaris and Linux on an x86 when you compared the Matlab/Mathematica performance, or are you comparing an x86 to an UltraSparc?

Unless you're doing any sort of system administration you probably won't notice Solaris' advantages of Linux, however. Solaris 10 should make workstation advantages more apparent. dtrace for developers will be a godsend:

http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9171/sam0406h/0406h.htm

Do not bother to compare dtrace to kprobes or LTT.

Solaris 10 also has a 128-bit filesystem that will soon be released, called ZFS.

Solaris has had ACLs since version 8, I believe. The ACLs were incorporated, and not some cheesy 3rd party addon like grsecurity for Linux.

Solaris has slick graphical administration utilities for almost everything. DNS, DHCP, basic system tasks, etc. Show me a Linux utility that is as slick as SMC.

Solaris' Disk Solstice blows the relatively new Linux LVM out of the water in both performance and slickness.

Solaris is compliant with virtually almost every UNIX standard in existence.

I could go on and on.

And the Solaris documentation is excellent. Take a look at http://docs.sun.com. There's lots of other products for Sun on there, not to mention almost every version of Solaris. Each has their own documentation.

 

[faust9]

This is a capitalist society. Software development is not some sort of pseudo-religious philosophy. It's about making money. When will the GPL nuts understand this?

Hello pot, kettle your black... Hey killer scroll up a few posts where you wrongly complained about an ad hominum attack and then reread the above paragraph.

Now to address you idea about software being about capitalism. Your wrong. Corporate or private projects paid for with the expectation of financial return is about capitalism. If these projects want to develope code more quickly and do so by clipping code from a privat GPL'd project taking part as a community hobby (which is essentially what most GPL projects boil down to) then so be it. The capitalistic project must then abide by the restrictions put in place by the original (re: owner of the code) creator. That is capitalism. Code owners--even GPL'd--can sell their rights if they choose to do so. They can change from the GPL to another scheme mid development if they choose to do so. It's their right.

Correct. This is why many software development teams are forbidden to look at or use GPL'd software during the software development process, because of the fear that the developers will be contaiminated, therefore, letting them possibly incorporate the GPL code into the propiertary software. If anyone finds out the software developers were contaminated and did in fact incorporate the code they could be sued the FSF, etc. That's very nice of them isn't it? With the BSD, the true open-source license, all of this is avoided.

How many FSF lawsuits are pending? Last I checked, SCO was trying to work the system in reverse...

This is for the most part incorrect. RMS loves IBM, therefore, he really has no beef with AIX (at least I haven't seen it). As for Solaris, I've made it apparent that he does not like Sun. Plan 9 is now under a BSD license. If he criticizes that, he's just making even a larger mockery of the open-source movement. I haven't seen him criticize Linux lately; however, I believe I've seen it before. To criticize your own followers is pretty stupid. He wouldn't make a very good politician/businessman would he?

RMS has criticized AIX, Solaris, Plan 9, and Linux. Look into it. RMS gripes about every piece of software not explicitly released under GNU. Please feel free to read what RMS has actually said rather than simply atttaching him to Linux.

Good day.

 

[faust9]

You've failed to mention what version of Solaris you are using. dtrace is a feature of Solaris 10. Keep in mind that Solaris 8 is over 6 years old, and Solaris 9 is around 4 years old.

I use 8, 9 and 10--all are on site.

You've also neglected to mentioned what hardware platforms you're comparing them against. Were you running Solaris and Linux on an x86 when you compared the Matlab/Mathematica performance, or are you comparing an x86 to an UltraSparc?

Sparcstation5's Ultrasparcs, dual G4 and dual G5 powermacs, and Dell computers--optiplex I believe. Matlab runs faster on RH on the dells than on the Sun's or under Xp or in X11 on the Macs. [edit] forgot about the blades (100's, 150's, 1000's, 1500's,) and the Sun Opteron W1100Z I use on occasion, so my comparison point is between XP units runniny anywhere from 1.3 GHz to 2.26 GHz Vs sun boxes from 500MHz to 1.7Ghz vs Macs running from 950MHz to dual 2.5GHz.

Unless you're doing any sort of system administration you probably won't notice Solaris' advantages of Linux, however. Solaris 10 should make workstation advantages more apparent. dtrace for developers will be a godsend:

http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9171/sam0406h/0406h.htm

Do not bother to compare dtrace to kprobes or LTT.

Solaris 10 also has a 128-bit filesystem that will soon be released, called ZFS.

Solaris has had ACLs since version 8, I believe. The ACLs were incorporated, and not some cheesy 3rd party addon like grsecurity for Linux.

Solaris has click graphical administration utilities for almost everything. DNS, DHCP, basic system tasks, etc. Show me a Linux utility that is as slick as SMC.

Solaris' Disk Solstice blows the relatively new Linux LVM out of the water in both performance and slickness.

Solaris is compliant with virtually almost every UNIX standard in existence.

I could go on and on.

The rest is not very impressive as far as superior qualities go. GUI's Woo-hoo XP and OSX have superior GUI's. You would have done better to simply link us to the Sun site IMO.

Now, reviewing the benefits of Solaris over Linux leads me to wonder why ANYONE would be so foolish as to choose Linux? I wonder...

 

[graphic7]

Forgot another feature:

Solaris zones.

Basically this is multiple instances of Solaris, each of which are independent from one another. You don't have to put up with the overhead requirements of Xend or VMware. Not to mention that they are secure and have a very clean interface used to manage them.

Each zone takes up around 50mb of space, and the same amount of ram as the idle global zone, itself. You could create a totally independent zone, which essentially clones the global zone, so that you have write access to all the cloned filesystems.

This is another developer godsend.

 

[graphic7]

I use 8, 9 and 10--all are on site.

I doubt 10 is on your site. 10 FCS was just released a few days ago. If you were working in a production envionrment it'd be very foolish to run a 10 beta.

The rest is not very impressive as far as superior qualities go. GUI's Woo-hoo XP and OSX have superior GUI's. You would have done better to simply link us to the Sun site IMO.

This is anothing more than a subjective post. You've done nothing to rebutt my claims.

In fact, I gave you a link to the SysAdmin magazine, which is a very respectable magazine.

Now, reviewing the benefits of Solaris over Linux leads me to wonder why ANYONE would be so foolish as to choose Linux? I wonder...

I fail to see the significance of this.

Solaris 9 & 10 both have excellent x86 hardware suppport. I'm running Solaris 10 on a dual Xeon sitting right beside me. You cannot compare an x86 running Red Hat to an UltraSparc running some version of Solaris. In fact, I was unaware that Matlab or Mathematica had x86 versions for Solaris.

 

[graphic7]

I think I finally see the misunderstanding.

Solaris runs on multiple platforms just like Linux does. You cannot infer that Solaris is for Sun hardware only. Your comparisons are invalid. All your argument has done is to state that x86's are faster than UltraSparc's, which I agree. What you have not done is illustrate me the fact that Linux is faster than Solaris on x86.

 

[faust9]

I doubt 10 is on your site. 10 FCS was just released a few days ago. If you were working in a production envionrment it's be very foolish to run a 10 beta.



This is anothing more than a subjective post. You've done nothing to rebutt my claims.

In fact, I gave you a link to the SysAdmin magazine, which is a very respectable magazine.



I fail to see the significance of this.

Solaris 9 & 10 both have excellent x86 hardware suppport. I'm running Solaris 10 on a dual Xeon sitting right beside me. You cannot compare an x86 running Red Hat to an UltraSparc running some version of Solaris. In fact, I was unaware that Matlab or Mathematica had x86 versions for Solaris.

So, you doubt 10 is on my site yet you say it's right next to you... Interesting. I'll tell the computer science geeks to shut their toys off because we obviously don't have it available to play with. I never said The above had x86 version BTW. I said Matlab and the like run faster on RH x86. Split hairs if you like but the simple fact is engineering aps available for Solaris and Linux for the most part run faster on Linux. While UG runs faste on XP.

 

[dduardo]

Graphic7, Linux has something like Solaris zones. It is called usermode linux

http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/

-----

Also, let's not start with the personal attacks. Just stick with your facts and opinions on the differences between the software.

 

[graphic7]

So, you doubt 10 is on my site yet you say it's right next to you... Interesting. I'll tell the computer science geeks to shut their toys off because we obviously don't have it available to play with. I never said The above had x86 version BTW. I said Matlab and the like run faster on RH x86. Split hairs if you like but the simple fact is engineering aps available for Solaris and Linux for the most part run faster on Linux. While UG runs faste on XP.

Again, what's the point of your argument?

You attempted to compare Matlab/Mathematica performance on Solaris to Red Hat on x86. I corrected you by saying there are no versions of Matlab/Mathematica for x86, making your comparison invalid. You have no argument to say that Matlab/Mathematica performance is better on Red Hat x86.

 

[faust9]

I think I finally see the misunderstanding.

Solaris runs on multiple platforms just like Linux does. You cannot infer that Solaris is for Sun hardware only. Your comparisons are invalid. All your argument has done is to state that x86's are faster than UltraSparc's, which I agree. What you have not done is illustrate me the fact that Linux is faster than Solaris on x86.

No, what I have infered is that the available sun hardware and combined sun software runs most applications available on both the Linux PC's (with comperable specs) to the same pieces of software running on the sun hardware. FEMLAB, ANSYS, LabVIEW, CPLEX, Maple(the one I use the most), Mathematica, MatLab, evan Maya run better under Linux.

I'm not making a comparison of Sun's newest top shelf offerings to those from Dell, or Apple. I'm comparing hardware/software all purchased at about the same time running on different systems with different OS's and doing so find Solaris lacking when compared to other systems.

 

[graphic7]

Graphic7, Linux has something like Solaris zones. It is called usermode linux

http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/

-----

Also, let's not start with the personal attacks. Just stick with your facts and opinions on the differences between the software.

I've heard of UML before. I've never used it, therefore, I won't badmouth UML (for the moment)

I will, however, tell about my experience with Solaris zones.

I can setup a fully functional Solaris zone in roughly 5 minutes, not counting the install procedure (which is totally automated and about 5 more minutes of time).

The commands zoneadm and zonecfg are very nice for writing scripts for.

Once the zone is installed, you can have access to the zone's console, which is a tty, not a ptty.

When the global zone is patched, patches can be applied to the non-global zones, themselves. Or you can localize patch applications to one or two, or so on non-global zones and leave the global zone not effected. You can also install packages this way.

Last I recall, UML was a kernel patch. Has it been incorporated into the base kernel, yet? Solaris zones have been deemed for production use. I've heard of a few sys admins already using them to start minimizing the number of actual systems running.

 

[graphic7]

No, what I have infered is that the available sun hardware and combined sun software runs most applications available on both the Linux PC's (with comperable specs) to the same pieces of software running on the sun hardware. FEMLAB, ANSYS, LabVIEW, CPLEX, Maple(the one I use the most), Mathematica, MatLab, evan Maya run better under Linux.

I'm not making a comparison of Sun's newest top shelf offerings to those from Dell, or Apple. I'm comparing hardware/software all purchased at about the same time running on different systems with different OS's and doing so find Solaris lacking when compared to other systems.

Yes, Sun hardware/Sun software is slower than typical PC hardware/Linux software.