Linux-Advocacy Digest #34, Volume #35 Thu, 7 Jun 01 18:13:07 EDT
Contents:
Re: Win 9x is horrid (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Argh - Ballmer (Jim Richardson)
Re: Best Distribution? (Jim Richardson)
Re: Windows XP Ushers in New Era of Communications ("Frank")
Re: I propose a GPL change... (Rob S. Wolfram)
Re: The usual Linux spiel... (was Re: Is Open Source for You?) (Rob S. Wolfram)
Re: The usual Linux spiel... (was Re: Is Open Source for You?) (Rob S. Wolfram)
Re: A Song for Aaron (Rob S. Wolfram)
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("Daniel Johnson")
Re: Windows advocate of the year. ("Weevil")
Re: Windows advocate of the year. ("Erik Funkenbusch")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Win 9x is horrid
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:08:59 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Craig Kelley
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on 14 May 2001 08:50:35 -0600
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> Craig Kelley wrote:
>>
>> > Contrast with Microsoft, who openly admits that you'll need to send
>> > them intimate knowledge of your machine if you wish to "activate" your
>> > products in the future.
>>
>> I don't think that Microsoft is all that "BAD" as people make them out
>> to be. It's just a big monopolistic software giant, but they're
>> probably not "BAD" 100% of the time. However, because of their size and
>> influence over the software industry, even a tiny grain of "BAD" from MS
>> does a lot of damage.
>>
>> Unix is just one operating system that did things right the first time.
>> It is simply the best OS on the planet. Windows isn't "bad" all the
>> time, but it just doesn't have the outstanding minimalist layer-by-layer
>> design that unix OSes have. Even if MS weren't one iota bad, their OS
>> still isn't as good as unix, because unix doesn't sufer from the DLL
>> HELL that Windows does.
>
>I like most Microsoft products. Office is great;
Shlock. Basically, prepackaged goop that can't figure out that
a user might not *want* to click on a virus; nor has Microsoft
figured out that some of us technogeeks actually want to look
at the raw text of the incoming message. The *whole* message --
including headers and source HTML -- prior to their mangling and munging.
It is convenient, though -- and that's probably why it sells.
(That, and the notion of "one can't get fired for recommending
Microsoft".) And it's the typical "all-in-one" solution; one
not only gets an Email package, but a calendar management
to-do list, notepad (complete with yellow tackies), contact list,
and personal and shared folders.
>Windows NT is much
>better than their previous operating systems --
That's a *given*. Win95 was ridiculously easy to crash if one
forgot a keyword during C++ development (STDCALL, I think; I'd
have to look but I was implementing a EndDialog() callback).
No BSOD or UAE/GPF on this one, just the screen
jump-scrolling away...
To be fair, Win95 is a light-duty system; nobody expects a
passenger car to tow heavy planets, certain commercials notwithstanding. :-)
But suppose it had decided to wipe out a portion of my hard drive, instead?
>It's the management of
>the company that irks me most.
The management decides what products to make. Keep that in mind... :-)
>
>Sure, there are some problems with NT, but there are problems with any
>operating system. NT can be livable after a few hours of installing
>missing software; but it still doesn't reach the ease-of-use level of
>UNIX (IMHO). I don't even bother with it anymore as I use Linux
>exclusivly now.
>
>The problem Microsoft has is that they are an operating system company
>in an era where the operating system is becomming a ubiquitous item.
>In a few years people aren't going to care what OS is installed;
>they'll all come with every basic tool you need (internet,
>word processor, spreadsheet, audio/video tools, etc.). Microsoft's
>offering will be just another face in the crowd -- the real money will
>be made on hardware.
Cycles, anyone? I can still remembers the days of purchasing
proprietary hardware that came with its own OS (Apollo DOMAIN, for one;
VAX, for another). I can't be 100% sure that it is a cycle, mind you,
as opposed to a readjustment to the "natural order". (Then again,
what's so natural about selling something that can be copied for
almost nothing? Once developed, software can be copied again and
again and again...same problem as certain music-sharing companies. :-) )
>
>Microsoft doesn't build computer hardware; if they started to build it
>they'd upset Dell, Compaq, etc. They'll eventually have to buy one of
>the x86 "clone" makers in order to keep up (unless the X-Box is so
>outstanding that they don't need to, I suppose). But they are in a
>tight spot in the meantime, and hence all the hubub over licensing and
>activation.
I would find it hard to take the X-box as a serious replacement
of, say, Dell or Compaq on the desktop. Microsoft may have a
winner at the consumer level (I don't know; I haven't seen it in
action yet), but it's not likely to translate to success at the
business level, IMO.
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 38d:10h:47m actually running Linux.
This is a .sig.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Subject: Re: Argh - Ballmer
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:28:42 -0000
On Thu, 7 Jun 2001 00:27:20 -0500, Erik Funkenbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "GreyCloud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Paolo Ciambotti wrote:
>> >
>> > In article <KihT6.8375$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Erik Funkenbusch"
>> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>>
>> I'll have to side with you on this one, Paolo. Now that I recall, a lot
>> of federal projects that gave funds to universities that researched a
>> particular idea or special projects were classified and later the rights
>> were purchased by a private company and then turned around and patented
>> or copyrighted the material. One fellow I know as a welder in a
>> shipyard developed the argon gas welding equipment with the help of the
>> goverment and he later applied a patent to the process.
>
> There is a difference between the government funding a third party and the
> government creating something itself with government employees.
>
>
>
If the govt is creating the software itself, then it should only be made
available in an open source format. No company should have exclusive
rights to it. Especially microsoft.
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
www.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
Subject: Re: Best Distribution?
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:29:43 -0000
On Thu, 07 Jun 2001 12:52:10 +0100, drsquare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jun 2001 01:08:37 +0200, in comp.os.linux.advocacy,
> ("Ayende Rahien" <don'[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) wrote:
>
>>"drsquare" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
>>> In that case, I've got a 3 line perl script I'd like to show to
>>> kulkis:
>>>
>>> while(1) {
>>> print "FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!"
>>> }
>>
>>It won't compile.
>
> Of course it compiles.
not without a main() loop...
--
Jim Richardson
Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
www.eskimo.com/~warlock
Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
------------------------------
From: "Frank" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows XP Ushers in New Era of Communications
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:39:35 -0700
Chris, stop trying to defend the indefensible.
The fact is, unless a court stops them, Microsoft will continue to
escalate their leverage of Windows into any and all markets they
wish to dominate, and with a 90+% market share no one else is
(or will be) able to compete with that leverage.
--
Protect Your Rights -- Fight UCITA
http://www.4cite.org
"Christopher L. Estep" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:gyRT6.62221$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
:
: "LShaping" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
: news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
:
: > It is interesting, but wgaf has no argument so he avoids the subject.
: > What flavor of computer aided design is the same as a communications
: > program? How about financial analysis? How about word processing?
: > Can your braininess see a distinct difference between photo
: > production/editing software and a communications program? Computing
: > and communications are two distinct programs, clumped together by a
: > company which is trashing modular design in order to destroy other
: > businesses.
:
: How is the use of broadband for communications a threat to you (unless you
: own a lot of stock in long-distance companies or are employed by one)?
:
: Or is that *exactly* why you don't want what Microsoft is doing to succeed?
:
: IP telephony exists. Now. Large corporations have had it for years.
:
: It is being deployed by smaller and smaller businesses every week.
:
: Such programs have been available on the consumer level, but lacked the
: throughput to be more than a novelty.
:
: However, with the increase of broadband deployment (xDSL, cable, and two-way
: satellite such as StarBand) and faster hardware, it is *desktop deployable*
: on average desktops.
:
: And the long-distance companies are rightfully worried.
:
: Low-cost long distance calls are one thing.
:
: *No-cost* long distance calls (with video) are too scary to contemplate.
:
: Christopher L. Estep
:
:
:
:
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob S. Wolfram)
Subject: Re: I propose a GPL change...
Date: 7 Jun 2001 19:35:26 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Erik Funkenbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>You cannot patent code, you can only patent algorithms.
>
>There is much GPL'd and free software that violates patents as well, for
>instance vorbis ogg is claimed to still violate the mp3 patents.
Or so the spokesman for the patent holders says. The ogg people claim
differently, as does the FSF. I believe the latter, because I haven't
seen a lawsuit from the patent holder yet.
Cheers,
Rob
--
Rob S. Wolfram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OpenPGP key 0xD61A655D
I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the
rate of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
-- F. H. Wales (1936)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob S. Wolfram)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The usual Linux spiel... (was Re: Is Open Source for You?)
Date: 7 Jun 2001 20:02:06 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Stephen S. Edwards II <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > Have you read any posts from Aaron R. Kulkis? How about Matt Templeton?
>> > Mig? Derek Currie? Mark S. Bilk? Ugh! And those are just a minute
>> > few.
I have a very strong feeling that Aaron isn't really a Linux/Unix
advocate, but more likely a Windows advocate who tries to make Linux
advocates look bad. I have the opposite feeling about flatfish++++ (and
all her other aliases). I think she is a Linux advocate who impersonates
a Winvocate with the intend to make them look bad.
>> I haven't heard from most of those for a while, except Aaron. Aaron is a
>> bigoted right wing net.kook twit with an idiotic sig, who deserves to be
>> in everyone's killfile. He's certainly in mine.
Seconded. He is the only person that is in my xover killfile. I have a
few people killfiled on a slrn level, but I refuse to download anything
by Kulkis, as long as he keeps his obnoxious .sig.
>Did you catch the thread about how he "modified"
>Mozilla to make it "look" like he was running
>Windows98? That was actually pretty funny thread.
It are those statements that spark my feeling...
Cheers,
Rob
--
Rob S. Wolfram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OpenPGP key 0xD61A655D
I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the
rate of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
-- F. H. Wales (1936)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob S. Wolfram)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The usual Linux spiel... (was Re: Is Open Source for You?)
Date: 7 Jun 2001 20:48:35 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Stephen Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> NetBSD has a core team, that verifies, and if need be, corrects the
>>> code, to make sure that the kernel remains of a clean design. Have you
>>> noticed how many arch's that NetBSD runs on? *grin*
>>
>>Linux does too (nearly as many).
>
>Well, not really. Linux runs on about 26 arch's I think.
>NetBSD runs on about 40 (never really sat down and counted).
>
>I think that NetBSD demonstrates how much more flexible
>and portable code can be, when it's done right. That
>said, I can't say that I'm not somewhat impressed with
>the diversity of hardware that Linux has found its way
>onto.
Here's a quote from Linus in response to Andy Tanenbaum in the now
infamous "Linux is obsolete" thread in c.o.minix from Jan. 1992:
] >2. PORTABILITY
]
] "Portability is for people who cannot write new programs"
] -me, right now (with tongue in cheek)
]
] The fact is that linux is more portable than minix. What? I hear you
] say. It's true - but not in the sense that ast means: I made linux as
] conformant to standards as I knew how (without having any POSIX standard
] in front of me). Porting things to linux is generally /much/ easier
] than porting them to minix.
]
] I agree that portability is a good thing: but only where it actually has
] some meaning. There is no idea in trying to make an operating system
] overly portable: adhering to a portable API is good enough. The very
] /idea/ of an operating system is to use the hardware features, and hide
] them behind a layer of high-level calls. That is exactly what linux
] does: it just uses a bigger subset of the 386 features than other
] kernels seem to do. Of course this makes the kernel proper unportable,
] but it also makes for a /much/ simpler design. An acceptable trade-off,
] and one that made linux possible in the first place.
]
] I also agree that linux takes the non-portability to an extreme: I got
] my 386 last January, and linux was partly a project to teach me about
] it. Many things should have been done more portably if it would have
] been a real project. I'm not making overly many excuses about it
] though: it was a design decision, and last april when I started the
] thing, I didn't think anybody would actually want to use it. I'm happy
] to report I was wrong, and as my source is freely available, anybody is
] free to try to port it, even though it won't be easy.
]
] Linus
I'd say linux has come quite a long way with its portability, given that
is was never written with that in mind...
<low blow> Windows NT /was/ written with protability in mind (Mach
microkernel, HAL), but it looks like MS has abandoned that path...
</low blow>
Cheers,
Rob
--
Rob S. Wolfram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OpenPGP key 0xD61A655D
I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the
rate of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
-- F. H. Wales (1936)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob S. Wolfram)
Subject: Re: A Song for Aaron
Date: 7 Jun 2001 21:32:08 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Paolo Ciambotti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Sung to: Queen's We Are the Champions
Here's another one (different subject though):
----
Sing to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Windowsian Crapsody (C) Ben 1999 and stuff.
Is this a real OS?
Is this insanity?
Caught in a niche buy,
No escape from the GUI.
Open your eyes, look into your files and see,
Bill's just a rich boy, he needs no sympathy,
Because it's sloppy code, full of bloat, really crap, really slow,
Any way to sell 'dows doesn't really matter you see; s'not free.
Linus, just killed a corp.,
Put a gnu against its head, read the licence, now it's dead.
Linus, my code had just begun,
And now I've gone and ftp'd it all away.
Linus, GNU, Didn't mean to make(1L) you compile,
If your prompt's not back again this time tomorrow,
switch to /dev/ttyp1, and kill the PID that matters.
Too late, shutdown(8) has come,
Sends SIGTERM down my spine, cron jobs failing all the time.
Logout, ev'rybody, It's got to go,
Gotta re-compile the kernel; patch the goof.
Linus, d00d, don't want to lose uptime,
I sometimes wish I'd never been touch(1)'ed at all.
<cue MIDI-embedded web page of hampsterdance doing the guitar solo>
I see a little silhouetto of a plan,
ESR, ESR, is it catherdral or bazzaaro?
Underground of coding, very, very worrying Bill!
(Mo-no-poly.) Mo-no-poly. (Mo-no-poly.) Mo-no-poly. Mo-no-poly
figures he,
Magnifico? Eric; poor rich-boy, everybody loves he.
He's just a poor boy from a vi(1) family,
Spare him his life from this emacs-monstrosity.
Easy come, easy go, will you let me code.
Mozilla! No, we will not let you code.
(Let him code!) Mozilla! We will not let you code.
(Let him code!) Mozilla! We will not let you code.
(Let me code!) Will not let you code.
(Let me code!) Will not let you code. (Let me code!) Ah.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
(Oh Jolt-Cola, Jolt-Cola.) Jolt-Cola, let me code.
Billzebub has Windows put aside for me, for you, for thee.
<cue frenzied accordian playing by Mahir>
So you think you can install it and spit in Bill's eye.
So you think you can lilo(8), then leave it to die.
Oh, baby, it's not that easy, no baby,
There's little support, there's little support for your games.
Porting really matters, switch to BSD,
Porting really matters,
Porting really matters to me.
Anyway, it's "Wind'blows"...
----
It's not originally mine. My name's not Ben.
Cheers,
Rob
--
Rob S. Wolfram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OpenPGP key 0xD61A655D
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer
------------------------------
From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:42:27 GMT
"Christopher L. Estep" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:rHQT6.62133$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:v%vT6.6328$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
[snip]
> > This I find quite surprising. As I understand it *only* Microsoft's
> > Java compiler and VM can use WFC, because only they support
> > MS's "delegates" feature, upon which WFC depends rather
> > heavily.
>
> That is only because Symantec's Java machine (which Netscape licenses) for
> some strange reason does *not* support the WFC delegates feature (even
> though Symantec could have done so, as they are one of WFC's creators).
This seems rather weird to me. If Symatec thought
highly enough of delegates to build WFC on them,
why not support them in their own JVM?
Perhaps MS insisted.
> > Nor do I see how WFC could benefit DB/2 Universal. I
> > understand that one could write a Java program that
> > emits a DB/2 database file, but I don't see why you'd
> > want to, or why using WFC would make that easier.
>
> To mirror the same functionality provided by Enterprise JavaBeans (which
> Sun, among others, has been hawking) but in a more memory-efficient
manner.
Oh, I misunderstood you. But I don't see what
in WFC would be useful for this purpose..
... well, except one thing. Delegates would be
a nice way to do some things JavaBeans do, or
at least MS says so.
Does IBM's Java VM support delegates?
[snip]
> > Why not? So far you've claimed that MS partnered with others
> > to produce MFC and WFC, but this hardly suggests that it would
> > have been prohibitively difficult to do it themselves.
>
> I'm not saying that it would have been prohibitively difficult; I'm simply
> saying it wouldn't have made smart business sense. Also, there was
already
> a hue and cry (largely from IBM) about Microsoft's development tools being
> Windows-only (at the time this was going on, Windows 95 was in
development,
> and if you were talking about 32-bit Windows, you were referring to NT).
That seems a rather strange thing for IBM to cry about. Why
should anyone expect Microsoft to product development
tools for other platforms?
> The core MFC creators/licensees (Microsoft and Symantec) also licensed MFC
> to other development tool creators (Borland, Powersoft, Sybase, and IBM,
> among others).
Were any of them dumb enough to actualy use it? :D
I know Borland came up with their own thing, at least.
> > Who knows? MFC might have sucked less had MS done it
> > entirely on their own. :D
>
> Symantec was part of MFC from the beginning. In fact, Central Point
> Software used Symantec development tools to create PC Tools for Windows.
If you say so. I was speculating about what might
have been, that's all.
> Microsoft was also sensible enough to realize that some developers didn't
> want any part of Microsoft development tools for reasons having nothing to
> do with their quality (or perceived lack of it). Microsoft concentrated
> mostly on the higher-order languages (C++, Cobol. Fortran, etc.).
I am having difficulty thinking of a development tools
vendor that does not do that. Though most don't promote
BASIC. :D
> It took
> Windows 95 for Microsoft to release Visual Basic upon an unsuspecting
> planet.
I'm sure there were 16-bit versions of VB. Didn't
they predate 1995?
I was under the impression that OCX controls
were an effort to 'clean up' VBX controls and make
them language-neutral and 32-bit compatible.
[snip]
> > Yes, but MS can handle the development tool end of it
> > *themselves*. They cannot handle more than a small fraction
> > of the applications.
>
> True, they *could* handle it all themselves. They now have development
> tools *across* the spectrum of tool users (newbies to enterprise). But
why
> *do* it alone if you don't have to?
Mostly to keep all the goodies on your own platform,
I should think.
Obviously, MS didn't think that important enough
to keep MFC and WFC to themselves.
But farming things out to others has its drawbacks,
for a platform vendor.
[snip]
> > > Even the Justice Department knows it.
> >
> > I wonder. The whole "application
> > barrier to entry" argument suggests that
> > they don't know it; they seem to think that
> > running Windows apps in a compatibility
> > box would somehow make an OS
> > competitive.
> Merely looking at OS/2 should disabuse Justice of that notion.
I'd have thought so.
[snip]
------------------------------
From: "Weevil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows advocate of the year.
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:53:26 GMT
Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "The obvious mathematical breakthrough [for breaking encryption schemes]
> > would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."
> > -- Bill Gates
>
> Is this quote for real? Where did you find it?
In "The Road Ahead," by Bill Gates, 1995. I picked up a 1st edition copy
for one dollar in a bargain bin. The first edition is a moderately
entertaining read, but I'm told that later editions corrected lots of bad
predictions and jaw-dropping examples (such as the above quote) of the
fabled Gates intellect.
--
Weevil
================================================================
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough [for breaking encryption schemes]
would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."
-- Bill Gates
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows advocate of the year.
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 17:01:34 -0500
"Michael Vester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > The difference between good and bad is not as black and white as you
believe
> > it to be.
> >
> > I have always been the first to admit that Windows isn't perfect, which
is
> > why I use FreeBSD for my server OS. My advocacy generally surrouds the
fact
> > that I don't believe it to be as bad as most of you say it is, and in
fact
> > is not.
> >
> > I also do not believe that Linux is perfect, and it has a long way to go
to
> > catch up to Windows in basic useability on the desktop.
>
> Fair enough. Windows is ok on the desktop but I have seen failure after
> failure when it comes to servers. W2K finally has features that were
> native to Netware 10 years ago.
However, Netware *STILL* doesn't have features native to NT nearly 10 years
ago.
> Features like assigning how much disk space a user can occupy.
NT has always had quota management hooks built-in, they didn't have a quota
manager though until Win2k. There were third party quota managers for NT
for years.
> IIS is about the worst server application I have
> ever seen. We host dynamic web sites on IIS and we are lucky to get 1
> week of continuous operation. Our Solaris servers are much more heavily
> utilized and they simply do not have any unscheduled downtime.
IIS by itself is generally pretty stable. It's the extensions that usually
give you trouble.
> NT/W2K should only run one application per server. You need a separate
> computer for file sharing, printing, DHCP, Exchange. Put more than one
> application on a server, and you will have problems.
This is not true at all. DHCP serving requires very little CPU. While you
probably do want to put Exchange and IIS on seperate machines because of the
amount of overhead each takes, it's not necessary to do so, and it would be
EXTREMELY poor in terms of security to put your file and print sharing on
the same machine as your web server.
> Also, NT/W2K servers should number about 1 for every 20 users.
Of course this depends on the horsepower of your hardware, but I've
successfully run > 500 users per server for file sharing and printing, and
about 250 users per server for Exchange.
> Push this limit and you will never get uptimes longer than a week.
Our policy was to reboot once a month, we did in fact get longer than a week
uptimes, and this was on NT4. Win2k is even more stable.
> So an office with 100 users should
> have at least 5 servers. You can put file, printing, Exchange, DHCP and
> RAS on the 5 servers (one app per server). If you add another application
> like MS-SQL, you will need another server. You will need a spare server to
> restore Exchange if a user has accidentally lost email. Exchange stores
> all of its data in one gigantic file. You can't pick bits and pieces off a
> tape. You have to run another Exchange server and pull the data out that
> way. I learned about that "gotcha" the hard way.
However, you could run the backup exchange server on one of your other
servers, restore the files, then shut down the service. Also, Exchange
doesn't store everything in one big file, it stores them in three files.
> How NT/W2K ever managed to pass its self off as a stable server platform
> will continue to baffle me. Are we really that stupid as a species? Is
> Microsoft the greatest marketing company ever? Even greater than the
> tobacco companies?
Exchange provides services that people want. HP OpenMail was actually a
viable contender to replace Exchange server for a while, but HP doesn't seem
interested in maintaining it.
> W2K is better than NT. I use W2K everyday, mainly for corporate email and
> terminal sessions. It only crashes once or twice a day. Not a BSOD but a
> freeze. The OS could not even execute the code that displays the BSOD.
Did you, by any chance, disable the bootup logo? If you do that, it also
disables the BSOD and the system just locks up when a BSOD would occur.
Frankly, My Win2k pro boxes run for months without rebooting, so I don't
know what your problem is.
> Running Outlook and CRT (Van Dyke) terminal sessions should not cause the
> OS to freeze but it does. Of course, my workstation has been reformatted
> and reinstalled twice with no improvement. This, of course, was performed
> by a qualified MSCE. Now, I just put up with it and take a coffee break
> while my computer reboots from a freeze.
It doesn't sound like your MCSE is all that qualified.
> My home Linux box is extremely reliable. I admit, the UI is a bit clunky
> but I just need email and terminal sessions. Also, my home Linux box is
> quite accessible from work without having to purchase and jury rig extra
> software to do the job.
What are you talking about? VPN capability is built into Win2k. If you
mean GUI wise, then XP pro will come with an admin Terminal Services
feature.
> And speaking of clunky UI's, I have original
> release disks (5 1/4") of Windows 1.0. By the time Windows hit 3.1, the UI
> was usable. It took Microsoft many years of working on just one UI to get
> a workable one. Linux has over a dozen UI's to pick from and they are
> making tremendous progress in usability. They don't have a long way to go
> before they are superior to Microsoft's UI in every way.
Microsoft was limited by license with Apple from many of the features we
think of as common to GUI's. They were not allowed to use them.
> Linux has finally surpassed Windows in ease of installation. All the
> installs I have done with SuSE 7.1 have never failed to detect all the
> hardware except a USB scanner. After everything is detected , installed
> and configured; you reboot. Not the detect hardware, load driver, reboot,
> detect hardware, load driver, reboot, detect hardware, load driver,
> reboot, detect hardware, load driver, reboot,... Microsoft installation.
Ease of installation? Depends on what you're trying to do. I don't
consider installing gigabytes of programs by default that you'll never use
to be easy. The one thing that pisses me off about Linux installs is that
they never provide a "bare bones" install with just the necessary feature to
make it boot up, and then allow you to easily install what you want.
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