On Fri, 17 Dec 1999, you wrote:
> I have a question.
>
> After spending my day at work fixing some problems with Windows it lead me to
> think about this.
>
> Why is Linux more Stable than Windows???
>
Ok. I'm not sure if this is a TECHNICAL enough reason, but
here's the real problem (from what I've heard):
Windows has several problems:
1) It's full of outdated source code that doesn't really do
anything except eat up memory. Windows could be a LOT
better if Microsoft would go back to the source code and
take out all the source code that isn't doing anything.
2) Windows is a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit
operating system. What this means is that you can take a
program that was written for an 8086 processor, execute it
in a dos window and it'll still run. Try that with NT or
Win2k and it won't work, because they aren't
"backwards-compatible" with DOS.
3) Windows has a LOT of security holes because Microsoft
insisted on tying the browser and email clients into the
O/S, instead of making them separate programs in the same
way that Linux does. Also, in the consumer versions of
Windows, the person at the local keyboard is "root" and
you've heard all the warnings about running around on the
'net as "root." :-)
4) Windows (consumer version) does NOT multi-task nearly as
well as NT or *nix. I believe this goes back to #2. DOS
was never meant to be a multi-tasking O/S. Windows 3.x did
better, but it still didn't multi-task very well. Win9x is
significantly better at multi-tasking, but it will still
crash if you try and do too many operations at once. Linux
is much better at this sort of operation, which is why you
find it in the back room of so many ISPs. I suspect that
the reason that Linux is so much better is that it was
written from the start as a multi-tasking, multi-threaded
O/S.
John
