After a whopping big sermon frm Indra and the resultant snappy comments
from Arnab I would like to add a few things ....
1. Indra's Sermon would make splendid reading on our web site ! "Linux
Advocasy for the uninitiated".... Or something to that tune :)
2. My comments were heartily adopted by Arnab but in a spirit that was a
wee bit too rabid and unreflective. I would stop, think and then baulk
at calling the Win platform "deadmeat".
3. To begin with I DO NOT belong to the
only-games-and-kewl-stuff-makes-Windows-survive camp. Sorry Arnab. I am
a firm believer in using each tools effetively in a given situation for
a given purpose. Windows in it's various avatars has various uses. Hence
I being drawn into a Win vs Lin deathmatch (if there IS such a thing)...
If M$ has survived till thus, it is because they have managed to adapt,
evolve and sell more. Windows took leaf out of the Mac GUI book (Some of
course point to the plagiarization path....) and had VASTLY improved
upon it and also managed to convince, market and popularize their
product for the masses.
But essentially quite a few of us have forgotten that Windows (and
increasingly today it seems Linux also ...) has different versions for
different target audiences.
Linux was born to address a need for a cost effective network OS
solution. On it's way to it's present fame it picked up various bells &
whistles and a plethora of eye catching features that caused it to
BLOAT. (e.g. SuSe, RedHat, Caldera et al)...This is the
presentable-and-easy-to-install version that helped ignite the
imagination of the plebian masses.
Take a walk on the production side and you have RedHat, Turbo etc
selling specialized packs for an efficient and thus less frilly
distro(s). Here the CLI still reigns and mostly ppl recompile mostly
everything frm scratch and scrape of the crud like crazy. Very few
"cool" videogames here !
Of course with the distros we have the dividing line becomes rather
blurred when DOOM and QUAKE enter the arena...:)
The story more or less repeats with Windows. Win9x is for the
fun-&-games end of the rosy picture with a slight learning curve.
NT and Win2K on the other hand are for the people who have to get the
work done in the background. Hence WinNT used whatever available
resources it could find more effectively with better attempts at
security than Win9x but got screwed when you tried to play games ( Apart
from things like Solitaire I suppose...)
In the latter case that it was found Linux offered a more cost effective
and also stable solution without a need to reboot the server every time
some darn shit was upgraded. Hence ppl soon started to jump boats.
Hence I beg to differ with the statement:
>talking about some games here) ran so smooth in
>win95/98 platform just refused to accept w2k ..now now
The games were written for the Win9x platform & Win2K was written for a
vastly differently purpose.... to get work done (usually).
This is quite typical for ppl who are new into the Linux 'thing' as it
is "cool" because everybody talks of it and magazines have writeups on
them.
4. If one must really pit Operating System againt each other why forget
things like Novell ? Would you say Novell was and is shit because it was
not designed to run your favourite version of "Leisure Suit Larry" or
something like that ?? Their idea on NDS with version 4.x was quite good
and was soon pinched/adopted into Win2K. And then we know who won the
marketing pitch.
Mind you M$ has adopted things from Linux also. Have a look at the Win2K
server installation and drive partioning screen. You would be reminded
of one of the Linux Distros. The new TCP/IP stack is much better. TCP/IP
networking gets better preferrence. Stability is MUCH better. The server
I ran, crashed after much more provocation than with the earlier NT
versions of the same. Kerberos has been embraced (and sadly mutilated..)
as a security measure.... One could go on...
I of course lack Indra's knowledge of
> a good look at the W2K Advanced Server on a SMP machine
and hence will refrain from commenting further.
This would safely allow me to disagree with the comment
>figured from my first encounter with W2K is that its
>the same old NT in a newer bottle ....
5. In conclusion, the bottom ALWAYS boils down to whatever puts Bread &
Butter on the table. Linux has it's positive sides and so does Win9x/2K.
Price is usually the deciding factor.Also if one got a plum job that
involved using/working on NT I dare say none of us would walk away from
it.
The 'freebie' image of Linux draws many. Many such go away disillusioned
when they realize the existence of a "learning curve". In my opinion the
reamainder who bravely stick on should not waste time on rather a
nebulous and pointless debate on a which-is-better match od one
upmanship. Instead one would be better served to think like the Samba
guys who cooked it up to bridge the divide.
INIGO
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