THE BAD ======= >From http://www.unixsucks.com/unixsucks.aspx
>"First lets me remind you dear reader that UNIX >Worshippers usually confuse operating system with >an application. So if IIS has holes or crashes they >would call it "Windows problem", if computer blue >screens it's again "Windows problem", if WINS is not >working "Windows problem" and so on. Let's differentiate >apples and oranges." Actually it is not UNIX worshippers that have this confusion, it is Microsoft! In their desire to lock users onto their platform, they have strived to create *unnecessary* and unwanted coupling in the functionality of stuff on their OS. Clearly their design principles have been compromised by business considerations. Thus, IIS, like Internet Explorer, is more or less an 'integrated' (in this case a bad word) part of Windows indeed! On the stability of IIS ----------------------- I don't have that extensive experience with it wrt stability, but I have devoted roughly equal time to configuring IIS 5 vs. Apache and IIS has been more of a PITA than Apache (and on Win32 to boot!!) to work with. I'm an Apache believer so far. On security ----------- "Who invented HTTP basic authentication, IMAP authentication, SNMP, telnet, POP3 and some other protocols relying on clear text?" Hehe, this is actually quite embarrassing, he does have a point. But still... I believe malicious ActiveX code running as the Windows equivalent of root is still responsible for faaaar more evil! THE GOOD ======== >From http://www.unixsucks.com/microsoftsucks.aspx Traditional Unix advantages now available on Windows ---------------------------------------------------- >1. Efficient and secure remote control of computer (like >ssh in UNIX). Not an issue anymore with introduction of Terminal >Services in all versions of Windows 2000 server. 128-bit >encryption, full GUI, excellent perfomance, cut and paste >support (file copying added in .NET server). I've always wanted to have the capability to terminate processes via a remote CLI shell like is possible under Linux in cases where the GUI console freezes. Instead of trying to get Terminal Services to work, which seemed like a real hassle, I just ended up enabling the Telnet service since I just need to do it on a small firewalled network. taskkill.exe and tasklist.exe work pretty ok but unlike 'ps', they still seem to be idiot-proofed a bit, i.e. some processes will refuse to die (but this is deliberately done for processes which, if killed, will bring down the whole OS). >2. Stability (ability to run months/years without BSODs etc). >Not an issue anymore with right hardware and software. I've >not seen BSODs on properly configured machines for years now. Well, I don't know about even months of _continuous running_ as a couple of years ago, a sysadmin friend of mine was still whining about how unstable Win2K, used as a server, can be. But for extremely heavy desktop usage going on for days, I can vouch that Win 2K and even more so, WinXP, have not crashed or blue screened on me for a loooong looooong time. It's hard to do a proper comparison with Linux since I never find myself stressing Linux that heavily for desktop usage. I'm quite satisfied with the Windoze apps I already use and don't feel any need to switch to Linux versions for now. I've heard of people complaining about Mozilla causing XFree to crash but that might say more about XFree or Mozilla than Linux itself. It would be quite disappointing if this happened on a lean, mean Slackware setup. > 5. Rich shell script support. Not an issue anymore with introduction of Windows Scripting Host and WMI. WSH's default VB-like language turns me off, I'll just use Python to do my 'Doze scripting if I ever need to. It should theoretically have access to the same facilities as WSH since it can talk ActiveX/COM. If, under *nix, you've weaned yourself away from bash scripts in favor of Python (or Perl), you can leverage your expertise and experience under Win32 as well. The con here is deployment, WSH comes pre-installed with all modern Windoze but you have to install Python or Perl separately (could be a real problem if you have many machines). Unix advantages supposed to be missing under Windows ---------------------------------------------------- > 3. Have minimum amount of services running on default > installation. Would not be an issue with introduction of .NET > server but still an issue with NT4.0 and 2000 with tons of > unnecessary services running hence decreasing security and > reliability. It's a cinch to turn off services under NT as long as you know what their interactions are. The organization of modern (XP-era) Windows services is pretty tight and neat. There aren't that many and if you compare it to what I saw under Mandrake (which is probably similar to what you would see in Red Hat), the situation is actually a LOT messier for these Linux distros. My impression is that, in striving to make Linux more accessible to less technical users, the commercial Linux distro engineers are only now starting to wrestle with similar problems which NT engineers have now more or less surmounted. They're even copying a lot of Microsoft approaches! > 4. Ability to install hotfixes and service packs without > reboot. Not fixed yet and hard to understand why. Every small > hotfix requires reboot. If FrontPage Server extensions is > updated then whole system is getting rebooted instead of > stopping IISAdmin service and replacing ISAPI filter. Nowadays many hotfixes don't require a reboot anymore. And, network configuration changes in Windows don't require rebooting anymore!!(*) On the other hand, there are still quite a few stragglers following the Windows reboot tradition. That's why I have a soft spot for using cross-platform stuff like Apache and Java on Windows. Being engineered for *nix, they don't have this weakness, and actually run quite well on Win32. (*) clearly an unbelievably primitive aspect of Windows before. ======================= email: andy/netfxph/com -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
