> And this is likely the biggest plus and minus to unix. If you are someone who
> really likes to get your hands dirty with this level of code, the lack of this
> ability in NT would drive you mad. On the other hand, I don't want to be
> recompiling the operating system. I just want to install a piece of software,
> configure it, and be done with it.
I have the exact same mindset nearly all of the time. I'm not suggesting
that you should recompile the OS on a regular basis.
What I am suggesting is that with Linux (and BSDI, and soon Solaris),
it is at least *possible* to rebuild the OS and all the applications,
so that if you have to -- for security reasons, for performance reasons,
to fix a critical bug, whatever -- you *can*. With NT and other
blackbox OS's, it's impossible. You have to wait for the vendor to
do it for you, and in some cases that takes approximately forever.
Come to think of it, I've yet to rebuild a Linux kernel on any of
the production machines. I haven't needed to: it works. But I've
built new versions of Apache, Perl, sendmail, BIND, and other bits
and pieces any number of times. And without having to wait for
a vendor.
> This I don't understand. I can take a brand new system and have it up
> and running with web server, ftp server, sendmail, dns, Cold Fusion and
> whatever else I need, on NT with the latest service packs in about 4-5
> hours. I don't have to worry about apps stepping on each other, and
> they aren't fighting each other.
And I can take an empty PC and have (for example) Red Hat Linux running on
it with all of that (except Cold Fusion: no need for it) in about an hour.
The differences are that the Linux system will blow the doors off
the NT system in terms of performance and stability. (Let's see that
NT box run all of those servers/applications simultaneously. The resource
allocation problems alone will probably cause it to seize.) It will also
comply with Internet standards -- which is something that IIS and Exchange
and other Microsoft products are legendary for *not* doing.
(And frankly, I'd have a lot less issue with them if they did: my
attitude would be "Fine, run braindamaged junk like Exchange if you
want; as long as the messages are RFC822 compliant, what do I care?".)
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done
directly from our website for all our lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
