Linux, Windows, now, future

[Asher]

Originally posted by elijah
The only evidence seen is that linux has been ported to more platforms than windows. Linux, based on that, is more portable. Perhaps because windows is owned by microsoft, it is less portable by your argument. QED.

You should try this kind of proof in school sometime, I'm sure your prof would get a kick out of it.

Embedded devices

Windows XP Embedded is better than Linux for embedded devices.

How big is the kernel image with win2k, xp, 2003?

No idea, actually. Not very large, in any case, everything that takes up RAM runs as a service.

I did, but I didn't like the start menu complications. Somehow, 2000 feels more utilitarian. XP is too gimmicky imo. Still kudos to MS for win2k!

Did you revert back to the Win2K start menu style as well?

I thought windows was average by definition . Lets agree to disagree on that one. I'm compromising today .

You haven't provided a case whatsoever which shows why Linux is great and the NT kernel is "lame", so I'm going to have to disagree with your agreement to disagree, because you've lost.

Enlighten me!

0% CPU usage, 0% system memory usage.
Every window in the desktop is a 3D texture that can be manipulated in real time. Current desktop technology (OS X, WinXP, KDE, Gnome, etc) render a simple 2D image over and over again. It produces artifacts, "choppiness" when doing things like resizing and dragging, and severely limits you in general. You can do anything you want now in Longhorn's interface. Demos included Windows acting like they were a piece of cloth, so when they dragged them around the bottoms kinda came after, and waved around a bit. They also have zoom in/out feature for each window, hardware-accelerated, etc.

And it's much faster than before, since it uses the idle GPU and GPU RAM to do everything rather than system.

[Paul Hanson]

Don't know where you got the idea that Win2K runs poorly on a P166 from. I used to run it on my old P166 and it ran absolutely fine; better than Win98, infact.

Of course, I've since moved on to the heady power of a P266, and with an upgrade in computer I felt an OS upgrade was also necessary, so up to WinXP Pro it was.

[MattH]

Ignoring the whole ashertized thread... I'd have to agree with the main point. Linux developers need to get their ****e together and make something intuitive. They have a great idea, but it just isn't working yet. Mozilla for Win is a great example of how things should be working- intuitive, fast, powerful, etc. But Gnome isn't- the control panels still have notes saying "to modify more settings go to /root/x/whatever". That's just unprofessional.

I'm hoping that the next generation of windows implements tabs system-wide, in folders, notepad, Office, etc.

[Asher]

MattH: The problem with Linux developers is that, to them, it already is intuitive.

Linux developers and Linux users (to a lesser extent) have a different mindset about computers than most users. They prefer the command line to a graphical interface, and if people need help with something they can simply ask a mailing list. Of course, the mailing list will tell you to RTFM, and the manual will say "Coming soon".

[Ari Rahikkala]

Why, obviously everyone can RTFS .

[Agathon]

Oh dear.....

[MattH]

I was using Linux earlier- updating a web page and trying to compress some html into one line. First I dowloaded Arachnophilia, which didn't run (in linux, you have to do it from the command line OR copy the command into a newly created icon...). So I downloaded JRE 1.4 (or was it 4.1?). I had no clue where to put it. Bin? There's no programs folder, how do I save to desktop, etc.

Now I know I'm a newb, but things like that shouldn't be complicated. And the manuals are scattered over several websites or not complete. And the experts don't like answering the same questions over and over.

The only thing I liked was gedit opening in tabs .

[Whaleboy]

You should try this kind of proof in school sometime, I'm sure your prof would get a kick out of it.

Well, lets try some critical thinking here. Two OS's, one has been ported to more architectures. The owner of one may not port system to another because of the business model. We call that speculative evidence. Therefore, and baring in mind you are starved of evidence in both directions, you can say that it indicates that OS L is more portable than OS W.

Nonetheless, you have an open source system, people can port it to god knows what if they have an individual need. MS tells you what you need, and thus wont port it, after all, less profit. You compare open source techniques to prop., and the former lends itself to portability. Portability, security and stability are incidentally, different sides of the (three sided) coin of good coding. One means the other two.

Windows XP Embedded is better than Linux for embedded devices

Which explains why Motorola are switching to using Linux on their phones.

No idea, actually. Not very large, in any case, everything that takes up RAM runs as a service

It was in the megabytes when I ran XP.

Did you revert back to the Win2K start menu style as well?

How do I do that? Still, I'm happy with 2k, it'll run faster (unless there are P4 optimisations in XP I don't know about... hint hint). Besides, its not worth the hassle to change. I had bad experiences with XP when I had it first installed. 2k has thus far proven trouble free. Why should I switch?

You haven't provided a case whatsoever which shows why Linux is great and the NT kernel is "lame", so I'm going to have to disagree with your agreement to disagree, because you've lost.

In a debate where there is no canonical frame of reference to "check up" on either position, by definition there cannot be a loser and a winner. Surely they taught you that at logic school?

Most reading this would disagree with the proposition that I have provided no case (in subsequent posts from my first)

0% CPU usage, 0% system memory usage.
Every window in the desktop is a 3D texture that can be manipulated in real time. Current desktop technology (OS X, WinXP, KDE, Gnome, etc) render a simple 2D image over and over again. It produces artifacts, "choppiness" when doing things like resizing and dragging, and severely limits you in general. You can do anything you want now in Longhorn's interface. Demos included Windows acting like they were a piece of cloth, so when they dragged them around the bottoms kinda came after, and waved around a bit. They also have zoom in/out feature for each window, hardware-accelerated, etc.

And it's much faster than before, since it uses the idle GPU and GPU RAM to do everything rather than system

Ok now thats groovy. Will it run faster than 2k/XP on the same system? Will it run with 2.8GHz and 512 MB DDRRAM? Will it send all my information to Microsoft? Are they actually going to call it "longhorn", because that name sucks.

Don't know where you got the idea that Win2K runs poorly on a P166 from. I used to run it on my old P166 and it ran absolutely fine; better than Win98, infact

Must be flaws in the systems.

Agathon:

MattH:

[Asher]

Originally posted by elijah
Which explains why Motorola are switching to using Linux on their phones.

You're implying from XP Embedded -- they're not.
XP Embedded is more fully featured, it's for Smart Phones specifically, not run-of-the-mill cellphones. Motorola is replacing the basic OS with Linux, which is as much a badge of honour as saying you make the screwdrivers they use at Jiffy Lube.

How do I do that?

Critical thinking now...
How do you usually adjust properties with things in Windows?
Right click -> Properties, right?
So right click on the Start button, go to Properties...

Wow! Suddenly we're at a gloriously confusing screen with only two options: Start Menu, and Classic Start Menu. I wonder what Classic Start Menu is.

Why should I switch?

You don't have to -- XP's kernel is more stable, it runs .NET code faster, it supports the Pentium 4s properly, and has a cleaner network stack. But Win2K works, too.

In a debate where there is no canonical frame of reference to "check up" on either position, by definition there cannot be a loser and a winner. Surely they taught you that at logic school?

"logic school"? Logic is not something that can be taught, regardless of what the philosophers out there try to do. What they do is formalize it into a mess of semantics and bull****, and it doesn't do anything but provide jobs for future philosophy profs. But that's a tangent.

I've given you a frame of reference: Linux is monolithic, NT is microkernel. Microkernels are far easier to port, by design, than monolithic kernels.

See this: http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/Ind...ArticleID=2984

Throughout NT's development period, most PCs used Intel's x86 processor. Several RISC processors competed for dominance of UNIX boxes: IBM and Motorola's PowerPC, MIPS processors, and Digital's Alpha. To keep its PC customer base, as well as to accommodate the desires of high-end users, Microsoft decided to make NT as portable as possible, and the company designed NT to run out of the box on any of the RISC processor chips. Microsoft reasoned that NT's portability across different processors would ensure its viability regardless of which chip came out on top in the market.

That shows you that portability was a major issue from the very beginnings of NT, too.

Ok now thats groovy. Will it run faster than 2k/XP on the same system?

Depends. You can revert back to the XP 2D-GDI if your videocard doesn't support DirextX 9, so there would be no additional overhead of that. But there's also other optional things that will be enabled by default, like WinFS which is a database frontend for the filesystem, powered by a derivative of the upcoming Yukon SQL server. Microsoft reasons that harddrives are so massive now that the file-tree structure is increasingly obsolete, and people should use it as a secondary tool to a SQL-type search for data.

Will it run with 2.8GHz and 512 MB DDRRAM?

It's due out in 2005-2006. How would anyone know? It depends on how much they're adding. Rest assured, it'll be a massive update (Win2K is 5.0, WinXP is 5.1, Win2003 is 5.2, and this will be 6.0)

Are they actually going to call it "longhorn", because that name sucks.

No, it's a codename. The naming scheme is actually really cool: Windows XP was Whistler, which is a ski resort in BC. Longhorn is the successor to Whistler, and it's a famous bar that people would go to on the way from Whistler to Blackcomb. Blackcomb, of course, is the successor to Longhorn, and another famous BC ski resort.

[Q Classic]

http://www.kegel.com/nt-linux-benchmarks.html

ok, am i the only one, who, after seeing the domain, thought that the site ought to be more about biology?

ack!

[Whaleboy]

You don't have to -- XP's kernel is more stable, it runs .NET code faster, it supports the Pentium 4s properly, and has a cleaner network stack. But Win2K works, too.

Ah cool. As I have a P4, will XP run faster than 2k? If so, I'm switching (btw thanks for the start menu tip).

"logic school"? Logic is not something that can be taught, regardless of what the philosophers out there try to do. What they do is formalize it into a mess of semantics and bull****, and it doesn't do anything but provide jobs for future philosophy profs. But that's a tangent.

Yes. Yes it is! . We have different opinions on logic to an extent. Lets put it like this, its a tool we all have that mostly requires training to use.

Microkernels are far easier to port

Why?

That shows you that portability was a major issue from the very beginnings of NT, too.

So why less archs?? jk

I must say, in all fairness, Longhorn does sound impressive. Its coming out about the time I'll be getting a new box so all is good! I especially like database search idea. It would do MS a lot more good if they could bring this out sooner as 2/3 years will give linux (and hopefully athene) time to catch up. Still, thats good for Windows, if not Microsoft, as it ensures the former will still have to compete, making a better product.

[MikeH]

I can only go on personal experience.

3 Domino webservers running on windows 2000 - continuous problems. Have to reboot one of the servers for some reason or other every few days.

changed to Linux (for 9 months or so now)

Never had to reboot them when we didn't plan a kernel update or something. Traffic has increased but the response time is still faster than it used to be. The Linux environment literally took weeks to set up correctly though.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Asher


Linux developers and Linux users (to a lesser extent) have a different mindset about computers than most users. They prefer the command line to a graphical interface, and if people need help with something they can simply ask a mailing list. Of course, the mailing list will tell you to RTFM, and the manual will say "Coming soon".

This is THE core of the problem.


Secondly the other problem is that Linux Geeks actually take pride in having to do something complex to fix a problem.

That is the EXACT opposite of what an end user needs.

But then Linux Geeks will blame the end user for being stupid or too lazy. Did you ever think they actually want to get some damn work done and not have to worry about getting the tool to work?

If I want to hammer a damn nail in I just pick up the damn hammer and hit it.

I shouldn't have to worry about assembling the damn thing, downloading handle fix GTK+ 4.321-01.12 through the mail, and spending the entire day on the news groups, after reading the damn manual, on how to screw the damn handle in.

I don't even work the help desk. But the other day a woman asked me how to save a file to a floppy.

And you guys want people to start messing around with sizing their swap partition????????!!!!!! NOBODY other than an administrator should EVER NEVER EVER NEVER EVER NEVER EVER have to mess with a damn swap partition.

EVER

Whether you like it or not, people know what they want. They want point and click. THAT'S IT

PERIOD

So until you guys figure it out, you can rail all you want but you're still going to have an inferior piece of crap Geek Desktop.

But then if Linux ever gained a majority on the desktop, it wouldn't be cool anymore would it?

[Asher]

Domino? Go figure.

[Whaleboy]

TS: To extend your metaphor, you hit the nail on the head.

Asher: Will WinXP run faster than 2k on my box, baring in mind p4 optimisations etc? If so, I'm switching.

Incidentally, Win 2000 Pro, P4 2.8GHz, 512Mb DDRRAM, Geforce 4 MX440 SE 128Mb.