"Stanislav Malyshev a.k.a Frodo" wrote:
> If I were you, I wouldn't believe any word of Microsoft on this matter.
> They lied to US court (and this is proved), so you think they would be
> more honest with you?
I partially agree with you.
The part I agree with is that Microsoft is very unreliable.
I don't agree about not listening to what Microsoft have to say.
I put together some comments that could put Microsoft's claims in
a different light:
"No OEM guarantees uptime on
Linux systems "
- I reboot my Linuxes about once in half a year.
"Lack of an enterprise clustering
system for service and application
availability "
- MOSIX? Linux extreme?
"Lack of extensive testing to
guarantee compatibility across
components and applications "
- Open source applications ( commercial application are tested extensively,
otherwise they wouldn't sell) are released often, with bug fixes to every
problem.
Windows (especially Hebrew Windows) failures are attended seriously every 3
years.
"Lack of a Journaling file system -
file system may not recover after
unplanned downtime"
- Since I don't know of any journaling capabilities
of the ext2, I suppose they're right.
Pro Windows NT:
"Scalability - The ability to
grow to support more
users and more
demanding workloads "
- Huh? The main problem with Windows NT is that large corporates don't trust
in
Windows NT's ability to work in mission critical applications.
" NTFS provides a 64-bit file
system which is capable of file
sizes up to 264 (much larger
than 2GB) "
- Try to reach this NTFS partition when your Windows NT
crashes and you need to restore some files to it.
Generally you'll need another Windows NT machine.
With Linux, you'll be needing the rescue disk.
" Integrated file cache for faster
access to commonly used files
Asynchronous I/O - Threads
can process other tasks while
waiting on I/O thus improving
performance and scalability"
- Performance issues are always arguable. The I/O and Threads
are just marketing words used to just to make WinNT look more
"New Technology".
"
<pro windows>
Overall, 37% less expensive to
set up and operate than UNIX.
26% less expensive to set up
and integrate than UNIX
27% less expensive to
administer than UNIX
<con linux>
Inherits the high setup, integration,
and maintenance costs associated
with setting up and managing a
UNIX environment
Low degree of integration increases
costs and technical risk "
- Note that UNIX is discussed here.
Linux vendors work the hardest they can on
simplifying Linux's installation process.
About integration: Windows (and every commecial UNIX)
want to integrate only in their direction.
Examples:
(1) Microsoft wants to sell Windows NT Servers and
Windows 95 Workstations. Microsoft doesn't include an NFS
client or server with any of the operation systems. If
they did do, they'd be saying: "Use Windows 95 with a UNIX
server" or "Use Windows NT as an NFS server for UNIX workstations".
(2) Windows 95 has a Client for Microsoft Networks and a Client for
Netware Networks. Can anyone guess why the Netware client work so
poorly as opposed to the MS Network client that doesn't require any
patch?
"Limited hardware driver support
Not optimized for high-end servers"
- If you'd remember the halloween documents:
"Any kid can write a driver in 4 days..."
About Linux support:
" "Peer-to-peer" support, gaining
some momentum with industry
hardware OEMs (Compaq, IBM,
etc.)
No formalized field training"
- Windows isn't documented as Linux. With Linux,
you need less support. It does however require
extensive reading.
- Most users don't buy support from a Microsft Support
center, thus facing a greater problem of having undocumented
error messages and mis-knowledge of how everying works.
"Ease of Use - Reduce the
time it takes to learn, setup
and manage the OS to
make it available to a
greater number of users"
- This "Ease of Use" comes at the expense of inability to
tweak the system settings when there are problems.
There are training programs avaliable (MCSE, for example)
but these training programs teach what Linux users learn
with well documented system services.
"Integrated platform built around
ease of use
GUI-based tools
Wizards to simplify complicated
tasks
Scriptable administration for
automated local and remote
management"
- Remote management is highly difficult to use when
using a WAN.
Linux has a much better remote configuration tools since
console based configuration can remotely be set by telnet and
GUI tools - either by X servers or HTTP Clients.
"Need highly trained system
administrators - usually require
developer-level skills
Administrators are required to
re-link and reload kernel to add
features to OS.
Most configuration settings require
editing of text-based files
When available, no commonality
between GUI-based tools
Integration of system
services and applications
to reduce complexity and
management costs"
- They have a point here.
"OS services provided as an
un-integrated collection of
technologies developed by
independent developers
Open questions about
internationalization, access by
people with disabilities
End users forced to integrate (i.e.,
Web server, database, application
authentication)"
- Windows 2000 development is somewhat stuck
becuase its source code is too big and no one
can control it.
Linux displays a tremendous of integrated OS
applications that work together.
