Thread: "Windows Sucks". Discuss. (AKA Why do you like your OS?)

I loved macs until they bought into intel hardware. Now they can go eat dirt for all I care. I can´t stand any company that is pro microsoft and intel is about as pro microsoft as you can get.

I can´t really afford the money they want for all the mac machines anyways. I certainly can´t afford a Sun or HPUX system so I´ll settle for an AMD based system with Linux on it. I use fedora currently and won´t touch Novell based linux systems mostly because they sold out when they entered into licensing agreements with windows for linux implementations. Windows steals much of their ideas and a fair bit of their code from open source software and then has the audacity to try to claim rights to it.

Microsoft is the disease and open source is the cure

Originally Posted by FUD

I loved macs until they bought into intel hardware. Now they can go eat dirt for all I care. I can´t stand any company that is pro microsoft and intel is about as pro microsoft as you can get.

I can´t really afford the money they want for all the mac machines anyways. I certainly can´t afford a Sun or HPUX system so I´ll settle for an AMD based system with Linux on it. I use fedora currently and won´t touch Novell based linux systems mostly because they sold out when they entered into licensing agreements with windows for linux implementations. Windows steals much of their ideas and a fair bit of their code from open source software and then has the audacity to try to claim rights to it.

Microsoft is the disease and open source is the cure

(pssst....right on man! Right on!

James.

The fact has little to do with Windows itself, but more with the hardware it runs on.
We always buy top quality hardware, paying 1.5 - 2 times as much as a cheap pc.

As long as you do that, BSODs or system problems are exceedingly rare.
If you don't, then
- you get crummy hardware that is prone to failure or overheating.
- you get crummy drivers. Incidentally, over 75 % of all software caused crashes are due to bad 3d party drivers.

Why doesn't linux have this problem:
- its driver architecture is far simpler, due to the fact that it does't really support PNP or per device power management, or lots of other system features that make development on windows a joy, compared to system software development on linux.
- it supports on average far less features per device than a windows driver. This is in large part because the developers have to make do with few specs.
- it's used by tech savvy people who don't expect things to happen automagically and who know how to configure their computer.

This is only marginally related, but related nonetheless.

Woohoo! My wireless home network is now working with my Linux box. I am currently writing this to you from my linux machine connected to my wireless router.

Now I *really* love my OS! All it took was a little re-compile of my kernel....

James.

Originally Posted by Bruno

The fact has little to do with Windows itself, but more with the hardware it runs on.

I´ve built windows systems that have cost over 200k u.s. funds all with hardware specifically designed for windows NT, 2000, etc. and all by microsoft approved vendors, spending 100 bucks or more for a memory module that would have otherwise cost 20, etc.

On all the fancy windows systems I´ve designed and built, and seen designed and built by coworkers at the time, I still cannot say that any of them were as stable as a decent unix system or even a cheap Linux system that cost only a fraction of the amount spent by the major corporations I´ve worked for.

In order to make the end users believe they´re getting uninterrupted service I´ve always had to build in excessive redundancy. I´m not talking just 2 machines to back each other up either. I´m talking redundant arrays within the machines themselves, 3 and 4 "primary" systems, and often dozens of secondary systems. systems with 2 to 4 processors, redundant memory banks, redundant cooling systems (often with 4 or more independent cooling units), redundant power systems.

It´s pathetic. In order to have semi-stable service from a windows system it can end up costing millions in u.s. funds.

Here´s true information:
The company I worked for prior to going self employed had a 6 million dollar (windows) system in place for email. This company has branches all over the u.s., Europe, Asia, South America. Very heavy redundancy, etc. but at least once a month they´d still experience email outages that affected entire regions. I spoke to a fellow who still works there not quite a year ago and they´re still having trouble somewhere every month with email. They´d get the issues resolved within hours, and sometimes even minutes but the problems still arose and could not always be explained.

There´s an insurance company in Akron Oh that´s been bought out and changed hand several times over the years. This was especially bad in the mid to late 90´s when some serious remodeling was going on. Long story short, the construction workers closed up a room that was running a single machine using mandrake linux for email. 3 years later, while tracing wires, they found the machine, which had run flawlessly, restarting after power outages, etc. I think mandrake sucked, especially during the time this system was experiencing "out of sight out of mind". But this begs to be considered.

When a cheap, off brand basement built pc system running a crappy version of linux can outperform a multi-million dollar microsoft approved system then something is wrong with the world that will continue to promote the money hogs.

Cheap hardware can easily affect windows, but "good" hardware doesn´t really "help" windows.

That´s just my 2 pence.

I'm not quite sure what the point of this discussion is... unless it's to vent feelings for/against the three predominate operating system environments that exist today.

Operating systems come and go. I've worked in the computer industry for most of my life... when I started in the business Unix was still a laboratory experiment and Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were in grade school. All of the big names of my early days have fallen by the wayside... IBM, AT&T, Honeywell, Univac, Burroughs, Sperry, DEC, DG, HP, Interdata, Wang, etc. Back then, the hardware was the focus... speed, cost, reliability. These machines were for businesses... there was nothing personal about them. An 8K memory module sold for $16,000. Software was secondary, and there were no desktop applications. Most of their development focus was aimed at faster hardware.

As time went on, Unix progressed and demonstrated that it could easily run on different machines. All of the big vendors simply ignored it so their customers would be held captive by the proprietary nature of their own hardware/software combination. Fact is, we are still held captive to that model today... ie, a native Unix application won't run on a native Windows or native MAC machine. And there is clearly no end in sight to that problem.

All the original powerhouses in the computer business were eventually upstaged by the new guys in the hardware arena... Intel, TI, Motorola, etc. ... all driven by lower hardware costs. And as the hardware became more affordable, the software became the differentiator... and soon Microsoft and Apple were competing for dominance. The IBM/Microsoft and Intel/Microsoft alliances eventually gave Microsoft the edge and left Apple struggling.

Meanwhile, Unix wasn't making much progress either... it was owned by AT&T and their fees were outlandish to all but the educational community... to put that into perspective, a Unix source license back then cost $85,000. If you didn't have access to the source, you couldn't do the necessary customizations needed to run Unix on different hardware configurations. Eventually, Minix appeared... and then Linux... both free/low cost. But by that time Microsoft had a lock on market dominance. Apple continued to flounder, eventually gaining a clear edge in the graphic arts arena.

I personally have a love/hate relationship with all of them....

• I love Microsoft XP... it hardly ever crashes. I hate Microsoft because it costs hundreds of dollars and they force me to periodically buy more stuff from them even when I don't need it.
• I love Apple's intuitive user interface and software reliability. I hate Apple because they're expensive and many things I need to do can't be done (easily) on Mac because there is still a decided lack of native application software... and the emulators don't always work. And don't be fooled, they crash too.
• I love Linux because it's inexpensive and when I want to fiddle with the internals I can. I hate Linux because it has so little support from other vendors and it's plainly cryptic at times. And don't be fooled here either, Linux crashes as well (although it is more prone to just having a subsystem drop dead... so the system is still running but the graphics stops working, for example.

Much of my life has involved developing high reliability computers & systems... I cut my teeth almost 40 years ago on one that was spec'ed to have less than 1-hour down time in 20 years... that's an average of 2-minutes a year. A reboot of that system took 5-minutes, so that meant less than 1 crash per year was acceptable. That system had dual redundant computers (meaning two CPUs, 2 memories, and 2 of each controller needed). Each CPU/memory portion alone was larger than an average sized room. The user interface was a teletype and blinking lights. The only mass storage was a tape drive. 60% of the hardware and software in the system was aimed at achieving the redundancy and reliability. In the late '60s the system sold for something over $6-million. I worked on that project for 6-years (along with 250 other brave souls) and our outage rates were well under the 2-min bogey when I moved on to bigger and better things. So honestly, in another sense Windows, Mac, and Linux are all crap from my perspective. ... just my $.02

Good perspective! Yeah, originally the thread was so that we didn't highjack some other poor bloke's thread and could vent if needed...

I remember my father had a Wang system for his business (unfortunate name, that - my father had a wang...)

Anyhoo, that was a very interesting read Joe, thanks. Helps put things in perspective.

My first computing experience was a MAC II SE (I think that's right), closely followed at my University maths department by a Vax. This was closely followed by learning machine and assembly code as part of an electrical engineering degree. Those were the days! None of this flimsy, girly C or Fortran stuff thanks very much!

You're right, of course. All OS's have good and bad points, and what falls into each category depends on your background and current needs, although something that doesn't crash all the time seems to be a universally acknowledged "good thing".

Windows XP is good to me - does most of the things I want without too much complaint (and keeps firewall and virus scanning software manufacturers off the unemployment line... ). Linux works for me too, so I use both, but mainly linux. But yeah, run into certain problems with linux and you can enter a world of unsupported pain. You just *know* sometimes that you're talking with that fat comic book guy off the Simpsons when you get on the linux forums...and if you're interrupting them in the middle of becomming a level 12 dungeon master in some online game you've got no chance...(just joking guys! Always appreciate the help, always )

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

....You just *know* sometimes that you're talking with that fat comic book guy off the Simpsons when you get on the linux forums...

James.

...so let me get this straight.....


...you got a PROBLEM with fat comic book guys?????


(....well....do ya', sucker???...)

I happen to have a close, personal relationship with a fat comic book guy!

-whatever

-Lou

Originally Posted by scarface

...so let me get this straight.....


...you got a PROBLEM with fat comic book guys?????


(....well....do ya', sucker???...)

I happen to have a close, personal relationship with a fat comic book guy!

-whatever

-Lou

No man, I love fat comic book guys. My brother's a fat comic book guy, and some of my best friends are fat comic book guys.....

I mean that Simpons dude - with the bad 'tude.

(Pllllleeeese don't hurt me Lou!!)

James.

well, okay....but you've been warned!

(...one more nasty crack like that and I'll stuff my hand into my floppy drive and b!tch -slap your a$$ into next week!....)

-whatever

-Lou