I guess experiences vary wildly in terms of stability. I've never
had a problem with DOS or Windows 3.x in terms of stability. Some
crashes, but usually when running junky programs. Win95 I might trust
in terms of not crashing, but the filesystem is so unreliable, I stay
away from it. Linux, I'm running on this Compaq 386sx/20 with 6MB RAM,
and it's never crashed. Slackware. I dunno. I seem to be lucky with
not having things fail. I've plugged in connectors backwards many a
time, and have never fried anything. The SMPSU cut out. But then, how
many people would say DOS is unstable?
>
>Last reboot of this dos6.22/win3.1 system was three weeks ago when I
shut
>it down to shuffle the drives and replace a dead fan. It's quite
stable.
>Then again I tend to trash apps that don't behave! I've also tamed a
>few unruly ones with carefull edits or the creation of a proper PIF
>file. Considering the number of DOS apps I run under windows Setting
>things up right is a necessity.
>
>To me GPFs are applications that under VMS would likely cause an
>exception exit dump. GPFs are a poor error handling mech for programs
>trying to do what should or are illegal things. It's easy to blame a
>weak OS for crappy applications. Dos has few to no protections and
>ragging on it is unfair.
>
>< compared to the stability (weeks and months without rebooting) of
Linux,
>< in turn doesn't approach the bulletproof reliability you expect from
VMS
>
>The Slakware 3.0 Linux I have on a 386dx/33 that is a good machine but
>with only 8meg of ram Linux is not that stable. Forget getting
xwindows
>to behave well in 8meg.
>
>< I freely admit I learned most of my computer science under Vax-VMS so
I
>< strong bias towards it, but I've also run moderately large scale
vaxclus
>
>I'm biased as well, I run 7 vaxen here, two of which are LAVC members.
>I also run RT-11, RSTS-11 and a lot of CP/M systems.
>
>< and at least the versions we used... 5.5a, if memory serves, were
remark
>< reliable. To the point where we once had a cluster server loose its
dis
>
>Solid! I run both 5.4-4 and 5.5 and uptimes are limited by power on
>times, though in the past I've seen months to years.
>
>< I'm not a programmer. I'm a sysadmin/netadmin type. Ease of
programmin
>< secondary to me compared to reliability. A system that crashes
frequent
>< the bane of my profession's existance, because it means instead of
spend
>< time on the entire environment and routine maintenance you spend more
ti
>< firefighting mode.
>
>That is why VMS, unix and their kin are used on the enterprize scale.
>Dos/win was used that way but it was never conceived as a multiuser OS
>nor as a networking server platform. Using it that way maybe a hackers
>dream but a sysadmin nightmare.
>
>< We were discussing why people don't get attached to PCs as much, and
any
>< machine that bombs frequently or in general causes headaches seems to
me
>< it's not going to be high on people's lists.
>
>A machine that is poorly understood and marketed by processor speed
>hype that shows zippy games. I still don't understand why a kid needs
>a 300MHz PII to run simcity other than hype. To me it's simpler, one
>486dx or PII is the same as another, ther eis nothing to distinguish
>them. Even the PS2 series was at least different on the bus level.
>
>It's a matter of maturity of the system and all of the software.
>
>Allison
>
>
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Received on Sat Oct 31 1998 - 21:03:35 GMT