Enough already! (was: Re: MS Laugh-In)

From: Carlos Murillo <cem14_at_cornell.edu>
Date: Thu Oct 19 06:57:58 2000

At 08:55 PM 10/18/00 -0700, you wrote a thoughtful note:
>With that in mind, I've wondered for some time if Windows (like Linux)
>crashes so often because of a lack of user understanding, and poorly
>designed third party software, or because Windows simply a badly coded piece
>of OS.
>
>I know that my personal computer, at home, running Win95, and now Win2000
>never crashes, even when I do something stupid that I expect will cause
>problems. I don't believe that this is because of good luck, or because
>Windows is great. I believe that it's because, through my years of
>supporting it, and working with it, I've intuitively learned it's
>limitations.

I've also got to know its limitations. The problem is, what I expect
a computer to be able to do seems to be beyond those limitations. I
have some software development stuff in mine, together with some
multitrack recording and editing software, and some SCSI equipment
(the controller is an adaptec AHA2940UW). With win95, the SCSI+sound
experience was an unbearable pain -- it crashed and crashed until
it became non-bootable. And complete reinstalls are not an option
for me: I have a sufficiently specialized setup that reinstalling everything
takes longer than one week, full-time. I changed to win98 and the
machine has been more stable (not yet perfect, though). Of course,
I use Netscape instead of IE, Eudora instead of Outlook, TeX instead
of Word (though I do have it installed because sometimes people send
me documents; sigh), Watcom C, Codewarrior and GCC instead of MSVC/MSVB,
DEC Visual Fortran instead of MS Powerstation (_power_-station? hahaha!
it hurts to mention it, and not because I'm laughing hard!).

> At my office, the machines that I purchase and setup myself are
>stable. This is because I research what software plays well with Windows and
>avoid that which doesn't, and because I choose hardware that I've learned to
>trust -like Asus, and 3com.

For me, win95 crashed with just adaptec, 3Com, matrox and SoundBlaster Gold
cards. I'd hardly call these obscure brands in the PCI adapter world.

>My Linux box crashes more often than my Windows box, and I'm the first to
>admit that it's because I don't know what the hell I'm doing, when I use it.
>Does that mean that Linux is designed badly? If Linux is so great, why is
>there an almost daily alert in my inbox from bugzilla, reporting some
>security risk or other newly found flaw?

The comparison is unfair because of two reasons:

1) There will always be more bugs/security flaws _reported_ for Linux
   because the user base is more demanding (after all that's why they're
   running Linux) and because more people will be checking the open
   source for problems. That doesn't mean that Linux is more bug-prone;
   just that reporting is better.

2) Bugs actually get fixed (quickly) in Linux.

See, the Linux mentality is that we'd rather discover the flaws so we
can fix them. The MS mentality is: let's put crap out and hope that they
don't find the holes, and, if they do find them, we'll tell them to upgrade
to the next generation of winblows. Only if the flaw is bad enough, we'll
release a patch.


> As a frustrated new Linux user,
>that doesn't build my trust in it but I still like using it. I wonder if
>Linux proponents, like the early Apple users, have simply decided that their
>OS is better than Windows, whether it's a truly better OS or not, simply
>because they don't like Microsoft. I don't like Microsoft but that doesn't
>mean that Linux is great. Linux is what it is, and that has nothing to do
>with Microsoft.

There will always be some OS rivalry based on XenoOSphobia. But,
most people who hate windows are not unfamiliar with it--rather,
they hate it because they are all too familiar with it.


>I hope that Linux develops into the
>incredible OS that it can be (please, GOD, let it be so) but until then,
>I'll be patient with MS Windows to.

But MS won't be patient with you. Until we see some real competition,
they have the upper hand: they can put crap out, and it will be bought.



carlos.
Received on Thu Oct 19 2000 - 06:57:58 BST