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Why Microsoft Should Build Its Next Version of Windows on Top of Linux | |
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| Time: 10:13 EST/15:13 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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I was exchanging e-mail recently with my friend Mike Class, SJ, who is associate dean of the Graduate School at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mike, who is a Jesuit priest and therefore naturally drawn to the whole idea of conversion, wants Microsoft to build its next version of Windows on top of Linux. And you know, it actually makes some sense! The idea of Windows as an operating system is purely a product of the Microsoft marketing department, and not some law of nature. When Windows 1.0 appeared, it was a separate program you loaded on top of MS-DOS. Same for Windows 2.0 and 3.0 up through MS-DOS 6.22, the last standalone version of DOS sold by Microsoft. That way, they thought at the time, if Windows ever proved to be a commercial failure (this was far from certain and it is easy to claim Windows WAS a failure before 3.0), it would have been easy for Microsoft to punt back to MS-DOS. | ||
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| #1 By 1295 (216.84.210.100) at 1/17/2003 10:30:42 AM |
| could you imagine how much work MS would have to do to keep up with all of the different versions and flavors of linux to do such a thing... I think this guy needs to PUT THE PIPE DOWN! |
| #2 By 8589 (66.169.175.34) at 1/17/2003 10:34:20 AM |
| This is the most asinine suggestion I have ever read. Now if the idea were to have a version of KDE or Gnome for Windows, then that might have some merit. |
| #3 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 1/17/2003 10:36:32 AM |
| What a maroon. |
| #4 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 11:07:41 AM |
|
"Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe."
And thank goodness it does. And Linux doesn't? Hmm, wait, no it does, too. And any other operating system that uses a disk for storage. Was Microsoft trying to convince us otherwise? His arguments are as misleading as putting "dolphin-free" on a package of bread--wow, I guess that must mean other bread uses dolphin meat somehow. A C: prompt (CLI) implies DOS, that's precious. Unfortunately, most of the readership of this author would not likely see through his specious statements. "Windows XP is not an operating system. It is a windowing system that sits atop an operating system much as KDE or Gnome sit atop Linux." No, Windows XP is an OS. Explorer is the windowing system. "Linux is better, faster, stronger than whatever is living underneath XP now, right? Performance would improve." Has this guy really ever tried GNOME or KDE on Linux? The responsiveness is painfully slow compared to Explorer. Linux fans usually concede this, saying that the real speed in Linux is at the CLI, not the GUI. And since he considers "Windows XP" as the GUI on top of "whatever is living underneath XP now," he is precisely pitting Explorer against GNOME or KDE. How about a performance decrease? Yeah, great idea. That this guy thinks the windowing system + a disk operating system is the sum total of Windows, he is so uninformed he should not be writing tech articles. That this article is on PBS's site raises a lot of credibility and QA questions about their contributors. |
| #5 By 2201 (212.117.228.131) at 1/17/2003 11:11:34 AM |
| The piece is poorly researched, written and concluded. Nuff said. |
| #6 By 3653 (65.190.70.73) at 1/17/2003 11:30:02 AM |
| while they're at it, maybe Microsoft could save alot of money developing Window Media technologies, and instead just develop an official WM skin for Winamp. |
| #7 By 415 (199.8.71.121) at 1/17/2003 11:48:09 AM |
| LOL - #12 |
| #8 By 7760 (12.107.12.130) at 1/17/2003 12:03:30 PM |
|
To continue our line of Bugs Bunny insults, "what an eskimo pie-head."
It's clear that this guy knows very little about anything. If he knows anything about Linux, it's sure hard to tell because, despite the premise of the article, hardly any mention at all is made of Linux in the article. |
| #9 By 1913 (146.27.122.17) at 1/17/2003 12:22:30 PM |
|
More Bugs Bunny insults, "What an Em-basil" (Imbecile)
#3 ...you're right ...just imagine how much resource and work Microsoft have to do. Imagine if MS doesn't build a shell for one of the Linux vendors out there, they have another law suit on their hand for unfair competition. Another thing ...when Pocket PC OS came out, the manufacturers where complaining about how big the OS was because it supported different type of CPUs (ARM, MIPPS, SH3). That's why all Pocket PC devices are now running on one type of CPU (Intel ARM or Xscale) because of that problem. |
| #10 By 2332 (12.105.69.158) at 1/17/2003 1:43:05 PM |
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You guys all realize that Robert X. Cringely isn't real, right? It is a pseudonym used by several different authors, all with a varying amount of knowledge.
"His" book, Accidental Empires, was actually pretty good... and it got most of the facts correct, so I would surmise that the individual who wrote this aticle was the bottom of the Cringely barrel, so to speak. This post was edited by RMD on Friday, January 17, 2003 at 13:43. |
| #11 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 1/17/2003 2:13:08 PM |
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RMD - "You guys all realize that Robert X. Cringely isn't real, right? It is a pseudonym used by several different authors, all with a varying amount of knowledge. "
Actually not this one... Robert X. Cringely was the rumor mill guy for Infoworld, and yes it was a psuedonym used by multiple writers over years. But this guy claims that he was the first and original Cringely, and he wants to keep writing under the name. They had some lawsuit with Infoworld over the deal, and both use the name now. |
| #12 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 2:26:37 PM |
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ArkiMage, I was curious about that statement as well, but he must have meant number of CPUs per box. Windows has pushed its SMP capabilities quite a bit farther than Linux has at this point.
As Windows XP is a desktop OS, it only supports dual processors (IA-32 of course, and the IA-64 version of XP has been released). Windows 2000/2003 Datacenter support 32 processors, and 64-bit 2003 will support 64 processors. Actually, the limitation in processor support at this point is an OEM/hardware problem, not an OS problem. As for other diversity, Linux definitely has the upper-hand for what it's worth, although 64-bit Windows supposedly will support other processors in the future. It is pretty safe to say they will never support the number of architectures that Linux supports (doubtful you'll see Windows on Sparc!). "Support" means different things on different platforms, though, and that's true of both Linux and Windows. |
| #13 By 992 (195.92.67.71) at 1/17/2003 2:41:05 PM |
|
the person whole wrote this article is either just joking (not likely) or he needs urgent medical attention.
http://www.mslinux.org Might make a few people laught a bit more |
| #14 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 1/17/2003 2:55:51 PM |
|
ArkiMage/bluvg/etc - Windows NT started off with a goal by Cutler to be multi-platform. This was largely because MIPS was the only processor at the time capable of really supporting the goal for NT.
As time went on, these platforms were dropped due to lack of interest. See the truth is, multi-platform support is not important... customers don't want it. NT supporting the PowerPC, Alpha, Sparc, etc. is irrelevant. I don't understand why people bring this up periodically as some sort of win for Linux. |
| #15 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 3:40:00 PM |
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int0x6h, faster at what? It's not faster at everything. SMP support in Linux is noticeably behind that of Windows 2000, for example.
Multiple windowing systems for Linux is more a liability than a benefit. It's fun for the hobbyist, but for real acceptance, there needs to be a standard. The Windows GUI is very rich and has much better performance than I have seen from any comparable-functionality Linux GUI I've used. You can dumb down and tweak the Windows GUI for greater performance than the defaults if you like, as well. As for 1), the needs of the vast majority of businesses do not require custom modifications to the kernel. Nor could they afford it. 2) CMD.exe--granted it was a bit weak in Windows NT/2000, but it has been improved greatly in XP, and on all platforms it's better than DOS (32 bit, for one). And, if you take the time to learn some VBScript, you can do just about whatever you want. A bit of an aside, but do you know that Windows does not even load a GUI when sitting at the logon screen? Check the task list--explorer.exe is not there. If you want to run it command-line only, telnet into the box. 3) You can put Windows NT/2000/XP on anything back to a 386, but it's going to take a long time to boot. It's not surprising that your server would require less horsepower than a Windows XP GUI--http/ftp/dns/pop3/etc. are not processor-intensive applications. Reduce the services to only what you need, and you'll see decent performance for those types of applications, even on a 486. Anecdotally, I have XP on a P150 laptop piece of junk here, and I can assure you that it ran circles around a PIII 500 desktop RedHat 7.3 GNOME or KDE workstation in terms of responsiveness. 4) Hmm... Windows didn't have any notable worms in 2002, but what about Slapper? Expect more. The Windows NT kernel is plenty stable and fast. The reliability problems and performance issue examples on Windows are rarely kernel-related. |
| #16 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/17/2003 4:37:13 PM |
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"The Windows NT kernel is plenty stable and fast. The reliability problems and performance issue examples on Windows are rarely kernel-related.
>> they are directly tied to the kernel. because the GUI is built into the kernel, SOOO. If a application or GUI dies, it takes the kernel down with it, requiring a reboot. " Hmm, when was the last time you ran Windows 2000 or Windows XP ? My guess is never. If you have, I suspect you're a liar. I can kill explorer.exe (or it can crash) and the system will continue to work quite happily. I've had many applications crash (that happens a lot when debugging code), and not once did that crash Windows. There is a difference between having the source code and understanding the underlying architecture. First and foremost, the kernal exposes its public members, just not their implementation. It that degree, at least, you can understand from a code perspective what Windows is made of. I'd like the source for the Bill Gates quote. |
| #17 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 4:46:14 PM |
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int0x6h, faster at everything else? Please check out TCP.org.
You can customize the Windows GUI much further than that if you like, but it still has the standardized interface that Linux sorely lacks. The Linux community needs to get over the hobby-ware aspect of the GUI situation if they want Linux to progress. And I thought they loved standards! 1) "each user could take the 20 minutes and setup the kernel to their own box" Getting users to change their default printer is a difficult enough task... now we're trying to get them to recompile a kernel? Windows provides excellent performance without such nonsense. You haven't addressed the issue of why this is a benefit, and that's because it's not practical. The vast majority of businesses have very little interest or resources to staff an internal kernel development team. It's just not necessary. 2) If you want to use those tools, go out and download what you want. Your point was the implication that you couldn't access the Windows system from the CLI, and that's false. 3) Sure, it's not going to be as responsive as a PIII 500, but a 386 Linux box isn't going to be all that snappy on a 386, either. Many people never attempt to disable unnecessary services in Windows, so their anecdotal evidence is not accurate. Remember, we're not talking GUI on either, here. Why not try installing NT4/2000/XP on a 386/486, minimizing unnecessary services, and running it as a server? For home use, it's fine, and Linux is fine, as well. The hardware argument is overstated, based primarily on Microsoft's recommended hardware. The recommendations implies GUI, but you don't need to run the GUI, nor do you usually need to run a host of default services. 4) If companies are getting hit by Exchange (actually Outlook) worms, it's their own fault. No one should run any OS without virus protection, be it Linux, MacOS, Windows, whatever. Any administrator running Exchange without anti-virus needs his/her head examined. And with the security update for Outlook, this is argument is old. The landscape has changed. If their Exchange servers are going down, it's not because the tools to stop it aren't available (and in the case of Outlook, free). As for the last point, the GUI is not built into the kernel. End the explorer.exe process on your Windows machine sometime for proof. Same for applications. |
| #18 By 992 (195.92.67.74) at 1/17/2003 4:47:17 PM |
|
Gates says:
I was in court and they demanded me to release some source to windows and I said doing that would cripple national security Oracle says: yeah your is right, if Microsoft was the name of a country lol This post was edited by Oracle on Friday, January 17, 2003 at 16:58. |
| #19 By 2960 (68.100.157.191) at 1/17/2003 5:05:00 PM |
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Even I think this is stupidity at it's finest :)
There's only ever been one successful conversion to a Unix Based Operating system, and we all know who that was... Larry |
| #20 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 5:40:51 PM |
|
int0x6h, just because you see a hi-res bitmap background and a login prompt does not mean that the OS has loaded a GUI. Explorer.exe is the GUI. You can kill the process. The logon "GUI" is hardly GUI at all--it's MSGINA.dll (Microsoft Graphical Identification and Authentication)--a simple login box--not Explorer.exe. And, you can replace it with something else if you like. For example, Novell uses NWGINA.dll instead of MSGINA.dll. If you wanted to, you could write a CLI-style .dll to replace it.
I don't understand your point about the underlying structure of NT. Are you claiming that DOS is still there somewhere? Have you read and committed to understanding the entire source code to the Linux kernel? My guess is no, but does that prevent you from knowing a good deal about how it works? |
| #21 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 5:42:31 PM |
| Sorry--tpc.org. I always mistype that! TCP/IP on the brain I guess.... |
| #22 By 992 (195.92.67.74) at 1/17/2003 5:50:16 PM |
|
int0x6h
Your obsessed with this, Don't be nasty to people. You sound arogant by what you say to others here. There is no need to upset people and post #44 could annoy aw, who already know what there term of use is! If you have to say something negative about someone or the comment they leave, make out like it is a joke and not a direct attack. We're all friends here ;-) |
| #23 By 992 (195.92.67.74) at 1/17/2003 5:59:26 PM |
| Comment 50 prooves my point precisly |
| #24 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/17/2003 6:01:16 PM |
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MSGINA.dll is about 300 Kb. Shouldn't take more than a split second to load. And, as I said, you can write your own replacement if you like.
As far as the kernel's operation, it really is a non-issue for the great, vast majority of users. They have no interest in modifying it, and it is cost-prohibitive, impractical, and unnecessary for most businesses to do so. If you want to tinker, there are many registry-configurable parameters for the low-level operations of the OS. As for open source = less bugs, this is not a trivial argument, and it has not proven true in reality, either. There have been a lot of contributors of open source code, but unfortunately a miserly few to do the non-glamorous grunt work of debugging. |
| #25 By 992 (195.92.67.74) at 1/17/2003 6:22:12 PM |
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I fight fire with fire
int0x6h says: check comment #53 Oracle says: pourposley obtuse int0x6h says: yeah, do you know what that means, or you going to read the dictionary Oracle says: pourposley - is not in my dictionary int0x6h says: whatever, I spelled it wrong. you spell 99% of the words you type wrong Oracle says: And btw its not fair that you identified me by what I send in MSN messenger. I never did, just quoted in constructed sentences what I send to you int0x6h says: I'm not going to distort it Oracle says: I think if you an understanding person, you would be kind to remove identifying remarks int0x6h says: Guess I am just an asshole Now can we take a chill pill pleassssssssssssssssssssse ;-) |
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