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Time:
02:34 EST/07:34 GMT | News Source:
ZDNet |
Posted By: Robert Stein |
I'm two hours into my installation of the desktop version of Red Hat Linux 7.3 and have yet to do anything useful. I've provided a password, created a user account, answered some questions about GRUB, and agreed with the installer's best guess as to which keyboard, mouse, video card, and monitor I'm using.
The reason I'm doing this is to put to rest some of the complaints that I'm a Microsoft stooge and don't like desktop Linux because I haven't been fully exposed to its wonders. So I asked the Red Hat people to send me a copy of their latest with the idea of doing an extended test, much like I did recently with Macintosh OS X.
<%=GetPoll(28)%>
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#1 By
6859 (204.71.100.215)
at
6/14/2002 10:55:00 AM
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#8, every test I do, Windows vs. Linux for benchmarking, Linux loses. Tom's Hardware came to pretty much the same conclusion, although thanks to Nvidia, Linux drivers are getting some serious numbers behind them, but Windows is still in the lead.
#9, Apple had an engineer who did just that (port OSX to Intel) but it was killed. OSX will always and forever only be Apple, which is sad. I wish they'd do that port too. Oh, and check this out, it might help you: http://corporate.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp
Linux has its place. I think as a cheap alternative server it's got a good idea. As a desktop environment it's woefully lacking, and it will need greater hardware support to really catch Windows (I cannot recall a piece of hardware that there was not a Windows driver for. The same cannot be said [yet] for Linux or even Unix.) For doing things like routing, NAT, or print servering (or for that matter, SAMBA) it's good too. That's the kind of thing it's good for.
Ease of use and configuration needs to be improved as well. I wait for the day that "mount /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom -o ro -t iso9660" is as easily understood by the masses as is "Ok, open your D:\ drive."
I do think, though, that the OSS movement will encounter problems with viruses, trojans, and the like (malware) in the same numbers (if not more) than Windows does once Linux takes off more simply because of the nature that the source code is freely available. "Security through obscurity" may be valid, we'll just have to wait and see.
What drives me nuts is the lame argument that comes up: "If a bug is found in Windows, it takes them at leat a month to issue a fix; whereas with Linux the same bug would be squashed in a matter of days..." That's a load of horse-hockey.
...and if I hear "get a real OS..." one more time I'm gonna puke. I always ask them "define 'real'." And, strangely, they never do... ("Nothing unreal exists"--first law of metaphysics from Star Trek.)
This post was edited by Cthulhu on Friday, June 14, 2002 at 10:56.
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#2 By
20 (24.243.51.87)
at
6/14/2002 10:56:10 AM
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#5: You can get all those utilities and more on Windows.
So far, it's pretty much, anything you can do on Linux, you can do on Windows, but not vice versa.
Look, Linux is kinda cool, there's some neat stuff, but the dogma and rhetoric surrounding it makes it very unattractive.
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#3 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
6/14/2002 11:13:36 AM
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Boring article... Been there, done that, sent home postcards. Just not important.
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#4 By
3465 (206.20.132.147)
at
6/14/2002 12:25:24 PM
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#19-we're sorry to see you go to the dark side....
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#5 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
6/14/2002 1:27:39 PM
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#16 - I am somewhat curious about that as well. There are a number of things you can tune on a Win2k system, such as amount of RAM dedicated to file system caching, last access updating and so forth. Also NTFS uses transactional metadata, which while insuring integrity of the files may reduce performance on large amounts of writes.
I've found in the past that often times in these benchmarks, people will inadvertently configure a system which favors Linux. For instance IIS doesn't use the file system cache, but it's own... and it is by default configured to only consume 50% of available memory. That can skew some tests...
When benchmarking a system it is oftentimes useful to understand exactly what is causing the bottleneck. It may be that a small change will give wildly varying results.
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#6 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
6/14/2002 1:29:03 PM
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#18 - BTW, you've made at least three incorrect statements. Two of these have been widely reported on and there is simply no excuse for repeating them. Don't you think it's sad that the only way you have to justify your use of Linux is through lies?
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#7 By
20 (24.243.51.87)
at
6/14/2002 1:44:58 PM
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If Linux ever wants to "grow up" and go head to head with Windows, they HAVE to get rid of X. As I see it, that's one of the few remaining stumbling blocks for Linux. X is a flaming pile of crap and everything written for it is a kludge on top of a hack on top of a kludge. There is no such thing as a well written X app. It is an oxymoron. They need to get a decent display server with a decent windowing functionality and go from there.
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#8 By
20 (24.243.51.87)
at
6/14/2002 1:52:49 PM
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Also, any idiot who says that Linux isn't affected by viruses is just that, an idiot. Sure, Linux's security ships slightly tighter than Win2K and WinXP's and Linux users generally log in as a non-root user.
However, let's look at the majority of virii floating for Windows today. Most take advantage of some exploit or vulnerability or bug in current software.
Linux has many, many bugs. Some months, they are more than Microsoft's, even. There are plenty of root-gaining bugs in Linux.
So, let's say tomorrow 99% of the people were running Linux instead of Windows. Virii would be rampant just like today and they'd be attacking poorly patched Linux boxes just like poorly patched Windows boxes.
In fact, I'd say the problem would be worse because applying patches for Linux is much harder for Joe Average user than is hitting Windows update and downloading the latest IE roll-up patch or whatnot. So the virii problem would be much worse on Linux than Windows.
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#9 By
6859 (204.71.100.215)
at
6/14/2002 2:54:16 PM
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#25/daz,
True, true.
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#10 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
6/15/2002 12:54:46 AM
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#29 - Ok, now that's weird. I use Remote Desktop to an XP box all the time, and find it incredibly responsive. I often open it up full screen and do all my work remotely with no issues, and that's on a 10baseT LAN. Did you adjust the performance settings to take advantage of the network bandwidth?
As far as LANS... XP is not s-l-o-w, neither is Win2k. I can saturate a 100baseT line quite easily using a variety of methods. Now SMB traffic on the other hand, I have noticed that behavior and I'm not quite clear on why. It largely seems to have something to do with size of files.
I almost have my domain controller switched over, and I'll have a new test machine up and running here by tomorrow. If you want to send me email, I'd be glad to work together on some experiments. email is anything at sodablue.org
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#11 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
6/15/2002 11:54:44 AM
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#34 - Please don't post crap you know nothing about. Media players have been "tracking" what you play since CDDB was first introduced. If you have a problem with that, then don't use a player which caches CDDB requests.
http://www.cddb.com/
Let's see... This week the Eminem Show is the top album, followed by Linkin Park. The top Country album is Kenny Chesney's Greatest Hits. Never heard of the guy.
P.S. Microsoft doesn't use CDDB.
Ask yourself... is your position so pathetic that you have to resort to lies?
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#12 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
6/15/2002 7:15:15 PM
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#36 - I see you are now resorting to childishness.
This strengthens your position how?
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