Dave Laird
2006-11-10 13:02:28 UTC
Good morning, Netizens...
How ironic is it that, in writing this piece about Linux, I am logged
onto my sole remaining Windows workstation, using the latest version
of Agent? It has been at least a month since I last composed anything
on this machine, let alone using Agent, so one of my first labors,
before I could even begin composition, was to update Agent, something
I have neglected to perform simply because I haven't been using it for
months.
Perhaps before I even begin, I should state emphatically that I do not
TRUST Windows-anything, based upon the experiences of a lot of
different people I know, including some of my own clients. Having
actively participated in the Beta-testing of Vista, the latest version
of Windows slated for release to commercial customers at the end of
this month, I am increasingly dismayed at how insecure most Windows
installations are, how utterly prone to exploitation they are, and how
often they go down for a variety of reasons.
My ground rules for an operating system are simple: once the O/S is
installed and configured, it should stay up and online, responsive to
requests for, at a minimum, ninety days or more. There should be no
reason for one to ever reboot or reformat a hard disk, ever. As I
recently demonstrated to a group of friends, even distribution
upgrades from one version to the latest, no longer requires
reformatting nor even a reboot under at least two major distributions
of Linux. I know for a fact that Windows has never offered that power
and flexibility to their customers. The Vista installation, at least
the final release version I have seen, requires substantial changes,
in some cases a reformat, and definitely a reboot before you can begin
work.
As if to demonstrate my philosophy, I have yet to allow my Windows
test machine running the purported final version of Vista loose on my
personal network of five workstations. It simply doesn't play "nice",
despite Microsoft's statements of the last few weeks about Vista
working better with Linux. Although Microsoft remote desktop now
allows me to log onto my Linux servers scattered throughout the
region, it still does a messy job of recreating the Linux desktop on
the other end of the pipe. Although its new implementation of NetBIOS
claims to work better with Linux Samba, some features are clearly
still up in the air, based upon my limited testing.
The Windows workstation upon which this article is being written has
terrible registry problems, only a few of which I have bothered to
address. A recent Microsoft Office upgrade, which was done because
Microsoft recommended it, went south, leaving me with a marginally
useful copy of Office. The only solution, it seems, is to re-install
Windows, a solution which seems so commonplace, based upon my
experience. However, to fix the problem I have to pay Microsoft for
technical support, something I simply refuse to do, hence the problems
remain.
What of Linux, then? Compared to the grim reality of running Windows
XP Professional edition, both of my Linux workstations have been
continuously up and functional for a minimum of six months, requiring
only one reboot, and that was caused by a decision to continue testing
FreeBSD to better provide technical support to clients running the
Macintosh O/S X. If something should break, I can easily find
solutions online. Finding new features, something that Microsoft is
reluctant to share with me, is as simple as reading web pages online.
When looking around the world, despite what the PR teams at Microsoft
may tell you, the Linux workstation has been steadily gaining market
share on Microsoft Windows over the last year. Granted, there are
still a lot of Linux distributions that either are lacking features or
have other unresolved issues when it comes to providing a robust
desktop environment, several of the distributions I have tested,
including Solaris, Ubuntu, FreeBSD and CentOS, all provide a wide
variety of desktop tools one would reasonable expect to find in the
production environment.
There is no place where the Linux Wars becomes more apparent than when
it comes to both word processing and database development. All you
have to do is install the latest version of Open Office and explore
the robust world of MySQL to see the vast amount of capability that
exists in Linux. The big difference is, instead of learning how to
deploy Visual Basic, you learn how Python, Perl or Ruby environments
function, and go to work.
The latest version of Open Office is 100% cross-platform compatible
with ALL versions of Microsoft Office, with the exception of
MS-Access, but then who in their right mind would ever consider
performing serious database work in Access? However, Open Office does
directly support databases in a wide variety of formats, including
good old dBase, which cracks me up. There is even a database migration
tool written for the Gnome desktop environment which will take
existing Access databases and use them, but since I have avoided
Access like a proverbial plague for several years, I haven't had the
time nor inclination to test the application. There are simply too
many database applications written for the Linux desktop for me to
possibly test them all.
However, the single factor that, by itself, overwhelms any other
considerations, is that base upon my experiences consisting of over a
decade, the GUI Linux desktop has been stable for over three years. I
haven't had to reboot my Linux workstation for over 90 days, and
simply is predictably stable.
Has Linux won the desktop wars? No. They simply do not spend money on
public relations nor hold huge roll-out media sessions. However, for
those of us who demand stability and reliability from our personal
computers, it is the only game in town. Nuf said.
Dave
How ironic is it that, in writing this piece about Linux, I am logged
onto my sole remaining Windows workstation, using the latest version
of Agent? It has been at least a month since I last composed anything
on this machine, let alone using Agent, so one of my first labors,
before I could even begin composition, was to update Agent, something
I have neglected to perform simply because I haven't been using it for
months.
Perhaps before I even begin, I should state emphatically that I do not
TRUST Windows-anything, based upon the experiences of a lot of
different people I know, including some of my own clients. Having
actively participated in the Beta-testing of Vista, the latest version
of Windows slated for release to commercial customers at the end of
this month, I am increasingly dismayed at how insecure most Windows
installations are, how utterly prone to exploitation they are, and how
often they go down for a variety of reasons.
My ground rules for an operating system are simple: once the O/S is
installed and configured, it should stay up and online, responsive to
requests for, at a minimum, ninety days or more. There should be no
reason for one to ever reboot or reformat a hard disk, ever. As I
recently demonstrated to a group of friends, even distribution
upgrades from one version to the latest, no longer requires
reformatting nor even a reboot under at least two major distributions
of Linux. I know for a fact that Windows has never offered that power
and flexibility to their customers. The Vista installation, at least
the final release version I have seen, requires substantial changes,
in some cases a reformat, and definitely a reboot before you can begin
work.
As if to demonstrate my philosophy, I have yet to allow my Windows
test machine running the purported final version of Vista loose on my
personal network of five workstations. It simply doesn't play "nice",
despite Microsoft's statements of the last few weeks about Vista
working better with Linux. Although Microsoft remote desktop now
allows me to log onto my Linux servers scattered throughout the
region, it still does a messy job of recreating the Linux desktop on
the other end of the pipe. Although its new implementation of NetBIOS
claims to work better with Linux Samba, some features are clearly
still up in the air, based upon my limited testing.
The Windows workstation upon which this article is being written has
terrible registry problems, only a few of which I have bothered to
address. A recent Microsoft Office upgrade, which was done because
Microsoft recommended it, went south, leaving me with a marginally
useful copy of Office. The only solution, it seems, is to re-install
Windows, a solution which seems so commonplace, based upon my
experience. However, to fix the problem I have to pay Microsoft for
technical support, something I simply refuse to do, hence the problems
remain.
What of Linux, then? Compared to the grim reality of running Windows
XP Professional edition, both of my Linux workstations have been
continuously up and functional for a minimum of six months, requiring
only one reboot, and that was caused by a decision to continue testing
FreeBSD to better provide technical support to clients running the
Macintosh O/S X. If something should break, I can easily find
solutions online. Finding new features, something that Microsoft is
reluctant to share with me, is as simple as reading web pages online.
When looking around the world, despite what the PR teams at Microsoft
may tell you, the Linux workstation has been steadily gaining market
share on Microsoft Windows over the last year. Granted, there are
still a lot of Linux distributions that either are lacking features or
have other unresolved issues when it comes to providing a robust
desktop environment, several of the distributions I have tested,
including Solaris, Ubuntu, FreeBSD and CentOS, all provide a wide
variety of desktop tools one would reasonable expect to find in the
production environment.
There is no place where the Linux Wars becomes more apparent than when
it comes to both word processing and database development. All you
have to do is install the latest version of Open Office and explore
the robust world of MySQL to see the vast amount of capability that
exists in Linux. The big difference is, instead of learning how to
deploy Visual Basic, you learn how Python, Perl or Ruby environments
function, and go to work.
The latest version of Open Office is 100% cross-platform compatible
with ALL versions of Microsoft Office, with the exception of
MS-Access, but then who in their right mind would ever consider
performing serious database work in Access? However, Open Office does
directly support databases in a wide variety of formats, including
good old dBase, which cracks me up. There is even a database migration
tool written for the Gnome desktop environment which will take
existing Access databases and use them, but since I have avoided
Access like a proverbial plague for several years, I haven't had the
time nor inclination to test the application. There are simply too
many database applications written for the Linux desktop for me to
possibly test them all.
However, the single factor that, by itself, overwhelms any other
considerations, is that base upon my experiences consisting of over a
decade, the GUI Linux desktop has been stable for over three years. I
haven't had to reboot my Linux workstation for over 90 days, and
simply is predictably stable.
Has Linux won the desktop wars? No. They simply do not spend money on
public relations nor hold huge roll-out media sessions. However, for
those of us who demand stability and reliability from our personal
computers, it is the only game in town. Nuf said.
Dave
--
Dave Laird (***@kharma.net)
The Used Kharma Lot/The Phoenix Project
An automatic & random thought For the Minute from the Unix Fortunes:
Slurm, n.:
The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
it sits in the dish too long.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Dave Laird (***@kharma.net)
The Used Kharma Lot/The Phoenix Project
An automatic & random thought For the Minute from the Unix Fortunes:
Slurm, n.:
The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
it sits in the dish too long.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"