Author Topic: Windows The Toy Operating System  (Read 22252 times)

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Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #25 on: June 26, 2012, 03:24:05 am »
If you have a product that breaks after every minor OS update, then I'd consider that software to be a poor design. I'd be wary of any product with this kind of dependency on the operating system, at least on Windows.

May i introduce you to the good people at Cadence ? may be you can explain them how they can improve the multimillion dollar software we use ...

Some of their software has a few hundred installations worldwide... the cost of having a dedicated cluster running a locked down OS is peanuts compared to what you pay for that stuff.. they charge per minute of runtime ... you don't 'own' or even 'licence' that... you lease it ... per minute....
Downtime due to not following their OS requirements comes out of your pocket . If you can't tape-out the design because the latest patch you installed broke a script : you pay ... they take their hands off...

As a matter of fact, when they come over to install an update to the software they bring everything: the correct version of the Os and all. It is 'no touchy' !
they release regular bulletins on what patches and kernel builds can be installed. They will test the RHEL patches and advise you what to install, when to install and the order of install ...


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Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #26 on: June 26, 2012, 03:29:12 am »
And not surprisingly, the Windows command line is not very good at all (no tab completion, limited width)
you must not have used it then ...
mode con lines = 50
and TAB will complete the line.. has ever since SP2 of win XP ...
CD "doc <TAB> will complete with 'uments and settings"

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One thing that Linux did well was audio.

bwahahaaaaaa. that is the WORST thing (after wifi) . audio has been playing correctly since windows 2.0 .... linux has , and still has, tremendous problems with syncing audio and video... a few of my collegues use Linux to design settop boxes for satellite and cable DVR's... and this is their single largest problem... keeping the audio codecs and video codecs running in sync and without stuttering...

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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #27 on: June 26, 2012, 09:32:00 am »
there's another thing at play. The software that run's on the OS has a job to do. This software evolves as well , gets new features etc...
having to go back every few days to run a rebuild of the software because the OS changed... doing regression tests to make sure nothing got broken along the way...

You don't have to rebuild it every few days. You just have to keep up with major updates (every few MONTHS they come along) and release a small, simple update to keep things working. Assuming your target platform isn't API/ABI stable. The testing is relatively simple.

Maybe on your little home system this is easy, but not from where I sit. I am responsible for the Lustre and OFED software on our cluster. I only have to keep up with major updates? I wish! Every minor kernel release, we're talking the same kernel version just with added security patches from RedHat, requires I rebuild Lustre and OFED for that specific kernel. Every new minor release of Lustre and OFED requires I rebuild them because they can't possibly build them for all the kernels out there, including ours. Rebuilding and installing is easy? Multiply it by 100s since that's how many nodes there are. Testing is simple? Sure, if you don't mind being the guy responsible for the thousands of dollars per minute lost when you didn't test an update thoroughly enough.

Good grief, once again, I'm talking about development here.

And again, your choice to blindly install every kernel update.. And if they can't provide binaries for current RHEL kernels, well, they're not very good at their job. Which is my point.

Quote
bwahahaaaaaa. that is the WORST thing (after wifi) . audio has been playing correctly since windows 2.0 .... linux has , and still has, tremendous problems with syncing audio and video... a few of my collegues use Linux to design settop boxes for satellite and cable DVR's... and this is their single largest problem... keeping the audio codecs and video codecs running in sync and without stuttering...

Windows audio is hilariously bad as soon as you start doing anything other than playing MP3s. As for sync issues.. not on normal hardware it doesn't. I can't speak for what goes into those boxes.

Wifi's working just fine these days, too. If you ignore the issue I have with Intel's microcode having a memory leak (affects Windows too.). Works great on my five different Atheros chipsets, two different Broadcom chipsets, and the ZyDAS I use for long-range stuff, too. And that's not including the APs.
 

Offline ToBeFrank

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #28 on: June 26, 2012, 03:05:18 pm »
And again, your choice to blindly install every kernel update..

I don't, but even if I did, why shouldn't I? You assert only major updates affect anything and testing is a piece of cake. I should be able to swap kernels willy nilly!

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And if they can't provide binaries for current RHEL kernels, well, they're not very good at their job. Which is my point.

They do provide binaries for current RHEL kernels. However, production systems typically aren't on the latest kernel. Since there is no stable ABI, the shipped binaries cannot work on the production system. So now you're either rebuilding your kernel or rebuilding the software. Get it now?
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #29 on: June 26, 2012, 03:25:19 pm »
And again, your choice to blindly install every kernel update..

I don't, but even if I did, why shouldn't I? You assert only major updates affect anything and testing is a piece of cake. I should be able to swap kernels willy nilly!

Because each and every update should only be installed if it's necessary on a production system.

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Quote
And if they can't provide binaries for current RHEL kernels, well, they're not very good at their job. Which is my point.

They do provide binaries for current RHEL kernels. However, production systems typically aren't on the latest kernel. Since there is no stable ABI, the shipped binaries cannot work on the production system. So now you're either rebuilding your kernel or rebuilding the software. Get it now?

And you can't obtain the previously built binaries for the previous kernels.. why?

There are ways you can provide ABI stability between minor kernel revisions.
 

Offline ToBeFrank

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #30 on: June 26, 2012, 03:53:49 pm »
Because each and every update should only be installed if it's necessary on a production system.

Now you're getting it.

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And you can't obtain the previously built binaries for the previous kernels.. why?

Lol. Seriously? The previous maintenance release was released and built for the current kernel at the time. The current maintenance release is released and built for the current kernel now. What if the kernels are different? Let me guess, you think they should build and test for all the old kernels too. How far back should they go? How many forks of the code should they create to continue supporting the old kernels as the APIs change? How much testing time should be devoted to the various kernel versions and which ones should they concentrate on? Not everyone uses RHEL. Should they release for all of the other distributions' kernels, too? Not having a standard kernel API/ABI causes these issues, and then the linux weenies whine (loudly) that companies' drivers don't support linux well enough. Yeah, no shit, it's much too time consuming and expensive. I don't blame them.
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #31 on: June 26, 2012, 04:13:00 pm »
Because each and every update should only be installed if it's necessary on a production system.

Now you're getting it.

... I don't have a polite response to that.

Quote
Quote
And you can't obtain the previously built binaries for the previous kernels.. why?

Lol. Seriously? The previous maintenance release was released and built for the current kernel at the time. The current maintenance release is released and built for the current kernel now. What if the kernels are different? Let me guess, you think they should build and test for all the old kernels too.

No, I think they should work forwards and bring out updated modules for each kernel release for platforms they claim to support. It's really not that difficult, it can be automated unless an API changes (which it should not on a stable system, which I was led to believe RHEL was. If it isn't, well, that's another reason RHEL is a pile of crap), and if it does change.. well, advance warning! Not that they should need it, as they should keep up with changes to the platform they're working wi- right, sorry, that's too hard..

Quote
How far back should they go? How many forks of the code should they create to continue supporting the old kernels as the APIs change? How much testing time should be devoted to the various kernel versions and which ones should they concentrate on? Not everyone uses RHEL. Should they release for all of the other distributions' kernels, too? Not having a standard kernel API/ABI causes these issues, and then the linux weenies whine (loudly) that companies' drivers don't support linux well enough. Yeah, no shit, it's much too time consuming and expensive. I don't blame them.

It's not as time consuming and expensive as people choose to believe. Again, the development model isn't what they're used to, perhaps they should adapt to it or stop half-supporting a platform.
 

Offline ToBeFrank

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #32 on: June 26, 2012, 04:46:47 pm »
... I don't have a polite response to that.

Lol! And with that, I leave you to your opinions, which contradict the real world.
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #33 on: June 26, 2012, 04:50:22 pm »
... I don't have a polite response to that.

Lol! And with that, I leave you to your opinions, which contradict the real world.

And I'll leave you to your inability to do something as simple as script a module rebuild and email the result!
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #34 on: June 26, 2012, 08:13:38 pm »
... I don't have a polite response to that.
Lol! And with that, I leave you to your opinions, which contradict the real world.
And I'll leave you to your inability to do something as simple as script a module rebuild and email the result!
maybe you forget 2bfrank mentioned about 100X difficulty and real life 100s 1000s of dollar lost /minute if anything wrong happen. this is not rebuilding and recompiling hero stuffs, this is a real life making thing works as it intended to. OS should make work for us, not us to make work on them. my 2cnts.
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #35 on: June 26, 2012, 08:34:24 pm »
... I don't have a polite response to that.
Lol! And with that, I leave you to your opinions, which contradict the real world.
And I'll leave you to your inability to do something as simple as script a module rebuild and email the result!
maybe you forget 2bfrank mentioned about 100X difficulty and real life 100s 1000s of dollar lost /minute if anything wrong happen. this is not rebuilding and recompiling hero stuffs, this is a real life making thing works as it intended to. OS should make work for us, not us to make work on them. my 2cnts.

And once again I am talking about the developers doing the work they should be doing, not the admin having to pick up after their incompetence.

I give up. Stay on Windows, learn nothing.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #36 on: June 26, 2012, 09:27:24 pm »
the developers are busy building better routing algorithms, faster timing simulators and better parasitic extractors. They can't be bothered dicking around with a bug in the OS...
The Os needs to be maintained by the Os maker and the Os maker needs to make sure they break nothing. Sadly, in case of 'linux' the OS maker is 'nobody'.... It is too fragmented... i dont like xyz , i'll fork ... Look at ubuntu. every few wweeks there's a new one... what are they on now ? loopy looney ?

Red hat does a pretty good job , but once in a while there is trouble. That's why we are stuck to older builds. The software devs are a different company . They do not have the time to do the regression testing: they got real work to do ... making money of their product. Fixing bugs in the OS does not make them money, and it is not their jobs in the first place. The Os needs to make sure it does not break anything when it gets patched.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2012, 09:29:55 pm by free_electron »
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Offline senso

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #37 on: June 26, 2012, 09:37:41 pm »
Well, my Windows 7 command line does a tab when I press tab and not an auto-complete, yes there is some sort of work around to enable that via messing in the registry, but it is an hit and miss thing and only works when the moon is in line with saturn..

About audio, yep audio in linux in my laptop is the end of the world, only works up to ubuntu 10.04, anything with that crappy unity thing is to forget, all because my laptop as two audio chips, one for the hdmi that is located in the graphics card and the other is the typical ac97 codec, it should work out of the box, but linux does strange things and swap all the configurations between the two chips, after some bashing it will work, until you reboot or shutdown the computer.

One thing that I like in linux is that to play around with some C code all it needs is gcc -i lol.c, in windows I need ide's, all of them pretty stupid, the only one that I can stand is Qt.
 

Offline olsenn

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #38 on: June 26, 2012, 09:54:37 pm »
Quote
Look at ubuntu. every few wweeks there's a new one... what are they on now ? loopy looney ?

I just realized that there is a fish called "Sockeye Salmon".
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #39 on: June 26, 2012, 10:26:34 pm »
Well, my Windows 7 command line does a tab when I press tab and not an auto-complete,

Then you got a non standard install.
This stuff has always worked for US versions of Windows Xp , Vista and win 7.

I can't vow for the crippled european versions ... ( not microsofts fault ! Blame Nelie Kroes with her stupid anti-competition policies that forces microsoft to remove a bunch of things from windows for the EU market... Apple is allowed to supply a browser and a media player, but not microsoft, no that would be bad ... )

@olsen. sockeye salmon is good.... still hot out of the smoker. some 'dillsenap' on ryebread toast , a slice of that stuff on it .. mmmmm reminds me of my summers in KemiJarvi Finland ( i interned at Nokia during school summer vacations .. was 1989 or so.. beautiful. 80 Km above the polar circle. At midnight the sun was still at a 20 degree angle . on weekends we went fishing in the local lake and had a little metal smoker ...)
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #40 on: June 26, 2012, 10:38:36 pm »
It 'works' as far as it goes. It's very much 80s era, though. Windows is not a CLI OS, and DOS was not a good CLI OS.
 

Offline Omicron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #41 on: June 26, 2012, 10:47:05 pm »
Well, my Windows 7 command line does a tab when I press tab and not an auto-complete, yes there is some sort of work around to enable that via messing in the registry, but it is an hit and miss thing and only works when the moon is in line with saturn..
No need to mess about in the registry. Just click on the top left box and choose "Defaults" from the menu. You'll get a dialog and somewhere to the right there is a checkbox to enable autocomplete. All in all 2 mouse clicks :-)
 

Offline senso

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #42 on: June 26, 2012, 11:57:04 pm »
Well, my Windows 7 command line does a tab when I press tab and not an auto-complete, yes there is some sort of work around to enable that via messing in the registry, but it is an hit and miss thing and only works when the moon is in line with saturn..
No need to mess about in the registry. Just click on the top left box and choose "Defaults" from the menu. You'll get a dialog and somewhere to the right there is a checkbox to enable autocomplete. All in all 2 mouse clicks :-)

That check box is checked and it still doesn't auto-complete, its pretty strange but is a common problem around the internets.
And yes I have an EU windows version, its in fact a PT version.
 

Offline updatelee

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #43 on: June 27, 2012, 03:40:55 am »
I work for the Canadian military, and all of our servers and workstations run Red Hat Enterprise Linux; that being said, in my experience Linux (not just our software) is LESS stable than Windows 7.

Sometimes I think people are just out to get Microsoft because they see them as fat cat corporate slime... the truth is that Microsoft products aren't as bad as some people say they are. They're not perfect, but no OS is!

Not sure where your posted or what your trade is, but Im also CF 3PPCLI and all our workstations are windows XP with a million addon apps running in an attempt to keep it stable and secure. Yet we still regularly have issues with both.

I have one windows computer in the house, 5 linux ones + a router, and two macs

I hate the windows one, just need it for a few specific apps. Id gladly get rid of it in a heart beat if there wernt so many apps that I just cant get on mac or linux. No OS is perfect, but imo windows is defn bottom 3rd.
 

Offline PeteInTexas

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #44 on: June 27, 2012, 04:29:25 am »
I have also been using it for many years. I rarely have to resort to Windows for tasks other than gaming.

What was hilarious for me was when I switched my wifes computer to Feisty Fawn from Windows.  All she does on this particular computer is web browse (Firefox) and edit the grocery list once a week or so.  She did not notice for almost a year until she came upon some site that insisted on IE.  My wife does not care about gadgets and such at all.  She discovered texting almost a year ago.  She does know when something does not work.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2012, 04:32:38 am by PeteInTexas »
 

Offline firewalker

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #45 on: June 27, 2012, 06:03:09 am »
I am using GNU/Linux exclusively for more or less 10 years.

Windows (except Vista maybe) is a really good OS. I offers user interfacing in a unique way.  For me one of the biggest mistakes in Windows is "Backward Compatibility".

*nix system are safer because the smaller user base. Take MacOS for example. It supposed to be virus free. Until it's user base grow large. Some days ago Apple was forced to remove the "Virus Free" note from the features of the MacOS. It says now "Designed to be safe".

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Offline amspire

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #46 on: June 27, 2012, 07:29:14 am »
You have to take the "Toy Operating System" in context. Windows is probably the most complex operating system on the planet, and Steve Gibson uses it all the time by choice.

But Steve is a security guy, so when he talks about a "Toy Operating System", he is talking about a system that was never designed from the ground up to be hardened against security attacks. When Windows was developed, the developers largely ignored security for over a decade. When Windows XP came out, Steve had a public battle with Microsoft when he said that it was crazy that Microsoft was allowing programs to take direct control over the low level TC/IP protocol - this was a gift to every virus writer.  History proved that Steve was right and Microsoft was wrong, and Microsoft did eventually shut down low level access to the TC/IP protocol.

Since 2009 when Steve made the "Toy Operating System" comment, Windows 7 64 bit has done a huge amount to address the security concerns. Windows 8 will do a lot more, much to the dislike of many.

In this context, OS/X and Linux Workstation are probably equally in the toy operating system category, and I think Steve would have been equally appalled to see an OS/X screen, or a Linux screen after a Kiosk application has crashed.

Linux does allow you to strip out every bit of unneeded junk, and it also makes it possible for an application to have a dedicated screen, so that in the event of an application crash, you are left with a blank or frozen screen.

Richard.
 

Offline A-n-d-y

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #47 on: June 27, 2012, 09:36:28 am »
The guy complains about Windows being used in mission critical systems...

Some 10 years back I climbed into a hypobaric chamber that was apparently run via Win NT.  I'm still here, so, meh.

..and it's still being used in the future ;)

Prometheus runs on Windows 7!

http://faildesk.net/2012/06/12/prometheus-runs-on-windows-7/

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Offline amspire

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #48 on: June 28, 2012, 12:38:52 am »
Quote

Some 10 years back I climbed into a hypobaric chamber that was apparently run via Win NT.  I'm still here, so, meh.

..and it's still being used in the future ;)

Prometheus runs on Windows 7!
Love it. So if the captain orders that the ships operating system is wiped and reinstalled after being infected with an evil alien computer virus, the captain finds he has 30 days to activate with Microsoft on Earth before all his terminals get locked out. Even worse, if he has to reactivate after a repair, he only gets 3 days before Microsoft locks everything down.

In fact who even needs aliens when you have Microsoft?

By the way, I still have a pile of NT4 installations in case I ever need them.  The numbers are interesting. A fresh NT4 install used 22MBytes on the hard drive for the Windows operating system, and would run in 32MBytes of RAM comfortably. If you install all the service packs, you probably have to double these numbers.  As long as you didn't need multimedia or USB, it was a pretty good operating system.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2012, 02:06:31 am by amspire »
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #49 on: June 28, 2012, 12:31:10 pm »
Nah.. The captain would have the corporate install versions that don't need keys or activation. No problemo...
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