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

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Offline SionynTopic starter

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Windows The Toy Operating System
« on: June 25, 2012, 11:14:26 am »


eecs guy
 

Offline AntiProtonBoy

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2012, 12:18:43 pm »
The guy complains about Windows being used in mission critical systems. Ok fair enough. But I'm somewhat disappointed that he didn't rant about the third party contractors for doing that.  In other words, it's hardly Microsoft's fault when some cheap-arse, lazy vendors sell Windows based industrial control systems to nuclear power plants.
 

Offline Rerouter

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2012, 12:24:02 pm »
hmm on that subject, i could have sworn some of the modern tektronix spectrum analyzers ran windows or atleast a very similar looking interface,
(havent actually looked at videos)

 

Offline olsenn

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2012, 01:06:26 pm »
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!
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2012, 01:38:41 pm »
They complain about the once a month update cycle , and all the problems it brings controlling and deploying that. Welcome to linux, where updates can be hourly and break existing installations....
No thanks....

As for the rest: they are talking rtos but got confused. For a marquee display you don't need an rtos. You need an embedded os. Not all embedded os's are rtos's....
There are very few real rtos's out there and programming for an rtos is NOT easy....

Besides, for a scrolling text display you need an operating system at all ? Holy crap ...
Imagine a microwave needing an os ...
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2012, 01:42:08 pm »
They complain about the once a month update cycle , and all the problems it brings controlling and deploying that. Welcome to linux, where updates can be hourly and break existing installations....
No thanks....

And it's your choice to allow them to install automatically without you testing them first.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2012, 02:10:03 pm »
They complain about the once a month update cycle , and all the problems it brings controlling and deploying that. Welcome to linux, where updates can be hourly and break existing installations....
No thanks....

And it's your choice to allow them to install automatically without you testing them first.

so it is under windows .. you can turn that off as well...
chances of a windows update breaking a system are small.. chances of a linux update breaking something ... relatively large... especially because they break the api's on purpose in an attempt to force 'binaries' out...

For every patch there is we need to doublecheck with the software vendor if we can install it or not... very annoying.
Cadence and Mentor supply lists of patches that should not be installed , even if they are a security risk , becasue the applications can't handle it.. welcome to the fun world of million dollar linux computing...
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2012, 02:55:52 pm »
They complain about the once a month update cycle , and all the problems it brings controlling and deploying that. Welcome to linux, where updates can be hourly and break existing installations....
No thanks....

And it's your choice to allow them to install automatically without you testing them first.

so it is under windows .. you can turn that off as well...

Yes, but you still have to wait for their monthly patch cycle for security updates to come out!

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chances of a windows update breaking a system are small..

I'm not even going to go there.

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chances of a linux update breaking something ... relatively large... especially because they break the api's on purpose in an attempt to force 'binaries' out...

Or there, actually, as that speaks of your level of knowledge of enterprise systems.

Quote
For every patch there is we need to doublecheck with the software vendor if we can install it or not... very annoying.
Cadence and Mentor supply lists of patches that should not be installed , even if they are a security risk , becasue the applications can't handle it.. welcome to the fun world of million dollar linux computing...

Welcome to the fun world of companies not bothering to keep their software up to date, instead relying on Microsoft's expensive, broken method of keeping every API and ABI available until the stars go out.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2012, 03:53:34 pm »
The problem is twofold
1) the software vendors can't act fast enough to keep up with the development of the OS.
2) ths production environment ( read: compute farm with the software running on it ) can't willy nilly be brought down for some patchwork. The farm is in use , heavily by a whole bunch of people. Some jobs take days to complete.

We got work to do... Our support staff for the RHEL cluster is larger than for the windows users... luckily we have distributed farms and jobs can be submitted to alternate machines while one server is being patched. but it still is a royal pain in the butt.

Cadence and mentor are very clear : this software : this os / kenrel/modules... anything else ... we take our hands off...

look at what Oracle is doing... they are taking Linux into a closed domain. Jsut so they can guarantee uptime.
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2012, 04:21:32 pm »
Because they're incapable of changing to keep up with the development model. It's really not that hard, but large companies have made it clear for years they're incapable of changing with the world.

Both platforms have the same problems with updates breaking things. The big difference is that with Windows you're sitting there with your arse in the breeze waiting for MS to do things for you. In a month.
 

Offline olsenn

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #10 on: June 25, 2012, 04:42:14 pm »
Quote
Because they're incapable of changing to keep up with the development model. It's really not that hard, but large companies have made it clear for years they're incapable of changing with the world.


It's not a matter of being incapable. If you had to pay 200+ employees on average around $30 per hour you would be hesitant to just take away there OS and spend a week getting something new up on every machine, plus security research and everything else that goes along with it, then take a few weeks out to train them all on how to use the new software... by the time they realize that the new software isn't backwards compatable and won't work with all their own software they developed and software they purchased from third parties, they have spent millions of dollars.

There's a thread on this site about "crApple" the disposable OS, Windows the Toy OS... let's face it, there is no perfect operating system out there. I would call Linux a POS but it doesn't deserve to have "OS" in its title. Still, you and I couldn't do any better.
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #11 on: June 25, 2012, 04:44:01 pm »
Quote
The big difference is that with Windows you're sitting there with your arse in the breeze waiting for MS to do things for you. In a month
morale? dont buy it the first day its released. wait a year, 2 or 5. but i've been waiting linux to become usable to me for many many years! its not that i'm offending linux, but sigh... if you only knew how much hope i put on it.
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #12 on: June 25, 2012, 05:14:54 pm »
Quote
Because they're incapable of changing to keep up with the development model. It's really not that hard, but large companies have made it clear for years they're incapable of changing with the world.


It's not a matter of being incapable. If you had to pay 200+ employees on average around $30 per hour you would be hesitant to just take away there OS and spend a week getting something new up on every machine, plus security research and everything else that goes along with it, then take a few weeks out to train them all on how to use the new software... by the time they realize that the new software isn't backwards compatable and won't work with all their own software they developed and software they purchased from third parties, they have spent millions of dollars.

That has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about. I am talking about the inability of software companies to maintain their Linux ports. If you'd bother to read, you'd know that.

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I would call Linux a POS but it doesn't deserve to have "OS" in its title. Still, you and I couldn't do any better.

Linux is not an OS. It's a kernel. And no, you certainly can't do any better..

Quote
The big difference is that with Windows you're sitting there with your arse in the breeze waiting for MS to do things for you. In a month
morale? dont buy it the first day its released. wait a year, 2 or 5.

Again, you're so far off the subject I'm not convinced you bothered to read any of the posts.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2012, 05:35:58 pm »
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...

Releasing a dsktop application is one thing. releasing a 5-nines system with a backed guarantee is another... once you are dealing with compute frams the software on those tends to get pricey... very pricey , and the customer wants to have some guarantees..
So that's also a reason the software vendors are reluctant / hesitant to ride the endless patch wagon. They restrict to one particular build of the OS and test against that. Want to run it on something else ? sorry, hands off ... you're in uncharted waters here.

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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #14 on: June 25, 2012, 05:41:27 pm »
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. They just refuse to work outside their nice, comfy, five year old environment because they'd have to learn and pay attention.

Again, they're unwilling to adapt to the modern world. Much like music and film companies.
 

Offline mukymuk

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #15 on: June 25, 2012, 08:42:37 pm »
Quote
but i've been waiting linux to become usable to me for many many years!

I'm right there with you.  I really want to like Linux.
Shawn
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #16 on: June 25, 2012, 08:51:10 pm »
Been using it for years......
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #17 on: June 25, 2012, 09:09:13 pm »
I have also been using it for many years. I rarely have to resort to Windows for tasks other than gaming.
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #18 on: June 25, 2012, 09:18:07 pm »
Linux works me fine as a desktop OS.

But I -wouldn't- recommend it for average users. Definitely not ready for that. If you're prepared to hack, go ahead, you're unlikely to look back.

Linux was originally written as a desktop-supporting kernel but has been adapted quite well for servers. But you shouldn't use it in a mission critical system just like you shouldn't use Windows.

In addition I've never really "got" why point-of-sale, ATMs and even scopes need to use Windows. Completely unnecessary overkill. At the very least, a lightweight Linux - but even better, a simple application, with no OS.
 

Offline TerminalJack505

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #19 on: June 25, 2012, 09:29:55 pm »
Windows was a toy OS compared to others 10 to 15 years ago.  It was a joke at one time.  Today it is actually pretty stable.

I can remember a time when using Windows as a server was just asking for trouble.  For example, I remember when a developer was using either Windows NT or an early version of Windows 2000 for a server.  (This was back in the Pentium 100Mhz to 200Mhz days, by the way.)

He was experiencing unexpected slow-downs.  The server was in a remote location so he'd go to the server and check it and the just the act of checking it out would cause the slow-down to go away.  As it turns out, he was using one of those fancy 3D screensavers--3D Flowerbox, I think.  Every time the screensaver kicked-in his server application would come to a crawl. 

This just goes to highlight Microsoft's server experience during those days.  Screensavers were running at the same priority as other processes!  Basically, Microsoft was still suffering from a desktop mentality in those days. 

So far as Linux goes...  Even if you don't run Linux you should still be thankful for its existence.  For the same reason you should be thankful for AMD even if you are an Intel fan boy/girl--it helps drives innovation.  It helps keeps Microsoft honest.
 

Offline AntiProtonBoy

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #20 on: June 26, 2012, 12:38:05 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...
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.
 

Offline ToBeFrank

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #21 on: June 26, 2012, 01:47:20 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.
 

Offline FlyingBrickyard

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #22 on: June 26, 2012, 01:49:23 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.
 

Offline ToBeFrank

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #23 on: June 26, 2012, 01:49:47 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...
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.

Well, of course you'd be wary of it on Windows, they have a stable ABI! Linux HPC stuff is tightly integrated with the kernel and does require rebuilds and testing with minor kernel updates. It's a fact of life because of the non standard ABI.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Windows The Toy Operating System
« Reply #24 on: June 26, 2012, 02:41:46 am »
I have been using Linux on the desktop at home for years. I do have a VirtualBox with XP in it for the rare times I do need Windows at home, which is not very often at all. When i use a Windows PC at work, I find myself missing the "always on top" button. It's such a simple feature, but it's so useful! (Back in the days, Nvidia bundled a tweak with their drivers that adds the "always on top" button.) Also, direct access to USB devices is much simpler in Linux. (On Windows, you need to find or create a custom INF to use Android development software. On Linux, it just works!) And not surprisingly, the Windows command line is not very good at all (no tab completion, limited width) because most Windows users just don't care about it!

I read that Windows XP SP2 and Vista had a deliberately crippled network stack "to slow the spread of viruses". It wasn't very effective at slowing viruses, but it did work well at slowing down legitimate network programs. I don't think Windows 7 is affected by that, but I'm not sure.

One thing that Linux did well was audio. Getting bit perfect audio output is very easy on Linux, not as easy on Windows. The problem is that some developers saw the mixer feature in Vista and decided they want that on Linux as well. Just treat the digital output of the sound card like the high speed serial port it is and the analog outputs as DACs (with variable attenuators afterwards) attached to those "serial ports". On my PCs, I use plain ALSA and forget about the PulseAudio or dmix junk.
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