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I’m not against Windows; Unix just works better

blogs.zdnet.com — I ’m biased in favor of Unix and against Windows - everybody knows that except me; my perception is that I like things that work and Unix works better.

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  • InfodivaMLIS, on 03/27/2008, -89/+7ubuntu
    • theaceoffire, on 03/27/2008, -9/+26Which is not Unix at all, but is still worth mentioning as a great OS.
      • Bulletbillx, on 03/27/2008, -1/+18It is *NIX like though. seems like all modern OSes except Windows are *NIX like though LOL.
      • charbo187, on 03/27/2008, -10/+2im not being a dick but can u explain to me why ubuntu isnt a unix system, i though all linux OS's were unix along with MAC OS
        • Herolint, on 03/27/2008, -2/+11There are some differences, but it mostly comes down to not being certified Unix (like OS X is). The problem is that the costs are too high and Linux development happens too fast for Unix certification to ever be a viable consideration.

          Personally, as far as usability and administrator experience, I think Linux is an improvement over Unix, but when you really need to squeeze every last bit of power out of a machine, you really can't beat Solaris and SPARC.
        • CATSCEO, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3Holy *****, there is so much wrong with that sentence. >_
        • Philluminati, on 03/27/2008, -1/+9UNIX variants are actually based on the original Unix Source code. BSD had the same source code as Unix (although they rewrote it in it's entirety) and the MAC OS is a branch of the BSD source code.

          Linux is a different operating system written from scratch. It doesn't use any UNIX source code. Therefore it is merely UNIX-like rather than a UNIX variant.
          • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -4/+1OK, I was going to reply to CATSCEO, but you said it better. UN*X is not open source, and you can't even say it out loud, but the original was open source, and that's why the oldest possible filedate is 12-31-1969.

            I know people who are convinced that Bill Gates "invented" the computer, but let me tell you that I have been working with them since around 1972, when he was still in high-school.

            I don't really have anything against Bill. I just don't think that he's been in charge of Microsoft for quite a while. Oh, sure, he has a lot of money, but he really doesn't have any power at the company. So let's quit calling him the Devil and all that, and discuss scientific things, rather than proprietary things.
          • bradleyland, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1@mhearne

            Fine job. You've taken a lot of interesting facts and misconstrued them in to something that is completely incomprehensible.
          • MWeather, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2@mhearne
            "UN*X is not open source"

            OpenSolaris is.
          • Herolint, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1BSD received the original source code for Unix from AT&T due to government regulations that prevented AT&T from selling their OS. So, they shared with Berkley, and Berkley made many enhancements. In the end, AT&T took many of the Berkley enhancements and places it into their Unix code. So, BSD is based on the original Unix code, but that does not make BSD "Unix".

            "Unix" is owned by The Open Group, and unless you submit your OS to them, pass their requirements, and pay the big fees, you can't call your OS "Unix".

            To my knowledge, their requirements to not require that you are AT&T Unix, BSD, or variants of that code. Any BSD, Linux, Solaris, OS X, or any other unix-like product can submit and pay for Unix certification.

            You're claim that OS X is Unix because it is based on BSD is entirely false since BSD isn't certified Unix. Your claim that Linux can't be certified "Unix" simply because it doesn't contain any BSD code is also false.
          • MWeather, on 03/30/2008, -0/+1Not to mention Linux does contain BSD code.
        • rpgmaker, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1@Herolint: So not being certified (pure paperwork) make Linux a non-UNIX OS, give me a break.
          • Herolint, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Yes. It does. If Red Hat, for instance, wanted to submit their distribution of Linux and if they adhered to the requirements and paid the fees, Red Hat could call their distribution of Linux, Unix.

            BSD, although it is tightly intertwined with the original Unix, cannot claim to be Unix, but has to say that it is Unix-like, because it has not passed Unix certification (probably because nobody has ever submitted it due to costs).

            Unix is a standard, much like ISO is a standard. If you don't pay for, pass, and adhere to that standard, you can't be called "Unix".
      • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -1/+6Its still linux, which is still BASED of off unix :P. Come on you can pretty much run identical commands on linux and unix :P
        • init100, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8It is a Unix clone, but it isn't based on Unix.
          • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4True. You may type ps -A or ls -al and get the same results, but the source code is not the same. We also use different disk formats, such as ext3 or even reiser, but despite the similarities in the commands, the source code is not the same.

            That was made obvious by the SCO lawsuits, and their attempts to nitpick us to death. We just aren't going to fight with them, why won't they face it?
          • ninja0, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1same thing, no need to get picky here.
    • jemka, on 03/27/2008, -25/+2By definition, if you're "for" something, your against all others.
      • HonoredMule, on 03/27/2008, -0/+11Only if mutual exclusivity is implied (i.e. the "others" cannot coexist with your preference). In the Real World (tm), that's not actually very common.
        • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2The implication seems to be that we are cutting into some company's profits, and therefore we are breaking some law by not participating in the race. However, since we did not solicit that company in the first place, then they are intruding on us, not the other way around.

          Let's suppose that I bought a white box computer with a blank BIOS. If I wrote my own program to that prom, could anyone have anything to say about it? I don't think so. And I think that I'd rather have ROM-C than ROM-BASIC.

          The whole argument seems to be that some company isn't getting my money, so they are accusing me of stealing. Fine. I'll build my own. I'm in for the research, not the money.

      • ozid, on 03/27/2008, -0/+16only a sith lord deals in absolutes.
        • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -3/+1Does that actually mean something? It has something to do with a game, doesn't it?

          An absolute value is a range, rather than a single object.
          • subgeniusd, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1You're unaware of a little motion picture series called "Star Wars"? Wow............
      • Klowner, on 03/27/2008, -0/+13you're
      • jemka, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1You must have been drunk when you wrote that.
    • webwulf, on 03/27/2008, -1/+9I am using ubuntu right now at home, but this is not what he is talking about. If you read the article, you would probably say "wow, this is really over my head".
    • ZeRux, on 03/27/2008, -3/+4SCO Linux is my favourite distro
    • Zzone, on 03/27/2008, -11/+1Linux doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the world.
      • HonoredMule, on 03/27/2008, -1/+7You don't matter in the grand scheme of the world. But some people care about you nevertheless...right?
      • evanbooth, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8"Linux doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the world." That was my favorite Bill Cosby episode.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1It already has made its mark. Whether or not it changes the world (It sort of already has...) in a drastic way does not matter to people who use it.
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1n00buntu
      • theaceoffire, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Why should an OS be hard to use?
  • louiebaur, on 03/27/2008, -44/+6I am with you on that. Just kinda stuck with xp at the moment:-)
    • CryRightardCry, on 03/27/2008, -20/+11*****.
      You aren't stuck, you are afraid.
      Or you are using someone else's pc, I guess.
      But if you own a pc there is NO reason not to get an Ubuntu live cd and try it out.
      • rootneg2, on 03/27/2008, -3/+9Maybe not afraid, Ubuntu may just not have easy access to the tool louie needs, especially if you're using lots of specialized tools such as Photoshop, Linux/Unix may have a decent alternative; but relearning a whole software package can take a long time.

        But you should at least try out a live cd; heck you can even get shipit to mail you a snazzy factory pressed CD for free, postage and all.
        • Spr0k3t, on 03/27/2008, -4/+5FYI: CS3 works in WINE.
        • capiCrimm, on 03/27/2008, -5/+5Photoshop is not a specialized tool and has good support on linux under WINE(is not an emulator).

          If you are actually using a tool that won't work you can always use an VM, which are quite easy under linux.

          The only thing that could reliably keep people back are games. Although you could dual boot, I always found that to be too much of a pain.
          • Herolint, on 03/27/2008, -1/+5I absolutely hate using Windows, but Photoshop runs like crap under Wine, which is why I bought a Mac. I can run Unix AND Photoshop. Adobe will even cross-grade your Photoshop for you; for a nominal fee.
          • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Photoshop CS2 and Flash CS2 are flawless under the latest Wine. CS3 does not run well. I'm actually trying to figure that out right now.
          • bradleyland, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1And while you're figuring that out, the rest of us will be finishing our work.

            Switching platforms is a time investment. The value of that time is something that must be considered before switching. For some people, this makes it more viable to continue using Windows, or switching to something that requires less time investment to complete the switch.
        • rootneg2, on 03/27/2008, -4/+4wine, virtualization, and emulators; although they aren't particularly hard to get working, are still a lot more than most people want to deal with just to run a program. It's still not entirely seamless/hassle-free.

          I mean WINE only just recently broke the v1.0 barrier, and i'm not sure if i would call virtualization "quite easy" for the average user just yet...
        • HonoredMule, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2Ubuntu is an awesome OS, but its awesomeness doesn't help me much when I want to play Guild Wars. Windows is very un-awesome, but in all its un-awesomeness, Guild Wars elects to run on it. Unfortunately, the game is my objective, not the platform on which it runs.

          It REALLY IS Ubuntu's number one bug. (Google "Bug #1 in Ubuntu" if you don't know what I mean by that.)
          • MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2"Ubuntu is an awesome OS, but its awesomeness doesn't help me much when I want to play Guild Wars."

            Guild Wars runs just fine with Wine.
            http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=v ...
          • HonoredMule, on 03/27/2008, -3/+3*****. Do you think I haven't tried? On moderate hardware I get 1 horribly scrambled frame per MINUTE with huge clipping errors).

            But thanks for totally missing my point.
          • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1Ubuntu has up-to-date WINE I hear. Too bad they don't provide nightly builds, sometimes they have improvements in them.
            I haven't tested Ubuntu in a while, are you sure your NVidia drivers are in? Because Apparently with the latest two Wine's (non nightly) it "Runs WELL (20-60fps) on a mid-range AMD (1.6GHz x2) Acer laptop, in Win98 mode"....
          • MWeather, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1You did something wrong, then. The game is #1 on Wine's Top 10 Platinum List.
          • HonoredMule, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1Shall I speak more slowly for you people? Guild Wars is an EXAMPLE, and your personal mileage is completely irrelevant, as indeed is any discussion as to whether I actually CAN play Guild Wars on my computer in Linux or not.

            The biggest problem with Linux, which provides endless hassle whether an acceptable solution is available or not, is that programs we want to use are DESIGNED to run in Windows. Ubuntu's number one bug REALLY IS that Windows has majority market share. Were that not the case, I would have a smooth, pleasant experience using Linux and ANY software of my choice, wihout compatibility layers, complex installation, inconsistent quality of success, or expensive use of my time or attention. While Windows isn't (in my opinion) as good an operating system, it also isn't something I have to fight for the right to use as the supporting layer for the applications I want.

            There's a massive disparity between my principles (I like and want to use Linux) and...my principles (I want to be able to freely choose my games and apps from the full selection of an open market, and be able to hold the VENDOR responsible for providing a workable product that won't waste my time after already taking my money, and to SUPPORT the reasonably-convenient installation and operation of that software in a way that respects my local system's behavior). So long as Windows is the dominant OS, there's no pressure for vendors to take responsibility for MY experience with their software. And frankly, just because I can MAKE the software work doesn't mean the method of doing so doesn't suck ass. WINE is anything but neat and orderly, and it makes a horrible mess of the system from an administrative standpoint. I don't want to run Windows software in clunky sub-environments. I want to run the same software PROPERLY, as native Linux software.

            But again, that's not the point. The point is that my options are at best marginalized if I don't use the commercially "respected" operating system. Linux NEEDS public recognition and respect, not just technical and operational greatness, because no matter how great it is, it's JUST THE PLATFORM.
          • MWeather, on 03/30/2008, -0/+1"Linux NEEDS public recognition and respect, not just technical and operational greatness, because no matter how great it is, it's JUST THE PLATFORM."

            It is a foolish man who builds his house on sand. It's an even bigger fool who buys that house.
      • strictnein, on 03/27/2008, -3/+11Afraid? Or maybe some of us don't have time to burn a week to switch over to a different OS.

        Ubuntu can't even properly setup 3 monitors on two Nvidia video cards. Now, add my smartphone, ipod touch, ipod shuffle, HP all in one, two UPSs, etc etc etc. Then, share your mp3s and movies across three systems, an Xbox 360, and an XBMC. Then setup an automatic Internet backup of my important work files as well as an automatic backup on my local network. I can set all that up in one day (or less) on a Windows box. I'm too f'en busy to try and figure all that ***** out on Linux and what's the benefit? I lose apps that I need and the replacements aren't up to snuff. I'm glad Linux works for you. It doesn't work for everyone. I've used it for over 10 years. It's not some magic OS.
        • chewbie, on 03/27/2008, -4/+1NOT ubuntus fault. Blame your Xbox, smartphone, apple iPod etc. for not having linux drivers
          • strictnein, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8And your point is... what? It doesn't matter whose "fault" it is.

            And plenty of what I listed there and want to accomplish can be done in Linux.
          • bradleyland, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Pragmatism. A lost art.
        • MWeather, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1"I can set all that up in one day (or less) on a Windows box"

          I can do it in an hour on Linux, including download time.

          "sudo apt-get xinerama nvidia-glx-new mythtv hplip nut unison-gtk"

          xinerma may not be needed, though. Since you have two nvidia cards, twinview might work.


        • knightmarex, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0You missed the "install" in that apt-get command, but I'm still with you.
    • thtroyer, on 03/27/2008, -0/+57Did you guys read the article at all?

      It has nothing to do with personal computing.
      • Roger, on 03/27/2008, -1/+24The zealots here don't care.
        • BlueSkyfish, on 03/27/2008, -2/+11They only care about constructing additional pylons.
          • Spr0k3t, on 03/27/2008, -7/+2Zylons... ZYLONS! Dammit, they never get it right... frak this.
          • Herolint, on 03/27/2008, -3/+1It's not pylons, it's the iPenis that is being built here today.
    • Dumbledorito, on 03/27/2008, -6/+21Reading? That's for Windows users. Headlines that promote *nix are all about the SAME THING, you know, and that's how much Windows sucks!

      Note: this sarcasm was posted from a machine running an OS that meets my needs adequately, so I have little desire to proclaim what it is like a religious nut in the street, screaming from atop a stolen milk crate.
    • ahvi, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4RTFA!
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Thats not the point of the article.
      Definitely not true for those who have a couple hours each day to learn how to use it.
  • CryRightardCry, on 03/27/2008, -27/+84I have no beef with Windows per se, but I have a lot of beef with Microsoft's unethical business tactics.
    I let them know it by not buying their products.
    • thomasprebble, on 03/27/2008, -1/+17A history that extends right back to their famous meeting with IBM.
      • Speed, on 03/27/2008, -4/+10A company so evil that they make Microsoft look like Mother Theresa.
        • makeinstall, on 03/27/2008, -12/+4Considering that Mother Teresa was actually quite an awful person [accepting donations from a convicted fraudster, giving character references to said fraudster to use in court, ignoring investigators who tried to recover millions given to her by fraudster, giving only paraceutamol and prayer to terminally ill patients as a form of palliative care yet her missionary receiving millions in donations.], the comparison is not a good one.

          The sooner people stop using MT as any kind of measurement of a 'selfless' person, the better
          • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -3/+3Oh my gosh. You know, a priest has got to deal with a lot of sinners. Holy Mothers have to do the same. Are you condemning her for not sticking with the righteous? That just doesn't make sense. Fault and blame have no place in Heaven.
          • DrMonkeyLove, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4I assume you've read Christopher Hitchens' book, "Mother Teresa is a Horrible Lying Bitch", or something like that.
        • ElAssoWipo, on 03/27/2008, -5/+12Yeah how awful. She gave money to the sick and dying instead of giving to a ***** government.
          • makeinstall, on 03/27/2008, -10/+1Au contraire, mes aimee. She collected it all for her church to open more missionaries to dish out the same sort of ***** pallative care to the sick and ill in the third world.

            Do your research before you dig me down for speaking teh truth.
          • makeinstall, on 03/27/2008, -6/+2The money that she accepted from Charles Keating, who defrauded some of the less well off in society, ended up in the coffers of the catholic church.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Positi ...
          • ElAssoWipo, on 03/27/2008, -2/+8You just called me the feminine form of "my love". I think you meant "mon ami".

            "***** pallative care"
            She took in terminally ill homeless people and gave them whatever she could.

            You don't speak the truth you just regurgitate an idiots claims on your computer.
          • makeinstall, on 03/27/2008, -6/+1Coming from someone who said "She gave money to the sick and dying instead of giving to a ***** government" means absolutely nothing.

            Giving a penny to the poor and then keeping 99 for your church can hardly be considered "charitable" and with such huge donations coming her way, giving them paraceutamol and a hard bed Im sure really is "doing whatever she could".
          • cawpin, on 03/27/2008, -1/+7Are you an idiot? She died with nothing. You are the uninformed one.
    • colonelpanic, on 03/27/2008, -2/+12I have a lot of beef. It was cooking on my forman grill today.
    • GhengisKhan, on 03/27/2008, -13/+3Whaaaa, cry more pleaze.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1When did he start?

        I think I just made a connection...
        Immature Microsoft fanboy is immature.
    • Scruffydan, on 03/27/2008, -8/+5To be fair they aren't quite as evil as they used to be. They still could be better though.
    • Kanidia, on 03/27/2008, -6/+18To be honest, I think that Apple and Google aren't that much better regarding ethical practice.
      • fokov, on 03/27/2008, -2/+2No big corporation is ethical. The same thing applies for big government.
    • hoodedrobin, on 03/27/2008, -1/+6I don't know of to many businesses that are ethical. They make money unethically. I don't argue that osx and linux are better but its not microsofts problem they make money.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Its how they make it. Yes, I agree that most companies make money unethically, But I'm sure its possible to make money ethically. I think its a matter of greed here...
    • osbjmg, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1That doesn't mean you can't still use them.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1If you want to support them, that's how. Buy the products.

        Using them illegally is of course illegal, makes you about as ethical as Microsoft themselve.
    • rotten777, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2I used to be with you with not having anything against Windows but I'm ALWAYS trying to perfect my desktop setup (since I'm behind a computer 10+ hours a day). Now I am at the point where I am much more productive behind a debian/gnome distribution with my own small modifications. So now it isn't just a matter of ethics. I am actually better off with FOSS.
  • kalel90, on 03/27/2008, -38/+5CS:S doesnt run so well on linux hence i haven't switched.
    • colincornaby, on 03/27/2008, -4/+24Yes it does. I runs perfectly under OS X and Linux with WINE. I should know, it's how I play CS:S.
      • manitoba98xp, on 03/27/2008, -4/+7Under OS X? Last time I checked, a little bug in Apple's X11 implementation prevented Wine from compiling with OpenGL support on OS X. If you've managed to get it to work, please, tell me (I have a genuine interest). But otherwise, it does not work.
        • colincornaby, on 03/27/2008, -1/+9Works under both Crossover for OS X (it's one of the advertised apps), Crossover Games for OS X (again, one of the advertised games), and Wine. The OpenGL issues got fixed last year. After all, Battlefield 2142, which uses WineLib on the Mac, works just fine. Screenshot here: http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/na ...
          • manitoba98xp, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I'm aware of Crossover, but it isn't pure Wine (it has modifications, obviously including ones that bypass the X11 issues). It works in Crossover (which is commercial) and Wine on Linux (where the X11 bug does not exist). I don't want to PAY a private company to use software which is largely a product of the open-source community.

            If you actually mean that the FREE version of Wine runs CS:S properly on OS X, then say so. Otherwise, then don't say that CS:S "runs perfectly under OS X with WINE". Wine ≠ Crossover.
  • dsn0wman, on 03/27/2008, -2/+100Did any of the previous posters read the article? It has nothing to do with desktop machines!
    • LittleLORDevil, on 03/27/2008, -0/+44You should know Digg by now, anything with Unix, Windows in the article is just bait for the usual. Who cares what the article said?

      Though I did like the article.
      • capiCrimm, on 03/27/2008, -7/+1I smelled something was up when it said Unix. I disagreed with the article, but I still dugg it for that simple reason.
    • Nougat, on 03/27/2008, -0/+24It doesn't even have to do with Windows vs UNIX - it has to do with x86 vs SPARC chip architecture, really.
      • alok0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+4And linux vs solaris
        • SteveMax, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4On SPARC. The main point is that SPARC scales better than x86 (so that would be the CPU for the client's needs), and Solaris runs better on SPARC than Linux.
      • flashingcurser, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1linux & windows on x86 vs Solaris & linux on Sparc

        For data center and not small business or research. He is right, a tried and true enterprise level, commercial unix is the way to go.
        • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Yeah, As long as you have the budget you might as well get every little bit of performance you can.
    • fuse13, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3BINGO.
    • smacksaw, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6I think that's exactly the mentality this guy is fighting against. These platforms have recognition that makes people think they scale upwards, yet they don't.

      I liken it to Lexus and Toyota vs. Mercedes and Chrysler. While the Lexus is a nice vehicle, when you compare it with a Mercedes or a BMW it falls far short. No matter what, it's still a dressed-up Toyota. The sharing of the parts bin is the lowest common denominator. Whereas if you buy a Mercedes, it's engineered from the top down. Looking at something like the Chrysler 300, you see they simply borrowed a few parts from the Mercedes bin and made an excellent car. Audi makes the R8 out of leftover Lamborghini parts.

      Just because these platforms are great on your home PC it doesn't mean they work for the kind of enterprise applications he's talking about. Why? Because it's engineered from the bottom up instead of top-down.
    • joeanon, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Actually Lexus has higher customer satisfaction than anyone. Lexus is far more than a dressed up Toyota, they are probably the best made car out there.. hence the high satisfaction rating and lowest breakdown.

      Mercedes are merely social luxury symbols and they break quite often. BMW's are sports luxury so they do drive more impressively than Lexus, but they also break quite more often and require more expensive repair.
      In the business world, we call that a high cost of operations and usually that's a bad thing.

      In your own explanation Lexus should be considered the winner because they empower customers with the lowest cost and most reliable vehicle. What little they lack in performance they make up in the fact they break less frequently and there are more mechanics than can work on them.

      Engineering does not equal good product. It equals .. attempt at good product. There is no OS that was just magically coded and came out finished without being developed from the bottom up.

      This is like trickle down economics. You are talking in sound bytes. Top down and bottom up. That's BS. We are talking about tangible products. You don't theorize their performance, you observe and document it. We don't have to wonder which one is more superior based on how it was designed.

      We only need to worry about which one is superior based on the needs that have to be met.

      Hence I try to explain to you people in the other post. A person selling computer services or a consultant would grasp .. this is business first and an ideology of engineering preferences second.
      UNIX is only the best solution... when it's the best solution. For small business it will rarely be a good solution and that's a lot of installs. Perhaps less money per machine, but probably more money overall.

      Do you think MS aimed for that market on accident ? Not a chance people. This IS their strategy.
      They have every intention of pushing their way up to being considered a UNIX competitors, but it's foolish to say they are now. UNIX is NOT selling to small business. MS rarely pushes Unix out of businesses. They cooperate in most cases.

      Your comparing products that serve different purposes and coming up with endless reasons for the initial flawed logic.

      We can endless argue that apples are better than Windows. The reality is they serve entirely different uses, as they have for years.

      To like one and not the other is probably to just not realize what each OS is good for.

      Obviously UNIX was not envisions from the TOP and then just filled out. UNIX over the years evolved to what it is now from being a mainframe experiment. UNIX is built off another OS.

      here is your wiki education of the day

      the 1960s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric worked on an experimental operating system called Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), which was designed to run on the GE-645 mainframe computer. (Eventually this became a commercial product, although sales did not meet expectations.) Multics was an interactive operating system with many novel capabilities, including enhanced security.

      AT&T Bell Labs pulled out of the Multics project and deployed its resources elsewhere. One of the developers on the Bell Labs team, Ken Thompson, continued to develop for the GE-645 mainframe, and wrote a game for that computer called Space Travel.[1] However, he found that the game was too slow on the GE machine and was expensive, costing $75 per execution in scarce computing time.[2]

      Thompson thus re-wrote the game in assembly language for Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-7 with help from Dennis Ritchie. This experience, combined with his work on the Multics project, led Thompson to start a new operating system for the PDP-7. Thompson and Ritchie led a team of developers, including Rudd Canaday, at Bell Labs developing a file system as well as the new multi-tasking operating system itself. They included a command line interpreter and some small utility programs.[3]


      So much for your top down theory. UINIX's ideas were primarily motivated by this guys desire to run his game. He needed a better OS to run his game... so he wrote one and it became Unix years later.

      Mhmm.. any more theories ?

      Obviously with enough time and man hours you can engineer an OS any way you'd like, some methods will be faster, but were are just talking about logic and syntax. There is nothing fundamentally different in any OS.
      There is no magical UNIX math that makes it better.

      The reality is UNIX has been under development with 60s and EVOLVED primarily in a market where mainframes dominated. It was re-written in C and finally made commercial. It's no coincidence mainframes have more in common with severs todays than they do with desktops. The initial motivation was just to make a slightly better OS, it took years for it to become and OS and be used as a commercial server.

      Windows has evolved primarily as a desktop solution, which by no coincidence is what it's best at.

      However, compare the time frames and Unix has been in development twice as long as specifically with the goals of being server eventually being realized.

      MS didn't even combine their desktop and server product until 2000.

      You guys have everything so far out of perspective it's horribly misinforming.
      We owe the PC market of today to MS's business success, not UNIX. Sure they've ALL borrowed ideas, it all goes back to math and your not inventing new math here, your just representing it with different code, sometimes more efficient.

      Unix, was also written originally in assembly which probably gave it's designers an amazing understanding of it's core. However, it was bottom up engineering which is almost always better, because it's based in reality and observation not idealism and endless theoretical design.

      Maybe your prof exaggerated the importance of design time like most programmer books do. The REAL time you spend learning is all the hands on works you do making mistakes and hunting them down. Any new tech has be designed from the bottom up because you can bet on the theoretical foundations of design without implementation first.

      If that was the case, we could have design the OS back in the 1800's because the math is just boolean logic. Designers should have been able to envision all these hardware advancements right.. Why not start with your top down design before you even invent the hardware to run it?

      Obviously the hardware is made, then experiments are conduced and more code is made and more complex programs and eventually a real OS and programs that run inside the OS. You don't start out with X windows and work down to boolean logic.

      Were you taught to code using Java ? I have a suspicion you are one of these high level language guys.

      If UNIX was the single super OS like MS, it would be exploited much more. It's foolish to think that in only a couple decades we've designed the invincible OS. ALL this technology is still immature and will be for years to come AND as the market changes to change how effective any one given solution can be.
      Given major changes happen in the server market UNIX could find itself left out, we should have major protocol changes really not that you can't adapt UNIX is a good for that. BUT at some point you are working on top of 99% legacy code and everyone knows your basic weaknesses. The diversity of UNIX has helped it stay more secure, but it's nothing amazing and it's nothing that can't be copied. SO, why is it so amazing to people that UNIX is not good at everything ? We should understand it's easy to make an OS good at specific tasks. Look at how Apple was able to always keep it's Photoshop and audio recording programs performing better. They were CATERING to that crowd, so obviously they had an edge.

      However, if you want the most versatility and flexibility out of the box with the least admin pains and likely lowest cost... Windows wins. It's just that in most cases, Unix does very few things and Windows does many different things. It's like comparing a console to the PC and saying consoles are better because they never crash and bottleneck. OK, but a console is DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY to run games and UNIX is DESIGNED specifically to be a server. You don't hear a lot of bragging about the UNIX workstation market because it's dying. UNIX failed to secure the workstation market but.. now Mac will.
      Still, you should at least respect MS is the ONLY OS here that isn't built of the same ideas. They purposely go about their OS design using original and untested ideas. That's important and to not see MS has moved the PC market along further than UNIX is foolish. It takes money to justify progress and it takes clients to need servers. UNIX and MS are a cooperative, not direct competitors. In most IT, you run both, don't you ?

      Sorry but Chrysler's suck. Do you read the news. Toyota is the number one car maker in the world now.
      UNIX was not top down designed.
      There is no BEST OS because needs change and DIVERSITY changes needs.

      The real question is....
      Does art imitate ME or do I imitate art.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1That's very informative. However, controlling Unix and Linux is not all that hard, Its always been quite easy for me to solve issues (In the case of Linux, even whence requiring modifications to the kernel.) I guess it may be harder or more costly to find Unix support but it really shouldn't be too hard.
  • ToMZiLLA, on 03/27/2008, -33/+9NARF NARF NARF NARF MAC NARF LINUX NARF WINDOWS
    • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -7/+4OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM
    • thinman1189, on 03/27/2008, -1/+8I like how people mock technology articles on Digg when that's how Digg started.
      • zongamin, on 03/27/2008, -1/+8I think he's mocking the retarded Windows v Mac v Linux debates that appear daily
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1No, people, you have him all wrong, thats how much of the article he read.
  • bherring, on 03/27/2008, -4/+35This guy makes a good point. It isn't bias if something works better. Anything else is just smoke and mirrors to sell you something they know won't do the job as well as a competitor's.
    Why recommend a bicycle when someone really needs an automobile? A 737 when a helicopter is what the task requires? Is it biased to suggest a logger wear jeans instead of slacks?
    • Phocion55, on 03/27/2008, -0/+11I agree.....although slacks while logging can be quite liberating.
    • gudnbluts, on 03/27/2008, -0/+11I thought they mostly put on womens' clothing, and hung around in bars?
    • Apokalyps2547, on 03/27/2008, -7/+1I want to type a document.
      Windows: Double-click Word. Start typing. Click save,
      Unix: Type 'vi filename'. Can't start typing yet, gotta hit 'i'. Hit 's' to save. Wait, 's' doesn't save? It's 'w'?!
      • texanbrit, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5That's comparing MS Word to vi. Personally I think vi is a better text editor than word, but a better comparison would be Word to OpenOffice writer. Unix has had GUI desktop environments for along time; X came out of MIT in 1984.
      • BlackAdderIII, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3""" Windows: Double-click Word. Start typing. Click save, Unix:"""

        Forgive me for shouting, but:

        HOW IS THAT EVEN SLIGHTLY RELEVANT TO WHAT THE ARTICLE WAS ABOUT? RTFA.




  • CoolHandRemy, on 03/27/2008, -38/+11***** the RIAA.
    • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -6/+2This guy makes a good point. If you ***** the RIAA, the world's problems will be solved. NOT IT!
    • MixedSpleens, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Aww... are you lost? let's go to the front of the store so they can page your mommy.
  • lukas88, on 03/27/2008, -33/+29The proof is in, unix is clearly better for people who like to have hypothetical conversations with themselves.
    • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -9/+4+1 for you, sir.
    • Tahin, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Who doesn't like to have hypothetical conversations with themselves?
      • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1I see what you did there...i think. Don't I? Well, perhaps I do, but what is seeing, really?
        /being an idiot
    • Philluminati, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4keep telling yourself that!
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Better than Linux? Cool, Looks like I made the right choice.
  • zcets, on 03/27/2008, -16/+34in other news water is wet.
    • dougbarrett, on 03/27/2008, -2/+15I don't know why you are getting dugg down. Water really IS wet! I just went to go check right now!
    • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -6/+2Personally, I appreciate a bit of a "news ticker" in my Digg comments. How's things in Iraq?
      • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+4"How is things in Iraq"?
        How is things in engrish class?
        • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Iraqed, Iran, and the Turkey was Greecy. Let's not Russian to things here.

  • shadowmoose, on 03/27/2008, -28/+6Says the boys who doesn't play video games.
    • BlueSkyfish, on 03/27/2008, -2/+22Yes, because the ability to play video games is such a high priority for business machines.
      • vibrokatana, on 03/27/2008, -1/+12But my server has to run crysis at maximum resolution!
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3Missing the point 2.0. Now with more Idiots!
  • mGARANDEUR1, on 03/27/2008, -34/+5Yeah UNIX is more reliable than Windows like a straight razor is more reliable then an electric one. I'll take higher technology over an antiquated operating system any day.
    • MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -1/+10So you'd run the datacenter on Server 2008?
      • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1I dunno. I'm going to a conference on April 3rd to find out though.
        • MWeather, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I don't need to go to a conference to know you don't deploy bleeding edge software for mission critical applications. Especially if it's from Microsoft.
    • SniperGX1, on 03/27/2008, -3/+16It's not very clear what OS you are for and which you are against... It sounds like you are saying Unix is the higher technology and Windows is the antiquated technology. There aren't examples like: Unix is fully 64 bit and windows can barely handle it, Unix uses package management and Windows is stuck in isolated .exe files for installation, Windows uses WGA so your server has to ask Microsoft each day for permission to keep your business online when Unix doesn't, or new Unix servers can be brought online in 10 minutes via Kickstart when the fastest way to bring new Windows servers online is to store an image of the drive using third party utilities.

      If you think Windows is higher technology i would love examples.
      • pauleric, on 03/27/2008, -1/+10I'm pretty sure that he meant higher priced and high maintenance.
      • mGARANDEUR1, on 03/27/2008, -6/+2If UNIX is such a great OS, then why does it still only own less than 1% of the market share for personal computers?
        • TnTBass, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Windows has it's place. Its great for gaming. As well, everyone and their dog can administrate Windows, hence being used more often.
          Neither of the above points have relevance to this article. When it comes down to it, Unix scales much better than Windows as a server OS.
        • repentantfan, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Unlike Windows, UNIX doesn't work well with dummies.

          On a serious note, this is only because while UNIX vendors were focused on and selling to the enterprise/corporate market and Microsoft was focused on the consumer market. Also, while UNIX was build with the purpose to be used (there were 5 or 6 well defined objectives), Windows was build to be sold. That's why Windows has a very nice (yet unreliable) interface, yet it's kernel is crap. Furthermore, that's why the UNIX variants' kernel are general rock-solid, yet the GUI interface is just now coming around.

          Oh, and by the way, your market share number are wrong, but I'm sure you knew that. While only 1% maybe running Solaris, HP-UX or AIX, which is understandable as those vendors are marketing to the common user, I'm quite sure you left out Mac OS X and Linux.
        • BlueSkyfish, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Windows is bundled with every PC. The average computer user doesn't even know what an OS is, or that they can change it to something better, so they just stick with what the computer came with.
        • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Because it isn't for Yahoo! or porno or any of the rest of that sort of stupidity. Also, it isn't for profit so much as it is for research. So don't use it. But if you don't even know what it is, then don't condemn it either.

        • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Because games run on Windows. Does that make it better or more stable? No.
          I know plenty of people (And i do mean plenty, about 3/4ths my buddy list) who can use Linux quite well but use Windows for some games. I know a few 3D artists who've switched to Maya over 3DSMax to use Linux though.
    • ekravchenko, on 03/27/2008, -11/+9higher technology? I guess you like fragmenting your hard drive 20 times a month. You also aren't bothered by viruses or even spyware and malware in your superior winblowz operating system that you have to pay $400 for.
      • crapmatic, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8Hahaha... haven't heard "winblowz" since 1997.
        • mhearne, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Please see:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_compute ...

          The reason that it's so hard to break into a UN*X like computer is that you have to be root to do it. That's hard to do, and there is no Windows equivalent to root (Administrator isn't it).

          So while there are literally hundreds of thousands of Windows viruses, there are only a couple of dozen under Linux. When the marketing people talk about "rootkits" In Windows, they are using improper terms, since root does not exist in Windows.

          The greatest threat that operators of UN*X like systems have aren't viruses, but Trojan Horses.
      • Amiga500, on 03/27/2008, -3/+7Educated, literate Windows users of both the home and professional variety don't have to do any of the things you've mentioned. I guess you would be on the other side of that fence.
        • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1They don't have to any of it because the OS does it for them. Massive fragmentation is annoying, and viruses are annoying. I've only been able to avoid viruses so often on Windows. Feel free to ignore Douche bag you replied to, he doesn't even know what he's talking about (its defragmentation the user would need to do, and you do it about once a month. Unless your paranoid. Fragmentation is bad and your FS driver is the thing doing it not you, and it happens many more times than 20 a month.)
        • MWeather, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1You don't run anti-virus?
          • andycr512, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1When I'm running Windows I never need anti-virus software either. Viruses haven't been much of an issue for me any time I've run Windows. I wouldn't use viruses as a reason to change operating systems - I haven't gotten one in about 8 years. Use Firefox/Opera/Safari, stay behind a NAT router or a firewall, don't download questionable stuff and you're fine.
          • MWeather, on 03/30/2008, -0/+1There are plenty of malicious website, banner ads, etc. out there that will infect you even if you're not using IE. Like last year's superbowl website, for example. There is no safe place on the internet. Everything is questionable.
    • ArthurSucks, on 03/27/2008, -2/+7Does windows even have any software datacenters?
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Windows isn't even in the fight. See how bad the software you defend is? Almost as bad as the example you tried to pull.
  • snugglebear, on 03/27/2008, -1/+78This has almost nothing to do with windows. Its more linux vs solaris and x86 vs SPARC.

    For the love of god does anyone read the articles before digging them anymore?
  • casuallyevil, on 03/27/2008, -3/+26Buried for being irrelevant to... everything indicated by the title.
    • pugs909, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5I am not against accurate descriptions; misleading sensationalized ones just work better.
    • ctony, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Totally agree what windows has to do with the whole subject. He is talking about data centers and he is comparing Solaris with others.
  • bingobongony, on 03/27/2008, -22/+4Here is the thing...no one cares tha YOU are too stupid to use Windows. The fact that YOU can't use Windows because of your own stupidity isnot Windows' fault and does not make Uniox better.
    • PixelEater, on 03/27/2008, -1/+10(b '-')b You seem like a reliable source of information!
      • bingobongony, on 03/27/2008, -9/+2No more so than the author of this blog. The difference is, I don't think that people want to read my diary. "Dear Diary...there is this cute boy at school today named Unix. I think he likes me and everything! He's SO dreamy, Dear Diary. Tomorrow, I am going to drop my books near him and see if he picks them up for me!"
        • nodowntime, on 03/27/2008, -0/+10People don't want to read your diary because they are against bestiality.
          • bingobongony, on 03/27/2008, -10/+1Wow! You must be the HIT of 7th grade with that kind of come back.
          • manicmailman, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2^^ the 7th grade comment is what started all of this... seriously... you insinuated that the author thinks the unix file system is better because he "cant use windows".... really? 8th grade maybe?
          • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -2/+1@bingobongony: Hmm, Where did your parents go wrong again? Oh right, they had sex. Well hopefully they'll stop paying for your internet because you really don't deserve to have it. Yeah, I know, your not old enough to pay for it on your own, but hey, not my problem you're a complete jackass.
    • colincornaby, on 03/27/2008, -9/+5Um, honestly, Windows is for stupid people. It's Windows users that need their start menu, installers, and uninstallers. Real operating systems have grown past that, while Windows users can't seem to understand the concept of a file system.
      • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -5/+7Honestly, Windows ISN'T for stupid people. See what I did there? I took what you said and made it false. You can do it with my statement too if you want, it's pretty easy actually.
      • bingobongony, on 03/27/2008, -5/+7If Windows is for stupid people, then you must be a REAL ***** idiot, since you can't seem to use it without having problems.
        • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1Okay, Considering how many web servers run Linux, I think you should go talk to their admins about this. Of course you won't understand any of it, a complete lack of technical knowledge and a 3th grade level English education. Your like a black hole, sucking all of the Microsoft Fud in... How much more can you possibly hold?
    • darienphoenix, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1God DAMN it I accidentally clicked 'digg' instead of 'bury five times and burn with fire'.

      Gah.
    • BlackAdderIII, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4Well please enlighten us - are the very brightest talents sitting in SPARC-populated datacentres running current apps on windows? Are the gazillions of 90s NT clusters that would probably entail just "secret"?

      I know I'm "too stupid" to use windows for the applications discussed in the article - I imagine a lot of us are.

      I wish we were all smart, like you.

      ( Too smart to RTFA, by the looks of it. )

    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1Here is the thing....no one cares tha YOU are too stupid to RTFA. The fact that YOU can't RTFA is because of your own stupidity isnot Submitters' fault and does not make Reading the Article better.

      Unix and Linux fight, Windows not even in picture. Windows Fanboys. Getting closer to being as bad as Mac fanboys every day.
  • PixelEater, on 03/27/2008, -21/+8My perception is that I like things that work and Windows can actually tell I have 3 monitors and a middle mouse button and photoshop and games.
    • neurophyre, on 03/27/2008, -5/+16Yeah, that's totally relevant to the question of maximum throughput for enterprise apps in a datacenter environment. Moron.
      • fuse13, on 03/27/2008, -4/+3hi neurophyre, do you ever get the feeling nobody bothers reading the articles before they launch into whatever OS fanboy crap they normally go on with? yeah, me too. me too.
    • godamntheman, on 03/27/2008, -3/+11What the heck are you talking about? Windows has no idea what a middle mouse button is for. I click it and it doesn't paste! Every *nix I've used understands these things...
    • MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -0/+6I've never tried 3 monitors, but all my games, photoshop, and my middle mouse button work just fine in Linux.
    • zongamin, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4Cretin
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -0/+13 Monitors - Another thing other OS's have been able to do longer than Windows, and yet Windows users still use against other OS's as a complaint.
    • PixelEater, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1^ Trolling: This has been a success.
  • AppleMacMan, on 03/27/2008, -24/+2One Unix OS to rule them all: Mac OS X
    Life Is Good On A Mac. 
    • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3Actually, my friend was killed with a Mac...

      ...I guess maybe life ON a Mac could still be good, though. Kinda cramped, maybe.
    • ArthurSucks, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8Is this an advertisement or a comment? Did you get paid to post that?
    • jmg703, on 03/27/2008, -0/+7I think you have mental problems.
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Mac OS X: To prove that Apple fanboys fall for anything.
      AppleMacMan's Life is a delusion.
  • OSuX, on 03/27/2008, -9/+3"I'm not a fanboy, but I play one on TV."
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1"I'm not an idiot, but I didn't get the point."
  • ebarras, on 03/27/2008, -9/+16Yea Yea we all get it. *Nix > Windows. Good deal. Linux FTW!... Can we stop bringing this bs to the front page now? It's like that episode of Captain Obvious where he beats Horseman into the ground. Can't we just agree that this ***** is annoying? Really...
    • rotten777, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4Read the article. It was grossly misrepresented by the submission's author. It is an argument about politics/bias of IT and the benefits of SPARC over x86.
      This isn't about John Smith's home desktop PC.
    • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Digg Comment Checklist:
      [X] Computer Powered On
      [_] Read the Article

      Hmm... Looks like you didn't use the checklist.
  • Geekiest, on 03/27/2008, -2/+31READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE YOU COMMENT!
    • karmaghost, on 03/27/2008, -2/+9What article? I thought this was a comment party.
    • sessone, on 03/27/2008, -3/+6i tried to read the article, but it was so poorly written i couldnt get past the first page...
      • nmnnotmyname, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1It must be Windows Defender's fault. When I think of something related to Defender causing this issue that sounds like it could be possible, I will let you know.

        /*****-humor
  • techmaster, on 03/27/2008, -8/+2I'll take a 64 bit Intel Core system over any Sun garbage any day...then I can choose between Windows, Linux, or OSX.
    • godamntheman, on 03/27/2008, -1/+9I recently bought a Sun T5120 (8 core UltraSPARC 2, 32 gig ram, SunOS 5.9... awesome) -- it smokes our Linux server running on 64 bit intels, and uses only 1/3 the power. It even bests our SunFire T2000.
      • InferiorWang, on 03/27/2008, -11/+2but will it run [graphics intensive game]?
        • godamntheman, on 03/27/2008, -0/+11What does that have to do with the article, dealing with enterprise computing? My system runs cross compiling applications for VxWorks, and gets it done extremely fast to better serve my customers. To answer your question, no, our servers don't even have graphics cards; you don't use servers to play "games".
        • cornflakepirate, on 03/27/2008, -5/+2I think godamntheman missed the joke.
          • InferiorWang, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Some jokes go over people's heads without the /whatever tag to clue them in.
        • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4Every machine has their purpose.
    • colincornaby, on 03/27/2008, -9/+1Why does UNIX = Sun? Their are plenty of versions of UNIX for Intel, OS X being one of them.
      • philhatesyou, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6Yeah, but you leave out the critical piece of information- OSX is a piece of *****.
      • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+4LOL OSX, is NOT unix. It's build OFF unix, as is linux. But neither ARE unix. know the difference.
        • init100, on 03/27/2008, -4/+4OS X 10.5 is certified as UNIX by The Open Group, which owns the UNIX trademark. So it certainly is UNIX.
        • colincornaby, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2OS X has a BSD subsystem. You know. BSD. As in real UNIX.
      • javaroast, on 03/27/2008, -0/+7colin, since you obviously missed the article, but OS X really doesn't have any place in the discussion given the context of the article. I know you woke up from your nap, saw a headline with Unix and Windows and thought it was your duty to pimp Apple... but in this case the article is about an enterprise application running in a data center. Trust me when I tell you that OS X really doesn't enter the equation. Before you mention Xserve, just dont.
        • colincornaby, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Great, that still doesn't change that there are OTHER versions of UNIX for Intel, namely BSD. I know you woke up from your nap and decided to post a Mac bashing comment, but I certainly was not saying that OS X is the only UNIX distribution on the market. However, it has the biggest marketshare of any certified UNIX distribution.
  • Hobofuzz, on 03/27/2008, -11/+33I'm gonna take this moment to put a little damper on the inevitable Linux parade:

    Linux IS NOT UNIX.
    UNIX works far better than Linux.
    • Phucked, on 03/27/2008, -3/+17Unix works better than Linux for some things yes but please do tell me if Unix proper is better then why more than 80% of the top Super Computers in the world run Linux? I mean if Unix is so great why on earth would the folks making these multi-million dollar machines chose Linux over something thats works better?
      • fuse13, on 03/27/2008, -5/+3wow, that means linux must be the best at everything, right? surely? cause if its good at being one thing then it must be good at being all other things! right! right?
        • Amiga500, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2You've just stumbled on the FanBoy Source Code!
      • Hobofuzz, on 03/27/2008, -5/+3Linux is generally free.
        UNIX is not.
        • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6Is that why they call it open solaris?
        • happytedium, on 03/27/2008, -1/+7and FreeBSD.
        • Philluminati, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3If that's your only understanding of the differences between UNIX and Linux then you need to do your homework.
          • Hobofuzz, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1My point was that Linux is generally free and far easier to obtain than UNIX. Solaris is a bitch to install (at least the last time I tried)

            I guess I should have been a little clearer.
          • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1@Hobofuzz: Personal Computers are generally cheaper and far easier to obtain than Data Centers. A true data center is a bitch to install (in my closet).
            WTF, did you even read the article? Data Centers! Enterprise application! Not your damn PC, quit acting like an idiot.
    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 03/27/2008, -1/+5That's a highly conditional statement.

      If you sat down and installed a UNIX on a formatted computer and tried to get your hardware and software running, you'd have the threat of incompatible/unsupported hardware, and limited software choices.

      Unix works well for the things that is does. Just like the other platforms.
    • thedude42, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5"Better" is an interesting word here.... at what exactly? Better at not crashing Verits Net Backup? Better at running NIS+? What about BSD?

      In any case, having an administrator who knows what they are doing seems, in my experience, to dictate reliability in any environment, linux unix or windows, provided the hardware isn't dirt cheap and the facility isn't a total slum.
    • MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -0/+6I thought Gnu's Not Unix.
    • milliamp, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3Well, it depends on what the customer needs are.
      In this case the customer stated the platform was developed on Red Hat and that is what their developers are comfortable using.
      My guess is forcing the developers to use a different platform would more than offset any minor gains in scalability by moving to Sparc/Solaris.

      For the last few years Linux on x86 has been making significant inroads in performance to "big iron" UNIX and even Sun sells x86 machines now. For most uses Lunux/x86 is both cheaper and faster than Sparc/Solaris.
      • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Props to you for admitting that is your "guess."
    • flashingcurser, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3For some things, yes. For those who didn't read the article, that was the authors point.
  • mal1964, on 03/27/2008, -2/+16A hammer doesn't tighten screws as good as a screwdriver.
  • ArthurSucks, on 03/27/2008, -10/+4In the x86 world Linux is tops. No one can beat it. The future is in the bigger chips.
    • 1timeuser, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3Yes, and btw the Linux kernel already supports most of those chips. I dont see how the above comment is relevant.
    • 41k1d0k4, on 03/27/2008, -3/+3Run Solaris 10 vs Any Linux build on x86... get back to me with METRICS not opinions.
      • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+2Did you happen to read that SQL query thing on digg about a month or two ago? I don't remember what the metrics were, I think it was queries per something... but Solaris got ~50,000 queries, and Gentoo Linux... ~99,000. And of course windows server was low 20,000's.
    • init100, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3"The future is in the bigger chips."

      You mean like the Itanium? :)
  • deaconyermouf, on 03/27/2008, -4/+8This article lost me after the first four paragraphs. It was honestly really, really boring. And what's with that picture he has? It's like some candid shot you take of your weird uncle that he decided to put online.
  • unitedatheism, on 03/27/2008, -6/+1Quick! Someone tells google about this article!
  • whiteguysamurai, on 03/27/2008, -11/+2Linux is not for everyone, too many people forget to mention this.
    Use what works for you best, while the author may like aspects of linux better than Windows, he may be using it for completely different reason than you.
    • LemmingJesus, on 03/27/2008, -1/+6This is about Unix, not Linux.
    • rotten777, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Thanks for trying to preach to the audience when you obviously didn't even read the article yourself.
  • SLockhart, on 03/27/2008, -19/+9Vista works better for me. Much better.
    • MarkKezner, on 03/27/2008, -1/+10Thanks for sharing. That had nothing to do with the article.
  • glitchbit, on 03/27/2008, -8/+2... here is the ratio of software avaliability for mission critical business's and corporations... for every 1 program on Solaris there is 500,000 for windows... and for every 10,000 for Linux distros there is 1 on Solaris...

    Sorry Solaris may have its benefits but linux can be compiled to run on more than just x86. I think Sun is probably upset that Linux is so mainstream in the business sector and is now over taking the desktop arena while their prized OS is staying pretty stagnate.

    Also most all businesses big or small need OS's that are so easy and mainstream even a caveman can do it. While Linux is not necassarily easy it is very mainstream and you do not have too look very far for a Linux geek to maintain your system (further than windows yes), but good look finding a knowledgable Solaris geek.

    I think the guy in that wrote that article is probably disappointed that his certifications for Solaris and the Solaris track he took in College isn't helping him as much as he expected...
    • devophl, on 03/27/2008, -0/+6In the late 80s, SunOS was the defacto standard of Unix operating systems. If it didn't run on SunOS, it wasn't a Unix application. But the trend of the late 80s was away from open BSD type Unix and towards proprietary Sys V Unix systems. Sun finally moved over with Solaris, instantly ticking off a whole community of BSD Unix aficionados. With it went free compilers and toolkits. By the mid 90s, Unix was a pretty closed system. Unless you wanted to pay BIG bucks for compilers, you were stuck with 1980s level command line applications. To do anything on Unix, you had to pay for proprietary applications, which in most cases weren't cheap.

      What was even worse was that Windows went the same way. If you were a computer hobbiest, the days of the DOS/Basic or BSD with C where you could create your own apps were over. But when it looked like the world of free and open computing was over, in came Linux. By the end of the 90s, Linux had single handedly ripped open the proprietary covers of computing and allow a whole new renaissance of computing to occur. New languages like Perl, Python and PHP were opening up a whole new line of programming. While these were open source, you still needed a $1500 compile on AIX, Solaris or any other Unix system. But Linux came with a compiler and often these were bundled with the Linux distro. You couldn't say that about Unix. You really couldn't say that about Windows.

      I find his fascination with Solaris very interesting. I worked with 5 different Unix OSs in the mid 1990s (Solaris, AIX, HP/UX, Irix and Dec Unix). I often found Solaris to be the least intuitive of the Unix varieties and whereas all software would compile on SunOS, Solaris was always a compiling problem child. Also, Solaris was linked to Sparc technology, which at the time was the laggard of CPUs. IBM, HP and Dec were way out in front in terms of CPU performance.

      In the late 90s, I quickly moved from Solaris to Linux. The answer was simple. As a software developer, the bundled tools on Linux were light years ahead of Solaris. My productivity increased 3 fold overnight. I wasted many a night recompiling software packages for Solaris and then trying to get them to work. With Linux, it was bundled and use was seamless and simple.

      Now I don't doubt that Sparc technology with Solaris is a solid system with a lot of power. This is great if you're working with canned or proprietary applications. If you're a hobbiest or developer, Solaris just didn't cut it compared to Linux and especially Windows.

  • garionw, on 03/27/2008, -14/+9I'm not against Unix; Windows just works better for me
    • toejamz, on 03/27/2008, -8/+4That's because you like games. Enjoy your games!

      *nix does waaayyy better when you are getting serious about data management. Are you tracking GB sized databases with hundreds of millions of elements? Are you hosting hundreds or thousands of domain names on a single machine? Do you REALLY expect to beat 4 hours of downtime per year?

      If so, you are probably using some variation of Unix. It's as simple as that.
      • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1"Are you hosting hundreds or thousands of domain names on a single machine?"
        No, i am not Dreamhost. Overselling FTW! Or some crap.
        /sarcasm
    • WaruiKoohii, on 03/27/2008, -4/+2Agreed.

      Linux is fine. It's a free alternative. But it's not quite there yet in terms of usability on the desktop. I've spent a fair amount of time on various Linux distro's, and it's manageable, But for me, Windows (and by extension, Vista), is just better. Neither Windows or Linux crash on me, but Windows is more "stable", as in, it provides less downtime than Linux. Doesn't mean it crashes, rather, it doesn't do things to make me stop what I'm doing to fix the OS (such as forgetting wireless settings, something which Linux enjoys doing frequently. At least to me, I'm sure there are plenty of people on Digg who have never had a problem).
      • fugazied, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1The difference between red hat/mandrake distros around in 1995-ish and ubuntu in 2008 is pretty huge. Ubuntu installs as easily and has as much usability as any windows box. I remember struggling with drivers a few years ago, now its incredibly simple to get a great linux distro up and running.
    • duPlux, on 03/27/2008, -3/+1Windows is doing a fine job for me too. Damn fanboys digging you down
      • AgarwaenUmarth, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1You're using a Microsoft product? Put that thing out.
        I'm allergic to second-hand ignorance.
      • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Are you a data center running enterprise applications?
        Oh, yeah, and did you even RTFA?
        garionw didn't either, apparently; don't feel so bad.
  • thedude42, on 03/27/2008, -3/+8Well, that does it. Sun fanboys have become the Mac fanboys of the pre-intel days, touting how superior risc architecture is and how everything just works.

    I like this line:

    "- but when it comes to complex, mission critical, requirements at your scale it’s crippled by x86;"

    I'm trying to figure out what "your scale" is, and what company that, at the large scale (really, really large) doesn't use redundant clustering because, in all reality, there are no systems that guarantee 100% up time, period.

    Anyone got a clue what he's referring to here? He mentions some heavy CAD custom app the hypothetical customer developed in house, but I'm not seeing anything here about how sparc magically dominates all cad apps without significant workstation grade graphics hardware.
    • doolittle, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5"DB2 with Websphere, java, eclipse" are all web apps, not CAD.

      In this case Sun's Niagra2 solution may be lucrative.

      Sun's Niagara 2 Processor Is Multicore Computing On Steroids
      http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/ ...

      It boasts incredibly high performance per-watt (20gb/s of SSL encryption throughput) thanks to a hardware cryptographic unit built into each core - each chip contains 8 SPARC cores, all of which are connected to 4MB of shared L2 cache and each core is an 8-way SMP for a total of 64 active threads all under 84W.
    • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -3/+3No, but if you talk to any major corporation about their windows boxes and their solaris boxes... you will only hear the same answer: Windows cant outlast solaris.
  • glitchbit, on 03/27/2008, -5/+1lol I just noticed "Paul Murphy's" Picture to the right near the top. I think his picture should be next to Unix Geek on wikipedia.

    Honestly I can now see why such an old guy is stuck on his Solaris bandwagon. Could you even see him warming up to the new and upcoming technologies by todays top 3 OS's?
    • MtheoryX, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1You didn't RTFA either. Warming up to new technologies? Are you serious? That's totally not even close to the argument at hand.
  • mgminton, on 03/27/2008, -5/+3Same *****, different day. Your solution works for you, mine works great for me. In the end it all really doesn't matter - align the right people and equipment with the problem that needs to be solved and go home.
    • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3"Same *****, different day. Your solution works for you, mine works great for me. In the end it all really doesn't matter"
      Correct. For you're home usage. But the business world is a much different place.
      • eryximachus, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3Hmm, Windows works great for my business. Your point?
        • ninja0, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1My point is I never said anything to bash your precious windows. So you saying in your business you're using windows boxes on everything? Not likely if its a large business.
  • Stormlor, on 03/27/2008, -8/+3I have no problem with his article. There are Windows enthusiasts out there, Mac, and Unix ones as well. It's all user preference.
    • BlackAdderIII, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Didn't get a chance to click through and read the article then, huh?
  • RadiatedAnt, on 03/27/2008, -8/+3Im not saying unix isn't better, Just the application flexability on windows blows it out of the water. Thats why windows thrives.
  • markdall, on 03/27/2008, -6/+1If you Windows folks want an OS to really cheer on, check out Windows Server 2008.
  • LANjackal, on 03/27/2008, -3/+3I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that all/the majority the net's root DNS servers run Solaris. Again, that's what I've heard.

    As for Unix, what Paul said may be true, but his argument ignores the desktop factor. Linux and Windows Server play a lot better with Windows desktop clients (which almost all enterprises use) than UNIX. It's one of the primary reasons my current employer is moving from UNIX to Windows.
    • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1What you've heard, I believe is correct. Unix boxes simply get the most uptime, hands down. I don't entirely agree with your second paragraph though. Linux also makes a great backend server as well. Check out Gentoo.
  • MetalCharms, on 03/27/2008, -4/+19Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?
    That sounds preposterous to me.
    If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.
    Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.

    Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.
    I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.
    • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -0/+10hahaaha I loved reading those articles.
    • afallucco, on 03/27/2008, -8/+1Preposterous you say? No, Linux and UNIX both do not use windows to run and are complete operating systems just like windows. My computer doesn't have windows running under it at all. Yeah, m$ spent billions on vista, but have you looked at all the hardware compatibility issues and the massive amounts of people who went back to XP? Also, hardware makers sell windows because many people don't know about the alternatives and hardware vendors are not making many drivers for linux (that is slowly changing). Dell recently began selling ubuntu with their machines as an alternative to windows, and from what I recall has sold quite a bit of them.
    • infiniphunk, on 03/27/2008, -4/+1holy smokes, that's got to be the dumbest comment I've ever read on here. I bet you think the Earth is flat, too.
    • markstory, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Umm. how are linux and osx using windows? Furthermore, when did Apple move to microsoft? If anyone needs to re-examine their assumptions its you.
  • douchewag, on 03/27/2008, -6/+1So can someone reply me regarding where i can find this unix on the internet ,i dont want links for linux only unix.
    • CrushThemTorg, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Unix is too oldschool for the internet. Find the nearest man with an awesome beard and ask him about Unix. Beard awesomeness is directly proportional to Unix skills. Suspenders can't hurt either.
  • ninja0, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Ok, I agree on many points. Now the hard part about solaris is getting it working properly. The number of times I've had to tweak it for hours jsut to fix a simple problem is annoying... yet once its running... walk away, and be sure that it will run without issues! :D

    however, I couldn't help but notice that he mentions linux and then mentions that for the bigger stuff you need solaris. I also couldn't help but notice that article about a month or two ago that showed SQL database queries where solaris was barely half as good as Gentoo Linux. Solaris was around 50,000 and Gentoo was around 99,000.
  • spankaccount, on 03/27/2008, -6/+3Google = Linux.
  • ZeRux, on 03/27/2008, -9/+2Linux is not Unix so it's still crap.
    Mac OS X is Unix and it's indeed the best OS ever!
  • osbjmg, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2I use windows on the desktop because it works. Why spend even 2 minutes changing something that works? XP rarely gives me any issues. Firefox and iTunes are my main problems these days.

    Unix is great for my web hosting and other server actvities.

    My conclusion: Windows on the deskop, Unix in the server room. Works for me, I'm not biased either way really, I just like things easy.
  • chewbie, on 03/27/2008, -5/+3digging down every comment that was not relevant to the article and digging up those that contributed to the discussion was time consuming.
    I wish I could digg myself down now
  • momsshizzle, on 03/27/2008, -8/+1Linsux is basically a dumb down version of Windows. No wonder the idiot went to Linsux. Did I mention Linsux? Just checking.
    • manicmailman, on 03/27/2008, -2/+0incorrect... on all counts...
      i like windows/use windows.... but linux is not a "dumb down" version.... they are different and different people like them...
      so keep the useless fanboy ***** to your dinner table:
      "hey mom, linsux!... get it?.... linSUX!!!111!!11!"
      "thats nice dear eat your peas"
  • albiniak, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1whew. we just made the decision to go with a sun/sparc partnership. entrepreneur 1, blackberry 0.
  • iamthearm, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1I support over 150 laptops and over 350 desktops by myself (not to mention over 100 laser printers and over 100 thin clients) here at a major car manufacturer parts center. Windows works just fine. Hardware falure is my biggest problem here.
  • iamthearm, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3I should mention that ever since XP, Windows is VERY stable. I had a fair amount of software issues when we where Win2000.
  • skibob1027, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3I don't trust the opinion of people who can't capitalize the first letter of a sentence.

    /GetOffMyLawn
  • atomicrobot, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4It's fairly obvious from all these comments that most, if not all of you do not work in IT in an enterprise environment.

    The article is about server performance, not what stupid little game you can run on your cheapo desktop computer.
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