Re: [PLUG] Microsoft's statement about Solaris-based Hotmail (old)

[Adam Turoff <ziggy@panix.com>]

Mike wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Adam Turoff wrote:
> I'd say that it's due to the, necessary, Swiss-army knife design of the NT
> kernel.  In NT, because you can't recompile the kernel, you need to have
> it all set for anything its supposed to do (and God help you if you need
> to add on functionality -- AGP under NT *shiver*).  Also, there's alot
> more (not always useful) things going on in the background on your average
> NT server compared to your average Linux server.

There's more to it than that.  Process startup overhead is pretty severe,
which is why MS is pushing threads so heavily.

Unfortunately, there are some reasonable configurations where the thread
startup overhead on NT is actually *LONGER* than the process startup 
overhead on *NIX (and thread startup overhead on that *NIX configuration
is even smaller, as you'd expect).  Sorry, I don't have the details offhand.

> > That's just plain inefficient use of resources.  Enough problems like that
> > and all of a sudden you're recommending 1GB of RAM and 4-way Xeon CPUs when 
> > a slower Celeron with 128MB of RAM can get the job done more quickly.
> 
> Yup, that job.  What about an enterprise level databases?  Okay, granted
> we can jump over to a full-blown Unix.  But, can we run it on an Intel
> box?  Is it easy to setup and easy to administer?

About the only advantage I'm hearing here is setup and day-to-day 
administration -- especially by less skilled (and less pricy) admins.
(I've seen PHBs try and maintain a system that they think is hosed
because the dialog boxes are so friendly.  In these cases, it only 
made the situation worse.)

I've heard that same advantage applied to *NIX, since you can log in
from anywhere in the world, fire up vi and tweak a running server with
a minimum of keystrokes.

The setup may not have as many pretty pictures, but even tarballs and
configure scripts tend to be intelligent these days and build out of
the box without any intervention.

> I'm not trying to trivialize your points (they're perfectly good).  It's a
> matter of tradeoffs.  But tell me, are the people here really interested
> in hearing why I find setting up and maintaining an MS box easier than a
> Linux box?

*NIX has always focused on the engineer, while Win* has always focused 
on end-user usability.  Calling *NIX worse on a scale of usability is
a fair cop.  Figuring out how to make Linux more usable to the average 
man on the street is a useful discussion (IMHO).

> > [...]
> Your example doesn't support "10x what it absolutely needs to be".  Let's
> try to avoid hyperbole.  Yes, MS's networking model (multiple servers) can
> be a bitch.  They acknowledge that, and this is what AD is supposed to
> help solve.

Noted.

> > I don't want a better NT than the last release, I want a better OS.
> 
> Fine, from everything that I've seen, so far, yes, it is a better OS.
> It's not just another version of NT, like Win98 was of Win95, like you
> make it out to be.

I've heard that argument before, when it was applied to Win95/Win3.x
as well as NT/95.

We've all been burned before by this company.  To make a truly a better
OS, there's a lot of house cleaning they had to do to bring it to par
with the competition.  Sounds like there was a lot of heroic
engineering going on to do that.

I've also heard a lot of misleading, FUD filled marketing messages.  
I've seen messages engineered to make the middle manager confident
and happy about an NT solution that doesn't work.

I'm incredibly skeptical about Win2k.  If it is truly on par with 
Solaris, Linux, etc. then I'll accept Win2K as a better OS.

I'm not hearing much to sway me though:
	- normal number of reboots vs. once-per-packet
	- extensive driver database (a very good effort)
	- well-tested driver detection (doesn't crash?)
	- reasonable use of shared libraries (like other OSes)
	- better performing (as fast as other OSes on the same hardware?)
	- end-user usability (always a good point for MS)
	- Active Directory

I'm sure I'm missing a lot.  All of that adds up to what NT should have
been, not why Win2K is a better OS.  The only truly superior offering
on that list deals with device drivers, and possibly the usability
testing (where they've always excelled).

Z.


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