Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 17:42:56 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Peter Korsten <peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl> Cc: "freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Rumors of the death of Unix have been greatly exaggerated... Message-ID: <19970829174256.30203@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <19970829011410.35329@grendel.IAEhv.nl>; from Peter Korsten on Fri, Aug 29, 1997 at 01:14:10AM %2B0200 References: <199708242230.PAA13822@merchant.tns.net> <34039989.2770@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co> <19970829011410.35329@grendel.IAEhv.nl>
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On Fri, Aug 29, 1997 at 01:14:10AM +0200, Peter Korsten wrote: > Pedro Giffuni S, shared with us: >> When I look at Microsoft's current product line (which I avoid doing as >> much as possible, I must confess), the problem is not that it lacks >> features--God, most of it has way too many features for its own good, >> and I suspect 90% of the users never discover nor use a majority of >> them--but that it is bug-infested junk. What users need is not >> ActiveXYZ, the NanoGenetic TransSpecies API, etc., etc., endless etc. >> but software which works properly and does not crash. Jamming 1.5 >> megabytes of roach-motel USER and GDI code into the kernel of NT 4.0 to >> "improve performance" shows Microsoft lack the basic competence and/or >> willingness to provide a reliable >> operating system. And that has been a solved problem since the 1960's. >> Now they're going to sell us a global distributed component model secure >> multi-platform multi-media object oriented operating system. Right. > > I had NT 4.0 crash on me twice. The first time was when I removed > an external SCSI tape drive while the system was on. I got some > blue panic screen. The second was when there were 0 (and no more > than that) bytes free on the system drive and someone tried to log > in for the first time. There was no space to create a new profile > and the thing read from address 0x70. That was a segment violation, > so the login application was terminated, but that also meant that > the system rebooted. > > This was on various machines, mostly Pentium 133 with 64 Mb memory. > NT 4.0 Server, SQL Server 6.5 with a 100Mb database, Internet Infor- > mation Server 3.0 and Visual C++ 4.2 running at the same time. I > think you can say the system was used moderatly heavily. Performance > was still very good at this time. Admitted, the hardware used was > high quality: Asus mainboard, Adaptec controller, Quantum Atlas II > disk. > > At one time, I was forced to switch off the system because I > accidently opened 1200 Explorers and the damn thing just wouldn't > crash. :) > > So, Pedro, get out of your ivory tower and check your facts before > you start making statements from other people's experience. There's > a world out there that's using these products. You may not like it, > but you can't get around it either. > > I know I'm sounding like 'Amazing Discoveries' here. I'm not a > Microsoft advocate - far from that - but I think there's a lot of > either ignorance or blindsightness about this firm and it's products > in the Unix world. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. When I read the paragraph about your crashes, I thought you were saying what a load of junk NT was. By the end of the last paragraph, I decided that you're using this information as evidence of the stability of NT. Well, I think I could forgive a system for crashing if you undid the SCSI chain with the "system disk", whatever that may mean in the context of the OS. It's still not nice, but I wouldn't put FreeBSD completely beyond that category either. A system that crashes because an application program can't get space is, on the other hand, broken. This also applies to a system that hangs (1200 Exploders), though this does rather sound like misconfiguration. How did you know you had 1200 Exploders? What's the normal process count limit on NT? Had you changed it? As to Pedro's quote, I don't understand. Pedro quoted an interesting URL. I read it and thought it well-balanced. That doesn't mean you have to agree, but a lot of us do. Greg
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