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Date:      Wed, 6 Oct 1999 19:48:53 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Adam Szilveszter <sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu>
To:        Greg Skafte <skafte@worldgate.ca>
Cc:        freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: An article from Microsoft
Message-ID:  <Pine.LNX.3.96.991006185437.11287B-100000@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu>
In-Reply-To: <37FB7203.F78CF4B5@worldgate.ca>

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On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Greg Skafte wrote:

> A very interesting artical on the weaknesses of linux to 
> bad it's trying to promote NT .... 
> 
> 
>  http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/news/msnw/linuxmyths.asp
Hi!

Hmmmm.... Again the typical M$ style thing of mixing truth, assumptions,
references to authority that you might or might not understand but not
question without looking an idiot and some outright propaganda...

Just to demonstrate a few highlights (although the article was written
about Linux, there is no reason to think that they have a different
opinion on any OpenSource UNIX-derivate...)

-Win NT has a lower TCO than Linux. Then the text says the same for UNIX
and then there is a link to demonstrate that which points to comparison of
WinNT on Intel and Solaris on SPARC... no comment. I'd like to see the
much-hyped Win2000 to be ported to that platform first...(or, in fact to
any platform apart from x86 and Alpha:-)

-They quote better SMP and clustering support but somehow forget to
mention that to get
SMP beyond two processors, you need to purchase the irrationally-expensive
Enterprise Edition and for clusters the even-more expensive Cluster
Server...BTW ever wondered what difference there is between WinNT WS and
SRV?
Nothing, but the more advanced features are simply disabled in cheaper
versions... but they are certainly right in saying
that you need couple of PIII XEONs to run NT fast enough in demanding
situations:-)

-They say that support for Linux is expensive but then they say that it
does not exist to a great degree which means that it cannot be
expensive...and of course forget to tell about
their "inexpensive" support options...but they are certainly right in
saying that it takes time to train real SAs who understand what's going on
instead of people who just
point-and-click-and-damn-it_wont_work-so-try_again-or-i_dunno:-)

-the best item is:"Linux makes no sense on the desktop" (sic!)
No comment... i use FBSD as my desktop machine for more than half a year
now exclusively and never wanted to go back to win ever since...and the
machine cannot even demonstrate its server abilities because the univ
sysadmin will not allow this for students... :-(

I will not even mention the infamous comments about benchmark results a la
Mindcraft, the security issues, etc. Of course there are many items of
truth in there as well, which partly apply to us as well... eg the
Journalling FS issue... others are more Linux-specific like the lack of a
centralised repository (i'd recommend www.freebsd.org...it will not be
easy to find something comparable for Linux) and as for the security
ratings, the Hungarian Government has not
certified any version of NT yet and that is what counts for me
first:-)))))

On the other hand, for a more-or-less biased but critical view it is good
to read
mags like the WinNT Magazine (www.winntmag.com) where they point out
interesting stuff for commercial UNICES as well which M$ officially cannot
do... and then read our sources for a biased but critical view of NT:-))

Regards:

Szilveszter ADAM




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