Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 04:48:41 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> To: "GB Clark II" <gclarkii@vsservices.com>, "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org> Cc: <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Message-ID: <016301c17888$c1be3cc0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <15365.11290.211107.464324@guru.mired.org> <006101c17854$c6aa2570$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <01112817112006.13219@prime.vsservices.com>
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GB Clark II writes: > The UNIX architecture of 30 years ago is long > gone. Most modern day UNIX/unix-like OS have > everything need to run a single user just fine. UNIX already had that thirty years ago. And root has always been there. > There is nothing that I know of in the Windows > architecture (outside of having a graphics > sub-system in the kernel) that makes it any better. That's like saying, "There's nothing I know of in a car that makes it better than a horse, except that it goes faster." Having a good GUI is all it takes, in this case. > Please point those parts of the Windows > architecture that make is superior as a desktop > system. See above. The lack of a multiuser environment is usually an advantage as well, along with the heavy integration with the hardware (both of these are to the detriment of security, but desktop users don't care about security). > The only thing Windows has going for it is good > salesmanship and many of applications. "Many" meaning 100,000 applications, including all of the leading applications. That's enough! Salesmanship has not really been a factor. There was never much competition. > As far as a GUI goes, I'll put a SGI UNIX system > aginst Windows any day of the week. Perhaps you will, but most users won't. They don't care. Why would an average person going out to buy a computer for his desktop decide on SGI UNIX instead of Microsoft Windows? > Also, not all UNIX/unix-like systems are created > equal. Comparing FreeBSD on a Duron-850 (my home > box) to 4.2BSD running on a VAX (13 years ago) > is like comparing apples and grapes. They are still far more alike than any version of UNIX and Windows. One of the advantages of UNIX, by the way, is that it will still run on slow, small hardware platforms. Windows tends to use all the hardware you can buy for it. Of course, desktop users don't care, since that's what they buy the hardware for, anyway, but for servers, this is a serious problem with the Window s platform. > It almost smells like circular logic. It's not religious faith, and to some people, anything that doesn't adhere to dogma "smells." > Again, outside of more applications, please tell > me how MS Windows is a better desktop platform > at the architectural level than FreeBSD. I already have, several times. But even if I had not, having more applications is already _more than enough_ to make it a better choice. You cannot discount an overwhelming advantage simply because it makes the comparison so lopsided. > From what I've seen from MS Windows 2.X to Windows > 2000 (I don't have XP) is that MS Windows does > nothing good. For a desktop user, it does most things better than UNIX, from an ergonomic standpoint and often from a technical standpoint. > Yes, Windows 2000 comes alot closer, but my brother= > inlaw still reboots his 2000 box many more times > than I do under FreeBSD. Windows NT/2000 systems run for years in stable environments. Desktop users tend to run a lot of junk, much of which has to be trusted by the OS, and that crashes systems. My FreeBSD system crashed within two hours of my first installation of KDE. It never crashes when I'm not trying to use it as a desktop. This is not a coincidence. It amazes me, for example, that I have to run with secure_level = -1 in order to use an X server. This is a very bad sign, as it means that the X server is not secure. No wonder it crashes the system. > And then you lose the one area where Windows has > any benifits, game playing. That is yet another of many benefits; I've described some of the others already. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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