[IonCable]

Well accordig to Cnet.com Microsoft is going to starting attack ads aimed at Unix and that means OS X (but not directly.) What do you guys think, well Apple stop pushing the Unix underpinnings of OS X? Microsoft is claiming "We have a way out" or something like that and claim that Unix is more expensive and requires special techs to keep it running. Funny I manage 2 Unix servers and 5 Unix RIPs and 5 macs with OS X and the only trouble I have is the IT people keep want to change my IPs for the network, they want everything to be DCHP, but my servers need Static addresses. My company has 1 admin for each Windows server.

My Boxes have only crashed once in 10 months and that was a bad software update done by the makers that was fixed the next day. My Windows server for email has been down for 3 days and my drop doxes for projects from the art department are going off-line for 2 days to install new software.

Think is campaign will work? Think Apple and Microsoft are heading for a little more bad blood the deals up in a few months? Think Microsoft is scared of Linux and Unix?

[boots]

It may work in the short run, but the fact that OS X doesn't require require you to know anything about unix is what will save OS X from any kind of Unix assault. The Unix underpinnings doesn't matter to anyone except those who use unix stuff already...and they know the truth. The whole Unix underpinnings thing will only expand the userbase to include people who wanted Linux but also wanted some of the more mainstream commercial software that Linux doesn't support. As long as they don't come out with a "Unix is less stable and secure" than Windows (which would be a blatent lie and easily exposed) it shouldn't have much of an impact.

And yes, I think they are a little wary of the public support for Linux...and now OS X. They won't be hurt too badly though. Microsoft has too big a market share to be hurt too badly...even if there is a 10% marketshare shift!

[pundit]

Originally posted by IonCable:
<STRONG>Well accordig to Cnet.com Microsoft is going to starting attack ads aimed at Unix and that means OS X (but not directly.) What do you guys think, well Apple stop pushing the Unix underpinnings of OS X? Microsoft is claiming "We have a way out" or something like that and claim that Unix is more expensive and requires special techs to keep it running. Funny I manage 2 Unix servers and 5 Unix RIPs and 5 macs with OS X and the only trouble I have is the IT people keep want to change my IPs for the network, they want everything to be DCHP, but my servers need Static addresses. My company has 1 admin for each Windows server.

My Boxes have only crashed once in 10 months and that was a bad software update done by the makers that was fixed the next day. My Windows server for email has been down for 3 days and my drop doxes for projects from the art department are going off-line for 2 days to install new software.

Think is campaign will work? Think Apple and Microsoft are heading for a little more bad blood the deals up in a few months? Think Microsoft is scared of Linux and Unix?</STRONG>

No... but you have to remember that they hold 93% of the desktop market and only 42% of the server market. Combined linux and (all flavors of) unix hold 41%. Linix had 27% and all the others about 14%. So theres a *lot* of market share to take.

Their ad campaign is interesting... TV ads targeting the general public talking about a server interoperability strategy- .NET

Of course, they realize consumers will have to want to use products connected with .NET, but this is also shareholder education. A new tactic.

On a technical note, I don't get the point about 'people wanting your servers to be DHCP' Do they provide essential services on the network or what?

pundit

[velocitychannel]

Originally posted by IonCable:
<STRONG>

My Boxes have only crashed once in 10 months and that was a bad software update done by the makers that was fixed the next day. My Windows server for email has been down for 3 days and my drop doxes for projects from the art department are going off-line for 2 days to install new software.

Think is campaign will work? Think Apple and Microsoft are heading for a little more bad blood the deals up in a few months? Think Microsoft is scared of Linux and Unix?</STRONG>

Case in point. I have 3 servers here at work. 1 Unix, 1 Netware and 1 Win2000.

Unix server - Uptime: 1 year 5 months.

Netware Server - Uptime: 1 year 2 months.

Win2000 Server - Uptime: 5 days and counting.

Unix servers cost less in the long run because:

1. Less down time. Set them up correctly and they keep going.
2. Not nearly the licensing headaches that Win2000 has.
3. More secure. You're not applying Security Patches and Service Packs every few weeks.

There are more, but you get the picture. Any company who is serious about they're data uses Unix for the real work.

[Mongrel]

Originally posted by boots:
[QB]It may work in the short run, but the fact that OS X doesn't require require you to know anything about unix is what will save OS X from any kind of Unix assault. QB]

Then, why is it when my finder starts acting up regularly I have to hunt down the directions for some obscure "fsck" trick on bootup? Or go to the terminal and do some "sudo" thing so I can empty my own trash? There's still enough UNIX involved that if a newbie gets in any kind of trouble they're likely to be left scratching their heads in disbeleif that THIS is actually the user-friendly Mac OS they've heard so much about in the past few years.

[pundit]

Originally posted by velocitychannel:
<STRONG>

Case in point. I have 3 servers here at work. 1 Unix, 1 Netware and 1 Win2000.

Unix server - Uptime: 1 year 5 months.

Netware Server - Uptime: 1 year 2 months.

Win2000 Server - Uptime: 5 days and counting.

Unix servers cost less in the long run because:

1. Less down time. Set them up correctly and they keep going.
2. Not nearly the licensing headaches that Win2000 has.
3. More secure. You're not applying Security Patches and Service Packs every few weeks.

There are more, but you get the picture. Any company who is serious about they're data uses Unix for the real work.</STRONG>

Doesn't mean too much... windows servers come with built in clustering and have been designed to be used in clusters. Serveral of which I know to have been operating perfectly since inception.

You can buy clustered hardware off the shelf now...

I agree with the licensing issue.

And if you don't use a good dedicated firewall (or preferably both layer 4 and 7) if front of any server, you're just asking for trouble.

pundit

[::maroma::]

Microsoft is claiming "We have a way out" or something like that and claim that Unix is more expensive and requires special techs to keep it running.

That's funny, that is the same argument us Mac users use when comparing OS X servers to Windows? Windows is more expensive to maintain because of all the techs you need. I kinda hope this campaign gets big...maybe Apple will use it against them somewhere down the road (ie - when X is ready to be mass marketed).

[goatnet]

Doesn't mean too much... windows servers come with built in clustering and have been designed to be used in clusters. Serveral of which I know to have been operating perfectly since inception.

Pretty sad actually. Doesn't say too much about the stability of Windows.

I'd rather pay a licensing fee on one server that can act as a print server, email server & file server rather then 15 seperate machines, because stability is an issue.

[pundit]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
<STRONG>

That's funny, that is the same argument us Mac users use when comparing OS X servers to Windows? Windows is more expensive to maintain because of all the techs you need. I kinda hope this campaign gets big...maybe Apple will use it against them somewhere down the road (ie - when X is ready to be mass marketed).</STRONG>

OSX is never going to be a viable 'server' OS. You need a really good hardware supply chain for that.

They make a dual processor system, but a multiprocessor motherboard is a magnitude difference in difficulty. Just ask AMD, who have some of the best R&D in the world.

Of course, they have a percent or so of the market... and aren't likely to go away.

pundit

[pundit]

Originally posted by goatnet:
<STRONG>Doesn't mean too much... windows servers come with built in clustering and have been designed to be used in clusters. Serveral of which I know to have been operating perfectly since inception.

Pretty sad actually. Doesn't say too much about the stability of Windows.

I'd rather pay a licensing fee on one server that can act as a print server, email server & file server rather then 15 seperate machines, because stability is an issue.</STRONG>

The point isn't how stable a server is, its how stable the service is. Thats the benefit of a cluster.

A load-balancing cluster provides not only redundancy but increased efficiency and load capacity. The top performing published transactional database results are windows compaq clusters. They also cost less money per transactional unit. CTO's and CFO's ultimately make the tech decisions in this world.

pundit

[Bernard Ducamp]

Micro$oft is one OS World: all the Windows 95-98, NT, XP stuff.

The only other significant OS World is the Unix / Linux / BSD / world, which now includes Mac OS X.

Micro$oft will attack their competition. Expect nothing less.

After all, the BEST computer experience is using Windows, isn't it?? Oh, by the way, Micro$oft knows best. Trust them.

HAAAAAAAHHHHHH

[boots]

Originally posted by Mongrel:
<STRONG>

Then, why is it when my finder starts acting up regularly I have to hunt down the directions for some obscure "fsck" trick on bootup? Or go to the terminal and do some "sudo" thing so I can empty my own trash? There's still enough UNIX involved that if a newbie gets in any kind of trouble they're likely to be left scratching their heads in disbeleif that THIS is actually the user-friendly Mac OS they've heard so much about in the past few years.

</STRONG>

Bugs. I didn't say it's a perfect system. But it's getting closer. The idea is that you won't have to do those things....Thus, an Anti-Unix campaign will not work for the general consumer who won't need unix. Unix just lets you have your own immediate work-around rather than having to wait for an update. My wife knows no unix, and never uses the CLI...and has no problems using the system. And the only mantainance I do is installing updates (ok, I did have to fix the printing after X.1.3...but this, again, is a bug).

btw, even in the previous os's (and in windows too) the fsck in there....it's just transparent and called something else. That's also why people need and use programs like diskwarrior and Norton. Neither progrm requires any unix knowledge.

[theolein]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>

The point isn't how stable a server is, its how stable the service is. Thats the benefit of a cluster.

A load-balancing cluster provides not only redundancy but increased efficiency and load capacity. The top performing published transactional database results are windows compaq clusters. They also cost less money per transactional unit. CTO's and CFO's ultimately make the tech decisions in this world.

pundit</STRONG>

How's it going at Microsoft? Is Microsoft still asking employees to post in Unix and news forums in support for them? You know as well as anyone else that those cost figures are Microsoft figures. You know how believable that makes them. Clustering is also not the exclusive province of Microsoft and those CTO's and CFO's know that. They also know how your company has them bleeding money and is blackmailing them with it's licencing costs. I have read often enough in news sites( and I don't mean slashdot) where large company employees talk about their companies' Linux evaluations and Microsoft's threats and bullying and vice-grip on them.

I find it highly irritating that Microsoft asks people to support them in their disinformation campaign in news sites and forums. Wasn't ZDNet enough for you?

[danbrew]

Wow, interesting comments. How do you know the last guy is a Microsoft employee? Did it have something to do with the fact that he (or she) posted something along the lines of that it wasn't the techies that make business decisions, but the business leaders of a company?

You and I both know that's how it happens.

I won't bother quoting numbers because you won't believe me (and 63.8% of statistics quoted are made up on the spot), but there are a hell of a lot less *nix servers on the internet conducting business then there were 24 months ago. Matter of fact, Windows servers... ah, hell, nevermind.

I just love the M$ bashing here - how many of you could go about your everyday life without interacting with Microsoft software in some fashion? Either directly through Office or IE on the Mac, or through some service provided to you by those oh so misguided business leaders.

fwiw.

[theolein]

Originally posted by danbrew:
<STRONG>Wow, interesting comments. How do you know the last guy is a Microsoft employee? Did it have something to do with the fact that he (or she) posted something along the lines of that it wasn't the techies that make business decisions, but the business leaders of a company?

You and I both know that's how it happens.

I won't bother quoting numbers because you won't believe me (and 63.8% of statistics quoted are made up on the spot), but there are a hell of a lot less *nix servers on the internet conducting business then there were 24 months ago. Matter of fact, Windows servers... ah, hell, nevermind.

I just love the M$ bashing here - how many of you could go about your everyday life without interacting with Microsoft software in some fashion? Either directly through Office or IE on the Mac, or through some service provided to you by those oh so misguided business leaders.

fwiw.</STRONG>

Damn right, I won't believe anything that MS publishes. A company that behaves in the way MS does is not worth believing , ever. I bash M$ because I believe that they deserve a little bit of there own medicine.

Pundit is or was regular poster on ZDNet's talkback forums. Guess who in support of?

[gonadman]

Business leaders make the decisions, but not necessarily the right decisions. These decisions are often based on studies made by people who are in management themselves and don't have the faintest idea of anything that goes on below the marketing level. There are some things that Microsoft do well, and marketing is one of these things. So you can see where these decisions and Microsoft meet up. It's the poor sods at the bottom who have to make real-world implementations that have to resort to clustering and very expensive hardware when they're stuck with a marketing-based decision.

Clustering is very important for Windows and the server market. That way they have a better chance of everything running perfectly - one server blows up... still got 4 more... another blows up... 3 can handle it... another blows up... oh dear. I say, Beowulf - and let the chips fall where they may.

Any attack by Microsoft leveled at *nix is simply an acknowledgement that we (the good people) have something that they (the evil people) want. And frankly, if it weren't for all the spectators, I don't really think anyone on the good side would give a crap. I know I'm not worried

[pundit]

Originally posted by theolein:
<STRONG>

Damn right, I won't believe anything that MS publishes. A company that behaves in the way MS does is not worth believing , ever. I bash M$ because I believe that they deserve a little bit of there own medicine.

Pundit is or was regular poster on ZDNet's talkback forums. Guess who in support of?</STRONG>

Nope, incorrect... I've never posted on ZDNet, although I have browsed there... does that count?

I don't work for Microsoft, and am not payed to endorse their products.

There is nothing wrong playing devils advocate, otherwise the world would be a very boring place.

Morally, Microsoft is undoubtably guilty. They are guilty of sharp business practices. I don't really care, to be honest with you.

In work, I specialize in products using MS products, but have had some experience in integration with solaris and linux, especially SANs. I read and like to think I have a broad understanding of enterprise computing. I make money from employing MS products and have an understanding of a) how to do it well and b) how companies can save money. Nothing wrong with advocating that is there?

Whats wrong with me reeling off some pro-Microsoft information to support my arguements? Or pointing out the optimal way to configure a database system. Not really trade secrets.

Is it because I've not said "Microsoft rulez, Mac $uckz," that you consider me a corporate agent of Microsoft. I guess I should consider myself flattered.

Whilst MS are undoubtidly very sharp in their business practices, their success is definitely interesting; they do tend to achieve their goals. Interesting to look at where they have come and where they have gotten to (and how competing companies haven't to a large degree.) Apple could definitely learn some business lessons, if not style, from MS, don't you think?

I know I'm not going to change anyones mind about a platform that they love, or convince anyone that MS is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm not doing that... just talking on a bulletin board where I'm likely to get some valid arguements. I'm interested in getting a Mac for home use, although not yet... a few platform improvements need to be made.

No harm in having a harmless discussion in the meantime is there?

pundit

[pundit]

Originally posted by gonadman:
<STRONG>Clustering is very important for Windows and the server market. That way they have a better chance of everything running perfectly - one server blows up... still got 4 more... another blows up... 3 can handle it... another blows up... oh dear. I say, Beowulf - and let the chips fall where they may.
</STRONG>

Life doesn't work like that though...

You decide how critical the system is and provide appropriate redundancy. The likelihood of 4 servers going down, within a few hours is infinitesimally small. You need to set it up right to start with, but how's that different from any system?

You just swap out the rackmount that went wrong (on like 4 hours notice... or better), toss in some pre-mirrored drives, add it back into the cluster and you're back to where you started.

Clustering definitely is tricky... but its not brain surgery and it does work.

Its also pretty cheap...

mrbaggins

[dbergstrom]

If Apple felt like posting a response to the Microsoft ads, they could mimic the Maytag repairman ads:

Windows system admin: Replacing a server in a cluster, while simultaneously trying to apply the latest security patch from Redmond, block the latest Outlook worm, and re-register all the servers whose licenses are going to run out in 3 hours. On call 24/7. His kids don't know him. His wife just left him. Drinks a fifth a day.

Cut to the OS X/Unix system admin: Makes new high score on his GameBoy. Does a dance. Leaves at 5. Uptime command on his screen reads 436 days, 23 hours, 17 minutes.

Cut to the corporate board room: Six fat, 60-something guys with dark suits and big cigars are sitting around a table talking about how much they have saved by going with Microsoft. Supermodel comes in, runs he fingers through the hair of one of the board members, and squeaks "Come on pudges, let's go out on the boat."

Screen goes puke Orange:

MSCE Administrators and Corporate Board Members:
Now that's 100 degrees of separation!

The end!

[dtriska]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>Whilst MS are undoubtidly very sharp in their business practices, their success is definitely interesting; they do tend to achieve their goals. Interesting to look at where they have come and where they have gotten to (and how competing companies haven't to a large degree.) Apple could definitely learn some business lessons, if not style, from MS, don't you think?</STRONG>

You know what? Jack the Ripper was pretty successful; he murdered quite a few people and never got caught. Maybe I could learn something from him. After all, it doesn't matter that what Jack (and Microsoft) did was illegal; it worked out for him in the end.

[pundit]

I know a couple of engineers who worked for the Chicago Mercantile who told me that Unix was good, but not foolproof (they worked on enough systems to know- and thats all they did), and regardless... hardware is hardware, and unix systems have single points of failure too. Its a falicy that UNIX is 'invulnerable' and its amusing that you claim that it is.

How about this scenario...

Two CTO's... one buys unix, the other wintel. Both have dedicated support staff's. The cost savings brought by the equally stable clustered windows solution means that company can provide their product at a lower cost, driving their competitor out of business. The Unix admin who had been playing with his gameboy, lost his job, couldn't get another and shot himself in a bout of depression.

pundit

[dbergstrom]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>I know a couple of engineers who worked for the Chicago Mercantile who told me that Unix was good, but not foolproof (they worked on enough systems to know- and thats all they did), and regardless... hardware is hardware, and unix systems have single points of failure too. Its a falicy that UNIX is 'invulnerable' and its amusing that you claim that it is.

How about this scenario...

Two CTO's... one buys unix, the other wintel. Both have dedicated support staff's. The cost savings brought by the equally stable clustered windows solution means that company can provide their product at a lower cost, driving their competitor out of business. The Unix admin who had been playing with his gameboy, lost his job, couldn't get another and shot himself in a bout of depression.

pundit</STRONG>

But it was a quick and painless death. And he died never having had to bend over for Microsoft!

[pundit]

lol... touche

[pundit]

Originally posted by dtriska:
<STRONG>

You know what? Jack the Ripper was pretty successful; he murdered quite a few people and never got caught. Maybe I could learn something from him. After all, it doesn't matter that what Jack (and Microsoft) did was illegal; it worked out for him in the end.</STRONG>

Hey... maybe Microsoft could learn from Jack the Ripper; instead of using anticompetitive practices, they could just assasinate Larry and Linus

[EddieDesignsDotCom]

what pisses me off beyond belief is that our host recently moved 'my' company website (I work full time for a sports company as a graphic designer) from our trusted well known Unix servers to, get this, a Windows server (why is irrelevent in this matter OK).

now I have been designing websites for like 4 years and know how to install cgi scripts in the cgi-bin folder, php scripts whereever I like, ssi by renaming the pages from .html to .shtml and changing directory permissions [chmod: read - write - execute] ok.

I couldnt believe they just took our site down without any prior warning. they requested I re-upload it so of course I had to.

Wait!! where's the cgi-bin folder!!??

that was just the start of my crazy day. to cut a long story short, I thought, hold on, no problem, I'll just do what I have to and learn .asp fast because we need a mailing list, etc, etc...

well umm, .asp aint so straight forward as php and cgi together. it's chaotic. i tried to instal one simple script and found out I needed to download an additional component, and an addition and this and that... WTF!!!???

well I got on the phone immediately to our host and this is my whole point,,, guess what they told me!!??

listen Eddie, we know that the majority of the Internet is hosted on Unix servers but this is all going to change real soon see, and we are playing a part, the majority of hosts will be using Windows to host web sites, etc, etc. they said in these exact words: Unix is dead!!

of course I just laughed at them and demanded they return our website to familiar ground where I am able to change permissions, install scripts, etc.

how dare they try and force me to learn .asp! I smelt it and it was ugly as hell. it 'did my head in'

I mean are all these windows lovers robots or what programmed by Balmer to go out into the World and spread the word, Unix is Dead, Must use Windows (more money for us [m$])

this is real guys, wake up. Apple,,, be strong!! where are your killer ad campaigns huh? the majority of the World don't take us Mac users seriously!?

tell them what they need to know, they don't need a registry, etc, etc. .dll stinks!! tell them!!

[pundit]

Originally posted by EddieDesignsDotCom:
<STRONG>what pisses me off beyond belief is that our host recently moved 'my' company website (I work full time for a sports company as a graphic designer) from our trusted well known Unix servers to, get this, a Windows server (why is irrelevent in this matter OK).
&lt;snip&gt;
that was just the start of my crazy day. to cut a long story short, I thought, hold on, no problem, I'll just do what I have to and learn .asp fast because we need a mailing list, etc, etc...
&lt;snip&gt;
</STRONG>

My condolances... IIS in general sucks- its just 'bleh'. ASP is nasty and most people I know hate it.

I'm surprised they didn't move to Linux though. Most pro-hosts are.

pundit

[ 03-29-2002: Message edited by: pundit ]

[goMac]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>I know a couple of engineers who worked for the Chicago Mercantile who told me that Unix was good, but not foolproof (they worked on enough systems to know- and thats all they did), and regardless... hardware is hardware, and unix systems have single points of failure too. Its a falicy that UNIX is 'invulnerable' and its amusing that you claim that it is.

How about this scenario...

Two CTO's... one buys unix, the other wintel. Both have dedicated support staff's. The cost savings brought by the equally stable clustered windows solution means that company can provide their product at a lower cost, driving their competitor out of business. The Unix admin who had been playing with his gameboy, lost his job, couldn't get another and shot himself in a bout of depression.

pundit</STRONG>

uhhhh...

I'm not a super expert in networking, but I fail to see how the windows plan was cheaper in the end. but... moving on...

One of the servers I have to frequently check happens to be a giant black Dell server with 7 removable hard drives running WinNT (and it was bought about 5 monthes ago), and it cost us around $10,000. The old server we had was a 400 MHZ G4 running OS X that netbooted (thats netbooted, not shared a domain) about 90 machines, and got slow from time to time, but was never a problem. (More of a problem was the copy of QBasic the computers had from 1991). This worked fine for 2 years.

Now with our super-dooper Dell we have sharing a DOMAIN to 30 machines, its living hell. The server seems to drop machines every so often, it catches about every virus in existance. Strangely seemely related we now have high amounts of bandwidth going out of the district which we are charged for. Also, randomly each day, porn is ending up in all the teachers inboxes now, with a from address pulled from a address book stored on the server. We were unable to run Systemworks 2001 on the machine because SYSTEMWORKS WON'T RUN ON A SERVER OS!

Not only that, but temporary files that take up 9 gigs magically appeared in someones account. For those of you that don't know, everytime you log on with windows, it transfers all your documents over. So, this person got to wait a long time for 9 gigs temp files that got generated from other peoples accounts came through his machine and copied to the hard drive.

I won't even get into how bad each of the dells in the domain is...

I realize you're probably talking about web serving, not network admin, but still, from my experience, Windows NT is entirely sucky at anything more then sharing a printer.

[theolein]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>


Nope, incorrect... I've never posted on ZDNet, although I have browsed there... does that count?

I don't work for Microsoft, and am not payed to endorse their products.

There is nothing wrong playing devils advocate, otherwise the world would be a very boring place.

Morally, Microsoft is undoubtably guilty. They are guilty of sharp business practices. I don't really care, to be honest with you.

In work, I specialize in products using MS products, but have had some experience in integration with solaris and linux, especially SANs. I read and like to think I have a broad understanding of enterprise computing. I make money from employing MS products and have an understanding of a) how to do it well and b) how companies can save money. Nothing wrong with advocating that is there?

Whats wrong with me reeling off some pro-Microsoft information to support my arguements? Or pointing out the optimal way to configure a database system. Not really trade secrets.

Is it because I've not said "Microsoft rulez, Mac $uckz," that you consider me a corporate agent of Microsoft. I guess I should consider myself flattered.

Whilst MS are undoubtidly very sharp in their business practices, their success is definitely interesting; they do tend to achieve their goals. Interesting to look at where they have come and where they have gotten to (and how competing companies haven't to a large degree.) Apple could definitely learn some business lessons, if not style, from MS, don't you think?

I know I'm not going to change anyones mind about a platform that they love, or convince anyone that MS is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm not doing that... just talking on a bulletin board where I'm likely to get some valid arguements. I'm interested in getting a Mac for home use, although not yet... a few platform improvements need to be made.

No harm in having a harmless discussion in the meantime is there?

pundit</STRONG>

So you are a MS troll? That's what I thought. You sound like a drone from the MS marketing department. What information did you provide that has anything to do with database onfiguration or anything to do with saving anybody money? You claim that MS is sharp in it's business practices and that Apple could learn something from MS' style: Is your trolling an example of MS style? is the fact that Ms is in court and been found guilty of abuse of it's monopoly and the fact that MS used dead peoples names and falsified letters of support what you mean by Style. It sounds more like desperation to me. When you talk about saving money are you talking about how costs are higher for commpanies when MS switches to a subscription model which only saves MS money. Wehn you talk about an effective company are you referring to the fact that apart from Amazon and Ebay almsot all other large corporations would rather go with the liberty alliance because no one trusts MS?

You mean "effective" and "sharp" things like that?

[pundit]

goMac

That sounds like a horribly configured domain.

1) a $10000 Dell would have been either a) an extreme pimped out poweredge 2500 or b) more likely a 4600 on up.
I can tell you from experience, thats no slouch of a machine. Somewhere between a dual-tulatin and a quad xeon is certainly quick enough for 300 seats let alone 30, even on NT, even being a PDC and file and print.

2) NT isn't very talky on a network... sounds like the network is infested with trojans or something. Could be nimda or something similar. What virus software do you run? What firewall?

3) Don't use roaming profiles. Use backup agents on individual client machines instead.

Seriously, it sounds like you need some good IT consulting...

pundit

[pundit]

Originally posted by theolein:
<STRONG>&lt;snip&gt;</STRONG>

I don't get how you think I'm an MS troll.

Troll- An electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other (electronic) communication which is intentionally incorrect, but not overtly controversial (compare flame bait), or the act of sending such a message. Trolling aims to elicit an emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key. A really subtle troll makes some people lose their minds.

Whatever you say about MS business practices is pretty irrelevant. I don't care, and you're not going to change anything. The government might, but I doubt it.

In terms of iffy businessmen, Henry Ford was pretty scummy. He was an antisemite who read a play written years earlier about the jews having a zionist conspiricy to take over the world... and ultimately funded propaganda throughout europe that contributed to the rise of the Nazi's. Theres a ton more stuff about him if you look. Bill Gates et al. are like saints comparitively.

pundit

[goMac]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>goMac

That sounds like a horribly configured domain.

1) a $10000 Dell would have been either a) an extreme pimped out poweredge 2500 or b) more likely a 4600 on up.
I can tell you from experience, thats no slouch of a machine. Somewhere between a dual-tulatin and a quad xeon is certainly quick enough for 300 seats let alone 30, even on NT, even being a PDC and file and print.

2) NT isn't very talky on a network... sounds like the network is infested with trojans or something. Could be nimda or something similar. What virus software do you run? What firewall?

3) Don't use roaming profiles. Use backup agents on individual client machines instead.

Seriously, it sounds like you need some good IT consulting...

pundit</STRONG>

Well... we just picked up a copy of Symantics pro virus software (your price difference is disolving quick) so we should know by tonight what it is. Strangely enough a lab at another one of our schools does the same thing, and they also recently got a shipment of PC's.

We have a IT consultant. He is paid 90$ a hour. His best suggestion so far has been to make a log of our problems.


And the macs we had handled netbooting and roaming profiles (macmanager) easily. Why shouldn't the PC's?

Your price difference you have between UNIX and NT is pretty much gone. The only decent thing I can say about the NT server is it hasn't crashed once. (whopee)

[theolein]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>

Hey... maybe Microsoft could learn from Jack the Ripper; instead of using anticompetitive practices, they could just assasinate Larry and Linus </STRONG>

They'ld probably have to given that all the other crap that they put out and that their trolls utter has very little effect.

[EddieDesignsDotCom]

goMac

That sounds like a horribly configured domain.

1) a $10000 Dell would have been either a) an extreme pimped out poweredge 2500 or b) more likely a 4600 on up.
I can tell you from experience, thats no slouch of a machine. Somewhere between a dual-tulatin and a quad xeon is certainly quick enough for 300 seats let alone 30, even on NT, even being a PDC and file and print.

2) NT isn't very talky on a network... sounds like the network is infested with trojans or something. Could be nimda or something similar. What virus software do you run? What firewall?

3) Don't use roaming profiles. Use backup agents on individual client machines instead.

Seriously, it sounds like you need some good IT consulting...

pundit

is that 'geek speak' or 'pc user speak'
because to someone as clueless as just a mere web/graphic designer that sure does sound like a foreign language to me. I mean there is so much for me to learn in such a short space of time that is relevent to my career - thank goodness I [knock on wood] never ever have to learn that craziness. what is it? xeons? tulatins? are they for real or just cool sounding words? hehe what an easy life it must be to take stuff like that for granted. I guess computer engineering aint for me.

[ 03-29-2002: Message edited by: EddieDesignsDotCom ]

[pundit]

Originally posted by goMac:
<STRONG>

Well... we just picked up a copy of Symantics pro virus software (your price difference is disolving quick) so we should know by tonight what it is. Strangely enough a lab at another one of our schools does the same thing, and they also recently got a shipment of PC's.

We have a IT consultant. He is paid 90$ a hour. His best suggestion so far has been to make a log of our problems.


And the macs we had handled netbooting and roaming profiles (macmanager) easily. Why shouldn't the PC's?

Your price difference you have between UNIX and NT is pretty much gone. The only decent thing I can say about the NT server is it hasn't crashed once. (whopee)</STRONG>

Your big problem is that you are closing the barn door after the horse has already ran right out.

NT4.0 has issues with roaming profiles. Windows 2000 Intellimirror however is the solution to roaming information, and impressed me to no end. Although it probably doesn't help you now I just wish you'd have been asking this 'before' you installed this system. I could have helped you then.

I don't know how good this $90/hr consultant is. I charge more for my time, even to a home user... so...

The price difference I'm talking about is with enterprise class databases and web connected databases especially. Small scale, it really doesn't matter...

pundit

[pundit]

Originally posted by EddieDesignsDotCom:
<STRONG>

is that 'geek speak' or 'pc user speak'
because to someone as clueless as just a mere web/graphic designer that sure does sound like a foreign language to me. I mean there is so much for me to learn in such a short space of time that is relevent to my career - thank goodness I [knock on wood] never ever have to learn that craziness. what is it? xeons? tulatins? are they for real or just cool sounding words? hehe what an easy life it must be to take stuff like that for granted. I guess computer engineering aint for me.

[ 03-29-2002: Message edited by: EddieDesignsDotCom ]</STRONG>

A Xeon is a multiprocessor certified Pentium processor.
A Tulatin is a revision of the Pentium III processor using 0.13 micron - allowing it to run at higher speeds at lower temperatures.

The only reason you'd need to know this were if you were choosing a multiprocessor pc.

Its not really geek speak- just the only way of differentiating between the processors. Just like you need to know G3, G4 and eventually G5.

pundit

[pundit]

Originally posted by theolein:
<STRONG>

They'ld probably have to given that all the other crap that they put out and that their trolls utter has very little effect.</STRONG>

Now who's the troll

[Mac Zealot]

In the corporate world, macs and OS X are very bad for technicians, since it puts them outta the job. Think of it that way.

They'll do anything they can to get rid of the macs

OS X is very powerful, very stable, and very reliable as I've learned. Our school has had a G4 running OS X for a while now, it's uptime is 3 months (I never update it)

Anyhoot, just to give you the idea, the PC server crashes almost daily, and that machine is more stable than almost the whole network. lol.

*shrug*

[goMac]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>

Your big problem is that you are closing the barn door after the horse has already ran right out.

NT4.0 has issues with roaming profiles. Windows 2000 Intellimirror however is the solution to roaming information, and impressed me to no end. Although it probably doesn't help you now I just wish you'd have been asking this 'before' you installed this system. I could have helped you then.

I don't know how good this $90/hr consultant is. I charge more for my time, even to a home user... so...

The price difference I'm talking about is with enterprise class databases and web connected databases especially. Small scale, it really doesn't matter...

pundit</STRONG>

We were running Windows 2000. Thats what the server came installed with.

Unfortunetly, when we ran win2k, it tried to take control of everyone elses domain too, meaning that we had angry lunch ladies come after us because they couldn't get into their machines to charge lunches.

The easiest solution was to downgrade to winnt so we didn't have to re-arrange the whole network.

[pundit]

Hmmm... 2k will coexist with other domains. Something to do with DHCP leases perhaps. Maybe a WINS problem?

Theres no technical reason why you'd have to switch to NT4. I'd say your consultant has the issue, with understanding, rather than a viable network problem. Of course, I'd need more details to tell you precisely what the problem was.

pundit

[theolein]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>I know a couple of engineers who worked for the Chicago Mercantile who told me that Unix was good, but not foolproof (they worked on enough systems to know- and thats all they did), and regardless... hardware is hardware, and unix systems have single points of failure too. Its a falicy that UNIX is 'invulnerable' and its amusing that you claim that it is.

How about this scenario...

Two CTO's... one buys unix, the other wintel. Both have dedicated support staff's. The cost savings brought by the equally stable clustered windows solution means that company can provide their product at a lower cost, driving their competitor out of business. The Unix admin who had been playing with his gameboy, lost his job, couldn't get another and shot himself in a bout of depression.

pundit</STRONG>

No one claims that unix is infallible but I find it interesting to note that IBM has made significant inroads in the mission critical server market with it's Linux efforts. Not only this but MS's security reputation is so bad that when your boss, Bill, claims to the world that all his coders were going to learn about security for the whole month of february was only met with amusement by most of the industry.

I have over two years read exactly 4 posts from different people claiming that they have managed to keep a Windows server(NT or 2000) up for a year. You are the 4th. From my own experience doing admin on a win2000 server (but I'm not trained so I don't really know) I had to reboot on average once a month. In the same time I have read literally hundreds of posts from normal people, not only sysadmins, that have had their various *nix machines up without rebooting for over a year.

[theolein]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>

Now who's the troll </STRONG>

[pundit]

Originally posted by theolein:
<STRONG>

No one claims that unix is infallible but I find it interesting to note that IBM has made significant inroads in the mission critical server market with it's Linux efforts. Not only this but MS's security reputation is so bad that when your boss, Bill, claims to the world that all his coders were going to learn about security for the whole month of february was only met with amusement by most of the industry.

I have over two years read exactly 4 posts from different people claiming that they have managed to keep a Windows server(NT or 2000) up for a year. You are the 4th. From my own experience doing admin on a win2000 server (but I'm not trained so I don't really know) I had to reboot on average once a month. In the same time I have read literally hundreds of posts from normal people, not only sysadmins, that have had their various *nix machines up without rebooting for over a year.</STRONG>

If you're asking me would solitary windows machines have worse uptimes than other platforms. Probably.

From personal experience, for a server, on average... maybe every 3 months or so is about right... 4 times a year basically. My home machine has been doing much better than that and I abuse the shit out of it

However, its irrelevent, since in my scenario, and essentially what Microsoft espouses, you'd have other servers to deal with requests for the few minutes of downtime, or the couple of hours late one evening or weekend when you're doing a major upgrade. Or even better, you do the upgrade offline, test it, create a disk image, swap one machine's disks at a time, add to the domain and let it sync and then move on.

pundit

[ 03-29-2002: Message edited by: pundit ]

[goMac]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>Hmmm... 2k will coexist with other domains. Something to do with DHCP leases perhaps. Maybe a WINS problem?

Theres no technical reason why you'd have to switch to NT4. I'd say your consultant has the issue, with understanding, rather than a viable network problem. Of course, I'd need more details to tell you precisely what the problem was.

pundit</STRONG>

Somehing about the other domains being NT4 based. We couldn't upgrade the other domains to 2k because of hardware issues.

I'm not happy with the consultant at all, but thats out of my hands.

The other solution we had though of was moving the server onto its own network with its stormtroopers (we call the server vadar cause its big and black, and all its beige dell clients are the stormtroopers). Vadar would pull the net connection from one network interface which connected back to the schools network. The other network interface would just go to the private network running all the stormtroopers.

So far you've been unable to convence me NT is better because:

Our "low end" G4 was running 90 clients. I don't know if you know what net booting is, but its basically where the machines run a system off the server. You could run the machines without a hard drive. Additionally, our server was running Mac Manager, which allowed for roaming profiles. The roaming profiles worked correctly along with everything else. The server has crashed only twice, but it would automactically restart and we'd be back in business. OS X never tried to take over domains, and it never conflicted in our network.

Even though our Dell has never crashed it hasn't been able to handle roaming profiles correctly, and has about every virus on the face of the earth. Its taken a lot more effort to maintain the dell compared to our unix server.

[pundit]

Sounds like a plan. If you can isolate a lan, you should anyway; you avoid shared broadcast traffic.

BTW unless you've not noticed, Intel servers aren't particularly expensive anymore. You were robbed on the specification of the Dell server as far as I can tell. Gateway and Dell both had incredible deals recently with servers less than $1000.

Yeah, I've heard of netbooting... but its generally done with low bandwidth clients like DOS and 3.11 and so on. Pretty rare now with Windows. The method of doing that now days is Terminal Server, with Citrix Metaframe (a nice and very solid combo.) And using thin clients.

If it were me you wouldn't have gotten the virus' in the first place. Its pretty common knowledge that roaming profiles suck. Even if he didn't know, then a few minutes of research on deja could have told him that.

[pundit]

BTW... I once knew a consultant who charged a client (among other things) $16000 for an AFCO cabinet, that was worth about $4600, and it had warped at the base.

He bought his wife an SUV based on that project.

pundit

[goMac]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>Sounds like a plan. If you can isolate a lan, you should anyway; you avoid shared broadcast traffic.

BTW unless you've not noticed, Intel servers aren't particularly expensive anymore. You were robbed on the specification of the Dell server as far as I can tell. Gateway and Dell both had incredible deals recently with servers less than $1000.

Yeah, I've heard of netbooting... but its generally done with low bandwidth clients like DOS and 3.11 and so on. Pretty rare now with Windows. The method of doing that now days is Terminal Server, with Citrix Metaframe (a nice and very solid combo.) And using thin clients.

If it were me you wouldn't have gotten the virus' in the first place. Its pretty common knowledge that roaming profiles suck. Even if he didn't know, then a few minutes of research on deja could have told him that.</STRONG>

This server brings the term "server" to a new level. It is too big to fit under a desk, both height and depth. Its at least dual processor, but more likely quad. Its packed so full of hardware that it takes 10 minutes for it just to find it all to start up. I have no idea why such a server was bought to serve just to 30 clients.

Once again, the mac handled roaming profiles just fine. With all the talk about how good win2k was, we figured the PC's would be just fine too. Otherwise, we would have bought new macs with REALBasic and OS X client instead of Visual Basic, and kept running off the mac server. That would have handled roaming profiles fine. I was pushing for a lab of cubes, but, it didn't work out.

[dbergstrom]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>Sounds like a plan. If you can isolate a lan, you should anyway; you avoid shared broadcast traffic.

BTW unless you've not noticed, Intel servers aren't particularly expensive anymore. You were robbed on the specification of the Dell server as far as I can tell. Gateway and Dell both had incredible deals recently with servers less than $1000.

Yeah, I've heard of netbooting... but its generally done with low bandwidth clients like DOS and 3.11 and so on. Pretty rare now with Windows. The method of doing that now days is Terminal Server, with Citrix Metaframe (a nice and very solid combo.) And using thin clients.

If it were me you wouldn't have gotten the virus' in the first place. Its pretty common knowledge that roaming profiles suck. Even if he didn't know, then a few minutes of research on deja could have told him that.</STRONG>

I actually am on the user end of a Citrix Metaframe system right now, with thin clients running a version of Windows CE (this is government issue Veterans Affairs Medical Center computer network). All of the clients are actually run from a server farm offsite. They can be pretty flaky - about once every week there would be difficulty getting into the patient record software. VAs don't use paper charts anymore for patients, it's all electronic now. While having the electronic charts is cool, it had better be damn stable since lives literally depend upon it. I never ran into any problems that required more than a reboot of the thin client in 12 weeks, and fortunately I never needed to reboot in an emergency.

I don't know how well Macs NetBoot off a Mac server - I've never used such a client.

What I can say unequivocally is that the Windows clients at the VA were user interface hell. There was no taskbar, so windows had to be minimized for you to have any hope of switching apps (minimized windows just went to the bottom of the screen, but would be obscured if another window was maximized). These clients were also SLOOOOOOOW! Every keystroke would result in the screen flashing as it re-drew. Launching Explorer or Word took on the order of 60 seconds. You would double click the icon, then a bunch of terminal windows would open as scripts accessed the server, then the terminal windows would close and eventually the app would open. This would happen every time you opened an app, even if you had already opened it that session. What a pain!

Again, this is just one user's experience with one system, but it makes me thing that Windows was NEVER intended to be NetBooted.

[pundit]

Originally posted by goMac:
<STRONG>

This server brings the term "server" to a new level. It is too big to fit under a desk, both height and depth. Its at least dual processor, but more likely quad. Its packed so full of hardware that it takes 10 minutes for it just to find it all to start up. I have no idea why such a server was bought to serve just to 30 clients.

Once again, the mac handled roaming profiles just fine. With all the talk about how good win2k was, we figured the PC's would be just fine too. Otherwise, we would have bought new macs with REALBasic and OS X client instead of Visual Basic, and kept running off the mac server. That would have handled roaming profiles fine. I was pushing for a lab of cubes, but, it didn't work out.</STRONG>

The poweredges are massive and built like a tank. Full-length Serverworks LE motherboard, then there's the internal bay, and space for hotswap powersupplies behind that. Server chipset PC's are always notoriously slow to start. You've got the BIOS, then the memory check, then the raid controller detection, then the raid set intialization, then the regular scsi bios. I've seen Compaq's boot slower though.

In my opinion, you should have a) worked harder to get Win2k to work. b) installed proper virus protection and appropriate service packs and security bulletin updates.

Again... too late now. I feel your pain if that helps

When everything goes wrong its natural to wish for the old system back...

pundit

[pundit]

Originally posted by dbergstrom:
<STRONG>

I actually am on the user end of a Citrix Metaframe system right now, with thin clients running a version of Windows CE (this is government issue Veterans Affairs Medical Center computer network). All of the clients are actually run from a server farm offsite. They can be pretty flaky - about once every week there would be difficulty getting into the patient record software. VAs don't use paper charts anymore for patients, it's all electronic now. While having the electronic charts is cool, it had better be damn stable since lives literally depend upon it. I never ran into any problems that required more than a reboot of the thin client in 12 weeks, and fortunately I never needed to reboot in an emergency.

I don't know how well Macs NetBoot off a Mac server - I've never used such a client.

What I can say unequivocally is that the Windows clients at the VA were user interface hell. There was no taskbar, so windows had to be minimized for you to have any hope of switching apps (minimized windows just went to the bottom of the screen, but would be obscured if another window was maximized). These clients were also SLOOOOOOOW! Every keystroke would result in the screen flashing as it re-drew. Launching Explorer or Word took on the order of 60 seconds. You would double click the icon, then a bunch of terminal windows would open as scripts accessed the server, then the terminal windows would close and eventually the app would open. This would happen every time you opened an app, even if you had already opened it that session. What a pain!

Again, this is just one user's experience with one system, but it makes me thing that Windows was NEVER intended to be NetBooted.</STRONG>

Thats not really how Metaframe is intended to be run; whilst you *can* use it to serve remote desktops, you should actually be serving remote apps. You run the remote app. It appears on your desktop like its on your system, but actually is processing in the context of the server.

Slow client processing generally however is a sign of
a) too many clients on a single metaframe. depends if your doing really intesive stuff
b) not enough memory. Terminal Server eats memory for lunch. A good starting point for a Terminal Server is a gig.
c) Bandwidth problems. Either on their end, your end or somewhere in between. I run a terminal server connection in my house, and i've accessed it from outside. I have a cable modem (300kb/s at best) and its fine.

pundit

[theolein]

Originally posted by pundit:
<STRONG>


I don't get how you think I'm an MS troll.

Troll- An electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other (electronic) communication which is intentionally incorrect, but not overtly controversial (compare flame bait), or the act of sending such a message. Trolling aims to elicit an emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key. A really subtle troll makes some people lose their minds.

Whatever you say about MS business practices is pretty irrelevant. I don't care, and you're not going to change anything. The government might, but I doubt it.

In terms of iffy businessmen, Henry Ford was pretty scummy. He was an antisemite who read a play written years earlier about the jews having a zionist conspiricy to take over the world... and ultimately funded propaganda throughout europe that contributed to the rise of the Nazi's. Theres a ton more stuff about him if you look. Bill Gates et al. are like saints comparitively.

pundit</STRONG>

You are so typical of MS trolls. Never answer any known MS weak points directly. Never get upset. Always turn up with a load of technical salesman info on MS products. Always try to play the role of the helpful technical consultant. Always try to show the superiority of MS products ina friendly helpful way. Never admit directly to work for Microsoft.

Sound like anyone you know?

You are very wrong when you say that it doesn't matter what I say about MS or it's business practices. I am only one person, but when I don't distort known facts about that company and when others do the same, over time people beginn to listen. MS products themselves are ok, and there are worse things in life than having to run windows, and Windows *is* fairly stable, but MS business practices , abuse of partners and customers, outright lying, overpricing, paranoid attacks on anything remotely resembling competition are disgusting and beneath contempt.