Strong minds
Why are people so vicious about an OS ?
At the end of the day I am a software architect and responsible for 137 government servers using a wide variety of OSes and applications.
My experience is that Microsoft OSes are (asa general rule) ...
1. easier to maintain and monitor
2. easier to configure and work with on a day to day basis
3. generally more friendly and easier to teach people on.
Linux may be more efficient when you complex operational stuff to do but unless you have servers that are constantly at capacity (eg google) there is no need for an OS that MUST use every CPU cycle perfectly.
What happens when things go wrong ?
If your linux box falls over potentially you could have real problems for hours but with my windows based servers I make 1 call and MS arrange to have the server sorted very quickly.
I am of course talking at huge scale levels where alot is going on. We have built business cases based on research for each server we have an at least 80% of the time windows does the job better, i admit it might not be more efficient but it does the job better because it serves our purpose.
A true test of an OS is to take it out of it's known "comfort zone" and make it do something it wasn't designed to do.
A good example here is state of the art graphical work.
If i want to do some 3d rendering in windows (custom stuff) I can quickly get (direct from Microsoft) a strong set of tools that make my life easy to create whatever i need that currently does not exist.
My experience with Linux is that I have to search for long periods of time on multiple corners of the internet for often sub-standard or badly supported tools.
This is not so much a dig at the OS but more a statement that Linux is just generally harder to work with on a day to day basis.
Now before all you Linux buffs come out and say "Ah yes but you don't knowwhat you're looking for and if you go to site A and site B you get everything" or something like "if you install this app it does it for you" let me point something out.
If i want something that works on windows I go to Microsoft and chances are its all sorted on one of their forums already.
With Linux there's forums based on versions, there's issues with compatability and often you have to use tools for that version as other versions have bits in them that just won't agree with the application.
Another interesting thing that comes back a lot is the issue of security ... "Linux is more secure" i hear people say.
I actually gave a Linux guy open access to my windows box at home one day, i shut down all my firewalling and AV software and told him to go to town with it.
He first told me i was lying at that the machine wasn't even switched on so i showed him my router interface.
Then he said I must have had something protecting it because windows wouldn't just let him in.
My point being that windows is not really as bad as the average Linux guy would let on and progress is faster when there's money involved (Direct X being a prime example here).
I don't agree with many of the things MS do and I'm open to using other systems but at the end of the day I feel that MS solve my Corporate problems as well as my Desktop problems.
Another interesting point ...
GUI's.
Linux users say this is "not required bloat that slows the system down", i think personally it's just a way to make the system the more friendly and more efficient to use and as stated above there are many GUI's for Linux ... yet another issue I have with it ... no standardisation ... new versions / distributions means learning a new set of tools, apps and often some new key shell commands.
I don't want to be learning how to do basic tasks all the time I just want to get the job done and move on is that too much to ask ?
One thing i think MS could do well to learn from though is the ability to number crunch that linux has, it's hardly fundamental to my needs (despite me being responsible for a network of servers) but a little more performance would be great.
I have tested some code I wrote a while back in C++ on both windows and linux designed to keep a computer busy for a reasonable amount of time (for load testing) and Linux isn't actuallya lot faster so all that stuff about how fast linux is ....
yeh ... about 4% (at this low level).
The key here ...
The "extra bloat" that comes with a new version of windows also comes with new versions of Linux, any Linux user would simply shut that down whereas most windows users are not technically minded enough to know whats needed and how to shut the extras down.
If you're a Linux user you will probably slag most of what I just said off now but hey I get paid a lot of money to do exactly this kind of research every day so I can't be far wrong else I wouldn't have a job would I?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
