Linux is a pieve of crap compared to Windows 2000.

[microsoft windows]

You can get a lot done on Windows 2000 or XP without much background processes/bloatware running.

[ch_123]

Ah, a disc burning utility that can only burn ISOs, how useful...

[ch_123]

InfraRecorder is a nice open source one. I was put off it when I first tried it a few years ago when it was still in early development, and it didn't work nice. Has been working great any time I've used it recently.

DeepBurner, of which there is a freeware version, is what I've used the most in the intervening period. It's a good piece of kit, but the interface is as clunky as hell.

[instantkamera]

cdrecord (cdrtools) FTW

[zefrer]

I just chalked it up to one of his ancient PCs fault. Or just bad typing, who knows.

[ricercar]

What??? No.  Win98SE was pretty good.

Do WinSE and goatse come from the same root?

win2k and lower are absolutely useless out of the box

Bwah? 2K is a decently stable server platform out of the box, includes TCP/IP and a rtf/doc reader. You're thinking 95/98/me for sure. Shall we quibble and play word games or stop feeding trolls?

oops.

[ricercar]

win2k and lower are absolutely useless out of the box

Bwah? 2K is a decently stable server platform out of the box, includes TCP/IP and a rtf/doc reader. You're thinking 95/98/me for sure. Shall we quibble and play word games or stop feeding trolls?

oops.

[ch_123]

Does no one remember the Summer of Worms? All those attacks were most effective against Windows 2000, IIRC.

[Shawn Stanford]

Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.

[ch_123]

Bwah? 2K is a decently stable server platform out of the box, includes TCP/IP and a rtf/doc reader.

Desktop usage is one thing, but for servers, I wouldn't call an unsupported version of Windows a stable platform. Especially when much better alternatives are available for free.

[imagine7xy]

Windows 7 runs just as fine as Windows 2K, using a Quad Core & 8 GB 1333 everything is top notch, not a bit of lag ever, no difference from 2K. I don't know why you would be concerned about running say 20 system processes instead of 10 when by 2022 it will be affordable to run 1 TB of memory, consider that 2K's 32bit arch with cap you out at about 3.2 GB of memory possibilities. You are crazy to still seriously run 2K unless you are just doing it for sh*ts and giggles.

[ch_123]

Win2K had PAE support, which allowed it to support something like 64GB of RAM. Later 32-bit versions of Windows restricted this functionality to server versions only. Linux has the same functionality available as far as I know.

I think there was some sort of catch involving driver support, but the point stands nonetheless.

[fl1ckmasterflex]

win2k and lower are absolutely useless out of the box, and to expand on their functionality is to increase their footprint significantly.  

I can choose to install an obscure Linux distro that comes with nothing installed. Since it uses the Linux kernel I can then make a truthful statement that Linux is useless out of the box. Conversely I can create my own Windows distro that includes all the software I want and slipstream it into the install media making it just as useful as a modern Linux distro out of the box.

Ofcource if ms officially started bundling any more software than what they are now, I'd wager that we'd see some interesting anti-trust lawsuits.

Case in point, can I run windows sans GUI?

Not a desktop version, but you can get something close to a base CLI linux install with server 2008 core http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008#Server_Core

You are somewhat correct in saying that Linux is more modular by design. This is mostly because it shares the UNIX design philosophy. Microsoft has demo'd a 25MB windows 7 CLI build running as a web server. I think if they wanted to enter the embedded market they probably could dedicate a few tens of millions of dollars and get the code refactored to compete with Linux w.r.t modularization.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsS_0wSfoU#t=3m30s

[instantkamera]

Again, my point with linux is that there really IS no box to come out of. Linux installs are pretty much entirely dictated by the user. Windows with a proper repository of useful software and a package manager to go with it would actually be awesome.

2008 core is ridiculous. That is still a GUI, Why draw GUI elements at all? Because windows sysadmins are afraid of text?

Yes MS COULD do something minimal or more modular than Windows currently is, but they haven't.

[JBert]

Ofcource if ms officially started bundling any more software than what they are now, I'd wager that we'd see some interesting anti-trust lawsuits.

You are comparing apples to melons. Microsoft controls who can bundle their software, with GNU/Linux, this is not the case. They vouched to make their software free*, so everyone who wants to make a distro can do so at any time.


* Closed-source development not withstanding - read this as "this source code wants to be out there/free".

[ch_123]

Not a desktop version, but you can get something close to a base CLI linux install with server 2008 core http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008#Server_Core

Yeah, but it's still running a GUI to display that command line screen. You still get all the problems associated with GUIs - unnecessary memory usage, and the potential stability/security issues, and having to run the appropriate drivers which cause more of the aforementioned resource/security/stability issues, but all the time without getting any of the benefits of having a GUI running away in the background - a classic Microsoft 'solution'.

I've read somewhere that MS has been working for the past few years on modularizing the components of Windows so that they can run the OS without having to run the GUI on top of it. And they're still working on it years later because not even Microsoft knows what's going on inside the belly of the beast. My understanding is that the NT kernel was originally a microkernel design, and they shoved more and more of the operating system's functionality into the kernel for performance reasons and now it's a gigantic mess because if they take stuff out of the kernel they'll just break other stuff that should be unrelated but isn't.

Yep, *nix has modularity, Windows just sucks balls.

You are somewhat correct in saying that Linux is more modular by design. This is mostly because it shares the UNIX design philosophy. Microsoft has demo'd a 25MB windows 7 CLI build running as a web server. I think if they wanted to enter the embedded market they probably could dedicate a few tens of millions of dollars and get the code refactored to compete with Linux w.r.t modularization.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsS_0wSfoU#t=3m30s

What they said time after time was that MinWin was just the basic kernel that they were going to use in Windows 7 and 2008 Server R2. It's not a viable OS by itself, they just took the kernel, hooked up a very basic environment around it and ran a dumbed down (they say so themselves in whichever video they first announced it in) http server on top of it. I wouldn't boast about it needing 25MB of RAM, especially given that you can get a GUI Linux desktop running in about 16MB of RAM, and probably not much more for a proper web server running on top of a CLI linux installation with the appropriate user land utils.

Embedded? There are real embedded systems that run in kilobytes of RAM that do real things. Still wouldn't boast about needing 25MB to run a castrated http server on top of a DOS-like shell.

[keyboardlover]

Windows with a proper repository of useful software and a package manager to go with it would actually be awesome.

Windows already has a repository of useful software (it's called the majority of software built today) and the package manager is the built-in installer. Unlike Linux, Windows doesn't need a repository, because it doesn't come in all these different flavors like Linux. And at least with Windows, you don't have to worry so much about package dependencies...everything is typically nicely bundled.

[D-EJ915]

Unless they use things like DirectX, .NET, Java, etc.  The amount of crap you need to get a working windows system is ridiculous.

[microsoft windows]

You all've seen nothing if you haven't set up a Windows 3.1 system these days. To sum it up, it's drivers to the tenth power.

[keyboardlover]

Unless they use things like DirectX, .NET, Java, etc.  The amount of crap you need to get a working windows system is ridiculous.

For me it takes the same amount of time to set up a Win 7 machine the way I want as it does a Linux machine.

[microsoft windows]

It can actually take more work customizing a Linux system to optimal functionality. But there's nothing wrong with that. Use whichever operating system you prefer. But I like Windows and you all can't change that.

[instantkamera]

Windows already has a repository of useful software (it's called the majority of software built today) and the package manager is the built-in installer. Unlike Linux, Windows doesn't need a repository, because it doesn't come in all these different flavors like Linux. And at least with Windows, you don't have to worry so much about package dependencies...everything is typically nicely bundled.

and therein lies the downfall of Windows. Because the user is tasked with getting all their software from all over hell's half acre, instead of a trusted resource, the stupider end of the user base inevitably winds up with a hosed system, be it through the installation of malicious software, or just plain poorly written ****.

Dependencies are a problem in windows. Java, that is a dependency. .NET framework is a dependency. Python, perl, ruby ... all dependencies. The difference is that you are used to dealing with them. Doesn't make them any better, in fact, it's far worse. Often prebuilt binaries on a windows box try to bundle in the required libraries, add ons etc. This is really haphazard and can lead to software conflicts, duplicate versions, leftover registry **** etc etc.

All GOOD package managers for nix handle all this in stride.

[zefrer]

The windows installer is not a package manager, get your facts straight. Here.

Again, package managers in linux are typically responsible for upgrading/installing the OS itself as well. There is no equivalent in the windows world.

[ch_123]

Windows Update, maaaaaaaan.

*runs*

[woody]

Win2K had PAE support, which allowed it to support something like 64GB of RAM. Later 32-bit versions of Windows restricted this functionality to server versions only. Linux has the same functionality available as far as I know.

Linux has PAE as kernel option, I use it with 6GB of RAM. The CPU support is up-to 64GB, but desktop motherboards usually cap at 8 or 16GB.
I've read on the net about hidden PAE support in XP which one can somehow enable, but it is kinda flaky with gotchas.

[zefrer]

Windows Update, maaaaaaaan.

*runs*

Hahahaha

[fl1ckmasterflex]

2008 core is ridiculous. That is still a GUI, Why draw GUI elements at all? Because windows sysadmins are afraid of text?

Yes, csrss.exe (the win32 subsystem) is running. However you're exaggerating or unfamiliar with the bloat that a NT subsystem ads. Running X and a desktop environment on Linux might do that, but thats not the same on NT.  Right now my w7 devbox has been running for about 13 or so hours and csrss has consumed about 24 seconds of CPU time.  This will only go down if you only use the box to run windows services (i.e. the intended use of server core)

[fl1ckmasterflex]

You still get all the problems associated with GUIs - unnecessary memory usage, and the potential stability/security issues, and having to run the appropriate drivers which cause more of the aforementioned resource/security/stability issues

Thats quite comical. Unfortunately your rant is not based on reality. CSRSS.exe(win32 subsystem) is one of the most stable pieces of code in Windows. Windows Safe mode relies on it.  As far as drivers go you can choose not to install any graphics drivers.

Yep, *nix has modularity, Windows just sucks balls.

The UNIX spec has nothing to do with kernel modularity. Also the Linux kernel is anything but modular. Its a giant binary blob. Thats the reason there is never going to be a stable kernel ABI layer for many things such as display drivers. Something that NT had about 17 years ago.

What they said time after time was that MinWin was just the basic kernel that they were going to use in Windows 7 and 2008 Server R2.

You're mistaken. MinWin is *already* in Windows 7 and server 2008. They're refactoring their codebase and while they're not going to make a new product with it they're using it to build a complete OS - aka Windows.

I wouldn't boast about it needing 25MB of RAM, especially given that you can get a GUI Linux desktop running in about 16MB of RAM, and probably not much more for a proper web server running on top of a CLI linux installation with the appropriate user land utils.

Yawn, here comes the troll. Nobody said it was a boast.

Embedded? There are real embedded systems that run in kilobytes of RAM that do real things. Still wouldn't boast about needing 25MB to run a castrated http server on top of a DOS-like shell.

Thats it? Got any more refutations for imaginary points that I never made?

[fl1ckmasterflex]

and therein lies the downfall of Windows. Because the user is tasked with getting all their software from all over hell's half acre, instead of a trusted resource, the stupider end of the user base inevitably winds up with a hosed system, be it through the installation of malicious software, or just plain poorly written ****.

This is true. But, you can have a similar problem on the Linux side of things too. In the future its possible that hundreds and thousands of software vendors would want users to install software through their own repository. And guess what - The same problem of not having a sufficiently vetted white-list appears.

Its just a matter of scale. If tommorow all the commercial software on windows was available on Linux, who is going to employ people to test and verify that the software doesn't contain malware?  Heck even if it was all magically open sourced, who is going to sift through all that code and verify that its kosher?

[Shawn Stanford]

I read somewhere that the debate in the early 60s at IBM between a 6-bit or 8-bit byte almost caused fistfights in the hallways at Old Armonk...