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Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648

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[PLAIN]Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648[/PLAIN]

 

Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote in

news:1669128.mHi6Z2e3Ve@schestowitz.com:

> Linux vs. Windows - All You Need to Know

>

> ,----[ Quote ]

>| Linux already powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones.

>| Google runs more than 10,000 Linux servers. Amazon.com switched to

>| Linux and saved a cool $17 million. The French National Assembly has

>| started using Ubuntu on more than 1,000 computers. Since the

>| blockbuster movie "Shrek," the DreamWorks studio has been using Linux

>| to render its 3-D graphics and special effects.

>|

>| [...]

>|

>| Windows Vista

>|

>| What's best about it?

>|

>| Everything looks sharper and more vivid than it does on the outgoing

>| Windows XP. The new Flip 3D application helps you quickly switch

>| between the different windows, and the search features have been

>| greatly improved, too.

>|

>| What's worst about it?

>|

>| Six months after it launched, gripes continue. Many people still

>| complain that they can't run their favorite programs on Vista, so

>| many others are holding off upgrading from XP until a second edition

>| of Vista arrives.

>|

>| How much does it cost?

>|

>| Around Pounds 180 ($365) for the home Premium edition (Pounds 120 --

>| or $243 -- if you have XP already). If you want all the bells and

>| whistles, go for the Ultimate edition at around Pounds 320 ($648).

> `----

>

> http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/59265.html

>

> Google Desktop already offered superior search, and not just for

> Windows. Vista is the fluff that locks Google Desktop out and looks

> better _out of the box_ (XP can be customised to look the same).

>

> The article says that Google has 10,000 Linux servers, but Gartner

> begs to differ:

>

> Google: one million servers and counting

>

> ,----[ Quote ]

>| Gartner reckons that Google now make use of more than 1 million

>| servers, spitting out search results, images, videos, emails and ads.

> `----

>

> http://www.pandia.com/sew/481-gartner.html

>

> Journos...

>

 

Yet Linux, despite being free still can't manage to put even a ding in

Windows desktop market.

What is wrong with this picture?

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Guest spike1@freenet.co.uk

Guest spike1@freenet.co.uk

Posted
Posted

[PLAIN]Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648[/PLAIN]

 

Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648

 

Singer <singer42@geeeeemail.com> did eloquently scribble:

> Yet Linux, despite being free still can't manage to put even a ding in

> Windows desktop market.

> What is wrong with this picture?

 

Awwww, isn't it cute...

All these posts by the hard of thinking appearing...

Is vista doing so badly microsoft had to recruit a new bunch of trolls?

--

______________________________________________________________________________

| spike1@freenet.co.uk | "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?" |

|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)| |

| in | "I think so brain, but this time, you control |

| Computer Science | the Encounter suit, and I'll do the voice..." |

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guest Peter Köhlmann

Guest Peter Köhlmann

Posted
Posted

[PLAIN]Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648[/PLAIN]

 

Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648

 

spike1@freenet.co.uk wrote:

> Singer <singer42@geeeeemail.com> did eloquently scribble:

>> Yet Linux, despite being free still can't manage to put even a ding in

>> Windows desktop market.

>> What is wrong with this picture?

>

> Awwww, isn't it cute...

> All these posts by the hard of thinking appearing...

> Is vista doing so badly microsoft had to recruit a new bunch of trolls?

 

"Singer" isn't exactly "new"

It is more of a "steamrolled halibut". And stinking to high heavens

--

99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

Guest The Ghost In The Machine

Guest The Ghost In The Machine

Posted
Posted

[PLAIN]Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648[/PLAIN]

 

Re: [News] Linux vs Windows Article; Vista's Best Feature is... Fluff, Costs $648

 

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Singer

<singer42@geeeeemail.com>

wrote

on Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:13:48 +0000 (UTC)

<fc8s6s$eqe$11@registered.motzarella.org>:

> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote in

> news:1669128.mHi6Z2e3Ve@schestowitz.com:

>

>> Linux vs. Windows - All You Need to Know

>>

>> ,----[ Quote ]

>>| Linux already powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones.

>>| Google runs more than 10,000 Linux servers. Amazon.com switched to

>>| Linux and saved a cool $17 million. The French National Assembly has

>>| started using Ubuntu on more than 1,000 computers. Since the

>>| blockbuster movie "Shrek," the DreamWorks studio has been using Linux

>>| to render its 3-D graphics and special effects.

 

Server side.

>>|

>>| [...]

>>|

>>| Windows Vista

>>|

>>| What's best about it?

>>|

>>| Everything looks sharper and more vivid than it does on the outgoing

>>| Windows XP. The new Flip 3D application helps you quickly switch

>>| between the different windows, and the search features have been

>>| greatly improved, too.

>>|

>>| What's worst about it?

>>|

>>| Six months after it launched, gripes continue. Many people still

>>| complain that they can't run their favorite programs on Vista, so

>>| many others are holding off upgrading from XP until a second edition

>>| of Vista arrives.

 

Desktop side.

>>|

>>| How much does it cost?

>>|

>>| Around Pounds 180 ($365) for the home Premium edition (Pounds 120 --

>>| or $243 -- if you have XP already). If you want all the bells and

>>| whistles, go for the Ultimate edition at around Pounds 320 ($648).

 

UK only. US pricing is rather cheaper, though Ultimate

at $399 for a full list price is a bit much. (The street

price is lower and most people can get by with an upgrade.)

>> `----

>>

>> http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/59265.html

>>

>> Google Desktop already offered superior search, and not just for

>> Windows. Vista is the fluff that locks Google Desktop out and looks

>> better _out of the box_ (XP can be customised to look the same).

>>

>> The article says that Google has 10,000 Linux servers, but Gartner

>> begs to differ:

>>

>> Google: one million servers and counting

>>

>> ,----[ Quote ]

>>| Gartner reckons that Google now make use of more than 1 million

>>| servers, spitting out search results, images, videos, emails and ads.

>> `----

>>

>> http://www.pandia.com/sew/481-gartner.html

>>

>> Journos...

>>

>

> Yet Linux, despite being free still can't manage to put even a ding in

> Windows desktop market.

> What is wrong with this picture?

>

 

Nothing. Roy is looking at it from a server standpoint.

You are looking at it from a desktop/access standpoint.

The two are quite different.

 

What is a desktop computer, really? To most people, it's

probably a magic box. Click here [*], open a document.

There's a *lot* going on underneath, from the disk drive

reads to loading and refreshing the random access memory,

or RAM [!] to the presentation layout computations and

font loads into the display subsystem (whichever it

is), various abstractions such as windows, title bars,

and controls/gadgets/widgets/blivets/what not, and the

monitor interpreting the video signals to make elements

on its screen glow, but does the user care? No. He just

reads the text he wants to read. [+] [%]

 

Click there to listen to a song. The hard drive chunks

and chugs some more; the data buss gets a little warmer

from all the current going through it; the audio device

pumps some stuff through to the earphones or the main

preamplifier ultimately leading to a high-end audio system,

which has little motors moving some paper or a crystal

around, driving the user's eardrums, and at the end of

the day, the user is satisfied because he hears what he

wants to hear.

 

Click to watch a video. Hard drive chunks and chugs,

video card might do part of the decoding with the CPU doing

the rest (I'd frankly have to wade through the details),

the audio system is doing its thing, the monitor glows in

a very precise fashion, and at the end of the day the user

sees what he wants to see.

 

If the user is accessing the Web the network card gets

involved, as does his ISP, a bunch of routers, maybe some

wiring, and the server dishing out data packets going in

his general direction.

 

The actual click gets processed by a bit of code that

has to figure out who gets fed the file for more detailed

consumption. In Gnome's case, that's nautilus (though it

might be replaceable). KDE might use konqueror; I'd have

to look. IE handles Windows (it used to be SHELL.EXE,

but IE4 replaced it long ago). In all three cases the

program/code has to figure out what type of file it is,

and what tool to run.

 

But does the user really care what is underneath? No. Not

unless it malfunctions and needs repairing or replacement.

It's a bit like trying to monitor what the chassis of the

car is doing as he's driving, or where a bit of fuel is

moving from tank to engine; most people simply don't think

at that level.

 

It's not even clear the user cares which browser, though

he might be caring that the default browser (the blue

"e") isn't doing the job, so downloads Mozilla Firefox.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be an issue -- and that's why IE won

the browser wars. (That, and back then IE4 was actually

better than Netscape 3.)

 

The server is even more magical and mystical. Those

familiar with the industry (I know a little of it)

know about industry-standard 40+-U rackmount units [#],

Blades (a variant of a rackmount that can squish 10 CPUs

into about a 7U space), heat flow (a requirement if one

wants his equipment to continue to operate reliably!),

uninterrupted power supplies (these can get pretty big for

a server room), router switches (the ones we use occupy

about 1U and have 32 or so RJ45 ports) and backups.

 

That's of course the physical side; there's issues

with name resolution, data packet transmission and

retransmission, and framing as well. each packet has

to have source and destination, specified in multiple

formats, some of it presumably for historical reasons.

IP packets in particular contain MAC addresses and the

4-byte IP address, along with a lot of other gunk.

 

Those that aren't familiar with all this might say "Oh,

well, I can access http://www.cnn.com through the blue 'e' and

read the news." And we want to sell them Linux? It might

be a tough sell to those who have never had a problem with

Windows.

 

Unfortunately for the consumer (and for Microsoft), lots

of people have problems with Windows, to the point that

"BSOD" is a well-known acronym.

 

[*] it is possible that the user might manually type in a

command line e.g. 'mplayer myvideo.mp3'. Both Linux and

Windows allow this, but do not require it; the main

difference is simply that SHELL.EXE/nautilus/konqueror

handle the visual click, but CMD.EXE/bash handle the

user's command line, with some additional drivers

handling keystrokes. Of course the visual display

system still has to show the text, unless one is

contemplating remote invocation (ssh/rdesktop/vnc/etc.)

in which case it's someone else's display system.

 

[%] Reading e-mail fits into this category as well.

 

[!] Dynamic RAM must be refreshed every 2-4 milliseconds or

so, if I'm not mistaken, or its contents is lost. This is

regardless of whether the RAM is holding anything really

important or not, though in an ideal system an empty page

would not need the refresh signal and power consumption

would thereby be lessened. However, since RAM is commonly

sold in "sticks" of about 1 GB each or so, and a page is

around 4k to 16k in size, there's been no real effort in

implementing such a notion. In the PC, DMA channel 0 is

dedicated to RAM refresh, IINM.

 

[+] Editing is also possible in some cases in each of

these scenarios, depending on tool capabilities and

user desires.

 

[#] These can come in smaller sizes; many musicians

like rackmount equipment as well. One 40u cabinet from

Rackmount Solutions has outside dimensions 74 1/8" h by 22"

w by 25" d, just to give one an idea on size. A person

could walk inside such a rack, if it's empty and the

person isn't overly large.

 

--

#191, ewill3@earthlink.net

Linux. The choice of a GNU generation.

Windows. The choice of a bunch of people who like very weird behavior on

a regular basis, random crashes, and "extend, embrace, and extinguish".

 

--

Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

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