[ILUG] Have you had your daily dose of reality?

[Shane Dempsey]

Thank you Lars. 
After 6 months of Win2k beta testing 
I am extremely happy with it and here are the reasons 
why.

Networking Speed:
It has outperformed linux on all the CORBA benchmarks that
I've done.  When you're doing CORBA based development that's
kinda important . 

My downloads are faster but maybe the OS is lying. 
When I timed it a linux v Windows download I discovered
that the difference in download speeds wasn't as great as registered. 

Reliability : My linux machine has been rebooted
about 5 times due to problems with X and various apps. 
I'm running WindowMaker ( not enlightenment and gnome like some ) 
and I have never been impressed with the stability of linux GUIs. 
My windows machines have been rebooted once each. 
The workstation got rebooted when winamp bombed
out. Something to do with an outdated sound driver 
I'm told. ( this kinda thing IS going to irritate a lot of people ) 


Development tools:
We have the full suite of MS dev tools plus support here
and they're extremely useful. I suspect that some absolutely
hate developer studio but I really like it. The MSDN help system
is genuinely helpful and as compilers go, VC++ is very good. 


Plug and Play:
You install Win2k and it works. I felt like saying that in the last mail
but I didn' think that anyone would believe me. 


Applications:
Advanced Server costs a tonne of cash but
it's easy to install, intuitive to configure , stable while running,
seems pretty efficient and comes with everything that 
one could ever need. Well not quite but the networking
applications ( security , remote access , routing , dns et al ) are
cool. Administration is a piece of piss. 

Look and feel:
The GUI looks lovely  ( in an MS kinda way ).
It looks solid and clean and feels responsive. 


Put simply it feels like they've spent billions
on it and they have. A lot of people won't use
it cos its expensive and others cos its Mc$oft. 
Personally I don't care. I use it cos it's productive
in a way that WinNT never was. 

I'd just like to point out that I don't work for Microsoft, 
have never worked for Microsoft, still use
linux, like gnome for its innovative design, like linux 
for its stability and great efficiency on almost anything
that I install it on but don't feel that LINUX is always better
than Mc$oft. 

I would like to say that I'm in the windows development
business ( much to the embarrassment of my nix loving 
friends ) and as such I read the official mc$oft mags

It seems like many different aspects of the OS have
been totally rewritten ( yes totally ). 
This includes many aspects of the device driver architecture
as this was reponsible for many problems in the past. 
The word from some friends in MS is that they threw out
whatever caused problems in the past and threw as much
money as possible at it to fix it. 

I could look up the relevant articles and quote them 
but what's the point. After 6 months the honeymoon 
isn't over. 

BTW I was joking about the MsHardware and the pinging. 
It's just my strange sense of humour. 

    ...shane


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Lars Hecking <lhecking at nmrc.ucc.ie>
To: <ilug at linux.ie>
Sent: 18 February 2000 13:35
Subject: Re: [ILUG] Have you had your daily dose of reality?


> 
> > Agreed. WIn2k is bulky and needs lots of RAM, fast processors
> > and new equipment.
> 
>  Maybe so. But, contrary to all the published benchmarks, people
>  who are actually running it on their machines claim it's a lot
>  faster.
> 
> > WIndows NT / 2000 are quite reliable at the end of the day.
> > They don't just configure themselves though. It takes a lot of
> > work to make a Windows NT based system work properly.
> 
>  But W2k does not.
> 
> > I'm running several win2k advanced server boxes here
> > and they've been up and running for weeks now without
> > a reboot or a major problem. This is definitely progress
> > from Redmond's finest >:-))
> 
>  I was just talking to someone who attended the W2k launch in
>  Dublin yesterday. Someone with no particular symapthies for M$,
>  and not prone to being excited about computers either.
> 
>  His comments: Scary. Fast. Absolutly seamless. If they ever get
>  it to run on any non-Intel hw, the other vendors are screwed.
>  No more reboots. Real plug and play, support for gobs of devices.
>  Excellent network and server control tools. And so on ...
> 
> 
>