Enough already! (was: Re: MS Laugh-In) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

19 Oct 2000

From: Carlos Murillo &lt;cem14(a)cornell.edu&gt;

...
 For me, win95 crashed with just adaptec, 3Com, matrox
and SoundBlaster Gold
...
 cards.  I'd hardly call these obscure brands in the
PCI adapter world. 

I'm running at work w95osr2 with aha2906 on a scanner for one box and my
desktop is a full house K2-350 (make sure you have the K2 patch) with
CDburner
sound and all.  It's a configuration issue usually PLUG and PRAY trying
to
sort out resources.

...
 >admit that it's because I don't know what
the hell I'm doing, when I use it.
...
 >Does that mean that Linux is designed badly? If
Linux is so great, why is
...
 >there an almost daily alert in my inbox from
bugzilla, reporting some
>security risk or other newly found flaw? 

Often if linux or any fairly stable OS crashes it's a bad app or driver.
Video drivers are often the worst save to the minimal ones and they may
drive the latest 16meg video.

W95 suffers as its level of file and memory protections is light and apps
can bust it.  Treat it like dos (no protections) and pick your apps right
and W95 is amazingly stable.  One comment, if you have an app the
breaks check for patches, often they do exist and really help.

...
 1) There will always be more bugs/security flaws
_reported_ for Linux
   because the user base is more demanding (after all that's why they're
   running Linux) and because more people will be checking the open
   source for problems.  That doesn't mean that Linux is more bug-prone;
   just that reporting is better. 

The issue is granularity, fine bugs vs glaring booboos.

...
 2) Bugs actually get fixed (quickly) in Linux.

See, the Linux mentality is that we'd rather discover the flaws so we
can fix them. The MS mentality is: let's put crap out and hope that they
don't find the holes, and, if they do find them, we'll tell them to upgrade
...
 to the next generation of winblows. Only if the flaw is
bad enough, we'll
...
 release a patch. 

MS is very slow on patches and they can be hard to sort out but
they are effective.

...
 There will always be some OS rivalry based on
XenoOSphobia.  But,
most people who hate windows are not unfamiliar with it--rather,
they hate it because they are all too familiar with it. 

;)  W95 is one of those.  I use it or the like and kind as the world
has gone that way and compatability is important.  I'm not satisfied
after working with TOPS-10, CP/M, RT11, RSTS and VMS as  my
models of what can or should be.  Robustness is something I prize
as well as somthing well known flawed or not.

Consider this:

    Stable mature systems we know how to use.

That doesn't mean DOS6.22 is bad only we know it's limits and
can deal with them effectively.

...
 But MS won't be patient with you.  Until we see
some real competition,
they have the upper hand: they can put crap out, and it will be bought. 

I think their testing has to reflect the increased complexity and
that other apps are popular and used.

Allison