Very Computer

Hello,

   I'm in a bit of a bind... I've been doing UNIX administration work
at OSU for about 2 years now.  I do maintenance for people running SGIs,
SUNs and NeXTs.  However, recently, our department has been talking about
buying a new machine to act as our main server (which is currently a VAX/VMS
machine).  I suggested a Unix box, and I have little doubt that my
suggestion will be followed.  Unfortunately, there is someone else in the
department who is a proponent of NT, and is trying to convince me that NT
is "the way of the future."  Equally importantly, he seems to know every
technical weakness in UNIX, and is proficient in both OS's.  He can spout
never-ending facts about NT's strengths (today it was "GM, the largest car
company is now entirely NT based...  did you know that a 4 processor PPro
NT box w/ MS Sequel server is comparable to a 16 processor Unix HP costing XXX
thousands of dollars?")...

Is NT the future?  I know that getting databases online seems to be a real
strength for NT.  Why shouldn't we go with NT?  I'd love to have some real
data to counter his arguments, but he's wearing me thin.  I just don't know
what to do.  Am I wasting my time in UNIX?  I'm learning NT, but I'm not
loving it.

For the record:  The services we provide w/ our server:  httpd, smtp, pop,
gopher, ftp, various home-grown cgi's, https, hmmmm... and anything else
we feel like doing.  (BTW, This is *not* on the VAX - we use an Openstep
machine to provide most of these services now... mail services are mainly
what the VAX handles).

I'd like facts... anything.  This is getting to the point of being a matter
of honor.

Anyway to remotely crash an NT box? :)

Sigh...

Thanks for your time,
John

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John E. Ray    "You're only a loser while you believe you're a loser,

============================================================================
Network Specialist I                     The Ohio State University Extension      
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:

>Hello,

>   I'm in a bit of a bind... I've been doing UNIX administration work
>at OSU for about 2 years now.  I do maintenance for people running SGIs,
>SUNs and NeXTs.  However, recently, our department has been talking about

Quote:>Is NT the future?  I know that getting databases online seems to be a real
>strength for NT.  Why shouldn't we go with NT?  I'd love to have some real
>data to counter his arguments, but he's wearing me thin.  I just don't know
>what to do.  Am I wasting my time in UNIX?  I'm learning NT, but I'm not
>loving it.

I personally can't stand NT.  I dabble in OS design, and "elephantine
monstrosity" is a kindness to that thing... Microsoft's designers went in
precisely the opposite direction from everyone else:  they absorbed the
functionality of many of the system daemons (init, getty, inetd, lpd, syslogd,
etc.) into the kernel, where other designers are trying to move as much code
*out* of the kernel as possible.  The API is baroque in the extreme.  This
does not give one confidence in its stability.

It's awful from an admin's perspective, too.  The extension of a filename is
deeply meaningful.  (Exercise:  Rename something FOO.EXE, type FOO at the
prompt, and watch NT try to execute it.)  The batch language is still
crippled.  You have to go through the GUI to do most admin tasks.  You can't
do anything remotely (well, unless you have another NT box to do it from, and
even then it's iffy).  The configuration is stored in a giant binary database,
and yes, it *will* get fscked to the point where REGEDIT won't run.

Admittedly, the security arrangements are nice -- ACL's are Good, and if you
can't telnet to a system, you can't break root. But I'm sure it's crashable
remotely, if you try hard enough.

Quote:>For the record:  The services we provide w/ our server:  httpd, smtp, pop,
>gopher, ftp, various home-grown cgi's, https, hmmmm... and anything else
>we feel like doing.

I don't know much about HP hardware, but the NT box I was beating on this past
summer was a 150Mhz Pentium with 32 Mb ram, all SCSI and PCI, and it had about
the performance I'd expect of Linux or *BSD on a 486DX/66 with half the RAM
and EISA bus.  (This makes a very nice demo, BTW.)

Now, if you have lots of money to blow on top-of-the-line PCs for people's
desktops, I have heard that NT Workstation 4 does very well:  think Windows 95
only rock solid.  But it's a memory and CPU pig.

/* flame off */

YMMV, naturally.  There are people who have had good results...  and I'm sure
we'll be hearing from them...

zw

Hi,

   Hello,

      I'm in a bit of a bind... I've been doing UNIX administration work
   at OSU for about 2 years now.  I do maintenance for people running SGIs,
   SUNs and NeXTs.  However, recently, our department has been talking about
   buying a new machine to act as our main server (which is currently a VAX/VMS
   machine).  I suggested a Unix box, and I have little doubt that my
   suggestion will be followed.  

If this file server is going to function for mainly unix machines I suggest
that you get a nice unix machine to function as a file server. Don't forget
that NT doesn't have NFS standard.

   Unfortunately, there is someone else in the
   department who is a proponent of NT, and is trying to convince me that NT
   is "the way of the future."  

When on the other hand it is going to serve only PeeCee's then a NT server
with central backup is maybe better. Don't believe anyone who says that
'nt is the way of the future'. In my personal opinion you will not hear about
NT in 5 or 10 years from now. Micro$oft finally has release a 32 bit OS, about
15 years too late. At this point several UNIX providers are selling 64 bit
unix versions.

   Equally importantly, he seems to know every
   technical weakness in UNIX, and is proficient in both OS's.  He can spout
   never-ending facts about NT's strengths (today it was "GM, the largest car
   company is now entirely NT based...  did you know that a 4 processor PPro
   NT box w/ MS Sequel server is comparable to a 16 processor Unix HP costing XXX
   thousands of dollars?")...

Well let me help you out of a dream: MS SQL server is very slow. I guess your
'someone' only reads the stories written by Bill's marketeers. I'm working
closely to people who are porting software from UNIX to NT now an NT is missing
a lot of basic functionalities. They have to work around a lot of either
missing implementations or impartial implementations, let alone the blue
screens (NT dumping a system core to disk) Ask your 'someone' if he knows
the growth of NT systems comparing to UNIX: that is 50% NT and 20-30% UNIX.
But NT is just beginning, their market coverage is less that 5% (if I'm not
mistaken) I don't think that NT on a 4 PPro can outrun a 16 Pa Risc HP-UX
machine. The last one will fly circles around the NT box. Besides, NT machines
are very memory consuming.

   Is NT the future?  I know that getting databases online seems to be a real
   strength for NT.  Why shouldn't we go with NT?  I'd love to have some real
   data to counter his arguments, but he's wearing me thin.  I just don't know
   what to do.  Am I wasting my time in UNIX?  I'm learning NT, but I'm not
   loving it.

You are not wasting your time with UNIX! Even not when you are looking to NT,
since the knowlegde of both increases your marketvalue :-) I don't think that
there is some hard data evidence in the UNIX-NT 'wars' (Would like to have
information btw) The installation and administration of NT systems is
as complex as with unix, instead of browsing to a lot of files with an
excelent manual pages on unix, you are wandering through windows and windows
and more windows and even more windows and buttons and popdown menus
and more popdown menus and finding settings at irregular places after a
long search. And when you find such a setting, you probably have to reboot
since you flipped a bit in the NT kernel that becomes active after reboot...

   For the record:  The services we provide w/ our server:  httpd, smtp, pop,
   gopher, ftp, various home-grown cgi's, https, hmmmm... and anything else
   we feel like doing.  (BTW, This is *not* on the VAX - we use an Openstep
   machine to provide most of these services now... mail services are mainly
   what the VAX handles).

Article Unavailable

--

"The POP3 server service depends on the SMTP server service, which
failed to start because of the following error:
The operation completed successfully." -Windows NT Server v3.51

Circulate your resume.  There have amd always be people without sense.
Leave the burning ship while you still can, and get a job with a company
that has some technical sense - not one thats driven by marketing hype.
--
The comments expressed are the consensus of Me, Myself and I

Information Systems Manager   (212)343-1234 x3006
Audrey Cohen College          http://www.audrey-cohen.edu

Max.

Quote:

>.
>.
>.

Quote:>Hello,
>   I'm in a bit of a bind... I've been doing UNIX administration work
>at OSU for about 2 years now.  I do maintenance for people running SGIs,
>SUNs and NeXTs.  However, recently, our department has been talking about
>buying a new machine to act as our main server (which is currently a VAX/VMS
>machine).  I suggested a Unix box, and I have little doubt that my
>suggestion will be followed.  Unfortunately, there is someone else in the
>department who is a proponent of NT, and is trying to convince me that NT
>is "the way of the future."  Equally importantly, he seems to know every
>technical weakness in UNIX, and is proficient in both OS's.  He can spout
>never-ending facts about NT's strengths (today it was "GM, the largest car
>company is now entirely NT based...  did you know that a 4 processor PPro
>NT box w/ MS Sequel server is comparable to a 16 processor Unix HP costing XXX
>thousands of dollars?")...

Quote:>Is NT the future?  I know that getting databases online seems to be a real
>strength for NT.  Why shouldn't we go with NT?  I'd love to have some real
>data to counter his arguments, but he's wearing me thin.  I just don't know
>what to do.  Am I wasting my time in UNIX?  I'm learning NT, but I'm not
>loving it.

Konstantin
--

Otkerstr. 28, 81547 Muenchen, Germany. Tel +49 89 69370185
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Treason, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder." Garak

NT crashes fine on its own....no need to help it.

You must remember that NT is basically a NetWare (often considered
to be prettier but less than NetWare).  If you're going to use
NT for file and printer serving....fine....

We use our NT box as a mult-user server (e.g. like every Unix
machine in the world is used) and frankly it cannot keep pace
and often goes berserk within a week....requiring a reboot.
That with about 8-10 users and 168M of memory on a P166 with 8G
of disk.

NT is essentially a band-aid for a bigger problem....Windows 3.1 and
Windows 95.

It's not Unix....not even close.

The Oct 28 Infoworld has several articles pointing to the fact that
Microsoft has lost its vision (e.g. pulling NT from certain chip
sets, forcing everyone to upgrade MS Office, admitting they were
wrong for staying out of the NC market...etc.).

Just off the top of my head....I could write numerous books about
NTs problems....but I have no desire to be a Microsoft tester
(read consumer)....

1. Installation of programs under NT suffers from the same problems
   of Win3.1....new installations are free to arbitrarily replace
   libraries with their own copies.  Simply put a new application
   can regress a much needed system library to an older deprecated
   version....how can you tell?  When your machine crashes....
   how to avoid?  Backup your entire system before each installation
   and perform a complete restore if the machine crashes (does this
   sound like Unix in any way at all?).

2. Registry database is a recipe for disaster.  A finicky animal which
   once corrupted pretty much means the end of NT....of course you
   should always have your full backup....and remember to specify
   that you want the registry files (by default, they're not included
   in the backup).

3. File system is essentially DOS++.  Go ahead add a drive, move
   an essential tree somewhere else.....after editing thousands of
   files to account for the move.....oops, time to add another drive
   ....here we go again....get the picture?

   Just like DOS added drives move drive letters around...if you're
   careful, with some manual intervention, you can defer the problem,
   but remember that when things move, it has dramatic impact
   affecting registry entries, .INI files, short-cuts (if you have
   Win95 clients), and so on and so on.

   Ask yourself...How much impact is envolved in adding a new Unix
   drive?

4. NT is multi-processing....NOT multi-user.  To get multi-user
   capability, you must pursue MS approved 3rd party products
   (like NTrigue for Insignia).

5. VERY little diagnostic tools.  When NT goes down hard....it's
   difficult to figure out why.  One day I watched as our NT
   died a slow and miserable death even though its performance
   monitoring tools showed the machine was under no load and for
   all practical purposes....healthy as a horse.

6. NT fans assure me that they can come out to my site and fix
   our machine so that is runs flawlessly....however, I can assure
   you that such voodoo magic is NOT documented in books nor at
   the MS web site....so I'm skeptical of their claims.  And they
   have offered NO verbal suggestions as to any fixes...just
   simply, "let me get on the box for awhile....and I fix it!"
   NT is best fixed with a Linux boot record (I've never had to
   reboot our Linux box).

So, even apart from Microsoft's questionable business decisions as of
late, on the technical side, I still give them low marks.

In conclusion...people buy NT to fix Windows...NT is far from
displacing Unix for mission critical applications (which many argue
that Unix isn't suited for....then double so for NT).

IMHO  other opinions may vary....but mine's the correct one :)
Chris

11 years Unix experience on over 20 platforms.
If Unix is the problem....and NT is the answer....then can we
assume that paperclips are the answer for world poverty?

You say this person is a source of "never-ending facts", but the examples
you cite are opinions. Ask him for citations. Get him to back up what
he means by "comparable". Ask him for backup on GM's qualifications as
an IT consultant. (If indeed they are "entirely NT based".) (And what
does "NT based" mean, anyway???)

Follow up on his suggestions. See if benchmarks support his comparisons.

Side benefit... you'll be learning some of the other OS as a hedge
against the victory of the forces of darkness!

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
David Lawver - speaking for me, not UW-Madison, DoIT, or anyone else

"Those who would do away with essential liberties for the sake of a
little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

[Posted and mailed]

Quote:

> Is NT the future?  

UNIX has been around for many years, and has a trust and core knowledge
of experience that has grown with it.  It does not really
change that much, even between SysV and BSD types.
UNIX is UNIX...

Who really *knows* NT except for the company that wrote it?
You don't get the source for NT do you?

Maybe you don't for Solaris either, but most of the time the API
is open and information about the internals is not obfuscated
or hidden in agreements of a legal nature or whatever.
That's my first argument.

I know that getting databases online seems to be a real

Quote:> strength for NT.  Why shouldn't we go with NT?  I'd love to have some real
> data to counter his arguments, but he's wearing me thin.  I just don't know
> what to do.  Am I wasting my time in UNIX?  I'm learning NT, but I'm not
> loving it.

There's no way to manage a lot of the NT environment without
using the GUI.  It's not necessarily easier to use.

What can you do if you have to mess around with dialog boxes
and input lines without access to a pointing device?

I have tried using MS Products without a mouse, and it is frustrating.

At least with UNIX, you have your OS, then you have your Windowing
System.  If the Window System breaks, too bad, you still have your OS.

NT - the Windowing System *is* the OS...
Too bad if it breaks, you have no OS...

I know there are packages you can *buy* that give POSIX level compliancy
for NT, and it includes stuff like shells, scripting ability
etc. etc. but why bother. UNIX gives it to you *free*

Even a C compiler can be found free for UNIX, never mind Solaris
or whatever makes you pay too, at least you can get a free one easily...

Quote:

> For the record:  The services we provide w/ our server:  httpd, smtp, pop,
> gopher, ftp, various home-grown cgi's, https, hmmmm... and anything else
> we feel like doing.  

Most of those things you have to buy for NT.
A DNS server for NT costs AUD400, to just quote one example.

Also, who's running a news server on NT?
I betcha it is slow...  I betcha it falls over a lot.
Even MS know better than to use NT for that!

A lot of NT "internet" applications aren't even following the
standards laid down by the RFCs!

Look at the debacle regarding the delegation of IP addresses
from within the NT GUI.

Sure you can fix the problem, but then you need a text editor.
So much for the NT GUI providing ease of use!

NT's not scalable the same way UNIX is.
NT can't handle loads as well as that UNIX box gathering dust in the
corner, no matter what speed the Intel CPU is...
NT can't..
It doesn't...
<sigh> ;)
Oh well...
I'll stop now.

I am a newcomer to UNIX, and it's charms have not worn off me yet,
and was severely jaded by the MS way of doing things.
So...
Please don't flame me!

Quote:> Anyway to remotely crash an NT box? :)

No advocacy wars please, this is just a bit of fun, but I will
always maintain the opinion that NT is bad magic...

rachel
(reformed MS user, now UNIX admin ;) )

--
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia


                Witty comment revoked due to funding cuts

Hi John,
Just one problem, but i have many other:
I have some unix servers and a NT server, and my user use both unix and
NT, it's a pain in the neck to have the profile for all user working
correctly on the NT, some time it works some time not, nobody know why
?!? (include some microsoft cetified engineer)

And for the file sharing we use samba on unix that's a great tools
(free) and we didn't have any problem with it. You will find more poeple
on internet who can help you with unix/samba that NT.

Don't worry unix will be here for a long time, NT i'm not sure !

Arno
Network Administrator

Quote:>UNIX has been around for many years, and has a trust and core knowledge
>of experience that has grown with it.  It does not really
>change that much, even between SysV and BSD types.
>UNIX is UNIX...

Quote:>Who really *knows* NT except for the company that wrote it?
>You don't get the source for NT do you?

>Maybe you don't for Solaris either, but most of the time the API
>is open and information about the internals is not obfuscated
>or hidden in agreements of a legal nature or whatever.
>That's my first argument.

Quote:>What happens if your mouse fails?
>Sounds stupid but it's true.

Quote:>I know there are packages you can *buy* that give POSIX level compliancy
>for NT, and it includes stuff like shells, scripting ability
>etc. etc. but why bother. UNIX gives it to you *free*

>Even a C compiler can be found free for UNIX, never mind Solaris
>or whatever makes you pay too, at least you can get a free one easily...

Quote:>> For the record:  The services we provide w/ our server:  httpd, smtp, pop,
>> gopher, ftp, various home-grown cgi's, https, hmmmm... and anything else
>> we feel like doing.  

>Exactly. What *you* feel like doing.

>Most of those things you have to buy for NT.
>A DNS server for NT costs AUD400, to just quote one example.

Quote:>Also, who's running a news server on NT?
>I betcha it is slow...  I betcha it falls over a lot.
>Even MS know better than to use NT for that!

Quote:>A lot of NT "internet" applications aren't even following the
>standards laid down by the RFCs!

>Look at the debacle regarding the delegation of IP addresses
>from within the NT GUI.

>Sure you can fix the problem, but then you need a text editor.
>So much for the NT GUI providing ease of use!

NT is not UNIX. Us UNIX folks would like it to be UNIX. Other folks
would like it to be as far away from UNIX as possible. I still
vastly prefer UNIX over NT. However, with NT's price/performance
and with the number of people who use M$ products like Office, I
don't think it is going away anytime soon. It doesn't make sense to
manage a network of M$ machines with a UNIX server. :)

Dimitri

Dimitri
(who doesn't want to sound like an NT proponent, but who has had
 experience with both UNIX and NT -- and likes UNIX far more)

I never saw the original posting, but I thought I would reply
to the reply.

|> > suggestion will be followed.  Unfortunately, there is someone else in the
|> > department who is a proponent of NT, and is trying to convince me that NT
|> > is "the way of the future."  

Hard to say.  Computers are not "investments" in the sense of buying
something whose value is expected to increase.  In fact, they seem
to depreciate faster than automobiles - kind of surprising for something
that doesn't actually wear out very fast.  You need to make a
purchasing decision based on your project costs/price/performance/etc.
for the next couple of years.  And, consider that the real value is in
your software and data, not the hardware, anyway.  NT has not been a big
success so far (marketplacewise) on anything but x86 platforms, despite the
superior performance of Alpha and MIPS platforms over much of the last 4 years.
On x86's, you can tap much (not all, but much) of the x86 software
written for Windows 3.1/95.  What I am leading up to is this:

For a particular system, one of the first questions to ask is,
"Does this system need to run x86 Windows/etc. - ie "Wintel" -
binaries?"  If so, that would be a strong argument in favor of
an NT/x86 solution.  If not, it isn't a factor.

I think it is fair to say that "NT is the way of the future"
as a technical replacement for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95,
since Microsoft has announced that strategy, and, because NT
has many capabilities Windows 3.1 and 95 do not have.  So, if
your choice is between PCs running DOS/Windows 3.1/95 or NT,
the wave of the future is NT.

                                  Equally importantly, he seems to know every
|> > technical weakness in UNIX, and is proficient in both OS's.  He can spout
|> > never-ending facts about NT's strengths (today it was "GM, the largest car
|> > company is now entirely NT based...  did you know that a 4 processor PPro
|> > NT box w/ MS Sequel server is comparable to a 16 processor Unix HP costing XXX
|> > thousands of dollars?")...
|>
|> You have a number of good responses already, so I'll only add this:
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I didn't see these, and don't know what newsgroups they were posted in.

In any case, back-end servers, being invisible to the users,
can be any suitable OS, NT, Unix, MVS, or whatever.  If you
are buying a system as a database server, you should really
read up on the TPC-C and TPC-D results available easily over
the web.

|> You say this person is a source of "never-ending facts", but the examples
|> you cite are opinions. Ask him for citations. Get him to back up what
|> he means by "comparable". Ask him for backup on GM's qualifications as
|> an IT consultant. (If indeed they are "entirely NT based".) (And what
|> does "NT based" mean, anyway???)

I concur.  I would be very surprised if GM doesn't have any
high-end systems [e.g. a Cray] to run structures codes on,
Unix workstations and servers in some design areas, and
maybe some IBM MVS mainframes doing financial stuff somewhere.
And, maybe, somewhere in a publications area, people are
using Macs?  Is GM really *completely* NT-based?  Does anyone
have a breakdown of systems at GM by operating system?

So, reading between the lines, I suspect that "GM is entirely NT-based"
might mean that the MIS department has decreed that all "Personal
Systems" {e.g. the PC/Mac market space} must be x86's running NT.
Unless there is some kind of special permission from an MIS Czar.
Anybody from GM out there care to comment on whether or not the
above is true, and, if true, what the "level of compliance" is?

|> Follow up on his suggestions. See if benchmarks support his comparisons.

As noted above, there is a lot of information about database
server performance based on TPC sources.

[Another purely personal opinion from:]

--
  Hugh LaMaster, M/S 233-18,    Email:       Please send ASCII documents to:


  Phone:  415/604-1056          Disclaimer:  Unofficial, personal *opinion*.

: Well, first off, GM is not entirely NT based.  I don't think there is a
: Mentor Graphics NT port.  I also don't think that there is much in the

There is. It's called "Integra". The last time I talked to them, it did not
support the ample programs that we've been writing for the last 5 years or
so, so it can't even be considered. I think they bough the product, I don't
*think* it's based on the code in board station or hybrid station.

As I'm typing this, I'm waiting for fablink to start on my HP735...

=================== http://www.holli.com/~jbuchana =======================
"Sing me a song, you're a singer, Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil.
 The devil is never a maker, the less that you give, you're a taker."
 -Ronnie James Dio
==========================================================================