Very Computer

I'm writing an article called OSWars 2000 which is a *desktop* OS comparison
of the various major operating systems that might be used on the home and
corporate desktop.  It doesn't deal with servers, purely with how they
compare to each other in terms of getting work done by individuals or groups
of individuals.

The last time I did this was in 1998 ("OS Wars 98") when Linux wasn't quite
as varied or advanced as it is today.
http://www.veryComputer.com/

I want to hear it from those that truly love Linux but also know the other
OSes well.  Nicholas Petreley of Linuxworld was kind enough to demo some of
the cooler features of Linux (I've used Linux too but I'm I'm more of a
casual user on Linux whereas I'm "guru" level on OS/2, MacOS, and Windows
98/NT/2000).

I'd like to keep the advocacy as factual as possible.  I.e. every OS
advocate tends to claim their OS is rock solid and the others "crash twice a
day".

So how would you compare Linux (Redhat, Caldera, Corel, etc.) as a DESKTOP
OS when compared to OS/2, BeOS, Windows 2000, Windows 98, etc.

Here's what I have so far in a nutshell:

Pros:
* Reasonable application support
* Reasonable driver support
* Ability to quickly and seamlessly switch between user sessions
* Easy to do distributed computing - You're on a LAN on a 100mB ethernet
connection you can really go to town.
* Low resource requirements
* Free
* Mostly open source software available, OS itself is open source making it
great to truly make it work like you want it to.
* Far more options to control how it looks, feels, behaves, etc. than other
OSes.

Cons:
* Horrible consistency - No universal clipboard support.
* Very little drag and drop or true OO stuff (Gnome is getting there but
it's not there yet)
* Always behind the curve in hardware support.
* No MS Office support (Staroffice and WP Office are both great but without
MS Office, many corps won't switch)
* Netscape the only reasonably good web browers and many people (including
me) think Netscape is inferior to IE at this point.
* Too many rough edges requiring the user to go to a cryptic text base UI to
do things (setting up VNC, a DNS, or a mail server tends to be a huge pain
in the *for "newbies" compared to a nice slick GUI implementation on
OS/2, BeOS, Windows, etc.).
* Overall lack of polish (WM's tend to have various graphic anamalies such
as title bar text going over the buttons and other harmless but tell-tale
signs of lack of attention to detail)
* No DDE or OLE (or OpenDOC or SOM) style framework which makes it hard to
advocate Linux as a good platform to run your applications
* Application selection is worse than Windows and in many cases OS/2.
Opensource helps Linux a lot but also hurts it by creating an atmosphere
that seems hostile to commercial software developers.

Some of my cons are based on perception and maybe not reality.  What I am
hoping is that some of you with a great deal of professional experience on
Linux can point out the pros and qualify the cons I've listed here so that
together, we can provide users with a reasonable objective comparison.

To see what was written in 1998 go to:
http://www.veryComputer.com/

This year's is going to be much longer and much more thorough.  OSWars 98
was picked up by quite a few magazines and user groups so this time around I
want to be very careful to be as fair as possible.

Thanks!

Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Stardock - http://www.veryComputer.com/

  I think that these pros are a fair assesment of the workstation application
  of linux.  Further, I would add:

  * SMP support (becoming more common in high end workstations)
  * fine resolution of process management; a fairly knowledgable user will
    have an entirely stable workstation as a result.
  * wide variety of network interface support; everything from old 10base
    ethernet and token ring through FIDDI and GigE.
  * runs in a wide variety of hardware; linux is not limited to X86 systems
    at all.  Versions exist for Sun, SGI, PPC, Alpha...even IBM S/390
    mainframes. Linux runs on more hardware platforms than any other OS.

Quote:> Cons:
> * Horrible consistency - No universal clipboard support.
> * Very little drag and drop or true OO stuff (Gnome is getting there but
> it's not there yet)

  KDE is further along in this arena; KDE apps are entirely consistent in
  this regard.  I think its important to note that unlike other OSes, this
  function is that of a windowing environment rather than of the operating
  system itself.  www.kde.org

Quote:> * Always behind the curve in hardware support.

  I think this depends on the sort of hardware youre talking about.  Sound
  cards, for example, are admittedly stereotypically behind supportwise, but
  Video support isnt terribly bad, and linux seems to be ahead of the game
  in high end hardware, like RAID controllers and network interface cards.

Quote:> * No MS Office support (Staroffice and WP Office are both great but without
> MS Office, many corps won't switch)

  Its important to note here that this is not entirely linux's fault;
  microsoft has not ported Office to linux yet, and despite their stories,
  theres no reason to believe they will anytime soon.  I think Staroffice,
  Applixware, Abiword, WP and Koffice have done some very impressive things
  without the benefit of MS source code.  :)

Quote:> * Netscape the only reasonably good web browers and many people (including
> me) think Netscape is inferior to IE at this point.

  I agree completely.  I despise netscape, and theres no sign of any
  improvements at anytime in the future.  I dont think that IE will ever
  be successfully ported to linux--ive used the Solaris version for a couple
  of years now, and its substantially inferior to its windows counterpart, and
  certianly to netscape.

Quote:> * Too many rough edges requiring the user to go to a cryptic text base UI to
> do things (setting up VNC, a DNS, or a mail server tends to be a huge pain
> in the *for "newbies" compared to a nice slick GUI implementation on
> OS/2, BeOS, Windows, etc.).

  I highly recommend checking out different distributions.  A nice
  'workstation' distrib is Mandrake.  It plops you into a KDE environment
  right off the bat, and there are tons of handy GUI control panels,
  including ones that handle what youve described above.  

Quote:> * Overall lack of polish (WM's tend to have various graphic anamalies such
> as title bar text going over the buttons and other harmless but tell-tale
> signs of lack of attention to detail)

  This depends directly on the windowmanager.  I use Windowmaker
  (www.windowmaker.org) and have none of the problems youve described, nor
  any others.

Quote:> * No DDE or OLE (or OpenDOC or SOM) style framework which makes it hard to
> advocate Linux as a good platform to run your applications
> * Application selection is worse than Windows and in many cases OS/2.
> Opensource helps Linux a lot but also hurts it by creating an atmosphere
> that seems hostile to commercial software developers.

  I'm not sure that this is entirely the case...I think that commercial
  software developers are doubting the willingness of the linux market
  to actually SPEND MONEY.  And they may be right.  I always and only use
  free software for my personal and professional purposes. (under linux
  at least).

  I think it would be handy to remember that linux is generally developed
  by people in their spare time; very few people actually get paid for
  their troubles.  Linux has been ported to a large number of hardware
  platforms, and applications comparable to pretty much anything on any
  other platform have been (and are always being) written.  Its an
  enormous amount of work, and its pretty amazing that its come as far
  as it has in such a short period of time.

-----yttrx

Depends, of course, on what the individual finds "reasonable".  I have support
for everything I need, but very likely others do not.

Quote:> * Ability to quickly and seamlessly switch between user sessions
> * Easy to do distributed computing - You're on a LAN on a 100mB ethernet
> connection you can really go to town.

I may be wrong, but I'm not sure "distributed computing" is the term you really
want here (although Linux is virtually the king of distributed computing, via
Beowulf clustering).

If you are talking about transparent remote access, then yes Linux (or Unix) is
great.  At home I have a 100Mbit connection to my "spare" computer, and I very
regularly do things like:

    ssh spare projects/apga/apga_demo

to transparently run my apga_demo program on the "spare" computer, and have it
display its GUI on my "main" computer.  I could do it between here and
Singapore just as easily, if only I had an account there and a fast connection.

Quote:> * Low resource requirements
> * Free
> * Mostly open source software available, OS itself is open source making it
> great to truly make it work like you want it to.

The same applies to the applications and toys, as well as to the OS.  For
example, I run a non-standard variant of Freeciv on my desktop.

Quote:> * Far more options to control how it looks, feels, behaves, etc. than other
> OSes.

Yes.  I run the Enlightenment window manager, and I use a theme where I have
hacked up the configuration files to rearrange the buttons and make a few other
changes.

Quote:> Cons:
> * Horrible consistency - No universal clipboard support.

Yes, to an extent, although simple cut&paste of text under X is, IMO, much
easier than under Windows.

Quote:> * Very little drag and drop or true OO stuff (Gnome is getting there but
> it's not there yet)
> * Always behind the curve in hardware support.

Revise to say "peripheral" hardware.  For basic hardware, such as what kind of
CPU you want to use, Linux knocks the others dead.

And of course, word is that W2K is far behind even Linux in peripheral hardware
support right now.

Quote:> * No MS Office support (Staroffice and WP Office are both great but without
> MS Office, many corps won't switch)

Many of us count this as a blessing:
 o buying MS Office puts you on an upgrade treadmill;
 o running MS Office leaves you open to Virus Bearing Script programs.
 o MS Office is, in essence, fiddleware.  I have only ever seen one Word
document that actually looked professional; most are filled with features that
should have been left out and omit features that should have been put in. If I
want a nice document, I slam it out with LyX and get a gorgeous document the
first try -- no clicky fiddling around for me, please.

Quote:> * Netscape the only reasonably good web browers and many people (including
> me) think Netscape is inferior to IE at this point.

Netscape is possibly the worst application running on Linux.  I expect to
convert to Mozilla when the next milestone is released.  (You should mention
Mozilla, though like GNOME you should say that it isn't really here yet.)

Quote:> * Too many rough edges requiring the user to go to a cryptic text base UI to
> do things (setting up VNC, a DNS, or a mail server tends to be a huge pain
> in the *for "newbies" compared to a nice slick GUI implementation on
> OS/2, BeOS, Windows, etc.).

I occasionally have to use Windows, and I find it every bit as cryptic as
anything on Linux.  And a bigger pain in most cases, since you essentially have
to click all around looking for the One True Button that does what you want.
If you are as familiar with Linux as you are with Windows, you just go straight
to the tool that does the job.

Quote:> * Overall lack of polish (WM's tend to have various graphic anamalies such
> as title bar text going over the buttons and other harmless but tell-tale
> signs of lack of attention to detail)

I have honestly never seen any such thing on my system, having used two
different window managers for about a year each.  Nor have I ever noticed it
when looking over the shoulder of someone using a different WM.

Quote:> * No DDE or OLE (or OpenDOC or SOM) style framework which makes it hard to
> advocate Linux as a good platform to run your applications
> * Application selection is worse than Windows and in many cases OS/2.
> Opensource helps Linux a lot but also hurts it by creating an atmosphere
> that seems hostile to commercial software developers.

Are you certain of that last clause?  I would think it's more a matter of
commercial developers wanting to get a good ROI, and therefore being reluctant
to port until their potential Linux userbase is large enough to justify the
effort.

BTW, We've started seeing some ports in the last year or so, and they appear to
be comming more frequently now, though of course still a far cry from what is
being done for Windows.

Quote:> Some of my cons are based on perception and maybe not reality.

Same with us, of course!

One issue that I would like to see you mention is the distinction between
deficiencies intrinsic to Linux and those that arise simply from a lack of
vendor support.  For example, many drivers are done in spite of the vendors
rather than with their help.  If vendors wanted to sell their stuff to Linux
users, and thus started shipping things with Linux drivers like they do for
Windows, then it would be almost impossible to distinguish between the two OSes
in terms of peripheral hardware support.  Similarly for applications: the lack
of applications is just a sign that mass-market software houses have not bought
in to Linux yet; it tells you almost nothing about Linux per se.

Good luck with the article,

Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

This is a pro as well as a con, because it also means that things are developed
primarily by people who actually want to use their own product, with the result
that you get a lot of attention to details, reliability, orthogonality, etc.,
that are not very popular with the "How quick can we ship this?" crowd.

Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

I forgot to mention two important ones:

 * Low maintenance.  Configure it like you want it, and it *stays* configured
until you have a hardware problem or decide on an upgrade. (And the upgrades
are driven by your own schedule; you can almost always postpone an upgrade
until new features come out that make the upgrade worth your trouble.)

 * But it also supports the converse of the above: for those who wish it, it is
very "play-with-able".  If you are a hobbyist or incurable tinkerer, there's
always some new configuration to try, something under the hood that you have
never explored, some new utility to download, etc.

Ironically, Linux offers both ends of the spectrum: rock-solid maintenance
free, and delve-in screw-up-what-you-please.  The only difference is your style
of managing the system.

Also:

 * Frequent, flexible updates.  If you discover something that's broken, you
will almost always find out that someone else has already discovered it and a
fix is available ("dejanews is your friend").  No waiting around for that next
Service Pack.  And you can pick and chose what updates you actually load, so
don't get the problems of having to back off a Service Pack because it fixed
two things and broke three others.

Finally:

 * With much of the open source software associated with Linux, you can
*participate*.  That means everything from sending in a patch, to sending a
suggestion directly to a product's chief maintainer, to listening in on a
developer's list to see what's coming up and how decisions about features are
made. This may be of more value to the hobbyist than to the "Joe User", but it
is of high value to some of us.

 * Closely related to the above, you don't have to get your information (and
mis-information) as it comes filtered through someone's marketing department.
If you hear about something nifty and want to know whether it's vapourware or
nearly-there-ware, you can almost always find the code and try it out, or just
listen in on the developers' discussions if you aren't ready to jump in yet.

Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

And even the Psion 5 (in a beta sort of way).

Quote:>     mainframes. Linux runs on more hardware platforms than any other OS.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but have you lookes at the NetBSD supported
platform list? It is very long (is it longer than for linux?)

-Ed

--
Did you know that the reason that windows steam up in cold weather is
because
of all the fish in the atmosphere?
        -The Hackenthorpe Book Of Lies

It's also generally much easier and quicker to install.

Quote:

> Cons:
> * Horrible consistency - No universal clipboard support.
> * Very little drag and drop or true OO stuff (Gnome is getting there but
> it's not there yet)
> * Always behind the curve in hardware support.
> * No MS Office support (Staroffice and WP Office are both great but without
> MS Office, many corps won't switch)
> * Netscape the only reasonably good web browers and many people (including
> me) think Netscape is inferior to IE at this point.

I don't like netscape much, but I have found the StarOffice browser much
more stable. It actually seems to work quite well.

Quote:> * Too many rough edges requiring the user to go to a cryptic text base UI to
> do things (setting up VNC, a DNS, or a mail server tends to be a huge pain
> in the *for "newbies" compared to a nice slick GUI implementation on
> OS/2, BeOS, Windows, etc.).

It depends if you consider editing a text file difficult. The aparent
inability of ordinary people to edit text files seems to occur more
often if they have been used to GUI tools before. Total newbies who have
to learn everything from scratch don't seem to mind nearly as much (in
my experience).

Quote:> * Overall lack of polish (WM's tend to have various graphic anamalies such
> as title bar text going over the buttons and other harmless but tell-tale
> signs of lack of attention to detail)

I use Fvwm, WindowMaker and (very rarely) twm. I haven't noticed any of
these problems.

Quote:> * No DDE or OLE (or OpenDOC or SOM) style framework which makes it hard to
> advocate Linux as a good platform to run your applications
> * Application selection is worse than Windows and in many cases OS/2.
> Opensource helps Linux a lot but also hurts it by creating an atmosphere
> that seems hostile to commercial software developers.

It depends what you want to do. A friend of mine needed a computer to do
a university physics project on, and the Linux distribution (RH 6.2)
came with application he needed / wanted for the project (on a single
CD). So the application support depends very much on what you want to
do.

Quote:> Some of my cons are based on perception and maybe not reality.  What I am
> hoping is that some of you with a great deal of professional experience on
> Linux can point out the pros and qualify the cons I've listed here so that
> together, we can provide users with a reasonable objective comparison.

> To see what was written in 1998 go to:
> http://www.veryComputer.com/

> This year's is going to be much longer and much more thorough.  OSWars 98
> was picked up by quite a few magazines and user groups so this time around I
> want to be very careful to be as fair as possible.

> Thanks!

> Brad
> --
> Brad Wardell
> Stardock - http://www.veryComputer.com/

--
Did you know that the reason that windows steam up in cold weather is
because
of all the fish in the atmosphere?
        -The Hackenthorpe Book Of Lies

Let's us sum this up.  I started working for a company who started off
in OS/2
once.  We moved them to Windows as OS/2 was dying and they had a UNIX
complex.

So OS/2 is dead and I think that's really the problem with OS/2.  Lack
of apps, IBM
does NOT support anymore!

I don't know hardly anything about BE so I'll pass, as I suspect it
eventually will.

Windows 2000 is a Microsoft product.  Microsoft is like an ICE cube
fixin to get hit
with a hammer.  In this time especially, people who heavily invest in
Microsoft are
foolish!  In fact, to heavily invest in only ONE thing is foolish to
begin with!

So you combine this fact with the fact that more Linux servers were sold
last year
and this year than Microsoft AND that Linux desktops are starting to
tear Microsofts
market up,,,,  You can quickly see Microsoft is going the way of OS/2.

They are going to WARP away also!

So Linux, whether you like UNIX or not, will be the candidate to
survive.   And
survive it will, for decade after decade as it's not based on a
corporate model.

I really think the main problem with all the OS's besides Linux is they
are
based on the corporate model and are therefore MORTAL!

Charlie

You know, I was going to put in a note about netbsd also having been ported
to a very wide range of hardware, but I decided to risk it since linux has
a much larger hunk of the embedded systems market.  The above is an educated
guess.

-----yttrx

But it does have advantages that hardware support is done by 'hackers' -
the drivers for one kind of hardware are consistent. If vendors had
supported Linux from the beginning, we might have the driver for one
video card being a framebuffer kernel module, another one as an X
server, the third as an SVGA library that uses a special X server... I
don't know if I judged this correctly though, as I'm still quite a
newbie to Linux (been using it since mid-January this year), but that's
how it seems to me.

--------------------
Julius Dominik Apweiler
----
Owner of Julius' Web Site: http://www.veryComputer.com/,
----
Inventor of the Creatures Christmas Calendar:
http://www.veryComputer.com/
----

----
ICQ: 21129422 , no authorization required.
----
Sent from SuSE Linux 6.3
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and
Gates?"

Which release?  And why?  

  Les Mikesell

        That's a tad vague considering that you can just tell it to
        do a canned install and have at it. Many of the 'quirks' one
        would have to deal with with a Redhat install are simply the
        same PC issues WinDOS will subject you to.

[deletia]

Quote:>> I don't like netscape much, but I have found the StarOffice browser much
>> more stable. It actually seems to work quite well.

>No disagreement here but we are comparing this to other OSes and this is
>definitely not something in linux's favor.

        Not really. IE isn't quite as hot as it's proponents make it out
        to be. Even the PC Shill rags have concurred on this point. IE
        is only marginally better sometimes in some things.

        What is far more interesting (on any platform) is Opera.

Quote:

>> > * Too many rough edges requiring the user to go to a cryptic text base
>UI to
>> > do things (setting up VNC, a DNS, or a mail server tends to be a huge
>pain
>> > in the *for "newbies" compared to a nice slick GUI implementation on
>> > OS/2, BeOS, Windows, etc.).

>> It depends if you consider editing a text file difficult. The aparent
>> inability of ordinary people to edit text files seems to occur more
>> often if they have been used to GUI tools before. Total newbies who have
>> to learn everything from scratch don't seem to mind nearly as much (in
>> my experience).

>Well, it comes down to how you value your time.  I choose not to learn how
>to fix my car, I take it in because my time is better spent on other things.

        Then you take it into a mechanic. Otherwise, you learn the
        physical steps involved in modifying the system.

Quote:>To most people, computers are just a tool. Expecting people to muck around
>with text configuration files takes away from productivity since it requires
>a much steeper learning curve to get going.

        This is disputable. It is the fact that such an interface is
        'different' that is more of a problem than the actual details
        of the interface.

[deletia]

Quote:>> > * Overall lack of polish (WM's tend to have various graphic anamalies
>such
>> > as title bar text going over the buttons and other harmless but
>tell-tale
>> > signs of lack of attention to detail)

>> I use Fvwm, WindowMaker and (very rarely) twm. I haven't noticed any of
>> these problems.

        Ditto. I've been using WM constantly since around version 0.11
        and haven't seen anything like that...

[deletia]
--

    In what language does 'open' mean 'execute the evil contents of'    |||
    a document?      --Les Mikesell                                    / | \

                                      Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.

        My first guess would be that his hardware wasn't compatible.
        However, whining about 'incompatible hardware' (while installing
        an AltOS) would likely not be dramatic enough for him.

--

    In what language does 'open' mean 'execute the evil contents of'    |||
    a document?      --Les Mikesell                                    / | \

                                      Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.

In article <y2JT4.2532$J7.142...@typhoon.mw.mediaone.net>,
  "Brad Wardell" <bward...@stardock.com> wrote:

This is like sending Ali into the ring with a broken arm.
One of the biggest strengths of Linux is that you can
use a single console to get the performance of multiple
machines.  The most dramatic examples would be Beowulf
clusters in which rendering and animation can be driven
into a single console in real-time.

By saying "desktop only" you are attempting to force Linux
into the Windows paradigm where each user gets one console,
one processor, and one hard drive.

Linux is able to leverage the Sun "The Network is the Mainframe"
capabilities such that multiple servers, multiple workstations,
and/or multiple sites can be integrated into solutions.  This
could include the use of FreeWAIS search engines to speed the
search of text repositories, to use of distributed processing
to model economic or market demographic projections.

It also doesn't deal with the collaborative capabilities.

Linux was designed by a collaborative community, using Linux.
As a result, Linux has collaborative infrastructure built into
the system.  Using the Windows Paradigm as an evaluation criteria
is like comparing a Farari to a moped using moped evaluation
criteria (performance on 35 mph streets, gas milage, market
promotions showing sunny weather, minimal traffic, and comfortable
clothing).

When you're on a curvy mountain road, going 60 mph, through all
kinds of weather, and in dense traffic, the Moped becomes much
less desirable.

Linux is to UNIX systems what the Ford Escort is to Automobiles.
It isn't "top of the line", nor does it try to be.  On the other
hand, it provides more than adaquate performance in the same
conditions that are normally experienced by UNIX workstations.

I regularly use Linux, Windows 9x, and Windows NT.
I've been using Windows 2000 somewhat, but on a limited
basis.

As a "guru" in these three paradigms, you can even see here,
that there are substantial differences in paradigms, not to
mention the systems themselves.  Each has been designed for
certain types of users, with certain expectations, and certain
support requirements.

A Mac user for example barely experiences the computer as a computer,
but rather as an appliance used to create drawings.  Apple has kept
the system relatively "closed", preferring to limit the introduction
of peripherals that might require complicated set-up.  This has kept
prices higher, but has provided high customer satisfaction.

Windows is designed more like a framework for a variety of hardware
vendors.  Microsoft has worked to minimize the operational differences
between different manufacturers - so long as Microsoft software and
standards are followed.  Microsoft protects it's infrastructure with
strict nondisclosure agreements which inhibits and creates barriers
to new software applicatitions, generic 3rd party hardware, and
operating system enhancements.  Even simple requirements like the
ability to read and write Fat32 and NTFS on the same drive can be
a big problem for Windows.  Even Windows 2000 has incompatibilities.
Backward compatibility is not only not a goal for Microsoft, but is
considered an impediment to the revenue stream.  Microsoft had to
create intentional incompatibilities to force the migration from
MS-DOS to Windows 3.1, then from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, and then
from Windows 95 to Windows NT, and finally from Windows 95 and Windows
NT to Windows 2000.  This includes forced upgrades to Office, upgrades
of Internet Explorer, and migration to new application programmer
interfaces and infrastructure.

OS/2 was killed by IBM because Microsoft threatened to deny them
Windows 95 in any form, demanded a license audit, and threatened
to create a bunch of bad press unless IBM agreed to stop selling
OS/2.  Microsoft only granted IBM a license 15 minutes before the
big unveiling because they had the IBM logo on the big board of
OEMs (misleading the public into believing that IBM had endorsed
Windows 95 as the new industry standard voluntarily).  Earlier
versions of OS/2 had problems with lost desktops and poor disaster
recovery strategies.  Warp 3.0 provided recovery methods, and Warp 4.0
fixed the problems and minimized the damage due to illegal instructions
and other failures.

Linux started out with the intent of being UNIX compatible, which
meant that backward compatibility with UNIX, all the way back to
1980 was one of the design goals.  There was a huge repository
of GNU, BSD, SunSite, and TSX-11 code available in source code
format, along with the tools to build it.  Linux quickly evolved
from this base to establish an entirely new breed of user friendly
systems and applications which provided the best of the past with
the ease of use available in other GUI based operating systems.

Remember where UNIX workstations were first deployed.  This gives
insight into the nature of Linux desktop advantages.  For example,
UNIX was used to provide real-time monitering of real-time input
signals.  Examples of this include network management, stock market
trading and monitoring, traffic control, weather service, and computer
aided design and computer aided manufacturing.  UNIX systems were
designed to monitor, model, and predict the real world, in real time.

Actually, one of the big steps forward for Windows 2000 is that
Microsoft has put a great deal of thought and planning into providing
a more reliable environment.  The use of MTS, COM+, and MSMQ have
helped to minimize the impact of corrupted in-memory DLL images,
and have helped reduce the need for private copies of DLLs.
Microsoft still has problems with registry corruption, DLL management
(a service pack can break previous 3rd party applications), and this
may even be a deliberate effort on the part of Microsoft (the most
frequently "broken" applications seem to be those which compete
directly with Micrsoft's equivalent functions).

Linux still has problem of "forward compatibility", the release of
upgrades and patches to shared libraries and applications that must
be coordinated to keep a manually configured system operational.
Features such as ELF and Glibc have often created problems for
those attempting to stick with the "latest and greatest".  On
the other hand, fully tested and coordinated releases of Linux
seem to arrive every 4-6 months, minimizing the need for interim
upgrades (other than security patches).

There are 1300 "packages", including nearly 500 graphical
applications that are commercial quality and have equivalents
costing hundreds of dollars.  To get the equivalent functionality
of a Mandrake 7.0 distribution, you would have to pay nearly
$6000 for nearly 200 "shrink wrapped boxes".

When evaluating applications, one should consider the primary
question - can the system store and retrieve information -from
available sources, and deliver it in a useful form.  In many
cases, there are many tools that aren't "glitzy", in that they
don't have really fancy graphical "builders", but in many cases,
the scripting languages can be learned in less time than the GUI
interfaces, can be tested more quickly, and can be integrated into
other graphical interfaces (web browsers, KDE components, gnome
components, ...).  Even though there are really friendly GUI
interfaces to web servers, and there are some really expensive
servers, nearly 70% of the web server market uses Apache, CGI, and
Mod_PERL.  As nifty as the GUI tools might be, a "quick and dirty"
script can be whipped up in a matter of minutes.

In the Windows 9x/NT/2000 world, the cost of running "out of process"
components was far too high.  As a result, applications were highly
integrated because they had to be.  In many cases, the operating system
would only allow on instance of an application to run.  Multiple
documents would be run under the same master frame (MDI), and the same
object was expected to have methods to create, edit, print, display,
cut, paste, and link/embed the object.  A word "document" was actually
a word document with various objects "embedded" within designated
"frames".

UNIX goes a step beyond this, providing the tools required to
transform content from one form to another, providing the ability
to transform mark-up script into presentation quality content
suitable for publication as textbooks, web content, or as interactive
help files.

Driver support is a function both manufacturer interest and
nondisclosure agreements.  Many manufacturers were reluctant
to publish the source code for their drivers.  Linux modules
have reduced the need for source code, since binary drivers
can be included as modules without violating the GPL Linux
license.
...

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