> College students might be using Linux and FreeBSD, but some of them
> (e.g. yours truly) are also using NT. Most Fortune 500 companies
> will be impressed with knowledge of *nix, but a lot of real
> operations is done in NT- i.e developing man-machine interfaces for
> production purposes, building SQL databases, etc. Engineering, not
> necessarily MIS type stuff.In fact, that's what I'm doing right now - supporting a 400 site, 1500 node NT WAN.
It's a department's job, for a few reasons: Distribution and version control. MS
suggested we buy a copy of SMS server and SQL server for each site! Now, tell me
how to periodically automatically purge a directory of all files over two weeks old
under NT. No fair making me buy a $600 C compiler. Use the tools that came with the
OS. The only thing I can think of is BASIC, and even that's pretty ugly. You get
one hint as to my solution: Larry Wall.
Quote:> So when I had to call Joe Blow the electrician, who was a 1000
> miles away, and explain to him that we needed to update the
> software on our NT server, I could say "Open up a DOS window,
> switch to the E: drive, go to this directory, run this program." If
> we were running Unix, and I had said, "Open up an xterm, mount the
> network drive, etc." he would have thought I was speaking Greek.
> And we weren't running "secretarial" stuff by any means. We were
> running hard-core plant floor production level data acquisition
> programs.Actually, Joe's a beer store employee, and his NT box has a touch screen, but no
keyboard. That aside, your electricians seem to be a lot more computer literate
than my sales clerks.
I appreciate the "easy to use" graphical interface of Windows, but it has its down
side: The tools that come with the operating system can't be run remotely, or in
batch. UNIX's "tools based approach" is harder to learn initially, but offers power
and flexibility when it comes to system management and support. Microsoft would
have us coding in C all day long and spending inordinate amounts on their "Systems
Management Server" solution.
For those who say "well, at least you can call for support when something goes
wrong"; try getting any for something really serious. I had an intermittent hang
situation running Win31 off network servers two years ago. Brought in Microsoft
Consulting Services, who spent 6 weeks looking at the problem intermittently and
presented us with a bill for $30,000 along with the recommendation "so don't do
that". We were using a configuration Microsoft ostensibly supported, documented and
recommended, and 100% of our hardware was on the compatibility list. We're
currently waiting for MS to fix a memory leak in the Win32 comm driver which is
causing us to have to shut down EVERY machine on our NT WAN once a week. They've
"Confirmed it to be a problem".
I have legal copies NT and Linux at home, and have registered neither, Microsoft's
counting me as a user, but the Linux community isn't. On a related topic, know
where all those copies of OS/2 IBM claims to have sold but nobody's ever seen are?
Think automated teller machines.
There's lots of money in supporting Microsoft product, anyway. I know. It finances
my Linux habit 8-)
--
Cameron MacKinnon
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