[coolcaddy]

In honor of Rex Raider's grand opening, now seems like a good time to take stock of what you folks are running on your computers, (that is, for those of you who are accessing GMI via a computer rather than an incredibly elaborate abacus).

I'm at a client site and using my laptop at the moment, which runs Windows 2000; but I work primarily with Linux (SuSE at the office and Fedora at home).

 

[Skie]

SUSE 9.1 at home and on the craptop, err... laptop.

OpenBSD on a spare machine.

RedHat 9.0 and Enterprise Server on my servers.

 

[actionjack]

Let's see.... At home I am running Windows XP Pro on 3 desktop PCs. I have Windows 98SE on a laptop for my car. I have Windows 2000 Pro on another desktop. I have Windows 2000 Advanced server on 2 proliant boxes (one is raid 5 and the other raid 1). I also have Windows ME on another desktop.

3 XP Pro
1 Windows 2000 Pro
1 Millenium or ME
2 Windows 2000 Advanced Server


I voted XP. And 'yes' I work in the IT field, so does my wife.

 

[coolcaddy]

Hey, aren't there any Mac users out there?

I use a Mac for video editing and multimedia projects at my church--I totally dig it. I should also mention that my wife and son use Win2K computers at home. I put down SuSE Linux since that's my primary machine, but a summary of everything I interact with goes like this:

* Office
- Desktop: SuSE Linux
- Laptop: Win2K Server
- App servers: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Database servers: Win2K server (MS SQL Server) and Red Hat Linux (MySQL)

...we have e-mail servers and stuff, but those are outside of my scope of work

* Home
- Home Office (my computer): Fedora Linux
- Wife's computer (documents, chat, e-mail): Windows 2000 Professional
- Kids computer (mostly games): Windows 2000 Professional

* Church
- Multimedia: dual-boot Mac System 9.2 or OSX

And in the interest of making this conversation more interesting by trying to start an argument, I hate Windows with a passion. lasma: Not for bigoted anti-Microsoft reasons (I'm a former Microsoft Project Manager), but because it's the most abysmal piece of crap with the most inexcusably bad architecture and has contributed to endless headaches in my career as an IT guy.

Does anyone wanna make somethin' of it?? :woot2:

 

[pupp1]

xp pro for me

 

[actionjack]

Originally posted by coolcaddy@Jul 14 2004, 01:05 AM
I put down SuSE Linux since that's my primary machine...

And in the interest of making this conversation more interesting by trying to start an argument, I hate Windows with a passion. lasma: Not for bigoted anti-Microsoft reasons (I'm a former Microsoft Project Manager), but because it's the most abysmal piece of crap with the most inexcusably bad architecture and has contributed to endless headaches in my career as an IT guy. 

Does anyone wanna make somethin' of it??  :woot2:

That is some funny ****.

I imagine any OS that you have worked with at sometime was.... how did you clarify it, "it's the most abysmal piece of crap with the most inexcusably bad architecture and has contributed to endless headaches in my career as an IT guy."

No problems with any of the 2000 architecture here. Nor mixed with Novell.

Maybe it is when you mix it with the notoriously one side Unix/Linux.

Mind you, not starting anything just adding to it

 

[2002camaroz28]

I have Windows Me, and it sucks. I here a lot of other people have it say the same thing, my computer just crashed for the 4th time and couple weeks ago.

 

[amark329]

:lol: I use Windows XP on our family laptop and my dad uses XP at his work and my computer is Windows Millenium.


Our school laptops were Mac's and they stunk! I could possibly despise them more than ford. :angry:

















Wait not possible. . .

 

[T-Keith]

I use XP at work, 98 at home. Why'd you put 98 in the same catagory at ME? I want nothing to do with ME.

 

[bakerna]

Originally posted by T-Keith@Jul 14 2004, 06:50 AM
I use XP at work, 98 at home. Why'd you put 98 in the same catagory at ME? I want nothing to do with ME.

Windows ME is basically windows 98 with tons of problems...I'm not totally sure how Microsoft managed to go backwards in their development...but they did....Anyway, I'm running windows ME at home, windows 98 at school, and windows 95 here in quebec on the ****ty 166 Mhz 32MB ram machine....

 

[T-Keith]

I know that, I was refering more to this poll.

 

[LGRpup]

I didnt know there were any other operating sysems besides Windows?
I use it because of the perceived ease of use, since everytime I use a computer at work, school, etc its Windows. So I guess it would be easier to do projects on all of these machines since they have the same OS, plus all software I have seen only runs on Windows or MAC.

 

[coolcaddy]

Originally posted by actionjack@Jul 13 2004, 05:46 PM
I imagine any OS that you have worked with at sometime was.... how did you clarify it, "it's the most abysmal piece of crap with the most inexcusably bad architecture and has contributed to endless headaches in my career as an IT guy."

No problems with any of the 2000 architecture here.  Nor mixed with Novell.

Maybe it is when you mix it with the notoriously one side Unix/Linux.

Mind you, not starting anything just adding to it   

'Atta boy, actionjack! Thanks for playing. I'm tired of arguing politics in the Asylum, so arguing about the religion of operating systems is a welcome breather. B)

You're right, I've had growing pains with any OS I've worked with. The difference is that the reliability of Windows coupled with its horrible architecture extends those growing pains into fully adult pains. :blink:

Now, a lot of the stuff I do in Windows involves working directly with the API, and that's where a lot (but not all) of my Windows-related headaches originate. The Windows API is essentially a leftover from the original desktop API that one used for creating Windows applications before it was an OS. You might recall that Windows started out as a desktop manager, not an OS.

Since Windows wasn't intended from the outset to be an OS, its evolution from desktop to OS has produced some extremely klugy and nutty engineering that is the basis of today's problems with security and reliability.

The API exposes clearly how precarious the whole thing is. For example, you have one set of core OS API's for supporting outdated interapplication operability weirdness like DDE, then another that works completely differently for supporting the next generation OLE stuff, then another again that works completely differently for supporting the newer ActiveX, and so-forth. It's all jumbled together into a freaking mess that makes it extremely difficulty to maintain, hence more reliability problems with the OS and applications that run on it.

I think the biggest mistake Microsoft made was the decision to glue the desktop to the underlying OS, which happened as of Windows 95. This was a serious architectural mistake that they seem to be trying to undo with Longhorn.

Unfortunately, by the time Longhorn becomes available, and as free alternatives like Linux and free software like OpenOffice continue to emerge slowly but surely, and by the time folks understand that Longhorn really is a ground-up redo of Windows (which Microsoft has inaccurately claimed many times before), I think they will have a difficult time holding on to their formidable leadership position.

Heck, they're having a hard time as it is. The adoption of Windows XP is still running at a very slow pace, and that OS has been available for a couple of years now.

Anyway, I began migrating from a Windows/MFC development platform to a Linux/Java platform a few years ago, and I've never looked back. Some of the stuff I do still requires development and other utilization of Windows, but the profound improvement in the quality of my work and my sanity that resulted from moving to Linux/Java means that I'm unlikely to ever go back. :type:

 

[Dark knight]

I am still running Windows ME

 

[bakerna]

Originally posted by coolcaddy+Jul 14 2004, 11:38 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (coolcaddy @ Jul 14 2004, 11:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-actionjack@Jul 13 2004, 05:46 PM
I imagine any OS that you have worked with at sometime was.... how did you clarify it, "it's the most abysmal piece of crap with the most inexcusably bad architecture and has contributed to endless headaches in my career as an IT guy."

No problems with any of the 2000 architecture here.  Nor mixed with Novell.

Maybe it is when you mix it with the notoriously one side Unix/Linux.

Mind you, not starting anything just adding to it   

'Atta boy, actionjack! Thanks for playing. I'm tired of arguing politics in the Asylum, so arguing about the religion of operating systems is a welcome breather. B)

You're right, I've had growing pains with any OS I've worked with. The difference is that the reliability of Windows coupled with its horrible architecture extends those growing pains into fully adult pains. :blink:

Now, a lot of the stuff I do in Windows involves working directly with the API, and that's where a lot (but not all) of my Windows-related headaches originate. The Windows API is essentially a leftover from the original desktop API that one used for creating Windows applications before it was an OS. You might recall that Windows started out as a desktop manager, not an OS.

Since Windows wasn't intended from the outset to be an OS, its evolution from desktop to OS has produced some extremely klugy and nutty engineering that is the basis of today's problems with security and reliability.

The API exposes clearly how precarious the whole thing is. For example, you have one set of core OS API's for supporting outdated interapplication operability weirdness like DDE, then another that works completely differently for supporting the next generation OLE stuff, then another again that works completely differently for supporting the newer ActiveX, and so-forth. It's all jumbled together into a freaking mess that makes it extremely difficulty to maintain, hence more reliability problems with the OS and applications that run on it.

I think the biggest mistake Microsoft made was the decision to glue the desktop to the underlying OS, which happened as of Windows 95. This was a serious architectural mistake that they seem to be trying to undo with Longhorn.

Unfortunately, by the time Longhorn becomes available, and as free alternatives like Linux and free software like OpenOffice continue to emerge slowly but surely, and by the time folks understand that Longhorn really is a ground-up redo of Windows (which Microsoft has inaccurately claimed many times before), I think they will have a difficult time holding on to their formidable leadership position.

Heck, they're having a hard time as it is. The adoption of Windows XP is still running at a very slow pace, and that OS has been available for a couple of years now.

Anyway, I began migrating from a Windows/MFC development platform to a Linux/Java platform a few years ago, and I've never looked back. Some of the stuff I do still requires development and other utilization of Windows, but the profound improvement in the quality of my work and my sanity that resulted from moving to Linux/Java means that I'm unlikely to ever go back. :type: [/b][/quote]
I think that fewer people are switching to XP from earlier OS's because there were quite a few bugs and security issues with early editions of XP and they want to make sure that all those problems have been resovled. Right now XP is reasonably well off, far better than it was anyway...so you should see upgrading go up...soon.....

 

[kjbell]

I use Macs running 10.3 at work. As a graphic designer, the Mac fits better with my work flow. I also appreciate that most hackers are too lazy to write viruses for the Mac and the 5% of people who use them.

I find Windows XP does what I need it to do in between security updates. I use it to run AutoCAD.

 

[actionjack]

Originally posted by coolcaddy@Jul 14 2004, 04:38 PM
You're right, I've had growing pains with any OS I've worked with. The difference is that the reliability of Windows coupled with its horrible architecture extends those growing pains into fully adult pains.  :blink:

Now, a lot of the stuff I do in Windows involves working directly with the API, and that's where a lot (but not all) of my Windows-related headaches originate. The Windows API is essentially a leftover from the original desktop API that one used for creating Windows applications before it was an OS. You might recall that Windows started out as a desktop manager, not an OS.

Since Windows wasn't intended from the outset to be an OS, its evolution from desktop to OS has produced some extremely klugy and nutty engineering that is the basis of today's problems with security and reliability.

The API exposes clearly how precarious the whole thing is. For example, you have one set of core OS API's for supporting outdated interapplication operability weirdness like DDE, then another that works completely differently for supporting the next generation OLE stuff, then another again that works completely differently for supporting the newer ActiveX, and so-forth. It's all jumbled together into a freaking mess that makes it extremely difficulty to maintain, hence more reliability problems with the OS and applications that run on it.

I think the biggest mistake Microsoft made was the decision to glue the desktop to the underlying OS, which happened as of Windows 95. This was a serious architectural mistake that they seem to be trying to undo with Longhorn.

Unfortunately, by the time Longhorn becomes available, and as free alternatives like Linux and free software like OpenOffice continue to emerge slowly but surely, and by the time folks understand that Longhorn really is a ground-up redo of Windows (which Microsoft has inaccurately claimed many times before), I think they will have a difficult time holding on to their formidable leadership position.

Heck, they're having a hard time as it is. [B}The adoption of Windows XP is still running at a very slow pace, and that OS has been available for a couple of years now.

Anyway, I began migrating from a Windows/MFC development platform to a Linux/Java platform a few years ago, and I've never looked back. Some of the stuff I do still requires development and other utilization of Windows, but the profound improvement in the quality of my work and my sanity that resulted from moving to Linux/Java means that I'm unlikely to ever go back.  :type:[/b]

coolcaddy you must be in programming and/or web application design.

IMO the Microsoft stuff from NT4 and before was crap and especially by todays standards. However, the 2000 and 2003 stuff has touch on different levels and with the Data Center server competing with the best and Longhorn soon to be available as well as many of the security upgrades/additions to the latest system is a Native mode it can be quite secure and manageable. It still is not open source (though there have been some new ground there as well) and it has the benefits of quick and easy administration so long as you know what you are doing.

I guess I see it as more of a larger and more secure network than all (IMO).

Even the US government has chosen Microsoft platforms to protect data at airports in all of the US and that alone should speak volumes. I beleive they have contracted Unisys.

But, I do have colleagues that have been in the industry longer than myself and have gone to the darkside because NT4.0 was such a pain in the a$$ and could not be used in large or global networks. Also, the change from NT4.0 to 2000 and now 2003 was a huge change IMO and it not only affect the design for larger and more secure networks that would function at greatly increased speeds and accuracy it started using LDAP and Kerberos and other awesome features. As to the APIs in a system and how they work (reliability or compatability) I beleive Microsoft is still the best choice especially since many (if not most) of the applications and systems used by the user are Microsoft based.

As too Unix/Linux taking some ground and Microsoft losing ground....

With the Data Center server and the speed and accuracy of SQL and other platforms Microsoft has tackled a market they could not be a part of even half a decade ago. Now Sun and IBM and others are charging fees when there was none and the price is going up which can only help Microsoft.

The real losers are like Novell (the current owner of the office suite offered before and some other tech from UNIX/LINUX) because they have fallen with the loss of any global use of IPX/SPX which was a better (IMO) transport protocol.

 

[coolcaddy]

Windows has definitely improved over the last few years, although that improvement has come about by fixing bugs as they come up. Microsoft has never addressed the core problems with the OS, and they won't until Longhorn becomes available.

It's sort of like being a manufacturer of wind-up toys that suddenly wants to get into making automobiles. Rather than designing something from the ground up that works like an automobile, the manufacturer decides to start with a wind-up toy, then keep building things around it and contorting it until it behaves somewhat like a car.

As an analogy, suppose you walked into a Chevy dealer and saw a beautiful shiny Corvette, and then you took it for a spin and it seemed to run pretty well. In spite of all that, you'd likely be a little concerned about entrusting your life with the thing if you looked under the hood and noticed the wind-up mechanism in one spot and the rest of the works being held together with rubber bands and scotch tape.

That's Windows. It's supposed to be an OS, but if you look under the hood, you'll clearly see the wind-up toy mechanism.

 

[2000_V6]

Originally posted by actionjack@Jul 14 2004, 07:24 PM
Even the US government has chosen Microsoft platforms to protect data at airports in all of the US and that alone should speak volumes. I beleive they have contracted Unisys.

I do know that the Air Force chooses Windows because (most) everybody knows how to use it, as opposed to giving a lot of people an os that they have never seen before. The same reason that the military stopped buying vehicles with manual transmissions. Not enough people know how to use them. Unix is used alot also though. Back to the subject
On my two laptops and one of my desktops, I'm running WinXP. My other desktop is a Mac, running OS 7.5.3 (Old Skool Baby!!! :woot2: )