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>Windows is a lot more reliable than Linux at having things "just work" these days. Ha, I'm server tech at a hosting company and this is spit-take worthy. I r

by ZoF 11y ago

>Windows is a lot more reliable than Linux at having things "just work" these days. Ha, I'm server tech at a hosting company and this is spit-take worthy. I really can't see how anyone could possibly think this. Unless you're talking end-users local PC's this is wrong, and even then it generally isn't 'Linux bugginess' it's 'user ineptness'

digi_owl 11y ago
Indeed. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2467082/data-center/london-stock-exchange-to-abandon-failed-windows-platform.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2467082/data-center/lon...
alkonaut 11y ago
The two are completely different, and "just works" is definitely Windows strong side on the desktop. On my desktop system I want apps installed in isolated directories, with few or no central dependencies. Even if it means I have some unpatched vulnerability in 10 places. For a server system I don't mind having to tinker, and central libraries can even be a security win.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Windows "just works" when the box is freshly unwrapped. Use it for a month and all manner of oddities bubble to the surface.
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    I think that can be attributed to user skill for both, I render my Linux machines weird more often than my Windows machines, but admit it's because I'm better at driving Windows machines. I have had zero problems with Windows machines since win7 that can't be attributed to hardware failures. Also by "just works" I meant mostly being able to get binaries from a random website and installing without having to use a package manager or failing to have the right deps. If you go to the 100 biggest app sites (Skype, Spotify, ...) and try to set up from a download, the "just works" is probably a lot better on win and Mac. This is of course a lot due to the size of the market, but it's no secret that standard cross-distro/desktop-env prebuilt binary installers for GUI apps are still not exactly a strong point on Linux.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      Nope. Linux turns weird usually when someone is fiddling with it outside of daily usage. Windows seems to turn weird no matter what.
      - szatkus 11y ago
        I reinstall Windows every few years when something really bad happens and never have seen Windows turn weird. After few years it is as good as a fresh install. On the other hand sometimes in the internet I see "advices" like "Windows should be reinstalled every six months" and wondering what the hell these people are doing with their computers?
    - cyphar 11y ago
      Disclaimer: I work for SUSE, a Linux company which provides support for enterprises running SLES, as well as contributing our packages and knowledge to the openSUSE community. I don't see how you could consider package management as a bad thing. Why do you consider "downloading binaries from a random website" to be a "good thing". Not to mention that those binaries almost never update themselves and how well they deal with dependencies depends on what $500 installer builder they used. Package managers allow you to always keep your system up to date and you have a single database of all software that has been installed, what it's dependencies are and what files it did install (so you can uninstall it). They are definitely one of the awesome things about Linux package managers. OS X has homebrew, but it's not well integrated into the system because it's a third-party library of software. BSD's package managers are at least 10 years behind Linux's (they're still working on packaging the base system). Windows has nothing AFAIK. Things like OBS allow you to automate the release of new versions, OpenQA allows you to do automated QA testing to make sure there's no regressions in graphical or terminal services. I especially don't understand why you think that not having a way to update the libraries on your system is a good idea. Packaging the same DLL in 30 different places is not a good thing.
      - alkonaut 11y ago
        1. Nothing wrong with packages, but central repos rarely contain up to date packages. I don't mind going to skype.com and downloading a .deb package for skype (I wish it was the same format for desktop software for all flavors of linux, but I digress). 2. Shared libraries are only good for saving space (largely irrelevant on desktop) and for security. Different side by side versions of libs work poorly when you reach "system" level is my experience. Example: having apps that require different incompatible glibc versions is painful. For example: see the accepted answer to this question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-libraries-on-a-single-host http://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-lib... "The absolute path to ld-linux.so.2 is hard-coded into the executable at link time" WAT? I think the difference in mindset between what desktop computing is, and what a "system" is, is very different bewteen a linux user and a windows user (i.e. one that just wants an OS that is a dumb layer for running binary compiled shitware that must be built and distributed by its creator because it will never be in a repo).
- anonbanker 11y ago
  if you want isolated directories, install to /opt then. that's what it's for.
- zanny 11y ago
  > On my desktop system I want apps installed in isolated directories, with few or no central dependencies. Even if it means I have some unpatched vulnerability in 10 places. Why? We aren't there yet, but Linux is trending towards xdg-app and appstream-esque projects producing a "common" nomenclature for software. Then you can write once install anywhere sandboxed app packages. All you really need are abstractions for both the package manager specific naming conventions and the system specific MAC filter.

by ZoF 11y ago

digi_owl 11y ago

Indeed. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2467082/data-center/london-stock-exchange-to-abandon-failed-windows-platform.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2467082/data-center/lon...

alkonaut 11y ago

The two are completely different, and "just works" is definitely Windows strong side on the desktop. On my desktop system I want apps installed in isolated directories, with few or no central dependencies. Even if it means I have some unpatched vulnerability in 10 places. For a server system I don't mind having to tinker, and central libraries can even be a security win.

digi_owl 11y ago
Windows "just works" when the box is freshly unwrapped. Use it for a month and all manner of oddities bubble to the surface.
- alkonaut 11y ago
  I think that can be attributed to user skill for both, I render my Linux machines weird more often than my Windows machines, but admit it's because I'm better at driving Windows machines. I have had zero problems with Windows machines since win7 that can't be attributed to hardware failures. Also by "just works" I meant mostly being able to get binaries from a random website and installing without having to use a package manager or failing to have the right deps. If you go to the 100 biggest app sites (Skype, Spotify, ...) and try to set up from a download, the "just works" is probably a lot better on win and Mac. This is of course a lot due to the size of the market, but it's no secret that standard cross-distro/desktop-env prebuilt binary installers for GUI apps are still not exactly a strong point on Linux.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Nope. Linux turns weird usually when someone is fiddling with it outside of daily usage. Windows seems to turn weird no matter what.
    - szatkus 11y ago
      I reinstall Windows every few years when something really bad happens and never have seen Windows turn weird. After few years it is as good as a fresh install. On the other hand sometimes in the internet I see "advices" like "Windows should be reinstalled every six months" and wondering what the hell these people are doing with their computers?
  - cyphar 11y ago
    Disclaimer: I work for SUSE, a Linux company which provides support for enterprises running SLES, as well as contributing our packages and knowledge to the openSUSE community. I don't see how you could consider package management as a bad thing. Why do you consider "downloading binaries from a random website" to be a "good thing". Not to mention that those binaries almost never update themselves and how well they deal with dependencies depends on what $500 installer builder they used. Package managers allow you to always keep your system up to date and you have a single database of all software that has been installed, what it's dependencies are and what files it did install (so you can uninstall it). They are definitely one of the awesome things about Linux package managers. OS X has homebrew, but it's not well integrated into the system because it's a third-party library of software. BSD's package managers are at least 10 years behind Linux's (they're still working on packaging the base system). Windows has nothing AFAIK. Things like OBS allow you to automate the release of new versions, OpenQA allows you to do automated QA testing to make sure there's no regressions in graphical or terminal services. I especially don't understand why you think that not having a way to update the libraries on your system is a good idea. Packaging the same DLL in 30 different places is not a good thing.
    - alkonaut 11y ago
      1. Nothing wrong with packages, but central repos rarely contain up to date packages. I don't mind going to skype.com and downloading a .deb package for skype (I wish it was the same format for desktop software for all flavors of linux, but I digress). 2. Shared libraries are only good for saving space (largely irrelevant on desktop) and for security. Different side by side versions of libs work poorly when you reach "system" level is my experience. Example: having apps that require different incompatible glibc versions is painful. For example: see the accepted answer to this question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-libraries-on-a-single-host http://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-lib... "The absolute path to ld-linux.so.2 is hard-coded into the executable at link time" WAT? I think the difference in mindset between what desktop computing is, and what a "system" is, is very different bewteen a linux user and a windows user (i.e. one that just wants an OS that is a dumb layer for running binary compiled shitware that must be built and distributed by its creator because it will never be in a repo).
anonbanker 11y ago
if you want isolated directories, install to /opt then. that's what it's for.
zanny 11y ago
> On my desktop system I want apps installed in isolated directories, with few or no central dependencies. Even if it means I have some unpatched vulnerability in 10 places. Why? We aren't there yet, but Linux is trending towards xdg-app and appstream-esque projects producing a "common" nomenclature for software. Then you can write once install anywhere sandboxed app packages. All you really need are abstractions for both the package manager specific naming conventions and the system specific MAC filter.