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Ask HN: Windows vs. Linux stability what is your experience

11 points by xupybd 5y ago

I'm currently doing all development and IT support for a medium sized business. I come from a Linux shop and am now supporting a fleet of Windows workstations and servers along with development tasks. I have found that there is a shocking amount of instability with Windows servers and workstations. I can't believe business can operate like this. I'm currently trying to rebuild a critical PC as it freezes up all the time. Debugging the issue is a nightmare. Our servers regularly stop working, some interaction between active directory and DNS. I haven't been able to get to the bottom of it. Every second Sunday the server requires a reboot else the entire network doesn't seem to work. This didn't happen with Linux things just worked or you knew why they didn't. Is my experience typical or just bad luck?

2rsf 5y ago
You should define stability, the problem you describe is not necessarily related to Windows itself. I am running Windows desktops/laptops for months with rebooting with no major issues.
vpbusvltsmtk 5y ago
You can run linux servers for years without reboot. Want to hear a joke? A secure windows server.
- GianFabien 5y ago
  And the delight of a workstation that trashes your work, decides that it must update right now and locks you out for the next 2-3 hours, going through multiple reboots.
kstenerud 5y ago
That's typical. Business customers have been conditioned by vendors over decades to accept lower expectations of their infrastructure. At this level, it's all about sales team relationships to key decision makers rather than quality. This is why larger b2b company all-hands meetings are always 80% about the sales team's exploits - they really do make or break the company.
GianFabien 5y ago
I used to work for an IT services firm. I looked after HPUX/AIX/Solaris/Linux/BSD systems. I often worked alongside the Windows specialists. My observation was that the Windows environment required substantially greater amount of attention and was more susceptible to disturbances. Having said that the environment you describe seems to be exceptionally flaky. I suspect that there are probably some serious misconfiguration issues, possibly some poor quality or resource constrained hardware, bad power (e.g. working in an industrial environment without UPS, power conditioners). Incorrect Windows licensing for servers can sometimes be an issue. I have seen environments that were incorrectly installed and configured causing significant issue. Why did the person before you leave?
- xupybd 5y ago
  Yeah I'm sure there are lots of miss configuration issues. It is an industrial environment without proper power conditioners, air conditioners or dust filtration. The guy before me was an external contractor. I was hired as the business grew to the point they wanted and internal developer. I'm putting out more IT fires than doing development. I have no Windows administration experience. I'm slowly sorting problems out but being a team of one means things move slow. There is a lot to learn as well.
DoItToMe81 5y ago
It's very typical to have periodic problems, even severe problems, but they should NOT be happening this often. Something is seriously wrong.
warrenm 5y ago
>I have found that there is a shocking amount of instability with Windows servers and workstations Define "instability" Mostly-unmanaged, end-user workstations? Try better eucation for your users and/or better device management But servers?! Sorry. But if you have Windows-based software running on anything newer then 2008R2 or 2012, it's not Windows' fault: it's the software you're running. I've been working in and around massive enterprise deployments of multiple OSes for over a decade and a half. Pretty much every server Windows release newer than 2003 (and 2003 was pretty dang stable) is fine. The software running on it can be flaky as all get out - but the OS is fine Plan your maintenance windows. Apply patches in a timely manner. And you'll be fine.
- xupybd 5y ago
  Okay the server issue is one server and I'm pretty sure it's a configuration problem between the DNS and active directory controller and I simply haven't put in the time to get to the bottom of it. Probably the sort of thing na experienced sys admin could fix in 5 mins. Your response is reassuring that it'll get better. That this is a symptom of the lack of love our systems have had in the past. I still want to get to the bottom of these crazy freezes.
warrenm 5y ago
>I'm currently trying to rebuild a critical PC as it freezes up all the time. Debugging the issue is a nightmare. This shouldn't be a statement any IT staffer can utter There should never be such a thing as "a critical PC" - single points of failure are an IT 101 no-no "freezes up all the time" indicates an application issue 99% of the time, not an OS issue "Debugging the issue is a nightmare": what are you doing to troubleshoot the issue? How are you isolating the problem(s)? Odds are exceptionally good that it's not a root cause analysis, but a root causes analysis. What logs are you checking? What is going on when it dies?
- xupybd 5y ago
  Yeah I would like to have more redundant systems. We run CNC machines. The PC attached has to be the right vintage. We have stand by computers and hard drive backups. I ended up rolling back to an old image. Each CNC machine is a step in a production process. One goes down the entire system goes down. Redundancy would be great but it has too many zeros attached at this point. Debugging was mostly looking at windows event viewer. While it could be an application it was freezing on file access. Even deleting a file in explorer would hang for half an hour. I've tried clean boots and shutting everything down. No luck and don't have the time to take everything down to debug the problem properly. Recovering from a backup throws a few things out, such as machine usage logs. So that's a last resort. I'm terrible at system admin on Windows and have a lot to learn
BenjiWiebe 5y ago
If it's an older computer, the motherboard capacitors can go bad. If your crashes are causing reboots/BSODs and seem to be only loosely correlated to what is being run at the time, consider the motherboard. I had this issue recently and it caused a lot of head scratching....
injb 5y ago
Typical, and it has always been that way in my experience. Recently I had to switch to Windows 10 after years of using Linux at work. The result? Every time I went to the bathroom I came back to a blue screen saying Windows had decided to reboot my machine, but failed in the attempt. This kind of childish nonsense is how it has always been when I have dipped into Windows over the years. And that's not to mention the fact that DNS doesn't work in WSL.
jtotheh 5y ago
This might be an unpopular view here, but here goes: Back in the day (1994-1995) Windows (non-NT) crashed and glitched constantly. Linux was a rock by comparison. That's no longer my experience. Modern Windows is quite stable. Modern Linux gives me more issues, systemd related sometimes, and every time I update and get a new kernel, I have to struggle to get wifi back. I will admit that my Windows 10 sometimes reboots itself overnight for updates, but other than that I often have quite long uptimes on it.

11 points by xupybd 5y ago

2rsf 5y ago

You should define stability, the problem you describe is not necessarily related to Windows itself. I am running Windows desktops/laptops for months with rebooting with no major issues.

vpbusvltsmtk 5y ago

You can run linux servers for years without reboot. Want to hear a joke? A secure windows server.

GianFabien 5y ago
And the delight of a workstation that trashes your work, decides that it must update right now and locks you out for the next 2-3 hours, going through multiple reboots.

kstenerud 5y ago

That's typical. Business customers have been conditioned by vendors over decades to accept lower expectations of their infrastructure. At this level, it's all about sales team relationships to key decision makers rather than quality. This is why larger b2b company all-hands meetings are always 80% about the sales team's exploits - they really do make or break the company.

GianFabien 5y ago

I used to work for an IT services firm. I looked after HPUX/AIX/Solaris/Linux/BSD systems. I often worked alongside the Windows specialists. My observation was that the Windows environment required substantially greater amount of attention and was more susceptible to disturbances. Having said that the environment you describe seems to be exceptionally flaky. I suspect that there are probably some serious misconfiguration issues, possibly some poor quality or resource constrained hardware, bad power (e.g. working in an industrial environment without UPS, power conditioners). Incorrect Windows licensing for servers can sometimes be an issue. I have seen environments that were incorrectly installed and configured causing significant issue. Why did the person before you leave?

xupybd 5y ago
Yeah I'm sure there are lots of miss configuration issues. It is an industrial environment without proper power conditioners, air conditioners or dust filtration. The guy before me was an external contractor. I was hired as the business grew to the point they wanted and internal developer. I'm putting out more IT fires than doing development. I have no Windows administration experience. I'm slowly sorting problems out but being a team of one means things move slow. There is a lot to learn as well.

DoItToMe81 5y ago

It's very typical to have periodic problems, even severe problems, but they should NOT be happening this often. Something is seriously wrong.

warrenm 5y ago

>I have found that there is a shocking amount of instability with Windows servers and workstations Define "instability" Mostly-unmanaged, end-user workstations? Try better eucation for your users and/or better device management But servers?! Sorry. But if you have Windows-based software running on anything newer then 2008R2 or 2012, it's not Windows' fault: it's the software you're running. I've been working in and around massive enterprise deployments of multiple OSes for over a decade and a half. Pretty much every server Windows release newer than 2003 (and 2003 was pretty dang stable) is fine. The software running on it can be flaky as all get out - but the OS is fine Plan your maintenance windows. Apply patches in a timely manner. And you'll be fine.

xupybd 5y ago
Okay the server issue is one server and I'm pretty sure it's a configuration problem between the DNS and active directory controller and I simply haven't put in the time to get to the bottom of it. Probably the sort of thing na experienced sys admin could fix in 5 mins. Your response is reassuring that it'll get better. That this is a symptom of the lack of love our systems have had in the past. I still want to get to the bottom of these crazy freezes.

warrenm 5y ago

>I'm currently trying to rebuild a critical PC as it freezes up all the time. Debugging the issue is a nightmare. This shouldn't be a statement any IT staffer can utter There should never be such a thing as "a critical PC" - single points of failure are an IT 101 no-no "freezes up all the time" indicates an application issue 99% of the time, not an OS issue "Debugging the issue is a nightmare": what are you doing to troubleshoot the issue? How are you isolating the problem(s)? Odds are exceptionally good that it's not a root cause analysis, but a root causes analysis. What logs are you checking? What is going on when it dies?

xupybd 5y ago
Yeah I would like to have more redundant systems. We run CNC machines. The PC attached has to be the right vintage. We have stand by computers and hard drive backups. I ended up rolling back to an old image. Each CNC machine is a step in a production process. One goes down the entire system goes down. Redundancy would be great but it has too many zeros attached at this point. Debugging was mostly looking at windows event viewer. While it could be an application it was freezing on file access. Even deleting a file in explorer would hang for half an hour. I've tried clean boots and shutting everything down. No luck and don't have the time to take everything down to debug the problem properly. Recovering from a backup throws a few things out, such as machine usage logs. So that's a last resort. I'm terrible at system admin on Windows and have a lot to learn

BenjiWiebe 5y ago

If it's an older computer, the motherboard capacitors can go bad. If your crashes are causing reboots/BSODs and seem to be only loosely correlated to what is being run at the time, consider the motherboard. I had this issue recently and it caused a lot of head scratching....

injb 5y ago

Typical, and it has always been that way in my experience. Recently I had to switch to Windows 10 after years of using Linux at work. The result? Every time I went to the bathroom I came back to a blue screen saying Windows had decided to reboot my machine, but failed in the attempt. This kind of childish nonsense is how it has always been when I have dipped into Windows over the years. And that's not to mention the fact that DNS doesn't work in WSL.

jtotheh 5y ago

This might be an unpopular view here, but here goes: Back in the day (1994-1995) Windows (non-NT) crashed and glitched constantly. Linux was a rock by comparison. That's no longer my experience. Modern Windows is quite stable. Modern Linux gives me more issues, systemd related sometimes, and every time I update and get a new kernel, I have to struggle to get wifi back. I will admit that my Windows 10 sometimes reboots itself overnight for updates, but other than that I often have quite long uptimes on it.