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> but the work unique to my project was easy once the system administration independent of my project was done. E.g., SQL Server installation was an unanestheti

by lsc 13y ago

> but the work unique to my project was easy once the system administration independent of my project was done. E.g., SQL Server installation was an unanesthetized root-canal procedure (once wiped out my boot partition). My software installation got wiped out by a virus in an Akamai download manager I used to get a PDF file from an Asus Web site. There were more such problems, all independent of my work. Hah. That is another problem that can be solved by money and wise hiring decisions; I mean, I wouldn't touch a windows installation with a ten-foot pole, but there are plenty of other SysAdmins who specialize in that sort of thing. Why did you choose a windows stack instead of a Linux stack? My reasons are likely very different from yours, as I chose systems administration as my specialty. I chose to go into UNIX (BSD before Linux) because it seemed so much easier to reproduce problems on UNIX. When I solved problems on Windows, it seems it was a process of randomly changing things until it worked; on Linux or BSD, I could almost always point to an actual problem, and explain why. I felt like I was actually learning things. I ended up staying with Linux, in part, because it seems that Linux sysadmins get better pay and respect compared to our compatriots managing windows installations.

graycat 13y ago
> Why did you choose a windows stack instead of a Linux stack? Always a big question. I went from IBM mainframes to Prime supermini computers, to more IBM mainframes, to PC/DOS, and OS/2. Then to Windows was natural enough. Some of the work by Microsoft is good. Microsoft has a lot of customers doing important computing which means that it's possible to make their stuff work. There are a lot of programmers posting problem fixes on-line. I don't know enough about Linux and Windows to make a good comparison. In the end I trusted Microsoft's big customers to make Microsoft make their more serious software actually work. Yes, once I get some revenue, for questions I will get a Microsoft 'account executive', expect him to make things 'right', and call for expert paid support when things don't work.

by lsc 13y ago

graycat 13y ago

> Why did you choose a windows stack instead of a Linux stack? Always a big question. I went from IBM mainframes to Prime supermini computers, to more IBM mainframes, to PC/DOS, and OS/2. Then to Windows was natural enough. Some of the work by Microsoft is good. Microsoft has a lot of customers doing important computing which means that it's possible to make their stuff work. There are a lot of programmers posting problem fixes on-line. I don't know enough about Linux and Windows to make a good comparison. In the end I trusted Microsoft's big customers to make Microsoft make their more serious software actually work. Yes, once I get some revenue, for questions I will get a Microsoft 'account executive', expect him to make things 'right', and call for expert paid support when things don't work.