The biggest flaw of windows

[DrJones]

As I see it, computers should have a hierarchy of what can do what. To me this is what makes sense:

user
OS
software
hardware

User at the top, hardware at the bottom. The way it should work is that the layers above, should have full controll over the layers below, and nothing in the lower layers should be able to cause problems in the layers above.

Windows doesn't follow this at all. Everything can break everything, and everything can take controll. If anything the user is on the bottom.

In windows your software can take over your OS (spyware), your hardware can break your software or OS, and all of it pissess off the user.

I just spent a couple hours trying to figure out why my dad's computer wouldn't boot fully into windows (crash 1/2 way through). What was the cause? A dvd burner connected via USB. Yes hardware can be buggy, but it is VERY VERY difficult to brake the OS via use of USB. USB was designed to be user friendly and safe. You almost have to build the device specifically with that purpose in mind. The OS should be able to detect the problem and shut it down if it's going to cause problems. It shouldn't let the drive take over and crash the system.

How can MS to so much and not get this right?

I know that a lot of people are sick of hearing about why *n?x or *BSD is better than windows, but IMO the largest reason is because it follows that stack. I always have full controll over my system. There is almost nothing that has more controll than me. My hardware won't bring down the OS. If my graphics card crashed out completly and took down the mouse and keyboard with it, I can STILL ssh into the box and wrap up what I need. Software can't do whatever the hell it wants. The OS keeps controll over the software and hardware, and I keep controll over the OS. That is how it should be.

[Mario]

So true man... very logical and well thinking, I like. :)

[john]

Amen.

[taikahn]

Mac OS X:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/architecture/

Hardware
Kernel
System
Software

The "system" can not be edited or touched, you can use API's to do what you want or low level unix commands.

/System/Library (unchangeable, apple provided)
/Library/ (changeable via libraries, affects all users)
~/LIbrary/ (single user adjustable via libraries/add ons/etc)

This means small little apps and utilitites (along with big ones) cannot disturb the true system.

Unix Rocks. Fuck windows.

[exciv2000]

who the fuck deleted my post? It was not in bad taste. Guess I'll repeat it.

I for one don't agree wholeheartedly, simply because you can't tell me that unix suffers from some of the same problems. The only thing that is saving you is you are probably using a released and/or stable version. Go look at some of the *-current and development email lists for any *n?x or *bsd and you'll see just how much trouble they have with the different levels interacting with each other. I could bring over a basket of various hardwares and crash your *nix computer in no time flat, it's not that hard to do.
Maybe that's why Microsoft and Intel are trying to do away with the BIOS soon.

[taikahn]

who the fuck deleted my post? It was not in bad taste. Guess I'll repeat it.

I for one don't agree wholeheartedly, simply because you can't tell me that unix suffers from some of the same problems. The only thing that is saving you is you are probably using a released and/or stable version. Go look at some of the *-current and development email lists for any *n?x or *bsd and you'll see just how much trouble they have with the different levels interacting with each other. I could bring over a basket of various hardwares and crash your *nix computer in no time flat, it's not that hard to do.
Maybe that's why Microsoft and Intel are trying to do away with the BIOS soon.

Now that your a "bsd" user, go try Mac OS X for a week, then come back and try to tell me the only reason unix is stable is because its a "stable" release... bah.

[taikahn]

Unix is stable because its 30 fucking years old and was built to be stable from the ground up... put it on crappy PC hardware and use an open source version its not as great. Put it on a well made computer (i.e. mac g5, sgi boxes, old dec's, etc) and run a commercial well built version and its a little better. Its all trade offs.

[jojo]

Windows is big steaming pile of dogshit. My adventures in just the last 6 months on XP Pro

1) System would not boot past attempting to load Mup.sys. No additional info provided to the user. After 3 days of work I finally unplugged a stinking CD rom that I had been using for 3 years and everything worked again.

2) XP notifies me that a file on the hard drive is corrupted. Check disk can't fix it. Nothing can fix it. Research on the internet says that this is a problem with windows and the only way to fix is is to back up the system and reformat the drive. Nice!

3) Two weeks ago my system starts to crash about 30 seconds after booting. Much trial and error later I figure out that my USB printer that has been running fine for 6 months is a problem. I try everthing to get the printer to work again to no avail. Even rebuilding the system did not help. After reinstalling the OS my internet connection will only stay up for about 45 minutes then a reboot is requred.

I am currently on a fresh install of the latest OS with a printer that won't work and an internet connection that will not stay up. Thanks Microsoft!!

[DrJones]

who the fuck deleted my post? It was not in bad taste. Guess I'll repeat it.

I for one don't agree wholeheartedly, simply because you can't tell me that unix suffers from some of the same problems. The only thing that is saving you is you are probably using a released and/or stable version. Go look at some of the *-current and development email lists for any *n?x or *bsd and you'll see just how much trouble they have with the different levels interacting with each other. I could bring over a basket of various hardwares and crash your *nix computer in no time flat, it's not that hard to do.
Maybe that's why Microsoft and Intel are trying to do away with the BIOS soon.

I agree. I wasn't trying to make the point that Unix doesn't have this problem at all. I was simply saying that my ideal OS would follow that system, and windows follows it much less than unix does.

I think that I should have full controll over everything. Nothing is more anoying (to me) than having to fight with my software over controll. In the ideal OS this would be the case. I also hate when programs change system settings (ie associating filetypes with it or having it start on boot) or cause flaws in other programs. Software shouldn't be able to do that.

I doubt an OS that follows that directly will ever exist. Simply because of the complexity and the fact that a lot of users shouldn't have full controll. I think the reason software in windows has so much controll is because users don't know what to do so they wan't the software to do it for them. That's nice, but it's abused. It also is sometimes hard to reverse those changes.

[john]

I've found that most of the rabid defenders of windows have only used windows, and never experienced a real O/S. Everything is pointy clicky. Which is good, I guess. Hide the ugly stuff from the user and everything will be happy.

Having been in this industry since 1981, I can say with some feeling of confidence that unix rocks. It's nothing but a big toolkit. The first real production unix machine I was on was a vax, running 4.0 / 4.1 / 4.2 bsd. 2 and 1/2 megabytes of memory, and 16 people logged in & truely sharing the system. With a HUGE image processor hung off the box as well, sucking up a lot of resource.

I've been able to watch windows age/grow/mature as well. And it's most certainly gotten better. Under the covers, the kernel is moving more and more towards the way that unix has been doing memory management/process management/etc. Microkernel stuff (thanks to the guy who architected VMS, and then went to work in Redmond to do NT).

But.

My office mate has been having serious issues with one of his windows machines. For no reason it would simply fall flat on its face & reboot. Running XP, patched with all of thousands of XP patches that microsoft has to release due to the way that the O/S works/doesn't work/etc.

Turns out it was Apples' iTunes application. An application! Which should never touch kernel space, but was evidently stomping on some kernel address space. A non-priveleged application should never bring a machine down. The address space used by that process should sandbox the app & the kernel/memory manager should never let an application stomp on anything which is not owned by that application.

We exercised the hardware, memory, I/O channels, system bus, memory bus, cache, cpu, etc all very extensively (standalone bootable code, not any O/S to speak of), and the hardware is just fine. It's the software. Talk about funny. And sad at the same time.

[DrJones]

I've found that most of the rabid defenders of windows have only used windows, and never experienced a real O/S.

Since you've used unix for a long time, what would you say about it's history. Has it changed much lately? Or is it still pretty much the same system it was years ago with just small changes to keep up with the times.

[exciv2000]

I've found that most of the rabid defenders of windows have only used windows, and never experienced a real O/S.

http://www.linuxisforbitches.com

[john]

Not having to rebuild the kernel every time you add some hardware, or want to change some parameters, etc is truely a geeky blessing. Dynamic kernels, such as solaris, absolutely own. And have become very very bulletproof.

The general 'feel' of the O/S hasn't changed much, which is nice. And unix is unix is unix, with very few exceptions.


Since you've used unix for a long time, what would you say about it's history. Has
it changed much lately? Or is it still pretty much the same system it was years ago with just small changes to keep up with the times.

[john]

Exactly my point.

http://www.linuxisforbitches.com

[john]

Sorry to sorta hijack your thread. I'll stop now.

[forum]

I honestly wonder what you people are doing to these windows machines to make them screw up so badly. Granted all I have ever really used is windows, I never have major problems with it. That said I'm working on using mandrake, but I haven't really had that much of an urge, it's installed but I haven't played with it much.

[amy]

I <3 BSD

[Mario]

I <3 BSD

Why...? :cool:

[amy]

Why...? :cool:

this is why.

12:08PM up 172 days, 2:41, 8 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.04, 0.03

and it's secure as a mofo

[amy]

another thing is that windows and bsd have completely different priorities.

windows:
pretty gui
user friendly
security
stability

and BSD on the other hand...
security
stability
user friendly
gui

[exciv2000]

Why...? :cool:

this is also why: http://www.linuxisforbitches.com

[Mario]

this is why.

12:08PM up 172 days, 2:41, 8 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.04, 0.03

and it's secure as a mofo

I just wanted to see if you can post more than a couple of letters. :cool: It's ok, you can ;NutKick; me now. :D

[DrJones]

I agree that from a strong server standpoint *BSD is stronger than Linux. But on my home machine I don't need that kind of security. It would be nice, but it's not necessary. I like running linux at home because of the choice in distro. There are so many that you can really find one that fits you. Plus it is so popular that there is all kinds of places to go online if you need help. Granted, a lot of that help probably applies to BSD also. But for me it's nice just having a flavor of Linux that I like, so I can do what I need to do. I do want to set up a BSD box just for the expierence though. I have an older machine here that I might do it on.

[amy]

I agree that from a strong server standpoint *BSD is stronger than Linux. But on my home machine I don't need that kind of security. It would be nice, but it's not necessary. I like running linux at home because of the choice in distro. There are so many that you can really find one that fits you. Plus it is so popular that there is all kinds of places to go online if you need help. Granted, a lot of that help probably applies to BSD also. But for me it's nice just having a flavor of Linux that I like, so I can do what I need to do. I do want to set up a BSD box just for the expierence though. I have an older machine here that I might do it on.

I have a few bsd books and 4.8 stable cds if you need them. :drink: