"Redhat 7.2" versus "Windows XP" 4

[theuglyaussie]

Yeah I know .... popular argument but was wondering if anyone knows of some good sites or resources where I can attempt to guide interested students who want to get some constructive and unbiased comparisons between the two OS's.
I've been searching but as yet have had only limited success. It does however make a good assignment topic.
Thanks in advance for anyone that know of any

 

[maverick]

I've been a Microsoft geek since day one (MSDOS 1.0)
But I gotta tell you, I'm getting pretty sick of the BS
Microsoft is headed in the wrong direction
they hope to someday be charging consumers by the hour for using their product
I wish I would have started on LINUX! (twenty years ago)
It sure is hard to change...
But I'm going to do it! for the sake of competition...
and the fact that I don't believe any one person or company should have that much power, and we're the only ones who can give it to them!

I'm for:
FREEDOM OF CHOICE

good luck "Hacker by Heart"
saenzcorp@hotpop.com

 

[xutopia]

http://biz.yahoo.com/rt/020514/microsoft_2.html

Also if you want search in google "BeOS hitachi" it'll give you a good deal of information. Be is an OS company that couldn't even give away their product for free to Hitachi and other manufacturers because Microsoft had in their licence agreement that it was illegal for other OS's to come prepackaged with another OS than theirs.

Make me like linux a whole lot more.

I installed Mandrake 8.2 last night. It is great. And FREE! on top of it I get to learn new things. Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran

 

[mithrilhall]

http://www.bradfordlearning.com/_pdf/_industry_news/tco.pdf

http://www.jimmo.com/Linux-NT_Debate/

http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/7907.html

The only reason I keep Windows around for is gaming.

 

[KARLB]

my assignment would end...

And then the future brought us the ability to encorporate the two OS's on the same machine, at the same time...

)

 

[bluedevils]

http://www.theregister.co.uk

might have some articles on that topic.

 

[estesflyer]

I believe microsoft may someday decide to not allow opensource software to interact w/ windows....

Greedy bastards if you ask me...

btw, if im dead wrong plz correct me.

- Rusty - Rusty

 

[garwain]

>if im dead wrong plz correct me

I would think that some day Micro$haft will decide they have enough market control that they can force people to only run M$ applications on a M$ OS.

Hope this never happens, but if it does, a lot more people would switch to *NIX systems

 

[maverick]

I can see where they're (M$) headed with this...

someday you'll have to pay a monthly fee to use your own computer....they'll be able to remotely shut it down if you don't pay on time...like XP activation shuts it down...

Im starting classes in LINUX soon and after that it bye-bye M$ ...

take care all!

"Hacker by Heart"
saenzcorp@hotpop.com

 

[BChumie]

If you would like to try both operating systems and see which one you like you can use an emulator from vmware.

http://www.vmware.com,

I have used it and granted it doesn't run perfect but it gives you a good idea on what you can do, and what other operating systems are like. I am running XP on my computer and in the vmware workstation I run slackware, redhat, and mandrake (just to get a feel for the other distributions). As far as I know it works for all of the win9x and 2000/XP series and also they have a version for linux so that you can run a windows environment in linux. Hope that helps

-Brad

 

[sleipnir214]

I would also suggest sources dealing with the varying cultures and how that affects mindset.

http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/

This has Spanish-to-English translations of an exchange of letters between Juan Gonzalez, general manager of Microsoft Peru and Edgar Villanueva, Peruvian congressman. Sr. Villanueva is primary author of a bill that requires the Peruvian federal government to use free software where ever possible. Sr. Villanueva's response to Sr. Gonzalez's letter is brilliant. It punches huge holes in the FUD that Microsoft has been sewing around open-source methodologies for the last two years.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond
pretty much required reading for anyone trying to answer the question, "Why would anyone go to so much trouble writing software for no money?" (Of course, the same question applies to users of Tek-Tips, too) His essays are available in book form by the above title from O'Reilly Press and online at

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/

In the beginning...was the Command Line, by Neal Stephenson.
Available in book form as the above title from Avon Books, and online at

http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

Secrets & Lies, Digital Security in a Networked World, by Bruce Schneier.
This last one is a little out of place among the others, but important to read. It talks about security and deals the necessity of open-source encryption to ensure that the encryption you use is really secure.

 

[mahasamatman]

sliepnir214

Thanks for a tremendous amount of GREAT info!

mahasamatman

 

[theuglyaussie]

just thought i formally thank everyone for there comments and those that provided links that proved really useful(apparently) to my students.
the question that needs to be asked is.......

"will microsoft survive if they continue along the road towards forcing people to pay upfront to use there programs or will others like linux or even Apple finally be put in a position to really take some market share"

 

[sleipnir214]

I don't see how it is possible for Microsoft to continue in its high-handed ways and still maintain dominance. Two years ago, maybe. But at that time, we were held hostage by the fact that no office software was ready as a replacement for Microsoft's offerings. Microsoft, itself, has seen the writing on the wall -- their new licensing mechanism is designed to maintain a revenue stream without actually having to sell any new seats. Microsoft knows it can't compete in the marketplace where the model is "free software, paid services". I once had a Microsoft marketing droid tell me (and I quote), "Microsoft is not a service company. Microsoft is a marketing company."

I've seen surveys where only 1/3 of all IT managers surveyed stated they will participate in Microsoft's new licensing plans. Of the remainder, half (1/3 of total) were undecided, and the same number were evaluating other options (opensource, or staying pat). Whole national governments (New Zealand, Peru, Germany) have either passed laws or are considering laws requiring the use of free software.

Microsoft has always sold software on the marketing methodology of "Look at all the new features!" People have begun to realize they don't have to pay for the new features because they don't use all of the old features and likely will use none of the new ones!

Remember, too, that the last two years have seen the advent of the CIO. Before this, there was some poor overworked underpayed network manager who would be informed of the new software the CFO had bought only after the fact. (This was actually SAP's sales model. I've been to an SAP sales seminar. I was flat out told that in no way would my sales call be productive if I talked to the tech manager. I was to speak only to the CFO.) Now we have CIOs who are given authority and autonomy over tech decisions.

 

[iwasinnamuknow]

but you have to remember that essentially, redhat and xp are intended to perform two totally different functions, server-workstation. thus the arguement is always going to be biased depending on your intended use. if you find my advice useful, please rate me.

 

[BChumie]

I think everyone is jealous. As far as bill staying on top, I don't think that will happen. But so what? He is worth so much money right now what does he really care? I think a lot of people who bash microsoft and their practices are just JEALOUS. All big companies have done the same things that microsoft does they just don't get published as much because they are not microsoft. One great example is Nintendo, they would not allow huge retail chains (such as toys R us) to sell other systems when their original nintendo was on top. Bottom line is who cares how you make money ... just as long as you make a lot of it.

I am not trying to start a post that will get everyone angry but I think it is kind of obscene that everyone is bashing microsoft (I know this is a linux forum and I use linux on a day to day basis... for web hosting... email etc...) and I totaly agree with iwasinnamuknow, they are just different operating systems. Use which ever one you feel more comfortable using.

 

[sleipnir214]

I don't have any problem with Bill Gates. I wish I was Bill Gates. No, that's not true. I just wish I had about 1% of his money.


I have two gripes against Microsoft. The first is that the company regularly insults my intelligence.

Microsoft claims innovation. Yet Internet Explorer still carries NCSA Mosaic code around inside it. SQL Server's engine was bought from Sybase. I would love to know what Microsoft's marketing budget is, compared to its R&D budget.

Microsoft claims software security. But >96% of all the computer virii currently in the wild only infect Microsoft products.

Microsoft aggressively seeks out software pirates and makes a big deal about catching them. Yet they've been found guilty of piracy themselves in France.

Microsoft once stated in their marketing dogma that their software was superior to Linux (this was several years ago) because Linux did not have a journaling filesystem. But Microsoft still doesn't have one.



My second beef is that their software engineering is second rate.

Microsoft routinely poisons protocols.
Kerberos. XML. MIME.

Microsoft calls the Win32 an API. But they've never published the so-called API in its entirety. In order to be a programming interface, programmers need to know what's there.

Microsoft claimed in a court of law that Internet Explorer was an integral part of their operating system. Since when, outside of the old cartridge-style home videogames, was any application ever considered part of an OS?


A company were I once worked used to feed employees lunch on Wednesdays. During lunch, we would have various vendors giving talks and demos.

On Wednesday, we had two vendors back to back. A tech from Novell came to demo their new product, which could tie NT into a Netware 4.0 directory. He was in and out in half an hour, and impressed me with his product.

We were supposed to have two techs from Microsoft follow. Instead, we were serenaded by an hour of buzzword bingo from two of their marketing droids. Their talk literally had not symantic contect. In fact, one of the two spouted two utterances which did not have verbs -- they were just interminable stretches of buzzwords.

But I will never forget the only thing worth remembering that either of them said. It was, "Microsoft is not a service company. Microsoft is a marketing company." ______________________________________________________________________
Perfection in engineering does not happen when there is nothing more to add.
Rather it happens when there is nothing more to take away.

 

[theuglyaussie]

BChumie..... whilst I can see where you are coming from i must point out that at no point did anyone suggest that this was a "bash Microsoft" thing.

In fact, if you llok at the original post it was an attempt to gain resources for students to form their own opinion free from the general comments found over the net where people have shown a bias towards one and totally belittled the other.

My point is simply this ...... At the present time Microsoft can still feel relatively comfortable in the knowledge that they can pretty much make their own demands on the users and the average user will generally just accept that coz they cant see any suitable alternative ....

However, just how much will a user take before they decide to look more seriously at competitor operating systems (Apple & Linux included). and does this leave the door slightly ajar for those alternative operating systems to be a bigger force in the market.

 

[BChumie]

theuglyaussie,

Hello, sorry I took it that way I gues in my opinioin is that people are drones (I don't mean to offend any one here), but an average person who buys a computer wants two things.
1) It to be cheap
2) It to be easy

Like I said I use linux for all my server needs and after using I would never consider going back to windows, but I am saying as far as people are conserned until linux uses things such as automatic install... no building from source, etc... then i think microsoft can do whatever it wants. I understand the benifits from using source but for the every day person that just isn't practical. (i have a hard time showing my dad how to install a program in windows let alone trying to show him how to build from source.) I suppose the reference to apple is in my eyes more fesable. Thanks for the response, and sorry for taking it as a bashing microsoft post

-BChumie

 

[geokor]

I think a lot of people miss the point in the MS vs Linux debate. And that is - who cares? Listen, big, bad, or indifferent, MS is there. Period. What they did to get there is water under the bridge. We can argue all day long about their ethics (which in my opinion are minimal at best), their marketing practices (which are draconian), or whatever. In my opinion what counts is this: what are you going to do NOW? My choice is to move away from MS and toward open source as fast as possible. Why? For the very same reason that MS did what it did - money.
MS is too costly, too restrictive, too ridiculous a set of products to consider. Think about it like this.
Your local dairy (or whatever) decides that they are in a solid local position so they make the following demands:
1- You can only drink their milk. And you have to have a costly license to drink it.
2- If a store wants to carry their milk, they can't carry anyone elses.
3- About one out of every ten jugs of milk is sour.
4- They have special ingredients they put in to the milk but its a secret so they won't tell anyone what they are.
5- The other milk companies have plastic wrappers on the lids to prevent tampering. This dairy has a piece of adhesive tape across the top with a note on it saying "Leave me alone!"

Anyways, my advice - consider your options. Consider getting into bed with a company that not only wants to control every aspect of your computer experience but is planning to charge you for the privilege.

We can't change the past. We can't go back and get refunds from MS for their bloated. buggy code. What we CAN do is vote with our feet and our wallets and try to make MS a distant memory. Someday our grandkids will say, "Grandpa, what's a microsoft?" And we will tell them, "It's a lot like a Kaypro computer. Or a Stanley Steamer car, or an elm tree...or a doodo bird, or a.........."

George K

I'd like George to reply by:
E-mail[ ] Phone[ ] Swallow- European[ ] African[ ]