[H-GEN] Re: Unix vs NT [long; both informative and then religious]

[Daniel Quinlan]

(Note reply-to: being general at humbug.org.au vs Daniel Quinlan <daniel at netwise.net.au>)

On Tue, Aug 03, 1999 at 01:06:41AM +1000, Doug Young wrote:
> (Note reply-to: being general at humbug.org.au vs "Doug Young" <dougy at gargoyle.apana.org.au>)
> 
> Contrary to what some people appear to believe I'm not really an NT fan ...
> my issue is that after working with it for years its at least 500% more
> intuitive
> to configure than *nix .....

I don't agree.

where's the lmhosts file under Windows NT? 

under a debian box its in /etc along with all the other config files.

NT....%WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc

drivers??? wtf?

NT is _not_ intuitive, you have to learn it just like everything else. the
difference with *nix is that things generally follow some sort of logic. once
you grok the logic you can work things out on your own.

I would hate to recall how many hours I've spent searching through every menu,
sub-menu and dialog for some option/radiobox/checkbox that toggles a setting
that is vaguely mentioned in a readme.txt buried on the install cd.
and don't get me started on hacking the registry <sigh>

> I know it lacks much in the way of stability

it's not that NT is always unstable. I admin sites where the NT box has
_never_ BSOD.  BUT they don't touch it....ever....
as soon as you even look sideways at an NT server it develops problems.
case in point, we have several sites that have been ticking along quietly, no
problems.  Microsoft have said SP4 delivers Y2K compliance, rightie-o, install
that.  now the sites have problems.  in some cases _big_ problems (like the
backup software not working).  most of these problems crop up due to the
complete lack of control of DLL's, something that doesn't happen on a stable 
Debian box.

> which is why I'm trying to figure how to get Mandrake 6 doing intelligent
> things ...
> I have tried to get someplace with command line Debian but its not something
> I have an all-consuming passion for :.... give me a nice user friendly GUI
> anyday )

gui's aren't friendly, they just arrange information in a different manner.
if you're having trouble with command line debian (not *nix) send me a list of
your issues and I'll try and help.  I admin 15 debian boxes, all remotely, all
over the internet. try doing that with NT.


regards,
-- 
Daniel Quinlan				daniel at netwise.net.au
Netwise Australia			ph: 0417 677 377
"Engineering Network Solutions"		fax: 07 3216 0226


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