Posted on 11/23/2005 4:35:13 AM PST by StoneGiant
Opinion: New Linux study suggests fundamental Microsoft credibility problems
Nov. 17, 2005
Another day, another lame attempt by Microsoft to show that Windows is better than Linux.
This time around, Microsoft commissioned a study to show that Windows does a better job of serving e-commerce applications than Linux.
Of course, in the study, they didn't use the same e-commerce or back-engine DBMSs.
OK, right there, without saying another word, anyone who really knows anything about benchmarking knows that the study is fundamentally flawed. You're not comparing apples to apples; you're comparing apples and oranges.
It would be a different story, if you were trying to compare the transaction speed and reliability of e-commerce packages, but that's not the case here. Microsoft was trying to prove that Windows was better than Linux.
To do this "study," Microsoft hired Security Innovations Inc.. Paul Thurrott, a Windows journalist, describes the company as "highly regarded."
I prefer to use Security Innovations's own description of its relationship with Microsoft: "Security Innovation is a certified Microsoft partner for security services. We have both the Microsoft SWI and ACE certifications as an authorized professional services provider for Microsoft technologies."
What kind of idiots does Microsoft think we are, anyway?
In the, cough, study, which compared Windows Server System and Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), they simulated both the aforementioned e-commerce applications and an upgrade from Windows 2000 to Server 2003, and SLES 8 to SLES 9, and a year's worth of running, from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005.
What did Micros... oh I mean Security Innovations, find out?
Well, first, that by Microsoft's own admission the sample size of administrators was too small to provide conclusive statistical comparisons!
Is this amazing, or what? In the executive summary, Microsoft admits that they don't have real data!
So what conclusions did they reach?
They found that with Linux you could solve problems in a variety of ways, instead of one true, Microsoft way. OK, that's true enough. But, this, this is a problem?
Sorry, Microsoft, I don't buy that paying your prices for your integrated innovation solutions is any kind of real business win.
Go call me a capitalist, but I prefer open-source's competitive product approach to Microsoft's "our way or the highway" communism.
The study also found that Windows was dramatically more reliable.
Really?!
That's not the Windows I know. Server 2003 is a lot better than W2K, but in my experience, and with the companies I know, SLES still stays up longer than Server 2003.
You know, I also recall a few potential Windows security show-stoppers over that year. There was the SMB (Server Message Block) over TCP/IP exploit, and a whole slew of holes in TCP/IP -- and those are only a few of the ones that Microsoft has fixed.
Despite that, the study also found that the patch rate on Linux wasn't quite five times higher than Windows. The testers found that SuSE had 187 while Windows only had 39.
Hey, they finally got one right!
Yes, Novell, like any serious Linux vendor, fixes all its problems as fast as possible. Microsoft doesn't. Even when a problem is a potential system killer, sometimes the boys from Redmond drag their feet.
Oh, and funny this, but the SuSE patches tend to work, unlike some Microsoft patches like two recent critical Internet Explorer patches, or the infamous Windows 2000 patch that blew up ASP (Active Server Pages) pages that were running ISS (Internet Information Services).
Microsoft also claimed that Linux patches took twice as long to apply and broke applications.
What nonsense!
In my office lab, I run a W2K server, two Server 2003 servers, and a pair of SLES servers. As it happens I also, during this last year, updated a W2K server to Server 2003 and one of the SLES servers from 8 to 9.
On those systems, I've also installed a variety of server applications including SQL Server and MySQL.
You know what? First, the Linux patches always, always installed faster. And the only breakage I ever saw from either the Windows or the Linux systems was when I was working on W2K.
Do you know why I support Linux over Windows? Because I don't just write about operating systems. I actually use them, and Linux works better than Windows does.
Lest you think I'm only saying that because I know Linux better than Server 2003, think again.
I literally wrote several hundred pages on Server 2003 in an online reference guide to the operating system. You can see the most recent edition of that over at InformIT.
No, I know Linux. I know W2K and Server 2003. And the people who wrote this "independent" study of both certainly didn't know Linux well -- and I have my doubts about the Windows side, too.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
That's right buy a computer that doesn't play well with others, unless you buy apple accessories i.e. What to display your iBook screen on a projector? You have to have an Apple adapter
Linux on Opterons rule these days, and that is what the Wall Street guys are buying to replace their N processor Solaris boxes...
Just set up a cuouple of servers on Fedora Core 4. Nice system, especially considering its free. In addition to that, you still get free patches and fixes through Redhat's up2date program.
... which is shipped with every iBook. They had to eliminate the ancient, clunky VGA adapter to get the size down. But want to talk interoperability with accessories? Apple pioneered both USB and Firewire.
You cant duck forever! and we will be here when you stick tour targe... err head back up ;)
$ uname -a SunOS w3p11 5.8 Generic_108528-14 sun4u sparc SUNW,UltraAX-i2 $ uptime 10:09am up 1153 day(s), 18:09, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.02 $
Well youer using up2daet (a redhat program) but youre not pulling the patches off of RHN (redhats services) youre pulling them of of Fedora's site through, I believe, yum..
Holy cow! w3p11 has been up for over three years straight!
Impressive uptime! I think my running average on the Linux boxes I have are about 170 days before I do my semiannual kernel patches (unless there is someting severe that I cant harden through sysctl.conf)
I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!
I can't believe that a site called Linux Watch would say bad things about Microsoft.
Who would have thunk it?
LOL
LOL it took you six days to find this dribble? How come, the internet is full of whiners who insist Lunix is going to take over the world any day now, have been for years. Fact is though, Lunix can't even handle putting Solaris down, much less Windows.
We had a couple of AIX boxes that had to be rebooted a while back. They'd been up for 5+ years. The admins were afraid to reboot because it had been so long. One of those boxes had some weirdness going on with it. For some reason it thought it had been up for 11,000 years. I figure that was a bug. Not even AIX is that stable. ;-)
You do know China takes a free copy of Red Hat and renames it Red Flag over there? Don't have to pay a dime back to the US either.
Your verb tense is wrong.
How do I patch a Kernel and why would I want to?
Why wouldn't I turn my computer off at the end of the day if I'm not a file server that needs to run 24/7?
Does Linux run the latest version of Doom?
How about Hitman 2: Silent Assassin? (a personal fave)
Why can't Knoppix carry the good version of Mahjong (Gnome)?
I hate to ask these things in a Linux thread, but I still can't find any reason that the vast, vast majority of computer users need Linux or a computer that runs for years without shutting off. (other than playing Gnome Mahjong which is great)
We had a similar experience moving a ten year old AIX box the disk had been powered for years and when we went to a new data center we were sure we would lose a few of them... Amazingly it went off without a hitch..
figure that was a bug. Not even AIX is that stable. ;-) Or is it ???????
He might also know that redhat did not design the Linux Kernel or 95% of whats on their distro they also received it for free fomr *gasp* another country..
JASA - Just Another Silly Article trying to say Microsoft platforms are not productive and useable. The funny thing, though, is that millions of people use Microsoft products and technologies everyday and do just fine. Why is it the Linux crowd has such a hard time with Microsoft?
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