Craig Johnston wrote:
> In article <37340cee.178307970@news.erols.com>,
> larry gross <lgross@pobox.com> wrote:
> >On Fri, 07 May 1999 00:54:11 -0400, Otuyelu Jide
> >
> >I'm not an advocate of NT.. I'm an advocate of stable and reliable
> >systems that provide a consistent resource to those that depend
on it.
> >Both UNIX and NT often fail this test. IMHO, NT because it is still
> >evolving as an OS.. and UNIX because it can be configured a zillion
> >different ways.. and often is... on-the-fly by admins who utilize
> >their own judgement and unsupported shareware to 'improve' the system
> >- often at the expense of those that depend on it to get their job
> >done.
I think that you will find that a 'good' systems administrator will
add,
remove, install and upgrade any bits of software that they
fthink will be 'beneficial' to their .... and here's the keyword, SYSTEM.
With a systemic point of view in mind, you could add just about any
piece
of software and configure it in any way possible provided that, by
doing
so, you do NOT detriment the system.
From personal experience, I have seen a (large) number of UNIX systems
of
all flavours (SGI, Sun, HP etc.) where some doofus has thought
"I know. I'll put a webserver on here!" even though the system concerned
does not have a great amount of memory resource (physical or virtual).
They then take the "out of the box" configuration, max all the values
they
can (to give 'better performance') and then wonder why the system
crawls along while they have 150+ child webserver processes hanging
around,
unused for over the last 30+ minutes.
A "good" systems administrator should be able to take ANY piece of viable
software and either A> get it to run on their target system or B> be
able
to know and explain just exactly why this software should NOT be put
on
that system.
> That's a problem with incompetent administration. A determined
> person can break anything. Any sufficiently powerful tool will
> let you shoot yourself in the foot.
....I could say that a 'good' system administrator can "break anything"
if
they are determined to, as they will be able to see the major imperfections
in a system. I think you ned to distinguish between "haplessly breaking"
and "willfully breaking" here!!! *grin*
> I don't see Unix going away, I see it evolving. The clueless
will
> switch to NT, thinking it will allow them to point and click their
> way to Nirvana. That's fine with me -- I have no plans to work
for
> a clueless employer and widespread use of NT for anything other than
> workstations tips me off right away.
I don't think that that is necessarily true. Companies like RedHat (no
insults intended here, OK??) have taken Linux and, through the addition
of
a nice X11-based front-end and sheds-loads of documentation, made it
so
that 'administering' your own Unix system is "easy". The clueless will
see that and think "Unix with a point'n'click interface!!! Great!!!".
The
problem here is not whether the OS here attracts dummies, but how to
prevent
dummies from getting "in too deep".
That was the good thing about the clunky old UNIX interface. If you
wanted
to find out, you HAD to go through that. If you were just a casual
user,
you'd probably get as far as nethack and then logout. If you were
committed, then you stayed with it.
> I think before NT matures enough even some of these people will
> start to realize that the emperor has no clothes.
I think that people generally 'attract' towards what they first experience.
I have always been a 'preferer' of UNIX, having started on UNIX systems
and while I LURVE playing Quake and stuff like that on a PC, I still
would
rather Linux-up an NT-box and THEN stick it on the net than take a
Linux'ed
PC and stick NT on it and go that way onto the net.
One thing I believe that I have observed, on several occasions, is what
I
would describe as a 'vacantness' in those who have come into this game
solely through the Windoze/NT route. The number of times I have sat
and
spoken with people who are 'NT heads' about things like web interfaces
and
system daemons and all I have had is this blank look of disbelief come
back, followed by the look that they think that "YOU are a nut, you
don't
know what you're talking about".
Windows and NT 'breeds', IMHO, a culture of 'smart monied ignorance'.
You
get your system, you slam a stack of software on there, you hammer
in a few
plug'n'play cards and.... when the system no longer works right, you
go out
and buy a bigger and better system and carry on as before until the
next
time. If you're "serious" about computing, you do the same and when
the
system breaks, you get out your credit card and phone a help-line who
will
charge you $5/minute for 30 minutes just to eventually tell you to
either
A> back out the last X packages you installed, B> re-install your base
level operating system or C> go out a buy a bigger, better system.
I don't think that NT will go away. I just think that those of us (and
I
include myself in the next group) who have "learned computing the hard
way"
will happily carry on, picking up cheap, discounted hardware and software
and making beautiful systems that we can charge $5/minute for the
Windoze-kiddies to access!!!!
Take care and have fun,
Steff