Is the stability. Also the vast number of easy to come by applications. And they all meet or exceed industry standards everywhere. Microsoft Word and other Office apps are what get taught in school, and it's what I'm glad to have learned. And for development, I was lucky enough to go to a place that taught in Visual C++.
I don't remember the last time a PC crash stopped me in the middle of using my computer--I suspect it was playing UT, which is hardly Windows's fault.
If a single app brought down your whole machine, then yes, it IS Windows's fault. No OS should ever crash because of an errant process. I have yet to experience a kernel-fault in Linux, even though I've had plenty of applications and server processes die, yet my Windows XP box still crashes occasionally due to a single program (sure, XP is miles ahead of older versions for stablity, but it still has a few more miles to go).
NVIDIA's Gl drivers will break linux randomly. But then again, they're drivers, kernel modules. *shrug*. And bad hardware will make linux crash too. I've done it.
But then again...That's all the problems i've ever had. ever. two. XP just plain doesn't like my system and blows chunks ALL THE TIME, 2K wouldn't install, and 9x craps out about once a day. *shrug*.
If you run a server on your gaming rig, and the server goes down because your game crashes, don't be surprised. When you are using a computer for gaming, it's supposed to be the only thing you're doing on your machine, for a variety of reasons.
3D games crash computers. They do it on ALL platforms with no exceptions. This can be caused by either hardware OR software reasons, and in very few cases is the fault of the OS itself.
Why indeed? Were you perhaps hoping to play UT2K3 in a window and do your taxes while capturing the enemy flag? I think not.
The GameCube is not a desktop computer. It may have similar physical hardware, but it is not a computer. This point has been argued before. My calculator has the same processor as my old computer, that doesn't make my calculator a desktop computer.
Were you perhaps hoping to play UT2K3 in a window and do your taxes while capturing the enemy flag? I think not.
No, but if I'm doing my taxes and somebody invites me to play Q3A, I should be able to minimize my taxes, fire up Q3A, and when I'm done playing, come back to my taxes.
You still didn't answer my question about simpler games such as Tetris.
If Q3A would have crashed the whole computer, I think it likely that it would have crashed under Linux too. Hard lockups in games are not usually due to the OS, but drivers. Blame nVidia or ATI, not Microsoft.
As for tetris, I should have said full-screen 3D games. Tetris would run in a window and probably if it did crash just produce an error dialog.
Yes, GameCube crashes. It has been reported to lock-up in only one place: Hoth on Star Wars: Rouge Leader. It has happened once on my GameCube when a friend was doing some weird manuvers into the ground. People who modded their GameCubes report more often crashes on that level (modding requires removing the thermal gel the seals the heat sink).
I'd like to note that I didn't mod my GameCube. To your question: yes you could, when people realised that modding made their GameCubes overheat more often some people suggested thermal gel to reseal it, but it still won't be as good as new.
No, older versions of Windows. Oh, and non-professionaly admin'd installs of Linux.
I don't remember the last time a PC crash stopped me in the middle of using my computer--I suspect it was playing UT, which is hardly Windows's fault.
If a user-space app crashes your OS (and a fork bomb brining it to a crawl doesn't truly count as a crash), there's something wrong with the OS. It's a design or implementation flaw somewhere.
It's really hard to administer Linux so poorly that it has stability problems. I've only had Linux crash for two reasons, both being hardware failures. (And when my HD locked up, it didn't even really crash, it just started printing out all of these errors that it couldn't save logs to disk.) In order to have non-hardware stability problems under linux, you need to go download an experimental kernel or kernel module. Sometimes you can't configure X11 and can't get X up and running, but the system still runs. Netscape isn't stable, but there are plenty of stable browsers out there.
I challenge you to find an app that can crash Debian-stable from an unprivledged account. Tell you what, I'm running Debian-testing/unstable. find a program that'll crsh my box from an unprivledged account. Here's one for WinNT/200/XP:
int main() { while(1){ printf("\t\b\b");} return 0;}
Try running it from the command line. (You'll need to include a header file or two, and you may need cygwin to compile it as written.) In NT and 2000, it'll BSOD. In XP they "fixed" the problem by having it autmatically reboot instead of blue-screening. It's a buffer unerflow flaw in the DOS emulation. It believes the DOS emulator is a vitalpart of the system, so it freaks out when it's forced to kill the DOS emulator. Instead of just restarting the DOS emulator and letting all of your DOS apps die, it immediately kills all of your apps and BSODs or restarts. NT 4.0 gets no more bug fixes, so it's a permanent bug in NT 4.0.
I got winxp a year ago (for my adobe apps) and I am happy to say its much more stable than win98.
Still, windows explorer and msie freeze on a regular basis. Also Mozilla does bork out at moments. I've had a few instances where I had to reboot the machine.
As to a linux desktop - when my kde 3.1 beta freezes i can ssh in from another box and kill the process that freezes my machine. But if i run icewm on it instead chances of a lockup are much less. Thats a choice that can be made:)
The oldest webserver that I admin is a linux box running on a (then new) 400 mhz celeron. The only downtime it had was for kernel updates and one move to a new colo. It never destabilized by itself. Thats about 4 years of stability.
I've been running 2000/XP for years now, and I can probably count the number of blue screens I've seen in that time on one hand. I'd really like to know how the myth of ever-present blue screens keeps getting perpetuated. Is it just everybody out there is still running Win9X and doesn't know how to keep the programs loaded at boot at a minimum? (I ran a very stable 98 box prior, but I had to rule over it with an iron hand and regedit)
If you're still running Win9X and you hate how instable it is, go and get an upgrade. You can probably find Win2k CD's cheap online.
God I love regedit. I distinctly remember one incident where my girlfriend had a program running (revealed in the Ctrl-Alt-Delete dialog) that she couldn't identify. I don't remember what the specific name was--we'll just call it abc.exe. So, she fired up regedit, searched for abc.exe, and indiscriminantly deleted all the keys that showed up. I almost shit my pants. ("Are you absofreakinglutely sure you want to do that?!?")
The program turned out to be BackOrifice, so it was a good thing that it was killed utterly. Regedit is so cool.
I'd really like to know how the myth of ever-present blue screens keeps getting perpetuated.
How about some systemic issues that onyl seem to crop up with windows machines? Try this nVidia loop error here [viaarena.com]. Ever try to change from an AGP video card to a PCI one or visa versa in 2k/XP? I've has BSODs on 2k/XP on several different platforms (HP/Compaq/Dell/IBM/Gateway) for literraly hundereds of different reasons. Our VP/IS won't let the company go XP for this very reason. They have tested it and it didn't pass. 2k with SP3 is the minimum allowed windows operating system.
I agree that 2k is miles ahead of 9x in stability, but I don't think you can easily dissmiss the BSOD.
Yeah, I guess two. It seems like years...I guess life is like that:)
But Windows still hasn't blue screened on me. By and large, almost all blue screens are caused by bad hardware drivers. I'm sorry your particular configuration of hardware and drivers causes your machine to crash.
That's a danger when your operating system supports thousands and thousands of devices. Microsoft and/or hardware companies simply cannot test all configurations of hardware, OS versions and drivers. They do the best they can, but sometimes folks find something that was missed. The alternative is to limit the hardware: Apple does this. They know exactly what goes into every box, and can really test the hell out of those configs. I like windows supporting anything I stick in my box, and don't think MS should back down from that goal.
I'd really like to know how the myth of ever-present blue screens keeps getting perpetuated.
Because big OEMs sell you crappy systems.
They want to pump the CPU MHz up to sell the system thanks to the bignumber effect. They want to keep the price low. Hence, a lot of the rest of the system will be crap.
I have run W95, W98, W2K and WXP, often on overclocked systems, and the only bluescreens I have seen are from beta drivers or failing/flaky hardware.
Compared to linux, where your GLX module will decied to break randomly every few weeks. In linux I spent more time getting games to work than I did playing them. Finally I got fed up enough to just switch to XP, which is much slower but atleast it works consistently. (For reference, most of that time spent was reinstalling wine, followed by reinstalling nvidia's drivers).
I'm an admin for several production servers, I know what I'm doing. The nvidia drivers installer is totaly insane. It leave behind dead symlinks that manually have to be corrected, and never mentions it in the install. As for the commands you listed, even if I was a rpm user, It still wouldnt work. You forget to mention what happens when games need to change bitdepth, or change rez (winex can handle this now, it couldnt before).
And you're assuming I have commercial winex (I do, but thats beside the point). If you've ever compared what the clutter in cvs compiles to the official binaries, you'd wonder why they even provide it.
My Win2k workstation has 31 days 7 hours 33mins of uptime as of this point. Would have been 53days except for that damn power outage. A solid month and Morrowind. What more can I ask for?:)
My Win2k workstation has 31 days 7 hours 33mins of uptime as of this point. Would have been 53days except for that damn power outage. A solid month and Morrowind. What more can I ask for?:)
A UPS?
Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
-- Dave Olson
What keeps me on windows (Score:1, Troll)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
No, older versions of Windows. Oh, and non-professionaly admin'd installs of Linux.
I don't remember the last time a PC crash stopped me in the middle of using my computer--I suspect it was playing UT, which is hardly Windows's fault.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
I don't remember the last time a PC crash stopped me in the middle of using my computer--I suspect it was playing UT, which is hardly Windows's fault.
If a single app brought down your whole machine, then yes, it IS Windows's fault. No OS should ever crash because of an errant process. I have yet to experience a kernel-fault in Linux, even though I've had plenty of applications and server processes die, yet my Windows XP box still crashes occasionally due to a single program (sure, XP is miles ahead of older versions for stablity, but it still has a few more miles to go).
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
But then again...That's all the problems i've ever had. ever. two. XP just plain doesn't like my system and blows chunks ALL THE TIME, 2K wouldn't install, and 9x craps out about once a day. *shrug*.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
3D games crash computers. They do it on ALL platforms with no exceptions. This can be caused by either hardware OR software reasons, and in very few cases is the fault of the OS itself.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
If you run a server on your gaming rig, and the server goes down because your game crashes, don't be surprised.
Why should a little game of tetris [tetris.com] take down a server, even on Windows?
When you are using a computer for gaming, it's supposed to be the only thing you're doing on your machine, for a variety of reasons.
Then why did Microsoft ever add the ability for DirectDraw to run in a window?
3D games crash computers. They do it on ALL platforms with no exceptions.
Even GameCube?
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
The GameCube is not a desktop computer. It may have similar physical hardware, but it is not a computer. This point has been argued before. My calculator has the same processor as my old computer, that doesn't make my calculator a desktop computer.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
Were you perhaps hoping to play UT2K3 in a window and do your taxes while capturing the enemy flag? I think not.
No, but if I'm doing my taxes and somebody invites me to play Q3A, I should be able to minimize my taxes, fire up Q3A, and when I'm done playing, come back to my taxes.
You still didn't answer my question about simpler games such as Tetris.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
As for tetris, I should have said full-screen 3D games. Tetris would run in a window and probably if it did crash just produce an error dialog.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1, Funny)
An asshole.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
If a user-space app crashes your OS (and a fork bomb brining it to a crawl doesn't truly count as a crash), there's something wrong with the OS. It's a design or implementation flaw somewhere.
It's really hard to administer Linux so poorly that it has stability problems. I've only had Linux crash for two reasons, both being hardware failures. (And when my HD locked up, it didn't even really crash, it just started printing out all of these errors that it couldn't save logs to disk.) In order to have non-hardware stability problems under linux, you need to go download an experimental kernel or kernel module. Sometimes you can't configure X11 and can't get X up and running, but the system still runs. Netscape isn't stable, but there are plenty of stable browsers out there.
I challenge you to find an app that can crash Debian-stable from an unprivledged account. Tell you what, I'm running Debian-testing/unstable. find a program that'll crsh my box from an unprivledged account. Here's one for WinNT/200/XP :
int main() { while(1){ printf("\t\b\b");} return 0;}
Try running it from the command line. (You'll need to include a header file or two, and you may need cygwin to compile it as written.) In NT and 2000, it'll BSOD. In XP they "fixed" the problem by having it autmatically reboot instead of blue-screening. It's a buffer unerflow flaw in the DOS emulation. It believes the DOS emulator is a vitalpart of the system, so it freaks out when it's forced to kill the DOS emulator. Instead of just restarting the DOS emulator and letting all of your DOS apps die, it immediately kills all of your apps and BSODs or restarts. NT 4.0 gets no more bug fixes, so it's a permanent bug in NT 4.0.
Netscape vs. Netscape (Score:1)
Netscape isn't stable
Do you mean "Netscape isn't stable" or just "Netscape 4 isn't stable"? If the former, are there specific problems you've had with Netscape 7?
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
Still, windows explorer and msie freeze on a regular basis. Also Mozilla does bork out at moments. I've had a few instances where I had to reboot the machine.
As to a linux desktop - when my kde 3.1 beta freezes i can ssh in from another box and kill the process that freezes my machine. But if i run icewm on it instead chances of a lockup are much less. Thats a choice that can be made
The oldest webserver that I admin is a linux box running on a (then new) 400 mhz celeron. The only downtime it had was for kernel updates and one move to a new colo. It never destabilized by itself. Thats about 4 years of stability.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
If you're still running Win9X and you hate how instable it is, go and get an upgrade. You can probably find Win2k CD's cheap online.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
The program turned out to be BackOrifice, so it was a good thing that it was killed utterly. Regedit is so cool.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
How about some systemic issues that onyl seem to crop up with windows machines? Try this nVidia loop error here [viaarena.com]. Ever try to change from an AGP video card to a PCI one or visa versa in 2k/XP? I've has BSODs on 2k/XP on several different platforms (HP/Compaq/Dell/IBM/Gateway) for literraly hundereds of different reasons. Our VP/IS won't let the company go XP for this very reason. They have tested it and it didn't pass. 2k with SP3 is the minimum allowed windows operating system.
I agree that 2k is miles ahead of 9x in stability, but I don't think you can easily dissmiss the BSOD.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
But Windows still hasn't blue screened on me. By and large, almost all blue screens are caused by bad hardware drivers. I'm sorry your particular configuration of hardware and drivers causes your machine to crash.
That's a danger when your operating system supports thousands and thousands of devices. Microsoft and/or hardware companies simply cannot test all configurations of hardware, OS versions and drivers. They do the best they can, but sometimes folks find something that was missed. The alternative is to limit the hardware: Apple does this. They know exactly what goes into every box, and can really test the hell out of those configs. I like windows supporting anything I stick in my box, and don't think MS should back down from that goal.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
Because big OEMs sell you crappy systems.
They want to pump the CPU MHz up to sell the system thanks to the bignumber effect. They want to keep the price low. Hence, a lot of the rest of the system will be crap.
I have run W95, W98, W2K and WXP, often on overclocked systems, and the only bluescreens I have seen are from beta drivers or failing/flaky hardware.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
In linux I spent more time getting games to work than I did playing them. Finally I got fed up enough to just switch to XP, which is much slower but atleast it works consistently.
(For reference, most of that time spent was reinstalling wine, followed by reinstalling nvidia's drivers).
Oh great, time for the -1 Truthful.
Re:lol (Score:1)
The nvidia drivers installer is totaly insane. It leave behind dead symlinks that manually have to be corrected, and never mentions it in the install. As for the commands you listed, even if I was a rpm user, It still wouldnt work. You forget to mention what happens when games need to change bitdepth, or change rez (winex can handle this now, it couldnt before).
And you're assuming I have commercial winex (I do, but thats beside the point). If you've ever compared what the clutter in cvs compiles to the official binaries, you'd wonder why they even provide it.
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:2)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
Re:What keeps me on windows (Score:1)
A UPS?