[Info-vax] [OT] Linux vs Windows vs OS X. Was Re: Unix on A DEC Vax?

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <nospam-6F0AAC.11002222012013 at news.chingola.ch>,
	Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> In article <am2f2gFhdhmU1 at mid.individual.net>,
>  billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> 
>> In article <nospam-3395ED.21543919012013 at news.chingola.ch>,
>> 	Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> writes:
>> > In article <am0ap2F23lrU1 at mid.individual.net>,
>> >  billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
>>> 
>> >> In the past week I have done a 2008 Server and a Ubuntu.  Which one
>> >> do you think was harder?
>> > 
>> > It's been a couple of years since I installed Ubuntu but I'd reckon 
>> > Ubuntu is the harder of the two.
>> 
>> Damn, I thought that question was rhetorical.  No, Ubuntu was trivial.
>> My father could have installed it.  :-)
> 
> OK. I just tried it with the 12.04 CD in a virtual machine.  For some 
> reason the download site insisted on giving me the 32 bit version when I 
> had asked for the 64 bit version so I went digging into the full array 
> of downloadable images.  That reminded me that if you are going for a 
> double boot solution or want to install the likes of LVM at 
> installation, what you really need is the "alternative" Ubuntu 
> distribution.

As I said, dual-boot is only for a special class of people and to be
honest, with the virtualization available tody, I really see no reason
for dual-boot at all anymore.


> 
> The vanilla installation was much better than my experience with 11.04 
> in 2011, but I wouldn't say it is any easier than Windows Server 2008.

Really.  OK, guess it's a matter of opinion.  :-)

> 
> Getting Ubuntu up to date post installation is a lot easier of course :-)

Yeah, 300 updates all at one time and a final reboot.

> 
>> >> My last Ubuntu install asked only one question: Do you want to use the
>> >> whole disk?  In the average users desktop install I can think of no
>> >> reason to ever answer no.
>> > 
>> > OK, I'm not the average user, and was doinbg dual boot installations.
>> 
>> Yes, that makes it into something even a pro wil likely have a hard
>> time with.  But, getting back to competing with Windows, how many of
>> the average Windows users have multi-boot systems?
> 
> Not average Windows users, but I gather that Apple make this quite 
> simple to do with Boot Camp, though I cannot speak from first hand 
> experience.

See comment above.  The question today would be "Why bother?"

> 
>> > 
>> > I did find Ubuntu a swine when I wanted to do something as simple as 
>> > change the desktop image, 
>> 
>> really?  I don't usually mess with stuff like that as it is non-functional
>> and PC's to me, regardless of which OS they run, are just tools and all I
>> care about is functionality.  I'll take a look at it later.  But, to be
>> honest, I don't know how to do it on Windows either.  I seem to recall
>> seeing it in a menu somewhere (tiled or stretched to fit) but I tend to
>> not change it there either.
> 
> I've just looked that up and realise I meant login screen image.  I 
> found the default one unpleasantly garish.  Here was what I found for 
> 11.04:
> 
> http://www.sture.ch/node/180

And, as I said, it's just a tool to me (the computer) and I can't even
tell you what the login screen on any of my machines looks like.  Don't
pay attention, don't really care.

> 
>> >                           and particularly when I wanted a non-US date 
>> > format (which seems strange when you consider that Canonical is a UK 
>> > company).
>> 
>> I can't believe that is that difficult.  Date format where?  Wouldn't that
>> be application specific rather than something the OS does?  Date in the
>> OS is always ticks since the epoch.
> 
> On 12.04 it is relatively easy to find the date format and apply it 
> system wide.  For some reason though, trying to change the default 
> language for menus etc only offered options like Australian English, not 
> British English.  That fixed itself once I had the patches up to date.

Yeah, mine, too.  Told me all the language possibilites were not installed
but after the updates they were.  And, while some people seem to think that
somehow I don't kow the difference, I actually have systems here installed 
with German language as the default. (And all of my MS Office installations
have had German, Dutch, French and Spanish support included.  Having German
as a concentration in my undergrad degree I have written a lot of rather
detailed and lengthy papers in German.)

> 
>>> 
>> >> Some rags are questioning how much longer the Apple domain will last.
>> > 
>> > They are saying the same about MS, HP and others too.  I really cannot 
>> > see Apple disappearing any time soon.
>> 
>> Didn't say dieappearing, just losing a lot of the dominance.  MS is in
>> an evenmore dangerous position.  I would bet that the government accounts
>> for a very large portion of MS's business.  If they were to decide that
>> they can no longer afford that luxury and that OpenSource can meet their
>> needs (and it can!!) it could prove rather disturbing to their bottom line.
>> I am actually working on a magazine article (which I doubt anyone here will
>> ever see) to address this very issue with at least one faction of DOD.)
> 
> I cam across an article a few months ago which reckoned that MS should 
> take a decision: Concentrate on _either_ the Office stuff _or_ the 
> server stuff.

I just think the government should stop protecting their questionable
business practices and force them to play on a level playing field.

> 
> The Barclays story I posted yesterday was interesting. To quote a bit I 
> didn't yesterday:
> 
> http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/barclays-cloud-open-source-103349
> 
> "Barclays saved  90 percent of its IT budget by avoiding products from 
> Microsoft, Google, Oracle and SAP. The non-traditional infrastructure 
> has also helped the bank cut down mobile app development time 
> dramatically, and release its PingIt mobile service in seven months 
> instead of two years."
> 
> That does of course imply that they are willing to divert those saved 
> budgets into in-house effort rather than buying COTS which has as 
> prerequisites software from MS, Google, Oracle and SAP.

I would not be surprised that the 90% was after the diversion. Anyone who
has ever worked with Oracle and SAP should be able to tell you that the
staffing needed to support that is rather extensive and most cases very
expensive.  The University I used to work at was an IBM shop with all
locally generated and maintained systems when I started there.  They
moved to COTS, ORACLE and Banner on VMS.  The programming staff more than
doubled.  Being as Banner maintains their program, I have never really
understood this, but it is reality.  COTS does not necessarily mean instant
cost savings.

> 
>> > 
>> >> 
>> >> I am actually looking at VirtualBox on Server 2008 again.  It has improved
>> >> but it still has some quirks I don't like.  But we will see where it goes.
> 
> VirtualBox itself has improved over the last couple of years.

In general, I agree.

> 
>> > I found VirtualBox on Server 2008 to be very solid and it could 
>> > certainly handle some hefty I/O loads.
>> 
>> Two problems that I am aware of (from experience):
>> 
>> 1. Guests don't restart automatically on reboot. (I have been given some
>> work-arounds for this, but I hate kludges)
> 
> I simply had a batch file on the desktop which ran CLI vboxmanage to do 
> this.  

Thats what I saw recommended but to me, using a batchfile is a kludge.
There should be an option in the VM config that says "Start Automatically".

>        In my earlier experience the "send shutdown signal" option wasn't 
> reliable, so I did shutdowns from within clients, and that habit stuck.
> 
> VirtualBox V4.2 introduced the concept of groups so you can for example 
> start, pause or stop a Database VM, a middleware VM and a couple of 
> clients for testing:
> 
> https://blogs.oracle.com/fatbloke/entry/creating_and_using_vm_groups
> 
> 
>> 2. I could not get 64bit BSD to run as a guest.  Not sure why as it should
>> but at the moment, 32 bit still works for the specific tasks I need it to
>> do.
> 
> I had a curious one with 64 bit BSD.  I did manage to migrate the VM to 
> another physical system (the trick being that once you have it on the 
> new system you go into Settings, watch the progress bar while it 
> automagically adjusts itself for the new host environment and then you 
> are good to go), but it either wouldn't run at all or refused to see the 
> network, I forget.

Well, the 64bit boot CD crashes trying to load the kernel.  I am not
interested in debugging theior product so I just went back to 32bit
FreeBSD as it is applications I ineed for what I am researching and
not the OS.

> 
>> So I am continuing my research and may decide it has grown up enough to
>> handle the necessary tasks.
> 
> If you want to try automating this, there is Vagrant:
> 
> http://www.sture.ch/node/226
> 
> also see "VirtualBox VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server"
> 
> http://askaralikhan.blogspot.ch/2011/01/virtualbox-vboxheadless-remote-de
> sktop.html
 
The second might be usefull in the future as all of what I am working
with now would be for use in a dark computer room.  But I still feel
that the original product should offer all that is need to be fully
functional in this environment and having to add other people's products
to accomplish basic operation is far from production ready.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>