TechFlash - Latest Comments in How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Ken Benseman — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 07:41:58 -0000

A very interesting article, by someone with knowledge of computer systems.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Ian Soutar — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:53:19 -0000

I was very pleased to see visualization examples that help people to understand the magnitude of the technological creations known as the kernel of an operating system.

It is a race and with USB 3.0 already functional on Linux. This open source platform has become the tool of choice for hardware driver developers. Linux is now amost always the first O/S to be tested.
Ian
http://www.microsec.net

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Ian Soutar — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:47:27 -0000

I was impressed by your descriptions which helped many people to picture the magnitude of work involved in designing the kernel. The description of the low level drivers involved in the kernel and how at any time either windows or linux will be more advanced.

I am proposing to extend this. I believe that hardware is evolving quicker than software operating systems are evolving. Linux is now a standard platform for hardware developers. For example USB 3 is now functional in the linux kernel because hardware developers are now preferring to use linux for testing new hardware. It is so easy to modify the kernel and customize its optimization. A proprietary OS would not divulge its own design. With this observation in mind it is possible that linux will quickly acquire new standardized hardware first. Most hardware these days are based on cross industry standards like USB 2 and now 3. This new hardware will be appearing quickly and it may be that only an open source mega project like linux can keep up with the accelerating complexity of hardware.
Hardware manufacturers like Motorola are standardizing with linux in their Android phones. Google has embraced this kind of design.

I agree with the author that a race is in progress. It has now moved into mobile phones and netbooks. So there are several desktops now in the arena. What will come of the race ... this is impossible to know.

Ian Soutar
Victoria BC
Canada

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

freon96 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:30:02 -0000

Linux would be worthwhile even if every other OS was free simply because it offers the best ways to learn about an operating system. R&D and experimentation make it the best learning tool for computer science.

As far as a desktop goes, Gnome and KDE are easily configured for almost any environment. There's lots of other desktop managers you can also play with as well as plain old X-windows. Now it's also possible to run an instance of Windows under Linux using VMWare or VirtualBox (I use Sun's VirtualBox to run a full install of Windows XP Pro and it works great).

Another major appeal to Linux is that it doesn't require endless hardware upgrades; it will run on just about any Intel or AMD based system. Since it's free not only do you save money but you don't have to keep track of licenses or track which user uses what software.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

LennyP — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:22:38 -0000

Had Bill Gates in the person of Microsoft, not engaged in the illegal monopolist practices to which Microsoft has been found guilty of, there would be no Windows (and no Office). There were many other far superior O/S's such as DR-DOS, BeOS, NeXT, O/S 2, etc that were intentionally negated by Microsoft through it's illegal monopoly. (Read the court records.) Whether NT had been free or not is really irrelevant as it still would be a closed system under the control of the convicted Microsoft and subject to it's illegal practices.

The only means for geeks to provide themselves with a viable PC operating system on generic hardware was (and still is) through open-source collaboration; the Microsoft monopoly still exists and still engages in the same practices. The open-source model provides us with means to run a higher quality O/S though the deals MS makes with computer vendors still requires most of us to pay the Microsoft Windows tax. Linux, with all it's shortcomings (and it has many) at least permits us the freedom to do our work in the manner we see fit rather than as Microsoft attempts to dictate.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Lennyp — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:58:14 -0000

Prototyped makes no sense whatsoever.

"1. The applications make the platform, not the kernel. You could swap the kernel out and adjust the runtime accordingly and no one would be the wiser."

The kernel is there to provide the need functionality and protections to upper layers without exposing dependencies such as which graphics card, which drive interface, etc. Yes, in a properly designed system you can swap kernels as long as the interfaces remain compatible, but you can not remove the kernel and expect any functionality.

"2. DOS' "kernel" was nothing more than a bootloader for Windows 3.0 and up. Windows 3.0 and up loaded its own kernel and only used DOS to get up and running."
DOS was integral to Windows functionality. The bootloader was actually the Bios which loaded DOS. Windows was actually an application which ran on DOS and provided additional functionality to other applications. Windows saved applications programmers from having to write device specific code as you did under DOS. I think you need to learn a little bit about such things as hardware abstraction, hardware drivers, and I/O.

"3. ... the latter being where all the magic happens) ..."
Let me assure you that none of this is magic. What you describe as "The rest of the software stack" would not function without the kernel. Further, the entire computing experience is dependent upon the quality of the kernel from I/O to security to power efficiency and beyond. Had Microsoft bothered designing and implementing a secure kernel we would not have most of the security issues that plague us today.

Please take some computer engineering courses. I think you would find them quite enlightening as to how computers work, how computers should work, and why we have what we have today.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Guest — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:55:51 -0000

Well, "free" can mean two things, free as in beer, or free as in speech. GNU/Linux operating systems are (for the most part) free as in speech in addition to free as in beer, meaning they're both gratis and open source and come with certain other freedoms, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

o.a. — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:28:45 -0000

Very good argumentation. Thanks for sharing it with the folks.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

John — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:57:56 -0000

Free really isn't what Linux is about, its about the open source. The fact that people can look at the code, and modify it to work with what they need, makes it so much better then Windows. I mean there are distro's of Linux which cost money, and there is software like Spore that costs... But it's all open source and your only paying for the license. I don't mind that it's not free.... I mind that people can't look at the code themselves and make it work better for them and contribute to an OS to make it a much better one.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

linuxiac38 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:49:37 -0000

Point 1 of the 1024 reasons to reject Microsoft:

Windows = FAIL! Consecutive baby steps for each process through the CPU stops system (CRASH!), when any individual step fails!

Linux, BSD, Unix = SUCCESS! Concurrent, multiple processes run in parallel optimum multi-processing, multi-user environment!

More, Windows even still crashes when running FOSS, because the win system is so flawed.

Point 2 of the 1024 reasons to reject Microsoft:

The million Microsoft virus/mal-ware bots/exploits take advantage of the built-in flaws in Microsoft.

Because of the security of the 'Nix file system, immunity to virus is assured, and proven, since Unix was 'born' in 1969, as demonstrated by BSD (1971), and Linux (1991).

Point #3 of the 1024 reasons to reject Microsoft:
Processes run as much as 200 times faster in all the 'Nixes, than Microsoft can do.

Perhaps you should read more about all the reasons Microsoft FAILS and is even prohibited by Microsoft from running in any production environment, in any professional or enterprise environment, especially those affecting production, life support, motor vehicles, ships, planes. http://linux.org

http://livecdlist.com has many of the 315 LiveCDroms of Linux & BSD.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

johnny guest — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:28:14 -0000

IMTHO, the only thing Microsoft has innovated lately is crowd control.

All the bells and whistles being added to the OS (and other software) aren't intended for the masses, and from the amount of difficulty with Vista, users have concluded, loudly, that Vista lost their interests (2 definitions of the word interest applies here). Similar for MS Office - I have been trained on (and am 'certified' on) Office 97, back in the day; today, I still do not use web integration, nor any collaboration nor embeddings. These features aren't used in the offices where I've been employed. I say 2 people per hundred felt that some subsequent version of Office had an improvement they personally needed to use, and when their output documents were unreadable to subordinates and clients (with older versions of Office).... well, the lazy 2 percenters, in effect, propagated the upgrade waves for version after version of MS Office. Not opinion: IT veeps of 2 different companies told me this was the reason for the upgrades being installed on my corporate PC (by name in each instance - each wanted the latest and greatest despite the impact). Little did one IT veep know, not until I told him, that I hadn't booted the OS on the hard disk for weeks. All my compatible documents, all my email, etc., had been generated using a live Linux distribution called Knoppix, it running from the CDROM drive and using the local hard dis only for storage; this was back in 2001.

More, Microsoft isn't about innovation, it is about twisting. Microsoft usually 'innovates' by purchasing existing software (Excel and Visio, to name two titles that come to my mind). So when I spend $240 for retail versions of a full install of Office, what exactly am I getting that Open Office is not presently providing to me? Scratch the reference to OO, I can still edit my resume (RTF) with Abiword, Applixware, etc.

A newer abomination I ran into (years ago, now) is the .NET framework. An application that one version earlier just barely fit on a bootable floppy now needs 8+ megs of 'framework', and the application alone couldn't fit on two floppies. Did performance gain as a result of the changes needed? Can't tell, I decided .NET was .NOT for me.

In any case, my PC is not owned by Microsoft, I'm glad to have functional choices of operating system and office suite.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

sajal — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:47:54 -0000

interesting read... but FC3 is ancient now... now Linux does kickass of windows even when it comes to desktop usage...

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Dave — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:41:00 -0000

The only reason people use Linux on servers is because its free and they don't have to actually use it: it just sits there on the server doing its thing.

The notion that the Linux kernel is in some way superior to the NT kernel is a dream of anarchists everywhere, but its not true. The moment you had to install 50 device drivers (not that they exist) from 50 vendors into the kernel of Linux it would have every problem that Windows does, and a lot more.

Stick Server 2008 on a mainstream box (like a Dell) with common hardware and its indestructible. We use one as a terminal server with 30 people running Office apps on it all day long (plus MySQL and some other things) and it never has to be rebooted. It never fails.

Why? No poor quality third party device drivers.

This is one area where the Mac has a bit of an advantage: they control the hardware platform so tightly that the operating system doesn't have to deal with the myriad of possibilities that NT does.

Trust me, even VMS wouldn't have been stable if you installed software on it with drivers written in a boiler factory in Xianghu province of China.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

BricksinWindows — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:37:00 -0000

A Little History lesson the NT kernel didn't come from Microsoft. NT is an old OS called VMS it use to run old super computers back in the day.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

mycall — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:47:00 -0000

Don't forget, there are better ways than Linux:

http://www.cs.unm.edu/~fast...

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

mycall — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:35:00 -0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

http://www.linuxtoday.com/n...

Personally, I think eventually NT will go open source and the tides will turn once more.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

KeithCu — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:56:00 -0000

@PStryder:

The wars aren't over, but I had to add "After the" to make the artwork fit! Also, the book is a vision of the future.

@Tyler:

You scared me for a second, but I think the text is fine: the 40,000 man-years is referencing the entire free software stack.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Tyler Style — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:44:00 -0000

Sorry to nitpick, but you've got an error in your text. You quote 4,000 man years as having gone into the Linux kernel, and then reference it as 40 man-millenia, which would be 40,000 man years.

Other than that, I have to say the intro certainly has intrigued me!

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

PStryder — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:21:00 -0000

The software wars are over? When did that happen?

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

KeithCu — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:38:00 -0000

@TheNetAvenger:
If you are looking for something that the Linux kernel does that NT doesn't, how about "runs on machines with 1,000s of processors?" Or, "has the power of Windows NT in the size of Windows CE." Linux also supports more architectures, is more reliable, is more componentized, is simpler, etc. My book goes into this in more detail.

And, unlike Windows NT, most of the people who worked on it years ago are still there.

@Double4:
I agree that Linux isn't ready for everyone yet. Just hold tight, it will get there. My book lists the biggest remaining challenges.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

Double4 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:46:00 -0000

I am a simple user who wants stuff to work, when I am working on my computer and I plug in a flash drive, I expect to read and write to it without having to go to University to learn file systems. I expect to get updates without a problem, I expect to have great anti-virus protection, I expect to work without crashes, I expect the OS to have a great plug and play system.

I simple want to work...

I use MS XP SP2 at work and OpenSuSe 10.3 / 11.0 at home. Whilst it would be great to work with Linux full time at home, I find myself switching to Windows now and then or when I am at work, wishing I was using Linux.

I would be very happy if the great computer minds would create a system I could actual use without wishing I was using the other "one"...

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

TheNetAvenger — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:29:00 -0000

@KeithCU

"Linux kernel because it is a great case study demonstrating... technically superior"

Really?

I am going to guess that you never worked at a highly technical level at Microsoft if you honestly believe this.

I know a lot of Microsoft people don't understand the 'core of the company' as you would say, with that being the kernel and NT.

As an OS theorist/engineer myself, I am sitting here, trying hard to come up with a single item from the Linux kernel that I could try to sell as 'better' than what NT offers.

When Dave Cutler and his team put NT together, Microsoft owned Xenix at the time, and the Cutler team not only were from the VMS and UNIX world, but they could have created NT based on UNIX concepts and still used a semi-hybrid kernel.

They chose SPECIFICALLY to abandon the UNIX OS model concepts for many reasons, from the poor network security model and lack of ACLs to the 'limits' of the generic textual I/O device model.

They also chose to create a new low level kernel model that has benefits of several basic kernel designs by layering out the kernel API sets.

Where NT was 'ahead' is where you will see where Linux and other UNIX variant OSes have hit a wall and is putting 'band-aids' on the kernel model or the UNIX OS model itself. You can see this in fights over granularity and locking.

You could truly argue a good 'philosophical' point about open source, and there would be a lot of things I would agree with you on.

However flat out saying that the Linux kernel is better than the NT kernel shows either a vast gap in your understanding, or your own biases towards Microsoft that you are promoting through a guise.

When you have Technology A and Technology B, and A can do everything B can do, but B can't do everything A can do, it would be insane to call B superior to A.

-Sadly this is what you are doing.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

anomymuos — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:00:00 -0000

If you look at the latest data from IDC, you'll realize Windows Server has slowly become dominant..not as dominant as the client but more servers ship today with Windows Server than Linux and Unix combined.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

NirY — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:58:00 -0000

@Andre Da Costa:
I work in an ISP, and for any system that doesn't run Oracle DB we use CentOS, which is based on Red Hat sources, and is basically identical, only free and without support. The only reason we still use Red Hat is so that we can get Oracle's support for their DB (it's 99.99% sure to still work on CentOS, but you know how these people are sensitive about supported platforms and all that).
Other than that, there's really only reason to work with supprted distributions like Red Hat for production systems that are impossible/very difficult to make redundant.

@JD:
I believe that if Linux had the same popularity as Windows, there would've been many more viruses and worms created for it.

Re: How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters

KeithCu — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:36:00 -0000

@Mallik:

What you call open is implied in my definition of free. When I say free, I think of the GPL, which I believe is the best license.

I agree that if Unix were free from the beginning that the industry would be totally different, and Microsoft as we think of it wouldn't exist. I make that point in the book.