Re: What is the more popular UNIX flavor?

On 2007-12-10, Mister.Fred.Ma@xxxxxxxxx <Mister.Fred.Ma@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 8, 2:52 pm, Andrew Smallshaw <andr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

continual upgrades, but the problem was that a plain user had to go
through many hoops to "make" applications of interest and tailor
the build process to the environment (details of which the user
might not be familiar with). Sometimes, they build is successful,
with enough detours to build prerequisite software. At least, that
was my experience. Cygwin upgrades and inclusion of packages of
interest were really painless.

This is a silly point to argue about. You appear to be complaining
that it is easier to install a pre-built package than it is to take
a source archive, unpack it, configure and compile it and finally
install it. This surprises you? It is like buying a kit car and
then complaining that you have to put it together before you can
drive it away.

I'm trying to make sense of the above paragraph. On one hand you seem
to have a chip on your shoulder about the comparison I make about my
experience with Solaris and Cygwin (lord nows why). On the other
hand, you confirm my opinion that installing things on Solaris is
harder, notwithstanding your obfuscating analogy.

Pre-built packages are available for either platform. Source code
can be compiled for either platform. Compiling code is harder than
installing packages (although you do gain flexibility). The
comparision between installing a package on one platform and
compiling that program from source on the other is not a fair one.
BTW I don't have anything against cygwin per se. I must admit that
I prefer Microsoft's grossly-misnamed Windows Services for Unix
but that's just my preference.

My complaints about the Unix-on-Windows systems in general is that
you simply don't know what they are going to do. Hard links?
Sparse files? Most of the systems support these things but you are
never quite sure how and if they are really doing the Right Thing or
some ugly kludge simply to get things working regardless of what is
happening under the hood. Then of course, they are all incomplete
to a greater or lesser extent. If you find yourself needing eg tftp
you only need to activate on a Unix system. It'll probably need
installing first on the equivalent Windows system.

Oh, it isn't that hard to figure out what they're doing for a guru
like yourself. It's pretty well described in their documentation.
What isn't described can be brought up in their forum.

BTW, tftp does show up under a cygwin package search. Installing it
involves checking a box. Not sure why this would be considered
onerous.

Nice to know, but that was my point. I used tftp as an instance
of a tool that isn't needed all that much nowadays, but when you
do it is likely to be critical (it is typically used for netbooting
systems - that isn't too common today but when you need to do it
the nonavailability of tools is likely to be a show stopper). I
prefer things like that to be installed as standard rather than
have to install them manually. What happens if the machine you
need to netboot is the machine that connects you to the internet,
for example?

Anyway, I related my experience, and I'm not claiming that it
represents yours. I never ran into the difficulties you describe. My
experience with Cygwin has been much better than with Solaris, for the
reasons described. Whether you consider Cygwin to be a kluge is not
important to many people -- whatever is "happening under the hood", it
does what is needed/wanted with minimal fuss. Hence, it is doing the
Right Thing. I don't see how that can be considered "ugly"; quite the
opposite, really.

Fair comment, although I still would want to know what is happening.
The semantics of having a hard link to a file are quite different
to having a copy of that file, for instance. If things like that
are done without your knowledge then there are all kinds of problems
that can crop up later. I haven't checked to see what cygwin does
but that is my point - you can't assume anything so you have to check
everything.

You've also misinterpretted "never been a problem" to mean "never seen
malware". I've advised colleagues to scan for malware, and some
relatively innocuous ones were found, and I've received spam
apparently from colleagues who I know didn't send them. But nothing
that really interrupted everyday activities much.

I would interpret that as being a problem, but of course that is
my interpretation, not yours.

Granted, not all businesses are big, but isn't this thread about
people interested in using Unix? It is reasonable to assume that they
are not the regular end user and have a bit more familiarity with OS's
-- even with the security paranoia required for Windows. Even if they
don't know much about Windows, most are bound to have heard that you
need to be careful about security.

For general desktop use I would agree with you that in general a
Unix user is more likely to be technically savvy than the equivalent
Windows user. However, you also see Unix in semi-embedded environments
where there is no-one there who is competent to administer the
system. Things like the tills in one of the pubs I frequent are
ultimately connected to a Unix server on site, that kind of thing.
The bar staff there are using Unix without even being aware of it.
There isn't _anybody_ working there that I'd consider a competent
computer user.

On top of that, I have full and simultaneous access to my Windows
XP/2000 environment at the same time. This is utterly invaluable for
interactivity with others.

I'm not knocking that for a moment. Personally I find I have only
occasional need of a Windows machine. When I do, thanks to Windows
Terminal Services I can start rdesktop and have Windows running in
a window on my desktop. That is a real Windows machine, not an
ugly half-way house. Works great for me, although I'll grant you
it will not suit or prove practical for everybody.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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