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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Howe who wrote (63163)	11/19/2001 7:02:22 PM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Windows 98 was very stable when it arrived. So was Windows 2000. So is Windows XP. The unstabilities come when you install software on it, especially non-Microsoft software. For instance, Borland Delphi clashes with Corel Paradox. If you install both, and maybe you also have some applications installed that use the Borland Database Engine, the Corel Paradox installer might have made them all unstable. There are many examples like this. The instability in Windows is not something made by Microsoft - Microsoft just laid the foundations to it by letting the developers themselves create their installation software. Since installation wasn't a problem when it was introduced, it wasn't taken care of. Since Microsoft always tries to make things backwards compatible, they haven't broken old-fashioned installation programs, yet. Some of them are autodetected by the Operating System, and necessary adjustments are made on the fly. But not all software is catched by this, which makes even Windows XP run unstable, partly because of stupid programmers, partly because of the admin misconfiguring XP. How does Linux change this? Well, there are several methods: 1) DLL hell isn't there and has never been there. 2) Primitive programmers often don't dare to install anything outside their application directory. 3) Only the sysadmin may install software that is accessible by all users. Just like a closed Win2000 or a Terminal Server. 4) The package system used by many distributions only allow a file to be included in one package, not several. This prevents two installation programs from upgrading the same file. 5) When it comes to binary compatibility, Linux is more diversified. For instance, it runs on many different kinds of processors. This makes installation an issue with much more focus on. This puts a lot more demands on the programmer who designs the installation process, and it is not always a success. But the SysAdmin can: 1) Get very good control of how the system works. 2) Get status on how all files from all packages are. 3) Install software and know that it doesn't break system stability. 4) Very important: Fix problems without doing a reinstall. It is a completely different way of thinking, but it is much easier to achieve a deterministic system behaviour. Lars.