Platform/OS?

[jmcneese]

Discuss.

[clearbreach]

I'm currently running Windows 98 (First Edition), but I'm hoping to put Windows 2000 on something soon. Also, I'm looking into purchasing a computer (not necessarily new, but one that will run fairly fast) and putting Red Hat (7.3) Linux on it, just to screw around with.

[piersk]

Im only really using windows cos i use all the other software (MS Office) and also cos I cant be bothered to install linux.

Hopefully im gonna be getting a new PC with which to put Linux on tho...

[jmcneese]

piersk:

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/office/
http://www.transgaming.com/

[piersk]

I know, I know, you've shown me them before. It's too much hassle to back up everything and then to reinstall a whole new OS. As I said before, I just cant be bothered...

[gsfgf]

Linux Desktop
BSD server
What's this Windows thing that's in second place

[gelwa]

Dual Boot REDHAT LINUX 7.3 and WINDOWS 98 S.E(at Home)
FREEBSD,REDHAT LINUX 7.0j,WINDOWS 98(at Work)
Credits to Linus Trovald's Linux!It's splendid!

[stuartc1]

OS of choice:

Well its a bit unfair to say *nix is the best and thats all about it.
One thing to remeber is that while lots of programmers use PC's supplied by there company and these PC's have OS company wide, therefor its usually better to develop programmes on the same type of system that the programmes are goin to be running on.

The point is - use the right tool for the job, if that tool is *nix then fine, but it cannot possibly be the right tool for every job.

Choose your weapons wisely...:)

[dar-k]

Windows, cuz big software developers force me to.

[examancer]

this poll is skewed! you can select more than one option when voting, but the votes only add up to 100% so the first vote is probably taken, which is why the first choice is so high. Everyone likes linux, but i think a lot of people would choose windows also because its an OS that most have to use.

[examancer]

b

[largo]

At our company we use Debian Linux for most servers, Redhat on a few. Though I absolutely love Linux, recently we got a new line of server to do test products on and I have been playing with FreeBSD's JAIL environment.

For the most part JAIL is relatively new, however, it's features are unparalleled. Last night I managed to configure Frontpage 2002 extensions with the various security wrappers in a manner which works with our control panel (written in php!) -- the only "uncool" part was patching suexec -- unhappy with that, though security level hasn't been effected. People running BSD probably have all kinds of ogod things to say about JAIL, I hope to be one of them soon.

I run debian linux as my desktop with a win-xp partition (... easy now.... it's just for counter-strike...).

It's 9:23 p.m, I am alone in the office making coffee. I was trashed today by Crafty (the chess program) 4 times in 30 minutes. I deleted it.

-m.

[Bunkermaster]

I am a proud windows user for dev and a proud COBALT SUN user for servers (might go to the new IBM web appliance soon though).
As I work from home and I choose my OS I can't say anyone forced me to use windows. It is not because everyone says that Microsoft is THE EVIL corporation that I won't use and actually pay for their products.

If it wasn't for Microsoft, we'd prolly all still be running Apple computers (former Apple II e addict loooong time ago :P) and I'd prolly be a McDonald cook or a security officer in a bank or something...

THANK YOU MICROSOFT

PS : Wouldn't dream of using IIS or running a real server on Windows though ;)

[dar-k]

I'll be trying a Linux desktop environment soon.
I've read about Windows emulators, so I might b able to run my proggies on Linux.

[dannys]

BSD Server
Windows Desktop - because I don't do VI :)

Samba Shared, naturally :)

[greg252]

Dev on OS X
Server runs Linux

[brøken]

i just put linux on my laptop (im on it now) its really clumsy to me now coming from a ****dows background.. setup and everything went fine, but since my laptop has a sm monitor things are annoying- things i still need are better fonts, to config every last thing and get a nice editor for php

o yea- my comp is almost 2x as fast as when it had win2k :D

[Bunkermaster]

install Linux on ya hamster maybe it'll run even faster :D

[largo]

Originally posted by Bunkermaster
install Linux on ya hamster maybe it'll run even faster :D

can we do network install from another hamster here? ... where does the cd go?

[Bunkermaster]

believe me you don't wanna know

[brøken]

Originally posted by Bunkermaster
install Linux on ya hamster maybe it'll run even faster :D

my hampster runs 17s in the 1/4 mile.. and we ALL know that is fast (ricer logic)

[Sxooter]

If it wasn't for Microsoft, we'd prolly all still be running Apple computers (former Apple II e addict loooong time ago :P) and I'd prolly be a McDonald cook or a security officer in a bank or something...


I call BS on that line.

I was multi-tasking on my Amiga in 1985. REAL pre-emtpive multi-tasking with very good response, and rock solid reliability. If it wasn't for Microsoft, we might all be using Amiga 25000s with Toaster / Flyer combos instead of these PC toys we're all stuck with.

Plus, the Mac came out before Windows by quite a bit too. Heck, we might have a genuinely diverse bio-sphere if it wasn't for the monopolistic practices of MS.

Ever read "The Microsoft File"? It will open your eyes to how MS does business.

[largo]

anxiously waiting for a multi-tasking hampster joke from broken........ (almost scared)..

[Bunkermaster]

riiiiight... who mentioned multi tasking? I didn't. For all I know (and believe me I know a LOT :P) if MS hadn't come around we'd be using BeOS.

Nah really if Microsoft wasn't what it is today, we'd be doing something else but there WOULD be a monopoly and we would complain about amiga or apple being the big bad wolf. Just use their products, concidering the number of features and the things it allows, just enjoy and stop complaining...

[bormuff98]

At home I have 3 flavours of Windoze (gonna get rid of Win2000 Pro though because I _really_ don't like it), and a FreeBSD box.

At the office, we have NT but my PHP stuff runs on FreeBSD.

[brøken]

Originally posted by largo
anxiously waiting for a multi-tasking hampster joke from broken........ (almost scared)..

sorry, im running MS Hampster 2.0 .. that explains why its so 1337 ;)

[Sxooter]

My point was that Microsoft is NOT responsible for a whole lot of goodness in computing. Saying that "if it wasn't for Microsoft we wouldn't be where we are today" is true, but only in the backwards sense. I.e. they've made people accept the "fact" that computers just crash for no reason, software is always buggy, and you need to burn your OS to the ground once a year in sacrifice to some pagan god just to get it to run right. Real Oses don't do those things, my Amiga didn't, BeOS doesn't, Linux and BSD don't either.

MS set back the cause of computing 10 years easily.

and I do relax and enjoy computing. I run Linux and Unix. When I go home on Friday I know I won't have to come running in at 2:30 Saturday afternoon to fix a BSOD problem.

My favorite Windows quote came from Corel after they ported Word (semi) Perfect to Linux. The product manager said that it was so much like the Windows version of WP that people even save before printing. (i.e. something you never have to do in Unix.)

[Sxooter]

So how many folks who say they're '1337' have actually played that game? It's so old it has moss growing on it, but it still rocks. There's a re-implementation of it out that is a kick in the pants to play. So, see if you really ARE elite...

http://www.cjpinder.clara.co.uk/elite.html

[Bunkermaster]

I played Star Trek Voyager : Elite Force

does it count?

[kaumilpatel]

I run windows 98 at home. It's more easier to use I think anyway. When I do web stuff, its always unix/linux.

[gid]

Debian GNU/Linux (sid/unstable)

Screenshot: http://paradise.steem.com/pics/gid-fluxbox.png

The poll is OS of choice, not the OS I use. So maybe I run linux, but maybe my OS of choice is Windows. It's probably more the other way around tho. :)

[driverdave]

OSX/Win 2K for dev, RedHat Linux for our servers.

OSX is awsome, I'm glad Apple finally got their act together.

[firepages]

The poll needs splitting

which OS for development/workstation
which OS for your server

at least thats how I see it,

I wouldnt dream of running a website or web-based app on a MS server fullstop.

but for development I find windows perfect, and as it happens quite stable, at least 2K/XP anyway, 98 had issues, though I got a 98 box running as an answering machine and its yet to crash (thats all it does though)

2K rarely gives me issues as a workstation and runs all the software I need open-source or otherwise, I have RedHat 7 & 7.3 for testing stuff but find it quite rocky as soon as I startx, so I tend not to ;)

As for MS holding back development... well *NIX still cant detect my modem :o and macs look pretty (OSX is inviting though) , if you had a told me 15 years ago that I could buy my own computer for less than the cost of a nice desk to stick it on I would have laughed so hard my sides would have split and my liver may have fallen out, fact is you have Billy boy and MS and their ilk to thank for that.... it could have been someone else and something else, but it would have required exactly the same tactics to get to where we are today, which is no where near as far as we should be but further than we may have expected.

[philipolson]

Debian (http://www.debian.org/) is nice because I'm addicted to apt-get (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/debian/chapter/appc_05.html), I also run windows2000.

[dalecosp]

Discuss.
Well, I'm glad to see we can at least *talk* about such issues. If you've ever uttered such a question on some Linux- or BSD- list, you know that Pandora wasn't the only one to open a can of worms. I'm in the "'Nix for servers, use what you like on the Desktop" camp.

IMAHO, selecting an OS on merit is too complex for the public to even want to *care* about, generally speaking. So, when the M$ marketing department began to impress their vision upon common Americans, many of them bit into it --- it was 'like' Apple, which many had seen, rejected temporarily, and kept an watchful eye on, but much less of an 'investment'. It's funny how a 'historical' discussion always turns into a review of Apple's decisions. My wife's grandad was a farmer and a mechanic, and decided he'd rather do the best work he could at the lowest price for as many people as possible. He could have charged a lot more, I expect, and had less business, and survived; but instead he worked for less, had loads of customers and left his *eight* kids a comfortable inheritance. His task wasn't as hard as Microsoft's....

I like 'Nix for the environment it has created for itself, serving....and BSD over Tux, since there's less variation in environment, and there is a bit of irritation in the learning curve. But Bunkermaster has a good point, there's a good %age of us who'd not be making any kind of living here, *yet*, w/o Windoze.

I hate the BSOD, but so far it's the price difference between Windoze and the others.

$Windoze=$money + $trouble +$entropy;
$money++;
$Apple=$money + (!$public_understanding);
$time==$money;
$Nix=$time + $new_eyeglasses + $new_vocabulary;

FWIW, I have 4 Winboxes (95-98-98se-XP) and 4 on *BSD, scattered in various offices and my home, within a 30 mile range.

dalecosp

[wilsonodk]

At work we use MacOS X, but all the sites we deploy PHP on are Linux/Unix. If the clients server is IIS we build it with ASP instead.

My personal site is hosted by friend on Slackware, I believe. He always changing distros, big Linux nut. (He also happens to mod linuxquestions.org)

At home, MacOS X and I also have WinXP minitower and a Win2k laptop with no php on either. The tower has bother IIS and ColdFusion MX. So lots of options, the right way to live.

Microsoft is a big bully, prolly the biggest, but they also made people want computers at home. In the mid-90s I worked for a subsiderary of IBM doin' hardware support for Dell, HP, Compaq, and Gateways. When my partner and I would go to people's homes and ask why they had decided to get their computers the main reason was...
"To run Windows 95."
No joke. Its sad, but that is the way it is, and fortunately it is changing, slowly but eventually all empires fall. Look at Rome.

my little more than $0.02.

[Duey]

im a mac man :> i will never go back to PC ever!!! im so glad i switched

windows is dumb, stupid, buggy, blue with white text, un userfriendly, slow, rip off, points out of ten 1/10 i give it a 1 for being able to start up

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by Duey
im a mac man :> i will never go back to PC ever!!! im so glad i switched

windows is dumb, stupid, buggy, blue with white text, un userfriendly, slow, rip off, points out of ten 1/10 i give it a 1 for being able to start up

but remember, PC != Windows. I run five PCs (one at home, four at work) and they all run Linux.

When Apple finally gets around to porting to the X86 architechture, I might give OS X a try. Of course, by then, it might just be a desktop environment that runs on top of either Linux or BSD.

But I do agree, that Windows is crapola. The only time I boot my home box into Windows is to play games, and nowadays, my play station is a better box for games than windows.

[Duey]

well i meant windows, i likes linux or any kind of unix

[Bunkermaster]

I love windows and am proud of it, I don't go pooping on Mac or Linux but I guess it makes you think you're cool to **** all over a business standard that made a lot of people's life easier

[Shadeless]

windows unuser friendly??? rofl

windows IS user friendly, it's the easiest OS atm to handle..

yes win98 and befor where unstable, and not working to well always, but installing new hardware/programs... is as easy as taking candy of a kid.

The fact is that alot of people don't want to bother with all kinds of difficult settings, if they plug in a new printer or modem or something else it has to work within a few time.. and not needing to config it manualy or whatever.

And yes a ferrari(unix ****) drives faster then a tank(windows ****ty) :D

will start to install linux soon :P, and see for myself, but all i heard so far is, that it is more steady....well my win2k system never crashes.. so yes linux might be super steady in a 24/7 enviroment.. but most people don't use their computer in a 24/7 enviroment.

Linux is just a ***** to configure.. at least all kinds of people tell u that.. ooow well that's at least 1 good argument to use it... If u linux lovers in general would tell heck linux is easy to use/install and has loads of programs to use, just like ur used to. and it's 100x better then windows in every possible way.. i cann bett on it that it will mean history to microsoft windows @ people's homes.

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by Bunkermaster
I love windows and am proud of it, I don't go pooping on Mac or Linux but I guess it makes you think you're cool to **** all over a business standard that made a lot of people's life easier

Having supported 150+ windows boxen for a living for three years before moving into development, I can tell you that for everything that windows makes easy for the user, there's something else that is hard for the developer.

When I started running PHP on windows NT/2K it was a freaking nightmare to setup and keep running. Unix was about 100 times easier to setup and run.

But my main complaint with Windows is that it is produced by a company that is the corporate equivalent of the Sopranos, and supporting such a company is immoral.

If you aren't familiar with the hundreds of criminal acts of this company, and the things they've done to set back the computer industry decades, just read "The Microsoft File" by Wendy Goldman Rohm.

An example of the way MS behaves, was how they treated the folks from Go, a pen based computing OS. They told them they loved their OS, and they wanted to port all MS office apps over to it. They sign NDAs with Go, get access to their OS source code, spend two weeks having their top developers go through the code, then suddenly, tell Go they're not interested. 6 months later, MS released their own pen based OS (which flopped, this was several years back, only now is pen / tablet based computing making a come back). Result? Go went out of business, then MS had such a ****ty pen based OS the market died.

Wanna know where IE came from? A company called SpyGlass invented it. MS said they loved it , best thing since sliced bread, just sign on the dotted line and you'll all be dot millionaires.

Small problem, the contracts gave SpyGlass a percentage of all sales. Easy fix, give away IE, and add $10.00 to the price of MS Windows. That was, no money to spyglass, and MS makes money off the sweat of others.

Yeah, I poop on Windows, but MS deserves to be shunned, period, they do NOT deserve your respect or support, and if you don't know that, then you haven't been paying attention, and ignorance is NOT an excuse.

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by Shadeless

The fact is that alot of people don't want to bother with all kinds of difficult settings, if they plug in a new printer or modem or something else it has to work within a few time.. and not needing to config it manualy or whatever.

And yes a ferrari(unix ****) drives faster then a tank(windows ****ty) :D

will start to install linux soon :P, and see for myself, but all i heard so far is, that it is more steady....well my win2k system never crashes.. so yes linux might be super steady in a 24/7 enviroment.. but most people don't use their computer in a 24/7 enviroment.

Linux is just a ***** to configure.. at least all kinds of people tell u that.. ooow well that's at least 1 good argument to use it... If u linux lovers in general would tell heck linux is easy to use/install and has loads of programs to use, just like ur used to. and it's 100x better then windows in every possible way.. i cann bett on it that it will mean history to microsoft windows @ people's homes.

OK, here's my story on configuring Windows 95/98/NT/2K versus Linux.

In Windows, every time I install it, I have to drag out floppy after floppy and CDROM after CDROM from the manufacturer of the hardware in my box, because Windows doesn't know diddly about my Riva TNT2 card or my 3com NIC. Installing Windows is not easy. When it asks for the drivers, it's a convoluted point and click mess.

In Linux, (RedHat 7.3, I run the latest cause it's free to do so) I just plug in the hardware and boot up. Kudzu, the autoconfigurator for RedHat just works. Here's an example: I installed RedHat 7.2 a while back on an AMD K6-2-350 with a 3COM Nic and an old ATI Mach 64 vid card. Took about 40 minutes. The questions it asked were always something like "I detected a Mach64 vid card, is this right?" It wasn't wrong once.

After the install, I pulled the hard drive out and stuck it into a Dual PIII-750 with Intel NICs and some modern fancy vid card (I don't remember which one, but it wasn't the same one as the older K6 had in it.)

When the machine booted, it came up, told me I was missing hardware (my old nic and vid) and did I want to unconfigure them. I said yes. Then it said it had found new hardware, would I like it to configure them. I said yes, and it did. Then it asked me if I wanted to migrate my network settings. I said yes. It did. Then it asked me what resolution I wanted to run my new vid card in and let me test the resolution. It saved the settings. It continued booting. I installed the SMP kernel by hand. Man what a pain, I inserted the RedHat CDROM, up popped a nice GUI that asked for the root password. I gave it, then selected the smp kernel from the list of packages and clicked the install button. Then I ran setup (also found in a nice gui menu under the big K on my desktop) and told it to configure boot params, and to boot from the new kernel.

Rebooted (the one thing linux can't change without rebooting is the kernel you're running) and it came right up.

All the hardware was autodetected, and I had to insert 0, count them, 0 manufacturer cdroms or floppys for the drivers.

Linux is a BUNCH of different distrobutions. Some are designed for ultra hacker elite types, and some are meant for joe six pack at home user.

Linux is also a moving target. Yes, RedHat 5.2 was a ***** to configure. I didn't have a clue how to get xwindows running, and the manual didn't even mention it back then. You were just supposed to know these things.

RedHat is now at version 8.0 and has changed a LOT in that time.

I would now say that RedHat8.0 / Mandrake 8.x are at the same level as Win2K / Xp for ease of install, maybe even better in some respects.

Seriously, you ever installed hardware in Windows that just refused to work right, and you had to edit registry keys and jump through hoops to get it to work? I know I have, especially with video cards and modems. Software modems are hell to install on any platform, and they always seem to act up, disappearing or dropping bits at the worst moments.

Neither OS is perfect, but the big mistake I see if people thinking Windows is easy because they're familiar with it. Think of the things you do with ease that your PC-phobic granny would have conniptions figuring out without your help. Those things exist in both Linux and Windows. You just don't notice them anymore because your familiar with them now. I don't notice them in Linux because I'm familiar with them now.

They both could use work, but the only OS that even approaches the ease of use demanded by total non-techie grandma types is Mac OS.

[Bunkermaster]

You forgot how they stole they UNIX from IBM or how they ripped digital of their best developers to create Windows NT (which spelled backward means Satan is my mother in klingon btw).

Never said Microsoft was all shinny and innocent, never said either that I didn't like the sopranos or they way of working ;)

Microsoft is here, probably to stay (not long as we know it maybe but noone would mind having 3 giant microsofts instead of one would they?). Tbh I don't give a **** about how they achieved their goals, Walt Disney was reported to head the Californian Nazi party during WW2 and now everyone thinks he's a cool dead cartoonist, American military developed it's technology for years using the "paper clip" former nazi scientist and it prolly saved us all a few dozen times... Don't start me on Arrafat, we'd spend the night on it.

History will judge us and our times... Let's try to live them without killing eachothers on something as trivial as a pinguin, a daemon a fruit or a butterfly...

:D

Live long and prosper

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by Bunkermaster
I love windows and am proud of it, I don't go pooping on Mac or Linux but I guess it makes you think you're cool to **** all over a business standard that made a lot of people's life easier

The reason I mentioned all the evil MS did was to refute your point about them making a lot of people's life easier.

The fact is that for every person whose life was made easier, someone else lost their job as their company was destroyed by illegal business practices.

Disney has changed since 1939, and I can go see fantasia and not feel slimely.

MS has NOT changed in any way, they are still a predatory monopoly that would gladly pass legislation to outlaw open source if they could buy enough senators to get it done.

They have no love for you or their other users, (as proven by licensing 6.0 and they desire to have the best of both worlds by selling you their OS like a physical product but then licensing it like an intellectual one.)

Windows is no business standard, it is a defact standard, one that was put in place by a company that destroyed the competition with illegal bundling and strong arm tactics. Your life would be just as easy if Word Perfect, Lotus Smart Suite, and Claris Works still existed, you'd just have a choice in terms of price and performance that you don't have now.

The morality of the companies you deal with does matter, and if you choose to ignore the immoral acts of said company that is your business. But when the federal marshall's come knocking on your door like they did to Ernie Ball a few years back because of an anonymous tip that you may be out of compliance with your license, do NOT come crying to me, you'll be getting what you deserve, because MS does not love you back.

[Bunkermaster]

As a software creator I have a few rules including "Always pay for your software" and I apply it. I don't argue with you that MS is lacks a certain gentlemanl touch in its business matters :).
Microsoft can be accused of many things it is true but it is also true that since windows exists my mother and father can both use a computer without 40 pounds of literature and a flair for shell commands.
As for office suite I use the free Star Office (by the Evil sun microsystems :P) and paid licenses of MS Office.

I sense a great anger in you, join me in the dark side of the force my son :D

[Nanoblaze]

As a software creator I have a rule: GPL owns yew. :D

[Nanoblaze]

To elaborate a bit, I have a windows box for games, games i find worth the money, i buy, and i even contribute to some gpl protected people if their software is deserving of it.

To outline my system setup:

1 Athlon 850 Server running slack 8.1 | acting as router, server, mail server, ftp, etc

2 Athlon xp2000 workstation dualbooting winxp / slack 8.1 ( with fluxbox wm :D )

I also have a few p200s around that are offline with an older version of slack on em.

Sadly, Until windows emulation on nix becomes something better than it is, I'm stuck with windows for recreation uses, but I definitely prefer linux in all respects. It's easier to navigate, easier to get used to, and it actually has usable help files. :)

[MrRosary]

Windoze at work cos my boss is so stupid he thinks anything that is free must be crap

Red Hat 8.0, Mandrake 8.2 for work at home and WinXP (its my brothers machine honest :) at home for games.

[dalecosp]

Hey, friend,

you need to check your sig. One "=" is the assignment operator, not the logical "equal to".

That said, I'd better run my own and see if an error occurs ;)

[goa103]

Windows 2000, because It rocks

I used to be a Linux fan but I compared it 4 years ago with Windows... I told myself... Wouah they're just trying to get close to Windows. And I felt like ****.

2003: KDE, StarOffice, GNOME... are just mimicing Windows and I don't think It's the way to go.

[MrRosary]

I was wondering when someone would query my sig....

think carefully and look up in your diary when groundhog day is....

rememeber the film.....

MrRosary

[Bunkermaster]

yeah well if i am not mistaken :

1. your sig will loop as long as you're dead (:confused: ):
for ($day = 1; $day == $death; $day++) {

2. there is the problem of incrementing a numeric variable and testing it for string (while the test is wrong...)

$day = 1
$day++
$day = "Feb 2"

:confused:

3. The if ($day = "Feb 2") test will always be true (assigment returns true)

/me gets the wiseass award of the day

Groundhog day was a nice movie though :)

[goa103]

Groundhog day is the best comedy ever with Office space.

Hum Yeah Yeah... What's happening ? :p

JM

[MrRosary]

ok ok so it doesnt really work like that....

its mre to remind me of some bad code i wrote once.....

MrRosary

[the_Igel]

A word about sigs

Originally posted by dalecosp

<?
while (!$success) {
$try++;
}
?>


I believe it should rather be

while (try() != SUCCESS) {}

All those php sigs are always limited to variables, and it seems wrong to me...

[kriek]

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