[kj] FW: FW: FW: this is none of your business lennonka;D))

[Brendan Quinn]

Haha, I misinterpreted your email as a M$ bash, their line is often that
Linux requires less support hours per whatever to keep running.which for
servers is true but on the desktop not the case from what I can tell.

 

  _____  

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of Mik
Sent: Sunday, 3 February 2008 2:58 p.m.
To: 'A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)'
Subject: Re: [kj] FW: FW: FW: this is none of your business lennonka;D))

 

Not sure where the tirade against linux came from but I agree with pretty
much everything you have said having tried linux  for a while. I think the
real turning point for me is when I found out that within linux my printer
was no more than a paperweight. Got fed up with the whole hassle of
installing anything. Def not a home operating system. Just for the real
geeks I think.

 

Mik

 

  _____  

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of Brendan Quinn
Sent: 03 February 2008 01:27
To: 'A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)'
Subject: Re: [kj] FW: FW: FW: this is none of your business lennonka;D))

 

I think if you did the math the carbon savings would heavily outweigh the
manufacturing and support costs of the equipment, that'd be my bet at least.


 

In terms of Linux, most honest Linux gurus I know agree that Linux on the
desktop is simply inferior to Windows (servers - for sure, go with Unix /
Linux). Making out like the M$ monopoly machine, while I do acknowledge it,
is entirely to blame for their desktop dominance, is just wrong. My two most
geeky Linux friends both run windows on their laptops / home PCs. One of
whom describes himself as a "Linux Evangelist" on his CV, worked at Novell
going around ranting to large audiences worldwide about how wonderful Suse
Linux is. Their Auckland office gradually atrophied until it was literally
only him there.woo hoo. Another Linux success story.like all the others.

 

Some Linux geeks are SO biased that they say ridiculous shit like "Linux has
no viruses" (I won a bet proving that one wrong, took 30 seconds on
Google.the guy was such a sullen loser about it too!). 

 

Games.Windows is the first, last and ONLY word, it's as simple as that.

Corporates, except for the odd pedantic german government dept or whatever
there's not many willing to risk infecting a desktop with Linux across a
large organisation

Compatibility.Linux driver updates follow M$ ones by weeks to months, if
ever.

Speed.XP is snappy as hell straight out of the box, piece of piss to
install, which is EXACTLY what an OS should be.plug and play, ready to go,
compatible, reliable, secure (okay so 3 out of 4 ain't bad ;). I have used
some seriously unresponsive pieces of Linux crap in the past, taking the
hardware into account.

You can find someone who knows how to get Windows working practically
anywhere in the world. And we don't all feel compelled to wear pony tails
and sandals either.

 

The whole point of a desktop OS is to make the computer easy to use for the
whole range of computer users while doing a lot of stuff in the background
that the user should never need to know about. This is one of the main areas
where Linux falls down. It is a Unix port, and unix was developed to be a
streamlined server OS, which it wins hands down at. It's inferior on the
desktop, currently. I'd love nothing more than to see it make HUGE inroads
into the desktop market, I have been for so long I'm dubious about it ever
happening now. I think a brand-new OS makes a lot more sense, not one built
on NT or Unix.

 

I think if it's compiled properly, if the CPU scheduling is done correctly,
there's no reason why Linux shouldn't be faster and more secure than
Windows, but the Open Source community simply can't compete with the money
Microsoft has to put into R&D and support (note I'm not talking about
marketing, I'm talking about actually making good products).so until
something happens to change the dynamic, or they get Linux working
acceptably out of the box, well I'm not holding my breath.

 

  _____  

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of The Exorcist
Sent: Sunday, 3 February 2008 1:43 p.m.
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
Subject: Re: [kj] FW: FW: FW: this is none of your business lennonka;D))

 

Well that explains where the free time came from. waiting for the damn
things to compile. :)
 
Haha, correct. He was tending to do 16-20 hour days most of the time he was
working on that project however, he stayed up for too many days in a row
once and sent off a pretty questionable reply (i.e. a frothing rant) to mild
criticism on the yoper forum once, that ended up doing the rounds in Linux
circles :-)
 
How dare a hippy work at a supercomputing center! Does he not know how much
carbon emissions is caused by such places? 
I sense his inner hippy is not quite as robust as we thought it to be.
 
That's an interesting point, running computers costs carbon, here's some
things to consider however:
 
Computing and comms equipment enables email, IM, BBS, websites, video
conferencing, online collaboration etc that reduces the need for millions of
miles of travel ever year 
 
The NZ supercomputing centre uses mainly AMD Opteron processors, which
require less power to run than most equivalent Intel processors
 
IT is probably trending long-term towards massive data centres hosted
locally that will to some extent replace IT departments, meaning no need to
have a power hungry PC with a 350+ watt power supply on every desktop 
 
Datacentres are starting to be designed in a much more electrically and
thermally efficient manner, for example the heat they put out can be used to
heat the building they are in, reducing the overall need for power in the
bldg etc. 
 
The two main PC microchip manufacturers, Intel and AMD, are constantly
making their chips more power efficient, a common trend is to cite
'performance per watt' for any given chip, which of course is constantly
increasing. Most chips / chipsets these days have power-saving modes where
they will cycle down in speed when it's not required, as well as shutting
down whole areas of the chip, and PCs have power-saving features such as
standby mode, hibernation, sleep, shutting down the hard disks, monitor etc
etc 
 
Finally, computing enables research and development in so many fields
related to the environment...weather modelling, population modelling /
stats, materials and energy technology etc etc.LCD screens for example use
about half or less power than the old CRT screens for the same size.



I agree with quite a bit of the above though (I have some interest in the
tech field) and we can go on and on about that stuff. However...

"Computing and comms equipment enables email, IM, BBS, websites, video
conferencing, online collaboration etc that reduces the need for millions of
miles of travel ever year"



Depends... 
Since most ppl. use MS products all that saved mileage gets wasted/spent on
little dickhead geeksquad cars going around fixing pc's! :)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Cheers,
Me

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