[rescue] Re: [geeks] THIS. MAKES. ME. SICK.

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 06:06:20PM -0700, Devin L. Ganger wrote:
> Terminal Services, at least on W2K, works quite well for remote admin.
> I have a headless W2K server at home that I use Terminal Services on
> extensively.
> 
> Failing that, I can telnet in to it and do all sorts of regular and
> extraordinary administrative tasks via a command line (including
> remotely reboot it).

You *did* say NT in the original email, didn't you?  My apologies if I
mis-read it.

> > Run and maintain = "you need some money in the budget to buy additional
> > utilities, such as disk defrag tools, other sw to correct deficiencies of
> > design or deficiencies of MSFT tools."
> 
> Yes, depending on your application.

Regardless, wouldn't you say that having a defrag tool would be needed in
virtually all cases?

Standard unix fs's do not require defragging, as long as you keep the disk
less than 85-90% full.

> Same as UNIX.  For example, Veritas File System.  You need to regularly
> run maint utilities on that...

But if you buy VFS, you get the maint utils with it. NTFS comes with NT but
you still need to buy a defrag util for it. 

> Sure, it does, when people keep stating that NT/W2K is inherently more
> unstable than Unix.  That's just bull.  FUD.  NT, when properly adminned
> with an understanding of *its* design (not Unix's, or some theoretical
> OS that eerily resembles the first multiuser OS the speaker was exposed
> to), will perform quite stably and reliably.

As someone who has used and (somewhat adminned) NT 3.1, 3.51, 4, and W2K, as
well as Irix (5.3), Sol7(no expert tho), Linux from 0.99pl14 on up, OpenBSD
2.7+, SCO BrokenServer, SunOS 4.1.3:

I certainly have not had the experience of NT being inherently as stable as
Unix (even Irix 5.3 or BrokenServer).

I won't even bang on the FACT that until either late NT4(that is, with a SP)
or W2K there was no way to turn off NetBIOS (a huge security hole), at all.

Name a function, that can be performed on both Unix and NT (eg Web serving,
SQL database, Samba(unix) and filesharing (NT) ).  

I will bet you $250 USD that an out of the box, generic install of
Open/Net/FreeBSD will whup whatever W2K solution you implement in terms of
uptime, security and reliability (defined as the service being available for
xx.xx% of the time).  Figure a AMD K6-2 450, 128MB RAM, IDE hard drive for
each of us.

I have access to cheap colocation, you probably do too.  

All tests could be agreed upon in advance (eg, web flogging, database tests,
whatever).

I'm not trying to flame you, but if you want to come on the list and make
such (IMHO) ridiculous claims you should be challenged.  I know $250 isn't
real money but it's what I have as "mad money" :-) .  

Cordially

Patrick Giagnocavo
patrick at zill.net