Slashdot Stupidity
The depth of stupidity and ignorance espoused on Slashdot never ceases to amaze me. A significant amount of this comes from the main "editors" (not to mention the mindless Linux-zealots / anti-MS drones who live on the comment pile). Here's a doozie statement from an article today referring to a preview of the next version of Windows (code-named "Longhorn"):
"In addition to this, it will include a journaling file system, so us mere mortals can enjoy what Linux Geeks have had for years."
Whaaaaa!!?? Did I read that correctly?
Windows NT has had a journaling file system since it's release in 1994. Linux has had a journaling file system since, uh, never.. well, sorta now.. depending on the kernel version that ships with your distribution.
If Linux is so cutting edge, why do we still hold our breath and pray whenever a Linux server loses power or crashes. I've spent far too many anxious hours trying to repair damaged Linux file systems, or just waiting for a server to rebuild. Don't talk to me about Linux being ahead of NT with journaling. This just makes my blood boil.
And how much anxiety has Windows NTFS given me? Hmmmmm... I can't count a single minute of trouble that I've had with a NTFS formatted drive.
I'm presuming that the monkey who posted it (just checked the source - yep, it's michael) thinks that the revolutionary new SQL-based filesystem (WinFS) being introduced in Longhorn is only a journaling file system. This again demonstrates the extreme depth of /. editors' ignorance of Microsoft technology.
One theory of mine is that the Slashdot editors aren't really ignorant but this is actually an attempt on their part to evangelize Linux and spread anti-MS FUD. They know that a significant number of their users are going to believe every word they type and spread this type of urban myth far and wide without much critical review. So far it seems to be working.
Comments
Yep... Slashdot does have alot of crap, but there are useful tidbits. So I don't waste my time with it, except check it once in a while...
Steve says:
"why do we still hold our breath and pray whenever a Linux server loses power or crashes"
Graham says:
Actually, journalling file systems have been around for a long time with Linux - At least 3 or 4 years if not longer.
There's many to choose from, it just some distros like to favour cirtian file systems. Redhat for example favours ext2 and it journal upgrade ext3.
RedHat actually lagged behind several other distributions since it was waiting for and funded the extXX filesystem waiting for ext3 to mature and an easy migration path from ext2 to ext3.
I could of used Reiser years ago, but I knew that ext3 and the ext2 to ext3 migration was still in early stages and I didn't want a possible future headache of migrating from different fs, and having to support both.
Now that I have servers with ext3, it was a wise forethought 4 years ago. Migration was as simple as entering one command and a minute or two of conversion time with no downtime at all.
Regarding stability, here's a perfect example for Steve - how often has any Linux Mail server crashed compared to any Windows Mail Server? Not counting any hardware crashes for both, the Linux servers have rarely crashed or required a reboot. The uptime is significantly longer.
Personally, I think Linux is the best thing for Microsoft. Now it has real competition that can't be beaten through it's traditional methodologies.
Desktop wise, Linux doesn't have a prayer, but server wise, it could easily overtake Microsoft.
Now, Microsoft is forced to be more innovative, fix security holes alot faster (they've improved significantly, but still have a ways to go), and cleanup their code to produce a better, and more efficient OS overall.
Now Microsoft needs to drastically change it's licensing model and make it's OS more cost efficient for the SMB and enterprise markets, while increasing it's OS's stability.
I can't wait to see how i/o efficient LongHorn's SQL based fs will be, and how read/writes will occur. If it's as fast as I'm thinking it'll be, then Linux and BSD will have some catchup to do.
I'm an avid linux user, but I use Windows 2000 and XP too (MS finely got windows right with XP).
Both Windows OS's and Linux can complement each other in a data centre enviroment, playing on each other's strengths and weaknesses.
These "OS vs OS" wars are mostly foolishness and a waste of time. Rather, each should be used depending on the task needed to be done.
You'll never find a "be all and end all" solution. That also goes for OS's.
The key is not to be so religous over computers and they're respective operating systems, but remember that they're usefull tools that can also be used for entertainment, profit, and improve human life overall.
Posted by: Graham Rose, - Steves Linux/Unix Admin and NetAdmin | May 9, 2003 12:03 PM