[NTLUG:Discuss] What makes Linux great?

[Greg Edwards]

Steve Baker wrote:
> 
> The only thing Microsoft could do to get any business from me would be
> to voluntarily do the thing that the Justice department shied away from
> doing....split the company into an OS group and an Applications group and
> to erect large, solid walls to prevent them from cooperating in the future.
> 

Needless to say I won't be taking that survey.  But it really did give 
me a good laugh to see it show up here ;)

Tech talk:

To do what justice was asking would not be feasible, IMO.  First Windows 
would have to be an operating system to be split.

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of windows you'll find that it 
is really a monolithic single program that can share an execution path 
among loadable modules.

Simple base questions for my hypothesis, can windows run an app without 
the window manager?  Do apps context switch independently, or is the 
process path diverted within a core function of the window manager?  Do 
processes maintain separate memory segments (pages), or do they use 
memory loaned to them by the window manager?  When a program masks an 
interrupt can another program continue to run?  If a program loops 
without accessing any kernel functions can the system context switch?

When you boil windows down, it's a monolithic overlay manager, not an 
OS.  It steals the process path, it does not context switch.  Because of 
this reason (and generally poor technical solutions) you'll never solve 
the security or crash problems in any windows product.

The reason I don't (and won't) use windows has nothing to do with 
politics, philosophy, ethics, or business practises.  It's simply a bad 
product.  The reason windows is able to survive as a product is that 
consumers and business buyers don't insist on quality in their computing 
products.

JMHO
-- 
Greg Edwards
New Age Software, Inc. - http://www.nas-inet.com
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