OSs / Need feedback

This isn't done yet, but I need some feed back:



Reliability and stability of (Mostly) Common Operating systems

Written by: GORE.



This is a text file that I hope will help others in the quest for knowledge of reliability and stability of some operating systems they may come across. This text is being written on a Linux box in XEmacs.



Intro:



Operating Systems (Here after known as "OSs") Are the software that stand between the hardware and the software of computers. Every computer now needs an OS of some sort, even though in the early days this was not even thought of.

Before OSs, programmers and researchers had to write all of the programs they wanted to use, and then, had no way of saving them. If you can imagine trying to write a program, it crashing, and then reading a print out of what happened because their was no "Core Dump" in these days, then you can see why someone started to think of the concept of an OS.

An OS has a lot of responcibilites. It has to control your hardware, your programs, and of course, make it easier for coders to make new programs. My main goal with this text will be to try and teach you a few things about OSs, and the stability and reliability of ones you probably come into contact with.

Now, before I get to far into detail, you may be asking (Or you may not be asking, I really don't care either way =) ) What exactly IS an OS?

Well, an OS is software. Software is nothing more than a series of instructions, in a syntax that can be understood by either the computer, or a compiler, or, for BASIC, an interpreter. The instructions basically tell the computer what to do, and how, and when.

Most users interact with a lot of different programs on a daily basis. Some common applications you may use are: An internet web browser, an e-mail client, a word processor application like Word, Word star, and Emacs, Text editors, like Vi, Vim, Emacs (I count it as both), Notepad, Edit, and Joe, and a lot of other types of programs. These are all software too.

In a basic sence, an OS is a set of programs containing instructions that coordinate all of the activities among computer hardware resources. The OS recognizes input from a keyboard or a mouse, tells the monitor how to display things and where, the printer how to, and where to, print, and is in charge of data in RAM, and saved data on the disk.

More jobs the OS must do include:

Starting the computer

Providing a user interface

Managing programs

Managing memory

Scheduling jobs

Configuring devices

Accessing the internet, and or a network

Monitoring performance

And all around doing some house keeper type jobs on the computer to make it useful for more than a paper weight.

Most computers people come into contact with store the OS on the Disk, smaller computers may store the OS in ROM, or "Read Only Memory".

Not all platforms use the same OS. Mac computers for example come with MAC OS. You can get other OSs to run on a Mac though, like Linux.

Mac OS will not run on PCs though. X86 based PCs however have hundreds of OSs available. And for SUN hardware, Solaris and SunOS are the main OSs, but Linux can run on these types of things too.



The Kernel:


The Kernel of an OS is the very core of the OS itself. the Kernel manages memory, devices, the computer's clock, starts applications, and assigns the computer's resources.

The Kernel is also memory resident. It remains in memory while the computer is on.

When using an OS, the two most common ways of communicating with it as to what you want to do, are through a GUI (Graphical User Interface), which Windows XP uses almost exclusivly, and a CLI (Command Line Interface).

The GUI can be nice to get common things done fast, but the command line is the best way to perform advanced tasks.




Different types of OSs:


Not all OSs are the same. Most you are likely to come across may be very similar in what they do, but that doesn't mean they are all a like. Some OSs are for servers, some are meant to be clients, some are single tasking single user, and some are embedded.

For the most post, I will be discussing mainly server and client and desktop OSs. Embedded OSs are not something I use much.

The best known single user single tasking OS is without a doubt DOS. DOS stands for two things:

Disk Operating System

Dirty Operating System

In 1981, IBM was coming out with a Personal Computer. They needed an OS to run on this "PC", and thankfully IBM succeeded with the PC, as we all now have a computer in our homes.

They went to Microsoft for an OS, and Microsoft lied and said they had an OS for the PC. They found a clone of Digital Researche's CP/M OS written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Products called QDOS (Quick Dirty Operating system).

Microsoft bought it cheaply, and changed the name to MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating system). In some original copies, you could actually find the real name of it, as Microsoft had left some in, which I would guess was just a mistake when they looked for everything to change in it.

DOS seemed like the answer to IBM needing an OS. It was small, didn't take up much space, and would work without a Hard Disk. The original PC had no Hard Disk anyway. they changed the name to PC-DOS for IBM, named after DOS/360, an OS of the mid 60's. Microsoft of course called it's own version MS-DOS.

This was around the same time that BSD was being created too.

DOS is a fairly stable OS. Most versions of course allow you to only do one thing at a time, but IBM has a version of DOS that came out around the year 2,000 that actually can multi task.


As for security, DOS is great...To an extent. I havn't heard of many DOS users getting owned, as it can't handle another user to break in. This would in theory point to DOS actually being secure network wise.

It can't handle more than one user, and can't handle more than one application at a time, so that would limit what could be done to it remotely. Remote access is possible in DOS though. Remote access tools were built for it, and a lot of applications that run in DOS, run much faster and much better than their Windows counterparts.




Client/Desktop OSs:



The most well know OS in this category is without a doubt Windows. For a desktop, Windows is fine, but as for stability and reliability, they have had a less than perfect track record.

Windows 3.X was decent. It was fairly fast, and was simple. It was a bit reliabl, heh, much more tha Windows 95. And it was faster than 95. This OS is not in in use much anymore today, as support was dropped for it long ago, and it wouldn't be able to handle the new features that people have come to expect out of a modern OS. If you have older hardware lying around and don't want to use Linux for some reason, this could still be a valid option.



Windows for Workgroups:


Well, I am going to make this into another category. It was basically part of the 3.x line. Windows 3.x could be added to a network, but Windows for workgroups made the task much easier to perform.



Windows for Workgroups 3.11:

This was a pretty good upgrade compared to Windows for Workgroups 3.1, which added 32 bit file access, fax capabilities, and higher performance. This was of course back when Microsoft released updates for windows to add new features, not because they had found some un fixable security hole.

There were actually 4 releases of Windows 3.1x :

Windows 3.1 : The first release of Windows 3.1x.

Windows 3.1 for Work groups.

Windows 3.11.

Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.


For Windows 3.1 to use networking features, a DOS NIC driver, protocol, and client software had to be provided. And as networking software became feature rich, the size of the client software resident in the 640K portion of RAM grew to the point that many applications would not run do to insufficient free real mode RAM.

Windows for Workgrops solves this problem by adding protected mode network support. Rather than loading the drivers in the 640K segment, The Windows networking software loads as .386 files. (VxD files).

Of course this means as soon as you went back to DOS, you lost the network. ( Some of the text you just read about Windows for Workgroups was NOT stolen, but learned by me from http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win311.html I did not just copy and paste this, but this stuff came out LONG before I had a computer, and some of it when I was in diapers. I found this site very informative, so I'm going to give some credit for THIS Windows 3.x section to them, as I learned a lot of it there.)

On a side note, to see what the FIRST version of Microsoft Word looked like running on Windows 1.0 look here: http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win19835.gif



Images of Classic windows:

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101logo.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101executive.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101resize.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101write.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101aboutnote.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101calc.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101paint.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101control.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101dialog.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101tile2.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101dos.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101exit.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203logo.gif Windows 2.x

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203executive.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203misc.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203dialog.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203notepad.gif

Page 228? The manual had more words than the source code!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30logo.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30progman.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30fileman.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30color.gif

All that color!!!!!!!!!!!!


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30taskman.gif

this shot makes me actually regret giving away the only copy I had of Windows 3.x to my best friend for an old copy of UNIX.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30help.gif

so they DID borrow from Mac and TWM!!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30paint.gif

This shot probably shows every color the monitor could handle. Lovely Chess board.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30games.gif

Instead of Doom, they give you solitaire.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31logo.gif

This probably drove a few users to suicide.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31audio.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31ssaver.gif

Wow...A screen saver... The technology!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31regedit.gif

Ohhhh! Haxxor like!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31addrem.gif

Because Windows is all about being open...

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win32about.gif

Windows 3.2!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win32main.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win32main.gif

And you thought he had no sence of humor!

Windows 3.2 was for the Chinese.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58about2.gif

Windows Chicago.. *Cringing*

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58undrcnst.gif

I wonder if that sodding paper clip was present.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58test.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58musicb.gif

I'm sure this was the top of the line in digital music...

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58winmetr.gif

Control panel was NOT always there.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73logo.html

This was a preliminary release from November 1993.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73desk.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73startmnu.gif

Can't have Windows without solitaire....Nice to know they changed the games so often...

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73taskmgr.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73tray.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73explorer.gif

An adventure in "Crap OS land".

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73apps.gif

The titan of graphics and sound!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73prop2.gif

64 MBs of RAM???? Wow! The fact that it used almost half of it is kind of funny though, lol.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73prop.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73win31.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73dos.gif

And it was still just a shell on top of DOS.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73reboot.gif

This is what happened when you pressed CTRL ALT DELETE.... The Sodding paper clip strikes again in pop up window form...It appears that you are grossly disgusted with Windows, would you like me to reboot the system?????????? LOL. This version of clippy seemed a little coked up and excited.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73shutdown.gif

Good bye cruel world!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73syslogo.gif

This is a file called "SYSLOGO.RLE" Hmm, odd.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chicago.html

A link to more images of Chicago. This was the Beta.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win95logo.html

*CRINGE*

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win95statup.gif

If you look at Chicago Beta, which the link I provided will take you to, you can see it was just before windows 95.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win98joke.gif

OK, this is weird. It is also a joke. Windows 98 running Windows 1.01 and shells from other oldies.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win98notepad.gif

13 Years after making note pad they still can't get it to hold more than 60K of data...This is a shot from Windows 98.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/me5.html

Windows ME! And if you read into this page, there is a link that might even work, to show you a hack allowing Windows ME to be rebooted into MS-DOS mode!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/l98.html

Ahhhh Windows 98 LITE.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite2.html

Windows 98 LITE version 2.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite42.html

I'm not sure what to say here. Go look.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite43.html

Another lovely show off page lol.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite44.html

Office XP doesn't like running without IE.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/misc2.html

You can get Windows XP to run things from Windows 1.0!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscbw95.gif

Windows 95/98 in 1 bit color, heh.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/misc3.html

More weird Windows.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscmydesktop.png

Nice.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscw31xp.png

Making Windows 3.1 look like XP.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscw101xp.png

Windows 1.0 looking as XP as it can lol.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/misc5.html

Windows NT 3.51 running new applications like Mozilla...And somehow working a little.





Windows 95 - Windows 95 is great for doing basic tasks like surfing the internet, and sending email. That is about where it stops though too. It is very unreliable, and for stability in Windows 95, think WTC AFTER the planes. Both crashed bad.

Windows 98 - Windows 98 was an update to Windows 95 where some bugs were fixed, and the internet was "integrated" into the OS...Supposedly. Windows 98 was decent though. It was more stable than 95, and more stable than the next home user OS, Windows ME.

Windows 98 SE was probably the best for gaming untill Windows XP home came out. And even then some games won't run on XP, so the ultimate gaming machine would have to have 98SE for the games to all run correctly.

Windows 98 for stability is not to bad. Don't expect it to stay crisp after about a day though, but it can be up for a month or more if you know what you're doing.

Windows ME - Doesn't belong in a conversation, or discussion about stability.

Windows NT - Windows NT was something that came out just before 95. I have no idea why they released 95 when NT was already there. NT was much better, even though it needed more resources.

NT machines have been known to stay up over a year without a reboot, but according to a Microsoft manual that no longer exists, you are supposed to reboot once a month for the memory leaks it has spilling out.

Microsoft took this tip off the web site, but it is quite funny. As I am writing this on my Linux box, I have 58 days of uptime, and I'm not planning on rebooting yet. That's the problem with Linux, you don't need to reboot so you may have to buy a better power supply.

I can't say I don't like Windows NT though. It was the first OS to have NTFS (Shocking, I know), and it was decent for being an old OS. It is somewhat dated now, but I would rather run it than nothing at all.

Windows NT has been around long enough that most of the bugs that are in it have had time to be found and fixed. Now if Microsoft would actually support it, it would be great.

All in all Windows NT is fairly decent, but no longer supported.


Windows 2000 - Windows 2000 was the update to NT. It was based on NT but had the new features NT was missing because of age. A lot happened between when NT came out and when 2000 came out, so 2000 is usually a little better if you want newer options.

Windows 2000 is fairly stable. The netcraft site showing the top 50 uptimes once had a Windows 2000 box with 900 days of uptime on it. Not bad at all. Windows 2000 is still in wide use today, and hotmail.com seems to be running it too.

I have used Windows 2000 Professional enough to know I can run it with confidence. Windows 2000 is all around a good OS if you actually take the time to learn it correctly.


Windows XP:

Windows XP comes in two forms mainly, and a third and fourth known as Windows XP for PDA type machines, and Windows XP Media Center edition. They are basically XP with some added features to run on the machines they were designed for.

the other two main versions are Windows XP Home edition, and Windows XP Pro.

Windows XP Home edition is pretty much the one made for home use, and XP Pro was the update to Windows 2000 Professional. Huge difference huh?

Windows XP home is what I use at home, and I use XP pro at school. I'v messsed with both a fair amount, and from what I can tell, XP Pro's main difference is an extra $100.00 Price tag, and about 3 networking tools you could download anyway.

Oh, and of course XP Pro has encryption built in...Another feature you can download.

XP seems to mainly be a mix of Windows ME and Windows NT/2000. It is very stable, and also has a very good way with multimedia. Kind of like the best from both worlds. A lot of people have said XP was very insecure.

I believe an OS is as secure as you make it to be. Pooh Sun Tzu proved this theory with a couple of tests he shared on Anti Online, proving XP more secure than anyone had ever given it credit for.

I think Pooh Sun Tzu should be given a fair amount of credit for actually taking the time to learn Windows XP more than others have, and for teaching everyone that it can in fact be secured.


For Windows XP, it is the only version of Windows I have right now running. I have it on a box that came with it, and I just never took it off as I need it for school, and use it for a few other things too.

For stability, XP is an amazing OS compared to other OSs Microsoft released. It is very stable, and I have yet to have to reboot unless I was installing something that required it... Or because I was worried about it over heating.


I'v had XP running for quite a while without any problems, although after about a week some games would start to lag untill I rebooted. This is still better than other OSs Microsoft has released though.

XP does have a bit of a resources fetish though. You should have at the very least 256 MBs of RAM, and a decent processor to run it. I personally have the XP box I talked about a bit earlier, and it runs great. It has 512 MBs RAM, a 2.13 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Processor, and a 120 GB HD. This is a great machine for XP, as it has room to use.

If you can give it a lot of resources to play in, you should have no real problems there.



Windows server 2003:

This right here, in my opinion is one of the fastest, and best OSs they have ever released. I started playing with it on a box here at home, and right away noticed a speed increase.

It seems to load applications much faster than previous versions of Windows could. I think they should take all the server software out and release it as a desktop OS alongside the server one.

It seems very stable. I havn't had a problem with it at all.

Not much else to really say about it, as it is based on Windows 2000, so is very similar, but in my opinion, much better.

The install also goes a lot more smoothly than other versions.

I actually like it. They really should make a desktop version of it. I'd use it.

Honest and accurate....
I agree about XP and 2k3 especially.....
What else do you plan to add?

Well, maybe a little more about Windows or DOS, and then a little about Windows code names, which I'm probably going to do here in a minute. Then I'm going to start on UNIX.

Kinda out of the topic,

I was talking to a guy up in Huntsville one day about old computers. Anyways, he told me he used to work at an old mainframe and I asked him what OS they ran (I assumed unix). He told me Tim. So I asked him what that was and he told me a man named Tim.

It turns out that Way back in the Way, instead of having an OS move programs in and out of the memory, there was a person at the main console whos job was to pull things in and out of memory. If he filled stuff up, then nothing else could be put into memory or else the entire system would crash (and seeing as how the computer was the size of a gym, restarting it was no easy task).

Also, he told me of the MASSIVE 10 mb (yep that is 10 megabytes) hardrives that took up a whole room. He told me that one platter had a length of 5 feet across.

It was just a real fun conversation I had with him. Oh and for those who want to know, when they got rid of the computer (aka 1 billion parts that filled up gyms), they sold all the scap to a fridge maker.

Back to subject, Gore, this paper really spells nostalgia. What you could add would be at the begging of every heading

Win 3.1
Win 95
Win 98
etc

Would be to mention a set of specs so users can see how everything goes up over time. Stuff like Year, display, size of average install, filesystems supported, max hardrive size, etc...

Have to spread points around before I can give you some greenies again, but know that this is an excellent tutorial with great potiential :)

The headings I already planned on adding, I just havn't yet because this is still a work in progress. I'm working on ways to add more without making it TOO long, but I will not sacrifice good information because of this reason either. If it gets long, oh well, heh. I havn't started on the UNIX section yet, but I will probably tommorrow because it's my day off.

Also, I got paid, so heh, hopefully I'll have SuSE Linux 9.1 Professional tommorrow so I can do a review. I've been working on my network a little too. Taking bad things off and so on. I've been keeping busy, since I havn't hardly been here at all, so sorry whoever misses me, I'll be around still, just been working on teaching myself more.

OK so I have also been ripping CDs into MP3s on my HDs too, but hey I need to relax ;)

So now you know what I plan on doing, sort of, and what I've been doing. Thanks for the information and suggestions, now tell others to come here and read this so I can see what direction to pull it towards.

You can tell I got my Vicodin refilled, and that I'm feeling better, I'm working on this again ;)

I think gore should have a custom title under his name... AntiOnline OS Master

:p

Anyways, I sanned through it... I can't really think of anything more you could say... Unless you want to take the time to add a section on *nix.

I'm posting a screen shot here of my uptime, and also, because instead of replying with another long thread, I can give you just a tiny sneak peak at another text I began working on ;) It will be added to this text, but I'm not sure where yet. I also talked ot Negative to ask him where this text would be appropriate, as I had no plans of making it a tutorial, it's not, it's just information, and won't teach you how to do anything, and that is why I posted it here to begin with. I had no intentions of making this a tutorial, and the answer Negative gave me made me happy with it, so for those who want to know, this text I'm working on, when finally finished, will be posted here in the OS forum as a sticky, added to another post I made, and Negative said he would merge them for me as I can't, and then when newbies had any questions he would point them to this "super thread". I thought it was a nice badge of honor to know I did so well making this. If more people can reply and let me know where improvements could be made I would really appreciate it, I can't be doing that well already, heh.

Also, planned improvements include:

I'm going to bold the text for each section, and do a few other things to make it easier to read. Think of how I did the "Looking for a new OS?" thread. I will do it that way. Also, I have started thinking about what to add for UNIX. MJK, I have been planning on adding UNIX since day one, so don't worry, that will have it's own section. I just want it to be good, so I did it in sections, and for some of it, in separate papers.

Seem's like it would definitely make a good tutorial. :) And I, like pooh sun, have to spread my antipoint's as well.

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by Spyder32
Seem's like it would definitely make a good tutorial. And I, like pooh sun, have to spread my antipoint's as well.

---

Thanks man. I don't really think it would be a tutorial though, but this forum is my forum, and it belongs here with me ;)

Like I said, I asked Negative, and he gave me a good reply that I was pleased with. And he was very fair considering in the addicts forum I was trying to get his wife to call me Daddy ;) LOL!

Anyway, more feedback please :) Doing good so far.

Quote:

---

And he was very fair considering in the addicts forum I was trying to get his wife to call me Daddy LOL!

---

And this is what vicodin does to you. ;) j/k /me is a fan of opiates :D

Update:

I have changed a few things around, and added quite a bit here and there, but have not yet started on UNIX. And now I might as well show the papers I've also been working on to add to this. Again, feedback is appreciated.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Reliability and stability of (Mostly) Common Operating systems



Written by: GORE.



This is a text file that I hope will help others in the quest for knowledge of reliability and stability of some operating systems they may come across. This text is being written on a Linux box in XEmacs.


Throughout the text, I will refer you to websites or other documentation, to give you a place to look if you want or need more information. this will help to keep the length of this text down a little, and make it easier to read. This way, if you want more information, you can have it without me having to make this longer than others may want to read.




Introduction:




Operating Systems (Here after known as "OSs") Are the software that stand between the hardware and the software of computers. Every computer now needs an OS of some sort, even though in the early days this was not even thought of.


Before OSs, programmers and researchers had to write all of the programs they wanted to use, and then, had no way of saving them. If you can imagine trying to write a program, it crashing, and then reading a print out of what happened because their was no "Core Dump" in these days, then you can see why someone started to think of the concept of an OS.


An OS has a lot of responcibilites. It has to control your hardware, your programs, and of course, make it easier for coders to make new programs. My main goal with this text will be to try and teach you a few things about OSs, and the stability and reliability of ones you probably come into contact with.


Now, before I get to far into detail, you may be asking (Or you may not be asking, I really don't care either way =) ) What exactly IS an OS?


Well, an OS is software. Software is nothing more than a series of instructions, in a syntax that can be understood by either the computer, or a compiler, or, for BASIC, an interpreter. The instructions basically tell the computer what to do, and how, and when.


Most users interact with a lot of different programs on a daily basis. Some common applications you may use are: An Internet web browser, an e-mail client, a word processor application like Word, Word star, and Emacs, Text editors, like Vi, Vim, Emacs (I count it as both), Note pad, Edit, and Joe, and a lot of other types of programs. These are all software too.


In a basic since, an OS is a set of programs containing instructions that coordinate all of the activities among computer hardware resources. The OS recognizes input from a keyboard or a mouse, tells the monitor how to display things and where, the printer how to, and where to, print, and is in charge of data in RAM, and saved data on the disk.

More jobs the OS must do include:

Starting the computer up into a useable state

Providing a user interface

Managing programs

Managing memory

Scheduling jobs

Configuring devices

Accessing the Internet, and or a network

Monitoring performance

And all around doing some house keeper type jobs on the computer to make it useful for more than a paper weight.

Most computers people come into contact with store the OS on the Disk, smaller computers may store the OS in ROM, or "Read Only Memory".

Not all platforms use the same OS. Mac computers for example come with MAC OS. You can get other OSs to run on a Mac though, like Linux.

Mac OS will not run on PCs though. X86 based PCs however have hundreds of OSs available. And for SUN hardware, Solaris and Sun OS are the main OSs, but Linux can run on these types of things too.




The Kernel:



The Kernel of an OS is the very core of the OS itself. the Kernel manages memory, devices, the computer's clock, starts applications, and assigns the computer's resources.

The Kernel is also memory resident. It remains in memory while the computer is on.

When using an OS, the two most common ways of communicating with it as to what you want to do, are through a GUI (Graphical User Interface), which Windows XP uses almost exclusively, and a CLI (Command Line Interface).

The GUI can be nice to get common things done fast, but the command line is the best way to perform advanced tasks.




Different types of OSs:


Not all OSs are the same. Most you are likely to come across may be very similar in what they do, but that doesn't mean they are all a like. Some OSs are for servers, some are meant to be clients, some are single tasking single user, and some are embedded.

For the most post, I will be discussing mainly server and client and desktop OSs. Embedded OSs are not something I use much.



DOS:



The best known single user single tasking OS is without a doubt DOS. DOS stands for two things:

Disk Operating System

Dirty Operating System

In 1981, IBM was coming out with a Personal Computer. They needed an OS to run on this "PC", and thankfully IBM succeeded with the PC, as we all now have a computer in our homes.

They went to Microsoft for an OS, and Microsoft lied and said they had an OS for the PC. They found a clone of Digital Researche's CP/M OS written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Products called QDOS (Quick Dirty Operating system).

Microsoft bought it cheaply, and changed the name to MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating system). In some original copies, you could actually find the real name of it, as Microsoft had left some in, which I would guess was just a mistake when they looked for everything to change in it.

DOS seemed like the answer to IBM needing an OS. It was small, didn't take up much space, and would work without a Hard Disk. The original PC had no Hard Disk anyway. They changed the name to PC-DOS for IBM, named after DOS/360, an OS of the mid 60's. Microsoft of course called it's own version MS-DOS.

This was around the same time that BSD was being created too.

DOS is a fairly stable OS. Most versions of course allow you to only do one thing at a time, but IBM has a version of DOS that came out around the year 2,000 that actually can multi task.


You can find out more information of "PC-DOS 2000" here:


http://www-306.ibm.com/software/os/dos/


As for security, DOS is great...To an extent. I haven't heard of many DOS users getting owned, as it can't handle another user to break in. This would in theory point to DOS actually being secure network wise.

It can't handle more than one user, and can't handle more than one application at a time, so that would limit what could be done to it remotely. Remote access is possible in DOS though. Remote access tools were built for it, and a lot of applications that run in DOS, run much faster and much better than their Windows counterparts.

As I said, the security of DOS in a network being great because of it only being able to handle one user, and one application at a time, is only a theory of mine. Maybe one day I will actually test it and see how good it can hold up.

Even though it has age showing, DOS is still very much in use. Any Hacker worth his salt knows DOS.

For information on MS-DOS, and help in learning commands, please see:

http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm






Client/Desktop OSs:



The most well know OS in this category is without a doubt Windows. For a desktop, Windows is fine, but as for stability and reliability, they have had a less than perfect track record.




Windows:




Windows 3.X



Windows 3.X was decent. It was fairly fast, and was simple. It was a bit reliable, heh, much more than Windows 95. And it was faster than 95. This OS is not in in use much anymore today, as support was dropped for it long ago, and it wouldn't be able to handle the new features that people have come to expect out of a modern OS. If you have older hardware lying around and don't want to use Linux for some reason, this could still be a valid option.



For more information on Windows 3.X please refer to:



http://www.computerhope.com/win3x.htm






Windows for Workgroups:



Well, I am going to make this into another category. It was basically part of the 3.x line. Windows 3.x could be added to a network, but Windows for workgroups made the task much easier to perform.



Windows for Workgroups 3.11:


This was a pretty good upgrade compared to Windows for Workgroups 3.1, which added 32 bit file access, fax capabilities, and higher performance. This was of course back when Microsoft released updates for windows to add new features, not because they had found some un fixable security hole.



There were actually 4 releases of Windows 3.1x :



Windows 3.1 : The first release of Windows 3.1x.

Windows 3.1 for Work groups.

Windows 3.11.

Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.


For Windows 3.1 to use networking features, a DOS NIC driver, protocol, and client software had to be provided. And as networking software became feature rich, the size of the client software resident in the 640K portion of RAM grew to the point that many applications would not run do to insufficient free real mode RAM.

Windows for Workgroups solves this problem by adding protected mode network support. Rather than loading the drivers in the 640K segment, The Windows networking software loads as .386 files. (VxD files).

Of course this means as soon as you went back to DOS, you lost the network. ( Some of the text you just read about Windows for Workgroups was NOT stolen, but learned by me from http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win311.html I did not just copy and paste this, but this stuff came out LONG before I had a computer, and some of it when I was in diapers. I found this site very informative, so I'm going to give some credit for THIS Windows 3.x section to them, as I learned a lot of it there.)

On a side note, to see what the FIRST version of Microsoft Word looked like running on Windows 1.0 look here:




http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win19835.gif





Images of Classic windows:

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101logo.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101executive.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101resize.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101write.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101aboutnote.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101calc.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101paint.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101control.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101dialog.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101tile2.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101dos.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win101exit.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203logo.gif Windows 2.x

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203executive.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203misc.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203dialog.gif


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win203notepad.gif

Page 228? The manual had more words than the source code!


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30logo.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30progman.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30fileman.gif


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30color.gif

All that color!!!!!!!!!!!!



http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30taskman.gif

this shot makes me actually regret giving away the only copy I had of Windows 3.x to my best friend for an old copy of UNIX.


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30help.gif



so they DID borrow from Mac and TWM!!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30paint.gif


This shot probably shows every color the monitor could handle. Lovely Chess board.


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win30games.gif

Instead of Doom, they give you solitaire.


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31logo.gif

This probably drove a few users to suicide.


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31audio.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31ssaver.gif

Wow...A screen saver... The technology!


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31regedit.gif

Ohhhh! Haxxor like!


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win31addrem.gif

Because Windows is all about being open...


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win32about.gif

Windows 3.2!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win32main.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win32main.gif

And you thought he had no sense of humor!



Windows 3.2 was for the Chinese.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58about2.gif


Windows Chicago.. *Cringing*

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58undrcnst.gif


I wonder if that sodding paper clip was present.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58test.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58musicb.gif


I'm sure this was the top of the line in digital music...

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chic58winmetr.gif


Control panel was NOT always there.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73logo.html


This was a preliminary release from November 1993.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73desk.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73startmnu.gif


Can't have Windows without solitaire....Nice to know they changed the games so often...

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73taskmgr.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73tray.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73explorer.gif


An adventure in "Crap OS land".

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73apps.gif


The titan of graphics and sound!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73prop2.gif


64 MBs of RAM???? Wow! The fact that it used almost half of it is kind of funny though, lol.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73prop.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73win31.gif

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73dos.gif


And it was still just a shell on top of DOS.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73reboot.gif


This is what happened when you pressed CTRL ALT DELETE.... The Sodding paper clip strikes again in pop up window form...It appears that you are grossly disgusted with Windows, would you like me to reboot the system?????????? LOL. This version of clippy seemed a little coked up and excited.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73shutdown.gif


Good bye cruel world!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/c73syslogo.gif


This is a file called "SYSLOGO.RLE" Hmm, odd.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/chicago.html


A link to more images of Chicago. This was the Beta.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win95logo.html


*CRINGE*

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win95statup.gif


If you look at Chicago Beta, which the link I provided will take you to, you can see it was just before windows 95.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win98joke.gif


OK, this is weird. It is also a joke. Windows 98 running Windows 1.01 and shells from other oldies.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win98notepad.gif


13 Years after making note pad they still can't get it to hold more than 60K of data...This is a shot from Windows 98.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/me5.html


Windows ME! And if you read into this page, there is a link that might even work, to show you a hack allowing Windows ME to be rebooted into MS-DOS mode!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/l98.html


Ahhhh Windows 98 LITE.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite2.html


Windows 98 LITE version 2.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite42.html


I'm not sure what to say here. Go look.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite43.html


Another lovely show off page lol.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/98lite44.html


Office XP doesn't like running without IE.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/misc2.html


You can get Windows XP to run things from Windows 1.0!

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscbw95.gif


Windows 95/98 in 1 bit color, heh.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/misc3.html


More weird Windows.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscmydesktop.png


Nice.

http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscw31xp.png


Making Windows 3.1 look like XP.


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/miscw101xp.png


Windows 1.0 looking as XP as it can lol.


http://www.toastytech.com/guis/misc5.html

Windows NT 3.51 running new applications like Mozilla...And somehow working a little.





Windows 95 - Windows 95 is great for doing basic tasks like surfing the Internet, and sending email. That is about where it stops though too. It is very unreliable, and for stability in Windows 95, think WTC AFTER the planes. Both crashed bad.

I use Windows 95 For about 6 months when I got my first computer. Even though Windows ME was about to be released, my first computer came with 95. It was from my unckle, and I learned quite a bit from it.

Windows 95 is not in much use anymore, because it is not only no longer supported, but unstable to the point that people would probably rather use DOS.



Windows 98 - Windows 98 was an update to Windows 95 where some bugs were fixed, and the Internet was "integrated" into the OS...Supposedly. Windows 98 was decent though. It was more stable than 95, and more stable than the next home user OS, Windows ME.


Windows 98 SE was probably the best for gaming until Windows XP home came out. And even then some games won't run on XP, so the ultimate gaming machine would have to have 98SE for the games to all run correctly.


Windows 98 for stability is not to bad. Don't expect it to stay crisp after about a day though, but it can be up for a month or more if you know what you're doing.



Windows ME - Doesn't belong in a conversation, or discussion about stability.


But if you really want to read a bit about Windows ME, look here:


http://www.computerhope.com/winme.htm




Windows NT - Windows NT was something that came out just before 95. I have no idea why they released 95 when NT was already there. NT was much better, even though it needed more resources.

NT machines have been known to stay up over a year without a reboot, but according to a Microsoft manual that no longer exists, you are supposed to reboot once a month for the memory leaks it has spilling out.

Microsoft took this tip off the web site, but it is quite funny. As I am writing this on my Linux box, I have 58 days of uptime, and I'm not planning on rebooting yet. That's the problem with Linux, you don't need to reboot so you may have to buy a better power supply.

I can't say I don't like Windows NT though. It was the first OS to have NTFS (Shocking, I know), and it was decent for being an old OS. It is somewhat dated now, but I would rather run it than nothing at all.

Windows NT has been around long enough that most of the bugs that are in it have had time to be found and fixed. Now if Microsoft would actually support it, it would be great.

All in all Windows NT is fairly decent, but no longer supported.


Windows 2000 - Windows 2000 was the update to NT. It was based on NT but had the new features NT was missing because of age. A lot happened between when NT came out and when 2000 came out, so 2000 is usually a little better if you want newer options.

Windows 2000 is fairly stable. The netcraft site showing the top 50 uptimes once had a Windows 2000 box with 900 days of uptime on it. Not bad at all. Windows 2000 is still in wide use today, and hotmail.com seems to be running it too.

I have used Windows 2000 Professional enough to know I can run it with confidence. Windows 2000 is all around a good OS if you actually take the time to learn it correctly.


Windows XP:

Windows XP comes in two forms mainly, and a third and fourth known as Windows XP for Tablet PCs, and Windows XP Media Center edition. They are basically XP with some added features to run on the machines they were designed for.

the other two main versions are Windows XP Home edition, and Windows XP Pro.

Windows XP Home edition is pretty much the one made for home use, and XP Pro was the update to Windows 2000 Professional. Huge difference huh?

Windows XP home is what I use at home, and I use XP pro at school. I've messed with both a fair amount, and from what I can tell, XP Pro's main difference is an extra $100.00 Price tag, and about 3 networking tools you could download anyway.

Oh, and of course XP Pro has encryption built in...Another feature you can download.

XP seems to mainly be a mix of Windows ME and Windows NT/2000. It is very stable, and also has a very good way with multimedia. Kind of like the best from both worlds. A lot of people have said XP was very insecure.

I believe an OS is as secure as you make it to be. Pooh Sun Tzu proved this theory with a couple of tests he shared on Anti Online, proving XP more secure than anyone had ever given it credit for.

I think Pooh Sun Tzu should be given a fair amount of credit for actually taking the time to learn Windows XP more than others have, and for teaching everyone that it can in fact be secured.


For Windows XP, it is the only version of Windows I have right now running. I have it on a box that came with it, and I just never took it off as I need it for school, and use it for a few other things too.

For stability, XP is an amazing OS compared to other OSs Microsoft released. It is very stable, and I have yet to have to reboot unless I was installing something that required it... Or because I was worried about it over heating.


I've had XP running for quite a while without any problems, although after about a week some games would start to lag until I rebooted. This is still better than other OSs Microsoft has released though.

XP does have a bit of a resources fetish though. You should have at the very least 256 MBs of RAM, and a decent processor to run it. I personally have the XP box I talked about a bit earlier, and it runs great. It has 512 MBs RAM, a 2.13 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Processor, and a 120 GB HD. This is a great machine for XP, as it has room to use.

If you can give it a lot of resources to play in, you should have no real problems there.



Windows server 2003:

This right here, in my opinion is one of the fastest, and best OSs they have ever released. I started playing with it on a box here at home, and right away noticed a speed increase.

It seems to load applications much faster than previous versions of Windows could. I think they should take all the server software out and release it as a desktop OS alongside the server one.

It seems very stable. I haven't had a problem with it at all.

Not much else to really say about it, as it is based on Windows 2000, so is very similar, but in my opinion, much better.

The install also goes a lot more smoothly than other versions.

I actually like it. They really should make a desktop version of it. I'd use it.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Are other Operating systems more secure than Windows?


Well, this is a question a lot of people ask, but hardly any know the answer to. The answer really depends on what you know how to do. If you know Windows very well, then switching to Linux may be a bit odd, and securing it is different in a few ways, so this may not be the best option. But if you are willing to learn, UNIX systems can eb secured beyond standards.

I will cut this discussion down to only Linux, and BSD, because their are not very many homes that have any other versions of UNIX in them. Linux and BSD are both free to download and use. Or you can borrow a CD with Linux or BSD on it from a friend and copy it. This is all legal.

It IS freely available, but may cost you an internet connection to download it, or maybe you could go to a school and download it their. The fact is, you can get it easy.

A lot of people think of BSD and Linux, and think "this is free, it must suck". It's sad people believe that. Linux and BSD are two of the most stable, reliable Operating systems in the world.

Open BSD is considered the most secure Operating system in the world, it is also freely available.

Yahoo.com runs on Free BSD, and a bunch of companies use Linux. They are all very stable. I have so far only seen a core dump on my Linux boxes one time. A core dump would be like a Windows blue screen of death, but you don't usually have to reboot from it, which is another strong point.

Also, Linux and BSD are immune to virii. You have to be stupid enough to load one as root to make it do anything.

So, with it being free to get, immune to virii and worms that spread across Windows boxes, and being stable as a brick wall; Why would anyone use something else?

Well, that is easily answered. People are used to Windows. At school you are taught to use Windows, and no one ever wants to learn anything else. Mac users are in a class all their own. Weirdos.

But I for one use Linux and BSD at home. This document is being typed on a Linux box in Vi. Linux comes with over 4,000 tools for everything from coding, to professional office suites, and even image editing, and a lot more.

The Matrix, for example, was MADE on Free BSD machines.

Linux and Free BSD power a lot of movies.

The Linux and BSD kernels both come with built in security. In short, yes, Linux and BSD can be much more secure than Windows, but you have to actually get off your butt and try.

http://www.bsd.org

http://www.linux.org

http://www.suse.com

http://www.openbsd.org

http://www.freebsd.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Uptime:


A lot of people say uptime is not important. A lot of hackers love having a huge uptime, because keeping a machine from rebooting for a long period of time, is like a badge of honor. Think of it like a Dr who has performed a lot of successfull sergurys. It is a bragging right.

But it is more than that. From a company perspective, uptime is very important. If a machine is rebooted, or turned off for any reason, that costs money. If a file server, for example, goes down for some reason, people can't do work.

This also costs money. Now, with Windows, everyone has probably seen a blue screen of death. Something happens, and Windows crashes. This in itself is bad enough, but think what happens when that machine is a server.

A server machine crashing, or needing a reboot, does cost money. I am completly against running Windows as a server OS. For one thing, when a new security flaw is found in Windows, which is quite often, you have to download the update, and always have to reboot for the settings to take effect.

This is unacceptable. And when their is more than one update, you have to download each one separatly. That means after rebooting, you have to take more time to download another patch, to fix what they broke with the last fix, when they tried fixing what they broke. This process can take over an hour easily.

I run Windows on one of my home machines, and you have to download a patch, install, reboot, download another, install, reboot, and it goes on and on.

In Linux and BSD, when you install a security patch, you never have to reboot unless it is a patch for the kernel itself. Which rarely happens. Also, Windows usually takes longer to come out with a patch that works.

Now in their defence, they have a lot more of a user base to make the patch for, but for some reason, the Linux community has one ready that works in a few hours, not months like Windows.

For example, a few months ago, a hole was found in Internet Explorer. It didn't matter if you even used it, the fact that it was on your system made you have to update it. Internet explorer comes bundled with Windows, and can't be taken off.

It took them a couple months to even get a patch ready for it. Linux and BSD also allow you to install multiple updates at the same time, and not even need a reboot after you're done. Like I said, the only time Linux or BSD need a reboot, is when you update the kernel, or install hardware.

This is much better for a server environment, where downtime costs money, because you don't need to reboot as often. Microsoft will try getting you to believe that Windows is a better environment than anything UNIX based, but after you have had the 30th Worm/Virus outbreak of the year, you probably will start not liking Windows.

But again, in the defence of Microsoft, they can't be like UNIX, they try sometimes, but the customer base for Microsoft do not want to actually learn. They want to sit down, and have something work.

Linux and UNIX do this, but require a small amount more in knowledge, which is why Windows still dominates with the flith they put out. Microsoft products are nice, and may not actually be filth, but the company is.

Also, Microsoft are still the only company to have an OS that gets affected by Worms as often as they do. But again, to be fair about this, most people use Windows, so Virus writers target Windows so that the infection spreads as fast as possible.

Well, the malicious coders do any
way. Linux, although not the epitome of security, is still more secure than Windows. People will tell you that security is made by the admin, not the OS, and I agree with this, except for one thing:

Viruses.

Linux has had about 4 Worms that actually were big enough to realise they were there. All of them targeted RedHat Linux, and for the most part, did nothing more than install a patch for the worm, and go to another machine....Users really didn't need to install the patch that allowed this to happen, as the person who coded the Worm obviously had a sence of humor about security.

Viruses can cause downtime just like any other pain in the neck security flaw. This is another reason I won't use Windows for a server.

If you need to use Windows for a Desktop, I would recommend adhering to the fallowing:

When you turn the machine on, use Windows update to make sure you have all patches installed.

After you have finished updating, check Windows update again. Sometimes when you install an update, you will notice there are now more updates than when you didn't have a certain update installed. This goes back to my complaint about fixing what they broke with the last patch they released to fix what they broke before.

After you have this all competed, update your anti virus software to make sure you have all bug fixes, and the newest .DAT files to check for viruses.

After you have done this, update your firewall software to make sure you are protected against new attacks.

At this point you should have Windows completly updated, your anti virus updated, and your firewall updated. Now it's time to make sure you have Windows Media Player updated. Windows Media Player, although nice, is not exactly secure either.

What I am trying to say, is when you turn your machine on, check for updates for the software you have. After you have finished updates and reboots, do a scan with your anti virus products.

Another thing you should be doing after you have scanned everything, is to open up AdAware; Which any self respecting computer user would have installed.After you have it open, update the reference file, and do a scan with that.


UNIX hardware may cost a bit more, but it's worth it. Also, Linux and BSD do NOT need expensive hardware. The Newest version of Linux, will still run on a 386. A 386 was what people who ran DOS used. The newest versions of Windows need a lot more than that.

Also, Linux and BSD can be ran on 8 MB of RAM. Windows XP needs at least 128. If you are about to toss out that 486 you don't use anymore, how about you instead install Linux or BSD on it? Learning UNIX is a joy, and that 386 will actually make a great router or firewall.

You can take a 386 and turn it into a router or firewall with Linux or BSD. They both come with the programs needed to make it act as a router with very good firewall capabilities.


So how stable is Linux and BSD?


Well, I for one had 53 days of uptime on my machine, before a power outtage took it down. The top 50 uptimes of web servers on the internet as of yesterday, are all running BSD. These machines have uptimes of over 1,780 days. That is about 5 years in case you want to know.

Those machines have been running for 5 years without a reboot, as a server.

A Windows 2000 machine was ONCE on the list with 900 days uptime. I will give Windows 2000 it's do, as it is fairly stable, but that machine probably had NO patches installed on it at all, as patches need a reboot.

I would rather reboot because I am installing a security patch, than be rebooting because my machine got owned and I have to take it down.

All in all, you would most likely have better success keeping a UNIX based Operating system up for long periods of time. DOS is another stable OS, but it is still very limited in capabilities.

So, when it comes down to it, Linux and BSD are MUCH better at being a server OS than most anything else.

Hi Gore,

Glad to see it is taking shape nicely. :)

OK I will be a bit pedantic and say that AFAIK it is Win 3.10 and Win 3.11, collectively known as Win 3.1x?

The two "worst" from a stability and reliability viewpoint are Win95 and WinME. But I think that you might develop that a little bit...............I am thinking that something that is bad and why is as interesting as something that is good and why?

There is a bit of a history, as Win95 was being developed at the same time as NT4 and both were behind schedule. Microsoft just didn't have the resources to bring in the two projects simultaneously. So they cut corners? For example, Win95 was supposed to support USB, but only had very rudimentary support in the very last builds. The NT4 team had to borrow code from the Win95 team, which is why you can find 4 .bas files in the system32 (yes 32bit!) folder of NT4. They are a legacy from DOS 5 which shipped QuickBasic as well. ;) The lesson is that you will not build a reliable and stable operating system if you don't have the manpower. NT4 got the lion's share because it was the big money spinning commercial OS, and PCs in the home were still rare and expensive.

Part of the problem with Win95 was that people loaded it onto former Win3.1x boxes with 8Mb of RAM...............remember that in those days an 8Mb strip of RAM cost over $200 (and a gallon of gas was about 60c?) This was just not enough for that fancy GUI and the multimedia stuff? Give it 32Mb and it is a very stable system................unless you made the fatal mistake of getting the upgrade from Win 3.1x :eek: I never came across an upgrade that worked properly.

I had better post this before I time out, I will edit the rest in.

EDIT:

WinME was supposed to be the "flagship" home multimedia and gaming OS. It was the first to incorporate System Restore. Unfortunately it is a gross resource hog and leaks memory like there was no tomorrow. It failed to take on board the changes in domestic computer usage. In the days of Win95 hardly anyone left a PC on all the time, by the time WinME came out, this was far more common.

Microsoft have always assumed that the 9x domestic systems would be re-booted at least once per day, so comparisons with commercial OSes are not as straightforward as they might seem.

In the case of WinME they also misjudged the hardware environment badly. Win98 is quite happy with 64Mb of RAM and will improve up to 256, or maybe even 384 with the second edition.

I would say that WinME needs at least 256Mb and actually becomes very stable with 384 or 512Mb (beyond which it becomes unstable again!) So it is stable if you give it enough resource?

Just my experiences,

Cheers

Hi,

I'll try adding some of that in here. I just got home. I bought suSe Linux 9.1 Professional. I havn't even installed it yet and I'm already impressed. For one, most people may overlook packaging, but I don't. You can sell **** fi you put it in the right box. SuSE Linux 9.1 Professional comes in a box with a texture to it that I think is great feeling, they don't overlook detail.

Also, one thing that kind of shocked me:

Not only are the 2 double sided DVDs here, and the 5 CDs, but another NICE SuSE sticker. Not a cheap paper one, but a quality clear plastic one. Over 1,000 pages of documentation come with the books inside, and 2 support boolets, and a SuSE catalogue for spring 2004, a pamplet for ordering Linux magazine, another booklet for SuSE training, and what really shocked me:

There is another CD that comes it it's own little case:

iAnywhere's SQL Anywhere Studio for Linux Developer Edition. I thought this was awesome.