Originally posted here by gore
Need to add to something:

For this discussion, before it's killed off by one of the zealots of whatever camp they come from saying "That's bullshit and the whole thread is a ploy to say one OS is better than another"....

I want people to list an OS in a hospital running ONE app, the whole server was never configured, the app is running on it's own. There is no admin. So the OS must be stable out of the box for THIS. If you'd like to list stable OSs that are stable after configuration OK too, but for right now, out of the box.

Not sure of configuration is really an option though, Windows doesn't let you play with the Kernel. The Kernel is where stability is really at sort of.... Ah hell, play along.
Sorry Gore,

But this time I just can't agree with you... you can't have a discussion like this because it would never take place... this is beyond hypothetical..

Hospitals don't just run an OS... Sure their desktops may have Windows... (I've seen plenty that still have DOS)... Anyways.. they don't take an OS out of the box and run it... no one would be stupid enough to do that..

Take your pick of OS..

SuSE (which I ran for two years straight without another OS), Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, RedHat... what are they really... they're apps.. driven by the Linux Kernel (which is the OS)... That kernel may be driving a medical device with software on top, but you can be damn sure it's tested and configured properly..

The topic is just wrong.. "The most stable OS in the world".. it doesn't exist... the stability of an OS is put into question based on the hardware you install it on.. As I've said before, many times, Windows ME is a hated piece of software... I ran it for 8 months 24/7 without any problems.. I crashed XP more in my first month than I ever had with ME... You can claim stability in an OS... you can claim proper architecture... but that's it.. too many other factors come into play... Environment (You could give me an OS you claim is completely stable... a couple hours in a sauna and it'll crash... it may not be the fault of the OS.. but who says every crash is the OS's fault)... Hardware... A crappy power supply will cause crashes... OS stability cannot be questioned independantly and definately not in the manner that you're presenting.

Most hospital record programs that I've seen are still DOS... it's all they need.. the software was developed back then and still works reliably for them... updated hospitals are moving to Windows... For mission critical devices.. you can be damn sure they're customized out the wazoo and are usually embeded systems... Small pieces of custom code sitting in the firmware...

I think that this question is nothing more than the usual which OS is better debate... it definately wasn't the best way to approach this..

Peace,
HT