Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#111

Post by rbanffy » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 1:38 PM UTC

tbrownaw wrote: post #77

jrockway wrote: post #8

I doubt any major vendor will do this. First off, they don't want to be locked into selling Microsoft-only machines. If they can't pretend Linux is an option, Microsoft can charge them $1000 for a Windows license and there's nothing they can do about it. If they have Linux hanging over Microsoft's head, though, they'll get better pricing on Windows. (Think this won't happen? It already did with XP on netbooks. When M…

> Nobody uses Windows as a server OS Which is why my employer really doesn't use Outlook/Exchange for email, or Sharepoint for the intranet, or IIS for the public website, or ActiveDirectory to manage logins and whatever else it does, or .... Maybe you mean, "nobody uses only Windows as a server OS"? But even tho that would work for my employer (we also have Linux and AIX) and probably all large companies (including…

> Which is why my employer really doesn't use Outlook/Exchange for email, or Sharepoint for the intranet, or IIS for the public website, or ActiveDirectory to manage logins and whatever else it does, or ....

If you really have to live with all that stuff, I'm deeply sorry for you. I use Exchange and AD and it's bad enough.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#112

Post by rbanffy » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #103

jrockway wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing about the registry: with a bunch of config files in /etc, I already have many, many tools for managing them because they're just text files like every other text file. With the Windows registry, if I want version control or something like that, I have to invent the tools myself. This is a waste of my time unless I am in the business of selling products for Windows. UNIX is about being generic. Yes, i…

Re: versioning, you can dump the registry in text format with regedit /e and save it to a text file. It's true that you can't keep an svn directory with config files like in Unix, you can still get the same with a few batch scripts that call svn update/regedit. However, more importantly, you hardly ever need to because you can do most of your server management centrally so that you never have to manually work with th…

> Re: versioning, you can dump the registry in text format with regedit /e and save it to a text file.

The idea of diffing a registry dump fills my heart with horror.

> First, all config formats are different - from the bizarre (Sendmail) to fairly sensible (Apache), but each one requires separate tools/scripts.

I am quite happy editing them with vi or emacs (when available). I also like joe a lot - it reminds me of WordStar.

> you need to learn the syntax and then write a complete program to parse the files.

In about 10 years of Unix, I never had to build anything like this. And, when I wanted to parse my own config files, I always had libraries to do it ready.

> For example, you need somewhat of a state machine to parse/edit Apache VirtualHost directives. You need to write a complete editor from scratch each time.

I think you may be approaching the problem from the wrong angle. Are you trying to build a GUI tool to edit Apache configuration files?

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#113

Post by dhimes » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

If the UEFI could be made to handle multiple keys, and allow the owner to enter them into the firmware, then this could work. One more step in the setup but a more secure system overall.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#114

Post by illumin8 » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #74

natarius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make it short: 1. Of course 2. You write a script. Or simply use something out of the Systems Management Product Family (awesome btw) 3. WMI or Powershell should do the job. You rarely write custom code when scripting....most use cases a covered by a huge library MS offers. The rest is available through google :) We have run large Windows Server Farms at my past company (SaaS Business) and maybe 3-4 Linux Servers..…

Every dummy can administrate a Windows machine....not so a Linux machine! That fact forced the Ops team to get rid of the Linux machines as quick as the could. So you choose a inferior mediocre alternative just because you can hire mediocre folks to handle it(you mentioned 'dummy'). Ultimately having sufficient technical debt to make your miserable for the next decade. Linux command line isn't very upfront friendly f…

Unfortunately, this is how business works. If they can hire an operations team full of Windows lusers and pay them $30K a year instead of Linux admins that cost $60K a year, they usually do that.

The thought never crosses their mind that you get what you pay for, and 1 qualified Linux admin can replace an entire team of Windows admins due to automation, scripting, and superior manageability of Linux.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#115

Post by RexRollman » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

Why is this being written like it is solely a "linux" problem? It seems to me that it effects every non-Windows operating system.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#116

Post by sciurus » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 2:28 PM UTC

irahul wrote: post #58

recoiledsnake wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody uses Windows as a server OS, This is the problem with getting tech news only from HN.

> This is the problem with getting tech news only from HN. Most of us have worked one or more tech jobs, and HN isn't the source for the assumption that nobody uses Windows as servers. That nobody is far fetched - of course .net shops will most probably be deploying on Windows; for some reasons most of the Java shop do so as well. But outside that, Linux or BSD is the favored deployment platform. And the OP's argumen…

There's more to life than deploying webapps.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#117

Post by TallGuyShort » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 2:44 PM UTC

No one seems to have mentioned the impact this will have on Live systems. I'm frequently called on by Windows users to recover lost data on corrupted systems, which I do using a Live Linux distribution (especially when they have discarded their installation media & access keys, and have no interest in investing money in continuing using Windows if I can give them a free alternative to getting online). How will I be able to do that for people with Windows 8 computers?

I'm sure I'll be able to find unsigned hardware for my personal use, but it's the interoperability that concerns me.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#118

Post by T-hawk » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 2:50 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #110

kamaal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasons: -------- 1. Windows was never originally designed to work as a Server side operating system at the first place. They started to drive it on the server side when they first discovered the Internet had a huge commercial potential to sell machines on the backend. There fore all means of getting things done on a windows machine for a developer have to go somehow through a set GUI's to get work done programatical…

> 1. Windows was never originally designed to work as a Server side operating system at the first place. That's not exactly correct. Windows NT was designed to compete against Unix in the desktop workstation and non-dedicated server market. It was designed by a team formed mostly by DEC alumni. I call it "the bastard child of VMS" for a reason. > 8. Unix is open source, its freely available. Linux and BSD are, but OS…

> I believe Windows servers can currently host more than one user session.

Yes. Windows XP and Server 2003 Standard allow one local login plus two Terminal Server (remote desktop) sessions. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and Datacenter Editions allow more (but nobody ever bought those flavors because Standard was so much cheaper.) I'm not familiar with Windows 2008 Server but the policies are probably similar.

The limit of two remote sessions in the regular editions is arbitrary, but was chosen mostly for RAM constraints; the windowing environment for each user plus the tasks they're likely to run will consume a few hundred MB of RAM or more. The advanced editions support RAM beyond the 4 GB 32-bit limit.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#119

Post by tommi » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 2:57 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #114

kamaal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every dummy can administrate a Windows machine....not so a Linux machine! That fact forced the Ops team to get rid of the Linux machines as quick as the could. So you choose a inferior mediocre alternative just because you can hire mediocre folks to handle it(you mentioned 'dummy'). Ultimately having sufficient technical debt to make your miserable for the next decade. Linux command line isn't very upfront friendly f…

Unfortunately, this is how business works. If they can hire an operations team full of Windows lusers and pay them $30K a year instead of Linux admins that cost $60K a year, they usually do that. The thought never crosses their mind that you get what you pay for, and 1 qualified Linux admin can replace an entire team of Windows admins due to automation, scripting, and superior manageability of Linux.

Look at it this way: you should never trust a single guy to manage your entine system. You need to have backup in case of the flu, accidents, anything.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#120

Post by pointyhat » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 3:15 PM UTC

Like I suspected, this entire thread has been turned by zealots into a Microsoft-bashing exercise.

I genuinely dispair for people who spend their entire time platform bashing and don't add something constructive to the discussion or tar and feather a side religiously. It paints a very bad picture of the "startup culture" amongst more established organisations.