*BSD News Article 92622


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From: jearl"help cancel SPAM"@box100.com (Jason Earl)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux or FreeBSD (or something else?)
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 1997 22:40:01 GMT
Organization: Global Entrepreneurs Network, Inc.
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On Wed, 02 Apr 1997 21:28:01 GMT, lcappite@sprynet.com (Goatboy)
wrote:

I get a little bit tired of hearing all those claims by NT proponents
that UNIX people are anti-establishment weirdos (hey, I am not
weirdo), and then I read a post like this:

>>There are also the problems associated with tying oneself down to
>>one vendor.  If Microsoft manages to kill everything else, do you
>>think you'll be able to do anything on your computer without Bill
>>Gate's stamp of approval?  Hell no.  Every time you use a Microsoft
>>product, you are supporting a technological dictatorship.

Sure, Microsoft is in it for the money, and sure they have some
decidedly unfair business practices (like giving away Internet
Explorer), but I don't think that paranoia (even if it IS justified
<grin>) should be the primary consideration when choosing an Operating
System.

>Give me a break. I know microsoft is trying to dominate everything,
>but so what? Their main OS, win95, is leaps and strides easy and more
>compatible than any other os out there, and it costs about the same as
>relatively cheap software (software from $50-100 is cheap; progs like
>pagemaker are expensive [$900]). And for small networks NT isn't bad.
>It's more stable than any other OS but Linux or freebsd (pc's, not
>damn alphas or sgi onyx2's). It's more stable than OS/2, MacOS, win95,
>etc. PC World even did tests, and NT was the only one that didn't
>crash. And I doubt that many home users support more than 100 people
>on a network or run an ISP. And NT is $200. That's not that bad
>considering what u get. Face it boys, MS has made computing easier,
>and that isn't exactly bad.

I couldn't agree more.  NT is "not bad" for small networks.  I
personally think you could save yourself some aggravation (and several
hundred dollars) by using a Linux box or a FreeBSD machine for your
server to the MS-Clients, but I would definitely agree that NT would
"get the job done."  Whenever you start thinking of Microsoft products
as evil I think you need some free time away from your machine.  It's
not a holy war, it's networking.

The good thing (if you like Linux or FreeBSD anyway) is that there is
very little chance that Microsoft will ever come out with something so
cool that development on the free UNIXes will quit.  There are just
too many people developing stuff for UNIX.