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911 Calls Linux 308

Posted by Roblimo from the open-source-police-dispatch dept.
This morning, we found an excellent piece in our in-box about how a 911 call center in Utah has switched all of its workstations over to Linux. If anyone needs 24/7 reliability, it's the people at the other end of 911, and apparently they're now getting it, thanks to Linux-using, Slashdot-reading Officer Sherman Stebbins of the St. George, Utah Police Department, who tells us how he did it below.

911 Calls Linux - For Reliable Service

In January 1998 I began testing linux for our 911 Center here in St. George Utah. We are the 911 Center for the South west corner of Utah. In November of 1998 Testing was complete with great success. I implemented Linux as the workstation for our 911 Center using RedHat 5.2 and AfterStep as the windows manager. These workstations get worked on 24 hrs a day seven days a week and run several apps on screen.

Some of the apps that we run our Eterm to connect to the main HP Server, X3270 for our State computer connection, WordPerfect for different reports the dispatchers create, and some custom apps I have written in C.

Our WordPerfect was given to us Mike Cowpland CEO of Corel. The WordPerfect 8 has worked perfectly. Thanks Mike.

Our uptime has been over 200 DAYS. This doesn't even come close to the reboot once a day with the Microsoft OS. I could give several horror stories of when the dispatcher is in the middle of a hot call, then had to reboot.

Linux has done so well, that I have unplugged the reset buttons and disabled the power switch. This was done to prevent finger glitch when they have to restart the NT box our radios work from (I just wish Motorola would switch over), that sits next to the linux box. Linux is the main console that the 911 Dispatcher works from, and has held up better than any I have ever seen. Linux has been doing great in the server end, but I have heard it's not very good at the client end. NOT TRUE. My installation time for the first pc was 45 minutes for full install with apps. By the time I got to the last set it was 30 minutes for full install. As a client it has worked great.

The only shutdowns have been from one power supply failure, and a kernel update for each. The workstations are still running great.

Officer Sherman Stebbins
St. George Police Department
e-mail policesa@infowest.com
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

911 Goes Linux More

911 Goes Linux

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  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • no text. But if you read anyway, i just don't see why they used linux instead of freebsd.

    look at crack.linuxppc.org

    linux can't handle out of memory as well as freebsd.

    (and whoever says linux is more stable then freebsd needs to do some research)
  • I personally have come to strongly dislike Windows and disagree with some of the stuff in here, but this message is obviously informative and deserves more than a rating of 0.

    Smells like bigotry on the moderator's part.
  • While I agree that NT is good for somethings, I do seem to recall a story about hotmail trying to switch to NT and failing. Now running on Sun. In my personal experience, our live servers are NT, running Commerce server 3.0, SQL 7 and IIS. I personally don't administer them, but our uptime is about 2 days between reboots. We've been on the phone for days at a time with Microsoft, and things have got better, we use to have to reboot nightly. (actually had it set up automatically) for what we are paying, that kind of quality is unacceptable.
  • Looking at the actual error message, exception 0E is a failure to retrieve swapped/paged memory from disk. The failure, it says, occurs in the VXD VMM (virtual memory windows driver) at the OS-level. I suppose it could have been a poorly written application that triggered the message, but in my experience when Windows has to bump out to text mode to give me an error message (indicating to me that the problem is above the application level, so much to the point that Windows doesn't trust the stability of the GDI to render a friendly error message graphically), a reboot/lockup is not too far behind.
  • When will the world come to realize that there isn't always someone to blame for things going wrong... almost any event is affected by a thousand tiny things in the outside world, unless it is an extremely controlled test environment (and even then I'm sure there are external variables). I know thats a scary thought to most people, but life is like that.
  • When an app crashes in Windows, it can take down the entire OS. When an app crashes in Linux, only that app is effected. Case in point: I've had IE and Netscape crashes take down my entire Windows session. I've NEVER had a Netscape crash take out my Linux session.

    I can't speak for WordPerfect (I use StarOffice), but AfterStep has never crashed on me.

    Linux is more stable and reliable than Windows, plain and simple. If you've worked much with both platforms, you should know that.

    Thad

  • Actually, for us, British Columbia is in the Pacific Southwest.

    :)

    Of course, there's really not a whole lot much more North I guess. :)

    Greg
    Vancouver, BC
  • It's true that NT is the most stable version on Windows...I am forced to user it at work and I rarely have to hit the reset button...buuut... By the end of the day this thing just moves like frozen mud...I can't imaginge what it would be like after a couple days...Also...sometimes I get a rasman error that forces me to reboot if I want to use outlook...so yeah..NT doesn't crash much..but it's hardly what I would call "robust". Course this is just my experience..


    Meanwhile my Lnux box at home has been up for about 3 months with no noticable performance degradation. The Linux box is doing a lot more than my NT box is doing too. (Web server..development work etc vs word processing )It's funny, I never even think about bringing it down..

    I do have to add that I just love it when MS stormtroopers say that if your NT box is setup properly and administered properly then you will not have any problems...sheesh...give me a break. Maybe that's why some people have a hard time believing anything a Pro-microsoft person says.. they are always blaming any problem that anyone has on cheap hardware..bad sysadmin..improper setup...etc... I thought one of the benefits of NT was supposed to be how "easy" it to setup vs Linux..sheesh...
  • Without third party add ons? What *use* is a server that can only software programs from a single company? What is a company to do if they need UPS monitoring, Multiserver backup, Accounting/Accounts Payable or other catagories of software that Microsoft has not entered yet?

    As for TerraServer:
    a) IBMs Patent Server (DB2) is bigger
    b) It was not the bastion of stability or reliability for a while. (Click on Utah, get the middle of the Atlantic)

  • I've got dozens of NT boxes that I've never needed to press the reset switch on. So does my experience negate this story?

    Well, you didn't need to press the reset button, you could have set the power switch to off, and then back to on. You just used the reset button because it was easier.

    =P

  • Even if we accept your premise that a properly configured stock NT system, "without odd third party addons", is as stable as any other system, you still miss a key point. In the real world we have to deal with "3rd party software or odd hardware," and if they cause the system to crash then NT IS FLAWED.

    To give you a somewhat silly analogy, let me introduce to NewT. NewT has has his driver's license revoked because he's in an accident on a weekly basis.

    NewT claims that it isn't his fault, that he has never been in an accident when driving on closed roads where he's the only driver. He's never had an accident even when a handful of carefully selected drivers shared the roads with him.

    "BUT IT'S NOT HIS FAULT THAT OTHER DRIVERS KEEP CAUSING HIM TO HAVE ACCIDENTS."

    None of us would hesitate to yank NewT's license, because NewT's *must* be able to share the road with others.

    Likewise claims that NT is as stable as other OSes "provided it is properly configured and is not running third-party software or contains additional hardware" leaves us underwhelmed. Even if we accept the implicit argument that Microsoft should be the only software vendor in the world, even MS applications have been known to cause NT to crash. And the idea that we should all be happy with a limited selection of video cards and network cards *only* is too silly to even bother responding to.
  • Reminds me of May this year in Las Vegas, during Interop Week. As you may know, the casinos have these huge colour displays pushing their dubious attractions - one of them was displaying the Windows Login screensaver - i.e. it had crashed, presumably auto-rebooted (which is possible in NT), and got stuck at the login prompt.

    Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me...
  • I'm sick of the arguments for Linux stability when Linux apps themselves are so poor when it comes to stability...and NT's windowing system won't crash nearly as much as GNOME or AfterStep.

    You obviously don't know what you're talking about. I've been using FreeBSD and Linux for almost two years now, and the only apps that have crashed on me have been Enlightenment, Gnome, and sometimes Netscape. Nothing else ever has. I've used Afterstep and Windowmaker for windowmanagers and both are rock solid, even when I have over 50 windows open, and the CPU is groaning at a 4+ job level and 100% CPU usage.

    So what if Gnome crashes once in a while? I've never had KDE crash on me. So since you have a choice (I realize that concept is foriegn to the AC who posted this nonesense) choose the app that's solid, rather than the eye candy one.

    Say what you want about Word, but it won't crash nearly as much as WordPerfect on Linux.

    That's a lot of crap. It's obvious you never use Linux, if you do, why be an Anonymous Coward? I use Wordperfect for Linux regularly, I have ever since it was released in Jan/Feb and it has never core dumped on me. It has all the great features Word doesn't have, like Shadowcursor, which allows you to drop a cursor anywhere in the page at any time, or Smartmenus, which change the menubars to fit your context in the document (outline, graphic object, etc.) Get a clue before you start spouting.

  • Dude. You're right. I've seen it before too.

    Mabie it's a Microsoft plant, attempting to spread random FUD.

  • Yeah, the only difference is that when you get a segmentation fault in *nix, all that happens is that the app terminates. In Windows, you sometimes get the blue screen of death, which almost always means you need to reboot the system.
  • This is the sort of story which should get more publicity. The PHB's don't belive us geeks when we say Linux is good, they might listen to this sort of story from the trenches.
  • I don't know why some people become so zealous. Maybe I'm just too passive. ;P

    What I advocate is to use what's best for the situation at hand. I have both NT 4 and Slackware 4 (2.2.6) running in my home. The NT box is my primary workstation whereas the Slackware box is an ADSL router.

    (If you must know, it hasn't bluescreen on me unless I was mucking with the registry or hardware.)

    The router is a lowly 486/66 w/20MB RAM and has 400MB harddrive space and is hums along quite nicely. The only complaint I have is that for the box to recognize the second ISA NIC, I had to compile the hex address directly into the kernel. -.- Sure, you say buy better hardware so that passing the address isn't necessary, but Linux is supposed to run great on old hardware. =P Lets just say that compiling on a 486 is just, um, slow. ^_^

    So after about a weekend of compiling, configuring, reading how-tos, etc., my router is up and running happily.

    Now, if I had NT as the router, then install would have taken less time, but I would have to spend a little more for the hardware. But, it wouldn't have taken the whole weekend, nor would I have to compile the hex address into the kernel (as if I could if I wanted to. =P).

    Moral of the story? Time is money saved or money could save you time. YMMV though, so use what's best for the job.

    FeiYen
  • I'm going to take the opportunity here to congratulate you on your success. I feel much safer knowing that someone in the public safety area has done their research and taken the time to make the 911 service more reliable and cost-effective. I hope that other cities will take a serious look at their options now. Do you know whether other cities in Utah are considering a change?
  • The first post I read in response to the IPv4 article indicated it was a piece of garbage. Compare this against Ms. Jane reporter who has some "informant" tell her about something she doesn't understand which she subsequently posts as fact. I prefer the peer-review method much better. Don't believe everything FNORD you read in the paper.
  • Maybe that 911 center could send this to linuxtoday, or some other media outlets.

    I can't wait for the AC FUD spreaders, though.

    George
  • the string '911' anywhere in a phone number will contact your local emergency phone center.
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • Geeks abound. I'm glad there's some on the force. I am hoping for 100% cluefullness percentage in those that police us in the future.
  • Just trust me on this, ok? If a nuclear reactor's computer goes haywire, the computer technician onsite is not going to be worrying about liability. For that matter, neither will anyone within a substantial radius, if he's preoccupied with licence agreements.

    A lot of nuclear reactors use OLD computers and OLD software. Some, so old that the companies no longer exist. Why? Because it's reliable and robust. If it weren't, the computer would be a pool of melted plastic, metal and silicon by now. Few, if any, nuclear power plants gamble on upgrading to more modern computers. They don't need the extra power, and they certainly don't want the extra bugs. What works works, and they'll generally leave it alone.

    The same is true of a lot of mission-critical organisations. I remember when I was on a tour of Fylingdales, Yorkshire, and being appaled at the archaic equiptment they were using. Right out of the stone-age! But it worked, and that mattered more to them than all the fancy gimics that were on the market.

  • Yay for you...just another example of how Linux can benefit essentially everyone. Not sure of the status out there, but out here in muggy Va, most of the rescue squads are volunteer, and I'm in the process of trying to convince them that not only is Linux better because of the cost (an important issue for volunteer squads), but also because of its reliability. I will be sure to include your article with the report that I submit to them.

  • Are you trying to imply that NT crashes as a security precaution?


    You gotta stop hanging around those marketing people.


    I think Slashdot does pretty well considering the number of users that hit it.
    Certainly better than some of these MS sites with N machines
    running ASP that still can't serve up a page in a reasonable amount of time.

  • Just wait - according to the piece on Wired the other day, most of those outlets monitor /., so I would expect Officer Sherman's phone to start ringing soon...
    ________________________

  • I still think a lot of PHB's buy M$ products with some weird logic, like "wow, they're making billions and we want to be like them" or something.

    Chuck


  • The article says nothing about GNOME. Just Afterstep.

    Yes, GNOME would be a *really* bad idea in such an environment. Every time I use GNOME it locks up at some point or another. It makes me feel like I'm walking on eggshells.

    Afterstep, OTOH, I've never had trouble with. I used it for a long time without any trouble whatsoever right up until I started using WindowMaker, then KDE (I'm now waiting for KDE's performance under WindowMaker to improve, It's slow on my machine...).

    If you're running GNOME under Afterstep and it locks up, it's probably GNOME.

    Plus, if X locks up, and you're using kdm/xdm, it'll come right up again in record time.

  • hmmm. (Score:2)

    by Suydam ( 881 )
    I wonder if this is real? That's something I always wonder on slashdot when we link off to other stories.

    In this case, I was wondering, is it just me? Or does this read like a hoax written by a 13 year old?

    On a broader note, how does "new journalism" validate the things it reports on? I've been bothered by this for quite some time. I mean, what's to prevent me from writing some story, taking out a hotmail account called "Busch@hotmail.com" and writing in about how I'm the plant manager for Busch Beer and we've just switched all our floor-control boxes over to Linux?

    Just wondering....and I think it's something that will have to be addressed as the Slashdot-esqe news source fights for credibility.



  • Ah reckon this makes you the Linux-usin'est Slashdot-readin'est deputy in the, uh... damn my knowledge of us geography... mid west?
  • You must have been working for BYU, or some other institution closely related to the church. Normal business around here isn't overly LDS at all. Your 'prayer meeting' thing actually sounds a little exaggerated. Would you mind telling us exactly WHERE you were working, and WHEN? People around here are alot more normal than I've seen in the other ends of the country.

    And as far as the wages thing goes - take a look at the cost of living! Utah's cost of living is pretty sane. I know people willing to take a 30% pay cut just to move to Utah, and they live in better houses in safer areas. You may complain about the $$$, but there are some things you can't trade for money - like quality of life, and not having to worry about your car being stolen or vandalized every day.
  • I'm also trying to figure that out.
  • Well, I'm not a Microsoft plant, and I'd like to speak up and say that the NT servers at my company crash just about as frequently as the Linux servers; almost never. We really step on the servers too.. SQL, mail, WWW, tons of other stuff, and NT holds it's own. Granted, it's a lot harder to get NT to that level of stability, but it can be done. Different OSes for different uses; if Linux does something better, we use Linux. If NT does it better, we use NT.
  • One of these days, I'm going to go to law school... Until then...

    I know in some cases it is impossible to waive a right to sue for a class of possible events. 'Agreeing' to a EULA doesn't necessarily waive your right to sue under all circumstances. However, the admission/admonition that all computer software is designed to fail under unforeseen circumstances (actual use, when it comes to '95) is a pretty good protection. That is - if you were trying to use Windows to prevent damage, and it failed, MS is not liable for that damage because they told you that Windows doesn't work. If you were using Windows, and because of MS's negligence or malice, Windows leaps from the computer and strangles your girlfriend, I'd call a lawyer. Unless they've updated the EULA to specifically mention Windows' tendencies to murder people. Something like that.
  • Another myth of the modern world. Because there is a propreitor - i.e. Microsoft, you can sue.

    Untrue. How many people actually read the Microsoft licence?

    Take a look at microsoft's copyright page, or read the licence that came with your shiny NT or windows software if you have any questions.
    [microsoft.com]
    http://www.microsoft.com/misc/cpyright.htm


    If Microsoft could be sued everytime there was a loss of data, profits, or what not, do you think they would still be in business?

  • Officer: 911, what's your emergency.
    Caller : Some psycho is shooting at my house!
    Officer: Please calm down sir, what is your location?
    Caller : My address is 14802 SE 10th ST..on the corner of 148th!
    Officer: Oh .. shit.
    Caller : What?
    Officer: Uh, do you know anything about computers?
    Caller : WHAT?!
    Officer: hold on..
    [bang! bang!]
    Caller : Can't you send someone down here?!
    Officer: Well I was about to, but my application stopped responding.
    [bang!]
    Caller : Well do something!
    Officer: What should I do? I don't know anything about computers!
    Caller : Did you try hitting control-alt-delete?
    Officer: What's that?
    Caller : Hold down control and alt, then press the delete key.
    Officer: This window came up that says "Close Program"
    Caller : Okay, click on the program in the list that matches the one that's crashed.
    [bang!]
    Caller : Shit! my Sun!
    Officer: How do i find that out?
    Caller : Huh?
    Officer: The name of the program?
    Caller : You don't know the name of the program?
    ...continue ad nauseum :)
  • I don't know what planet you're coming from, but here on Earth, your statements are pretty absurd. I have been using Linux _and_ WinNT on daily basis for the last 3 1/2 years. WindowMaker is up and running on the Linux machine 24/7 with StarOffice being used (rather than WordPerfect). On the average, the NT machine (or an application running on such machine) crashes to the point of reboot or data loss at least _3 times_ more than the Linux machine. And I know I'm not the only person with experiences like this, so it looks like maybe your house hasnt been built on Earth yet, eh?
  • Um... actually there was very little in my post that was factual. My intention here was to mock the bigots whose minds are so closed that they must persist in spreading these kinds of ideas about Utah and Mormons. They are about 90% rhetoric and 10% fact.
  • You guys are making such big deal out of someone using Linux as a desktop to TELNET (3270) into an HP box, and to write reports on Word Perfect? It's not like Linux is hooked up to the PBX and is routing calls or controlling tapes. It's not doing anything important that a NT box running CRT couldn't do.

    The default telnet on NT crashes often. Period. While it is possible to go out and pay for a telnet client? Why? When the one on Linux does not crash and is free.
    Moreover, what's even more important than OS stability is application stability

    Exactly.
    It's all well and good that Linux doesn't crash, but if AfterStep, GNOME, or X crashes while they are taking a report, it would be JUST AS BAD!

    Time to reboot NT: 3-5 Minutes, time to log back in: 30 seconds.
    Hum.. NT Box here, explo(d)er has crashed 3 times today (it is only noon!) KDE on the box next to me has been up... lets see, oh 28 days... With Seti@home client, Netscape, Xosview, xterm(s),and gimp all running for about that time too.
    Word... Access... Excel all go haywire when exploder crashes... What about Linux? Memory protection, remember that?
    I'm sick of the arguments for Linux stability when Linux apps themselves are so poor when it comes to stability. Say what you want about Word, but it won't crash nearly as much as WordPerfect on Linux. And NT's windowing system won't crash nearly as much as GNOME or AfterStep

    NT Crashes more, for me. Exploder (like the name says) explodes. KDE has not for me since 0.9. I cannot talk for GNOME, but in terms of desktop stability, NT just does not have it...
    You forget that the real tool is the application, not the operating system. It's nice to have a great foundation, but if you bedroom floor falls into the basement on a daily basis, your house should still be condemned.
    So where is the line drawn? is explorer a port of the operating system, or a tool? if it crashes, and causes a BSOD, is it an application that failed, or the OS? Microsoft is innovating (read stuffing) so much stuff (read crap) into their OS, that one thing can take the entire thing down. Applications will crash, but if they take down the OS also, then there is a Real problem.
    If you weld your bed to the wall and floor, and it breaks, it will take the floor and wall down with it. That is why it is good to separate things out.

    Good Luck to the St. George, Utah PD.
  • Note the date on that link - July 09, 1999. After that date it was decided not to use Linux at all.
  • I have 3 Linux workstations, and have administered about 4 or more Linux Servers for the last 3 or so years. I have NEVER seen Linux freeze. I have seen X Windows Freeze, but all I had to do was telnet into the box from another machine and kill X to fix the problem. And even when it had the problem all the other services were running fine, and I could ftp, www, etc. to the box with no problem at all. My personal computer here at work has an uptime of 44 days right now, because for the longest time I didn't have a UPS (South-West Florida is really bad for power outages). I had a Linux Server running for about 70 or so days until I had to take it down cause it wasn't needed anymore. I know quite a few people that have linux servers with uptimes at 300+ days. A few even have uptimes of over a year! Keep in mind all of these machines are being HEAVILY used. One of my workstations also serves as an Apache WWW server running PHP4 under it, also ftp, smtp, pop3, ssh, etc. That gets hit quite a bit, while rendering povray3 scenes or even editing 40 meg images in The GIMP. Not one crash, and this is an AMD K6 233 with only 64 megs of SDRAM! One Linux Server was handling a couple of gigs of Samba traffic a day without so much as flinching. Actually the Idle CPU usage was at 99.9%!


    I've administered quite a few Windows NT/98/95 machines also. One NT Server doing nothing but running IIS with about 1 and a half million hits a month has never lasted longer than a week. Running Service Pack 4, quite highly tuned. It hasn't ever given BSOD's, or Kernel Panics, but after about a week of running it just gets really buggy, to the point that IIS can barely even run anymore, and the memory usage will be hitting the roof. I also have an NT machine running SQL Server, and doing some fileserving, also quite highly tuned. Using the only remote administration software that half way works on the SMP machine, it gets totally locked at totally different intervals at times, to the point that the OS is completely wacked, including all the services etc. I also know quite a few other people running NT as their servers all having to reboot weekly, or even more often. Under any type of semi heavy use their boxes just crash all the time. A LOT of them have switched over to linux just so they don't have to reboot their server everyday, and they are now quite happy... Including my Mother!


    So you can make all of the unfounded FUD based "Comments" that you want, but the truth still remains. NT is a bloated buggy "Server OS" While Linux just chugs away. There are a few areas in Linux that needs improving, like some of the SCSI card drivers are still a bit buggy, and some SMP stuff could be worked on a bit (Though Linux does SMP MUCH better than NT). As always any piece of art has areas that were untouched by the artist given restraints on time, etc. but the great thing about Linux is that it's a piece of art not yet completed. Better yet it probably will never be perfected continually giving it's benefactors the chance to mold it, and form it into a wonderful, elegant, beauty of an OS. In conclusion, you should become more familiar with a subject matter before you make inadequate, fuzzy, and incomplete statements about it. Go to school, learn how to comprehend (and maybe even learn how to study!), envelope yourself in the topics you are so quick to take up and then come up with your own opinion that you can actually back up. One based on fact... And remember that something being lovingly made by thousands of devoted people happy to work on it, will generally be much better than anything a commercial money-grubbing monopolistic corporation can spring out of it's hat!

  • Yes, and NT's place is _definitely_not_ high availability, mission critical, heavily loaded systems. Linux has not yet been proven in this field, but it shows a great deal more promise than NT. If you want a proven system for these purposes, you should be looking for a UNIX or VMS system.
  • True things are good.

    False things are bad.

    All things are true in some sense, false in some sense meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. A public service clarification by the Sri Syadasti School of Spiritual Wisdom, Wilmette. The teachines of the Sri Syadasti School of Spiritual Wisdom are true in some sense, false in some sense meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. Patamunzo Lingananda School of Higher Spiritual Wisdom, Skokie.
  • Umm, I beleive Mr. Twain's reference was that it wouldn't be worth it to get into heaven if you had to put up with more than one woman (from Utah or otherwise) on Earth. No slight against those hot Utah babes, it's more of a general misogynist comment.

    And a funny one, at that...

  • I'm working in a fire/medical dispatch NT environment. It's very easy to say "port everything," but it's not practical. Too many systems are working together on the same OS for it to be stable with a completely different box in the mix. In this case, it's ProQA (medical aid), the radio systems, the phone systems, TriTech VisiCAD, the old CAD system as a backup, along with normal workstation duties like logging, 4th dimension, etc. The system runs stable, and data transfer between apps and systems runs smoothly.

    What people seem to be forgetting, also, is that the people operating the systems are not trained rats. They are completely capable of handling every incident without the aid of any computers at all. therefore, if a computer crashes, dispatch doesn't come to a screeching halt. Until a compltely stable, robust SUITE of applications is delveloped natively for linux, it will not be a practical solution for many aapplications. I'd love to see Linux be a player in this arena, but it needs to earn its reputation from experience, not solely from the enthusiastic cheerleading of the linux community.
  • Huh ?
    Sounds like an MS-AC who won't face facts :-)

    It seems to be something of a problem to some people, They just love to bash everybody who doesn't share their point of view, and when faced with facts, they just blow up !

    A.Grandt
  • Or Slashdot could hire a few more people and actually spend 2 minutes validating each story. The story summaries are often grossly wrong, giving me the impression that the submitter and/or poster didn't bother spending a few minutes to actually read the story being linked to. Not minor details being wrong either - major things.

    There's also a bit too much bias, whether on purpose or not. For example, when Amiga announced its new OS would be a Linux/BeOS hybrid, slashdot reported it'd run Linux, while not mentioning BeOS at all. It turns out BeOS is the only OS that was correct in that statement (Linux is not being used), so the slashdot story was 100% wrong, compared to the 50% wrong of the story it linked to.
  • I wouldnt consider myself an MS stormtrooper. It is more finding a stable configuration, and then not mucking with it.

    And to your saying people are always blaming problems on bad sysadmin...setup..etc... I have noticed that it is the same with all OS's. I will say, that for me, (IMHO) NT is easier for the novice to setup. I can now put a Slackware box up with KDM and KDE configured in about 1hr. and most of that setup time is configuring the packages I want. It takes the same setup time for NT as well... My experience is that if you know either OS, you can get a very stable machine out if it.

    I also hate the MS memory and resource management and would love to use Linux as my desktop, but I do not have a MS compatible office suite and cant afford to buy one and wont for work. My office is a MS workshop, but for security analysis and networking issues, I boot to Linux.
  • IANAL, but I have many family members who are... You usually can't waive the right to sue for criminal negligence or malice. (At least that's the way it is up here in the Great White North) However, most software failures likely won't fall under the legal definition of negligence or malice.
  • No, you don't get it.
    My Mom, (we'll, change this to my Dad, as my Mom is not a computer user at all) does not know the difference between OS, Hardware, software, whatever, However, he does know that Windows (NT) crashes... That is bad. He also knows that when his Netscape Messenger (in Linux) crashes, he starts it back up. it works fine. The same in NT? No. Many a time after an application crashes in NT, shotty memory de-allocation makes the program un-runnable without a reboot. It is simply a design flaw in the OS. Bad memory handling.
    Sure, it doesn't take down the OS and require a reboot like Windows95, but they still lose their work!
    True, true, but if an application takes the OS down, corrupts the file system, and destroys ALL the work, not just one file, then the OS failed the job. And we are not comparing Linux to 95, we are comparing it to NT. 9X to Linux would be like comparing a 91 Ford Escort to a 99 Mazda RX-7.

    It seems obvious that you had a bad crash of an application or two with Linux. Thus, your claim that all the OS and applications are crap is not valid. Have you spent any time on Linux in recent months/years? I have. My "Swear at the screen" factor has gone down by 10 fold. Then, back on an NT box for a project. same old fist shaking... waiting for things to finish up and get done, so I can do something else... applications crashing, unable to come back up without a reboot. Linux's memory handling and multitasking is superior, i can do many things at the same time. No stupid hour glasses in my way, and no OS Crashes that take away everything I was working on. If an application dies, I just start it back up without the worry of it not working properly.
    Let's consider a reductio ad absurdum to prove my argument: What if every Linux user application crashed after running for 1 minute.
    Ok, then lets look at the case of the operating system crashing ever minute, or even every 3 hours (about average around here). What then? wait 3-5 (more like 5-10) minutes for the OS to come back up. Loss in productivity. If a user application were to die every minute, there would be a need for a new application. This is exacly why Linux is gaining popularity. NT Crashes, a solution was needed, Linux/UNIX is it (and has been, people just were swoon by MS Marketing, they are getting over it now.)

    Besides, the developers of the apps would be under pressure to write better code. The open source community could pitch in, and send in bug fixes. If this were a commercial product, it would simply not exist. No developer in their right mind would release it, even for NT.
    KDE is stable, but not "rock solid" GNOME stability is a fantasy.
    Now agian, let us consider the windows case: An unstable shell so tightly integrated with the kernel that a simple web browser crash can cause a BSOD. The industry accepts this as the norm, and begin to live with it. If KDE crashes... um.. I don't know! I have never had it crash... It would probably leave the other applications alone, with out and "chrome" around them. You could either logout, and back in again, or just restart the WM.
    XFree86 has a habit of tanking on some chipsets or sucking up mega amounts of memory over a long period of time.
    Please provide some examples. I don't think you can. You know what this is called? FUD. Pure and Simple. This Trio3d runs faster under XF86 than NT.
    WordPerfect and Netscape are both very risky programs on Linux., etc ,etc
    Word is even more of a risk. Why do you hear of Word viri? Internet Explorer? Please! a crash a minute kludge built upon a program from 1991 (Mosaic). While the same can be said about Netscape, this is not the case with Mozilla (NS5). Do you think the Utah police would want the Melissa virus to send porn sites to everybody in their address book? Why do you not hear about such things happening to Linux boxen/users? Because MS is the one that takes short cuts in code, more concerned with presentation than functionality, security or stability. I could give more examples from the past 10 years, but that would be getting too off topic.
    Linux zealots like to champion the stability of Linux vs NT at the OS level (I dispute that NT crashes as much as claimed. Given my heavily used NT4sp5 box that's been up non-stop since february) But the sorry state of many Linux apps is, ahem, overlooked.
    Um.. Non-stop? meaning no reboots? with Service Pack 5? Funny, I though SP5 came out in May. I have a 2.0.35 box that hasn't been rebooted since June 1998. While it is true you need to reboot it install a new kernel, that's just about it.

    Ok, here is my FUD Buster short list:
    • Star Office
    • Gimp
    • Pine
    • Vi
    • Elm
    • Povray
    • xv
    • gv
    Now lets talk about some of the NT Server products: Exchange. When congress got flooded with 100,000 emails, the exchange servers died, mail was lost. IIS? Take a look at the 2000 beta crack sight. MS claims all that down time was due to "analysis." Spin Doctors. File and print services? ZDnet's Benchmark [zdnet.com] shows samba is faster at NT's own game.

    Now, if the services Linux provides are that rock solid, why is it so hard for you to beleive the user applications are not too? Or at the least, more so than NT's. it is just an accepted fact the NT needs a swift kick and more administration than UNIX boxen. The same goes for Desktop boxen too. Applications will get better in stability, all around.
  • I haven't except when trying to patch the official kernel by hand with the 0.90 RAID patches (which Linus and Alan unfortunately rejected from 2.2.12 even though they were in 2.2.12-final). Fortunately you kinda have to know what you are doing in order to even get in that situation. Most people who don't know didly about programming should stick to the distribution released kernels...

  • With all this talk of independent journalism I can see Slashdotting reaching a new level. Every time a story gets posted some poor smuck will have his local exchange crashed by thousands of callers making sure that Taco, et al. got their facts right.

    All while watching their poor server being vaporised :D !!
  • The Linux community in Utah is anything but small . Did it occur to you before you made your post that Caldera is based in Utah Valley? You must be living in some kind of I hate Utah frame of mind, because you've missed the boat completely. We've got some very active LUGS (had Eric Raymond speak at the UofU and BYU a few months ago), and every company I've worked for since 1994 was interested in Linux. If you haven't been able to see that, then maybe it's time you stop hating Utah, and open your eyes to the Linux community here. You're definitely not going to find a more involved LINUX community in more than 70% of the rest of the U.S.A. But if Utah can't satisfy your Linux needs, then maybe you should go move next door to Linus himself. Of course, I bet you'd still complain.
  • And where is your link to back up this claim? Personally I would overjoyed if those wild-eyed Amiga loons went and bothered someone else with their fantasies of technical superiority, but I don't think there are any facts to support your case.

    In fact, I believe you are confusing the Amiga with the iToaster [bedope.com], perhaps understandable given the relative ratios of hype to shipping product in both cases.

    Just to further rub your nose in it, the original Slashdot article to which you referred, http://slashdot.org/articles/99/06/24/1342228.shtm l [slashdot.org] was, in fact, entirely accurate, given the information available at the time of writing. Yes, the headline is "Is the iToaster a Linux Box? Will there be Source?", which someone having an extended fantasy of Slashdot bias could construe into a misleading statement; but the first sentence of the article reads: Allright so several people have noted that the iToaster from Microworkz runs a "BeOS/Linux Hybrid". The article then goes into some depth to investigate this claim.

    Perhaps the next time you feel the need to make outrageous claims, you'll take a moment to check your facts first.

  • > Um, this was about Linux. How did you happen to read it? I mean, heck, you even read and replied to comments on it.

    I was reading it for the 911 part of the story. To clarify my statement: I stop reading anything about linux that contais "linux is the best thing to ever exist and MS just blows period."

    I'm not boycotting, just filtering...
  • Reminds me of May this year in Las Vegas, during Interop Week. As you may know, the casinos have these huge colour displays pushing their dubious attractions - one of them was displaying the Windows Login screensaver - i.e. it had crashed, presumably auto-rebooted (which is possible in NT), and got stuck at the login prompt.

    Heh, was this the MGM Grand [mgmgrand.com]? I was driving by last October and noticed the BSOD on one of their big displays outside. Too funny...


  • The only complaint I have is that for the box to recognize the second ISA NIC, I had to compile the hex address directly into the kernel.

    Uhm, why didn't you just modify /etc/conf.modules to setup the module properly to the static IRQ/IO? This is about the same as you have to do to WinXX for older hardware, tell it the IO + IRQ (Actually, you only need to tell Linux the IO, 99% of the time it will find the IRQ after the IO). Also, if it's only a router, the LRP would be an even quicker answer. http://www.linuxrouter.org/ [linuxrouter.org]


    -- Keith Moore
  • No, it's utah. I lived there for 18 years, I know. Meesa think your brain has been fried by living in the prozac capital of the world.

  • A suggestion to prevent this kind of nonsense (Score:3)

    by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @09:05AM (#1721656)
    Roblimo,

    To prevent this kind of sowing of doubt, may I suggest each story have a small link next to it entitled "verification" or something similar, that would take the curious or doubtful to a web page summarizing the verification process in much the same way you just did? For links to other news sites this probably isn't necessary, though it might still be a nice touch to have the same kind of link, pointing to that new site's journalistic "standards" page (if they have one).

    Clearly this kind of stunning success for Linux is rubbing some folks the wrong way -- wonder why. :-)
  • > when was the last time you had a kernel panic in Linux

    Well, not a kernel panic, but daily (or more) spontaneous reboots for no obvious reason.

    At least, not obvious until I looked at little closer at the machine (under my desk) and noticed the power cord not fully inserted, so that it would power glitch when I'd bump my leg against it. (Yes, it would re-boot when I booted it :-)

  • Rebooting for installs... (Score:3)

    by ??? ( 35971 ) <k.kobly@com> on Friday August 27, 1999 @01:05PM (#1721668)
    Okay, for those of you who've read this already, this is my semi-regular rant on Windows, installing apps, and shared libraries. If you've read it already, skip it.

    >Yes, you need to reboot much more when
    >installing or changing software than Linux, but
    >you can always say no and stop and restart the
    >service. (Same basic prinicple on Linux)

    No. These are very different issues. When it comes to shared libraries, Windows has dropped the ball. Shared libraries mean that some other application (perhaps even the OS) may use them and have them locked. When you are asked to reboot, it is because some shared libraries couldnot be copied because they were locked. These shared libraries will not get copied until you reboot. More concerning, however, is the uninstall. If the uninstall can't delete something (say X.DLL), it marks it for deletion at next reboot, and asks if you want to reboot. If you say no, and go install something else in the meantime, which happens to try to install X.DLL, things will be happy until you reboot, when X.DLL is deleted (as the uninstaller told it to do).

    Linux deals with updating shared libraries, partially as a result of naming conventions, and partially as a result of filesystem capabilities.

    In Windows, if a program is using a particular shared library, you cannot remove that library file from the filesystem. It is locked. Under Linux, what is locked are the inodes. It is irrelevant whether or not the file has a filename linked to it. When I use the unlink() system call (there's a reason there's no delete_file() sys call), we unlink the file name from the inodes storing the file, preventing more apps from opening it. Only when the file's usage count drops to 0 is it removed from the fs. This means that I can create a new file, with the same name as the one I just unlinked, without affecting the performance of any applications using the original file. I can replace shared libraries without having to stop the application using the shared library.

    Further, most Linux applications don't install new shared libraries when they install themselves. It would be seen as very poor practice for some little app to install a new version of glibc as part of its own installation. Yet, we accept this as normal in the NT world.

    Even better, Linux allows multiple versions of a library to coexist on a system, using version numbers. Under Windows, you can't even get Microsoft's own ODBC 3.51 to coexist with ODBC 4.0.
  • Since you are obviously an NT advocate, and this is slashdot, I'm not going to spare the rod since I assume you know what you are in for here.

    How is /.'s stability related to the linux kernel?

    90% of the time, when I have problems connecting to slashdot, it's either the ad banner garbage, or the network itself is bad, or there is an actual problem with Slashdot's software.

    Which brings me to your second point. Doing anything even remotely similar to slashdot on an NT system is basically impossible. It simply doesn't have the flexibility.

    If /. is unstable, don't blame Linux, blame Rob ;P

    Finally that bit about 2.2 tells me what I already know: you are full of it, and are clearly striving to give us the appearance that you know what you are talking about. 2.0.30+ was (and arguablly still is) probably more stable than most 2.2.x releases so far. The fact that 2.2.x itself is far more stable than any MS OS (any version, throughout all of MS's history) by orders of magnitude should tell you something.

    You clearly have the whole thing backwards anyway. Bleeding edge kernels always have two things in common: extra features, at cost of stability. The OSS model NEVER suggests you regularly update mission critical installations. However, things like slashdot, and my home machine, are hardly critical; I re-install kernels as they come out, anyway. I imagine Rob is constantly twiddling with slashdot itself, and not just a "development" mirror machine.

    Which brings me to the question of what long uptimes mean. A long uptime means to ME that a) the system is stable and doesn't crash and b) I dont have to reboot it everytime i change something unrelated to having to reboot (like installing a .dll.. hint hint).

    Your comment about security makes absolutely no sense, assuming the admin knows what he's doing.

    How, exactly, is uptime related to the system's security? I must have missed something. Are you telling me that because NT crashes 3 times a week its secure? Does a long uptime indicate that the admin is too lazy to apply patches, or that the OS vendor hasn't supplied patches? Is the latter because the OS doesn't need patches, or because the vendor doesn't even bother to develop and then release timely patches?

    I can only conclude that you are hinting that the admins of boxes with long uptimes are idiots who refuse to update. I agree. They are idiots, but don't forget that to them, having a box that stays up for more than 3 days is a miracle, thanks to MS training everybody that rebooting fixes everything.

  • Assuming the problem is big enough to warrant it, they can outsource and fix whatever bugs are ailing them if need be.

    What do they do with Microsoft?

    Sign over their souls to Bill Gates? I'm sure Bill Gates doesn't care about the little fish in the sea. With Linux, if you don't like one vendor, you go to another.
  • Not necessarily. Drivers with memory leaks, very processor-intensive applications, services with bugs, hardware glitches, will all crash Windows NT.

    Windows NT has no recovery mechanism from such situations, and given that a 911 service is bound to be extremely busy 100% of the time, the workload is inevitably going to bring up more bugs than any domestic, or even routine office, use.

    Don't slag off people who put machines through unusual stresses as guilty of FUD. Think, first, about the fact that these ARE unusual stresses! If it takes an extreme environment to cause a particular bug to surface, why aren't you praising the coder for writing that well??!! Why spend all your time critisising the finder?

    You don't know everything, no matter how much you might believe you do. Obscure and unusual bugs happen all the time in computing, especially under highly extreme situations and workloads. Can you tell me that you've checked the configuration they are using, under the stresses they are putting that box, to see if it will crash? No? Oh, there's a surprise. You'd rather hide behind the AC stamp than face the fact that bugs exist, whether it's in Linux or NT.

  • "Office.. i think i can hear someone....." (Score:3)

    by Xian ( 82731 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:00AM (#1721694) Homepage
    Just imagine a World w/out Linux...
    Possilbe scenario on a NT or 95/98 network for 911.. (god forbid they should use TAPI..)


    officer-"Hello 991."
    person-"help me please... i can hear someone in my house..."
    officer-"hold on... ok i have your location ."
    person-"PLEASE hurry i can heAr them coming!!!"
    Officer-"oh *hit.. blue screen crash.. Just hold on a sec ok?"
    person-"AHHHHW!HH!Hhaawaw!H!HH! ......"
    officer-"hello? hello? .. crap."

    hehe


    "Y'all come back Y'a Hear!?!?"

  • RMS++? (Score:3)

    by John Goerzen ( 2781 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:00AM (#1721696) Homepage
    I think this is an interesting extension to the
    Free Software philosophy that has driven our cause. That free software not only enriches our lives but also saves them is indeed something to be proud of -- and has shown me, for one, that
    Free Software can mean much more than I had previously imagined.
  • Who takes responsibility when it doesn't work? Or, actually, who recieves the blame? Like he said, Motorolla and MS take the blame for the NT box that they have to connect too, but they don't take responsibility. The sad truth is, that most supervisors and managers out there, especially in life-and-death related feilds, are much more concerned more with _liability_ than _reliability_. Can't really blame them, because this is a world where everyone grew up with Microsoft applications and the inevitablity of bugs and errors and system reboots. It's hard for them to accept software that works correctly. It's really hard not to have anyone to blame when things might go wrong.
    This is a world where Murphy's Law and Linux are the only things not effected by Murphy's Law. ;)

  • why??? (Score:5)

    by UM_Maverick ( 16890 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:03AM (#1721706) Homepage
    NOTE: this is NOT flamebait. It's an honest-to-goodness question

    First let me say that I think it's great that Linux is getting this good exposure. My question is this: Why does everyone say it's a great article when somebody writes about NT's downtime, and how Linux is better than NT. However, if someone writes something positive about NT (or BSD, or anything that's NOT Linux), it's instantly labelled as "FUD" or "flamebait".
    I think Linux is great and all, but it's not perfect (yet), we need to be fair in advocating it.
  • Also, we don't require things like
    cops and metal detectors in our schools.

    One thing about Utahns, they continue to beleive that they are immune from the problems that afflict the rest of society, while the truth is, for the most part, their violent crime rate is quite similar to metropolitan areas of similar size.

    On the other hand, the permissive business environment among "members" means the state has been home to some major fraud outbreaks, not that this level of trust is necessarily a bad thing.

    On the other hand, there have been some notable child welfare problems in utah which result, in part, because of gaping failures of the social system.

    I know for my part that when I was in school in the early 80's all the Salt Lake City high schools had cops on the staff, along with some private goons. We had people bringing guns & knives to school. A fair number of suicides, frequent outbreaks of violence and intimidation. Date rapes by nice mormon boys, lots of drunken driving by those same nice mormon boys. Teenaged pregnancies (a state seanator's daughter). And this was in one of the good schools.

    It wasn't just SLC though. The number of teenaged pregnancies among underaged Mormon girls in smaller, rural, predominantly Mormon communities suggests that Utah is not immune.

    In otherwords, I call bullshit on your representation of Utah schools.
  • People seem to often confuse fairness with equality of outcome. Fairness only means that you view the objective reality, and don't ignore it because of your biases. That something is seen to be of poor quality does not necessarily reflect bias.

    Presumably, most of the people here have had to deal with NT (I certainly have), and they know what's good, stable and flexible, and what's not. That is not bias; it's experience.

    Certainly, Astroturfers will want to paint it as bias, but it's no more biased than reporting the baseball scores. What is, is.

    I know from personal experience that I can set up a Linux box, and apart from occasional updates, leave it be. I have never been able to do that with an NT box for more than a couple months at a time, and NT machines have this nasty habit of suddenly becoming flaky for no apparent reason, depending on load and the particular software/services you're running. And service packs are a crapshoot (remember NT4 SP2?).

    So, it's a great article because it is confirming the experience of most of the people here who have actually used both Linux and NT to any significant extent.

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • Re:hmmm. (Score:5)

    by sherms ( 15634 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:07AM (#1721717) Journal
    Yes its real, Ive been an officer for over 12 yrs.
    our Address is 200 E. 265 N. St. George Utah, if you want to see the 911 center and myself in person (if you don't believe). I take care of the 911 center network and Fatal accidents.

    Sherm
  • I'm a web administrator in St. George, UT and run a number of Linux web servers so I am somewhat familiar with the reliabilty of Linux. I would like to think that I know what's going on in the local computer industry here since it's so small, but this story blew me away! To see this kind of support for Linux in my community is just wonderful. Go SGPD! You guys rock.
  • He says he set up Linux and it just runs. NT doesn't.

    So maybe he's a moron (I reserve judgement). But if he is, that says that it's easier (for a moron) to set up a stable Linux system than it is for a moron to set up a stable NT system.

    'Nuff said. Go back to spending your Wagged money and leave us alone.

    -E
  • Okay, I'll admit it. When I was beta-testing a driver for the Computone Intelliport II I had a kernel panic.

    But I've never had a kernel panic with the stock Linux kernel on supported hardware, and I've had some sites out in the field since 1996. (Not running continuously, they were upgraded from Red Hat 3.0.3 to Red Hat 4.2 in that time frame, but there were no kernel panics).

    -E

  • If Microsoft ran 911... (Score:4)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:13AM (#1721728)
    Hello, and welcome to The Microsoft 911 Service - the most innovative 911 service ever! If you have a touch tone phone, please press 1 to speak with an operator, 2 to find out about new and exciting MS911 services, or 3 to find out more about MS911-98!

    *beep*

    Are you sure you want to speak with an operator?

    *BEEEP!*

    This operation could not be completed because an error of type -4019 occurred. Please standby, transferring you to the next available operator. Your expected wait time is: 493 minutes. Please have your MS-PIN and Certificate of..

    *BEEP!* *BEEEEEEEEP!* *BEEEEEEEP!!*

    ... and thank you for using MS911!
    *click*
    NO CARRIER



    --

  • Yes, the EULA absolves MS of all liability, says you can't sue them even if it crashes ten times a day and erases all your mission critical data regularly, etc.

    But: you can say "man, that's Microsoft's problem, I've reported it to them and they say they'll fix it but I can't do anything about it until they do." Then you can go along with sitting on your bun drawing your paycheck for clicking a mouse.

    Whereas with Linux, you have the source, so even if you say "Man, that's Red Hat's problem, I've reported it to them" etc., sooner or later someone is bound to say "Hold it! You have the source! Why don't YOU fix the problem?" Thus requiring you to actually do work.

    I run EST Inc.'s network on Linux because I like solving problems, but if I were a lazy guy more intent on my paycheck than on solving problems, I'd certainly rather run NT. With NT I can just shrug my shoulders and say "That's Microsoft's problem." With Linux, people expect me to fix the problem.

    But, alas, I appear to be unusual in my desire to fix problems. Most people seem to prefer to "leave it to Mickeysoft".

    -E
  • Microsoft developers (i.e., actual programmers within Microsoft) are quick to tell me "if NT is unstable, it's because you didn't configure it right." They claim that their own heavily-used development machines have been up and running for months.

    What, it takes being an actual Microsoft engineer to configure NT?

    meanwhile, I can throw Linux on any old junk PC in the office and it just works. Same PC that NT blue-screens on regularly.

    Pfui.

    -E
  • So 911 service isn't well funded out there.

    I'm sure this guy would love to have redundant power supplies, hot swap RAID, etc. in his workstations, but a $12,000 workstation is the same price as a 911 dispatcher in Utah (well, actually, 911 dispatchers in Utah probably make less than that, but $12K was what they made in my rural community in Louisiana). If it's a choice between talking to a dispatcher, and getting a busy signal because they don't have enough dispatchers because they had to fire one to buy a redundant computer, well, I'll choose a dispatcher all the time.

    That's the kind of hard decisions that governments must make all the time, and why it's a mystery that Linux hasn't taken hold in a big way in the government market.

    -E
  • I've been giving this a lot of thought lately - when critical systems fail, and these systems are running software developed under open-source-type systems, who is responsible?

    one could make an argument that the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the individual or group of individuals who chose to use the software package. after all, noone is forcing this 911 center to use linux, and more importantly, if they think that there is a potential for disaster, well, they have all the source, and they are not only welcomed, but encouraged to improve the software so that it is less likely to fail.

    I don't see any reason why we should hold software developers responsible for faulty software. that's not to say that they shouldnt feel a need to create robust software; it's just that it is the choice of the user what systems to use.
  • Has anybody ever succesfully sued Microsoft?

    As far as I can tell, the answer is "No."

    But you can certainly BLAME Microsoft if their software quits working. Saves having to actually do some work and FIX what's broken, which is what you'd have to do if it was Linux (either by fixing the source code yourself, or hiring a consultant to fix it for you).

    -E
  • Man, I've counted at least two people from the Microsoft anti-Linux hit squad here today (just looking at their posting styles).

    Anyhow: At Enhanced Software Technologies Inc. (the BRU guys), we run our infrastructure on Linux. Period. (Except for a legacy SCO box used for some old stuff, sigh, but that's going away soon). Sales, marketing, financials, every desktop is a Linux box.

    WordPerfect 7 doesn't crash. KDE doesn't crash. (We used to use Afterstep, but KDE is easier for the clueless marketing types to use). The only thing that DOES crash is Netscape (a giant bug masquerading as a browser), but that's a nuisance, rather than a loss of mission critical data.

    In short, anybody who says Linux is not stable in a workstation environment is smoking some mighty fine Redmond herb. We have too many examples to the contrary, ranging from Garden Grove CA onwards.

    -E

  • Very neat indeed (Score:3)

    by MrPlab ( 79403 ) <(matt) (at) (sortakinda.ca)> on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:16AM (#1721743) Homepage
    Now here's a police officer that uses his training to choose the better path: Linux. As he proved, it served it's purpose when it was most needed, when someone needed desperate help.

    Now if I was the one on the phone getting directions on how to revive or possibly save the family member/friends life I would not want directions on the dispatchers screen to suddenly be replaced by a blue screen. I don't think a GPF would do me any good then.

    Just think of the many people relying on Windows to aid many citizens in everyday tasks. For example, I found this picture [207.240.121.247] quite amusing until I actually thought about it. How would I feel if I had to scramble around the airport at the last minute figuring out if my flight was delayed or not because of an error in the messaging system. Not that funny anymore.

    Overall I think that Officer should be awarded something.. I don't know what, but maybe a gold penguin or something at the 1st Annual Linux Awards when they eventually are sponsored :)

    Congrats to Officer Linux and the Sgt.,
    Matthew
    ______________________________________
  • Bad idea. If you try to explain to a group of Utahns how free software is different from free beer, they will run you out of town for mentioning the devil's brew.
    --Shoeboy

  • Re:why??? (Score:5)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:22AM (#1721760)
    People are fed up with having mission-critical things blow up and BSOD all the time. Many people on /. have similar experiences. Granted, it's biased, but that doesn't negate the fact that the current crop of Microsoft offerings are woefully inadequate to the descriptions their sales department would have you believing.

    Maybe if Microsoft was more honest with itself (and it's customers), and made a good-faith effort to improve the quality of it's products we wouldn't come down so hard on them.

    Microsoft would have quite a few more friends here if they just came clean and said "we made a mistake, and here's what we're going to do to fix it", rather than spreading FUD around.

    As the old saying goes, what goes around comes around.




    --

  • Re:why??? (Score:3)

    by Big_Lamer ( 65521 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:30AM (#1721766) Homepage
    One thing that you haven't learned about NT then is that you dont always have to reboot. Yes, you need to reboot much more when installing or changing software than Linux, but you can always say no and stop and restart the service. (Same basic prinicple on Linux) I also agree that NT is unstable when you are adding and removing alot of programs. This is due to Microsofts bad design and using a Single Registry instead of the Unix way of 100+ text files. However, it is the same as with Linux, that you have to know how to configure the machine in order for the programs to run properly and not crash. I have had Mail, File and Web servers that have seen uptimes around 1 year. I dont see this as an unstable operating system. The big thing with Linux and NT is that Linux is more stable RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. NT needs to be tweaked. BUT, they are BOTH Stable OS's when properly configured.

    I know this will piss alot of people off....let the flames begin....
  • I work with an NT machine that has IIS a FoxPro backend. The longest this machine has ever stayed up is about 4 days. Some days, it stops responding to http requests 3 or 4 times in a single day.

    *Microsoft* was unable to solve the problem. Their ultimate answer (after having a ticket open for six months) was that FoxPro is not designed for this kind of use!

    No FUD. No bullshit. Just the facts. Microsoft software sucks.

    I have *never* seen a UNIX or Linux box behave similarly.

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • There's an Officer Sherman Stebbins listed on the following page, on the St. George Police Department website:

    http://www.ci.st-george.ut.us/sgpd/geninfo/email.h tm [st-george.ut.us]

    I wonder if slashdotting a police web server is a crime? ;^)

    So, it looks like this might be the real thing, but I agree with the basic concern: the verification bar on Slashdot right now is pretty low.

    The other day, that IETF draft that claimed to have expanded the IPv4 address space was a good example of something that I would have been quite happy never to have heard of - a pointless waste of time. If the initial article had mentioned that it was either a hoax or just plain confused, I wouldn't have bothered to try to read it. Posting such things on Slashdot only lends them undeserved legitimacy and exposure.

  • Story verification (Score:5)

    by Roblimo ( 357 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:43AM (#1721798) Homepage Journal
    I called the St. George Police Department through its published non-emergency phone number, verified Officer Stebbins' identity, and chatted with him personally (by phone) before posting the story. Note the emphasis on using a *published* phone number for initial contact. It is as easy to spoof a phone number as an e-mail address; all you have to do is claim you're giving out a "private line."

    Without proper verification, this story would not have run. Period.

    Robin "roblimo" Miller
    roblimo@slashdot.org [mailto]
  • Hey, we could raise your taxes, and add a redundant system with the money from that? I'm assuming that in the States (I'm in Canada), the Emergency response department is funded by the govenment, no? Where do you get the money for a hot swap failover cluster?
  • Like he said, Motorolla and MS take the blame for the NT box that...

    No no, see, the PHB wants to be able to tell his boss that its "Someone elses problem". Actual liability is somewhat of a farse in a life or death situation unless you have software specifically written for that purpose. Which, in this case, they didn't before, and they don't now.

  • I went to the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) exposition in Minniapolis, MN a few weeks ago. This is the show for the folks who make the radios, dispatch equipement, mobile computers, etc. for the police and fire departments nationwide.

    I was dismayed at the number of dispatch systems, mobile computers, and radio setups that used Windows NT (or worse yet, 95/98) as the core. I saw about 3 vendors selling Unix (Solaris) solutions, and if there was a Linux box there (other than my laptop) I didn't see it.

    The reason is a matter of demand: Most shops want stuff that works under Windows, and anything else does not compute. This is due to ignorance.

    The solution is the same for this as anywhere else: ask for Linux/Unix versions of the code. If the radio programming software only runs under Windows, ask the radio manufacturer to port the code to Linux. If the test equipment only speaks to Windows, ask the manufacturer to port to Linux. If the dispatch software runs under Windows, ask for a port. If the mobile data unit runs Windows, ask if it will run Linux.

    If enough shops ask for Linux support, it will be granted.

    #include
    The views expressed in this post are my own, not my employers. I am employed by a company that makes test equipment for police radios. Personally, I'd love to have customers asking for Linux support! It'd show the marketing people I know what I'm talking about!

    (B.T.W. the APCO homepage is http://www.apcointl.org [apcointl.org])
  • Yeah, but how do we know that *you're* really a cop? That address could be a Mailboxes etc, and you're counting on nobody actually visiting.

    (Likewise the other person who claimed to have called the published non-emergency number could be lying.)

    Or maybe the building really holds a "police station", but it's a front set up by the rabid penguin horde. Ditto the web page set up by the department.

    Hell, the entire town of St George could be a potemkin village set up by the linuxheads!

    :-)

    Rampant paranoia is fun, unless they're really out to get you (re: the seized computers thread). But somehow I get the feeling that the original poster who expressed fears about the "new media" is also someone who believes everything he reads in the paper or sees on the evening news.
  • growing up as a non-mormon in southern Utah, I can say that most of this is not true. While there is a very high involvement of the church in Utah, it is mostly friendly, I was invited to all the youth events and never really pressured in to going to church, which is more than I can say for the Baptists when I lived in southern Missouri. As for the school system, most of Utah (with the possibly exception of SLC, which is 70% non-mormon) has a very excellent school system, I graduated in '93, and I was using CAI stations in the electronics classes as well as having the oportunity to take college level chemistry, english, physics, CAD, history classes. (by actually going to the local college)

  • Re:Discovering validity of news reports (Score:3)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @07:58AM (#1721826) Journal
    I'm just adding a link to verification comment [slashdot.org] which was posted seconds after the previous comment. The /. editor did verify the information before creating the article.
  • Look here, from the proverbial horse's mouth...

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/08/27/16412 23&threshold=0&commentsort=0 &mode=thread&pid=8#72 [slashdot.org]


    Tell a man that there are 400 Billion stars and he'll believe you

  • Unfortunately, I've seen something else happen up here..

    The Fire Department in a nearby city (St. Albert) uses software called "Crysis" for their 911 dispatching, which until recently, ran on QNX.. well, it seems in their infinite wisdom(?), Crysis has decided to switch over to Windows 98!

    Hmm, now does this give anyone else here chills? I mean, think about if this happened in YOUR town... would you trust your emergency services?

    I'm just glad that I don't live there.

  • On a broader note, how does "new journalism" validate the things it reports on?

    On a yet broader note, how does "old journalism" validate the things it reports on?

    Here in Appleton, WI, the local media sucks. The local paper, the Post-Cresent, can't seem to get the facts straight if they were handed to them. The times i've had any first hand account of a story they're reported, i've become nautious reading their report. I suspect just as much distortion happened with the national news, although its reported with better intro music, 3d graphics, and remote corresponders.

    What validates the "new journalism" is not the journalism itself. Its the fact that more viewpoints are accessable and the reader decides which viewpoint is valid. While this may produce many viewpoints that are not worthwhile, it can produce viewpoints more worthwhile than the original news report.

    When was the last time that Dan Rather asked you to think for yourself?

  • Re:A suggestion to prevent this kind of nonsense (Score:4)

    by Fastolfe ( 1470 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @10:13AM (#1721867)
    Or even something relatively minor like a credibility/validity index or something as part of the article's summary.. A few static/standard values such as:

    1. Validated first-hand (by "author")
    2. Validated by submitter
    3. Validated by submitter (with author's doubts)
    4. As posted elsewhere
    5. Validated by web presence (thus with doubts)
    6. Unverified
    7. N/A (for things like funnies)

    etc.

  • Re:why??? (Score:3)

    by jflynn ( 61543 ) on Friday August 27, 1999 @08:29AM (#1721870)
    One reason is that Microsoft has a paid marketing department, I'd be very surprised if they didn't have a budget that looked like RedHat's market cap.

    Wisely or not, many people here feel they are the unpaid Linux marketing department. To some degree I think this is true and a good thing. Like you though, I'd like to see more comments from people who have real world examples and deep experience in both systems, rather than people who are just cheerleading or bashing. To be fair, Microsoft is fairly repetitive and content-free too :).

    The other thing you have to realize is that there really is a lot of anger at Microsoft. Being a user of their software since 1982 (DOS 1.0), I think it's fair for me to say that a lot of this anger is justified. If people feel calmer after a little venting, it may even be worth the bandwidth lost to noise.

    I think this article is a good example of what I'd like to see more of. Even if its biased, its a real example, and it brings up something well worth thinking about -- the reliability of life critical software.

    Jim

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