[NTLUG:Discuss] Why it can be argued MS is better than Linux (RANT!)

[Stephen Davidson]

Greetings.

I never thought I would be writing an email with this subject, but after 
events that started yesterday at about 1pm, it is now pretty easy.  
Actually, the events started some time ago -- but they culminated in the 
biggest disaster I have ever personally experienced in my history as 
computer professional.

I have just finished repairing a machine (Linux) that had suffered a 
hard drive failure several months back.  Not linux's fault, and that was 
a fairly easy fix.  The reason that I only now just finished repairing 
it is that I have been occupied with dealing with other Linux failures.  
The most recent of which was a printer port failure -- that took 6 weeks 
to find the workaround (Note: workaround -- not Fix) for.  And only for 
my printserver.  My laptop still does not recognize its printer port 
(both machines are OpenSuSE 10.0).

Yesterday afternoon, due to several security advisories, I decided to 
apply the outstanding security patches for SuSE Pro. 9.2 to my server, 
located at a Colocation site downtown.  Mistake.  BIG Mistake.  By 2:00 
it was apparent that the system was not going to come back up w/o major 
intervention.  So, I good bye to spousal unit, and head out, with master 
disks in hand in case something was thoroughly corrupted and needed to 
be reinstalled.  Get downtown and over to server.  It was trying to do a 
fsck because none of the filesystems had been checked in the last 49710 
days.  20.4% through the fsck of /home, and it hangs.  Everytime.  Ok, 
that's what rescue disks are for, and I had brought mine.  Pop them in, 
run them, and everything works out smooth.  Woohoo, I think.  I will be 
home in time for dinner!  Reboot system, no checks in 49710 days, 
restarting checks.  Ok, no biggie, I think.  They passed the rescue 
disk.  Hung at 20.4%.  At least with MS, when one version of Scan disk 
says your filesystem is fixed, the others will as well.  So, rescue disk 
again.  Rescan.  Everything still ok.  Fine.  telinit 3.  No network, 
and messages about how the system can't find half the files it needs.

Ok, I think, this OS is cooked.  So I run SuSE AutoRepair.  First it 
does is scan the partitions.  They all pass.  Then it tries to verify 
the RPM database.  That crashes.  Literally.  I get a red box saying an 
Error has occured.  So I try to reinstall 9.2.  Does not work, same 
issues.  Reformat /boot & /usr, and reinstall.  Still does not work, 
same errors.  Go get spouse & OpenSuSE 10.0 disks.  Try installing 
10.0.  After all, other than the printer ports, and a other issues I 
have mostly figured out how to deal with, its been running 3 machines 
for several months now.  CD 1 installs no problem.  Reboots, and now 
can't find the CD drive to read CD2.  I try a few things, and keep 
running into that 49710 days thing with the partitions, again.  Ok, now 
7pm, and both spouse & I hungry, so we go for dinner and to think things 
over.  Decide to resize partitions on the Data Hard disk, and put a copy 
of /etc & /var there.  I am guessing there is some kind of funkiness 
with the kernel modules, and the way to go is to reformat /boot, /, 
/usr, and /var.  So, get back to the Colo facility, and start resizing 
partitions.  At which point, spouse gets really freaked out "Linux is 
way too complex for end users, if it is this hard to fix when something 
breaks!".  Resize works.  Copy works.  Start Install.  Select partitions 
to format.  CD 1 apparently installs w/o problem.  System reboots to 
start newly installed kernel.  Unformatted data partions, not checked in 
49710 days.  No hangs, but check fails as well.  It is now 11pm.  I have 
been at this for 8 solid hours (not counting break for dinner), over 
half of which with non-techie spouse keeping me company.  It is obvious 
I am not going to get this machine up tonight.  So I make the 
appropriate arrangements, and pull server.

http://j2eeguys.com.  Its still offline.  There is a hole in the rack 
where the server is supposed to be.  This email address is a redirect to 
my j2eeguys.com server.  The server is on my desk.  Now that I have 
enough diskspace online (as of this morning) to back it up again (btw, 
backup server still full from all the crashes on other HW, I have not 
had a chance to clean it out yet), I will backup said server -- User 
space needs 30 GBs, which is more than was available on my laptops.  
Once I format all the disks and partitions, maybe it will accept an OS 
and boot again.  Then I wonder how long it will take me to reload and 
reconfigure all the services that are needed.  I can't use the old 
configurations -- they have all changed, and all attempts to upgrade 
fail, as an attempt is made to write fstab during the upgrade, which 
always fails.  For searching Google?  I have no idea how to describe 
what is going on in less than one paragarph, let alone a single 
sentence, which is what Google is looking for.  Mailing list?  Well, 
that requires the ability to receive email, which I don't currently have.

Maybe I will get email back by the end of the week.  Who knows?  
Meantime, my client has big design meeting today that I need to attend.  
So, this whole thing needs to get shelved for this morning.

I have never had this much trouble from my MS machines.  If things get 
so bad a reinstall is needed, 1.5 hours is the most I have ever had to 
spend, plus about the same for the services -- not 8 hours, and still no 
luck even getting the install to work.
</end rant>

Regards,
Steve

--
Java/J2EE Developer (NOT a Linux Guru!)