Linked by snydeq on Tue 8th Mar 2011 23:54 UTC
Grizzled Unix vet Paul Venezia tips his cap to the Windows Server crew, suggesting that the lessons of Unix history have not been lost on Microsoft -- and that's one reason why Windows Server has become so complex. 'The Windows Server of today has more in common with Unix than many people want to admit. The upside: more stable servers, greater scope of services, better adherence to standards, and Microsoft's newfound willingness to work with its competition. The downside is that Windows has become more complex than Unix from a management and administration point of view,' Venezia writes, even if he still sees some Windows admin practices as prime examples of how not to administer servers.
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Member since:2005-12-15
Member since:2007-10-11
Well, we're talking about sysadmin, there.
If you have to poke around and click haphazardly to find out how to set up your server, you probably should stop immediatly.
Administration of a server is exactly the kind of situation where you should RTFM. There is no doing it otherwise.
Edited 2011-03-09 13:57 UTC
Member since:2005-08-29
Member since:2005-08-18
But why the hell is it called /etc?
Why is rather unimportant. All you need to remember is that configuration files are in that directory. Equally non-obvious naming conventions can be found on any platform, including Windows.
I guess my point is that they're both a huge pain in the ass
True but in my experience *nix is less of a pain in the ass. As an example, just yesterday I had to create some scheduled jobs on Server 2003. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it is *IMPOSSIBLE* to set a scheduled task to be run by the System user using the GUI. It can only be done using the schtasks cli command. Wtf?
In my personal experience Windows (and Windows apps) works in the opposite way of Linux. Initially you feel great because it's all so easy and simple to do. Click there, check a checkbox here, wooooh! done already. Over time though, the more you work with it the more frustrating it get as you discover more and more shortcomings and inflexibilities and the insane complexity of the registry starts to wear you down.
*nix, on the other hand, feels overwhelming at first and you're not really sure wtf you're supposed to do and how. Where the hell do I configure network interfaces and what the heck is all this stuff in /var about? However, the more you work with it the easier it gets and the more you come to appreciate the flexibility and simplicity.
Edited 2011-03-09 19:11 UTC
Member since:2007-11-23
This is so true. I inherited a WS 2003 install a year or two ago.
It is so frustrating wasting time trying to find the right GUI screen on WS, it's tedious in the extreme when you have an idea what you are doing. It constantly winds me up.
I've gradually migrated services away from the box with a view to decommisioning but I fear I may never be rid of it, I dread the idea of trying to shift years worth of shared folders and user setup.
Member since:2005-06-29
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2007-09-22
The article talks about trying to find the right dialog, settings, command, etc.
I'm sorry, but Unix-admins don't need to search (by hand), they have enough tools available to find what they need.
They can even use find in /etc if they don't know what file they should change.