(OT/Rant) Why can't Linux be as easy as Windows?
I've just been working on a new Dell server. It shipped with 2008 Foundation Server R2. It turns out the application to be run on the server needs 32-bit, and all R2 releases are 64-bit only. I can't downgrade Foundation, so I need to first upgrade to Server 2008 Standard R2, from which I can downgrade to 2008 Standard (not R2) which has a 32-bit option. I say "first upgrade" but actually the upgrade option is more expensive than buying a new licence, so I've ordered a new Server 2008 R2 disk that I won't use (because I need the older version, which thankfully I am able to download from MS). So, that's the licensing sorted for a mere £700 (Foundation + 2008 Standard), all I need to do now is install it. Using an old 2008 server disk, I try to install, but having booted from the CD the first thing it complains about is not having drivers for the CD drive, so I can't proceed until I locate the driver, which of-course I'm not given any useful information to locate and the Dell site gives me several options, but I get there in the end. These days MS Server is quite advanced, so as well as supplying drivers on a floppy disk I can also use USB stick or CD, so that was something. Once the O/S is installed I need drivers for several unknown devices, which Windows can only tell me are unknown, so I download all the drivers I can find and eventually find the half-dozen I need. This was made extra fun because Internet Explorer blocks pretty much everything except MS website by default (so I made an exception to allow me to download firefox....). In the meantime I downloaded updates, and (as required) rebooted; after the reboot another half dozen updates are there, and after the subsequent reboot a couple more, and so on. I'm nearly there now though, having installed an alternative to the wonderful "notepad", a database server (MySQL), a web server (Apache), and an office suite (LibreOffice). Oh, and a task scheduler (nncron) and half a dozen other things. So yes, I remember the days when Linux was this easy. Well nearly. Pah! [The reason for posting? It's times like this that I'm reminded just how much better Linux is at so many things, and including things like "installation" that Windows is apparently better at. Perhaps it is, when you have your hardware vendor's pre-configured install disk, although I'd probably still disagree. I think most of the time I forget just how lucky I am that I don't get forced to use Windows daily. Anyone who thinks Linux is better just because it would have saved me £700 is missing the point!] -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On 23 May 2011 13:31, Mark Rogers <mark@quarella.co.uk> wrote:
I've just been working on a new Dell server. It shipped with 2008 Foundation Server R2.
It turns out the application to be run on the server needs 32-bit, and all R2 releases are 64-bit only.
So long as the server is x64 and not Itanium there shouldn't be anything stopping you running the 32bit app on your 64bit server. MS Office 2010 is still 32bit and runs fine on x64. Regards, Tim.
On 23/05/11 13:36, Tim Green wrote:
So long as the server is x64 and not Itanium there shouldn't be anything stopping you running the 32bit app on your 64bit server. MS Office 2010 is still 32bit and runs fine on x64.
That's why I thought too, hence ordering the server with Foundation R2 in the first place. Unfortunately the application (which is an industrial application from around 2005) disagrees, and a number of things don't work - the solution being to upgrade the application (not cheap and not without quite a lot of work). What is annoying is that I don't need any of 2008's server capabilities; it will simply be running this one application, it just needs to run reliably on the server hardware, for which it was agreed that 2008 was a better choice than (say) Win7 Pro. Regardless, the driver-chase seems to still be far more prevalent on Windows than Linux, and it's silly things like being told next-to-nothing about the hardware to assist in that search - sure you can get PCI vendor and device ID's if you know where to look, but Linux would have mapped them to the vendor and device names for me instead of making me go hunting. Windows is very much designed to be installed by the hardware vendor, and if the user re-installs then for them to do so from a vendor supplied disk. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On 23/05/11 13:31, Mark Rogers wrote:
I'm nearly there now though, having installed an alternative to the wonderful "notepad", a database server (MySQL), a web server (Apache), and an office suite (LibreOffice). Oh, and a task scheduler (nncron) and half a dozen other things.
Hmmm so MySQL, Libreoffice, Cron and Apache....so why is this a Windows server again ? :) On 23/05/11 13:36, Tim Green wrote:
So long as the server is x64 and not Itanium there shouldn't be anything stopping you running the 32bit app on your 64bit server. MS Office 2010 is still 32bit and runs fine on x64.
Yes and if only that were completely true. Unfortunately I have encountered amongst other things 3rd party apps and services that simply will *not* run on a 64bit build of Windows (including a couple of .net ones). Some printers (big office ones too expensive to change on a whim) that are 32bit drivers only so using it as a print spooler is out (plus it is grief to deploy drivers to 32bit clients from a 64bit print server anyway, if you are using the AD push method). Something using a version of the borland DB engine that won't install on 64bit. Service contracts for expensive software that strictly forbid installing on anything other than 32bit and subtle differences in the way security is handled between the 32bit and 64bit builds of *MS-SQL that break some 3rd party software.
On 23 May 20:01, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On 23/05/11 13:31, Mark Rogers wrote:
I'm nearly there now though, having installed an alternative to the wonderful "notepad", a database server (MySQL), a web server (Apache), and an office suite (LibreOffice). Oh, and a task scheduler (nncron) and half a dozen other things.
Hmmm so MySQL, Libreoffice, Cron and Apache....so why is this a Windows server again ? :)
I'm wondering when MySQL became a database server rather than a noddy datalosing toy... but I may be being harsh :) I'm also wondering what the notepad replacement was, if it wasn't vim, it's not a real text editor (emacs users need not reply - you crazy crazy people you!).
On 23/05/11 13:36, Tim Green wrote:
So long as the server is x64 and not Itanium there shouldn't be anything stopping you running the 32bit app on your 64bit server. MS Office 2010 is still 32bit and runs fine on x64.
Yes and if only that were completely true.
It is *completely* true... in linux... if you've got the 32 bit libraries the application relies on.
Unfortunately I have encountered amongst other things 3rd party apps and services that simply will *not* run on a 64bit build of Windows (including a couple of .net ones). Some printers (big office ones too expensive to change on a whim) that are 32bit drivers only so using it as a print spooler is out (plus it is grief to deploy drivers to 32bit clients from a 64bit print server anyway, if you are using the AD push method). Something using a version of the borland DB engine that won't install on 64bit. Service contracts for expensive software that strictly forbid installing on anything other than 32bit and subtle differences in the way security is handled between the 32bit and 64bit builds of *MS-SQL that break some 3rd party software.
Hmm, .Net code runs in a virtual machine - unless it's using native libs, then it really really *should* work everywhere... including in mono... ;) Of course, if you're stuck on a doze box, then you're fighting a losing battle for making things work anyways :) Cheers, -- Brett Parker
On 24/05/11 07:44, Brett Parker wrote:
Hmm, .Net code runs in a virtual machine - unless it's using native libs, then it really really*should* work everywhere... including in mono... ;)
Well that particular app talks via a serial port to some special hardware. It was exactly at the point that it is supposed to start talking that it would fail horribly.
On 24/05/2011 07:44, Brett Parker wrote:
I'm wondering when MySQL became a database server rather than a noddy datalosing toy... but I may be being harsh :)
The remainder of the app uses DBF files and my other most obvious option was MDB files, so I'd say I'm close enough! To be fair to MySQL it is a capable RDBMS these days if you use the functionality, and to be fair to you you'd be right in thinking if I'm using MySQL I'm probably not using that functionality......
I'm also wondering what the notepad replacement was, if it wasn't vim, it's not a real text editor (emacs users need not reply - you crazy crazy people you!).
Not that you really care, I'm sure, but it was notepad++. If I was on my desktop I'd be using joe (Wordstar bindings rule OK!) Mark Rogers
On 24 May 09:31, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 24/05/2011 07:44, Brett Parker wrote:
I'm wondering when MySQL became a database server rather than a noddy datalosing toy... but I may be being harsh :)
The remainder of the app uses DBF files and my other most obvious option was MDB files, so I'd say I'm close enough! To be fair to MySQL it is a capable RDBMS these days if you use the functionality, and to be fair to you you'd be right in thinking if I'm using MySQL I'm probably not using that functionality......
Even with the "sensible" backend that does foreign keys and transactions, it still has serious issues if you want to change the schema - rather than, you know, adding a column it creates a whole new table, locks the database, does a copy from the old table in to the new, drops the old table and renames the new... Now do that with a large dataset... Gotta love it :/ Oh, and of course, DDL statements aren't transactioned. (OK - so I only know of one database server that actually *does* do transactioned DDL, and it is my database server of choice - postgresql :)
I'm also wondering what the notepad replacement was, if it wasn't vim, it's not a real text editor (emacs users need not reply - you crazy crazy people you!).
Not that you really care, I'm sure, but it was notepad++. If I was on my desktop I'd be using joe (Wordstar bindings rule OK!)
Ah, I have heard reasonable things about that - when I'm stuck on a windows box, though, I tend to end up with gvim installed because my fingers have the right memory for that :) Cheers, -- Brett Parker
On 24/05/11 10:04, Brett Parker wrote:
Even with the "sensible" backend that does foreign keys and transactions, it still has serious issues if you want to change the schema - rather than, you know, adding a column it creates a whole new table, locks the database, does a copy from the old table in to the new, drops the old table and renames the new...
Now do that with a large dataset...
Do you have a reference for this? I do have a project which will generate large datasets and was using InnoDB, so I ran some tests, and was able to continue inserting data into one table whilst modifying the schema of another. (Tested on MySQL 5.0.51a so not a very new release.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On 23/05/2011 20:01, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Hmmm so MySQL, Libreoffice, Cron and Apache....so why is this a Windows server again ? :)
It's definitely possible that it would have been easier to get the actual application running under Wine on Linux! (I have tried that in the past and failed at the install stage, but not tried very hard. At least if it doesn't work under Windows nobody points their fingers at me for playing!)
Unfortunately I have encountered amongst other things 3rd party apps and services that simply will *not* run on a 64bit build of Windows
Bizzarely (to me anyway) this software includes some simple forms that interact with DBF databases, and they just don't work on 64-bit (they think records have changed when they haven't and don't save changes regardless). My theory is that in this case (and knowing the history of the app) there may be some legacy 16-bit code lurking somewhere - I know that 64-bit Windows has dropped support for 16-bit apps, and I know for example that I've been unable to install some patches because the installers were (probably) 16-bit. Mark Rogers
participants (4)
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Brett Parker -
Mark Rogers -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood