Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 12:22:37 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> To: "Kris Kennaway" <kris@obsecurity.org> Cc: "setantae" <setantae@submonkey.net>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: home pc use Message-ID: <012001c171b5$ac8d86a0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <3BF9B12B.3D521A4D@nycap.rr.com> <20011119220243.A268@prayforwind.com> <009a01c171a9$4eedbee0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <E1667rO-0002md-00@mrvdom03.schlund.de> <00cd01c171ac$ca0fa0e0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <20011120102625.GB75402@rhadamanth> <00d201c171af$61dccb80$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <20011120024643.B92409@xor.obsecurity.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Kris writes:
> This is a tautological statement ("code which
> needs to do more complicated things is more
> complicated and larger").
It is indeed, and yet many people still manage to ignore the reality of it.
There is a (religious) belief among many that their preferred OS will somehow be
able to maintain a complex GUI environment without any of the complexity of code
or potential instability that goes with it. Obviously, this cannot be, and yet
they continue to believe it.
Linux users seem to be the worst-afflicted in this respect, with their
irrational belief that somehow they will match the functionality and
comprehensiveness of Windows using an open-source, cobbled solution and somehow
make it _more_ stable than the commercial product. However, I've seen the same
attitude on these FreeBSD lists. My impression is that many FreeBSD users are
rabid Microsoft-haters who are more interested in duplicating Windows without
any Microsoft code than in using FreeBSD in the applications where it performs
best ... namely, multiuser server and network applications. But all flavors of
UNIX are _very_ poorly suited to desktop GUI environments, and it makes no
logical sense to try to replace a purpose-built OS like Windows with a
completely different OS having a completely different purpose; it can only be
motivated by an irrational desire to "teach someone a lesson" (such as
Microsoft).
Similarly, and in the interest of equal time, I should point out that anyone
trying to configure NT/2000 to match UNIX for certain server and network
applications is spitting into the wind ... it's an uphill and potentially losing
battle. While NT/2000 can be made to work in this way (the underlying kernel is
certainly capable of it, largely because its design so much resembles that of
UNIX and other multiuser timesharing systems), it requires a lot more resources
to accomplish it, and the ergonomy is lacking. But NT/2000 religious devotees
are just as dogged in their attempts to fit a square peg into a round hole as
are the followers of UNIX variants.
> This is an overgeneralization; under FreeBSD
> it's very rare for a window manager bug to
> "take out the OS". Even if the X server crashes
> the system still runs.
You'd think so. But it worried me tremendously that, while simply trying to
change a font in KDE, the entire system crashed. It should not be possible for
an application like a windows manager to crash the kernel. The fact that this
was possible worries me because it casts a shadow on the security of the
kernel--how could a user application manage to crash the system like that?
I console myself by speculating that perhaps the window manager called some
kernel function or driver that faulted because of a configuration problem or
(most likely) an incompatibility with the display hardware. Still not very
useful from a practical standpoint, but at least it would not make the OS look
as insecure.
> In real terms, well-written and well-tested simple
> window managers rarely have catastrophic bugs.
Well, KDE is apparently neither simple nor well-written and well-tested, because
it crashed the system; and when it didn't crash the system, it froze or did
other weird things a lot.
> I can't remember the last time I had problems
> with windowmaker, for example.
I'm not familiar with it. The KDE experience has soured me on window managers
for UNIX for the moment. I do just about everything from a command line right
now, anyway--I even surf with Lynx--so trying to clone Windows is not a high
priority. Unlike many people here, it seems, I see FreeBSD as an excellent
server OS, and that's how I use it. My desktop environment remains Windows NT
(and in fact most of my interaction with FreeBSD is via NT, as you'd expect in a
server/client environment).
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?012001c171b5$ac8d86a0$0a00000a>