OS Wars

From Hugme.org

There is much debate about Operating Systems, whose is better, whose is worse.. etc... I feel much of the time I'm right in the middle. I also have very different views on them than most people, partially because I have used and been a part of so many of them.

Contents 1 Levels of Operating systems 1.1 High level Operating systems 1.2 Mid Level Operating Systems 1.3 Low Level Operating systems 1.4 A note about Linux 2 What operating system do I suggest you use? 2.1 How do I choose 2.2 Which operating systems are better at which function? 3 So what do I like and use at home? 3.1 On my laptop 3.2 My Desktop(s) 3.3 My Servers 4 Some notes on individual Operating Systems 4.1 FreeBSD 4.2 OpenBSD

Levels of Operating systems

There are three levels as I see it of operating systems. For lack of more accurate terms I will use High, Medium and Low level to describe them. If you put the computer system at the bottom and the user above it, the levels would describe how far away from the computer system the user is. This should become more clear as I describe each system.

As for which level of Operating System is better I would say none. Each level has it's own significance, it's own benefits and it's own restrictions. There is a place for each of the three and they should be respected for what they are.

High level Operating systems

These are the most well known operating systems. They are easy to use, easy to maintain and have a lot of software which runs on them. They are very good for home systems and users who do not want to be overly familiar with the internal workings of the computer.

• Advantages
  • Easy to use, easy to maintain
  • Lots of readily available software out of the box
  • Comparable with a wide variety of other systems
  • You can find administrators for these systems easily and cheaply
  • Functions well out of the box without any configuration
  • Number of administrators needed grows quickly as the number of devices increases
• Disadvantages
  • Systems aren't usually as stable
  • Systems aren't as fast
  • The user interface requires a large amount of resources
  • The user interface either can't be turned off or is required for most software
  • Lack of security in the system
• Uses
  • Home Computers
  • Businesses systems whose users are not necessarily technically proficient
  • Video Game servers
• Examples
  • MacOS
  • Windows
  • Linux *(see below)
  • Operating systems on current game consoles
  • AmigaOS
  • BeOS

Mid Level Operating Systems

These are the operating systems do not have the advanced user interface the above systems have. They are not as well known and are quite a bit more difficult to use. They do however run much faster and have more stability than the above systems.

• Advantages
  • Faster than high level Systems
  • More Stable than high level systems
  • Has more configuration options
  • Does not rely on a user interface to do it's job
  • Better more robust security
  • a single administrator can handle many, many systems, devices are easy to automate
• Disadvantages
  • Administrators are more difficult to find and more expensive to hire
  • User interface requires more technical knowledge to handle
  • Less variety of software
• Uses
  • Desktops for advanced users (normally systems administrators)
  • Servers (web servers, ftp servers, databases... etc)
• Examples
  • Unix Systems (AIX, HPUX, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Irix, DGUX, Digital Unix, SCO)
  • Linux *(see Below)
  • VMS (such as VAX/VMS, OpenVMS, FreeVMS, OZONE)
  • NeXTStep

Low Level Operating systems

These can barely be called Operating Systems, they are closer to programing languages than true Operating systems. There is very little of a user interface, the system is built to be put in place and set up as a single use. Most of these are Large scale systems. This level of Operating system is rarely put on a new machine and is reserved for some of the older devices and schools.

• Advantages
  • EXTREMELY fast, the kernel is built for one job and one job only.
  • Very Secure, normally not even connected to a network, and if so, the interface is tightly controlled
  • Full boat of configuration, you write it as you go
  • Once the system is set up very little if any administration is necessary
• Disadvantages
  • Systems to run these are VERY expensive.
  • Administrators are difficult to find and costly to hire
  • Systems are completely unusable without a high level of technical competency
• Uses
  • Uses are specific for this device. They are bought with a necessity which other systems cannot provide. For example very high level mathematical computations used in things like tracking weather, or answering an extremely large number of simultaneous requests such as the world wide flight plan database.
• Exmples
  • RPG
  • CRAY-OS

A note about Linux

Linux you might have noticed is listed in both the high and mid level operating systems. There are a few reasons for this. Linux floats between the two depending on the flavor and some of the other factors involved. It has many of the features the High level operating systems have such as a nice graphical interface, not quite as user friendly as the other High level Operating systems but enough to compete. It has many of the features such as speed and stability of the mid-level operating systems, not quite as much as the other mid level OS's but enough to compete with them. If someone is looking for an operating system which is between the High Level and Mid Level OS's this is a good place to look.

What operating system do I suggest you use?

How do I choose

This question depends on what you're doing. There are several factors involved and you should weigh them carefully. Here is a good way of choosing.

1. Figure out what your computer will be used for. This is the ultimate determination over which operating system is best for you.

   Here are some of the categories you should consider:

   • Word Processing/Spreadsheets
   • Email/Web Browsing
   • Multimedia - Pictures/sound/video
   • Gaming
   • Server functions - Web/ftp/news/mail server

2. Is there a piece of software or operating system you are used to? If so, this has more than likely answered your question.
   • When someone uses windows at work and that's what they know, I suggest they use windows. I use Unix at work so most of the time I use it at home as well.
3. Is there a piece of software dictating what OS you should use?
   • If 50% of the work you are doing is going to revolve around final cut pro, then you should seriously consider buying a Mac. If you are planning on exclusively running Apache then you should consider using a version of Unix.
4. Are you planning on using a piece of hardware which only runs on a single operating system, or new hardware whose drivers do not yet work on other operating systems.
   • If you're buying a new laptop, plan on using the operating system which came with the laptop for at least the first six months to a year. This should give the OS of your choice enough time to write drivers for the specific hardware in the device. Laptops are normally very proprietary.
   • This questions can also give you a lot of information about version. Many hardware devices will not only run on a single Operating System, but a single version of that operating system.
5. For the most part, high level OS's run better as desktops and mid level OS's run better as servers. Take this into consideration.

Which operating systems are better at which function?

This is by no means an end all be all of the functions of operating systems. Word processors run on every operating system I've listed. Microsoft word documents; however, are the standard for the industry and Microsoft word runs best on Windows. You can find software to do just about anything on any of the Operating systems I've listed.

Video and Sound Editing	MacOS
Picture editing	Windows
Word processing/Spreadsheets	Windows
Gaming	Windows
Web browsing, Email	Any Operating system
Server functions	Unix
File Storage	Unix
Network/security functions	Unix

So what do I like and use at home?

On my laptop

I run FreeBSD on my laptop. Do I suggest that you do the same? No I do not, in fact I suggest you do not try to run FreeBSD as any type of desktop. Why? simple, you are asking me that question. FreeBSD is fast, stable secure and robust, more so than any other OS you can run on a PC; however, it's extremely difficult to use. If you're asking what OS you should be using chances are you should be trying one with a better interface. It also has a limited number of hardware choices. As an example, out of the box my sound card and network card do not work because there is no driver for them (well, there wasn't one when I installed the OS). Both functions were made available only after I spent a few hours re-writing some of the existing drivers to work with my hardware.

My Desktop(s)

I normally have 2 desktops, one runs windows and one runs Unix. At work the Windows device is used almost exclusively for email. While evolution is an alternative to outlook, it does not possess the same number of features, some of which I use. At home, the unix box is used for graphics editing, web browsing, working on my servers, watching videos... most of the things I do at home. The windows device is used mostly for playing games and testing.

My Servers

As I'm sure you've already guessed I'm a big fan of FreeBSD on servers. Most of my systems currently run it. I'm also a fan of Solaris which I use quite a bit at home. I wish I had an AIX box as my skills on these have been getting more and more rusty the more time I spend away from it.

Some notes on individual Operating Systems

FreeBSD

By far my favorite operating system. I've been using it since version 2.6 and still have my old disks somewhere. I just installed version 8.0 as of this writing. I do not suggest this to others unless they have quite a bit of unix knowledge and experience.

OpenBSD

I've been in many debates about this operating system with people who really know their stuff, including Randell Swartz, with whom I agree in most areas of computing science but not this one. I do not care for nor do I use OpenBSD, I don't like Theo's code and I believe his lack of understanding about computer philosophy has been detrimental to this operating system. I used to be an OpenBSD administrator, when I started I loved it, the idea of having an OS based around security seemed to be a good process and it was catching on quickly. As time when on however and I used it more and more I started to dislike it. let me explain some of my reasons.

The first reason I started pushing away from OpenBSD was it's lack of want to be more functional. Let me give you an example. While I was working as an OpenBSD admin back in 2001 there was a -l switch I had gotten used to in other OS's for ifconfig. Pretty simple switch, it just lists the interfaces with no other data. I decided to be part of the community and write the switch in myself, easy enough to do in fact I didn't use any of my own code, everything I used was already part of ifconfig. Once I was done I sent it to Theo (author of OpenBSD) in order to add it to the distro. The response was upsetting to say the least. I was told that ifconfig didn't need something so elaborate and he didn't want to put it in. Nor did it align with his security policy (I'm not sure how, I only used code which was already there). This was the point in which I started disliking the OS. As a point, there are MANY features I would have liked to see added, but I'm sure never will be.

OpenSSH is also a product of the OpenBSD community. I had the chance to see the author speak several years ago. I had many questions to ask concerning things which seemed to me to be 'broken' one of them was (and is) scp. Another was the disconnects between different versions. OpenSSH didn't work well connecting to and from other SSH software. He answered my questions. It seems scp was not working because the author didn't think people should use it. He said he always used pipe, tar, cat and ssh to transfer files and thought everyone else should be forced to do the same. As for connecting to other clients and servers, why would someone use software other than his? This was another huge turn of on my road out of OpenBSD.

If you go to the OpenBSD website as of this writing they have in red at the top "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!" When you read this I'm sure you're thinking "wow, that's great, only two in the default install, other OS's can't claim that." but think for a minute. What significance does this statement have? Note OpenBSD in in the Mid level operating system section. This being the case, it's users have to have a good amount of technical knowledge to use it. 99% of these users would never, ever, under any circumstances leave an OS at the default install. Meaning this claim OpenBSD is making has no ground what so ever. I can make a FreeBSD system MORE secure than an OpenBSD default install in less than 10 minutes. Why does that 10 minutes make OpenBSD more secure? well, it doesn't.