Re: Linux vs Blue Screen of Death (fwd)

[awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

> I just spent the last day trying to install Back Office 4.5. By the 
time it
> finally installed I saw the BSOD about 25 times. The last few times 
really
> annoyed me. It was starting up fine, then I uninstalled the DHCP Relay
> Agent, one reboot later, and before I could type in my password BSOD. 
After
> about 4 more it finally started and let me know that a device didn't 
start
> up correctly. Gee thanks for crashing 4 times to figure that out. It 
ended
> up being the NIC driver, and a process of figuring out the correct 
order on
> when to install various services. I really appreciated that protected 
mode
> kernel. Thanks NT! ;-)

I restart the DHCP server, client, and relay modules on my Linux 
servers all the time, and never have to reboot.  (Just thought I'd rub 
it in).

> It makes me wonder if there's any exception handling in there 
anywhere. Load
> a nic driver, oops it failed, don't show any errors, query dhcp, oops 
the
> nic isn't working, better kill myself so the user doesn't lose any 
important
> data, better do a memory dump now just in case the user wants to parse
> through a good 100meg file.

If they had done proper exception handling it would have taken them 
another 6-9 months to build (I'll wager).  By then Linux would have 
gobbled the server market.

> I have yet to see linux die because of a bad kernel. I have had to 
hard boot
> a machine once, but that's because both hard drives stopped, but the 
kernel
> was still up and going, I just couldn't run anything.

I have.  Under 2.0.33 the Adaptex 7xxx driver would freeze the machine 
periodically.  And in the 2.2.x series until 2.2.12 I couldn't run SMP 
on my Tyan motherboard,  it would freeze periodically.