An official slightly off topic anouncement

[Anthony Creapeau]

I myself am not biased to any one OS as each has it's plus and minuses. But
for running a web server on Windows Professional was probably not a good
idea because it's actually a client machine used as a workstation in a
business environment. Each service you install or add to Windows does effect
the amount of resources that are eaten up in which case a low end web-server
would have done just fine. I use Window eyes and JAWS, audio converters,
antivirus and surf the web without a flinch from MS. 

Let's not forget virus writers want to inflict as much damage in one
instance as they can. What OS is the most prevalent in a business
environment? That's right, Windows and that's why it is so virus stricken.
Give me one OS on the market today that is impervious to viruses. I can't
think of one including Linux. Each and every OS has it's drawbacks and
whatever you choose to use is fine. To each their own.

Anthony Creapeau 
-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Lorenzo Taylor
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 1:33 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: An official slightly off topic anouncement

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I guess it's all a matter of how much a Windows XP user uses the computer.
I have heard that Windows XP can run for weeks at a time, but it never
happened for me.  I once got XP to run 5 days straight, but that was a
once-in-a-lifetime occurrance for me.  I guess it's because I kept my
computer on all the time like I do now.  I was trying to run a very small
web site with very few hits, an ftp server with just a few files on it and
very few hits and a personal mail server just to get my own mail.  This was
actually running on XP pro and rarely ran for 2 days before crashing and
burning.  This is why I just can't recommend using Windows of any kind in a
server environment.  My problems decreased when I switched from an aging
computer to the latest AMD Athlon XP 1800+ with
512 MB of RAM which was pretty much top-of-the-line at the time, but they
didn't go away completely.  At that point the system didn't bomb every time
I tried to access the mail server's web page, but it still crashed about
once every 2 days or sometimes more often.  And JAWS even brought that
computer to a very slow crawl after it had been running for more than about
2 hours using about 95% of system resources.  My only remedy for this was to
quit JAWS and restart it, which usually brought the system back to life for
another 2 to 3 hours, but usually less the more I did it.

Now on Linux I do a lot more.  I run actually 4 different web sites, still
small with few hits but more of them and I also run an ftp server with many
more and bigger files on it than I ever had running Windows XP.  I also run
a personal mail server to send and receive my own mail on 3 addresses with
the ability to add an unlimited additional number of addresses.  I also run
an NFS server to allow me to copy my files to and from my laptop.  And not
only do I run Speakup, but I also run Orca with the full Gnome GUI and
sometimes I even use FireFox 3.0 with the latest Orca to browse the web.
It's quite nice, BTW.  After all this and more, it is still possible for my
system to be up for 2 months or more without a single crash or other problem
that necessitates a reboot.  And this was true on my old Athlon XP system
with 512 MB of memory as well as it is true on my new AMD Athlon64x2 system
with 1GB of ram.  Most reboots were caused by my desire to live on the
bleeding edge and always upgrade to the latest kernel.  Of course to use the
new kernel, the system must be rebooted.  But I have learned to tame down
that desire somewhat and for the most part I just use Ubuntu and
upgrade/reboot on the new release.  This means it may actually be possible
to reboot my computer only once in a 6-month period.  WOW!  In Windows XP
that was unheardof.

Just my own personal experience for what it's worth, your mileage may vary.

Lorenzo
- --
I've always found anomalies to be very relaxing. It's a curse.
- --Jadzia Dax: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (The Assignment) -----BEGIN PGP
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