OFFICIAL - Nurse Shubles Crashes Computers [Archive]

ozlink

18th August 2001, 10:26

I would never have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes.

Just had nurse shubles around and in the space of about 2 hours she was abble to crash

* Windows twice
* Linux Once

Now I know it aint my machine because I havent had a crash in either OS for months and months. Like I couldnt even tell you the last time it crashed. But nurse shubles crashed it 3 times. And to quote from nurse shubles.
"All i was doing was typing"
She was. Just typing and it died.

All be warned. DONT under any circumstance let Nurse Shubles near your pc.

pps to wylie if your reading. Nurse shubles reminded me of the time you were out bush and she was on your PC and she crashed it. Wouldnt even boot afterwards. My advice to her was. "Call wylie and tell him NOW" :)

Dave S

18th August 2001, 11:05

Pheeeeeeeew glad I’m around the other side of the planet mate, I feel safe:D :p :D

wylie

18th August 2001, 11:18

Originally posted by ozlink

pps to wylie if your reading. Nurse shubles reminded me of the time you were out bush and she was on your PC and she crashed it. Wouldnt even boot afterwards. My advice to her was. "Call wylie and tell him NOW" :)

A-HAH!!!! so THATS what happened.....
all this time I was led to believe it was "just one of those things.."
thank you for the warning.....

PS - I didnt think it was too easy to crash linux.....

dnar

18th August 2001, 11:24

I once worked for a company that had a secretary like that! She was a static bomb!!!! No joke, she would walk past a computer and it wopuld crash!

We ended up sticking static strips above the function keys on the XeniX system!!! (She had the console for the server).

We even had a 286 that ran a "whos in" message board at reception. Now, on a tile floor (no carpet) every time she just walked past it crashed!!!!!!! Shu, your not ever comming near my puters!!!!

ozlink

18th August 2001, 12:00

Originally posted by wylie

PS - I didnt think it was too easy to crash linux.....

I am sure I will get some flames for this.

But personally I find linux just as easy to crash as windows :)

But in saying that I am not bagging either OS. Personally I find them just as reliable as each other. Its the applications you run on them that I find tend to be the crash causers.

for example. Give me a windows box with nothing other than windows installed on it.
And a nix box with nothing other than nix installed on it and they would probably go one for one as far as up time goes.

Start installing crappy programs written by god knows who then crashes start happening.

Also alot has to be said about the user.
I have known many windows gurus who know nothing about nix. and bag it just becuase they dont FULLY understand it. :D
The same can be said for nix gurus. Some bag windows only because they dont FULLY understand windows :D

You do obviously have a few gurus who are truely versed in both OS's

Just my 2 cents worth.

PS. Nurse shubbles has now been gone for about 2 hours and win2k hasnt crashed. (now no silly comments here. My 2k box is stable. Havent had a crash in....... cant remember its been that long :D

dnar

18th August 2001, 12:17

I partially agree. I have had lousy combinations of apps on Linux. But this is reasonable, given the development status of Linux. I currently have a very stable combination of apps and I therefore am loathed to update stuff for the hell of it.

As for Linux .v. M$ for stability..... Show me a Windows box that can come anywere near *nix for uptime............. I bet you cant.

I use Unix and NT boxes in serious industrial applications, we would never dream of using a Microsoft OS to run a power plant or Hydro station. Fine for workstation use at the lower end of process control, but for mission critical stuff, forget it!

We have Unix systems that run year round without ever crashing or requiring restarts..... I know of linux systems that have been up for over a year, ask Jodie about her news server, it has been up over 1200 days (3 years).

My 2 home Linux boxes were up for 51 days until we lost power last week, I never had Windows go more than a week at best. (24x7).

No dig, just the facts.

siggy

18th August 2001, 12:24

I think the problem is that you "GUYS" get electically charged anytime a beautiful Fem is around. YOU are the one crashing the computers. ;)

ozlink

18th August 2001, 12:41

Originally posted by dnar
I partially agree. I have had lousy combinations of apps on Linux. But this is reasonable, given the development status of Linux. I currently have a very stable combination of apps and I therefore am loathed to update stuff for the hell of it.

I know what you mean. I have a sweet as win2k config at the moment. I hate the thought of installing an update incase it takes me two steps backwards.

As for Linux .v. M$ for stability..... Show me a Windows box that can come anywere near *nix for uptime............. I bet you cant.

I use Unix and NT boxes in serious industrial applications, we would never dream of using a Microsoft OS to run a power plant or Hydro station. Fine for workstation use at the lower end of process control, but for mission critical stuff, forget it!

But then again I wouldnt expect a power plant or hydro station to be running a PC. I would hope they had someting a little more gruntier under the hood.

We have Unix systems that run year round without ever crashing or requiring restarts..... I know of linux systems that have been up for over a year, ask Jodie about her news server, it has been up over 1200 days (3 years).

My 2 home Linux boxes were up for 51 days until we lost power last week, I never had Windows go more than a week at best. (24x7).

Well I cant personally beat 3 years on a windows box. but I can your 51 days. (not at the moment but that is due to nurse shubles:) Howeer previously I had gone 156 days till a ligtning storm took out my pc and reticulation controller. :(
Since then I have been more viganlent and at the slightest sign of a storm I disconnect the PC from the mains and hope for the best.

[quote]
No dig, just the facts.
[quote]
I wasnt digging in the first place and I aint now. However I owuld like to restrict this debate (if it becomes any more) to the use of PC's as desktop workstations. Cause lets face it. Real servers arent run on the same hardware so why would one expect them to run the same software:D

ozlink

18th August 2001, 12:49

Originally posted by siggy
I think the problem is that you "GUYS" get electically charged anytime a beautiful Fem is around. YOU are the one crashing the computers. ;)

Hey. you might have something there.
I am sure I did feel something whilst nurse shubles was here.

..... What was it again.....

Thats right. the wife giving me a slap for looking :D

*very much only joking*

siggy

18th August 2001, 12:56

ROFL.....Well you probably deserve it. :D

ozlink

18th August 2001, 12:57

Originally posted by siggy
ROFL.....Well you probably deserve it. :D

Trust me .... I did desrve it :D

And yes it was worth it :D :D :D :D :D :D

shubles

18th August 2001, 13:06

Originally posted by ozlink
I would never have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes.

Just had nurse shubles around and in the space of about 2 hours she was abble to crash

* Windows twice
* Linux Once

Now I know it aint my machine because I havent had a crash in either OS for months and months. Like I couldnt even tell you the last time it crashed. But nurse shubles crashed it 3 times. And to quote from nurse shubles.
"All i was doing was typing"
She was. Just typing and it died.

All be warned. DONT under any circumstance let Nurse Shubles near your pc.

pps to wylie if your reading. Nurse shubles reminded me of the time you were out bush and she was on your PC and she crashed it. Wouldnt even boot afterwards. My advice to her was. "Call wylie and tell him NOW" :)

it WASNT me
i swear to G**

i couldnt
i wouldnt
i didnt do it

dnar

18th August 2001, 13:18

Originally posted by ozlink

I know what you mean. I have a sweet as win2k config at the moment. I hate the thought of installing an update incase it takes me two steps backwards.

But then again I wouldnt expect a power plant or hydro station to be running a PC. I would hope they had someting a little more gruntier under the hood.

Well I cant personally beat 3 years on a windows box. but I can your 51 days. (not at the moment but that is due to nurse shubles:) Howeer previously I had gone 156 days till a ligtning storm took out my pc and reticulation controller. :(

Since then I have been more viganlent and at the slightest sign of a storm I disconnect the PC from the mains and hope for the best.

[quote]

No dig, just the facts.

[quote]

I wasnt digging in the first place and I aint now. However I owuld like to restrict this debate (if it becomes any more) to the use of PC's as desktop workstations. Cause lets face it. Real servers arent run on the same hardware so why would one expect them to run the same software:D [/B]

Well actually, we have the Ord Hydro scheme totally automated, running from 2 Unix boxes, both DEL 233Mhz machines.......

Yeh, your biggest prob with installing anything new in Windows is the registry and possible DLL conflicts..... If it works good, leave it alone!

My uptime of 51 days, was not huge, but given the chance would have been. Man, I wish we had better power..... My poor UPS is only capable of 10 minutes!

I used to unplug puters, unplug phone line from modems etc too.... Now running G@H I take my chances!

Rick_Deadly

18th August 2001, 13:19

Originally posted by siggy
I think the problem is that you "GUYS" get electically charged anytime a beautiful Fem is around. YOU are the one crashing the computers. ;)

And a beautiful women with a quick wit near a guy will usually cause a lot of sparks :)

ozlink

18th August 2001, 13:31

Originally posted by dnar

My uptime of 51 days, was not huge, but given the chance would have been. Man, I wish we had better power..... My poor UPS is only capable of 10 minutes!

What brand and size UPS do you have?
I have toyed with the idea of getting a UPS but have always backed away because cost was prohibitive especially since I am not running anything mission critical here at home where I must have my PC on 24x7 (mind you it normally is)
Nowadays the cost is not so much of an issue.

Hans Arne Iversen

18th August 2001, 13:32

Originally posted by dnar
As for Linux .v. M$ for stability..... Show me a Windows box that can come anywere near *nix for uptime............. I bet you cant.
.........
I never had Windows go more than a week at best. (24x7).

My 1ghz have been running fine with win98 since may.
No restarts in 5 months.
Had to turn it of two days ago because the lightning was a little to close to home.

Dustin

18th August 2001, 13:42

I have a (genome only) Tbird 1.2 OCed to 1.5/150 running Win98se. Haven't installed anything but Win98. It's been up 24/7, no reboots since the early June.

dnar

18th August 2001, 13:51

Ok, granted... But are you using the machine for anything other than G@H???? When I use Word, Excel with stuff like Lotus Notes and Xceed running on NT, it goes down or crashes apps quite often...

I did have a nice stable Win95 system prior to Linux, but that was only after a fresh install of the OS and just the required app loaded. Still only ever seamed to run fine for like 4 or 5 days before weird stuff would happen.

MechCD

18th August 2001, 14:04

I think dnar's right, weird stuff just happens with windows, its most likely because of nvidias semi stable drivers combined with the weird VIA driver differences, like one version of VIAs werks with one version of nvidias. I'm not saying windows can't be stable, its jsust that most system that are used by peeps aren't

My 1ghz on't run for more than 2 days before it just does weird stuff, like MBM4 just decided to quit, and then the keyboard wouldn't work in windows, but it would in the BIOS, i had to shut it off for 10 mins and fire it back up.

However, my 450mhz G@H machine hasn't had nay problems since i tried to overclock it too much.

the 1 ghz is used for gaming and other puter tasks, but it runs G@H 24/7

My linux box has been OK, until i mess with stuff. but messing with stuff is my fault. One time it has just botched was due to an unstable overclock / storm. i think the power went out and the USB printer threw fits at linux (puter has UPS, printer does not) and it just crashed. That was my fault to, I should have the printer on the UPS, or I shouldn't have left it overclocked while i was gone.

ahem, windows is only stable at 1.33 ghz (its a 1.3 ghz cpu) and linux is stable at 1496mhz (1.49 ghz)

dnar

18th August 2001, 14:10

Let me say this mech:

Linux may appear to be stable at higher clock rates than Windows... BUT.... In reality, what tends to happen is Linux is actually having a hard time, it just appears happy. Windows will bawk almost immediately.

I tend to find you are best to use Windows to find the maximum O/C for the system then run Linux.

Hans Arne Iversen

18th August 2001, 14:10

Originally posted by dnar
Ok, granted... But are you using the machine for anything other than G@H???? When I use Word, Excel with stuff like Lotus Notes and Xceed running on NT, it goes down or crashes apps quite often...

I did have a nice stable Win95 system prior to Linux, but that was only after a fresh install of the OS and just the required app loaded. Still only ever seamed to run fine for like 4 or 5 days before weird stuff would happen.

Use excel often, play games (sims. quake3, serious sam,etc...)
photoshop, frontpage .........................................
No problems at all.

MechCD

18th August 2001, 14:14

from dnar's reply

Der..........

Windows won't oveclock wortha poo nugget... thats baaaaad

It boots ok at 1.49, but it kinda barfs in games

dnar

18th August 2001, 14:18

hehehe. My Tbird system was built with Win95 originally, I wanted an easy OS to play with O/C before loading Linux on. Linux is not ideal for crashing and rebooting during system stressing with O/C.....

I was most dissapointed when I could not even acheive 10% O/C on an AXIA "K" Tbird..... Win95 just would not boot above 1100Mhz.... In the end I loaded my Linux distro and setup my data backups, then thought what the [H] I'll try again with Linux. 1522Mhz no probs.

Lesson: Windows 95 has serious race condition problems and does not like running on fast systems...... Next time it will be Win98 for testing.

MechCD

18th August 2001, 14:25

somethins wrong, me has that super stepping (was it AXIA of ayha?)

voltage 1.85v
fsb 136
mult 11.5x
watercooled, temps never higher than 105F (bout 40c)

WINDOWS WON"T BE STABLE!!!!!!
Asus a7v133

PC133 cas3 ram

dernit

dnar

18th August 2001, 14:29

Originally posted by MechCD
somethins wrong, me has that super stepping (was it AXIA of ayha?)

voltage 1.85v

fsb 136

mult 11.5x

watercooled, temps never higher than 105F (bout 40c)

WINDOWS WON"T BE STABLE!!!!!!

Asus a7v133

PC133 cas3 ram

dernit

Ok, I have AXIA "K"
PC150 cas3 RAM
Vcore 1.85V
Vio 3.6V <----- important!!!!
FSB 145 (works great at 150, but me paranoid)
Mult 10x (works also at 10.5 but me paranoid)
Air cooled, temps at 33.7c now, 38c max during the day

WINDOWS WON:T BE STABLE <------ You know my answer to that......

Maybe you should try some good Mushkin or Crucial PC150 or PC166 RAM???

MechCD

18th August 2001, 14:32

Ok windows still not quite stable at 130 fsb and 11.5x multiplier, its about the same, i think its me cheap vid card

its a Geforce 1 sdr SE (slower ram and slower clock) 110 gpu speed, 143 ram speed

VIOis 3.6v

it only botches in 3d games

G@H seems fine

dnar

18th August 2001, 14:33

Could well be the video driver..... Talk with phil re: good 3D video cards, he has reviewed a fair few. I am no expert on that subject, I am not a gammer and just use the Matrox G450 dual-head beast. Great card, the Matrox drivers rock in Linux, good dual-head support, nice image and reliable.

phil

18th August 2001, 14:41

Yeah, I use the Matrox G450 in both my Linux boxes and it is awesome. I use a Radeon 64Mb DDR VIVO for my Win2K box and that is also great. All 3 machines run 150fsb 24x7.

wbierman

18th August 2001, 16:18

My experience has been this. If you don't know what you are doing then your machine will do weird things, windows - Linux, makes no difference. Over clocked or not.

There are many variables to this issue. How good is your memory? Did you buy cheap memory or Crucial? How stable is your motherboard? Does your motherboard have the latest BIOS update? Have you applied the latest OS updates or security fixes?

EVERY OS has flaws because software is created by humans which by their very nature are flawed.

MS has improved greatly since Win 3.1. The same with Linux. Try running a Linux build from 4 years ago. Everyone is improving. MS improved Win2K by lowering the number of mandatory reboots from 89 to 12. NO its not at zero yet, but I don't think it will be much longer before it is. They have already greatly reduced and are nearing the ability to apply a patch without rebooting.

As far as mission critical machines go... there is failover clustering. If a machine fails for whatever reason, other machines in the cluster take over. That has the benifit of allowing upgrades -hardware or software from affecting the mission critical application.

I read an editotial written by an obvious Linux supporter, proclaiming that MS by it lousy software design and the CodeRed worm had proven to the world that MS had absolutely no business on the Internet.

I was quickly reminded that "guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people." The same goes for software... IIS didn't cause the Code Red worm to wreak havoc... but rather all the STUPID administrators who didn't keep their systems up to date. I patched all my servers back in June when the patch was first released.

That is no different than a Unix Admin who leaves his/her system open logged in as SU. There are idiots everywhere!

I love the folks who proclaim that their Linux firewall has run for ever. Sure ... why wouldn't it run forever? Its only doing ONE thing. Once you set your scripts your done! Servers for that matter tend to do just a couple of things. That alone makes them stable. You usually don't run 30 to 40 different 3rd party applications on a server. You have dedicated servers that run a paticular app like messaging, or print spooling, file sharing, database, or Web serving.

Who in there right mind would run a OS preview like Win XP on a production server? You wouldn't do that! Period!

Workstations are a whole other matter. My production WSs never crash because I don't mess around with any shareware or freeware apps floating around the Web. I don't run any "beta" software either. I have a dedicated Beta machine for that. I don't care if that machine gets hosed.

Would I ever use Win 98 or ME as a workstation? NEVER They barely work as clients. They were made for consumers. Consumers will use whatever they are sold. They have never learned to request better.

Would I use Win NT as a WS? Sure but Win2K is much better with less reboots and better hardware support. I had NT workstations and servers that would run for a year plus between Service Packs without a reboot or "crash". It is all relative.

I ran Mandrake 7 last year. It ran fine. I had no idea what all the apps were. They all had funny names which required me to try them to find out what they would do. I wanted to try Photoshop but there isn't a PS port yet. I've run that app for years. I have no desire nor time to relearn a Linux image app. I want PS!

It all comes down to the apps! OS2 was terrific... there just aren't apps for it. Thats why it runs all teller machines today. It does that very well.

Dustin

18th August 2001, 16:43

Originally posted by wbierman
My experience has been this. If you don't know what you are doing then your machine will do weird things, windows - Linux, makes no difference. Over clocked or not.

I agree with you 100% there. I run W2K on almost all of my boxes, but I've even been able to get the "crappy" and "unstable" WinME to run for many weeks on end w/o rebooting. But I only use quality hardware like ASUS & Crucial...

It all comes down to the quality of your hardware, and knowing what you're doing. As for the command line Linux, that's basically like running DOS. How often have you ever crashed DOS?

I agree with you on the software part too. Most people constantly install and uninstall shady software.

Rick_Deadly

18th August 2001, 19:23

Just a side note about Asus mainboards. A lot of people consider Asus mainboards to be one of the most stable on the market.

The question is... How many people know it's because Asus ships all of their mainboards with the VIO over volted at 3.4v?

The big difference between Windows and Linux is that Linux has always been a true 32bit OS. If an app in Linux craps out, it does not take the system down like many Windows apps can. I've never had a Linux system "freeze", but of course it has happened many times on Windows systems. I do have to admit that WinNT was a huge jump forward for MS though.

When I was the sys admin for our Internet system at work, the main 5 servers I i9nterfaced with where:
Intel - NT4
2ea Intel - Linux
2ea Sparc - Linux

In 18 months, none of these 5 servers ever "froze". You can do the job with NT or Linux, but we saved about $6,000 in licensing fees by using Linux and Linux server apps on most of the servers. It makes a big difference when you actually have to pay for the OS's and App's instead of copying them from a friend :)

Windows and Solaris are very expensive!

wbierman

18th August 2001, 20:01

Lets clarify Windows a bit. Win NT 3.51, 4.0; Win2K, Win XP are pure 32bit code and have been since '95. MS called them the "business" OSs.

Win 3.11, Win95, 98, 98SE, ME are all bastard 16/32 bit OSs. They will run fine if you can tweak the OS to match your hardware. They are all famous for crashing and burning on a regular basis. I don't use them for anything!

I can remember when Win 95 came out and for the first time you could "multitask"! I could format a floppy while working in Word Perfect and do both at the same time!. It took the Mac platform years to get to that point. In '95 Linux was not even a sparkle in Linus' eye. (Sorry if I have misspelled his name.)

We have come a LONG way in the last 6 years! What will it be like 5 years from now?

Dustin

18th August 2001, 20:19

Originally posted by Rick_Deadly
Just a side note about Asus mainboards. A lot of people consider Asus mainboards to be one of the most stable on the market.

The question is... How many people know it's because Asus ships all of their mainboards with the VIO over volted at 3.4v?

This is true with recent boards. However, my ASUS P2B Rev 1 didn't have any over volting. No twaeks at all for that matter. No other BX board (including ASUS) can match that boards stability. The VIO really only plays a small part in the stability picture (only when OCing).

Originally posted by wbierman
We have come a LONG way in the last 6 years! What will it be like 5 years from now?

It's pretty exciting to think about. I just hope it's not Win2K Rev 20.

dnar

18th August 2001, 23:08

Originally posted by wbierman
In '95 Linux was not even a sparkle in Linus' eye. (Sorry if I have misspelled his name.)

Actually.... In October 1991 the original kernel was running.

The 10th Aniversary is almost here!

wbierman

18th August 2001, 23:24

You're correct Dnar. I got my dates mixed up. In those early years, what was running besides the kernel.

I also remember trying Linux 6 years ago when the only way to get it running was to find someone who had it running and match their hardware EXCATLY or you were out of luck.

dnar

18th August 2001, 23:32

Originally posted by wbierman

You're correct Dnar. I got my dates mixed up. In those early years, what was running besides the kernel.

I also remember trying Linux 6 years ago when the only way to get it running was to find someone who had it running and match their hardware EXCATLY or you were out of luck.

Yup too true. For those that dont know much about Linux, only the kernel is actually Linux, and you do not see the kernel! The Windows managers, desktop managers, and hunderds of command line programs and user applications that complete the package are not technically called Linux!!! Although, these apps and the kernel together are referred to as "Linux Distribution".

Yup, in the early days, a kernel alone was pretty darn useless! I remeber playing with it in 1992, it was given to me on several floppy disks, I compiled it and got it running, then thought what now??? That was the end of the Linux experience for me until 1996.

Hardware support is finally getting very good, the kernel now supports USB and XFrees86 is also catching up with video card support. Manufacturers are also waking up, and adding driver support for Linux. HP for instance are getting InkJet drivers together as we speak. Linux has come a long way just in the past 2 years, and the next year or two are set to really push Linux into the mainstream. It is very exciting. Only this year have I been able to survive on Linux as a primiary OS, although I still rely on Win4Lin for some things such as DOS compilers and Windows business software.

MechCD

19th August 2001, 00:02

Ok, how bout Micron ram?

der, I'm pretty darn good with windows, i still can't get the stupid video stable......

dnar

19th August 2001, 00:07

I have read that Micron is good RAM. Some of the "PC133" Micron RAM is actually 6nS stuff, good for 160+ FSB.

Jodie

19th August 2001, 00:58

I believe, personally, that windows [whatever] is a fine desktop OS, but for server tasks, Linux blows them out of the water. Lets face it - Windows 2k kernel- 27million lines of code. Linux 2.4.2 kernel - 8964 lines of code. Programmers all suck rocks, myself included. Which are you going to trust to a mission critical application: 27 million (by MS's account) lines of unreleased code, or ~9000 lines of released/peer reviewed code?

As far as a desktop OS goes, nothing beats windows.

I'm fond of linux for pure horsepower tasks because I can remove EVERY line of code that doesn't directly impact the running of the task I wish it to run, hence, it will always be faster. If I could modify Windows to my hearts content and not Linux, Windows would be faster.

My machine that's been up for 3+ years serves 190 ish users, moves 34 Gigabytes/day of data, saturates 5 full T-1s, maxes four SCSI RAID channels and runs a 4 year old kernel. It's kinda hard to argue with that stability. Of course, four years ago I wrote the TCP stack that's running on it (whilst working for a fledgling little company called "RedHat" and was rewriting the Slakware stack to be more tolerant), and it's optimized to hell and back. It's simply the fastest network/usenet machine around, period. You'll not find another 386-16 with 32 meg of memory capable of saturating 6 Mbits of network connection 24 hrs/day 7days/wk and serving about 200 users with physical connection on a bank of 300 modems. But by the same token, I believe that I could make a windows machine do the same thing if someone gave me the source (delete delete delete delete) and paid me to do nothing but that for a year.. ...

NetBSD and SCO Unix were also both good at that task. Solaris on the SPARC (_NOT_ the x86) were also good at that...

dnar

19th August 2001, 01:12

Sorry Jodes, the linux kernel is now over 2 million lines of code including all of the loadable kernel modules. I dont have the curent line count but here is the timeline of the kernel:

1991 - Linus begins the big advernture. - 1 user (Linus)
1992 - 40,000 lines - approx 1,000 users
1993 - 100,000 lines - approx 20,000 users
1994 - 170,000 lines - approx 100,000 users
1995 - 250,000 lines - approx 500,000 users
1996 - 400,000 lines - approx 1,500,000 users
1997 - 800,000 lines - approx 4,000,000 users
1998 - 1,500,000 lines - approx 7,500,00 users
1999 - 1,700,000 lines - approx 10,000,000 users
2000 - 2,000,000+ lines - more than 15,000,000 users
2001 - No figures available. Anyone?

wbierman

19th August 2001, 01:25

Crucial is a division of Micron Technologies.

wbierman

19th August 2001, 01:44

Jodie-

I can't argue with you on your super machine. Sounds fantastic! But when it comes to OS code... I don't care if its 50 million lines of seceret code or 5000 lines of peer review... It is all done by falable humans... period.

Every week I receive the Sans Institute Securtiy Newsletter. Every week there are new vunerablilities croping up on almost every OS, Solaris, Linux with all its flavors, and Windows. It is never ending.... so peer reveive and all its cracked up to be is really no better than a bunch of Mountain Dew sucking Microsofties banging code 24/7/365.....

A question on your super 386... it seems you have a fairly fixed client load. Could that machine scale to 300, 400, or even 500 clients without a major hardware upgrade?

Jodie

19th August 2001, 02:01

Nope, the loadable modules aren't the 'Kernel'

The 'Kernel' is the basic "what you must have to run" system. Which can be done in 9k lines of code. I can post those lines for you if you like. I know them all by heart after YEARS of working with them...

dnar

19th August 2001, 02:07

I stand corrected. It was worth being slightly wrong just for the spanking! :rolleyes: :D :rolleyes: :D :rolleyes: :D :rolleyes: :D

Jodie

19th August 2001, 02:13

Suuure, I bet you just love spankings. Naughty bad evil penguin. It's time for the spankings!

wbierman

19th August 2001, 02:58

Oh no...this is getting to kinky for me....

Jodie

19th August 2001, 03:07

Originally posted by wbierman
Jodie-

I can't argue with you on your super machine. Sounds fantastic! But when it comes to OS code... I don't care if its 50 million lines of seceret code or 5000 lines of peer review... It is all done by falable humans... period.

Agreed. But I'd rather that human be me, and that the number of lines I need to grok be smaller. Less margin for error. But other than that, agreed.

A question on your super 386... it seems you have a fairly fixed client load. Could that machine scale to 300, 400, or even 500 clients without a major hardware upgrade?

3-400, maybe. Much more than that and the poor thing would puke. It can hop over small buildings with a few tries... Now a PIII tasked with the same thing- different story. Might have trouble getting it out of orbit. [grin] We've stress-tested a PIII-dual running our neural network and streaming video to 150,000 simultaneous varied clients. The machine running our custom kernel can saturate 3Gbit/sec of network pipe. And stay up for months doing it. We're not supporting Windows on the server side (NT/2kServer) because it simply doesn't scale across 4-8 processors the way that some of the *nices do. And that's after MONTHS of profiling, with Microsoft engineers in house with us, working and tweaking. They finally gave up and went home... [shrug] I'm willing to believe that microsoft was just yanking our chain and sent junior nobodies out to assist, though. Although they blew-off a $60M deal with the largest telecom in the world by doing so, as it turns out...

wbierman

19th August 2001, 03:17

bummer.... I think those boys are more interested in Web scaling or SQL scaling than anything else...

wbierman

19th August 2001, 03:20

We're not supporting Windows on the server side (NT/2kServer) because it simply doesn't scale across 4-8 processors the way that some of the *nices do.

Thought of trying it on a Data Server box running 32 CPUs?

Jodie

19th August 2001, 03:22

We're running on some 32 processor SPARCs and a 512 processor T3D cray. does that count? One of the 32 processor SPARCs is running Linux SMP.

wbierman

19th August 2001, 03:33

excuse me.......

Jodie

19th August 2001, 03:41

??? :confused:

dnar

19th August 2001, 09:40

Originally posted by Jodie

Nope, the loadable modules aren't the 'Kernel'

The 'Kernel' is the basic "what you must have to run" system. Which can be done in 9k lines of code. I can post those lines for you if you like. I know them all by heart after YEARS of working with them...

At the risk of receiving another slap (I wish), I choose to argue the point, that the kernel be your 9000 lines of core + the required modules necessary to provide a functional system. The fact that the "modules" are loadable does not exclude them from being classified "kernel".

>>>> ;)SLAP HERE;)<<<<

wbierman

19th August 2001, 14:16

"excuse me...." means I should just shut the hell up... you've got it covered...

Jodie

19th August 2001, 15:16

Originally posted by dnar

At the risk of receiving another slap (I wish), I choose to argue the point, that the kernel be your 9000 lines of core + the required modules necessary to provide a functional system. The fact that the "modules" are loadable does not exclude them from being classified "kernel".

>>>> ;)SLAP HERE;)<<<<

Ok, insert slap. For my personal application referenced in this conversation - I don't need more than 9k lines of code to bring the system up and get it to do what I want, specifically, connect to the 'Net, pull down genomic data, crunch it efficiently and push it back to the 'Net. Sheesh, like pullin' penguin teeth around here.

Jodie

19th August 2001, 15:19

Originally posted by wbierman
"excuse me...." means I should just shut the hell up... you've got it covered...

Actually, I would like to know what your scalability experience is with Windows above 8procs... We have some Alpha's running NT at 8procs and as I said, big machines running more than that, but not with windows. At 8procs I see about 86% scalability of NT4.0 and 94% with Linux SMP, 96% with Solaris, 99.96% with Cosix. What are your experiences with massively parallel windows machines? And where do I find that hardware above 8procs?

The reference to the T3D should be T3E, btw... It was late, or early or something.

wbierman

19th August 2001, 16:16

Lets see...

It was a year ago down in Redwood City. A cluster of 3 Unisys ES 7000 racks running Win2K Data Center. 32 Intel Xeons in each box. I believe each box also had 64 GB of RAM with 256MB of Level III cache. The cluster was running a real time un-named airline global flight path simulator. Basically generating the best flight paths based on passenger load, distance, fuel, and weather patterns.

What was different was "The ES7000's Cellular MultiProcessing (CMP) architecture and partitioning capability, which enables administrators to create "servers within a server."

This was the biggest hardware I'd ever seen! I was amazzed how they scale from 16 CPUs to 32 CPUs, all from checking a few Check Boxes and clicking on the Apply button.

8 CPUs was pretty much the limit with Intel until Unisys developed their CMP technology. Many companies are using these systems now due to them being a 1/3 of the cost of a Sun/Unix soloution. What is interesting is that they are realizing the same performance with 32/32 CPUs vs. Sun's 64/64 processors. Unisys has plans to move to the new Itaniums when they arrive on the market.

Reality time.... The companies that have moved to this more scalable Unisys hardware were Windows shops to begin with. Its like religeon.... if your a windows shop you stay with windows, if your a Unix shop you stay with Unix.... that is just the way it is....