[GRLUG] value of time and why I run Linux

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Adam Tauno
Williams<awilliam at whitemice.org> wrote:
>> your machine reboot because a bunch of patches got downloaded, or having
>> something break because a "patch" was downloaded a control issue, but
>> because I want something that works and doesn't freeze up because of a
>> code picked up in passing from a google search.
>
> I use an Vista VM quite a bit and other than things getting mucked up my
> installers [and I am testing alpha/beta software] I don't really have
> any stability issues.  Starting with XP I think most of the Windows
> workstation stability issues were resolved,  the once a week reboot for
> updates doesn't bother me.

The kernel is rock solid from XPSP2 onward.  The changes they've made
to their graphical shell in Vista weren't so well-thought-out, though,
and Explorer is now much more sensitive to badly-behaved shell
extensions (and other things) causing system-wide UI hangs.
Whatever's hanging, they were kind enough to include a timeout on the
wait, but the timeout is somewhere around a minute; Long enough to
lose your concentration, not long enough to get something else done
while waiting.

Their official patch cycle is monthly, but they occasionally push out
high-priority patches in response to urgent threats, and they
occasionally push out patches that override your local "ask me before
installing" settings.

Additionally, my workspace grows as I use it, with a number of
programs and tools running long-term and concurrently, text editors
acting as temporary paste buffers--enough that I'll hibernate rather
than log out.  Coming into the office and discovering Microsoft
decided my computer was going to reboot, no ifs, ands or buts about
it, means time wasted as things grow back to where I'm most
productive.  More exciting is when I'm still at the office when the
system decides it's going to reboot; I get a window saying the system
is going to reboot to install system updates in N seconds.

-- 
:wq