RE: why linux? -- MIDRANGE-L

> A simple feature comparison.  In WIN32 a mutex name can be up to MAX_PATH
> length.  I think that is 400 characters.  On POSIX on the 400, I think the
> max length of the name is 16 characters counting the null term.

You're talking about the name that's printed when debugging?  (That's the
bit that's limited to 16 bytes on the iSeries)   It has no size limit in
either Linux or BSD.  If you can allocate enough memory to store the
string, you can use it.  At any rate, it's a whole lot more than 400
bytes.


> Now I dont know how things are done in POSIX, but in WIN32 when I have
> to assign a name that will never clash with another on the system, I
> create a guid ( 16 bytes ) and convert the hex to character ( 32
> characters ).  Then as I need more names that are offshoots of the base
> name, I just add on a few more characters. Works out pretty well.  Not
> minding being proved wrong, I dont know how that is done in POSIX/LINUX.

The name isn't used to differentiate mutexes in POSIX, it's just used for
debugging.  A "mutex id" is used to differentiate them (the mutex id is a
4-byte integer assigned by the system)

To me it makes a whole lot more sense to have the system assign the ID
when it's important that it be kept unique.  Having to come up with a
unique string doesn't make much sense to me, but it may be because the
early versions of Windows didn't have "real" multitasking, and
therefore there were no process ids, thread ids, etc.


> Based on the little I know, it looks like microsoft took posix and improved
> on it.  IBM has taken it and just dropped it on the as400 as is.  And Linux,
> guided by one fellow named Linus, has been preoccupied with rewriting it and
> has also not improved on it.

I have no idea why you think that.

>
> Which platform do you want to move forward on?
>

Well, over the past 2 months I've spent upwards of 100 hours fixing
viruses on our 20 Windows PCs.   I certainly don't want to keep doing
that.

I've also been receiving hundreds of e-mail messages (many with a "from"
address that indicates list members, though they're probably faked)
from viruses running on Windows PCs.

Why are there so many?  Because Microsoft has not taken security seriously.
Windows also crashes regularly...  Linux, BSD and OS/400 do not.

Every time I read one of these "religious wars" where people adamantly
defend Windows, I always find myself thinking "What would Microsoft have
to do in order for these people to lose faith in them?"   And, I can't
imagine anything!

I mean, if the OS being unstable doesn't do it -- and the security being
an afterthought doesn't do it -- and the almost continual compatibility
problems don't do it -- and the fact that they make up new standards
instead of following existing ones doesn't do it.... what will?

And then I wonder why I enter these discussions.  Since if Windows being a
piece of junk doesn't convince you to try something else, certainly
nothing that I say will.