[Gloucs] As if I needed more reasons not to use Windows....

[Iain Calder]

Paul Broadhead wrote:

>Hi folks, here's a story for you.
>
<snip good story>

Much as I hate to even remotely support Microsoft, I think Paul's tale 
raises some interesting issues.

It's worth pointing out that Windows 95 and 98 are very old now, I guess 
equivalent to the Redhat 4/5 era?  I wonder whether a Redhat 4/5 install 
would work on a modern system, with say a new Athlon chipset or P4, USB, 
etc., and in fact there would be no point trying to install such an old 
Linux distro as it would be extremely insecure and updates are not 
available unless you roll them yourself.

Of course, the point is you could roll them yourself or you could just 
upgrade to a modern Linux release, however I guess Microsoft deserve 
some credit for reasonably long support periods for their products.  
These days rapid availablity of security patches is *vital* for any OS 
on any machine apart from maybe a single-user non internet-connected PC.

Contrast this with the current state of desktop Redhat, which now has 
only a year-long support period.  Of course, the solution for businesses 
is to buy one of Redhat's enterprise versions, but then one of the cost 
advantages of Linux immediately disappears.

There are other distributions around of course, but the only other one 
I'd rely on for consistent and timely errata fixes over a long period is 
Debian.

Iain