Windows vs Linux, Pros and Cons

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-02-04 07:07pm

I thought 2000 had hardlinks (softlinks too?, since NTFS is supposed to be posix compliant)

Yes I know hardlinks aren't quite the same, since a file isn't really deleted until you delete all copies of the 'links' (each link and the original file have equal status).

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-02-04 07:31pm

Pu-239 wrote:There's also plex86 so you can run windows under linux (open source clone of VMware). You need shitloads of ram though, and games won't work. Plex86 development seems to have died, and is only in alpha, so you might want to use Bochs, which is an emulator instead of virtualization software, so it is a lot slower. However, if you have a mac, Bochs allows you to run windows software, since it emulates x86 hardware. Yes I'm talking to you, Durandal.

URLS:
http://bochs.sf.net
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/plex86

Yes, I've heard of bochs. I don't really have the need to run Windows software, though, and the software I would want to run could never perform well on an emulator.

I've got X11 installed, so if I need something specific, I'm sure I can find something on sourceforge.

Mike, Windows does have something like symbolic links (.lnk files), but those links cannot go across file systems like symlinks can.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-02-04 07:41pm

Symlinks rock, and I wished Windows natively supported them (only hard links and junctions at the moment).

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-02-04 07:41pm

Durandal wrote:Mike, Windows does have something like symbolic links (.lnk files), but those links cannot go across file systems like symlinks can.

No! Don't even compare Shortcuts with symlinks, they are not alike at all.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-04 07:44pm

phongn wrote:No! Don't even compare Shortcuts with symlinks, they are not alike at all.

I'll second that. Shortcuts are crappy and very dependant upon file location. Move something from one partition to another and all the shortcuts will break...

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-02-04 07:44pm

HERETIC!!! Shortcuts are inferior (they operate at the shell level). And shortcuts can go across filesystems

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-02-04 09:08pm

What's the major difference, then? If you move the target file, a symlink won't work anymore. Same with a shortcut. What power does operating at the file system level give symlinks over shortcuts being at the shell level?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-04 09:15pm

Durandal wrote:What's the major difference, then? If you move the target file, a symlink won't work anymore. Same with a shortcut. What power does operating at the file system level give symlinks over shortcuts being at the shell level?

A symbolic link is indistinguishable from the file itself, for all intents and purposes, while a shortcut is merely a glorified batch file that redirects the shell to go to a certain location.

If you try to view a .LNK file with a text editor, do you get the target file? Of course not; you get the code in the .LNK file. If you try to view a symbolic link with a text editor, you see the target file.

You can make a symlink to a directory, cd to that symlink, and be taken to the directory. Let's say your hard drive is filling up, and you want to move a huge 2.5GB directory (say, UT2003) files from C: to F:, a network drive. If you do this in Windows, you have to manually update all of your shortcuts, and maybe some registry entries too. In *nix, you move the directory, create a symbolic link from the old location to the new one, AND NONE OF THE SOFTWARE WILL NOTICE THE DIFFERNCE. It will think the directory is still in its old location because of the symbolic link.

Try that with a pathetic .LNK file.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-02-04 09:21pm

On linux, if you move the target, the symlink still works, since it's linked to a number assigned to the file (right?). Does MacOS still use HFS. They need to move to a real *nix filesystem. HFS is case aware but not case sensitive, so you can't have two filenames that are the same except for different cases, if you wanted. Also, you can name the symlink whatever you want, it doesn't have to end in .lnk, so you can replace files with a symlink to where it actually is, without the program having to worry about supporting shortcuts. There is no differentiation between a symlink and the actual file, other than when you delete the link the data is still there.

There's an Ext2fs driver for 2K too, so you can access your linux partitions (though I don't know what happens to file permissions)

Oh and does Mandrake use devfs?

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-02-05 02:22am

Crayz9000 wrote:
phongn wrote:No! Don't even compare Shortcuts with symlinks, they are not alike at all.
I'll second that. Shortcuts are crappy and very dependant upon file location. Move something from one partition to another and all the shortcuts will break...

*groans*
That argument died with windows 95, or some time around that.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-02-05 02:28am

Durandal wrote:What's the major difference, then? If you move the target file, a symlink won't work anymore. Same with a shortcut

Nope, move a file and a shortcut still works.
Unless you move the file of the local harddrives...

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-05 02:45am

His Divine Shadow wrote:*groans*
That argument died with windows 95, or some time around that.

Oh yeah? Windows still has to search for the damned file, then it modifies the shortcut to reflect the change. The only difference is that Windows now does it for you.

Link files are still inferior to symbolic links.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-02-05 03:00am

Darth Wong wrote: But since Office file formats are kept under lock and key, nobody trusts any office software but Microsoft's office software, so you end up with the ridiculous travesty of people paying $500 for OS and apps to write memos.

Who the fuck would use M$ Word to type memos? Just use Wordpad, which
comes with Windows, free of charge

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-05 03:04am

MKSheppard wrote:Who the fuck would use M$ Word to type memos? Just use Wordpad, which comes with Windows, free of charge

Most people aren't even aware of Wordpad's existence, apparently. You also can't do really fancy formatting with it

They use Office only because the company installs it on all the computers...

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-02-05 03:43am

Crayz9000 wrote:Oh yeah? Windows still has to search for the damned file, then it modifies the shortcut to reflect the change. The only difference is that Windows now does it for you

Nope.
Move the file and it'll start without a search, a search will only happen if the file is lost, as in deleted or moved off the local hardrive to say a network drive.

Link files are still inferior to symbolic links.

Hardly tried to claim or imply that.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-02-05 03:45am

Notepad rules them all.

Hmm... One program to rule them all...

So, Office, thats hmm 6 programs.
"and 6 programs where given to the race of men"

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-02-05 03:53am

His Divine Shadow wrote:Notepad rules them all.

Hmm... One program to rule them all...

So, Office, thats hmm 6 programs.
"and 6 programs where given to the race of men"

Microsoft Word and the rest of office is bad???

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-02-05 04:24am

Shinova wrote: Microsoft Word and the rest of office is bad???

You forget that EVIL is GOOD

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-05 11:03am

His Divine Shadow wrote:Nope.
Move the file and it'll start without a search, a search will only happen if the file is lost, as in deleted or moved off the local hardrive to say a network drive.

Ah, yes. That explains the slight delay when I moved the file and tried to launch it via its shortcut.

I mean, come on! How do you think Windows works? I'm saying that Windows has to search for it--how else is it going to find the file?--but you just don't see it! In fact, if you move the shortcut far enough--say, 5 subfolders--you WILL see the "Missing shortcut" dialog pop up...

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-02-05 11:54am

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Shinova wrote: Microsoft Word and the rest of office is bad???
You forget that EVIL is GOOD

Just wondering why notepad is the one........damn that document size limit....

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-05 11:57am

Shinova wrote:Just wondering why notepad is the one........damn that document size limit....

They finally fixed that, BTW. But you have to have NT Notepad... which only comes with NT 4, 2000, or XP.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-02-05 12:01pm

Get one of the NT-based OSs and said file-size limitation will dissapear.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-02-05 12:01pm

Crayz9000 wrote:
Shinova wrote:Just wondering why notepad is the one........damn that document size limit....
They finally fixed that, BTW. But you have to have NT Notepad... which only comes with NT 4, 2000, or XP.

Oh.

Actually, I still like Word over notepad.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-02-05 12:44pm

Pu-239 wrote:On linux, if you move the target, the symlink still works, since it's linked to a number assigned to the file (right?).

I don't think that's the case. This is how aliases on Mac OS work, sort of. Each file with an alias is assigned an identification number in the file system, so if you move the target file, the alias still works. It used to be that the system would search for the ID first and the path second. In OS X v10.2, Apple switched the order to start transitioning things to work more like *nix, I assume.

Does MacOS still use HFS. They need to move to a real *nix filesystem. HFS is case aware but not case sensitive, so you can't have two filenames that are the same except for different cases, if you wanted.

Yes, Mac OS X uses HFS+, by default. It can use UFS, but UFS is just slower than shit on OS X, at this point, but Apple does include it as a formatting option. The default, for now, is HFS+.

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-02-05 04:38pm

Shinova wrote:The best Windows versions (XP, 2000, etc) and Linux (Mandrake, Red Hat, etc). What are the pros and cons of each?

Also, which version of Linux is the best out there?

Just split my Sony Viao between its native Win 98 and SuSE Linux 8.1. The Linux looks nice, but it won't recognize the WinModem built into my F-430. Still, since the company I'll command in August or September has multiple systems with Unix, I figured I ought to learn something about the OS, and from what I've heard, Linux is derived from various forms of Unix...

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Windows vs Linux, Pros and Cons

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