[rescue] Re: [geeks] THIS. MAKES. ME. SICK (NT's do)

[BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

> > In my (admittedly limited) experience, it seems that it's the hardware,
> > not the software that predicts the long term stability of a machine.
> > I've seen NT machines with 2years+ uptime, and NT machines that need to
> > be rebooted every weekend to avoid the inevitable crash during business
> > hours.  Granted, memory leaks and any number of software problems can
> > crash a machine, but I feel that it's moreso the hardware that makes or
> > breaks uptime, and I would put much more confidence in Sun hardware than
> > Dell or Compaq hardware.
> 
>   Both the hardware and the software are very important.  If the
> machine experiences memory corruption due to poor bus timing
> tolerances, the machine will likely crash.  If the OS leaks memory
> over time until the software strangles itself, the machine will likely
> crash.  It can go either way.

Sadly, my Gateway E4200 NT crate, e.g., the one I was going to load up
with FreeBSD or Sol8 but which was mandated by the upper powers that be
to be a ``thou willst run NT on it to be compatible'' kind of thing....
weeeeellllll, it crashed again, this morning.  Just luv that bluescreen
de mort....  The hardware is pretty plain jane.  I sense it is the
software that is the problem.  I don't run the box very hard, except to
browse a bit and collect departmental mail to me.  It is turned off each
night and fired up again each morning, almost every day.  It crashes, as my
dad (RIP) was wont to say, ``regularly, once in a while'' which translates
to about once a month, no matter what.  I don't have any indications it
is the hardware......I would place book on the NT being the problem.
My clone 486/33 FreeBSD web server never crashes.  My odd Sparc/Mips/
VAX/Alpha boxes running this and that UNIXY thing, never crash.  The
silly NT crate..... is guaranteed to crash.  Those be my experiences.

(It seems that my ``rescued'' boxes stay up better than the NT crate!)

Bob