----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Lundberg" <peterl_at_raf.liu.se>
> To: <undisclosed-recipients:>
> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002 3:00 AM
> Subject: Windows?
> Dear Spinlanders,
>
> Considering that manufacturers of MR systems slowly appear to move from
> unix to windows, any opinions on any alterations (potential or real) of
> the systems reliability, performance, and in particular sensitivity to
> virus-infections.
>
> I suspect that the manufacturers are not really taking the Windows virus
> threat all that seriously. Am I wrong? BTW, I don't understand why not
> Linux is more widely used (or is it?).
Well, I think Woody made some good points. The security differences
between UNIX / LINUX and Windows are different. As in Woody's case,
ALL of our UNIX systems are scanned SEVERAL times a day by people
looking for a way in. Once they are in, they have much more power than
someone who drops a virus on your Windows box. Some cases in point:
A few years back someone (not me!) installed some IRIX patches on a SGI machine
in our microbiology dept. that I help administer. One of the effects of these
patches was to de-install the tcp wrapper package that I had installed. Over the
Christmas holidays the hackers got in and installed a denial of service attack which
effectively crippled a large portion of our provincial network for several hours.
About a year ago I was installing Red Hat Linux on a machine and before the installation
was complete (i.e. before I had set up a wrapper program) the hackers got in and
started looking for Sun RPC opening up and down the west coast of the U.S. They
so trashed the operating system that a complete re-install was necessary.
Although all of our machines now run wrappers, if your sendmail is not up to date
watch out. Several of our machines have been used as Spam relays. (This can make
you very unpopular, very quickly!)
The only solution, it seems, is to turn off all unnecessary services, keep up to date
on vendors' patches - and consider living behind a firewall.
Windows security has more to do with virus and worms distributed via email
or shared software etc. The solution here (at least for machines in critical applications
such as those running our spectrometers) is to remove things like mailers and
web browsers, and to make unauthorized installation of software (i.e. games) a crime
deserving of exile in northern Canada. A good virus check program is also essential.
In the 5 or so years that I have been using NT and Windows 2000 I have yet to
be infected with a virus or worm.... that I know of :-)
WC>JEOL uses Linux and not Windows. We use Linux a lot at Acorn NMR but
WC>for server stuff. All of our web, ftp and mail is on Redhat Linux 7.2.
WC>We have not yet found that Star Office and KDE Office applications
WC>to be as easy to use as Microsoft Office applications. There is also
WC>problems exchanging files from these Linux applications with a world
WC>running Windows. In addition, there are a LOT of other applications
WC>available for Windows that are not available on Linux.
WC>The problem here is that Linux is not easy to use. While it is getting
WC>better, you need a LOT MORE technical expertise to configure a working
WC>Linux box and even more to configure a secure working Linux box. A
I have to agree totally with Woody here. Linux is not only different than Windows,
it is different enough from standard UNIX (i.e. System V derived or even Solaris)
to drive someone familiar with regular UNIX administration absolutely nuts. When
we had our Linux security problems, trying to track down all the logs etc. was
a real chore. Similarly, KDE is just different enough from CDE to be really
annoying. Similar differences exist between cc and gcc, Motif and Lesstif, etc.
I have yet to find an integrated development environment for Linux that
can match Microsoft's Visual C++.
I have XwinNMR running on both UNIX and a Windows 2000 system. Although
XwinNMR itself is virtually identical on the two systems, XwinPlot on the
Windows platform wins hands down. Since XwinPlot is a native windows application
using metafile objects, it can interface with all of the standard office applications,
not only those from Microsoft. The interface is two way - I can paste a structure
from a chemical drawing program into XwinPlot as well. Can I do this with the IRIX
version of XwinPlot? I don't think so. Does the Linux version of XwinPlot
interface with Star Office? Perhaps someone from Bruker can tell us. In order to
drive our HP2100 printer, the IRIX version of XwinPlot has to go through
ghostscript, and if you are nor careful with your printer selection you will get
reams of PostScript rather than the plot you wanted. With the Windows version
I can print to any one of several different network printers with no hassle.
The move seems not so much to be a move away from UNIX but towards more
industry standard hardware. Bruker offers both Linux and Windows 2000
based systems. While SGIs are nice machines, nobody wants to have to shell out
$3000 (US) for a new motherboard when a static discharge take out your O2's
Ethernet transceiver.
While I have not used the Windows version of XwinNMR to actually drive
a spectrometer, my experiences using it for processing on both NT and
Windows 2000 are very positive. The stability or Windows 2000 and the Windows
version of XwinNMR seem just as good as IRIX and the SGI version of
XwinNMR.
Cheers
-Kirk
Kirk Marat, Ph. D.
Dept. of Chemistry
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, CANADA
ph. (204) 474-6259 FAX: (204) 474-7608
kirk_marat_at_umanitoba.ca
Received on Fri Mar 15 2002 - 10:19:56 MST