I found this on ComputerWorld’s website.
Tech worker testifies of ‘blue screen of death’ on oil rig’s computer - Computerworld
Please note the words “Blue Screen of Death” or “BSOD”.
It should be apparent! Don’t use MS Windows for anything except gaming. Period! If not, what else will blow up in our faces?
This may soumd like a rant, but I’m starting to get nervous when something as important, as this oil rig was, blows up because the computer’s OS malfunctions. Wouldn’t you be nervous, too?
It sounds odd, but i haven’t had any BSOD in a long time. That is, before i switched to Linux. But it might be true. So far i seen the news only on Engadget and if its a blog, i am careful.
I’ve seen BSOD’s recently. LOL They were all my friends’ computers, and they were all using Windows! ROFL. At least I was able to get their permissions to convert their machines, completely, over to openSuSE 11.3. I can now proudly say that I’ve helped convert one Dot-Com company’s computers and three friends’ computers to linux.I’m pretty sure I’m chaulking up points in computer heaven!
It was most likely running Windows XP Service Pack II. That is were I used to have all of my problems and I seem to remember a lot of gas issues then as well. rotfl!
Thank You,
it would be funny if so many people/fish/bird/etc hadn’t died…
and so very very many folks thrown out of work and on the street…
and the horrible levels of pollution that will have to be dealt with
for decades…
well, it sure looks to me like there is a high possibility/probability
that M$ directly contributed to the total problem…i mean having
to routinely turn off alarm systems due to repeated false alarms
because of BSOD!!
how many minutes of REAL warning were missed because of that?
how many folks died because of no warning?
could the explosion/fire been prevented if the gas vapor warning HAD
sounded when the first gas bubble hit the drilling deck?
if there had been no explosion/fire and platform sinking, would ten
jillion-billion barrels of crude not been spilled?
so, i guess BP will ask all of those questions, and more, to Mr.
Balmer (or his representatives) in court…
and, might walk away with Mr. Bill’s house and car…oh wait, i think
they probably have a standard legalese EULA which says their product
is unsuitable for any use whatsoever!!!
once again, the fat cats get to keep their cream.
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
I wonder if it is the fault of Windows or badly written software running on Windows. It’s an important distinction.
richard-g wrote:
> I wonder if it is the fault of Windows or badly written software running
> on Windows. It’s an important distinction.
badly written software should not be able to kill the entire system…
of course, it usually does on Redmond’s, and usually does not on Linux…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
You’re right of course; a crashing application shouldn’t bring down the operating system. In this case however, it makes no practical difference; if your monitoring software crashes and operating system doesn’t, it’s still not monitoring anything.
If it can be proven that Windows is at fault, I will likely laugh until I pass my kidneys but I think my internal organs are safe. The problem here was a lazy employee turning the thing off rather than reporting a fault and getting it fixed and the bug was most likely in a piece of software written either in house or by an external company. If it was an external company, I wouldn’t like to be them after BP’s lawyers get through with them.
One thing did strike me as odd when reading the article. They say they had been having BSOD’s for a while, BSOD’s are caused either by software issues, which can be fixed, or by malfunctioning hardware. What struck me as odd was that in over a month they were not able to isolate the problem and fix it.
The only BSODs that I ever had with windows vista were all due to the Nvidia driver. I remember a statistic saying that 95% of BSODs in Vista were caused by Nvidia drivers.
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 07:23:28 +0000, DenverD wrote:
> well, it sure looks to me like there is a high possibility/probability
> that M$ directly contributed to the total problem…i mean having to
> routinely turn off alarm systems due to repeated false alarms because of
> BSOD!!
I wonder if we’ll finally see a legal challenge to the liability
limitations that exist in most commercial software EULAs.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Jim Henderson wrote:
> I wonder if we’ll finally see a legal challenge to the liability
> limitations that exist in most commercial software EULAs.
that very question came up in a fee based forum i’m joined…it is an
open question there, and here…
my thought is: it might not change much now, but it is high time
software sellers must meet some level of (legal) responsibility for
the usability of their wares…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:56:49 +0000, DenverD wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I wonder if we’ll finally see a legal challenge to the liability
>> limitations that exist in most commercial software EULAs.
>
> that very question came up in a fee based forum i’m joined…it is an
> open question there, and here…
>
> my thought is: it might not change much now, but it is high time
> software sellers must meet some level of (legal) responsibility for
> the usability of their wares…
The thing that strikes me is that the makers of software can’t predict
every eventuality of how their software might be used (which is, I
understand, the reason for the limited liability); the ‘easy’ defense
would be for the manufacturer to say “it wasn’t designed to do that” and
push the blame on the implementer.
If the system was implemented improperly, not maintained properly, or
something like that, then the liability would remain with the person
responsible for that - and we’ve seen what can happen when that happens
with the Terry Childs case in LA.
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
I would have to agree. I also noticed that there wasn’t any mention in the article of recommended actions the tech had made, if any.
I should have thought of that. DenverD says it right,
“badly written software should not be able to kill the entire system…
of course, it usually does on Redmond’s, and usually does not on Linux…”
I agree.
How to address the issue is quite complex. SE#1 creates a module intended
for non-critical operation and it does well as a non-critical function. Then
SE#2 develops an app for a mission critical purpose but uses the module by
SE#1. If this critical app fails, did it do so because of the SE#1 module, the
linking of the modules by the compiler, poor coding of the app, poor fit of all
modules chosen for the project, a lack of understanding the limitations of a
module, ignoring the inherent limitations of the module, poor maintenance of
the end user, or use of an application in a function that it was not intended.
We in the Linux greater community rely heavily upon ‘C/C++’ libraries to create
apps. These libraries for the most part function well on certain architectures
but tend to be somewhat problematic on others requiring patches or fixes. Being
open source in many cases, there is ample opportunity to check the code and
release a variant version but in the closed source world with hundreds to thousands
of contributors working on a single project, it becomes quite the blame game.
Back on topic, I can’t agree with the original poster’s suggestion that “the world should wake-up to using anything but MS Windows”.
I say this as someone who first used UNIX more than 20 years ago and has been responsible for using various flavours of Linux over the years to build SMB file servers and LAMP servers.
A great many people use Windows in a desktop environment. I can’t comment on all flavours of Linux but SuSE Linux is wholly unsuited to use in many such cases. In a SOHO environment it is quite useless.
If John Doe goes down to PC World, Tescos, Currys, Dixons, John Lewis, etc. and buys a desktop or laptop it will almost certainly come as standard with MS Windows - you switch it on, it works.
If Jane Doe buys the parts from scan.co.uk or ebuyer.co.uk to build a system from scratch and installs an OEM version of Windows, it works.
You download OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, EAC, VLC, etc. run the downloaded .EXE and it works - just like that.
If John or Jane needs help with some tricky problem like where to get free anti-virus or anti-malware software and how to install it or why an OpenOffice CV can’t be read by MS-Word, he or she is far more likely to know someone who is familiar with Windows than with Linux.
The fact that badly written software can crash MS Windows but not Linux is simply irrelevant if the average user can’t even get the badly written software to run on Linux.
For Linux to make the breakthrough onto the desktop it must be very much more intuitive and user-friendly. As to servers, the vast majority of users (quite rightly) really couldn’t care less whether those run Windows, Linux or AmigaDOS.
surv1v0r, this isn’t about grandma or grandpa’s desktop. The story is about a mission critical application that failed catastrophically. The technicians had accepted this as routine! You just can’t use a closed, proprietary system for applications as important as this.
If John Doe goes down to PC World, Tescos, Currys, Dixons, John Lewis, etc. and buys a desktop or laptop it will almost certainly come as standard with MS Windows - you switch it on, it works.
It’s also been configured and customized by the manufacturer. A Dell computer with Ubuntu will also work out of the box.
I use openSUSE as a SOHO environment. I use it everyday for my home and office. openSUSE works quite well. So the SOHO environment is nothing more than your opinion.
Most of your complaints/arguments are your opinions and little more.
On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:36:01 +0000, techwiz03 wrote:
> How to address the issue is quite complex
Indeed, the scenario you lay out is but one of many that shows why.
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C