Comments on: Parking with Windows

Microsoft haunts me even in the parking lot.

[Otaddy]

Photo doesnt show "blue screen of death"

How do you know that the application responsible for the parking payment machine didnt lock up and that caused the reboot?

Or perhaps the attendant didnt do something correctly?

True windows isnt perfect but neither is Linux. I have a "very real" Ubuntu 7.10 on my laptop that cannot see my SD card reader, or use my ATI Radeon 9600 card correctly. I dual boot with XP and it doesnt have a problem with the hardware.

Windows isnt as bad as you make it out to be nor is Linux as great as you make it out to be. This is why you are mystified by Windows server marketshare.

[Matt Asay]

Au contraire

I'm not mystified by Windows' market share. Did I say I was? Windows is growing for a number of different reasons, not the least of which is Sharepoint.

I didn't get my camera out in time to capture the reboot. And while it's possible that the attendant walks from machine to machine rebooting them for fun, I suspect that this was not the case since there was an irate customer next to him who had been trying to pay, but couldn't because Windows had died.

Linux is not perfect. (I've seen the airlines have to reboot it on their entertainment systems.) I wasn't trying to imply that it was. My comment was on Windows. Parking systems shouldn't have to be rebooted. They're somewhat essential and should use a completely stripped down Windows/Linux/VxWorks/etc. kernel. Something that is almost certainly not going to go down.

This parking system was using a relatively full-featured Windows OS (I know because I saw him go through the menus). So, it's partly Windows' fault and partly the parking company's fault for implementing a heavy system for a lightweight task.

[Otaddy]

My apologies

I confused your blog on "Linux losing to Windows" with another one I read.

I agree, a full blown OS of any kind is inappropriate for this application.