Ubuntu Linux uptime records

[darrelljon]

Saw this topic at Ubuntu forums called Ubuntu uptime records and it reminded me of Windows 9x uptime records topic in these forums. Compare and enjoy. One Sun machine got 7 years uptime.

[CoffeeFiend]

Ah, yes, uptimes! One of the most pointless things to argue over these days They seem to mostly serve as some kind of e-p3n1s size contest of sorts.

First, you're comparing the uptimes of an OS mostly used as a web server, to a very outdated desktop OS (both of which being radically different), so it's very much an apples to oranges comparison (and a pointless one IMO -- things like what can the box do/not do, which apps it can or can't run, which hardware is supported or not is a LOT more relevant really).

If you want to look at record uptimes, Ubuntu isn't listed anywhere. The Sun box mentioned in that thread was most likely using Solaris (which is a lot more robust IMO). The current "world records" are held by VMS boxes. And if you look at the current netcraft uptime records, only 1 out of 50 boxes runs Linux! BSD holds the top spot, followed immediately by Windows (which still is there twice as often as Linux -- both times above it too), then a bunch more BSD boxes. Most of that list is either BSD or Irix. Just saying, it's not exactly "amazing" (none of these are running Ubuntu either).

Plus, the whole concept of uptime is kind of pointless on a desktop box. Yes, Win9x-era uptimes sucked (like your PC crashing every other day), but these days are long over. ANY modern OS has plenty good uptimes for a desktop -- does it actually matter if you have to reboot once a month after patch tuesday or whatever? Nobody needs like five 9's of uptime on a box used primarily for surfing the web and gaming.

Even for servers, I always found the concept to be a bit silly. If you actually NEED such uptimes (like a company losing countless thousands of dollars a minute when their system goes down, or things that just can't go down much like 911 service), then the uptime of a single server is still irrelevant: you're NOT going to just use one box. You're going to use multiple boxes with failover/load balancing or such (so you DON'T actually go down, for sure). And in a LOT of cases, high uptimes are a *bad* thing! It just means the servers haven't been updated, or haven't been rebooted post-update when necessary (i.e. kernel updates) and could often be easily "pwned" (a disaster waiting to happen).

Edited September 19, 2008 by crahak

[darrelljon]

You're right but (like eye candy) it still interests me in a superficial way. Still its pointless criticising Windows 98 to me and not to all the Win9x enthusiasts in the Win9x sub forum here. *Nix operating systems are great!

Edited September 19, 2008 by darrelljon

[CoffeeFiend]

Still its pointless criticising Windows 98 to me and not to all the Win9x enthusiasts in the Win9x sub forum here.

I dunno why I'd waste my time over that. Win9x is very dead. Its market share is around half of 1% (0.54% as of Sept 2008), and still dropping real fast. Combined Win9x market share is going to be down to like 0.01% within a year.

Why would you waste precious time trying to somehow convince the handful of hardcore fans left, who seem to think MS DOS somehow is the apogee of OS design, and that nowdays' OS'es should be run great on a 286, etc -- that there's better out there than their junk OS? Trying to convince die-hard fanboys is a waste of time (it's like trying to convert the pope into Richard Dawkins, GW Bush into Albert Einstein, or Bill Gates into Richard Stallman -- or vice versa), and trying to force them to another completely different platform is going to be twice as hard.

I'm quite not sure why you bother. If they want to live in the past and keep using CP/M, and think it's the best OS ever too (no matter how delusional it is), it's fine by me.

Edited October 5, 2008 by crahak